Dr. Mujeeb Ahmad
Islamic International University, Islamabad
M
uhammad Fazlur Rahman al-Ansari al-Qadiri was born on August 14, 1914 in Muzaffarnagar, India and completed his Dars-i-Nizami Course in 1933. His alma mater includes Madrasah-i-Islamiah, Meerut, Meerut College and Aligarh Muslim University Aligharh (December 1920). At Aligarh Muslim University he had been a student of Sayyid Muhammad Suliyaman Ashraf Bihari (1878-1939) and Dr.Sayyid Zafarul Hassan Ambalwi (1879-1949). In the field of tasawwuf, he was a disciple and a successor of Mawlana Muhammad Abdul Alim Siddiqi al-Qadiri (1892-1954). Right from 1938 to 1973, he occasionally toured almost all over the world for his missionary commitments. Dr. Ansari enjoyed the singular honour of being the first Muslim in the history of Islam to have traveled the world five times for the sake of the propagation of Islam.1 For well-connected and effective missionary activities, in August 1958; he founded the World Federation of Islamic Missions. Dr. Ansari wanted to have an institute of Islamic learning to produce real Muslim scholars for the Muslim Ummah. In July 1964, he established Aleemiyah Institute of Islamic Studies, in Karachi, Pakistan.
In 1970, he was granted a Ph.D. degree in Philosophy by the
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University of Karachi (June 1951) for his thesis entitled;
“Islamic Moral and Its Metaphysical Background.” Besides serving other educational institutions as a teacher, he served the University of Karachi for more than 10 years.
Dr. Ansari wrote his first booklet in 1932, and later wrote more than a dozen books both in English and Urdu. Numerous research articles, published mainly in the monthly The Minaret (Karachi) are also go to his credit. His voluminous magnum opus, The Qur’anic Foundations and Structure of Muslim Society (2 Vols.)2, Foundations of Faith3, Islam and Christianity in the Modern World4 and Through Science and Philosophy to Religion5 are among the most important to be mentioned. He died on June 3, 1974 and was buried in the premises of Aleemiyah Institute of Islamic Studies, Karachi.
According to Dr. Ansari, life is full of immediate and ultimate problems. The immediate problems are day-to-day problems of the practical life. Whereas, the ultimate problems are related to the nature of the human beings and the world. For the Solutions of the ultimate problems, there are three claimants in the field of guidance and every one of them claims that it can guide humanity in that sphere of life. These claimants are science, philosophy and religion. About the science, particularly empirical and normative Sciences, Dr.
Ansari was of the view that modern science entered the field of human thought as the all-solving branch of knowledge and became the rival of religion towards the middle of the 18th century. The reason of this new attitude of modern science, he
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believed, was not that science had found out some such unerring methods or instruments of knowledge that could authorize it to make the claim. Rather, it was a purely sentimental affair.6
According to Dr. Ansari, science came to the modern West form the world of Islam. It was the Muslims who, after the conquest of certain parts of Europe, especially Spain, established the early universities, scientific observatories, laboratories and libraries on the soil of Europe, and influenced the first Christian scientists who, after centuries of darkness and ignorance, lit the torch of scientific knowledge in England, France, Germany and so on. They were the pupils of Muslim masters. Christianity, as distinct from the original message of the Prophet Isa had been science and anti-reason from the very beginning. According to him, it was the new version of Christianity which extinguished whatever light of knowledge was to be found in Greece, Egypt and Syria when it became politically powerful. Besides, as science came to modern West through Muslims, whom, the Christians regarded as their deadliest enemies. Hence, the Christian Church had persecuted the scientists, burnt them at the stake and hanged them on the gallows.7
This violent persecution made the Western scientists the enemy not only of the Christian Church but of all religions, and because, according to Dr. Ansari, religion concerns itself basically with the ultimate problems of human life and demands the loyalty of human beings on that score, the
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scientists entered the field of ultimate problems and started in the principles of scientific facts, to oppose the teachings of Christianity concerning such problems as the origin of man, the origin of the world, the existence of the supernatural world and even the existence of Allah.8
After discussing the historical background of the origin of modern science and its attitude towards religion, Dr. Ansari analyzed its limited scope and the limitations in solving the ultimate problems, in another way. For his arguments, he pointed out the weaknesses and shortcomings in the scientific method.
