Extracting
general rulings from the heart
of “absolute, a-historical
reason” and considering them
applicable to all people in all
ages has become more difficult
today. Humanity has now arrived
at a healthy and beneficial
pluralism and relativism, the
fruit of which is modesty and
the rejection of dogmatism –
writes the great Iranian
philosopher Abdolkarim Soroush,
currently Isim Visiting
Professor at Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam – Of the three-fold
rivals of reason (revelation,
love, and revolution) it is the
third that is the most
merciless. When faced with
all-embracing revolutions, which
have neither love’s beauty nor
revelation’s sanctity, we can
only seek refuge in God. For,
they rob people of both life and
reason.
When Richard
Rorty said that, in the Middle
Ages, God was god; then, in the
Age of Enlightenment and
modernity, reason became god,
and, today, that is to say, in
the post-modern age, there is no
God, his pronouncement contained
a good measure of truth. The
idol of reason or the god of
reason is shattered today. An
the beloved term “rationality”,
which was once one of the most
lofty and sacred terms, conveys
little more that a suspect,
ambiguous and modest meaning
today. Aristotelian reason,
Cartesian reason, Kantian
reason, Hegelian reason,
religious reason, historical
reason, dialectical reason,
theoretical reason, practical
reason and all the other
varieties of reason have so
smashed this mirror into a
thousand pieces as to make it
impossible to see any whole and
undistorted image reflected in
it.
Today when someone speaks of
reason, they are either
referring to the logical methods
of a deductive reasoning and
inductive reasoning, proof and
refutation, etc. or to the
products of reason which consist
of philosophy, language,
morality, science and the like.
And, since these products are
all fluid and mutable, it is
considered axiomatic in our
times that reason changes (or
evolves and is infinitely
perfectible). Modern reason and
classical reason are different
because the products of these
two reasons, i.e., their
science, philosophy, morality,
politics and economics, are
different. And, since this is
the case, submitting to a kind
of relativism is unavoidable.
And this is exactly the
situation in which we all live
and breathe today. Some Muslim
philosophers view theoretical
reason as a set of theoretical,
self-evident truths and
practical reason as a set of
practical, self-evident truths.
On the basis of this definition,
it has to be said that
self-evident truths have changed
and what seemed self-evident to
people in the past no longer
seems self-evident today. The
existence of God was something
akin to a theoretical,
self-evident truth in the Middle
Ages, whereas it has lost this
standing today. Conversely,
human rights are considered to
be self-evident truths in our
times, whereas they did not
figure among practical,
self-evident truths in the past.
The Age of Enlightenment
believed itself to be
enlightened and described the
Middle Ages as the dark ages.
And, of course, if you asked
people in the Middle Ages, they
would have taken the opposite
view: they would have said that
they were enlightened and that
the holders of any rival views
were living in the dark. The
fact that hardly anyone uses the
expression “the dark ages”
anymore itself testifies a major
change of stance on knowledge.
It has become clear that both
the Age of Enlightenment and the
Middle Ages were caught up in
and delimited by their own
paradigms or self-evident
truths, and that the inhabitants
of the two (epistemic) paradigms
could hardly have raised their
heads above their own ramparts
to criticize themselves. And it
was only when these ramparts
fell away that eyes were opened
and tongues could speak. Our
situation in the post-modern age
is similar to theirs. And the
point that we have learnt from
Thomas Kuhn and Michel Foucault
among others is that we do not
have one single rationality but
rationalities.
The lesson for us in all of this
is rational modesty. In the
past, they used to say that
arrogance and selfishness were
impediments to rationality; now,
we have to say that arrogance
equals irrationality and that
modesty is one of the
unavoidable virtues of rational
people and seekers of learning.
