The Negotiation of Modernity Through Tradition in Contemporary Muslim

8/6/2019 &^% the Negotiation of Modernity Through Tradition in Contemporary Muslim Intellectual Discourse the Neo Ghazli…
THE NEGOTIATION OF MODERNITY THROUGH

TRADITION IN CONTEMPORARY MUSLIM INTELLECTUAL DISCOURSE:
The Neo-Ghazlian, Attasian Perspective
M. Afifi al-Akiti and H. A. Hellyer
Modernity is sometimes considered an exclusively Western phenomenon, and understandably

so, for the foundations of Western sorts of modernity rose in very particularly Western soil:
the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution. During these revolutionary
epochs, philosophical events of awesome proportions took place. The Muslim world did not
have the same history with classical Greek thought as that which defined the Renaissance.
Islam never underwent, nor saw the need to undergo, a rebellion against a sacramental
ecclesiastical authority, and indeed never had such an authority; and Muslims typically
celebrated empirically based technological advances through expressions of gratitude to the
Divine.
Nevertheless, it cannot be assumed that Western modernity did not impinge on the
Muslim world. than

Weltanschauung On the contrary;
precisely this there is no ofgreater
collection modernchallenge
forces. to
In the traditional
every Muslim
aspect—society,
economy and politics—Islam stands questioned by its followers: ‘How do we Muslims react to
these changes in our world? How does our tradition ( turth ) negotiate change?’
There have been a number of interesting trends produced by these questions: in parts
of the world where Muslims have a demographic majority, but also, and generally more so,
where they are a minority. Such movements have answered the questions with varying success
and variable support from the broader Muslim population, which has historically been fairly
cautious, it must be said, in responding to change.
However, history records that the ummah of the Prophet Muammad have indeed
responded to change, and often constructively. During his lifetime, the Prophet was the sole
arbiter of belief and action for the Muslim community. In the succeeding generations, the
most learned among his students, and the most learned among their students, and so on
through the ages, took on the mantle of interpreting the religion of Islam with due
consideration of changing circumstances ( ’dt ) and events waq’i‘
( ). The consensus of the
community ( ijm‘ ) was clear on this point: the learned scholars ( ‘ulam’
), following the Prophet’s
explicit declaration, were ‘the inheritors of the Prophets’ ( warathatu ’l-anbiy’ ).1 The scholars
were the link between the first generations of Muslims ( salaf ) and successive generations
( khalaf
): they carried, transmitted and applied the knowledge that had been passed down.
They were the embodiment of the Prophetic tradition, and in his corporeal absence, they
collectively took on many of the duties first assigned to him in order to guide the community.
The consensus, however, also lays down a key difference between the community of
scholars on the one hand, and the Prophets on the other. The latter are protected from sin
( ma‘m ); the former could only claim that they would ‘never agree on an error’ ( lan tajtami‘a...‘al
’l-allati abadan ).2 Scholars could individually make errors; and individually, they often did.
Nevertheless, the possibility of error did not prevent them from responding to the
problems of each modern age. Day in, day out, they have continued to do so: now, they take
advantage of the latest media revolutions at their disposal and preach about a whole range of
subjects in order to guide Muslims on what their religion has to say on the latest change to
their lives. And day in, day out, they also continue to make mistakes. Of course, such mistakes
were not unheard of before the arrival of Western modernity, and this is, certainly, an
ineradicable problem. As our theology reminds us, only the Prophets are protected from
error.
Recognizing Two Problems in Contemporary Scholarly Discourse: the Triumph of ‘Vocational’ Education and
the Blinkeredness of Specialization
Notwithstanding the fact that the laity now rely more and more on the rhetoric of persons of
unqualified scholarship—people who claim to be scholars of Islam but have not actually
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undergone systematic training in the traditional Islamic disciplines, for instance—there are
also specific problems within the ranks of the religious establishment itself. That is something,
which al-Ghazl (d. 505/1111) long ago warned about and successfully resolved, at least in
