Al-Ghazzali, Soroush, and the Courageous Jurisconsult
“Now then: You have asked me, my brother in religion, to communicate to you the aim and secrets of the science and the dangerous and intricate depths of the different doctrines and views. You want me to give you an account of my travail in disengaging the truth from amid the welter of the sects, despite the polarity of their means and methods. You also want to hear about my daring in mounting from the lowland of servile conformism to the highland of independent investigation.”
This introduction to Al-Ghazzali’s notable work, Deliverance from Error, seems to declare not only the Imam’s own reasons for composing his text, but also to inspire and provide a clear outline for the theses of Abdolkarim Soroush in his work Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam. Indeed this entire work by Soroush seems a response to and elaboration upon the Deliverance with commentary and an attempt to bring al-Ghazzali’s ideas to a logical next-step for the current era.
The Deliverance introduction also responds to the assignment of this particular paper. In the first part of this current work I shall employ the al-Ghazzali text as a reference and contrast-point of departure from which to examine several of Soroush’s theses found in Chapter II: “ Islamic Revival and Reform” from Reason, Freedom and Democracy in Islam and the models of change he suggests as they embody a logical outgrowth of al-Ghazzali’s ideas. I will highlight a few critical limitations in the theses of both men, and in the second portion of this paper I will present my own perspectives and suggestions for models of possible change in the profession of Islam in the world today. I will not succumb to the temptation of elaborating upon wholly fanciful and unrealistic suggestions which too commonly find their way into such examinations and which ultimately trivialize the gravity and provocative opportunities contained in volatile crossroads of profound change. Cotton candy bridges may be charming projects in art school experimental models, but such bridges will never carry people to places of greater worldly or spiritual fulfillment.
REVIVIFICATION
Both al-Ghazzali and Soroush outline the critical need for a periodic renewal, reaffirmation, and clarification of religion within Islamic society. Both men are very careful to outline a falling away into errors and misunderstanding of the elements and essence of religion which necessitates renewal and the failure to integrate empirically derived knowledge with spiritual knowledge. This failure stimulates a social and moral collapse into confusion, loss of faith, and a backward looking protectionism that closes society to the growth and development of human knowledge of the world. The sharpest danger outlined by both writers is the complete failure to attain the true gem of religion, personal spiritual knowledge, which both men claim has taken a subordinate role to the collective obsession with law and the details of exoteric and cultural expression of faith. Both al-Ghazzali in the 6th/12th century and Soroush and Soroush in the 21st describe the environments in which they live and write as in danger of becoming stagnant and one might suggest religiously reactionary. Both al-Ghazzali and Soroush address environments caught precariously between two seemingly disastrous poles: reversion to a distant past rich with romantic ideals but devoid of the benefits of scientific empiricism and social rationalism, and the fear of a complete disintegration of religious faith and a subsequent breakdown of Islamic religious society. For both al-Ghazzali and Soroush the revivification process is needed to circumvent these possibilities and create a renewed environment of fluid engagement between religion and knowledge which may allow the culture of Islam to enter into a era of not merely rigid and artificially bolstered survival, but a renaissance of thinking and expression, a renaissance at once dynamic and creative yet undeniably Islamic in body and spirit.
Such periodic revivification seems a natural component of the observable development of human knowledge. Soroush, as a man thoroughly steeped in the modern sciences, underlines the importance of these sciences and other branches of human knowledge as tools and gifts for mankind’s development in material and social prosperity. He also calls for a clear understanding of the difference between knowledge of religion as distinct from religion “as it is.” Knowledge of religion, for Soroush, is a branch of human knowledge which evolves and changes over time through an ongoing dialogue with other branches of human knowledge. Hence man’s understanding of religion, God, revelation, and prophecy, evolves and changes, expands over time in response to new discoveries and developments in thought and ideas. An understanding of this fluctuation can be found in Soroush’s theory of contraction and expansion, itself an interesting concept found in the writings of the Sufis as a description of the fluctuations which the hearts of men undergo though their transformations in God.
