Intellect and Knowledge as Life, Identity and Conduct

Intellect and Knowledge as Life, Identity and Conduct

Haidar Hobballah¹

There is an old-yet-new view that seems to me worth thinking about. It holds that ‘aql in the literature of the Qur’an and the Sunna, and in the heritage of the first generation of Muslims, has no connection with theoretical reason or with knowledge in the sense we use today, except secondarily, derivatively and incidentally. Its primary and essential connection is with practical reason, and with awareness and insight (baṣīra) as these show up in a person’s identity and in their material and spiritual conduct. In its linguistic root, the word ‘aql goes back to a kind of restraint. So when the saying “Tether her, then rely [on God]” (i’qilhā wa tawakkal) appeared, it meant tying the camel so that it is kept from moving in ways that would harm others, including its owner. The sense of ‘aql that we came to know later belongs more to the imported Greek heritage.

If we track the recurring Qur’anic expression that denies ‘aql to the disbelievers, it is clear that this denial does not mean they are insane. They are entirely sane. The point is that their conduct is the conduct of someone who has no ‘aql: the way they handle theoretical and practical matters is the way of someone who lacks the intellect that keeps things in order. God says:

﴿وَإِذَا نَادَيتُمْ إِلَى الصَّلَاةِ اتَّخَذُوهَا هُزُوًا وَلَعِبًا ذَلِكَ بِأَنَّهُمْ قوْمٌ لَا يعْقِلُونَ﴾

“And when you call to prayer, they take it in mockery and play. That is because they are a people who do not reason.”² Because these people have lost the balance of awareness, they treat prayer and servitude to God in this way. Had they returned to soundness of intellect and recovered their insight and awareness, such behavior would not have been fitting for them, nor would it have come from them.

Perhaps His words,

﴿وَمَثَلُ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا كَمَثَلِ الَّذِي ينْعِقُ بِمَا لَا يَسْمَعُ إِلَّا دُعَاءً وَنِدَاءً صُمٌّ بُكْمٌ عُمْيٌ فهُمْ لَا يعْقِلُونَ﴾

“The likeness of those who disbelieve is as the likeness of one who shouts at that which hears nothing but a call and a cry: deaf, dumb, blind, so they do not reason,”³ and likewise,

﴿يَا أَيهَا الَّذِينَ آَمَنُوا أَطِيعُوا اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ وَلَا توَلَّوْا عَنْهُ وَأَنتُمْ تَسْمَعُونَ وَلَا تَكُونُوا كَالَّذِينَ قَالُوا سَمِعْنَا وَهُمْ لَا يَسْمَعُونَ إِنَّ شَرَّ الدَّوَابِّ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ الصُّمُّ الْبُكْمُ الَّذِينَ لَا يعْقِلُونَ﴾

“O you who believe, obey God and His Messenger and do not turn away from him while you hear. And do not be like those who said, ‘We have heard,’ while they do not hear. Indeed, the worst of creatures in the sight of God are the deaf and the dumb who do not reason,”⁴ give us a kind of explanation of the concept of ‘aql in Qur’anic usage. Either their loss of sight, hearing and speech resulted in their not reasoning, or their loss of ‘aql resulted in their not hearing and not seeing. The verse opens several interpretive possibilities. One of them is that ‘aql is nothing other than a person opening their ears and their hearing. It is not a mental capacity. It is a form of communication with the outside world: with ideas, persons, movements and people. Someone closed in on himself grasps only the surfaces of things. He is like the non-rational animal that sees things but does not understand them and stays fixed at their outward forms. ‘Aql is a kind of awareness of the other side of things, an awareness that leads to righteousness. That is why God says:

