The Formation of Arab Reason
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IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page i The Formation of Arab Reason IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page ii CONTEMPORARY ARAB SCHOLARSHIP IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES Series ISBN 978 84885 207 5 The Contemporary Arab Scholarship in the Social Sciences (produced by I.B.Tauris in cooperation with the Centre for Arab Unity Studies) aims to introduce an English language audience to the most cutting-edge writings from the Arab world in the fields of politics, sociology, philosophy and history. Hitherto, the majority of social studies on the Arab world have been written by, and from the perspective of, non-Arabs. This series aims to remedy the situation by presenting authentic, indigenous points of view from key influential thinkers and intellectuals. The writers assembled in the series - all highly distinguished experts in their areas of study - tackle the most critical issues facing the Arab world today: Islam, modernity, development, the legacy of imperialism and colonialism, civil society, democracy and human rights. English-language readers are here given an unprecedented window on the vitality and distinctness of contemporary Arab intellectual debate in high-quality, eminently readable translations of the original works. Democracy, Human Rights Law in Islamic Thought Mohammed Abed al-Jabri 978 1 84511 749 8 Britain and Arab Unity: A Documentary History from the Treaty of Versailles to the End of World War II Younan Labib Rizk 978 1 84885 059 0 The State in Contemporary Islamic Thought: A Historical Survey of the Major Muslim Political Thinkers of the Modern Era Abdelilah Belkeziz 978 1 84885 062 0 The Formation of Arab Reason: Text, Tradition and the Construction of Modernity in the Arab World Mohammed Abed al-Jabri 978 1 84885 061 3 Islamic Land Tax - Al-KharÆj: From the Islamic Conquests to the <=AbbÆsid Period Ghaida Khazna Katbi 978 1 84885 063 7 Early Islamic Institutions: Administration and Taxation from the Caliphate to the Umayyads and <=AbbÆsids Abd al-Aziz Duri 978 1 84885 060 6 IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 6/1/11 11:10 Page iii Contemporary Arab Scholarship in the Social Sciences, Vol 5 The Formation of Arab Reason Text, Tradition and the Construction of Modernity in the Arab World By Mohammed Abed al-Jabri Translated by the Centre for Arab Unity Studies I.B.Tauris Publishers In Association With The Centre for Arab Unity Studies IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page iv The translation and publication of this book was made possible by the generous financial support of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation. The opinions and ideas expressed in this book are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of either the publisher, the Centre for Arab Unity Studies or the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation. Published in 2011 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com Published in association with the Centre for Arab Unity Studies Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan Centre for Arab Unity Studies 'Beit Al-Nahda' Bldg. - Basra Street - Hamra PO Box: 113-6001 Hamra Beirut 2034 2407 - LEBANON www.caus.org.lb Copyright © 2011 Centre for Arab Unity Studies The right of Mohammed Abed al-Jabri to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. All rights reserved. This book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Contemporary Arab Scholarship in the Social Sciences, Vol. 5 ISBN: 978 1 84885 061 3 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Typeset by Ellipsis Books Limited, Glasgow Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, UK IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page v Contents Foreword vii PART 1: Arab Reason . . . In What Meaning? Preliminary Approaches Chapter 1: Reason and Culture Chapter 2: Arab Cultural Time and the Problematic of Development 35 The Era of Codification: The Authoritative Referential Framework of Arab Thought 59 Chapter 3: 3 PART 2: The Formation of Arab Reason: The Epistemological and Ideological in Arab Culture Chapter 4: The Bedouin, the Maker of the Arab World 83 Chapter 5: Legitimising the Legitimiser (al-tashri? li-l-musharri?) ¯ 1: The Codification of 'Opinion' and 'Legitimisation' of the Past 109 IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 vi Chapter 6: 9/12/10 16:08 Page vi T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N Legitimising the Legitimiser 2: Analogising According to 'Precedent' 133 The Religious 'Rational' and the Irrational of 'Reason' 159 Chapter 8: Resigned Reason 1: Within the Ancient Legacy 195 Chapter 9: Resigned Reason 2: Within Arab-Islamic Culture 225 Chapter 10: The Introduction of Reason into Islam 269 Chapter 11: The Crisis of Fundamentals and the Fundamentals of the Crisis 311 Chapter 12: A New Beginning . . . However! 365 Conclusion: Knowledge, Science and Politics in Arab Culture 413 Chapter 7: Bibliography 439 Index 449 IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page vii Foreword This book deals with a subject that should have been addressed a hundred years ago. The critique of reason is an essential and primary part of any initiative for renaissance. However, in the modern Arab Renaissance (al-Nahdah), matters have proceeded differently; and, perhaps, this is the . most important factor in its continual faltering to date. Is it possible for us to engender a renaissance with other than a renaissance mind - a reason that does not engage in a comprehensive review of its instruments, concepts, conceptions and views? If so, then this book should have been only one link in a long chain of books and research spanning a whole century. In such a situation, it would have most certainly benefited from the works preceding it. It would have been informed by them, avoided repeating their errors and indeed endeavoured to contribute to the edifice they had begun to construct, even if it may have perceived that this edifice was in need of deconstruction and rebuilding. It would have been sufficient as an aspiration to inaugurate a new discourse in a subject, that is not 'new', but rather a renewed discourse. The reality of the situation, however, is the opposite of what it should be; and the result is that we - in this work - not only suffer from the absence of previous pioneering or other subsequent attempts but instead suffer to an even greater degree from the effects of this dearth and its reflection on the subject itself. During the past one-hundred years, there have been conceptions and opinions and 'theories' dedicated to Arab culture in its various branches, including those that have delineated particular readings of the history of this culture - Orientalist readings, salafist readings, nationalist or Leftist ones - oriented by previous models or IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 viii 9/12/10 16:08 Page viii T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N capricious and circumstantial ideological influences which led them to give attention only to what they desired to 'discover' or to 'prove'. When Arab reason (al-?aql al-?arabi ), in the sense which we intend here, is the reason ¯ which was formed and shaped within Arab culture, and which itself is - at the same time - that which endeavoured to produce and reproduce it, then the requisite critique - or at least as we wish it to be - demands liberation from the imprisonment of prevailing readings and considering the givens of Arab-Islamic culture in its various branches without being bound by the pervading points of view. From this standpoint, the dual task that inspires this initiative to inaugurate work is: directing attention towards the history of Arab-Islamic culture, on the one hand, and an initial consideration of the entity of the Arab reason and its instruments, on the other. Thus, the initiative is divided into two separate yet complementary parts: one dealing with 'the formation of Arab reason' and the other with the analysis of the structure of Arab reason. The first is dominated by formative analysis and the second entails structural analysis. Let us take a brief look at the first part of this book, while indicating the necessary clarifications. This part is comprised of two sections: the first consists of preliminary approaches and resembles an introduction and initial remarks. The second is an analysis of the components of Arab culture and, moreover, the formation of Arab reason itself. It may have been necessary to begin with comparisons by means of which and through which we define our general conception of the subject: What do we mean by 'Arab reason'? What is its relation to Arab culture? What is the nature of the 'movement' in this culture and how is its time delimited (i.e., its relative cultural timeframe)? Subsequently, how we should posit - chronologically - the problem of the beginning: the beginning of the formation of Arab reason and the culture to which it belonged? And to what authoritative frame of reference should it be connected? The matter pertains, then, to defining the subject and tracing the features of the view upon which we depend, along with acknowledging the content of some operative concepts employed in the research. The discussion in these matters takes up the first three chapters. As for the second part of this book, we move the research into the components of Arab culture, the epistemological systems that underpin it and conflict within it. Our aim in this initial phase of the research is to summarise and excerpt these systems as being methods and visions and not to study them for their own sake - that which will constitute the subject of the second part of this book. In this process of 'excerpting', IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page ix Foreword ix we have charted a formative course and followed the 'development' of Arab culture as a whole - from the beginning we have carefully selected the branches of this culture - nahw (syntax), fiqh (jurisprudence), kala m ? . (theology), bala ghah (rhetoric), Sufism and philosophy - as interconnecting ? and conjoined rooms of a single palace, where some lead to others through doorways and windows - and not as separate tents in remove, erected on a plain without fences or corrals, as in the case of the prevailing view. We have engaged in a foray within the passageways of Arab culture, a critical tour, directing our attention during it towards the foundations of these passageways and their supporting columns, and not towards their exhibition. However, there was no doubt, when traversing formative horizons, about the necessity of dealing in some sort of way with the material substrate of knowledge and its hidden ideological content. Research into the 'formation of Arab reason' is the subject of this part of the book, and it demands attention, as we have stated, towards the history of Arab culture, towards its origins and divisions, towards its bases as well as its paths. If culture, any culture, is in its essence a political process, then Arab culture - in particular - has never been, at any time, independent or above political and social conflicts; but, rather, it was continuously the primary field in which these struggles transpired. Cultural hegemony was the first point, and at times, the single one, recorded on the schedule of works of every political or religious movement. In fact, every social force aspired to political control or desired to preserve control. It was from this standpoint that an organic relation developed between the ideological struggle and the epistemological clash in Arab culture; and, it is a relation that we could not ignore or minimise its significance or its effect, as in doing so the analysis would lose its formative dimension - that which confers upon the subject its historicity. If we take into complete consideration that this organic relationship came about between ideology and epistemology in Arab culture in regard to formation, this obliges us to be aware at every moment of the sides of the struggle - the thing which enables us, or so we imagine, to be liberated from the 'official' history of Arab culture, which involves the culture supervised by the state or that rotating in its orbit and which ignores or is oblivious to the 'counter-culture' - the culture of opposition. And, in the best of conditions, it exhibits it - disconnected and removed - on the margins of 'history' - this is, at a time when one of the two cultures was delimited, at every moment, by and through its relation with the other. There was no doubt, then, about taking them into consideration together IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 x 9/12/10 16:08 Page x T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N from the perspective of action and reaction. Here we would hope that the committed, engaged reader will understand in one way or another - either consciously or unconsciously - the struggles and conflicts of the past. We have spoken here without any complexes and without preconceptions. It was not our goal and never our intention to secure victory for one side over the other - as we consider the past to belong to all, and we see that its struggles should be put behind all, neither should they remain with them nor before them. Just as it is not possible to separate culture from politics in the experience of Arab culture - otherwise its history would have come to exhibit scattered disparate things without a spirit or a life of their own - so it would have been impossible while we were searching for the formation of Arab reason to ignore the unreasonable and irrational in order to pay attention to the rational alone. Rather, we have followed both of them together in their growth and their mutual influence; and, more than that and more importantly - in our view - we did not attempt to grasp reasonableness in any form for this or that piece of the unreasonable in Arab culture. Instead, we have respected the nature of each piece and have connected it to the structure - the primordial origin from which it branches and to which it belongs. Finally, it must be indicated that we have consciously chosen to deal with 'scholastic' culture alone; we have left aside the popular culture of parables, stories, superstitions, myths and so on because our initiative is a critical one, because our subject is reason and because the issue with which we side is rationality. We do not, here, assume the stance of an anthropological researcher whose subject remains before him perpetually as a subject; but instead, we assume towards our subject the position of the aware, selfconscious, subjective self. Our subject is not a subject for us except to the extent that the self is a subject for itself in a process of self-criticism. Our project is a goal, then; and, we do not practise criticism for the sake of criticism but rather for the sake of liberation from what is dead and petrified in the entity of our reason and our cultural heritage. The goal is to open the way for life so that its cycles can continue within us and so that it can re-cultivate its seeds within us . . . and perhaps it may do this soon. Casa Blanca, February 1983 Mohammed Abed al-Jabri College of Literature, Rabat IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 1 PART ONE Arab Reason . . . In What Meaning? Preliminary Approaches IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 2 IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 3 CHAPTER 1 Reason and Culture The term 'Arab reason ( aql)',1 which we have utilized in the title of this ? book, will no doubt raise in the reader's mind more than one question: is there a reason peculiar to the Arabs, different from others? Is not reason an innate characteristic of any human being, distinguishing and 'separating' him or her from the realm of animals? And, does the matter pertain, again, to that distinction posited by many Orientalists and European intellectuals during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries between 'the "metaphysical" and "particularised" Semitic mentality', and the 'Aryan "structural" and "scientific" mentality'? Or does it relate, once more, to a new 'secret' of the 'secrets' that modern Arabs continually seek to discover in themselves, hoping to find the genius and authenticity of their origin? Such questions could have been avoided if we had used the word 'thought, (fikr)' instead of 'reason'. In that case, we could have spared ourselves raising such questions, which do not fall within the scope of our interests, or at least ones that we do not wish to explore in our current enquiry. However, by doing so, we might have contributed to misleading the reader regarding the real objective of this discourse. Hence, the term 'thought', especially when it is associated with and related to a specific people, as when saying 'Arab thought' or 'French thought' and the like, means in everyday common usage, the substance of this thinking and its components, and therefore the totality of all views and ideas that a specific people utilises to express its concerns and troubles as well as its moral ethics and religious beliefs and its political and social aspirations. Put differently, IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 4 9/12/10 16:08 Page 4 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N 'thought' in this sense, along with 'ideology', are two concepts that have the same connotation. This is precisely one of the potential sources of confusion we wish to avoid and warn against from the beginning. Thus, what concerns us in this book are not thoughts themselves, but, rather, the generating productive instrument of these thoughts. The cause behind this overlap between thought and ideology lies in another kind of overlap produced from within the essence of 'thought' itself: that is, the overlap between thought as an instrument that generates thoughts, and thought as a totality of all those thoughts. This confusion manifests itself in several languages, including modern Arabic.2 This confusion clearly illustrates that this distinction we are instigating today between thought as an instrument and thought as content is a completely artificial distinction, similar to the artificial distinction made by ancient philosophers between reason (al-?aql) and intelligibles (ma?qulat), where 'reason' was the cogni?? tive capacity and 'intelligibles' were the perceived significances or meanings. However, despite our conviction that thought is an indivisible whole, since there is no capacity to perceive in isolation from perceptible things, the distinction between thinking as instrument and thought as content is essential for us as was the distinction between reason and intelligibles necessary for the ancients. However, the difference is that, when we push this distinction further, we merely take into consideration methodology, whereas for the philosophers of the Middle Ages the vocation and concern was to distinguish between reason and intelligibles as primarily a metaphysical interest leading to question such as: is reason transcendental (muf? riq) or not? Do intelligible things have an independent and objeca tive existence or are they simply terms? The essential interrelationship between thought as an instrument and thought as content is an indisputable fact. If we take into account another indisputable fact as well, which is that thought whether as an instrument of thinking or ideas as the conceptual product itself, is always a consequence of contact with the environment with which it interacts, especially the social and cultural environment, and it is simple enough for us to recognise the importance of this environment in the formation of thought, both as instrument and content, and thus, the importance of the particular specificity of social and cultural environment in forming the specificity of thought. Consequently, Arab thought, for instance, is Arab, not only because of its being conceptions and views and theories that reflect the Arab reality, or which expresses it in one form or another, but because it is also a result of the method or way of thinking in which a number of IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 5 Reason and Culture 5 givens contributed to its formation, including the Arab reality itself and all the particular phenomena relating to it. Let us turn a blind eye now on the issue of the relationship between language and thought and the specificity of this relationship in Arab culture - a subject of a separate chapter below - and look at thought and its products, whether expressed in one language or another, and ask if it is possible to include the writings and suppositions of Maxime Rodinson, Jack Burke and Hamilton Gibb and other non-Arab intellectuals who studied, analysed and evaluated contemporary Arab issues, or issues of ancient Arab thought? Is it possible to include the intellectual output of these Orientalists on the basis of what we term 'Arab thought'? Contrarily, is it admissible or possible to include the views and ideas of some Arab writers dealing with European issues in the French or English languages? Is it permissible to subsume their intellectual production under so-called 'European thought'? In the present era there is a 'customary' rule that determines 'cultural identity' of each thinker; the rule dictates that the intellectual is not attributable to a particular culture, unless he thinks within it. Thinking within a certain culture does not mean thinking about its issues, but rather thinking by means of them. While it might be possible to think about issues of a particular culture by means of another culture, the thinker remains a member of the first and not the second. Al-F? r? bi, for example, who aa ¯ thought about the issues of Greek culture, is an Arab thinker because he thought about them through and by means of the intermediary of Arab culture. Likewise, the Orientalists remain 'Orientialists' studying the Orient because they are located outside of that culture, that is, they are thinking about some of its issues from a position located outside one of its cultures. Moreover, they cannot be members in Arab culture because they think about its issues from outside it, that is, from outside its particular environment. Similarly, Arab intellectuals who deal with English or French issues remain Arabs as long as they remain thinking about those issues from within Arab culture and through it as a medium. Consequently, in this case, they are expressing an 'Arab' viewpoint about non-Arab issues. But what does it exactly mean to think by means of a certain culture?3 Whether we consider 'culture' (thaqafah) as comprising various sorts of ? material product and spiritual products and various modes of social and ethical behaviours, or whether we restrict its meaning to theoretical production alone, there are, in all cases, givens which form or express the 'cultural specificity' of one people or another, or one nation or another. IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 6 9/12/10 16:08 Page 6 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N This particularity is due, as previously indicated, to the geographical, social and cultural environment by which a certain people or group of people is delimited. In this regard, the importance of this specificity increases, if viewed as a historical product, bearing - across time - conceptions, views and beliefs as well as methods and modes of thinking and methods of reasoning or inference that also may not be free of particularity. We do not exaggerate when we say that a large part of cultural specificity - if it is possible to subdivide specificity into component parts - is due to the particular history of this culture. Therefore, thinking through the medium of a specific culture means thinking through the referential system formed by the essential coordinates of the defining elements and of this culture and its components, and, at the forefront of these, cultural heritage and social environment and perception of the future, and even the perception of the world, the universe and the human being, as determined by the components of that culture. Thus, if a person bears, willingly or unwillingly, his history along with him, thought also is borne along, willingly or unwillingly, and the traces of its components and the imprints of the cultural reality whereby it was formed. We can now posit the concept of the 'Arab reason/mind' (al-?aql al?arabi ) that we will analyse and examine in this discourse, offering a prelim¯ inary definition: it is nothing other than this 'thought' (fikr) about which we are speaking, thought as an instrument for the production of theory, created by a particular culture that has its own specificities, in this case Arab culture itself, a common culture that carries with it the history of Arab civilisation and reflects Arabs' reality or conveys it as well as their aspirations for the future just as it carries, reflects and expresses, at the same time, impediments to their progress and causes of their current state of underdevelopment (takhallufihim). Certainly, and on the one hand, this preliminary definition of the subject of this discourse does not sweep away all the previous questions from the field, but, undoubtedly, this definition - with all its defects - moves us an important step forwards, a step that transports us from the realm of the analysis of ideology to the realm of epistemological research: research that takes as its object of study the instruments for intellectual production and not the products of such instruments. On the other hand, the previous observations are sufficient in our view to assure the reader that we do not mean by 'Arab reason' (al-?aql al-?arabi ) something 'extraordinary', or what ¯ we sometimes refer to as the 'genius of the Arab', or other descriptions that cannot be enumerated here, as we do not mean by the 'Arab reason' IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 7 Reason and Culture 7 something 'without an equivalent', where another standard of reason perhaps belongs to another 'genius', real or imagined. Similarly, when we describe the shift from the ideological analysis to epistemological research as a 'step forward', we do not introduce any consideration other than the present observations: that is, bringing the reader into the subject of this discourse. Our aim is not to make value judgements of this kind. Our sole orientation is the 'scientific' (?ilmi ) analysis of a 'reason' structured through the ¯ product of a particular culture, and by means of the medium of this culture itself: Arab-Islamic culture. If we put the word '?ilmi ' in quotation marks,4 ¯ it is an admission, ab initio, that this research cannot be scientific to the same extent that scientific research found in mathematics or physics may be so. The issue here is part of us, or we are a part of it; whether we like it or not, we were integrated into it. All our hope in this research is to work through a conscious commitment to reason, and not wilful integration into dysfunctional thought for reason. The question of whether the 'reason' we are about to discuss is the 'Arab reason' as it was yesterday - or the 'Arab reason' as it is 'today' is one which we prefer not to answer for now. In the forthcoming chapters, we shall provide necessary elements sufficient for the answer, with full awareness of the consequent results. However, let us taken another step towards a more precise definition of our subject. Defining 'Reason' Al-?Aql We have removed the content of Arab thought - views, theories, doctrines and, what may be in general terms, ideology - from our area of interest, and restricted our attention and our attempt to epistemology alone. We have stated that what we intend to analyse and examine is Arab thought (fikr) as an instrument for theoretical production, not as such the product itself (that is, we intend here nit? j meaning mantuj - product). However, a ¯ is it sufficient to replace the term 'thought' in the sense that we previously delimited, with the term 'reason' (?aql) to delimit the significance of the latter and justify our attribution of it to the Arabs and the thesis of an 'Arab reason'? To translate the term 'reason' (?aql) as 'thought as an instrument for thinking' and connecting the 'Arabness' of this reason (or mind) to the culture to which it belongs - Arab-Islamic culture - is undoubtedly the first step towards defining the concept of the 'Arab reason' as we have done here. It is a first step not because it answers the secondary IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 8 9/12/10 16:08 Page 8 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N questions already raised at the outset of this chapter, but because it raises alternative questions closer to the subject and more expressive of its complexity. Now we can enquire: whether we mean by 'reason' (?aql) thought as an instrument and not content; does this imply that 'reason' is devoid of all content? But is thought, in this sense, merely an instrument devoid of all content? Does not the instrument - any instrument - consist definitely of a complex 'thing'? Does not every instrument, no matter how simple, consist of a device or structure? Is it not, then, possible to distinguish in every instrument or device between the functionality of a given thing and its structure? Or does not the identity of the instrument used for ploughing the earth - the plough, for example - derive from its function, namely the function of ploughing? Thus, its capacity to plough derives from its component parts and the way in which these are structured and the manner of their usage. Does this not also correlate to the 'instrument of thinking', whether we term it 'thought' (fikr) or 'reason' (?aql)?' First, let us seek the answer to these questions, assisted by the prominent distinction of Lalande between the constituent reason or the perpetrator la raison constituante (al-?aql al-mukawwin) and the constituted reason or the prevailing raison constituée (al-?aql al-mukawwan); the first indicates the cognitive activity of thought (fikr), for while researching and studying, it formulates theories and determines concepts. In other words, it is 'the faculty whereby every human being can extract necessary and universal principles from the awareness of relations between things'. Whereas, the second is: 'the sum of principles and rules that we rely upon in our inferences' and although it tends to be monolithic, it differs from one era to another, just as it may differ from one person to another. Lalande says: 'The constituted and changing reason, if only to a certain extent, is reason as it exists in a certain epoch in time. If we refer to it in the singular (reason), it must be conceived as reason as it is in our civilisation and in our time', and in other words it is: 'the order of principles espoused and accepted in a certain period in history, giving it an absolute value, during that period'.5 If we adopt this distinction, we could say that what we mean by the 'Arab reason' is constituted reason, namely all the principles and norms provided by Arab culture to its members as a basis for the acquisition of knowledge, or, let us say, imposed upon them as a system of knowledge. Constituent reason is the characteristic that distinguishes humans from animals, that is, the 'capacity for elocution' (al-quwwah al-n? . iqah) in the ? at terminology of the ancients. With this concept, we can say that a human IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 9 Reason and Culture 9 being shares with all persons, whoever they are, and in whatever age they may be, the fact that they are equipped with a constituent reason, distinguishing them along with whoever belongs with them to the same cultural group, by constituted reason which is an expression of the system of knowledge (understandings, conceptions, etc.) which underpins and establishes the culture to which they belong. However, despite the importance of this distinction between the active/efficient reason (al-?aql al-f a?il ) and the prevailing reason for the ? subject, we should never overlook the impact and influential relationship existing between them. On one hand, prevailing reason is nothing but these principles and rules established by constituent efficient reason, as Lalande confirms himself: the sum total of principles and norms of a prevailing mindset at a given period of time is produced by efficient reason, that is, the mental activity characterising human individuals from animals, and its origin, therefore, is in the reason itself, and not outside it. On the other hand, efficient constituent reason presumes a constituted reason as stated by Lévy Strauss.6 This means that the mental activity - efficient - transpires from principles and according to rules, that is proceeding from a prevailing reason, that which tempts us to hypothesise that 'Arab reason', especially in its active manifestation, is a product of Arab culture. Similarly, this is the matter in the case of any other culture and the reason belonging to it, which reduces objection to [the concept of a] 'absolute' reason or the 'universality' of it. Yet, reason is universal and its principles are universal and necessary. This is true, however, only within a particular culture or within cultures of a similar pattern. As Lalande asserts, constituted reason 'is in the category of the absolute for those who have not acquired, in the discipline of historians or the discipline of philosophers, the critical spirit', those restrained by the prevailing reason produced by the efficient reason of their ancestors, the reason of their culture that they consider to be the only unique and viable culture, or at least their own particular world of culture. We intended, through the previous observations, a preliminary definition of our subject: 'Arab reason'. Before we take another step to clarify the limits we have set in the preceding paragraphs, we believe it is useful to draw attention to the limitations and recent remarks justifying the task we intend to undertake here: 'criticism of Arab reason', and that is from two angles. On the one hand, the 'Arab reason' can be viewed as a prevailing reason over the foundation of the totality of the principles and norms establishing knowledge in Arab culture. In such a situation, it is most likely to initiate an objective scientific analysis of these principles and norms IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 10 9/12/10 16:08 Page 10 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N which, at the same time, are the basics of knowledge, or its systems, in Arab culture. On the other hand, 'Arab reason' may be viewed as an efficient reason producing and developing prevailing reason at a certain time in history, which implies the possibility of establishing and forming new principles and new rules to replace the old, and, therefore, the formation of a new prevailing reason, or at least a modification, development, modernisation or renewal of the former prevailing reason. It is clear that this will only be through criticism of prevailing reason, and it is also clear that criticism should be exercised within this reason itself, through deconstructing its foundations and provoking its efficiency, developing and enriching it with new insights and perceptions, gleaned from one aspect or another of progressive human thought, philosophical thought and scientific thought. After this caveat, which we reiterate here for the purpose of clarifying the goal that we envisage for this study, we move forward to the next step, to the echelon of primary approaches to the subject of our study: 'the Arab reason (?aql)'. This time, we draw on a comparison with 'Greek reason' and 'European reason', both modern and contemporary. Reason as Cultural Product When we discuss 'Arab reason' or 'Arab culture', we recognise, whether explicitly or not, the a priori existence of another 'reason' and 'culture' or 'minds' and 'cultures' which are defined in comparison with one another. This is inevitable because 'things are known by their opposites' (bi-diddiha ? . tamyi z al-ashy? ? ), as our forefathers often used to assert. ¯ a We shall not go into details that might take us away from this preface, which we presumed necessary to shorten the path and openly discuss the 'opposite' or 'opposites' that we draw upon, through comparison with them, in determining the identity of 'Arab reason', despite the fact that the word 'opposite' (didd) here does not connote conflict or disharmony, . but only difference. When we speak of 'Arab reason' we distinguish between it, and 'Greek reason' and modern 'European reason'. Why only Arab, Greek, and European? The answer to this question is not as difficult as some might imagine, especially given that the previous pages have traced the outline of the questions posed, their direction and tenor. With this outline, we might say that the historical givens available today compel us to recognise that only Arabs, Greeks and Europeans exercised rational theoretical thought in a form that would permit scientific, IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 11 Reason and Culture 11 philosophical or legal knowledge not grounded in legend and myth and liberated from 'animism', the conceptual view of objects of nature as living entities possessed of souls that exert an influence on the human being and his potential to learn. It is true that the peoples of Egypt, India, China, Babylon and other great civilisations produced and applied science. However, it is also true that the overall structure of the cultures of these countries, the cradle of ancient civilisations - according to our information at present - was based on myth, to a greater or lesser extent, rather than science, as the primary operative element. The civilisations that consciously engaged in scientific thinking and that produced philosophy and science are those that used reason, even if we do not say in a way that was absolutely prevalent, but to an extent greater than those where magic or other forms of irrational 'thinking' were prevalent in the civilisations that did not produce scientific or philosophical knowledge, either rational or systematic. If we want, we could say that the determining factor in the matter of the perspective raised in our work is that all three civilisations - Greek, Arab and modern European - have, exclusively, produced not only knowledge, but also theories of knowledge, and they alone - as far as we know - not only engaged in thinking by means of reason but also engaged in thinking about reason. 