KUALA LUMPUR: For most Malaysians – unless they are vegetarian – meat is a common fare in their daily meals but in some parts of the world, however, meat is a rare delicacy. And hunger is an everyday affair.
This is especially true in war-torn countries or those recovering from natural disasters, said Muhammad Kamarulazizi, fund-raising and marketing manager for Muslim Aid Malaysia Humanitarian Foundation.
Since 2004, Muslim Aid has organised a food aid programme, Qurban for Life, to coincide with the Aidiladha celebrations every year.
He said most of the time in Malaysia, the meat was simply distributed to people in the community, and for various reasons, many just dump it in their freezer and waste it or let it go bad.
“In our Qurban for Life programme, the meat is canned so that it lasts longer and we distribute them to those who really need the food,” he adds.
Last year, Muslim Aid delivered RM1.37mil worth of Qurban meat to the poor and needy in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ghana, Indonesia, Iraq, Palestine and Kenya among others. Some meat was also donated to the Malaysian poor, including the aged and disabled.
This year, Muslim Aid plans to send Qurban meat to famine victims in Somalia, the earthquake victims in Padang and some of the local flood victims.
There are three types of Qurban donations under Muslim Aid’s Qurban for Life programme ... full Qurban for a goat or sheep (RM350), half Qurban (RM200) or Food Aid Gift (RM100).
The canned meat, which can be kept for three years, is certified halal by Jakim and the slaughtering is monitored by MAA representatives from Malaysia, Australia and Singapore.
Muslim Aid Malaysia is part of British-based international relief and development agency Muslim Aid Asia founded by Yusuf Islam in 1985, as a response to the famine in Africa.
It has already received some RM280,000 of Qurban donations for this year’s Aidiladha celebration which falls on Friday.
For details, visit www.qurbanforlife.com
Memaparkan catatan dengan label Islam1. Papar semua catatan
Memaparkan catatan dengan label Islam1. Papar semua catatan
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Selasa, November 17, 2009
By NIK ROSKIMAN ABDUL SAMAD
Fellow, IKIM
The purpose of our presence in this world is not simply to enjoy its pleasures, but to fashion it for worshipping God.
We often hear people say “money is not everything, but everything needs money.” However, it is hard to deny that we are in a materialistic world.
Naturally, in this type of world, religion has almost no significant role to play in guiding our daily actions.
It looks as if all religious or virtuous values passed on by our forefathers based on the noble traditions of the East or the West appear to be too antiquated to be practised in this modern age — an age of pursuing one’s self-interest.
Profit-maximising and wealth accumulation supercede everything else. All this seems to be the sole motive of almost every 21st-century man.
When wealth is the prime objective of one’s life in this world, then all would eventually be of little importance and perhaps in vain.
Truth, justice and honesty could now be compromised and “traded” at a very cheap price between the parties concerned.
Virtuous values will sooner or later erode before the great tide of man’s avarice, while evils might then eventually be “justifiable” and possibly exalted, provided that they come coated with worldly gains and rewards.
At the end of the day, sin and corruption are widely spread and set to be an epidemic like the A(H1N1) disease!
It is clear that corruption sprouts from man’s avarice and greed for pleasures of various forms: money, wealth, power, prestige, and others.
How truly is the Holy Prophet’s saying when he utters: “Love of this world is the origin of all sin” (Bayhaqi, Shu’ab al-iman).
But a word of caution here though; the world in itself is not blameworthy, but man’s extreme greed of the world and putting the world as one’s sole objective in life is that which is forbidden in Islam.
Man is created not to worship the world, and neither is he created to accumulate as much wealth as possible.
Rather, a man’s role is to worship God alone (al-Dzariyyat 51:56), while this world is supposed to be subservient to him in exercising his duties to worship God.
However, if man is heedless of the reality of the world and his approach towards it, then surely the wrath of God and the Prophet would befall him. In this connection, the Prophet warns the slave dinar and the dirham (Bukhari, Tirmidhi).
A Muslim must also realise that this world is merely a transit phase for him in his voyage towards God.
His eternal life and perfect bliss would come only after his death, and not in this world.
He is hence encouraged to lead his worldly life as though he is travelling for a long voyage, as mentioned in one of the Prophetic traditions: “Be in the world as though were a stranger or a wayfarer” (Bukhari).
In commenting on this hadith, the great Muslim jurist Imam Nawawi (d. 676 /1278) says: “Do not become attached to this world and take it up as a long-time residence. Instead, live in it as does a stranger or traveller in a foreign place.”
Love of the world can come in various forms. Craving to accumulate wealth as much as possible is surely one of the main ones.
Others can include the greed for power to rule, seeking prestige and noble status, deep affection towards luxury items, and so on. All corruption in this world in reality is ultimately traceable to man’s avarice.
