Integration of Knowledge in Islamic Context:

Al-Raghib al-Isfahanis Theory of Justice

Introduction
Husayn b. Muhammad Al-Raghib al-Isfahani was an influential eleventh century CE philologist,
Quran savant and moral philosopher active in central Iran. We examine here Isfahanis theory of justice
based on a creative retrieval of the Greek view of justice and its integration into an Islamic context. In
comparing and contrasting the views of Aristotle and Isfahani one may appreciate how Isfahani
deconstructed Aristotle, and reconstructed his own Islamic theory of justice. It is not merely the content of
justice that concerns us, but Isfahanis method of integrating knowledge within an Islamic context. The
key questions addressed about his methodology of knowledge are: What was his attitude to knowledge?
How did he apply his reasoning to Greek ethical knowledge? By what means did he integrate Aristotles
concept of justice into his own Islamic ethical theory?

Islamization, or Integration, of Knowledge?

Proponents of the Islamization of knowledge are aware that modern knowledge is not valuefree, and that to ring about their goal of Islamization of knowledge there is need for a critical assessment
of secular modernity, which has its own conception of the self and the world, and its own epistemological
paradigm underpinning contemporary social sciences. Abdelwahab M. Elmessiri defines a paradigm as
follows: A paradigm is a mental abstract picture, an imaginary construct, and a symbolic representation
of reality results from a process of deconstruction and reconstruction. The nature of the paradigm is such
that it could reject some features of reality and keep other and rearrange them in order of priority. It could
exaggerate those elements which it deems essential and underplay other elements. A materialist economic
paradigm could exclude non-material factors, but a humanist paradigm would include other elements.
Thus, for a paradigm to be formulated it goes through a process of inclusion, exclusion, deconstruction,
reconstruction and exaggeration.
The first edition of Faruqis The Islamization of Knowledge met with great enthusiasm and wide
acceptance. The project became so popular that several institutions gave practical form to its ideas. Some
people viewed Islamization as an ideological, not merely epistemological, tool to transform culture for the
sake of attaining power. They saw it as reflecting an attitude of self-affirmation through an attempt to
label everything as Islamic and to channel everything in the state and in the society, including secular
knowledge. I am sure this was not the original intention of the pioneers of Islamization, but their
followers have misunderstood and it thought that Islamization meant adding Islamic terminology, Islamic
sentiments, and relevant Quranic verses to the modern social sciences. This is not how knowledge
achieves integration within an Islamic context.
The aim of Islamization was to produce Islamic textbooks in all of the social sciences. In practice,
we have not seen high quality books in these disciplines. One explanation is that the Islamization work
plan was conceptually flawed. It made the mastery of the modern discipline the first step in the

Islamization work plan, and the mastery of the Islamic legacy was given secondary importance. The
intention may have been good, but cosmetic Islamic changes do not constitute proper Islamization of
knowledge, which must arise out of an Islamic paradigm inspired by the rich Islamic intellectual-spiritual
heritage.
We prefer not to use the term Islamization as it is misleading and does not capture the spirit of
the classical scholars, who were not blind followers of Greek knowledge but creatively adapted
knowledge to suit their Islamic cultural and intellectual context. Their integration of new knowledge
involved embracing parts of the new knowledge and filtering out other parts. They appropriated what was
useful for the Islamic context. This is how they enriched Islamic thinking, bringing it up to date with
prevailing knowledge. Islam for them was not only a religion, but a civilization. They were receptive to
all branches of knowledge that were conducive to building their Islamic civilization.
Certain contemporary scholars are critical of the Islamization project for various reasons.
Conservative scholars reject it entirely, and hold the view that human reasoning a nd worldly ideologies
should not dictate the meaning of the Quran. Our proper religious attitude shoul be to submit to God and
allow revelation to guide us. Human effort plays a role, but this is the prerogative of qualified ulama
alone. These ulama believe that the classical authorities and interpreters produced a body of Islamic
knowledge adequate for us today. The shortcoming in this view is that it limits the role of reason and it is
based on a simplistic understanding of the challenges of secular modernity. It is a view that assumes that
all knowledge is contained in the Quran, and there is no need to turn to foreign source of knowledge.
Furthermore, the social sciences are human innovations, and cannot be used to deepen our understanding
of the Quran. On justice, they hold it is all embedded in the Quran and elaborated upon in the legal
schools (madhhabs), and therefore consulting foreign source of knowledge amounts to disrespect for the
Quran and the classical commentators. This aversion toward foreign influence advocated by extreme
conservative scholars is not a trend to be promoted because knowledge should be accepted on the basis of
its intrinsic value, regardless of the source from which it originates. The Quran encourages the pursuit of
knowledge, and does not forbid the use of non-Islamic sources. We are to accept truth regardless of the
religious persuasion of the person conveying it to us, for the truth remains he truth regardless of the guise
it appears in. such a restrictive attitude, no matter how noble in intent, narrows the field of the acceptable
knowledge for a Muslim, which inevitably produces a narrow-minded society that is intellectually
impoverished and incapable of offering an adequate response to our contemporary scene.
There are, however, other contemporary scholars who are more open to knowledge and accepting
of Islamization in principle, but disapprove of the current attempts at Islamization. Some of them argue
that contemporary Islamization is not critical enough of the Western social sciences. Others believe that it
is not critical enough of the Islamic sciences. The British Muslim Anthropology Merryl Wyn Davies is
disparaging of Western anthropology which she considers to be intrinsic to the Western worldview. For
her, Muslim would have to rediscover their own authentic thought about society, which has been
suppressed by the dominant European paradigm for centuries. The Turkish sociologist Recep Sentrunk
deems the Islamic science of fiqh to be a viable alternative to the Western social sciences paradigm. He
holds that it is not a question of who is more correct, but more a question of two different value systems.
For example, interest is considered useful in capitalist market economy yet harmful in an Islamic
economy. Thus, faithful to their values and worldview, Muslims have to think differently from the
perspective that has emerged from Europe globally. The Pakistani-American scholar Fazlur Rahman