principle. Today, some of the problems he raised are starting to resurface. If this continues,
more mistakes will be made—ironically, not because of the rise as such of traditional
madrasahs, but because the development of madrasah scholarship in some cases has become
stunted. The usual high standards in these traditional madrasahs are dropping.
The basic problem is in the disintegration of the traditional ethos of the madrasahs,
championed heroically by al-Ghazl, as places where not only was religious knowledge
imparted but where also intellectual capacities were developed so as to enable appropriate
‘negotiation’ between the scriptural disciplines and the forces of modernity. The vast majority
of the madrasahs in the Muslim world today are inheritors of this Ghazlian scholastic tradition,
which emphasizes the importance of the liberal arts for servicing the religious sciences. It is
embodied, for example, in the original curriculum of the Dars-i Nim of the Indian Sub-
continent, as best illustrated in a present-day account of everyday life of the madrasah students
there;3 or, indeed, proved by one contemporary madrasah graduate from the Malay
Archipelago, the object of this Festschrift , Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas. However, there is
also a growing
Dars-i minority by
Nim curriculum of Muslim religious
abandoning the institutions
old entente, that dilute the
or rather originally
alliance, well-balanced
advocated by al-
Ghazl—one that harmonized the rational ( ma‘qlt ) and scriptural manqlt
( ) disciplines, and
whether by design or by circumstance, teach a far more exclusive curriculum that
concentrates on the naqliyyt at the expense of the ‘aqliyyt .
The result is, in some places, a narrower education for the new ‘ulam’ , which results in a
deep divide between their perception of the contemporary world and their traditional
knowledge. Despite the naysayers, classically trained ‘ulam’ have consistently engaged in ijtihd
through history—but it has been tempered by the paradigms of their respective madhhabs.
Although these safeguard the authenticity of their own exercise of jurisprudence, there are
cases where, with a growing misunderstanding of the nature of modernity, this can actually
curb the dynamic disposition of those scholars. Thus the legal opinions ( fatw ) that come out of
some Muslim institutions conceiving various activities of contemporary life betray premises
that are already obsolete.
That leads to the second problem, the corruption of knowledge among the ‘ulam’
caused by not putting things in their right category. Some scholars, for example, think they
are equipped to speak with authority beyond their area of expertise, a situation which
traditionally was extremely rare. Whereas most pre-modern experts in law were unwilling to
judge where a legal issue overlapped with scientific principles (in recognition of their own area
of expertise and their lack of training in other disciplines), some present-day scholars, such as
(to give only one of many examples) experts in the field of Prophetic traditions, the muaddithn,
feel empowered to go beyond their field of expertise, without having the requisite training or
perspective in other fields. A case in point from our legal history is the great al-Nawaw (d.
676/1277), who deferred the question of defining the physical extent of the local sighting zone
( m\l maall al-ru’ya ) of the new crescent to astronomers.4 He plainly acknowledged that
astronomy was not one of his areas of expertise, and deferred (i.e., made taqld )—on this
particular argument—to the proper specialists, even though the judgement would affect a
central chapter of ‘ibdah , i.e., the bb of fasting. On referring each problem to its rightful
subject-area, al-Nawaw was following the advice first dispensed by al-Ghazl more than a
century earlier. The latter, admirably, had shown the madrasah community that in some of the
questions the ‘ulam’ treats, religious practice must be grounded in sound scientific principles,
and those questions have to be recognised as such: “there can be no religion when there is no
sound mind” ( l dna li-man l ‘aqla lahu ).5
Beyond the matters of fur’ , the inability to recognize this necessity will become a
stumbling block for the ‘ulam’ when they engage with contemporary ideas. As al-Ghazl
forewarned, it can even lead to humiliating consequences for the community as a whole, if an
unprepared muft speaks about science with the intention of refuting its religiously controversial
findings. Unlike the repugnant consequences produced by the scientific tradition of the time
of al-Ghazl—Avicennian-Aristotelian science, for which he himself carried out the tedious