If man is unable to control his craving for the world, then he would be willing to do anything, not only breaking the laws of the land but even at the expense of defying God’s prohibitions and commandments.
Having said all this, it does not mean that Islam is anti-progressive or condones extreme forms of asceticism.
It is not the question of wealth itself that matters, but rather it is our attitude towards it.
Wealth, when in the hands of godly and pious people, poses no problem whatsoever to them or to the Ummah, as the Prophetic hadith puts it: “no harm of wealth in the hands of pious people.”
Today, due to the influence of Western secular ideas and cultures, Muslims also tend to have a wrong perception of their mission in this world and of the purpose of their existence.
The world of the Hereafter was gradually removed from the Muslims’ mindsets and hearts and they became too obsessed with worldly pleasures.
Their love for the world increases unimaginably, unlike pious people in the first few generations of Islam.
The Muslims of today have forgotten the covenant (mithaq) that they had taken before Almighty God in their spiritual world before they were born.
Due to that forgetfulness, man is called “insan” in Arabic, which means “he who forgets.”
As said, man is sent to this world to worship God alone.
Worshipping is not in its restricted and ritualistic sense of performing activities like counting one’s rosary alone as misunderstood by some deviant groups, but also includes maintaining the world and governing it with justice and right cause in the manner enshrined by the commandments of God.
Man, however, has mostly been swayed and “dissolved” in the pleasures of the world, indulging himself in accumulating wealth without limit, seeking high status and rank, and so on at the expense of God’s commandments and prohibitions.
How many times do we see a person living beyond his income, driving a luxury car and living in a posh area?
And then it is revealed that he had been taking bribes, involved in all kinds of corruption.
Likewise cases involving abuses of power, mismanagement of public funds, money politics and so on, all originating in one and the same root cause: avarice.
To handle the problem of corruption anywhere, the issue must begin from elevating the spiritual quality of our workforce to the highest standards possible, preferably to the level of Ihsan (excellence).
It is inadequate for an organisation to concentrate only on improving management techniques, or to upgrade the organisational skills of their staff when their spiritual aspect is left impure.
Man, as the vital component of any organisation, should first be made to realise his real purpose of existence in this temporal world.
He should be exposed to the correct understanding of the Islamic worldview, and he is ultimately accountable before the Mighty Majesty on the Day of Judgment for all actions he had committed during his temporal life.
For one who attains this station would not only be an excellent staff or a loyal citizen, but also more importantly a good man (insan kamil).
This is ultimately the real purpose of education, which is not merely to make one a good citizen as erroneously believed by the West and others among Muslim educationists, but to make a person a good person.
When a man is a good man, he is also at the same time a good citizen.
The good man then has no need for rules and regulations to govern him to be honest, trustworthy, hardworking, diligent and so on, for he knows that his real “chief executive officer” (CEO) or chairman is not the person sitting on the top floor of his company, but He is The One and Alone, though Unseen, who watches him at every moment.
This “CEO” will surely bring forth every action that the man has done in this world, good or evil, for judgment and accountability in the Next World of al-Akhirah – to the extent that not even the minutest part of his action would be left uncounted, whether punished or rewarded.
- THE STAR
Fellow, IKIM
The purpose of our presence in this world is not simply to enjoy its pleasures, but to fashion it for worshipping God.
We often hear people say “money is not everything, but everything needs money.” However, it is hard to deny that we are in a materialistic world.
Naturally, in this type of world, religion has almost no significant role to play in guiding our daily actions.
It looks as if all religious or virtuous values passed on by our forefathers based on the noble traditions of the East or the West appear to be too antiquated to be practised in this modern age — an age of pursuing one’s self-interest.
Profit-maximising and wealth accumulation supercede everything else. All this seems to be the sole motive of almost every 21st-century man.
When wealth is the prime objective of one’s life in this world, then all would eventually be of little importance and perhaps in vain.
Truth, justice and honesty could now be compromised and “traded” at a very cheap price between the parties concerned.
Virtuous values will sooner or later erode before the great tide of man’s avarice, while evils might then eventually be “justifiable” and possibly exalted, provided that they come coated with worldly gains and rewards.
At the end of the day, sin and corruption are widely spread and set to be an epidemic like the A(H1N1) disease!
It is clear that corruption sprouts from man’s avarice and greed for pleasures of various forms: money, wealth, power, prestige, and others.
How truly is the Holy Prophet’s saying when he utters: “Love of this world is the origin of all sin” (Bayhaqi, Shu’ab al-iman).
But a word of caution here though; the world in itself is not blameworthy, but man’s extreme greed of the world and putting the world as one’s sole objective in life is that which is forbidden in Islam.
Man is created not to worship the world, and neither is he created to accumulate as much wealth as possible.
Rather, a man’s role is to worship God alone (al-Dzariyyat 51:56), while this world is supposed to be subservient to him in exercising his duties to worship God.
