Intellectual Discourse, 1998

Vol 6, No 1, 1-9

Reflections

Mohammed A. Muqtedar Khan

Abstract: This paper argues that the contemporaryattempts at reviving

Islamic civilization will remainincompleteuntil a simultaneouseffort is made
to revive Islamic philosophy. This paper identifies the characteristics of
Islamic philosophy and underscoresits significance to Islamic intellectual
renaissance.Islamic philosophyhas a unique dimension-it encompasses
scienceand spirituality along with reasonand logic. Arguing that perhapsthe
decline of philosophy was an important element in the decline of Islamic
civilization, the paper contendsthat Muslim efforts at negotiatingmodernity
or appropriating science will not be successfulwithout the support of a
rejuvenatedIslamic philosophical tradition.

Islam is experiencinga global resurgencein its political and cultural

significanceto Muslim societies.A large sectionof Muslims, broadly
understood as Islamists, is striving to Islamize the Muslim world
through its intellectual and activist leadership.The most valuable and
interesting aspectof contemporaryIslamic revival is its concomitant
intellectualrenaissance.OnceagainMuslims, striving for authenticity,
are beginningto enrichthe practice of Islam with the pursuit of higher
learning and literary and scientific inquiry.
While most Islamistsare concernedwith the decolonizationof the
Muslim world from Western and secular domination, a small but
significant elementis occupied with the supremeJihad-the struggle
to decolonize the Muslim mind. It is this intellectual revival which

M. A. Muqtedar Khan is a Doctoral Pellow in International Relations at

GeorgetownUniversity. E-mail: khanm@gusun.georgetown.edu.An earlier
version of this paperwas presentedat the Annual Conventionof Association
of Muslim Social Scientistsat Rochester,NY, November27-29, 1997.
[2] INTELLECTUALDISCOURSE,VOL 6, No 1,1998

holds the greatestpromise for the future of Islam. This revival is'
manifest in the emergenceof a new political philosophy of Islam,
anchoredby conceptssuchasthe Islamic state,Islamic democracy,al-
~akimiyyah (Allah's sovereignty)and Islamic political economy.
The project, Islamization of Knowledge, is another interesting
experimentinitiated by Muslim intellectualsto eliminatethe influences
of dominationand power on know\edge.Islamizationof knowledgeas
envisagedby IsmacnR. al-FariiqI is an effort to advancean Islamic
social sciencethat would free the pursuit of social understandingfrom
the imperatives and preferencesof Eurocentric thought. Indeed it
boldly seeks to replace Eurocentric preferences with Islamic
prerogatives.Needlessto say,the assum~tionthat Islamic prerogatives
are universally relevant and beneficial is integral to the project of
Islamizationof knowledge.l
Unfortunately the only area in which Muslims have not displayed
the contemporaryspirit of Islamic renaissanceis that of philosophy.
Islamic philosophyhas beenone of the high points of Islamic learning
and it was a prominent element of Islamic discourses. Without a
revival of Islamic philosophy, the contemporaryIslamic revival will
be incomplete. Indeedthe sustenanceof the spirit of renaissancewill
not be viable without a parallel resurgenceof Islamic philosophy.
Islamic philosophy is necessaryin order to give rigour and depth to
the intellectual dimension of the resurgenceas well as to provide a
rational influence on its discourseto protect it from being consumed
by polemics or symbolism. While there are many Muslim social
scientists, there are only a handful of Muslim philosophers.
HassanHanafi of Egypt, Abdul KarIm Soroushof Iran and Seyyed
Hossein Nasr are some of the few known Muslim philosophers.
Hanafi is more of a Marxist employing Islamic enunciation than a
genuineIslamic philosopher. Soroushis still far from locating himself
in the tradition of Islamic philosophy. That leavesus with the sole, but
gigantic figure, of HosseinNasr. Nasr is metaphysicaland mystical,
like Ibn al-cArabI, and scientific and philosophical like Ibn Sina.
However his strong advocacyof traditional Islam and a total rejection
of modernity confusesus about his "location" in the genealogyof
Islamic philosophy. Is he a relic or is he a prototype? Does he
representthe last hurrah of traditional Islamic philosophy or doeshe
representa new beginning? I hope that his work provides sufficient
provocationto revive the sleepingphilosophersin the Muslim world.
ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY/MUQTEDAR KHAN [3]