Al-Ghazzali cleverly defends the idea and role of prophecy against attacks by the rationalists of his day in the Deliverance by stating that prophecy applies not only to divine revelation found in sacred texts, but also to the genius of individual consciousness as it comes to “know” things it could not have known through any other means than through inspiration. He applies this definition to both mystical gnosis, ‘irfan, as well as to the grasping of previously unknown scientific discoveries and ideas such as the observation of the ordered movement of the stars and the gleaning of the nature of the workings of the human body.
Soroush also defends the importance of scientific knowledge and other branches of human knowledge such as sociology and psychology in man’s development and demonstrates that they are not incompatible with either religion, or man’s knowledge of religion. What neither al-Ghazzali nor Soroush suggests however is that this periodic revival of religious knowledge is a natural and positive necessity, much like the yearly clearing away and burning off of dead fields to make way for the replanting of those fields with the seeds left from the harvest, seeds which carry the permanent and perpetuating essence of the nourishing crops. This idea illustrates the cyclical nature of expansion and contraction as a function of God’s possible nature and His manifestation in material nature which mirrors His attributes. Instead al-Ghazzali and Soroush both seem to describe this process of renewal almost as the need to cut away a dangerously gangrenous limb to save a body: an unexpected and unfortunate crisis rather than a productive and affirming opportunity. Were the process to be undertaken with more creative regularity, the point of desperation and crisis possibly would not arise. The first view, that of a healthy and natural process of cyclical renewal, can facilitate an environment of hope and enthusiasm, participation and inclusion. The amputation of the gangrenous limb image will bring only resistance, violence, and protectionism as many will see in themselves and their faith that which others are calling a disease to be extricated and disposed of.
Al-Ghazzali and Soroush both give a central place to the concept of kallam and of a formalized series of debates upon the issues in this revitalization and renewal of Islam in the epochs in which they wrote and commented upon. For al-Ghazzali the mutakllimun did indeed arise and systematically address many of the challenges and innovations that he believed were destroying Islam at its roots. However his complaint, a complaint mirrored in Abdolkarimi Soroush, is that these efforts did not go far enough, but only addressed individual and immediate questions and did not provide a systematic means of undertaking the overarching phenomena of and need for healthy and appropriate change, nor the necessity of taking a proactive rather than a reactive response to the inevitability of sometimes threatening and unpredictable change.
For al-Ghazzali, the mutakallimun were also too deeply entrenched in their own disciplines of Islamic knowledge and sought only to champion and maintain or revive the status quo of their own immediate branch of thought. Proponents of ‘fiqh or law sought to place the law and its rituals and sciences of procedure as the supreme and sole head of religious expression with arguably rote expression of the law standing as the proof of Islam. The same complaint is made today by Soroush. Al-Ghazzali abhorred this as “servile conformism.” Soroush also tackles the component elements of Islam as did al-Ghazzali and identifies the same players on the field: among them those of the law, of theology, and of personal knowledge of religion, gnosis, or ‘irfan. Both Soroush and al-Ghazzali find the only salvation is the holistic marriage of these three approaches, combined with the clear differentiation between religion as it is and religious knowledge, or the eternal and unchanging truth of religion and the time/location-bound expression of that understanding of religion that changes over time regardless of man’s attempts to hold it within a vacuum of suspension.
The significant issue which differentiates the theses of Soroush from those of al-Ghazzali up to this point in the discussion is that of scientific knowledge and its function in human society. As a scientist and champion of such knowledge, Soroush would harness this unfolding mystery to aid man while ensuring that it carried society not in unrestrained directions but in those compatible with an Islamic society. Al-Ghazzali is of the same mind but with a very dramatic difference. He clearly affirms the lawfulness within religion of scientific and empirical study, methods, and knowledge, but contends that for the “average man” the exposure to their study will lead only to limited understanding, doubt, error, loss of faith, and the abandonment of religion. So here he distinctly stratifies two groups within society: those who openly study and develop knowledge and understanding of the material world, and those who are systematically excluded from this knowledge. At no point however, at least in the Deliverance, does al-Ghazzali explain who comprises these two groups, how their separation is maintained, and how such knowledge is attained and then disseminated into the public purview and to what ends it is to be used and by whom.