However, if man is heedless of the reality of the world and his approach towards it, then surely the wrath of God and the Prophet would befall him. In this connection, the Prophet warns the slave dinar and the dirham (Bukhari, Tirmidhi).
A Muslim must also realise that this world is merely a transit phase for him in his voyage towards God.
His eternal life and perfect bliss would come only after his death, and not in this world.
He is hence encouraged to lead his worldly life as though he is travelling for a long voyage, as mentioned in one of the Prophetic traditions: “Be in the world as though were a stranger or a wayfarer” (Bukhari).
In commenting on this hadith, the great Muslim jurist Imam Nawawi (d. 676 /1278) says: “Do not become attached to this world and take it up as a long-time residence. Instead, live in it as does a stranger or traveller in a foreign place.”
Love of the world can come in various forms. Craving to accumulate wealth as much as possible is surely one of the main ones.
Others can include the greed for power to rule, seeking prestige and noble status, deep affection towards luxury items, and so on. All corruption in this world in reality is ultimately traceable to man’s avarice.
If man is unable to control his craving for the world, then he would be willing to do anything, not only breaking the laws of the land but even at the expense of defying God’s prohibitions and commandments.
Having said all this, it does not mean that Islam is anti-progressive or condones extreme forms of asceticism.
It is not the question of wealth itself that matters, but rather it is our attitude towards it.
Wealth, when in the hands of godly and pious people, poses no problem whatsoever to them or to the Ummah, as the Prophetic hadith puts it: “no harm of wealth in the hands of pious people.”
Today, due to the influence of Western secular ideas and cultures, Muslims also tend to have a wrong perception of their mission in this world and of the purpose of their existence.
The world of the Hereafter was gradually removed from the Muslims’ mindsets and hearts and they became too obsessed with worldly pleasures.
Their love for the world increases unimaginably, unlike pious people in the first few generations of Islam.
The Muslims of today have forgotten the covenant (mithaq) that they had taken before Almighty God in their spiritual world before they were born.
Due to that forgetfulness, man is called “insan” in Arabic, which means “he who forgets.”
As said, man is sent to this world to worship God alone.
Worshipping is not in its restricted and ritualistic sense of performing activities like counting one’s rosary alone as misunderstood by some deviant groups, but also includes maintaining the world and governing it with justice and right cause in the manner enshrined by the commandments of God.
Man, however, has mostly been swayed and “dissolved” in the pleasures of the world, indulging himself in accumulating wealth without limit, seeking high status and rank, and so on at the expense of God’s commandments and prohibitions.
How many times do we see a person living beyond his income, driving a luxury car and living in a posh area?
And then it is revealed that he had been taking bribes, involved in all kinds of corruption.
Likewise cases involving abuses of power, mismanagement of public funds, money politics and so on, all originating in one and the same root cause: avarice.
To handle the problem of corruption anywhere, the issue must begin from elevating the spiritual quality of our workforce to the highest standards possible, preferably to the level of Ihsan (excellence).
It is inadequate for an organisation to concentrate only on improving management techniques, or to upgrade the organisational skills of their staff when their spiritual aspect is left impure.
Man, as the vital component of any organisation, should first be made to realise his real purpose of existence in this temporal world.
He should be exposed to the correct understanding of the Islamic worldview, and he is ultimately accountable before the Mighty Majesty on the Day of Judgment for all actions he had committed during his temporal life.
For one who attains this station would not only be an excellent staff or a loyal citizen, but also more importantly a good man (insan kamil).
This is ultimately the real purpose of education, which is not merely to make one a good citizen as erroneously believed by the West and others among Muslim educationists, but to make a person a good person.
When a man is a good man, he is also at the same time a good citizen.
The good man then has no need for rules and regulations to govern him to be honest, trustworthy, hardworking, diligent and so on, for he knows that his real “chief executive officer” (CEO) or chairman is not the person sitting on the top floor of his company, but He is The One and Alone, though Unseen, who watches him at every moment.
This “CEO” will surely bring forth every action that the man has done in this world, good or evil, for judgment and accountability in the Next World of al-Akhirah – to the extent that not even the minutest part of his action would be left uncounted, whether punished or rewarded.
- THE STAR
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Sabtu, Ogos 15, 2009
By DR MOHD SANI BADRON (IKIM)
True understanding of the Quran cannot be possessed by the one with neither intellectual nor spiritual prerequisites, let alone the one who is impudent and insolent of religion.
Confusion and error in knowledge of Islam, as a religion and a civilization, are more harmful to Muslims than mere ignorance.
The mind which is ignorant is simply in a state of privation of knowledge.
Being ignorant in the simple sense of lacking in knowledge means one does not pretend to know. Here, one neither knows nor fancies that one knows religious truths.
In other words, an acknowledged ignorance refers to one’s explicit recognition that one does not know the matter at issue – in this case knowledge of Islam and Islamic worldview.