accepted the notion of Islamization, but his starting point was a critique of the Islamic sciences. Not
everything in Islams historic legacy accords with the Qurans teaching of justice. In his Islam and
Modernity he advocated the reconstruction of the Islamic sciences.
The shaping of a veritable Islamic social science will require a point of departure that is rooted
in the Islamic value system and in Islams intellectual, ethical and spiritual legacy. Once one restores an
Islamic context that is rooted in Islamic paradigm, one may confidently appropriate knowledge and
employ methods drawn from secular modernity, without compromising ones values of faith. If interest is
prohibited in Islam, Muslim economist could find a way of avoiding it. If psychoanalysis has utility,
Muslim psychologists should find a way to use it. If Freud introduced psychoanalytic therapy, we may
exploit it without being obliged to accept his theories on the human person and view of human nature.
What works best for the welfare of Muslim society should be exploited, wherever it comes from.
Modernist Muslim scholars tend to focus more on the central themes and moral objectives of the
Quran. F. Rahman and Khaled Abou El Fadl uphold the view that specific rulings in the Quran are not
objectives in themselves, but are contingent upon definite historical circumstances. Specific ruling were
meant to convey quintessential Islamic moral objectives of justice, mercy and benevolence. Both these
thinkers maintain that puritanical Muslims tend to confuse such rulings with the essential inner objectives,
and since they think that the rulings are inflexible unchanging models, they do not comprehend the
essential objectives. Thus, they seek to implement rules as ends in themselves, and do not consider
whether such rules actually enhance Quranic principles of justice, equity and benevolence. Divine
guidance must transcend historically conditioned interests of the moment.
As a more adequate alternative to the Islamization of knowledge, we are proposing the
integration of knowledge within an Islamic context. The term Islamization gives the impression that
knowledge must be changed, that it must be made more Islamic. The truth is we cannot change
knowledge; but we may transform the secular epistemic paradigm which informs contemporary
knowledge. A process of integrating knowledge within an Islamic context would have to involve the
following changes:

Certain elements of new knowledge disciplines will be included in the integration process;
Selected methods and techniques drawn from new knowledges having utility and applicability in
our societies will be integrated;
The secular paradigm will be replaced by an Islamic paradigm elaborated from our understanding
of human nature and creation;
Secular concepts and terms are replaced or expanded by faith-based conceptions and terms
mediating our own values & concerns.
Critical discernment is crucial when adopting selected components and substituting or transforming
others. For example, human law might be expanded by divine intent, gods may be replaced by One God,
and worldly happiness could be extended to otherworldly happiness.
Modern social scientific methods may be employed to study Islamic societies, especially the
social manifestations of Muslim institutions, governance, economies and education. This will not affect
Islamic belief. This will not, however, be useful in understanding transcendent phenomenon (al-ghayb-the
unseen). Muslim scholars have to be receptive to new ideas, methods and techniques even if they reach us
from an external source. As we stated, if psychoanalysis is effective as a therapeutic techniques, it could
be employed by a Muslim psychologist. Thus, our critique of the ideological role of the social sciences