'Thinking about reason' (al-tafki r fi al-?aql) reflects a supreme level of ¯¯ rational cognition, certainly beyond the level of 'rational reasoning,' (altafki r bi-l-?aql); thus the centre of our comparison will be restricted to ¯ cultures sharing this characteristic with Arab culture, namely Greek culture and modern European culture. Let us speculate: How should we define reason within each one of these cultures? We will commence with Greek culture as this is, historically, the oldest. Gusdorf says: 'the order of every culture is determined according to the conception it formulates for itself of God, the human being and the world, and the relation it establishes between these three levels of the order of reality'.7 So, if we want to clarify the system of Greek culture, as determined by philosophical discourse, we must refer to both Heraclitus and Anaxagoras. These philosophers have defined, each in his own way, the relationship between God, the human being and the universe in a manner reflecting, in fact, not only the order of Greek culture as described in philosophy, but also in a way that rationally restores the previous structure of the mythological perception of philosophy and esotericism, varying from one philosopher to another, in a certain way. Heraclitus was - as historians of philosophy often mention - the first to institute the concept of 'Logos' or 'universal reason' (al-?aql al-kawni ) ¯ IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 12 9/12/10 16:08 Page 12 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N in order to explain the prevailing system (or order) of the cosmos, far removed from mythology and legend. This philosopher claimed the existence of a 'universal law' governing phenomena and controlling their eternal and perpetual coming into being (sayr? rataha). Human minds can attain ? .u to true knowledge of natural phenomena if they 'operate' within the absolute reason; hence, if they strive to enquire into the order of nature, they realise the characteristics of this order as essential and consistent. Heraclitus imagined that the universal reason, la raison universelle, inducts nature and systemises it from within, therefore, in regard to the world it resembles the relation of the soul to the human, the soul not as an autonomous 'essence' distinct, independent and distinct from the body, but as a principle of its motion, spread throughout all its parts. Consequently, this reason resembles a 'divine flame', or rather a 'divine light', that is the life of the world and its law. And the human soul derives from this 'divine flame', that is, from this universal law prevailing in nature and governing it, and so it has to recognise this law and act according to its dictates. Hence, the correct religion, in Heraclitus' view, was the harmony of the individual reason - the reason of an individual human being - with the universal law prevailing in the universe, that is, universal or absolute reason. If Heraclitus' concept of absolute reason (al-?aql al-kulli ) tends to posit ¯ a sort of oneness of existence, as universal reason is inductive and inseparable from nature, Anaxagoras differs in conceiving of 'common sense' or Nous, also connoting the 'absolute reason' by rendering it a transcendental principle, not integrated into or deduced from nature. Anaxagoras finds that all bodies constitute an assembly of similar parts, susceptible, in principle, to infinite division, but assuming the existence of infinitely minute parts which cannot be divided, comparable to primary seeds (or atoms), not perceived by the senses, but conceived only by reason. The universe was, at first, a chaotic combination of these seeds, consisting of 'Chaos', namely an absolute blindness constituting the existing 'All'. And if many previous philosophers had asserted the same concept, or similar, what characterises Anaxagoras, as noted by Plato and Aristotle, is his assertion that: 'Reason [al-?aql ] ordered everything, and it is the cause of all things.' In order for that primordial mixture or the absolute blindness, to emerge from its incapacity, there must be an active motive power distinguishing between the disparate parts and then connecting between them and restructuring them. Anaxagoras called this inducing power 'Nous' or reason (or soul - al-r uh). The motive power began by ?. generating a limited orbital motion, and later expanded and still is expanding, forming by its action stars, planets and airwaves and distin- IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 13 Reason and Culture 13 guishing steam, hot, cold, dry land, humid, bright, dark, dense, light. The conjunction of these forms with each other originated physical bodies and then various organisms. However, this motive principle engaging in the 'initial impetus' is indispensable to creation and evolution is not just a motive power, but it is a 'Reason' that recognises and understands this blindness and primordial mixture, as well as what entities derive from it and what order it establishes. Anaxagoras says: 'Reason realises all things that were integrated, disconnected and divided, and reason was the one emitting order in all things that existed, exist now, and will exist, as well as this motion within which rotate the sun and the moon as well as the air and the effects that are distinct from it.'8 Reason governs the world. This is the expression that summarises the concept of Anaxagoras and his theory, leaving no room for coincidence, as everything has an order and necessity. And if there seems to be a mere coincidence, namely not submitting to the inevitable and necessary, it is only due to our inability to detect its cause. This is on the one hand; yet, on the other, 'Nous' is not just a thinking reason, thus removed from and superior to the world, but it resembles the self (or soul) - al-nafs: it is to the world as is the self to the body; it is rather the Self of every thing that possesses a self, or that from which the souls of all living creatures derive. However, it is not situated in nature, as it remains independent and outside of nature's locus. It is an expression of an independent self, from which other independent selves emanate.9 If the conception of Heraclitus of the 'Logos' is that upon which the philosophy of Stoicism was founded, then it is also so for all philosophies tending towards a kind of oneness of existence (wahdat al-wujud ).10 ? . Anaxagoras' conception of the 'Nous' was behind Socrates' revolution, the philosophy of Socrates on which the philosophies of both Plato and Aristotle were founded. Whatever the dissimilitude between both Heraclitus' and Anaxagoras' conceptions of absolute reason, from the assertion of its situation in nature or its separateness or its independence, the essence of the Greek conception of the relationship between nature and this absolute reason (which is tantamount to God in monotheistic religions) and between it and the human being does not change. In any case, we find within the Greek culture, nature primarily as a primordial given, unordered and indistinct. Subsequently another force called 'reason' interferes, effecting a dissemination of order in nature, and consequently bringing about creation and evolution. As for the human being, in its essence it is a spark of fire taken IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 14 9/12/10 16:08 Page 14 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N from 'absolute reason' the order of reason, and he discovers himself as a rational being, in and through nature. And the mental activity eligible for this designation is the recognition of the order and the association of things. In Greek philosophy, and generally speaking, what is applicable to one of the parts of the universe is also applicable to the entire universe, and vice versa. Thus, nature in its totality is - for Aristotle, the paramount Greek philosopher - capable of being comprehended by the reason despite its element of chaos or its ambiguous occurrences. That is because reason, in the sense of order, is its basis, and because whoever considers it through reason cannot see in it but reason. Hence, reason in the Greek Aristotelian perception is 'the realisation of causes'. The modern philosophy of Europe pursued the same path. Malebranche says: 'The reason by which we are guided is a absolute reason . . . a perpetual and necessary reason . . . And if it is true that this reason is necessary and perpetual and unchanging then it is not different from God.'11 Modern European culture held firmly, in spite of all its revolutions against the 'ancient', to the concept of the 'universal reason', conceiving of it as 'the absolute law for the human reason'. And whether this reason was considered as self-sustaining, independent from the concept of God, or whether it was considered as God himself, then the relation between it and the order of nature remained the same: it is one of conformity or, at least, harmony. This perception was reflected even in language and particularly the European languages of Latin origins, where we encounter the word ratio (or its derivation, e.g., the word raison in French), indicating concurrently mind and reason (cause). Cournot says that the word raison (i.e., reason, in French) sometimes indicates the aptitude of the reasonable being, and sometimes the interrelation between objects, so that supposedly human reason (or reason itself) follows and realises the reason of things (or objective reason).12 Notwithstanding that Descartes distinguished decisively between reason and nature, attributing them to different attributes, thought (fikr) versus extension, and therefore corroborating an intrinsic duality of existence, he was soon compelled to attach them to knowledge, because without that, it would be inconceivable to escape doubt in establishing certainty. Descartes believed in the existence of innate ideas or concepts in the human mind, particularly mathematical principles that are at the centre of knowledge and certainty. He also claimed that the submission of nature to strict rules made its operations function as a well-conceived machine. And since he related thought and material (substance) to two entirely different essences, IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 15 Reason and Culture 15 he resorted to connecting the two to the divine will. Accordingly, the laws of nature are harmonised and are yet similar to the laws of reason because God made them like that. Hence, Descartes reconsiders the determination of complete harmonisation between the laws of reason and the laws of nature in an approach no different fom that of the Greek philosophers, except that he interpolated divine mediation, intending to resolve the logical dilemmas posed by the duality of conception (thought) and extension.13 Desiring to decisively transcend those same dilemmas, Spinoza argues that Descartes' mistake resides in claiming the existence of two essences, - reason and extension while essence can only be one. And, as this sole essence is its own raison d'être and self-perceived - by definition - then everything else is either an attribute (such as conception and extension), or a condition/state manifesting it (such as motion and corporality). Accordingly, the essence was 'characterising nature' (al-tabi ?ah al-tabi?ah) .¯ .? (namely God in religious terms), in the sense that God is the source of attributes and states, and God is 'the characterised nature' (al-tabi ?ah .¯ al-matbu?ah) in the sense that He is these same attributes and conditions. .? Thus, reason and nature (I mean its order and laws) are two sides of one reality, but human reason is in error in its judgement because of its lack of complete awareness of the ultimate necessity that rules all things and phenomena. Where there is no coincidence and no possibility but an ultimate and holistic law, then being itself becomes 'universal reason' and inductor of nature, organiser and controlling its coming into being.14 This meditative vision of Spinoza was inconsistent with the experimental and scientific spirit prevailing in the Europe of his time, even from the time of Galileo and Bacon. Spinoza's position reinforces the principle of the inevitable on which scientific thought is based, but, on the other hand, science cannot adopt such a position because it cannot prove it. Thus, it was mandatory to re-establish modern rationalism, for which Descartes had laid the foundations, and which culminated with Spinoza, rendering it compliant with not only the scientific spirit and the requirements of experience/experiment, but also avoiding the risk of suspicion planted by Hume when he raised the problem of causality - the dilemma of reason itself. The need emerged not only to ensure compatibility between reason and the order of nature, but also to reconcile scientific truth and philosophical truth to save the integrity of both truth and the oneness of reason. This was the task that Kant aspired to fulfil during his quest to rebuild the relationship between reason and the order of nature on the basis of IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 16 9/12/10 16:08 Page 16 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N scientific hypotheses, that is, in his time, the science of mathematics and physics. Kant reverted to a view similar to that of Descartes, segregating reason and the order of nature, to associate them through new combinations that appeared to be stronger and firmer, though not pleading their strength and legitimacy through any supreme power, outside reason and nature: and inasmuch as mathematics had already demonstrated, in his time, that it is the alphabet by which to read the book of nature - as had been invoked by Galileo before - and given that physics had demonstrated, for its part, and through a practical method, that it cannot survive, nor thrive and evolve, without mathematics; therefore, Kant suggested that the compatibility between reason and the order of nature (or certainty) must pass through this integral union between mathematics and physics. And from this standpoint comes the question: what is the basis of this unity, or in other words, what is the basis of scientific certainty? As noted above, Kant reverted to a similar viewpoint of Descartes and rendered reason the organiser of experience/experiment with and the 'lawmaker' (al-musharri? ) for nature, yet not in what it subsumes of 'innate principles', as Descartes said previously, but as being itself a set of receptive patterns (the two elements of time and space, and categories) consisting of empty patterns filled with sensory intuition, which thus transform into knowledge. These intuitions remain blind without these patterns, according to Kant. And so the knowledge of certainty, and consequently the compatibility between reason and the order of nature, depends on what experience accords to reason, and what reason supplies to experience as hypothesis. Reason and experience are both proofs of each other: if reason is the 'lawmaker', then experience is the laboratory, and it sets the boundaries of correct knowledge. Nevertheless, if experience is bound to the inputs of our senses, consequently it will be unable to surpass the level of phenomena, or what Kant calls 'things in themselves', then it is inadmissible for reason to allege arriving at it and expressing its true reality.15 The conclusion that Kant deduced was not satisfactory for philosophy, although it satisfied science temporarily. Hegel fell upon Kant's theory in distinguishing between 'appearance' (al-z ahir) and the 'thing in itself', among .? things we recognise through our senses, and things as they are in themselves, and rendered the world the production of the self and enclosed it within its boundaries. Hegel believes that a thing we rationally know is not just a phenomenon; it is also the 'thing in itself'. In other words, it is both, and it is apt to be realised through reason, in its entirety. IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 17 Reason and Culture 17 Hegel embarks from an essential principle: 'every thing that is real is reasonable/rational, and every reasonable/rational thing is real'. This means that there is nothing in existence that is not suitable for explanation through reason, and every rational justification is necessarily extant because the existence of something means it is emanating from an efficient reason and a final/teleological reason, and therefore rationalising means something realising its efficient reason and its final reason.16 This is in principle, namely in terms of logic alone. Subsequently, this principle still has to be transferred from the level of logic to reality in order to effectively offer proof of the correlation of reason with the order of nature, that is, of the potential rational justification of everything in the world. At this juncture, another hypothesis is introduced as posited by Hegel, presented as a synthesis, a hypothesis assuming that the motion of the universe and its becoming is subject to an incontrovertible law leading it to the superior stations of progress, to the climax of development, to attain the absolute, namely to attain the absolute reason (or conception or God) in the world and attain the world through reason. Kant viewed knowledge of the relation between reason and nature in a static fashion and emphasised the issue of experience; that is, the issue of phenomena as they seem static and extended, whereas Hegel viewed the same issue through a dynamic and historical perspective. Though 'the thing in itself' is not afforded by intuition, as it is not from its world, it is given by reason and history. Hereon, conformity will be consistent, not only between reason and nature, but also between reason and history, and nature itself will be merely a manifestation of the evolution of reason throughout history. Hegel propelled Western rationality to its apex: he substituted reason in the place of history, and history in the place of reason, by 'giving history meaning and reason movement', thus conformity between reason and the order of nature was no longer a matter of logic, as it was before, but it became a matter of becoming and a matter of fate, a matter of 'reality' realisable throughout history.17 With this concise outline, tracing the contours of the main framework of Kantian and Hegelian philosophy, it might seem as if the first were closer to science than the second and, consequently, closer to objective truth. This is true but only apparently so: science as it was, at the time of Kant, or rather, as Kant apprehended it, granted him a measure of truth over Hegel. But science as it would 'occur', namely as history would reveal directly after Kant, approves Hegel's vantage point. During the time of Kant, many things initially encompassed within the boundaries of what he called 'thing in itself' became now and for a long time after, a matter IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 18 9/12/10 16:08 Page 18 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N of 'phenomena'. Kant had constrained himself to the science of his era, and from within he inspired the bounds of his theory and founded its propositions, presuppositions and assumptions. But soon science ruptured these bounds, and rebelled against these presumptions. Kant constructed the heavenly abode of his theory on the hypothesis of Newtonian physics, and considered that time and orientation are two limiting factors independent of experiment and the conditions of the experimenter. When relativism emerged, at the beginning of the twentieth century, claiming the relativity of time and place and their connection to the referential authority of the observer, quantum theory would also emerge with the 'Quanta' leading relativism to prevail over determinism. With the appearance of atomic physics, the concepts of mind/reason and its principles changed dramatically. The mind used concepts and principles to organise experience/experiment (such as determinism as well as the concepts of space and time). Is the mind (reason) something other than its own concepts and instruments of operation? It is not possible for us to present, here, an image - even a summary - of the epistemlogical revolution (the revolution in the theory of knowledge and, moreover, the theory of the mind/reason) which emerged from relativism and quantum theory and which effected - and still does - a total reform in the scope of knowledge. We will emphasise, however, the following, affecting our discourse in direct manner.18 Perhaps the first result imposed with the new scientific revolution beginning at the dawn of the twentieth century, was the necessity of reconsidering the concept of 'reason' itself. Formerly, philosophers considered the mind as a matter of content (the Aristotelian axiomatic laws of reason, the innate thoughts of Descartes, the Kantian dual factors of time and space and categorical imperatives). Whereas, in the present time, the development and progress of science have led to the formation of a new concept of the mind based on regarding the mind as nothing more than an instrument or efficacy. The reason is no longer regarded, in the view of modern science, as a set of principles, but as 'the ability to act according to principles'; it is essentially organised activity, or we might say 'playing according to the rules'.19 If so, what is the origin of these rules? Science acknowledges only reality as the source of the reason and its rules. Undoubtedly, the rules of reason find their primary source in social life, which forms the kind of substantial realism that the human being encounters, or under the aegis of which he survives. And social life is not rectified except through rules of conduct (ethics), and the human being IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 19 Reason and Culture 19 does not acquire a social life - as a social animal, as Aristotle claims of course - except by conforming to these rules. Further, since social life is not one, nor is it of a single pattern, it may be expected to have several types of mental rules - or types of logic - as numerous as the multiplicity and diversity of the modes of social life. So-called 'primitive' peoples had their own logic, and 'agrarian' peoples had their own logic, and 'mercantilist' and 'industrialised' people had theirs as well, and here too, and for the same reason, every epoch of history has had its own logic. If we aspire to overcome this particularity - the connection with social life - we must consider the reason as being the totality of rules derived from a particular subject, namely the subject with which the human is dealing. The Greeks dealt with the universe and nature as a whole, intending to interpret them and understand their phenomena; hence, they instituted the same rules they learned from their own social life, namely through their social interaction,20 and they accorded life and order to it, and populated it with gods who share the kingdom of nature, just as local rulers share authority over a city or a country, even as clan elders share power in a tribal community. This is the basis of the mythological interpretation (of legends) of the universe. When Thales of Miletus began to consider rational conception, attempting to explain nature through nature itself (per se), he claimed that the origin of the universe was water, so 'Logos' (i.e., reason) replaced 'Mythos' (i.e., legends and myths), and thought began to infer its substructures from nature itself, not from anything else extrinsic. That was a moment of awareness itself with Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, where the latter concluded the 'principles of reason', thus deriving their own logic - Aristotelian logic - through the consideration of attributes observed of solid bodies such as presence and absence (the principle of identity), and interdependence/correlation and contiguity/proximity (the principle of causality), and so on. Hence, Aristotelian logic, as Konitz claims, is an expression of a physics adopting the solid body as its subject. From this derives its response to the requirements of classical physics which also took as its subject the solid body. And when modern physics crossed the barrier of this 'Solid Body' and entered the atomic world, this changed dramatically. Aristotelian logic was unable to depict the qualities and characteristics of atomic particles, and the atomic world imposes new rules on human reason - the scientific mind, namely a new logic. There emerged a new kind of presence and absence (the matter of a dual nature, in bodies and in waves, of the atomic entity), and a new type of correlation (the principle of uncertainty posited by Heisenberg); time and space have merged, and location IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 20 9/12/10 16:08 Page 20 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N and velocity (of the atom) are interpolated . . . and so forth, new facts imposed new approaches, namely a new reason. Thus, we reach the following conclusion: reason is, in the final analysis, a set of rules deriving from a certain subject. As for logic, it too will consist of - for Konitz - a 'physics of a certain subject', hence it is fundamental to recognise multiple types of logic according to the multiplicity of systems of rules that establish scientific activity in this field or that. That is the axiomatic trend, hypothesis-synthesis, which is now sweeping 'neo'-science, the inception of which began with mathematics in the midnineteenth century. Scientific endeavour had become founded on establishing new 'systems of rules' for the working of the mind, amenable to adaptation with the experimental processes. These systems of rules proceed in turn to create a new reason, from which habit and practice will make a 'natural and necessary' reason, just as Aristotelian logic seemed necessary and natural. The constituting mind/reason and the constituted mind/reason, in the words of Lalande, operate though their dialectical relation, to make the mind realise its reality by and throughout its becoming. And if we wish to be more precise - according to the modern scientific conception of the reality of the mind - we would concur with Jean Ullmo: the rules according to which the mind operates are not the ones that determine it or make it known, but its ability to derive an infinite number of rules, which is what it actually is. Accordingly, rationalism becomes not just the conviction in the consistency of the principles of reason with the rules of nature, but the conviction that mental activity can construct orders expanding to encompass different phenomena. And since experience alone is able to decide in the matter of consistency which has come to mean empirical verification, contemporary rationalism is empirical rationalism and not a contemplative rationalism as it was before.21 Hitherto, what can we derive from this summary we have presented about the development of reason and the means of thinking in it within Greek culture and modern European culture: philosophically and scientifically? First, let us emphasise that this presentation, in which we followed the discourse of Greco-European reason, justifies the assertion of 'Arab reason'. This discourse led us to entertain the idea of the multiplicity of 'reason' and 'logic', since these constitute, in the final analysis, a set of rules derived from a certain subject. Therefore, every time a subject characterised by an obvious particularity is exhibited, it is possible to posit the existence of a reason or a logic particular to it. And we believe - as we will demonstrate IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 21 Reason and Culture 21 subsequently - that Arab culture, and more precisely, the subject with which the efficient mentality of Islamic thinkers dealt, is a subject with distinguishing particulars different from the particulars of the subject with which the efficient mentality of Greek thinkers and European philosophers dealt. Thus, the rules that intellectual efficiency extracted, operating from within Arab-Islamic culture, will be distinct from the rules establishing the centre of the Greek reason or the European reason. Therefore, when we employ the expression 'Arab reason', we utilise it from a scientific perspective, adopting a modern scientific perspective of the mind, and not any other perspective, similar to the one inhering in the concept of 'mental' (al-?aqli yah), which means an innate and natural state of mind, solemn, ¯ ruling individual and communal perception, similar to how the biological and inherited (traditional) factors rule behaviour and conduct. We are herein far from this perception which is not founded on any scientific basis. But we strive for commitment to scientific perception in its finest extent, not subjecting this perception, even at its apex, to the ultimate (absolute) truth. Thus the ultimate (absolute) truth in this scope, as in others, is not presumed, yet it is the 'premise' that goes away every time we get close to it. This is on one hand, and on the other hand, is the outline we presented of the concept of reason in Greek and modern European cultures, verifying the historical context of this mind, namely its connection with the culture in which it operates, that which negates the absolute character of that mind. As we noted in a previous section, 'absolute reason' is 'absolute' only within the culture that produced it. Moreover, the evolution of the concept of reason in Greco-Roman culture reflects the evolution of this reason itself, and its renewed self-conception. Another conclusion we intended to be drawn from this presentation on the reason and the way of thinking in it as well as its type of conception in what we have illustrated of the mind and its mode of thinking and the type of perception in Greek and modern European culture is that this presentation offers us - despite all its deficiencies - a possibility of comparison with the 'Arab reason', in the purpose affords of identifying the latter more precisely. Then how is 'Arab reason' distinct? It might seem that we are now in a position to engage directly in a comparison, but this is only an illusion; thus even if we are aware of the evolution of a concept of the mind/reason in Greco-Roman culture, we have yet to extract what can be considered to be a fixed internal entity, from the history of this reason, where we mean by that its substantial IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 22 9/12/10 16:08 Page 22 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N structure which has remained constant despite all the transformations to which this mind was subject, as it is only on the basis of this substantial structure that comparison can be made. This is on one hand, and on the other hand, we have still not recognised, until now, the conception of the mind and its mode of thinking and iperception in Arab culture, in order to make an appropriate comparison between two known quantities, and not between a known and an unknown. Let us first attempt to surmise what might be considered constants of Greco-Roman reason in light of the illustration above. Notwithstanding the tremendous development that Western reason has known since Heraclitus until today, there are two constants shaping the course of that evolution, and, moreover, determining the structure of mind/reason in the Greco-Roman culture. These two constants are: 1. The consideration of the relation between the mind/reason and nature as a direct relation, on the one hand; 2. Faith in the capacity of the mind/reason to interpret and disclose the secrets of this relation, on the other. The first constant establishes a concept in existence, and the second constant establishes a concept in knowledge, and this is the only reason why we distinguished between them, whereas in reality they both constitute together a single structural constant, founded on the central relations in the structure of the reason about which we are talking, concerning an axis and one of the two poles: the reason and nature. Obviously, the reader must have noticed the absence of a god, or any other supernatural power as a third element. The reality is whether we examine the structure of the mythological thought of Greeks before philosophy, or the structure of the mind/reason established by Greek philosophy, or we analyse the structure of Latin Christian thought or modern and contemporary European thought, we will find that the godhead does not constitute a third element within them, independent itself of nature and the human being. Gods in Greek mythology do not appear until after the differentiation of the universal void into planets, stars, land and sky, and so on, and they are perceived within this mythology as human or anthropomorphic. Whereas in philosophy, as we have discerned before, in Heraclitus and Anaxagoras, the concept of the god is related to an order of the nature which they posited in 'universal reason' (the logos for Heraclitus and the Nous for Anaxagoras), and whether this God-Mind was appended IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 23 Reason and Culture 23 to nature or separate from it, it is in both cases an order, a systemising power intervening to establish order and distinguish something in existence, it is Nature in the state of initial void, the state of chaos and indeterminateness. Hence, Nature in its primordial condition exists independently of this organising power: the mind or God. As for the ideal of the Good (Plato's God), it is at the apex of the pyramid which constitutes the ideal rationality and it is itself of this kind, it is the apex of the reason. As for Nature in its primordial state, it does not persist on this basis, indeed, it exists independently, and is of a different nature, therefore. Plato presumed the existence of another god and that is God the Creator, while the god of Aristotle, 'the Prime Mover', seems to be mere 'scientific' supposition posed to interpret the principle of motion; in this regard it is merely a 'demand' of logic more than anything else. Even the metaphysical depiction sketched for us in some of Aristotle's writings, transforms it into a self-absorbed mind/reason turning away from everything else except itself, ignorant of everything other than its own essence: it is the mind/reason itself (al-?aql ), and the active rational perceiving intelligence (al-? aqil ) and ? the intelligible (al-ma?qu ). However, in Christian theology, the incarna?l tion of God in the Messiah renders both a single entity vis-à-vis Nature, the second party. In this system, God and the human being persist at one pole and Nature at the opposing pole. Finally, modern European philosophy rendered God either a force integrated into nature - it is the manifestation of organisation in it (as for Spinoza and Hegel), or a power separated from nature - it is considered to be the cause of consistency between the principles of the mind/reason and the laws of Nature. In modern and contemporary science, by contrast, the concept of God is completely rejected, but not necessarily as a lack of acknowledgement of its existence. This is in regard to existence, or on the ontological level. As regards knowledge, or the epistemological level, faith in the ability of the mind to interpret nature implies complete confidence in it. It is on this belief that Aristotelian logic was based, which describes itself as the set of rules that renders the human being, if he complies with them, impervious to error; and this same belief established and still continues to underpin modern and contemporary science. Did not Galileo state that the 'book of nature' is legible through the alphabet of mathematics, which is purely a mental substructure? Did not Descartes establish his philosophy on the concept of axiomatic rationality? Does not contemporary science depend, whether in dealing with the atomic world or that of outer space, on axiomatic forms - namely the mental substructures established by the human reason commencing from premises that it has posited, without taking into consideration anything else IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 24 9/12/10 16:08 Page 24 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N during the process of structuring other than excessive vigilance to avoid contradiction with itself, along with its suppositions and what necessarily follows from these as conclusions? Before and after this, did not Heraclitus and Anaxagoras and all those who came after them among Greek and modern European philosophers, correlate reason and the order of nature? Does not modern science understand reason as being a set of rules derived from a certain subject, which implies inclusively the correspondence between it and the rules of the subject? And last but not least, do not Greek philosophy, modern European philosophy and contemporary science admit the fact that the reason discovers itself in nature which is, itself, 'reason', in the sense of a system or laws? The correlation between reason and the order of nature and assuming that the mind discovers itself in nature through interacting with it are two basic constants in Western Greco-European-thought. Let us consider the situation in regard to 'Arab reason'. If we wish to embark on the discussion on 'Arab mind/reason' from the point where we concluded our previous discussion of the Greco-European mind/reason, we will have to discern first what distinguishes 'Arab reason' as part of Arab-Islamic culture, that the relations within it are arranged in axes about three poles: God (All? h), the human being and nature. And a if we want to restruct this relation to a bipolar one only, as we did in regard to the Greco-European mind, then we must posit God at one pole, and the human being at the other. As for nature in this regard, we must note its relative absence, almost to the same degree to which we registered the absence of God in the structure of the Greco-European reason, as presented earlier. Not only this, but it might also be said that the role that the concept of God plays in Greco-European thought, is that tantamount to the role it plays in the Arab mind, the role of an intermediary or a conduit: in Greco-European thought the concept of God is used to justify the correspondence between the laws of reason and the laws of nature, and moreover for the purpose of conferring credibility on rational knowledge, namely rendering it a certainty. In other words, the concept of God here plays the role of 'assistant' to the human reason in uncovering the natural order and divulging its secrets. As for 'Arab reason' as it was formed from within Arab-Islamic culture, nature plays the role of the 'assistant' to the human reason, to discover God and clarify his reality. From this standpoint in Arab-Islamic culture, it is required that reason contemplate nature in order to arrive at its creator: God. In Greco-European culture, reason uses God as a means to comprehend nature, or at least to IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 25 Reason and Culture 25 guarantee the correctness of its comprehension of it; that is, if reason does not dispose of God entirely, or unify God and Nature. We can proceed with this kind of comparison between the metaphysical framework of Greco-European reason and the metaphysical framework of 'Arab reason', positing the conclusions first and then attempting to demonstrate or justify them, and if we do so, we will shorten our path. This, however, would necessarily be at the expense of knowledge of the way, that is at the expense of our subject itself. Our goal is not the comparison itself, nor to corroborate a kind of hypothesis or 'synthesis'. No, what we are aiming for is to understand 'Arab reason' through this journey through the 'conduit' of the culture that produced it, and which itself is factored in producing and developing; thus the identification of something from within is much preferable to endeavouring to describe it from without, especially when the researcher departs from a point of critical analysis. It must be emphasised here again that what interests us fundamentally is not reason as a metaphysical structure but the mind as an instrument for theoretical production, as a 'system of rules', the rules of mental activity. Thus how is it possible to apprehend this system-instrument if we do not track it in its operation and throughout its processes of operation and production? Let us start from the beginning, and remain within the scope of the initial constraints mentioned earlier in this chapter. Reason and Language If the concept of reason/mind in Greek culture and modern and contemporary European culture is connected to 'awareness of causes', namely to knowledge, as we previously demonstrated, the significance of the term 'reason - al-?aql ' in the Arabic language, and consequently in Arab thought, is related mainly to conduct and ethics. We find diverse and clear indications given by Arabic dictionaries accorded to the root (?a-q-l ) where the connection between these indications and ethical behaviour is almost stereotypically pervasive and obligatory. It is true that the concept of 'mind/reason' in Greco-European culture has extended to the fields of ethics, and in a special manner since the Stoics who saw wisdom, all wisdom, as living according to Nature, namely according to the 'Logos' or 'universal reason', and from this standpoint the Stoics inaugurated the decisive discourse on 'ethics of the reason', ethics founded on the concept of duty. And we can confirm, from here forward, IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 26 9/12/10 16:08 Page 26 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N that the concept of 'reason' in the Arab mind will also extend to the field of knowledge. However, there is a major difference between an orientation proceeding from knowledge to ethics and an orientation proceeding from ethics to knowledge. In the first case, which is that of Greco-European thought, ethics are based on knowledge, whereas in the second case, the case of the Arab thought, knowledge is based on ethics. Knowledge here, in the case of the Arab thought, is not a revelatory disclosure of the relations correlating natural phenomena with each other, it is not a process through which the mind discovers itself in nature, but rather it is the distinguishing between the subjects of knowledge (whether sensory or social) between the good and the despicable, virtue and evil. And the task of reason and its function, even the very hallmark of its existence, is to convey its bearer to good conduct and prevent him from committing evil. We find this ethical dimension, valuable as it is, not only in words which are derived from the root (?a-q-l) but also in every word related to it through some sort of affiliation such as mind (dhihn), intelligence/understanding (nuhan), intellect (hija), thought (fikr), heart/faculties (fu?ad) . . . ? .? Some examples follow. It has been said in Lis? n al-?Arab (The Arab Tongue, the greatest lexicon a of Arabic): 'The mind/reason - al-?aql : circumpspection and prevention versus idiocy; and the rational person (al-? aqil ) is the one who conforms ? to its dictates and view: taken from a hobble (fetter) with which one binds the legs of animals', and also: 'the rational is the one who restrains his self and prevents it from its pleasure - taken from their saying that the tongue is rational when confined and prevented from speech . . . and the mind is called the mind because it reasons its possessor away from becoming involved in the perils that will destroy it, thus arresting/confining it'. Also according to Lis? n al-?Arab: 'Reason or intelligence in the sense of nuhan a prevents/forbids (tanhi ? an) the despicable', whereas the intellect (hija) is ¯ .? 'the discernment of errors and fallacies'. It is clear here that this issue is related, even with the meaning discernment (tafattun) (or insight), to the .. ethical dimension and not only to the aspect of knowledge (i.e., fallacies and not causes) and although the word 'mind' (dhihn) basically connotes comprehension, nevertheless this 'comprehension' relates to value judgements as well, as in Lis? n al-?Arab : 'it is said that he minded such and a such in the sense of he distracted me from it'. . . And the term dhihn in the sense of mind is also: a force/power, whereas the 'heart' (fu?ad) - derived ? from taffa?? ud - is 'perspicacity', namely sagacity. The writer of Lis? n ? a al-?Arab adduces a prophetic tradition (hadi th) describing the faculties of ¯ . the heart as tender and the heart as forebearing, suggesting that it has a IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 27 Reason and Culture 27 conscientious interior, just like the heart. Lis? n al-?Arab adds: 'perspicacity: a one who is afflicted in his heart with pain', confirming the emotional significance we have emphasised. Although the word 'thought' (fikr), despite the fact that it indicates essentially 'to induce/actuate thought in something', confers upon this 'idea' a signification of value, as it was reported in Lis? n al-?Arab: 'it is said that I do not have an idea of something, that a is, I do not have need of it'. However, if we consult the Qur?an, we will find this value-signifying ? meaning related to the word 'the reason - al-?aql ' and alike, mostly reflecting the distinction between good and evil, between guidance and deviation. Perhaps what is significant in this regard is that the Qur?an does not utilise ? the root ?a-q-l in noun form. The utterance 'reason - ?aql' is never mentioned in the Qur?an, but rather it is mentioned in verbal form in most cases. ? The Qur?an chastises the unbelievers as they do not distinguish between ? right and wrong - in the moral sense: 'They have hearts wherewith they do not understand, eyes whereby they do not see, and ears through which they hear not. They are like cattle, rather they are even more misguided as they are oblivious' (al-a? raf Q 7:179). Thus the heart and the reason ? here are one and the same, and the Qur?an ellucidates the phrase: 'they ? understand not' (l? yafqahuna bih): 'For the worst of creatures [lit., 'stepa ? pers' or things that walk on legs] for Allah are the deaf and dumb, those ¯ who will not reason [i.e., resort to the use of the ?aql: l? ya?qilun].' (ala ¯ anf? l Q 7:22). Also: 'And pursue not that of which you have no knowla edge; for sight, hearing and the faculties [of feeling] (al-fu?ad) will be asked ? about [on the Day of Judgement]' (al-isr? Q 17:36). It is clear that hearing, a seeing, feeling and speaking are all words discerned here at one level or in a single sense, hence they are all 'instruments' whereby to distinguish between good and evil, and therefore they all subject to the demands of responsibility. There are many other verses correlating between the reason, guidance and responsibility/culpability such as the following verse: 'When it is said to them: "Follow what Allah has sent down" they say: "Nay! ¯ We shall follow the ways of our fathers." What? Even if their fathers did not use their reason and were not guided? The similitude of those who reject faith is the like of one who shouts at one far away, where the shouts and calls go unheard: deaf, dumb, and blind as they do not reason' (albaqarah Q 2:170-171). It is true that we can apprehend through the various significations of the word 'reason' and other words a sense of what could be related to order and systemisation, but even in this case, the aspect of value or valuation is omnipresent. Thus, order and systemisation in the deliberative IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 28 9/12/10 16:08 Page 28 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N speech of the aforementioned Arabic words is always bound to human conduct and not to nature and its phenomena. Heretofore, it can be presumed that 'reason' in the conception transmitted by the Arabic lexicons is always related to the self and its states of conscience as well as to its value judgement. It is, concurrently, both a mind and heart, thought and conscience, scrutiny and a lesson; however, in the conception transmitted by European languages, the mind is always topical and related to its subject; it is either an order of existence, or a realisation of this order, or the power of awareness. The previous givens lead us, at least in principle, to a position enabling us to assert that 'Arab reason' is governed by the normative evaluative perception of things. What we mean by the normative evaluative perception is this orientation of the thinking, to tend to seek a place for things,and their position in the order of ethical values which is considered a referential criterion and basis for this thinking. This is in opposition to objective perception which seeks to analyse things on the basis of their essential components and attempts to disclose what is essential in them. The normative evaluative perception is reductionist, constraining a thing to its value, and thus to the meaning deduced by the person (or society or culture) - the possessor of this mode of perception, whereas objective perception is an analytical and structural perception: it deconstructs a thing into its essential elements to restructure it in a form emphasising its essence. Perhaps the same has been emphasised by ancient critics such as alJ? hiz and al-Shahrist? ni , who considered the comparison between Arabs a. . a¯ and non-Arabs in the field of thought and culture. In his famous text, al-J? hiz says: a. . Except that every discourse and every meaning for the Persians/non-Arabs indeed comes out of lengthy thought and out of ijtih? d [concerted independent a reasoning] and consultation and cooperation and through protracted contemplation and studying books and the accounts of the initial knowledge over the secondary and the addition of a third to the knowledge of the second until the fruits of those thoughts are gathered by the last of them. [We notice here that this is only possible if the orientation of the thinking is objective.] Everything for Arabs is indeed innate sense and spontaneous as if inspiration, and there is neither suffering nor endeavour, neither contemplation nor seeking assistance: indeed, he directs his whim to theology and to the ignominy of the day of dispute, or when he leans over the top of the well, or spurs a camel or upon quarrel or with a conveyance or upon a struggle or at war, he does nothing but direct his whim to the entire madhab or to the pillar which he IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 29 Reason and Culture 29 intends; thus the meanings come diffuse and the utterances as a swarm - not fettering himself nor can any of his descendants plot against him. And they are not like the one who preserves the knowledge of other than himself and follows the words of those who came before him, so they do not memorise other than what is attached to their hearts and coalesced, ensconced in their ?lihim], with no culpable effort and breasts and connected to their minds [? uqu no intention and no reservation and no demand.22 Al-J? hiz, who conveyed these observations as part of his praise of Arabs a. . and repelling attacks of popular chauvinist movements, was perhaps unaware that he was inadvertently stripping them of the ability of 'reasoning' in the sense of inference and rational judgement. The 'Arab reason', for al-J? hiz, a. . is underpinned by intuitiveness and improvisation; he meant by this rapidity of 'apprehension' and the lack of hesitation in promulgating judgments. This implies the control of the normative evaluative perception caused by instantaneous reactions, as opposed to objective perception which is based on 'toil and endurance and [contemplation by] letting the eyes wander/taking a look around', which is one of the characteristics of the 'reason' of nonArabs, whether Persian or Greek. Al-Shahrist? ni takes - once the conflict with the popular chauvenist a¯ movements had abated - a 'neutral' position, the position of historicising thought from a philosophical perspective, genuinely depending on comparison, but with an analytical and in-depth perception. Al-Shahrist? ni says a¯ that Arabs - and Indians - are more inclined to 'deciding the particulars of things and judging according to essential identities/quiddity of things and realities and utilising spiritual matters', whereas for non-Arabs (Romans and Persians), 'they are most inclined to deciding upon dispositions/natures of things and judging according to means and qunata and resorting to the use of physical matters'.23 Al-Shahrist? ni confirms the a¯ same verdict in another part of the same book, where he posits 'innate sense' (al-fitrah) and 'intuition' (al-tab? ) as 'spiritual matters', and 'acqui. . sition' (al-iktis? b) and 'exerted effort' (al-juhd ) as 'physical matters'.24 a Al-Shahrist? ni proposes a comparison based on contradistinction: on a¯ the determination of the particular attributes of things in opposition to determination of their dispositions/natures: meaning dealing with things through their attributes and distinctive characteristics rather than other and not through their natures; that is, through their inner constitution, their substructure and the order of inner relations. Here, we must recall that the idiom 'dispositions/natures' in ancient terminology simultaneously implies the constant system of causality system (a type of necessity), and IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 30 9/12/10 16:08 Page 30 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N the quintessential structure of a thing. And by way of example 'judgment according to quiddities and realities' means assessing something through the most important qualities for whomever is engaging in its evaluation, the thing for which a look around is sufficient, based on 'innate sense and improvisation', and such a judgment is naturally a value judgment. Completely contrary to that is 'judgment through the constraints of means and quanta and the use of physical things' (namely senses and experiment), which are related, for al-Shahrist? ni , to 'acquisition and endeavour' a¯ in contradistinction to 'innate sense and improvisation'. If we return to the epistemological field, from within which al-Shahrist? ni is speaking, we a¯ will recognise that 'judgement through the constraints of means and quanta' connotes clarifying components of a thing structure, namely viewing it objectively. In addition, this objective perception is different from selfreflexive perception in that it relies on deductions and demonstration/proof (burh? n), and not intuition and conscience. a We can expand on determining the 'normative evaluative tendency' that governs and orients the 'Arab reason', as well as Arab conception of the mind, through citing other texts of ancient and modern writers, Arab and non-Arab. However, our goal is not the collection of documents to subject 'Arab reason' to a particular verdict or another, and hence fall into the same 'normative evaluative tendency'. Our task, rather, is to analyse the epistemological basis of Arab culture which produced 'Arab reason'. The comparison between Arabs and non-Arabs in the realm of thought, whether through the technique of al-J? hiz or that of al-Shahrist? ni , does not interest a. . a¯ us except in what it offers to us as of initial delimitations of the concept of 'Arab reason'; otherwise, it is not yet time for us to delve into such. Nevertheless, another methodological factor imposes upon us consideration of the point at hand, in order to preclude us from making general/stereotypical judgements before justifying and substantiating them: we have embarked on an endeavour to perceive some of the elements which form or contribute to the formation of the particular characteristics of 'Arab reason' of the language preserved for us by the lexicons, the language of the Arabs of the J? hili yah, and we clarified that through a¯ bringing forth the content of some verses of the Qur?an, which is an Arabic ? book verbalised in the Arabic language of the Arabs of the J? hili yah, as a¯ it was during the era of the Prophet. And when al-J? hiz and al-Shahrist? ni a. . a¯ spoke of the 'Arab reason' they were indicating essentially the 'reason' of the Arabs of the J? hili yah. Thus, we have not emerged from the 'Era of a¯ the J? hili yah,' in all that this era connotes of environmental elements: a¯ IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 31 Reason and Culture 31 geographic, economic, social and cultural. Thus, is it feasible for us to generalise the particular characteristics of 'Arab reason' during the era of the J? hili yah for subsequent Islamic epochs? a¯ It is the same question that we posited at the beginning of this chapter, and for which we find ourselves, once again, compelled to postpone the answer until we complete the related elements, despite our previous clarifications - indeed, because of them. Perhaps the next chapter will enable us to reiterate the same question in a different fashion, in broader and deeper form. Notes 1. The Arabic term al-?aql , deriving from the trilateral root ?a-q-l, can be translated into English variously and among common translations are: 'reason', 'mind', 'understanding', 'comprehension', 'intelligence', 'rationality', 'intellect' and 'rational intellect'. The translation here as 'reason' was based upon consultation with the author himself and his express preference as the result of an issue over a working title tentatively chosen for this book (Takwi n al-?Aql al-?Arabi ) of 'Formation of Arab Reason'. ¯ ¯ In that discussion, al-Jabri referred to Emanuel Kant's usage of the term 'reason' (die Vernuft) and indicated that this was the intended connotation of the Arabic term (al?aql ). Morevoer, al-Jabri draws on Lalande's distinction between the 'constituent reason' or the perpetrator la raison constituante (al-?aql al-mukawwin) and 'constituted reason' or the prevailing la raison constituée (al-?aql al-mukawwan). It may, however, also be noted that al-Jabri was francophone and not a speaker of English, which might have, arguably, influenced his predilection for the term 'reason' as opposed to 'mind' where the typical French rendering would be either 'la raison' or 'l'esprit'. On the other hand, possible direct support for use of the term 'mind' over the term 'reason' in the English translation of this work - at least in certain instances - can be drawn from al-Jabri's book itself where he refers, for example, on pages 39-40 of the Arabic original (Mohammed Abed al-Jabri. Takwi n al-?Aql al-?Arabi . ninth edition. Beirut: Centre for ¯ ¯ Arab Unity Studies, 2006) to Sigmund Freud's theory of the relation of al-?aql - that is 'mind' to the 'unconscious' - lash? u i yah. In German, 'mind' can be rendered as 'der ? ?r¯ Verstand' or potentially as 'die Vernuft', following Kant, where the former term tends to have the connotation of a 'mental faculty' and the latter that of 'common sense', but where 'vernüftig' (the verbal form of the latter) connotes 'logisch denken' or 'thinking logically' and the 'capacity to reason'. This said, the standard rendering of Freud's work in terms of English would, of course, entail reference to the 'unconscious mind' as opposed to 'reason'. Lastly, it may also be noted that Ibrahim Abu Rabi? in his book Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence in the Modern Arab World (New York: SUNY Press, 1995) translates the title of this book as 'Formation of the Arab Mind' (p. 28) and treats the subject matter similarly. Due to the complexity of this issue, the Arabic term ?aql has been retained parenthetically to alert the reader to the fact that both where the term 'reason' has been used - in keeping with the author's express preference - and in instances where a translation of 'mind' was deemed warranted or preferential, that the author has only used only one and the same term throughout. (Editor's note) IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 32 9/12/10 16:08 Page 32 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N 2. When we say 'contemporary Arabic' (Modern Standard Arabic), we refer to the language which we use to read and write today, and that which is being enriched constantly from translation. Lexical Arabic language does not possess such an interaction; for instance, the expression 'fikr (thought)' in archaic Arabic used to denote the act of thinking rather than the content of thought, which the ancients referred to as ar? ? (opinions), madh? hib (schools), aq? wi l (categories). ?a ? a ? a¯ ? 3. Al-Jabri uses the phrase bi-w? sitah which has been rendered here generally as a. ? 'by means of' or 'through the means of'; however, it should be pointed out that the term expresses the connotation of an intermediary, and thus, the meaning which is being expressed is that of thinkers 'thinking by means of the interposed medium of culture'. (Editor's note) 4. Since we are about to address some preliminary definitions, it is relevant here to explain some of the considerations that commended our putting some expressions and phrases between single quotation marks. In typographical conventions, quotation marks are commonly used in modern times to indicate that the word or sentence has been quoted literally from another writer or author. In addition, parentheses might be used to express reservations over the parenthesised expression or to warn that its usage carries altered content. Also, they might be used to signify that the parenthetical expression may possess a special meaning in certain contexts. Apparently, the lack of typographical diversity in Arabic punctuation - contrary to foreign languages - is the reason behind our extensive reliance on this punctuation mark and in the sense we discussed above. 5. A. Lalande, La Raison et les Normes (Paris: Hachette, 1963), pp. 16-17, 187, 228. 6. Claude, Levi-Strauss, La Pensée Sauvage (Paris: Plon, 1962), p. 349. 7. Gusdorf, Georges, Les Origines des Sciences Humaines (Paris: Payot, 1967), p. 130. 8. The Dawn of Greek Philosophy, the Texts of Greek pre-Socratic Philosophers, trans. Ahmad Fu?ad al-Ahwani Shadhrah, 1st edn. (Cairo: 1954). ? ?¯ . 9. Léon, Robin, La Pensée Grecque et les Origines de l'Esprit Scientifique. Ed. Albin Michel (Paris: 1963), p. 152. 10. In this section, al-Jabri has used two terms which may connote 'soul' or 'spirit' - al-ru . and al-nafs - where the term 'wind' (ri h) is derivative of the root of the first ?h ¯ and 'breath' (nafas) is derivative of the root of the second. Both terms are Qur?anic, ? and there was considerable debate among ancient Muslim theologians of the kalam ? as to whether or not the two terms were cognate or whether they referred to two different, discrete entities. The term nafs is often rendered as 'self'; however, as can be seen in the previous section, this may be more properly rendered as 'Self' when used in the universal sense, and especially in the 'syncretic' philosophy of Ibn ?Arabi (d. 1240) who was the chief exponent of the doctrine of wahdat al-wuju - 'oneness of ?d . being' - with its strong parallels to the Vedas. (Editor's note) 11. Nicolas, Malebranche, Recherche de la Vérité, in oeuvres completes. 7 vols (Paris: Vrin, 1958). 12. Antoine Augustin, Cournot, Essai sur les fondements de nos connaissances (Paris: Hachette, 1922), p. 16. 13. See Descartes, Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, Meditation IV, also see his letter to Mersenne in: Descartes, Lettres, Texts Choisies (Paris: PUF, 1964), p. 11. 14. See for example Karam, Yu ?suf. Tari kh al-Falsafah al-Hadith (Cairo: D? r al¯ a . Ma?arif, 1957), p. 105 till the end. 15. In addition to the original reference: Naqd al-?Aql al-Kh? s, by Kant, for Arabic a. IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 33 Reason and Culture 33 references, see: Zayd? n, Mahmu Kant wa-Falsafatah al-Nazari yah (Cairo: D? r a a . ?d. .¯ al-Ma?arif [n.d.), and Ibr? hi m, Zakari yah. Kant wa-Falsafatah al-Naqdi yah (Cairo: ? a¯ ¯ ¯ Maktabat Misr, [n.d.]). . 16. Scientific development truly confirms that 'every thing that is real is reasonable/rational' (kul m? huwa ? ilmi fa-huwa ? aqli ) where small and large natural phenomena a ¯ ¯ are accordingly set to the scientific field and scientific explanation. As for his contrasting expression 'every reasonable/rational thing is real' (kul m? huwa ? aqli fa-huwa waqi?i ), a ¯ ¯ one can derive many examples of it from scientific achievements, by means of example, when scientists 'reasoned' (ta? aqqal) about an airplane it became possible to realize. In other words, when mental/rational perceptions (tasawwur ? aqli ) submit to the causality ¯ . system, they can be realized in reality. 17. About Hegel, for Arabic references check: the works of Imam ?Abd al-Fatt? h a. Im? m, his published books and translations, and the translation of the first part of a ?. a a Kants' book 'Dh? hiri y? t al-Ruh' by Mustafa Safw? n (Beirut: D? r al-Tali ?a, [n.d.]) a ¯a . ¯? .. publishing title 'Ilm Dhuhur al-?Aql '. ¯ 18. See details in our book: Madkhal il? Falsafat al-? Ulum [introduction to the a ¯ Science of Philosophy], two Volumes, 1st edition (Beirut: D? r al-Tali ?a) especially Volume a . ¯? two. 19. Jean Ullmo, La pensée scientifique moderne. (Paris Flammarion 1969). 