SURAH AL-‘IKHLAS
We are speaking today on the Surah Al-‘Ikhlas, more specifically on the first verse of the Al-‘Ikhlas Surah. This Surah, otherwise known as Qul Huwwalah among the people, upon which Allah Almighty delineates to the adherents the manner and approach of faith, initially refers to the principles of monotheism; the principles in believing in one God. This postulate is the fundamental element ever since the first man Adam (PBUH), and it shall remain the fundamental element of genuine faith until The Judgment Day. Hence all the rest of the concepts where the teuhid, pure monotheism or belief in one God is lacking, are not considered valid. I do comment this both from the frame of the history of religions as well as the comparative religions. The XIX century, especially in Europe, is the century of the appearance of science and the specialized disciplines, this also reflects the movement from generalization towards specialization of sciences. For instance while in that period one philosopher was preoccupied with both medicine, mathematics and jurisdiction as well as being preoccupied in all other more remote scientific fields, the period of the century XIX –XX became the period when the sciences began to be specialized and resultantly many new sciences appeared, such as: sociology, psychology and so forth. These are sciences which appeared in that particular period, not that prior there sciences were absent but they had remained within the scope of philosophy, upon this period a new discipline appeared characterized as the history of religions or comparative religion, and one of its founders is the renewed linguist of that time Max Muller. Later on a number of other linguists preoccupied with this matter, such as Gynter Kerer, Hans Freyer, and then there is another linguist who is mainly preoccupied with both the languages of the east and the religions of the east. His work on this issue has been translated in Macedonian (we don’t have it available in Albanian), in Serbian it had been translated even earlier “The history of religion and the religious ideas”, the author is Mircea Eliade.
Upon this period there is a special preoccupation on the matter defining the fundamental building bricks of religion, otherwise what can be known as religion. It can be concluded that the primary principle for an idea to be summarized as religion it must contain belief in the oneness of God; in the sphere where polytheism is mingled religion is adulterated and Islam has hence always gone against and castigated polytheism.
The essence / the core of Islamic faith is monotheism, added to this is wahdaniyat, one of the attributes of God which we have encountered in our previous lectures. Wahdaniyat means that in the universe we only accept one real and ultimate existence and this ultimate existence ought to be the existence of Allah Almighty.
There are two paths we can approach in order to reach this existence. I am not sure if I have mentioned this to you before but I might have just encountered it that we have a group of Muslim philosophers who have worked in Andalusia in Spain, since for 7-8 centuries Spain was inhabited by Muslims and ruled by Muslims, there we had a group of philosophers and sciences where the European humanities and renaissance scientists have been educated. Francis Beckon, Roger Beckon had attained their education there, these individuals have attained their education in Spain.
Part from the Muslim philosophers of Andalusia there is scholar known as Ibn Tufayl, he has a work Hajj Ibn Yakdhan, which means “Alive, the son of awake” and on this work the author delineated the manner on how to reach God; the author elaborates two ways. The initial way is through pure, prudent reason. The pure reason which Kant later in his work would elaborate. And we here also, just as Ibn Tufayl, refer to pure reason, whereas the pragmatic reason in Kant is reason encompassing prejudices across history. For instance we now have a number of judgments which serve as a paradigm in order to absorb some understandings, among them as an object even Islam. There is a number of people who speak positively or negatively about Islam without any prior sufficient knowledge upon it. Look now every one of you here is young, you are in the edge of acquaintance with science, I ask you to never judge on a matter without knowing about it in advance, and not to speak on matters which we have only heard from others. A great number of people who are not acquainted with Islam speak subject to judgments; for instance one might have never read a Surah from the Qur’an and yet subject to what that person has heard from others, subject to what he saw being interpreted in society, which indubitably people can make mistakes in interpretation and might even interpret and predict in fashions which are not fully correct, one person subject to these judgments concludes or takes his stand on Islam. This is one great err not only committed to Islam, but people should not speak even about communism without knowing it, without being sure about it, without analyzing it without having read about it, never hold a stand pro or against on a matter without prior knowledge on that topic. Even with these people it is the same thing, meaning that the pragmatic reason is the reasoning which is fed through various predicaments and various judgments throughout history.
