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Ideals and Realities of Islam Seyyed Hossein N Asr

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Ideals and Realities of Islam Seyyed Hossein N Asr Ideals and Realities of Islam Seyyed Hossein N asr with a Preface by Titus Burckhardt and a Foreword by Huston Smith New Revised Edition ABC International Group, Inc. ii Ideals Qnd Realities of Islam ' © 2000, Seyyed Hossein N asr First published by George Allen & Unwin 1966 Published by Unwin Paperbacks (Mandala) 1979 Aquarian edition, revised and updated, 1994 Seyyed llossein N asr asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 1~930637-11-X All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers. Published by ABC International Group, Inc. Distributed by KAZI Publications, Inc. 3023 W. Belmont Avenue Chicago IL 60618 (T) 773-267-7001; (F) 773-267-7002 email: [email protected]; www.kazi.org CONTENTS Preface by Titus Burckhardt v Foreword by Huston Smith ix Introduction to the First Edition xxi Introduction to the New Edition xxvii 1 Islam-the Last Religion and the Primordial Religion -its Universal and Particular Traits 1 2· The Quran-the Word of God, the Source of Knowledge and Action 29 3 The Prophet and Prophetic Tradition-the Last Prophet and Universal Man 57 4 The Sharicah-Divine Law-Social and Human Norm 85 5 The Tariqah-the Spiritual Path and its Quranic Roots 115 6 Sunnism and Shicism-'1\velve-Imam Shicism and Ismacnism 141 Glossary of Technical Terms 175 Bibliography 181 Index PRE CE was recently given the chance of speaking with one of the most eminent representatives of the Islamic culture in the I ancient town of Fez. Faithful guardian of traditional wis­ dom, skilled in the sciences of the exterior (al-?ahir) and of the interior (al-batin ), aristocrat by birth and in spirit, dignified and almost majestic in his white cloak, he did not mince his words in telling me what he thought of the mentality of his con­ temporaries: "It is certain that some pious men, true contemplatives and even saints still exist, because according to the Prophet there will be today, in his community, a nucleus of enlightened men. But as for what we call Islamic culture, I must be frank in telling you that there is no longer such a thing in this country." Surely he was exaggerating, as his own existence pr-t1ved the contrary. "And how did this deficiency come about?" I asked him. "Aeroplanes have subjugated our minds," he said, smiling. He was seeing correctly; but this capitulation of traditional cultures in the face of modern technology is not a phenomenon limited to the world of Islam; it is general; it is most obvious in Christian countries, where it is corroding religion itself. Every d~y we are a party to some new compromise, some new conces­ Sion made by church dignitaries to "open up" to the modern wo~l?, to something essentially agnostic and practically anti­ religious. The science which invented the machine enjoyed such ~xt:aordinary prestige that many are tempted to admit that it {~ ~ght, ev~n in areas ~he~e it is patently in~ompetent. It is ~s : i t had seized every obJective thought of which modern man IS , vi Ideals and Realities of Islam capable, only allowing the other camp-that of religion-the argument of its own subjective belief. And so we can see those things on the surface of humanity today and disregarded by those nuclei of spiritual science to which my interlocutor was alluding. It may be that the European world-and we understand this in its widest sense, including white Americans-as used as it is to separating religion and current life, is relatively insen­ sitive to the drama-to the tragedy-which is being played out in countries of traditional culture, and notably in the Islamic world, where religion has never been considered a "private affair" and where one never admitted to a division between the "sacred" domain and the "profane" domain of human life. The world built by Islam was a perfectly homogenous cosmos, where the very least human activity was based on the prophet­ ic models which, themselves, translate precisely the taw/:tfd, the "consciousness of the divine Unity." This transparent spiri­ tual order of social and individual life has been gravely threat­ ened, if not effectively destroyed, by the eruption of the mod­ ern European worl9., whose diverse inventions, even when they appeared to be harmless and spiritually neutral, are often com­ prised of fatally irreligious aspects like, for example, the wide­ spread use of European clothing, which seem to be worn expressly to hinder one's gestures during the canonical prayer. Pure and simple coincidence, certain people would insinuate; as