Science and Philosophy
Among the Muslim thinkers, Ibn al-Haitham is to be credited for the
total integration of Science and Philosophy. This was done under the precept of
the Qur‘an. The term ‘Hikmah’ clearly indicates the pattern of integralism to
be sought between Science and Philosophy.
According to the integralistic policy of Ibn al-Haitham science and
philosophy should be one in aim, method and spirit. The only difference between
science and philosophy is that science aims at specific truth and philosophy at
generic truth. But the procedure of both is that of free intellectual inquiry
in a spirit of sceptical and critical thinking for the new, rather than
submissive loyalty to ancient authority and dogma. These actually are the ideas
constantly referred to by the Qur’an. In the modern culture the dualism and
conflict between philosophy and science, still persist inspite of the fact
attempts were made to bring amelioration between the two. It has awfully been
neglected that in every depth and levels of science there is an element of
philosophy. Similarly the philosophy cannot remain aloof from the haunted
influences of Science. In every depth and level of the imaginative vision of
philosophy there are element of empiricism. It is a sham logic to assume that
even in the verified empirical conclusions of science, there is no element of
imaginative vision. The greatest service to human culture in general and more
particularly to the systems of culture and knowledge done by the Muslims is to
be seen in the direction of cohesion, unity and integration between science and
philosophy. This is why that most of the philosophers in the culture of Islam
were famous scientists. Most of their philosophic theories became the
scientific truths of a later age. The highest beauty of Ibn al-Haitham’s
thought is to be identified in this axios that as soon as a philosophic problem
is definitely solved, it is automatically claimed as part of science.
The attempt of the Muslims to keep the unity of science and philosophy
based as it is on the Qur’anic teaching, is necessarily natural and historically
true. That abstract and specialized form of the love of wisdom which arrogates
to itself the generic name of philosophy has throughout history been sustained
by two great intellectual interests, the interest in nature and the interest in
man. The tenth and the eleventh centuries were noted for an unprecedented
progress in the knowledge of nature and philosophy. Ibn-al-Haitham carried us
beyond the aims and needs of the scientific view into what constitutes the field
of inquiry of philosophy. There is no break between philosophy and the science.
All that science achieves gives philosophy a running start.
Comparative study of Religion and the Sociology of Religion
It has been stated in his autobiography that from the very inception of
his growing age he was interested in the critical study of the various sects
and religious class of society of his time. According to his postulate these
sects and classes were segregated and individualized on the basis of their
personal opinion about religion and subjectivism in the belief system. This
diversity of opinion at the times of initial growth made him sceptic. The
function of the sceptic is to make us realize that no knowledge attainable by
the human mind is absolutely certain. The systems of belief other than Islamic
are open to revision. The idea of scepticism as developed by lbn al-Haitham is
to solve the antimony and its implications. It may be held that the antinomic
conflict is irreconcilable and that the nature of reality is thereby proved
unknowable. Scepticism is thus established. Any problem in which the two
primary criteria of truth are regarded as ultimately refitting one another
would be essentially insoluble. Ibn al-Haitham solved it by stating that
scepticism is not a denial of belief but rather a denial of pseudo beliefs as
represented by various sects and classes. According to his assertion truth is
only one (of Jumra: Filasfutul Islam). The logical inquiry as to the ways of
knowing is concerned with the questions that how our beliefs are derived and
justified. The initial problem which is to be taken as a hinderance for the
belief according to Ibn al-Haitham are superstition prejudice, unwarranted
doubts, hasty conclusions and the non perceptibility and incognizance to things
rational. Beliefs in terms of rationality undoubtedly mean (l) testimony of
reasoning and the empiricism (2) intention (3) abstract reasoning (4) reasoning
from universal principle. . . . the Divine guidance and prophetic directions
(5) Sensory experience and (6) Practical activity and successful consequences.
These items have been included by Ibn al-Haitham in facts of reasoning i.e.,
Amoori Aqliya (امور
عقلیہ). How wrong is the statement of late Joactim Wach when he says
that Max Muller is the first founder of the modern comparative religion. The
real fact is that the first founder of this science was Ibn al—Haitham. It is
to be noted that Ibn al-Haitham not only discovered history of religion, but
also through his identification of the sciences of folklore, sociology and psychology
he contributed heavily to the initially founded science of comparative religion
by Ibn-i-Hazam. With the turn of 9th and 10th centuries, philosophy and
theology, which had degenerated into epistemology began to reassert themselves.
