by Dr. Muhammad Iqbal
We have seen that the judgement
based upon religious experience fully satisfies the intellectual test. The more important
regions of experience, examined with an eye on a synthetic view, reveal, as the ultimate
ground of all experience, a rationally directed creative will which we have found reasons
to describe as an ego. In order to emphasize the individuality of the Ultimate Ego the Qur«n
gives Him the proper name of Allah, and further defines Him as follows:
Say: Allah is One:
All things depend on Him;
He begetteth not, and He is not begotten;
And there is none like unto Him (112:1-4).
But it is hard to understand what
exactly is an individual. As Bergson has taught us in his Creative Evolution,
individuality is a matter of degrees and is not fully realized even in the case of the
apparently closed off unity of the human being.1 In particular, it may be
said of individuality, says Bergson:
that while the tendency to
individuate is everywhere present in the organized world, it is everywhere opposed by the
tendency towards reproduction. For the individuality to be perfect, it would be necessary
that no detached part of the organism could live separately. But then reproduction would
be impossible. For what is reproduction but the building up of a new organism with a
detached fragment of the old? Individuality, therefore, harbours its own enemy at home.2
In the light of this passage it
is clear that the perfect individual, closed off as an ego, peerless and unique, cannot be
conceived as harbouring its own enemy at home. It must be conceived as superior to the
antagonistic tendency of reproduction. This characteristic of the perfect ego is one of
the most essential elements in the Quranic conception of God; and the Qur«n
mentions it over and over again, not so much with a view to attack the current Christian
conception as to accentuate its own view of a perfect individual.3 It may,
however, be said that the history of religious thought discloses various ways of escape
from an individualistic conception of the Ultimate Reality which is conceived as some
vague, vast, and pervasive cosmic element,4 such as light. This is the view
that Farnell has taken in his Gifford Lectures on the Attributes of God. I agree that the
history of religion reveals modes of thought that tend towards pantheism; but I venture to
think that in so far as the Quranic identification of God with light is concerned Farnells
view is incorrect. The full text of the verse of which he quotes a portion only is as
follows:
God is the light of the
Heavens and of the earth. His light is like a niche in which is a lamp - the encased in a
glass, - the glass, as it were, a star5 (24:35).
No doubt, the opening sentence of
the verse gives the impression of an escape from an individualistic conception of God. But
when we follow the metaphor of light in the rest of the verse, it gives just the opposite
impression. The development of the metaphor is meant rather to exclude the suggestion of a
formless cosmic element by centralizing the light in a flame which is further
individualized by its encasement in a glass likened unto a well-defined star. Personally,
I think the description of God as light, in the revealed literature of Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam, must now be interpreted differently. The teaching of modern
physics is that the velocity of light cannot be exceeded and is the same for all observers
whatever their own system of movement. Thus, in the world of change, light is the nearest
approach to the Absolute. The metaphor of light as applied to God, therefore, must, in
view of modern knowledge, be taken to suggest the Absoluteness of God and not His
Omnipresence which easily lends itself to a pantheistic interpretation.
There is, however, one question
which will be raised in this connexion. Does not individuality imply finitude? If God is
an ego and as such an individual, how can we conceive Him as infinite? The answer to this
question is that God cannot be conceived as infinite in the sense of spatial infinity. In
matters of spiritual valuation mere immensity counts for nothing. Moreover, as we have
seen before, temporal and spatial infinities are not absolute. Modern science regards
Nature not as something static, situated in an infinite void, but a structure of
interrelated events out of whose mutual relations arise the concepts of space and time.
And this is only another way of saying that space and time are interpretations which
thought puts upon the creative activity of the Ultimate Ego. Space and time are
possibilities of the Ego, only partially realized in the shape of our mathematical space
and time. Beyond Him and apart from His creative activity, there is neither time nor space
to close Him off in reference to other egos. The Ultimate Ego is, therefore, neither
infinite in the sense of spatial infinity nor finite in the sense of the space-bound human
ego whose body closes him off in reference to other egos. The infinity of the Ultimate Ego
consists in the infinite inner possibilities of His creative activity of which the
universe, as known to us, is only a partial expression. In one word Gods infinity is
intensive, not extensive.6 It involves an infinite series, but is not that
series.
The other important elements in
the Quranic conception of God, from a purely intellectual point of view, are Creativeness,
Knowledge, Omnipotence, and Eternity. I shall deal with them serially.
Finite minds regard nature as a
confronting other existing per se, which the mind knows but does not
make. We are thus apt to regard the act of creation as a specific past event, and the
universe appears to us as a manufactured article which has no organic relation to the life
of its maker, and of which the maker is nothing more than a mere spectator. All the
meaningless theological controversies about the idea of creation arise from this narrow
vision of the finite mind.7 Thus regarded the universe is a mere accident in
the life of God and might not have been created. The real question which we are called
upon to answer is this: Does the universe confront God as His other, with
space intervening between Him and it? The answer is that, from the Divine point of view,
there is no creation in the sense of a specific event having a before and an
after. The universe cannot be regarded as an independent reality standing in
opposition to Him. This view of the matter will reduce both God and the world to two
separate entities confronting each other in the empty receptacle of an infinite space. We
have seen before that space, time, and matter are interpretations which thought puts on
the free creative energy of God.8 They are not independent realities existing
per se, but only intellectual modes of apprehending the life of God. The question of
creation once arose among the disciples of the well-known saint B«Yazâd of Bist«m. One
of the disciples very pointedly put the common-sense view saying: There was a moment
of time when God existed and nothing else existed beside Him. The saints reply
was equally pointed. It is just the same now, said he, as it was then.
The world of matter, therefore, is not a stuff co-eternal with God, operated upon by Him
from a distance as it were. It is, in its real nature, one continuous act which thought
breaks up into a plurality of mutually exclusive things. Professor Eddington has thrown
further light on this important point, and I take the liberty to quote from his book,
Space, Time and Gravitation:
We have a world of
point-events with their primary interval-relations. Out of these an unlimited number of
more complicated relations and qualities can be built up mathematically, describing
various features of the state of the world. These exist in nature in the same sense as an
unlimited number of walks exist on an open moor. But the existence is, as it were, latent
unless some one gives a significance to the walk by following it; and in the same way the
existence of any one of these qualities of the world only acquires significance above its
fellows if a mind singles it out for recognition. Mind filters out matter from the
meaningless jumble of qualities, as the prism filters out the colours of the rainbow from
the chaotic pulsations of white light. Mind exalts the permanent and ignores the
transitory; and it appears from the mathematical study of relations that the only way in
which mind can achieve her object is by picking out one particular quality as the
permanent substance of the perceptual world, partitioning a perceptual time and space for
it to be permanent in, and, as a necessary consequence of this Hobsons choice, the
laws of gravitation and mechanics and geometry have to be obeyed. Is it too much to say
that the minds search for permanence has created the world of physics?9
The last sentence in this passage
is one of the deepest things in Professor Eddingtons book. The physicist has yet to
discover by his own methods that the passing show of the apparently permanent world of
physics which the mind has created in its search for permanence is rooted in something
more permanent, conceivable only as a self which alone combines the opposite attributes of
change and permanence, and can thus be regarded as both constant and variable.
There is, however, one question
which we must answer before we proceed further. In what manner does the creative activity
of God proceed to the work of creation? The most orthodox and still popular school of
Muslim theology, I mean the Asharite, hold that the creative method of Divine energy
is atomic; and they appear to have based their doctrine on the following verse of the Qur«n:
And no one thing is here,
but with Us are its store-houses; and We send it not down but in fixed quantities
(15:21).
The rise and growth of atomism in
Islam - the first important indication of an intellectual revolt against the Aristotelian
idea of a fixed universe - forms one of the most interesting chapters in the history of
Muslim thought. The views of the school of BaÄrah were first shaped by AbëH«shim10
(A.D. 933) and those of the school of Baghdad by that most exact and daring theological
thinker, AbëBakr B«qil«nâ11 (A.D.1013). Later in the beginning of the
thirteenth century we find a thoroughly systematic description in a book called the Guide
of the Perplexed by Moses Maimonides a Jewish theologian who was educated in the
Muslim universities of Spain.12 A French translation of this book was made by
Munk in 1866, and recently Professor Macdonald of America has given an excellent account
of its contents in the Isis from which Dr. Zwemer has reprinted it in The Moslem
World of January 1928.13 Professor Macdonald, however, has made no attempt
to discover the psychological forces that determined the growth of atomistic kal«m in
Islam. He admits that there is nothing like the atomism of Islam in Greek thought, but,
unwilling as he is to give any credit for original thought to Muslim thinkers,14
and finding a surface resemblance between the Islamic theory and the views of a certain
sect of Buddhism, he jumps to the conclusion that the origin of the theory is due to
Buddhistic influences on the thought of Islam.15 Unfortunately, a full
discussion of the sources of this purely speculative theory is not possible in this
lecture. I propose only to give you some of its more salient features, indicating at the
same time the lines on which the work of reconstruction in the light of modern physics
ought, in my opinion, to proceed.
