Seeing, Knowing, Believing:

Iqbal on Faith in the Modern World

Basit Bilal Koshul

Abstract

The modern secular definition of scientific knowledge and the medieval Muslim definition of religious knowledge are both radical departures from the letter and spirit of Qurʾānic teachings. Both of these degenerate understandings of knowledge lead to the ossification of the human mind and spirit. For Iqbal, once this happens then the road is wide open to the justification and perpetuation of all sorts of injustices, corruption, and evils in the name of “science” and/or “religion”. Iqbal poignantly describes the relationship between a degenerate definition of knowledge and evil in the world in chapter five of Reconstruction. The article argues that the modern secular definition of scientific knowledge is a negation of the first part of the shahāda– Lā ilāha illAllāh. A knowledge claim that does not see its origin in the supra-rational domain and does not see itself as a sign pointing towards the supra-rational domain implicitly (but obviously) claims the status of Godhood for itself. Any knowledge claim put forward by any human being must be amenable to rational, logical, (i.e. “scientific”) critique. Both the individual making a “religious” knowledge claim that cannot be subjected to “scientific” critique and the individual accepting such a knowledge claim, implicitly reject the finality of Muhammad’s prophethood. The insights Iqbal has offered regarding the critique and correction of the modern understanding of scientific knowledge and the traditional understanding of religious knowledge lead to the conclusion that: there can be no proper understanding (let alone practice) of the shahāda in the absence of such a correction and critique of “knowledge”.

riting in the earlier part of the 20^th century, Iqbal was acutely aware of the fact that modern society was facing a crisis of faith. Like many of his contemporaries he spent a great deal of time investigating the root cause of this crisis. As the title of the very first chapter of The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam indicates, Iqbal saw an intimate relationship between the modern crisis of faith and modernist epistemology. In the chapter titled “Knowledge and Religious Experience”, Iqbal tries to articulate an epistemology that, on the one hand, meets the critical rigour of modern philosophical and scientific thinking, and on the other hand, attempts to account for the reality and verity of religious experience as not only a possible, but also the most subtle and reliable source of knowledge. Iqbal’s proposed epistemology is rooted in the Qurʾānic narrative and the interpretation of this narrative by the “more genuine schools of Sufism.” He combines the insights garnered from a study of these “religious” sources with his first-hand understanding of modern philosophic and scientific thought to recover and re-present an understanding of “knowledge” that is a companion to “faith” rather than its adversary. In the following pages, Iqbal’s project will be placed in its historical setting and described in more detail with respect to its critique and correction of traditional religious and modernist scientific epistemology.

The Setting

Practically all the leading Western thinkers at the end of the 19^th century and the beginning of the 20^th century recognized the fact that modern society was facing an existential crisis of faith. For some this was a very healthy development and the harbinger of a golden era in human history (i.e. Freud). For others this development was a deeply disturbing reality that presaged the onset of tragic and terrifying events in the near future (i.e. Jung). Even though there were some dissenting voices, the demise of religion was seen as a positive development by most of the leading Western intellectuals in the beginning of the 20^th century. This attitude was based on the claim that the scientific way of knowing (or scientific epistemology) had proven itself to be far superior to the religious way of knowing (or religious epistemology). It was assumed that “faith commitments” were incompatible with “disinterested objectivity”– and it was only detached, disinterested investigation of phenomena that could lead to accurate and reliable knowledge claims.[1] Since religion was based on faith claims/commitments and science required detached objectivity,[2] the cultivation and progress of one required the disintegration of the other.

