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Islamology
The Basic Design for
a School of Thought and Action
by: Dr. Ali Shariati
Part One
Introduction
I present
a geometrical figure of a school of thought and an ide-
ology which every Islamologist and aware Muslim should
have of
Islam, not only as explanation of their religious belief
but as a logo
of a school of thought and ideology.
Gaston Bachelard, one of the greatest
thinkers of ourage, com-
parable to Descartes and Plato, who, unfortunately died
a few
years ago being quite unknown, believed that when an idea
can be
conceptualized in a geometric form, it has found its proper
lan-
guage in which to express and explain itself. That is,
when an idea
finds geometrical expression, this idea has found thebest
language
of its expression.
Any idea which can be conceptualized
and then expressed
through a geometric form, is itself proof of its being
both valid and
sound. The most exact scientific concepts in the world
are mathe-
matical ones. If we are able to express our philosophical
or ideologi-
cal ideas in mathematical or geometrical language, we
have both
found the best language to express our concepts as well
as the best
proof of the fact that intellectual ideas are logical
as opposed to
philosophies and religions which have to engage in discussion,
argumentation, sophistry, debates and comparisons to prove
their
logic.There, one will have chosen the weakest language
of expres-
sion from the view of reasoning and logic.
If, instead, one could make use of
mathematics as the language
of expression for an intellectual, philosophical or religious
school
or even literary or artistic school, it is then that a
school of thought
will have succeeded in finding expression through logical
reason-
ing, proving itself to be both logical and scientific.
I wanted to add just one point. A school
shows whether or not
it is a natural form, whether or not its curve is normal
or abnormal,
whether or not its form is heterogeneous or homogeneous
through
the geometric form in which it is expressed. That is,
one can
understand the natural qualities of a school from its
geometric
expression....
Scholars and Scholars
There is a great difference between
knowledge which has been
understood and knowledge which has just been learned.
You may
know people who are very knowledgeable about a famous
person,
book or school but not understand the person, book or
school. What
is the difference between these two? If I succeed in expressing
the
difference between these two, I will, then, have succeeded
in
explaining the difference between a real Islamic scholar
and a
person who has simply learned about Islam but does not
under-
stand it.
There are some Islamic scholars who
understand Islam and
there are some Islamic scholars - many, as a matter of
fact - who
have only learned about Islam. On the other hand, there
are some
who understand Islam well but are not considered to be
Islamic
scholars.
The same difference exists in literature,
in the case of some pro-
fessors who know, for instance, how many manuscripts of
the
poems of Hafiz exist in the world, where each one is,
what the
weight or dimension of the volumes are, how many poems
or
which different ones are included in each edition and
who know
the names and attributes of all those who were praised
by Hafiz,
what effect they had upon him, what their position was
in relation
to him, etc. They know how many Persian or Arabic words
exist in
Hafiz's poems or they know all of the allusions and historical
references made by Hafiz, but they in no way understand
Hafiz.
Understanding Hafiz is something else. These 'Hafiz-ologists'
have
no spiritual or intellectual sympathy with Hafiz. Thus,
under-
standing Hafiz differs from having learned some things
about him.
The same is true in regard to a person.
Look at any thinker or
artist. Someone may come along and take down all the physical
characteristics of a person and define each cell in his
body, know his
complete physiology, his age, etc. and have very accurate
informa-
tion about him but not understand this person as a great
thinker or
artist. Another person may come along and in just one
meeting, one
encounter, with a simple exchange of ideas, come to understand
this person better and more deeply than the other with
all of his
scientific information.
It is the same with knowing a school
of thought. Understanding
of a school of thought is not the same as having technical
and
detailed information about it. It is to have a feeling
about the
orientation of this school - to understand it as a whole
and not just
knowing parts or sections of it. It is to feel deeply
towards a religion
or an ideology, to find the spirit and meaning which is
hidden in an
idea.
This is what I mean by understanding
Islam or Islamology - not
as a culture. Of course, the valuable aspects of Islamic
culture and
Islamic sciences which are important sources of Islamic
civiliza-
tion, should be studied. By Islamology I mean the understanding
of the ideology of Islam, not just Islamic sciences which
are rou-
tinely taught in the schools and universities. It is as
the poets,
writers and artists of the people understand a poem, literature
and
art, not as those who are taught by professors of the
Faculty of
Letters.
