The historical background of philosophic interest in Islam is found in the earlier phases of theology. But its origin is found in the translations of Greek philosophic works. By the middle of the 9th century, there were enough translations of scientific and philosophic works from Greek, Pahlavi, and Sanskrit to show those who read them with care that scientific and philosophic inquiry was something more than a series of disputations based on what the theologians had called sound reason. Moreover, it became evident that there existed a tradition of observation, calculation, and theoretical reflection that had been pursued systematically, refined, and modified for over a millennium. The scope of these scientific traditions was broad: it included the study of logic, the sciences of nature (including psychology and biology), the mathematical sciences (including music and astronomy), metaphysics, ethics, and politics. Each of these disciplines had a body of literature in which its principles and problems had been investigated by classical authors, whose positions had been, in turn, stated, discussed, criticized, or developed by various commentators. Islamic philosophy metamorphosed and emerged from its theological background when Muslim thinkers began to study this foreign scientific tradition. They became competent students of the ancient philosophers and scientists, criticized and developed their doctrines, clarified their relevance for the questions raised by the theologians, and showed what light they threw on the fundamental issues of revelation, prophecy, and the divine law.

The Teachings of Al-Kindi - Muslim Philosopher

The first Muslim philosopher, al-Kindi, flourished in the first half of the 9th century. He lived during the triumph of the Mutazilah of Baghdad and was connected with the Abbasid caliphs who championed the Muztazilah and patronized the Hellenistic sciences. There is no clear evidence that he belonged to any theological school. His writings show him to have been a diligent student of Greek and Hellenistic authors in philosophy and point to his familiarity with Indian arithmetic. His conscious, open, and unashamed acknowledgment of earlier contributions to scientific inquiry was foreign to the spirit, method, and purpose of the theologians of the time. His acquaintance with the writings of Plato and Aristotle was still incomplete and technically inadequate. He improved the Arabic translation of the "Theology of Aristotle but made only a selective and circumspect use of it.

Devoting most of his writings to questions of natural philosophy and mathematics, al-Kindi was particularly concerned with the relationships of corporeal things, on the one hand, which things are changeable, in constant flux, infinite, and as such unknowable, on the one hand, and the somehow related permanent world of forms (spiritual or secondary substances), which are not subject to flux yet to which man has no access except through things of the senses. He insisted that a purely human knowledge of all things is possible through the use of various scientific techniques and devices. Learning such things as mathematics and logic, and assimilating the contributions of earlier thinkers was a pathway.

The existence of a "supernatural way to this knowledge in which all these requirements can be dispensed with was acknowledged by al-Kindi: God may choose to impart it to his prophets by cleansing and illuminating their souls and by giving them his aid, right guidance, and inspiration. They, in turn, communicate it to ordinary men in an admirably clear, concise, and comprehensible style. This is the prophets' "divine knowledge, characterized by a special mode of access and style of exposition. In principle, however, this very same knowledge is accessible to man without divine aid, even though "human knowledge may lack the completeness and consummate logic of the prophets' divine message. Reflection on the two kinds of knowledge,the human knowledge bequeathed by the ancients and the revealed knowledge expressed in the Qu'ran,led al-Kindi to pose a number of themes that became central to Islamic philosophy:
(1) the rational-metaphorical exegesis of the Qu'ran and the Sadith;
(2) the identification of God with the first being and the first cause;
(3) creation as the giving of being and as a kind of causation distinct from natural causation and
(4) Neoplatonic emanation;
(5) and the immortality of the individual soul.

The Teachings of Abu Bakr Ar-Razi

Ar-Razi adopted the Mutazilah's atomism and was intent on developing a rationally defensible theory of creation that would not require any change in God or attribute to him responsibility for the imperfection and evil prevalent in the created world. To this end, he expounded the view that there are five eternal principles,God, Soul, prime matter, infinite, or absolute, space, and unlimited, or absolute, time,and explained creation as the result of the unexpected and sudden turn of events (faltah). Faltah occurred when Soul, in her ignorance, desired matter and the good God eased her misery by allowing her to satisfy her desire and to experience the suffering of the material world, and then gave her reason to make her realize her mistake and deliver her from her union with matter, the cause of her suffering and of all evil. Ar-Razi claimed that he was a Platonist, that he disagreed with Aristotle, and that his views were those of the Habians of Harran and the Brahmins (Hindu teachers). Theologians were incensed, in particular, by his wholesale rejection of prophecy, particular revelation, and divine laws. They were likewise opposed to his criticisms of religion in general as a device employed by evil men and a kind of tyranny over men that exploits their innocence and credulity, perpetuates ignorance, and leads to conflicts and wars. Although the fragmentary character of al-Kindi's and ar-Razi's surviving philosophic writings does not permit passing firm and independent judgment on their accomplishments, they tend to bear out the view of later Muslim students of philosophy that both lacked competence in the logical foundation of philosophy, were knowledgeable in some of the natural sciences but not in metaphysics, and were unable to narrow the gap that separated philosophy from the new religion, Islam.

The Teachings of Al-Farabi

The first philosopher to meet this challenge was al-Farabi (flourished 9th-10th centuries). He saw that theology and the juridical study of the law were derivative phenomena that function within a framework set by the prophet as lawgiver and founder of a human community. In this community, revelation defines the opinions the members of the community must hold; and the actions they must perform if they are to attain the earthly happiness of this world along with the supreme happiness of the other world. Philosophy could not understand this framework of religion as long as it concerned itself almost exclusively with its truth- content and confined the study of practical science to individualistic ethics and personal salvation. In contrast to al-Kindi and ar-Razi, al-Farabi recast philosophy in a new framework analogous to that of the Islamic religion. The sciences were organized within this philosophic framework so that logic, physics, mathematics, and metaphysics culminated in a political science whose subject matter is the investigation of happiness and how it can be realized in cities and nations. The central theme is a kind of political science founded on a virtuous or excellent community. Included in this theme are views concerning the supreme rulers who follow the founder, their qualifications, and how the community must be ordered so that its members attain happiness as citizens rather than isolated human beings.

Farabi's philosophical framework made it possible to conduct a philosophical investigation of all the elements that constituted the Islamic community: the prophet-lawgiver, the aims of the divine laws, the legislation of beliefs as well as actions, the role of the successors to the founding legislator, the grounds of the interpretation or reform of the law, the classification of human communities according to their doctrines in addition to their size, and the critique of "ignorant (pagan), "transgressing, "falsifying, and "erring communities. Philosophical cosmology, psychology, and politics were blended by al-Farabi into a political theology whose aim was to clarify the foundations of the Islamic community and defend its reform in a direction that would promote scientific inquiry and encourage philosophers to play an active role in practical affairs. It appears likely that the great work of Farabi saved Islam from the morass that would have resulted from competing prophets all contending that they had the only truth. Interpretations of Plato and Aristotle by Farabi Behind this public, or exoteric, aspect of al-Farabi's work stood a massive body of more properly philosophic or scientific inquiries, which established his reputation among Muslims as the greatest philosophical authority after Aristotle, a great interpreter of the thought of Plato and Aristotle and their commentators, and a master to whom almost all major Muslim as well as a number of Jewish and Christian philosophers turned for a fuller understanding of the controversial, troublesome, and intricate questions of philosophy.

Continuing the tradition of the Hellenistic masters of the Athenian and Alexandrian philosophical schools, al-Farabi broadened the range of philosophical inquiry and fixed its form. His writings on natural science exposed the foundation and assumptions of Aristotle's physics and dealt with the arguments of Aristotle's opponents, philosophers and scientists, pagan, Christian, and Muslim. Farabi's Analogy of Religion and Philosophy Al-Farabi's theological and political writings showed later Muslim philosophers the way to deal with the question of the relation between philosophy and religion. Starting with the view that religion is analogous or similar to philosophy, al-Farabi argued that the idea of the true prophet-lawgiver ought to be the same as that of the true philosopher-king. Thus, he challenged both al-Kindi's view that prophets and philosophers have different and independent ways to the highest truth available to man and ar-Razi's view that philosophy is the only way to that knowledge. Farabi said that a man could combine the functions of prophecy, lawgiving, philosophy, and kingship and that did not necessarily mean that these functions were identical. It did mean, however, that they all are legitimate subjects of philosophic inquiry. Philosophy must account for the powers, knowledge, and activities of the prophet, lawgiver, and king, which it must distinguish from and relate to those of the philosopher.

The public, or political, function of philosophy was emphasized. Unlike Neoplatonism, which had for long limited itself to the Platonic teaching, the function of philosophy is to liberate the soul from the shadowy existence of the cave, in which knowledge can only be imperfectly comprehended as shadows reflecting the light of the truth beyond the cave (the world of senses). al-Farabi insisted, with Plato, that the philosopher must be forced to return to the cave, learn to talk to its inhabitants in a manner they can comprehend, and engage in actions that may improve their lot.

Impact on Ismaili Theology

In al-Farabi's lifetime the fate of the Islamic world was in the balance. The Sunni caliphate's power hardly extended beyond Baghdad. It appeared quite likely that the various Shii sects, especially the Ismailis, would finally overpower it and establish a new political order. (This is similar to the problem in Iraq, 2008.) Of all the movements in Islamic theology, Ismaili theology was the one that was most clearly and massively penetrated by philosophy. To meet the practical demands of political life and present a viable practical alternative to the Sunni caliphate, Al-FaIabi's writings helped point out this basic defect of Ismaili theology. Within the direction suggested by al-Farabi, was the idea that the community must continue to live under the divine law, and postpone the prospect of the abolition of divine laws and the appearance of the qalim to an indefinite point in the future.

