Conference Report First Contemporary Muslim Philosophers Conference Ahmad lftheqar Hussain Early Saturday morning on 16 May 1998, fifty people made their way into the conference room of Georgetown University’s Salaam Intercultural Center for the first annual conference of the Association of Contemporary Muslim Philosophers. Looking into their eyes, one could see a glimmer of hope and the fire of enthusiasm. Clearly, this was not going to be a run of the mill encounter of Muslim minds. Some of the greatest intellects of the Muslim world were present, among them Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Dr. T a B JBbir a1 ‘AlwBni, and Dr. Kamal Hassan. Young students with fresh countenances and effervescent com- ments waited to deliberate upon such issues as the difference between public and private philosophy, the role of postmodernism in the Muslim world, and why and in what condition does the Muslim intellectual tradi- tion find itself. Ironically, this occurred in view of an immense Jesuit Crucifix her- alded by the Greek letters alpha and omega, which symbolize Christ. While for some this signified the contradiction and turmoil present within current Muslim philosophical discourse, for others it embodied a promising message. For those who saw it as a positive symbol, including myself, the cross served to illustrate the universe, marking the four cardinal directions of space, and the surrounding alpha and omega symbolized the all-encompassing nature of the Qur’an. On a terrestrial level, it verified the resilient nature of the Muslim intellect for, quite obviously, we were a group of M h i m s meeting in a Jesuit institution to talk about reviving Islamic philosophy. Nevertheless, the universal significance of that symbol was realized by the spirit of the gathering and in the profound discussions afforded by all those present. The conference started with a moment of reflection upon the verses of the Qur’an found in Siirat a1 ‘Alaq: Ahmad Iftheqar Hussain is a graduate stmknt in Ishnzic studes at the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences, L e e s b q , VA. 168 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 15:3 Recite, in the name of thy Lord who created! Created man from a congealed drop. Recite, and thy Lord is Most Generous! Who taught by the Pen; taught man that which he knew not. These verses defined the vertical center and horizontal boundaries of the discussion that day. Vertically, they oriented our perspective heaven- ward; horizontally, they drew us from the periphery in toward the center. In reality, our entire endeavor was contained within those few lines. Elegant, thought-provoking and transforming, they served as the firm foundation upon which those present built ornate and functional philo- sophical frameworks that could penetrate layers of nuanced intellectual complexity and remain loyal to the simple, unadulterated a priori encounter with the truth embodied in Islam. The realization that Islamic philosophy was a sacred science emanating from the Qur’an was soon to follow. Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Professor of Islamic Studies, George Washington University), a scholar who has been involved in the project of reviving Islamic philosophy for over forty years, delivered the keynote address. He began his discussion by clarifjing the terms defining the bounds of his presentation. The philosophical discourse of Muslims, he stated, was better represented by the term Islamic philosophy than by the idiom Muslim philosophy. This assertion was based on his view that Islamic philosophy is much more than just a collection of what was con- ceptualized abstractly in the mind of someone named a1 Kind? or a1 Faiibi who just happened to be Muslim; it was a perspective that grew out of the Qur ’an. The influences of Hellenistic Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism were limited to the development of its expression and were wholly inte- grated into the Islamic perspective. In other words, Islamic philosophy was inherently Islamic and not just a passive acceptance of foreign categories of thought. Furthermore, the incorrect view that traditional Islamic philosophy was just Greek thought translated into Arabic was perpetuated by the Muslim world’s perception of its own philosophical tradition. Inasmuch as Muslims adopted Orientalist historiographies of such people as Guizot and R h a n , they looked upon themselves from the viewpoint of the other. This was compounded by the attempt of the Westernized Christian founders of Arab nationalism to redefine Islamic philosophy as a product of a spec- tral Arab genius. These errors stemmed from the European view that saw Islamic thought, and on a broader level Islamic civilization as a whole, as a hyphen linking the intellectual heritage of Greece to Renaissance humanism. Muslim thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Hussain: First Contemporary Muslim Philosophers Conference 169 adopted this view through European colonialism and sought to disown