Darqawi
26th January 2006, 02:13
Islam and Freedom of Opinion
By Sidi Umar Vadillo
Opinion is regarded differently in the modern world than in the Islamic Fiqh. Today, people are encouraged to have an opinion about everything. It is considered, a positive value to express your opinion, often referred as to "be yourself". Since Descartes, doubt is seen as an epistemological tool to reach the truth. Furthermore the "cogito ergo sum" places man in the supreme throne of being "the judge of his own judgements". From here knowledge embarques into a fantasy roller-coaster, of fantasy, by taking subjectivism (opinion) as the ground of truth. The discovery of the "objective" by Kant, becomes a new disguise to hide subjectivism (opinion). As Heidegger has pointed out, it did not change the ground of thinking; it simply added more conditions which ultimately fuelled further the "illusion of truth". Modern science is based on this Kantian approach. By the time you come to today's university system, the abstraction of truth is so absolute, that expressions such as "freedom of opinion" are passionately endorsed without any understanding of the metaphysical reality it represents. Metaphysical? To mention this word instantly drives their defenders into pure perplexity.
Opinion in the modern world is seen as a "right" with the same validity as the right to choose between Manchester United or Liverpool. Yet, its validity is not restricted to football. It has permeated through every domain of knowledge, including of course, religious knowledge. So, people today invoke their "right" to have their own opinion also in matters of religion. And they do so with the weight of an established worldview that is indoctrinated to them from the first time they have access to a TV set. They do not need to reach University.
In the Islamic fiqh, however, opinion is seen as a form of deviation. Everyone can choose between Manchester United or Liverpool (I choose Real Madrid, naturally), but the enquiry for truth (unlike football teams) is not based on opinion, it is based on the "abandonment of opinion". The usul al-fiqh as practiced by the four madhhabs, consists of layers and layers of methodological "elimination of opinion" in order to arrive to the judgment. The search in the fiqh is therefore not "grounded" on the enquirer (as in positive or scientific thinking) but it is "grounded" on the enquired. The enquired is the Truth. Truth is for us Absolute and Unique (unlike in science where truth is manufactured and therefore relative). The process of reaching the Truth is one of "stripping the opinion" (unveiling, in the way of the Sufis). In the realm of the fiqh (different than the realm of the tasawwuf), the search is to "encounter" the Sunnah of Rasulullah, sallallahu alaihi wa salam, as the model of living which is then applicable to us. In the realm of Tasawwuf, the search is to "encounter" the presence of Allah, as the source of knowledge itself. Whatever the realm and the method, the Islamic ground of enquiring is Truth.
Nowhere this "freedom of opinion" is more clearly manifested than in modern art, and poetry in particular. Today's poet is encouraged to express "himself", his feelings, his emotions, and his historicity. He, unlike the scientist, frees himself of the "any objective rules" of enquiry. He is the ultimate expression of "free opinion". The result is naturally absolute meaningless. If you compare that with the writing of the Sufi qasidas, the difference becomes obvious. The Sufi writes after he has strip himself of himself. He writes in the ecstasy of having abandoned his nafs, obliterated his opinion. He has erased himself from the position of being enquirer; he has erased himself all together. In this state of nothingness (fana), of total unveiling, the Truth "manifests to him" in the form of lights. The presence of Allah becomes "real". This is knowledge (marifatullah). The result is a man that after fana of himself, returns to the baqa of His Lord. He can be now be a guidance to other people. He is the ultimate expression of "having no opinion."
The Modernists start badly in their search of knowledge, because they denounce tasawwuf one way or another. One group, the dominant, argues that tasawwuf is superstition. The other group, reduces tasawwuf to the realm of the esoteric. They do this by fleeing into the past or into the future. Invariably they take tasawwuf to be concern with the "inner matters" only. They cannot conceive that of Allah is a tool for every occasion, for every situation of life. The Sufi is a Sufi in the zawiyyah and in the daily life. The idea that Sufism has no concern for politics is as mistaken as the secularist saying that "Islam has nothing to do with politics".
Without tasawwuf the next stage in the modernist thesis, is the adoption of a rationalist methodology. They are self-persuaded -and this is not to hard to imagine how it happened being educated in modern universities- by the validity of "objective thinking" as truth. They do not come close to realise that this is in all accounts what we call in fiqh an "opinion" divested from reality, grounded upon a purely subjective representation of reality. Having acquired a new method of reasoning, our modernist scholars undertake a re-reading of Islamic Law in a process they call Islamisation. What is the subject matter of their Islamisation? Nothing but modernity, its institutions and its legal practices and its formulas. These elements of modernity are understood as neutral tools of the natural process of human activity, this is what Heidegger called an anthropomorfic understanding of technology. The result is Islamic banks, Islamic State, Islamic insurance, Islamic democracy, Islamic constitution, Islamic Stock, Exchange, Islamic science, Islamic Human Rights, etc. At first glance it will appear as the noble effort to bring religion to these alien institutions, in reality is the abandonment of religion.
Only few voices dare to question science today. Its dominance is total. Its outcome is self-destruction. Only Islam can offer a way out of this suicidal way of thinking. But Islam has also been prey of such way of thinking. For as long as every opinion carries the same weight, for as long as truth is measured by the majority of votes/opinions under the universal system of democracy we do not have a chance. Islamic democrats would indeed argue the validity of their cause, and they have a vast rationale behind -the three hundred years of European scientific thinking-, yet their success is the proof of their error. People have seen Islamic democracies inaction for long enough to recognise that they are the same face of kufr that we find every where else. The same is applicable to Islamic Banks, Islamic constitutions, etc.
The solution is to return to Islam, to find our model in the practice ('amal) of the First Community -our constant defence against social corruption- and the return to tasawwuf that is the protection of Tawhid against theology, and without which we have nothing.