﴿وَلَقَدْ أَتوْا عَلَى الْقَرْيَةِ الَّتِي أُمْطِرَتْ مَطَرَ السَّوْءِ أَفلَمْ يَكُونُوا يرَوْنَهَا بَلْ كَانُوا لَا يرْجُونَ نُشُورًا وَإِذَا رَأَوْكَ إِنْ يتَّخِذُونَكَ إِلَّا هُزُوًا أَهَذَا الَّذِي بعَثَ اللَّهُ رَسُولًا إِنْ كَادَ لَيُضِلُّنَا عَنْ آَلِهَتِنَا لَوْلَا أَنْ صَبَرْنَا عَلَيهَا وَسَوْفَ يعْلَمُونَ حِينَ يرَوْنَ الْعَذَابَ مَنْ أَضَلُّ سَبِيلًا أَرَأَيْتَ مَنِ اتَّخَذَ إِلَهَهُ هَوَاهُ أَفَأَنْتَ تَكُونُ عَلَيْهِ وَكِيلًا أَمْ تَحْسَبُ أَنَّ أَكْثرَهُمْ يَسْمَعُونَ أَوْ يعْقِلُونَ إِنْ هُمْ إِلَّا كَالْأَنعَامِ بَلْ هُمْ أَضَلُّ سَبِيلًا﴾

“And they have certainly come upon the town that was rained upon with an evil rain. Did they not see it? Rather, they did not hope for resurrection. And when they see you, they take you only in mockery: ‘Is this the one whom God has sent as a messenger? He would almost have led us away from our gods, had we not been steadfast in them.’ And they will know, when they see the punishment, who is further astray from the path. Have you seen the one who takes his own desire as his god? Would you then be a guardian over him? Or do you think that most of them hear or reason? They are nothing but like cattle; rather, they are further astray from the path.”⁵

These verses indicate that the polytheists always saw, along the routes of their caravans, the town on which the rain of punishment had fallen. Yet they did not see it. What does the Qur’an mean by seeing here? They did see it with their eyes, but they did not grasp its moral and inward meaning. The reason is that they had no connection to the Hereafter. The Hereafter creates another awareness and another vision in a person. Such a person now sees things with different eyes and has ‘aql in this sense. The one who does not hope for the Hereafter will look at the remains of those who came before him without truly seeing them. Seeing is not the senses. It is an eye in the heart that produces spiritual insight. That is why the last verse says these people neither hear nor reason, and that their state resembles that of cattle. The cattle also passed with them beside the town that had been rained upon with evil rain, and all they got from passing by were visual images reflected on their retinas and carried to their brains. In the Qur’an’s reckoning, this is neither ‘aql, nor hearing, nor sight. There is something behind all that which gives a person their ‘aql: an insight that carries them across from one world to another. Awareness is awareness of the side of our existence that the senses cannot see. It is not awareness of the visible side, however precisely and scientifically we understand it. This is why hearts, in their religious sense, cross between worlds. It is as if this world were the small tip of a giant iceberg showing above the water. Any awareness or understanding of the part floating on the surface is, in Qur’anic terms, a deficient awareness. It has to rebuild the picture through awareness of the Hereafter, which is the other side of the picture. Awareness of the Hereafter is what truly shapes human identity, in the modern existential sense of the word, because it reshapes the person’s surrounding world in a different way, and a different conduct follows from that. Perhaps this is why God says:

﴿يعْلَمُونَ ظَاهِرًا مِنَ الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنيَا وَهُمْ عَنِ الْآَخِرَةِ هُمْ غَافِلُونَ﴾

“They know an outward aspect of the life of this world, but of the Hereafter they are heedless.”⁶

Other verses confirm all of this, as in His words:

﴿وَإِنَّ لُوطًا لَمِنَ الْمُرْسَلِينَ إِذْ نَجَّينَاهُ وَأَهْلَهُ أَجْمَعِينَ إِلَّا عَجُوزًا فِي الْغَابِرِينَ ثُمَّ دَمَّرْنَا الْآَخَرِينَ وَإِنَّكُمْ لَتَمُرُّونَ عَلَيْهِمْ مُصْبِحِينَ وَبِاللَّيْلِ أَفَلَا تعْقِلُونَ﴾

“And indeed Lot was among the messengers. When We saved him and his family, all of them, except an old woman among those who stayed behind. Then We destroyed the others. And indeed, you pass by them in the morning and at night. Will you not then reason?”⁷ You pass by them and still you do not reason, exactly like the cattle that carry you. This is because ‘aql is an inner, existential awareness of the human being’s philosophy of life and of his connection with God.

