In an informal and friendly meeting held on 23 Feb. at the Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies (IHCS) in Tehran with a number of students from the National University of Singapore in attendance, Bijan Abdolkarimi, Iranian associate professor of philosophy at Islamic Azad University delivered a lecture on “religion versus non-religion”. Here is the full text of his speech:
Before everything, it is my pleasure duty to welcome my Singaporean young friends to this country and to thank all of you, specially my friend and brother Dr. Farid Alattas and other dear friends like Dr. Mohammady for their presence in this meeting; and special thanks to my very Dear friend Dr. Seyd Javad Miri for his invitation of me to put in discussion with you some of my basic ideas and considerations about religion.
I was to present my ideas as a lecture but because of time limitation, I prefer to render them through reading my article.
The title of the lecture
It was said that the title of my article is “Islam and Existentialism” but I prefer to title my article as “religion versus non-religion”. Of course, in the context of my discussion, I will refer that one of most important understanding of religion in general and Islam in particular is existential interpretation.
But “existential approach” is not necessarily with “existentialism” one and the same. And there are great and fundamental differences between “religion” and “existentialism”. One of the main differences is that existentialism is a humanistic and man-centered thought but religion is not. Any humanistic and man-centered understanding and interpretation of religion or Islam means to secularize it and ends to secularism and Nihilism.
My Main claim:
Most of the time we talk about religion and Islam. But my main claim is that the meaning of religion and Islam is by no means clear and we do not know about what we talk. We use the terms “religion” and “Islam” and their adjectives, “religious” and “Islamic”, in so many contexts, such as religion, the history of religion, the religious tradition, the religious rituals and ceremonies, religious studies, the psychology of religion, the sociology of religion, the phenomenology of religion, the religion of Islam, the civilization of Islam or Islamic civilization, Islamic knowledge, Islamic studies, the history of Islam, Islamic law, Islamic philosophy, Islamic art, Islamic architecture, Islamic societies, Islamic revolution, Islamic state or government, Islamic economy and Islam economics, and even Islamic management, Islamic Banking and etc.
Moreover, in the sixtieth decade of last century (about 1965), Malaysian Moslem thinker, the late Mohammad Naqib Alattas, (I suppose he was our friend, Dr. Farid Alattas’s uncle,) in his famous book, titled “Islam and secularism” spoke of “Islamization of Contemporary Knowledge”.
And today, in first decades of 21th century, in Iran some people talk about the ideas of “the establishment of religious modern science” or “to lay the foundation of Islamic modern social science”.
Now, my main question is: When we talk about “religion and Islam” and the adjectives like religious and Islamic”, do we really know what we talk about. As I said before, my main claim is that when we talk about the concepts or phenomena of religion in general or Islam in particular it is not clear at all, what about we speak, and we do not think about them in a clear horizon and sphere.
Therefore, I would like to call a challenge my audiences, my Muslim sisters and brothers and all Muslim societies, Muslim movements, the so-called Islamic states and government and even the clergy and all religious and Islamic seminaries in Qum, Mashhad, Najaf and Mecca or the Muftis of Al-azhar University in Egypt and even the all secular thinkers and intellectuals like Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and all modernists and postmodernist thinkers who criticize religion and Islam, and ask them:
What is religion or Islam?
What is religion-ness/ religion-hood of religion?
What is Islam-ness/ Islamic-hood of Islam?
In my serious belief, if we do not clarify what we mean by the terms religion, Islam and their adjective “religious and Islamic”, whenever we speak about all the issues related to the mentioned terms, like Islamic societies, Islamic philosophy, Islamic revolution, Islamic modern science, Islamic humanities, and whenever we defend or criticize religion or Islam, it is not obvious at all what about we talk.
Here, in order to provide an obvious horizon in which we can clearly think about religion in general or Islam in particular, I will distinguish several concepts, which are confused with together and with religion or Islam.
At first, I will try to give some negative answers to the question “what religion or Islam is” in order to differentiate between religion and non-religion or Islam and non-Islam.
Religion Versus non-religion, Islam Versus non-Islam
Here are my main questions: What is religion? What is the main characteristics of religion? What is the religion-ness of religion?
Or what is Islam? What is the Islam-ness of Islam?
In order to answer these questions, at first I will try to show what is not religion or Islam.
I think that there are several concepts and categories, which are intermingled and combined, and as far as we cannot analyze and separate them, we will not approach and come near toward the focal sense of religion or Islam.
In my opinion, we use the terms religion and Islam in seven contexts and in seven meanings. Therefore, we can distinguish and separate seven senses of religion or Islam, six of which are non-religion or non-Islam and, in my opinion, only one sense of them is the fundamental sense of the truth of religion or Islam.