need not be a reason for negating the accumulation of positive knowledge from the modern social
sciences, nor from physical sciences and technology.
Philosophical reasoning has generally been neglected by the Islamic intellectual tradition in Arab
societies since the thirteenth century CE. [It was, of course, actively cultivated up until the nineteenth
century in eastern non-Arab Muslim societies. KC] There is a need to retrieve the earlier tradition and to
encourage the revival of the philosophic spirit of inquiry and realized intelligence for our time. Muslims
today need to extract examples from their legacy, learning lessons from their methodology of integrative
knowledge. It should be borne in mind that Islamic historical experience was once powerful with
Muslims part of Islamic empires. While in the past Europe was viewed as the other, at intellectual and
cultural levels there was cross-fertilization of ideas.
There is nothing to fear from integrating knowledge from an external source in an Islamic
context, textual or practical, provided one acknowledges the source of those ideas and screens them from
their original value-laden contexts. Problem often arise when later generations assume it was originally an
Islamic idea or development. Certain Greek ideas have become axiomatic in normative Islamic thought
such as the concept of man as microcosm of the world, or the Platonic tripartite division of the soul. If we
can distinguish factual knowledge from its philosophic context, we shall be able to integrate knowledge
into any other context. Thus, our proposed integration of knowledge within an Islamic context
acknowledges that other contexts also exist-Christian, Hindu, or other religious and cultural contexts. This
approach to knowledge would allow for greater tolerance and benefit a plurality of communities.
How may we accommodate epistemological pluralism in a multicultural society when we seek to
monopolize knowledge and impose Islamic categories on them? The current project for Islamization of
knowledge is doing precisely that. In the present global climate of pluralist cultural diversity we should
learn to respect knowledge within its specific historically elaborated contexts s it is embedded in a
multiplicity of cultures and ways of living, even if the values embedded in these original context differs
from our own specific privileged culture. This does not mean that we should not disagree with the values
contained in the original context. Muslim may integrate beneficial knowledge into their own specific
cultural context. Other communities may do the same within their own context, be it Chinese, Indian or
African. The integration of knowledge does not require that Islam imposes itself; it means that thinkers
and practitioners should critically assess new knowledge, distinguishing factual content from its
ideological value-laden context and extract what is adequate and beneficial for human needs, filtering out
what is harmful or incongruent with ones own value context. Integration of knowledge within an Islamic
context implies enhancing reconstructed Islamic sciences and bringing them up to date with our present
time.
Isfahani had first to deconstructed Greek knowledge to separate the knowledge he needed from
its value context, and then to integrate this beneficial knowledge into his own Islamic framework.
This required a critical assessment of such foreign knowledge before its integration could be
effected within an Islamic context-which includes the Islamic intellectual disciplines of the time, the
Islamic cultural setting of his period, and the Muslim lands where such new knowledge would be
applied. In other words, the foreign knowledge he appropriated had to be domesticated and
acculturated to specific requirements of his own Islamic culture, faith and worldview. It needed to be
de-constructed, then again re-constructed, to become conducive for assimilation into his Islamic
cultural worldview. This in fact represents the process of creative cultural transformation.
Contemporary Islamization is a response to secular modernity, but it is not inspired by classical
models of knowledge integration with philosophic minds such as al-Kindi, Ibn Sina, al-Farabi, and al-

Isfahani. These creative thinkers were receptive to Hellenic knowledge; they borrowed specific Greek
ideas that exhibited an affinity and innate conjunction with essential Islamic teachings and values,
integrating them into an authentic Islamic worldview. Al-Ghazali was critical of the early Islamic
philosophers, not so much because they borrowed from Greek knowledge (he did this himself more than
is generally realized), but because in their attempt at knowledge integration he deemed they had
compromised Islamic doctrine. Al-Ghazali was inspired by Isfahanis approach to the integration of
Hellenic knowledge within an Islamic religious context.
Isfahani studied Aristotle, rejected his view of a detached impersonal God and assimilated what
was useful for Islamic ethical theory. He integrated components of Aristotelian ethics within an Islamic
perspective, thereby enriching Islamic thought and experience. We will expound Isfahanis theory of
justice, demonstrating how he appropriated Aristotelian ideas while placing these ideas in an Islamic
framework. Before doing so we wish to introduce Islamic philosophical ethics and the views of several
Muslim scholars on justice.
Philosophic Ethics and Contemporary Approaches to Justice
Much Greek ethical thought filtered trough to Muslim thinkers via Miskawayh, who wrote in
Arabic not Greek. Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics was available in Arabic translation by Hunayn Ibn
Ishaq. Isfahani used Greek sources in Arabic translation, and was also inspired by the falsafah tradition
that began with al-Kindi, who was receptive to knowledge from alien sources. As a sequel to Miskawayh,
Isfahani also wrote his own treatise on virtue ethics. The difference is that Isfahani placed his ethics much
more within an Islamic context by his employing far more Islamic concepts, terms and Quranic proof
texts. The overtly sincere religious style of this ethical treatise does not diminish the humanistic character
of his ethics.
Reason and free will are essential elements of Isfahanis ethics, and both feature prominently
throughout his major ethical treatise, Expedients Means to the Noble Character Traits of the Divine Law.
Although Islamic humanism recognizes reason as an internal source of knowledge, it also recognizes
divine revelation as an external source of knowledge. Isfahani was receptive to the accumulated
knowledge of his time, and so integrated Aristotles categories of justice into an Islamic context. He was
attracted to Aristotles concept of justice, which was suitable for the Greek city-state, where political
communities lived in a spirit of interdependence. He saw in Aristotle a workable form of justice for the
city-states of the Islamic empire.
Contemporary scholars of Islamic law are also receptive to new ideas, and acknowledge reason as
a source of knowledge. The Quran, however, provides the framework of justice, and the details are to be
worked out by human reason. This view is supported by thinkers including Hasyim Kamali, Fazlur
Rahman and Yusuf al-Qardawi.
For Fazlur Rahman, justice is a primary objective of the Quran, and cannot be separated from the
law. The law should be guided by ethics. Rahman adopts a more liberal approach to the Quran; he prefer
the spirit of the text, not its literal meaning. The spirit for him implies primarily the notion of human
rights and human justice. He supports the view that we should be open to the broad principles of the
Quran, and work out the details through reason. He tries to avoid both the ossified views of the
traditional ulama and the dangers of modern secularism. He does not reject Islamization in principle, but