According to the Asharite
school of thinkers, then, the world is compounded of what they call jaw«hir infinitely
small parts or atoms which cannot be further divided. Since the creative activity of God
is ceaseless the number of the atoms cannot be finite. Fresh atoms are coming into being
every moment, and the universe is therefore constantly growing. As the Qur«n says:
God adds to His creation what He wills.16 The essence of the atom
is independent of its existence. This means that existence is a quality imposed on the
atom by God. Before receiving this quality the atom lies dormant, as it were, in the
creative energy of God, and its existence means nothing more than Divine energy become
visible. The atom in its essence, therefore, has no magnitude; it has its position which
does not involve space. It is by their aggregation that atoms become extended and generate
space.17 Ibn Àazm, the critic of atomism, acutely remarks that the language of
the Qur«n makes no difference in the act of creation and the thing created. What we
call a thing, then, is in its essential nature an aggregation of atomic acts. Of the
concept of atomic act, however, it is difficult to form a mental picture.
Modern physics too conceives as action the actual atom of a certain physical quantity.
But, as Professor Eddington has pointed out, the precise formulation of the Theory of
Quanta of action has not been possible so far; though it is vaguely believed that the
atomicity of action is the general law and that the appearance of electrons is in some way
dependent on it.18
Again we have seen that each atom
occupies a position which does not involve space. That being so, what is the nature of
motion which we cannot conceive except as the atoms passage through space? Since the
Asharite regarded space as generated by the aggregation of atoms, they could not
explain movement as a bodys passage through all the points of space intervening
between the point of its start and destination. Such an explanation must necessarily
assume the existence of void as an independent reality. In order, therefore, to get over
the difficulty of empty space, Naïï«m resorted to the notion of ñafrah or jump;
and imagined the moving body, not as passing through all the discrete positions in space,
but as jumping over the void between one position and another. Thus, according to him, a
quick motion and a slow motion possess the same speed; but the latter has more points of
rest.19 I confess I do not quite understand this solution of the difficulty. It
may, however, be pointed out that modern atomism has found a similar difficulty and a
similar solution has been suggested. In view of the experiments relating to Plancks
Theory of Quanta, we cannot imagine the moving atom as continuously traversing its path in
space. One of the most hopeful lines of explanation, says Professor Whitehead
in his Science and the Modern World,
is to assume that an
electron does not continuously traverse its path in space. The alternative notion as to
its mode of existence is that it appears at a series of discrete positions in space which
it occupies for successive durations of time. It is as though an automobile, moving at the
average rate of thirty miles an hour along a road, did not traverse the road continuously,
but appeared successively at the successive milestones remaining for two minutes at
each milestone.20
Another feature of this theory of
creation is the doctrine of accident, on the perpetual creation of which depends the
continuity of the atom as an existent. If God ceases to create the accidents, the atom
ceases to exist as an atom.21 The atom possesses inseparable positive or
negative qualities. These exist in opposed couples, as life and death, motion and rest,
and possess practically no duration. Two propositions follow from this: (i) Nothing has a
stable nature. (ii) There is a single order of atoms, i.e. what we call the soul is either
a finer kind of matter, or only an accident.
I am inclined to think that in
view of the idea of continuous creation which the Asharite intended to establish
there is an element of truth in the first proposition. I have said before that in my
opinion the spirit of the Qur«n is on the whole anti-classical.22 I
regard the Asharite thought on this point as a genuine effort to develop on the
basis of an Ultimate Will or Energy a theory of creation which, with all its shortcomings,
is far more true to the spirit of the Qur«n than the Aristotelian idea of a fixed
universe.23 The duty of the future theologians of Islam is to reconstruct this
purely speculative theory, and to bring it into closer contact with modern science which
appears to be moving in the same direction.
The second proposition looks like
pure materialism. It is my belief that the Asharite view that the Nafs is an
accident is opposed to the real trend of their own theory which makes the continuous
existence of the atom dependent on the continuous creation of accidents in it. It is
obvious that motion is inconceivable without time. And since time comes from psychic life,
the latter is more fundamental than motion. No psychic life, no time: no time, no motion.
Thus it is really what the Asharites call the accident which is responsible for the
continuity of the atom as such. The atom becomes or rather looks spatialized when it
receives the quality of existence. Regarded as a phase of Divine energy, it is essentially
spiritual. The Nafs is the pure act; the body is only the act become visible and
hence measurable. In fact the Asharite vaguely anticipated the modern notion of
point-instant; but they failed rightly to see the nature of the mutual relation between
the point and the instant. The instant is the more fundamental of the two; but the point
is inseparable from the instant as being a necessary mode of its manifestation. The point
is not a thing, it is only a sort of looking at the instant. Rëmâ is far more true to
the spirit of Islam than Ghaz«lâ when he says:24
Reality is, therefore,
essentially spirit. But, of course, there are degrees of spirit. In the history of Muslim
thought the idea of degrees of Reality appears in the writings of Shih«buddân
Suhrawardâ Maqtël. In modern times we find it worked out on a much larger scale in Hegel
and, more recently, in the late Lord Haldanes Reign of Relativity, which he
published shortly before his death.25 I have conceived the Ultimate Reality as
an Ego; and I must add now that from the Ultimate Ego only egos proceed. The creative
energy of the Ultimate Ego, in whom deed and thought are identical, functions as
ego-unities. The world, in all its details, from the mechanical movement of what we call
the atom of matter to the free movement of thought in the human ego, is the
self-revelation of the Great I am.26 Every atom of Divine energy,
however low in the scale of existence, is an ego. But there are degrees in the expression
of egohood. Throughout the entire gamut of being runs the gradually rising note of egohood
until it reaches its perfection in man. That is why the Qur«n declares the Ultimate
Ego to be nearer to man than his own neck-vein.27 Like pearls do we live and
move and have our being in the perpetual flow of Divine life.
Thus a criticism, inspired by the
best traditions of Muslim thought, tends to turn the Asharite scheme of atomism into
a spiritual pluralism, the details of which will have to be worked out by the future
theologians of Islam. It may, however, be asked whether atomicity has a real seat in the
creative energy of God, or presents itself to us as such only because of our finite mode
of apprehension. From a purely scientific point of view I cannot say what the final answer
to this question will be. From the psychological point of view one thing appears to me to
be certain. Only that is, strictly speaking, real which is directly conscious of its own
reality. The degree of reality varies with the degree of the feeling of egohood. The
nature of the ego is such that, in spite of its capacity to respond to other egos, it is
self-centred and possesses a private circuit of individuality excluding all egos other
than itself.28 In this alone consists its reality as an ego. Man, therefore, in
whom egohood has reached its relative perfection, occupies a genuine place in the heart of
Divine creative energy, and thus possesses a much higher degree of reality than things
around him. Of all the creations of God he alone is capable of consciously participating
in the creative life of his Maker.29 Endowed with the power to imagine a better
world, and to mould what is into what ought to be, the ego in him, aspires, in the
interests of an increasingly unique and comprehensive individuality, to exploit all the
various environments on which he may be called upon to operate during the course of an
endless career. But I would ask you to wait for a fuller treatment of this point till my
lecture on the Immortality and Freedom of the Ego. In the meantime, I want to say a few
words about the doctrine of atomic time which I think is the weakest part of the Asharite
theory of creation. It is necessary to do so for a reasonable view of the Divine attribute
of Eternity.
