THE RECONSTRUCTION OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN ISLAM

INTRODUCTION

• The reconstruction is one of the very few precious Muslim works

available today for a meaningful discourse on Islam at the

international forum of learning

• Allama’s bracketing ‘science’ with ‘God-consciousness’– more

precious than mere belief in God takes empirical view of the

religion and removes the Magian overlaying from the religion

• Promotion of Islam’s communication with its own manifestation

elsewhere is, perhaps, today, historically speaking, an

indispensable part of Muslims’ own ‘proper understanding of the

meaning of Islam’

AIM

To deliberate and understand the purpose and

need of The Reconstruction of Religious Thought

in Islam

NEED FOR RECONSTRUCTION

• In fact, the exigency of the writing was due to state of despair into

which Muslims religio-philosophic tradition had fallen

• Muslims in the end were, thus, left with ‘a worn-out’ or ‘practically

a dead metaphysics’ with ‘a deadening effect on the modern

mind’

• Allama Iqbal felt that Islam was to have an opportunity ‘to

mobilize its law, its education, its culture, and to bring them into

closer contact with its own original spirit and with the spirit of

modern times’

• ‘Approach modern knowledge with a respectful but independent

attitude’

SPANGLER'S CRITICISM ON ISLAM

• Spengler’s pronouncements such as these: ‘The history of

Western knowledge is thus one of progressive emancipation from

classical thought’

• ‘The symbol of the west . . . is the (mathematical) idea of function’;

‘Not until the theory of functions was evolved’ could it become

possible for us to have ‘our dynamic Western physics’

• Allama was completely dissatisfied with the very central thesis of

The Decline of The West ‘that cultures, as organic structures, are

completely alien to one another’

• Spengler’s allegation that ‘the culture of Islam is thoroughly

Magian in spirit and character

• Spengler failed to perceive in the idea of finality of Prophet

hood closure of all doors for psychological and cultural

progress

FAILURES OF MUSLIM SCHOLASTICS AND MYSTICS

• Muslims thought process is practically stationary for the last 6

centuries

• Mystics are fact denying and life avoiding

ALLAMA’S REPLIES

• Anti-classicism of the Muslim thinkers, which found its clearest

expression in the work of the very brilliant Ibn-Khaldun

• Nor is there any reference, in The Decline of the West, to al-

Birinui’s ‘theory of functions’, clearly enunciated in his Al-Qanun

al-Masudi, six hundred years before Fermat and Descartes

• Allama strongly felt, that blinded Spengler to the undeniable

Muslim influences or ingredients in the development of European

culture

• Allama Iqbal did recognize the historical fact that Islam imported

some concepts and a ‘religious experience- as reflected, for

instance, in some esoteric traditions in Muslim theology and in

certain theosophical and occultist tendencies in Sufism- from

these earlier cultures in the period of its expansion as also in later

periods especially when the conquered became conquerors

culturally

• Finality of Prophet hood is a psychological cure ‘all personal

authority claiming a supernatural origin came to an end in the history of

man’

• And its cultural value at ‘the constant appeal to reason and

experience in the Quran, and the emphasis that it lays on Nature

and history as sources of human knowledge are . . . different

aspects of the same idea of finality’

PERCEPTIVE WESTERN READERS OF THE RECONSTRUCTION

• Allama’s idea of ‘the birth or awakening of inductive

intellect’ a middle term between ‘Islam’ and ‘modern

science’, even as one is also to notice Allama’s bracketing

‘science’ with ‘God-consciousness’

• Sense perception and intuition as two modes of acquiring

the knowledge ‘therefore, scientific observation of nature

keeps us in close contact with the behavior of Reality, and

thus sharpens our inner perception for a deeper vision of it’

COMPARATIVE ANALYTICAL THOUGHTS

• Basic purpose of Quran is to link human with universe & God

organically

• Asharia’s Atomism vs modern Atomism

• Ibn Maskawaih’s biological and spiritual evolution Vs Darwinism

• Iraqi on the plurality of the space orders and time orders Vs

Alexander’s peculiarly difficult two-volume Space, Time and Diety

• Shah Wali Ullah’s Prophetic method of building up a universal

Shariah Vs Globalization

• Rumi’ and of his being ‘far more true to the spirit of Islam than’,

say, ‘Ghazali’.

• Mutazilla’s reason Vs pure reason of the West

• Iqbal’s admission - ‘Alexander’s thought is much bolder than mine’

• Comparison of Abdal-Krim al-Jilil’s Perfect man Vs Nietzsche's

Superman or ideal man of Plato and Morgenthau

• Prophet’s psycho analysis Vs Freud's psycho analysis

MAJOR PHILOSOPHICAL PARADIGM SHIFTS

• Berkeley's despised the sense perception and declared “universe

is an illusion”

• Rene Descartes “I can think that’s why I am”

• Baruch Spinoza “I feel therefore I am” 'Science is proving Spinoza

more current'' Dr. Damasio

• Simone Weil “I can therefore why I am”

• Allama Iqbal “Religion is not a departmental affair; it is neither

mere thought, nor mere feeling, nor mere action; it is an

expression of the whole man”

FUTURE COURSE OF ACTION

• To form Spiritual democracy– Spiritual interpretation of the universe in the context of

metaphysics and Para-psychological experiences of the revelations, apoclapcies, clear voinces, dreams (time travels) with their life forming fruits

– Spiritual emancipation of the masses in the context of ego’s-creative freedom for spiritual enterprise setting the political ideals to develop culture, art, history, science, comedy, tragedy, astronomy, all kinds of poetry, music, dance etc.

– Spiritual evolution of the society in the context of political ideals of equality, liberty, fraternity, association, accommodation, sacrifices, charities, eco and social well being

CONCLUSION

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