The Teachings of Avicenna - Aristotelian Doctrines

Indicative of al-Farabi's success is the fact that his writings helped produce a philosopher of the stature of Avicenna (flourished 10th-11th centuries). Avicenna's versatility, imagination, inventiveness, and prudence shaped philosophy into a powerful force that gradually penetrated Islamic theology and mysticism and Persian poetry in eastern Islam and gave all of them universality and theoretical depth. He said that his own personal philosophic views were not identical with the common Peripatetic (Aristotelian) doctrines and were to be distinguished from the learning of his contemporaries, the Christian "Aristotelians of Baghdad. His most voluminous writing, Kitab ash-shifa ("The Book of Healing), was meant to accommodate the doctrines of other philosophers as well as hint at his own personal views, which are elaborated elsewhere in more imaginative and allegorical forms.

The Distinction Between Essence and Existence and the Doctrine of Creation

Avicenna had learned from certain hints in al-Farabi that the exoteric teachings of Plato regarding "forms, "creation, and the immortality of individual souls were closer to revealed doctrines than the genuine views of Aristotle. Aristotle's views presuppose some form of individual immortality. Following al-Farabi's lead, Avicenna initiated a full-fledged inquiry into the question of being, in which he distinguished between essence and existence. He argued that the universe consists of a chain of actual beings, each giving existence to the one below it and responsible for the existence of the rest of the chainof being below. All creation is necessarily and eternally dependent upon God. It consists of the intelligences, souls, and bodies of the heavenly spheres, each of which is eternal, and the sublunary sphere, which is also eternal, undergoing a perpetual process of generation and corruption of the succession of form over matter, very much in the manner described by Aristotle.

The Immortality of Individual Souls

Avicenna said that the human rational soul can affirm the existence of his soul from direct consciousness of his self (what one means when one says "I) This proves, according to Avicenna, that the soul is indivisible, immaterial, and incorruptible substance, not imprinted in matter, but created with the body, which it uses as an instrument. Unlike other immaterial substances (the intelligences and souls of the spheres), it is not pre-eternal but is generated, or made to exist at the same time as the individual body. Though the body is not resurrected after its corruption, Ray kurweil who hopes the this singularity will occur before his body is corrupted by death appears to hop that his ghost (re: soul) can be eternally preserved in a machine.

The chosen computer will contain his continuously aupdated profile This presumes that the electronic current will be supplied forever (solar generation) without the possibilityof failure. This is Kurzwellian immortality. Does it coincide with God (See more on Kurxwell's Singularity later.) Will this "Soul In The Machine" be available for the happiness of the manythe soul survives and retains all the individual characteristics, perfections or imperfections, which it achieved in its earthly existence. It is in this sense that a human is rewarded or punished for his past deeds. Avicenna's claim that he had presented a philosophic proof for the immortality of generated ("created) individual souls no doubt constitutes the high point of his effort to harmonize philosophy and religious beliefs.

Philosophy, Religion, and Mysticism

Avicenna's explanation of almost every aspect of Islam is pursued on the basis of extensive exegesis of the Qu'ran and the Sadith. The primary function of religion is to assure the happiness of the many. This practical aim of religion (which Avicenna saw in the perspective of Aristotle's practical science) enabled him to appreciate the political and moral functions of divine revelation and account for its form and content. Some men must be dominated by the love of God to facilitate the achievement of the highest knowledge. In many places Avicenna appears to identify these men with the mystics. The identification of the philosopher as a kind of mystic conveyed a new image of the philosopher as a member of the religious community who is distinguished from his co-religionists by his otherworldliness, dedicated to the inner truth of religion, and consumed by the love of God.

The Western(Iberian) Philosophers

The background and characteristics of the Western Muslim philosophical tradition Andalusia (in Spain) and western North Africa contributed little of substance to Islamic theology and philosophy until the 12th century. Legal strictures against the study of philosophy were more effective than in the east. Scientific interest was channeled into medicine, pharmacology, mathematics, astronomy, and logic. More general questions of physics and metaphysics were treated sparingly and in symbols, hints, and allegories. By the 12th century, however, the writings of al-Farabi, Avicenna, and al-Ghazali had found their way to the west. The survival of philosophy in the west required extreme prudence, emphasis on its scientific character, abstention from meddling in political or religious matters, and abandonment of the hope of effecting extensive doctrinal or institutional reform.

The Teachings of Ibn ufayl - The Philosopher as a Solitary Individual

The fictional philosophic story Payy ibn Yaqan ("Alive Son of Awake) communicates the secrets of Avicenna's "Oriental Philosophy as experienced by a solitary hero knows nothing about other human beings, their way of life, or their laws. When he chances to meet one of them,a member of a religious community inhabiting a neighboring island who is inclined to reflect on the divine law and seek its inner, spiritual meanings. He, too, has abandoned the society of his fellow men to devote himself to solitary meditation and worship,he does not at first recognize that he is a human being like himself. He cannot understand, however, why the prophet communicated the truth by way of allusions, examples, and corporeal representations or why religion permits other men to devote much time and effort to practical, worldly things. The solitary hero then tried to reform mankind. His education is completed when he fails to discover any way to do it. He learns the limits beyond which the multitude cannot ascend without becoming confused and unhappy. He also learns the wisdom of the divine lawgiver in addressing them in the way they can understand, enabling them to achieve limited ends through doctrines and actions suited to their abilities.

The story ends with the hero taking leave of these people after apologizing to them for what he did and confessing that he is now fully convinced that they should not change their ways but remain attached to the literal sense of the divine law and obey its demands. He returns to his own island to continue his former solitary existence. In this way we discover the hidden secret of Avicenna's "Oriental Philosophy. It appears, then, to be that the philosopher must return to the cave, educate himself in the ways of non-philosophers, and understand the incompatibility between philosophical life and the life of the multitude, who must be governed by religion and divine laws. Otherwise, the ignorance of the ordinary man will lead him to actions that are dangerous to the well-being of both the community and philosophy. Because Ibn ufayl's hero had grown up as a solitary human being, he lacks the kind of wisdom that could have enabled him to pursue philosophy in a religious community and be useful to such a community. Neither the conversion of the community to philosophy nor the philosopher's solitary life is a viable alternative. To Ibn Sufayl's younger friend Averroes (Ibn Rushd who lived during12th century) belongs the distinction of presenting a solution to the problem of the relation between philosophy and the Islamic community in the west. It is a solution meant to be legally valid, theologically sound, and philosophically satisfactory His legal training (he was a judge by profession) and his extensive knowledge of the history of the religious sciences (including theology) enabled him to speak with authority about the principles of Islamic law and their application to theological and philosophic issues and to question the authority of al-Ghazali, and the others, and to set forth correct beliefs and right practices. He was able to examine in detail from the point of view of the divine law the respective claims of theology and philosophy to possess the best and surest way to human knowledge, to be competent to interpret the ambiguous expressions of the divine law, and to have presented convincing arguments that are theoretically tenable and practically salutary.

The Divine Law

What intention of the divine law Averroes argued, it is to assure the happiness of all members of the community. This requires everyone to profess belief in the basic principles of religion as enunciated in the Qu'ran, the Sadith, and the ijma (consensus) of the learned, and to perform all obligatory acts of worship. Beyond this, the only just requirement is to demand that each pursue knowledge as far as his natural capacity and makeup permit. The few who are endowed with the capacity for the highest, demonstrative knowledge are under a divine legal obligation to pursue the highest wisdom, which is philosophy, and they need not constantly adjust its certain conclusions to what theologians claim to be the correct interpretation of the divine law. Being dialecticians and rhetoricians, theologians are not in a position to determine what is and is not correct interpretation of the divine law so far as philosophers are concerned. The divine law directly authorizes philosophers to pursue its interpretation according to the best,i.e., demonstrative or scientific,method, and theologians have no authority to interfere with the conduct of this activity or judge its conclusions. the singularity it appears will arise from those who have this world view. On the basis of this legal doctrine, Averroes judged the theologian al-Ghazali's refutation of the philosophers as misrepresenting the philosophers' positions and used arguments Averroes used to criticize al-Farabi and Avicenna also for accommodating the theologians of their time and for departing from the path of the ancient philosophers merely to please the theologians.

At the other extreme are the multitudes for which there are no more convincing arguments than those found in the divine law itself. Averroes himself composed a work on theology to show how these requirements can be met: "Exposition of the Methods of Proofs. In the Latin West he was best known for his philosophical answer to al-Ghazali, Tahafut at-tahafut ("Incoherence of the Incoherence"), and for his extensive commentaries on Aristotle, works that left their impact on medieval and renaissance European thought.

