4: Two sources of knowledge

Your writings stress two sources of knowledge: the Qur'an and world history; you emphasize that a person who is ignorant of history cannot have sound knowledge. So how would you relate world history to the Qur'an? How can world history support the Qur'an?

I feel bound to repeat that you put your hand very accurately on the ideas that are of prime importance to me, though your tone might be redolent with protest against my line of thought; let me take that to be a wish on your part that I be more explicit and elaborate. Well, yes, we have to be most explicit, and to give more examples and to variegate our style. We learn that from Jesus who, as we see in the Bible, used to teach people with parables, and he did not teach except through parables. Likewise, we read in the Qur'an: " And such are the Parables We set forth for mankind, but only those understand them who have Knowledge (29, 43).

It is true, my brother Abdu-Jabbar, that a person who does not know history not only has defective knowledge; his knowledge is untrustworthy. It is so because knowledge and the mind are the product of history, the product of experience and experiments. It is true that without history, there can be no science and no intellect, for the essence of intellect is relating causes to effects. The mind is not a device for understanding – it is a process, relating causes to effects, and a perception of the possibility of transforming them to reality. I can illustrate that point with the example of reading and writing: a human being is born equipped with the ability to learn reading and writing, but that faculty may remain untapped, and he may remain an illiterate all his life; the potential may never be transformed into an actual reality. The same is true about the mind. It is for this reason that the word 'akl = mind' is never used as a noun in the Qur'an, but verb derivatives are used. The Qur'an does not say of any group that they have no mind 'akl'; it rather says that they fail to think, that is they fail to relate causes to effects.

It is history which testifies to the truth of the Qur'an. In this way, history is the evidence, the proof. God commands us in his book to refer to history for testimony. " Soon will We show them Our Signs in the regions of the world, and in their own souls, until it becomes manifest to them that this is the Truth. Is it not enough that your Lord witnesses all things? (41, 53)." It is so because the outcomes of actions in history are not subject to manipulation, although many people confound this fact when they fail to distinguish between what people write in their interpretation of events, and the outcomes of events. For instance, it must be clear to us that history is not what people say about communism, whether they are supporters or opponents of communism. History is the outcome which accrued from the application of communism. This is not a condemnation of the idea of equality in communism; it is rather a condemnation of the way that it was applied. The idea here is not to condemn – otherwise, it would be valid to say that Islam also failed and declined because its followers are failures, but that is not so.

It is worth our while to carry out comparison between investigating the laws for physical health and those for mental health, i.e. the soundness of that which is in the soul (nafs). When people were ignorant of the causes of diseases, how epidemic diseases came over the world and harvested huge numbers, and when unjust wars were waged, on a local, regional or world level, with the intent of robbing people's property, such events reflected intellectual and conceptual diseases. People used to kiss their dears and nears, and thereby transmit to them the diseases that afflicted them, unaware of what they did; and they cried over those dear ones later when they died. In the same way, we transmit to others deadly ideas, and most carefully we do that; and then, when, in consequence of our teaching, they fight and hate each other, and they fail to reach reconciliation with others, we are not aware of what brought about such tragic events: our poor understanding of the human situation.

We need to work most diligently over those problems, so that we may haply extract the fallacy and illusions lying behind them. I once wrote, in the course of a discussion of the relationship between reality and texts that we may better appreciate that relationship by thinking of a tree or an organism or even any element in nature: no matter how much is written, and how admirable is the scholarly work done about such topics, the real being is the referent whenever people are in doubt. All the scientists' writings are less than the reality of the thing, and therefore we need to refer to the subject-matter itself, the tree or the animal or the human being signified. That is the final referent in case of any dispute. I wrote also that even if God revealed a book about some of these phenomena, that material, concrete creature is a more cogent pointer to God's creation than the book laid down by God the Almighty. It is so because when God created the universe, He did not include any human element in it; it was just His Divine work. A book, a scripture revealed by God, on the other hand, is revealed in the tongue of the people to whom it is addressed, as we have it pointed out in the Qur'an: " We did not send a Messenger except to teach in the tongue of his people (14, 4)." God did not reveal any book until people learned reading and writing. Reading and writing are human functions, and are characterized with the imperfection of all human things. Creation, on the other hand, is a Divine fact, and so it has the absoluteness of divine things, though gradually evolved.

