HIGHLIGHTS OF SEVERAL WORKS ON METAPHYSICS AND TASAWWUF Oleh: Metsra Wirman* Lecturer of Philosophy at Department of Islamic Education, Faculty of Islamic Religion, Universitas Muhammadiyah Sumatera Barat (UMSB) Padang *corresponding author: [email protected] Abstract This article is a summary of the important points in the subject of philosophy of science, especially, Metaphysics idea or in Islamic sense. It calls as “Tasawwuf” (Islamic metaphysics). From several works, for instance, Immanuel Kant’s Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, S.M.N al- Attas’s Islam and the Philosophy of Science, and Nūr al-Dīn al- Rānirī’s Latā’if al-Asrār li Ahli Allah al-Aṭyār. From these three books, here is the highlight in order to understand their views on Metaphysics and Tasawwuf. The survey aims to analyze and compare their views, particularly on pertaining on Metaphysics. The study was found that Metaphysics, deals in general with questions about the nature of reality. The Sufis took the same position as the philosophers and the theologians in affirming the reality of thing that constitute the world, and hence also the reality of the world, as established, in contradiction to the Sophists. But the Sufis attested further, in significant contrast to the philosophers and the theologians, that in addition to existence in the above sense, that is, as a pure concept, and based upon clear mystical revelation and true intuition founded upon the authority of the Holy Qur’an and the tradition as well as upon reason and experience. Keywords: Epistemology, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Science, Reality, Sufism (Tasawwuf), Truth. true of metaphysics. Islamic A. Introduction metaphysics should be presented as In nearly every branch of what it is, that is, the science of philosophy, the Islamic tradition is Ultimate Reality, which is the one rich beyond belief, if only its sources (al-Aḥad) or Allah, who has revealed were made known. This is especially Himself in the Quran, and not as a 1 Metsra Wirman, Highlight Of Several Works… 2 discredited branch of rationalistic reality which is not independent of philosophy. Metaphysics is generally human reason and refers to aspects of accepted as a branch of philosophy, reality that is immaterial or non- concerned with the nature of ultimate physical, like God and human reality. In the Islamic sense, intellect. In the philosophy of metaphysics which includes of course science, we can distinguish between its original concern, theology, is the epistemological issues and most important because it influences metaphysical issues. Epistemology is the Muslim conception of the concerned with questions about universe, human psychology, knowledge, evidence, and rationality. epistemology, ethics and even logic. Metaphysics, deals in general with questions about the nature of reality B. Metaphysics (Godfrey-Smith, 2003). In fact, according Ibn ‗Arabī in his Futūhāt1 The Greek term Metaphysics (Rosenthal, 2007), metaphysics is is translated into Arabic as ―Mā considered to be the highest ba‘da al-Ṭabī‘ah‖ which literally knowledge. means, ―what comes after (beyond) physics‖. it is also called as al- In Islam, Metaphysics is ilāhiyāt (Divinity) and al-falsafah al- generally accepted as a branch of Ūlā (the first philosophy) in the same philosophy which is concerned with manner as Moslem Philosophers like the nature of ultimate reality. al-Kindi, Ibn Sinā, and al-Farābī Metaphysics is the most important (Fakhry, 1982). discipline because it determines the Moslem conception of the universe, The term ―metaphysics‖ was human psychology, epistemology, first used to refer to a group of ethics and even logic. We realized treatises written by Aristotle. that metaphysics is no longer popular Historians of philosophy tell us that in modern science discourse. This the term represents the Greek phrase attitude, which is western, is neither ―ta meta ta physica‖, which means morally honest nor rationally the books next after the Physics. This justifiable because literal meaning of phrase was not used by Aristotle the term does include all the major himself but by ancient editors as a components of what philosophy of title for a group of treatises placed after the Physics in an early collection of Aristotle‘s works. 1 . The four large areas of knowledge Aristotle called the subject he was are logic, mathematics, physics and concerned with in his metaphysics metaphysics. Metaphysics is the ―first philosophy‖, a subject that had highest knowledge of them all. All gradually taken shape in the work of the other kinds of knowledge are his predecessors—specifically, so subordinated to it. As reported by called Pre-Socratic‘s, Socrates, and Franz Rosenthal, Knowledge Plato (Aune, 1998). Triumphant the concept of knowledge in medieval Islam The book discusses the mode (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 187, also in of being or existence, pertaining to Ibn ‘Arabī’s book Cf. Futūḥāt, I , 293 3 Jurnal Al-Aqidah: Jurnal Ilmu Aqidah Filsafat, Volume 12, Edisi 1, Juni 2020 education (as such) considers unity between Sunnism