20. Cf. Jean-Pière Vernant, Les origines de la pensée Grecque. p. 133 (PUF, 1981). 21. Jean Ullmo, ibid. 22. Al-J? hiz, Abu Uthm? n ?Amr ibn Bahr. Al-Bay? n wa al-Tabi yi n (Beirut: D? r a. . ? a a ¯¯ a . Ihyy? al-Tur? th al-?Arabi , [n.d.]) a ¯ .a 23. Al-Shahrist? ni al-Milal wa al-Nihal, ed. by ?Abd al-?Azi z Muhammad ala¯ ¯ . . Mutawwakil (Cairo: Mu? asasat al-Halabi , 1968). ¯ 24. Ibid., p. 76. IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 34 IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 35 CHAPTER 2 Arab Cultural Time and the Problematic of Development The Constituted Reason and Arab Culture When we described in the previous chapter the distinction evoked by Lalande between the 'constituting reason' and the 'constituted reason' we indicated that the concept of 'Arab reason' as employed here applies more to the 'constituted reason' as formed within and through Arab culture, namely, as being the set of principles and rules proposed by Arab culture to its followers as a basis of knowledge acquisition, and we could say that it is imposed as an 'epistemological order' (nizam ma?rifi ).1 ¯ .? We will disregard now the 'exchange of influence' relationship between the constituting mind and the constituted mind which we have outlined, and direct our attention in this chapter towards constituted 'Arab reason' as the extant epistemological system, which underpins the episteme and the means of its production (or elaboration) within Arab culture, and we will ask what do we mean by the 'epistemological system' and how it exerts its effect within any culture? Thus, if the constituted reason, as evinced by Lalande himself, is 'a system of predetermined and accepted rules in a certain historical period', then which historical period of the eras in Arab culture do we imply when discussing 'Arab reason' as this 'matrix of rules'? Finally, what is our general strategy for this critical analysis? This chapter, where we will try to provide answers to these intertwined questions, raises the issue of methodology and perspective, and explicates the attendant founding, fundamental concepts. IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 36 9/12/10 16:08 Page 36 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N We can define the concept of 'epistemological system' Épistémè in its initial and abstract definition through the following expression: the episteme is a set of concepts, principles and procedures that provides knowledge with its unconscious structure, in a certain period of history. This definition may be reduced as follows: the episteme in a certain culture is its unconscious substructure.2 But what does this mean? When we discuss a 'structure', we basically infer the existence of constants and variables, and therefore when we discuss the structure of 'Arab reason' we actually mean constants and variables of the Arab culture that constituted it. Does this mean that we are unifying 'reason' and the 'culture', to which reason belongs, on the basis that they are two manifestations of a single 'structure'? Let it be so, but on condition that we adopt the celebrated definition of culture, which states that: 'culture is what remains when everything else is forgotten'.3 Hence, if we assert that 'Arab reason' is the effect produced and still being produced by Arab culture on the Arab individual, after he has forgotten whatever he has learned of this culture, we are not far from the truth. What remains is the 'constant' and what is 'forgotten' is the 'variable'. What persists is the constant of Arab culture, and this is 'Arab reason' itself. Following this general and abstract definition of Arab reason, which permits us now to remove the quotation marks, we proceed in explaining, as far as possible, its components, so we may ask: what has remained invariable in Arab culture since the 'pre-Islamic era of ignorance' - al-?as r . al-jahili - until today? (We employ the idiom of the 'J? hili yah' by placing ?¯ a¯ it also between quotation marks for a while because of the consensus, at least implicitly, that the formation of Arab culture originally began at some indeterminate point in that time.) We will return to discuss this issue in the next chapter. What has remained invariable in Arab culture since the 'J? hili yah era' a¯ up until today? This question might seem valid and innocuous but, in fact, it is 'insidious' and misleading, particularly given that it might, itself, become an answer if it were perceived in the form of a negative question. However, what qualifies it as 'insidious' from our perspective is that it masks and conceals another latent contradictory question, deeper and explicitly expressive, that is consequently more apt to destabilise the prevailing perception. This 'repressed' question is: what has changed in the Arab culture since the 'J? hili yah' to today? We have no doubt that an a¯ Arab reader - one who has a mind formed within and only through Arab culture - will probably be perturbed and agitated by the second question IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 37 Arab Cultural Time and the Problematic of Development 37 in a way different from the first. The first question is benign or even 'soporific', while the second is provocative, with far-reaching implications within our 'inner' thoughts; it is therefore closer and more germane to our subject. What has changed in the Arab culture since 'pre-Islam' to today? This question, too, can be interpreted as a negative question, so does it have greater legitimacy than the first one? The proof of that is that we all feel that Imru? al Qays, ? Amr Ibn Kulthum, ? Antarah, Lubayd, al-N? bighah ? a al-Dhuby? ni , Zuhayr Ibn Abi Sulm? . . . and Ibn ? Abb? s, ? Ali bin Abi a¯ ¯ a a ¯ ¯ Talib, M? lik, S i bawayh, al-Sh? fi?i , Ibn Hanbal . . . and al-J? hiz, al-Mubarrad, a ¯ a¯ a. . .? . al-Asma?i . . . and al-Ash? ari , al-Ghaz? li , al-Junayd, Ibn Taymi yah . . . and ¯ ¯ a¯ ¯ . before him al-Tabari , al-Mas? udi , Ibn al-Athi r . . . and al-F ar? bi , Ibn Si n? ¯ ?¯ ¯ ?a¯ ¯a . (Avicenna), Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Ibn Khaldun, and later, Jam? l al-Di n ? a ¯ al-Afgh? ni , Muhammad ? Abduh, Rashi d Rida, al-? Aqq? d, and the list gets a¯ ¯ a . .? longer . . . we find them all here still living with us, as if they all stand on the stage of a single scene, the scene of the Arab culture which has not yet drawn down the curtains, not even once. No person can object to this 'claim', except one who has a genuine and convincing sense, when reading of one of the above personalities, that he does not understand him, or that he is incompatible with him, or that he does not listen to him or approve of his discourse or logic, or at least has the impression of the other's belonging to a world unlike his own. How can any such objections occur when all of us children of Arab culture learn reading, perception, listening, speaking and logic from our childhood and throughout our education, from the 'protagonists' of this culture, some of whom we mentioned above? Who of 'Arab' intellectuals can proclaim that he belongs to a different world than theirs, or that he no longer has a connection with the heroes of the 'immortal' theatre of Arab culture? Thus, there are many unchanged things in Arab culture from the preIslamic period of the 'J? hili yah' up until today, constituting in their entirety a¯ the constants of this culture and, thus, establishing the substructure of the mind belonging to it: that is, Arab reason. We do not wish to pre-empt the line of our discourse by raising this issue, which will be the subject of analysis in the forthcoming chapters, but we hope that by mentioning it in this 'provocative' approach, we will allow the reader to discern that the time (zaman) of a culture, any culture, is not necessarily correlated to the time of states or socio-political events, and that 'cultural time' does not correlate with various (chronological) measures of time or the normal, socio-political reckoning of it, because it IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 38 9/12/10 16:08 Page 38 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N has a special calibration of its own. Insomuch as culture is, indeed, what remains 'after everything else is forgotten', then what remains of a culture is what characterises it, namely, its 'time'.4 If we take into consideration the connection we have just revealed between the constants of a defined culture, and the structure of the mind belonging to it, it becomes imperative to posit that the time of the structure of the mind belonging to a certain culture is equivalent to the time of that same culture; thus, the time of Arab reason is the same as the time of Arab culture, and as we have previously indicated, the historical protagonists of that culture are still in motion, in front of us, on its eternal stage, perpetually pulling us towards them. To clarify this claim, we shed light on this new concept, the concept of 'cultural time', which we have subsumed here among the procedural concepts we denoted in this section of the book, enabling us, we hope, to better explore the subject of our discourse. The Subconscious and Culture When we connected the structure of the reason (or mind) belonging to a certain culture with what remains of that culture among individuals belonging to it after they have forgotten what they have acquired in it of different views and theories and schools of thought, in all the different means of dissemination, that means we consider this relationship between culture and the reason (or mind) to which it belongs as an unconscious relationship, on the basis that what is forgotten is not vitiated, but rather remains alive in the unconscious mind, as Freud emphasises. This means that the subconscious structure of the mind, belonging to a certain culture, is shaped or constituted unconsciously within and through this culture, which also works unconsciously on reproducing this same culture. This is to say that the mind is a device of knowledge (effective and prevalent), is produced and producing at the same time, in an unconscious manner. If it is admissible, and useful, to utilise the concept of 'cognitive unconscious' when studying the structure of the individual mind of a given human being, as did the great psychologist Jean Piaget, it may be admissible to utilise the same concept also in regard to communities and nations, or more precisely, in regard to cultures. And then it will be useful, pertaining to our discourse, to elaborate on a cognitive unconscious peculiar to Arab IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 39 Arab Cultural Time and the Problematic of Development 39 culture, which is moreover peculiar to the educated Arab intellectual. But first, what does 'cognitive unconscious' mean? Piaget used the concept of cognitive unconscious (l'inconscient cognitif ) in his discourse on the constitution of the subconscious of the mind, the individual mind, inspired by the meaning given by Freud to the unconscious (emotional, behavioural), which consists of a psychological power based on desires and suppressed feelings that are oriented towards a defined issue. Thus, just like a person who loves his paramour cognises the consequences of his behaviour (his emotional behaviour as the end-object of his love that is his beloved), so a cognisant person recognises the consequences of his (intellectual) behaviour, namely the subject related to his cognitive act. Nevertheless, neither the lover nor the cognisant realises the mechanisms manipulating his or her behaviour. For he who loves does not know or realise the method through which he loves, nor the reasons of his love, nor why it was intense to such a degree, and so forth; and, similarly, the cognisant person does not agonise nor does he realise the method through which he knows, nor the mechanisms governing the process of his cognition (at least in a certain stage of his cultural development). Thus, Piaget affirms the admissibility and credibility of employing the concept of the cognitive unconscious to indicate the total operations and hidden mental activities governing the process of cognition in the individual. Accordingly, we cannot think, for example, without the unconscious utilisation of basic and essential concepts of the process of thinking, such as the concepts of 'bigger', 'smaller', 'precedent', 'equal', 'before', 'after', 'beneath', 'above', 'cause', and so on; we do not think about the meaning of the word 'bigger' when we estimate that 'this thing is bigger than that'. Such concepts form the cognitive unconscious for individuals, as expressed by Piaget; they are its foundations and components.5 We will adopt the concepts of Piaget, and transfer them from the field of substantive psychology, from which Piaget proceeded, to the field of epistemology of culture where we are proceeding and so we will say that the Arab cognitive unconscious is the set of conceptions, perceptions and mental activities defining the view of the Arab human - namely, the individual belonging to Arab culture - in relation to the universe, the human being, society and history, and so forth. Therefore, when we elaborate on the substructure of Arab reason, we primarily indicate these concepts and intellectual activities provided by Arab culture to its members, which constitute the cognitive unconscious for them, unconsciously orienting their intellectual and moral premises and their view of themselves as well as others.6 IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 40 9/12/10 16:08 Page 40 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N Why invoke the concept of cognitive unconscious while we intend to expound on the concept of cultural time? Undoubtedly, the concept of cognitive unconscious as used here is a procedural concept preventing us from falling into unscientific conceptions that are commended to us by some rigid concepts, such as the concept of 'rationality' based on admitting - explicitly or implicitly - the existence of a 'natural mindset' which is above time and history and particular to each community or 'race'.7 The concept of cognitive unconscious is a fruitful concept of procedure because it enables us to restore epistemological procedure to a device of concepts and mechanisms that are not actually detected but are apt to monitor, observe and analyse, instead of restoring it - namely, knowledge - to concepts of 'mentalities' or 'intellectualities' or other arid and misguided concepts. On the other hand, the use of this concept in the field wherein we are proceeding affords us a productive and inspiring comparison. We can thus connect the time of culture to the time of the unconscious. It is known that the unconscious has no history because, by nature, it does not acknowledge the existence of a 'natural' time; we would say that it has its own time which is completely different from conscious time, the time of wakefulness and consciousness. The time of the unconscious is similar to the time of a dream, for it does not recognise chronological or geographical distances, nor does it recognise the law of a priori and a posteriori, the law of causality. Such a cultural time, and also the time of the substructure of the mind belonging to a certain culture, does not induce changes at the same tempo as those occurring for emotional and social time, let alone the natural time governed by astrodynamics, as believed in antiquity. So cultural time is just like the time of the unconscious, an intertwined and wavelike time, extended in a spiral form which renders several cultural phases coexistent in the same thought (or intellect), and thus in the same mental structure, just like the coexistence of different suppressed desires attributed to different psychological, mental and biological stages of life such as the desires of childhood, adolescence, youth and maturity, in addition to instinctive and biological drives that constitute the activity of the unconscious and its functionality, all of which transpire in the absence of the psychological unconscious, as demonstrated by Freud. Therefore, if we considered, for instance, that certain perceptions or beliefs or concepts belong to an earlier stage of intellectual and cultural development, then this does not imply that those perceptions, beliefs and concepts had edged at the periphery of that phase of development. On IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 41 Arab Cultural Time and the Problematic of Development 41 the contrary, it is probable - and perhaps most likely - that those perceptions, beliefs and concepts can survive a subsequent phase of development along with entirely new perceptions, beliefs and concepts that form the cultural 'identity' (of science or philosophy or literature) for those new phases. While the gap between the old concepts and the new might widen to a degree of antagonism and contradiction, it might, however, occur - and perhaps most probably - that these will all still persist, not only within the collective thought expressing the related culture, but also within individual thought belonging to that culture, in a manner that they might both subsist within an individual's consciousness, either in a state of conflict or in a state of consensual or dissentious 'coexistence'. This will reflect on the ideational-cognitive behaviour of the person, so he will be 'balanced' or 'high-strung,' 'sane' or 'insane,' but in all conditions he will experience a single cultural time, as long as the new has not effected a final break with the old, namely, as long as the 'system of knowledge' has remained unchanged, as long as it is possible for the 'old' to enter into a dialogue with the 'new' - implying that the outcome of development has not yet reached the point of no return, the point where the transition from new to old is no longer possible. For culture, thus, time is not just a 'period of movement', but also a period of no motion (al-sukun), so to speak. By borrowing the terminology ? utilised by Ibr? hi m bin Sayy? r al-Naz zam, the famous Mu? tazilite a¯ a ..? mutakallim (dialectical theologian), we could say that the movement in the cultural time is two: 'dependence' - harakat al-i? tim? d (lit., the opera . ation of dependence), i.e., self-motion: that is the movement of tension inherent in the body about to be released (like an arrow before its launch) and 'transfer' harakat al-naqlah (lit., the operation of transfer), i.e., the . transference from one place to another, from one stage to another. It is clear that the classification of culture - any culture - into stages is only valid when the movement takes the form of a transition. Whereas when the movement represents a dependence, then the cultural stages - or phases of development of a particular thought which means the same - remain cumulative intersecting, rival, neither being 'single' nor separable or 'multiple', just as in the case of the contents of the unconscious as perceived by Freud. I would say that the movement in Arab culture was and still is a movement of dependence and not that of a transition, since its time period is set by 'motionlessness' (sukun) and not by 'motion' in spite of all the ? movements, dynamics and activities it has undergone. IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 42 9/12/10 16:08 Page 42 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N This claim requires justification, of course. Perhaps the reader will arrive at the same conviction, or at least will be more apt to understand the motives of this claim when he or she reaches the last chapter of this book. Nonetheless, we must propose some factors that may convince, even temporarily, or in other words, facilitate the amelioration and enrichment of these initial determinations of the subject of our discourse. In this context, we might ask: was not syntax born with Si bawayh? Was not the ¯ usul al-fiqh defined at its inception with al-Sh? fi?i ? Was not the 'complete' a¯ .? or semi-complete historical chronicle generated in Islam with Ibn Ishaq .? and al-W? qidi ? Did not al-Khali l bin Ahmad present the complete Arabic a¯ ¯ . dictionary and the complete prosody? Weren't the issues of the theology of the kalam determined with Wasil bin ?Ata? and his contemporaries? ? ?. .? Was not Shi ? ite thought, doctrine, discourse and politics perfected with ¯ Ja? far al-Sadiq? . . . And last, but not least, did not these people and all .? alike live in a single era, the Era of Codification - the writing of history, the era of the general cultural institution which was and remains a referential authority for Arab thought and Arab culture up until now as we will show in the next chapter? In order to realise the importance of this claim in relation to our current quest, we must make a comparison, however brief, between this present situation and that of Europe. We have opted for Europe because its modern cultural time imposes itself in all fields, thereby disturbing and tearing apart in our innermost, personal cultural time . . . our protracted, static time. Europeans have chronicled culture for centuries, starting with the birth of (Jesus) the Messiah and asserting the existence of distinct phases - Greek thought in the fourth century BC and French and German thought, or European in general, in the eighteenth century AD, for example. They establish thereby - whether in conformity with historical fact or not - a connection between the phases of development of European thought, rendering it pervasive in their consciousness from the eighth or ninth century BC up to the present time. Whenever they consider this 'European Thought' (which stretches in their consciousness throughout twenty-eight centuries or more) in the terms of what we have adopted here in regard to cultural time, they classify it into three cultural epochs: Antiquity (GrecoRoman); the Middle Ages (the Christian era); and the Modern Age. We are here before a historical continuity forming a referential time frame which is fixed and clear. And, whether this continuity is real or imagined, or whether it is seen as extending in a connected movement or through 'ruptures', the significant point is the function it has in the field of conscious- IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 43 Arab Cultural Time and the Problematic of Development 43 ness. It 'organises' history, distinguishing between a priori and a posteriori, making it impossible to effect, even on the level of dream consciousness, a return to what came before in order to replace the present. In other words, this continuity, regardless of whether real or imagined, provides a consciousness of history for its possessors, orienting them towards the future, without denying their past, and also without perpetually placing this past in front of them so that they read the future through it. The past here is placed in its 'normative' status in history, as well as - and this is more essential - in the consciousness of this history. Those in the Arab world do not chronicle or evaluate their culture in terms of centuries - except theatrically. They still write history using a time frame of ruling dynasties: poetry or literature, or Arab thought in general, in the 'Umayyad era' or the '? Abb? sid age' or 'F? timid era', and a a. so on; and if some embrace the European classification as a referential time frame, they classify Arab culture into two epochs: Arab culture in the 'Middle Ages' and Arab culture in the 'Modern era', as for the era of 'Antiquity' it has no place in Arab 'history', which obviously renders the concept of an Arab 'Middle Ages' problematic given the lack of a preceding element that would justify its 'mediation'. Even so, when Arabs tolerate the European 'tradition' and chronicle their culture using 'centuries', they find themselves utilising the Hijri calendar concerning the first period - the time of Arab culture in the 'Middle Ages' which extends to the seventh or eighth century of the Hijrah (i.e., the 'emigration' of the Prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina (then Yathrib) in 622 ce), before we transition into the Christian Era in describing the second period - the time of Arab thought during the 'Renaissance' (alNahdah) which is posited as beginning at the start of the nineteenth century . ce. As for the period between these Arab 'Middle Ages' and 'Renaissance', namely, between the eighth century Hijrah or the fifteenth century AD and the thirteenth century of the Hijrah or the nineteenth century AD, there is a 'missing link'8 in Arab history . . . and, likewise, a deep and bewildering gap in Arab consciousness. These observations may seem insignificant, and some consider them a deviation towards 'stereotyped issues', however, so be it. Yet, why do we find such to be the case or seek to evaluate such as 'insignificant' or 'trivial' issues? We must admit that this is due to the fact that we are accustomed to this 'torn history'. And, if we perceive this issue through what we have evinced here as cultural time and cognitive unconscious, we realise the gravity of this 'trivial' history in the scope of the historical consciousness IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 44 9/12/10 16:08 Page 44 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N of Arabs. This relates, in fact, to the transition between two completely different referential systems, each featuring its own time frame, which renders our consciousness of the time period controlled by our awareness of space; thus, we treat time in the same manner that we treat space. Time is a static, motionless present, and if our consciousness does not perceive a part of it, then this absence exhibits the form of a spatial absence, a perceptual void not a moral one, an absenteeism that ceases when senses return. Hence, the past and the present alternate in the arena of Arab consciousness, to the extent that the past can compete vigorously with the present even to the degree that it appears to be the 'present' itself. What does this indicate? First, it indicates that the history of Arab thought has not yet been written, that the history of Arab culture needs to be rearranged, that Arab cultural time has yet to be documented, defined and identified. It is true that we distinguish between: 1) the ?asr al-j? hili (pre-Islamic a¯ . era); 2) the ?asr al-isl? mi (Islamic era); and 3) the ?asr al-nahd ah a¯ . . . (Renaissance era). However, this distinction is entirely superficial as we do not perceive it either through our consciousness, or by our perception as phases of evolution, where the later abolish the former, nor do we perceive them as distinct cultural epochs with attendant characteristics for each - rendering them connected or disconnected. On the contrary, we perceive these 'three eras' as separate islands, isolated from each other. The gap, in our consciousness, separating what we call the 'era of the J? hili yah' and what we term the 'Islamic era' is not any less deep or wide a¯ than the chasm separating - perpetually in our consciousness - the 'Islamic era', usually perceived as ending by the eighth century of the Hijrah and the 'Nahdah' dating, as previously mentioned, to the nineteenth century . ce. What ensues, then, is the presence of these three 'cultural islands' simultaneously in contemporary Arab consciousness. All the above indicates that any one of us when moving consciously from the 'J? hili yah era' to the 'Islamic era' to the age of the 'Nahdah' a¯ . does not sense the transition from one time to another but probably perceives only a transition from one space to another: from the Arabian Peninsula (the mu?allaq? t al-ka?bah, and the suq ?uq? z)9 to Baghdad (in a ¯ a. the ?Abb? sid period) to Cairo (of the F? timid reign) to Fez and Cordoba a a. (of the Almohavid era) . . . to the Egypt of Muhammad ?Ali and al-Tahtawi ¯ . . .? ¯ and Lutfi al-Sayyid . . . or the Algeria of Ibn B? di s, and so forth. ¯ a¯ . This observation leads to a further remark we formulate as the 'intersection of cultural times' in the thought of Arab intellectuals, in both cognitive and ideological fields. Concerning the cognitive field, the Arab IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 45 Arab Cultural Time and the Problematic of Development 45 intellectual is still as he was in the 'Umayyad era', consuming ancient knowledge as though it is new, whether the source was 'purely' Arab or a foreign 'intrusion'. This was the case yesterday, and is still the same today. Likewise, in the ideological field, this intellectual has remained the same since the 'Umayyad era', continuing to conceive through his consciousness past conflicts as enmeshed with other kinds of conflicts - those of his present. In addition to the above, the effect of translation and direct contact with foreign cultures, whether during the 'Middle Ages' or the 'Modern Age', the 'intersection of cultural times' in the thought of the Arab intellect covers both levels in his consciousness, horizontal and vertical, synchronic and diachronic, making it difficult to impose any kind of systemisation or hierarchy within this consciousness. This fact, the reality of the 'intersection of cultural times' inside the thinking of Arab intellectuals, explains a disturbing phenomenon in modern Arab thought, the phenomenon of 'vacillating intelligentsia' who escape through Arab 'cultural time' from the 'reasonable/rational' to the 'unreasonable/irrational', from left to right, with an ease difficult to be believed. Without mentioning particular names it is sufficient to indicate the transition, regarding the 'primary' positions concerning the issues of 'unity', 'socialism', 'democracy', 'peace', 'Arabism' and 'secularism', which are the major and prevailing issues in modern Arab thought. Similarly, it is sufficient to allude again to the phenomenon of the 'exodus' from the rational to the irrational still prevailing even in recent years among intellectuals and Arab ?ulam? ? (scholars). Not only does the phenomenon of 'cultural a exodus' represent a form of regression and 'repentance' (al-tawbah) in modern Arab thought but it also illustrates another feature founded on the deviation from knowledge acquisition, which confirms that the inner enigma is not a problem of alternation of choice regarding ideology, but basically a problem of epistemological instability. Our forefathers used to conclude when expressing a point of view by saying, 'God knows best' or 'this matter has dual meaning . . .', while today the comment that has replaced the humbleness of ancient ?ulam? ? is the one encapsulated by the a confirmatory formula: 'this one knows better'. This is because reality and what is assumed as true for many Arab 'readers and intellectuals' and for many authors and researchers in the Arab world, as well as for the average intellectuals, is that which the most recently read book asserts or perhaps the latest thing they have learned, indicating a firm willingness to absorb and an absence of critical analysis within the activity of 'modern' Arab reason. This mind tolerates mental representation to a degree almost similar IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 46 9/12/10 16:08 Page 46 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N to an infant's toleration of visual sensory representations displayed before its eyes, forming its own world which lacks the third dimension, a world as if on a videotape where in the present, the preceding is forgotten as if it never existed. Culture and History This multifold phenomenon, the intersection of cultural times and cultural vacillation in our current cultural life, presents an urgent task - the task of rewriting Arab history and restoring its historicity. In fact, the prevailing Arab cultural history is actually merely rumination, reiteration and reproduction, in an improper fashion, of the same cultural history written by our ancestors under the pressure of contemporaneous conflicts of the eras, and within the constraints of scientific and methodological potentialities available at those times; and, therefore, we are still prisoners of the ancient perceptions, conceptions and methodologies that they confronted or employed, inducing us, imperceptibly, to engage in conflicts of the past and its problems, to render our present time replete with the problems of our past, and to thus perceive the future according to the predispositions attendant to problems of the past and its conflicts. We are, therefore, in need of rewriting Arab cultural history through a critical spirit oriented by our ambitions as Arabs for progress and unity. Indeed, cultural heritage constitutes the primary component of the inclination towards unity among Arabs throughout all times, and it stimulates this tendency even more strongly in the present era. Despite this, it is essential to recognise that we have not yet been able to organise the relationship between the component parts of that traditional heritage on the one hand, and between tradition and ourselves on the other hand, in a way that would permit it to establish our Arab self according to the requirements of our time. Perhaps the following observations will emphasise the extent to which our cultural history demands to be rewritten or reconstructed. Arab cultural history, as we read it today in books, schools and universities, is a history of 'groups', a history of 'classes' and a history of 'categories' and so on. It is a fragmentary history, the history of differences of opinions and not a history of constructing opinions. It is true that this way of the ancients was dictated by their circumstances, yet we may justify IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 47 Arab Cultural Time and the Problematic of Development 47 it also in view of the motives driving them. Their method of writing history is, itself, a part of history, therefore, it makes no sense to blame them, as blame - all of it - falls on our blind compliance with what was the outcome of specific historical circumstances and on our dealing with it as the absolute truth. This compliance diverts us from discovering the whole, which actually bears the unity of Arab culture. Hence, behind the 'history' of differences, diversity, conflict and separation, is the history of unity, integration and interconnectedness; therefore, over the