Perhaps this is why the Qur’anic text links the heart with the act of reasoning, in a way that seems strange to us today. In our literature the heart is associated with emotion and feeling. In the Qur’anic text it is also associated with reasoning and insight of a distinctively Qur’anic kind. God says:

﴿أَفلَمْ يَسِيرُوا فِي الْأَرْضِ فتَكُونَ لَهُمْ قلُوبٌ يعْقِلُونَ بِهَا أَوْ آَذَانٌ يَسْمَعُونَ بِهَا فَإِنَّهَا لَا تعْمَى الْأَبْصَارُ وَلَكِنْ تعْمَى الْقُلُوبُ الَّتِي فِي الصُّدُورِ﴾

“Have they not traveled through the land, so that they might have hearts with which to reason, or ears with which to hear? For indeed it is not the eyes that are blind, but blind are the hearts within the breasts.”⁸

It is the heart that has vision. God does not want a purely mental vision. Purely mental vision already existed among the Arab polytheists: they held that God is the creator and governor of this world. But this mental awareness was lost behind the darkness of their hearts. It never came into the heart, the innermost affective faculty of the human being.

From here we notice that the Qur’an uses the term āyāt in connection with natural phenomena. A person is meant to understand the sign, or let it point beyond itself, as the word āya implies. The Qur’an ties this to concepts such as ‘aql, thought (fikr), remembrance (dhikr) and others. God says:

﴿وَهُوَ الَّذِي مَدَّ الْأَرْضَ وَجَعَلَ فِيهَا رَوَاسِيَ وَأَنْهَارًا وَمِنْ كُلِّ الثَّمَرَاتِ جَعَلَ فِيهَا زَوْجَيْنِ اثنَيْنِ يغْشِي اللَّيْلَ النهَارَ إِنَّ فِي ذَلِكَ لَآَيَاتٍ لِقَوْمٍ يتفَكَّرُونَ وَفِي الْأَرْضِ قِطَعٌ مُتَجَاوِرَاتٌ وَجَنَّاتٌ مِنْ أَعْنَابٍ وَزَرْعٌ وَنَخِيلٌ صِنوَانٌ وَغَيْرُ صِنوَانٍ يُسْقَى بِمَاءٍ وَاحِدٍ وَنفَضِّلُ بعْضَهَا عَلَى بعْضٍ فِي الْأُكُلِ إِنَّ فِي ذَلِكَ لَآَيَاتٍ لِقَوْمٍ يعْقِلُونَ﴾

“And it is He who spread out the earth and placed in it firm mountains and rivers, and of every kind of fruit He made in it two pairs. He causes the night to cover the day. Indeed, in that are signs for a people who reflect. And in the earth are neighbouring tracts, and gardens of grapevines, and crops, and date palms, growing in clusters and not in clusters, watered with one water; yet We make some of them excel others in taste. Indeed, in that are signs for a people who reason.”⁹

Reason and thought carry a person from the outward to the inward and guide him to God. God also says:

﴿هُوَ الَّذِي أَنزَلَ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ مَاءً لَكُمْ مِنْهُ شَرَابٌ وَمِنْهُ شَجَرٌ فِيهِ تُسِيمُونَ ينْبِتُ لَكُمْ بِهِ الزَّرْعَ وَالزَّيتُونَ وَالنَّخِيلَ وَالْأَعْنَابَ وَمِنْ كُلِّ الثَّمَرَاتِ إِنَّ فِي ذَلِكَ لَآَيَةً لِقَوْمٍ يتفَكَّرُونَ وَسَخَّرَ لَكُمُ اللَّيْلَ وَالنهَارَ وَالشَّمْسَ وَالْقَمَرَ وَالنُّجُومُ مُسَخَّرَاتٌ بِأَمْرِهِ إِنَّ فِي ذَلِكَ لَآَيَاتٍ لِقَوْمٍ يعْقِلُونَ وَمَا ذَرَأَ لَكُمْ فِي الْأَرْضِ مُخْتَلِفًا أَلْوَانُهُ إِنَّ فِي ذَلِكَ لَآَيَةً لِقَوْمٍ يَذَّكَّرُونَ﴾

“It is He who sends down water from the sky for you; from it is drink, and from it is vegetation on which you pasture your cattle. With it He makes grow for you crops, olives, date palms, grapevines and every kind of fruit. Indeed, in that is a sign for a people who reflect. And He has subjected for you the night and the day, and the sun and the moon, and the stars are subjected by His command. Indeed, in that are signs for a people who reason. And whatever He has scattered for you on the earth of varying colors. Indeed, in that is a sign for a people who take heed.”¹⁰