Islamic philosophy. While it is true that classical Islamic heritage contained critiques of philosophy carried out by jurists and theologians of no less stature than al Ghazali, and that in the thirteenth century Islamic philosophy as a sepa- rate discipline seemed to disappear, it must be noted that the river of Islamic philosophy flowed into the two seas of doctrinal Sufism and philosophical kaltim. The revival of Islamic philosophy, therefore, would involve an in-depth study of the legacy of the other two disciplines mu- pled with a profound insight into the nature of current dilemmas in thought. Dr. Nasr concluded his discussion by illustrating the need to revive Islamic philosophy. He stressed that such an attempt required dealing with factors of time and space, and that those involved must be aware of the intellectual, social, and spiritual factors influencing their own patterns of thought. In closing, he emphasized the need to revive Islamic meta- physics and warned those present of the subtle hubris of sentimental attachments to the Faustian conditions of the age. All things considered, his message can be summed up in the idea that while the revival of Islamic philosophy takes place in time and space, its origin resides in the pursuit of a timeless and absolute truth. The second presentation was that of Dr. TahP Jabir a1 ‘Alwihi President, Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences) on the topic of ijtihcid in the modem age. In many ways, his discussion echoed the sentiments expressed in Dr. Nasr’s discussion from the point of view of upif affiqh. It began with a historical analysis of the meaning and usage of the term ijtihtid in the classical Islamic tradi- tion. Zjtihtid, he explained, was much more than a technical method by which to derive legislative interpretation; it served as a fundamental method by which human beings could attain knowledge of the pres- ence of God. It preceded the revelation of the divine text itself, inas- much as it embodied the intellection of primordial and a priori encounters with the sacred. Nevertheless, with the descent of revela- tion, this intellection became reified through a direct encounter with the Qur’an. The Qur’anic verse found in Siirat a1 Ma’idah: “...judge between them by what Allah hath revealed, and follow not their vain desires diverging from the Truth that hath come to thee, to each of thee have We prescribed a Law and an Open Way,” he explained, enjoins human participation in the interpretive implementation of the divine law contained in the Qur’an. This was partially due to the fact that Islamic law was based on the realizable principles of ‘ilal, asbtib, and maq@id, respectively. 170 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 15:3 In a few cases, the Qur’an’s legislative verses themselves identified the jurisprudential principle behind a ruling. But, the usual manner of identify- ing those principles was through the ijtihdd of qualified scholars. More- over, in the classical sense, ijtihiid embodied the quest for certitude in an uncertain world. It did not involve the relegation of absolute truths to the mercurial consideration of ephemeral accidents, but rather integrated mer- curial considerations into consequential realities. Even in such clear issues as prayer, fasting, and tithe, the intellectual quest for certitude was inte- grated via human volition by virtue of the formulation of one’s intent (njyah). In other words, the command to pray and recite litanies was cou- pled with the command to formulate intellectually the intention to pray in cognizance of the full meaning of prayer and the relationship between the human being and God. Thus, ijtihiid was hdamental and normative. Dr. al ‘Alwihi concluded his discussion on ijtihiid in the modem world by critiquing the works of ‘Mi ‘Abd a1 W q and Muhammad Arkoun. These two scholars, he explained, in their attempts to modernize Islam fell short of the rigorous undertaking of ijtihdd. ‘Abd a1 Rilziq’s claim that Islam was essentially apolitical and thus outside the realm of real-world concerns of governance led to the conclusion that Islamic law could be changed and reinterpreted to fit the times. Arkoun’s claim that the Qur’an was a “mythic” text through which people interpreted symbolism of their own manufacture led to a similar conclusion. Both interpretations were rejected by Dr. a1 ‘Alwiini as invalid forms of ijtihiid. Discussants, panelists, and conference participants then turned to the interpretation of the two presentations. Rhetorical questions posed by such key participants as Dr. Abdul Karim Crowe (Nonviolence Inter- national) and Dr. Waseem Khan (Harvard University) called for a reex- amination of the need to revive Islamic philosophy and elicited heated debates. Still others posed the idea of integrating an “Islamic metaphilos- ophy” into the Muslim intellect through and from which Islamic philoso- phy would grow. M. A. Muqtedar Khan (Georgetown University), the conference’s organizer, introduced a cartography of contemporary