ruins of history of fractions - shredded and dispersed - we must construct the history of the unified whole. Arab cultural history, as it persists today, is a history of sciences and arts of knowledge in isolation from each other: in this, the history of madh? hib (schools) of fiqh - if any - is in complete isolation from schools a of syntax, and both schools are isolated, each at their own time, from schools of theology and philosophy, and so forth. To be sure, we are not against specialisation, but we must respect, within the scope of specialisation, the connection between specialisations in bygone eras of culture, for instance, the jurist (faqi h) was a syntactician and the syntactician a ¯ jurist, and perhaps we may find both among mutakallimun (theologians) ¯ and rhetoriticians, just as we know that in our cultural history there are ? ulam? ? and fuqah? ? in mathematics or astronomy or botany, it also known a a that there were fuqah? ? among the philosophers such as al-Ghaz? li and a a¯ Ibn Hazm and philosophers among the fuqah? ? such as Ibn Rushd. a . Thus, behind the multiplicity and diversity of our past culture lies integration and unity, and this is something neglected by our prevalent cultural history. The consequence of this neglect is that any faqi h among us does ¯ not acquire of the past fiqh anything but the opposition of some fuqah? ? a to philosophy for example, just as the syntacticians of today do not acquire of past syntax anything but the opposition of some syntacticians to logicians (mun? taqah), while all of these disputes were either scientific ones, that is, a. the result of ijtih? d, or a propagation of political disputes, in both cases, a they were dictated by circumstantial factors; and therefore there must remain a connection to these circumstances in order to pave the way towards what is truly historical - that is, towards what is developed, integrated and unified. Prevailing Arab cultural history is stagnant, as we previously observed. Consequently, it does not convey the evolution of Arab thought and its transition from one state to another, it rather introduces an 'exhibition' or a 'market' of past cultural deposit, all persisting simultaneously where the former coexists with the recent, just as old merchandise is displayed together with new merchandise during exhibitions and in market places. And the result is the intersection of cultural times in our conscious awareness IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 48 9/12/10 16:08 Page 48 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N of our cultural history, depriving us from the historical sense, rendering past episodes displayed before us as though concurrent scenes and not as consecutive phases. Thence, our present transforms into an 'exhibit' of facts about our past, making us live our past synchronously in our present, without variation, without history. And as our cultural history is marked by overlapping cultural times, it is also marked by the interference or interpolation of time and space. Our cultural history is associated with our sense of place, perhaps even more than its association with time: our cultural history is the history of Ku fah, Basrah, Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, al-Qayraw? n (Kairouan), ¯ a ? . Fez, Seville and Cordoba. This makes it a history of 'cultural islands', truncated in time similarly to their detachment in physical space. The outcome is the presence of these cultural islands in the modern Arab consciousness, not throughout succession or synchronisation, but an ahistoric asynchrony, rendering our 'historical' consciousness founded on accumulation and not on synchronous contiguity, on anarchy and not order. Last but not least, it is essential to observe what dominates the relation between our cultural history and world cultural history such as the turmoil and disruption which have been to the detriment of our history and its role and position in global history. European cultural history was founded on autonomy, beginning from Athens, proceeding towards Rome and then to Florence before arriving in modern Europe. The entire process was to the detriment of Arabs, to dispense with their cultural history, to arbitraily dismiss the role of Arab culture that is of key importance to global cultural history. In fact, if some Orientalists were 'objective' they would acknowledge that Arabs were a link between ancient Greece and Europe. However, they admit this link only fleetingly, before quickly dispensing with it by reverting Europe surreptitiously to its Greek origins. While Arab culture was not in fact merely a link between (ancient) Greek and modern European cultures, but actually a reproduction of GrecoEuropean culture was, at the beginning, a reproduction of Arab-Islamic culture. Therefore, the presence of Arab-Islamic culture was a substantial presence in 'European' global cultural history and not merely a provisional, intermediate existence. And we must affirm that today, not just by claims or emotional self-praise, but rather by working on rewriting our cultural history and rearranging the relationship between our history and global cultural history on objective and scientific bases, and with a critical spirit. IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 49 Arab Cultural Time and the Problematic of Development 49 Thought and Progress The observations raised above, whether concerning the interference and overlap of cultural times or the cultural exodus in Arab thought or the prevalent anarchy and disruption of our cultural history, pose the problem of progress within this thought in particular, and thereafter within Arab culture in general. In fact, this issue was posed for discussion from the beginning, namely, since we began discussing what we mean by 'Arab reason' and particularly since we began dealing with the unity of Arab cultural time and its static state. Whatever the case, perhaps it is clear now, after the afore mentioned observations, that it is not possible either to write a history that 'conforms' to Arab culture, nor to transform Arab cultural consciousness from an a-historical consciousness into a historical one, unless this problem - that is, the problem of progress in Arab thought and Arab culture - is decided upon, even if in a temporary yet methodological manner. We say temporary, believing that any viewpoint in this particular matter will remain, and should remain, subject to modification and change, as long as we lack information about our heritage in more than one field, and as long as our methodologies of research do not fully comply with scientific requirements considering our 'continuous' need for self-determination before the challenges that we face from every direction and on every level. Moreover, and above all this and beyond, because history is not written once, but is constantly rewritten, in this context we would make the following observations about the problem of progress in Arab reason. The prevailing idea about the development of Arab thought in particular and Arab culture in general is quite primitive and simple, giving the appearance of being almost axiomatic and without the need for cogent proof: we typically suppose that Arab thought had modest beginnings, of one degree or another of significance, at some point in what we call the 'J? hili yah era', which is, as most would say, a cultural period that stretched a¯ for around fifty to one hundred years before the dawn of Islam, before Arab thought continued its evolution in an ascending fashion from the beginning of Islam until approximately the eighth century of the Hijrah, followed by the beginning of what we call the 'Age of Decline' (? asr al. inhitat), persisting in the form of a sporadically horizontal line (a sign of ?. .. cessation and stagnation) and then rapidly plunging to the bottom (a sign of retreat and decline). Then a new history of Arab thought begins from the beginning of the IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 50 9/12/10 16:08 Page 50 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N nineteenth century ce, the start of what we call the 'age of the modern Arab Renaissance' (al-Nahdah), which we envisage as a continuity of an . ascending progress. It is an attractive and comfortable picture because it looks simple and clear, but as soon as one begins further consideration of it, clouds of ambiguity begin to envelop it from every side. So let us make a few observations. It is clear that the picture we established here above of the 'evolution' of Arab thought is grounded on postulating three beginnings. In the first instance, there is the very first beginning, which starts at some indeterminate point during the 'J? hili yah era'; whereas, in the second instance, a¯ there is the second beginning initiated with the outset of Islam to form the beginning of 'history', bearing in mind that its precedence consisted of a 'pre-history'; and finally, in the third instance is the beginning of the modern Arab Nahdah, which is also considered as the beginning of a . 'modern history'. It is also clear that in such a case it is not possible to consider the matter of 'evolution' unless from one of the three beginnings and from within their own particular times; in other words, it is not admissible to speak of a single history for both Arab thought and Arab culture, but we must rather consider three 'periods' during the process of history writing; the pre-Islamic J? hili yah era, the Islamic era, and the Nahdah. There is a¯ . no need for historians - in this context - to connect these periods to each other, because each of them is considered as separate and independent, and not as a cause or effect. We may go further with this concept, and wonder: who can seriously argue that: the Islamic era was the result or the continuity of the preIslamic J? hili yah or that the Nahdah was the extension of the Islamic era? a¯ . Obviously, it does not imply that there is an 'epistemological break' between any of these, disrupting the continuity, but it is mainly related to three 'islands', isolated from each other, and therefore the problem of 'evolution' in Arab thought, in this context, will have no meaning but merely within the J? hili yah era alone, or within the Islamic era alone, or solely a¯ within that of the Nahdah, that is within each epoch separately. . This is only one side of the picture, while the other side appears if we raise the issue of progress (al-taqaddum) in Arab thought, at the level of the epistemological break, or the 'leap' if we must use the language of dialectics. If we assess the issue at this level we would be forced to radically reconsider the previous 'clear' and 'comfortable' picture, especially since we know that the initiative of modern Arab Nahdah was based, and . still intends to be based, on the 'revival of the past' and not on isolation IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 51 Arab Cultural Time and the Problematic of Development 51 from it. Similarly, we know that Islam was not founded for the purpose of 'denying' and severing relations with the past, but rather for the purpose of 'reforming' and bringing the nation back to the religious belief of Abraham, the primogenitor of Arabs. This is true if we restrict our analysis of the issue to the context of the time frame alone. But if we attempt to connect time and space, then the pattern will be obliterated in a confusing and worrisome manner. For what we call the pre-Islamic J? hili yah era, for instance, is only spatially related a¯ to one of many regions covered by Arab thought, existing in the present or past days, and that region is the 'Arabian Peninsula', stated between quotation marks because the J? hili yah era extended only to certain parts a¯ of it, not all while other regions, such as Syria, Palestine and Iraq, in addition to Egypt, North Africa and Andalusia, are extrinsic to the frame of time and space, determining what we call the J? hili yah era. However, this a¯ does not imply that these regions were not associated with it; on the contrary, all Arab countries have, in a way that is beyond dimensions of space and time, dwelt in that 'J? hili yah era' and they are still adopting it a¯ as a part of their cultural history. Following the same pattern is the Islamic era itself, which requires differentiation between cultural regional domains, where some have lived in dimensions of space and time lived previously by others. Cairo experienced - in terms of the dimension of time - during the Fatimid reign what Baghdad had experienced during the peak of the ?Abb? sid era; Fez and Cordoba experienced what Cairo and Baghdad had a experienced earlier. This resulted in what might be expressed as a 'phenomenon of cultural rumination' that still exists in many works of writing transmitted to us, and which reflect each other and hence render them all carriers of a static culture, devoid of motion except that kind of motion which might be described by the Sayy? r al-Naz. am as 'dependence' (harakat a . . z? al-i? timad), as previously mentioned, in spite of the 'natural' intervals of ? chronology separating the works of different authors. And if we move forward towards Arab thought in the era of the Nahdah, . we will find ourselves confronting the same phenomenon. The reason is that it is meaningless to concede, from the spatial standpoint, that the beginning of this era is in the early nineteenth century, as claimed, except for Egypt and Damascus. Whereas other Arab countries dimensionally experienced this same beginning at other times to varying degrees. In Morocco, for example, we experienced, between the 1930s and the 1950s, what Egypt and Damascus experienced between the beginning of the nineteenth century and the middle of the twentieth, which means that in Morocco we experienced in a quarter of a century what other Arab countries IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 52 9/12/10 16:08 Page 52 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N experienced over a century and a half, and consequently, the cultural synchronisation in the Arab world, the eastern and western parts (the Maghreb and the Levant), only began in the mid-fifties of the twentieth century. Before that, in Morocco, we used to live the 'past' renaissance of the Levant as being the 'next' renaissance for Morocco. There is no doubt that the disparity that occurred between the Arab Maghreb and Mashriq in this particular area occurred in reciprocal fashion among other countries of the East as well. These observations are conducive to determining two opposite results. On the one hand, there is interference between cultural 'eras' in Arab thought, from the pre-Islamic J? hili yah until now, resulting in a single a¯ cultural time, experienced by the Arab intellectual anywhere in the Arab world, as a static time, forming an essential and substantial part of his cultural identity and his cultured persona. And the conspicuous character of this single Arab cultural time is the existence of the former, not intrinsically with recent work on improving and fulfilling it, but rather adjacent and in parallel to it, competing and restraining it and on the other hand, there is a dissociation between time and space in the history of Arab culture, a dissociation that makes some Arab countries experience dimensionally on the rubrics of thought, culture and consciousness, what other countries had lived before, which means the absence of cultural synchronisation at the level of the Arab world, or at least not its full realisation in any period of Arab history until today. How shall we deal with these two contradictory facts? Undoubtedly, these two contradictory phenomena reflect, particularly and perhaps directly, givens of Arab political history: conquests (futuhat), ¯ .? changes of capitals or seats of dynasties, as expressed by Ibn Khaldun ¯ with the transition of the ruling power from one family to another; the early political independence of some Arab and Islamic countries; the geopolitical map change of the territories of Arab states and the instability of their common borders; the general connection between culture and the government and its apparatuses, etc. There is no doubt that this is also due to the nature of cultural communication methods available at that time, and especially to the absence of printing presses and their delayed use throughout the entire Arab world. However, what concerns us here is not the interpretation of these two phenomena, the 'interference of cultural times' along with the absence of cultural synchronisation in Arab thought, in the past and in the present, because whether we have sought their causes and factors of formation in this particular area or the other, within these sources of information or IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 53 Arab Cultural Time and the Problematic of Development 53 other available ones, we will find ourselves in all cases confronted by two contradictory aspects, which we will have to deal with in one way or another, and therefore, the persistent question will still be: how should we deal with them? It is true that we are not proceeding with a positivist attitude aiming only to describe the phenomenon. On the contrary, we aspire to this interpretation with the aim of modification; for our discourse is to criticise Arab reason and not simply to depict or 'analyse' it. Nevertheless, we will be vigilant to prevent the desire for 'interpretation and change' transporting us as if by a leap over the nature of the reality with which we are dealing and, subsequently, from rendering us oblivious to careful and considered thinking about different approaches and methods for dealing with it for the sake of its interpretation and change. Thus, we shall consider the two phenomena that were previously depicted as reflective of what we indicate here as the 'dual/split Arab reality' (alhaqi qah al-?arabi yah al-muzdawijah), for which we might identify several ¯ .¯ other manifestations in Arab reality - in what qualifies as Arab (for example, unity/disunity, wealth/poverty, fecundity/aridity, desert/sea, etc.). Within this 'dual Arab reality', regional particularities compete with the national generalities, but only intrinsically not extrinsically, and without any of them aspiring to obliterate or deny the other, for if it were to do so, it would nullify itself as the existence of one of them depends on the existence of the other and is conditional upon it. Thus, the problem of progress in Arab thought cannot be resolved scientifically with the absence of awareness of this dual reality, which constitutes the core of the Arab entity in every sphere. If we regard this entity in its unitary aspect - its general aspect - we will find that Arab cultural time is a unitary time, where eras interfere and ages intersect in the previously depicted framework. However, if we were to observe the same entity through the aspect of its particularities, namely, as being parts of different acquired developmental states throughout history, we would find ourselves facing an absence of cultural synchronisation, that is, facing several cultural times, where we could search in each for separate and varying (historical) eras, perhaps even for phases attained by means of 'intermittent and truncated bits' in some intellectual and cultural sectors. Nevertheless, awareness of this Arab dual reality will remain negative if it continues to operate at the purely cognitive level, indeed, it will construe, in this case, the mere 'integration' of these two contradictory phenomena, subsequently resulting in the admittance of 'reality', as if it were the best possible choice. Since we are engaged in a critical position that seeks change, we must also act IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 54 9/12/10 16:08 Page 54 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N from a conscious ideological standpoint, namely, emanating from a position of historicism, one that aspires not only to acquire a correct idea of what was, but also to contribute in producing what should be done, which is in our case to impel Arab thought in the direction of rationalism, the direction of making it come to terms with the accumulation, even if we do not say sediment of irrationalism in its structure. Therefore, the problem of progress in Arab thought should be raised not only in the context of the past (whether there was progress or not?) but also in the context of the future (i.e., how to work towards achieving progress?). In other words, the requirements of the realisation of progress in Arab thought, being in the present and in the future, should be met prior to choosing the approach from which we will consider the problem of progress in Arab thought that has come down to us from the past. And since we aspire for a single or integrated and conjoined Arab thought, through which a cultural synchronisation is achieved, not only among regions of the Arab world but also between us Arabs and the civilised world, in a way allowing us to attain our presence in world thought in the most eminent fashion possible. Therefore, we will have to regard the issue of progress over the past and in current Arab thought and Arab culture through their integrated and conjoined aspects, namely, by means of the single cultural time, spanning in Arab reality from the pre-Islamic era of the J? hili yah up to the present date, where embracing progress in a¯ Arab thought depends on the achievement of an epistemological rupture with it, a rupture predicted on launching a new cultural time, on new bases. This is our general strategy in this 'thesis' that we examine in the remit of this book; the strategy of highlighting the defects of a departed unity for the sake of establishing a better and a stronger one. Sacrificing 'time' (al-zaman) - namely, by proceeding with the 'development' - in our discourse on the substructure of Arab reason and its cultural components - will be aiming at a 'future time' towards which we aspire for it to be relevant, connected and transcendent. This sacrifice, or even the overall strategy, is not an arbitrary choice, for it is rather dictated, if not imposed, by the same realities of Arab culture. In this context, ? Abd al-Wahh? b Buhdi ba a ?. ¯ said: 'structuring is a genie (jinn) haunting Arab culture, for eternal structures lie in this culture, and these should be divulged at any cost'.10 But if we intend to contribute to the disclosure of these structures, it will not be for the sake of finding imaginary originality, beyond time, but rather for the purpose of overcoming it. And in this case, historical analysis will be essential as is structural analysis itself. IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 55 Arab Cultural Time and the Problematic of Development 55 We have decided on several methodological issues, and at the end of this chapter, we must pave the way for another decision we ought to take that is also methodological. The Beginning When, a short time ago, we raised the issue of the beginning of Arab thought, we were conceiving it under the pressure of the issue of progress (al-taqaddum) which we determined as one of the primary axes of this chapter, and that is why many beginnings were revealed before us, and not only one. The beginnings were different from each other due to the difference in Arab cultural times on the one hand, and to the lack of cultural synchronisation among countries of the Arab world, on the other. However, discussing these two essential aspects of Arab culture prompted us to make a strategic and methodological choice based on perceiving this culture as a whole, a unity, a sole cultural time, where all these beginnings, that introduce themselves as if establishing actual cultural eras, dissolve; while the issue actually relates to mere spatial manifestations of the universality of Arab thought and Arab culture (Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, Kairouan, Fez, Cordoba and so on). Still, this strategic choice does not eliminate the dilemma of positing a beginning. It actually exceeds the beginnings that we previously discussed, but in return it raises, vis-à-vis the methodological and perceptual levels, the problem of the starting point from which we will begin analysing the composition of the structure of Arab reason, the problem of the beginning of the total restructuring of Arab culture. How will we determine this starting point? Whether we antedate this beginning of this 'structuring' to the Sumerians or we posit a terminus in the pre-Islamic era, or at the rise of Islam, or if we relate it to a prior or subsequent period, we will always be making a choice. And whether we notice and acknowledge this or not, the beginning in all of these cases and perhaps in all other cases as well, is not what actually was, but what we have chosen it to be. It is legitimate to date the Arab reason back to the 'mental civilizisational substructure of ancient Central Asia',11 just as it is legitimate to trace a beginning that establishes the same structure - that of Arab reason - in the 'J? hili yah' a¯ IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 56 9/12/10 16:08 Page 56 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N or in another earlier or later stage, provided that it would be uniform (non-contradictory) with the meaning given by the researcher to the idiom 'Arab reason'. For the beginning here derives its legitimacy from the frameworks drawn for the subject and not the other way around. Nevertheless, we have elected to consider Arab reason, not through what is present from the past, namely, what has remained such as inscriptions, monuments, linguistic origins extending far back into the past, perhaps further than what the scholars have called 'proto-Arabs', but we rather preferred to identify and define Arab reason through what is concretely present in it, namely, through the culture that produced it, the Arab culture still preserved today by countless books and tomes, which still represents our cultural identity - the identity that constitutes the essential element in the concept of 'Arabs' in present and bygone eras. And as long as this is the case, the scope of choice of the suitable beginning for the definition we have given to 'Arab reason' has become confined to the boundaries of this culture which still lives inside of us, namely, in the authoritative point of reference that determines it. What is this authority then, the referential authority of the Arab reason? This is what we will determine in the next chapter. Notes 1. Throughout this book al-Jabri discusses three different epistemological systems and cultural orders of knowledge: those of bay? , burh? and ?irf? . The indigenous an an an and original Arab-Islamic order is arguably that of the bay? , where the term derives an from the Arabic tri-literal root (b-y-n) meaning to elucidate, to make [things] clear and where the Qur?an is referred to as kit? mubi n (a clear book). The term in, various ? ab ¯ forms - including the imperative, is used heavily throughout the Qur?an wherein expla? nation is characteristically through demonstration by analogy. The second epistemological order revolves around proof by inferential evidence - burh? - a term which is an also Qur?anic and which applies to presenting decisive evidence and, more or less, to ? the types of proofs and demonstrations common to formal logic and Aristotelean in particular. Its introduction - as a system - to Arab-Islamic culture occurred relatively late, in the argument of al-Jabri, where Aristotle's Posterior Analytics were among the last of his works to be translated, considerably after the major translation projects of the Era of Codification. Among the arguments in support of this contention is that the Mu? tazilah - who were integral to the official state-backed initiative of the Caliph al-Ma? mu (d. 833 CE) to inculcate the 'rational of Arab reason' - relied primarily on ?n the bay? in their discourse. Both, the systems of bay? and burh? were pitted in an an an opposition to the third order, that of the gnostic illuminationism known as al-?irf? . an Al-?irf? - deriving from the Arabic root (?-r-f) connoting 'knowing' - relies on direct an esoteric knowledge communicated (through inspiration or revelation) directly by the godhead, and it cannot be attained by way of analogy or through rational demon- IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 57 Arab Cultural Time and the Problematic of Development 57 stration. According to al-Jabri, it has its roots in the Hellenistic Age and particularly in Hermeticism and Neo-Platonic as well as Neo-Pythagorean thought. Its influence would be strongest on the Shi ? ah in general, with the exception of the Zaydi yah, and ¯ ¯ on the extremist ghul? t movements, in particular, and it would achieve political backing a with the rise of the Isma?i li F? . imid state and find one of its most classical literary ¯ ¯ at expressions in the Ras? ? il (Epistles) of the so-called Ikhw? n al-Saf? (Brethren of Purity). a a .a Despite this, al-Jabri argues that the 'resigned reason' attendant to this doctrine and reflective of its Hermetic origins (imbued with alchemy and astrology) and its various manifestations would find resonance even with the great scientific minds of the ArabIslamic world including the legendary J? bir bin Hay? n [Latin: Geber] (d. 815CE ) who a .a authored the first major treatise on optics and the physician Abu Bakr al-R? i (d. ? az ¯ 925CE) author of the monumental encyclopedia al-Hawi (Contiens Liber) who was the .? ¯ first to make a clinical diagnosis of measles and small pox in his treatise al-Judari wa ¯ al-Hasbah, translated editions of which were widely consulted in Europe and still being .. published in Paris in the mid-eighteenth century. (Editor's Note) 2. We are pointing to the definition of Michel Foucault in this context. However, we did not follow him exactly, as those who are acquainted with the works of this prominent French intellectual will observe; we rather, solicited his concepts and orientations from the nature of his own point of view of the topic: Arab culture. 3. This definition belongs to E. Herriot, a French politician and historian who died in 1957. 4. For purposes of clarification, what the author is suggesting here, on the basis of his use of the definition of 'culture' as supplied by E. Herriot, is that there is something which is constant after all else which is 'superfluous' has been forgotten or taken out of consideration. This set of 'constants' is 'culture' and furthermore, it belongs to a particular 'time'. If these 'constants' are not transcended - at which point the set of elements is no longer constant, then the essential 'time' will remain the same. That is, according to al-Jabri, the long list of prominent thinkers whom he mentions are all intelligible to the 'Arab reason' for the fact that they belong to this 'culture' and a 'cultural time' which has not changed - as the author states, the 'curtain has never been drawn on the stage' - not once. Al-Jabri does not argue that 'new' elements have not been introduced, but rather that the old have persisted and it is this situation which renders the 'culture' constant with a particular 'cultural time' - that is, distinct from historical, chronological time which attaches to political, social or other events (Editor's note). 5. J. Piaget, Problème de psychologie génétique, p. 8, Deuvêl Gonthier, 1972. 6. Obviously, 'cognitive unconscious' as we often use here is different from 'collective unconscious' as used by Carl Jung. 7. As some Orientalists and their followers did, see for example chapter three of Fajr al-Isl? m by Ahmad Ami n, entitled 'Tabi ? at al-?Aqli yah al-?Arabi yah'. a ¯ ¯ ¯ . .¯ 8. al-Halaqah al-Mafqudah fi T? ri kh al-?Arab by Muhammad Jami l Bayham, ¯ ¯ a¯ ¯ . . published in Cairo by Mustaf? al-Halabi in 1950, 'addresses news in the Mashreq ¯ .. a . and Maghreb of the Arab world in political, economic and social aspects after the fall of Baghdad and up until the end of World War I' (from the cover of the book). If we recall that the fall of Baghdad was in 1258 ce as the author himself stated, then 'alhalaqah al-mafqudah' - 'the missing link' - will extend for six-and-a-half centuries ¯ . which is half of the Hijri calendar, the history of Islam and the Arab ummah. Let's hence imagine in this context how the historical consciousness and cultural time would look like for a nation half of its history is missing on the level of its people's consciousness. IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 58 9/12/10 16:08 Page 58 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N 9. The mu? allaq? t al-ka? bah refers to the pre-Islamic Bedouin tradition of 'attaching' a the best of Arab poetry to the ka? bah in Mecca which often occurred during contests that accompanied the annual trade fair known as the su ? uq? z. (Editor's note) ?q a. 10. Bouhdiba, Abdelwahab. Culture et Société (Tunis: L'université de Tunis, 1978), p. 206. 