task of analyzing each premiss, one by one, marking out ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’
aspects of that rational synthesis—the most controversial scientific results confronting
believers of our own time are the possible implications of the Darwinian theory of the origins
of man. Therefore, today’s spokesperson for Islam who wishes to engage this secular challenge
thrown at us by God, Who continually tests mankind’s faith in the Divine Plan, must take
heed of the advice of al-Ghazl: “The harm inflicted on religion by those who defend it
improperly is greater than the harm caused by those who attack it properly”. 6 For, as al-Ghazl
rightly asserts, the scientist would only laugh and mock at religion, given a half-baked
response; therefore, at the very minimum, the religious critic will need to carry out the slow
and tedious work of separating out objective science and empirical fact from subjective results
and interpretative inferences.
Recognizing the Salaf Arguments For and Against Intellectual Engagement: al-Musib and Ibn anbal
The caution of the Muslim community when responding to change and the fallibility of those
vested with authority to change are two potentially destabilizing problems that historically
have faced
many the Muslim
examples community,
that illustrate whether
those two theofearly
aspects Muslims of
the dynamics or Islamic
the later ones. but
history; There
oneare
of
the first examples recorded by the ’ulam’ themselves (who, to their credit, recognized that the
Muslim civil society around them did face such problems) is on the disagreement between two
theologians of the salaf , al-rith al-Musib (d. 243/857) and Amad Ibn anbal (d. 241/855), over
intellectual engagement.
In that debate, it is clear that those two Muslim forefathers, both learned and pious
scholars of Sunni orthodoxy, largely agreed on issues of common concern but disagreed
fundamentally on how to engage with heterodox ideas and sects. This disagreement in the
early Sunni community was effectively analyzed by al-Ghazl into (1) the basic objection to
engaging in theological exercise as such, and rationally examining dogma (known traditionally
as ‘ dhamm ‘ilm al-kalm’); and (2) the more specific objection to engaging in academic polemics,
e.g., by making assertions on controversial issues and giving accounts of the opponent’s
arguments (known as the ‘ dhamm taqrr al-shubah’). Although the disagreement had been a
matter of longstanding controversy among early Sunni scholars, al-Ghazl managed to bring
about an entente between the two attitudes, and to allow later Sunni scholars to develop
arguments on either side without there being acrimony.
Fundamentally, the tension between the two scholars is between the desire for
systematic exposition to defend the faith, on the one hand, and, on the other, a feeling that
such an exercise was futile and menaced the faith. On the one side are those like al-Musib
who argue for such intellectual engagement. Their concern is to remove doubts suffered by
the general educated public among the faithful. Whereas on the other side, the concern
among scholars like Ibn anbal is to protect the simple faithful from falling into such confusions
in the first place. Even though al-Ghazl takes sides overall with al-Musib’s camp in calling for
constructive engagement to tackle bad theology (and bad science), arguing for what we might
now call having an intelligent debate with one’s adversary, al-Ghazl is also quick to show his
sympathy for Ibn anbal’s original objections: he is well aware of the pitfalls for such a risky
undertaking for the public.7 Al-Ghazl’s defence of al-Muasib’s position is a plea for the expert
scholars in his community to engage in academic debate with their opponents, because the
circumstances of the day are such that this intellectual engagement has become a public
necessity ( arra ) on behalf of the rest of the community.
On the other hand, al-Ghazl’s sympathy with Ibn anbal’s position leads him to restrict
the polemical exercise and the theologizing it entails to those qualified for it and to
characterize it as a risky drug ( daw’ khamr ) that should only be resorted to on a need-to-use
basis, tacitly indicating that it is not to be consumed like food. 8 However, it goes without
saying that it is futile for those opposed to such engagement to try to stop it, because changing
circumstances have made it into a public necessity.
The challenges of Greek metaphysics, widespread then, like those of Darwinian biology
now, were not issues that caused doubt or confusion in the minds of the laity ( ‘awmm ) during