Extracting general, universal,
a-historical rulings from the
heart of “absolute, a-historical
reason” and considering them
applicable to all people in all
ages has become more difficult
today than ever before. Humanity
has now arrived at a healthy and
beneficial pluralism and
relativism, the fruit of which
is modesty and the rejection of
dogmatism. We must be thankful
for this and see it as a good
omen. But reason has not only
been faced, internally, with a
host of shattering,
reason-crushing varieties; it
has also had to contend with
many external rivals. I will
mention three rivals here which
I have lived with and
experienced personally.
Reason and revelation
Pope Benedict XVI, in his recent
controversial speech, boasted of
the collaboration between
Christianity and Greek
philosophy, and described their
reconciliation and alliance as
auspicious and epoch-making. He
criticized Islam and
Protestantism for not having
established as strong a link as
they should have done with
rationality, particularly
philosophical and Greek
rationality. He even described
the God of Islam as an
irrational God or even an
anti-rational God. This is not
the place for assessing the
Pope’s at times inaccurate and
ill-judged remarks. The point is
that the relationship between
reason and revelation has never
been a smooth and altogether
friendly one.
Revelation-independent reason
has always been viewed as a
rival of revelation and prophets
never liked to be called
philosophers. Theologians, who
made religious belief reasoned
and rational, and saw themselves
as serving religion in this way,
were considered traitors by
religions’ orthodox followers.
The latter ere of the opinion
that rationalizing religion
meant subjecting religion to
reason and measuring its truth
and veracity on the scale of
rationality, and that this was,
at the very least, a suspect and
useless thing to do. Believers
maintained that revelation had
come to assist reason; how,
then, could this relationship be
turned on its head by having
reason assist revelation? Some
would go even further and say
that the candle of reason was
useful in the gloom that
preceded revelation; once the
sun of revelation dawned, that
candle had to be snuffed out.
Cooperation between reason and
revelation was, of course,
another option. That the God who
created reason was the same God
who sent us revelation provided
a basis for this cooperation.
Many great Christian and Islamic
philosophers, such as Avicenna,
Farabi, and Thomas Aquinas,
belonged to this line of
thought. Sadreddin Shiraz, the
XXVII century Iranian
philosopher went so far as to
say: “Woe betide any philosophy
that is not confirmed by God’s
religion!”. The Mu’tazilite
school of theology, which
unfortunately suffered a
devastating historical defeat at
the hands of its Ash’arite rival
was founded on the basis of the
compatibility of reason and
religion and it was also on good
terms with Greek philosophy. The
God of the Mu’tazilites was a
just and moral God, and all His
conduct was in keeping with
rational criteria. This was also
their understanding of the
Prophet and his teachings.
Reason in this school was so
corpulent as to make religion
seem emaciated by comparison;
unlike the Ash’arite school of
theology, which had a corpulent
religion and an emaciated
rationality. The Sufis, for
their part – who were a
different creed altogether – had
attained a corpulent love,
alongside which both religion
and reason appeared emaciated.
At any rate, the discoveries of
empirical reason in XVI and XVII
century Europe and the conflict
between science and scripture
suddenly awakened the dormant
battle between reason and
revelation and sent perilous
waves crashing through this
ocean again. I believe that the
conflict proved auspicious for
both sides, i.e., both science
and religion. It taught both of
them to become more modest and
to make fewer claims, and it
made them more sensitive to the
sophistication of the truths
that are discovered in different
realms. Of course, the battle
went so far as to pave the way –
alongside the emergence of
Protestantism and the occurrence
of bloody conflicts between the
different Christian sects – for
the onset of full-blown
secularism. And states began
proclaiming their neutrality
towards religions and the
hegemony of one religion over
all others was overthrown.
