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by Ibrahim B. Syed,
Ph. D. The rise of the Muslims to the zenith of civilization in a period of four decades was based on Islam's emphasis on learning. The Qur'an and the traditions of Prophet Muhammad (SAS) are filled with references to learning, education, observation, and the use of reason. These teachings drove many Muslims to their great accomplishments in Sciences and Medicine and Technology. Some of the best and most eloquent praises of science ever written came from the pens of Muslim scientists who considered their work to be acts of worship (ibaadah). The same motives led to the establishment of Al-Azhar (800 CE), the first university in the world (l). There is nothing in the teachings of Islam that contends against learning, against science, and against technology. Today one can find that Muslims have become increasingly marginalized. The literacy among Muslims is about thirty to thirty five percent on the average and among rural women it is only about two to four per cent. The status of Muslims in the present world is at the bottom. Economically Muslims are poor, in education they are backwards and in science and technology they are marginal. There must be a deep examination of what has gone wrong. Why non-Muslims particularly in the West have achieved supremacy in every field of human endeavor.
Obscurantism in
Christianity (2)
Galileo and the Holy
Inquisition
A very famous example of obscurantism is the use in
medieval Europe of Latin (an otherwise dead language) as the tongue of religious
and intellectual discourse both verbal and written. This avoidance of the
vernacular allowed the Catholic Church, and its approved adjuncts such as the
cathedral schools and the universities, to retain an effective monopoly on the
inherited knowledge of the Classical era. This control over the writings of the
Greco-Roman philosophers, mathematicians and theologians allowed the authorities
to maintain a stranglehold on higher education, scientific inquiry and the
direction of European political and moral thought up until the advent of
Humanism during the intellectual revolution known to us as the Renaissance. It
may seem unlikely that a simple control over whom could read which book allowed
the Church to maintain a leading position in Europe for several centuries.
However the idea becomes less infeasible when it is remembered that there were
quite simply no other sources of information on the wider world available at the
time. No one in medieval Europe could gain an education that was not colored and
constrained by the doctrine and taboos of the Church. Anything, which disagreed
with doctrine, was likely to be either hidden away or destroyed as the work of
the Devil. The Church, as keeper of the wisdom of the ancients was final arbiter
over truth in medieval Europe and, as in the case of Galileo, could stifle
entire 'unacceptable' schools of thought if it chose.
The intellectual monopoly of the Catholic Church
over Europe is only the most famous example of obscurantism in action. During
the same period the presentation of cases in courts of law commonly had to be
made in the language of the learned (ie: Latin). This served not only to make
cases involving peoples of different nations possible, but also to lend an air
of majestic mystique to what was often little more than petty wrangles over
money or land. Both the religious and the secular usage of Latin in medieval
Europe serves to illustrate something about the nature of obscurantism: namely
that it plays upon the ignorance of the person watching, or upon the feeling of
superiority he may feel over the ignorant.
The examples cited above were not the only
occurrences of obscurantist behaviour in European history however. Aping their
social and intellectual betters the trade guilds of the same historical period
also resorts to obscurantism as a means of hiding valuable trade secrets from
both competitors (ie: non-guild tradesmen) and from ambitious journeymen lower
down the guild pecking order. This obscurantism often took the form of classical
allusion, mythological or linguistic riddles, which the uninitiated would often
not recognise for what they were. For example, an instruction to add the metal
of Hermes to a mixture to achieve the desired effect would only become
comprehensible if one was aware that in Classical mythology the Greek deity
Hermes corresponded to also corresponded to the Roman god Mercury.
Over time self-referentiality within the writings
and speech of intellectual associative groups has the interesting side effect of
resulting in the creation of new languages (both as linguistic constructs and as
written notations). For example, the adoption of various Greek alphabetical
symbols to represent constants or unknown quantities in mathematical notation
uses these symbols in a fashion which makes no sense if taken in the context of
written Greek. However, this is a subject, which can be returned to another
time.
At a period somewhat later than the medieval guilds
the various alchemical colleges, which arose in Europe in the wake of the
Reformation, adopted the same expedients as the Catholic Church and the guilds
in order to preserve the anonymity and secrecy of their associations. Like these
other organizations they also used language as a means of keeping their
knowledge a secret from outsider. In the case of the always contentious and
often subversive Rosicrucian and Masonic Orders however the use of heretic
language and structured initiation was partially a defense mechanism against
infiltration and partly a holdover from the heritage of obscurantism and
mysticism within the learned circles of Europe.
It would appear then that there are several causes
for the prevalence of obscurantism in various historical periods. The primary
reason was the desire to retain certain knowledges within limited circle of
people for political, economic or ideological reasons. In an unstable age, where
knowledge of certain processes was either a tradable commodity or a source of
political and social power, it made sense to make one's knowledge
incomprehensible to anyone not part of your own interest group. Those who had
access to a certain body of knowledge thus became able to use that knowledge as
either a bargaining chip or a weapon against those who lacked it. The essential
motive of obscurantism would thus seem to be exclusion: one is either a member
of a charmed circle of Illuminati (enlightened ones), or one is an
outsider. Those 'in the know' have a vested interest in keeping their knowledge
secret, and have the delightful feeling of being party to knowledge no one else
understands.