Philosophy, Traditionalism, and the New Wisdom

The western (Iberian) tradition in Islamic philosophy formed part of the Arabic philosophic literature that was translated into Hebrew and Latin and that played a significant role in the development of medieval philosophy in the Latin West and the emergence of modern European philosophy. Its impact on the development of philosophy in eastern Islam was not as dramatic. The prominent Jewish philosopher Maimonides (12th century) and the historian Ibn Khaldun (14th century),moved to Egypt, where they taught and had numerous disciples. Most of the writings of Ibn ufayl, and Averroes found their way to East Islam where they were studied alongside the writings of their eastern predecessors. Those writings became isolated and overwhelmed, however, by the resurgence of traditionalism and the emergence of a new kind of philosophy whose champions looked on the earlier masters as men who had made significant contributions to the progress of knowledge but whose overall view was defective and had now become outdated. Resurgent traditionalism found effective defenders in men such as Ibn Taymiyah (13th-14th centuries) who employed a massive battery of philosophic, theological, and legal arguments against every shade of innovation and called for a return to the beliefs and practices of the pious ancestors. These attacks drove philosophy underground for a period, only to re-emerge in a new garb. A more important reason for the decline of the earlier philosophic tradition, however, was the renewed vitality and success of the program formulated by al-Ghazali for the integration of theology, philosophy, and mysticism into a new kind of philosophy called wisdom (ikmah ). It consisted of a critical review of the principles of explanation for the universe and its relation to God based on personal experience and direct vision.

Characteristic Features of the New Wisdom

If the popular theology preached by the philosophers from al-Farabi to Averroes is disregarded, it is evident that philosophy proper meant to them what al-Farabi called a state of mind dedicated to the quest and the love for the highest wisdom. None of them claimed, however, that he had achieved that highest wisdom. In contrast, every leading exponent of the new wisdom stated that he had achieved or received it through a private illumination, dream (at times inspired by the Prophet), or vision and on this basis proceeded to give an explanation of the inner structure of natural and divine things. In every case, this explanation incorporated Platonic or Aristotelian elements akin to some version of a later Hellenistic philosophy, which had found its way earlier into one or another of the schools of Islamic theology. They also gave special attention to the insights of the pre-Socratic philosophers of ancient Greece and the myths and revelations of the ancient Near East. The new wisdom offered to resolve the fundamental questions that had puzzled earlier philosophers. In its basic movement and general direction, therefore, Islamic philosophy between the 9th and the 19th centuries followed a course parallel to that of Greek philosophy from the 5th century BC to the 6th century AD. Aristotle's view of the universe was in need of explanatory principles that could very well be supplied by theology. This critique provided the framework for the integration of philosophy into theology from the 13th century onward.

Although it made use of such theological criticisms of philosophy, the new wisdom took the position that theology did not offer a positive substitute for and was incapable of solving the difficulties of "Aristotelian philosophy. It did not question the need to have recourse to the Qu'ran and the Sadith to find the right answers. The inner core was reserved for the adepts of the mystic path whose journey leads to the experience of the highest reality in dreams and visions. Only the mystical adepts are in possession of the one true wisdom, the ground of both the external expressions of the divine law and the phenomenal world of human experience and thought. The first master of the new wisdom, as-Suhrawardi (12th century), called it the "Wisdom of Illumination. He concentrated on the notion of being, and its negation, which he called "light and "darkness, and explained the gradation of beings as gradation of their mixture according to the degree of "strength, or "perfection, of their light. As-Suhrawardi's "pan-lightism is not particularly close to traditional Islamic views concerning the creation of the world and God's knowledge of particulars. His doctrine is presented in a way that suggests that it is the inner truth behind the exoteric (external) teachings of Islam as well as Zoroastrianism, indeed the wisdom of all ancient sages, especially Iranians and Greeks.

This neutral yet positive attitude toward the diversity of religions, which was not absent among Muslim philosophers and mystics, was to become one of the hallmarks of the new wisdom. Different religions were seen as different manifestations of the same truth, their essential agreement was emphasized, and various attempts were made to combine them into a single harmonious religion meant for all of mankind. Evil souls become dark shadows, suffering (presumably because their corrupt and inefficient power of imagination can create only ugly and frightening forms), and wandering about as ghosts, demons, and devils. The creative power of the imagination, which as a human psychological phenomenon was already used by the philosophers to explain prophetic powers, was seized upon by the new wisdom as "divine magic. It was used to construct eschatology, to explain miracles, dreams, and other saintly theurgist (healing) practices, to facilitate the movement between various orders of being, and for literary purposes.

The Teachings of Ibn al-Arabi

The account of the doctrines of Ibn al-Arabi (12th-13th centuries) belongs properly to the history of Islamic mysticism. Yet his impact on the subsequent development of the new wisdom was in many ways far greater than that of as-Suhrawardi. At the very core of his dynamic edifice stands nature, the "dark cloud (ama) or "mist (bukhar), as the ultimate principle of things and forms: intelligence, heavenly bodies, and elements and their mixtures that culminate in the "perfect man. This primordial nature is the "breath of the Merciful God in his aspect as Lord. It "flows throughout the universe and manifests Truth in all its parts. It is the first mother through which Truth manifests itself to itself and generates the universe. It is the universal natural body that gives birth to the translucent bodies of the spheres, to the elements, and to their mixtures, all of which are related to that primary source as daughters to their mother. Ibn al-Arabi attempted to explain how Intelligence proceeds from the absolute One by inserting between them a primordial feminine principle, which is all things in potentiality but which also possesses the capacity, readiness, and desire to manifest or generate them first as archetypes in Intelligence and then as actually existing things in the universe below. This philosophic tradition is distinct from the one followed by the Ismaili theologians, who explained the origination of Intelligence by the mediation of God's will.

The Teachings of Twelver Shiism and the School of Efahan

After Ibn al-Arabi, the new wisdom developed rapidly in intellectual circles in eastern Islam. Commentators on the works of Avicenna, as-Suhrawardi, and Ibn al-Arabi began the process of harmonizing and integrating the views of the masters. Great poets made their work part of every educated man's literary culture. Mystical fraternities became the custodians of such works, spreading them into Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent and transmitting them from one generation to another. Following the Mongol khan Hulagu's entry into Baghdad (1258), the Twelver Shiah was encouraged to abandon their hostility to mysticism. Mutazili doctrines were retained in their theology. Theology, however, was downgraded to "formal learning that must be supplemented by higher things, the latter including philosophy and mysticism. This movement in Shia thought gathered momentum when the leaders of a mystical fraternity established themselves as the Hafavid dynasty (1501-1732) in Iran where they championed Twelver Shiism as the official doctrine of the new monarchy. During the 17th century, Iran experienced a cultural and scientific renaissance that included a revival of philosophic studies. There, Islamic philosophy found its last creative exponents. The new wisdom as expounded by the masters of the school of Efahan radiated throughout eastern Islam and continued as a vital tradition until modern times.

Impact of Modernism

The new wisdom lived on during the 18th and 19th centuries, conserving much of its vitality and strength but not cultivating new ground. It attracted able thinkers and became a regular part of the program of higher education in the cultural centers of the Ottoman Empire, Iran, and the Indian subcontinent. In collaboration with its close ally Persian mystical poetry, the new wisdom determined the intellectual outlook and spiritual mood of educated Muslims in the regions where Persian had become the dominant literary language. The wholesale rejection of the new wisdom in the name of simple, robust, and more practical piety was initiated by Ibn Taymiyah. Despite some impact, however, attempts of this kind remained isolated and were either ignored or reintegrated into the mainstream, until the coming of the modern reformers. The modernists attacked the new wisdom at its weakest point; that is, its social and political norms, its individualistic ethics, and its inability to speak intelligently about social, cultural, and political problems which had been generated by a long period of intellectual isolation that was further complicated by the domination of the European powers. Unlike the earlier tradition of Islamic philosophy from al-Farabi to Averroes, which had consciously cultivated political science and investigated the political dimension of philosophy and religion and the community at large, the new wisdom from its inception lacked genuine interest in these questions. It had no appreciation for political philosophy, and had only a benign toleration for the affairs of the world. None of those reformers was a great political philosopher.

Their strengths were concerned with reviving their nations' latent energies, urging them to free themselves from foreign domination, and impressing on them the need to reform their social and educational institutions. They saw that this required a total reorientation, which could not take place so long as the new wisdom remained not only as the highest aim of a few solitary individuals but also a social and popular ideal as well. In 1917, Iqbal found that "the present-day Muslim prefers to roam about aimlessly in the valley of Hellenic-Persian mysticism, which teaches us to shut our eyes to the hard reality around, and to fix our gaze on what is described as "illumination". His reaction was harsh: "To me this self-mystification, this nihilism, i.e., seeking reality where it does not exist, is a physiological symptom, giving me a clue to the decadence of the Muslim world. To arrest the decadence and infuse a new vitality into a society in which they were convinced religion must remain the focal point, the modern reformers advocated a return to the movements and masters of Islamic theology and philosophy antedating the so-called new wisdom.

They argued that these, rather than the "Persian incrustation of Islam, represented Islam's original and creative impulse. The modernists were attracted, in particular, to the views of the Mutazilah: affirmation of God's unity and denial of all similarity between him and created things; reliance on human reason; emphasis on man's freedom; faith in man's ability to distinguish between good and bad; and insistence on man's responsibility to do good and fight against evil in private and public places. They were also impressed by the traditionalists' devotion to the original, uncomplicated forms of Islam and by their fighting spirit, and by the Asharis' view of faith as an affair of the heart and their spirited defense of the Muslim community. In viewing the scientific and philosophic tradition of eastern and western Islam prior to the Tatar and Mongol invasions, they saw an irrefutable proof that true Islam stands for the liberation of man's spirit, promotes critical thought, and provides the impetus to grapple with the temporal and to demonstrate how to set it in order. These ideas initiated what was to become a vast effort to recover, edit, and translate into the Muslim national languages. Works of earlier theologians and philosophers, which had been long neglected or known only indirectly through later accounts were brought up to date.