holds the view that Muslim scholars should be equally critical of the Islamic legacy as they are of secular
modernity.
Hasyim Kamali holds that justice has its principles enshrined in the Quran, but its details are left
to reason, to ijtihad. This ijtihad is laudable, even if the outcome is incorrect. There should be no fear of
making an error because ones verdict is not binding on the community unless it has gained the consensus
of the Muslim jurists (ijma). The early scholars had the courage to pursue knowledge, even if it came
from a foreign source.
Justice is a universal concern because social injustice is always prevalent in society. Justice is
connected to equality. The shariah stands for the equality of human dignity as implied in the pure innate
nature (fitrah) of all humans. Humans are equal members of the society according to Gods decree; All
believers are but brethren (Q 49:10). Hence, they should be treated equally, and be accorded equal rights,
including the right to protection of property, life and progeny. Equality is an expression of justice, and it is
asserted in the Quran, (Q 4:135). Yet the Quran also recognizes variation among individuals. For
example, it states that those who fight in Gods cause are superior in rank to those who do not (Q 57:10).
Thus, the rule is that all humans are equal, but they are treated unequally in accordance to their striving
and attainment. The more pious will earn more rewards; but this is for God to judge, not the courts.
Justice in relation to merit does not imply numerical equality, but equity. Justice is an expression of the
law, and the ruling of Islamic jurists. Kamali holds that justice as a principle is contained in the Quran,
but states that the path to justice can be sought from outside the revealed law: The path to justice is for
the most part shown and regulated by the revealed law, but since justice is an overriding objective, the
quest toward it is not confined only to justice under the rule of the law, but should be pursued at all levels,
within or outside the existing law.
Like Kamali, Yusuf al-Qardawi holds that the Quran provides the general principles of justice,
and the details are to be worked out through reason. If the routes to justice are in keeping with the
overriding principle of justice in the Quran, the there should be no conflict with the Shariah. Qardawi
states:
[It is] partly left to the understanding of the people, their interpretation and ijtihad, to determine the precise
manner of enforcing the commands and prohibitions of Shariah on justice. God Most high has demanded
justice but has not specified the route that leads to it or the means by which it can be obtained, nor did He
declare invalid any particular means or method that can lead to justice.

These three contemporary scholars reflect the open-mindedness of the classical philosophers. They would
agree with Isfahani that the main principle of justice should emanate from the Quran, and that the details
of justice should be worked out by human reason.

Justice with Aristotle

Of all the moral virtues Aristotle gives special attention to the virtue of justice. It occupies the whole of
Book V of his Nicomachean Ethics, where justice is described as a virtue of character exemplifying the
doctrine of the mean. For Aristotle, justice is complete excellence or virtue because he who possesses it
can exercise his excellence towards others too and not only himself. If excellence relates to the agent