All of the French literary schools
of the 19th and 20th centuries
were formed in cafes, not in the classrooms of the Sorbonne
Univer-
sity. They began at first with the masses and those who
had genius,
feeling, sense of movement, enthusiasm and the courag
to create
a new school in music, painting, literature or poetry
. Then it is
spread to groups and gatherings in the cafes as well as
through the
intellectual and spiritual relationships of people here
and there and
on the streets.
It was then that the educated people
of the universities began
to oppose the new wave or school of thought referring
to it as a
deviation. They used the argument that the intention was
to spoil
art and literature and that the new ideas would impair
the inde-
pendence of their culture and literature.
The struggle and conflict began but
the determinism of time
and logic strengthened the new wave of thought and armed
it with
a new logic which weakened, defeated and destroyed the
old logic.
And, then, after a few years, the new
'condemned' school found
official acceptance. It imposed itself upon the university.
The
professors of the universities were then proud that they
taught the
'new poetry' and 'new art'.
Thus there are two kinds of understanding
or knowing. One
kind is seen in those who claim to be scholars of a school
or a culture,
who have specialized in the sciences and cultural ideas
of that
school. They have studied it and are university graduates.
The other kind is seen in those who
may or may not be special-
ists of that school of thought but they sense it. They
feel it and thus
know and understand it better than the first group because
the
second group have come to know the 'spirit' and 'orientation'
of
that school or movement and not to simply know it scientifically.
Islam as Culture vs Islarn as Ideology
Throughout the history of Islamic civilization,
Islam, in the
serise of Islamic culture and Islam, in the sense of Islamic
sciences,
has become a complex of theological, interpretative, historic
thoughts
and words combined together to form what is known as Islamic
sciences and each has its own specialized field of study.
What one
does is to study, gain technical knowledge and become
an expert in
one field.
But one comes to understand Islam in
the sense of an ideology
in another way. Islam, as an ideology, is not a scientific
specializa-
tion but is the feeling one has in regard to a school
of thought as a
belief system and not as a culture. It is the perceiving
of Islam as an
idea and not as a collection of sciences. It is the understanding
of
Islam as a human, historical and intellectual movement,
not as a
storehouse of scientific and technical information. And,
finally, it is
the view of Islam as an ideology in the minds of an intellectual
and
not as ancient religious sciences in the mind of a religious
scholar.
Islamology, then, should be taught in this way.
To further this end, I will first give
a general picture of a school
of thought and will explain what a school of thought means.
I will
also explain what I mean when I say Islam should be viewed
as an
ideological school, not as a culture or complex of sciences.
Two
questions, then, should be answered: First, what is a
school of
thought or doctrine? Second, what is Islam itself as an
ideologic
school? I will try to give an accurate description of
ideological
concepts.
The Idea of a School of Thought
I will first explain a school of thought
as an idea and then offer
it in the form of a geometric design. When I say 'maktab',
school of
thought, I mean a harmonious collection of philosophical
concepts,
religiousbeliefs,ethical valuesand practical methodswhich,
through
a rational relationship, create a moving, meaningful,
directed and
united body which is alive, all parts of it being nourished
by one
spirit.
An expert may or may not have a school
of thought but if he has
one, even if, for instance, he be a physicist, you can
guess what his
views are in regard to economic or class issues before
he says
anything about what he thinks. If he be an economist,
and have a
school of thought, you can foresee what his philosophical
views are
in regard to nature.
Why? Because all of the views on economics,
sociology, reli-
gion, philosophy and even on art and literature of a person
who
believes in a particular school of thought, have a cause
and effect
relationship to each other.
Thus, by knowing one dimension of his
views, you can guess
the other dimensions of his intellectual concepts or his
intuitions.
If one believes in a school of thought, one's beliefs,
emotions, way
of life, politics, social views, intellectual, religious
and ethical
concepts are not separate but interrelated. They are alive
with one
spirit, existing harmoniously in one form.
A fascist, existentialist or Marxist
has a school of thought. You
may know a physicist who is, say, a fascist. In that case,
you can say
that from the psychological point of view, he believes
in the
psychology of racism and racial discrimination. From the
political
point of view, he believes in nationalism and realism
and from the
social point of view, he believes in the authenticity
of the family.
Ashehas a school of thought, his political,
economic oreven lit-
erary beliefs are in harmony, coordinated and united.
These de-
velop a general form and this form is called 'ideological
school'.
