Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society
Chapter 2
STRUCTURAL LOGIC,
PRINCIPLE OF INTEGRATION, SCOPE AND IDEAL OF GUIDANCE
A. STRUCTURAL LOGIC:
As a system of Knowledge, the Qur’anic Guidance is thoroughly grounded in
the Logic of Knowledge, wherein the different knowledge-domains emerge
inter-related in a logical sequence that manifests itself thus, starting
objectively: Metaphysics, with its function of providing the world-view and
consequently the system of values, stands at the base. Out of it emerges Moral
Philosophy which, in its practical aspects, assumes the form of the Moral Code.
Expanding into the dimensions of organised society, Moral Philosophy gives rise
to Social Philosophy which, for practical purposes, crystallises into the
different Social Sciences like Politics, Economics, and Law. Then, from the
side of the subject, Psychology and Aesthetics shoot off to constitute
organically-related complimentaries for the ‘tree of knowledge’ whose roots are
in Metaphysics.
Just by way of illustration:
When we consider the relationship of Metaphysics to Moral Philosophy, we
find that different metaphysical views lead to different ethical theories under
a logical compulsion. Thus, for instance:
Pantheism leads to Perfectionism, Philosophical
Materialism to simple Hedonism, Bio-ism or Vitalism to Evolutionary Hedonism,
and Pragmatism to what might be termed as Opportunism.
Similarly, as regards the relationship of Philosophy and Culture:
Rationalism, which consists in the principle that Reason is the avenue of the
knowledge of Reality and that the rational alone is real, affirms reality only
in the conceptual, the universal, the eternal, the abstract, the necessary, the
absolute and the permanent; and, as such, gives rise to Ideational Culture. As
opposed to it, Empiricism, which consists in the principle that
Sense-experience is the avenue of the knowledge of Reality and that the
empirical alone is real, attributes reality only to the ‘existent’, the
particular, the spatio-temporal, the concrete, the contingent, the relative and
the changing; and, as such, leads, through skepticism, to Sensate Culture.
A proper understanding of this natural and inherent relationship and the
resultant balanced and comprehensive journey into the realm of Knowledge leads
to a systematic and unitary view of Reality, wherein the fragmentary and
partial view-points are modified in mutual adjustments, and a comprehensive and
balanced understanding of the human destiny becomes possible.
Then, the higher the point of thought which the human mind may acquire
through its exercise in respect of the struggle for knowledge the larger in
scope is the Unity grasped, and the larger the Unity the higher is the
Principle of Integration acquired, and the higher that principle the nearer
towards the Truth moves the human mind.
In this connection, the human difficulty—as it has manifested itself in
human thought—seems to reside basically in the fact that, left to itself, the
human approach is very naturally ‘from below upwards’, wherein human reason as
well as sense-experience find themselves confronted with Diversity, and
consequently become captives of fragmentary and reactionary views of Reality,
to the detriment of human life in respect of the realisation of human
yearnings,—as has happened often with the modern so-called ‘scientific’
thought.
As opposed to this, the view of Reality in terms of Unity is possible
only in Revealed Guidance which originates ‘Above’—in the realm of Unity—and
thus projects the Whole in its organic relatedness. That possibility is
realised by the Holy Qur’an in its Structural Logic, wherein Reality is centred
in The One (112:l), Who is the Living, the Eternal, and from where dimensions
shoot off in organic ‘wholeness’ with the base as also among themselves.
Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society
3. DIVINE REVELATION
The plausibility of the claim of Religion to answer our
ultimate questions consists in the source of knowledge. Among the various
religions of the world, Islam agrees with us that the human faculties of sense
and reasoning are, in their very nature, incapable of arriving at accurate and
sure knowledge of the ultimate facts both through logical reasoning and
mathematical reasoning. But side by side with that it gives us a message of
hope and imparts to us a very plain and convincing guidance in that behalf. That
guidance may be stated as follows:
There are two factors in every act of knowledge, namely, the
Subject and the Object. As regards the process of knowledge, it is possible in
two ways, namely: (1) the subject may embrace the object with the instruments
of knowledge which, in the case of man, are senses and reason; and (2) the
object may reveal itself to the subject.
The usual path of knowledge is the first one, and it is this
which Science and Philosophy employ. And because the finite cannot embrace the
infinite, the attempts of Science and Philosophy at solving the ultimate
problems end in failure.
The second path of knowledge is the path of Revealed
Religion. That this path is a matter of experience in the scientific field also
is known to all scientists. For instance, there are planets which are far away
from the farthest horizon that the most advanced instruments of astronomy have
been able to penetrate. Those planets enter that horizon only for a while after
very long periods of time. Thus, instead of the powers of the astronomical
instruments going out, so to say, to embrace them, they themselves reveal their
existence by moving for a while into their embrace from a position where their
existence cannot be known, and after that revelation they again disappear into
the Unknown. Those whose gaze is fixed and whose instruments of observation are
focussed on that horizon see them and know them, while others affirm their
existence afterwards only on the basis of authority, because verification
through observation does not remain possible after the disappearance of those
planets.
