Saturday, September 19, 2015

The Search For Yaqin


Stepping off the Cliffs of Insanity
m. ali sadiqi

Introduction

Western logic divides knowledge into two; experiential and rational.  Knowledge is more than just raw data, unorganized.  The data, the sense perceptions and mental, internal reactions to those perceptions, do not become knowledge until we are able to somehow absorb them.  We begin by organizing them into piles based on some perceived similarities.  Then, we name them.  This is a pile of perceptions I call “tables.”  This is a pile of perceptions I call “coffee cups.”  This is a pile of perceptions I call my parents.  And so on.  Just like folders on a computer, I can also organize the stuff in the piles into sub piles, naming ever finer distinctions.  Once I have organized the data into some kind of meaningful, at least to me, structure, I can say that I know the data.  It’s not raw anymore, it has become known.  It becomes known by entering my data base as a name.  
Understanding the data can only begin after knowledge and it begins with discovering relationships.  The data is discrete, nameable; understanding reveals the web of connections between a discrete named datum and all the other discrete named datums. I know that X is a coffee cup, but I only understand what a coffee cup is when I define a coffee cup.  What is a coffee cup?  In order to define anything, we must use other names, and we must use verbs.  Verbs are relationships.  Even the verb “to be” sets up a relationship - that of equality.  
However, understanding does not complete the process we call in Arabic, Ilm.  Ilm requires that we put the knowledge that we now understand into practice.  The knowledge has to become so incorporated into our world view, that it affects our behavior.  We do not only believe that X is a coffee cup, but we act like it too.  We put coffee in it and drink from it.  My philosophy professor, Dr. Smith, used to call this “standing under” something.  In Islamic terms, this is Ihsan, to see Allah as if you see Him, and if you do not, then to know that He sees you.  
Ihsan of a coffee cup seems weird, but we do it naturally.  When it comes to things that we perceive through the senses, those things we call experiential knowledge, we seem to have no problem integrating them into our world view and not only believing, but acting upon that belief.  However, things change in relation to rational data.  
What is rational data?  It is that which we come to know, not through the operation of perception, but through the operation of the mind.  As you might be able to guess, understanding itself is rational.  The names do not come to us through the operation of perception.  We do not actually see a coffee cup.  We see a thing, and then our mind names it a coffee cup.  However, the mind can also come to know things that do not come to us through perception at all.  Mathematics, geometry, logic are all things known by the mind only.  1+1 does not come to us through perception.  We do not hear spheres, despite some thinking they make music.  So how do we understand these mental datums?  Again, we understand by discovering relationships.  Definitions help us understand experiential data; equations and syllogisms help us understand rational data.
And as with experiential data, we must then integrate it into our world view and act upon it.  With mathematics, geometry, physics and other so-called sciences, we have moderate success in absorbing and acting on the knowledge generated.  But, here is where we begin to fail in the process.  Not everyone, especially today in our complex ultra-specialized world, has all the data and understanding necessary to stand under it.  If I have never seen a duck bill platypus before, I cannot act as if one exists; but as soon as I perceive on in some manner, and learn it name, I can quickly absorb and act on it.  But to absorb quantum mechanics, string theory, non-linear geometry and the other datas of modern science, is quite a task even for the specialists.  How can I absorb and act on string theory without knowing or understanding it?  And how many ordinary people, even those who have a college education, have ever heard of string theory?  A taxi driver, with a fifth grade education can absorb a platypus, but quantum mechanics takes a whole framework of rational knowledge, understandings, and standing unders to absorb.  
Is this all there is then?  Is all we have either perceptual or rational?  What about those things that seem beyond both?  What about first principles?  A=A;  A=B, B=C then A=C. My professor defined first principles as those that are so obviously and necessarily true, that they could not possibly be false.  They seem obvious, yes; but they cannot be proven.  There is no proof for A=A.  We simply … believe it.  
David Hume, the great Scottish philosopher, first realized this conundrum.  It’s a conundrum of logic.  In the effort to understand perceptual data, we name it and then seek to define it and discover relationship among the datum.  From singular observations, we seek to discover general principles.  I see a white swan, I see another white swan, I see a third white swan etc.  Therefore, I postulate that all swans are white.  Great!  Now what?  The very next swan could be gray, or brown or rosy.  It is not impossible to have a non-white swan.  All this kind of logic, inductive logic, generates is probabilities.  There is a 75% chance that if you see a swan, it will be white.  
Induction underlies all science.  It generates no certainty, only probabilities.  NOTHING IS PROVEN IN SCIENCE.  They have been lying to you for years.  There is only data - facts - which are either true or false; and theories that are supported by the data or not, up to a certain degree.  Evolution is a theory - it has never been proven - it is only a certain percentage probably.  The data is only data - observations of generations of fruit flies, for example.  The theory itself is NEVER PROVEN, only probable to a certain percentage.  
Deductive logic underlies rational knowledge.  All bachelors are single; John is single, therefore John is bachelor.  As you can see, deduction is heavily dependant on definition.  What if we do not agree on the definition?  The definitions of “sky,” “cielo”, “akash,” “sama’a” and “himmel,” are not identical.  Definition depends on language, and language is a whole other way of organization the world.
In classic studies, our Ulema studies logic, grammar, and rhetoric.  These are the trivia - the three ways.  And our predecessors held that these three constituted the basis of all knowledge.  No one qualifies to be an Alim without them.  I agree.
Logic provides the means for discovering the truth; grammar the means for defining the truth; and rhetoric the means of expressing the truth.  
But back to deduction for now.  While deduction has a certainty that induction lack - if the premises are true, then whatever we derive from them is necessarily true; some have opined that deduction does not produce any “new” knowledge.  We really already knew John was a Bachelor.  We are just discovering a relationship we had not seen before.  But is has always been there, latent in definition.
What about induction?  We look at discrete facts and we see a relationship as well.  Is that really “new” knowledge, as those same some have stated?  Well, we are moving from the specific to the general, so it would appear we are moving to a more inclusive picture.  We are discovering new relationships we did not see before, relationships not inherent in the definition of the terms.  
However, isn’t this all just discovery?  Nothing new is created.  There is nothing new under the sun really.  Either way, we are discovering something new to us.  
Back again to deduction.  Well, it looks like deduction is more certain though, isn’t it?  After all, induction only produces probability, while deduction produces necessity.  That is illusory too.  Deduction is based on first principles; those fundamental principles so obviously true, we cannot imagine them being false.  We cannot imagine.  
Convenient for all these first principles isn’t it.  They are just true.  And we are just suppose to accept them as true.  How can we be certain?  Doesn’t this edifice require some kind of structural support?  Some kind of certainty?  All we have so far is a web of belief.  
Spider webs are strong.  The silk has a tensile strength greater than steel. But… a breeze can destroy the house of an ankabut.  