the time of the Prophet. Engaging with heterodox ideas became a necessity and has remained
so. There can be no pretence about this living reality. Anyone engaging in theological
polemics with ‘the other side’ today, whether one belongs to the Ash‘ar, Mturd or anbal
schools, is by default engaged in kalm of a sort objected to by the non-engagement camp in the
early Sunni community. Clearly, the idealistic over-protectiveness of our early hero, Ibn
anbal—something which one should still hold dear—and the romantic notion of the salaf ’s
non-engagement (which is expressed in theological terms as tafw and is opposed to ta’wl )
suffered a coup de grâce from al-Ghazl and have become still less possible for those living in a
modern and well-read society—let alone one which is critical. What Ibn anbal originally
feared—that if the floodgates were opened, so to speak, they could not be closed—already
happened a thousand years ago, whether one likes it or not.
Although, as al-Ghazl was sensitive enough to recognize, both positions were justified in
their different ways, changing realities have dictated that the preferable position ( arja ) for the
Muslims of today, the khalaf , is that of al-Muasib. Al-Ghazl’s pragmatism won the day, and
history has recorded that the idealism of Ibn anbal became unsustainable. His fears
notwithstanding,
Muslims the One
left the ijz. community was cursed
could have tried to(or blessed) ‘purity’
maintain to engagement from theofmoment
in the isolation the
the desert,
but the world has always been inter-connected—never more so than now in the 21st century,
but throughout earlier times as well. The effort to maintain such purity could lead unwittingly
to denying the ‘realities on the ground’. The waq’i‘ , ‘dt , scientific premisses themselves, and
indeed, our very world, undergo change (the proof of creation). Therefore, while Muslim
Scripture (the proof of the Creator) has always been what is constant in this equation, the
understanding and interpretation of it—whether in jurisprudence or, less so, in theology—will
always need to reflect the changing circumstances created by God.
In later centuries, there was a reaction against al-Ghazl’s entente, and in a futile effort to
close the gates, Ibn Taymiyya again championed the ideals of Ibn anbal. Yet by that time, Ibn
Taymiyya himself, even in the very method of his refutations, could not escape the rational
exercise of theologizing, the “ kalm” censured by the salaf , nor the writing of polemical works,
the taqrr al-shubah, which in particular, Ibn anbal had censured. So the very example of Ibn
Taymiyya demonstrates that the type of non-engagement Ibn anbal had advocated had
become unsustainable. How many polemical tracts and treatises that critiqued and criticised
Muslim as well as non-Muslim philosophers did Ibn Taymiyya pen? By the standards of the
salaf , he would be a mutakallim par excellence in anbal terms. Although his is arguably a purely
negative engagement, it was engagement nonetheless.
Many of the khalaf proponents of that salaf ideal today are unable to see things as they
are: in rationally critiquing Darwinian scientific constructs, for example, they would also be
engaging in “kalm”. At least Ibn Taymiyya himself was under no illusions about this. Much as
some of us might wonder at (or even frown at) the way God has made His Plan such that the
status quo for the khalaf in fiqh is the four madhhabs and the same also for the doctrinal schools.
The dominant madhhab —the adopted method—of the khalaf is ta’wl while the dominant
madhhab of the salaf was tafw —and yet, neither ta’wl nor tafw need be followed exclusively or,
worse, become a ‘bad word’, if we are wise enough to follow the accommodating way of al-
Ghazl. This is a fact of life that al-Laqn (d. 1041/1631) rendered into verse, in lines
memorized today by almost all of the madrasa students in theology:
Every scriptural text ( na ) that gives rise to anthropomorphization of God ( tashbh ),
must either be interpreted (= ta’wl ) or left alone (= tafw ), intending its
deanthropomorphization ( tanzh ).9
Commenting on this rapprochement, al-Bjr (d. 1277/1860) correctly says: “The path of
the khalaf is more academic and accurate, since there is in it the utmost of explanation and the
refutation of the adversary. It is the preferred position [ arja ], and that is why the author [of
this poem] gives precedence to it. On the other hand, the path of the salaf is safer, since in it is
safety from specifying a meaning [to something] that might be other than what was intended
