Beyond the theologies

By Ary Hermawan - Jakarta Post - Jakarta,Indonesia
Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Islamic scholar Budhy Munawar-Rachman talked to The Jakarta Post's Ary Hermawan about the relation between faith and reason in Islam and how it affects the faith's position regarding violence. Budhy, a lecturer at Driyarkara School of Philosophy and Paramadina University, now works as a program officer for Islam and Civil Society at the Asia Foundation.
Can you explain the relation between faith and reason in Islam?
Prophet Muhammad clearly stated that one who does not use his intellect can never be religious. In the history of Islamic theology and philosophy, the use of reason was preponderant. Islamic philosophers such as Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina and Ibnu Rusyd, who were influenced by the Greek thinkers, stressed that reason is truth itself. Even Ibn Taymiyah, an Islamic theologian who was very critical of the Greek thinkers, said that reason played an important role in the quest for truth.

Faith and reason in Islam are complementary. Faith enables a person to do good, but he could never do that if he was not guided by reason. Faith without reason is dangerous. But reason without faith is far more dangerous since reason can be evil if it is unguided by faith. That's why the Prophet stressed that "those who have gained much knowledge but lack God's wisdom gain nothing but being thrown from the grace of God".
The harmonious relation between faith and reason, or between religion and science, created an amazing civilization of Islam for eight centuries.

Does Islam defy reason?The radical groups in Islam give us the impression that Islam defies reason. But their view does not represent the real picture of the faith. Islam does not defy reason. Islam puts reason in an equal position with revelation. Both are complementary. The defender of reason in Islam was Ibn Rusyd (d. 1198). He challenged Al-Ghazali, who declared the early Greek thoughts haram (forbidden), in a posthumous debate.

Ibn Rusyd was a rationalist, a true disciple of Aristotle and a learned qadhi (Islamic jurist). His endeavor to revive philosophy in the Islamic world may be seen as fruitless, but he succeeded in influencing European thought through an intellectual movement called Latin Averroism, which quivered the Christian thinkers in the Middle Ages, liberated the continent from the bond of religious dogmas and paved the way for the Renaissance.

Al-Ghazali was a thinker who believed in intuition (dzawq) in the pursuit of religious knowledge, while Ibn Rusyd was a rationalist who thought that reason was crucial to religious understanding.
Islam today is dominated by Al-Ghazali's idea, which combines sufism and Islamic jurisprudence. Many contemporary Muslim thinkers now hope that Islam can again be revitalized by reviving the rationalism of Ibn Rusyd and by being more inclusive of Western sciences.

Is Islam capable of theologically justifying violence?Islam is theologically a religion of submission conveying a message of peace and salvation. For that reason, Islam is essentially contradictory to violence. The term jihad, which is often linked to acts of violence, literally means "determination". There are three words in Arabic derived from the same roots as jihad.

First, juhdun, which means to work hard. This definition later developed into "battle" and is used to depict the ideology of radical groups. But this is definitely not the only definition of jihad.
Second, ijtihad, which reflects a strong effort in terms of thought and intellect. This term does not exist in the Koran and can only be found in hadith (the tradition of the Prophet). However, there are many passages in the Koran propelling Muslims to conduct ijtihad. We can find the harmonious relation between faith and reason in the concept of ijtihad. And it has been an ethos in the history of Islamic thought. The third term is mujahadah, a spiritual exercise usually practiced in the tradition of sufism.

Should Muslims develop the Mu'tazila theology?
The Mu'tazila were dissatisfied with the traditional reasoning in theology and therefore they fought for a theology that was fully based on reason. They had made Kalam (Islamic theological reasoning) more original and they also represented the type of Islamic thought that is comparable with the concept of Logos in the Christian tradition.

However, their inclination toward borrowing and applying Greek concepts in developing their arguments was contaminating the purity of Islam and therefore their ideas were objected by the ulema. Nevertheless, the Ash'ary theology actually had to wait for two centuries to gain full legitimacy from the majority of Muslims, that was until the coming of Al-Ghazali.

During the waiting period, the Ash'ary theology was also criticized and polemicized. The theology became established after it was officially embraced by the Seljuk Sultan Alp Arsalan and his prime minister, Nizham al-Mulk, whose advisor was Al-Ghazali. The role of Al-Ghazali in the establishment of the Sunni theology, which is now practiced by 85 percent of the world's Muslim population, is substantial.

In my view, we now have to go beyond the theologies conceptualized by the Mu'tazila or the Ash'ary. We need a new approach, which is like neither of them, although we still have to learn from them. We have to be responsive to the latest developments in the philosophical discussion regarding theological issues.