Kant is an agnostic, he claims that the beyond-physical, God, cannot be acquainted. Look we have now a number of intellectuals, and even nowadays we have a number of them who say “I am agnostic” but they don’t know what this is, I can give you my word (since I personally have set with some of them) that they have no clue what agnosticism is; all the person seeks to say by this is that he is anti-theist and nothing more.
Gnosticism is one philosophical movement which existed ever since ancient Persia (The Sasanian Period) which means the theory of acquaintance; gnostology is the theory of acquaintance and not knowledge; knowing is knowledge which is attained through intuit. For instance I love Besar this child, and this is not an element of knowledge, I cannot know why I love him, I have sympathy now for Besar and this is one element of acquaintance. Inasmuch religion in most occasions is the element of the intuit of people. For instance, those people who do not pray 5 times the daily namaz cannot understand those who pray, however the one who prays 5 times daily namaz receives a unique contentment from namaz.
Whereas agnostic means a person who cannot acquaint God, to this reason this person does not even venture to approach matters on God and does not discuss them. There are a number of people who claim to be agnostic and yet they accurse religion. The one who is an agnostic does not accurse religion, the one who is agnostic does not discuss religion at all, the person instead says that this is one element which he cannot acquaint through pure rationale, to this reason he cannot accept this and he does not infer anything about it. This man however does not accurse it since according to the agnostics religion is a matter of experience of a few individuals, the intuit of several persons and as long as this person cannot engage this domain in his pure reason laboratory, this experience and intuit of these persons the agnostic does not communicate. Wittgenstein (he is one philosophers from the communities in Vienna) at the beginning was of the opinion that one cannot discuss about God, in his work “Tractatus logico-philosophicus” his thought was that we cannot speak on God. There is merely a language of theology, no language of religion, since it refers to matters which are foreign to us, to this reason it is highly difficult to speak about this, however later he had regretted having said that and on his second work which has been translated into Albanian and English as well: “Hulumtime filozofike”/“Phylosophical investigations” he says that there is a possibility to speak on God, since acquaintance cannot merely be obtained through the sensory perceptions, acquaintance cannot be obtained only through the sight, the eye, the ear, from touch but moreover there is an additional inner intuit which is attained through acquaintance.
Inasmuch I do not speak on the pragmatic reason, but I speak on the puro-reason the prudent reason) and this pure reason, if man ventures to motion more profoundly without judging he indubitably motions hither God. And even in the philosophical novel which I mentioned to you (you have it also in English but I also said that you have it available in Bosnian, in Albanian it has been translated and inshallah Logos will publish it, it is in the upcoming publishing and you can read it) he speaks on a person which in the fashion of Robinson Crouse remained alone in one island and the novel delineates how this person got acquainted with God, beginning with medicine. Since his mother was a gazelle animal, and with her death he began to research what was it that left this gazelle no longer warm, she was pale and cold; as this person no longer feels the warmth of the love which he used to receive from the animal mother and afterwards he began to research the nature and in the end he was acquainted with the spirit. Thus this is the pattern which leads to Allah Almighty, through the pure reason.
The second manner of approach is through the ear, this is the essential manner of reaching and acquainting with God; the way through the ear (have this in mind) since even the revelation has been descended through the ear. Nowadays the worldwide trend, from the frame of philosophy, is the perennial philosophy. Philosophia pereniss or sofia pereniss infers eternal wisdom, the philosophy which is eternal or traditional (not traditional from the frame of tradition as we understand tradition, but from the frame of its arrival from a certain reference point) and in essence to this philosophy stands the truth that God had learned the concepts and shapes to Adam. The first teacher of the entire humankind is God, He initially brought shape to things and then Adam and his sons began to analyze the concepts and to make discoveries, not new creations; the creation of concepts can only be done by God and the Qur’an clarifies this ”And Allah Almighty taught to Adam the names” (The Qur’an Surah: Al-Baqarah, verse: 31).