These seven meanings of religion or Islam consist in:
1. Religion/ Islam as a culture 2. Religion/ Islam as a theological system
3. Religion/ Islam as a set of rituals and ceremonies
4. Religion/ Islam as morality and ethics 5. Religion/ Islam as an object (scientific object) 6. Religion/ Islam as an Ideology 7. Religion/ Islam as a possibility of human existence (Religion/ Islam as an existential-ontological affair)
It is mentionable that: Firstly, I distinguish theses meanings of the terms of Religion and Islam on the base of an inductive method and not a deductive one. Therefore, I by no means claim that the meanings of the terms are restricted to these seven senses and one may find other meaning of the term and add to my list.
Secondly, this kind of separation between different meanings
of a term, and, in other words, the taking apart the difference aspects of a phenomenon, like the term or phenomenon religion or Islam, are only in mind, but in the sphere of social-historical reality all senses of a term and all aspects of a phenomenon are intermingled and combined.
Theoretical separations of terms and concepts help us to think about different categories and phenomena more clearly and distinctively.
1. Religion or Islam as a culture
Mostly when we talk about religion or Islam, we mean by religion or Islam as a culture. I mean by culture as a set of rituals, ceremonies, traditions and theoretical achievements in different fields of individual and social life in a society, which are inherited from preceding/ earlier generations to succeeding/ next ones.
Individuals and societies do not mostly choose these heritages and have had fewer roles in the creation and formation of them. Most of people do not choose their culture but only accept it.
In this sense, i.e., religion/ Islam as a culture is an affair like other realities and other social and historical institutes, in which individuals have been positioned and situated unreflectively and unintentionally.
Martin Heidegger and, following him, some existentialist thinkers, use the term “facticity/ factuality/ eventuality.”
Theses artificial term mean that human being and its very situations and possibilities in which it has situated are not the result of its conscious and choice. In other words, it can be said that facticity/ factuality/ eventuality” refer to those situations and possibilities for which there is no reason and rational preference. For example, our birth, genre, father and mother, nationality, the color of skin, the color of eyes, social class, society, social institutes and history are a part of our facticity/ factuality or eventuality. It means that there is no reason and rational preference why I was born in Iran (and not in Singapore or America) and in a poor family (and not in a rich and upper class family); and why I am a white skin (and not a black or yellow skin) and so on.
Now, my point is that most of the time we talk about religion and Islam as a culture. In this sense, i.e., religion and Islam as culture are some elements of the facticity/ factuality/ eventuality of the individuals who have thrown into a so-called religious or Islamic society. In other words, with respect to be a factor of facticity/ factuality/ eventuality, there is no difference between being religious or being a Muslim and being American, white skin or being Hindu or Christian. Because, as we have not chosen the time or place of our birth and our family, nationality, race and the color of skin, we have not chosen our religion or being a Muslim.
Therefore, we should be careful that religion or Islam as a culture are by no means the belief to a religion or Islam in a true sense, since “consciousness and the freedom of choice are two fundamental components of being a believer in a religion like Islam, while these two basic elements are absent in religion or Islam as a culture. Hence, religion and Islam as culture are only some social, historical phenomena, and not religion and a faith truly.
2. Religion/ Islam as a Theology/ Theological System
Sometimes we speak of religion/ Islam and we purpose a “theoretical theological system”. I mean by “theology”or“theoretical theological system” as ‘a set of historical, theoretical and institutionalized statements and declarations which are formed around each historical religion, like Shiite, Sunni, Motazilite, Ashryt, Thomism, Catholicism, Protestantism, and so on.
Demarcation between ‘religion’ and ‘theological system’is one of the most fundamental and important issue that should be paid attention in the field of philosophy of religion and religion studies.
Regarding Demarcation between ‘religion’ and ‘theological system’’, I summarize my reflections in three points:
a. “theological systems” are man-built, and therefore, profane, non-sacred, non- holy theoretical systems, while religion is in principle a sacred/ holy knowledge.
One of the most basic consequence of this reflection is that there is only one religion, in the sense of sacred/ holy knowledge, while we confront to so many theological, man-built systems.
b. “Theological systems” try to substitute some man-built, historical, cultural, local, ethnic, geographical, political, racial and institutionalized statements and declarations as meta-historical, eternal, everlasting and, in one word, Divine truths.
c. “Theology/ theological systems”as a set of historical, traditional beliefs are a main part of different cultures and, therefore, the fundamental components of our facticity/ factuality/ eventuality.
Consequently, we should not take “theology/ theological systems”and “religion”one and the same because of doubled reasons:
Firstly: ‘Theological systems’are man-built systems, and not Divine and sacred knowledge.