Although it has on occasion been
on good terms and on occasion on
bad terms with non-religious
reason (and especially
philosophical/Greek reason),
Islamic revelation was never
confronted by empirical reason,
and this was simply because
modern empirical science did not
develop among Muslims. So, they
did not suffer the perils of
this battle, but they did not
benefit from its blessings
either. And when the victorious
science arrived in Islamic lands
in the XIX and XX centuries, far
from making anyone quake in
their boots, it made people
rejoice at seeing the victor
that had vanquished Christianity
and that would now be
befriending Islam. It is very
interesting to note that modern
science and philosophy met
almost no resistance in Islamic
lands. First, the doors of
universities and, then, the
doors of seminaries were thrown
open to them and they became the
subjects of study and
discussion. This was also the
case in Iran after the Islamic
Revolution. I remember how, when
I was a member of the Cultural
Revolution Institute after the
revolution, an Italian reporter
asked me in an interview whether
the theory of evolution would be
eliminated from university
curricula. I told him that it
would not and, then, I thought
to myself that such a notion had
never occurred to me and my
colleagues. Of course, Marxism
has to be bracketed off in this
respect. Clerics have always
seen it as a materialist and
anti-religious theory.
Today, the movement of religious
intellectuals in Iran is
striving to redefine the
relationship between reason and
revelation. And, on the
interpretation of scripture
(i.e., the Quran) in particular,
it is seeking assistance from
modern hermeneutics and the
experience that Christianity has
had. And, contrary to what the
Pope seems to think, far from
fearing multiple interpretations
of the Quran and deeming this to
be a violation of the fact that
the Quran’s words are divine
revelation, these religious
intellectuals believe that Islam
consists precisely of these
multiple interpretations and
that it is virtually impossible
to reach religion’s pure kernel.
Reason and love
The lofty and sturdy tradition
of Islamic Sufism was the
product of reactions to two
things: first, a reaction to the
unrestrained and unfettered
carousing, revelry, corruption,
materialism and pleasure-seeking
of the courts under the Umavid
and Abbasid caliphates, and, the
other, a reaction to the
terrifying, tyrannical and
omnipotent God of the Ash’arites
and the Mu’tazilites relentless
philosophical digressions into
God’s attributed and actions,
particularly His justness. The
first reaction produced ascetic
Sufism and, the second, the
Sufism of love. The Sufism of
love drew a line under both
reason and fear. It wanted to
love God, not to fear God. And
it wanted to be enchanted by
God, as a lover is enchanted by
the beloved, not to unravel God
as a philosopher unravels a
puzzle. Mansour Hallaj, the
renowned IX century Sufi,
conveyed the condensed essence
of this approach as follows:
“The beloved is brimming with
allures not secretes.” In other
words, God is not an object for
lovers; end of story. And love
was such that it went to war
with reason. Perhaps the word
“war” seems a bit too strong,
but perusing the works of Sufis
conveys nothing less than this.
Love became the rival of both
theoretical reason and practical
reason. For one thing, Sufis
claim that love grants a lover
eyes to see vistas that are
beyond the realm of reason.
Jalal-al-Din Rumi, the greatest
Iranian/Afghan mystic and poet,
born in 1234, says to his master
and friend Shams-e Tabrizi:
“Shams-e Tabriz, love can know
you, not reason.”. In other
words, love grants knowledge. It
is capable of making discoveries
and its findings have cognitive
import. For another thing, Sufis
believe that reason is a
selfish, profit-seeking and
conservative creature and is not
prone to selflessness,
benevolence and self-sacrifice;
whereas love reduces selfishness
to zero, “kills the self”, makes
the lover generous,
good-natured, hardy and gallant,
and it heals all the lover’s
spiritual ills. Although this
love is the kernel of
religiosity, it, in fact, lies
beyond the believer’s duties.
Most believers seek some benefit
and reward from their
religiosity. And although there
is nothing intrinsically wrong
with this, it is far from the
lofty heights attained by the
lover, who leaves behind the
realm of benefits and rewards
and takes the course of a
lover’s gamble.
