The Concept of Religion by Sayyid Naquib al-Attas

The Concept of Religion

By Sayyid Naquib al-Attas

Syed Muhammad al Naquib bin Ali al-Attas (born September 5, 1931) is a prominent contemporary Muslim philosopher and thinker from Malaysia. He is one of the few contemporary scholars who is thoroughly rooted in the traditional Islamic sciences and who is equally competent in theology, philosophy, metaphysics, history, and literature. He is considered to be the pioneer in proposing the idea of Islamization of knowledge. Al-Attas’ philosophy and methodology of education have one goal: Islamization of the mind, body and soul and its effects on the personal and collective life on Muslims as well as others, including the spiritual and physical non-human environment. He is the author of twenty-seven authoritative works on various aspects of Islamic thought and civilization, particularly on Sufism, cosmology, metaphysics, philosophy and Malay language and literature. (Wikipedia)

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“The concept couched in the term din, which is generally understood to mean religion, is not the same as the concept religion as interpreted and understood throughout Western religious history. When we speak of Islam and refer to it in English as a ‘religion’, we mean and understand by it the din⁴⁰, in which all the basic connotations inherent in the term din are conceived as gathered into a single unity of coherent meaning as reflected in the Holy Qur’an and in the Arabic language to which it belongs.

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The word din derived from the Arabic root DYN has many primary significations which although seemingly contrary to one another are yet all conceptually interconnected, so that the ultimate meaning derived from them all presents itself as a clarified unity of the whole. By ‘the whole’ I mean that which is described as the Religion of Islam, which contains within itself all the relevant possibilities of meaning inherent in the concept of din. Since we are dealing with an Islamic concept which is translated into a living reality intimately and profoundly lived in human experience, the apparent contrariness in its basic meanings is indeed not due to vagueness; it is, rather, due to the contrariness inherent in human nature itself, which they faithfully reflect. And their power to reflect human nature faithfully is itself clear demonstration of their lucidity and veracity and authenticity in conveying truth.

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The primary signification of the term din can be reduced to four: (1) indebtedness; (2)submissiveness; (3) judicious power; (4) natural inclination or tendency. In what presently follows, I shall attempt to explain them briefly and place them in their relevant contexts, drawing forth the coherent ultimate meaning intended, which denotes the faith, beliefs and practices and teachings adhered to by the Muslims individually and collectively as a Community and manifesting itself altogether as an objective whole as the Religion called Islam.

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The verb dana which derives from din conveys the meaning of being indebted, including various other meanings connected with debts, some of them contraries. In the state in which one finds oneself being in debt – that is to say, a da’in – it follows that one subjects oneself, in the sense of yielding and obeying, to law and ordinances governing debts, and also, in a way, to the creditor, who is likewise designated as a da’in⁴¹. There is also conveyed in the situation described the fact that one in debt is under obligation, or dayn. Being in debt and under obligation naturally involves judgement: daynunah, and conviction: idanah, as the case may be. All the above significations including their contraries inherent in dana are practicable possibilities only in organized societies involved in commercial life in towns and cities, denoted by mudun or mada’in. A town or city, a madinah, has a judge, ruler, or governor – a dayyan. Thus already here, in the various applications of the verb dana alone, we see rising before our mind’s eye a picture of civilized life; of societal life of law and order and justice and authority⁴². It is, conceptually at least, connected intimately with another verb maddana⁴³ which means: to build or to found cities: to civilize, to refine and to humanize; from which is derived another term: tamaddun, meaning civilization and refinement in social culture. Thus we derive from the primary signification of being in a state of debt other correlated significations, such as: to abase oneself, to serve (a master), to become enslaved; and from another such signification of judge, ruler, and governor is derived meanings which denote the becoming mighty, powerful and strong; a master, oneelevated in rank, and glorious; and yet further, the meanings: judgement, requital orreckoning (at some appointed time). Now the very notion of law and order and justice and authority and social cultural refinement inherent in all these significations derived from the concept din must surely presuppose the existence of a mode ormanner of acting consistent with what is reflected in the law, the order, the justice, the authority and social cultural refinement – a mode or manner of acting, or a state of being considered as normal in relation to them; so that this state of being is a state that is customary or habitual. From here, then, we can see the logic behind the derivation of the other primary signification of the concept din as custom, habit, disposition, ornatural tendency. At this juncture it becomes increasingly clear that the concept of dinin its most basic form indeed reflects in true testimony the natural tendency of man to form societies and obey laws and seek just government. The idea of a kingdom, acosmopolis, inherent in the concept din that rises before our vision is most important in helping us attain a more profound understanding of it, and needs to be reiterated here, for we shall have recourse to it again when we deal with the religious and spiritual aspects of man’s existential experience.“