If is for such facts that God commands us to refer to His creation to realize the wisdom of His revelations. Here are some directives from the Qur'an about that:

Now see what was the end of those who rejected Truth (43, 25)

Then see what was the end of those who indulged in sin and crime (7, 84)

So see what was the end of those who acted corruptly (27, 14)

Now behold what was the end of those who did wrong (28, 40)

Then see what was the end of those who were admonished, but heeded not (37, 73)

That is on the side of wrong-doers. About the well-guided He says:

The end is for those who are righteous (11, 49)

who gets home in the end (13, 42)

who it is whose end will be best (6, 135)

As I said above, Iqbal notes that for a verification of the soundness of a civilization or culture, we have to study the kind of individual produced by that civilization or culture. These are basic matters that we need to reflect on; they are not too abstruse. They can be apprehended intuitively, since it is inherent in human beings to discriminate right from wrong when they can see the outcome of deeds and actual realities. We also find in the Qur'an so many exhortations to direct attention to consequences, good and bad, and that is drawing lessons from outcomes. If we turn our attention to the Messenger's, peace be upon him, traditions we find him say: "That which brought those before you to their perdition is that when a person of noble family stole, they disregarded his offense; but when a person of low birth stole, they punished him." What the Prophet is stating here is a historical law, and history is the laboratory for checking the soundness of behaviours and perceptions. The laboratory of history is open to all people, the same as with a material laboratory, where people can carry out experiments on various things, from atoms and electricity to chemical and organic compounds, and up to the most amazing of all creatures, man.

For instance, when God says: "Let there be no compulsion in religion (2, 256),", we can misunderstand this injunction; and indeed, how deplorably do Muslims blunder when they reason that should there be no compulsion in religion Muslims will lose ground, and people will abandon religion. This gross delusion leads them into pathetic blunders – they fail to notice how in our own age the Soviet Union collapsed under our eyes, and it was the country where coercion was used to suppress religion; its collapse was such a resounding fall. In fact all those who coerce people in religion will fall – there may be no compulsion for people to accept God's religion. The Qur'an recounts the practices of many parties who used compulsion: read for instance: " Don’t you see how your Lord dealt with the 'Ad people, of the city of Iram, with lofty pillars, the like of which were not produced in all the land? And with the Thamud people, who cut out huge rocks in th evalley? And with Pharaoh, Lord of Stakes? All these transgressed beyond bounds in the lands. And heaped therein mischief on mischief. Therefore your Lord poured on them a scourge of diverse chastisements: for your Lord is as a Guardian on a watch-tower (88, 6-14). " The Qur'an relates the events, and also mentions the outcomes. It asserts that the pattern follows a law, which will be applied to all those who commit the same mistakes; one may cite in support of this: " Don't you see how your Lord dealt with the 'Ad people? (88, 6)", "If you revert to your sins, We shall revert to Our punishments (17, 8) ," and " Never do We give such requital except to such as are ungrateful rejecters (34, 17)". Is it not right that we generalize a little, saying for instance: Have you not seen what God did to Hitler, Napoleon, the Soviet Union and the Shah of Iran?

Indeed, the events which took place after the Qur'an was revealed are much more in number and immensity than the events which took place before. Where is the Soviet Union, with all its warheads and missiles? It was much greater than Pharaoh, and Thamood who carved rocks in the valley. We can, by drawing on history, predict that the United States will collapse, not perish, but cease to be the overpowering, arrogant power that it is now – we say that in view of America's double standards in dealing with people: some are for her of noble status, and so are raised above the law; while it persecutes the weak. Referring again to the Qur'an, we find that God says: " Woe to those who deal in fraud (83, 1)," which pertains to double standards in measuring goods, so how much more grave is the double standards in dealing with peoples and nations, and what about those who have no standards at all? It is walking in Pharaoh's steps to rise above other human beings, as the Qur'an describes: "Truly Pharaoh elated himself in the land and broke up its people into sections, depressing a small group among them : their sons he slew, but he kept alive their females (28, 3)."