This antagonistic view of religion and science was accepted as a given not only by the “secular” or “modernist” circles in university settings. The medieval definition of religion and spiritual experience accepted in traditionalist religious circles further reinforced this antagonism. Medieval religious thought defined religiosity as the acceptance of a particular interpretation of certain dogmatic theological claims, combined with leading a life according to a particular interpretation of certain legal obligations. Any “disinterested” or “detached” analysis of the inherited traditional interpretations was seen as a dangerous move towards irreligiosity and any critical analysis of these interpretations was seen as a manifestation of irreligiosity. This is another way of saying that taqlīd was the accepted norm regarding issues of ʿaqīdah and fiqh.[3] The quest for spiritual enlightenment was seen as being practically divorced from concerns with all given reality.[4] This disregard for the given reality was so profound that the seeker’s own personhood was seen as an obstacle that had to be overcome in order to attain spiritual enlightenment. This is another way of saying that fanā fillah was seen as the ultimate goal of the spiritual quest. An uncritical acceptance of received tradition, combined with seeing no spiritual worth in engagement with the given material reality characterized the dominant understanding of religion in traditional Muslim society at the beginning of the 20^th century. If there was no room for critical thought/analysis in religious thought and if spiritual enlightenment (the ultimate goal of religiosity) saw no value in material reality, then it was indeed the case that the progress of science required the disintegration of religion.

The self-definition and self-understanding of religion and science, as articulated by the leading proponents of each, was such that the two were placed in an antagonistic relationship with each other.[5] The root cause of this antagonism was the claim/understanding that religious knowledge was incompatible with critical inquiry and scientific knowledge was incompatible with faith commitments/claims.[6] In other words religious knowledge rejected the defining characteristic of scientific inquiry (critical, objective analysis of material reality) and scientific knowledge rejected the very foundations of religion (faith claims/commitments.) The relationship between this self-understanding of religion and science at the beginning of the 20^th century and the resultant crisis of faith is quite apparent. For Iqbal any genuine attempt to address the modern crisis of faith required that this self-understanding on the part of the two camps be rectified. In other words an alternative epistemology had to be formulated in order to arrest the decline of religious faith.

It speaks to Iqbal’s personal genius and intuitional gifts that he utilizes resources from within each of the two traditions (i.e.  the religious and the scientific) to demonstrate the flaw in their respective understanding of “knowledge”. Going all the way back to the sīrah of the Prophet and then citing the works of leading spiritual masters in the Islamic tradition, Iqbal demonstrates that critical inquiry is not only a part of the religious quest, it may be its most crucial component.[7] He also cites a variety of Qurʾānic passages which demonstrate that the Qurʾān sees sensual engagement with and critical reflection on the material reality in the world of nature to be an essential component of an individual’s spiritual growth.[8] Conversely, Iqbal cites the work of Bergson and Whitehead (Iqbal, 2) to demonstrate that the attempts of modern science to completely divorce rationality from faith is a misguided adventure that does great injustice to the issue at hand. Iqbal cites Whitehead as saying that “the ages of faith are the ages of rationalism” and he cites Bergson as noting that the intuition is only a higher type of intellect. It is worth repeating that in critiquing and correcting the accepted religious and scientific understanding of knowledge, Iqbal utilizes resources from within the very tradition that he is critiquing/correcting. While it is not the purpose of the present presentation to delve into Iqbal’s methodology, the foregoing comments serve as precursors to the following discussion on his specific critique of the medieval religious and modern scientific definitions of “knowledge”.

Correcting the Religious Definition of Knowledge

Iqbal notes that distrust of the world of the senses and disregard for the non-human world of nature is a defining characteristic of classical Greek philosophy. In their attempt to understand the origin, nature and fate of the human being the Greek philosophers posited that one needed to study only the human being and the human world. For them study of the non-human world contained nothing of any significant value in the human attempt at self-understanding. This disregard for the non-human world is best expressed by Socrates. Contrasting Socrates’ attitude with the Qurʾānic narrative in this regard, Iqbal notes:

Socrates concentrated his attention on the human world alone. To him the proper study of man was man and not the world of plants, insects, and stars. How unlike the spirit of the Qurʾān, which sees in the humble bee a recipient of Divine inspiration and constantly calls upon the reader to observe the perpetual change of the winds, the alternation of day and night, the clouds, the starry heavens, and the planets swimming through infinite space! (Iqbal, 3)

This disregard for the world of nature on the part of Socrates was taken further in the work of Plato. For Plato the human senses could be easily fooled and therefore could not serve as reliable sources of knowledge. This point was further affirmed by Aristotle. Once again, the Greek attitude towards human sense perception is at odds with the Qurʾānic narrative:

As a true disciple of Socrates, Plato despised sense-perception which, in his view, yielded merely opinion and no real knowledge. How unlike the Qurʾān, which regards ‘hearing’ and ‘sight’ as the most valuable Divine gifts and declares them to be accountable to God for their activity in this world. (Iqbal, 3).