only, it is excellence of character; and if it relates to others, it is justice. Justice is therefore a virtue of
character when it pertains to the individual virtues, and in its comprehensive sense, it will also include
ones relation with others. Justice refers to the moral state of the person, which makes him just both in his
action and his intention.
Justice is what a just person does; yet it is possible for a just person to commit an unjust act such as
adultery. This may be understood by means of the distinction he makes between individual justice (as it
relates to the soul) and social justice (as t refers to the justice of others). In his Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle discusses the subject of social justice at great length and separates it from his treatment of
individual justice. The justice that pertains to others is the justice of the law or legal justice. Justice is
conceived here as a legal quality not a moral virtue. Legal justice here should be viewed within the
framework of political justice. Aristotle makes the distinction between political justice that is based on
nature and that which is based on convention. The former kind is based on natural justice and is universal
and the latter kind is based on humanly reasoned justice that is particular, and contingent upon changing
customs and circumstances.
His discussion of distributive and rectificatory justice falls within the broad framework of
conventional political justice. In his Politics he brings in the notion of transcendent justice by which the
laws of particular states are measured. It is therefore possible for a conventional law to be unjust. But his
central concern here is political justice in the conventional sense, and his institutional framework for
justice is that of a city-state. In Book V of Ethics he discusses justice as a virtue of individual character,
yet he also deals with the kinds of justice that can operate within institutions. That is, he deals with
institutional justice in chapter 3 and 4, and it is here where he treats the subject of distributive and
rectificatory justice. Aristotle examines justice as a moral virtue separately.
Distributive justice is concerned with ensuring a proper distribution of honour and wealth among
citizens according to merit, while rectificatory justice is concerned with restoring fair shares in a situation
of unfairness, dealing with individual transactions. While keeping his discussion of particular justice
separate in his Ethics, Aristotle reminds us that justice is an expression of the Mean, whether exemplified
in just persons or in patterns of just distribution in institutions. We observe a clear connection between
individual ethics and social justice, when he states in the Politics:
If it is well said in the Ethics that the happy life is the life according to virtue which is unhindered, and that
virtue is a mean, then necessarily the best life is the mean life, namely, achieving the mean which is in each
kind of person. These same definitions necessarily hold of virtue and badness of the state and constitution;
for a constitution is a sort of life of the state.

Quranic Hermeneutics and Overcoming

The Split Consciousness of Muslim

Text by themselves are silent; they become socially relevant through their enunciation, through citation,
through acts of reading, reference, and interpretation. This quotation delineates the normative approach
of Muslim interpreters of the Quran and hadith in the history of Islam.

Dilemmas of Split Consciousness

There were certain exceptions, such as the Khawarij who approached the Quran as a text not
calling for any interpretation. For these early schismatics the Quran is a self-interpreting text in the sense
that it does not require any historical mediation for conveying relevant meaning into a new historical
condition. Hence, the words of the Quran are absolutethere is no inter-textual relation between the
Quran and other oral or written texts. Scriptures reveals its meaning within the words God has employed,
and is not in need of human linguistic-conceptual unpacking.
We may witness a different form of this sharp distinction between Divine words and human words,
in the Zahirite juridical school. According to this legal school the Quran is Gods finalized, completed,
and sufficient address to humanity. It is a finalized scripture in that its words are already filled with a final
meaning: there is no empty space within the words to be organized or manipulated by human interests and
desires. The Zahirite school of jurisprudence is distinguished from the Khawarij in holding that we can
grasp the already realized and completed meaning of the Quran within the lived historical context of the
Prophet Muhammad a nd his Companions. Hence for them the relevance of the Quran lies in its
application to this historical context. The more we are conscious of this primary historical period, the
better we apprehend the intent or meaning of Divine words. Inferential reasoning or rational analogy does
not possess a proper and legitimate basis for producing a meaning on behalf of God, so as to make the
Quran relevant to our own condition. Accordingly, Zahirite jurists assumed that what is ordered and
prohibited by God through His revelation are applicable to any historical condition in their literal meaning
(e.g. toleration of slavery). We cannot build up religious meaning by interpreting sacred texts within the
horizons opened up by ever-changing historical conditions.
In contrast to the Khawari, the Zahirite jurists took historical consciousness about the Prophets era
to be an integral part of religious meaning. Thus, literal meaning of sacred texts represents not only the
fusion between the historical horizons of the Prophet and the meaning of the Quran, but also the
separation of this horizon from other historical periods. Let us remember that the Zahirite law rite was
born as a reaction to the existing responses by other schools of interpretation to the following key
questions: What is the relevance of the Quran to ever-changing historical contexts? What is the basis for
relating the sacred texts of Islam to new condition? Both Khawarij and Zahirite doctrines charged the
other schools of interpretation with inserting human interests, desires and fanciful imagination into the
Divine meaning of revelation and hence contaminating its timelessly pure sense.
Even if the Khawarij and Zahirite movements failed to have a transformative effect on the general
course of Islamic history and always remained marginal, their sharp criticism leveled against the notion of
interpretation represented the deepest fear of Muslims concerning the question, What is the relevance