A Sufism that is built on this
kind of love is cheek by jowl
with revelation ant it more or
less sees prophets as great
mystics who placed the products
of their contemplations at
people’s disposal, whereas
mystics who are not prophets
have no such mission. At any
rate, the relationship between
Sufism and philosophy or love
and reason - like the
relationship between reason and
revelation – has not been
smooth. Muslim philosophers have
benefited from mysticism just as
they benefited from revelation,
and they have seen neither as
contrary to pure reason. The
least that can be said here is
that philosophers have taken on
board those mystical findings
that have lent themselves to
reason and have opted for
silence on the rest. But mystics
preferred minds that were
unencumbered by philosophy and
they considered philosophical
musings and “attachment to
causes” to be incompatible with
a lover’s position. Moreover,
although the
pre-conceptual/pre-theoretical
understanding of mystics could
be poured into philosophers’
conceptual moulds, they lost
their novelty and authenticity
once they were poured into such
moulds, and this made mystics
steer away from philosophy.
Having taught both philosophy
and mysticism, I have dwelt in
the heart of this duality all my
life and I have watched my
students well to see which way
they jumped. I have rarely come
across anyone who can endure
this tug-of-war and continue to
hand on to both these ends.
Ultimately, either reason or
love has triumphed, and, more
often than not, love has proved
stronger.
Reason and revolution
Revolution is a blistering
explosion of hatred and the
discharged energy of this
ruinous emotion. And it can have
no affinity with the coolness of
analytical reason. What affinity
can there be between a hatred
that wants to destroy tradition,
monarchy, property, etc. and a
reason that wants to know and
understand? In revolutions, love
and emotions are invariably
given their due, but reason is
not so well served. Much time
passes before a revolution’s
leaders turn to rationality and
construction and rein in the
destruction. To be fair,
revolutions are not without
rationality, but their
rationality mostly manifests
itself as the rejection of the
outgoing rationality.
Revolutionaries know what they
oppose, but they are a long way
from knowing what they favour.
Revolutionaries are fiery
idealists who are deluded about
what they can achieve. They
imagine that they can change
traditions and human beings
quickly and to replace them with
new traditions and human beings.
All revolutions are anarchist to
some extent and, if there is no
component of anarchism within
revolution, it is not a
revolution.
The colourful spectrum of
reality pales into monochrome
and everything is reduced to
black and white: the past is
bad, the future is good; a
counterrevolutionary is bad, a
revolutionary is good; and so
on. In this way, the door is
shut to analytical reason, which
seeks much more subtle and
realistic categorizations than
this. In revolutions, there is
just one single measure for good
and bad: the revolution itself.
And this is tantamount to
abandoning all measures: not
only is the revolution good, but
the revolution equals good! When
something becomes its own
measure, irrationality has
arrived. The task of rational
people in the middle of
revolutions is not to turn back
the revolutionary wave; this is
beyond their capabilities. Their
task is to reduce the
destruction and to guide
energies away from chaos and
destruction and towards
rebuilding. Having experienced a
revolution myself and been
charged with responsibilities
within it, I have seen this
truth first hand.
Anyone who has witnessed a
revolution recognizes the
culpability of those who leave
the people no option but to
resort to a revolution. The
first resource that is
squandered in a revolution is
rationality and the last thing
that returns home is
rationality; if it ever returns.
Of these three-fold rivals of
reason – revelation, love, and
revolution – it is the third
that is the most merciless and
reason-crushing. Revelation has
more or less conducted a
reasonable historical exchange
with reason which can be
beneficial to both sides. Love,
for its part, has always been a
rare good, in the possession of
a small minority. And, whilst it
stirs up excitement, it has not
stirred up wickedness. But, when
faced with all-embracing
revolutions, which have neither
love’s beauty nor revelation’s
sanctity, we can only seek
refuge in God; for, they rob
people of both life and reason.
The wise ones in any community
have a duty to steer political,
social and economic policies
towards a rational and just
system so that the need never
arises for revolutionary
destruction and irrationality.
It behoves them to spread
justice to keep the revolution
at bay. |