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40 In this chapter my interpretation of the basic connotations inherent in the term din is based on Ibn Manzur’s standard classic, the Lisan al-’Arab (Beyrouth, 1968, 15V.), hereafter cited as LA. For what is stated in this page and the next, see vol. 13:166, col. 2-171, col.2.

41 Da’in refers both to debtor as well as creditor, and this apparent contrariness in meaning can indeed be resolved if we transpose both these meanings to refer to the two natures of man, that is, the rational soul and the animal or carnal soul. See below pp. 63-66.

42 It is I think extremely important to discern both the intimate and profoundly significant connection between the concept of din and that of madinah which derives from it, and the role of the Believers individually in relation to the former and collectively in relation to the latter. Considerable relevance must be seen in the significance of the change of the name of the town once known as Yathrib to al-Madinah: the City – or more precisely, Madinatu’l -Nabiy: the City of the Prophet – which occurred soon after the Holy Prophet (may God bless and give him Peace!) made his historic Flight (hijrah) and settled there. The first Community of Believers was formed there at the time, and it was that Flight that marked the New Era in the history of mankind. We must see the fact that al- Madinah was so called and named because it was there that true dinbecame realized for mankind. There the Believers enslaved themselves under the authority and jurisdiction of the Holy Prophet (may God bless and give him Peace!), itsdayyan; there the realization of the debt to God took definite form, and the approved manner and method of its repayment began to unfold. The City of the Prophet signified the Place where true din was enacted under his authority and jurisdiction. We may further see that the City became, for the Community, the epitome of the socio-political order of Islam; and for the individual Believer it became, by analogy, the symbol of the Believer’s body and physical being in which the rational soul, in emulation of him who may God bless and give Peace!, exercises authority and just government. For further relevant interpretations, see below, pp. 50-59; 60-66; 67-74; 79-80; 81-87; 89-90.

43 LA, vol. 13: 402, col. 2-403, col. 1.

Further Reading:

Islamic Philosophy: An Introduction by Sayyid Naquib al-Attas

Sayyid Naquib al-Attas interviewed by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf

Justice and Its Relationship to Knowledge - Sayyid Naquib al-Attas

jUSTICE AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO KNOWLEDGE

By Sayyid Naquib al-Attas

The modern era has witnessed three significant developments that have created unprecedented challenges to the Muslim community: (1) public education, mass media, and mass literacy, (2) the disintegration of Islamic polities, and (3) the formation of learning institutes based on Western concepts, values, and processes. The first development has resulted in the masses acquiring access to classical Islamic texts without possessing the tools and skills to understand them properly. The second development has resulted in the loss of state patronage of Islamic institutions of learning. The third development has resulted in the intelligentsia of Muslim societies adopting Western and secular models.

The result of these three developments is a dissonance in Muslim spiritual development and intellectual unity. In this excerpt from “Islam and Secularism”, Sayyid Naquib al-Attas explains how the rise of injustice and oppression in Muslim societies is a result of a loss of wisdom which he traces to the loss of knowledge. In his work, the remedy he proposes to this problem is the Islamization of knowledge.