The problem of time has always
drawn the attention of Muslim thinkers and mystics. This seems to be due partly to the
fact that, according to the Qur«n, the alternation of day and night is one of the
greatest signs of God, and partly to the Prophets identification of God with Dahr
(time) in a well-known tradition referred to before.30 Indeed, some of the
greatest Muslim Sufis believed in the mystic properties of the word Dahr. According
to MuÁyuddân Ibn al-Arabâ, Dahr is one of the beautiful names of God, and
R«zâ tells us in his commentary on the Qur«n that some of the Muslim saints had
taught him to repeat the word Dahr, Daihur, or Daihar. The Asharite
theory of time is perhaps the first attempt in the history of Muslim thought to understand
it philosophically. Time, according to the Asharite, is a succession of individual
nows. From this view it obviously follows that between every two individual
nows or moments of time, there is an unoccupied moment of time, that is to
say, a void of time. The absurdity of this conclusion is due to the fact that they looked
at the subject of their inquiry from a wholly objective point of view. They took no lesson
from the history of Greek thought, which had adopted the same point of view and had
reached no results. In our own time Newton described time as something which in
itself and from its own nature flows equally.31 The metaphor of stream
implied in this description suggests serious objections to Newtons equally objective
view of time. We cannot understand how a thing is affected on its immersion in this
stream, and how it differs from things that do not participate in its flow. Nor can we
form any idea of the beginning, the end, and the boundaries of time if we try to
understand it on the analogy of a stream. Moreover, if flow, movement, or passage
is the last word as to the nature of time, there must be another time to time the movement
of the first time, and another which times the second time, and so on to infinity. Thus
the notion of time as something wholly objective is beset with difficulties. It must,
however, be admitted that the practical Arab mind could not regard time as something
unreal like the Greeks. Nor can it be denied that, even though we possess no sense-organ
to perceive time, it is a kind of flow and has, as such, a genuine objective, that is to
say, atomic aspect. In fact, the verdict of modern science is exactly the same as that of
the Asharite; for recent discoveries in physics regarding the nature of time assume
the discontinuity of matter. The following passage from Professor Rougiers Philosophy
and New Physics is noteworthy in this connexion:
Contrary to the ancient
adage, natura non facit saltus, it becomes apparent that the universe varies by sudden
jumps and not by imperceptible degrees. A physical system is capable of only a finite
number of distinct states . . . . Since between two different and immediately consecutive
states the world remains motionless, time is suspended, so that time itself is
discontinuous: there is an atom of time.32
The point, however, is that the
constructive endeavour of the Asharite, as of the moderns, was wholly lacking in
psychological analysis, and the result of this shortcoming was that they altogether failed
to perceive the subjective aspect of time. It is due to this failure that in their theory
the systems of material atoms and time-atoms lie apart, with no organic relation between
them. It is clear that if we look at time from a purely objective point of view serious
difficulties arise; for we cannot apply atomic time to God and conceive Him as a life in
the making, as Professor Alexander appears to have done in his Lectures on Space, Time,
and Deity.33 Later Muslim theologians fully realized these difficulties. Mull«
Jal«luddân Daw«nâ in a passage of his Zaur«, which reminds the modern
student of Professor Royces view of time, tells us that if we take time to be a kind
of span which makes possible the appearance of events as a moving procession and conceive
this span to be a unity, then we cannot but describe it as an original state of Divine
activity, encompassing all the succeeding states of that activity. But the Mull« takes
good care to add that a deeper insight into the nature of succession reveals its
relativity, so that it disappears in the case of God to Whom all events are present in a
single act of perception. The Sufi poet Ir«qâ34 has a similar way of
looking at the matter. He conceives infinite varieties of time, relative to the varying
grades of being, intervening between materiality and pure spirituality. The time of gross
bodies which arises from the revolution of the heavens is divisible into past, present,
and future; and its nature is such that as long as one day does not pass away the
succeeding day does not come. The time of immaterial beings is also serial in character,
but its passage is such that a whole year in the time of gross bodies is not more than a
day in the time of an immaterial being. Rising higher and higher in the scale of
immaterial beings we reach Divine time - time which is absolutely free from the quality of
passage, and consequently does not admit of divisibility, sequence, and change. It is
above eternity; it has neither beginning nor end. The eye of God sees all the visibles,
and His ear hears all the audibles in one indivisible act of perception. The priority of
God is not due to the priority of time; on the other hand, the priority of time is due to
Gods priority.35 Thus Divine time is what the Qur«n describes as
the Mother of Books36 in which the whole of history, freed from the
net of causal sequence, is gathered up in a single super-eternal now. Of all
the Muslim theologians, however, it is Fakhruddân R«zâ who appears to have given his
most serious attention to the problem of time. In his "Eastern Discussions,"
R«zâ subjects to a searching examination all the contemporary theories of time. He too
is, in the main, objective in his method and finds himself unable to reach any definite
conclusions. Until now, he says,
I have not been able to
discover anything really true with regard to the nature of time; and the main purpose of
my book is to explain what can possibly be said for or against each theory without any
spirit of partisanship, which I generally avoid, especially in connexion with the problem
of time.37
The above discussion makes it
perfectly clear that a purely objective point of view is only partially helpful in our
understanding of the nature of time. The right course is a careful psychological analysis
of our conscious experience which alone reveals the true nature of time. I suppose you
remember the distinction that I drew in the two aspects of the self, appreciative and
efficient. The appreciative self lives in pure duration, i.e. change without succession.
The life of the self consists in its movement from appreciation to efficiency, from
intuition to intellect, and atomic time is born out of this movement. Thus the character
of our conscious experience - our point of departure in all knowledge - gives us a clue to
the concept which reconciles the opposition of permanence and change, of time regarded as
an organic whole or eternity, and time regarded as atomic. If then we accept the guidance
of our conscious experience, and conceive the life of the all-inclusive Ego on the analogy
of the finite ego, the time of the Ultimate Ego is revealed as change without succession,
i.e. an organic whole which appears atomic because of the creative movement of the ego.
This is what Mâr D«m«d and Mull«B«qir mean when they say that time is born with the
act of creation by which the Ultimate Ego realizes and measures, so to speak, the infinite
wealth of His own undetermined creative possibilities. On the one hand, therefore, the ego
lives in eternity, by which term I mean non-successional change; on the other, it lives in
serial time, which I conceive as organically related to eternity in the sense that it is a
measure of non-successional change. In this sense alone it is possible to understand the
Quranic verse: To God belongs the alternation of day and night.38
But on this difficult side of the problem I have said enough in my preceding lecture. It
is now time to pass on to the Divine attributes of Knowledge and Omnipotence.
The word knowledge,
as applied to the finite ego, always means discursive knowledge - a temporal process which
moves round a veritable other, supposed to exist per se and confronting
the knowing ego. In this sense knowledge, even if we extend it to the point of
omniscience, must always remain relative to its confronting other, and cannot,
therefore, be predicated of the Ultimate Ego who, being all-inclusive, cannot be conceived
as having a perspective like the finite ego. The universe, as we have seen before, is not
an other existing per se in opposition to God. It is only when we look
at the act of creation as a specific event in the life-history of God that the universe
appears as an independent other. From the standpoint of the all-inclusive Ego
there is no other. In Him thought and deed, the act of knowing and the act of
creating, are identical. It may be argued that the ego, whether finite or infinite, is
inconceivable without a confronting non-ego, and if there is nothing outside the Ultimate
Ego, the Ultimate Ego cannot be conceived as an ego. The answer to this argument is that
logical negations are of no use in forming a positive concept which must be based on the
character of Reality as revealed in experience. Our criticism of experience reveals the
Ultimate Reality to be a rationally directed life which, in view of our experience of
life, cannot be conceived except as an organic whole, a something closely knit together
and possessing a central point of reference.39 This being the character of
life, the ultimate life can be conceived only as an ego. Knowledge, in the sense of
discursive knowledge, however infinite, cannot, therefore, be predicated of an ego who
knows, and, at the same time, forms the ground of the object known. Unfortunately,
language does not help us here. We possess no word to express the kind of knowledge which
is also creative of its object. The alternative concept of Divine knowledge is omniscience
in the sense of a single indivisible act of perception which makes God immediately aware
of the entire sweep of history, regarded as an order of specific events, in an eternal
now. This is how Jal«luddân Daw«nâ, Ir«qâ, and Professor Royce in
our own times conceived Gods knowledge.40 There is an element of truth in
this conception. But it suggests a closed universe, a fixed futurity, a predetermined,
unalterable order of specific events which, like a superior fate, has once for all
determined the directions of Gods creative activity. In fact, Divine knowledge
regarded as a kind of passive omniscience is nothing more than the inert void of
pre-Einsteinian physics, which confers a semblance of unity on things by holding them
together, a sort of mirror passively reflecting the details of an already finished
structure of things which the finite consciousness reflects in fragments only. Divine
knowledge must be conceived as a living creative activity to which the objects that appear
to exist in their own right are organically related. By conceiving Gods knowledge as
a kind of reflecting mirror, we no doubt save His fore-knowledge of future events; but it
is obvious that we do so at the expense of His freedom. The future certainly pre-exists in
the organic whole of Gods creative life, but it pre-exists as an open possibility,
not as a fixed order of events with definite outlines. An illustration will perhaps help
us in understanding what I mean. Suppose, as sometimes happens in the history of human
thought, a fruitful idea with a great inner wealth of applications emerges into the light
of your consciousness. You are immediately aware of the idea as a complex whole; but the
intellectual working out of its numerous bearings is a matter of time. Intuitively all the
possibilities of the idea are present in your mind. If a specific possibility, as such, is
not intellectually known to you at a certain moment of time, it is not because your
knowledge is defective, but because there is yet no possibility to become known. The idea
reveals the possibilities of its application with advancing experience, and sometimes it
takes more than one generation of thinkers before these possibilities are exhausted. Nor
is it possible, on the view of Divine knowledge as a kind of passive omniscience, to reach
the idea of a creator. If history is regarded merely as a gradually revealed photo of a
predetermined order of events, then there is no room in it for novelty and initiation.