For Soroush, as well as al-Ghazzali, partial knowledge is dangerous to faith. For Soroush, the solution is a full comprehension of knowledge, the sciences, and all branches of human knowledge. However what Soroush does not fully suggest is that such expanding of human knowledge, in contrast to diminishing knowledge of religion can serve to broaden the horizons of its approach. Soroush describes religion with the following curious phrase: “The efforts of our contemporaries are devoted to the safe conduct of religion through the perilous path of the temporal world and to bestowing proper meaning and relevance upon it in an increasingly turbulent secular world.” (pg 28)
What is problematic about this idea is that it presents religion as a vulnerable and veiled bride being escorted through hostile hill country on the way to her wedding feast. The brigands of secularization are armed and looming behind every rock. However if religion, “as it is,” is the manifestation and gift of God to access knowledge and experience of Him and an evolving understanding of and mastery of our existence in this life, how then can it be vulnerable to any threat or encroachment? Why must religion be ushered or escorted anywhere? How can religion, if there indeed be Truth within it, be in need of our protection?
Al-Ghazzali’s belief that the masses of humanity must be kept from a close scrutiny of empiric knowledge of the world is only marginally updated with Soroush. He suggests, and rightly, that to close off and forbid people from exposing themselves to the new technologies, particularly those of communication and knowledge of the world and all that hides beneath its cloak, is only to enflame their desire for it. There are many who believe that the Apple in the Garden offered by Shaytan was not the knowledge of good and evil, but was Knowledge itself. Abdolkarim Soroush generously allows people to be exposed to all the fruit in the world, but with unspecified limitations. He would still “protect” people from the onslaught of the modern western moral encroachment. Again the image of religion as the tender virginal bride, wide eyed and helpless in a world of cultural monsters where she is either destroyed or forever violated and corrupted to their camp.
In many places Soroush reaffirms the need to embrace knowledge of the sciences, both physical and social while extricating them from western cultural models and goals. He restates over and again the critical need to distinguish between religion and religious knowledge, between the enduring and eternal in religion and the changeable, between the universal elements of religion, the consistently and essentially human elements which endure through time, and the cultural or time/place manifestations of religious expression among individual groups of people. He calls for a Courageous Jurisconsult to step forward and tackle this necessity. In Deliverance from Error al-Ghazzali offers himself as the model of this trajectory and he itemizes the same elements within Islamic religion as does Soroush, theology, law, and personal knowledge or gnosis.
Al-Ghazzali explains very clearly how his own path of questioning grew from servile conformism to doubt, to an emptiness of complete despair, and eventually to a systematic and almost scientific exploration of the component elements and various approaches to religious inquiry within Islam and other avenues of thought popular in the 12th century. Abdolkarim Soroush, when one includes autobiographical portions of the introduction of his work, does the same. And both men come to the same conclusion. These elements of religion, philosophy, theology, law: all are incomplete without the fourth leg of the table, personal religious experience through direct knowledge. Both thinkers suggest very strongly that it is this element, the gnostic and personal experience of religion which is an indispensable component of any possible revivification of Islamic society, for the individual, or for the whole of that society.
Soroush describes the necessity for the Courageous Jurisconsult with the same passionate rhetoric as if a cry for a new prophet. He calls for this person, or body of people, to bravely undertake this revivification amidst what would invariably involve an almost insurmountable firefight of resistance and violence. Al-Ghazzali describes himself as the individual who has completed this journey and who has come back, literally from the wilderness of ten years of wandering and searching, and against his will, to teach those who will hear him. Soroush seems to make his evocation of the Courageous Jurisconsult upon the backs of a few pointed and provocative allusions to ‘irfan and then he retreats into the shadows of mute and pregnant suggestion.
