seyyed hossein nasr - the immutable principles of islam and western education

8/2/2019 Seyyed Hossein Nasr - The Immutable Principles of Islam and Western Education

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THE IM M U T A BL E P R I N C I P L E S O F ISL AM A N DW E S T E R N E D U CA T IO N

Reflections on the Aga Khan Chair of Islamic Studiesat the American University of Beirut

The establishment of a chair of Islamic studies by His Highnessthe Aga Khan at the American University of Beirut is an event ofgreat significance both for the field of Islamic studies and the univer-sity in which it is situated. As' the first occupant of this chair whoseduty it has been to lay the foundation for its later activity, we feelobliged to express what we feel are the particular duties and respon-sibilities of the chair. I t is our hope that eventually over the years theywill be realized and the chair will be able to fulfill the importantfunctions and achieve those ends for the sake of which it was founded.

Today in the Muslim world there is a chasm created through thepresence of two contending educational systems between a Westerneducated minority and a majority which on both the popular and in-tellectual levels is rooted in traditional Islam. A generation of Muslimsin many lands are trained in a mode of thought based on modernscience and philosophy that makes it difficult for them to understandthe language of the traditional works in which Islamic wisdom iscontained. One sees in many parts of the Muslim world two menbelonging to the same country and even speaking the same languageexternally, but who do not understand each other because they areusing different systems of reference. At the same time, for over acentury, a large number of works have been produced by Westernorientalists, many of whom have been hostile to Islam, and in facthave written on Islam not because of their love of the subject but inorder to refute it. Yet, these works, even the prejudiced and distortedones, are the only sources available on Islam to those trained in themodern educational system and they appeal to many by what appearsto be a scientific method and language.

To this situation is added the need of different parts of the Muslimcommunity to come to know each other better and, on a larger scale,to come to gain a more intimate knowledge of the other great religioustraditions of the world. The problem of the encounter with other reli-gions is a counterpart of the contact with modernism. A traditionalMuslim who has not encountered the modern world need not think ofChristian theology or of Hindu and Buddhist metaphysics. But oncecontact is made with the di fferent forms of modernism, there is anecessity to come to know other religions as well. In fact such know-ledge is of ten an antidote for the scepticism brought about as a resultof the influence of modernism whereas in a homogeneous Muslimclimate such knowledge would be in most cases unnecessary and re-dundant.

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THE IMMUTABLE PRINCIPLES OF ISLAM 5With these factors in mind and considering the particular position

of the Aga Khan Chair, it is our belief that its function is to becomeinstrumental toward the realization of several goals, which are ofconcern to the whole Muslim world:

I , Islam is a living spiritual and religious tradition not a dead religionthat is simply of historical interest. The role of the Chair should befirst and foremost to present to the modern world the many treasuriesof wisdom which continue to exist in the Islamic tradition but whichare half forgotten by a generation of modern Western educated Mus-lims. It means to translate the traditional truths of Islam in a contem-porary language without betraying them. Such a difficult task requiresone who himself firmly believes in Islam and has not become en-amoured with the noise and clamour of modernism. It calls to task aperson who judges the world according to the immutable principlesof Islam and does not seek to so-called reform the God-given truthsof Islam in the light of the translient and ephemeral conditions whichare called the times. Such a person must be free of a sense of in-tellectual inferiority vis-&-vis the West. On the contrary he shouldconsciously uphold and be proud of the Islamic tradition with all itsintellectual and spiritual riches and not just as a simple rational faithdevoid of a spiritual dimension that some have tried to make it.

At the same time, he must know the Western world well, know itwell but not in a second hand fashion that would make him take for newclothing what has already been discarded by the Western intelligentsiaas outmoded. He must know the inner forces that motivate the Westernmind and have a clear grasp of the philosophical, scientific, religious,artistic and social life of the West in their religious and historical rootsas well as in their present day manifestations. Only a person whohimself knows through first hand knowledge the intellectual life ofIslam and has mastered the contemporary medium of expression canhope to present in a fresh form and language the perennial wisdomwhich exists in the Islamic world. Only such a person can provide thenecessary knowledge of Islam for a new generation that has been cutaway from this wisdom by having become trained in another mode ofthought and expression and who at the same time is in desperate needof the saving truth contained in the Islamic message.