I will take this approach to the Qur’anic verses further. Consider a verse that seems to me very important here:

﴿وَلَئِنْ سَأَلْتهُمْ مَنْ نزَّلَ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ مَاءً فَأَحْيَا بِهِ الْأَرْضَ مِنْ بعْدِ مَوْتِهَا لَيقُولُنَّ اللَّهُ قُلِ الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ بَلْ أَكْثرُهُمْ لَا يعْقِلُونَ﴾

“And if you asked them, ‘Who sends down water from the sky and gives life with it to the earth after its death?’ they would surely say, ‘God.’ Say, ‘Praise be to God.’ But most of them do not reason.”¹¹

The verse affirms that these people know that God is the governor and the provider, just as they know He is the creator. Even so, it describes their conduct as unreasoning. Why? Because although they had the mental knowledge, they did not act according to it. They recognize that everything is in God’s hands, yet they still go to idols, and to whatever is other than God, so that these will provide for them, intercede for them and protect them. They fear the idols’ anger, call upon them and offer them sacrifices. Their conduct contradicts itself. The knowledge, as a mental attribute, is correct, but the conduct is not. That is why they do not reason. In the Holy Qur’an, the one who reasons is the one who has two things: a penetrating insight, and conduct that is consistent with that insight.

The Qur’anic text confirms how it uses the word ‘aql when it speaks of the incident of the private chambers (al-Ḥujurāt). God says:

﴿يَا أَيهَا الَّذِينَ آَمَنُوا لَا ترْفعُوا أَصْوَاتَكُمْ فوْقَ صَوْتِ النَّبِيِّ وَلَا تَجْهَرُوا لَهُ بِالْقَوْلِ كَجَهْرِ بعْضِكُمْ لِبعْضٍ أَنْ تَحْبَطَ أَعْمَالُكُمْ وَأَنتُمْ لَا تَشْعُرُونَ إِنَّ الَّذِينَ يغُضُّونَ أَصْوَاتَهُمْ عِنْدَ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ أُولَئِكَ الَّذِينَ امْتَحَنَ اللَّهُ قلُوبَهُمْ لِلتقْوَى لَهُمْ مَغْفِرَةٌ وَأَجْرٌ عَظِيمٌ إِنَّ الَّذِينَ ينَادُونَكَ مِنْ وَرَاءِ الْحُجُرَاتِ أَكْثرُهُمْ لَا يعْقِلُونَ وَلَوْ أَنَّهُمْ صَبَرُوا حَتَّى تَخْرُجَ إِلَيْهِمْ لَكَانَ خَيْرًا لَهُمْ وَاللَّهُ غَفُورٌ رَحِيمٌ﴾

“O you who believe, do not raise your voices above the voice of the Prophet, and do not speak loudly to him as you speak loudly to one another, lest your deeds come to nothing while you do not perceive. Indeed, those who lower their voices in the presence of the Messenger of God are the ones whose hearts God has tested for piety; for them is forgiveness and a great reward. Indeed, those who call out to you from behind the chambers, most of them do not reason. And if they had been patient until you came out to them, it would have been better for them. And God is Forgiving, Merciful.”¹²

What does this behavior of theirs have to do with ‘aql in the sense of theoretical reason? The Qur’an treats conduct as the criterion for describing ‘aql. ‘Aql is the right regulator of conduct, not only the discoverer of theoretical truth. In the Qur’an, its role in the domain of action is part of what ‘aql essentially is.