The modern reformers insisted, finally, that Muslims must be taught to understand the real meaning of what has happened in Europe, which in effect means the understanding of modern science and philosophy, including modern social and political philosophies. Initially, this challenge became the task of the new universities in the Muslim world. One must ask, where are the funds to finance this major change in the educational establishment of the various nations of Islam For Islam to climb out of the morass of divisive squabbling it must find its way back to Zakat, self-taxing for the poor, one of the five pillars of the Islamic faith that is not fully honored.. Some have said that the landed, oil-rich elites do not fully honor this obligation. (Note: The Mormons, a religious sect in the USA have proven the worthiness of tithing for their causes, much of their power comes from the well placed use of their tithed funds.) Until the upper middle class and the power elite re-start honest fully funded Zakat for education and hospitals and other welfare projects there appears to be little hope that adequate progress on these very important problem, Instead, the upper classes will inherit the wind. In the latter part of the 20th century, however, the originally wide gap between the various programs of theological and philosophic studies in religious colleges and in modern universities has narrowed. But, inside the fundamentalist Madrasas the curriculum is very narrow-minded and blind to modernism. We have decided to set forth here a digression from this historical presentation. The fundamentalist madrasas are fomenting dangerous retrograde even violent kinds of education. We all need to have a clear understanding of this powerful and dangerous development in the twentieth and on into the twenty-first century. Set forth below is a brief statement of this very pressing problem.

Throughout much of Islamic history, madrasas have been the major source of religious and scientific learning, as is true of church schools and universities in Europe. America's best-selling poet in the 1990s, Rumi, was a trained Muslim jurist who taught Sharia law in a madrasa in Turkey. The job of Madrasas today is seen as propagating Islamic ideology. They provide free education, free clothes and books along with free accommodations. Al-Azahar University in Cairo, Egypt has a good claim to being one of the most sophisticated schools in the entire Mediterranean world. In Egypt the number of teaching institutes dependent on al-Azar increased from 1,855 in 1986 to 4,314 ten years later. This general trend is common in the Islamic world. The Islamic political parties are quite clear about the benefits of controlling places of education. The Saudis have stepped up their funding in other countries such as Tanzania where they spend $1 million per year building madrasas. The CIA financed the US Agency for International Development's notably blood-thirsty madrasas' textbooks during the Taliban-Russian war in Afghanistan. When the Taliban came to power these textbooks were distributed for use in the start-up madrasas' schools. It is true that most madrasas have outdated curriculums. In Pakistan they teach Euclidean geometry and medicine from Galen . Emphasis is put on rote learning rather than a critical study of the Koran. Considerable prestige is attached to knowing the Koran by heart. Deobandi-style madrasas (India and Pakistan) teach that the sun revolves around the earth and some even provide special seating for the invisible Islamic spirits - the djinns. Some are surprisingly sophisticated. (Note: Before we get carried away with their "ignorance it should be said that many of the USA's bible colleges are not only unaccredited but fail to prepare their graduates for a life in our pluralistic society.

At the University of Virginia certain classroom chairs are set aside for famous former students such as Edgar Allen Poe and Woodrow Wilson.) In Karachi the Dar ul-Uloom has a clean and prosperous looking green campus with well watered gardens. Its classrooms, computer rooms, and libraries are well supplied and attended with earnest scholarly students. Many madrasas in the Islamic world perform an important service. Because over 58 percent of the population and 72 percent of the women are illiterate. Half the population never sees the inside of a school. Many Madrasas may be backward in their educational philosophy but they provide the poor with a hope of advancing themselves. In southwest Kerala province, for example, a group of professionals and businessmen are supporting forward looking and dynamic madrasas that aim to bridge the differences between modern forms of knowledge and the Islamic world view. They are in the forefront of Muslim women's education. In many Kerala madrasas girls outnumber boys by a considerable margin. This would seem to confirm that it is not the madrasas per se that are the problem as much as the militant atmosphere and indoctrination taking place in a handful of notorious centers of ultra-radicalism.

The Binor Town madrasa in Karachi teaches its students that violent jihadism is legitimate and noble. Haqqania Madrasas in Pakistan is proud of the time when the Taliban put out a call for fighters and the leader of school simply closed it down and sent his students off to fight. The reform attempts by Pakistan's government have been half-hearted at best. On the other hand, colleges in India have no record of producing violent Islamists. Still, we should not deny that it is the puritanical Deobandi style madrasas that have spread rapidly in recent times. The political transformation of the madrasas is ongoing and is bringing about a massive effect on the future of the Islamic world. Across Pakistan, where the government spends little on education the tenor of religious beliefs has been radicalized. The Pakistan military government is spending more money on American F-16s which pleases the Pentagon crowd. The tolerant form of Islam - Sufi-minded education is now very much out of fashion. It has been overtaken by the much more hard-lined reformist Deobandi, Wahabi, and Salafi strains of the Koranic faith. How much are these Madrasas the source of the problem of training terrorists such as the attack by Islamists on 9-11 We know that four British Muslims blew themselves up in the London Underground on July 7, 2005.

According to sources at the prime minister's offices at Downing Street there is in fact no evidence that any madrasa was visited by any of the members of the terrorist cell at any point in the journey of the four in Pakistan. It appears that the trio was radicalized in Yorkshire through Islamist literature available on the counter in a local Islamic bookstore. Indeed, it is certain that the group made no contact with al-Queda in Pakistan. There is no reason to assume that a madrasa acted as a conduit or agent. Though it may be true that some are producing cannon fodder for the Taliban and educating semi-literate local sectarian thugs they are not producing the kind of technically literate, competent al Qaeda terrorist who carried out the horrifying attacks on the USS Cole, the US embassies in East Africa, the World Trade Center and the London Underground. There is a fundamental difference between the madrasa graduates - who tend to be pious villagers from impoverished economic backgrounds possessing little technical sophistication - and the middle class, politically literate, global Salafi jihads that planned and carried out the al-Qaeda operations such as 9-11. Neither bin Laden nor any of the men who carried out the Islamist assault on the Twin Towers, Britain, etc., were trained in a madrasa or were a qualified alim or cleric. The new breed of global jihadists is not the urban poor of the third world. They are the privileged children of an unlikely marriage between Saudi Wahhabism and the electronic revolution. Al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's associate director, visited Silicon Valley during the 1990s It appears that like their Christian and Jewish predecessors the violent jihadist terrorists are largely a middle-class enterprise of alienated men. Bin Laden shows his impatience with the inherited structure of Islamic authority.

He has set himself as a challenge to the madrasas and the ulema. Moreover, bin Laden and his followers routinely attack the most venerated clerics and seminaries - accusing them of being slaves to apostasy. El Queda issues fatwas without any authority. In reality al-Queda operatives tend to be highly educated and their aims are political leadership in the Islamic world. These men were not products of traditional Islamic education, instead, they are graduates of Western-style institutions. The madrasa dropout who took part in the bombing of Musharraf's convoy was atypical. By and large, madrasa students simply do not have technical expertise. Instead their concerns are with correct fulfillment of Islamic rituals such as hand washing before prayer and the proper length of the beard they grow. Their focus is not on opposing non,Muslims but, instead, on fostering proper Islamic behavior at home. They will make good local religious police. It is certainly true, that many madrasas are fundamentalists and literalists in their reading of scriptures. Many subscribe to hard line strains of Islamic thought.

Few of these madrasas are making any effort to prepare their graduates to function in the fast globalizing pluralistic world. Just as some yeshivas in West Bank settlements who have a reputation for violence as well as Palestinians who would rather fight than work, it is estimated that about 15 percent of Pakistan's madrasas preach violent jihad. Few of these schools have been repeatedly implicated in sectarian violence especially against the Shia minority in Karachi. All this highlights how lacking in intellectual rigor is the debate about the strength and power of al-Queda. As well as, what to do about it. It appears that Westerners would gain more traction in the long run in the battle against the terrorists by finding a way to finance and re-populate the non-violent Sufi-style, tolerant, madrasas. A quote from one of the dead terrorists who used themselves to bomb the London Underground seems timely:

"Your (Britain/USA) democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world. And your support of them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters. Until we feel security, you will be our targets. And until you stop the bombing, imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this fight. We are at war.

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Muslim educational activity began in the 8th century, primarily in order to disseminate the teaching of the Qu'ran and the sunnah of the Prophet. The vast activity of "seeking knowledge (Kalab al-ilm) resulted in the creation of specifically Arab sciences of tradition, history, and literature. A creative reaction to the traditional religious base resulted in the rationalist theological movement of the Mutazilah. Based on the Greek legacy a brilliant philosophical movement flowered and presented a challenge to orthodoxy on the issues of the eternity of the world, the doctrine of revelation, and the status of the Shariah. Fearing heresies, the religious leaders began to draw a sharp distinction between religious and secular sciences. The custodians of the Shariah developed an unsympathetic attitude toward the secular disciplines and excluded them from the curriculum of the madrasah (college) system.