This much about the physical world—the world of sense
experience—the world which in quality as well as quantity is only a part of the
Unknown and Infinite Universe. But it brings home to us an important fact. The
farther removed a thing is qualitatively (i.e., as regards its difference from
us in its nature and constitution and function) or quantitatively (i.e., in
Space or Time), the greater becomes the necessity for the first path of
knowledge to give place to the second path, i.e., Revelation.
Islam emphasises this all-important fact of Revelation. It
affirms the existence of God and says that He is the Creator and Cherisher of
the Universe. Also, that He is All Powerful, All-Knowing and Omnipresent. He
possesses perfect knowledge of the origin, the constitution and the function of
everything, and His knowledge comprehends the past, the present and the future.
And He not only possesses that knowledge but has also revealed to humanity the
correct guidance on the ultimate and intricate problems which defy correct and
sure solution by means of senses and reason. His Revelations came, much like
the distant planets mentioned in the foregoing scientific argument, through the
Spiritual Luminaries who appeared on the horizon of humanity from time to time.
Those Spiritual Luminaries included men like Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, the
last among them being Muhammad (Divine Peace and Blessings be with him and all
other Messengers of God); and the last Revealed Book is the Holy Qur’an.
Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society
II. PHILOSOPHY
All Philosophy may be broadly classified into four schools,
namely: one, Formal Rationalism; two, Empiricism; three, Criticism; and
four, Empirical Rationalism. Of these
four, two and three do not deserve consideration in the background of our
present problem and that for very definite reasons. No. two, namely,
Empiricism, holds that the only source of obtaining knowledge is
sense-experience. It means that the empirical philosopher cannot even aim at
trying to understand the whole of Reality, because in their very nature the
human senses are very limited in their scope and also liable to error, as we
have already seen in the section on Science. Indeed, the only natural and
logical consequence of Empiricism is Scepticism, namely, that we cannot know
Reality. In other words, the philosophy of the Empiricist school itself asserts
the incompetence and the failure of philosophical endeavour to answer the
ultimate questions. As regards no. three, namely Criticism, it says that both
Reason and Senses are sources of knowledge but that both are very limited
sources. Hence, the knowledge of the world which we can get through them can
only be very limited in its scope as well as character. In other words,
according to this school of Philosophy, philosophical effort can succeed only
in knowing a part of Reality. This, in its turn, means that comprehensive and
sure knowledge, which is the necessary condition for solving the ultimate
questions successfully, cannot be obtained from Philosophy. Thus there remain
only two schools of Philosophy, namely, Formal Rationalism and Empirical
Rationalism where the belief is found that Philosophy can discover the Ultimate
Truth, which alone, therefore, deserve our consideration in connection with the
present discussion. Let us examine the validity of their claim.
Formal Rationalism holds that human Reason, unaided by
anything else, is capable of knowing the ultimate facts of life and the
world.
Empirical Rationalism holds that Reason and Sense Experience
should combine to enable human beings to find out the Ultimate Truth and that,
through this combination of the sources of knowledge, Philosophy can solve the
ultimate problems and guide humanity in that behalf.
Formal Rationalism depends wholly on Logic. Its method is to
choose a hypothesis as the starting point of its investigation and on that
hypothesis to build up a whole world of philosophical thought by using the
instrument of Logic.
Empirical Rationalism may be better named as “Philosophy of
Science”. Its method is to collect and arrange the facts discovered by Science
and to endeavour, by using the instrument of Reason, to form an integrated
picture of the world as a whole and thereby to answer the ultimate questions.
If we evaluate Formal Rationalism, we find that, on the face
of it, it is incapable of giving us any sure and accurate knowledge of the
ultimate problems. This is so, because its starting point is always a
hypothesis, which is nothing more than a supposed idea or at best an
observation based on common sense, and it has always been chosen by every
philosopher arbitrarily. Now, every hypothesis, especially in the realm of abstract
thought, is, in the very nature of the case, unverifiable. In other words, it
is uncertain. And if it is uncertain, the thought structure built upon it and
the conclusions arrived at must also be uncertain. That is, the knowledge of
ultimate problems given by Formal Rationalism cannot be sure and accurate.
As regards Empirical Rationalism, its starting point consists
in the scientific facts, namely, sensorial observation, and its method is to
reason out the ultimate problems on their basis. But, as we have already seen
in the discussion of the Scientific Method, scientific facts are at best
workable hypotheses or working material on the scale of observation or the
system of reference with which they are connected. Hence, for ultimate
problems, they have neither finality, nor perfect accuracy, nor absolute
certainty. This means that if the starting point and the working material of
Empirical Rationalism lack accuracy, certainty and finality, the conclusions
arrived at will also suffer from the same shortcomings. In other words, a
solution of the ultimate problems on the basis of sure knowledge is impossible
even for the Empirical Rationalist school of Philosophy.
