Debunking Saudi intellectual's observations on Muslim Scholars of the Past
Re: http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP233209
It seems I have some major disagreements with the Arab scholar Ibrahim al-Bulehi. I believe that while those individual philosophers from Andalusia like Ibn Rushd were not Arabs they definitely were products of Islamic civilization and not what is called western civilization. The Greco-Roman western civilization had collapsed centuries before the Islamic one ushered in. While our scholars did study Greek philosophy and the sciences, their contribution is beyond mere Arabization of the Greek knowledge. They took theory from textbooks and made it a practical science that nurtured on experimentation and observation. In that process, not only did they challenge old wrong notions and hypotheses but also did come up with new theories and axioms that are still valid. It would be wrong to separate them from Islamic civilization. They were both the products and trailblazers of that Islamic civilization.
It is also wrong to say that those great philosophers were detached from Islam. A keen reading of Ibn Rushd, and even the much controversial Bu Ali Sina, shows that they were motivated by Islam and were firmly grounded on the faith. It is true that Imam Ghazzali (RA) had criticized some of them, but that was only to demonstrate the fallibility of logic and rationalism to explain away non-rational matters like wahy, revelation, etc. As Muslims, we have learned to live in peace as those who believe in the unseen (one of the first few sentences of the Qur'an).
I am inclined to feel, probably like the interviewer, that al-Bulehi is a confused person, and undeserving of the status of an intellectual. He is right though to criticize our generation of Muslims that have only learned to take delight in the past and do nothing to make our imprints felt in this age. My article in the Muslim World Almanac had already dealt with the pathetic state of ours. That attitude of ours need to change and like Bulehi, I agree that we need to be self-critical. But self-criticism does not mean falsifying truth. He sounds too much like Zia Gokalp and many other derailed Kemalist, Muslim intellectuals who in the past had wrongly identified Islam as the main cause for today's backwardness of Muslims. That is why, I hate to consider them as intellectuals.
It seems I have some major disagreements with the Arab scholar Ibrahim al-Bulehi. I believe that while those individual philosophers from Andalusia like Ibn Rushd were not Arabs they definitely were products of Islamic civilization and not what is called western civilization. The Greco-Roman western civilization had collapsed centuries before the Islamic one ushered in. While our scholars did study Greek philosophy and the sciences, their contribution is beyond mere Arabization of the Greek knowledge. They took theory from textbooks and made it a practical science that nurtured on experimentation and observation. In that process, not only did they challenge old wrong notions and hypotheses but also did come up with new theories and axioms that are still valid. It would be wrong to separate them from Islamic civilization. They were both the products and trailblazers of that Islamic civilization.
It is also wrong to say that those great philosophers were detached from Islam. A keen reading of Ibn Rushd, and even the much controversial Bu Ali Sina, shows that they were motivated by Islam and were firmly grounded on the faith. It is true that Imam Ghazzali (RA) had criticized some of them, but that was only to demonstrate the fallibility of logic and rationalism to explain away non-rational matters like wahy, revelation, etc. As Muslims, we have learned to live in peace as those who believe in the unseen (one of the first few sentences of the Qur'an).
I am inclined to feel, probably like the interviewer, that al-Bulehi is a confused person, and undeserving of the status of an intellectual. He is right though to criticize our generation of Muslims that have only learned to take delight in the past and do nothing to make our imprints felt in this age. My article in the Muslim World Almanac had already dealt with the pathetic state of ours. That attitude of ours need to change and like Bulehi, I agree that we need to be self-critical. But self-criticism does not mean falsifying truth. He sounds too much like Zia Gokalp and many other derailed Kemalist, Muslim intellectuals who in the past had wrongly identified Islam as the main cause for today's backwardness of Muslims. That is why, I hate to consider them as intellectuals.
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