RISTalks: Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr - "Philosophy Matters" at RIS 2012

Smyrna Rahim a salatu was-salam ala l-mursaleen Stein Salaam alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu my bad have lectured in major Islamic conferences for half a century it's the very first time I've ever been invited to speak about philosophy and I'm very pleased that this event has taken place because it implies an opening into a very critical and important aspect of Islamic intellectual life which has fallen too long been neglected by the more popular movements of thought within the Islamic world during the past few decades I did not choose a subject of the Stork myself but it was chosen for me and I'm glad of spending a lifetime in this study about Islamic philosophy and philosophy globally to try to summarize for a minute in a few minutes for you the vast subject of why philosophy matters why it is important for us as Muslims and for humanity at large first of all some definitions there is a kind of fright that exists against many modern Muslim reformers and thinkers going back to Muhammad Abduh about the very term philosophy although the founder of this movement jemaldin Afghani studies Islamic philosophy for many years in Tehran before fleeing before the onslaught of the government at the time from the country first of understand and then to Turkey and Egypt some philosophy has remained somewhat vague for us precisely because it covers such a vast field but as vagueness in Islamic context and the Western context are very very different in the West philosophy has a vast array of meanings a whole spectrum of meanings people as different as Plato and Derrida are called philosophers and there's not a single universal worldview or even several worldviews which you might say the major philosophers share most up philosophy in the West has become something other than what philosophy was understood to be for millennia and during the Greek or Roman period the periods of thought which Islam and the West share together in many ways in modern times much of philosophy turned against Sophia it's not unimportant to mention that some wise men have now called Western philosophy mrs. o'fee that is hatred of wisdom rather than love of wisdom philosophy originally meant love of wisdom as for Islam in the Slavic context many people forgot that the Quran itself twice mentions the word hikmah which mentions has been a great gift from Allah Allah utf8 on kathira when God gives hokhmah to someone and that this war victim was understood to be the same thing as the arabised word philosopher which came from the Greek philosophy ax but in Islam we are a very different situation developed we had a particular school that was called falsify or set of schools and then we on other intellectual schools such as theology Kalam who Sol and others which in fact although not called technically philosophy were very philosophical in nature in many ways if ashari the founder of a shared school of theology which is the prevalent school of theology in Sunni Islam for the last thousand years attack philosopher at the same time he spoke about a reason he spoke about causality even if he denied it you spoke about issues which are properly speaking philosophical and the discussion between a man and Apple or faith and reason which is a philosophical issue was of central concern to all kinds of Islamic thinkers even those who are not called philosophers you might say that the philosophy is like politics you can have good politics or bad politics but no society can have no politics in the same way with philosophy everyone whether he or she is aware or not has some kind of philosophical view of life of action of ethics of thinking what is good what is bad what is true what is false what is beautiful what is ugly and so forth and so on and so it is really impossible without doing with philosophy and one of the greatest tragedies which the Islamic intelligentsia has faced during the last two centuries which is the beginning of the onslaught of Western thought after the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt let's say around 1798 1800 against Islamic world is the refusal by many parts of the Muslim intelligencer not all to revive I'm going to come to terms with its own major philosophical intellectual tradition that is we have a kind of anti philosophical vein in many Islamic movements which nevertheless are faced with a challenge that is primarily philosophical the challenge of the West of the Islamic world is done like that of the Mongol invasion the Mongols invaded is the Islamic world with the million horses a million versus that was enough to destroy all lands and killed many in people but they did not challenge Islam intellectually that was not each other the challenge was the bows and arrows and the horses of the horse of changose Fran's grandson holoku whereas the main challenge of the West to the Islamic world is not only the tragedy of the drones that kill innocent children every night in Afghanistan and Pakistan for whom no one cries unfortunately since a Washington I cannot just take this anymore one if a blue-eyed child dies in Connecticut everybody cries I'm a very sad for that of course but one with dark eyed child dies somewhere in near Peshawar nobody even cares it's not but the challenge is not this it's not only drones it is not economic Russia of IMF it is not Stooges placed upon governmental authority in different lands by Western powers the greatest challenge of the westward slum is intellectual it's predominantly intellectual it has to do with the realm of thought the fact that we have lost our sense of confidence has a great deal to do with the fact that we have stopped as a civilization to think enough and to think correctly a civilization which produced some of the greatest thinkers in world history no matter what criterion you use for greatness and this is a very sad because then a lot of Islamic revival movements because the nest on alhambra the faith is still strong many of the reformers have not paid enough attention to the importance of thinking of correct thinking of what would be probably philosophical and Islamic