philosophy outlin- ing the role of a Muslim philosopher in public and private spheres. An inquiry into whether or not a contemporary Muslim philosopher was to be little more than an ideologue identified his contention that the revival of Islamic philosophy in time and space entailed its resuscitation in the pub- lic and private spheres. The panel following his discussion sought to demonstrate a method by which the tension between ideology and phi- losophy in the Muslim mind could be resolved. Dr. Kamal Hassan chaired the session entitled “Islam and the Philosophy of the Present.” Ejaz Akram (Catholic University) discussed Hussain: First Contemporary Muslim Philosophers Conference 171 evolution, relativism, and Islamic theocentrism. He focused on critiques of the Darwinian conception of change, the Marxian conception of abso- lute dialectic, and Wagner’s relativity of art. Dr. Robert Crane (Center for Civilizational Renewal) argued for the revival of muqd@di thought as an answer to the question of civilizational renewal. Dr. Khan spoke of the contemporary Muslim philosopher as a “rational Sufi“ discussing the problem of agent/structure dichotomy, and Faizan Haq compared the political thought of a1 Ghazzfili and Machiavelli. These relatively short discussions raised many questions as to the present status and role of Muslim thought. The third panel, “Traditional Islamic Philosophy in the Modem World,” was perhaps one of the most interesting. Dr. Majid Fakhry (Georgetown University), Dr. Abdul Karim Crow, and Dr. Mehdi Amin- razavi (Mary Washington College) presented thought-provoking commen- taries. The first presentation by Dr. Fakhry dealt with the postmodern chal- lenge to Islamic philosophy, wherein he equated the early threat of the Sophists to philosophy with the current dilemmas in Muslim thought. Giving up the quest for truth as such, he claimed that postmodernist thinkers echoed Sophist denials of true knowledge in the name of prag- matism, edification, and deconstructing texts to get at meaning. Essentially, in asmuch as Islamic philosophy embodied the quest for truth, it also was threatened by postmodernism’s grumblings. Dr. Fakhry described the theories of several postmodern theorists, among them Gadamer, Lyotard, and Baudrillard. He defined postmodernism as a rebellion against modernity and, in particular, Cartesian rationalism by citing the works of Husserl and Heiddeger. He ended his commentary strikingly, by advocating a split between human wisdom and divine wis- dom as in the tradition of Latin Averroeism. Dr. Abdul Karim Crow spoke on “Islamic Philosophical Wisdom and the Present.” He opened his discussion by critiquing Dr. Fakhry’s discus- sion on the postmodern challenge to Islamic philosophy by asserting that Islamic philosophy was different than the Occidental notion of the aca- demic discipline of philosophy. He affirmed that Islamic philosophy was more than the discursive resolution of obscure questions; rather, it embodied a wisdom tradition resonating with spiritual undertones. His discussion hinged on the viability of that wisdom tradition in the modem age. Dr. Mehdi Aminrazavi’s “Traditional Islamic Philosophy and the Challenge of Modernity” centered on the early Muslim thinkers’ use of reason and the acceptance of foreign categories of thought. He concluded the session by forwarding a most-interesting proposition of building a rap- prochement between modem philosophy and traditional Islamic philoso- 172 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 15:3 phy through dialogue in specific realms of inquiry and avoiding such dif- ficult issues as ontology and the philosophy of science. The final panel, “Contemporary Muslim Philosophers,” featured Dr. Waseem Khan, Ahmad Iftheqar Hussain, and A h Jalabi, a journalist h m Canada. Dr. Khan spoke of the role of the contemporary Muslim philosopher as being one who pursues perennial virtue. Ahmad Hussain presented an introduction to the pragmatism of Jamiil a1 Din a1 Afghwi, and identified his thought with the current dilemma of the Muslim intel- lect and identity. A h Jalabi reflected upon the discourses of Muhammad Iqbal, Malik Bennabi, and Ali Shariati. All things considered, there was a sense that more in-depth probing was needed to place each of the Muslim thinkers about whom presentations were delivered. As the conference drew to a close, there was an air of promise that hung in the minds of its participants. In a sense, there was a hope that the free exchange of ideas that occurred in those few hours would permeate into the different Muslim communities in the United States and abroad. A promise that similar exchanges would occur in the future was wel- comed by all. The conference was successful because of the support of many insti- tutional and individual supporters, among whom were the Association of Muslim Social Scientists, the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission, ICNA Washington, Saima and Muhammad Naeemuddin, Dr. Waseem Khan, Dr. Anas Abbas, Usama Khalidi, and Reshma Khan.