Sayyid Muhammad al-Naquib bin Ali al-Attas (born September 5, 1931) is a prominent contemporary Muslim philosopher and thinker from Malaysia. He is the author of twenty-seven authoritative works on various aspects of Islamic thought and civilization, particularly on Sufism, cosmology, metaphysics, philosophy and Malay language and literature. (Source)

[Justice in Islam is Primarily a State of Being within Man Himself]

“In Islam – because for it religion encompasses life in its entirety – all virtue is religious; it has to do with the freedom of the rational soul, which freedom means the power to do justice to itself; and this in turn refers to exercise of its rule and supremacy and guidance and maintenance over the animal soul and body. The power to do justice to itself alludes to its constant affirmation and fulfillment of the Covenant it has sealed with God. Justice in Islam is not a concept referring to a state of affairs which can operate only within a two-person-relation or dual-party-relation situation, such as: between one man and another; or between the society and the state; or between the ruler and the ruled; or between the king and his subjects.

To the question: “Can one be unjust to one’s self?” other religions or philosophies have not given a consistently clear-cut answer. Indeed in Western civilization, for example, though it is true that a man who commits suicide may be considered as committing an unjust act; but this is considered as such insofar only because his suicide deprives the state of the services of a useful citizen, so that his injustice is not to himself, but to the state and society. We have several times alluded to the concept that justice means a harmonious condition or state of affairs whereby every thing is in its right and proper place – such as the cosmos; or similarly, a state of equilibrium, whether it refers to things or living beings.

With respect to man, we say that justice means basically a condition and situation whereby he is in his right and proper place. ‘Place’ here refers not only to his total situation in relation to others, but also to his condition in relation to his self. So the concept of justice in Islam does not only refer to relational situations of harmony and equilibrium existing between one person and another, or between the society and state, or between the ruler and the ruled, or between the king and his subjects, but far more profoundly and fundamentally so it refers in a primary way to the harmonious and rightly-balanced relationship existing between the man and his self, and in a secondary way only to such as exists between him and another or others, between him and his fellow men and ruler and king and state and society.

[Can Man be Unjust to Himself?]

Thus to the question: “Can one be unjust to one’s self?” we answer in the affirmative, and add further that justice and injustice indeed begins and ends with the self. The Holy Qur’an repeatedly stresses the point that man, when he does wrong, is being unjust (zalim) to himself, and that injustice (zulm) is a condition wrought by man upon his self.

To understand this we have to refer once again to the soul’s Covenant with God and to the belief that man has a dual nature in respect of his two souls and body. The real man can only in fact be his rational soul. If in his existence as a human being he allows his animal or carnal soul to get the better of him and consequently commits acts prohibited by God and displeasing to Him, or if he denies belief in God altogether then he has thereby repudiated his own of God’s Lordship which he as rational soul has covenanted with God. He does violence to his own Covenant, his individual contract with God.

So just as in the case of one who violates his own contract brings calamity upon himself, in the same way he who does wrong or evil who disobeys or denies God, violates the contract his soul soul has made with God, thereby being unjust to his soul. He has also thereby ‘lied’ – kadhaba, another apt Quranic expression – against his own self (soul). It is important in the light of this brief explanation to understand why the belief in the resurrection of bodies is fundamental in Islam, for the soul reconstituted with its former body will not be able to deny what its body had done, for its very eyes, tongues, hands and feet or limbs – the organs of ethical and moral conduct – will testify against its acts of injustice to itself. (FN 82)

Though in Islam injustice ostensibly applies between man and God, and between man and man and between man and his self, in reality, however, injustice is ultimately applicable – even in the two former cases – to man’s self alone; in the Islamic world view and spiritual vision, whether a man disbelieves or disobeys God, or whether he does wrong to another, it is really to his own self that he does wrong. Injustice, being the opposite of justice, is the putting of a thing in a place not its own; it is to misplace a thing; it is to misuse or to wrong; it is to exceed or fall short of the mean or limit; it is to suffer loss; it is deviation from the right course; it is disbelief of what is true, or lying about what is true knowing it to be true.

Thus when a man does an act of injustice it means that he has wronged his own soul, for he has put his soul in a place not its own; he has misused it; he has made it to exceed or fall short of its real nature; he has caused to deviate from what is right and to repudiate the truth and to suffer loss. All that he has thus done – in one way or another – entails a violation of his Covenant with God.