On the other hand, take a physicist
who has no school of
thought. What is his orientation? From the economic point
of view,
he has none. He has no opinion, or, if he has, what is
it? Does he
move on the left, right or center? You do not know. You
have to ask
him. Such a person discusses issues from all sides. You
have to first
listen to his discussions to see what his opinion is and
then condude
that his view is this or that because it is possible that
in every area,
he take a different approach, a particular belief because
he does not
believe in a school of thought.
A person who has a 'maktab' thinks
about all issues of life - ideo-
logical, literary, artistic, historic, whatever. His conclusion
about is-
sues is coordinated and in harmony with his ideology and
beliefs.
For example, you may see a man who
believes in a committed
social school. Although he has not said a single word
about litera-
ture or art, because he belongs to a committed social
school of
thought, you know that he does not believe in literature
for litera-
ture's sake, art for art's sake or poetry for poetry's
sake or in
1iterature as a language for personal feelings', but he
most certainly
believes that art and literature must be at the service
of social
struggle because he believes in a school of social commitment.
Thus, a school of thought and action
is like a galaxy in which ev-
ery individual sensation, social behavior, ethical character
and, in
particular, philosophical, religious and social idea of
a person, are
each like a planet which revolves around one sun in a
coordinated,
meaningful galaxy, a galaxy moving in one direction and
coordi-
nated in movement. This is the mental image of a person
who
believes in a school of thought. This is the school of
thought which
creates movement, builds and brings about social power.
It is this
which gives a mission, commitment and responsibility to
a person.
Expertise and science do not have the same effect.
From the time when Islam turned from
an 'ideological school'
to 'cultural knowledge' and a 'collection of religious
sciences', it
lost its ability and power for creating 'movement', 'commitment',
'responsibility' and 'social awareness' and it was held
back from
having any effect or influence upon the fate of human
society.
When we say that 'a school of thought
is a complete intellectu-
al form of a person who believes in an idea', what is
that form?
I have not taken this very simple figure
from anywhere. I have
made it from my studies on different ideologies and research
on
ideas and beliefs and ideological, religious and social
schools, I
have designed a form which is not only useful from the
point of
view of expressing an idea, but it is also helpful as
a means for
teaching and explaining what is called 'an ideological
school of
thought', not only as a form, which is simple, but as
a means of
expression from the view of its contents which itself
is of special
concern in a 'maktab'. It is based on the theory that
a perfect
ideological school - which includes all of the intellectual
forms of a
school of thought - has such a complete form.
Part Two
The Infrastructure and Suprastructure of a Belief System
When
I refer to infrastructure, I am referring to the foundation
of a belief system or the attitudes developed from principles
of that
belief system which have a causal relationship with the
suprastruc-
ture. By suprastructure, I mean the ideas or effects developed
through three pillars which form the 'ideology' and are
based in the
infrastructure of a belief system.
Each ideological school should have
an infrastructure or a basic
support system from which all its ideas develop. This
consists of a
'world view' which each and every school of thought, without
exception, has whether it be divinely oriented, materialistic,
natu-
ralistic, idealistic, fascist, Marxist, etc....
A person who does not have a world
view is like a person who
has an abundance of furniture and is continuously moving
it from
house to house. Nothing is ever fully unpacked or put
in its right
place so proper use can be made of it....
Having a great deal of compartmentalized
knowledge without
having a definite world view is like having all the materials
needed
to build a buildingbut lacking a design as to what should
be built
It would be better for a person to lack the materials
than the design.
Here lies the real difference between
Abu Dharr and Avicenna,
between a faithful struggler upon the way of God (mujahid)
and an
expert scholar, between a committed intellectual and an
explorer
scientist, between an aware, responsible and oriented
person and
an unfaithful, undirected expert, between an idea and
a science,
and, finally, between an ideology and a culture.
Science, art, literature, philosophy,
industry, human beings,
life, ethics and even existence itself will find meaning,
spirit and
orientation when fixed to a faith and the ideological
system of a
school of thought. This is only possible when all of these
are based
in a world view and when interpreted by its standards.
World View
Every thinker who has a school of thought
must design such a
form and then answer the question: "What is your world
view?" A
person who has a world view can reply that his world view
is
materialistic, realistic, skeptic, taoistic, multitheistic,
dualistic,
monotheistic, pantheistic, aesthetic, existentialistic,
etc.
A world view is the comprehension that
a person has about
'being or 'existence'. The difference between Hafiz and
Umar
Khayyam is their world views. Khayyam says: "As no one
has ever
returned from the other world to bring news of that world
(his
world view), we must enjoy the present (his ideology)."