Secondly, ‘Theological systems’, for the majority of people are a cultural matter and, therefore, a part of their culture and, for this reason there is no consciousness and the freedom of choice in their belief in the ‘Theological systems’. Hence because of lacking consciousness and the freedom of choice, we cannot and should not conceive the belief in any ‘Theological system’as faith to a religion/ Islam”.
3. Religion/ Islam as a set of rituals and ceremonies
So many people conceive religion/ Islam as a set of rituals and ceremonies like praying, Fasting and going Hajj, which are understood as the practical aspect of religion/ Islam beside its theoretical aspect, such as believing in God, the Prophet and other world, which shows itself in a theological system.
But, as well as theological systems are a part of a culture, rituals and ceremonies of a religion/ Islam are also a cultural matter and we cannot identify them in itself with “faith”, unless we find other element/s which transcends and rise above the performance of rituals and ceremonies from a cultural issue to a code of a real faith.
As the history of religions, including Islam, shows, there have always existed two main trends in religious/ Islamic cultures: A formalist, official understanding of religion/ Islam, which has been often seen among the clergy and common people, and a non-formalist, meditative and inner interpretation and understanding of it, which has found among mystic movements like Sufism. The disputation of canonical law/ jurisprudence (shariah) and religious way (tarighah) in our history indicates that according to our Sufists and mystics the performance of rituals and ceremonies in itself cannot be conceived as the true sense and the main purpose of religion/ Islam. In other words, you cannot find the true sense of faith to a religion in the mere performance of rituals and ceremonies
4. Religion/ Islam as an Object/ Scientific Object
Sometimes we speak of religion/ Islam but we mean it as an ‘object/ scientific object” and not as religion/ Islam itself. ‘Object’ is a thing which we, as “subject”, establish a mere theoretical relation in which we try to analyze it and put it under some subjective, mental categories. While a religion or Islam is by no means a mere theoretical relation and in the faith to a religion/ Islam the believer do not seek to analyze the religion/ Islam. For example, in the fields of the sociology of religion, the sociology of Muslim societies, the history of religion, the history of Islam, philosophy of religion, Islamic studies, Islamic philosophy, even in the fields of jurisprudence (Fighh), the interpretation of Quran (Tafsir) or Islamic theology (kalam) we change the truth of a faith to a religion/ Islam to a scientific, theoretical relation and reduce a religion/ Islam to an object of a knowledge. The religion/ Islam, which is studied by the scholars, researchers and academicians of the fields of, such as history, Orientalism, Islamic studies, epistemologists and, even, religious jurisconsults (Foghaha) and religious interpreters (Mofaserin) is the dead body and corpse of religion/ Islam and is absolutely different from the living religion/ Islam with which the believers and Muslims of earlier period of Islam live, and gave to their existence illumination and meaning.
Here, the nub of matter is not whether or not the theoretical approach to religion/ Islam is necessary, or whether or not I accept the necessity of theoretical approach to religion/ Islam. The crucial points in my words are:
Firstly, the theoretical approach is not the only approach to a phenomenon like religion/ Islam, and there are other ways for relating to it.
Secondly, theoretical attitude is an objectifying approach, and in it (namely in objectifying something) we lose so many aspects of the phenomena including the phenomenon of religion/ Islam.
As example, there are great differences between the phenomenon of “love” in the heart of a person who has fallen in love of somebody and the concept of “love” in the mind of the person who studies on love among the books of libraries. In first case, the love makes the person a lover and changes his/ her life, but in second case, “love” is only a subject matter for a theoretical research without any existential engagement of the researcher with the phenomenon of love.
If scientific, theoretical approach to religion/ Islam and religious faith were one and the same, in that case, for example, the scholars of the field of Islamic studies and the person like Jewish Goldziher, German Annemarie Schimmel and Russian Ilya Pavlovich Petrushevsky, who studied the most of their life on Islam, Quran and their history and attained an extensive knowledge about Islam, even more than Muslims and their leaders, must be considered as the greatest Muslims. Similarly, acquaintance to Islamic philosophy, the history of Islam or even the interpretation of Quran and even the system of Islamic law (Fighh) are not necessarily in the sense of being a religious or a Muslim.
5. Religion/ Islam as Morality
After Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), German great philosopher, it spread to conceive “religion” as “morality”. According to his Copernican revolution in “the relation between religion and theology, in the past, during the history of mankind, morality was always based on theology, but Kant, in his The Critique of Practical Reason, overturned the relation and based theology on morality.
In Kant’s metaphysics of morality, true religion consists in that we respect God as the legislator of moral laws and “the respect of God” means to regard moral laws and act our moral tasks. Today, under Kant’s influence, to conceive religion as morality has been vastly widened.