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RELIGION AND THE ARTS

The Visual Arts

The Arabs before Islam had hardly any art except poetry, in which they took great pride. As with other forms of culture, the Muslim Arabs borrowed their art from Persia and Byzantium.Whatever. A most important principle governing art was aniconism; i.e., the religious prohibition of figurization any representation of living creatures. Underlying this prohibition is the assumption that God is the sole author of life and that a person who produces a likeness of a living being seeks to rival God. The tradition, which is ascribed to the Prophet, is that a person who makes a picture of a living thing will be asked on the Day of Judgment to infuse life into it. Whether this dogma is historically genuine or not, it doubtless represents the original attitude of Islam. In the Qu'ran (3:49, 5:113), reflecting an account in a New Testament apocryphal work, it is counted among the miracles of Jesus that he made likenesses of birds from clay "by God's order, and, when he breathed into them, they became real birds, again, "by God's order. Islamic aniconism fused together two principles:
(1) rejection of such images that might become idols (these may be images of anything), and
(2) rejection of figures of living things. (Plato and Plotinus, Greek philosophers, had also dismissed representative art as an "imitation of nature; i.e., as something removed from reality.) The Islamic attitude is more or less the same, with the added element of attributing to the artist a violation of the sanctity of the principle of life.

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The central event of Islam is death and resurrection. The dead will be questioned by two terrible angels (that is why the profession of faith is recited to the dying); only the souls of martyrs go straight to heaven where they remain in the crops of green birds around the divine throne (green is always connected with heavenly bliss). The end of the world will be announced by the coming of the mahdi (literally, "the directed or guided one),a messianic figure who will appear in the last days and is not found in the Qu'ran but developed out of Shiah speculations and sometimes identified with Jesus. The mahdi will slay the Dajjal, the one-eyed evil spirit, and combat the dangerous enemies, Yajuj and Majuj, who will come from the north of the earth. The trumpet of Israfil, one of the four archangels, will awaken the dead for the day of resurrection, which is many thousands of years long and the name of which has come to be designated as a state of complete confusion and turmoil. This eschatological inventory, as described in the Qu'ran, was elaborated by the commentators: the scales on which the books or deeds are weighed (an old Egyptian idea); the book in which the two recording angels have noted down man's deeds; and the narrow bridge that is said to be sharper than a sword and thinner than a hair and leads over hell (an Iranian idea).

The dreadful angels of hell and the horrors of that place are as thoroughly described by theologians as the pleasures of paradise, with its waters and gardens and the houris who are permanent virgins.

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TALES AND LEGENDS CONCERNING RELIGIOUS FIGURES

The majority of popular legends concern the leading personalities of Islam. First among the first is of course, Muhammad .

Muhammad

Muhammad , whose only miracle, according to his own words, was the bringing of the Qu'ran, is credited by folklore with innumerable miracles and associated with a variety of miraculous occurrences: his finger split the moon, the cooked poisoned meat warned him not to touch it, the palm trunk sighed, the gazelle spoke for him. He cast no shadow. From his perspiration the rose was created, etc. His ascension to heaven (miraj) is still celebrated: in his ascension he rode the winged horse Buraq in the company of the angel Gabriel through the seven spheres, meeting the other prophets there, until he reached the divine presence, alone, even without the angel of inspiration. Muhammad -mysticism proper was developed in the late 9th century. He is shown as the one who precedes creation, his light is pre-eternal, and he is the reason for and goal of creation. He becomes the perfect man, uniting the divine and the human sphere as dawn is between night and day. His birth was surrounded by miracles, and his birthday (12. Rabi I) became a popular holiday on which numerous poems were written to praise his achievements.

The hope for Him who has been sent as "mercy for the worlds and will intercede for his community on Doomsday is extremely strong, especially among the masses, where these legends have completely overshadowed his historical figure. It seems that the Singularity (see below) could be presented to the masses as preparation for the gardens of Paradise, which hence might be realized by one and all. In addition to Muhammad himself, his cousin and son-in-law Ali, the Shiah hero, has been surrounded by legends concerning his bravery, his miraculous sword, Dhual-fiqar, and his wisdom. Ali's son, usayn, is the subject of innumerable poems that concern the day of his final fight in Karbala. Almost every figure mentioned in the Qu'ran has become the centre of a circle of legends, be it Yusuf, the symbol of overwhelming beauty, or Jesus with the life-giving breath, the model of poverty and asceticism. Of special interest is Khir, identified with the unnamed companion of Moses (Qu'ran, surah 20). He is the patron saint of the wayfarers, connected with green, the color of heavenly bliss, appearing whenever a pious person is in need, and immortal since he drank from the fountain of life, which is hidden in the darkness. In many respects, he is the Islamic counterpart of Elijah.

Mystics and Other Later Figures

The great religious personalities have become legendary, especially the martyr-mystic allaj (executed in Bagdad, 922). His word , "I am the Creative Truth, became the motto of many later mystics. His death on the gallows is the model for the suffering of lovers, and allusions to his fate are frequent in Islamic literature. An earlier mystic, Abu Yazid al-Bisami (died 874), was the first to speak about the ascension of the mystic to heaven, which is a metaphor for higher unitive, mystical experience. A variation of the Buddha legend has been transferred onto the person of the first Sufi (mystic) who practiced absolute poverty and trust in God, the Central Asian Ibrahim ibn Adham (died c. 780). The founders of mystical orders were credited by their followers with a variety of miracles, such as riding on lions, healing the sick, walking on water, being present at two places at the same time, and cardiognosia (which is the knowledge of what is in another's heart, or thought reading). Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (died 1166), the founder of the widespread Qadiriyah order of mystics, and many others have attracted upon themselves a large number of popular stories that formerly had been told about pre-Islamic saints or about some divinities. These motifs can easily be transferred from one person to the other. In this sphere the survival of pre-Islamic customs and legends is most visible. The idea of the hierarchy of saints, culminating in the quab, the pole or axis, thanks to whose activities the world keeps going, belongs to the mythology of ufism (Islamic mysticism).

Mythologization of Secular Tales

A feature of Islamic mythology is the transformation of unreligious stories into vehicles of religious experience. The old hero of romantic love in Arabic literature, Majnun, "the demented one, became a symbol of the soul longing for identification with God. In the Indus Valley the tales of Sassui or Sohni, the girls who perish for their love, and other romantic figures, have been understood as symbols of the soul longing for union with God through suffering and death.

Tales and Beliefs About Numbers and Letters

The great importance given to the letters of the Arabic alphabet and their numbers is peculiar to Muslim pious thought . Muslims believe in the power and meaning of numbers. Many Muslim tales, legends, and traditional sayings are built upon the mystical value of numbers, such as the threefold or sevenfold repetition of a certain rite. This is largely explained by examples from the life of a saintly or pious person, often the Prophet himself. It is said he used to repeat this or that formula so and so many times. The number 40, found in the Qu'ran (as also in the Bible) as the length of a period of repentance, suffering, preparation, and steadfastness, plays the same role in Islam where it is connected, for example, with the 40 days' preparation and meditation, or fasting, of the novice in the mystical brotherhood. Each number, as well as to each day of the week, special qualities are attributed through the authority of both actual and alleged statements of the Prophet. Many pre-Islamic customs were thus justified. Letters of the alphabet were assigned numerical values: the straight alif (numerical value = one), the first letter of the alphabet, becomes a symbol of the uniqueness and unity of Allah; the b (numerical value = two), the first letter of the Qu'ran, represents to many mystics the creative power by which everything came into existence; the h (numerical value - five) is the symbol of huwa, He, which is the formula for God's absolute transcendence; the m (numerical value 40) is the "shawl of humanity by which God, the One (al-Amad), is separated from Ahmad (Muhammad). M is the letter of human nature and hints at the 40 degrees between man and God. The sect of the Surufis developed these cabalistic interpretations of letters, now they are quite common in the whole Islamic world and form almost a substitute for mythology.

Illustrations of Myth and legend Are Rarely Found

Since the art of representation is opposed in Islam, illustrations of mythological and legendary subjects are rarely found. Miniature painting did develop only in the Persian and, later on, in the Turkish and Indo-Muslim areas. Books such as Zakariya ebn Moammad al-Qazvini's Cosmography contain in some manuscripts a few pictures of angels, like Israfil with the trumpet, and histories of the world or histories of the prophets, written in Iran or Turkey. Some antique collections contain rare manuscripts with representations of angels or of scenes as told in the Qu'ran, especially the story of Yusuf and Zalikha, which inspired many poems. The Shah-nameh has been fairly frequently illustrated. When the Prophet of Islam is shown at all, his face is usually covered and in several cases his companions or his family members are also shown with veiled faces. The only subject from the legends surrounding Muhammad that has been treated by miniaturists several times is his ascension to heaven. There are a number of splendid Persian miniatures with this depiction. In poetical manuscripts that contain allusions to legends of the saints, these topics were also sometimes illustrated (e.g., Jonah and the great fish or scenes from the wanderings of Khihr). Several miniatures deal with the execution of the mystic al-allaj. Mythological themes proper are found almost exclusively in the paintings of Mughal India; especially in the period of Jahangir, in which the eschatological peace of lion and lamb lying together is illustrated as well as the myth of the earth resting on the bull, on the fish, etc. Still, by that time European influence was also already visible in Mughal art.

Significance of Mythology and Modern Interpretations

Mythology proper has only a very small place in official Islam and is mostly an expression of popular traditions through which pre-Islamic influences seeped into Islam. Reformers have tried to purge Islam of all non-Qu'ranic ideas and picturesque elaborations of the texts. The mystics tried to spiritualize them as far as possible. Modern Muslim exegesis attempts to interpret many of the mythological strands of the Qu'ran in the light of modern science, as psychological factors, like Muhammad 's ascension to heaven, efforts have beenmade to deprive the eschatological parts of the Qu'ran of their religious significance. Cosmic events are interpreted as predictions of modern scientific research. To some interpreters, jinns and angels are spiritual forces; to others, jinns are microbes or the like. Thus the religious text is confabulated with a textbook of science. But, popular legends surrounding the Prophet and the saints are still found among the masses many of whom are illiterate. Such myths are tending to disappear under the influence of historical research, radio broadcasting and television. But, many of them have formed models for the behavior and spiritual life of the Muslim believer.