by Him (Most High!).”10 Therefore, there is no need to be acrimonious about this
longstanding controversy, and those who open up old wounds are neither safe nor wise.
Developing the Ghazalian Adab
However, just as this is an old pre-modern problem, there are old, pre-modern solutions. Both
trends, as noted above, have time-honoured precedents. The key to reconciling the potentially
healthy tension between them has always been through holding to a normative orthodoxy
that has remained aware of the need for specialist expertise. Al-Ghazl mentioned that in his
own time there were many trends that addressed change. He did not attack them
indiscriminately, but placed himself within what he saw as the mainstream, according in some
part with the idea of the mean ( waa ), while keeping in touch with and evaluating all the
various trends that flowed beside that central current.
The basic premiss of the Ghazlian approach is clear: one should allow the experts to do
what each does best. If they focus on expanding and rejuvenating their own disciplines, in
proficient ways that only they can do, using the experience only they possess, those who can
do it competently
process, and each will constantly
discipline update thoseinteracts
simultaneously disciplines.
withIfthe
thatothers
process becomes
through an ongoing
those experts,
then a sustainable, comprehensive worldview would be a natural outcome.
It is this approach that cannot only withstand the confrontations with any aspect of
modernity but can take full advantage of the new globalized reality that Muslims now find
around them. In the traditional Muslim world, the scholarly class had many individuals who
had mastered several disciplines, although they were never all that common. With the advent
of the colonial period in the Muslim world, they became even rarer. Today, this matter is
perhaps at its worst point so far, but there is also an opportunity that did not exist before. The
improvements in mass communication have allowed the deterioration of scholarship, where so
many ‘experts’ are simply media-savvy; but it has provided, too, for new means of
collaboration and of exchange of ideas. If previously the ‘lim was frequently the contemporary
philosopher as well, today the ‘lim is rarely so, and may have little access to contemporary
philosophers. But in the present world, the ‘lim can easily be in touch with philosophers, and
vice versa: if—and this is the key matter—the will for such contact is there.
A Neo-Ghazlian Project in the Modern World: The Asian Assessment of the Problems of Modernity
There have been many different attempts to mediate between the turth and change in the
present period, as we have noted. The Ghazlian approach places an obvious emphasis on
building upon what has come before. Hence, in fiqh, the innovative legal theories are to come
from a renewed understanding within a madhhab (and although al-Ghazl was Shfi‘, any
muqallid of any school of law that has passed to the present day via tawtur may involve
him/herself in such renewal). In Sunni theology, the renewal must come from inside the
classical approaches of Mturdism, anbalism and particularly Ash‘arism, among which the last
is perhaps the most significant—since, for historical reasons, it has been at the forefront of the
engagement with contemporary science.
It is clear from even a cursory reading of Islamic intellectual history that there are a
plethora of fields where this ‘renewal’ process can take place. Most writers and scholars look
mainly at law, which is at the heart of political efforts to ‘reform’ the Muslim world. The focus
on law, however, has distracted scholars from looking at deeply important, if perhaps more
abstract, aspects of the Islamic intellectual heritage. Philosophy serves as the basis of any
worldview, and no less so for the Muslim one—but only a few have tried to renew an
understanding of Islamic metaphysical constructs, let alone apply such an understanding to
the problems of modernity.
An inheritor of the Ghazlian legacy is the subject of the present volume, and his key
contribution lies in this area of Islamic theoretical thought: the philosophy of the Muslim
worldview. Al-Attas’ life-project has been to think seriously about the underpinning of the
modern worldview (the philosophy of modernity), explore it, understand it, and then integrate
it with the tradition of Islam. In so doing, he has built upon two assumptions: one, that the
turth has the ability to relate to contemporary change (and this is the deeper meaning behind
the commonly heard slogan ‘Islam is for every time and place’); and two, that in order for this