Consequently, we can attach no meaning to the word creation, which has a
meaning for us only in view of our own capacity for original action. The truth is that the
whole theological controversy relating to predestination is due to pure speculation with
no eye on the spontaneity of life, which is a fact of actual experience. No doubt, the
emergence of egos endowed with the power of spontaneous and hence unforeseeable action is,
in a sense, a limitation on the freedom of the all-inclusive Ego. But this limitation is
not externally imposed. It is born out of His own creative freedom whereby He has chosen
finite egos to be participators of His life, power, and freedom.
But how, it may be asked, is it
possible to reconcile limitation with Omnipotence? The word limitation need
not frighten us. The Qur«n has no liking for abstract universals. It always fixes
its gaze on the concrete which the theory of Relativity has only recently taught modern
philosophy to see. All activity, creational or otherwise, is a kind of limitation without
which it is impossible to conceive God as a concrete operative Ego. Omnipotence,
abstractly conceived, is merely a blind, capricious power without limits. The Qur«n
has a clear and definite conception of Nature as a cosmos of mutually related forces.41
It, therefore, views Divine omnipotence as intimately related to Divine wisdom, and finds
the infinite power of God revealed, not in the arbitrary and the capricious, but in the
recurrent, the regular, and the orderly. At the same time, the Qur«n conceives God
as holding all goodness in His hands.42 If, then, the rationally
directed Divine will is good, a very serious problem arises. The course of evolution, as
revealed by modern science, involves almost universal suffering and wrongdoing. No doubt,
wrongdoing is confined to man only. But the fact of pain is almost universal, thought it
is equally true that men can suffer and have suffered the most excruciating pain for the
sake of what they have believed to be good. Thus the two facts of moral and physical evil
stand out prominent in the life of Nature. Nor can the relativity of evil and the presence
of forces that tend to transmute it be a source of consolation to us; for, in spite of all
this relativity and transmutation, there is something terribly positive about it. How is
it, then, possible to reconcile the goodness and omnipotence of God with the immense
volume of evil in His creation? This painful problem is really the crux of Theism. No
modern writer has put it more accurately than Naumann in his Briefe Ü ber Religion.
We possess, he says:
a knowledge of the world
which teaches us a God of power and strength, who sends out life and death as
simultaneously as shadow and light, and a revelation, a faith as to salvation which
declares the same God to be father. The following of the world-God produces the morality
of the struggle for existence, and the service of the Father of Jesus Christ produces the
morality of compassion. And yet they are not two gods, but one God. Somehow or other,
their arms intertwine. Only no mortal can say where and how this occurs.43
To the optimist Browning all is
well with the world;44 to the pessimist Schopenhauer the world is one perpetual
winter wherein a blind will expresses itself in an infinite variety of living things which
bemoan their emergence for a moment and then disappear for ever.45 The issue
thus raised between optimism and pessimism cannot be finally decided at the present stage
of our knowledge of the universe. Our intellectual constitution is such that we can take
only a piecemeal view of things. We cannot understand the full import of the great cosmic
forces which work havoc, and at the same time sustain and amplify life. The teaching of
the Qur«n, which believes in the possibility of improvement in the behaviour of man
and his control over natural forces, is neither optimism nor pessimism. It is meliorism,
which recognizes a growing universe and is animated by the hope of mans eventual
victory over evil.
But the clue to a better
understanding of our difficulty is given in the legend relating to what is called the Fall
of Man. In this legend the Qur«n partly retains the ancient symbols, but the legend
is materially transformed with a view to put an entirely fresh meaning into it. The
Quranic method of complete or partial transformation of legends in order to besoul them
with new ideas, and thus to adapt them to the advancing spirit of time, is an important
point which has nearly always been overlooked both by Muslim and non-Muslim students of
Islam. The object of the Qur«n in dealing with these legends is seldom historical;
it nearly always aims at giving them a universal moral or philosophical import. And it
achieves this object by omitting the names of persons and localities which tend to limit
the meaning of a legend by giving it the colour of a specific historical event, and also
by deleting details which appear to belong to a different order of feeling. This is not an
uncommon method of dealing with legends. It is common in non-religious literature. An
instance in point is the legend of Faust,46 to which the touch of Goethes
genius has given a wholly new meaning.
Turning to the legend of the Fall
we find it in a variety of forms in the literatures of the ancient world. It is, indeed,
impossible to demarcate the stages of its growth, and to set out clearly the various human
motives which must have worked in its slow transformation. But confining ourselves to the
Semitic form of the myth, it is highly probable that it arose out of the primitive mans
desire to explain to himself the infinite misery of his plight in an uncongenial
environment, which abounded in disease and death and obstructed him on all sides in his
endeavour to maintain himself. Having no control over the forces of Nature, a pessimistic
view of life was perfectly natural to him. Thus, in an old Babylonian inscription, we find
the serpent (phallic symbol), the tree, and the woman offering an apple (symbol of
virginity) to the man. The meaning of the myth is clear - the fall of man from a supposed
state of bliss was due to the original sexual act of the human pair. The way in which the
Qur«n handles this legend becomes clear when we compare it with the narration of
the Book of Genesis.47 The remarkable points of difference between the Quranic
and the Biblical narrations suggest unmistakably the purpose of the Quranic narration.
1. The Qur«n omits the
serpent and the rib-story altogether. The former omission is obviously meant to free the
story from its phallic setting and its original suggestion of a pessimistic view of life.
The latter omission is meant to suggest that the purpose of the Quranic narration is not
historical, as in the case of the Old Testament, which gives us an account of the origin
of the first human pair by way of a prelude to the history of Israel. Indeed, in the
verses which deal with the origin of man as a living being, the Qur«n uses the
words Bashar or Ins«n, not ÿdam, which it reserves for man in his capacity
of Gods vicegerent on earth.48 The purpose of the Qur«n is further
secured by the omission of proper names mentioned in the Biblical narration - Adam and
Eve.49 The word Adam is retained and used more as a concept than as the name of
a concrete human individual. This use of the word is not without authority in the Qur«n
itself. The following verse is clear on the point:
We created you; then
fashioned you; then said We to the angels, "prostrate yourself unto Adam"
(7:11).
2. The Qur«n splits up the
legend into two distinct episodes the one relating to what it describes simply as
the tree50 and the other relating to the tree of eternity
and the kingdom that faileth not.51 The first episode is mentioned
in the 7th and the second in the 20th Sërah of the Qur«n. According to the Qur«n,
Adam and his wife, led astray by Satan whose function is to create doubts in the minds of
men, tasted the fruit of both the trees, whereas according to the Old Testament man was
driven out of the Garden of Eden immediately after his first act of disobedience, and God
placed, at the eastern side of the garden, angels and a flaming sword, turning on all
sides, to keep the way to the tree of life.52
3. The Old Testament curses the
earth for Adams act of disobedience;53 the Qur«n declares the
earth to be the dwelling place of man and a source of profit to
him54 for the possession of which he ought to be grateful to God. And We
have established you on the earth and given you therein the supports of life. How little
do ye give thanks! (7:10).55 Nor is there any reason to suppose that the
word Jannat (Garden) as used here means the supersensual paradise from which man is
supposed to have fallen on this earth. According to the Qur«n, man is not a
stranger on this earth. And We have caused you to grow from the earth, says
the Qur«n.56 The Jannat, mentioned in the legend, cannot mean the
eternal abode of the righteous. In the sense of the eternal abode of the righteous, Jannat
is described by the Qur«n to be the place wherein the righteous will pass to
one another the cup which shall engender no light discourse, no motive to sin.57
It is further described to be the place wherein no weariness shall reach the
righteous, nor forth from it shall they be cast.58 In the Jannat
mentioned in the legend, however, the very first event that took place was mans sin
of disobedience followed by his expulsion. In fact, the Qur«n itself explains the
meaning of the word as used in its own narration. In the second episode of the legend the
garden is described as a place where there is neither hunger, nor thirst, neither
heat nor nakedness.59 I am, therefore, inclined to think that the Jannat
in the Quranic narration is the conception of a primitive state in which man is
practically unrelated to his environment and consequently does not feel the sting of human
wants the birth of which alone marks the beginning of human culture.
Thus we see that the Quranic
legend of the Fall has nothing to do with the first appearance of man on this planet. Its
purpose is rather to indicate mans rise from a primitive state of instinctive
appetite to the conscious possession of a free self, capable of doubt and disobedience.