of the Quran to ever-changing historical contexts? This fear discloses the perplexed consciousness of
Muslims in regard to aporias dilemmas disclosed by this question itself.
These aporias or dilemmas may be put as follows: If the Quran and Prophetic tradition (kitab and
sunnah & hadith) have revealed everything on religious subject-matters and hence fulfilled their tasks,
should we take interpretation to be a purely human activity deprived of any religious value or place
(namely, a reprehensible innovation, bidah)? Conversely, if interpretation is permitted and even called
for by religious texts, how is it possible to disclose and preserve pure Divine meaning? Moreover, how
can we claim that Islam is the final sufficient revelation from God if human interpretation necessarily
increases, disseminates, and thus humanizes religious meaning from multiple and sometimes opposing
perspectives?
If the well-known claim attributed to Ali, the fourth Caliph, that the Quran is silent in itself,
human beings make it speak to us is correct, than should we assume that Divine meaning has a relevance
to our condition as long as it is humanized by the medium created by human to make it speak? In this
context, how is it possible to apprehend the intent or higher meaning (maqsid, qasd) of God with
reference to religious texts? It is easily perceived that these aporias or dilemmas disclose, at a deeper
level, a form of Muslim split consciousness between metaphysics and history, faith and reason,
divine and human, Divine-intent meaning and human meaning, real and fiction, authenticand
inauthentic, past and present, universal and particular, trans-historical and historical, or
traditional and modern.

Jurists Nature and Value

Throughout Islamic history the majority of Quranic exegetes, theoreticians of Islamic
jurisprudence, speculative theologians, and partially also the mystics (Sufis) and philosophers strove for a
solution to the above dilemmas from differing angels. We may admit that historically they were relatively
successful with reference to the so-called Golden Age of Islam or the Islamic Renaissance of the
Medieval Age. However, we may also assert they were historically successful not by means of their
discovery of any middle point or medium between the divided horizons of meaning fostered and
represented by the above polarities of conceptions, but rather in terms of subsuming the conceptions of
one side under the shadow of the other side within the general metaphysical spirit of their age.
For instance, the traditional methodology of Muslim interpreters (mufassirun) of the Quran,
namely their so-called atomistic (verse by verse) procedure of scripture interpretation, essentially
reflects the educational character of the metaphysical spirit of their age. Put differently, this atomistic
procedure of interpretation presupposes that God (Allah) is the first and highest teacher for all humanity.
Thus Gods revelation of the Quran verse by verse has a pedagogical and educational purpose for
humans. In this context, interpreting the Quran verse by verse is also part of the realization of this
educational activity.
In this manner knowledge gains its value by serving and supporting a transformative education of
faith. In other words, knowledge can have a religious value as long as it can be applied to the Quran as
an interpretive activity. Gods Word or Speech (the Quran) possesses intrinsic value, and thereby is

relevant to every human condition as a word. Other types of knowledge gains their relevance with
reference to, or as the particular application of, the Divine word. So tafsir or interpretative exegesis is a
type of mirror image of the light of Divine truth emanating within the Word of God (kalam Allah)
unfolding ultimately as tawil or interior exegesis operating a re-immersion within the Divine intent
meaning.
The theory of the sources of Islamic jurisprudence (ushul al-fiqh) that forms one of the most
refined and developed theories of interpretation in Muslim thought has determined its own structure so as
to differentiate the intent meaning by the Shari or law-maker (God and His Messenger Muhammad) from
human interpretation based on it. We may restate this by asserting that juridical theoreticians gave priority
to what is essential (trans-historical), metaphysical, divine, etc. in preference to what is changeable,
historical, mundane, etc. Such privileging itself reflects the general spirit of hierarchical metaphysics and
cosmology of the medieval period.
This metaphysics and cosmology takes everything in the universe into consideration according to
its nature (tabiah). The nature of a thing determines its position or place within universal order. What
is pure, intellectual, spiritual, transparent, or metaphysical by nature has a higher position and value than
what is material, opaque, temporal, impure (mixed), and physical. Thereby, what is lower should be
judged, evaluated, corrected, and guided by what is higher by nature.
It was from within this framing perspective that the methodological theory of Islamic jurisprudence
organized the scale of Islamic ethical and legal values in a vertical order beginning with what is the purest
(fard or wajib, most desired and commanded by God) moving down to what is half-heartedly allowed
(makruh). This upper scale is followed by things and actions disapprove of, and finally those prohibited
(haram). Nevertheless, the nature of anything was determined predominantly by the cultural traditions
and cultural consciousness prevailing in the medieval periods. Thus, even if the notion of nature on the
one hand played a very significant role in the historical formation of the scale of values among Muslims,
on the other hand this notion was essentially shaped and transformed by the cultural imagination of
traditions.
This circular relation between the notions of values and nature partially explains how peoples of
the medieval eras were successful in solving the aforementioned dilemmas. When Muslim jurists
attempted to express the relevance of the Quran to their own times they did not face an unsurpassable
barrier simply because their methodology of interpretation already reflected in itself the general cultural
consciousness of the relevant nature of things to be judged by Divine decision ( hukm,ruling). As a
procedure grounded on practical, contextual, and legal interpretation o sacred texts, Islamic jurisprudence
conceived of itself as subsuming history within a metaphysic of faith, the particular under the universal,
human meaning enfolded inside Divine meaning.sss
Even while Muslim jurists generally agreed on the principle with the change of time, practical
legal rulings may also change, they primarily desired to replace outdated obsolete legal decisions with
fresh ones so that the historical process might be redirected once again towards the Divinely intended
meaning. In other words, for the Muslim jurists history was not a realm or course of reality separating us
from and resisting revelation; rather the historical distance between us and revelation allows us to replace
our outdated legal decisions with fresh ones applicable to new conditions in a subsequent historical age.