While arguing the merits of the enterprise of philosophy, Abu

Yusuf YaCqub al-KindI (d. 866 CE), the first genuine Islamic
philosopher, suggested that the study of philosophy was either
necessary or unnecessary. If necessary we have to study it, if
unnecessary then we have to justify this contention and demonstrate
its validity. But in order to justify and validate, we need philosophy.
Therefore, al-KindI concluded, there is no escape from the study of
philosophy.2 AI-KindI's wisdom was unfortunately lost on the
detractors of philosophy, particularly on the traditional juristic
scholars of Islam. Their fear of the "speculative" element of
philosophy, which sometimes questioned the existence and need for
"God," and at other times asserted the multiplicity of truths-
revelationary and philosophic-made them reject the philosophical
enterprise in totality.
The decline of Islamic philosophy is often attributed to the backlash
of Islamic jurists and purists led by the huge persona of Imam l:Iamid
al-Ghazali. His Tahlifatul alfaliisafah (The Incoherence of
Philosophers) is supposed to have been such a devastating critique of
philosophy that since then the entire Muslim world has never strayed
onto the plrilosophic path again. This popular reading of al-GhazaII's
critique of the philosophers has done much damage to the development
of Islamic thought. AI-GhazaII divided the works of the philosophers
into six discourses: logic and mathematics, ethics and politics, and
physics and metaphysics. He accepted the philosophers' logic and
mathematics, he advocated caution with regards to ethics and politics
but strongly rejected their physics and metaphysics. Indeed he even
recommended excommunication (takfir) against philosophers who
argued the eternality of the world, or suggested that God had only the
knowledge of the universals and not that of the particulars, or if they
rejected the belief that on the day of judgement the human body would
be resurrected. Importantly, he did not reject the scientific elements
of philosophy. He only denounced the speculative aspect of philosophy
that chose to put limits on divinity. 3

Unfortunately for Muslims, the rather loose interpretation of al-

GhazalI's critique of philosophy has proven debilitating to the
civilizational development of Islam. In the Muslim world the
philosopher and the scientist merged in the same person. Philosophy
and science were inseparably linked. AI-KindI, al-FarabI, fun STnaand
al-BiriinI were all simultaneously philosophers as well as scientists.
 INTELLECTUALDISCOURSE,VOL 6, No 1, 1998
[4]

Ibn Rushd, the great Andalusianphilosopherwas a jurist, a judge, a

physician, and a philosopher.4Thus whenwe rejectedphilosophy we
rejected science. There is no doubt in my mind that the decline of
philosophy, science, rational discourseand free thinking in Muslim
society is the singular causefor the decline of Islamic civilization.
Today we are trying to re-appropriate science. Can we do it
without reviving our philosophical traditions? Can projects like the
Islamization of knowledge really make any substantialcontributions
without the intellectual support of philosophicaladvances?I doubt it.
Philosophy and its constituent elements-ontology, epistemology,
ethics-are necessary for building Islamic social theories and
methodologicalparadigms.We canafford to ignore metaphysics,even
completely concede this realm to the traditional culamii' and the
mutakallimln. But the other branches of philosophy need to be
revived.
In order to understandthis need for Islamic philosophy for the
resurgenceof Islam, we need to revisit the functions of philosophy.
Philosophy is an effort to relate the abstractwith the concrete, the
l,lniversal with the particular, and the divine with the mundane.It is
an effort to locate the specific being in the context of universal
existence,and make the universal cognizantto the finite being. It is
an effort to push back from the immediacyof existencein order to
comprehend the totality of existence. It is an indulgence of an
existential need to give meaning to life and make life meaningful.
Philosophy is also reflection over the aestheticsof living and the
aestheticsof being. Aesthetics of being is the nature of the perfect
being and the aestheticsof living is about perfecting the individual
being. The aestheticsof living at the collective level concernswith the
conceptionof the virtuous city, the perfect society.
Today, Muslims need to understandthe dynamics of social and
political changesthat are shapingtheir presentand their future at the
collective and individual level. They must be able to locate their
collective and individual "selves" even as the very basis of
contemporary society moves gradually from modernity into
postmodernity. We need to understand the symmetry and the
asymmetrybetweenIslam and modernity. We needto graspthe crisis
of modernity and the gradual shifting in the epistemologicalbasis of
"truth," from unity, cohesion and continuity to plurality,
fragmentationand discontinuity. Today all boundariesare under siege
ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY/MuQTEDAR KHAN [5]