11. The title of a book by Yusuf al-Hur? ni , published by D? r al-Nah? r, Beirut ? a a .? a ¯ 1978. IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 59 CHAPTER 3 The Era of Codification: The Authoritative Referential Framework of Arab Thought Arab Perception and the Pre-Islamic Era Although we have not yet decided, according to clear and explicit means, on basic issues concerning our research, we have been discussing them as if we have determined them with finality. Undoubtedly, this 'shortcoming' will accompany us all to the end, as it is a linguistic 'flaw', as language can only express ideas through time, namely sequentially. It is then our duty to seek a justification for those speaking to their audience using such an expression: 'the pen does not serve me best in expressing my innermost feelings'. And this is due to the fact that the 'innermost feelings' of such type seek to burst forth all at once, while language imposes by its nature compliance with a kind of system and order. Fortunately, we are not here in a situation with ideas of such a sort, which are often sustained through emotion, but we are facing ideas that naturally accept order and systemisation as they are 'rational', or constitute reason itself. And sometimes, we are obliged to delay what 'ought to' be presented first and to present first what 'ought to' be delayed, in order to be able to speak. For instance, we have discussed the problem of progress in Arab thought and we mentioned Arab cultural eras, particularly the pre-Islamic era of the J? hili yah, as if we have precisely delimited their a¯ identity or as if we have settled decisively on the question of the beginning, the beginning of the formation of the structure of Arab reason. Despite the fact that the course of events from a historical point of view IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 60 9/12/10 16:08 Page 60 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N may require, in the view of some, beginning the enquiry from the preIslamic era of the J? hili yah, seeing that the structure of Arab reason, as a¯ we have previously determined, was indeed formed during this era, or at least had begun to be established within it. Yet, this is not correct from our point of view. Actually, cultural time, as we have previously explained, is a peculiar time, and is not subject to the concepts of the 'initial/previous' and 'later' as they correlate to natural sociological time. Thus, let us consider how matters ought to be ordered in our consciousness, and begin with the examination of the image of the pre-Islamic era in it. The Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula have a specific culture and a particular structure of reason, and, belonging to this culture, cannot be questioned unless it is possible to question their material physical existence itself. As for the idea that the image we have today of the pre-Islamic era of the J? hili yah - as a cultural time and a particular structure of reason a¯ - is a replica of the cultural and intellectual reality lived by the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula before Islam, this is an issue to be discussed and questioned. We do not wish to raise anew here the issue previously discussed by T ah? h Husayn, that is, the question of the validity or invalidity of pre.? a . Islamic literature and consequently the cultural heritage attributed to Arabs before Islam. Uncertainty in such matters should be limited to certain constraints, or else it will forfeit every methodological justification. This is because the situation dictates that it is possible that those who composed poetry could have done so and at the same time ascribed it to those who preceded them, but it is unlikely that these would have been also attributed to personalities of the past who did not actually exist. Put differently, in order for poetry to be attributed to pre-Islamic poets, there must in fact be not only 'poets of the J? hili yah', but also pre-Islamic poetry woven a¯ on the same loom. It is a matter of fact that forgery is impossible without a preceding model. As for the matter that pre-Islamic literature of the J? hili yah was subject variously to being posited (ex post facto), to disjunca¯ ture and to exposition as well as being forgotten, and so on, this is unquestionable but actually does not concern us much in regard to our subject. We will not discuss here the facts of the pre-Islamic J? hili yah era, but we a¯ intend to clarify the common image we have of it, that which is conveyed to us by various kinds of books on cultural heritage. The reality of the matter is that books on cultural heritage, as well as 'modern' studies of culture, evoke not only one but two images of the pre-Islamic J? hili yah era. a¯ IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 61 The Era of Codification 61 On the one hand, there is an image that appears to be directed towards justifying the description of this (pre-Islamic) era as the J? hili yah - as a¯ ignorant - jahili . And, the term 'pre-Islamic' is an Islamic idiomatic expres?¯ sion that connotes not only ignorance, in the sense of the absence and lack of knowledge, but also, and perhaps primarily, what accompanies ignorance and what is produced by it. What I imply is the chaos and the lack of collective social sense, whether in regard to the political (the state) or the moral (religion). It is from here that the correlation of the J? hili yah a¯ with darkness and Islam with light comes. Thus, darkness or layers of darkness here connote chaos and strife and the absence of future prospects, just as it connotes ignorance and lack of responsibility, whereas light implies lucidity in relationships and responsibilities as well as clarity of prospects on the horizon. Furthermore, order takes the place of chaos and security the place of strife. So the question is, did Islam indeed effect this radical transformation in the life of the Arab of the J? hili yah? a¯ There is no doubt that the status of Arabs after Islam was different from their situation before it. Is there any deeper and more comprehensive transformation than that from a closed tribal society, one without state or law, to a well-organised, universal and open society, governed by a state possessing all the component factors of statehood, including written laws? Nonetheless, nothing prevents us from raising this methodological question pertaining to the field of our research: did Islam achieve a total epistemological rupture from the era of the J? hili yah? The importance of a¯ this question to our subject matter is due not to its content but to its functionality. We shall see later that this question is entirely justifiable from this perspective. There is, on the other hand, an image of the era of the J? hili yah different a¯ from the one whose characteristics we emphasised: an image consisting of a vigorous intellectual life and markets for ideas of culture, as well as the capacity for debate, discussion, and argument, particularly reflected in what Sheikh Mustaf? Abd al-Razz? q called 'religious debate',1 which was a .. a indeed a kind of 'dialectical theology'(kal? m) antedating the emergence of a 'scholastic dialectical theology' (? ilm al-kal? m) within Arab-Islamic culture. a Not only this but the Qur?an, and this is a point on which Muslims from ? past times until today would all concur, would not have addressed Arabs through the forms of those enchanting explications of the bay¯ , those an exalted meanings and the many 'rational' arguments which it employs if it were the case that they were unable to deal with or comprehend it. Moreover, one cannot but notice that if Arabs had not been at an advanced cultural level, they would not have described the Qur?an as 'effective magic', ? IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 62 9/12/10 16:08 Page 62 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N of the same sort of magic as poetry and the rhymed prose of the kuhh? n a (soothsayers), as well as other objections recorded and rebutted by the Qur?an. ? We are then confronted with two contrasting images of the era of the J? hili yah, provided by books on cultural heritage, mostly based on india¯ cations mentioned in the Qur?an in one form or another. Although both ? images might be accepted simultaneously, seeing that one of them reflects the life of the Bedouin and the other reflects the life of the urban civilisation, or that they both represent two of the phenomena prevalent throughout that entire era, it is essential to notice that the conception of the J? hili yah era in Arab consciousness was not always born of historical a¯ givens only, nor do we think it is so today. Yet it was, and still is, subject to the dictates of the present - our present or the present of those who preceded us. More accurately, we might say it is subject to the demands of both 'presents', in as much as it is an image transmitted by successors from predecessor ancestors, where each has drawn from the era of the J? hili yah what 'they desired', where it is a certainty that what has been a¯ desired is not the same. Therefore, we should ask how and when did Arab consciousness begin to produce an image or images, of what we call the era of the J? hili yah? a¯ Here we need not overburden the reader with 'historical' facts circulated abundantly now and previously. In fact, Islam was, especially after the Hijra (i.e., the migration in 622 CE), expressing the transcendence of a situation that no longer existed, not because its term had expired, but because it was no longer desired, nor sought to be remembered; the great conquests achieved by Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula during the era of the first four caliphs made them feel, and convinced them day after day, that they had escaped from 'the darkness into the light' in every domain and at all levels. We might not be exaggerating if we were to say that Arabs were, under the rule of Abu Bakr and ? Umar at least, making war ? on the image of the era of the J? hili yah in their consciousness with utmost a¯ violence and through all the various known mechanisms of suppression. For them, the J? hili yah represented 'pre-history', their own history. It is a¯ no coincidence that ? Umar bin al-Khattab chose the day of the migration . .? of the Prophet to Medina as the beginning of Arab history, even of every 'history'. However, this total rejection of the era of the J? hili yah was not to last a¯ for long. The administrative requirements of the new state and new system followed in distributing booty along with what resulted from all this or accompanied it, such as the need to 'regulate' flow, and subsequently the IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 63 The Era of Codification 63 developments occurring at the end of the caliphate of ? Uthm? n and during a the caliphate of ? Ali and Mu?awiyah all conspired to make Arabs change ¯ ? their view of the past, of their 'pre-history'. Consequently, the process of reviving the past began, and the suppressed '(pre-Islamic) zeal for the J? hili yah' found breathing space and regained full freedom. The result was a¯ the reconstruction of the 'past of the J? hili yah' in a way to comply with a¯ the requirements of the 'Islamic present'. Since the road to the past is memory, then nothing prevents it, that is memory, from selecting, reducing and resorting to imagination, especially given that life in the past of the J? hili yah was closed in upon itself, which implies that it is impossible to a¯ challenge what is transmitted except through a life similar to it: the tribal group solidarity (al-? asabi yah al-qabali yah) that appeared was perhaps ¯ .¯ stronger than it had been in the era of the J? hili yah itself. It not only a¯ reflected the vestiges of the past, it also expressed the needs of the present. Moreover, the development occurring at the level of the Arab factor would encompass other factors inside the growing Muslim society of increasingly diverse affiliation. During its initiation, the Umayyad state was regarded as a tribal state tyrannising other tribes, and the opposition, at first, was from within the coalition of Arabs rather than from outside of it. Yet, when tribalism emanated from inside this coalition, the opposition began seeking non-Arab clients. Thus, a silent opposition came to existence, the opposition of the (non-Arab) client (maw? li ) who were on the margins of a¯ the Arab circle, and found a breathing space or rather found a sphere of movement and operation. Hence, the idea of the 'Islamic state' crystallised, the concept that the state ought to be a state for all 'Muslims' and not for Arabs alone, a fortiori, for a group of them. As non-Arabs constituted the majority of the new Islamic society and belonged to different peoples, the opposition took on a 'populist' form, namely al-shu? ubi yah, that ?¯ is, the movement of non-Arab Islamic peoples, demanding, if not the democracy of the majority, at least 'parity' (al-mus? w? h) with the Arabs. aa It is significant that these populists were initially called ahl al-taswiyah (the people of equity or 'setting things right'), that is, those who demand equality. As is well known, the Shi ?ah rode the wave of this movement, or at ¯ least persisted within it under the banner of Shi ?ism, and ultimately trans¯ formed into an increasingly more expansive and deeply rooted political and religious movement, which enabled it to play a decisive role in overthrowing the Umayyad state and establishing ?Abb? sid rule. Since the Arab a element again assumed command over the new state - and how could it have been otherwise during that period? - and since the political and IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 64 9/12/10 16:08 Page 64 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N military opposition had exhausted its power during the revolt against the Umayyads, what remained of it was liquidated in the early ? Abb¯ asid state. It was thus that the populist movement would then take the form of a clash of culture, trying to hide its political and social class content in the same mould of that the content of the conflict that had taken place among the Arab elements during the establishment of the Umayyad state had been cast. Hence, instead of discourse about the issues of the present and coopting these in the race towards the future, the shu? ubi yah movement ?¯ oriented towards the Arab past and criticising it as an ideology, a culture and a civilisation. It was normal that the reaction of the Arabs was one of defence: defending the past of the Arabs and the J? hili yah era in particua¯ lar, where it now took on not only the form of the defence of national identity (al-huwi yah al-qawmi yah), but also defending the means of exis¯ ¯ tence and existence itself. Thus, the reconstruction of the past of the Arabs, particularly the J? hili yah a¯ era, became an urgent necessity and a matter of destiny. This was inevitable when the past was not attacked for its own sake, but for the sake of the present and the future. The ? Abb¯ asid caliphs realised this fact, acted accordingly and were inspired by it: the comprehensive cultural structure had come to pose itself as a historical necessity. The process of the reconstruction of the Arab past - both the J? hili yah a¯ and Islamic eras - was not the work of individuals alone, but one of the founding objectives undertaken by the state. It was a political process in essence: the councils of debates and discussions, whether in the palaces of caliphs and princes or in mosques and privy councils, were not councils for entertainment purposes, 'pleasure' and 'socialising', even if they appeared to be so. They were, in fact, a continuous and repetitive 'rewriting' of history, particularly the 'history' of the J? hili yah and early Islamic eras. a¯ It is national history, drawn from elements culled from the memories of the fathers and the imagination of the children. We do not consider this an innovation since nations usually construct their national history under the pressure of need and the exigencies of circumstance. The fact that the two tropes of the J? hili yah era embedded in the Arab a¯ consciousness, both today and in the past, do not reflect the reality of this era alone, but perhaps reflect to a greater extent the circumstances in which the contours of these images were drawn, presents the conditions of the Islamic state during the epoch of codification. This is because what we know and what was known by our forefathers about the J? hili yah a¯ and the dawn of Islam is primarily due to this comprehensive process of cultural construction that took place during the Era of Codification. IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 65 The Era of Codification 65 What concerns us in this brief overview of the circumstances under which the J? hili yah era was constructed at the level of Arab consciousa¯ ness is not the trope or images provided by this process, but rather the process of construction itself, a process which is undoubtedly a historical one. More precisely, the issue that interests us in this process of construction is not that of the materials of construction, that is, the historical givens, but rather the technique of construction and the act of constructing itself. Whether this is related to the tribes vying for glory during the Umayyad era or repelling the attacks of the shu? ubi yah during the ? Abb¯ ?¯ asid era, or scientific theories, social entertainment or whatever correct or incorrect historical writings as were known during both eras, what was really influencing the construction was Arab reason and not the J? hili yah era a¯ or the Arab past. This is not only due to the fact that the process of construction was oriented mainly towards the cultural aspect (language, poetry and so on), but also to the fact that this process of construction began to embed in Arab reason ways of work, production, methods of persuasion, and criteria for acceptance and rejection. It was Arab discourse that was taking shape, a discourse which in its contemporary philosophical terminology meant a systematic organised discourse about things through remaining silent about certain things and according prominence to others, or in other words: inferring things through certain things while omitting much about others. Indeed, the structure of Arab reason was formed, then, in conjunction with the era of the J? hili yah, but not that (historical) J? hili yah as lived a¯ a¯ by the Arabs before the mission of Muhammad, but rather the era of the . J? hili yah as lived in the consciousness of the Arabs after this mission: the a¯ J? hili yah era as a cultural time that was recovered, rearranged and reora¯ ganised during the Era of Codification, which imposes itself historically as referential framework for whatever is before and after it. So, it is this referential framework to which we must direct our attention. Al-Dhahabi 's Account of the Era of Codification ¯ When an astronaut is floating in outer space, his ship represents for him what we may term the referential framework - or the referential order - through which and by which he observes things. Thus, the planets, stars, and other spaceships can be, for him, close or far, 'beneath' him or 'above' IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 66 9/12/10 16:08 Page 66 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N him, faster or slower when compared to the position of his ship and its speed. In general, everything for him in the world is determined through illusionary threads connected to his ship, exactly as is the case with a chandelier suspended in the middle of a room with illusionary rays extending to the wall representing the length of the room, the wall representing its width, and the ceiling representing the distance that separates it from the floor: the elevation or third dimension. In fact, all human beings are the like of such an astronaut; each of us has his own referential framework, determining his relation to the world. Thus, we do not know or recognise anything except through our linking it to a certain type of framework. And human reason, as mentioned in the first chapter, is a series of elements (concepts, perceptions, processes) constituting the basics that determine our relation to things: our comprehension of them, our reaction to them, our subjectivity towards them, and so forth. If people comprehend and communicate with one another, it is because they live similar lives, in nature and in society, providing them with a uniform set of standards and criteria, namely a single referential framework. However, the experiences of people and their living conditions are not the same, resulting in cultural differences and therefore different orders of reference being adopted by them. This is because culture is similar to a vessel that contains elements forming the order of reference for those who belong to it, just as a spacecraft relies on coordinates to determine the relative nearness of things to it. Similarly, an astronaut relies on his reckoning, whether he is assessing things of the world outside or inside the spaceship, according to the same reference points, or let us suppose that this is what he does. So such is the case for everyone living in a culture. Therefore, it is possible to view culture, any culture, as an independent entity, organised and organising (or ordering) the world around it accordingly, by a particular system of reference, namely a whole set of concepts, intellectual instruments, revelatory visions and aesthetic and moral values formed throughout a period or periods - or being formed continuously - of the history of that culture, concepts, instruments and visions, and values pulled as if by threads of steel towards it from the world of this culture initially, and the world or worlds arrayed around it secondarily, where the 'history' of this culture, or its time, becomes captive to these tethers. As long as these threads remain as they are, essentially unchanged in their composition and the way they function, then time - the time of a particular culture - remains extended, moving silently as if it were a carpet suspended, through the threads forming it, where everything subjected to IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 67 The Era of Codification 67 it is pulled to its edge, namely towards the end where the process of weaving began on the day when it was woven. The Era of Codification, for Arab culture, is tantamount to this 'edge', the foundation. It is the referential framework attracting to it, with threads of steel, all the branches of this culture, and regulating its subsequent various patterns (or models) up until today. Moreover, this epoch of codification, as we have outlined in the preceding paragraph, is at the same time the referential framework that determines what comes before it (at the level of Arab consciousness, of course). Thus, images of the pre-Islamic J? hili yah era, early Islam, and most of the Umayyad era, are woven with a¯ threads emanating from the Era of Codification, and are the same threads that wove the images of the post-codification era. Therefore, Arab reason is in fact nothing other than these particular threads, which extended to what was before it and produced its image in the Arab consciousness, and extended, and still do, to what comes after, to fashion the general cultural, ideational reality in the general Arab culture, and this is one of its essential manifestations. Let us then examine the circumstances of this era and its achievements. In his Tari kh al-Khulaf? ? (History of the Caliphs) ?¯ a al-Suyu t i relates a pivotal report of Al-Dhahabi : ? .¯ ¯ 'Al-Dhahabi asserts: in the year (one hundred) and forty-three, the ulam? ¯ a of Islam began codifying the hadi th, jurisprudence (fiqh), and exegesis (tafsi r) ¯ ¯ . in this era. Thus, Ibn Jari h in Mecca, and M? lik al-Mawta? in the Medina, ¯. a . and Awz? ?i in Damascus, and Ibn Abi ? Arubah and Hamm? d bin Salamah a¯ ¯ ? a . and others in Basra, and Mu? ammar in Yemen, and Sufy? n al-Thawri in a ¯ Kufah, all engaged in classification and categorisation. And Ibn Ishaq al? ? . Magh? zi and Abu Hani fah (God have mercy on his soul) classified jurisprua¯ ?. ¯ dence and opinion. Thereafter, Yasi r, Hushaym and Layth and Ibn Luhay? ah, ¯ and then Ibn al-Mub? rak and Abu Yusuf and Ibn Wahab. The process of a ?? recording in writing (putting on record) as well as that of codification (categorisation) proliferated. Arabic books, books on language, history, and chronologies known as ay? m al-n? s (lit., The Days of People) were all a a recorded. Prior to this era, people used to speak of what they had learned by heart, or transmit knowledge from genuine but disorganised pages (suhuf).'2 .. We are confronted with a very important text for our subject matter, and we seek in the current stage of our research to emphasise the following facts through it: This text determines the year AH 143 as the date of the beginning of codification in Islam; this date might be acceptable, if we add or deduct a few years, if we understand that codification is that extensive process occurring under the supervision of the state, starting from the era of the IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 68 9/12/10 16:08 Page 68 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N ?Abb? sid Caliph al-Mansur, who was appointed to rule as caliph between a .? AH 136 and 158, which stamped Arab social and intellectual life with its own imprint for a period spanning nearly a century or more, and became its hallmark. Hence, this epoch was designated: the Era of Codification. However, if we understand codification strictly as delimiting, recording, and editing of some issues in the form of specialised memoranda, it will be necessary to return all the way back to the time of the Prophet and the first four caliphs. And there is a major difference between the work of an individual and a general, collective work that relates to the whole ummah, its past, present and future. Also, Al-Dhahabi 's account in al-Suyu t i 's history determines the places ¯ ? .¯ or garrison metropolises (amsar)3 from within which the process of codi? . fication was launched. These are Mecca, Medina, al-Sh? m (Damascus), a Basra, Kufah and Yemen,4 and these were garrisons which were gathering ? points and centres of learning, attracting men who were carriers in their texts and their 'hearts' of Islamic heritage, which was beginning to expand and diversify. This heritage consists of a mixture of information, texts, interpretations and explanations, which are not categorised, classified, nor edited. And the process of codification aimed mainly at screening this 'incoherent heap' of knowledge and codifying it, applying its categorisation to hadi th, tafsi r (exegesis), fiqh (jurisprudence), language and history. ¯ .¯ The text has not neglected to mention the way knowledge and science were practised before this era. It explains that people used to speak by way of memorising or transmitting knowledge from genuine but disorganised pages', namely through 'records' which are not based on any standard of measurements usually employed in writing books such as subject unity and integrity and subdivision of matters into chapters and so on. This information is very useful for the historian of Arab-Islamic sciences since it determines the date of the inception of its establishment and the primary centres of learning, which were the stage for this process of foundation, and the materials that were the subject of these sciences. However, the epistemological researcher who undoubtedly benefits from these facts, will direct his attention to what is more important for him, that is, to the term 'codification of knowledge/science (tadwi n al-?ilm) and its categori¯ sation (tabwi b)' mentioned in the text. Therefore, we will cast some light ¯ on the significance of this term. 'The codification of knowledge and its categorisation' is not the same as the production of knowledge. The codification of knowledge means: knowledge is ready, and the task of the codifier, namely, the scholar, is restricted or almost so to collecting, compiling, and categorising it. Although IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 69 The Era of Codification 69 the term 'knowledge' (al-?ilm) at that time was meant to refer to the 'hadi th' and what is related to among exegesis and fiqh, its content also .¯ referred to 'auxiliary knowledges/sciences', to this primary knowledge, such as linguistics, al-magh? zi ([accounts of] raids/battles) and ay? m ala¯ a n? s. In other words, knowledge was utilised in opposition to 'opinion', a so it is transmitted accounts (marwiy? t) of hadi th, exegesis and other relia .¯ gious knowledge. Therefore, from this standpoint, 'codification' was coupled with 'categorisation' in regard to the term at hand - that is, al?ilm. This matter is, essentially, related to the collection of the Arab-Islamic intellectual heritage, and its classification into branches, each forming an 'art' among the arts of science and knowledge, independently or almost independently. However, 'the codification of knowledge and its categorisation', even in the sense of just collecting and classifying, cannot be accomplished without 'opinion', because it is essential to select, delete, 'correct', prepose and postpose: these are procedures certainly emanating from 'opinion'. Therefore, the process was not restricted to 'preserving' the Arab-Islamic cultural heritage from loss (to which the term 'codification' (tadwi n) appar¯ ently refers), neither was it restricted to categorising (tasni f) this heritage .¯ so as to facilitate its circulation, as is intended by the term 'classifying (tabwi b).' But the process was in fact one of restructuring this cultural ¯ heritage in a way to render it a 'cultural heritage' (tur? th): namely a refera ential framework for the Arab view of things, of the universe and mankind, society and history. In order not to prolong the issue that has now become clear, and in order not to plunge our research into details that are very well known today, even if these are more interesting aspects for historians of ArabIslamic sciences than they are for epistemologists, we will proceed to analyse another piece of evidence carrying a particular significance for our theme the ?ulam? ? of hadi th summarise the epistemological principle on a .¯ which their methodology is founded, consequently the science of hadi th .¯ itself, in this sense: 'when we assert that a hadi th is correct, that does not ¯ . mean it is absolutely correct, but it means it is correct according to our conditions. Similarly, when we assert that a hadi th is incorrect, that does .¯ not connote decisiveness in its incorrectness, as it might be correct in fact, but it does not comply with our conditions, and Allah knows best.'5 If we ¯ add to the above that what it true for hadi th is also true for tafsi r (exegesis), ¯ .¯ fiqh (jurisprudence), language and 'history', because those who worked in 'codification and categorisation' in these disciplines adopted the methodology of the ahl al-hadi th, which depends on narration and the isn? d a .¯ IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 70 9/12/10 16:08 Page 70 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N (chains of transmitters) and attendant criticism. In sum, we could say that Arab-Islamic cultural heritage transmitted through all generations from the Era of Codification to this day is not 'absolutely' true, but is correct only 'according to the conditions' of the ahl al-?ilm (people of knowledge), these terms which were posited by and submitted to by relators of hadi th, .¯ fuqaha? , exegetes, syntacticians and linguists, who lived during the Era of ? Codification, between the middle of the second century and the middle of the third century of the Hijrah. When we approached the issue this way, we never intended to put our Arab-Islamic culture in question. No, we have defined our position in regard to doubting cultural heritage (al-tur? th) or a part of it in the a preceding paragraph. Our intention here is to emphasise that these 'conditions' were not part of 'knowledge', that is, transmitted accounts, but were rather the product of 'opinion', namely reason, or rather its primary product. Therefore, these conditions - the conditions of correctness considered during the Era of Codification in hadi th, jurisprudence, language and syntax - .¯ form the earliest manifestations of Arab reason, the first appearance of creativity and innovation within this reason. They are the 'constituting reason' in Arab-Islamic culture, Arab reason in its most prominent manifestation and strongest constituent parts. And since such conditions are still utilised to this day, within Arab culture, at least as essential points of reference, they have constituted the referential framework for Arab thought since the Era of Codification up to this day, or at least the main and essential part of this framework. Consequently, the question we raised at the beginning of Chapter One in this book is the following: 'Should we study Arab reason as it was yesterday or Arab reason as it is today?' This question could be reiterated differently and in a fashion more related to concepts of contemporary thought as: 'Has Arab reason effected an epistemological rupture with itself, that is, with the "conditions" which appeared in it for the first time, which were the ones that were posited and employed by those who codified and categorised knowledge for the first time in Arab history?' Certainly, the answer to this question requires, first and foremost, knowledge of these conditions in order to be able to compare the situation as it is now and as it was then, and to consider whether the difference between them is tantamount to a 'rupture' or not. In order to comprehend these conditions it must be mentioned that we do not mean those conditions that were stipulated by the ahl al-hadi th, the lexicologists, and the pioneers .¯ of syntax. Nor do we mean those conditions that were derived later from their technique of work, such as criticism of 'narrators' (commendation IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 71 The Era of Codification 71 and censure) and the ranking of a given 'narrator' on a scale of correctness. (i.e., criticising transmitters of tradition on the basis of their purported biographic details, and thus indirectly evaluating the veracity of the content which they transmitted). No, there are other conditions of veracity which underlie these that are declared but not explicitly disclosed, not because our forefathers intended to be parsimonious with those who came after them, but because these belonged to their cognitive unconsciousness so they acted accordingly; however, they were not fully aware of what they were doing. As long as we proceed here within the context of primary approaches, we will highlight the 'extrinsic' determiners of these conditions before we become immersed in their inner composition, components, nature and mechanisms, which will cover entire chapters of this book in its two parts. * * * One of the benefits of modern methodology in reading texts is that it teaches us not only to pay attention to what the text states and how it states it, but also to draw our attention to that which it is 'silent' about, and the means by which it is silent. In the text, from al-Suyu t i 's history, ? .¯ al-Dhahabi discusses codification of the hadi th, tafsi r, fiqh, language, history ¯ ¯ .