The critical task then of this Jurisconsult is many faceted. He must first define and extricate the eternal elements of religion from those elements subject to being updated and avoid the danger of discarding that which is foundational and essential in favor of that which is transitory and perhaps illusory. He must then identify those updated or new components to be added to the program and implicate them within religion and culture in such a way as to both minimize and maximize their impact. Minimize the impact that would be harmful (however that may then be described) to the religious society, yet maximize the benefits these elements would bring to society and determine the appropriate line between these two issues.
Soroush discusses one example of this as the various communication modalities in operation in wide use today. For him, vast networks and instantaneous communication undeniably offer great strides and conveniences for society and for Islam. However, like al-Ghazzali before him, Soroush would limit and filter exposure and access to these technologies and the external cultural influences they represent. However he fails to identify the methods and criteria to be used in this filtering. Soroush recognizes that a complete social lock-down on these external cultural influences will only render them more salaciously irresistible to the youth he seems so committed to protecting. Again he touches upon the need to protect the vulnerable from influences they cannot seemingly understand or resist. Soroush disavows the complete totalitarian closing of society, but he would still limit, artificially, the exposure of the Muslim population, and particularly the youth within Islamic society, to these elements.
Soroush eloquently outlines many undeniably destructive and unhealthy social conditions in the West which he contends mandate this filtered exposure to external cultural influences. The problem with both al-Ghazzali’s complete suppression of empirical knowledge of the material world to all but his undesignated elite, and Soroush’s partial closing of the door, is that the phenomenal process of human knowledge moves dynamically through time like a juggernaut, and precludes both the sustained totalitarian exclusion of knowledge from the social sphere, and the partial exposure to world cultural influences. One could easily cite in the US the decline of education producing what can only be called the new superstition and a dangerously circumscribed and misperceived view of world and domestic events. One could also easily cite today’s headlines which states that three out of five web sites featuring violent sexual pornography and children under the age of twelve originates in the US.
However the puzzling point in the works of both ah-Ghazzali and Soroush is their insistence on the importance of the personal spiritual knowledge to the individual and the benefits this knowledge would bring to culture, yet neither man offers a unique approach to developing and using that personal knowledge, that gnosis, ‘irfan as the natural armor and grease upon which people may move forward in the world and in their religious lives without the perpetual vulnerability of exposure to so-called threatening influences. Neither author touches upon the unlikely and unique cohesion that such direct religious experiences can provide between the seeming irrationality and incompatibility of mysteries, prophecy, mystical experience and a transcendental/imminent God, and the world of modern science and rational inquiry.
THE COURAGEOUS JURICONSULT
Because both al-Ghazzali and Abdolkarim Soroush posited their intriguing models of the need for a sustained and periodic revivification of human religious knowledge, Soroush called for the appearance of the Courageous Jurisconsult, and then both writers retreated from the stage, I shall assume that role and offer my own suggestions for a Further Deliverance from Error. First however I must enlist time to aid me and state emphatically that the only way that any model for change, particularly wide sweeping and enduring change can manifest is with the appropriate time necessary for its natural fruition. This seems to be an element that many forget or willingly overlook when they hope for instantaneous change and offer their dazzling if narrowly considered manifestos for unilateral world enlightenment. Such change of any sort enacted overnight can only be launched and maintained through force and can never hope to be anything more than what Soroush himself calls “cosmetic changes” that remain vulnerable to dissolution and further crises within society as they fail to meet the changing needs of a dynamic society. Such superficial and cosmetic changes can only be reinforced through compulsion and the terrifying technology of restraint and punishment.