The Fall does not mean any moral depravity; it is mans transition from simple
consciousness to the first flash of self-consciousness, a kind of waking from the dream of
nature with a throb of personal causality in ones own being. Nor does the Qur«n
regard the earth as a torture-hall where an elementally wicked humanity is imprisoned for
an original act of sin. Mans first act of disobedience was also his first act of
free choice; and that is why, according to the Quranic narration, Adams first
transgression was forgiven.60 Now goodness is not a matter of compulsion; it is
the selfs free surrender to the moral ideal and arises out of a willing co-operation
of free egos. A being whose movements are wholly determined like a machine cannot produce
goodness. Freedom is thus a condition of goodness. But to permit the emergence of a finite
ego who has the power to choose, after considering the relative values of several courses
of action open to him, is really to take a great risk; for the freedom to choose good
involves also the freedom to choose what is the opposite of good. That God has taken this
risk shows His immense faith in man; it is for man now to justify this faith. Perhaps such
a risk alone makes it possible to test and develop the potentialities of a being who was
created of the goodliest fabric and then brought down to be the lowest
of the low.61 As the Qur«n says: And for trial will We test
you with evil and with good (21:35).62 Good and evil, therefore, though
opposites, must fall within the same whole. There is no such thing as an isolated fact;
for facts are systematic wholes the elements of which must be understood by mutual
reference. Logical judgement separates the elements of a fact only to reveal their
interdependence.
Further, it is the nature of the
self to maintain itself as a self. For this purpose it seeks knowledge,
self-multiplication, and power, or, in the words of the Qur«n, the kingdom
that never faileth. The first episode in the Quranic legend relates to mans
desire for knowledge, the second to his desire for self-multiplication and power. In
connexion with the first episode it is necessary to point out two things. Firstly, the
episode is mentioned immediately after the verses describing Adams superiority over
the angels in remembering and reproducing the names of things.63 The purpose of
these verses, as I have shown before, is to bring out the conceptual character of human
knowledge.64 Secondly, Madame Blavatsky65 who possessed a remarkable
knowledge of ancient symbolism, tells us in her book, called Secret Doctrine, that
with the ancients the tree was a cryptic symbol for occult knowledge. Adam was forbidden
to taste the fruit of this tree obviously because his finitude as a self, his
sense-equipment, and his intellectual faculties were, on the whole, attuned to a different
type of knowledge, i.e. the type of knowledge which necessitates the toil of patient
observation and admits only of slow accumulation. Satan, however, persuaded him to eat the
forbidden fruit of occult knowledge and Adam yielded, not because he was elementally
wicked, but because being hasty (ajël)66 by nature he sought
a short cut to knowledge. The only way to correct this tendency was to place him in an
environment which, however painful, was better suited to the unfolding of his intellectual
faculties. Thus Adams insertion into a painful physical environment was not meant as
a punishment; it was meant rather to defeat the object of Satan who, as an enemy of man,
diplomatically tried to keep him ignorant of the joy of perpetual growth and expansion.
But the life of a finite ego in an obstructing environment depends on the perpetual
expansion of knowledge based on actual experience. And the experience of a finite ego to
whom several possibilities are open expands only by method of trial and error. Therefore,
error which may be described as a kind of intellectual evil is an indispensable factor in
the building up of experience.
The second episode of the Quranic
legend is as follows:
But Satan whispered him
(Adam): said he, O Adam! shall I show thee the tree of Eternity and the Kingdom that
faileth not? And they both ate thereof, and their nakedness appeared to them, and they
began to sew of the leaves of the garden to cover them, and Adam disobeyed his Lord, and
went astray. Afterwards his Lord chose him for Himself, and was turned towards him, and
guided him. (20:120-22).
The central idea here is to
suggest lifes irresistible desire for a lasting dominion, an infinite career as a
concrete individual. As a temporal being, fearing the termination of its career by death,
the only course open to it is to achieve a kind of collective immortality by
self-multiplication. The eating of the forbidden fruit of the tree of eternity is lifes
resort to sex-differentiation by which it multiplies itself with a view to circumvent
total extinction. It is as if life says to death: If you sweep away one generation
of living things, I will produce another. The Qur«n rejects the phallic
symbolism of ancient art, but suggests the original sexual act by the birth of the sense
of shame disclosed in Adams anxiety to cover the nakedness of his body. Now to live
is to possess a definite outline, a concrete individuality. It is in the concrete
individuality, manifested in the countless varieties of living forms that the Ultimate Ego
reveals the infinite wealth of His Being. Yet the emergence and multiplication of
individualities, each fixing its gaze on the revelation of its own possibilities and
seeking its own dominion, inevitably brings in its wake the awful struggle of ages. Descend
ye as enemies of one another, says the Qur«n.67 This mutual
conflict of opposing individualities is the world-pain which both illuminates and darkens
the temporal career of life. In the case of man in whom individuality deepens into
personality, opening up possibilities of wrongdoing, the sense of the tragedy of life
becomes much more acute. But the acceptance of selfhood as a form of life involves the
acceptance of all the imperfections that flow from the finitude of selfhood. The Qur«n
represents man as having accepted at his peril the trust of personality which the heavens,
the earth, and the mountains refused to bear:
Verily We proposed to the
heavens and to the earth and to the mountains to receive the "trust" but they
refused the burden and they feared to receive it. Man undertook to bear it, but hath
proved unjust, senseless! (33:72).
Shall we, then, say no or yes to
the trust of personality with all its attendant ills? True manhood, according to the Qur«n,
consists in patience under ills and hardships.68 At the present
stage of the evolution of selfhood, however, we cannot understand the full import of the
discipline which the driving power of pain brings. Perhaps it hardens the self against a
possible dissolution. But in asking the above question we are passing the boundaries of
pure thought. This is the point where faith in the eventual triumph of goodness emerges as
a religious doctrine. God is equal to His purpose, but most men know it not
(12:21).
I have now explained to you how
it is possible philosophically to justify the Islamic conception of God. But as I have
said before, religious ambition soars higher than the ambition of philosophy.69
Religion is not satisfied with mere conception; it seeks a more intimate knowledge of and
association with the object of its pursuit. The agency through which this association is
achieved is the act of worship or prayer ending in spiritual illumination. The act of
worship, however, affects different varieties of consciousness differently. In the case of
the prophetic consciousness it is in the main creative, i.e. it tends to create a fresh
ethical world wherein the Prophet, so to speak, applies the pragmatic test to his
revelations. I shall further develop this point in my lecture on the meaning of Muslim
Culture.70 In the case of the mystic consciousness it is in the main cognitive.
It is from this cognitive point of view that I will try to discover the meaning of prayer.
And this point of view is perfectly justifiable in view of the ultimate motive of prayer.
I would draw your attention to the following passage from the great American psychologist,
Professor William James:
It seems to probable that
in spite of all that "science" may do to the contrary, men will continue to pray
to the end of time, unless their mental nature changes in a manner which nothing we know
should lead us to expect. The impulse to pray is a necessary consequence of the fact that
whilst the innermost of the empirical selves of a man is a Self of the social sort, it yet
can find its only adequate Socius [its "great companion"] in an ideal world.
. . . most men, either
continually or occasionally, carry a reference to it in their breast. The humblest outcast
on this earth can feel himself to be real and valid by means of this higher recognition.
And, on the other hand, for most of us, a world with no such inner refuge when the outer
social self failed and dropped from us would be the abyss of horror. I say "for most
of us", because it is probable that individuals differ a good deal in the degree in
which they are haunted by this sense of an ideal spectator. It is a much more essential
part of the consciousness of some men than of others. Those who have the most of it are
possibly the most religious men. But I am sure that even those who say they are altogether
without it deceive themselves, and really have it in some degree.71
Thus you will see that,
psychologically speaking, prayer is instinctive in its origin. The act of prayer as aiming
at knowledge resembles reflection. Yet prayer at its highest is much more than abstract
reflection. Like reflection it too is a process of assimilation, but the assimilative
process in the case of prayer draws itself closely together and thereby acquires a power
unknown to pure thought. In thought the mind observes and follows the working of Reality;
in the act of prayer it gives up its career as a seeker of slow-footed universality and
rises higher than thought to capture Reality itself with a view to become a conscious
participator in its life. There is nothing mystical about it. Prayer as a means of
spiritual illumination is a normal vital act by which the little island of our personality
suddenly discovers its situation in a larger whole of life. Do not think I am talking of
auto-suggestion. Auto-suggestion has nothing to do with the opening up of the sources of
life that lie in the depths of the human ego. Unlike spiritual illumination which brings
fresh power by shaping human personality, it leaves no permanent life-effects behind. Nor
am I speaking of some occult and special way of knowledge. All that I mean is to fix your
attention on a real human experience which has a history behind it and a future before it.