¯ and ay? m al-n? s, and discussed these categories of Arab-Islamic scholara a ship in the name of 'knowledge (? ilm)', which meant, as noted, narrations or transmitted accounts, as opposed to 'opinion', which connoted relying on reason. Thus, the text was silent about other aspects of the scientific movement witnessed during the Era of Codification from around the year AH 143 and afterwards. The text kept silent about it not because it did not fall within the scope of 'knowledge', when there was a 'scientific' movement in the same sense which the text did not mention, but because those hidden aspects were not included in the writer's scope of interest nor in his domain of knowledge. And undoubtedly, underlying and hidden ideological motives had their role in this omission. So let us consider these silent, unmentioned aspects in the aforementioned text which are no less important, not because they complete the text and fill in its gaps, as the historian of science might rightfully assume, but also because it consists of, in the view of epistemological analysis, a part of the objective conditions that framed the epistemological and ideological presuppositions underlying the position of the writer of the text. The text has remained silent about 'codification and classification of IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 72 9/12/10 16:08 Page 72 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N knowledge' by the Shi ?ah. When we know that Ja?far al-S adiq, the Sixth ¯ .? Shi ?ite Imam, died in the year AH 148, and that in his time hadi th, jurispru¯ .¯ dence, and exegesis were codified from the viewpoint of the Shi ?ites, in ¯ other words, it was during his time and under his supervision that Shi ?ite ¯ knowledge was systematised and its fundamental issues formulated in the form of theory. If we know this, we will realise the serious effect of this silence on subsequent generations. That is, a fundamental aspect of the history of Arab-Islamic knowledge disappears from the Sunni purview, which has remained the official perspective in most Arab countries. And, when we know that historicising of the 'codification and classification of knowledge' among the Shi ?ah was also silent about Sunni 'knowledge', we ¯ will realise that the process of framing - in the sense of confinement - was mutual: silence about Shi ?ite 'knowledge' was one of the 'objective ¯ conditions' which determined and framed the conditions of correctness for Sunni 'knowledge', and vice versa. In order to clarify this remark, we would point to the phenomenon of 'the race for precedence' in the Sunni-Shi ?ite controversy concerning the ¯ validity of their respective orders of knowledge. Thus, in order for the Sunni 'knowledge' to acquire greater credibility than that of its Shi ?ite ¯ competitor, the Shi ?ite knowledge that was codified during the rule of ¯ Ja?far al-Sadiq, some Sunnis have projected the codification of hadi th back.? .¯ wards to the time of ?Umar bin ?Abd al-?Azi z, who reigned as caliph ¯ between the years AH 99 and 101. In this regard, accounts have been reported that ?Umar bin ?Abd al-?Azi z wrote to the people of the far regions ¯ saying: 'Observe the hadi th of the Messenger of Allah and collect it.'6 To ¯ .¯ respond to this claim, the Shi ?ah projected the date of codification of the ¯ hadi th prior to the reign of ?Umar bin ?Abd al-?Azi z, and even as far as ¯ .¯ to the period of the Prophet. Al-sayyid Hasan al-Sadr, one of the senior Shi ?ite ?ulam? ? , who died in ¯ a . . the year AH 1354, after discussing the positions of Sunnis on the codification of the hadi th, replied and asserted: 'and if you acknowledge that, .¯ then you should know that the Shi ?ah were the first to collect the vestiges ¯ of tradition (ath? r) and reports from the era of the caliphs of the chosen ?a Prophet, May Allah bless and grant him and them peace, so they followed ¯ their Imam (?Ali ) Commander of the Faithful'. Then, he indicated that ¯ Salm? n al-F? risi was 'the first to classify traces of vestiges and that a a¯ al-Ghif? ri was 'the first to classify the hadi th and vestiges of tradition a¯ .¯ after the founders', and that Ibn Abi R? fi?, who died at the beginning of ¯a ?Ali 's caliphate, namely around the year AH 35, had written a book entitled ¯ al-Sunnan wa al-Ahk? m wa al-Qad ay? (Sunnan, Legal Ruling and Issues) .a .? a IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 73 The Era of Codification 73 and that Abu R? fi?, who was affiliated (mawl? ) to the Prophet, is the ?a a oldest 'to have written [on the subject] necessarily'.7 Thus, the silence of al-Dhahabi , author of the text at hand, about the ¯ 'codification and categorisation of knowledge' among the Shi ?ah was not ¯ the result of oversight or personal motives but constitutes, in fact, a silence of the referential authority, the epistemological and the ideological, to which the author refers and belongs - the authority which determines the field of ideological knowledge for all Sunnis. And the same applies to Shi ?ites' silence about the 'codification and classification of knowledge' ¯ for the Sunnis. In any case, this Sunni-Shi ?ite competition is over precedence in codi¯ fication, as we have previously determined it, that is, the whole process of constructing and restructuring of Arab-Islamic culture was concluded during what was termed the 'Era of Codification', that is the period stretching between the middle of the second century of Hijra to the middle of the third century. Therefore, the process of codification of the hadi th and what is asso.¯ ciated with it, such as 'biographies (of the Prophet - si rah)' and narrative ¯ accounts as well as the codification of language and the determination of its grammar, all took place at one time and in the most important Islamic garrisons of the period. As such, no matter whether we accept the date determined by al-Dhahabi or we modify it somewhat, what is historically ¯ proven is that those who were referred to as 'codifying and classifying knowledge' did indeed do this, and they were contemporaneous with one another and lived in the garrison cities specified by the text. What we want to emphasise is that this work which was completed in one time and in diverse garrisons (amsar) could not have transpired spontaneously and .? by coincidence. The state must have been behind this broad scholastic movement which aimed at making religion 'official', if the term is correct (namely making it a part of the state and putting it in its service), just as the work of the Shi ?ites in this field aimed at making political opposition 'official', that is, ¯ bestowing religious legitimacy upon it. Early on, the Shi ?ah confronted ¯ the state politically and militarily. However, this shifted, at least temporarily, with Ja?far al-Sadiq, from direct political action against the state, to reli.? gious cultural action for the purpose of preparing a new generation of 'revolutionaries'.8 Therefore, the process of codification, namely this total cultural structuring we are discussing, was established by and as a result of a fierce competition between the two major groups of Islam, a competition to restructure Arab-Islamic traditional heritage in a way which put IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 74 9/12/10 16:08 Page 74 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N the past in the service of the 'present': the present moment of the Sunnis and the Shi ?ah, and subsequently the future of both. Needless to say that ¯ the competition to reconstruct the Arab-Islamic cultural heritage, whether religious or intellectual, also comprised a more serious and far-reaching process, namely, competition over the formation of Arab reason, the reason that belongs to this legacy of tradition itself. And if many Orientalists have spoken of 'Sunni Islam' and 'Shi ?ite Islam', perhaps a distinction in ¯ Islamic culture between 'Sunni reason' and 'Shi ?ite reason' will be closer ¯ to the truth, seeing that this issue is related not only to two creeds but to two different epistemological systems interpreting the same creed. This will be clarified later. There are other fundamental aspects which are not mentioned in the text in question, neither in other Sunni texts speaking of the 'codification and classification of knowledge', since they did not belong to the locus of 'knowledge', according to their terminology in what they considered knowledge, in the sense of 'narrative accounts'. Among these silent, unmentioned aspects are theology on the one hand, and 'sciences of the ancients' on the other, as it is historically confirmed that codification of the subjects which would form what is called 'theology' had already appeared before the date posited by al-Dhahabi and continued afterwards. It is sufficient ¯ here to refer to the multiple 'writings' that were cited by historians of sects and genealogies by W? sil bin ?Ata?, who died in ah 131, and these writa. .? ings, which the latter indicated they were acquainted with, prove its actual existence.9 On the other hand, there is consensus among some historians of ancient sciences that their translation began with Kh? lid bin Yazi d bin a ¯ Mu?awiyah bin Abi Sufy? n, who died in AH 85. This Umayyad prince - ? ¯ a who lost his right to succession - had summoned a group of Greeks who were in Alexandria, which was famous for its school of science. It has been said that he travelled there himself and asked them to translate some Greek and Coptic books into Arabic, especially alchemical works that explain how to transform base metals into gold and silver. Perhaps the chemistry of Jabir bin Hayy? n, who became a disciple of Ja?far al-S adiq ? a . .? himself, is the extension of the work launched by Kh? lid bin Yazi d, the a ¯ prince who is cited as having translated books on medicine, such as some of Galen's work. In this regard, ?Umar bin ?Abd al-?Azi z is recorded as ¯ having circulated a book on medicine, which was translated from Syriac into Arabic during the rule of Marw? n bin al-Hakam.10 a . We should note here another manifestation of 'codification' in the Arabic language, that is, the 'Arabisation of registers', or government records and books, in other words the Arabisation of administration. This is because IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 75 The Era of Codification 75 administrative affairs within the Arab-Islamic state were at first in the hands of 'foreign functionary-technicians', such as Romans or Persians, and the official language of the administration - particularly the language of documents - was Persian in Iraq, and Greek in Syria and Egypt. The launching of the Arabisation of administration started at the time of ?Abd al-Malik bin Marw? n (AH 65-86), namely in the same period during which a Kh? lid bin Yazi d was preoccupied with the translation of chemistry, media ¯ cine and astrology. The Arabisation of registers (diw? ns) was an impora tant historic event, and its impact went beyond the administrative field: on the one hand, this Arabisation was a subjugation of the Arabic language, the language of poetry, rhetoric and proverbs, its enrichment, and even its transformation into a scientific and civilised language. On the other hand, this process of Arabisation was not only an Arabisation of registers, but also the Arabisation of the writers of the registers (diw? ns), namely the a technical framework of 'non-Arabs' that facilitated the administration of affairs inside the Arab state. This is because these non-Arab technicians, who were made up of Persians, Greeks and others, were obliged to learn the Arabic language in order to maintain their posts and social status, and undoubtedly they endeavoured to teach their children the 'official language' of the state - Arabic - which must have been one of the hidden factors that prompted the collection and writing of grammars for the language. As such, the Arabic language and consequently the Arab-Islamic thought were enriched in the process of Arabisation of registers in two fields: the field of terminology, concepts and technical structures, and the field of framework - organisation bracing. And certainly both sides had a positive and very important effect in preparing the Arabic language and these frameworks, equally, for the Era of Codification, the epoch of the establishment of general culture which reached its peak with 'House of Wisdom' (bayt al-hikmah), created and sponsored by the ?Abb¯ asid caliphs in Baghdad. . Some of the other facets which this text was silent about, and which formed a valuable part in that process of total cultural construction, is the codification in politics. Thus, ?Abdullah bin al-Muqaffa?, who died in the year AH 142, had handled the translation and Arabisation of Persian political literature, namely transferring it into Arab discourse, addressed to the Arab states and its people, in favour of the opposition and its cause. We must also note here that the trend of Ibn al-Muqaffa? - a Persian poet whose 'soundness of Islam' was questioned by his contemporaries - to compose political literature may not be a coincidence: in addition to his book al-Adab al-Kabi r (The Grand Literature) full of proverbs and exam¯ ples that have socio-political significance, there is Ris? lat al-Sahabah (The a . .? IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 76 9/12/10 16:08 Page 76 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N Treatise of the Companions) which exemplified a constitutional and political statement that advanced the need to organise the state on a 'secular' basis. Whereas his more famous book, Kali lah wa Dimnah, ¯ despite its Indian-Persian origin, was translated into Arabic for an obvious political significance, in addition to the chapter added by Ibn al-Muqaffa?, 'the Barzawi h chapter', which poses the difference between religions ¯ and their conflict, and consequently the need to depend on 'reason' alone. In fact, it is noteworthy that the writings of Ibn al-Muqaffa? are 'secular'11 as he cites neither the Qur? an nor hadi th, nor any other ? .¯ element of the Islamic heritage. On the contrary, he openly called for the adoption of pre-Islamic 'ancient heritage'. Here, we must ask a question: is it not that the work of Ibn al-Muqaffa? is one of the general strategic manifestations which aimed at founding culture inside the new society, the society of the ?Abb¯ sid state, which is Persian-Arabic, on a a cultural heritage (tradition) different from the Arab-Islamic one? Is it not then that the process of 'codifying and categorising knowledge' which was discussed by al-Dhahabi in the text at hand, is a kind of ¯ reaction against the threat posed by Ibn al-Muqaffa? and 'secular' authors like him? Whatever the answer to this question, to which we will return in a following chapter, one cannot but assume the background of the sociopolitical and ideological conflict behind the processes of codification in various forms. This was because this process was considered to be rapid and total, and encompassed a manifest competition over the past, consequently the present and the future, an act which cannot be spontaneous. Nonetheless,what interest us here is not the conflict itself, but what is left of it after having accomplished its direct historical task: what remained are these hidden elements that stamped Arab-Islamic culture and subsequently Arab reason with its own character and which continues to exert its influence within this culture to this day, these elements that constitute 'the conditions of authenticity' adopted by each of the conflicting parties and which directed their work and established their conceptions and perceptions. Accordingly, we should direct our attention not to the ideological - political conflict that framed the processes of codification on the outside, but to the epistemological conflict, the conflict of 'the conditions of authenticity'; in other words, the conflict of the system of knowledge in Arab culture in its relationship to the components of perceptual and ideological Arab reason. IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 77 The Era of Codification 77 Summary of the Three Previous Chapters: 'Arab Reason' - 'Arab Culture' - 'Era of Codification' Here, at the end of this section, we will summarise the last three chapters. 'Arab reason', of which we will provide a critical analysis, is not an empty category or a metaphysical concept, nor indeed an ideological slogan, or a laud or an epithet, but rather the totality of concepts and mental performance controlling, in various degrees of strength and rigidity, the Arab individual's perception of things and the way they are handled in the field of acquiring knowledge, the field of producing and reproducing it. And we mean by 'Arab individual', the human individual whose reason has been formed, unfolded, flourished, developed and was shaped inside Arab culture, and which forms, due to this, his/her principal referential framework, if not the only one. And 'Arab culture' in being the authoratitive referential framework for Arab reason belongs, in our consideration, to a single time since its inception up until today; a static time which the contemporary Arab lives just as his forefathers did in the Middle Ages. He lives it without perceiving any alienation or sense of exile from the past when he interacts conceptually with personalities of this past-literati and thinkers. Rather, to the contrary, he doesn't find himself nor does he sense stability or sound standing except in the context of his immersion in this cutlure and his exclusive dedication to it. Arab culture, in this sense, and consequently Arab reason itself, had been formed as an entity, the pillars were stabilised and its boundaries demarcated, and its directions determined during that period in history known as 'the Era of Codification', the period during which images of the pre-Islamic era and early Islam had been delineated in Arab consciousness, and at the same time images of 'foreign' cultures, under the pressure of one need or another, were transferred into the Arabic language, and consequently to the Arab consciousness itself. It was through these images that the Arab consciousness recovered from the past during the Era of Codification, the past of Arabs and others, where ways of thinking in Arab awareness were consolidated, forming in their interrelation and interaction with concepts of that era, what we call here 'Arab reason'. Therefore, the Era of Codification is the referential framework for Arab reason par excellence and not the pre-Islamic, or early Islamic eras, or even before that. The evidence is that what we know about the epoch antecedent to the Era of Codification was indeed structured in IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 78 9/12/10 16:08 Page 78 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N that same period, and that what followed cannot be understood unless it is linked to it in some way. Put differently, the Era of Codification is present in the Arab-Islamic past which preceded it, and in any other past perceived from within ArabIslamic culture; it is also present in several types of 'future' that followed. It is present in all of that, with all its facts, contradictions, ideological contradictions as well as, and this is what concerns us primarily, in all its concepts, perceptions, and the apparatus of knowledge. In other words, the facts and conflicts and contradictions known during the Era of Codification, which formed its historical identity, are responsible for the diversity of ideological fields and systems of knowledge in Arab culture, and also responsible for the diversity of arguments and their controversy in Arab reason. Finally, if we have seized upon what is required of some of the issues raised throughout these initial definitions, it was because the primary characteristic of these definitions allows for such requisition. However, we believe that the three previous chapters have offered what enables them to not only be justifiable since they are working tools, but also promising a new vision and new perspectives. Therefore, they will always be present with us to enrich research, and at the same time, reasearch will enrich and validate them. The process of determining concepts will remain crucially important and will only conclude with the end of the book. Arab reason is the underlying structure for Arab culture since its formation during the Era of Codification. This is the abstract conclusion we have reached in this first section of the book, and we still have to prove it and attempt to render it a historical truth, indeed a scientific truth. This is to be attained through 'concrete analysis of concrete reality'. And this is what we will endeavour to achieve shortly, the moment of studying the formation of Arab reason, and the moment of structural analysis of the fundamentals of knowledge in Arab culture, namely the structure of Arab reason itself. The first stage will be the theme of this book, and the second is to be addressed in the forthcoming book. Notes 1. Mustaf? ?Abd al-R? ziq, Tamhi d li-T? ri kh al-Falsafah al-Isl? mi yah (Cairo: Lajnat a ¯ a¯ a¯ .a al-Ta?li f wa al-Tarjamah wa al-Nashr, 1959), p. 115. ¯ 2. Jal? l al-Di n al-Suyu t i , Tari kh al-Khulaf? ?, ed. Muhammad Abu al-Fad l Ibr? hi m a ¯ ? .¯ ? ¯ a ? a¯ . . (Cairo: D? r al-Nahd ah, 1976), p. 416. a .? 3. Numerous modern Arab cities had their beginnings as garrison towns in the IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 79 The Era of Codification 79 early Islamic conquests known in the pluaral as amsar, the Arabic name for Egypt - .? and for Cairo, in particular - Misr - reflects this. [Editor.] . 4. We may add Egypt and Khur? s? n. As for Baghdad, it did not exist by that time, aa since it was built by ?Abb? sid Caliph al-Mansur in only AH 145. a .? 5. Mentioned by ?A?ishah ?Abd al-Rahm? n in an article entitled 'al-Manhaj .a al-?Aqli ?inda ?Ulam? ? al-Muslimi n', Majallat al-B? hith, 3 (Morocco: Wiz? rat al-Awq? f ¯ a ¯ a. a a al-Maghribi yah, 1974), p. 8. And Ibn al-Sal? h mentioned this principle in the following ¯ a. . version: 'when they say this is a correct hadi th, it means that it is related and connected .¯ to other mentioned descriptions, and it is not a condition for it to be bound by the same subject, as it could be that the issue is exclusive for some of them and not agreed upon unanimously by the whole nation as true. And if they say that a hadi th is not .¯ correct, this does not mean that it is absolutely erroneous on the same subject, as it could be correct on the same subject but the intended is that it could not be related to the mentioned condition, and God knows', see: al-Hafiz al-?Ir? qi , al-Taqyi d wa ala¯ ¯ .. ?. ? . ¯ Id ah fi Sharh Muqaddimat Ibn al-Sal? h, reviewed by ?Abd al-Rahm? n Muhammad a. a . . . . ?Uthm? n (Beirut: [n.pb.], 1969), p. 21. a 6. See: Muhammad ?Aj? j al-Khat i b, Usu al-Hadi th ?Ulu a ?muh wa Mustalahuhu . .¯ . ?l .¯ . . (Beirut: D? r al-Fikr, 1975). See also: Ahmad Ami n, Duha al-Isl? m (Cairo: Maktabat a ¯ a . . .? al-Nahd ah al-?Arabi yah, 1961), vol. 2, p. 106. ¯ .? 7. Mentioned by Muhammad ?Aj? j al-Khati b; see: Muhammad ?Aj? j al-Khati b, a a . .¯ . .¯ ibid. 8. We will elaborate on the issue in a subsequent chapter. 9. See al-Fihrist by Ibn al-Nadi m, Flugel version, p. 251. ¯ 10. Jurji Zayd? n, Tari kh al-Tamaddun al-Isl? mi (Cairo: D? r al-Hil? l, 1958), vol. ¯ a ?¯ a¯ a a 3, p. 153. 11. It must be noted that the 'secularism' of Ibn al-Muqaffa? did not emanate from rational perception . . . but rather a Manichean Gnostic one. IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 80 IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 81 PART TWO The Formation of Arab Reason The Epistemological and Ideological in Arab culture IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 82 IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 83 CHAPTER 4 The Bedouin, the Maker of the Arab World Many facts could justify according priority to the Arabic language for the study of the components of Arab reason (?aql). For one, an Arab cherishes his language to the degree of sanctification, and he considers the power it has over him as an expression not only of the power of the language itself, but also of his own. This is because only an Arab is capable of responding to the language and rising to the high standard of rhetorical expression that characterises it, whereas other people are (al-a? ajim) 'non? Arabs' simply and a 'non-Arab is one who is not capable of eloquence nor clarity of language' and among such are (the class of) speechless animals. Hence, it is possible to state that the more an Arab is capable of dealing with the Arabic language, whether in expression or implementation, the more he is capable of possessing what the human, as a human possesses, an Arab is a 'speaking animal'(hayaw? n fasi h), thus, eloquence a . .¯ . and not just 'reason' (?aql) can determine his nature. We can also justify prioritising the Arabic language by studying the elements of Arab reason (?aql) from another angle: for the most important contributions Arabs have made to Islamic civilisation, which built on former civilisations, are language and religion. As such, Islam remained Arabic, and cannot dispense with the Arabic language, because the Qur?an, ? which is a 'pellucid Arabic Book', cannot be translated into another language without distorting it. Therefore, 'Arabic is part of its identity',1 as scholars of the fundamentals of fiqh (jurisprudence) state. And we can realise the consequences of this fundamental principle in Islam if we notice IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 84 9/12/10 16:08 Page 84 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N the immense role played by the Arabic language in Islamic studies and researches, both in creed (al-?aqi dah) and Islamic law (al-shari ?ah). Many ¯ ¯ of the differences between the schools of thought, linguistics and what is related to fiqh, are attributable to language, that is, to the abundance of utterances (alf? z) in the Arabic language and to the abundance of meana. ings of these utterances, and the diversity which characterises Arabic structures. Whereas political conflicts were originally provoked by social, economic or sectarian factors, they themselves found support or cover in Arabic religious text, thanks to the compliance and openness of the Arabic language. There is another consideration that could justify giving priority to the Arabic language in the study of Arab reason (?aql): its components and mechanisms. It is the structural component itself. In fact, historical facts confirm beyond any doubt that the first scholarly and organised work carried out by Arab reason (?aql) was the collection of the Arabic language and the compilation of its rules (its grammatical bases). In a situation as such, it is entirely 'normal' that the first scientific endeavour, that of producing linguistics and syntax, should be considered a model for other endeavours that were carried out subsequently. Therefore, it is expected, as we will explain below, that the methodology followed by the first scholars of linguistics and syntax, as well as the concepts they utilised and the intellectual mechanisms they employed were 'originally' employed by the founders of the Islamic sciences, or at least that they drew from it their method of operation, that is, if they did not actually follow its model. This does not negate, naturally, mutual impact at a later stage. Therefore, the science of religion (theology) becomes a paradigm and a model for linguistics, as we will reveal in due course. We can add to this what recent studies have emphasised, that language - any language - determines or at least contributes substantially to determining the perspective of the person vis-à-vis the world, and his perception of it, either as a whole or in parts. Further, if we notice that the Arabic language is perhaps the only living language in the world that has remained the same in words, syntax and structure for at least fourteen centuries, we will have realised how great the extent of the impact of this language is on Arab reason (?aql) and its outlook towards things, an outlook which must have been influenced, to a lesser or greater extent, by the perception brought about by the Arabic language since its codification, namely since the Era of Codification itself. Thus, whether we view the Arabic language as 'enchanting and rhetor- IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 85 The Bedouin, the Maker of the Arab World 85 ical' or we view the role it has played in Arab-Islamic culture as a whole, or its direct or indirect role in determining the basis of scientific thinking and its tools in this culture, or if we consider the impact it has on the view of its people, the universe and the human being - their Weltanschauung - whether we look at the Arabic language from this angle or from another, we will always find ourselves facing a fundamental and perhaps decisive, determinant, of Arab reason (?aql) in its structure and operation. We will consider the way Arab reason (?aql) is delineated through the language to which it belongs and vice versa, and we will begin by highlighting some of the general theoretical facts that will help us pave the way towards our subject. The Arabic Language in the Eyes of European Scholars The German thinker Herder (1744-1803) was one of the pioneers of the modern era who endeavoured, through substantial scientific efforts, to regulate and determine the relationship between language and reason. Perhaps he can even be considered the first pioneer of the theory which attributes a key role to language in shaping the human perspective of the universe. Despite the fact that we do not share his ideological and nationalist preoccupations, which subliminally framed his theory of language, we do agree with him that language is not merely an instrument for thought, but also the pattern by which it is formulated. And we do not believe that there is anyone who truly would argue that a young child learns how to think through the words provided by the language of the society in which he grows up. And if so, then his world of thought will be limited, and must be limited to the possibilities provided by his mother tongue. From this standpoint, Herder associated the characteristics of a language with the characteristics of the nation which speaks it; he even asserted that every nation speaks as it thinks and thinks as it speaks. Not only this, but also every nation stores in its language its experiences, both correct and invalid elements, which are transferred by language to younger future generations, rendering the mistakes of the past, or at least part of them, a part of tradition transmitted by language throughout generations and which contributes to the determination of the perception of its 'people', the universe, truth, goodness and beauty. Therefore, Herder posits that: 'The rules of human knowledge: truth, IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 86 9/12/10 16:08 Page 86 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N beauty and virtue have become national deities as much as a national language is such.' This means that even abstract, ideal values that a person usually regards as eternal humanistic values, which are not bound by time and space, nonetheless carry with them a national trait through language. Therefore, we cannot realise truth or perceive beauty or hold fast to virtue except in the same sense and content and form that transmit language - our language - and our virtues. Language, then, is not just a tool or substance, it is somehow the 'mould' into which knowledge is cast accordingly (exactly as the tailor adapts a dress to a certain pattern), it 'draws the boundaries and delineates the environment of every human knowledge'.2 And despite the fact that the assertions made by Herder were for obvious nationalist motives, which are easy to understand if we bear in mind the condition of Germany in the eighteenth century, his remarks are not refuted by recent research and studies dealing with the determination of the relationship between the language of a people and their perception of the world, but rather many linguistic and ethnological studies confirm it. Edward Sapir, a linguistic and ethnological researcher, states that 'the language of a group of people, a group thinking from within that language and speaking it, is the systematiser of its experience, therefore creating its world and its social reality. More precisely, every language contains its particular perception of the world.'3 Adam Schiff summarises the trends of opinion about the relation of language to thought within linguistic studies from the eighteenth century up to the present date, and asserts that 'Beginning with Herder and Wilhelm von Humboldt, linguistic studies have adopted several times the thesis that any language system (referring not only to vocabulary, but also to syntax and structure) influences the perspective of its people of the world, and their way of articulating it and accordingly their way of thinking. We think as we speak . . . which means that the language which determines our capability to speak is the same one that determines our capability to think.'4 Scholars of linguistics and ethnology report many examples that emphasise these previous views and 'prove' their validity, and they derive their examples mostly from so-called 'primitive' peoples. For instance, the Eskimos (Inuit) have an abundance of words related to snow: its types, transformations, accumulation, and so forth, which means that the Eskimos acquire through their language a broader image of the snow 'world', one which is richer and more precise than that of the people of tropical regions. Undoubtedly, the Arab individual during the pre-Islamic J? hili yah era - a¯ as well as the inhabitants of desert areas today - had an abundance of IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 87 The Bedouin, the Maker of the Arab World 87 words related to heat: its degrees, types, its transformation in relation to place and time, and so on. Meanwhile, there is not one word available for the Arab - as far as we know - related to the concept of snow except the word ice 'snow (al-thalj)' itself. And we would not rule out that the Eskimos have one word, or at least some number of words related to heat. The world as proffered by the Inuit language will probably be somewhat lacking in terms pertaining to heat when compared with the world as furnished by the Arabic language to its people on the same subject. Likewise, the world proffered by the Arabic language to its people about snow will be lacking in its terms when compared with the world furnished by the Inuit to its people. The creation of a lexicon for these two languages, Arabic-Inuit, dedicated to the world of snow and the world of heat, is quite impossible because these two worlds are unequal in these two languages. It is true that in the end the issue is due to the difference in environmental conditions, the difference between the world of the desert and the icy lands and frozen tundra