Yet one of the most often repeated mantras of Islam is “there is no compulsion in religion” and God is the knower of hearts, not merely the Watcher of the right number of raka’ah correctly performed in the proper garb at the exact designated moment. Al-Ghazzali and Soroush both talk about theology, and law, and ‘irfan as though they were three rambunctious brothers who refuse to get along to the loss and discredit of all three, yet they do not suggest or design a plan for them to coexist much less reinforce and grow through exposure to one another in the same interactive dialogue that Soroush declares works so well with human branches of knowledge.
Soroush states the need to distinguish those elements of religion that are eternal from those which are transitory and therefore by definition fall rather into the category of religious knowledge. Yet he does not set about a coherent plan for making such distinctions. He also touches very briefly and suggestively on the notion of the danger of a “paid clergy” without elaborating on the inevitability of such a paid class using all political agencies at its disposal to ensure it retains the level of power it enjoys and never has to share that power. This facet of a religious society is the primary agency of stagnation and a restriction of change and growth.
The model therefore that I would propose would be one of comprehensive remodeling of education from the youngest levels with an inclusion of new models in both religion and politics to address the three fundamental aspects of religion; theology, law, and ‘irfan equally, and to create new institutions for the study and participation in these three aspects of religion. This model would also create a fourth body with power not to act directly within society but solely to negotiate and arbitrate balance between the other three branches and to facilitate the ongoing and evolving synergistic and dynamic interaction between them.
This model would be built upon a template, developed within the ‘Irfan School, of the emotional and spiritual progress and development of the individual in a dynamic and mystical capacity. How do people unfold through the process of spiritual search and inquiry, through liminal experiences and mystical transformation? What role does initiation and cathartic transcendental experiences play in this evolution? What are the states and stations of this progress and what conditions of life are unique and necessary to each? Within this model it will clearly be recognized that not all people desire for or progress to the same levels of discovery and this is a faculty of their personal nature. The ‘Irfan School would be responsible for providing the initial basic exposure to these inner arts and sciences and to awaken and instill in children the desirability of and the availability of access to them to the degree that each feels compelled and called to pursue. This model would include exercises of meditation and quiet introspection and the desirability of the personal inner search for a unique religious experience from childhood on. The ‘Irfan School would then develop schools, curriculums, systems of developmental exercises and techniques, appropriate teachers etc. for this education to people to explore literally to their hearts’ content from grade school programs, to higher education and college level, and beyond in the form of orders, monasteries, etc. These programs would co-exist equally with regular programs of non-religious-specific education.
However it would also be understood that this process of gnostic attainment cannot be owned or mandated or be held as a compulsive institution by the ‘Irfan School itself nor that access to the mysteries of the gnosis of God is dependent upon any school, teacher, or particular mystic sect within Islam and that in fact the higher levels of attainment are beyond any regulatory or systematized body, school, or teacher to maintain, assess, facilitate, or withhold. This would eliminate the branded co-opting of Sufism and its states and stations as it is today in which it is widely circulated, at least in the west, that the higher regions of access to and union with God are absolutely closed to those not signed up and dues-current with a recognized sheikh in a recognized and historically traditional order. (Such tradition which is highly open to historic legitimacy.) The Schools of Law and Theology would safeguard against the emergence of cults of personality within the ‘Irfan School and abuses of power and respect by sheikhs and other gnostic religious teachers.
The duties of the School of Law would be among its other duties to ensure that the ‘Irfan School did not “incorporate God” or restrictively systematize through uniformity of exercise and expression the individual’s journey through the higher inner dimensions of Islam which would be presumed to be wholly private and personalized. The ‘Irfan School’s central function would be to serve the true spiritual needs of the people and not the maintenance of its own powers and privileges. The role of the Arbitration School would be to ensure a balance between the Schools of Law, Theology and ‘Irfan and that the School of Law did not infringe upon the natural fluidity and creativity of the ‘Irfan foundational approaches to the gnostic maturation process. The duties of the School of ‘Irfan would include identifying those elements of religion which are universal and enduring as evidenced through direct contact with God and the human soul through time and found in the writings of the established gnostics both living and classical as well as those found within Qur’an and Hadith. Their writings paint a clear picture of a consistency and similarity of experience through time and cultural expression. Yet the absence of stark and unbending uniformity in the language of the mystics and expression of their individual gnosis would leave open the possibility of new, unique, and perhaps unexpected expressions of the gnostic experience.