Hafiz says:
"As our fate has been determined in our absence (his world
view),
if it is not according to our liking, do not complain
(his ideology)."
Thus, an ideology develops out of the total context of
a world view
and these two have a relationship of cause and effect.
A person who believes that the world
has a Creator Who is
Conscious and has Will-power and that from the accurate
accounts
and reckonings which are kept, he will have the rewards
of his acts
or he will be punished for them is a person who has a
religious
world view. It is based upon this very world view whereby
one
says: "My way of life should be such and such. This or
that must be
done." It explains the meaning of life, society, ethics,
beauty and
ugliness, truth and falsity. This is to have a religious
ideology.
Thus, the idealism of Hegel, the dialectic
materialism of Marx,
the existentialism of Heiddeger, Jaspers and Sartre, the
absurdity of
the futilism of Albert Camus and Beckett, the religion
of Catholi-
cismand/orIslam, the Taoismof LaoTsu, the 'karma' of Hinduism,
the pain and 'niruana' of Buddha, the unity of being of
Hallaj, the
pessimistic determinism of Khayyam, Schopenhauer and Metter-
nich, are all world views.
Philosophical Anthropology
This consists of the kind of attitude
which any school of thought
has about a human being which forms its world view, such
as:
"What is a human being"?", "What must a human being be?"
What I mean here is the kind of knowledge
that exists in a
school of thoughtabouta humanbeing, not the particular
scientific
terminology of anthropology nor the general meaning of
human-
ism. What I am referring to is the real value, mission
and meaning
which a school of thought has in regard to a human being,
not in
the opposite sense of it. Human authenticity is a phrase
used by the
ancient Greeks, the Renaissance or the Schools of Radicalism
at the
end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century or the
meaning
existentialism gave it in the 20th century.
It is clear that a person is known
according to his world view
and every school of thought designates or defines 'human
being'
in a different way. One school calls the human being,
'a materialis-
tic animal'. Another calls him/her 'divine animal'. Every
school
defines or describes the human being with another adjective
such
as: creator of the ideal, rational, economic, a producer
of tools, free,
decision-maker, lacking in substance, hesitating, prejudiced,
simi-
lar to God, natural, social, creator of culture, civilized,
conscious,
etc.
It should be mentioned here that when
a school of thought
speaks about a human being, it is referring to the meaning
and truth
of a human being from the philosophical and ideological
point of
view, not the real creature described or discussed in
the sciences of
physiology, psychology, biology, theology, anthropology,
sociol-
ogy, morphology, etc. What I mean is the truth of human
kind in
his/her ideology, his/her school of thought and ideological
atti-
tudes and not in a strictly scientific way.
It is the truth of the human being
which is described, not his/
her reality. It is as philosophy, religion and art speak
about the
human being, the way Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, Plato,
Rousseau,
Hegel, Marx, Tolstoy, Sartre or Abraham, Jesus Christ,
the Prophet
of Islam, Ali or Homer, Goethe, Hafiz, Rumi, Tagore, George
Sands
and Van Gogh describe, explain and paint the human being
not as
Claude Bernard, Darwin and Freud speak about the human
being.
The same is true of history. By philosophy
of history, I mean the
concept, truth, movement and aim that philosophers or
Prophets
have about history. It is the view of history as a single
reality which
has its own special meaning and orientation as Ibn Khaldun,
Virgo,
Hegel, Marx, Emerson and Toynbee understood and described
it
and not as great historians and historiographers such
as Hero-
dutus, Gibbon, Tabbari and Bihaqi mention.
The same is true of sociology. It is
what sociology means as a
school of thought and not as a science in the sense of
how a
professor of sociology at the university describes it.
It is my belief that these three form
the basic pillars of a school
of thought - view of the human being, history and society.
These
three have been shown in the Fig. 1. All of them rise
from
a world view and have a logical cause and effect relationship
with
it. These are the three columns which build a school of
thought, the
foundation of which is the world view.
All of the ideological suprastructure
is built upon them. It is like
an individual who is carrying the weight of a trust for
someone.
Every individual who has reached the stage of 'consciousness'
and
senses within himself the burden of a mission for humanity,
finds
himself like Atlas who bore the weight of the world upon
his
shoulders.
This concept is a concept of an ideological
school of thought. It
is a form which carries the truth of a human being because
a human
being is, in fact, nothing more than belief and struggle.