While to seek knowledge is a religious obligation, acknowledging ignorance is often the indispensable step in the one who is sincerely seeking knowledge.
Indeed, it is easier to teach a person who is aware of his ignorance than a person in error, who is unaware of, or refuses to recognise, that his understanding of the matter is warped.
This is because although the latter is in error about a certain matter, he does not acknowledge his ignorance of it. Satisfied with his condition, the confused person thinks and claims he knows, whereas in reality he does not know and only has a clouded mind.
He is thus unwilling to learn the truth as he thinks himself the equal of those who truly know. He resists the teacher, and glories in being blind to the truth.
How is he going to be cured of ignorance if he does not want to remedy it?
Intellectual arrogance and obstinacy stem from confusion and error in knowledge, leading to the tendency to challenge, belittle, and reject legitimate views of knowledgeable experts on Islam, its worldview, history, traditional culture, literature and language, which give identity to, and consolidate, the Muslim community.
Combined with a false presumption, error in knowledge manifests not just the mind’s failure to know but also its fallibility, misconception, misjudgment and excesses.
This is what we call “learned confusion”, where stubbornness and stupidity are twins.
The mind’s efforts in seeking true knowledge face various epistemological stumbling blocks. Since these pitfalls function as the causes of confusion, we must be really clear of those sources of error, which must be avoided for us to steer clear of error and confusion.
As Dr Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas remarked when analysing Muslim Dilemma, we must first come to grips with the rules for the proper adab or conduct of seeking knowledge of religious truths, of Islam and its worldview, not only as a religion, but also as a civilization.
No true knowledge can be instilled without the aforementioned precondition. Consider the following example.
The Quran is the Fountain of all true knowledge. Nevertheless, it cannot even be touched save through the prescribed adab of ritual purity (al-Waqi‘ah, 56: 79).
This alludes to the fact that true understanding of the Quran or Knowledge cannot be possessed by the one with neither intellectual nor spiritual prerequisites, let alone the one who is impudent and insolent of religion.
Hence, as there is a beneficial aspect of the Quran for the believer that will increase his faith, there is also its harmful aspect for the one who studies it with insincerity of purpose. That will add atrocity to their evil (al-Baqarah, 2: 26).
Beneficial aspects of the Quran is for the reader who has respect for the All-Merciful, learning with a heart turned in devotion to Him (qalb munib), lending ear with a conscious mind, with an intention to submit to the truth and goodness.
In other words, the Quranic message is for one who has the heart to understand or ears to hear with.
As has been cautioned, “it is not the eyes that are blind, but blind are the hearts within the breast” (Qaf, 50: 33, 37; al-Hajj, 22: 46).
While the Quran always rightly guides all humankind, its reader’s spiritual and intellectual receptivity to its guidance, or the lack of such receptivity, leads to sound or faulty understanding, respectively.
Meanwhile, one’s level of profundity is dependent upon how prepared one is as far as the training, discipline and development of the following are concerned: powers of reasoning; capacities of sense experience; as well as progress of inner self in the course of faith and practical devotion to God’s clearly defined system of Revealed Law.
Just as seeking knowledge is obligatory, it is also a duty incumbent upon Muslims to have a proper attitude towards a legitimate authority or knowledgeable expert.
By “a proper attitude”, we mean having humility in accepting knowledge-based views on Islam and its vision of reality and truth.
By “legitimate authority”, we are referring to those who are knowledgeable according to the criterion of keen intelligence, profound insight, intellectual integrity, and virtue.
This includes the past erudite scholars of Islam, from whom we inherit volumes of original analyses and interpretations of Islam and its worldview, which function to open our minds and equip us for the future.
True understanding of the Quran cannot be possessed by the one with neither intellectual nor spiritual prerequisites, let alone the one who is impudent and insolent of religion.
Confusion and error in knowledge of Islam, as a religion and a civilization, are more harmful to Muslims than mere ignorance.
The mind which is ignorant is simply in a state of privation of knowledge.
Being ignorant in the simple sense of lacking in knowledge means one does not pretend to know. Here, one neither knows nor fancies that one knows religious truths.
In other words, an acknowledged ignorance refers to one’s explicit recognition that one does not know the matter at issue – in this case knowledge of Islam and Islamic worldview.
While to seek knowledge is a religious obligation, acknowledging ignorance is often the indispensable step in the one who is sincerely seeking knowledge.
Indeed, it is easier to teach a person who is aware of his ignorance than a person in error, who is unaware of, or refuses to recognise, that his understanding of the matter is warped.
This is because although the latter is in error about a certain matter, he does not acknowledge his ignorance of it. Satisfied with his condition, the confused person thinks and claims he knows, whereas in reality he does not know and only has a clouded mind.