If the study of the world of nature was of no practical use in the human quest for knowledge and if human beings could not trust their sense perception as they are trying to acquire knowledge then the question emerges: how is knowledge to be attained? The response was a method of speculation pioneered by Plato and Aristotle and later detailed and developed by the Hellenic thinkers (i.e.  the stoics, epicureans and most notably Plotinus). While there are almost countless disagreements as far as the details are concerned, a fundamental characteristic of this method is that it shunned the study of the material/real in its attempt to understand the spiritual/ideal. This method eventually found its way into Muslim religious life beginning with the translation of the Greek philosophical corpus into Arabic in the 9^th century CE and after the fall of Baghdad in 1258 became the defining characteristic of Muslim intellectual life. Iqbal notes that ascetic Sufism (in contrast to the “more genuine schools of Sufism”) “gradually developed under the influences of a non-Islamic character, a purely speculative side” (Iqbal, 119)– and the contribution of Hellenic thought was quite considerable in this regard. The schools of ascetic Sufism consciously shunned sensual engagement with the material and social reality in the quest for spiritual enlightenment. This attitude fostered a virtual disregard for the real/material in the Muslim’s quest to understand the spiritual/ideal. Iqbal describes the consequences of the spread of speculative thought among the Muslim intellectual elite in these words:

This spirit of total other-worldliness in later Sufism obscured men’s vision of a very important aspect of Islam as a social polity, and offering the prospect of unrestrained thought on its speculative side, it attracted and finally absorbed the best minds in Islam (Iqbal, 119).

The disregard for the real/material and the spread of speculative thought in medieval Muslim thought was combined with a static view of life and disregard for the dynamic aspect of human existence. The dichotomy between the real/material and ideal/spiritual was complemented and reinforced by a dichotomy between temporal flux and eternal immutability. Looked at from within the tradition, it is indeed the case that the fundamental teachings of Islam are based upon eternal and immutable principles. But at the same time the Qurʾān stresses the fact that temporal flux provides invaluable insights into the true nature and meaning of these eternal, immutable principles. This temporal flux manifests itself in a variety of ways; the constant alteration of night and day, the changing fortunes among individuals and nations, the change of seasons, the different stages in the human being’s biological development, etc. Iqbal posits that from the Qurʾānic perspective all of these temporal changes in the material domain of existence contain are the āyāt of the eternal, spiritual domain of existence.

Iqbal notes that while the spiritual basis of life is rooted in the eternal, its manifestation takes place in the temporal flux/change of the material world. The relationship between temporal flux (which is imperfect and flawed) and the eternal immutable (which is perfect and without blemish) is complementary not mutually exclusive. Iqbal describes the complementary nature of this relationship, and the dangers of viewing the relationship in mutually exclusive terms, in these words:

The ultimate spiritual basis of all life, as conceived by Islam, is eternal and reveals itself in variety and change. A society based on such a conception of Reality must reconcile, in its life, the categories of permanence and change. It must possess eternal principles to regulate its collective life, for the eternal gives us a foothold in the world of perpetual change. But eternal principles when they are understood to exclude all possibilities of change which, according to the Qurʾān, is one of the greatest ‘signs’ of God, tend to immobilize what is essentially mobile in its nature. (Iqbal, 117).