and Sh’ism pertinent. (Wan Daud, 1998). C. Tasawwuf or Sufism In Islam, Metaphysics is (Metaphysics of Islam) generally accepted as a branch of philosophy which is concerned with Sufism or tasawwuf, the nature of ultimate reality. according to al–Attas, is defined as Metaphysics is the most important ―the practice of Shari`ah at the discipline because it determines the station (maqam) of iḥsān (Al-Attas, Moslem conception of the universe, 1993). By iḥsān, he meant the highest human psychology, epistemology, stage of religion, above and inclusive ethics and even logic. We realized of those of Islam and Iman, as that metaphysics is no longer popular conveyed by the famous hadith in modern science discourse. This narrated by ‗Umar Ibn al–Khattab attitude, which is western, is neither and transmitted by Abu Hurayrah and morally honest nor rationally Muslim, in which the Prophet said of justifiable because literal meaning of ihsan ―that you should worship God the term does include all the major as if you saw Him‖…(an ta‘buda components of what philosophy of Allah ka annaka tarāhu) (Al-Attas, education (as such) considers 1981). pertinent. In the concluding paragraph D. Summary of Metaphysics of his commentary on the Hujjat al– aspect in Immanuel Kant, Syed Siddīq of Nūr al–Dīn al–Rānirī, al– Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas Attas states that Islamic metaphysics, and Muhammad Zainiy which is for him the philosophical Uthman’s work. Sufism, is a unified system that discloses the ultimate nature of In the book, Prolegomena to Reality in positive terms; for it Any Future Metaphysics by integrates reason and Experience with Immanuel Kant (Kant, 1977) is a other higher orders in the scientific work, which deals with the suprarational and transempirical level concept of philosophy pertaining how of human consciousness. man can arrived at knowledge, based on his rationality. Kant‘s emphasized He asserts that ―…no on the fundamental elements of formulation of a philosophy of science, whereas he introduced the education and a philosophy of limits of reason and the inability of science along Islamic lines can be human mind to know the ultimate developed by ignoring the great reality of the object to be observed. contributions of the Sufi masters on the ultimate nature of reality.‖ Kant tries to examine the pure Moreover, he added, ―intellectual philosophical cognition, what he calls Sufism can effect a reconciliation it as a priori, whereas man possesses between Muslim theology and a knowledge about thing without philosophy just as it has achieved a deriving it from his experiences, for great measure of understanding and instance, the mathematic discipline Metsra Wirman, Highlight Of Several Works… 4 and physical science (Kant, 1977). At the very end, Kant can ask Based on this conception, he the final question, whether a science examines the possibility of pure of metaphysics is possible. The mathematics and pure natural science answer to this is negative since we as the prerequisite for man to gain can have no experience of these knowledge and make judgment upon metaphysical entities. They are the nature that he experienced. merely products, indescribable, of pure reason itself. Metaphysics, then, He focus on to investigate the rests in a very uncomfortable place ability of the human reason, whether after Kant has dealt with it. Souls, it has an ability to know the reality of physical reality, and God have only a the thing being perceived, or it very slight and rather insignificant observed with the fastened possibility as abstract ―finishing perceptions – like as the concept of concepts‖ whose entire meaning space and time. He discusses further comes out of the phenomenal world about the possibility of metaphysics, that we experience. that he proposes his standpoint that metaphysical knowledge is only In the book of Islam and the attained through the pure reason, not Philosophy of Science by Prof. Syed from sensible experiences, since the Naquib Al-Attas, there are some real metaphysical object is important similities found between unattainable. Then he concludes with our position and that of modern, the determination of the limits of pure contemporary philosophy and science reason in his Prolegomena. The with regard to the sources and object of metaphysics, like as God methods of knowledge; the unity of and soul, are impossible to be known the rational and emphirical ways of and not as they are. knowing; the combination of realism, idealism, and pragmatism as the At the end of his work, Kant cognitive foundation of a philosophy; tries to save the possibility of the philosophy and science of metaphysics as a science. He process. But these similities are proposes that man can only apparent and pertain only to their developed in this knowledge without external aspects, and they do not illusionary and dialectical arguments negate the profound differences that (Kant, 1977) by investigating how can arise from our divergent worldviews he knows metaphysical knowledge and belief about the ultimate nature through experiences and relates it of Reality.