Let us turn in this Qur’anic review to Sūrat al-Ḥashr, which confirms the same concept. God says:

﴿لَئِنْ أُخْرِجُوا لَا يَخْرُجُونَ مَعَهُمْ وَلَئِنْ قُوتِلُوا لَا ينْصُرُونَهُمْ وَلَئِنْ نَصَرُوهُمْ لَيوَلُّنَّ الْأَدْبَارَ ثُمَّ لَا ينْصَرُونَ لَأَنتُمْ أَشَدُّ رَهْبَةً فِي صُدُورِهِمْ مِنَ اللَّهِ ذَلِكَ بِأَنَّهُمْ قوْمٌ لَا يفْقَهُونَ لَا يقَاتِلُونَكُمْ جَمِيعًا إِلَّا فِي قرًى مُحَصَّنَةٍ أَوْ مِنْ وَرَاءِ جُدُرٍ بَأْسُهُمْ بينهُمْ شَدِيدٌ تَحْسَبهُمْ جَمِيعًا وَقلُوبُهُمْ شَتَّى ذَلِكَ بِأَنَّهُمْ قوْمٌ لَا يعْقِلُونَ﴾

“If they are expelled, they will not go out with them; and if they are fought, they will not help them; and even if they helped them, they would surely turn their backs, and then they would not be helped. You are more dreaded in their breasts than God. That is because they are a people who do not understand. They will not fight you all together except in fortified towns or from behind walls. Their hostility among themselves is severe. You think them united, but their hearts are divided. That is because they are a people who do not reason.”¹³

The verses speak of a group of hypocrites who had allied with some of the People of the Book in order to support them. The Qur’an says they lack fiqh, meaning reflection and understanding. This is not because they lack knowledge of theoretical matters. It is because the Muslims carry more weight in their hearts than God does. They know, as a self-evident truth, that God is far greater than people. Yet the Qur’an counted this theoretical knowledge as a failure to understand, because it had not turned into conduct that would make them hold God in greater awe than they held human beings. When you fear people more than God, you have not understood the truth, even if you know it in your mind. In the Qur’an, understanding a truth means that the truth is manifest across the whole of a person’s existence. This is why understanding has ranks and degrees, and faith has ranks and degrees. The ranks do not mean more information or more objects of belief. They mean a depth of faith and understanding that comes to govern the whole of a person’s existence. Understanding in the Qur’an has an inward and outward behavioral meaning; it is not merely a kind of theoretical knowledge. The verse that follows explains this further. It denies that they reason because of their division, disorder and fear. The person without ‘aql is simply the one who does not know how to manage affairs with insight and awareness.

In the same way, the Holy Qur’an censures some of the People of the Book for the contradiction in their conduct:

﴿أَتَأْمُرُونَ النَّاسَ بِالْبِرِّ وَتنْسَوْنَ أَنفُسَكُمْ وَأَنتُمْ تتلُونَ الْكِتَابَ أَفَلَا تعْقِلُونَ﴾

“Do you enjoin righteousness on people and forget yourselves, while you recite the Scripture? Will you not then reason?”¹⁴

This contradiction in conduct is a lack of ‘aql. ‘Aql is the harmony between knowledge and action, and when that harmony is lost, the Qur’anic description of lacking ‘aql applies.

In all of this, the Qur’an does not mean to attribute madness to non-believers as a form of obscenity, insult or vulgar speech, as some might imagine. It is reshaping the concept of ‘aql in light of the elements that surround the word in the Qur’anic texts, in the manner of the Japanese thinker Toshihiko Izutsu (d. 1993). The Qur’anic meaning has been misunderstood here. When the Qur’an likens them to cattle, for example, it is not trying to insult them. It is trying to present them with its own concept of ‘aql, one that this time draws a real line between human beings and cattle. So two concepts of ‘aql and of its absence take shape. One is the common, everyday concept that associates the absence of ‘aql with cattle and the insane, for example. The other is the Qur’anic concept, which comes from the practical dimension of the language in its root meanings and arises from the place of the words ‘aql, fikr and their related terms within the web of words surrounding them in Qur’anic usage. Qur’anic words are not like grains of sand on a beach, each separate from the rest. They are like stars whose connections reveal various shapes across the sky, forming related clusters held together by a particular gravity.