OBSCURANTISM IN HINDUISM (3)
That the Sanskrit language- the language of Gods,
has fallen on evil days in modern India is inevitable for, it started in ancient
times with evil. The ancient unspoken but perfected language in which all the
ancient arts and sciences, literature and liturgy, were enshrined, was
religiously made the monopoly of the Hindu priesthood and denied on pain of
severe punishment to the layman. It has been stated that if a Sudra
(untouchable) attempted to learn Sanskrit, molten lead must to poured into his
ears and his tongue cut. …... The monopolistic knowledge of Sanskrit obtained by
the priestcraft was used only to maintain religious orthodoxy, Superstitious
rituals and ceremonies, and for exploiting the huge masses of ignorant Sudras.
We are being told that Sanskrit is the abode of the great Indian heritage and
the vastly superior culture. ….. For example, Latin is now limited to some
religious services and learnt mostly by the Catholic priesthood. Similarly
Sanskrit has been used all along for religious and superstitious purpose and
never for the advancement of science, socialism or secularism. It has been used
as a mysterious language brought from heaven to exploit the ignorant masses and
keep them as low caste Sudras. Kannada and other languages of India stood
denigrated and belittled as barbaric native vernaculars.
Sanskrit has functioned all these ages only to
encourage religion and its sister, superstition. Sanskrit scholars, including
the Shankaracharyas, Jagatgurus, Bhagavans and Swamies were never liberal
minded. They saw the finality for everything in its ancient literature and found
no need whatsoever for reforms. They never lifted a little finger against the
terrible evils of Hindu society. In fact they did everything in their power to
keep the evils alive. Nobody gave a thought to abolish inhuman untouchability,
sinister caste system, female degradation that included child marriage, unequal
marriage, unlimited polygamy and compulsory widowhood. Sanskritist gloated over
the denial of education, property and independence to women and Sudras who have
been clubbed together for certain purposes in the shastras. There were 'avatars'
in Sanskrit literature for saving an Aryan Princess or an Aryan family or an
Aryan mendicant, but never an avatar to abolish any one of the evils noted
above. Even the outrageous custom of Sati, infanticide, human and animal
sacrifices, ever excited Lord Vishnu to come down in an avatar to abolish any
one to them. In short, Sanskrit has served the purpose of sustaining inequality,
division and discrimination. India had to wait for the English educated Raja Ram
Mohan Roy and the British Governor General to initiate the first reform in Hindu
society and that had to be done in the teeth of severe opposition of
Sanskritists.
Sanskrit is a live force for reaction and
obscurantism and it must therefore be properly contained. Let me end this
articles by quoting Sardar K. M. Panikkar again, He said, "Unless we win this
battle against the forces of reaction and obscurantism, of cow worship and
astrology, of pasu puja and panchanga puja, we will remain for all our vaunted
independence a backward and ineffective nation."
OBSCURANTISM IN ISLAM
The seeds of obscurantism were laid as early as in
700 CE when a movement of Muslim scholars, known as Mutazillites (748 - 827 CE
or 131 - 212 A.H.) who believed that both the mysteries of nature and the
religious belief could be explained and expressed in terms of human reason.
This provoked the emergence of countermovement called the Asharites who emerged
in 900 CE (873 - 935 CE or 260 - 324 A.H.)(4,5). They contested the
over-zealous use of reason and condemned it as bidah or innovation in religious
belief. In the end the Asharites won, but gave rise to taqlid -- the tyrannical
attitude of passive paradigm or inertia. Islamic science and medicine truly
became a matter of history and the practice of Islamic science disappeared.
Although there were both external and internal
causes for the decline of Muslims from their glorious heights, now it is clear
that internal factors played a major role. It all started with the suppression
of intellectual freethinking, freedom of expression, intellectual growth,
unfavorable prejudice against philosophy and other non-religious subjects. The
year it started was 1150 CE. In that year Caliph Mustanijid of Baghdad ordered
the burning of all the philosophical works of lbn Sina and the Brethren of
Sincerity (Ikhwanul Saffa). In the year 1194 CE the Emir Abu Yusuf Yaqub
al-Mansur, then at Seville in Spain ordered the burning of all works by lbn
Rushd except a few on natural sciences. After the year 1200 CE, Muslims shunned
speculative thought in areas of philosophy, mathematics, science, etc. As the
political power of the Muslims declined, they sought that power through the
assistance of the Ulema (religious scholars) and traditionists (Muhadditheen)
and jurists (Fuqaha) of Islam. They received the needed assistance, but in
return demanded the suppression of independent thought. Inspite of all the
needed help, it was not sufficient enough to save the Islamic State (6).