from within as well as from without. What does this new cognitive
geographymeanfor traditional, enigmatic tensionsbetweentext and
time, reasonand revelation.
We haven't yet fully cometo termswith the challengeof modernity
and democracy, and yet on the horizon there is postmodernityand
pluralism. How long will we keepchasingtime and history? How long
will we have to "adjust"? Can we ever be the mastersof time and
history, can we once again become the shapers rather than the
reshaped?How long will matter(socialconditions)govern our minds?
How canwe imposeour minds on matter?Our world is deconstructed.
We are more comfortableand evenmore free to be Muslims in "other
domains" while we are persecutedand are prisoners in "our own
domains." How and when will we liberate ourselvesfrom ourselves
and from others?Indeed never before have we neededphilosophical
reflection as much as we do today.
The need for Islamic philosophy, if acknowledged,immediately
posesthe question: What is Islamic philosophy?Is there such an idea
as a transcendentalIslamic essencethat could colour philosophical
cognition? Does indulgence in Islamic philosophy merely entail
instrumentalizingphilosophy by putting it under Islamic ethical and
metaphysicalconstraints?For the Islamic modernists,who by virtue
of their position are committedto the idea of "objectivity in science"
and the Cartesiandivide betweenobject and subject, philosophy is a
priori and value-free.Thus Islamizingphilosophywould merely entail
encouraging more Muslims to philosophize while simultaneously
adheringto ethics, that is subordinatingphilosophyto the imperatives
of an Islamic vision of society. But can an Islamic vision be a priori?
There would then be no need for ijtihad. The Medinanmodel can be
frozen as "eternaland infallible" and Islamic thought canbe reduced
or confined to qiyas, or analogical reasoning. This would be very
close to the project of Ibn Taymiyyah, who evenrejectedqiyas.
But there are obviously some problems with this approach.This
approachhas beenthe modus operandi of mainstreamculamii' since
Ibn Taymiyyah and has beenreinvigoratedwith the rise of Wahabism
in SaudiArabia. May be the project is still in progressbut the results
so far are far from encouraging.ContemporarySaudiArabia, in spite
of its enormous natural wealth, cannot matchthe power, glory, and
intellectualvitality and cultural richnessof the Muslim world from the
eighth to the thirteenthcentury. Besides,this approachwill alwaysbe
chasing time through analogical reasoning. This construction of
[6] INTELLECTUALDISCOURSE,VOL 6, No 1, 1998

Islamic intellectual methodology does not recognize the growing

"complexity" of social existence. We have to recognize that the
Medinan model cannotbe replicated in form but only in essence.The
idealizedMedina will remainthe virtuous city to be emulated,evenas
we struggle with building Islamic statesand Islamic leagues.
Accepting the Cartesian divide suggests that philosophy, like
science, is a value-neutral enterprise and so we may incorporate
Western philosophy on a need-to-knowbasis, as we begin to absorb
Western science. This solution would be acceptable to Islamic
modernists as well as the traditionalists who acceptthe dichotomi-
zation of knowledge into divine and secular. For the former, ijtihad
is a meansto catch up with the West, and for the latter, the advance
in sciences does not threaten their sovereignty over Islamic
interpretation of the realm of cibadah. It is my contention that this
approachwill compoundMuslim problems. We will end up with the
chaotic, decadentand immoral dimensions of Western society if we
were to assumethat their methodswere value-free.Moreover, I refuse
to concede the scientific enterprise and systematic philosophy
exclusively to the West. Both scienceand philosophy, as practiced in
the contemporaryWest, are, in the final analysis, extensionsof the
works of Ibn SIna and Ibn Rushd. This reading of the history is not
even challenged by the West anymore. Indeed they recognize the
enormous significance of Islamic civilization to the contemporary
West.
But the Western scholars have moved a long way off from the
philosophical and scientific traditions they inherited from Muslims.
They have reformed and revived their Christian traditions, and have
sought with great vigor to compartmentalizeknowledge. The very
purpos~ of acquiring knowledge has been transformed. The West
acquires knowledge to realize the sovereignty of the autonomous
rational individual while Muslims soughtknowledgeto understandthe
nature of God, the nature of self, the nature of nature, and to realize
the divinely ordained relationships betweenGod and the self. The
contemporary West while leaning on Islamic philosophical and
scientific traditions has renouncedthe ethical and moral foundations
of Islam. Therefore a mere appropriation may not serve the interests
of Islam. MuslIms could becomelike the West but the cost would be
too high.
Does that meanwe have to reinventthe wheel? In a way, yes. We
ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY/MuQTEDARKHAN f7l

have to return to Islamic epistemologicalfoundationsand then try to

balancethe contingenciesof the presentevenas we elongatethe past
to give continuity to the present.
Clearly the first step is to realize that we need to move from
seeking structural reproduction of the past to reviving the spirit and
the essenceof the past. For example, rather than being obsessedwith
producing Islamic statesand Islamic governmentswe must strive for
Islamic societiesand Islamic governance.It is not important how we
elect our political leaders and whether we call them "President" or
"Khalifah." What is important is that we realize Islamic governance.
That means we produce righteous societies based on justice and
goodness.It is not the form but the contentthat is important. So what
can this elusive idea called Islamic philosophy do to empowerus to
revitalize and recreateour Islamic essence?
HosseinNasr hasarguedthat contemporaryWesternsciencehas an
embeddedworld view that is unIslamic in character.He contendsthat
Islamic world view, premised on the unity of being and the holistic
characterof knowledge, is distinct.