much as to say that the dignity and beauty of the traditional costume are only due to chance. In order to cope with the difficulties of the modern world, scholarly instruction is Westernized. This has been done to cre­ ate a new mentality which has only very vague ties with tradi­ tional heritage, whose often concise and symbolic language has appeared ever since to be strangely "archaic" and whose inner richness, embracing body, mind and spirit, is simply ignored. Is it this ignorance, incubated and hatched in the very bosom of a world which is basically traditional-for still the muezzin announces the prayer times from the minaret, still all the people fast during the sacred month of Rama<;lan, and still Preface vii the verses of the Quran are pronounced on all occasions and in all places-is it this ignorance of the inner which is going to reunite with that of the outer to cause the collapse of the "house of Islam (diir al-isliim)"; or will it produce the contrary, the realization of an awakening from its perennial nucleus, from the sacred science of Islam, an awakening corroborated and amplified by an understanding of the spiritual elite of all true religions? For the differences between these religions, if they are effective, are not inseparable for those who see the spiritual realities "of the inner": to regain the center of a cir­ cle-being here the world or the human soul--one can ascribe to it any regular shape, an equilateral triangle, a square, a hexagon, etc., then ~onstruct, at the edges of this shape, the perpendiculars which meet at the intended point. Similarly, each religion represents a certain spiritual "economy," which supports it; that is to say that it is able to regain from within itself the divine center of all things. A triangle is not a square, and a hexagon is not an octagon; however, each of these shapes is, in some way, an image of the center. But I do not wish to anticipate the contents of this book which gives me hope that the awakening of which I have been speaking will come about effectively. Seyyed Hossein Nasr dominates his subject. He never succumbs to any of the traps which so often distort the perspective of those who write about Islam: the academic history telling, avoiding spiritual realities which are by definition ahistoric; religious exclusivity with its naive, blinkered view of other religions; sentimental universal­ ity, which intends to erase the limits, however real, of a reli­ ~on; modernism, which projects its democratic and scientific Ideology onto the essentially theocratic framework of Islam. The author unites in his person an Islamic structure which encompasses two points of view: that of religious law and con­ templation, and a supreme knowledge of modern scientific :~th~s. His ':riting is one of many proofs that the true · ·· amic culture IS far from dead. Titus Burckhardt FOREWORD en years ago I was returning from a professional confer­ ence in the Midwest. Bad weather closed the local airport T and threw me together with a colleague in world religions for a long train ride home. The re-routing was bothersome, but it turned out not to be a total loss for in the course of it my com­ panion said something memorable. Long hours together and our shared inconvenience lowered the inhibitions to the point where, around midnight, they triggered a confession. "I've been teaching world religions for fifteen years," my friend confided, "and I still don't know what the Upanishads are talking about . ." As their meaning had come pouring through me on first reading I could scarcely believe my ears, but my friend was only half through and the balance of his statement left me as dum­ founded as its beginning. "... but when I get t<f· Islam"­ wreaths of smiles and relief-"I'm home!" The reason this astonished me was that my difficulties with Islam over the years have rivaled his with Hinduism. Carlyle's admission con­ cerning the Quran had become an annual litany: "As toilsome reading as I ever undertook. A wearisome, confused jumble, ~de, incondite. Nothing but a sense of duty could carry any European through [it]." I wince to think how far I could have extended his admission on my reading of Islam generally. ..• ··.. ·.· ... · , With a single sentence my friend brought home to me more .q>mpellingly than anyone before or since the extent to which i~~~per~:tmeutal (karmic?) differences affect our responses to the ·""-~·-"'""traditions. It is not for that reason that I mention it, how­ but because it sets the stage for the most succinct way I x Ideals and Realities of Islam can identify my debt to the author of the book in hand.
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