[Justice Implies Knowledge of the Right and Proper Place for a Thing or a Being to Be]

It is clear from what we say about injustice that justice implies knowledge of the right and proper place for a thing or a being to be; of right as against wrong; of the mean or limit; of spiritual gain as against loss; of truth as against falsehood. This is why knowledge (al-’ilm; ma’arifah: ‘ilm) occupies a most important position in Islam, where in the Holy Qur’an alone we find more than eight hundred references to knowledge.

And even in the case of knowledge, man has to do justice to it, that is, to know its limit of usefulness and not to exceed or fall short of it; to know its various orders of priority in relation to its usefulness to one’s self; to know where to stop and to know what can be gained what cannot, what is true knowledge and what is learned guess and theory – in sum, to put every datum of knowledge in its right place in relation to the knowing one in such ways that what is known produces harmony in the one who knows. To know how to put what knowledge in which place is wisdom (hikmah). Otherwise, knowledge without order and seeking it without discipline does lead to confusion and hence to injustice to one’s self.”

(FN 82: Analogically, the legal concept of habeas corpus (you must have the body) as a fundamental procedure of justice is perhaps only a mere imperfect reflection of the awesome and irrefutable Procedure to come. That the soul is capable of denial of acts of injustice is implied in al-A’raf (7):172-173; and in these Verses must be seen clear evidence of the soul’s capacity (wus’) to exercise a power (quwwah) of inclination towards right or wrong resulting in its acquisition or earning (kasaba, iktasaba) of good or evil. In the Islamic concept of justice and injustice outline above, the fact that the witness to a man’s actions, good or bad, is his own self is of greater significance. See also al-Nur (24):24.

(p 72 to 74 “Islam, Secularism and the Philosophy of the Future” by Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas)

Man’s Indebtedness to Allah (exalted be He) - Sayyid Naquib al-Attas

Man’s Indebtedness to Allah (exalted be He)

by Sayyid Naquib al-Attas

The following excerpt is from “Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam: An Exposition of the Fundamental Elements of the Worldview of Islam” by Sayyid Naquib al-Attas. In it, he challenges the modern portrayal of man as a rational agent with independent creative capabilities and powers. al-Attas uses several ayahs of the Qur’an to remind us that all human beings are created in a state of absolute neediness to Allah (exalted be He)- the one who is absolutely free from all needs.

The mere fact of existence places man in a state of debt the moment he is created. As Allah (exalted be He) is the Master, Creator, and Sustainer of the universe - man cannot utilize material things to repay this debt as he is not their proper owner. The only way man can ever repay his momentous debt to his Creator is by engaging in khidmah (service) to others and humbly submitting his very self to His pronouncements.

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“How can the concept of being indebted be explained in the religious and spiritual context? - one may ask; what is the nature of the debt?, and to whom is the debt owed?

We answer that man is indebted to God, his Creator and provider, for bringing him into existence and maintaining him in existence. Man was once nothing and did not exist, and now he is.

‘Man We did create from a quintessence of clay;

Then We placed him as a drop of sperm in a place of rest, firmly fixed;

Then We made the sperm into a clot of congealed blood; then of that clot We made a lump; then We made out of that lump bones and clothed the bones with flesh; than We developed out of it another creature. So blessed be God, the Best to create!’ [Qur'an 23:12-14]

The man who ponders seriously his origin will realize that a few decades ago he did not exist, and the whole of mankind now existing neither existed nor knew of their possible present existence. The same truth applies to all ages of man from the beginning of his existence in time.

So naturally he who ponders thus sincerely knows intuitively that his sense of being indebted for his creation and existence cannot really be directed to his parents, for he knows equally well that his parents too are subject to the same process by the same Creator and Provider.

Man does not himself cause his own growth and development from the state of a clot of congealed blood to the one that now stands mature and perfect. He knows that even in his mature and perfect state he is not able to create for himself his sense of sight or hearing or other – and let alone move himself in conscious growth and development in his helpless embryonic stage. Then again:

‘When thy Lord drew forth from the Children of Adam – from their loins – their descendants, and made them testify concerning themselves (saying): “Am I not your Lord?” - they said: “Yea! We do testify!” [Qur'an 7:172]

The rightly guided man realizes that his very self, his soul, has already acknowledged God as his Lord, even before his existence as a man, so that such a man recognizes his Creator and Cherisher and Sustainer.