An eminent scientific thinker of modern times admits this
truth in the following words: “Many people wrongly think that logical
mechanisms are ‘standard’ and that logical reasoning, and all the more so
mathematical reasoning, are inevitably ‘true’. This is not always the case. We
must beware of the process of human thought because, in the first place, the
starting point is often a sensorial observation (therefore of doubtful value)
or an observation based on common sense. Now common sense cannot be trusted. It
is common sense that leads us to think that the earth is flat; that two plumb
lines are parallel (they are both directed toward the centre of the earth and
consequently form an angle); that motion in a straight line exists, which is
absolutely false as we have to take into consideration not only the motion of
the earth around its axis and around the sun, and that of the entire orbit of
the earth, but also the motion of the whole solar system toward the
constellation Hercules, etc. As a result, a bullet or an aeroplane, which seems
to move in a straight line with respect to the earth, for a certain length of
time, in reality follows a trajectory more closely resembling a kind of
corkscrew with respect to a vaster system of reference, the nearest stars for
instance. Common sense tells us that the edge of a razor blade is a continuous
straight line, but if we examine it under a microscope it resembles a wavy line
drawn by a child. Common sense tells us that a piece of steel is solid; X-rays
show us that it is porus, and the modern theories of matter teach us that it is
in reality made up of trillions of animated, miniature universes having
extraordinarily rapid movements and no contact with each other.
“If, therefore, the
starting point, the premises of a reasoning is false, the conclusion will
necessarily, logically, be false.
“As we have no other means of knowing and describing nature
but those given us by our senses and our faculties—i.e., by our brain cells—we
must be extremely cautious and never forget the relativity of the picture which
we construct—a relativity with respect to the recording instrument, man.”
(Lecomte du Nouy: Human Destiny, pp.5, 6).
The competence of Science and Philosophy in unraveling the
mysteries of the ultimate problems can be examined through another argument
also. As stated in the foregoing, the ultimate problems refer to three main
heads, namely: Man, Universe and God. Let us take here the case of Man himself.
Can Science or Philosophy, or both combined, provide us true and accurate knowledge
of the ultimate problems which refer to Man? If we consider this question cool mindedly
and dispassionately, we find that neither the origin nor the constitution nor
the functioning of man can be reasonably conceived to exist in a vacuum.
The
individual human being is a part of the human race. The human race, in its
turn, is part of a larger whole, namely, the animal world. The animal world, in
its turn, is part of a larger whole, namely, the organic world (which includes
plant life). The organic world, in its turn, is part of a larger whole, namely,
the Earth, (which includes both the organic world and the inorganic world). The
Earth, in its turn, is part of a larger whole, namely, our solar system. Our
solar system, in its turn, is immediately part of a galaxy of unknown number of
solar systems and ultimately a part of the entire Universe which is unknown to
us as a whole thing and which, according to Modern Science, should be termed as
virtually infinite both in Space and Time, and is, therefore, incapable of
being grasped in knowledge by our finite powers of perception and reasoning,
both logical and mathematical. Thus, the human individual is ultimately part
and parcel of a universe which, in its origin, constitution and purpose, is
unknowable as a whole thing.
Now, if we wish to obtain true, accurate and comprehensive
knowledge of the fundamental laws which govern the existence of the human
individual, we find that just as the human individual does not exist in a
vacuum the laws also which govern his existence do not exist in a vacuum. For,
the system of laws which governs the existence of the human individual is part
of a larger and higher whole, namely, the system of laws which governs humanity
as an entity. This larger and higher system of laws is, in its turn, part of
another system which is higher and larger than it; and this series goes on—the
levels of laws rise higher and higher, tier after tier, until we reach the
level where we are confronted with the laws which govern the entire universe as
an entity and fundamentally.
We are now heading towards the conclusion. To know the nature
and destiny of the part we must know the nature and destiny of the whole.
Hence, to know the nature and destiny of the human individual we must know the
nature and destiny of the whole of which it is a part. As we have already seen,
immediately, it is part of the human race. But the human race itself is not the
final whole. Rather, it is a part of a larger whole, and that larger whole is
part of a still larger whole, until, if we were to stop even at physical
concepts only, we reach the final whole which is known as the Physical
Universe. This means that unless we know the nature and destiny of the
universe, we cannot know the nature and destiny of anything which forms part of
it, including the human individual.
All the above discussions lead us positively to the
conclusion that neither Science nor Philosophy can ever be capable of giving
accurate answers to our ultimate questions on the basis of sure knowledge. And
those answers which they have been giving, or might give in future, have been,
and shall always be, at best approximations in the nature of partial truths
and, in most instances, what the following verse of the Holy Qur’an calls
“conjectures”:
“But they have no knowledge thereof. They follow nothing but
conjecture; and conjecture avails nothing against Truth.” (53:28).
The question now is: If Science and Philosophy fail in
guiding us on ultimate problems, is that the end of the road, or is there a way
out? The answer is: Yes, there is a way—the way of Religion.
