The link between adab, adil, ilm and hikmah
admin on 05 23, 2009
I just came back from a very insightful seminar chaired by 3 contemporary Muslim thinkers – Dr Zainiy Uthman, Dr Chandra Muzaffar and Dr Syed Farid Al-Attas.
In a nutshell, Dr Chandra shared about the need to be more scientific in our approach towards studying religion, the spiritual dimension in knowledge especially in our attitudes towards the environment, and the fact that most of us worship religion rather than worship God. We are concerned about our sectarian differences, our laws and rituals, to the extent that we forget that the end destination is God. As said by a wise saying in Zen Buddhism; when the finger is pointing at the moon, the fool studies the finger and not the moon.
How many of us have ever felt God in the rituals that we do?
Which kinda brings about the notion that Sufism is a science, an endeavour or pursuit towards unveiling realities and truths, through the actual experience of God. But this shall not be discussed in this entry.
What that was shared by Dr Chandra was nothing new to me. I’ve heard and read about it in Al-Ghazali’s discourses, and in Syed Naquib’s.
I think the greatest takeaway during the session is the sharing by Dr Zainiy on adab.
Q: If adab is to be defined as the recognization and acknowledgment of the proper places of things, and justice is defined as the condition where adab exists, then how do we apply this notion of adab with rgds to the role of youths in social change? What is the proper place of youths in social change.
A: If one is to know the proper places of things, then one needs knowledge to do so. How would one know without knowledge?
The problem with youths today is that they assume that they know a lot of things, when in fact they don’t. They lack knowledge.
And even when they have the energy to acquire knowledge, they lack the knowledge to organize this knowledge into their proper places. This knowledge is known as hikmah, or wisdom.
Wisdom is not a kind of knowledge that one may acquire through studying. Rather, it is acquired either through intuition revealed by the Almighty, or through experience as one goes through life…
That answer kinda struck me in many ways. Raw passion and idealism, which is then manifested into raw activism that is not grounded on knowledge of the proper places of things, as well as the knowledge to put various forms of knowledge into their proper places which is wisdom, would bring complications to one in his/her own pursuit of truth and reality.
And one that is knowledgable may not be considered wise!
I was given a clear example of the statement above. In a conversation with a particular ustaz who may come from a Sufi background, I was particularly surprised at the statement he made:
” Tauhid is tauhid. There is no categorization in tauhid; no tauhid rububiyyah and tauhid uluhiyyah. These are all Wahabbi concepts.”
I wonder how categorizing knowledge and putting knowledge in their various places can lead to sectarianism.
Does mere categorization and classification, for the ease of learning, make a concept Wahabbi?
Or is it the unscientific approach on the part of this ustaz, who just accepts based on hearsay without examining the sources of such claims?
This classification actually originated from the thoughts of Imam Ibn Qayyim Al-Jauziyyah who may actually be more ’sufistic’ than Wahabbi.
And just because Ibn Qayyim is a student of Ibn Taimiyyah, does not make him a Wahhabbi. Ibn Taimiyyah may make certain assertions that are inaccurate and untraditional, but this does not require us to reject him in totality!
Even so, what does sectarianism got to do with classification of knowledge?
Wisdom is what we need.
But unfortunately, it is wisdom that we don’t have.