By Sidi Umar Vadillo
Opinion is regarded differently in the modern world than in the Islamic Fiqh. Today, people are encouraged to have an opinion about everything. It is considered, a positive value to express your opinion, often referred as to "be yourself". Since Descartes, doubt is seen as an epistemological tool to reach the truth. Furthermore the "cogito ergo sum" places man in the supreme throne of being "the judge of his own judgements". From here knowledge embarques into a fantasy roller-coaster, of fantasy, by taking subjectivism (opinion) as the ground of truth. The discovery of the "objective" by Kant, becomes a new disguise to hide subjectivism (opinion). As Heidegger has pointed out, it did not change the ground of thinking; it simply added more conditions which ultimately fuelled further the "illusion of truth". Modern science is based on this Kantian approach. By the time you come to today's university system, the abstraction of truth is so absolute, that expressions such as "freedom of opinion" are passionately endorsed without any understanding of the metaphysical reality it represents. Metaphysical? To mention this word instantly drives their defenders into pure perplexity.
Opinion in the modern world is seen as a "right" with the same validity as the right to choose between Manchester United or Liverpool. Yet, its validity is not restricted to football. It has permeated through every domain of knowledge, including of course, religious knowledge. So, people today invoke their "right" to have their own opinion also in matters of religion. And they do so with the weight of an established worldview that is indoctrinated to them from the first time they have access to a TV set. They do not need to reach University.
In the Islamic fiqh, however, opinion is seen as a form of deviation. Everyone can choose between Manchester United or Liverpool (I choose Real Madrid, naturally), but the enquiry for truth (unlike football teams) is not based on opinion, it is based on the "abandonment of opinion". The usul al-fiqh as practiced by the four madhhabs, consists of layers and layers of methodological "elimination of opinion" in order to arrive to the judgment. The search in the fiqh is therefore not "grounded" on the enquirer (as in positive or scientific thinking) but it is "grounded" on the enquired. The enquired is the Truth. Truth is for us Absolute and Unique (unlike in science where truth is manufactured and therefore relative). The process of reaching the Truth is one of "stripping the opinion" (unveiling, in the way of the Sufis). In the realm of the fiqh (different than the realm of the tasawwuf), the search is to "encounter" the Sunnah of Rasulullah, sallallahu alaihi wa salam, as the model of living which is then applicable to us. In the realm of Tasawwuf, the search is to "encounter" the presence of Allah, as the source of knowledge itself. Whatever the realm and the method, the Islamic ground of enquiring is Truth.
Nowhere this "freedom of opinion" is more clearly manifested than in modern art, and poetry in particular. Today's poet is encouraged to express "himself", his feelings, his emotions, and his historicity. He, unlike the scientist, frees himself of the "any objective rules" of enquiry. He is the ultimate expression of "free opinion". The result is naturally absolute meaningless. If you compare that with the writing of the Sufi qasidas, the difference becomes obvious. The Sufi writes after he has strip himself of himself. He writes in the ecstasy of having abandoned his nafs, obliterated his opinion. He has erased himself from the position of being enquirer; he has erased himself all together. In this state of nothingness (fana), of total unveiling, the Truth "manifests to him" in the form of lights. The presence of Allah becomes "real". This is knowledge (marifatullah). The result is a man that after fana of himself, returns to the baqa of His Lord. He can be now be a guidance to other people. He is the ultimate expression of "having no opinion."
The Modernists start badly in their search of knowledge, because they denounce tasawwuf one way or another. One group, the dominant, argues that tasawwuf is superstition. The other group, reduces tasawwuf to the realm of the esoteric. They do this by fleeing into the past or into the future. Invariably they take tasawwuf to be concern with the "inner matters" only. They cannot conceive that of Allah is a tool for every occasion, for every situation of life. The Sufi is a Sufi in the zawiyyah and in the daily life. The idea that Sufism has no concern for politics is as mistaken as the secularist saying that "Islam has nothing to do with politics".
Without tasawwuf the next stage in the modernist thesis, is the adoption of a rationalist methodology. They are self-persuaded -and this is not to hard to imagine how it happened being educated in modern universities- by the validity of "objective thinking" as truth. They do not come close to realise that this is in all accounts what we call in fiqh an "opinion" divested from reality, grounded upon a purely subjective representation of reality. Having acquired a new method of reasoning, our modernist scholars undertake a re-reading of Islamic Law in a process they call Islamisation. What is the subject matter of their Islamisation? Nothing but modernity, its institutions and its legal practices and its formulas. These elements of modernity are understood as neutral tools of the natural process of human activity, this is what Heidegger called an anthropomorfic understanding of technology. The result is Islamic banks, Islamic State, Islamic insurance, Islamic democracy, Islamic constitution, Islamic Stock, Exchange, Islamic science, Islamic Human Rights, etc. At first glance it will appear as the noble effort to bring religion to these alien institutions, in reality is the abandonment of religion.
Only few voices dare to question science today. Its dominance is total. Its outcome is self-destruction. Only Islam can offer a way out of this suicidal way of thinking. But Islam has also been prey of such way of thinking. For as long as every opinion carries the same weight, for as long as truth is measured by the majority of votes/opinions under the universal system of democracy we do not have a chance. Islamic democrats would indeed argue the validity of their cause, and they have a vast rationale behind -the three hundred years of European scientific thinking-, yet their success is the proof of their error. People have seen Islamic democracies inaction for long enough to recognise that they are the same face of kufr that we find every where else. The same is applicable to Islamic Banks, Islamic constitutions, etc.
The solution is to return to Islam, to find our model in the practice ('amal) of the First Community -our constant defence against social corruption- and the return to tasawwuf that is the protection of Tawhid against theology, and without which we have nothing.