Mysticism has, no doubt, revealed fresh regions of the self by making a special study of
this experience. Its literature is illuminating; yet its set phraseology shaped by the
thought-forms of a worn-out metaphysics has rather a deadening effect on the modern mind.
The quest after a nameless nothing, as disclosed in Neo-Platonic mysticism - be it
Christian or Muslim - cannot satisfy the modern mind which, with its habits of concrete
thinking, demands a concrete living experience of God. And the history of the race shows
that the attitude of the mind embodied in the act of worship is a condition for such an
experience. In fact, prayer must be regarded as a necessary complement to the intellectual
activity of the observer of Nature. The scientific observation of Nature keeps us in close
contact with the behaviour of Reality, and thus sharpens our inner perception for a deeper
vision of it. I cannot help quoting here a beautiful passage from the mystic poet Rëmâ
in which he describes the mystic quest after Reality:72
The Sëfis book is not
composed of ink and letters: it is not but a heart white as snow.
The scholars possession is pen-marks. What is the Sëfis possession? -
foot-marks.
The Sëfi stalks the game like a hunter: he sees the musk-deers track and follows
the footprints.
For some while the track of the deer is the proper clue for him, but afterwards it is the
musk-gland of the deer that is his guide.
To go one stage guided by the scent of the musk-gland is better than a hundred stages of
following the track and roaming about.73
The truth is that all search for
knowledge is essentially a form of prayer. The scientific observer of Nature is a kind of
mystic seeker in the act of prayer. Although at present he follows only the footprints of
the musk-deer, and thus modestly limits the method of his quest, his thirst for knowledge
is eventually sure to lead him to the point where the scent of the musk-gland is a better
guide than the footprints of the deer. This alone will add to his power over Nature and
give him that vision of the total-infinite which philosophy seeks but cannot find. Vision
without power does bring moral elevation but cannot give a lasting culture. Power without
vision tends to become destructive and inhuman. Both must combine for the spiritual
expansion of humanity.
The real object of prayer,
however, is better achieved when the act of prayer becomes congregational. The spirit of
all true prayer is social. Even the hermit abandons the society of men in the hope of
finding, in a solitary abode, the fellowship of God. A congregation is an association of
men who, animated by the same aspiration, concentrate themselves on a single object and
open up their inner selves to the working of a single impulse. It is a psychological truth
that association multiplies the normal mans power of perception, deepens his
emotion, and dynamizes his will to a degree unknown to him in the privacy of his
individuality. Indeed, regarded as a psychological phenomenon, prayer is still a mystery;
for psychology has not yet discovered the laws relating to the enhancement of human
sensibility in a state of association. With Islam, however, this socialization of
spiritual illumination through associative prayer is a special point of interest. As we
pass from the daily congregational prayer to the annual ceremony round the central mosque
of Mecca, you can easily see how the Islamic institution of worship gradually enlarges the
sphere of human association.
Prayer, then, whether individual
or associative, is an expression of mans inner yearning for a response in the awful
silence of the universe. It is a unique process of discovery whereby the searching ego
affirms itself in the very moment of self-negation, and thus discovers its own worth and
justification as a dynamic factor in the life of the universe. True to the psychology of
mental attitude in prayer, the form of worship in Islam symbolizes both affirmation and
negation. Yet, in view of the fact borne out by the experience of the race that prayer, as
an inner act, has found expression in a variety of forms, the Qur«n says:
To every people have We
appointed ways of worship which they observe. Therefore let them not dispute this matter
with thee, but bid them to thy Lord for thou art on the right way: but if they debate with
thee, then say: God best knoweth what ye do! He will judge between
you on the Day of Resurrection,
as to the matters wherein ye differ (22:67-69).
The form of prayer ought not to
become a matter of dispute.74 Which side you turn your face is certainly not
essential to the spirit of prayer. The Qur«n is perfectly clear on this point:
The East and West is Gods:
therefore whichever way ye turn, there is the face of God (2:115).
There is no piety in
turning your faces towards the East or the West, but he is pious who believeth in God, and
the Last Day, and the angels, and the scriptures, and the prophets; who for the love of
God disburseth his wealth to his kindred, and to the orphans, and the needy, and the
wayfarer, and those who ask, and for ransoming; who observeth prayer, and payeth the legal
alms, and who is of those who are faithful to their engagements when they have engaged in
them; and patient under ills and hardships, in time of trouble: those are they who are
just, and those are they who fear the Lord (2:177).
Yet we cannot ignore the
important consideration that the posture of the body is a real factor in determining the
attitude of the mind. The choice of one particular direction in Islamic worship is meant
to secure the unity of feeling in the congregation, and its form in general creates and
fosters the sense of social equality inasmuch as it tends to destroy the feeling of rank
or race superiority in the worshippers. What a tremendous spiritual revolution will take
place, practically in no time, if the proud aristocratic Brahmin of South India is daily
made to stand shoulder to shoulder with the untouchable! From the unity of the
all-inclusive Ego who creates and sustains all egos follows the essential unity of all
mankind.75 The division of mankind into races, nations, and tribes, according
to the Qur«n, is for purposes of identification only.76 The Islamic form
of association in prayer, therefore, besides its cognitive value, is further indicative of
the aspiration to realize this essential unity of mankind as a fact in life by demolishing
all barriers which stand between man and man.
Lecture Notes:
1. Cf. Creative Evolution,
p. 13; also pp. 45-46.
2. Ibid., p. 14.
3. See Qur«n, for example,
2:163, 4:171, 5:73, 6:19, 13:16, 14:48, 21:108, 39:4 and 40:16, on the Unity of Allah and
4:171, 6:101, 10:68, 17:111, 19:88-92 emphatically denying the Christian doctrine of His
sonship.
4. Cf. L.R. Farnell, The
Attributes of God, p. 56.
5. The full translation here is
a glistening star, required by the nass of the Qur«n, Kaukab-un
îurrây-ën.
6. On this fine distinction of
Gods infinity being intensive and not extensive, see further Lecture IV, p. 94.
7. For the long-drawn controversy
on the issue of the creation of the universe, see, for instance, Ghazz«lâ, Tah«fut
al-Fal«sifah, English translation by S.A. Kam«lâ: Incoherence of the Philosophers,
pp. 13-53, and Ibn Rushd, Tah«fut al-Tah«fut, English translation by Simon van
den Bergh: The Incoherence of the Incoherence, pp. 1-69; cf. also G.F. Hourani,
Alghaz«lâ and the Philosophers on the Origin of the World, The Muslim
World, XLVII/2(1958), 183-91, 308-14 and M. Saeed Sheikh, Al-Ghaz«lâ:
Metaphysics, A History of Muslim Philosophy ed. M.M. Sharif, I, 598-608.
8. Cf. Lecture II, 28, 49.
9. A.S. Eddington, Space, Time
and Gravitation, pp. 197-98 (italics by Allama Iqbal).
10. For AbuHashims theory
of atomism cf. T.J. de Boer, Atomic Theory (Muhammadan), Encyclopaedia of
Religion and Ethics, II, 202-03. De Boers account is based on Abë Rashâd Saâds
Kit«b al-Mas«il Fil-Khil«f, ed. and trans. into German by Arthur
Biram (Leyden,1902).
11. Cf. Ibn Khaldën, Muqaddimah,
English translation by F. Rosenthal, III, 50-51, where B«qill«nâ is said to have
introduced the conceptions of atom(al-jawhar al-fard), vacuum and accidents into the Ashartie
Kal«m. R. J. McCarthy, who has edited and also translated some of B«qill«nâs
texts, however, considers this to be unwarranted; see his article al-B«kâll«nâs
in the Encyclopaedia of Islam (New edition), I, 958-59. From the account of Muslim
atomism given in al-Asharâs Maq«l«t al-Isl«miyân, this much has,
however, to be conceded that atomism was keenly discussed by the Muslim scholastic
theologians long before B«qill«nâ.
12. For the life and works of
Maimonides and his relationship with Muslim philosophy, cf. S. Pines, The Guide of the
Perpelexed (New English translation, Chicago University Press, 1963), Introduction
by the translator and an Introductory Essay by L. Strauss; cf. also Sarton, Introduction
to the History of Science, II, 369-70 and 376-77.
13. D.B. Macdonald, Continuous
Re-creation and Atomic Time in Moslem Scholastic Theology, The Moslem World,
XVII/i (1928), 6-28; reprinted from Isis, IX (1927), 326-44. This article is
focussed on Maimonides well-known Twelve Propositions of the Katam.
