RESPONSE TO “THE ANTHROPOCOSMIC
VISION IN ISLAMIC THOUGHT”
M. S. Umar

It is now more than a decade that I was introduced to the writings /translations of Dr. William C. Chittick. A decade of admiration and “distance learning” is a formidable barrier that may take away the edge from one’s objectivity and sense of proportion. I do not, therefore, consider my selection for responding to Dr. Chittick’s article as the best choice.[1] The observations are, however, detailed in the following.

In the early decades of this century Renḥ Guḥnon, the brilliant French traditionalist and metaphysician, had pointed out that “The civilization of the modern West appears in history as a veritable anomaly...”.[2]

Other voices joined him. Huston Smith formulated it with reference to Western thought and suggested that somewhere, during the course of its historical development, western thought took a sharp turn in another direction. It branched off as a tangent from the collective heritage of all humanity and claimed the autonomy of reason. It chose to follow that reason alone, unguided by revelation and cut off from the Intellect that was regarded as its transcendent root.[3] Political and social realms quickly followed suit. Focusing on the ravages of this tendency in the realm of Western philosophy he observed, “the deepest reason for the current crisis in philosophy is its realization that autonomous reason – reason without infusions that both power and vector it – is helpless. By itself, reason can deliver nothing apodictic. Working (as it necessarily must) with variables, variables are all it can come up with. The Enlightenment’s “natural light of reason” turns out to have been a myth. Reason is not itself a light. It is more like a transformer that does useful things but on condition that it is hitched to a generator.

Clearly aware of reasons’ contingency, medieval philosophy attached itself to theology as its handmaiden. Earlier, Plato too had accepted reason’s contingency and grounded his philosophy in intuitions that are discernible by the “eye of the soul” but not by reason without it. In the seventeenth century, thought, responding to the advent of modern science with the controlled experiment as its new and powerful way of getting at truth, philosophy unplugged from theology. Bacon and Comte were ready to re-plug it at once, this time into science, but there were frequencies science still couldn’t register, so philosophy took off on its own.”[4]

Dr. Chittick’s often elucidated the same point with reference to various aspects of the Islamic Tradition in his earlier works. But lately he has brought this issue to the centre stage in a series of articles written in his remarkably perspicacious and penetrating manner. His present exposition focuses on the salient differences of the Islamic thought, especially in its wisdom-tradition-form, with the theo-centric and anthropocentric worldviews of the modern Western thought. The overarching worldview that informs the Islamic tradition and more particularly its wisdom tradition is encapsulated in the expression “anthropocosmic vision”. Throughout his exposition he has treated the Islamic intellectual tradition as a monolithic whole without taking into consideration the differences that exist between the various perspectives of the Islamic intellectual tradition, the differences about which he himself has presented penetrating studies in his earlier writings. Perhaps he regards it more opportune for the purpose of the present discussion. One could also think of another reason for it. All Islamic thinking, especially the intellectual tradition, shares the “anthropocosmic vision” to such an extent that it was unnecessary to differentiate between, say, the philosophers and the Sufi epistemology in this respect. But during the course of his exposition it becomes clear that the perspective that he has foremost in his mind is that of the philosophers. For example when he says, “They never saw their efforts as opposed to the goals and purposes of the religious tradition.  They accepted that the prophets came to remind people of tawḥīd and to teach them how to be human.  However, they also believed that the commoners had one path to follow, and the philosophical elite, because of their specific gifts and aptitudes, had another path.  It was perhaps the attitude of keeping aloof from religious dogma and counting the theologians and jurists as commoners that often led to their being severely criticised by other Muslims.”[5] This is a typical example of the philosophic perspective. Did the Sufis share it and did it bring them under attack from the theologians? I think not.

The same thing is evident from other places as well e.g. “Although some philosophers paid scant attention to the transmitted learning and looked upon the dogmatic theologians with something akin to contempt, they did not step outside of the Islamic tradition, because they could not doubt the universal and ahistorical axiom upon which it is built.  In other words, there was no historical chink in their intellectual armour.  Historical contingencies cannot touch tawḥīd, because, once it is grasped, it is seen as a self-evident truth so foundational that it becomes the unique certainty upon which the soul can always depend.”[6]

In his earlier expositions he made it clear that the basic questions, the issues and the objects of investigation were the same for the theologians, the Sufis and the philosophers; the differences arising from their respective methodology, manners of approach and their perspectives that were brought to bear upon the issues. Secondly, he always advocated the subordinate role of discursive reasoning in the Islamic perspective, emphasising the fact that autonomous reason is an anomaly and the human mind can not spin the basic data from its own substance. It has to rely on objective criteria. Against this back ground when we read that “this approach has discussed the significance of being and becoming without presupposing faith in Islamic dogma, so its language can easily be understood outside the context of specifically Islamic imagery”[7] it does not become clear that whether one is being told about the Muslim thinkers or their prospective readers? Similar is the case when we read, “the Muslim intellectuals did not depend on revelation and transmission for their understanding of tawḥīd, so theological squabbles and historical uncertainties could not be taken as serious issues” [8]. The notes at the end clarify a little but the uninitiated reader would find it difficult to reach the conclusion.

On the other hand the readers that are uninitiated in the Christian tradition would feel that his view of Christianity (p. 2) needs further elucidation. Is there anything like that in existence in reality and is it possible for us to speak of Christianity as such, especially in the contemporary world where there are so many strands, and they are all strong in their points of view. Moreover, Incarnation, that is cited as an example of “transmitted learning” (3rd para, page. 2), is not accepted by all sects of Christians.

But there is another point here: the glorified position of the Islamic intellectual tradition that Dr. Chittick presents here. Is it a reality; can find anything like that in literature? My questions may have their origin in my ignorance but the problem is that, at the face of it, I feel that it verges on a romantic approach towards the intellectual tradition.

There is a reference to the decline “     p. 7: Would you not say that there was a decline in the intellectual tradition, not to speak of sciences.... no matter how one construes it...  yes, one can debate on the timings of this etc. but to deny the decline is historically not correct, I think... one only needs to look around to grasp that terrible reality. His explanations that come in the notes endorse it but the text remains in the “romantic domain”. The notes read, “I am not denying that there was a decline.  I am simply saying that by making the criterion for measurement “scientific progress” or the lack of it, we are accepting the ideological presuppositions of scientism.  Why should this historical oddity be considered the universal criterion by which all civilisations should be measured?  If we keep in view Islamic criteria (e.g., adherence to tawḥīd, the Qur’an, and the Sunnah), there was certainly a serious decline in Islamic civilisation, especially in the intellectual tradition, but it began much later than historians typically maintain.”

As for the main idea of the article it is excellently elucidated and focuses our attention on the core issue of the conceptual underpinnings of the modern Western science as contrasted with the vision that informed the Islamic tradition. It was a vision not peculiar to it but a shared heritage of all humanity.

Notes and References