He is thus unwilling to learn the truth as he thinks himself the equal of those who truly know. He resists the teacher, and glories in being blind to the truth.
How is he going to be cured of ignorance if he does not want to remedy it?
Intellectual arrogance and obstinacy stem from confusion and error in knowledge, leading to the tendency to challenge, belittle, and reject legitimate views of knowledgeable experts on Islam, its worldview, history, traditional culture, literature and language, which give identity to, and consolidate, the Muslim community.
Combined with a false presumption, error in knowledge manifests not just the mind’s failure to know but also its fallibility, misconception, misjudgment and excesses.
This is what we call “learned confusion”, where stubbornness and stupidity are twins.
The mind’s efforts in seeking true knowledge face various epistemological stumbling blocks. Since these pitfalls function as the causes of confusion, we must be really clear of those sources of error, which must be avoided for us to steer clear of error and confusion.
As Dr Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas remarked when analysing Muslim Dilemma, we must first come to grips with the rules for the proper adab or conduct of seeking knowledge of religious truths, of Islam and its worldview, not only as a religion, but also as a civilization.
No true knowledge can be instilled without the aforementioned precondition. Consider the following example.
The Quran is the Fountain of all true knowledge. Nevertheless, it cannot even be touched save through the prescribed adab of ritual purity (al-Waqi‘ah, 56: 79).
This alludes to the fact that true understanding of the Quran or Knowledge cannot be possessed by the one with neither intellectual nor spiritual prerequisites, let alone the one who is impudent and insolent of religion.
Hence, as there is a beneficial aspect of the Quran for the believer that will increase his faith, there is also its harmful aspect for the one who studies it with insincerity of purpose. That will add atrocity to their evil (al-Baqarah, 2: 26).
Beneficial aspects of the Quran is for the reader who has respect for the All-Merciful, learning with a heart turned in devotion to Him (qalb munib), lending ear with a conscious mind, with an intention to submit to the truth and goodness.
In other words, the Quranic message is for one who has the heart to understand or ears to hear with.
As has been cautioned, “it is not the eyes that are blind, but blind are the hearts within the breast” (Qaf, 50: 33, 37; al-Hajj, 22: 46).
While the Quran always rightly guides all humankind, its reader’s spiritual and intellectual receptivity to its guidance, or the lack of such receptivity, leads to sound or faulty understanding, respectively.
Meanwhile, one’s level of profundity is dependent upon how prepared one is as far as the training, discipline and development of the following are concerned: powers of reasoning; capacities of sense experience; as well as progress of inner self in the course of faith and practical devotion to God’s clearly defined system of Revealed Law.
Just as seeking knowledge is obligatory, it is also a duty incumbent upon Muslims to have a proper attitude towards a legitimate authority or knowledgeable expert.
By “a proper attitude”, we mean having humility in accepting knowledge-based views on Islam and its vision of reality and truth.
By “legitimate authority”, we are referring to those who are knowledgeable according to the criterion of keen intelligence, profound insight, intellectual integrity, and virtue.
This includes the past erudite scholars of Islam, from whom we inherit volumes of original analyses and interpretations of Islam and its worldview, which function to open our minds and equip us for the future.
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Selasa, Julai 28, 2009
By Dr Mohd Zaidi Ismail,
Senior Fellow/Director,
Centre for Science and Technoloty, IKIM
Thinking is the mental act of putting what one has already known into meaningful order to arrive at what one is still ignorant of.
We have explained before that in any true epistemic act as conceived of in the religious, intellectual and scientific tradition of Islam, one cannot start from either what is unclear or what one is ignorant of, hoping to grasp what is clear and understandable (see, among others, Ikim Views of Jan 29, July 22 and Sept 23, 2008).
As such, knowing as a mental act has often been formulated as the progress of one’s mind from what has already been known to what is still unknown.
Such a formula is meant to be a general principle that guides any act or activity deserving of being regarded as knowledge oriented, be it one’s act of reading, defining, clarifying, thinking, and so on.
We have also explained how thinking, being an integral cognitive component in knowledge and science, is guided and regulated by that epistemic principle.
To recapitulate, thinking has been described in ‘ilm al-mantiq – the discipline of logic in the Islamic religious, intellectual and scientific tradition – as the mental act of putting what one has already known into meaningful order in order to arrive at what one is still ignorant of.
In spite of the fact that thinking is an essential cognitive component in knowledge and science, it cannot be realised without ideas, notions and concepts.
Ideas or concepts are therefore the rudiments of thinking.
As such, more basic but yet so integral to thinking is one’s grasp of ideas, notions and concepts.
Nevertheless, as the human mind primarily thinks by means of words or linguistic symbols, ideas or concepts being the essential constituents of thinking are primarily expressed by and couched in words or terms as well.
Hence, at that basic epistemic level, one cannot do without the proper act of clarifying a term or word and thereby truly knowing an idea or a concept, an act that is referred to as definition.