The nature of the debt of creation and existence is so tremendously total that man, the moment he is created and given existence, is already in a state of utter loss, for he possesses really nothing himself, seeing that everything about him and in him and from him is what the Creator owns Who owns everything. And this is the purpose of the words in the Holy Qur’an:

‘Verily man is in loss (khusr)…[Qur'an 103:14]

Seeing that he owns absolutely nothing to ‘repay’ his debt,except his own consciousness of the fact that he is himself the very substance of the debt, so must he ‘repay’ with himself, so must he ‘return’ himself to Him Who owns him absolutely. He is himself the debt to be returned to the Owner, and ‘returning the debt’ means to give himself up in service, or khidmah, to his Lord and Master; to abase himself before Him and so the rightly guided man sincerely and consciously enslaves himself for the sake of God in order to fulfill His commands and prohibitions and ordinances, and thus to live out the dictates of His law.”

[p 47 of “Prolegemona to the Metaphysics of Islam: An Exposition of the Fundamental Elements of the Worldview of Islam” by Sayyid Muhammad Naquib al-Attas]

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Sayyid Muhammad al-Naquib bin Ali al-Attas (born September 5, 1931) is a prominent contemporary Muslim philosopher and thinker from Malaysia. He is the author of twenty-seven authoritative works on various aspects of Islamic thought and civilization, particularly on Sufism, cosmology, metaphysics, philosophy and Malay language and literature. (Source)

Who is Muhammad (God bless him and grant him peace) - Sayyid Naquib al-Attas

Who is Muhammad (God bless him and grant him peace)

by Sayyid Naquib al-Attas

The following excerpt is from “Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam: An Exposition of the Fundamental Elements of the Worldview of Islam” by Sayyid Naquib al-Attas. In it, he challenges the modern portrayal of man as a rational agent with independent creative capabilities and powers. al-Attas explains precisely who the noble Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him peace) is and why he is relevant to our times.

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“The Holy Prophet, upon whom be God’s blessing and Peace!, is the Seal of the Prophets, the universal and final Messenger of God to mankind, whom he leads from darkness to light; who is himself the Lamp spreading light; he is God’s Mercy to all creatures, and His favour to those who believe in him and in what he brought and he is God’s favour even to the People of the Book, who may yet come to believe in him.

He is man whom God has created with a character exalted as the standard for mankind; he is the Perfect Man and Exemplar par excellence. He it is who even God and His Angels honour and bless as the greatest of men, and all true believers, in compliance with God’s command, and in emulation of His Angels, do likewise, and have done and will do so in the Hereafter to him will God vouchsafe the Lauded Station.

Muhammad, the Messenger of God, is he whose very is a miracle of fulfillment, for he alone among all mankind is constantly praised in every age and generation after him without end, so that even taking into account the ages and generation before him he still would be the only man to whom such praise is due.

We praise him out of sincere love and respect and gratitude for having led us out of darkness into light, and he is loved above all other human beings including our selves. Our love and respect for him is such that neither time nor memory could dull, for he is in our selves in every age and generations – nay, he is closer than ourselves, and we emulate his words (qawl) and model actions (fi’l) and silent confirmation (taqrir) of usages known to him, so that next to the Holy Qur’an he is our most excellent and perfect guide and exemplar in life.

He is the perfect model for every Muslim male and female; adolescent, middle-aged and old, in such ways that Muslims do not suffer from the crises of identity. Because of him the external structure or pattern of Muslim society is not divided by the gap of generations such as we find prevalent in Western society.”