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ISLAM - A PARADOXICAL CONTRAST TO CHRISTIANITY

Islam is a great religion in part because its Koranic tenets are tolerant, egalitarian, and remarkably easy to follow. It was a religion of the people. In an outstanding contrast to Christianity's Roman Catholic church, its clergy or imams were married, had families, and engaged in secular occupations. Their neighbors, the various Orthodox Christian Rites of Eastern Europe and the Middle East, also, permit marriage and encourage gainful occupations. But they have such elaborate doctrines and rituals one must infer the sects are ornate as compared to Islam. As the more or less nomadic people came into the fold, the importance of literacy and a religion of the Word seemed more fulfilling to Arabians who then became Muslims. Reading increased exponentially. In 712 CE, savage Arab armies captured the city of Samarkand where - Like A Godsend - they came across the most valuable of spoils-paper - a Koran written on paper. The combination of the growing literacy rate with the discovery of the Word printed on paper was a pivotal change. The importance given to the letters of the Arabic alphabet is peculiar to Muslim pious thought. Numbers and the Words expressing the numbers, are of mythic value to Islam. Numbers are chanted in the hope of salvation.

The Qu'ran (Koran)

The combination of a sacred text written in their own vernacular and a readily available medium proved felicitous, and made possible the flowering of an Islamic Golden Age. Camel scapulas were no longer necessary to supply white, flat writing surfaces. Books soon became so plentiful that every mosque was also a library. Within a hundred years of its first paper mill in 794, Baghdad boasted over a hundred booksellers and several dozen libraries. To this day memorization of the Koran is still a virtue, though having a handy copy is preferred. Harun ar- Rashid (766-809) was a judicious ruler committed to learning. He inaugurated a Golden Age. For the next five hundred years, poetry, science, medicine, mathematics, architecture, and philosophy began a ride levitated by a tolerant religion that held the acquisition of knowledge to be one of the highest ideals. Every aspect and group within Islamic society benefited from this Golden Age, with two notable exceptions: representative art and women's rights.

Today there is much neglect of the poor by the power elite and much hypocrisy among the mullahs that is tolerated by the sincerely holy. In the early centuries, the Muslims' unprecedented military successes caused a rush toward complexity of the Islamic society that made it unrecognizable from the one in which Mohammed had taught his people the love of Allah. Governing vast tracts of land containing large foreign populations in the ninth and tenth centuries was a far remove from the humble inter-tribal frictions of sixth-century Islam. Disputes caused a bitter confusion that proliferated with Islam's growing hegemony. Each faction turned for adjudication to the Qu'ran. This unique inspiring document, propounded in an earlier age for a different society, did not always provide litigants with clear-cut answers.

As said earlier, the Arabs created a second, later, sacred, book -Hadith, to clarify the Qu'ran. In the manner of the Jewish invention of the Talmud it served to answer new questions that could not be readily resolved by reference to the Qu'ran. In the earliest days, a rich oral tradition arose concerning the life of Mohammed. Though the Qu'ran contained many sections concerning civil justice, early Islamic society had a need for a code of imperative law. The lack of a secular state with a civil law of, for example - contracts - has placed a great burden of administration upon the imams and mullahs. The moderate Muslims want their theocratic states to take on more of the functions carried out by secular states in Europe and the sub-continent of India.

Islam's Modern Crisis Confronts Moderates and Fundamentalists

There are those who feel strongly that Islam is in a global crisis. The fight is between the "moderates and the "puritans or fundamentalists. The moderates uphold centuries of the teachings of Muslim thinkers from the Golden Age and the beliefs of the majority of Muslims of today. Their opponents are the "fundamentalist Islamists" who preach retrograde religious extremism; while others encourage or condone violent acts in the name of Islamism that is not Islam. It is the power to define Islam that is at stake. The moderates know that a jihad is every man's life struggle to live in accordance with God's word; not a holy war against non-believers. They declare that suicide bombings or any other method of violent attack is haram or forbidden under the Qu'ran and Muslim law. Recently, Islam's eight major schools of legal thought have condemned any right to issue fatwas (religious death decrees), and, that the right of Muslim's to declare a fellow Muslim a heretic is carefully restricted by law.

The problem is that modern Islam is facing a "crisis of authority. Who speaks for the faith The situation has deteriorated into full-fledged chaos. Many feel that the key is that the Saudi Arabia's royal families support the Wahhabi movement. It treats Sunnis and Shites as apostates which justifies their repression and the killing of fellow Muslims. This movement (Whahbism) funded by oil-rich Saudis takes a very narrow view of Islamic law, much like the Taliban. The claims of the Saudi princes that they are restoring the true form of Islam are in the opinion of moderates a libel and a fraud. This diversionary tactic is used by the Saudi to divert the world's attention from their doddering kingdom's despotic rule, and itscruel and severe restrictions on women. Though Muslims in Europe have the right -maybe a duty - to develop their own European culture of Islam, they are attacked by a hostile fundamentalist minority for such deviations.

European Muslims have migrated to a place where they are a permanent minority. They are grappling with real issues as they seek a way to remain Muslim while assimilating into a society with a secular state. They must look beyond their old traditions and come to terms with modernity. New thinking is required. Cooperation among Muslims is a necessity. In Europe a Muslim has allegiance to God as an act of faith but is a citizen of his country with a duty to the state (e.g. France) as an act of reason. As a Shia leader in Germany has stated: "Muslims ought to feel accountable to the overall society and not manifest their customs in such a way as to appear hostile to the local customs that prevail where they live. The Islamic curriculae must be overhauled to teach about due process, trial by jury, freedom of expression, etc. in effect, about the local cultural heritage to which they ought to be assimilating. The rights of European Muslim women should be no less than that of their female peers in the local culture. All this is an expression of how Islam could become at peace with the other-worldly cultures.

The European Muslim minority must come to grips with the extremely important question: Are they open to: democracy, sexual equality, modernity, freedom of worship, etc. There is a need for them to show a compromising spirit that can produce respect and tolerance. When will Saudi Arabia shift major royal assets from the state to the public to change the underlying balance in favor of their own citizens Thereby, ordinary Saudis would be more wary of taking such lethal measures as to fly airplanes into buildings to prove a point. More realistically we should say that Saudi Arabia can not be optimistic about the continuance of the royal families' power. Progress is needed on the same social issues as were raised above about European Islam. Merely, living in a society where "choice is important would be a very great change. Islam must find a way to resolve their own conflict with the freedom of expression (that other peoples hold sacred) to their own unyielding violent defense of Islam's ancient old-fashioned customs. World peace calls upon all to find a way to respect and tolerate the religions and non-violent ways of life of others who do them no harm. It would be a gross injustice to suggest that this is not a world-wide problem.

The global population pressures are dispersing Muslims to many new habitats, to countries where they have never lived. Muslims in the USA are having great difficulties with assimilation as well. Recently, in the USA, the daughter of Muslim Indian immigrants, raised in a California university town, has experienced harassment for trying to be allowed to sit in the main sanctuary of her Mosque during worship services. She helped her father found this Mosque. She knows what she is fighting for:; it was her close friend and colleague Daniel Pear who was kidnapped and beheaded in Karachi by Muslim extremists. Now she is being treated like an extremist for wanting to be treated like a co-equal in her home mosque. Sara Nomani, has said, "Intolerance toward women is like a canary in the coal mine for intolerance toward other people. We are sure she wants to do what is right for Islam. This brave woman is going about the USA where two-thirds of the Mosques' place women behind an opaque partition or in separate rooms. One-third ban women from sitting on their governing boards.

Amina Wadud, an Islamic scholar ignited a theological fire storm by acting as an imam, leading a group of Muslim men and women in prayer, in New York City. This has been a prerogative for men for centuries. She has received death threats. There is progress, Mosques in Chicago and San Francisco have lowered partitions so women and men are no longer separated. All religious reform starts with people who are attacked as heretics. But, as Asra Nomani has said, "enough people within the faith are fed up with how the ideologues on the right are pushing us around. Where do these ideologues get their power Perhaps, they are paper tigers We shall take a close look at fundamentalism within Islam. Christians should keep in mind that their religion, centered in the West suffers from very similar divisive even schismatic fundamentalism which is called, generically, Evangelical Christianity. Therefore, the MeetingHouse wants to make clear that this statement about fundamentalism is not peculiar to Islam. It is really a dangerous battle between retrograde fundamentalism and modernity.

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FUNDAMENTALISM

Throughout human history those who guard the past- who will fight to prevent change- have been valiant and usually wrong. Today, Western media has given the impression that the violent form of fundamental religiosity is a peculiarly Islamic phenomenon. In reality, fundamentalism is global. It has surfaced in every major religion in a fervid response to the problems of modernity. The modern type of fundamentalism first surfaced in the USA at the beginning of the 20th century. With hindsight one can see that after trying to adjust to the social waves of modernity the orthodox, traditionalists of Christianity and the Jews, two of the three mono-theistic religions, finally began to resort to extreme methods such as killing the medical personnel at Abortion-by-Choice Clinics, for one tragic example. Fundamentalist movements of all faiths share common concerns. They reveal a deep disappointment and disengagement with the modern experience. So-called Progress, has not fulfilled all that it promised according to their world view.