Yet, in attempts at a correct or valid definition, one again finds the same epistemic formula applying thereto as a guiding principle.
To define something correctly, one has to meet certain conditions or requirements.
Some such conditions turn out to be the ramifications of the above principle.
One of them requires that the definiens (that is, words or terms which are used to define a particular word or term) must be more clear than the definiendum (the word or term being defined).
We may want to refer to this condition as The Rule of Clarity.
To illustrate this, suppose that one is asked to explain what “reason” actually is to an audience comprising primarily novices and the general public.
In explaining, one says: “It is an important noetic power concerned with analysis and discursive thinking.”
The above explanation however, unless further clarified, contains such words as “noetic” and “discursive” which, to the layman, are no more enlightening than what was originally being defined, namely, reason.
In fact, we may well assume that reason itself is better understood by such an audience than all those words purportedly intended to define it.
Such an explanation, in other words, simply does not make “reason” any more lucid.
Another condition, which we may want to regard as The Rule of Non-Circularity, demands that the definiendum not be present in the definition itself.
In other words, the definiendum must not in any way turn out to be any of the definiens.
For instance, suppose that one is asked about what knowledge essentially is and in answering, one says: “It is that which renders a person who has the potentiality to know an actual knower.”
Such an answer, unfortunately, does not really explain what knowledge is because, clearly, the term one seeks to make plain appears itself, in a slightly different form, in one’s very explanation – namely, in the words “know” and “knower.”
Therefore, in using the same terms to define a word, the explanation is circular and thus purely redundant.
Upon scrutiny, however, one may well conclude that this latter rule is a detailed elucidation of the former.
By virtue of the fact that the definien is required to be more clear than the definiendum, it cannot therefore be just as ambiguous, let alone more ambiguous than that it seeks to clarify.
As such, the definiendum being present in the definition, which is nothing more than a set of definiens, renders the definition no better than the thing one is ignorant of initially.
In short, one’s not meeting any, or both, of the aforementioned conditions pertaining to the valid definition of words and terms, is tantamount to one’s violating the above epistemic principle, thereby depriving one of true knowledge.
Therefore, attempts at clarity in thoughts and ideas, which are even more pressing amid competing slogans and enticing rhetoric, which at present seems to have fully occupied our intellectual space, require that the foregoing epistemic principle not only be afforded its paramount role again, but also to be abided.
Senior Fellow/Director,
Centre for Science and Technoloty, IKIM
Thinking is the mental act of putting what one has already known into meaningful order to arrive at what one is still ignorant of.
We have explained before that in any true epistemic act as conceived of in the religious, intellectual and scientific tradition of Islam, one cannot start from either what is unclear or what one is ignorant of, hoping to grasp what is clear and understandable (see, among others, Ikim Views of Jan 29, July 22 and Sept 23, 2008).
As such, knowing as a mental act has often been formulated as the progress of one’s mind from what has already been known to what is still unknown.
Such a formula is meant to be a general principle that guides any act or activity deserving of being regarded as knowledge oriented, be it one’s act of reading, defining, clarifying, thinking, and so on.
We have also explained how thinking, being an integral cognitive component in knowledge and science, is guided and regulated by that epistemic principle.
To recapitulate, thinking has been described in ‘ilm al-mantiq – the discipline of logic in the Islamic religious, intellectual and scientific tradition – as the mental act of putting what one has already known into meaningful order in order to arrive at what one is still ignorant of.
In spite of the fact that thinking is an essential cognitive component in knowledge and science, it cannot be realised without ideas, notions and concepts.
Ideas or concepts are therefore the rudiments of thinking.
As such, more basic but yet so integral to thinking is one’s grasp of ideas, notions and concepts.
Nevertheless, as the human mind primarily thinks by means of words or linguistic symbols, ideas or concepts being the essential constituents of thinking are primarily expressed by and couched in words or terms as well.
Hence, at that basic epistemic level, one cannot do without the proper act of clarifying a term or word and thereby truly knowing an idea or a concept, an act that is referred to as definition.
Yet, in attempts at a correct or valid definition, one again finds the same epistemic formula applying thereto as a guiding principle.
To define something correctly, one has to meet certain conditions or requirements.
Some such conditions turn out to be the ramifications of the above principle.
One of them requires that the definiens (that is, words or terms which are used to define a particular word or term) must be more clear than the definiendum (the word or term being defined).
We may want to refer to this condition as The Rule of Clarity.
To illustrate this, suppose that one is asked to explain what “reason” actually is to an audience comprising primarily novices and the general public.
In explaining, one says: “It is an important noetic power concerned with analysis and discursive thinking.”
The above explanation however, unless further clarified, contains such words as “noetic” and “discursive” which, to the layman, are no more enlightening than what was originally being defined, namely, reason.