(p 79 to 81 of “Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam” by Sayyid Naquib al-Attas)

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Sayyid Muhammad al-Naquib bin Ali al-Attas (born September 5, 1931) is a prominent contemporary Muslim philosopher and thinker from Malaysia. He is the author of twenty-seven authoritative works on various aspects of Islamic thought and civilization, particularly on Sufism, cosmology, metaphysics, philosophy and Malay language and literature. (Source)

Despiritualization of Prophethood and its link to Identity Crisis by Sayyid Naquib Al-Attas

Despiritualization of Prophethood and its link to Identity Crisis

By Sayyid Naquib al-Attas

Transcript from Prof. Dr. Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas lecture on “The Religion of Islam”, ISTAC, 20th April 1998.

Now I want to talk lastly about what is called the “identity crisis” because this is something very important. I think the Muslim world is experiencing it, although maybe it does not see it yet and does not know its cause but this term “identity crisis” means one has lost one’s roots. One does not know any longer who one is. If we look at all societies we will find three generations: there is the very young, there is the middle age and then there is the old. You’ll find that everywhere. Now as far as Islam is concerned in the past, I mean to say, it is more so than now, although now also there still exists a lot of Muslims that follow the correct tradition but in the past there was no division between the adolescent, the middle age and the old. They all seemed to follow the same values, the values of the adolescent is the same as that of the middle age is the same as that of the old. Now why is that so? It is because of the Prophet, because he is an example to follow and as long as the Muslim follows him then there will be no gaps between these generations, there is no generation gap. But now, why are there generation gaps among the Muslims? This is because they no longer regard the Prophet as he ought to be regarded.

Now let us see what we mean by this generation gap. Again we take the West as an example, because they are the ones who talk about these things and who actually have these things all the time, even in the past; although maybe in some areas in the past there was no generation gap because they believed in certain permanent values and principles. When they attacked religion, secularization as a philosophical programme worked among them and this generation gap became more pronounced. Now every generation is looking for its identity. The young people know they are not following the values of their fathers (the middle age) because their fathers when they were young also were not following what their fathers had been saying. This is because when it comes to what is the truth, what is good, what is right, they tell the young: “Well, we don’t really know ourselves because we are seeking that too, and therefore you have to look it for yourselves, you must have freedom and that is why you have to believe in freedom to find out who you are, your identity. Now as regards the old, they have lost their identity, they cannot be an example.The reason is because this whole role of identity has to do with citizenship. If you say that your purpose is to be a good citizen, and we said government change, concepts change, therefore they don’t have an example to follow. They cannot have, and they cannot follow any of their leaders of the past as an example. You cannot make Socrates as an example; Aristotle, Plato also cannot be examples, for all times. Buddha also cannot be examples. Jesus of course cannot be examples, because he is half-God or God Himself and furthermore he does not marry so if you really want to follow his example as man then that is the end of Christianity. So none of them has a man like the Prophet in Islam as an example whom they can follow.

Now the Prophet is not just an example for little boys, girls, middle age, old men, men and women-he is an example for all. Which also means that we are looking at him not just physically as a man because he is also an example for women but also at the spiritual, the values and other things. Now there is no such human being in other civilizations because of that there must be this generation gap in these civilizations because they all want to find identity. If the identity is based on citizenship then the identity is based on usefulness to the state so the moment they are retired like the middle age group, they have lost their identity. As for the old they don’t like to talk so much about it because that reminds them of death. So in such a society, the old lose everything, they have lost their worthiness as a citizen, they are no longer working, and have become a kind of nuisance. They also remind the middle age of what they will be like later. The young also don’t want to be reminded of this.