From all this we arrive at a possible picture. ‘Aql, understanding, dhikr, fikr, the heart and similar terms are, in Qur’anic usage, expressions connected to a kind of awareness. This awareness goes beyond purely worldly mental knowledge and forms an existential bond, in the modern sense of the word. That bond shapes identity and leaves its mark on a person’s conduct. It is the difference between someone else knowing that a certain woman has a child and her own knowledge that she has a child. Her knowledge is not of the mental kind. The arrival of the child in her life rearranged her identity and created a new meaning in her, as though she herself had been born anew. This knowledge is not mental. It is a knowledge of existential identity that remakes emotions, feelings, behavior, priorities, great and small projects, and much else. This is awareness in its Qur’anic sense. The person who truly grasps (ya’qil) that there is an absolute, all-powerful, providing Lord is different from the person who has mental knowledge of it. Such a person is born anew, as the sincere followers of the prophets were born anew in their lifetimes and became entirely different people. As the existentialists say, if I may borrow their vocabulary here, the human being is nothing but the world that surrounds him and is connected to him. In Qur’anic terms, God’s entry into my world means that this world is remade. That means my self, my identity and my being are remade, because I am nothing but the surrounding world to which I am existentially connected.

From all this, and from other evidence in Qur’anic vocabulary with practical connotations that I will not dwell on here, we understand that ‘aql and knowledge in the Holy Qur’an are closer to the domain of action than to the domain of theory. Knowledge on its own, as information and mental images, has no value in itself. It becomes valuable through its capacity to raise a person up in spirit, soul, conduct, philosophy of existence and so on, in the broad sense. Knowledge pursued as a luxury, or at random, from which a person gains nothing but more information, has no value, or very little.

In the testament of Imam ‘Alī (a) to his son al-Ḥasan (a) we read:

“…Be sincere in asking of your Lord, for in His hand are giving and withholding. Seek His guidance often. Understand my counsel and do not turn away from it, for the best speech is that which benefits. And know that there is no good in knowledge that does not benefit, and no benefit is drawn from knowledge that is not rightly learned…”¹⁵

Imam Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj narrated in his Ṣaḥīḥ, with his chain of transmission from Zayd ibn Arqam, who said:

“I say to you only what the Messenger of God (s) used to say. He would say: ‘…O God, I seek refuge in You from knowledge that does not benefit, from a heart that is not humble, from a soul that is never satisfied, and from a supplication that is not answered.'”¹⁶

This hadith could mean knowledge that is beneficial but which a person does not put to beneficial use in life. It more likely means knowledge whose very nature is not beneficial, either because it is harmful or because it adds nothing to the benefit a person draws from it, according to the religious concept of benefit. Religion’s concepts of expediency and harm (maṣlaḥa and mafsada), benefit and detriment, do not always coincide with human, man-made concepts.

On reflection, a person may even find a religious view that regards ignorance as sometimes beneficial. This may strike us as odd, as if religion were defending ignorance and keeping people ignorant. But that is not the case. Religion is concerned with every dimension of the human personality, not only the intellect. It is also closely bound up with the relationship between the servant and his Lord, which is intimately connected with reliance on God (tawakkul), submission (taslīm), trust in God and devotion to Him. So at times, the way religion tests a person in order to develop their reliance, humility, servitude and submission to God may be to withhold some of the information relevant to what they are doing. On certain levels, this can help a person build a state of submission, reliance and pure devotion. In some respects, this may explain why certain religious rulings are obscure and why the Lawgiver does not give rational explanations for them, especially in matters of worship. Telling a person the worldly benefit of an act can sometimes mix their intention between gaining that benefit and obeying God. If the benefit is hidden from them, and the act even seems at first sight to have no benefit, then doing it out of submission to God raises their relationship with Him to a higher and stronger level. It resembles the Abrahamic trial of sacrificing the son. Here the idea meets the faith-based existentialism of thinkers such as Kierkegaard (d. 1855), for whom religion is built on risk and uncertainty, not on knowledge and certainty, which are instead like an opposite that would finish it off.

I do not want to champion this “devotional-mystery” idea here in its entirety or in a sweeping way. The subject involves many details, some of which I dealt with in my book Shumūl al-Sharī’a (The Comprehensiveness of the Sharia) and others in my book Fiqh al-Maṣlaḥa (The Jurisprudence of Welfare), to be published soon, God willing. Nor do I want to champion what Kierkegaard said; I have previously offered some partial critical comments on these claims of his.¹⁷ My aim here is to open a new way of approaching the pairs of benefit and harm, good and evil, welfare and corruption, and the morally good and the morally ugly (ḥusn and qubḥ), by freeing them from the stock notions we have grown used to, particularly in the prevailing positivist and humanist culture.