From this vantage point, Muslim jurist presupposed that Quranic teaching and Divine ordinance
(hukm) are properly to be aimed at, provided their hierarchical methodology of interpretation was
correctly applied. This clearly subsumes historical consciousness under methodological consciousness,
with the latter shaped by their prevailing cultural traditions their split consciousness encompassing this
pair of conceptions (value and nature) did not produce a cultural disaster thanks to the inherent
elasticity or imaginative character of the notion of nature as a formative conception of their
cosmological order. For these juridical theorists historical distance, or the gulf between the time of
revelation and ours, may be surpassed by virtue of the very nature of things understood as determined by
God and therefore invariably reflected within human methodological consciousness. To state this with
more clarity: for Muslim jurists the Quran maintains a universal relevance to every human historical and
immaterial condition thanks to the rationally attainable correspondence between the inherent sapientially
ordered nature of things and Divine hukm (wise ordinance).

Rationalists & Mystics

The modes of interpretation cultivated by Muslim theologians appear to be another (for some
observers, perhaps an earlier) version of this juridical methodology. The mutakallimun build their theories
on the perceived intrinsic correspondence between the innate nature of the pure human constitution
(fitrah) with the inborn faculty of intelligence or reason (aql) and the Divine word. Hence their basic
purpose is to demonstrate that undistorted human consciousness (unspoilt fitrah) apprehends the Divine
word (Quran) as the most instinctively acceptable and persuasively applicable to human life. This is to
say that the relevance of the Quran may be apprehended by the light of the natural inborn human mind
(innate reason). If human beings can surpass their dominant cultural and historically-bound prejudgments
which hinder them from accepting reasonable faith, then they have the possibility of finding themselves at
the threshold of the Divine word.
Thanks to putting a central emphasis on the notion of fitrah pure nature of human mind,
original innocence of human being Muslim theologians grasped the notion of history virtually in a
negative sense. History, in their view, seems to be the site f creation of false beliefs and prejudgments
contaminating unspoilt human reason (fitrah). From this perspective, we are helped to understand why
Islamic theology remained a speculative discourse which understood itself as a trans-historical reflection
of pure human nature within religious language (kalam).
We now turn our gaze to the mystics and philosophers in order to view the full contours of
Muslim split consciousness in medieval times. For mystics, the historical gap between revelation and us
can be overcome solely by relating our beings to the inner meaning of the Divine word. Only spiritual
experience of Divine reality as exposing our beings to Divine will and power can enable us to grasp the
essential relevance of revelation to our own conditions. Thus, our facing toward the word of God in the
act of reciting the Quran represents merely a surface level of understanding.
However, for the mystics religious meaning is not something to be confined to or grasped within
the confines of mind alone. Rather, the conceptions of mind and of the word of God are merely a prelude
for transformative activity of meaning. Religious meaning befalls us as an event transforming us from one
condition to another (hal). Like the theologians, mystics also understand original innate human nature as