The right of veto is the worst and gravest kind of idolatry, and the most glaring type of injustice, but no one seems to care to see it abolished; the utmost that others wish for is that they also be granted the same right. This echoes what the Qur'an recounts when Qarun came out among people, in all his spleandour; and some people said: "Oh! that we had the like of what Qarun has got (28, 79)." Those who recite the Qur'an are familiar with this story. Many nations are mentioned by the Qur'an; it tells how they perished, but perdition here is an intellectual one, not a physical one; it is a set of concepts that vanished, not the persons themselves – you see that the progeny of the ancient Egyptians have survived, but their system of concepts is not the same as the ancient one.

One people in the Qur'an to have received respect is the people of Jonas; they had the sense to take heed and change; in the words of the Qur'an: "Why was there not a single township (among those We warned), which believed – so its Faith should have profited it – except the People of Jonah? When they believed, We removed from them the Penalty of Ignominy in the life of the Present, and permitted them to enjoy their life for a while (10, 98)." The common sense did perceive some inklings of the subject we are discussing here – people would say, as someone put it in verse: "Contemplate the signs of the world around you; for what you see is signals sent down to you from Heaven." But at the hands of Iqbal much insight can be discerned – see for instance this excerpt from Chapter Five in his The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam:

Another way of judging the value of a prophet's religious experience, therefore, would be to examine the type of manhood that he has created, and the cultural world that has sprung out of the spirit of his message… in order to gain an insight into the process of ideation that underlies [the ruling concepts in Islam], and thus to catch a glimpse of the soul that found expression through them .. it is necessary to understand the cultural value of a great idea in Islam – I mean the finality of the institution of prophethood…

Man is primarily governed by passion and instinct. Inductive reason, which alone makes man master of his environment, is an achievement; and when once born it must be reinforced by inhibiting the growth of other modes of knowledge…

Looking at the matter from this point of view, then, the Prophet of Islam seems to stand between the ancient and the modern world. In so far as the source of his revelation is concerned he belongs to the ancient world; in so far as the spirit of his revelation is concerned he belongs to the modern world. In him life discovers other sources of knowledge suitable to its new directions. The birth of Islam .. is the birth of inductive reason. In Islam prophecy reaches its perfection in discovering the need of its own abolition. This involves the keen perception that life cannot for ever be kept in leading strings … The abolition of priesthood and hereditary kingship in Islam, the constant appeal to reason and experience in the Qur'an, and the emphasis that it lays on nature and history as sources of human knowledge, are all different aspects of the same idea of finality …

According to the Qur'an, there are two other sources of knowledge – nature and history; and it is in tapping these sources of knowledge that the spirit of Islam is seen at its best. The Qur'an sees signs of ultimate reality in the 'sun', the 'moon', 'the lengthening out of shadows', 'the alternation of day and night', 'the variety of human colour and tongues', 'the alternation of the days of success and reverse among people' … And a Muslim's duty is to reflect on these signs and not to pass by them 'as if he is dead and blind', for he 'who does not see the signs in this life will remain blind to the realities of the life to come.'

Well, my esteemed brother Abdul-Jabbar, it seems to me that we suffer from great dearth intellectually. It is unfortunate that even a man like Al-Ghazali says: "The task of reason is to guide man to God and the Messenger, and then it takes no further action." That is then the way they perceived the function of reason. But how can this go with God's pointing to a person that “Those whose efforts have been wasted in this life, while they thought that they were acquiring good by their work (18, 104)?” And how can it go with that other Qur'anic statement: “ Is he, then, to whom the evil of his conduct is made alluring, so that he looks upon it as good (35, 8)”? History is indeed a patient teacher, never giving up the application of its laws; never losing patience until we change and start to see the point. I am optimistic about the future – I feel sure that God will enable those who come later to see the importance of these issues, that they will understand them in ways that cannot occur to our minds.