of North America, and the difference between languages here and there reflects that difference in nature. It is also true that Arabic speakers today and in the past, whether they inhabited hot or temperate areas, remained, and still are, prisoners of the very meagre world that the Arabic language proffers in regard to the world of snow. It is a world no less scanty than that offered by the same language pertaining to the world of aquatic animals compared with, for instance, European languages. Therefore, language not only reflects natural conditions, but also carries with it this same reflection to propagate it in different times and places, and by doing so, becomes a key factor and even sometimes a decisive one in determining and framing the perception of its people of things. And if this is true for all languages including the developed ones, it is because the development of a language is slow by nature; hence, the Arabic language possesses a peculiarity unique to it in this domain. To highlight this specificity and to expose its components is what we will seek to do below. The Arabic Language and the Determination of Perceptions In the light of the previous observations, let us take a close look at our current Arabic dictionaries, both old and contemporary (is there a difference between the two categories?), the material of which was gathered - as we will demonstrate soon - during the Era of Codification from the IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 88 9/12/10 16:08 Page 88 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N utterances of Arabs who had remained isolated until that era, and whose language remained unmixed and undisturbed by commingling with the population of urban areas. The dictionary 'Lis? n al-?Arab' (The Arab Tongue), a which is the largest and richest dictionary in the Arabic language, does not convey to us, despite the magnitude of its size, the names of natural and industrial things, nor the theoretical concepts and types of terminologies known then, namely the seventh and eighth century ah, and in Cairo, one of the major centres of civilisation in Islamic history. This is because the eighty thousand linguistic subjects included in this voluminous dictionary, which we cherish, do not go beyond the life of that 'Bedouin' (al-a?r? bi ) who was the hero of the Era of Codification, that of a¯ the 'rough Bedouin' life as expressed by Ibn Khaldun. Many words, new ? expressions and philosophical and scientific concepts entered the Arabic language from the time of the Era of Codification until the era of Ibn Manzur, the author of Lis? n al-?Arab. However, the referential framework a .? of Arab reason (?aql) - the Era of Codification - refuses to do more than render the 'official' or 'standard' Arabic language, the language of dictionaries, and remains always that language which was collected and produced by al-Khali l and his colleagues. However, the progress that occurred after¯ wards, or even before that, is considered extraneous to the language of the 'genuine Bedouins' and therefore should be disregarded and ignored. Heretofore, and under the influence of this principle, our contemporary dictionaries were produced as mere summaries - sometimes distorted - of the ancient dictionaries. For it to be 'Arabic' it should include the language of 'Arabs' exclusively, the language of those for whom the Era of Codification admitted in the purity of their Arab identity and authenticity. The Arabic language became static aftre it was embalmed. However, social life does not become static nor can it be embalmed. It avenged itself by imposing colloquial 'Arabic' dialects, which were and are still much richer than the classical language. And undoubtedly, it was as such during the Era of Codification itself. And herein lies the serious paradox, even the great rupture, experienced by the Arab person until now. This is because, on the one hand, he is provided with a language to use in writing and thinking, the internal mechanism of which is highly valued, yet, on the other hand, which is not capable of providing him with the necessary words to express ideas pertaining to the contemporary world, the world of the twenty-first century in which he lives and which imposes itself on him in this context. And, if the Arab intellectual acquires a system of concepts and terminologies promulgated by our forefathers for their problems, or problems transmitted to them, then he lacks the necessary linguistic IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 89 The Bedouin, the Maker of the Arab World 89 constituent to express the scientific aspect, particularly the industrial and the technological one in our contemporary world, to the degree that if we were to decide not to utter anything but Arabic utterances acknowledged by our dictionaries, he would cease to speak most of the time at home, in the streets and schools. Accordingly, we would have to expunge from our world all civilised matters, the material and the intellectual, which form the basis of the contemporary world. This is but one manifestation of the problem. Accordingly, the Arab intellectual necessarily speaks the colloquial language which is considerably richer than classical Arabic in the field of civilisational matters, as it borrows from other languages with some 'broken lingo' (lit., brokenness) (taksi r) that cannot be dealt with intellectually. Despite its civilisa¯ tional 'technological' richness the colloquial language does not proffer the necessary tools and mechanisms requisite for intellectual activity, for it is not a language of culture and thought (thaq? fah wa fikr) - hence, a its abject poverty despite its apparent richness. The result is that the Arab intellectual, whether a student or a professor, lives in two limited worlds: the world of colloquial language and the world of classical language; whereas the Arab illiterate - forming the majority - is confined to the colloquial and deals with objects he does not name, and if he were to do so, he would do so using foreign words with some necessary 'broken lingo' which would undoubtedly leave its deep impact on the conceptual framework of his mind, on the structure of his thought. As for the Arab person who knows one or more foreign languages and who lives in three different worlds, he 'possesses' three perceptions of 'them': he thinks with a foreign language, writes with the classical Arabic language and speaks at home and in the street or even in the university, with the colloquial language. Let us leave the problematic of multiplicity and duplicity aside, and only consider the way that classical Arabic language - our official mother language - determines our perception (for us Arabs) of the world. Here, we will direct our attention to the linguistic component first; second, to the syntactic and morphological forms; and finally to the styles of rhetoric. Arabic, a Language of Science If philosophy was the 'miracle' of the Greeks, the Arab sciences are the 'miracle' of the Arabs. The truth is that the achievement during the Era IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 90 9/12/10 16:08 Page 90 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N of Codification of the collection of the language and categorising and analysing its grammatical bases, was indeed something of a miracle. After all, is a miracle anything but a 'breach of habit or custom'? And, is there a 'breach of habit or custom' deeper and more eloquent than the speed of transition from a language based on 'al-fitrah (innate disposition)' except . through a language that cannot be learned nor understood living among the tribes that speak it, into a language capable of being learned in the same way that knowledge is acquired: via methods of rules, hypotheses and rigorous methodology? Indeed, the codification of the language was much more than just a 'codification' in the sense of recording and categorising: it is the passage of the Arabic language from the level of a nonscience to the level of science. It involved the collection of the lexicon of the language, the enumeration of its words, extracting the method of their derivation and their declension, determining and establishing the rules of their syntax, and the invention of diacritical marks to eliminate the ambiguity of its graphic, written form. All of this can be described as nothing less than a new science, as the linguistics of the Arabic language, and even the constitution of a new language which is the classical Arabic language (al-fusha). . .? Whether we link the process of the collection and foundation of the language to the desire to salvage the language of the Qur?an from degen? eration and digression, and subsequently from dissolution, due to the spread of 'solecism' during the Era of Codification within the new Islamic community where the majority was of non-Arab origins and did not speak Arabic, or whether we link it to the need of Persian writers to learn Arabic to preserve their privileges and keep their offices after the Arabisation of the di w? n and its functionaries, as suggested by some contemporary ¯a scholars,5 the outcome is one, and this is that the process resulted in transitioning the Arabic language from a language that is unscientific (namely which is not disposed to scientific study) to a scientific one - a language governed by the same order as any other scientific subject. One cannot but admire and appreciate this achievement, especially if taking into account the short period during which it was completed and the tremendous efforts invested voluntarily and without pay by people who dedicated themselves and spent from their own funds for many years to accomplish this laborious task, of which they had not, certainly, sought any gain. They supplied subsequent generations with an exact and precisely codified language, controlled and amenable to reception and learning, and therefore capable of transmitting culture and science from ancestors to successors. IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 91 The Bedouin, the Maker of the Arab World 91 Nevertheless, what is most admirable is the accuracy of the methodology followed in that general survey of the Arabs' language, or even of the language of the many tribes - each of which had its own distinct Arabic dialect. And if it is not possible today to determine whether the Arabic language, as perpetuated by the Era of Codification, is the original one among all these dialects, or if this latter was the foundation of the unified, collected language, then the methodology followed in its transformation to a codified language was of such precision and rigorous acuity that it imposed a rigid order, which undoubtedly has impacted on its inner composition, and consequently it must have led to creativity overriding natural disposition and intuition. Further, if we are permitted to call this methodology into question because of its rigidity, which undermined the language and restricted its ability to keep pace with development and renewal, we cannot but be amazed by its precision, the integrity of its pace, and the rigour of its internal logic. Whether it was al-Khali l bin Ahmad al-Far? hi di (AH 100-170) who ¯ a¯¯ . accomplished his project entirely or one of his pupils (for example, alLayth a son of Nasr bin Sayy? r) had completed it after him,6 or whether a . al-Khali l found the principle he adopted in ordering the alphabetical letters ¯ in his dictionary (starting from the glottal consonants of the throat to the labial consonants according to the technique of Indian scholars of Sanskrit), or if that arrangement was his own creation, what attracts the contemporary epistemological researcher to the style of al-Khali l in the unifica¯ tion of the language and the structuring of his dictionary Kit? b al-?Ayn a (The Book of the Wellspring) is the methodological principle he employed for imposing order on a scattered language. It is a principle that can only be adopted - transmitted - by a remarkable mathematical mind, a mind that was in no way in contradiction with excellent musical sensibilities which enabled al-Khali l himself to establish the rhythms of Arabic poetry ¯ (from the analysis of poetry and the art of versification), and consequently to establish a new science: prosody. How could mathematical intuition contradict musical sensibility, seeing that music at that time was a branch of mathematics? Al-Khali l bin Ahmad turned his fine musical sensibility to Arabic poetry, ¯ . thus inferring from it the cryptic - unseen - patterns that inform it, and proceeded to use his mathematical mind, producing theoretical patterns which are hypothetical, but which are not lacking in principles of the reality of the language, and accorded Arabic phonation to them, beginning from the outset with 'conceptually possible' (mental) utterances while ignoring the 'realistically possible' (actual) except in the phase of experiment IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 92 9/12/10 16:08 Page 92 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N and verification, the phase where the transition from formal mathematical science to the real subjective world is concluded. Furthermore, it seems to us that al-Khali l bin Ahmad, by dealing with ¯ . the twenty-eight letters of the Arabic alphabet as an original set, derived from it all secondary groups implicit within them which comprised two to five elements, was indeed applying consciously an essential aspect of mathematical work founded on set theory in its contemporary version: this issue pertains to the principle upon which al-Khali l based his famous ¯ dictionary, and which was the first dictionary in Arabic, perhaps even the first dictionary of its kind in the history of languages. Al-Khali l noted that ¯ Arabic words are either biliteral, triliteral, quadraliteral or pentaliteral, whereas whatever was above these is an excess and could be disposed of (by removing prefixes, infixes and suffixes and reverting to the root-verb). Accordingly, he began combining the Arabic alphabetical letters with each other by twos and threes and combinations of four and five, exhausting all possible combinations (for instance: bud, dub, adab, bada?, abad, b? da, a d? b, dab? , etc.), dropping whatever was repeated, until extracting all possible a a phonations that can be combined from the Arabic alphabet letters (from two to five letters), reaching, according to some historians, 12,305,412 phonations, namely a character set. And then, he began examining these sets - phonations - and he preserved and catalogued what he found to be utilised such as 'daraba' (to hit) and disregarded what he found to not . be in use - not existing in Lis? n al-?Arab - such as 'jashasa'. And if ala . Khali l was unable to conclude his voluminous project, the endeavour of ¯ linguists who came immediately after him was almost confined to the completion of this project. This was an abstract use of the methodological principle adopted by al-Khali l and subsequent linguists in the collection and unification of the ¯ language and classifying its utterances. So, if we consider this principle from a purely logical perspective, we should say that we are confronted here with a scientific work, a logical acuity and a rigorous mathematical mentality, and this is what we have indicated previously, and which will remain noteworthy at all times - as long as human reason works in accordance with rules. However, logic is one thing, and reality is another. And logic must be in the service of reality and not vice versa. When it comes to an existing reality that is 'progressing', then it is essential to allow for 'freedom' to use the logic of development, which is different from mathematical logic, or else the imposition of nominal and logical forms over reality will destroy its life from within and lead to intolerance and to halting its development. IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 93 The Bedouin, the Maker of the Arab World 93 Indeed, the Arabic 'miracle' was a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it transformed the language which was merely based on spontaneity into a scientific language that is codified and precise; and on the other hand, it rendered this same language 'incapable' of keeping pace with progress and accepting what needs to be changed and renovated, to which we will now turn. If we contemplate the outcomes of the principle established by al-Khali l ¯ and the method he followed - which are the selfsame principle and method adopted by linguists afterwards, or at least which were produced by them in their perception of the Arabic language - we will find ourselves confronted by a method of 'producing' language and devitalising it into rigid and solid patterns, and not confronted with rules to unite its dispersed pieces and organise its internal life, while maintaining the potential for its progress and renovation. If we recall what we previously stated concerning the role of language in forming the human perception of the world, eventually in shaping man's reason and the structure of his thought, we would have realised any negative influence that the method of al-Khali l and the subsequent linguists ¯ must have been left on Arab reason (?aql). Al-Khali l started with the 'concep¯ tually possible', treating Arabic letters with a purely mathematical approach, thus limiting the kinds of phonations that they could form. This principle was essential in rendering language a mental production, instead of being the outcome of treating it as a realistic hypothesis. In this case, the process will revert from being a process of collecting the language to a process of pleading the tenability of a theoretical hypothesis. The combination of Arabic root letters with each other to form all possible words - biliteral, triliteral, quadraliteral and pentaliteral - could be regarded as the entire constitution of the Arabic language. And despite the efforts of al-Khali l and his colleagues ¯ in linguistics to distinguish between 'the employed' and 'the neglected' among these hypothetical linguistic groupings, it was difficult, if not impossible, to draw a final line between what Arabs have and have not enunciated - especially in an atmosphere where passion for 'the foreign' prevailed, as we will demonstrate later. It was normal in such a situation that analogical (al-qiy? s) a should prevail over what was acceptable to the ear (al-sam?): thus, words are correct because they are possible, and not because they are real, and they are possible as long as there is a root origin to which they can revert or an analogue to which they can be compared; and these are not realistic because the 'derivative branch' here is often a theoretical proposition and not a 'given' from among the principles of 'inductive reasoning' and social experience. And, as we will see below, the role of these theoretical hypotheses in the expansion of the language - rendering it overabundant with phonations IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 94 9/12/10 16:08 Page 94 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N vis-à-vis significations - will, certainly, affect the way Arab reason (?aql) treats language, the language which contributes fundamentally to its creation. However, let us now consider the other side of the issue. Indeed, the method of al-Khali l was only one facet of the aspects of ¯ the art and synthesis to which the Arabic language was subjected during the Era of Codification, causing it to accrue 'rigid' and final patterns, a language that has limited words and constrained transformations, a language that is a-historical, because it is not renewed with modern conditions, nor does it evolve in line with developments through time. There is another position resulting from the same method, or which has come as a reaction to it, and these two matters are possible: we mean what pertains to 'hearing' as asynthesizer and a synthesis. The process of the collecting and unifying the language and establishing its bases began as a concern and fear for its dissolution and deterioration due to the spreading of solecisms in a society where Arabs had become a small minority. And since the reason behind this solecism was the vast commingling among the urban inhabitants of Iraq and Syria particularly, between Arabs and non-Arab Muslims (maw? li ), then normally, the 'correct' a¯ language ought to be expected from the Bedouins - particularly from the tribes that remained isolated and whose Bedouin tribesmen retained their spontaneity and 'sound' pronunciation. In this regard, Ibn Jinni asserts: ¯ 'The reason for all this is what occurred to the current languages and to the town dwellers (ahl al-madar) of imbalances, corruption and disorder, and if it was known that city dwellers (ahl al-madi nah) would retain their ¯ eloquence, and corruption of their language had not occurred, then it would have been an obligation to take from them as if taking from the people of the tents (ahl al-wabar), and also if within the people of the tents had occurred what germinated among the language of the town dwellers of disarray and derangement of tongues, and the decrease of eloquent habitude and its diffusion, then it would have been an obligation to reject their language or abandon what is transmitted from them them.'7 The compilers and chroniclers of the language have tended, then, to the desert (b? diyah), to the 'pure' Bedouins, and thus those Bedouins became a the 'unshod, barefoot', who were consistently in demand. At the beginning of the second century AH, when chronicling the language became a profession, several well-to-do men dedicated themselves to this activity, such as Abu ?Umar bin ?Al? ?, (d. AH 154), Hamm? d the chronicler (d. AH ? a a . 155), and al-Khali l bin Ahmad (d. AH 170) and several others. The most ¯ . important condition they stipulated is that the language could be taken IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 95 The Bedouin, the Maker of the Arab World 95 from whoever was rough of skin and eloquent of tongue: 'the linguists considered the roughness of an Arab, his harshness, and his ongoing deprivation from luxury and skin tenderness - as they called it - the basis for adopting language from him and making arguments on the basis of his discourse'.8 The result was that: 'if a Bedouin acquired Bedouin character and eloquence (al-fasahah) - through trial and exposure - it would become .? . his right to judge between the scholars and ascertain the rectitude or error of their influence their opinions, therefore becoming a law by which those scholars would abide and by which they would apply. Thus, with this blessed nomadism, the Bedouin turned into a master for those scholars, who would seek his arbitration between them in their disagreements and disputes.'9 Also, the recourse to Bedouins and complete reliance on them in matters of the exactness of the language and setting its foundations led scholars to consider them infallible in language, not that they really believed so, but in order for mistakes not to revert to the rules emanating from their own locution and speech. With the increasing popularity of the Bedouin and the competition over him, as well as the struggle to gain his satisfaction, the Bedouins began to gain consciousness of their importance and the value of their speech. They began to feel that they possessed something worthy of a price. This is what actually transpired, as history tells us that some Bedouins made it their profession to sell their speech and that others moved to Basra and Kufah to settle there as reciters of the language, as speech 'vendors'. And ¯ there were others, urban dwellers, who moved to the desert (b? diyah) so a that people would speak of them there, and if they acquired fame they would receive as much money as asked. Accordingly, Arabic pronunciation, especially the unfamiliar, desolate, old and rare, became a profitable and a facile way to earn a living.10 It is worth mentioning that this demand for Bedouins was not only generated by linguists, but also by the path followed by scholars of syntax. Indeed, it is very difficult to distinguish between the linguist and the scholar of syntax, as the linguist was an expert on syntax and vice versa, the only difference being that one of them attached more importance to language as utterances and connotations, while the other was concerned with seeking evidence for the grammatical rules he induced or formulated. The focus was, both in the field of syntax and the field of language, on the old. Whenever a discourse was related to an older era, it was acceptable and requisite: 'they considered that whatever is old is a sign of high quality, whereas the contemporary and modern is forged, rejected and renounced'.11 Also, they even considered that 'the development that occurred in the IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 96 9/12/10 16:08 Page 96 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N Arabic language to be a form of erroneousness and a deviation that should be cast aside and disregarded. They imposed a cessation of citation or quoting in matters of syntax and morphology during the mid-second century ah.'12 Confronted with all of this, one might wonder, if the purpose of collecting and unifying the language and its foundation was to protect the Qur?an ? from solecism, then why did the linguists not adopt the Qur?an itself as ? the sole basis of their work, especially when it is acknowledged unanimously to be the most eloquent and unequivocal? Some researchers relate the turning away from the Qur?an by the ancient ? linguists, to the sayings of the Bedouins, to the fact that the Qur?an appeared ? in seven redactions - or seven dialectical variants (ahruf sab?) - which . consist of different approaches to interpretation. Even though this difference is very limited and miniscule, it posed problems of language and syntax that cannot be resolved except by linguistic and syntactic 'exegesis,' of the sacred text, which was inadmissible due to 'religious diligence'. To dispose of the text is a form of hermeneutics, and this is what they were avoiding.13 However, we would like to go beyond this explanation. If the point of departure was to safeguard the Qur?an from solecism, then it was ? required to fortify it from without. If we add to this the fact that the need for comprehending its words and expressions increased, and that the weighing of this need was a sort of guiding principle for the work of the linguists, we will realise that, in reality, what was required was to find a meta-language that would form a referential framework for the Qur?an ? at the level of the meanings of the words and the figurative expressions. Thus, there was no language which could possibly fulfil this task except that of the J? hil i yah era, which was still in use among the isolated tribes, a¯ in a way similar to the way it was preserved in pre-Islamic poetry. This was the internal logic that governed the relationship between those who collected and unified the language and the scholars of syntax to the Qur?anic ? text. This logic is even justified by what was related about Ibn ?Abb? s a when he said: 'If anything is incomprehensible in the Qur?an refer to poetry, ? as poetry is Arabic.' A similar assertion is attributed to the Prophet himself.14 In order to fully comprehend the practical circumstances that determined and imposed this logic, we must remember that at that time, the Arabic language used to be written without diacritical marks, and used to be written, and stillis, without indications of vocalisation. For instance, the word 'nabagha' used to be written without the dots used in modern script (which in this case determine the initial, medial and final characters), therefore, the 'graphical' written word could be pronounced as IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 97 The Bedouin, the Maker of the Arab World 97 'nabagha' or 'nab?a' or 'taba?a' or 'bata?a' or 'bay?a', to name a few possibilities, to say nothing of the way in which these various possibilities could be vowelled (i.e., vocalised). What we seek to emphasise through this simple example is that it would have only been possible to group and unify the Arabic language through words as they are pronounced and not as it is written. The Qur?an was both written and pronounced, and in order to ? justify a certain way of reading it, it was indispensable to rely on the aural language.15 And only the language of the Bedouins could fulfil this role. Perhaps the proof of this matter is that the word 'misreading' (tashi f ), ..¯ which means solecism and erroneous, has its roots, as al-Maqqari asserts, ¯ 'that a man takes his pronunciation in [the act of] pronunciation out of his reading a written page, and which is not heard by other men so as to render it accurate'.16 Hence, linguists and scholars of syntax sought language from the Bedouins who did not know how to write, to the extent that some of them used to pretend not to be able to write - in cases where they did know how - in order to be trusted and then be reported [as such]. There are many stories that relate how some Bedouins were 'caught' reading or writing, and how they pleaded with whoever discovered that fact to cover it up and conceal it. It was not our goal to draw this picture of the process of collecting and unifying the language and establishing its bases, for its own sake. The books of literature, language, and history are replete with detail. Even some of the more contemporary books are serious enough and well researched to fulfil the needs of the unspecialised researcher.17 However, our goal was to uncover some illustrations of the reality which will allow conclusions regarding the outcomes related to our subject. Two essential characteristics of the Arabic language can be drawn from the previous presentation: its ahistoricity and its tangibility. On the one hand, if the nominal patterns, in which al-Khali l and his ¯ colleagues moulded the Arabic language, furnished it with some sort of internal dynamism (i.e., derivation), thus making it more flexible, this - at the same time - caused it to become more 'resistant' to the change and development engendered by history. Therefore, the Arabic language remained, and still is, since at least the time of al-Khali l, unchanged in ¯ syntax, morphology, the connotations of its phonations and words, and in the manner of its self-reproduction. This is what we mean when we say that it is a language which is ahistorical. It is above history and does not meet the requirements of progress. On the other hand, the grouping and unification of the language strictly from nomadic Bedouins must have left an 'influence' on it; some Bedouin IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 98 9/12/10 16:08 Page 98 T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A R A B R E A S O N particularities due to the circumstances of their livelihood, mainly the tangible (concrete, sensate) nature of their thinking and perceptions. The process of the collecting and unification of the language from the Bedouins, to the exclusion of any others, confines the world of this language to the boundaries of their world. And, since they live 'instinctively' and 'innately' - that is, a life that is rudimentary and sensate, this must have influenced their way of thinking and consequently the language that was collected from them and evaluated according to their norms. Hence the observation of a contemporary author that 'Arabic words are rooted in nature and the principle of rightness in it was established by innateness and not by custom and habit'18 and, consequently, 'the word that cannot be retrieved from a vocative form that is derived from nature, and from within Arabic production, is extrinsic to Arabic'.19 Despite the fact that we value and respect the incentives and goals behind this writer's observations about the particularities of the Arabic language and its 'philosophy', we believe that objectivity and academic spirit require naming things accurately and stating their objective and true significance. The ahistoricity of the Arabic language, just as the case with its sensate (tangible, concrete) nature, is not a virtue, nor a concealment of an illusionary philosophy peculiar to it and its people, that should be inferred and its authenticity emphasised. No. The ahistoricity and sensate tangible nature of the Arabic language are given historical facts that should not be ceded without question, but examined critically. The world where the Arabic language was born, or at least collected, is ahistorical and sensate one: the world of Arab Bedouins who lived an extended time like the extent of the desert (sahr? ?) itself; a time of repetition and monotony . .a of place or even a space (naturally, culturally and mentally) that is empty and serene, everything in it is sensate - a visual or auditory image. This world is all that the Arabic language transmits to its people, today and in the past, and will remain as it is as long as this language is subject to the criteria of the Era of Codification and its limitations. We have just indicated that those who collected and unified the language and the scholars of syntax abandoned the adoption of the Qur?an as a ? primary reference and had recourse to the 'wild' Bedouins who were deeply impoverished. Whatever the impetus was behind this course of action, the outcome was that the Arabic language collected from the Bedouins was meagre when compared with the Qur?anic text. While the Qur?anic text ? ? adopted non-Arabic words and Arabicised them, the classical lexicography considered those words as extrinsic interpolations and dealt with them as such. The reliance of those who unified and collected the language on the IBT034 - Arab Reason_part 1 9/12/10 16:08 Page 99 The Bedouin, the Maker of the Arab World 99 criterion of 'Bed...
Liens utiles
- Du symbolisme au surréalisme par Claude-Edmonde Magny Poetry is a divine instinct and unnatural rage passing the reach of common reason.
- Arab Music I INTRODUCTION Umm Kulthum Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum was revered throughout Egypt, North Africa, and the Near East for her powerful voice and improvisational skill.
- Encyclopedia of Philosophy: THE TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTIC: THE ANTINOMIES OF PURE REASON - KANT
- THE TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTIC: THE PARALOGISMS OF PURE REASON - KANT
- « Ceux qui ne peuvent se rappeler le passé sont condamnés à le répéter. » George Santayana (1863-1952), The Life of Reason