The Qur’an and Sunna contain many texts on this subject. Alongside the story of Abraham and his son we find the story of Moses and the righteous servant. It seems to state plainly that a person cannot be patient with something he does not understand, and it shows the teacher and guide insisting that the seeker stop asking questions. Perhaps these are modes of teaching we need to think about. God says:

﴿قَالَ لَهُ مُوسَى هَلْ أَتَّبِعُكَ عَلَى أَنْ تعَلِّمَنِ مِمَّا عُلِّمْتَ رُشْدًا قَالَ إِنَّكَ لَنْ تَسْتَطِيعَ مَعِيَ صَبْرًا وَكَيْفَ تَصْبِرُ عَلَى مَا لَمْ تُحِطْ بِهِ خُبْرًا قَالَ سَتَجِدُنِي إِنْ شَاءَ اللَّهُ صَابِرًا وَلَا أَعْصِي لَكَ أَمْرًا قَالَ فَإِنِ اتبعْتَنِي فَلَا تَسْأَلْنِي عَنْ شَيْءٍ حَتَّى أُحْدِثَ لَكَ مِنْهُ ذِكْرًا﴾

“Moses said to him, ‘May I follow you on condition that you teach me some of the right guidance you have been taught?’ He said, ‘You will never be able to have patience with me. And how can you be patient with what you have not encompassed in knowledge?’ He said, ‘You will find me, God willing, patient, and I will not disobey you in any matter.’ He said, ‘Then if you follow me, do not ask me about anything until I myself make mention of it to you.'”¹⁸

The human being is not a single capacity, the capacity of intellect. He has many and varied capacities that need to support one another and be cared for, so that they grow and he grows with them. Depending on their place, skills may sometimes matter more than theoretical knowledge alone. So knowledge is not necessarily above moral values. Scientific production must be subject to ethical oversight and to the measure of harm and benefit it brings. It is not a sacred authority above everything else; otherwise knowledge turns into a curse on humanity and brings ruin and destruction upon it.

The same holds on the other side as well. The religious sciences themselves suffer in part from a lack of positive usefulness. Knowledge has beguiled many religious scholars, who plunged deep into it without it producing any practical benefit for people. Whole sciences swelled without that swelling yielding benefits proportionate to the human effort and time spent on them, which has sometimes turned many of our religious sciences into a kind of luxury. In my humble estimation, this is why Islamic philosophy has been afflicted with a degree of practical barrenness. It immersed itself in knowledge for its own sake, holding that knowledge in itself, as the reflection of the macrocosm in the microcosm, is a kind of union with all of existence. Knowledge as such, as mental images, came to be assumed to bring about existential expansion in the knower. In the Holy Qur’an, however, the logic of this expansion lies in growth in conduct and in ascent toward God, in elevated moral values and purity of soul, and in faith and righteous action. It does not lie in a wealth of information, even philosophical information. Some philosophical schools lost their way, and we find few echoes of them in the revival of Muslims today. Western philosophical schools, by contrast, worked to create a new reality, not merely to discover reality. If we stripped contemporary religious philosophy of its mystical and spiritual dimension, we might not find much in it that could form the basis of a revival for our present moment. This calls for developing it by resetting the compass that guides it, so that philosophy touches the real life of human beings and changes life for the better.

Western thought went a long way on this question. The pragmatist, instrumentalist philosophy put forward by William James (d. 1910) and John Dewey (d. 1952) holds that thought since the Greeks wasted its time chasing the true natures of things. Real philosophy, on this view, is one that leads a person to use their knowledge as a means of achieving ends they can reach in practice. Knowledge is a tool and a means, not an end; its end is action and experience. Pragmatism is a practical philosophy that seeks to put philosophical and scientific study to work in everyday life and to bring it down from the heights of abstract theorizing. It therefore treats all information, ideas and theories as plans of action for reaching concrete results in life. For this reason, pragmatists are not concerned with how far information or thought reveals reality. They are concerned with whether ideas can serve human beings in practice, whether or not those ideas correspond to reality.

I do not want to side with this instrumental way of thinking about knowledge. What I want to draw from it is its link between knowledge and its practical result in a person’s daily life, or in other words, testing knowledge in reality.