As examples of the Muslim religious
establishment's resistance to Science and Technology in the later centuries, one
may cite the following (7):
1) The opposition to printing. This
opposition succeeded in retarding the introduction of printing (and literacy)
into the Islamic World till the Napoleonic occupation of Egypt in 1798 CE -
full three hundred and fifty years after Gutenberg's first printing and
dissemination of Bible. In Turkey (apart from a short period between 1729 CE
and 1745 CE) printing could not be introduced till 1839 CE for secular books and
not till 1874 CE for the Noble Qur'an on account of the opposition of the
religious establishment (for details see D.J. Boorstein, THE DISCOVERERS,
Vintage Books, New York, 1983). A copy of the Glorious Qur'an printed in Venice
towards the end of the sixteenth century, is preserved in the University Library
of the Aligarh Muslim University in Aligarh, India.
2) The blasting of the last observatory in
Islam- the Istanbul Observatory in 1580 CE
3) So strong was the opposition of the
religious establishment to scientific thought (from 1,000 CE onwards), that one
is reminded of Al-Biruni, who was accused by a contemporary divine of heresy
when he used the Byzantine (solar) calendar for an instrument he had invented
for determining the times of the prayer. Al-Biruni retorted by saying, "The
Byzantines also partake of bread. Will you now promulgate a religious sanction
against bread?"
4) As an example of obscurantist faith today, note
an astonishing publication from a religious scholar (no less than the President
of the Council for Guidance and Religious Sanctions of a leading Islamic
country) who declared recently in 1982 that any (Muslim) who believes
(presumably with Galileo) that the sun is stationary and that the earth is
moving around it must be excommunicated and declared a heretic, that he/she
should be hunted to death, and his/her property confiscated.
Here Religious Establishment does not
Include the great Imams- like Abu Hanifa, Imam Ghazali or Imam Jafar Sadiq, who
strongly stressed the value of scientific knowledge for the Islamic community (8).
Here it refers to a class of people who arrogated to themselves the mantle of
the Noble Prophet (PBUH), without possessing a knowledge of even the rudiments
of their own great and tolerant religion (9).
The rediscovery of Islamic science,
technology and medicine in the twenty first century is an intellectually
formidable task requiring a sustained effort over several decades. The Islamic
Research Foundation International, Inc. located in Louisville, Kentucky is one
of the think-tank organizations deeply concerned and involved in this Herculean
task. The first step to be taken for scientific rebirth or revival of Islamic
renaissance is ijtihad, to exert the utmost effort, to struggle,
to do one's best to know something. Ijtihad after the Qur'an and
Prophetic traditions, is the third source of Islamic law. For several hundred
years, Muslim countries were colonial countries ruled by foreigners. The
Muslim masses were without education and without natural resources and lacked
inspiring and guiding leaders who could be compared to the Rightly Guided
Caliphs. Without these they could not struggle and could not compete and keep
pace with the rest of the world, which has been developing fast. Fortunately,
Allah (SWT) has given a bounty to many Muslin countries, an income over 200
billion dollars per year. Hence Muslim countries have the opportunity and
resources to make Islamic science, medicine and technology Number one in the
world, once again, Insha'Allah. Let us ignite the spark of our great
achievements to be materialized in the near future. North America has attracted
the most brilliant Muslims scientists, engineers, physicians and other
intellectuals from all over the world. Let us contribute to the health and
welfare of our less fortunate brothers and sisters living in the Muslim
countries by contributing and exchanging our ideas and expertise. The Islamic
Research Foundation International, Inc., offers every Muslim intellectual, the
platform of discourse and encourages freethinking. The Muslim countries are well
advised to communicate their needs: intellectual, scientific, technological and
medical to the various Islamic Organizations located in North America including
the Islamic Research Foundation International, Inc. Through TOKTEN (Transfer
of Knowledge Through Expatriate Nationals) operated by the United Nations
Development Program, visiting professors, scholars, consultants and other
exchange programs the Muslim countries can wisely tap the cream of the Islamic
intelligentsia, as a beginning or the very first step.
(Excerpted from the book "INTELLECTUAL
ACHIEVEMENTS OF MUSLIMS" by Ibrahim B. Syed. 2002 ©, published by Star
Publications, New Delhi, India and Islamic Circle-Quran House, Mauritius ).
REFERENCES:
1)
SARDAR, Z.: Can Science Come Back to Islam. Muslim World League
Journal, Muharram 1407 A.H./ 1986 p. 24
2)
Obscurantism, Archaism and Anachronism at
www.Fortunecity.com
3)
Dharmalingam, A. M. Sanskrit: A Language of Obscurantism. Dalitstan
Journal, Volume 2, Issue 5, October 2000
4) GLASSE, C.; THE CONCISE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ISLAM,
Harper and Row Publishers, Inc., New York, 1989.
5) SARDAR, Z. Can Science Come Back to Islam?
The Muslim World League Journal, 14(1): 22-26, Oct. 1986 (Muharram 1407
AH)
6) DURANT, W.: THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION,
VOL. 4: The Age of Faith, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1950
7) SALAM, A.: Scientific Thinking between
Secularization and the Transcendent: An Islamic viewpoint, MAAS J. Islamic
Sci. Vol. 5(1): 133-150, Jan-Jun. 1989/1409 AH
8) SALAM, M.A.: Islam and Science, Al-Tawhid
Vol. IV (4): 61-83, 1407 AH) 1987 CE. 9) Ibid pp. 64, 82. |
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