Iqbal posits that a Qurʾānic understanding of the relationship between the temporal and eternal manifested itself in Muslim intellectual life in the practice of ijtihād– which is the “principle of movement in the structure of Islam.” (Iqbal, 117). He goes on to give a more detailed description of ijtihād:

The word literally means to exert. In the terminology of Islamic law it means to exert with view to form an independent judgement on a legal question. The idea, I believe, has its origin in a well-known verse of the Qurʾān– ‘And those who exert We show Our path’. (Iqbal, 117f.)

While the practice of ijtihād was a defining characteristic of early Muslim intellectual life, this practice practically ceased by the end of the Abbasid period. The formulation, formalization and institutionalization of the four accepted legal schools of thought brought the practice of ijtihād to an end. There was unanimity among the four schools that only the original founders of the schools were competent enough to carry out ijtihād in its widest sense. After the founders had exposited the fundamental principles of Islamic jurisprudence, only relative ijtihād could take place within the confines of those principles. By rigorously defining the boundaries within which legal thought could legitimately take place, and definitively setting one domain of legal thought beyond critical scrutiny (i.e.  issues related to the founding principles of the schools of jurisprudence), the medieval doctors of law severely delimited the “principle of movement in Islam”. Iqbal posits that this delimitation “seems exceedingly strange in a system of law based mainly on the groundwork provided by the Qurʾān which embodies an essentially dynamic outlook on life”. (Iqbal, 118). For Iqbal, the practical end of ijtihād among Muslim scholars signals the formalization of the conceptual divide between the temporal and the eternal. The dynamism of the temporal domain of reality became irrelevant for an individual’s understanding of and relationship to the eternal/spiritual domain of reality.[9] The stagnation of Muslim society in the medieval period is in no small part the result of this attitude– an attitude that was fully entrenched in Muslim society at the dawn of the Islam’s encounter with modernity.

For Iqbal, religious thought, as expounded by its leading proponents in late 19^th century/early 20^th century, suffered from some serious shortcomings. On the one hand traditional Muslim spirituality was defined by speculative thought and disregard for the material world of nature. On the other hand traditional Muslim legal thought and practice was defined by taqlīd, to principles formulated centuries ago and disregard for historical changes that had taken place since then and the historical contingencies that existed in the present. On both accounts the defining characteristics of medieval Muslim religiosity ran contrary to the teachings of the Qurʾān. The speculative nature of medieval Muslim spirituality ran counter to the Qurʾānic attitude towards the material world of nature. The taqlīdi nature of medieval Muslim legal thought and the end of ijtihād ran counter to the Qurʾānic attitude towards time and temporal flux.[10]

Correcting the Scientific Definition of Knowledge

Iqbal acknowledges the fact that there is a difference between religion and philosophy (as asserted by modernist philosophy) in the very opening paragraph of Reconstruction. Philosophy is based on a purely rational method of free inquiry that suspects all authority. Religion is based upon the feeling/experience of faith. While this difference between the two does exist, Iqbal notes that;

it cannot be denied that faith is more than mere feeling. It has something like a cognitive content, and the existence of rival parties – scholastics and mystics – in the history of religion shows that idea is a vital element in religion. (Iqbal, 1).

For Iqbal, it is a great mistake on the part of modern philosophy to assume that all elements of religious thought are completely devoid of cognitive elements. The modernist division between religion and science is rooted in the Enlightenment assertion that (religious) faith is devoid of all (scientific) reason/rationality. Some modernist thinkers have gone so far as to assert that Religion and religious thought are manifestations of the irrational par excellence, while scientific inquiry is most authentic and complete manifestation of rationality.[11] Iqbal challenges this assumption by noting that historically speaking religion learned to value reason/rationality long before modern science. He states:

In view of its function, religion stands in greater need of a rational foundation of its ultimate principles than even the dogmas of science. Science may ignore a rational metaphysics; indeed it has ignored it so far. Religion can hardly afford to the search for a reconciliation of the oppositions of experience and a justification of the environment in which humanity finds itself. (Iqbal, 2).