to take place, one must understand contemporary change thoroughly. There is a further,
corollary, assumption here: that the turth and contemporary change are best mediated by
those who are most expertly trained to deal with them (the ‘ulam’ and those trained in modern
philosophy and science).
One might assume that these assumptions are logical, and self-evident—yet what is
most obvious is that the level of sophistication that is clear in al-Attas’ works, particularly his
Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islm and Islm and Secularism, is not at all common. Firmly rooted
within the tradition of Islam, and gained a thorough understanding of the contemporary
world, like al-Ghazl, he carries out in these works what he intends to be nothing less than a
fulfilment of a communal obligation ( far al-kifyah ), something we characterise here as a Neo-
Ghazlian, Attssian project.
Al-Attas is atypical among modern Muslim thinkers and intellectuals in that he does not
recognise modernity itself to be necessarily a positive phenomenon: the very philosophy of
Western
in order modernity
to assess itself had to properly.
its worth be subjected
In tohistheassessment,
eternal principles
Westernof the Islamic worldview,
modernity is deeply
problematic. Unlike many of his peers, who derided certain aspects of the modern world but
not the philosophy of modernisation itself, al-Attas deemed it to be based on premisses that
needed to be examined thoroughly. In a world that barely allows for any counterbalance to the
intellectual hegemony of the West, such a position is unpopular—but often a far , whether of the
personal or the communal type, must be accomplished through hardship.
There are a number of examples to draw on in order to illustrate this continual theme in
his work, and several bear mention here. In ‘The Positive Aspects of Taawwf ’, al-Attas
inimitably draws on Islamic spirituality to form the basis of an Islamic philosophy of science. 11
It is rare indeed that any alternative to the modern understanding of the nature and role of
science is presented; that this is drawn from the depths of Sufi symbolism is particularly
remarkable. Later on, he chose to develop these ideas in his Islm and the Philosophy of Science: this,
while the rest of the Muslim world was persistently and stubbornly absorbing all that Western
science had to offer without considering how it might conflict with the ethics of Islam. It is only
now, when the ravages upon the environment can clearly be seen, that the world pauses to
reflect on some of the excesses of modernity—and yet, the Muslim world continues to pursue
‘development’ at all cost.
In The Nature of Man and the Psychology of the Human Soul , al-Attas draws on esoteric works
such as the Ma‘rij al-quds by al-Ghazl and Ibn ‘Arab’s Fu al-ikam to develop a cogent
framework for an Islamic psychology and epistemology. 12 In The Intuition of Existence, he
contrasts an intellectual and deeply metaphysical basis of the Islamic worldview with that of
most twentieth-century philosophy; again, using classical exponents of Muslim thought such
as al-Junayd (d. 297/910 ), Ibn Sn (d. 428/1037), al-Jl (d. 832/1428), Ibn ‘Arab (d. 638/1240)
and many others. Around the same time as both of these works, in his On Quiddity and Essence,
al-Attas uses the writings of classical metaphysicians such as al-Taftzn (d. 793/1390) to
express, in a contemporary idiom relating to contemporary notions of metaphysics, an Islamic
worldview. Once again, in a world where Western metaphysics (or the lack of one!) has
achieved an intellectual hegemony that throughout the world most accept without question,
how distinctive it is that a philosopher not only delivers an alternative, but does so using the
same terminology that modern metaphysics understands and appreciates.
The Implications of the Neo-Ghazlian, Attasian Approach for Other Matters Involving Islam and the West
Of course, this is not to say that other philosophical approaches to modernity have no
contribution to make—they do. The emphasis within the contemporary Islamist political
project, for example, does not allow the contemporary Muslim to forget issues of social justice;
nor do the current progressive movements in the Muslim world permit the option of
neglecting the serious inadequacies facing women. Yet, so far, none of these movements or
trends has adequately formulated a philosophically based holistic worldview that would
properly direct attention to various aspects of human existence—it is here that the Neo-
Ghazlian, Attasian project may be most useful, and there are other examples of its