By stressing the non rational element in
religion without neglecting the value of rational investigation, an
exaggerated intellectualism and scholasticism were excluded by Ibn al-Haitham.
If it is the task of theology to investigate, buttress, and teach the faith to
the community and kindle zeal for the defense and spread of the faith, it is
the responsibility of comparative study of religion to guide and to purify it. This
guidance is the necessary function of the Muslim. The comparative study of
religion is the part of the beliefs and the cultural systems of the Muslims because
they are given life and honour to “cause it to prevail over all religions,
through the polytheists are averse” (9:33).
There are deferent stages of understanding; one stage would be partial,
another integral comprehension. Thus it is conceivable that we could do justice
to a particular religious thought without being able to grasp others appearing
in the same context or to grasp this context as a whole. Religious communities,
as pointed out by Ibn al-Haitham recognize this by stratifying their religious
groups, especially those with an esoteric character. From the remarks of Lutfi
Jumma in his book on page 265, we are persuaded to infer that there is no hope
of understanding a religion in religious phenomenon without the most extensive
information possible, whoever hast had wide experience with human character
possesses one more qualification for understanding an alien or sectarian
religion, for such a person has directly contacted the minds of people in the
variety of other acting feeling and ways of thinking. It is important it for
one to realize that there are different ways to be religious, to know and to
worship God, for in the area of expression between man and man the narrowed religions
fellowship show differences (Jumma 265). The group as well as the individual
will be religious in its own way. Thus Ibn al-Haitham refers here the legitimate
range of psychological and sociological differences. This is not an endorsement
of pluralism or relativism. Even if one holds fast to the belief that Truth is
one it is possible to concede that there are many mansions.
In contrast to a most modern western scholar; Webb Clement C.J. Ibn
al-Haitham deems it most necessary to study scriptures and the doctrines of
different religious groups in their original languages (Jumma, second para p.
265). From the lines of arguments of Ibn al-I-laitham we are sure that he was
against pluralism or dualism. It is held by him that Truth is one, as the
cosmos is one; hence religion and knowledge also must be one. This insight
according to him is all important (Opcit Jumma p. 256). It is right to say that
no understanding and no interpretation of sources is possible without ‘Interse’
of the scholar. He must engage in a dialogue with the past but, not primarily because
it is a part of his own history. lbn al-Haithal:n was right in polluting out that
the realm of the understanding extends between the utterly foreign and the
totally familiar.
The study of these sources, literature, beliefs and thoughts held by
various sects, says Ibn al-Haitham were not useful at all. Perceptions and
inferences are the only legitimate sources, to know the truth.
The method of knowing Reality, stresses he, must be based upon the
Divine sources.
It is not contrary to, but rather in harmony with the Qur’anic
teachings which teach that truth is God’s truth and hence one truth. The truth
is that there is an order in 1nan’s cosmos of knowledge (Al-Alaq 96) even as
there is order in the universe (Al-Mulk).
The quest for knowledge of the interior aspects of religious experience
wherever and whenever that experience may occur constitutes another legitimate
approach. This is the methodology followed by Ibn al-Haitham. Individual and group
feelings, together with their dynamics have to be explored. In these thought
patterns, the traces of the sociology of religion and phenomenology are to be
clearly identified. Rather than undertaking a comparative study of many
cultures and religions of the different people, sociology of religion seeks the
analysis of the structures and processes essential to a particular culture.
As a sociologist of religion Ibn al-Haitham sought to understand the
role and function of religion and religious institutions in relation to the
other structures and proessces of a society.
Psychology
In his Kitab-un-Nifs, he says that if we search the self at work creating
for itself under cosmic influence the world it apprehends, we see it as a power
to bring into being a social order, its world of experiences, whatever it is
that comes to us from the dynamic order takes on meaning only insofar as we fix
at some form of elementary response. We give the object unity in variety and
appreciable duration. In the above patterns of thought one can easily discover
the clear influences of the Qur’an, enunciated in the sura Al-Nihl. This method
or interpreting in terms of Nifs or self, holds along the whole gamut of existence.