They also express real fear. Rightly or wrongly - they are convinced the secular establishment is determined to wipe-out their religion. This is not always paranoid. Secularism has often been imposed aggressively for example in the Muslim world. Fundamentalism is an inspirational response - often they are highly critical of democracies' protection of the rights of minorities who do not agree with them. Because the emancipation of women has been one of the hallmarks of modernity, fundamentalists tend to emphasize retrograde responses. For examples: Women should stay at home and not work; put on the veils; return to agrarian roles, avoid the modern educational curriculum in public schools. In the place of science in the curriculum they want pre-Newtonian God-driven intelligent design even though it is not scientific. Fundamentalists are active representatives who reveal a fissure in society. Society has been polarized by those who enjoy secular cultural changes and those who regard such changes with dread. Muslim fundamentalists will often oppose fellow countrymen who are taking a positive view of the effects of modern technology or freedom of expression. Some do it by withdrawing as with the ultra-Orthodox Jews in New York City. All fundamentalists feel they are fighting for survival. Some are violent.

The vast majority, however, does not commit acts of violence, but tries to vivify their faith in a lawful way. Yet, when they see fellow believers doing violence they condone it by saying it is not what they do. A central thesis is that they are rebelling against the secularist exclusion of the divine from public life. They want their spiritual values to prevail in the modern world. There is much frustration and anger that is difficult to contain when the secular state prevents them from forcing the placement of their icons - their version of God's word on the lawn, of public building that are paid-for and maintained by the tax paying general public. Muslims object to the label -"fundamentalism saying it is a badge of pride of some American protestants. It is a word difficult to translate into Arabic. For lack of a better term we will proceed with it. Consider Mawdudi the founder of a movement in Pakistan. The Western secular threat had made Muslims defensive. Mawdudi defied the whole secularist ethos. Because God alone was sovereign nobody should take orders from any other humans.

Mawdudi argued that jihad was the central tenet of Islam. No one before had claimed that jihad was equivalent to the five Pillars of Islam. This led to a more extreme and potentially violent distortion of the Islamic faith. The real founder of Islamic fundamentalism was Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966) True to the pattern, he was at first enthused about Western culture and the idea of secular politics. He was a reformer hoping to develop an Islamic form of Western democracy. After he was imprisoned by Nasser he became convinced that religious Muslims and secularists could not live in peace in the same society. Just as Mohammad had overthrown the pagan establishment of Mecca the fundamentalists should force the secularists into submission.

This was contrary to history because Mohmmad had achieved his victory by an ingenious policy of non-violence. The Qu'ran adamantly opposed force and coercion in religious matters. Its vision was tolerant and inclusive. Qutb insisted that the Qu'ranic injunction against violence and for tolerance could only occur after the establishment of a true Muslim state. Like all the major faiths, Muslim fundamentalists make religion a tool of oppression and even of violence. Qutb was executed. Many Muslim people felt that the secularists had failed because the leadership was not true to their promises or to Islamic principles. The secularists' policies were to them discredited. Muslims began to attempt to develop a post-colonial, post modern, Islamic world. Throughout the Islamic world students and factory workers started to create mosques in their factories and universities. This was a significant attempt to push Islam from, the marginal realm to reclaim their part of the world from the neo-colonial secularists. They were pushing forward the frontiers of the sacred.

This was similar to the Jewish fundamentalists in Israel who made illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Surveys show that a large proportion of veiled women hold progressive views on matters of gender. Some women who come from rural areas join the modern world and want to do it on their own terms. The continued use of the veil enables them to make the changes less traumatic by doing the formerly forbidden acts in an Islamic context that is still sacred. In the West some people flaunt their tanned bodies as a sign of privileged expression as they try to hold on to their youth and good health. The shrouded Islamic body declares that it is oriented to transcendence. The uniformity of dress abolishes class differences and stresses community. Consider how history is often misrepresented. For example, most of the Congregationalists and other religious people at year 1776 shared the desire to create a new world but few of them understood that a majority of the Founding Fathers were Deists and of a certainty yet in favor of separation of church and state.

Today, many fundamentalists do not believe this historical fact because their leaders spread false stories. Perhaps, like the Sunni and Shia, other fundamentalists want to give modern culture a context that is more spiritual and make it more accessible to the ordinary people. Khomeini provided a Shia alternative to the secular nationalism of the Pahlavi Regime which was violating the constitution. Secularists and intellectuals joined forces with the ulama because they knew that the fundamentalist Khomeini could command the necessary grass-roots support of the Muslims. Religion proved to be so powerful a force that it brought down the Pahlavi state. But Khomeini's vision was that of a narrow and distorting fundamentalist. Khomeini insisted on what he called unity of expression - suppressing dissident voices. Coercion in religious matters is forbidden by the Qu'ran. Khomeini used his fatwa to contravene his own mentor's impassioned defense of freedom of thought and expression. His fatwa was declared un-Islamic by other Muslim leaders. Still, the conservative clerics block liberalizing reforms while they struggle to create a viable Islamic state. They are finding it difficult to be true to the Qu'ran.

The spectre of Islamic fundamentalism scares many in Western society. Yet, there is an equally prevalent and violent fundamentalism of other faiths in their midst. In Britain and France there is often outrage when Muslims request separate schools for their children. Yet, they voice no objection about special schools for Jews, Roman Catholics or Quakers. In India, Muslims are being squeezed out of their jobs and are often refused decent travelers' accommodations. The only signs of the glorious Moghul past are the great buildings: the Taj Mahal, the Red Fort and the Juneh Mosque. The BJP party of Hindu India tore down the Mosque while the press and army stood by and watched. The impact on Muslims in India has been prolonged. They dread annihilation. Their withdrawal into communities and the intolerance they show to others is against the most tolerant and civilized traditions of Indian Islam. Ever since the Crusades, the peoples of Western Christendom have maintained a stereotypical and distorted image of Islam's Muslims.

Some Muslim thinkers who describe themselves as "democratic Islamists see no incompatibility between Islam and democracy. But, they reject the materialistic secularism of the West. They do not feel that humans should be divided and fragmented into consumers, patients, taxpayers, and the like. They feel that it would be better to follow the Muslim ideal of tawhid which rejects duality. Duality of the body and spirit, intellect and spirituality, men and women, morality and economy are artificial in both the East and West. Muslims want modernity but not one imposed by America, Britain, and France. Muslims when they look at Western society they see no light, no heart and no spirituality. Muhammad said that he had come to bring a "Middle Way: of religious life that shunned extremes". The West must learn to recognize the Muslims' right to live their religion. Westerners must come to appreciate that there is more than one kind of modernity. Still, there is another major issue.

Western democracies pride themselves on protecting freedom thought and its expression by speech, press, and other media. It is not uncommon for both Christian Catholic and Islamic Muslim countries to set severe even ruthless limits on freedom of expression. If many nations outside the West (such as Muslim countries ) suffer poverty in shame it is not because of freedom of expression but because they don't have it and can not publically express it.The story of the power elite, the landed upper class, and its neglect of zakat, a Muslim obligation , is yet to be told. The underclass is powerless in these countries. The youthfulness of the population, 50 percent are under age 15 years, foreshadows much civil unrest. Certainly, the West has not been wholly responsible for the extreme forms of Islam. But the West's colonialism and corporate marketing has contributed to the fear that drives the fundamentalists. The despair that lies at the root of fundamentalists' vision should be driving the Westerners to cultivate a more accurate appreciation and understanding of Islam and its Muslim population.

The Muslim community in the USA, about seven million, is one of the most diverse in the world. It encompasses Arabs, South Asians, Europeans, and US Blacks some from the Caribbean. The majorities of US Muslims are not active in mosques or affiliated with any national Muslim groups. Some feel that the American Muslims need an alternative to My Space on the Internet. It could be a webspace that is a legitimate voice for their concerns about the problems of assimilation and the desire to preserve their cultural heritage. Yet, others feel that creating forums and making them accessible to radicals will alienate other Muslims. The Progressive Muslim Union of North America in New York says that controversial issues can not be avoided. Progressives intend to speak out publicly against Muslim practices they consider harmful. They believe Muslims should borrow from the traditions of Buddhism and the US civil rights movement to reshape Islam for modern times. They feel that women should have a broader role. Conservatives say that their positions are not truly Islamic.

The ideas for the new organization can be found on www.muslimwakeup.com the site is anything but timid. It is averaging 2.8 million hits a month. Islam is a vibrant, satisfying religion. Its future is out there somewhere. Today, it is worse than unfortunate that in 2008 many Imams and Mullahs have closed their minds to external influences. The whole world needs a rapprochement. Somehow fundamental traditionalists should find a way to make peace with the modernists of their own religions to enable all humans to handle the coming Singularity successfully without war and the horror of bloodshed. There are many million of Muslims scattered and grouped throughout the planet who are trying to find a way to be accepted, as a minority, by a majority that is hostile to the Muslims desire to preserve their heritage and not be completely assimilated. Ever since the Crusades, Western Christendom has maintained a stereotypical and distorted image of Islam. Though it was the Christians who instigated the Crusades against Muslims, Christians promoted a stylized myth of the fanatical intolerance of Islam. This myth has become ingrained in the West. In India these old ideas are rooted among Hindus and others who have difficulty living with Muslims in their midst. Tragically, as the twenty-first century started up, so did a distortion of the sacred struggle of jihad. Today, there are some Muslims who have made violence a duty of political Islamism (Not to be confused with the religion - Islam). These political Islamists have departed from the core values of compassion, justice and benevolence that characterize all the world faiths, including Islam.