uniqueness, to three of which we might draw attention here.
In speaking of Sa‘d Nurs (d. 1960), the Ottoman revivalist, and al-Attas, Wan Daud
contends that unlike other Muslim reformers in the modern era, only Nurs and al-Attas seem
more concerned “about challenging the Westernized version of modernity itself without any
apology, than about not merely adopting Western sciences, or adapting the Islamic doctrines
to the requirements of modernity”. He further points out that unlike many other educational
reformers, Nurs and al-Attas are rare in that they see the “grave spiritual dangers that the
Western spirit is posing for Islamic religious worldview and institutions”. 13
We must bring a related matter into this discussion, and that is the tension between the
Islamic world and the West. Wan Daud reminds his readers that “many a time” in
unpublished lectures since 1991, al-Attas argued that “modern Western civilization needs to
resume the dialogues that it used to have with Islam, because only Islamic civilization can be a
true and useful mirror for the West, that it may have an insight into its errors, and perhaps
14
climb
is out of outcome
a natural the quicksand of tragedy,
of al-Attas’ meaninglessness
insistence and
that Islamic utter unhappiness”.
civilization is built on aSuch a claim
unique and
particular set of values and principles, which are valuable in and of themselves. Other
authors, too, have pointed out that not only is Islam capable of this type of dialogue, but in all
likelihood, it is the most capable candidate, as it helped to sow the seeds of the medieval
Western intellectual tradition, and is thus philosophically related to the more contemporary
West.
In his address announcing that al-Attas would be the first holder of the Ghazl Chair of
Islamic Thought, the then Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim, noted that
among al-Attas’ major contributions was to “have persuasively argued on philosophical
grounds that knowledge is not neutral; that contemporary knowledge is infused with the
worldview and values of the civilization that produced it; that there is urgent need for
Muslims to isolate such elements from the content of knowledge and from the process of
knowing.”15 The potential effects of such a realization on the contemporary educational
systems of Muslims around the world cannot be over-emphasised, particularly when one
considers that for the past two centuries, those systems of education have been systematically
stripped of their philosophical Islamic content, and de facto accepted alternative worldviews
derived from the colonial projects. Even in the rejection of “secularism” as a socio-political
attitude for the Muslim world, religious militants and anti-colonialists have accepted much of
the philosophy behind secularism without realising it—whereas al-Attas’ work on Islm and
Secularism would be sufficient in itself to advance his project and establish him as an
outstanding, if unconventional, contemporary thinker. As far as al-Attas is concerned, the
“Islamic vision of the nature of reality and truth” must find correspondence and coherence in
all Muslim knowledge and Islamic sciences. 16
Concluding Remarks
The problems of the contemporary Muslim intellectual edifice, impeccably described by al-
Attas as a “crisis of adab”, will likely continue for a long time. The ‘ulam’ , the inheritors of
Prophetic ‘ilm and the natural guardians against the forces of jhiliyya , are not on the verge of
renewing their educational systems to answer the challenges of modernity on a philosophical
and empirical basis. Likewise, the intellectuals and ‘movers and shakers’ in Muslim civil
society will not suddenly escape their education to recognise that they have not sufficiently
understood the Islamic worldview at a deep philosophical level. In other words, the modern
world remains an intellectual battleground for the contemporary individual Muslim and the
Muslim world at large.
Nevertheless, there is a difference between the twenty-first century and the twentieth.
Modernity in the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries was noticed in the Muslim world in a
political fashion; coming as it did from the Western (including the Communist) world, it was
accompanied by imperialism, colonialism and post-colonialism. Resistance to these projects
were not absent from the Muslim world; the colonised rejected the colonizers. Yet even in the
independence movements in the Muslim world, the philosophical basis of the Western
worldview was seldom in question: independence was fought for on the basis of expressed