The unique feature of Ibn al-Haitham’s Psychological orientation is to be seen
in his stress that we locate self in the world of our experiences. It is the
central fact of its environment. In treating it thus we treat it as an object.
He was a physician and scientist through and through and hence, he followed the
same methodological procedure in his study of psychological problems. He says
that self thus examined shows various forms of activity–perceptions and other
noetic functionings, feelings in great variety and conations. The beauty of his
study of Nafis is to be seen in this view point that we know the noetic
functionings as distinguishable Psychic events, and discover close connections
between them and the neutral system of the body.
What is the self? I look within and find consciousness of certain
emotions and memories, this consciousness taken as a whole in myself. The whole
self is one‘s total experience in one‘s continuating life.
Talking about volition, Ibn al-Haitham says that volitional activity
expresses the true nature of the self more adequately than any other function.
It comprises the desire for a certain objective, same conception of method for
its realization and the committing of one-self to the realizing. This volition
gathers the self into a dynamic unity—undoubtedly we have no other alternative
than to agree with Ibn al-Haitham that a theory of volition carries with it a
theory of the self. Naturally any Psychology without a self is here at a loss.
Theory of religion
This is a separate category of Ibn al-Haitham‘s though nothing to do
with comparative religion and the sociology of religion. It has been asserted
by him that there is no life without religion. By virtue of this thesis, it has
been logical on the part of our thinker to infer that there is neither through
going sociality nor culture without religion. To establish his thesis he has
postulated from nature and pan psychism. He says that there is every variety
and gradation of value content in the objects of nature. Nature yields many a
suggestion that the gifted can weave into a fabric of beauty. The aesthetic
extension of ordinary reality into imaginative spheres is matched by extension
in other directions. Such are the intellectual into the boundless realm of
abstract truth, the moral into the intangibles of moral value, the religious
into the profoundest emotions of the human spirit. Religion rests on beliefs
concerning the essential nature of man and his relation to the Power that
expresses itself in the universe. In these thought patterns one can easily
visualizes the clear influence of the Qur’an. The Qur’anic methodology is
empirical. The Holy Book always refers to nature for the existence of God, the
Creator, the Sustainer and Almighty.
A religion that is alive to the ever advancing knowledge and insights
of men will be in the forefront of progressive movements and will be a constant
inspiration to the all dimensional development of man. Religious ideals furnish
the most powerful incentives to right living and hence have profound moral and
spiritual significance. The exercise of religion creates and irradiates a
beauty that transforms the whole of life. He stresses one point with great
emphasis, “Religious values only originate in communion with God".
Methodology
The development of science is not possible without persistent
application of scientific research method, observation, experience,
experimentalism, analysis and recording etc. So far one need not hesitate to
accept the above thesis. In the study of humanities, social sciences, sociology
and the spiritual sciences, it is emphatically stressed by our thinker that
their origination, development and progress depend on epistemology. By this he
means the inter-relationship and cohesion of the two methodological procedures,
a philosophy and scientific research into one category on the basis of realism,
the debate between monist and dualist in epistemology is interminable for each has
an obvious truth. The perceptual experience, the main epistemological procedure
exclusively adopted in scientific investigations, itself is unquestionably monistic.
Neither common sense nor recent science founds any distinction between precept
and thing. But the cause of the perceptual experience cannot be found nor its validity
established without reference to what is beyond the Psychic events, that is
without some sort of multiple explanation. In conclusion it is to be stated that
Ibn al-Haitham has fully enunciated the following problems of philosophy which are
if not cogently but certainly causally and meaningfully related with life.
1.
Sense Perception.
2.
Mind’s construction of
objects.
3.
Things as values.
4.
Common world.
5.
Reality.
With the above philosophical problems we are also guided in the
problems which are directly related to man and his specific universe, which may
thus be categorized which:
1.
What we are,
2.
Body,
3.
Unity of Selfhood,
4.
Knowing,
5.
Values,
6.
Our growth,
7.
Our achieving.
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