sense of the eleven hundred year tradition of magma fall Safa which stretches from the early Abbasid period right to around a they forget the verse of the quran which says we reveal the quran so that people will intellect will use their intellect lawanda alone in the null quran allah alone that is the cause the reason for the revelation of the piranhas verses is that so we can intellect you see I don't use the word reason I'm trying to revive the old English usage of intellect in a verbal form which has been lost now that is to intellect because the Arabic is used in both as a verb as as a noun intellect the only reason it is more profound than that the great tragedy of the West is the death of Intel and is being absorbed into reason and therefore the cutting of the Nexus alarm the link between Greece and and revelation between religion and science between this wall on the next and everything else which never existed in classical Islamic civilization because yeah alone Apple was not simply rational discourse it was substance which allowed us to know in a primordial an essential way and we are heirs of this civilization and the poor on the wiki reciting without yacht alone without people thinking without using our Apple without Napoli without our being able to think clearly think well can you imagine how absurdities a civilization that's created a place like the Taj Mahal which is pure geometry or the asan mosque or the Fez courtyard at the Madison Fez that is based on clarity pure geometry mathematics of the most rigorous kind should not be so wishy-washy in his thinking so weak it is response to Western thought to the major challenges of the West to the extent that we have so few voices which were even be accepted to be heard globally when it comes to intellectual matters yes we have very good physicians we have very good engineers we have this and that but when it comes to the primary questions which have to do with thought the future of humanity as is related to the intellectual aspects of human life were are the Muslim voices that even taken to be serious very seriously on a global level that is our own fault especially being errors with civilization which are always emphasized on the basis of the Quran the significance of clear thinking of using our head as a Musa in colloquial English now when we look at a situation today there are all kinds of isms which come from the Western world like waves of the sea upon the shore one after another we have all of these terms which all of you know some of you might not rationalism empiricism humanism evolutionism and then the moral political and social actors defense liberalism socialism nationalism then intellectual as well as scientism all of these isms are swimming around and they are incorporating in fact our mind in many ways their judicial system in Islamic world is such that is in most countries not all Iran and one or two countries being an exception when I checked out all the Western schools most of them are dominated by the colonial period through missionary schools ninety percent of the most richest children in the Egypt or Pakistan go to Western schools they do not go to Muslim schools and the old mattresses are only for the poor people it's not like - two centuries ago and as least people who run these countries and the minds are totally brainwashed with these isms and even if he are pious and with Sarah prayers in at Fajr and the Maghreb and we pray the rest of our being is immersed in these Western isms and Islam has failed to provide fully response to all of these isms which like the wind coming from the east consume comes coming seasonally and every once in a while with the new ISM we have to wait to see what new ISM comes and some of us swallow it some of us don't pay attention but it affects people in many many ways I remember was in Tehran when the famous French philosopher Foucault came to Tehran and nobody had heard of Foucault very much at that time in the West and we had an evening together he was a very intelligent person we unfortunately had known him on no faith but he was a person you could talk to and we spoke about what he was saying is that nobody's Frances listening to me but they will and we are I invited a number young Persian students and professors and to how to discourse with them and he was saying you know as soon as my ideas catch in France you got you don't be popular here that's exactly what happened then Foucault died and then Derrida came he died somebody else comes and so on and so on we are at the receiving end of waves some of which are more social and popular like nationalism and socialism some of which are more intellectual but we are passive civilization visible all the isms than invaders now all these isms have to do with philosophy way of thinking with a worldview rationalism itself which is the basis of modern civilization now you have post rational sermon in the post modernism but until the early 20th century was the foundation of Western thought that it served as a philosophy it is to say that reason is the only way to reach the truth and how many Muslims do you know who are pious during hours of prayer but the rest of the day they're rationalist and the confused thanks to a lot of modernized Muslim writers with another left hand turn right hand when it comes to Western thought they've made a confusion between Alcala as intellect and reason or a stirred Allah in Arabic as the rational faculty we use in everyday life and maybe made this confusion Islam is rational and sometimes we have the extreme meeting of these two which results in this kind of wedding between extreme fundamentalism and extreme worship of Technology which you find in certain parts of the stomach world today where on the one hand you used a lot of the latest technological means you really worship technology we say la la la la but your actual a large modern technology at the same time your fundamental is defending the rights of Islam without any Content the great tragedies that are facing the Islamic world today the fact that we cannot answer questions because of its lack of thinking not all questions can be answered with the fist if you have a fire I always