14. Macdonald, Continuous
Re-creation and Atomic Time . . . in op. cit., p.24.
15. Ibid., pp. 25-28. See
also The Religious Attitude and Life in Islam, p. 320, where Macdonald traces the
pantheistic developments in later sufi schools to Buddhistic and Vedantic influences.
16. Qur«n, 35:1.
17. Cf. de Boer, Atomic
Theory (Muhammadan), in op. cit., II, 203.
18. Cf. Eddington, op. cit.,
p. 200.
19. For an account of Naïï«ms
notion of al-tafrah or jump, see Asharâ, Maq«l«t al-Isl«miyân,
II, 18; Ibn Àazm, Kit«b al-FiÄal, V, 64-65, and Shahrast«nâ, Kit«b
al-Milal wal-NiÁal, pp. 38-39; cf. also Isr«ânâ, Al-Tabsâr, p.
68, Majid Fakhry, Islamic Occasionalism, p. 39, and H.A. Wolfson: The Philosophy
of the Kal«m, pp. 514-17.
20. A.N. Whitehead, Science
and the Modern World, p. 49.
21. A view, among others held by
B«qill«nâ who bases it on the Quranic verses 8:67 and 46:24 which speak of the
transient nature of the things of this world. Cf. Kit«b al-Tamhâd, p. 18.
22. Lecture I, p. 3; see also
Lecture V, p. 102, note 21.
23. For Asharites
theory of the perpetual re-creation of the universe basing it on the Absolute Power and
Will of God, cf. Majid Fakhry, Islamic Occasionalism, pp. 15, 117 ff. and M. Saeed
Sheikh, Al-Ghaz«lâ; Metaphysics, in op. cit., I, 603-08.
24. In R.A. Nicholsons
edition of the Mathnawâ this verse (i.1812) reads as under:
Wine became intoxicated with us,
not we with it;
The body came into being from us,
not we from it.
25. Viscount Richard Burdon
Haldane, the elder brother of John Scott Haldane, from whose Symposium Paper Allama Iqbal
has quoted at length in Lecture II, p. 35, was a leading neo-Hegelian British philosopher
and a distinguished statesman who died on 19 August 1928. Allamas using the
expression the late Lord Haldane is indicative of the possible time of his
writing the present Lecture which together with the first two Lectures was delivered in
Madras (5-8 Jan. 1929). The idea of degrees of reality and knowledge, is very
vigorously expounded by Haldane in The Reign of Relativity (1921) as also in his
earlier two-volume Gifford Lectures: The Pathway to Reality (1903-04) in which he
also expounded the Principle of Relativity on purely philosophical grounds even before the
publication of Einsteins theory; cf. Rudolf Metz, A Hundred Years of British
Philosophy, p. 315.
26. This is a reference to the
Quran, 20:14.
27. Ibid., 50:16.
28. For further elucidation of
the privacy of the ego, see Lecture IV, pp. 79-80.
29. Cf. p. 64 where Iqbal says
that God out of His own creative freedom . . . . has chosen finite egos to be
participators of His life, power, and freedom.
30. The tradition: Do not
vilify time, for time is God referred to in Lecture I, p. 8.
31. Cf. The Mathematical
Principles of Natural Philosophy, Vol. I, Definition viii, Scholium i.
32. Cf. Louis Rougier, Philosophy
and the New Physics (An Essay on the Relativity Theory and the Theory of Quanta), p.
143. The work belongs to the earlier phase of Rougiers philosophical output, a phase
in which he was seized by the new discoveries of physicists and mathematicians such as
Henry Poincare (celestial mechanics and new geometry), Max Planck (quantium theory)
Nicolas L. Carnot (thermodynamics), Madame Curie (radium and its compounds) and Einstein
(principle of relativity). This was followed by his critical study of theories of
knowledge: rationalism and scholasticism, ending in his thesis of the diversity of metaphysical
temperaments and the infinite plasticity of the human mind whereby it
takes delight in quite varied forms of intelligibility. To the final phase of
Rougiers philosophical productivity belongs La Metaphysique et le langage
(1960) in which he elaborated the conception of plurality of language in philosophical
discourse. Rougier also wrote on history of ideas (scientific, philosophical, religious)
and on contemporary political and economical problems - his Les Mystiques politiques et
leurs incidences internationales (1935) and Les Mystiques economiques (1949)
are noteworthy.
It is to be noted that both the
name Louis Rougier and the title of his book Philosophy and the New Physics
cited in the passage quoted by Allama Iqbal are given puzzlingly incorrectly in the
previous editions of Reconstruction including the one by Oxford University Press
(London, 1934); and these were not noticed even by Madame Eva Meyerovitch in her French
translation: Reconstruire la pensee religieuse de lIslam (Paris, 1955, p.
83). It would have been well-nigh impossible for me to find out the authors name and
title of the book correctly had I not received the very kindly help of the Dutch scholar
the Reverend Dr. Jan Slomp and Mlle Mauricette Levasseur of Bibliothé que Nationale,
Paris, who also supplied me with many useful particulars about the life and works of
Rougier. The last thing that I heard was that this French philosopher who taught in
various universities including the ones in Cairo and New York and who participated in
various Congresses and was the President of the Paris International Congress of Scientific
Philosophy in 1935, passed away on 14 October 1982 at the age of ninety-three.
33. Cf. Space, Time and Deity,
II, 396-98; also Allama Iqbals letter dated 24 January 1921 addressed to R.A.
Nicholson (Letters of Iqbal, ed. B.A. Dar, pp. 141-42) where, while disagreeing
with Alexanders view of God, he observes: I believe there is a Divine tendency
in the universe, but this tendency will eventually find its complete expression in a
higher man, not in a God subject to Time, as Alexander implies in his discussion of the
subject.
34. The Sufi poet named here as
well as in Lectures V and VII as (Fakhr al-Dân) Ir«qâ, we are told, is really
Ain al-Quî«t Abul-Mu«lâ Abdullah b. Muhammad b. Alâ b.
al-Àasan b. Alâ al-Miy«njâ al-Hamad«nâ whose tractate on space and time: Gh«yat
al-Imk«n fi Dir«yat al-Mak«n (54 pp.) has been edited by Rahim Farmanish (Tehran,
1338 S/1959); cf. English translation of the tractate by A.H. Kamali, section captioned:
Observations, pp. i-v; also B.A. Dar, Iqbal aur Masalah-i
Zam«n-o-Mak«n in Fikr-i Iqbal ke Munawwar Goshay, ed. Salim Akhtar, pp.
149-51. Nadhr S«birâ, however, strongly pleads that the real author of the tractate was
Shaikh T«j al-Dân Mahmëd b. Khud«-d«d Ashnawâ, as also hinted by Allama Iqbal in his
Presidential Address delivered at the Fifth Indian Oriental Conference (1928) (Speeches,
Writings and Statements of Iqbal,p. 137). Cf. Shaikh Mahmëd Ashnawâs
tractate: Gh«yat al Imk«n fi Marifat al-Zam«n wal-Mak«n (42 pp.)
edited by Nadhr S«birâ, Introduction embodying the editors research
about the MSS of the tractate and the available data of its author; also H«jâKhalâfah, Kashf
al-Zunën, II, 1190, and A. Monzavi, A Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts, vol.
II, Part I, MSS 7556-72.
Cf. also Maul«n«Imti«z AlâKh«n
Arshâ, Zam«n-o-Mak«n kâ Bahth ke Mutaallaq All«mah Iqb«l k«
aik Ma«khidh: Ir«qâya Ashnawâ, Maq«l«t: Iqb«l ÿlamâ
K«ngras (Iqbal Centenary Papers Presented at the International Congress on Allama
Mohammad Iqbal: 2-8 December 1977), IV, 1-10 wherein Maul«n« Arshâ traces a new
MS of the tractate in the Raza Library, Rampur, and suggests the possibility of its being
the one used by Allama Iqbal in these Lectures as well as in his Address: A Plea for
Deeper Study of Muslim Scientists.
It may be added that there
remains now no doubt as to the particular MS of this unique Sufi tractate on Space
and Time used by Allama Iqbal, for fortunately it is well preserved in the Allama
Iqbal Museum, Lahore (inaugurated by the President of Pakistan on 26 September 1984). The
MS, according to a note in Allamas own hand dated 21 October 1935, was transcribed
for him by the celebrated religious scholar Sayyid Anwar Sh«h K«shmârâ Cf. Dr Ahmad
Nabi Khan, Relics of Allama Iqbal (Catalogue), p. 12.
For purposes of present
annotation we have referred to Rahi`m Farmanishs edition of Hamad«nâs Gh«yat
al-Imk«n fi Dir«yat al-Mak«n (Tehran, 1338/1959) and to A.H. Kamalis English
translation of it (Karachi, 1971) where needed. This translation, however, is to be used
with caution.
