ARAB-MUSLIM THINKERS AND PHILOSPHERS

Arab- Muslim intellectualism is alive.


Why are Muslim writers, academics and intellectuals always lamenting about the absence of Arab and Muslim intellectuals?
They make a passing reference to the glorious past of our heritage pointing out the stunning contributions made by Arab/Muslim thinkers, writers, poets and philosophers and then woefully go on to paint a very bleak picture of Ummah’s intellectual bankruptcy .

Why do they not deep dig into Islamic history to look and search objectively for names that by their knowledge wisdom, intellect, education and thinking are still held in high esteem and are regularly mentioned in intellectual and academic circles in the West

Why is that their search for Arab/Muslim thinkers, intellectuals, philosophers and social scientists begins with Ibn Sina, Al Razi, Mohammed Abdu, Jamalluddin Afghani, Hasan Al Banna, Syed Qutub and ends with Iqbal and Azad.

Why do they tend to ignore contemporary intellectuals of the Arab/ Muslim world. Why is that they do not mention Mohammed Arkoun, the
outstanding Algerian Islamic scholar who died in 2009. His theory of "Applied Islamology" a scientific discourse on Islamic heritage employing western academic tools of epistemology and psychoanalysis is a much debated work in intellectual circles.

The Moroccan thinker Mohammed Abed Al Jabri, who also died in 2009, leaving behind a rich legacy of knowledge. His much applauded and appreciated work, "Naqhad al Aqhl al Arabi,” (Critique of the Arab Mind ) dealing with the constitutional, political and ethical stages of Arab character and rationality in context of Hellenistic and Renaissance doctrines. His argument that that main contours of Islamic knowledge did not shape during the seventh century, but were formed as Islam spread over vast lands and began interaction with people and cultures alien to it.
His explanation of the three distinct forms of Islamic knowledge each of which had its own particular way of interacting with the religion of Islam was based on three theories of Al Bayan-drawing from the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet. Al Irfan or mystical knowledge that draws from spirituality related with esoteric streams of Islam like Sufism etc and the third, knowledge derived from observation and empirical evidences called Al Burhan( proof)
Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, the Egyptian scholar who died in 2009 was another great thinker-philosopher of the Arab/Muslim world.

Apparently the year 2009 was jinxed and proved tragic for the Islamic intellectualism .These men who are no more and as the trend goes will be forgotten, have contributed greatly in generating a healthy debates on issues in the Arab/Muslim world that were taboo or under-debated. These were giants of the Arab/Muslim intellectual world, they posited issues, providing in their own thinking the need for renovation of Islamic thoughts to match the needs of the hour.
Yes, some of the names i have mentioned were controversial personalities, often severely criticized from breaking away from tradition, or delving deep into traditionalism. Yet their contribution to world of knowledge, understanding and free thinking cannot be sidelined.

Take a stroll down the hall of history, it is adorned with great names from the Arab/Muslim world, if not towering over their contemporaries from the other side, are no less in stature. The great Ibn Khaldun, Abul Hasan Mawardi, Ahmed Ibn Taimiya, Hamid Ghazzali, Muhammed Ibn Idris Al Shafi, the Syrian, Abd Al Ghai Nablusi, and Mohmoud Mohammed Taha, Dr. Taha Hussein.

The fresh lot of our thinkers, intellectuals and philosophers are, if not more, are as inspiring and thought provoking as the past lot. The Algerian, Malik Binnabi, philosopher, thinker and educationist whose complex theory of rise and fall of civilizations written in French (Colonisibilite) made ripples across intellectual circles of Europe and Arab world.
Syed Muhammed Naqib All Attas, the genius with Arab ancestry from Hadramouth, who galvanized Islamic thoughts in the Far East by his thought provoking writings .He founded the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization in Malaysia. He was instrumental in creating the concept of Islamisation of knowledge

The problem is our writers and journalists are in awe of Western intellectualism and philosophies. The hangover from several years of despondency that gripped the Arab/Muslim people under stifling colonial rule could be one strong cause for holding every western aspect of life in awe. This undermining of our thinkers and intellectuals is driven by the torrent of new thoughts and ideas that were imposed by the occupying cultures..

When one talks about scholars like Ibn Khaldun, who is considered the father of Sociological Sciences even by western experts in the field and others of same ilk, there is an immediate rebuke," that's history, they are old hats, the world has changed, times have changed, their thinking and ideas hold no good." But by the same measure, there is lot of appreciative twittering and tweeting about the philosophies and doctrines of western intellectuals, philosophers and writers.
Plato, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Voltaire,Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer
Herbert Spencer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Mark Twain, Russell, Santayana, James and Dewey are all alive and kicking in the thought and writings of our educated elite.
Machiavelli's "The Prince" is bible in power politics and art of governance, while the great Arab philosopher, political writer and activist Mohammed Ibn Zafar Al Saqili, who proceeded him by three hundred years and is acknowledged by the West as Machiavelli Precursor, wrote a master piece, Sulwan Al Muta Udwan Al Atba( consultation of rulers during hostilities of subjects) a far comprehensive and brilliant work on empirical analysis of power remains unknown.

There is another brilliant brigade of writers and thinkers that is emerging across the intellectual sphere of the Islamic world. Tariq Ramadan, grandson of Hassan Al Bana. The Moroccan, Fatima Al Mirsini, Dr AbdelWahab Meddeb, the Egyptian novelist, writer and poet, Iraq’s Dr Ali A. Allawi, Senior visiting Fellow Princeton University, Syed Hossain Nasr, Tunisian poet Abul Qasim Al Shabi, whose captivating one line on Tunisian revolution “The people wanted life and the chains were broken,” which is more than a magnum opus, if ever to be written on the Arab revolt of February 2011.

By Syed Qamar Hasan.

Syed Qamar Hasan is Abu Dhabi based writer.
He may be contacted at qamarhasan50@hotmail.com.