Western concepts. The engagement with the West did not include a comprehensively
philosophical dimension that restored the worldview of Sunni Islam to the political, economic
and social systems of the nation-state.
The Neo-Ghazlian, Attasian project in the late twentieth-century, however long the
Muslim world might have taken in producing it, represents a blueprint for a philosophical
dimension of not only tahfut —deconstruction, but also tajdd
—renaissance. This renaissance
does not surrender to ‘modernity’ or reject it utterly; but understands it, confirms its positive
aspects and rejects its excesses—just as al-Ghazl did in his engagement with the philosophical
foundations of the Avicennian/Aristotelian worldview. With that paradigm well and truly
established, change in the Muslim world need not be negotiated by means of Western notions
of modernity—but in a way that ultimately transcends them. For this, the ummah should be
grateful to Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas.
M. Afifi al-Akiti is a Junior Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. Trained
originally in classical madrasas of the Far East, he has recently completed his doctoral thesis at
the University of Oxford on a new set of works in philosophical theology by al-Ghazali. [afifi.al-
akiti@worc.ox.ac.uk]
H.A. Hellyer is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations at the
University of Warwick and a Member of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. A former
Visiting Professor of Law at the American University in Cairo, Dr. Hellyer continues to research
Islamic law, and is a noted commentator on West-Muslim World affairs.
[h.a.hellyer@warwick.ac.uk; www.hahellyer.com]
_________________
1 Related by Amad, al-Drim, Ibn Mja, al-Tirmidh, Ab Dwd, Ibn ibbn, al-abarn, al-Bayhaq, and al-Baghaw.
2 Related by al-abarn and al-kim, with variants.
3 See the enlightening diary of Shaykh Mohammad Akram Nadwi, Madrasah Life: A Student’s Day at Nadwat al-
‘Ulam’ (London: Turath Publishing, 2007).
4 Ibn ajar, Tufat al-mutj bi-shar al-Minhj al-Nawaw , ed. Muammad ‘Abd al-‘Azz al-Khlid (Beirut: Dr al-Kutub al-
‘Ilmiyya, 1996), 4:506.
5 Al-Ghazl, Kitb mzn al-‘amal , ed. Muyi ’l-Dn abr al-Kurd, et al. (Cairo: Maba‘at Kurdistn al-‘Ilmiyya), 140 ( bayn
XXIV).
6 Al-Ghazl, Tahfut al-falsifa, ed. Maurice Bouyges (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1927), 11 ( intr. 2).
7 Al-Ghazl, al-Munqidh min al-all , ed. Jaml alb and Kmil ‘Ayyd (Beirut: Dr al-Andalus, 1981), 118 −9 ( qawl V).
8 Al-Ghazl, Iy’ ‘ulm al-dn, ed. Badaw abnah (Cairo: Dr Iy’ al-Kutub al-‘Arabiyya, 1952), 1:97 ( kitb II, fal 2, mas’ala
2).
9 Al-Bjr, shiya al-musamm bi-Tufat al-murd ‘al Jawharat al-tawd (Singapore: al-aramayn, 1930), 53 (verse no. 40).
10 Ibid., 54.
11 Al-Attas, ‘The Positive Aspects of Taawwf ’, Kuala Lumpur: ASASI (1981), originally delivered at the ‘Festival of
Zarruq’ in Libya, commemorating the Quincentenary of the great Sufi, Ahmad Zarruq.
12 The Ma‘rij is a work whose traditional attribution to al-Ghazl has been subject to doubt by various scholars.
One of the authors has established it as definitively written by him but belonging to his esoteric philosophical
corpus, the Mann works. See Chapter 5 of his DPhil thesis: M. Afifi al-Akiti, The Mann of al-Ghazl: A Critical
Edition of the Unpublished Major Mann with Discussion of His Restricted, Philosophical Corpus, D.Phil. thesis, 3 vols.,
Univ. of Oxford (2008).
13 ‘Extending the Mutawatir, Strengthtening the Ijma’: A Comparison between Bediuzzaman and al-Attas on
Knowledge and Education; by Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud; see
http://www.nursistudies.com/englishh/teblig.php?tno=392
14
15 Ibid.
Commemorative Volume on the Conferment of the Al-Ghazl Chair of Islamic Thought (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 1994), 21.
16 Ibid., 22

The Negotiation of Modernity Through Tradition in Contemporary Muslim

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The Negotiation of Modernity Through Tradition in Contemporary Muslim

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8/6/2019 &^% the Negotiation of Modernity Through Tradition in Contemporary Muslim Intellectual Discourse the Neo Ghazli…

THE NEGOTIATION OF MODERNITY THROUGH

M. Afifi al-Akiti and H. A. Hellyer

Modernity is sometimes considered an exclusively Western phenomenon, and understandably

Muslim world. than

of al-Ghazl—Avicennian-Aristotelian science, for which he himself carried out the tedious

Developing the Ghazalian Adab

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