While analyzing the scientific method, Dr. Ansari observed that the scientific method of obtaining knowledge consists in observation and experiment. Scientifically viewed, every observation is made up of three factors, namely the observer, the object which is observed and conditions under which the observation is made.
As far as the first factor is concern, Dr. Ansari held the view point that observation is bound to vary from observer to observer, because different human beings do not have similar sharp and accurate capacity of observation either as regards their physical senses or as regards the intellect which co-ordinates the reports that the brain gets through the physical senses. It is thus a well-established fact that the first factor in every observation is of a variable factor, which means that different observations can vary on the basis of this factors.9
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While discussing the second factor, the object, Dr. Ansari said that the more immediate, the more concrete and the more comprehensible the object is, the more is the possibility of the observation being correct; and the more remote, the more subtle and the more ungraspable an object is, the less possibility is there for the anything like correct observation – nay, even for observation itself. Coming to the third factor, he pointed out that the conditions under which an observation is made, is a variable factor. Likewise, all the three factors which constitute a scientific observation are also variable. In other words, he explained that any and every scientific observation is liable to vary in its accuracy according to any one or two or all of these factors. The margin of this possibility of error in scientific observation becomes wider and wider as the objects observed become more subtle and more distant.
The ultimate result of this is that physical science can be a good guide and source of knowledge only in the immediate and mostly physical problems – although even then it is not completely immune from error. Indeed, it has been making a lot of mistakes, Dr. Ansari observed. As regards the ultimate problems, which comprehend within them the entire universe and all aspects of existence, Dr. Ansari vowed that it would be extremely unscientific and even foolish to expect their objective and accurate solutions from physical science. It cannot gives us a sure knowledge in all cases even as regards the immediate physical objects.10
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As far as the second claim, philosophy is its concerned; Dr.
Ansari broadly classified it into four schools of thought namely, Formal Rationalism, Empiricism, Criticism and Empirical Rationalism. Of these four, only two schools of philosophy namely, Formal Rationalism and Empirical Rationalism, held the belief that Philosophy can discover the Ultimate Truth. The Formal Rationalism holds that human reason, unaided by anything else, is capable of knowing the ultimate facts of life and the world. Whereas, Empirical Rationalism holds that reason and sense-experience should combine to enable human beings to find out the Ultimate Truth and that, through this combination of the sources of knowledge, philosophy can solve the Ultimate Problems and guide humanity in that behalf.11
While explaining the flaws of Formal Rationalism, Dr. Ansari claims that it depends wholly on Logic. Its method is to choose a hypothesis as the starting point of its investigation and on that hypothesis to build up a whole world of philosophical thought by using the instrument of logic.
Whereas, in Empirical Rationalism, renamed as “Philosophy of Science” by Dr. Ansari, its method is to collect and arrange the facts discovered by science and to endeavor, by using the instrument of reason, to form an integrated picture of the world as a whole and thereby to answer the ultimate questions.
After evaluating the Formal Rationalism, Dr. Ansari observed that, it is incapable of giving us any certain and accurate knowledge of the Ultimate Problems. This is so because, as
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explained by Dr. Ansari, its starting point is always a hypothesis, which is nothing more than a supposed idea, or at best an observation based on common sense, and it has always been chosen by every philosopher arbitrarily. Now, every hypotheses, especially in the realm of abstract thought, is, in the very nature of the case, is uncertain and unverifiable. If it is uncertain, the thought-structure built upon it and the conclusions arrived at must also be uncertain, according to Dr.
