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January 15, 2007
No Word For Liberty
America since its founding has had an interest in the Middle East says Michael Oren: The stalled U.S. mission in Iraq has prompted calls for a return to "realism" in American foreign policy. Instead of striving for freedom and national cohesion in the Middle East, realists argue that the U.S. should negotiate with Syria and Iran and abandon the dream of remaking the region on a democratic, federated model. Realists claim that replacing a faith-based policy with an agenda based solely on economic and strategic interests will return the United States to its traditional posture in the Middle East.Islam is probably in part a codification of that attitude. Liberty would imply a place for cause and effect. Instead for a long time its path was determined by the idea of Insha'Allah - if God wills it. Such a concept explains why science has never taken off in the Middle East. It explains why there is still so little science in the Middle east. The more sordid the Islamic present seems, the more we are told of the glories of the Islamic past. And the most glorious of the glories of Islam, the most enlightened of its enlightenments, are the "Islamic science" and "Islamic philosophy" of the Golden Age.The kinds of unlawful knowledge include philosophy and the sciences of the materialists. Why are they unlawful? Because anything that is a means to create doubts is unlawful. This was the position of the Catholic Church for a long time. The Jews of course have had no problem with doubts. Their answer was always debate and reason. Put so well by a very modern Jewish scholar Milton Friedman "You cannot be sure you are right unless you understand the arguments against your views better than your opponents do." Jews as part of their religious training are taught to take any side of any question and argue it to the best of their ability. Which may explain why there are so many Jewish lawyers. The term "sciences of the materialists" requires explanation. It does not mean, as one might think, science that is based on the assumption that matter (and energy) is the sole constituent of the universe. Jews and Christians might agree that such "sciences of the materialists," if not "unlawful," at least present a truncated view of reality, omitting as they do the spiritual realm. It means, rather, according to the commentary of Reliance of the Traveller, the "conviction of materialists that things in themselves or by their own nature have a causal influence independent of the will of Allah. To believe this is unbelief that puts one beyond the pale of Islam."I wonder how the modern Islamic scholars such as these folks explain the existance of cell phones? They must have some kind of pretzel logic to come to grips with that. No doubt Occam's Razor is an unknown concept. Since Occam was a Franciscan friar such a concept would have to be banned if its origin was known. Averroes replied to The Incoherence of the Philosophers in The Incoherence of the Incoherence, so al-Ghazali, whose views inform Reliance of the Traveller in particular and mainstream Islam in general, attacked Avicenna, one of the two greatest of the "Islamic philosophers," who was defended by the other, Averroes.So what does modern Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan have to say about Islam and science? In the run-up to Pope Benedict's current visit to Turkey, TIME Magazine opened its pages to Tariq Ramadan, Europe's favorite Islamist and perhaps the most influential Muslim figure in the West today. Ramadan chided the Pope and Europe for ignoring the positive contributions of Islam to the development of rational thought in the West.So when did Islam go wrong? It went wrong almost from the beginning. Any hope of the development of a rational tradition within Islam was dashed with the rise of Caliph Ja'afar al-Mutawakkil (847-861). Prior to al-Mutawakkil's rule, a rationalist philosophy had begun to develop under the Mu'tazilite school of interpretation, which advocated for a created, as opposed to an uncreated, Quran. But Caliph al-Mutawakkil condemned the Mu'tazilite school, which opened the door for the rival Ash'arite interpretation, founded by al-Ash'ari (d. 935), to eventually take preeminence within Sunni Islam - a position of dominance it has retained over the centuries. By 1200 A.D., any hope of recovering a semblance of rational Islamic philosophy was seemingly forever lost.So that takes us back to the beginning of this piece. This has had a very profound effect on the idea of personal responsibility. It would seem that Islam embraces it in some respects (say laws against theft and murder) and denies it in others. Using al-Ghazali's own analogy of decapitation, according to the occasionalist view, when a sword struck off a person's head causing death, it only merely appeared that the sword was the cause of the decapitation: the real and primary cause of the decapitation and the death was the will of Allah, not the sword. The sword, in fact, played no part at all. Had Allah willed it so, the sword could have cut through the neck without decapitation or death. To believe otherwise, Islamic occasionalism held, would be a limitation of the omnipotence of Allah. As with volunteerism, the consequences of occasionalism had catastrophic effects for the development of empirical science in the Islamic world.So in our effort to reform the Middle East and to bring democratic ideals to them we are going to have to start at the very foundation. Insha'Allah will have to be replaced with cause and effect. That is going to be a tough one. H/T Kesher Talk and reader linearthinker Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon on 01.15.07 at 10:42 PM
Comments
Actually there used to be quite a bit of science in the Middle East. Disappeared about the time of the Mongol invasion when Islam abandoned rationalism. I think the real problem with science in the Middle East isn't the one you're pointing to. I think it's much more that Arab culture preserves certain aspects of classical culture and, in particular, the notion the Greeks had that experimentation is beneath a gentleman. Dave Schuler · January 18, 2007 05:07 PM Dave, I'm not familiar with the history you point out, but isn't it possible that what I posted represents a codification of undrlying sentiment? M. Simon · January 18, 2007 05:44 PM Not being a great philosopher myself may I try to put what you have explained into layman's terms. While spending a wonderful 6 months in Saudi, I drove around the capitol city quite frequently. On most of the freeways there were three lanes in each direction. On the right was the slow lane. In the middle was the fast lane. Finally, on the left was what was known as the Allah Lane. In this lane the Saudis would travel as fast and wrecklessly as humanly possible. The common local philosophy was that since you were constantly in the "hands of Allah" you could and should drive totally without fear and caution. All was in the "hands of Allah" and should you survive, it was Allah's gift to you and should you not, then it was a manifestation Allah's divine will. The speed of the car and your lack of caution while driving were totally independent of your survival. Hence, a complete lack of Cause-effect. Greg Fisher · January 21, 2007 06:48 PM Post a comment
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Simon,
Having lived in Saudi Arabia, I can attest to the pervasive and -in a sense- REAL influence of this mindset: Muslims would both absolve themselves of responsibility in their dealings with kffir contractors (invoking the Great Not MY Job Card: "Insh'Allah!") but they would also wink at precisely THAT concept as they discussed doing things IN Saudi Arabia AS "Muslims" that were NOT permitted by God's Will as adumbrated in the Koran!
The USEFULNESS of this concept seems to have been wrung from this Islamic concept BY this concept: 'God uses EVERYTHING, so (tautology requires that) God will permit to happen whatever IS the Will of God, including that which is NOT the Will of God as delineated in the Koran because IF IT CAN BE DONE, it is done by the Will of God. So there...'
Which a rational soul finds exceptionally dissatisfying... But
Baha'i Faith contrasts with Islam like fresh, golden sunlight contrasts with fetid shadow...