Together with the School of Theology and the School of Law these essential elements, these “gems” of religion would be implemented within the worship, and religious education of society. The ‘Irfan School would identify and encourage individuality of religious expression within the cannon of Islamic forms of worship and would develop a palate of modalities, Guilds of Excellence based upon the 99 Beautiful Names of Allah and which would aid individuals in discovering the methods most suited to their own emotional and psychological needs and aptitudes and facilitate a broad ranging development of culture, both Islamic and universalist. These Guilds would then develop and provide opportunities for expression in associated fields of the arts, sciences, music, oration, and all fields of human cultural expression. Mix n Match highly encouraged! However it would be understood that all such expressions and investigations would not be confined solely to the Guilds or within any such (loosely) structured environment. Within this process a practical a dynamic method of determining the soundness of these essential elements will then be tested by the Schools of Theology and Law. It will be a function of the education process to ensure that all members of the Schools of Theology, Law, and ‘Irfan are masters to a determined degree of the other two schools. The School of Arbitration would consist of those masters of the social sciences of business arbitration, psychology, conflict resolution, secular ethics, and will typically hold no interest specifically in the supremacy of any of the three other Schools but rather be committed to the smooth and effective working of the three in concert.
The School of Theology would interpret revealed texts, Hadith, and the writings of the classical scholars and saints within the context of both the determinants of what is held to be essential and enduring in religion, and what is considered knowledge of religion. They would, with the help of the School of Law determine the liberality and breadth of gray zones in which personal interpretation may be freely exercised. The School of Law then would reinforce such laws as are determined as legitimate within the edicts of the schools of ‘Irfan and Theology. Laws of correction when absolutely necessary would be issued not to punish but to further facilitate the spiritual unfolding of the individual. The School of Arbitration would ensure that such correction did not degenerate into Spanish Inquisition style coercion and indoctrination.
This model follows closely the Soroush idea of expansion and contraction. The theocratic model of retribution and punishment, of restriction and fear can be seen as a Jalal based model where the idea of a severe and wrathful God imposes stringent and painful disciplines on His people and the governing regimes facilitate this stern and contraction-based leadership. The model this paper proposes is a Jamal based approach where the beauty, mercy, and love of God are offered as opportunities to expand into wholeness and a closer relationship with Him rather than a shrinking or contracting through fear and obedience. Such an open and expanding model would facilitate creativity and new models of expression.
The ‘Irfan School would provide access to and reinforce the presence of God’s beauty, love, and mercy as social influences and in individual lives by which certainty and not faith, personal engagement and involvement form a much more binding hold on hearts, minds, lives and behaviors than any totalitarian institution of punishment and control can ever hope to attain. It is then to be hoped that through this model (admittedly very loosely outlined herein) the individual and his society can weather any onslaught of religiously and personally destabilizing forces, temptations, and threats while exploring and developing new horizons of culture and human knowledge.
Abdolkarim Soroush speaks of the fall of the Islamic civilization of the past and the need for the creation of a new Islamic civilization. Perhaps it might be suggested that there is much to be retrieved from the past of the Islamic epoch of the likes of the Abu Hamid Al-Ghazzalis and the vast and dazzling array of 12th century saints, scholars, scientists, theologians, mathematicians, mystics, and writers as this epoch embodied the best that Islam had to offer mankind of the time. Today, we can embrace a deepened understanding of what is essential and enduring in religion and in man’s religious nature, and develop numerous methods and a creative open religious environment conducive to the fulfillment of that nature while creating and maintaining a culture suited to that attainment in freedom and the spirit of discovery both inwardly and within the world of rational inquiry and civic society.