Ansari’s point of view, that is, the knowledge of Ultimate Problems given by Formal Rationalism cannot be sure and accurate.12
As regards the Empirical Rationalism, Dr. Ansari claims that its starting point consists in the scientific facts, namely, sensorial observation, and its method is to reason out the Ultimate Problems on their basis. Scientific facts are at best workable hypotheses or working material on the scale of observation or the system of reference with which they are connected. Hence, for Ultimate Problems, he emphasizes that they have neither finality, nor perfect accuracy, nor absolute certainly. This means that if the starting point and the working material of Empirical Rationalism lack accuracy, certainty and finality, the conclusions arrived at will also suffer from the same shortcomings. Finally he concludes that, a solution of the Ultimate Problems on the basis of objective knowledge is impossible even for the Empirical Rationalist School of philosophy.13
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After presenting his observations and reservations about the limitations of above-mentioned two claimants, Dr. Ansari delivers his verdict by saying that neither science nor philosophy (although it has a basic importance for humanity) can ever be capable of giving accurate answers to our Ultimate Questions on the basis of sure knowledge. Even those answers which they have been giving, or might give in future, have been, and shall always be, at best approximations in the nature of partial truths and, in most instances, what the Qur’an calls them “conjectures”.14
Finally Dr. Ansari, according to his perception, pointed out the exact, accurate, safe and sound solution and answer of the Ultimate Problems. The answer of the Ultimate Problems being faced by the humanity, according to him, lies in the reveled religions. Reveled Religious Knowledge is more vital to the success of mankind than any philosophy, art or science.
It is this knowledge, according to him, which stands at the base of all knowledge. Philosophy, with a modified claim, comes next to it and stands as its hand-maid. After philosophy come the various sciences and arts.15 For that matter, he gave detailed and very strong arguments.
According to Dr. Ansari, the plausibility of the claim of religion to answer the Ultimate Questions consists in the source of knowledge. Among the various religions of the world, reveled religions also hold the view point that the human faculties of sense and reasoning are, in their very nature, incapable of arriving at accurate and sure knowledge
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of the ultimate facts both through logical reasoning and mathematical reasoning. But side by side with that, according to Dr. Ansari, it gives a message of hope and imparts a very plain and convincing guidance in that behalf, for the human beings. The scope and importance of that guidance was elaborated by him in the following way.
There are two factors in every act of knowledge, namely, the subject and the object. As regards the process of knowledge, it is possible in two ways, namely, the subject may embrace the object with the instruments of knowledge which, in the case of man, are senses and reasoning and the object may reveal itself to the subject. According to Dr. Ansari, the usual path of knowledge is the first one, and it is this which science and philosophy employ. As the finite cannot embrace the infinite, so, the attempts of science and philosophy at solving the Ultimate Problems end in failure.16
The second path of sure knowledge is only the path of reveled religions. This path is a matter of experience in the scientific field, which is also known to all scientists. For that point, Dr.
Ansari gave an example; as there are planets which are far away from the farthest horizon which the most advanced instruments of astronomy have been able to penetrate. Those planets enter that horizon only for a while after very long periods of time. Thus, instead of the powers of the astronomical instruments going out, so to say, to embrace them, they themselves reveal their existence by moving for a while into their embrace from a position where their existence
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cannot be known, and after that revelation, they again disappear into the Unknown. Those whose gaze is fixed and whose instruments of observation are focused on that horizon see them and know them, while others affirm their existence afterwards only on the basis of authority, because verification through observation does not remain possible after the disappearance of those planets.17
Dr. Ansari, in the light of this example, made his arguments strong by stating that this can be said for the physical world – the world of sense-experience – the world which in quality as well as quantity is only a part of the unknown and infinite universe. It brings home to an important fact. The farther removed a thing is qualitatively (i.e., as regards its difference from us in its nature, constitution and function) or quantitatively (i.e., in space or time), the greater becomes the necessity for the first path of knowledge to give place to the second path, i.e., revelation.18
As a Muslim philosopher, Dr. Ansari presented and advocated Islam (Religion of Fulfillment) as the last and final way for the solution of the ultimate as well as immediate problems.