35. Cf. Ain al-Quz«t
Hamad«nâ, op. cit., p. 51; English translation, p. 36.
36. The Quranic expression umm al-kit«b
occurs in 3:7, 13:39 and 43:4.
37. Cf. al-Mab«hith
al-Mashriqâgah, I, 647; the Arabic text of the passage quoted in English is as under:
38. Reference here is in
particular to the Qur«n 23:80 quoted in Lecture II, p.37.
39. Cf. Lecture II, p. 49, where,
summing up his philosophical criticism of experience, Allama Iqbal says:
facts of experience justify the inference that the ultimate nature of Reality is
spiritual and must be conceived as an ego.
40. Cf. Ain al-Quz«t
Hamad«nâ, op. cit., p. 50; English translation, p. 36. For Royces view of
knowledge of all things as a whole at once (totum simul), see his World and the
Individual, II, 141.
41. About the cosmic harmony and
unity of Nature the Qur«n says: Thou seest no incongruity in the creation of
the Beneficent. Then look again. Canst thou see any disorder? Then turn thy eye again and
again - thy look will return to thee concused while it is fatigued (67:3-4).
42. Qur«n, 3:26 and 73:
see also 57:29.
43. Cf. Joseph Friedrich Naumann,
Briefe ü ber Religion, p. 68; also Lecture VI, note 38. The German text of the
passage quoted in English is as under:
"Wir haben eine
Welterkenntnis, die uns einen Gott der Macht und Starke lehrt, der Tod und Leben wie
Schatten und Licht gleichzeitig versendet, und eine Offenbarung, einen Heilsglauben, der
von demselben Gott sagt, dass er Vater sei. Die Nachfolge des Weltgottes ergibt die
Sittlichkeit des Kampfes ums Dasein, und der Dienst des Vaters Jesu Christi ergibt die
Sittlichkeit der Barmherzigkeit. Es sind aber nicht zwei Gotter, sondern einer. Irgendwie
greifen ihre Arme ineinander. Nur kann kein Sterblicher sagen, wo und wie das
geschieht."
44. Reference is to Brownings
famous lines in Pippa Passes:
God is in the heaven -
All is right with the world.
45. Cf. Schopenhauer, World as
Will and Idea, trans. R.B. Haldane and J. Kemp, Book iv, section 57.
46. For the origin and historical
growth of the legend of Faust before Goethes masterly work on it, cf. Mary
Beares article Faust in Cassells Encyclopaedia of Literature,
1, 217-19.
47. Cf. Genesis, chapter iii.
48. Strictly speaking, the word
Adam for man in his capacity of Gods vicegerent on earth has been used in the Qur«n
only in 2:30-31.
49. Cf. Genesis, iii, 20.
50. Qur«n, 7:19.
51. Ibid., 20:120.
52. Cf. Genesis, iii, 24.
53. Ibid., iii,17.
54. Qur«n, 2:36 and 7:24.
55. Cf. also verses 15:19-20.
56. Ibid., 71:17.
57. Ibid., 52:23.
58. Ibid., 15:48.
59. Ibid., 20:118-119.
60. Ibid., 2:35-37; also
20:120-122.
61. Ibid., 95:4-5.
62. Cf. also verses 2:155 and
90:4.
63. Ibid., 2:31-34.
64. Lecture I, pp. 10-11.
65. Madame Helena Petrovna
Blavatsky (1831-1891) is a noted spiritualist and theosophist of Russian birth, who in
collaboration with Col. H.S. Olcott and W.A. Judge founded Theosophical Society in New
York in November 1873. Later she transferred her activities to India where in 1879 she
established the office of the Society in Bombay and in 1883 in Adyar near Madras with the
following three objects: (i) to form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity;
(ii) to promote the study of comparative religion, philosophy and science, and (iii) to
investigate the unexplained laws of nature and powers latent in man. The Secret
Doctrine (1888) deals, broadly speaking, with Cosmogenesis and Anthropogenesis
in a ponderous way; though largely based on Vedantic thought the secret doctrine
is claimed to carry in it the essence of all religions.
For the mention of tree as a
cryptic symbol for occult knowledge in The Secret Doctrine, cf. I, 187:
The Symbol for Sacred and Secret knowledge in antiquity was universally a Tree, by
which a scripture or a Record was also meant; III, 384: Ormzad . . . is also
the creator of the Tree (of Occult and Spiritual Knowledge and Wisdom) from which
the mystic and the mysterious Baresma is taken, and IV, 159: To the Eastern
Occultist the Tree of Knowledge (leads) to the light of the eternal present Reality.
It may be added that Allama Iqbal
seems to have a little more than a mere passing interest in the Theosophical Society and
its activities for, as reported by Dr M. Abdull«h Chaghat«â, he, during his
quite busy stay in Madras (5-8 Jan. 1929) in connection with the present Lectures, found
time to pay a visit to the head office of the Society at Adyar. One may also note in Development
of Metaphysics in Persia (p. 10, note 2) reference to a small work Reincarnation
by the famous Annie Besant (President of the Theosophical Society, 1907-1933, and the
first and the only English woman who served as President of the Indian National Congress
in 1917) and added to this are the two books published by the Theosophical Society in
Allamas personal library (cf. Descriptive Catalogue of Allama Iqbals
Personal Library, No. 81 and Relics of Allama Iqbal; Catalogue IV, 11). All
this, however, does not enable one to determine the nature of Allama Iqbals interest
in the Theosophical Society.
66. Qur«n, 17; 11; also
21:37. The tree which Adam was forbidden to approach (2:35 and 7:19), according to Allama
Iqbals remarkably profound and rare understanding of the Qur«n, is the tree
of occult knowledge, to which man in all ages has been tempted to resort in
unfruitful haste. This, in Allamas view, is opposed to the inductive knowledge
which is most characteristic of Islamic teachings. He indeed, tells us in
Lecture V (p. 101) that the birth of Islam is the birth of inductive intellect.
True, this second kind of knowledge is so toilsome and painfully slow: yet this knowledge
alone unfolds mans creative intellectual faculties and makes him the master of his
environment and thus Gods true vicegerent on earth. If this is the true approach to
knowledge, there is little place in it for Mme Blavatskys occult spiritualism or
theosophism. Allama Iqbal was in fact opposed to all kinds of occultism. In one of his
dialogues, he is reported to have said that the forbidden tree (shajr-i
mamnëah) of the Qur«n is no other than the occultistic taÄawwuf
which prompts the patient to seek some charm or spell rather than take the advice of a
physician. The taÄawwuf, he added, which urges us to close our eyes and ears and
instead to concentrate on the inner vision and which teaches us to leave the arduous ways
of conquering Nature and instead take to some easier spiritual ways, has done the greatest
harm to science. [Cf. Dr Abul-Laith Siddâqâ, Malfëz«t-i Iqb«l, pp.
138-39]. It must, however, be added that Allama Iqbal does speak of a genuine or higher
kind of taÄawwuf which soars higher than all sciences and all philosophies. In it
the human ego so to say discovers himself as an individual deeper than his conceptually
describable habitual selfhood. This happens in the egos contact with the Most Real
which brings about in it a kind of biological transformation the description
of which surpasses all ordinary language and all usual categories of thought. This
experience can embody itself only in a world-making or world-shaking act, and in this form
alone, we are told, can this timeless experience . . . make itself visible to
the eye of history (Lecture VII, p. 145).
67. Qur«n, 2:36; 7:24;
20:123.
68. Ibid., 2:177; 3:200.
69. Lecture II, p. 58.
70. Lecture V, pp. 119ff.
71. The Principles of
Psychology, I, 316.
72. Cf. R.A. Nicholson (ed. and
tr.), The Mathnawi of Jalalëddân Rëmâ, Vol. IV (Books i and ii - text), ii, w.
159-162 and 164.
73. Cf. ibid., Vol. IV, 2 (Books
i and ii - translation), p. 230. It is to be noted that quite a few minor changes made by
Allama Iqbal in Nicholsons English translation of the verses quoted here from the Mathnawâ
are due to his dropping Nicholsons parentheses used by him for keeping his
translation literally as close to the text as it was possible. Happily, Allamas
personal copies of Volumes 2-5 and 7 of Nicholsons edition of the Mathnawi are
preserved in Allama Iqbal Museum (Lahore) and it would be rewarding to study his usual
marginal marks and jottings on these volumes.
74. Cf. the Quranic verse 3:191
where so far as private prayers are concerned the faithful ones are spoken of remembering
God standing and sitting and lying on their sides.
75. The Qur«n speaks of
all mankind as one community; see verses 2:213, 10:19.
76. Ibid., 49:13.