Among us, even we theologians have extensively degraded this matter; when titles and names would be mentioned they had even asked the imams what names had they been taught, and the answer had been general names like: the body, the hank and so forth. This has nothing to do with the names of the body or the hank, instead it refers to conceptions. For instance they had been taught the concept of faith, the idea of love, the conception of will, and thus these are conceptions with which man can coexist in the human society. Once these were given it was then said to Adam (PBUH) that it was upon him to develop these conceptions.
To this reason, the pure reason leads to the ultimate closing chapter, hither God. Pure reason could never accept two leaders, have this in mind; the pragmatic reason on the other hand perhaps could accept two leaders. In history you can observe, there is ancient Greek mythology, there is a dualist faith for instance among Persians, Ahrimani-Ahura Mazda / God of goodness – God of evil, among the Arabic mushriks there are various idolatries, however in their pure reason in each of them (even the Qur’an says this), when for instance they have asked the mushriks / polytheists (those who believe in many gods) of Mecca in what do you believe, they have said: we believe these gods upon which we take them for gods in order for them to approach us to the greatest God, which shows that in their conscience there is one God, in super might; and exactly in the analyses of comparative religions the conclusion is that all the polytheist religions, in all the mythologies in the end there exists one superior God (in the Greek philosophy as well you know that Zeus is in the head of the pyramid).
Henceforth the essence telling us to acquaint God is to accept the oneness of one superpower, the oneness of one absolute God who rules with all things.
The fifth attribute from the personal or essential attributes of God is muhalefetun lil havadith which means He does not resemble anything alike in the universe. Oftentimes you might have asked yourself why painting is not significantly progressed among Muslims, the type of painting with viral elements of nature (least progressive among Muslims), whereas still life, nature / nature morter is greatly saturated. For instance various geometrical shapes have reached their peak in usage among the Muslims. In the past if religion was sensitive to one particular domain, that portion had then greatly advanced in that religion. Moreover music and picture have been mainly advanced in Christianity, do you know why? Because these elements are found within the church, the piano is within the church in Christianity and even iconography is found within the church and to this reason these elements mainly advanced, since religion itself has favored their advancement. Among Muslims for instance architecture is more progressed that in Classical Christianity, the measure of time is mostly advanced due to the daily 5 times namaz prayer, we can even conclude that those elements which religion has motivated those have advanced. Muslims have avoided painting viral nature in order for that not to become an element of worship.
Islam does not forbid any form of art. Islam forbids the tools which desecrate the person of man. It is the identical occasion with arts, meaning that anything can be misused, not only art; one could debase science; one who studies atomistic (the nuclear science) instead of this person making one nuclear center for production of electricity he can develop an atomic bomb to kill people.
Islamic art has eloped using viral elements of nature in order not to resemble anything alike to God, muhalefetun lil havadith means that God does not resemble to anything alike; the Muslim never portrays or dwells in thought on the form of God, one does not think about how God looks, this is outside the Muslim meditation of Muslim faith. Among all other religion form exists, which means that in the course of their meditation various shapes appear. In the Muslim movies we don’t come across even of photographs of other prophets and not even to mention that for God, whereas among Christian movies this is visible and traceable (for instance watch the movie with the version of Prophet Abraham (PBUH) that Christians have developed, and watch the movie about him which Muslims have developed, in the formal there are shapes in the latter there are no forms or given concrete forms of the individuals). The message was that nothing was to resemble God, but there is another danger, we should never abstract God so further away from our lives which leads to having a very foreign sight, as even this is dangerous. Since if we abstain God from nature, the universe, then you abstain Him so further from yourself that you even dwell in profound negligence.
Hence the essence of muhalefetun lil havadithi is to accept that God does not resemble to anything alike and we cannot find anything alike God within the universe, the person of God has His own unique trait with which man by this built structure, given to man, cannot possibly imagine.
Thank you.