...[A]lthough they influenced Western Sciencesa great deal, the

Islamic sciencesare an independentway of studying the nature of
phenomena, causality, the relationship betweenvarious forms of
objects from minerals to plants to animals, the meaning of change
and developmentin the world of nature and the final end and goal
of nature. The point of view of Islamic sciences, which is
independentof and distinct from the philosophical framework of
Western sciences, must always be kept in mind in order to
appreciatefully the significanceof Islamic sciencesfor Islam as a
religion and for Islamic civilization.s

To a great extent I agree with this position. However, Nasr's

efforts to elucidate the framework of Islamic philosophy have been
criticized and have yet to gain wide acceptancein the Muslim world.
That does not in any way detract from the merit of his work. His
work has made Islamic philosophy available to many in the Muslim
as well as the non-Muslim world but has not inspired a philosophical
renaissance.That, I contend, is necessaryto give meaning and
substance to the religious and political resurgence we are
experiencing.
In a recent lecture at Georgetown, Soruoshmade an interesting
[8] INTELLECTUALDISCOURSE,VOL 6, No 1,1998

analysisof modernity. He contendedthat Muslims neededto cometo

terms with modernity. He divided modernity into two elements;the
fruits of modernity and the roots of modernity. Muslims, he pointed
out, were major consumersof the fruits of modernity. In this realm
the Mullah was very important for he determined which fruits of
modernity were !}alai and which were harlim. But when it cameto the
roots of modernity, the Mullah was at seafor he had no idea aboutits
intellectual foundations. In order to come to terms with the roots of
modernity we needthe philosopher. Even to understandwhat to take
and what not to take from modernity, we needphilosophy.
So we needIslamic philosophyand we have an intuitive sensethat
it is distinct from Westernphilosophy. What is the difference?I think
Western philosophy is basedon the a priori privileging of the" self. "
Sometimesthis self is the individual, sometimesthe universal society,
sometimesthe nation-stateand increasinglythe West itself. The most
profound character of Western philosophy is not its passion for
reason, but its egotistical narratives that are obsessedwith the
sovereigntyof the individual.
I believe that the most important elementof Islamic philosophy is
its focus on unity-oneness. It is a submissive philosophy that is
essentiallyhumble. While the sovereignreasonmay be the a priori in
Western philosophy, the first covenant is the a priori in Islamic
philosophy. The meaning of this first covenant is absolutely
fundamentaland infinitely profound. Indeed it is sufficientto form the
base of the entire edifice of Islamic philosophy. Taking that first
covenantas the underlying principle of life, we can let reasonrule.
The first covenantpostulatesthat all souls have affirmed the unity
of God and affirmed their submissionto Him prior to birth. It is
enshrined in the Qur'an (7: 172):
And (remember)when your Lord brought forth from the children of
Adam, from their loins, their seed, and made them testify of
themselves, (saying): "Am I not your Lord?" They said, "Yes
surely. We testify." (That was) lest you should say on the day of
resurrection:Lo! Of this we were unaware.

The beauty of this principle is that it allows us to always start

afresh with the Qur'an. We do not have to necessarilytraverse back
in time to recover lost jewels or bridge discontinuities.As long as we
rememberthe first covenant,the Qur'an will travel with us in time as
ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY/MuQTEDARKHAN [9]

an always present, always accessiblereservoir of meaning and the

guardianof truth. That covenantlinks us with the divine through the
Qur'an providing the foundations necessary for a meaningful
philosophy.

Notes

1. See Islamization of Knowledge: General Principles and Work Plan

(Herndon, VA: lilT, 1989).
2. SeeMajid Fakhry, A Short Introduction to Islamic Philosophy, Theology
and Mysticism (Oxford: One World Publications,1997).
3. SeeMajid Fakhry, A History ofIslamic Philosophy(New York: Columbia
University Press, 1983). Also see Oliver Leaman, An Introduction to
Medieval Islamic Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1985).
4. The year 1998is the 800th anniversaryof the deathof Ibn Rushd (1128-
1198).
5. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, A YoungMuslim's Guide to the Modem World
(Chicago: Kazi Publications,1994),.86.