In fact, we may well assume that reason itself is better understood by such an audience than all those words purportedly intended to define it.
Such an explanation, in other words, simply does not make “reason” any more lucid.
Another condition, which we may want to regard as The Rule of Non-Circularity, demands that the definiendum not be present in the definition itself.
In other words, the definiendum must not in any way turn out to be any of the definiens.
For instance, suppose that one is asked about what knowledge essentially is and in answering, one says: “It is that which renders a person who has the potentiality to know an actual knower.”
Such an answer, unfortunately, does not really explain what knowledge is because, clearly, the term one seeks to make plain appears itself, in a slightly different form, in one’s very explanation – namely, in the words “know” and “knower.”
Therefore, in using the same terms to define a word, the explanation is circular and thus purely redundant.
Upon scrutiny, however, one may well conclude that this latter rule is a detailed elucidation of the former.
By virtue of the fact that the definien is required to be more clear than the definiendum, it cannot therefore be just as ambiguous, let alone more ambiguous than that it seeks to clarify.
As such, the definiendum being present in the definition, which is nothing more than a set of definiens, renders the definition no better than the thing one is ignorant of initially.
In short, one’s not meeting any, or both, of the aforementioned conditions pertaining to the valid definition of words and terms, is tantamount to one’s violating the above epistemic principle, thereby depriving one of true knowledge.
Therefore, attempts at clarity in thoughts and ideas, which are even more pressing amid competing slogans and enticing rhetoric, which at present seems to have fully occupied our intellectual space, require that the foregoing epistemic principle not only be afforded its paramount role again, but also to be abided.
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Selasa, Julai 14, 2009
By DR MOHD SANI BADRON
IKIM
A group of Muslim jurists once got together, and because they could not think of anything better to do, they proceeded to talk of trivial matters.
One of them asked: “During a funeral procession, should one walk on the right side of the coffin or on the left?”. Immediately, the group became confused and was divided by differences of opinion.
Some argued that one should walk on the right side, while others maintained that one should walk on the left.
Each group believed its argument was better than the other’s. Unable to solve their problem, they went to Mulla Nasreddin and asked for his fatwa.
Nasreddin listened to each group carefully and then said: “It does not matter on which side of the coffin you are, just as long as you are not inside!”. A legendary satirical Sufi figure, Nasreddin in this anecdote gets his message across in a manner of profound simplicity.
Simply put, Muslims should be on guard against idle conjecture.
Indeed, wasting time in vain controversies is rebuked by Allah in the Qur’an (al-Kahf, 18: 22, 26).
It is “in vain” to argue over religious truths with no authority based on true knowledge (Ghafir, 40: 56).
Allah commands in the Qur’an not to imitate quarrelsome people who love mischievous controversies. Barren controversies waged concerning religion reflects a false conception of knowledge.
On the one extreme, there are those secularists who assume that science, which is only relative to the phenomenological, is the only authentic knowledge, including the philosophy derived from it.
On the other extreme, there are those who restrict knowledge (al-‘ilm) only to the domain of jurisprudence (ahkam fiqhiyyah).
Such attitudes cause an inability to define real issues and inability to isolate real problems from false ones.
If real problems are not identified in the first place, certainly there will be no hope of finding the right solutions.
It is a characteristic of the feeble minded and shallow to enjoy endless controversy — polemics of insignificant issues, polemics of unnecessary legalistic details, and scholastic hair-splitting trivialities.
Muslims must be wise enough to distinguish between peripheral and marginal issues and major ones that directly concern humanity and the knowledge concerning the purpose of life and ultimate destiny.
It is a pseudo problem to emphasise differences between the various madhahib (Islamic legal schools). It is also false to emphasise trivialities within those legal schools and to argue obstinately for adherence to them.
Hurling accusations of irreligiousness against the other will not solve anything.
It is also erroneous to attempt an ignorant interpretation of Quranic verses whose meanings are obscure (ayat mutashabihat), for example on the question of fate and predestination (qada’ and qadr).
Rather, Muslims must emphasise the main business of religion, which emphasises authority of knowledge against conjecture; and education with moral purpose and spiritual significance (al-ta’dib).
Throughout history, the foregoing was emphasised by sincere scholars and scholars of keen intelligence and profound insight.
Scholars who had intellectual integrity and honoured the trust of right spiritual leadership, classified the various sciences in relation to their priorities and placed each one according to its correct order of priority.
This ensured integrated knowledge, of which there is always equilibrium between two types of knowledge; knowledge of the world as well as knowledge of reality, truth and values.
Imam al-Shafi‘i (d. 204/820) once remarked: “Knowledge has a dual nature: concerning bodily matters, and concerning religious affairs” (“Al-‘ilm ‘ilman: ‘ilmul abdan wa ‘ilmul adyan”).
Al-Shafi‘i’s remark conveys the true conception of knowledge as it faithfully reflects human nature itself.