At this point Iqbal quotes Whitehead as saying “the ages of faith are the ages of rationalism”. While religious faith has historically cultivated (and been cultivated by) rationality, “to rationalize faith is not to admit the superiority of philosophy over religion”. (Iqbal, 2). This is due to the fact that;

Religion is not a departmental affair; it is neither mere thought, nor mere feeling, nor mere action. It is the expression of the whole man. Thus, in the evaluation of religion, philosophy must recognize the central position of religion and has no other alternative but to admit it as something focal in the process of reflective synthesis. (Iqbal, 2).

The real difference between science and religion is not that the one is based upon reason and rationality, while the other is completely devoid of it. For Iqbal the real difference between the two is that one primarily employs reason to study particular segments of Reality, while the other primarily employs intuition to facilitate an holistic encounter with Reality. This suggests that the relationship between reason and intuition (and by extension between science and religion) is not one of mutually exclusivity or antagonism, but rather of mutual complementarity. But this complementarity is not to be mistaken for “sameness”. While Iqbal asserts that there is a rational dimension of religious thought/faith, just as there is a rational dimension of scientific thought, he is also cautious in carefully identifying the distinguishing features of the two.[12] Iqbal notes:

Nor is there any reason to suppose that thought and intuition are essentially opposed to each other. They spring from the same root and complement each other. The one grasps Reality piecemeal, the other grasps it in its wholeness. The one fixes its gaze on the eternal, the other on the temporal aspect of Reality. The one is present enjoyment of the whole of Reality; the other aims at traversing the whole for exclusive observation. Both are in need of each other for mutual rejuvenation. Both seek visions of the same Reality which reveals itself to them in accordance with their function in life (Ibid).

At this point Iqbal affirms Bergson’s assertion that intuition is only a higher kind of intellect.

Just as it is a mistake to differentiate religion from science by asserting that one is completely divorced from rationality while the other is the perfect manifestation of rationality, it is mistake to assert that science and religion are different because one is concerned with the study of concrete experience while the other is unconcerned about it. Both religion and science are fundamentally concerned with the study of concrete experience. The difference is that higher religious thought seeks critical and careful study of a type of concrete experience that lies outside the domain of the natural and social sciences. Iqbal notes that the Qurʾān identifies the fuʾād or qalb (i.e.  the spiritual heart) as being the interpreter of sense experience and also an “organ” of perception that is the recipient of supra-sensual experience. This “organ” brings human beings into contact with a domain of experience that is not open to the sense organs, but which is nonetheless just as real and concrete as that which is experienced by the sense organs. Speaking of the fuʾād/qalb, Iqbal notes:

It is, according to the Qurʾān , something which ‘sees’, and its reports, if properly interpreted, are never false. We must not, however, regard it as a mysterious special faculty; it is rather a mode of dealing with Reality in which sensation in the physiological sense of the word, does not play any part. (Iqbal, 13).

Just because sense perception, in the ordinary sense is not involved in that which is experienced by the fuʾād /qalb does not mean that the experience of the fuʾād /qalb is any less real or concrete. Speaking of the experience of the fuʾād /qalb, Iqbal notes;

Yet the vista of experience thus opened up to us is as real and concrete as any other experience. To describe it as psychic, mystical, or supernatural does not detract from value as experience. The revealed and mystic literature of mankind bears ample testimony to the fact that religious experience has been too enduring and dominant in the history of mankind to be rejected as mere illusion. (Ibid).

Just as there is degree of similarity and difference in the role/place of rationality in religious thought and scientific thought, there is a degree of similarity and difference regarding the religious and scientific encounter with concrete experience. To assert that one is primarily concerned with concrete experience and the other disregards it, as posited by Enlightenment philosophy, is to misunderstand the issue. Iqbal sums up the matter in these terms:

Religion is not physics or chemistry seeking an explanation of Nature in terms of causation; it really aims at interpreting a totally different region of human experience– religious experience– the data of which cannot be reduced to the data of any other science. In fact, it must be said in justice to religion that it insisted on the necessity of concrete experience in religious life long before science learnt to do so. The conflict between the two is not due to the fact that one is, and the other is not, based on concrete experience. Both seek concrete experience as a point of departure. (Iqbal, 20).