the necessary condition for spiritual experience of God. Nevertheless, they differ from theologians in
asserting that primal human nature cannot be reflected within the speculative discourse of theological
doctrine; rather, human experience and actions are the locus for the illumination of Divine truth cast into
the bosom of human nature.
Muslim philosophers (falasifah) represent a distinctive approach to revelation by giving the
notion of aql (reason, intellect) a central place in their systems. At this point we should note that they
almost conflated the notion of aql with intellectual experience of Being. For them, formal logic,
syllogism, rational discourse, and calculative or discursive mentation serve merely as a preludes for the
intellectual experience of Being. This experience possesses a special nature whereby the truth of Being is
stripped of all of its material and temporal conditions. Hence, intellectually experiencing Being by a
metaphysic-truth-event represents an elevated mode of relation between God and the human. In their
understanding, this type of transcendent philosophic experience is of the highest value since it involves
both the temporal completion (kamal) of the human being within the confines of this material life, as well
as achieving the higher purpose of true religion. Muslim philosophers historicized the literal sense of
divine word and accepted the locality of Quranic metaphors and symbols. This was the result of their
claim to universality. Philosophic truth as the experience of a pure apprehension of Being constitutes a
universal criterion by means of which all else is seen to be historical, temporal, local, and changeable
including religious metaphors. Clearly they did not see Islam and the Quran as an outdated religion and
texts for their own age. Rather, they saw that philosophy is the only mode of thinking able to strip the
essential truth of religion from its historical and local appearance.
Within their perspective, the essential character or relevance of the Quran lies in its indicative
activity. Religious texts do not tell or show the truth in itself-but they hint, indicate, and point to it.
Thus, we may better appreciate that philosophers placed religious texts within the material and historical
(horizontal) order of the universe. They accepted that they could surpass an horizontal understanding of
religion in terms of a vertical (metaphysical) understanding of philosophy. In this manner they subsumed
historical consciousness under metaphysical consciousness. From this viewpoint, Quranic metaphors (if
taken as literal meaning) are mainly relevant for the political purpose of rulers for guiding the mass of
people. Yet symbolic revealed language also conveys something of philosophical truth for the keen finely
perceptive minds.

Coming back to our new world

This general unfolding of Muslim consciousness was exposed to a new historical experience and
given a different direction with the rise of European civilization and the global spread of modernity. The
so-called meta-narrative of Muslims as the metaphysical and hierarchical spirit of medieval era was
deconstructed into its historical contexts. With the appearance of the modern scientific-positivisthistoricist consciousness within Muslim societies, the long serving medieval meta-narrative gradually
revealed itself now in the guise of fragments (sub-narratives) reflecting various historical imaginations.
Not surprisingly for most Muslim this was experienced as a type of cultural disaster, since this course of
deconstruction shifted Muslim consciousness from the vertical (metaphysical) mode of thought toward
the horizontal (historical) way of thinking-a flattening down process still underway.

As the result of these developments over the past two centuries, the concepts of history appeared
as a radically new phenomenon. History was no longer merely a course of time to be oriented by
metaphysical thought. Rather it was taken as the venue for creation of metaphysical, mythic and cultural
knowledge and beliefs. Thereby the very notion of meaning acquired a new signification from the
viewpoint of historical consciousness. While meaning was taken chiefly as something given by Divine
will and acquired by human intellect in the prevailing epistemology and metaphysics of the medieval
era, it now began to be grasped as the result of human imaginative, constructive, scientific and historical
endeavor-joined with the beliefs in historical progress. In tandem with these notions, there arose another
new conception: tradition.
In olden times Muslims generally employed the notions madhhab (school of thought &
doctrine), tariqah (way, order) or qawl (statement, authoritative opinion) to signify historically
transmitted knowledge and teachings. As far as I can see, there was no conception parallel to tradition as
an umbrella notion embracing the whole of cumulative knowledge handed down from the past. Such a
concept of tradition constitutes a distinct watershed between pre-modern times and modernity-and
directly points to the split consciousness of Muslims in the modern era. Thanks to this concept of
tradition, the conception of modern history as a new phenomenon may appear as paradoxical to Muslims,
given that it both establishes a nexus and a dividing point between contemporary Muslims and their pasts
(including the event and content of revelation). From out overview of late-modernity, the medieval metanarrative represents an imaginative construction concealing the split condition of consciousness from
consciousness itself. Nowadays, modern Muslim consciousness or mentality has no metaphysical shelter
serving as the locus of naked universal truth.
This explains why the variety of revivalist, Islamist, fundamentalist, traditionalist, modernist,
progressive, historicist, and even neo-mystical movements in modern Islamic world are actually recent
manifestations of a shifted or split consciousness among Muslims. In actuality they represent differing
ways of returning to the sacred scripture of Islam or coming back to our new world, and appear as
efforts to overcome the problem of split or shifted modern consciousness. All of these movements in one
way or another are aware that the problem of the relevance of the Quran to our contemporary world
cannot be solved without overcoming the dilemma of split consciousness.
This split or dividedness discloses itself mostly with the separation of faith from knowledge:
modern knowledge resists endeavors which aim at making it constitutive, or at least auxiliary, part of
Islamic faith or belief (religion meaning & values). Islamic faith, understood from the view of the
historical context of the prophet Muhammad and the early Islamic community, is now seen to be an
anachronism or an exotic member of modern knowledge due to its heavily symbolic culturally-embedded
character. for that reason, the projects of Islamization of knowledge and of modernization or
reformation of Islamic doctrines and practices have encountered the same problem: the language of faith
and the language of (rational scientific) modern knowledge take us to seemingly incompatible horizons of
meaning incapable of constituting a common harmonized world.