The worldview of Islam defines mankind as one possessed of a sublime ruh or spiritual subtlety created by Allah (al-Hijr, 15: 29).
Composed of body and soul, at once physical being and spirit; out of these two, there is constituted a third entity called man (al-Mu’minun, 23: 12-14).
Al-Shafi‘i further remarked: “Knowledge is not what is memorised, but only what benefits (humanity).”
Integrative knowledge is a means of attaining humanity’s good, wherein the physical aspect must be integrated in a profound and inseparable way to the spiritual and intellectual aspects.
As one’s knowledge with all its branches must extend its fruits in the form of one’s useful and helpful actions in the best interests of one’s soul and society, the Prophet Mohamed took refuge in Allah from knowledge which does not benefit (narrated by Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr and Ibn Majah).
IKIM
A group of Muslim jurists once got together, and because they could not think of anything better to do, they proceeded to talk of trivial matters.
One of them asked: “During a funeral procession, should one walk on the right side of the coffin or on the left?”. Immediately, the group became confused and was divided by differences of opinion.
Some argued that one should walk on the right side, while others maintained that one should walk on the left.
Each group believed its argument was better than the other’s. Unable to solve their problem, they went to Mulla Nasreddin and asked for his fatwa.
Nasreddin listened to each group carefully and then said: “It does not matter on which side of the coffin you are, just as long as you are not inside!”. A legendary satirical Sufi figure, Nasreddin in this anecdote gets his message across in a manner of profound simplicity.
Simply put, Muslims should be on guard against idle conjecture.
Indeed, wasting time in vain controversies is rebuked by Allah in the Qur’an (al-Kahf, 18: 22, 26).
It is “in vain” to argue over religious truths with no authority based on true knowledge (Ghafir, 40: 56).
Allah commands in the Qur’an not to imitate quarrelsome people who love mischievous controversies. Barren controversies waged concerning religion reflects a false conception of knowledge.
On the one extreme, there are those secularists who assume that science, which is only relative to the phenomenological, is the only authentic knowledge, including the philosophy derived from it.
On the other extreme, there are those who restrict knowledge (al-‘ilm) only to the domain of jurisprudence (ahkam fiqhiyyah).
Such attitudes cause an inability to define real issues and inability to isolate real problems from false ones.
If real problems are not identified in the first place, certainly there will be no hope of finding the right solutions.
It is a characteristic of the feeble minded and shallow to enjoy endless controversy — polemics of insignificant issues, polemics of unnecessary legalistic details, and scholastic hair-splitting trivialities.
Muslims must be wise enough to distinguish between peripheral and marginal issues and major ones that directly concern humanity and the knowledge concerning the purpose of life and ultimate destiny.
It is a pseudo problem to emphasise differences between the various madhahib (Islamic legal schools). It is also false to emphasise trivialities within those legal schools and to argue obstinately for adherence to them.
Hurling accusations of irreligiousness against the other will not solve anything.
It is also erroneous to attempt an ignorant interpretation of Quranic verses whose meanings are obscure (ayat mutashabihat), for example on the question of fate and predestination (qada’ and qadr).
Rather, Muslims must emphasise the main business of religion, which emphasises authority of knowledge against conjecture; and education with moral purpose and spiritual significance (al-ta’dib).
Throughout history, the foregoing was emphasised by sincere scholars and scholars of keen intelligence and profound insight.
Scholars who had intellectual integrity and honoured the trust of right spiritual leadership, classified the various sciences in relation to their priorities and placed each one according to its correct order of priority.
This ensured integrated knowledge, of which there is always equilibrium between two types of knowledge; knowledge of the world as well as knowledge of reality, truth and values.
Imam al-Shafi‘i (d. 204/820) once remarked: “Knowledge has a dual nature: concerning bodily matters, and concerning religious affairs” (“Al-‘ilm ‘ilman: ‘ilmul abdan wa ‘ilmul adyan”).
Al-Shafi‘i’s remark conveys the true conception of knowledge as it faithfully reflects human nature itself.
The worldview of Islam defines mankind as one possessed of a sublime ruh or spiritual subtlety created by Allah (al-Hijr, 15: 29).
Composed of body and soul, at once physical being and spirit; out of these two, there is constituted a third entity called man (al-Mu’minun, 23: 12-14).
Al-Shafi‘i further remarked: “Knowledge is not what is memorised, but only what benefits (humanity).”
Integrative knowledge is a means of attaining humanity’s good, wherein the physical aspect must be integrated in a profound and inseparable way to the spiritual and intellectual aspects.
As one’s knowledge with all its branches must extend its fruits in the form of one’s useful and helpful actions in the best interests of one’s soul and society, the Prophet Mohamed took refuge in Allah from knowledge which does not benefit (narrated by Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr and Ibn Majah).
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