tell my students in a forest you cannot play the violin to it you can play good violin to overcome bad violin airplane but you need water talk it was same substance to overcome the fire now wrong thought needs correct thought wrong thought cannot be cured by shouting by indignation that's not enough emotions do not answer wrong thinking only right thinking does and the Quran is the guide to this over and over again and always distinguish between those who are able to use the intellect correctly and who do not hostile Athena Yahoo Nova whom dark alone are those who those who know and those who do not know equal and the Quran says no they're not those who use their intellect are those who are really good Muslims and this is a lesson really forgotten for us today and I as humble educator I've spent 50 years on this issue I'm very sad that our progress in this matter has been so slow we even I was one of the four people established Islamic University systems by arranging the first conference in Mecca in 1977 the world educational conference with dr. zobeir and dr. Nassif and one other person like a chef who died the Bengali scholar and it's re create these Islamic universities were invited from all over the world for that presidents of universities and ministers as a higher education and so forth and they were established in all of the universities we failed because there has one qualia Sharia which teaches Islamic subjects the others are all Western subjects there are always some subjects and we have not used our mind as Muslims to think these through Islamic Lee I'm not saying this is it's a very very difficult task but it's not an impossible task but the future of Islamic civilization as a civilization is based and relies upon the degree of success we have in being able to think both islamically and clearly now in order to do that we first of all have to revive our intellectual tradition intellectual tradition every one of which aspect the most branches which is the philosophical aspect include first of all o su or su último solid in both have a philosophical aspect to them very important philosophical aspect even the science of semantics which is a branch of modern for Western philosophy is discussed in Alma Lu soon for other reasons but these are technical matters in our audience of 20,000 people I cannot go into these things but let me just tell you that even a soul which the purely religious science taught in al-azhar at the religious universities the Philosopher's will aspect to it which needs to be revived Kalam Islamic theology which has been under attack by modernists since the 19th century but which still survives and you also knew mortals ilysm in Egypt and knew assure ISM the Salafi movement is of course against all of this against the whole is some intellectual tradition but the serious Muslims who understand the tradition they understand the gaminess of Kalam both Sunni and Shia that has to be revived for our own day but also avid awareness of his philosophical base and then what we call metaphysics Co gnosis modify our foreign the song ultimate science of the rail which Islamic metaphysics which was the heart really of intellectual science of Islam then is also to be revived and made present for us and even the sciences Islamic Sciences and of course the storming for the softball tradition now if you were to revive this whole intellectual tradition it would provide a framework for us within which we could then think and confront issues come from modern disciplines which need an Islamic response an Islamic awareness and it's LOM who have integrating it into the living body of Islamic civilization let me give you two examples example of science an example of the humanities or the human sciences for 30-40 years now we've been speaking about Islam on science was in 1964 whereas my 20s are written the spoke sciences of Russian Islam this debate began about the question of Islamic science I used the term Islamic science on purpose both to overcome the Arab nationalistic view of calling Islamic science the Arabic science which is historically false god stomach's knives were not only cultivated by the Arabs most of us called about the Persians and good part of it by the Arabs are visible by the Turks and Muslim Indians but the greatest scientists like a machine RB Rooney Oliver none of these pure Arabs so and also it was Islamic in a more profound sense are being related to preserve Islamic revelation that caused a great deal of consternation at that time a lot of debate other schools of thought came up the edge amale's for a while and a lot of scientists in the stomach world rejected my idea that religion islam was related to science this assigns the science and is absolutely absurd science is not science science is based on a worldview is based on a paradigm any philosopher science at Oxford University was an atheist will tell you that and for us Muslims science has to be based on Islamic Maryland and so I've been in this battlefield for 50 years I've been a very severe critic of scientism I believe one of the greatest diseases of the Islamic world much worse than the malaria that is attacking East Africa is scientism scientism from which governments is different the Saudi Arabian Islamic Republic of Iran as a Malaysia and Egypt all suffer from all governments support science with our knowledge of what it is they want power power and wealth that's understandable but the intellectuals are supported believe that through science comes power and therefore this is Islamic and God says you should pursue home and science is a hell and therefore science is Islamic whereas a science in which the existence or non-existence of God is irrelevant in which is going to be a physicist and be a good Catholic and you can be an atheist and be a good business and win the Nobel Prize such as science cannot have any place in stomach civilization very few people have the courage to say this but I'm not at the end of my life when was 25 years old I said that and I still say it we need to understand that scientist is not possible to accept most of Muslim intellectuals really worship Science and Technology they say they worship God yes a few hours