2. The study of Islam by orientalists has produced a large number ofworks which are studied the world over by all interested in Islamicstudies, not only in the West and in non-Muslim countries of Asia,but even in those Muslim countries where a European language suchas English or French is widespread. Unfortunately, Islam has notreceived favorable treatment in most of these works, even in comparisonwith other great religions of Asia such as Hinduism and Buddhism.Many factors such as the historical contacts between Christianity andIslam which have not always been friendly, the medieval fear of Mus-


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THE MUSLIM WORLDlims in Europe, the fact that Islam comes after Christianity historically,the Semitic origin of Islam for the predominantly Indo-Europeanpeople of the Western world, who are thus naturally more attractedtoward Hinduism and other Aryan religions, all play a role in the un-favorable treatment that Islam has received and continues to receive.In fact many orientalists writing about Islam have not embarked uponthis field because they have had a love for some aspect of it, butbecause they have been somehow unwillingly pushed into it as philo-logists or missionaries.

The considerable amount of research done on Islamic studies byorientalists contains much of scientific and historical value, even i fthere are many elements that are unacceptable in it from the Muslimpoint of view, and even if one finds distortion and misunderstandingin interpretation in many cases. Whatever the value of these studiesmay be they cannot be refuted nor can their influence be annulled bysimply denouncing orientalists or using language of demagogy againstthem. What the orientalists have done is to study Islam for their ownends and needs. The duty of the Muslim scholars, and one in whichthe Aga Khan Chair shares particularly, is to provide a Muslim answerto the challenge of the orientalists in a language and method appro-priate for such a task. Such an undertaking would also be of greatinterest to the world of orientalism itself. What is needed is a studyof all domains of the Islamic tradition and civilization bv Muslimscholars who, while firmly believing in their tenets, can deal withthem in a scholarly manner so as to provide a response to the challengesposed by the works of many orientalists to Islam. Only an undertakingof this kind could curtail the influence of such works on Muslimsthemselves who study Islam from their writings. Such an undertakingcould at the same time help to present Islam and its culture and historyto the outside world in its true color.

3. Closely allied to the challenge of the study of orientalists toIslam is the whole modern scientific, historical and philosophic attitudeof which the approach and method prevalent among most orientalistsis but a reflection. This immense challenge which Islam faces, as doall other religions, is to be seen today especially in such matters asthe theory of evolution, psychoanalysis, existentialism, historicism andon another level dialectical materialism. It is not, of course, possiblefor the Aga Khan Chair of Islamic Studies to provide answers to allof these questions which require concerted effort on the part of thewhole Muslim intelligentsia. However, traditional Islamic wisdom pos-sesses within itself the metaphysical doctrines which alone can providethe answers to such problems. These modes of thought in fact havecome about for the most part as a result of the forgetting of meta-physical principles.

To present the traditional doctrines in a contemporary lar~guage


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THE IMMUTABLE PRlNClPLES OF ISLAMwould therefore itself contribute toward facing these and similar chal-lenges posed by modernism. The very situation of the Aga Khan Chairin a Western-oriented University places it in the forefront of thisvital task to provide a Muslim answer to the fashionable ideas of thetimes, some of which are pseudo-science parading in the dress of scienceand others are purely and simply the fruit of the secularism of thepast four centuries in the West. Also by studying Islam as a livingreality and emphasizing the perennial nature of the truths contained inthe Islamic tradition, the Chair can provide an antidote to the maladyof historicism which is so prevalent today and which Islam opposesin its philosophical roots by refusing to admit that the truth can becomeincarnated in history.

4. Every religion by the fact that it enters into the world participatesin the multiplicity that is characteristic of it and therefore divides intodifferent schools and perspectives. In fact it is through the presenceof these dimensions, providentially placed within a revelation, that itis able to integrate into its structure people of differing psychologicaland spiritual temperament. Islam is no exception to this rule, althoughit has displayed more homogeneity and less diversity than other worldreligons. One of the tasks of this Chair is to study this diversityin Islam in the light of the unifying principles, to delineate the struc-ture of the two great orthodox dimensions of Islam, namely Sunnismand Shi'ism, as well as the movements and sects that have divergedfrom them. It is to make each one better known to the other.