This continual seeking of identity has now become worse because not only is there a generation gap, there is also a gap between a man and a woman because each one is also seeking their own identity. Women are seeking identity as women. So this is a chaotic state really. Now if the Muslims do not regard the Prophet in the correct way, they will be having this kind of problem too. Therefore the Prophet is the one who is actually keeping the structure of Muslim society as an ummah. Unfortunately the modernists have been despiritualizing the Prophet by making him an ordinary man like you and me. Of course he is a human being, nobody has worshipped the Prophet. That is why they keep on talking about the verse in the Qur’an carefully and look at all such verses that occur in the Qurāan: Innama ana basharun mithlukum and yet for example they don’t realize that if they study the Qurāan, other carefully and look at all such verses that occur in the Qurāan, other Prophets were also told to say the same thing. It is always directed to unbelievers, and the Prophet did that too, which means that you did not accept Islam, and the earlier Prophets did that too, which means that you can’t apply that verse to believers and yet they (the modernists) are applying that to us. So it is an incorrect application and the verse was revealed because the unbelievers were asking all kinds of irrational things from the Prophet. They asked why was God sending him as the Prophet, why not somebody else among them who was better than him, who was leader of the tribe? Or why not God Himself come? There is a verse in the Qurāan which Ibn Sina quoted: “Why does not He come in the canopy of clouds?”So because of that therefore what is meant there is that if an angel comes you will not understand the language of the angels, even angels when they come must appear in the form of man. Therefore a Prophet must be among human beings, therefore it is ana basharun. That is one point.

The second point is that this word bashar simply means a biological man, meaning flesh and blood like you. It is not the same as insan, it did not say ana insan mithlukum, it says ana basharun mithlukum but then the Prophet said: “I received the Revelation.” There is a very big difference here, that means what we are calling the perfect man is because he is man, there has been no report in Muslim history of people worshipping the Prophet although there have been reports of people worshipping ĂAli but not the Prophet because the kalimah shahadah already makes it impossible for the Prophet to be worshipped. So why is it that the modernists are throwing the verse at us? We are not unbelievers. It is they who don’t realize this. Why must you make the Prophet the same as everybody? They said it is because the Prophet himself said so. Yes, but the Prophet also said: “I received the Revelation.” That means he is not just like you and me, because in receiving the revelations he must have had some psychological or spiritual changes occurring in him as he is notbashar, he is also insan. And what’s wrong with that? Because the idea is that you don’t worship the Prophet, like the Christians with Jesus, but the Muslims have never done that in the first place. And therefore this reason is no good. One of the scholars whom I met in Ohio (in 1980) was saying: “Yes, before I used to think of him as a super man, now I think of him as just an ordinary man like you and me.” So you are just like the jahiliah to whom the Prophet was addressing all these things.

Husein Haykal, the author of The Life of Muhammad (the title of the English translation from the original Arabic-Hayat Muhammad), makes the Prophet as if he is just an ordinary man and he makes the experience of wahy very much the same as what Ibn Arabi was talking about fana and the sufis. How can you say that? The sufis themselves never said this, on the other hand they say their experience is nothing compared to the Prophet, and yet Haykal puts the Prophet down to the level of the sufis, the wahdatul wujud. Even the original Arabic title of the book, Hayat Muhammad, is something that nobody in the past has given to such a biography. They would say Sirat ul-Nabi, not Hayat, nobody in the past has written that. Sirat, because they know that it is a biography while hayat is a biological life. You can’t talk about the Prophet’s biological life as bashar, as it were, because there are things that are not really physical, for example how are you going to explain the angels? How are you going to explain the angel giving him the Revelation? This is not something happened to the hayat of Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great or Gamal Abdul Nasser, and yet he equated the Prophet in that way.

To my mind, this is how the Muslims gradually get the generation gap. When the ahl hadithbegan to quibble a little bit about the ahadith, gradually and finally people now say they had better go back to Qurāan, not the Hadith. So this role of the Prophet as the consolidator and unifier of the Muslim ummah is gradually destroyed. As result he is no longer the example, and therefore you begin to seek identity. Even our leaders very seldom praise the Prophet. They will of course say Allahu Taala in their speeches but very seldom I hear them saying Prophet Muhammad. I think this is one of the causes regarding the role of the Prophet in Muslim society so far as preventing the generation gap is concerned because if he is really taken as an example of what he says then whatever is taught to the young is also the same with the middle age, the same with the old age, the same with men, and the same with women. Then there will be generation gap. But it is not the case now. The young people argue and say: “Well, that’s what you think.” We have seen that following what is in the West as portrayed on television. They say, I have my own life, it’s my own life. Some women are even saying: “Yes, it’s my body and I just can’t allow it to anyone and therefore I have the right to have children or not.” Already they are making cases in Australia and other countries of the West.