Toward an Islamic Renaissance

By Cyril Anderson

 There is much talk in Islamic circles, particularly in the context of polemical writings, comparing Islamic civilization to Western civilization.  Part of this focuses on comparing between the state of Christian Europe during the dark ages and the Islamic world at the same point, when Islamic civilization was at the height of its power and depth intellectually and materially.

 Also mentioned usually in this context was the role of the Islamic world of preserving and building on the best of knowledge of antiquity, and redelivering this heritage to Christian Europe through contacts with Christian Europe, in Andalusian Spain and in the Mediterranean and Near East.  The earliest example of this cross-cultural exchange of knowledge was in the Carolingian Renaissance, through contacts between Charlemagne and the Abassids, Haroon ar-Rashid.  Another period of great cultural influence was later on, between Christian pilgrims and Crusaders and Muslims in the Levant during the Crusades and the centuries afterwards.  This occurred despite the negative effects of the conflict.

 This cross-cultural pollination is rightly seen as having played a useful and important role in helping to promote a rebirth of knowledge in the late Middle Ages through to the Renaissance.  In the late Middle Ages, Arabic was a major scholarly language, alongside Latin, in Europe, as scientific and philosophical texts were brought from the Islamic lands to Christian Europe to be translated into Latin and discussed by scholars at the newly emerging universities in Europe in Paris, Bologna, London, Marseilles, and elsewhere.  Islamic scholars like Ibn Sinna (Avicenna) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes) became common names in European scholarly circles, and scientific texts and instruments helped to stimulate scientific research in Europe.  Arabic texts helped the Europeans to re-discover Greek heritage, including works of thinkers such as Aristotle and Galen.

 In the course of such reminders of the debt owed by Western Civilization to Islamic civilization (to be perfectly precise, there was actually a cross pollination in both directions, both from west to east in terms of the influence of Greek Philosophy on Islamic theology, philosophy, and science, and the back propagation from east to west of the continuation of these lines of thought back to Europe some centuries later) it is often claimed by Muslim polemicists that “unlike Christian Europe,” the Islamic world never experienced a “Dark Age”  analogous to that experienced in Europe between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance.

This is, in my opinion, not the case, however.  The Islamic world, by many measures, is currently in a Dark Age, and has been for many centuries.

Early on, there was a fruitful cultural cross-pollination in Medieval Baghdad during the Abbasid caliphate.  There were active debates on metaphysics and theology during this time, coinciding with and influential in the formation of the major schools of theology. (Ashari, Maturidi, Athari, Ja’fari)  There were active debates between Muslims and non-Muslims from India, Persia, Egypt, etc.  Around this time the Bayt ul Hikmah, a library and school built to house books from other cultures and host translation and discussion efforts was built.  The Muta’zila, a now extinct theological school, seized on Greek philosophy to build a theological school heavily based on the use of Greek philosophy as a foundation.  This school was briefly highly influential before a backlash against them. 

This was also a time when Shia Imams Ja’far as-Sadiq (as) and Muhammad Baqir as-Sadr (as) were able to teach openly and found schools for the study of Islamic sciences, as well as give their perspectives on the raging philosophical and theological questions of the day.  This was also the time of the formalization of the schools of theology.  The continuation of much of the Mutazili type of rational philosophical thought continued in the Ithna Asheri Shia’ school, and Greek metaphysical insight to some extent continued as a foundation of other theologies in the Sunni schools.

 However, to a large extent, the influence of philosophy and rationality waned in the Islamic world centuries ago with the influence of the Sunni scholar Al-Ghazali and his rejection of philosophy as a central aspect of Islamic science, most notably in his  “Incoherence of philosophers.”  Within the majority Sunni tradition, there has been since then a de-emphasis of the power of human reason to reach religious truth on its own, with more emphasis placed on revelation, traditions, and mystical experience.  This was part of a general backlash against the influence of Greek philosophy and other “foreign influences” in mainstream Sunni thought.  This was also epitomized by the writings of Ibn Taymiyyah and his battle against anything he perceived to be “innovation.” 

This had a dramatic effect on Islamic civilization historically, ultimately undermining its ability to make new innovations in science and technology.  This led to a weakening of the civilization, ultimately leading to the disaster of the Mongol invasion that destroyed Baghdad in the Middle Ages.  The horrible stories of the Tigris River in Baghdad running red with blood and black with ink of destroyed books gives a clear picture of the fruits of such closed modes of thinking.   Since then, the Muslim world has never quite recovered its former glory. 

Despite some temporary appearance of strength during the Ottoman Caliphate through the 16^th century, this Empire rested on great inequalities, was not generally associated with great cultural and scientific achievement, and existed in a state of general and continual decline for centuries until the point of its eventual collapse during the late 19^th and early 20^th century, culminating in its conquering and dismantlement by the French and British and the beginning of decades of colonization of the Middle East.  The shadow of this colonization, despite having been officially lifted following World War II, has hung over much of the Islamic world, particularly the Middle East and Central Asia, to this day.  Ignorance, backwardness, and lack of economic development are epidemic, large parts of which stem from post-colonial manipulation and oppression, but significant parts of which come, undeniably from within.

Not all is lost, however.  On a positive note, there are promising signs that this Dark Age may be ending, but still the fact remains.  The state of the Islamic World is very low, materially, intellectually, and spiritually.

 Just as the philosophies of bordering and conquered peoples infused the early Islamic world with fruitful ideas, and just as the Islamic world helped Christian Europe out of a Dark Age through an infusion of culture and knowledge, so the Western knowledge, having built on the best of Islamic knowledge for centuries, can help to stimulate a rebirth of knowledge and learning in the Islamic world.  The rebirth of knowledge in the Islamic world, enlightened by Islamic teachings, can, conversely, provide guidance and assistance to a culturally exhausted Western world as well.  Ideally, West and East can work together as partners to reform and build each other as co-creators of global human civilization. 

 When I suggest an openness of the Islamic world to the more successful and fruitful ideas of the Western world, This does not mean a one-way steam-rolling over of the Islamic world by a wholesale adoption of all of Western culture, good and bad.  I do not in any way advocate a blind process of assimilation.  But what I mean is a thoughtful sifting of the heritage of the West, from the late Middle Ages to the Renaissance and beyond, even another look at the Classics of the Greeks, reappraised. (While Muslims have absorbed quite extensively the teachings of Aristotle, there would be a great benefit, I think to a much closer look at Plato)  This is in line with the Prophetic tradition to seek out knowledge, even though it may be in China.  The best can be taken, considered, talked about and built upon and fused in a productive way with Islamic heritage to produce a creative flowering within Islamic civilization.

 This is not something that can or should be imposed from without.  This has to be based on creative work of thinkers within the Muslim world, ideally with the cooperation and involvement of Muslim clergy so that something harmonious with the best of Islamic heritage can be built.  This can help to bring a beneficial, well thought out reform that is continuous enough with the past heritage so as avoid unnecessary social upheaval.  The leading scholars of the Shia’ school of Islam are fortunately in a much more flexible position than their Sunni counterparts to lead this process in a controlled and reasoned way thanks to the stronger acceptance amongst Shia’ scholars of the use of ijtihad, or creative re-interpretation driven by reason based on the Qu’ran and traditions.

 In this way, the Islamic world can overcome this period of darkness and ignorance to rebuild itself and take its rightful place of prestige and leadership in the midst of contemporary human civilization.