To the degree that religious faith contains elements of rational thought and values critical analysis of concrete experience, it shares important characteristics with scientific thought. To overlook these similarities and assert that religious knowledge is fundamentally different from scientific knowledge is to misunderstand the issue at hand. From Iqbal’s perspective modern scientific thought ignores these similarities at its own peril. The obsession of modern science with a segmented study of the material/temporal has caused it to lose sight of the fact that the material/temporal is in fact a pointer or sign evidencing the spiritual/eternal. In failing to recognize that which the material/temporal is pointing towards, actually evidences the lack of understanding about the meaning and significance of the material/temporal. The implications of this failure are simultaneously far reaching and intimately personal. This is expressed by Iqbal in poetic verse in his poem “Zamāna-i-Ḥāḍir kā Insān” (Modern Man) in Ḍarb-i-Kalīm.

Conversely, to assert that knowledge of spiritual and religious realities can be had after turning one’s back on the material and temporal is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of spiritual and religious knowledge. Iqbal’s critique and correction of the medieval Islamic understanding of religious/spiritual knowledge is summed up in poetic verse in the poem “Sufi Sey” (To the Sufi) in Ḍarb-i-Kalīm.

A Final Word

In sum, the modern secular definition of scientific knowledge and the medieval Muslim definition of religious knowledge are both radical departures from the letter and spirit of Qurʾānic teachings. Both of these degenerate understandings of knowledge lead to the ossification of the human mind and spirit. For Iqbal, once this happens then the road is wide open to the justification and perpetuation of all sorts of injustices, corruption, and evils in the name of “science” and/or “religion”. Iqbal poignantly describes the relationship between a degenerate definition of knowledge and evil in the world in chapter five of Reconstruction. Without going into a detailed discussion of the chapter, it is sufficient in the present context to point out that the modern secular definition of scientific knowledge is a negation of the first part of the shahāda– Lā ilāha illAllah. A knowledge claim that does not see its origin in the supra-rational domain and does not see itself as a sign pointing towards the supra-rational domain implicitly (but obviously) claims the status of Godhood for itself.[13] The medieval Muslim definition of religious knowledge is a negation of the second part of the shahāda – Muhammadur rasūl Allah. Speaking of the finality of prophethood, Iqbal notes:

The intellectual value of the idea is that it tends to create an independent critical attitude towards mystic experience by generating the belief that all personal authority, claiming supernatural origin, has come to an end in the history of man (Iqbal, 101).

After Muhammad (upon him be peace) any knowledge claim put forward by any human being– even if it is a “religious” knowledge claim (actually, especially if it is a “religious” knowledge)– must be amenable to rational, logical, (i.e. “scientific”) critique. Both the individual making a “religious” knowledge claim that cannot be subjected to “scientific” critique and the individual accepting such a knowledge claim, implicitly reject the finality of Muhammad’s prophethood.

Iqbal powerfully sums up the intimate relationship between seeing, knowing and believing in the following words:

The birth of Islam…is the birth of the inductive intellect. In Islam prophecy reaches its perfection in discovering the need of its own abolition. This involves the keen perception that life cannot forever be kept in leading strings; that, in order to achieve full self-consciousness, man must finally be thrown back on his own resources. The abolition of priesthood and hereditary kingship in Islam, the constant appeal to reason and experience in the Qurʾān , and the emphasis it lays on Nature and History as sources of human knowledge, are all different aspects of the same idea of finality. Iqbal, 101).

Given what insights Iqbal has offered regarding the critique and correction of the modern understanding of scientific knowledge and the traditional understanding of religious knowledge, the following conclusion can be drawn on the issue: there can be no proper understanding (let alone practice) of the shahāda in the absence of such a correction and critique of “knowledge”.

Notes and References