a day the rest of the day we worship Science and Technology and this is a great malady of the modern world the environment the crisis one day is really going to take good care of us and people will stop his worship that now is all over the world is not only in the stomach worlds the Hindu in the other what's happening to India the land of Shankara what is happening to it now and said of course in communist China were Hamas is going on of course Western science was really the God and the Chinese have put that in front but they consider to be communist and atheists and there are ideological differences with it as we do and we should be very very careful about the scientist now the scientism can only be confronted but the revival of thinking Islamic philosophical tradition because the response to scientism is philosophical if scientism itself is not science it's a philosophy it's a philosophy about the nature of things lots of nature flaws of knowledge upon which its base is the negation of all forms of knowing nature exceptional modern science and there was a particular philosophy about knowledge and of nature and the response to it can only be philosophical we cannot confront the danger of scientism without philosophy with a correct philosophy drawn from our own philosophical tradition as for the humanities it's gonna talk for some time about Islam is our thing the humanities I was for many years the Dean of the most important School of Humanities in Iran of the Faculty of little of Tehran University and I was at the forefront of the movement to try to at least if we cannot do the physics let's make our disciplines of the humanities Islamic let's not study history from the point II of France and have a little salami chapter in between let's start it study literature from the point of English and then have it as a chapter or do literature at the end if you look at the curriculum have university the stomach world it's an absolute disgrace absolute discourage what civilization has ever come to study itself for the point of somebody else look at the majority of history books right now being taught in Islamic universities they all push and the Western view of global history and I could go down the list and anthropology language and so forth and so on and there's a movement afoot in Iran in fact there was the fatwa given by the supervisor of Iran for the universities to try to work on this but they're barking up the wrong tree more or less unfortunately I'm not planning to write an essay on deception published in Tehran or to its own because I've been at the forefront of this but how can a civilization survive when our children put aside physics and chemistry you do not have an independent view of their own literature of their own art of their own thoughts of their own social structures of their own view of the universe from the point of view of their own civilization how can such civilization survive this is a very major crisis and this again is a philosophical issue it's it is educational but has to do with philosophy not only education of laws of how do these children but what content should be used alhamdulillah not everything is so dark there are lights on the horizon there are people now gradually realize this and is a very important battle has to be carried on but if there were one person shouting in the wilderness about these things it would be worthwhile doing it because the truth ultimately always triumphs and a hope and pray for better days when especially our younger generation some of whom are here now would begin to pay more attention to philosophical intellectual matters and for parents all of those wonderful mothers and fathers are sitting here I'm a professor I've had many many students from Muslim families who after coming to one or two of my lectures decided to shift from engineering or medicine to Islamic studies those who study philosophy with me and the parents fainted the father had a heart attack their mother but education think of God think of Islam you who love Islam sacrifice something yourself and that sacrifice in the cell phone ground the husband of the parents that my father my son the doctor engineer of course we need doctors engineers but we also need Muslims who devote their life to these issues there might make less money than a good surgeon but the community needs it and I said always and this Atoka general sacrifice as the fart kavaja it's not farted Farrell I missed vodka fire in the storm you know that is incumbent upon the community as a whole maybe not up on Hassan or on Tully who are especially gifted and mathematics ama become engineers but the communities hold special Islamic community living in Europe and America to be able to do for the Jewish community in 50 years in America so he can take him over every single seat of Islamics of Jewish Studies in America except one that is not occupied by Jewish scholars our hearts off to them I was just saying that lunch to some friends when I was a student at Harvard University was only one University in America whose provision Jewish study was Jewish at yeah everybody else was a Christian who knew Hebrew Old Testament scholar now every University at Seton Hall is a Catholic University northern New Jersey every University professor of Jewish Studies is Jewish I hope inshallah when I have died and you could come and lecture a few decades somebody will be able to make this statement for the stomach world first on the community and that depended more than anything else on a reviving our intellectual tradition combined with faith in Him and these are the two great legs leaders to paradise and need makes the successful community on earth faith in Allah to Allah and the use of the greatest gift that he has given us that is allowed you

Channel: rismultimedia

Views: 49,337

Rating: 4.9047618 out of 5

Keywords: ris, islam, ristalks, 'ris, talks', muhammad, inspiration, motivation, toronto, reviving the islamic spirit, conference, convention, islamic conference, youth, seyyed hossein nasr, seyyed, hossein, nasr, quran, philosophy, islamic philosophy

Id: qAgGB407FHs

Length: 29min 40sec (1780 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 26 2012