They do so in the same way many Evangelical Christians and other fundamentalists in the USA and Europe have done. As we have seen, aggressive secularism and even persecution have led to heightening of religious intolerance and hatred. I the U.S.A. we are confronting white supremicist who are vemonently anit-semtic and racial in direct violation of our constitution's secular government. Fundamentalism is a world wide threat to secular modernism that wears many garbs. The political and social strife is burgeoning at the same time science is making breakthroughs at an accelerating pace. To ,quote Bill Joy, the developer of the ubiquitous JavaScript, and founder of Sun Systems, "We are being propelled into this new century with no plan, no control, no brakes. The only realistic alternative I see is relinquishment, that is to limit technologies that are too dangerous, by limiting our pursuit of certain kinds of knowledge To get ahead of ourselves a bit, he proposes a human prohibition against self-replicating nanotechnology. He also suggests a prohibition, an ethical prohibition, on publishing gene sequences of pathogens on the Internet. The threat of global warming has enlarged the number and kind of those humans opposing broad areas of scientific advances in biotechnology and nanotechnology. But, relinquishing broad fields would be impossible to achieve without essentially relinquishing all technical developments.

This would require a Brave New World kind of totalitarian government. Such a solution is contrary to the democratic values of most of the advanced and wealthy nations. Worse, it would make the dangers worse by driving much scientific curiosity underground where the least responsible practitioners (for example, those in rogue states) would have most of the expertise. Technology empowers both creative and destructive natures among humans. The tragic event of September 11, 2001 is an example of the use of technologies - jets, buildings, gasoline taken over by humans with agendas of destruction. For a few decades the means have existed to create dangerous pathogens that are potentially more destruction to human life and culture than nuclear weapons. Nanotechnology will soon create nanobots that could vastly extend the reach and power of biological humans in awesome ways. Leading voices in nanotechnology have founded the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology. They feel that the creative and constructive application of nanotechnology will not dominate automatically. The world will need to make a vast increase in developing specific defensive technologies.

The promises of benefits from these advancements in scientific nanotechnologies are intertwined with the peril of technological advance. The Foresight Institute has been founded by Eric Drexler, and others, to develop guidelines for ethical and socially responsible uses for this emerging threat and bright promise. It is painfully obvious that we need international cooperation of the highest order to maintain responsible free play while imposing strict controls over these changes. A highly regarded and well respected scientific inventor, Ray Kurzweil has authored a book entitled: The Singularity is Near - When Humans Transcend Biology. It sets forth a carefully documented scenario demonstrating that during the first half of the twenty-first century a transforming event - The Singularity - will reshape every human institution and aspect of human life dramatically. In a matter of decades we can expect the pace of change to be so rapid human life and its relationship to the planet Earth and the Universe will be irreversibly transformed His book invites those who understand it to become Singularitarians along with him.

Obviously, the last thing we need is another dogma. Nor do we need another cult. Singularitarians do not represent a system of beliefs or a unified set of viewpoints. They could see this epochal change as producing an understanding of basic technology trends that will provide insight that causes humans to rethink all things: the nature of health and wealth, religion, to the nature of death and self. Soon the information based technologies will encompass all human knowledge that will be accessible by way of search engines such as Google. This will change the human capacity for pattern-recognition powers, problem solving skills, and our proficiency in using our emotional and moral intelligence - the human brain will be expanded and extended. The Muslim of Islam will be the exception except for more self-limiting access to the changes. The singularity will allow us to transcend the natural limitations of our biological bodies and brains. Our God given human potential will be vastly changed for the better. By the end of the twenty-first century the non-biological portion of our intelligence will be trillions and trillions of times more powerful than unaided human intelligence. The human capacity to ask the questions - "What For "What if? and to see and comprehend scenario type solutions to these fateful questions will empower humans to engage the environment in which they live (e.g. the Planet the Universe) in such a way as to minimize failures in real time events that would occur by trial and error.

Because of the dependability of death, as an occurrence with an uncertain outcome, traditional religion, such as Islam, has aided humans by providing rationales for the tragedy of death as a good thing. But the Singularity will bring an exponential growth of all forms of knowledge: philosophy, science, theology, music, art as well as the embedded knowledge within our bodies and brains. The Singularity will make life more bearable; it will make our god-given life truly meaningful. Humans' potential to serve God and the Universe will begin to be realized in the cosmic sense if we use it wisely. Of all the world religions none is better suited to lead the devout into a non-violent, peaceful acceptance of this transformation than Islam. It will require a tranformation of the curriculae of the Madrasahs.

Islam Could Lead the Way to Another Golden Age

Early in its revered history Islam the Faylasufs (circa 800 CE) during the Golden Age of Islam came to the conclusion that history was an illusion, it had no beginning, middle, or end since the universe emanated, eternally, from its First Cause. They regarded human reason as a reflection of the Absolute Reason which is Allah. There is potential for a Second Golden Age of Islam. One aspect of Islam that has great appeal is the harmonious interplay of faith and reason. Islam does not demand unreasoning belief. Rather, it invites intelligent faith that grows from observation, reflection and contemplation that begins with nature and all that surrounds us. Accordingly, the antagonism between religion and science (so familiar to Christians) is foreign to Islam. At one time this connection between faith and reason enabled Islamic culture to absorb and vivify useful knowledge from Greek, Asian, and other ancient peoples. Through their superior knowledge of science, logic, and mathematics Islam eventually nursed Europe out of its Dark Ages of superstition and paranoia, laying the foundations of the European Renaissance.

The indivisibility of the sacred and the secular that characterized Islam enabled the Muslims to develop the physical sciences, abstract art, as well as philosophy and social sciences during their Golden Age. The Qu'ran offers a way to explore an attitude that fully embraces the quest for knowledge and understanding that is the essence of science, while, at the same time, and for the same reasons Islam fully embraces the awe, humility, reverences and conscience without which humankind, does indeed go to far in considering itself to be self-sufficient (Qu'ran: 96:6-7) - the hubris of Greek mythology is a dager for all humans. The Singularity that is upon us fits the world view of Islam. It is possible that the imams and mullahs of Islam could be among the religious leaders that encourage all humans to accept and prepare the way for a broad general receptiveness to a transition to the a safe, low-risk Singularity and beyond. This could give new meaning and power to ecumenism. Since this is not the time or place for a fuller explanation of the Singularity and why it fits the religious view of the duty of humans to seek more knowledge to fulfill God's purpose for us all we refer you to Kurzweil's book. It is certain that more and more humans should be exposed to the teachings of Ray Kurzweil's treatise, The Singularity, as soon as practical. The MeetingHouse makes the modest proposal that foundations such as Ted Turner's, Bill and Melinda Gates, and others, should expedite translations of the book into the Arabic language.

Second, there should be a massive distribution of this book to the leadership of Islam toward the objective of encouraging cross-cultural conferences that would disseminate a deeper and broader understanding of the profound implications of the coming Singularity. It is not a fantasy to think that that it could set off a wave of diplomatic encounters between Islam and other cultures. It is significant to see that if the Imams, Mullahs, and other leaders of Islam would grasp the coming change they could propose to discuss its implications with other world leaders on their own terms. Kurzwell deduces an opportunity for his goal to transmit by changing a computer profile as an alternative to death . We dont know what Benjamin Franklin and Gandhi would have deduced among others, as the singularity washed over them. The potential to use some of the funds feeding the arms race to provide scholarships for the young men and women of Islam is real because it would be a way of brightening the future of these youths. The promise of the Singularity is real. Again, Islam could use its strengths, as it did at the time of the Dark Ages of Christendom, to bring the increasing knowledge base into the minds and hearts of the world. They could start by using the madrasahs to diffuse this new knowledge of the Singularity throughout Islam. Hope is always better than despair. Peaceful resolution of conflicts is always better than the use of violent means.

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THE END

Recommended Web Sites:

• www.ismaili.org - Electronic Library Data base.
• www.iiu.edu.my - International Islamic University of Malaysia
• www.geocities.com/Wellesly/3565 - for sisters following the path of Islam.
• www.jannah.org - subject directory on womens' issues.
• homepages.haqq.com.au/salam/sufilinks - Index to sufi orders.
• www.kurzweilAI.net
• www.RayandTerry.com
• www.e-drexler.com
  

Recommended Readings:

• Islam, John L. Esposito, Editor, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 1999
• Armstrong, Karen, Islam, Modern Library Chronicles (Random House) 2000.
• Barks, Coleman, The Soul of Rumi, Harper-Collins, New York, 2001
• Cleary, Thomas, The essential Koran, Castle Books, Harper Collins, New York, 1993.
• The Koran Translation, (Yasin, T.al-Jibouri),United Muslim Foundation, Lake Mary, FL., 2005.
• Allama, Sir Abdullah Al-Mamun Al-Suhrawardy, The Sayings of Muhammad , Citadel Press, Carol Press Group Edition, Secacus, NJ, 1999.
• Kurzweil, Ray, The Singularity Is Near, When Humans Transcend Biology, Viking Press, Penguin Group, 2005.

Acknowledgment: This article is a compilation from many sources. Some material has been revised, changed, and abridged. We gratefully acknowledge the source: Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 - Ultimate Reference Guide for the article Islam. Contributors were: Muhim S. Mahdi, Faslur Rahman, and AnneMarie Schimmel among others. Any errors, omissions, and changes are my own.

Copyright Notice©2008 James R. Cooper