The science of uṣūl al-fiqh is a case in point. It has become absorbed in a great many details whose outputs bear no proportion to the energy and effort spent on them. Sadder still, this kind of mental virtuosity has become the mark of scholarly strength in the religious establishment, in place of testing knowledge on the ground and its capacity to benefit people in their present moment.

Praise be to God, however, the Islamic scene has not been without figures, exemplars and movements that carried an awareness of reason, knowledge and understanding in their Qur’anic sense and worked on knowledge that benefits both spirit and body. We hope this continues on an ever-rising path, God willing.

In this whole context, the importance of what our esteemed and dear brother, Ustādh Muḥammad Faqīh (may God preserve him), has written in this book becomes clear: Knowledge and the Inflation of Information: A Study of the Islamic and Western Perspectives. He has sought to reread the subject of knowledge and its Islamic concept against the concept of information and fragmentation in today’s world, and to study how the means of knowledge affect the individual’s intellectual, mental, psychological, religious and spiritual growth. The author has treated, with real skill, a series of very important topics that many people today overlook. In doing so he adds, and we are grateful for it, a solid building block to this conscious effort to redefine and rebuild the key concepts of our lives, including the concept of knowledge and learning, so that we do not become victims of the giant machines that move individuals around the world as we move puppets. The objectification of the human being, treating him as one thing among others, has reached its height in this age. It exposes the human being to dissolution, wasting away and shallowness, and leaves him open to aggression without his even feeling, this time, that he is being violated, because he has been completely dispossessed and suffers a genuine alienation in the Hegelian sense of the word. Reviving this human being and breathing true human spirit into him once more is both a necessity and a goal. God says:

﴿يَا أَيهَا الَّذِينَ آَمَنُوا اسْتَجِيبُوا لِلَّهِ وَلِلرَّسُولِ إِذَا دَعَاكُمْ لِمَا يُحْيِيكُمْ وَاعْلَمُوا أَنَّ اللَّهَ يَحُولُ بَيْنَ الْمَرْءِ وَقلْبِهِ وَأَنَّهُ إِلَيْهِ تُحْشَرُونَ﴾

“O you who believe, respond to God and to the Messenger when he calls you to that which gives you life. And know that God comes between a man and his heart, and that to Him you will be gathered.”¹⁹

As I thank the dear researcher and author for this blessed effort, I wish him every success, and pray that God makes it of benefit to people. He is the Guardian, the All-Powerful, and most worthy of answering prayer.

Haidar Hobballah
Ramadan 13, 1440 AH
May 18, 2019 CE

1. This article was published as a foreword to the book Al-Ma’rifa wa Taḍakhkhum al-Ma’lūmāt: Dirāsa fī al-Ru’yatayn al-Islāmiyya wa al-Gharbiyya (Knowledge and the Inflation of Information: A Study of the Islamic and Western Perspectives) by Ustādh Muḥammad Faqīh, published by Markaz al-Ḥaḍāra li-Tanmiyat al-Fikr al-Islāmī, Beirut, Silsilat al-Dirāsāt al-Ḥaḍāriyya, 1st ed., 2020.
2. Al-Mā’ida 5:58.
3. Al-Baqara 2:171.
4. Al-Anfāl 8:20–22.
5. Al-Furqān 25:40–44.
6. Al-Rūm 30:7.
7. Al-Ṣāffāt 37:133–138.
8. Al-Ḥajj 22:46.
9. Al-Ra’d 13:3–4.
10. Al-Naḥl 16:10–13.
11. Al-‘Ankabūt 29:63.
12. Al-Ḥujurāt 49:2–5.
13. Al-Ḥashr 59:12–14.
14. Al-Baqara 2:44.
15. Nahj al-Balāgha, ed. Ṣubḥī al-Ṣāliḥ, p. 393.
16. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 8:81–82; see also al-Ṭūsī, Miṣbāḥ al-Mutahajjid, p. 75.
17. See Ḥaidar Ḥobballah, “Kierkegaard wa Naqd Ta’qīl al-Īmān: Taḥlīl wa Ta’ammul” (Kierkegaard and the Critique of Rationalizing Faith: Analysis and Reflection), Nuṣūṣ Mu’āṣira, no. 52–53, pp. 5–20.
18. Al-Kahf 18:66–70.
19. Al-Anfāl 8:24.