According to him, Islam means conformity to natural laws and the Islamic Principles are so rational and valuable that the modern science is based on them.19 According to him; Islam affirms the existence of Allah and says that He is the Creator and Cherisher of the Universe. He is Powerful, All-Knowing and Omnipresent. He possesses perfect knowledge of the origin, the constitution and the function of every thing,
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and His knowledge comprehends the past, the present and the future.
He not only possesses that knowledge but He has also reveled to humanity the correct guidance on the ultimate and intricate problems which defy correct and sure solution by means of senses and reason. His Revelations came, through the spiritual Luminaries who appeared on the horizon of humanity from time to time. Those spiritual luminaries included prophets like Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, the last among them being Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the last Reveled Book, the Qur’an.20
Now, as an advocate of Islam, Dr. Ansari explained that Islam regards the basis of all life as spiritual, and, though its approach to the problem of mind and matter is unitary, however, in the realm of values it gives primacy to the spirituality. Islam does not believe in separation between Spirit (Ruh) and matter, however, it preferred spirit on matter.21 In the light of Qur’an,22 Islam accepts space and time as a realities but it rejects the modern monistic approach towards society. In Islam ‘ibadah is meant to cover the whole life. It refuses to acknowledge dualism and affirms monism on life.23
While elaborating the importance of basic teachings and philosophy of Islam, Dr. Ansari explains that the universe is the act and creation of Allah, hence it is essentially good. So, Islam teaches the fullest utilization of physical situations and
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consequently leading the social life in all its fullness. Islam teaches the philosophy of transforming the whole life into a life of ‘ibadah, side by side it also teaches the ceremonial acts of ‘ibadah as they too play a vital role in building up the human personality.24
While giving his arguments, Dr. Ansari said that it is through social morality and subjugation of the natural forces by means of physical science and personal spiritual development through an all-pervading love for and devotion to Allah, that humanity can attain the status of the Khalifah of Allah. Islam is a self-contained Culture and a self-sustained civilization.
The base of its social and cultural life is the Qur’an. The culture of Islam has been conceived on the principles of knowledge and piety. The basic constituents of the Islamic social order are equality, fraternity and liberty. The underlying idea of the Islamic society is the establishment of social, political and spiritual democracy. Islam has laid the foundation of the fundamental human rights --- its major contribution in the field of social relations.25
While highlighting the importance of knowledge in Islam, Dr.
Ansari pointed out that Islam has laid the fullest emphasis on the importance of reason and on the cultivation of knowledge and all its branches. According to Islam, humanity can attain true knowledge and derive proper benefits from the pursuit of knowledge, not by segregating the different departments of knowledge into separate water-tight compartments --- a blunder which the modern Western civilization has committed
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--- but by channelising the different currents of knowledge into a unitary stream. Here Islam has given the great principle of the correlation of knowledge. Side by side with that, however, Islam also emphasizes the limits of human reason.
For instance, Islam teaches that human reason is absolutely incapable of solving the ultimate problems. In the domain of social problems also, Islam holds to the view that human reason must commit blunders if it is not guided by Divine revelation.26
The basic feature of Islamic ideology, in the eyes of Dr.
Ansari, is that it is allied to reason. Instead of demanding blind acceptance, the Qur’an makes fervent appeals on page after page to employ reason in understanding the truth, the beauty and the grandeur of its teaching. Islam regards reason as man’s
Ansari, is that it is allied to reason. Instead of demanding blind acceptance, the Qur’an makes fervent appeals on page after page to employ reason in understanding the truth, the beauty and the grandeur of its teaching. Islam regards reason as man’s