Family feuds occur naturally in every family, but they are imme-diately put aside when the whole family group is endangered. In thepresent situation in the Islamic world an intellectual and spiritual un-derstanding between Sunnism and ShiCism is essential, as is a firmcomprehension of the total orthodoxy of Islam which consists of thesetwo main branches. It is also important to make a critical study of thesmall religious groups who over the centuries have separated fromthe mainstream of Islamic religious life and to discover their relationto the main body of Islamic orthodoxy. Nowhere can this study becarried out with greater success and more immediate and tangibleresults than in Lebanon where nearly every part of the Muslim com-munity is represented and where inter-community understanding is aproblem o f daily concern.

j. Also due to contact with the modern world, which both corrodesthe homogeneous religious world view and at the same time facilitatesknowledge of other religious traditions, the carrying on of a seriousdialogue between Islam and other religions is a necessity. Until nowMuslims as a whole have been less interested in the study of otherreligions than either the Christians or the Hindus and Buddhists per-haps because the presence of other religions was an already acceptedlruth in Islam before modern times. Islam of all the religious traditions


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8 THE MUSLIM WORLDis the only one to have had contact before the modern period withnearly every important tradition, with Christianity and Judaism inthe western and central territories of Islam, with Hinduism in India,with Buddhism in northwestern Persia and Afghanistan and with theChinese tradition in Sinkiang. Also the principle of the universalityof revelation is clearly stated in the Qursn and was in fact exploredto a certain extent by some of the older Muslim masters such as Rllmiand Ibn Arabi. Therefore, in principle it is easier for Islam to makea sympathetic study of other religions and remain completely faithfulto its own principles than is the case with many other religions whichmay find an acceptance of other traditions difficult from the pointof view of their own accepted dogmatic structure.

However, serious studies of other religions have not as yet beencarried out extensively by Muslim scholars and few attempts havebeen made to penetrate into the inner message of other religions. TheAga Khan Chair could also be instrumental in this domain particularlyas it pertains to Christianity. In Lebanon Muslims and Christians liveside by side with little profound and sympathetic understanding ofeach other, especially since intellectually Islam is on the defensive.Nowhere could a more meaningful dialogue take place between Islamand Christianity than here, provided there will be a meeting of equalswho respect each other as these two religions did in medieval times.

A meaningful dialogue can only result when two religions meetas conveyors of Gods message to men, and not when one is on theoffensive through its identification by some with the modern Westernworld with all the military and economic advantages that it enjoysand the other on the defensive before these very forces. Christianitywas an eastern religion before it became providentially the religion ofthe Occident. And here in Lebanon representatives of both its easternand western branches are present amidst the world of Islam. No bettersite could be found for the creation of an atmosphere in which mutualcomprehension and respect on the intellectual and spiritual levels couldbe brought about. It is perhaps not accidental that at this time theofficial Christian authorities in the West have expressed the wish tohave a closer relation with Islam and seek to create understandingbetween the two religions.

Of course to carry out all these tasks, to present the traditional wisdomof Islam in contemporary language, to answer the questions posed bythe works of orientalists, to provide an answer to the challenges ofmodernism, to bring about closer understanding between the differentgroups of Muslims, and finally to provide a dialogue between Islamand other religions, especially Christianity, is a momentous under-taking. It cannot be fulfilled by one person or one Chair at all. Rather.it is the work of a whole younger generation of Muslim scholars whomust be trained and prepared to carry it out. Yet, the Chair could aidin the realization of these goals by striving toward them in its own


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THE IMMUTABLE PRINCIPLES OF ISLAM 9activities. Moreover, it could seek to achieve these ends in a center ofIslamic studies of which it could serve as a nucleus and also by trainingstudents in this field. Only then could it function properly and be ofmaximum benefit both to the Islamic world and the Western world ofscholarship.

It is our hope that a s the activities of the Chair become fully inte-grated into the life of the American University of Beirut and theChair finds a place in the academic community it will be able to achievethese goals. In so doing it would render a great service to Islamicstudies as well as to the cause of inter-religious and inter-culturalunderstanding in which the American University of Beirut itself isdestined by its very nature to be called upon to play an important role.

Ainerican Univers i ty of Beirut SEYYEDOSSEINASR

seyyed hossein nasr - the immutable principles of islam and western education

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