However, according to me, reducing religion/ Islam merely as morality empties religion from its main content and constitution. Undoubtedly, there exists a firm relation between religion and morality but we cannot reduce religion to morality or ethics. Because religion has something more than morality without which morality loses its foundation and guarantor. Morality is metaphysically impossible without ontological, epistemological foundation, and religion has own especial ontological and epistemological foundation.
6. Religion as Ideology
Sometimes we speak of the phenomena and categories like Islamic revolution, Islamic government or the clash between Islam and the West, but in such a context most of time the most of people do not pay attention that we speak about an “ideology” and not about a “religion or Islam”.
Basically, “ideology”, in the sense of a kind of thinking as the guide of social praxis, is a modern phenomenon which has emerged in modern period in nineteenth century. Ideology is the product of the appearance of modern man. Therefore there is a firm connection between “the phenomenon of ideology” and “humanism and secularism”, which are two main characteristics of modern age and modern man who considers his thought and will as the axis of the world and tries to form society, politics, individual and social life and even history on the base of his reason and will. Ideology is the outcome of the humanistic, man-centered and, consequently, secular understanding of the universe, life, society, politics, and history. According to this understanding, modern man tries to make out a certain program for society, politics, and even history.
Therefore, ideological interpretation of religion/ Islam or, in other words, the reduction of religion/ Islam to an ideology, is absolutely a modern phenomenon and we have not have such an interpretation of religion/ Islam in past periods. When we talk about, for instance, Islamic movements, Islamic revolution or Islamic government, in fact we mean that we ourselves chose some social, political ideals and models and we ourselves make out some social, political programs for our society but we try to justify our own program by some concepts and categories, which are adopted from the history of religion/ Islam.
In an ideological interpretation, religion/ Islam descends to merely as a political, ideological instrument for the realization of the social, political ideals and models of a social group. Thus, religion/ Islam changes to a speaker for echoing the words and sound a special group.
The ideological interpretation of religion/ Islam is the Golden Calf of our age which echoes the voice of man instead of divine call . The fate of the ideology-based or ideologized religion would be closely associated with the fate of a political or social group or faction (revolutionary or conservative) and it would be vulnerable to the social and political failures of that group or faction. Then the religion or religious thought would necessarily be undermined in the course of political and social events.
Therefore, as we can learn from the experience of Muslim intellectuals and also the Iranian revolution, the ideological approach to religion would create a situation in which secularism can grow in the society; In fact, the ideological approach is a rite of passage or a transitional stage between the traditional religious world and the modern secular culture, the result of which would be the expansion of secularism and nihilism in traditional/ Muslim societies. This is why we see the rapid unprecedented growth of secularism after the Iranian revolution in Iran.
7. Religion as a possibility before the Human Existence
What we describe as religion in previous parts was in fact non-religion depicting itself as religion/ Islam. But we can have another perception or conception of religion; a perception which is lacking in our age, but was present in the past and maybe it can be present in the future. In this sense, religion is not a culture, a theological system, a system of rituals, an object, a kind of morality or an ideology. Religion is a possibility before the human existence, a way of being or a realization of human existence that is based on religious consciousness. Religion is an ontological-existential concept in this sense.
Existentialists refer to the fundamental true being of the man as existence. Existence is the special manner of being of the man that can be realized in different forms as opposed to other beings. This is why we can say that existence or the special mode of being of the man is a possibility that can realize itself in different ways. The religious human existence is a kind of the realization of the man as opposed to other ways of its realization. Then the religious man is not a human being thrown inside a culture, the founders of which were religions or thrown inside a system of rituals or the institutions that are formalized based on some religious beliefs.
The religious man is not a human being seeking to preserve or change some social and political conditions by some concepts and categories in the religious culture. The religious man is not a human that has an ideological approach to religion or tries to make religion an object of investigation based on some theoretical categories and concepts. Although none of these, contradict the human religiosity, but the essence of religiosity is based on none of these formulations. The religious human is not even a human believing in some religion among the historical religions or the one who has filled his mind with some categories or concepts relating to religion of common religious people. The religion of a religious human is a kind of relation, but not a theoretical relation between an individual and some categories, concepts, beliefs and propositions, but an existential relation between the man and the Sacred, namely a truth which cannot be drawn under any concept or category. This existential relation can only be realized when the individual actualize his existence under certain conditions and this kind of realization should be based on “freedom” and “consciousness”. In other words, the individual should choose this relation freely because without this freedom of decision, the existential relation between the individual and the sacred truth cannot be realized. Moreover, the individual is fully aware of this existential relation, his mode of being and his free choice. So he can freely accept the results and implications of this kind of existence and his relation to the truth of Being/ the Sacred. The acceptance of this kind of existence can be seen in his morality, mode of living and his encounter with death.
Bijan Abdolkarimi is the associate professor of philosophy at Islamic Azad University.
MS/PR
Your Comment