By Cyril Anderson

 One issue that is sometimes discussed amongst Muslims is the usefulness and validity of referring to philosophy, such as Greek or European philosophy to explain and understand Islam today.  There is some resistance to this, with it being seen by some as an external innovation, an addition.  These people say that we must just take literally what we have as evidences in Qu’ran and ahadith.

 These people argue that since Muhammad and the early generations did not use Greek philosophy, why should we?  This same argument, amusingly enough, is not new in Islamic circles, but actually came up in the period of Medieval Baghdad when the great debates on theology came about from the encounter between Greek philosophy and Islam.

 The problem is that the time and world of Muhammad and the early generations has passed away.  As time went by and the religion spread from its birthplace in the Arabian peninsula of the 7^th century, it took root in places and times much different from that in which it started.  Simplistic claims that we should follow the example of Muhammad and the “consensus of the righteous first three generations,” “untainted by outside influences” do not work practically.

This is assuming that such a rosy, idealized picture of harmony and consensus ever even existed; although admittedly the early Muslim community, in a general sense, was very strong, still, people of that period are on record as having had serious disagreements, even to the point of civil warfare.  The fact that there were such strong and principled disagreements from the earliest generations shows that the picture is much more complex than these simplistic sorts of ways of thinking would make it out to be.  But aside from even this, the fact of the matter is that these people lived in a very different time, and that there is a great distance in time and in way of life between us and them. 

Does this mean it is impossible  to find guidance from the example of that time, or that everything is fluid and specific to that historical period?  No.  It is just that we need to work harder to overcome those barriers of time and culture to cross the distances between those early generations and ourselves so as to be able to extract meaningful guidance for today.   We need tools to assist us in the process.

Some foundation, some philosophy is needed as a grounding for this analysis. 

There is a general recognition amongst most sensible people with depth of knowledge that it is impossible to take everything literally in trying to apply the precedents of a distant time and place to our own lives today, given the lack of a shared frame of reference with the people of that day and place.  Given the distance due to language, culture, geography, history, and differences in ways of thinking about the world, it is extremely difficult for us to simply sit down, unprepared and unaided, and encounter these texts directly.

 There is a need of some sort of external system to aid us in peeling back, layer by layer, like an onion, the veils that separate us and our experience from the inherent meaning of the text.  We need some sort of systematic methodology to uncover the meaning.  This is not to be confused with epistemologically pessimistic post-modernist sorts of theories of literary criticism, which either say that there is no ultimate, higher meaning, or that differences of culture and time and place make the task of writer and reader finding common ground of understanding impossible.  Islam understands the Qu’ran to be God’s revelation to mankind, and holds that God is rational and created humanity as a whole with a rationality that mirrors that of the creator, and that such rationality is shared by all human beings.  This creates an innate potential for humans to understand each other and even God, although this potential is one that needs to be properly nurtured and developed.  The Qu’ran is understood as a revelation for all times and peoples; it may be difficult to penetrate to the meaning, but not impossible, and the ultimate meaning is there for us to find, given the right tools.  The same is true with the precedents of ahadith and the historical record.

 A system is needed to analyze the impact of historical context, of material and economic conditions of life, of culture, of geography, to separate what is specific to that time and place and what is deeper, timeless, and elemental.  Then a systematic approach is needed to reverse this process to determine how these deeper principles apply to the changed situation of our own time and place.

There is a need for systematic, rigorous, scholarly method here, using different fields of study – economics, political science, history, geography, military science, geography, natural science, sociology, amongst others.  At the root of these fields of study is a foundation of philosophy.

 There needs to be some sort of philosophic foundation, a foundation of metaphysics (the general understanding of what the universe consists of, what is existence and what exists), of epistemology (the theory of knowledge and how we can know it).  Philosophy informs us as to how to build these foundations.  Religious texts will inform to some extent as to some of the basic aspects of the metaphysical and epistemological system in which to ground the analysis. 

 As the practicing community became more distanced from the immediate reality in which Muhammad lived, it became more and more necessary to bring in other systems of thought to help bridge the gap between their own experiences and the experiences of the early Islamic figures they sought to emulate in principle.  These intellectual lenses give perspectives to help with our analysis.

 Now, it should be noted from a religious standpoint, based on solid evidences of the Qu’ran, that philosophy, rationality in itself, though necessary, is not sufficient.  It is understood that piety and self-purification are needed to clear the mind and heart so as to improve thought and judgment and to help remove veils clouding the understanding.  But when combined with efforts at self-purification, philosophy acts to systematize thinking, allowing it to be more powerful and effective.  Both are necessary aspects, in this day and age, to properly understand the religion and apply it in our lives.