Enter David Hume.  He said induction produces probability - in other words opinion; and deduction produces - opinion too because it is based on fundamental principles we “believe” in.  It’s all opinion.  Science, religion, logic, first principles;  it’s all belief.  Where is the certainty, where is the truth?  Philosophy has been trying to answer that question every since.

THE SEARCH FOR CERTAINTY
Where is the certainty?  Where is the beef?  Good question.  Where could it be?  Where would it lie, if we could find it?  Who or what knows the most?  Who or what knows everything?  What contains all the data, definitions, relationships, understandings, and standing unders of all that there is?  Well, we usually call that “God.”  I’ll use Allah.  
Certainly, whatever knowledge Allah has is true and total.  And certain.  But how do we access it?  Imam Suhrawardi and Mulla Sadra helped us see that the Western view of knowledge is not complete.  The West has viewed knowledge as bipolar - experiential vs rational.  As a result, they were unable to deal philosophically with several problems.  For example, they could not avoid circular reasoning when attempting to logically prove the existence of God.  The best laid proof of Augustine, Aquinas and Descartes all fail.  They are left spinning in the dust.  Imam Suhrawardi lets us know flat out that the existence of Allah cannot be proven.  It’s absurd.  
It is absurd because Allah is THE first principle.  Plato even said so.  If Allah is the first principle, then there is nothing to prove him with.  Moreover, like all first principles, He is unprovable.  He is so obviously true that we cannot imagine that He is false.  Allah Samad - Allah is the Self Sufficient upon which all depends.  He is the first principle, and so naturally, there is no way to prove He exists through logic.  
So what would provide certainty?  As we mentioned, the only certainty would lie in the knowledge, understanding and standing under of Allah.  And we have that.  We have revelation.  Suhrawardi and Mulla Sadra show us that there is a third form of knowledge; wahy - revelation.
Allah has revealed words to mankind for many generations.  He revealed words to Adam, Ibrahim, Musa, Jesus, and Muhammad SAW, to name a few.  The last revelation, the Qur’an, has and continues to withstand the test of time, science, belief and everything else we can throw at it.  It is truly an amazing thing.  Deductively speaking, if there is a God, Allah, and He has all Knowledge, then whatever He reveals to us is true, by necessity.  
So we have solved it, right?  What ever Allah reveals to us is the truth, and it is certain.  Experiential knowledge and rational knowledge may be correct, but they are premised on belief.  They lack firm certainty.  But wahy is certain.  
Well, yes it is, but… how do we know that what we have has been revealed by Allah?  Are there indicia of wahy?  The Qur’an speaks of some of these indicia.  For example, it challenges people to produce something like it, even a verse.  No one ever has.  And although some make far too much of it, there are some genuinely amazing insights into the natural world that no one living until recently could possibly have known; embryology for example.  These are not mere wishful exegesis; the words are plainly referring to something that only modern microscopes have revealed.  
The Qur’an was also revealed to someone called “al-Amin,” the Trustworthy, by his own people.  He had impeccable character.  Even his opponents entrusted him with their property.  “I think you are crazy with your wild beliefs, but could you hold on to my money for me?”  
Are these indicia enough?  Certainly for many they are.  But the indicia themselves were provided in the wahy itself.  Where is the certainty we seek?
THE CLIFFS OF INSANITY
Remember that scene in the Princess Bride, where Wallace Shawn calls out, “The Cliffs of Insanity.”  Fezzik (Andre the Giant) has to climb them, carrying everyone else.  There is a rope there. Do they trust it?  
Trust; Faith.  
So, we arrive at the Cliffs with our beliefs.  We believe in the products of induction and deduction.  We believe in the revelations of wahy.  But how can we know any of these are true?  
In the hadith relating the Prophet Muhammad’s SAW Israh and Miraj, Jibreel, the Angel of Revelation; the Angle of Wahy; walks with him along the way.  They pass through the different heavens, and Jibreel, the embodiment of revelation, guides him through it all.  But then they reach the Sidr al Muntaha.  Exegeted and translated to mean, “the Farthest Lote Tree,” this Sidr is a point from which all experience and rationality must be left behind.  Jibreel can go no further.  He tells the Prophet that he must go on alone.  Even revelation cannot follow.  Muhammad SAW stands before Allah utterly alone.  
He stands before the Cliffs of Insanity, and he must climb.  He has only the rope.  
2:256 There is no compulsion in religion. The right direction is henceforth distinct from error. And he who rejecteth false deities and believeth in Allah hath grasped a firm handhold which will never break. Allah is Hearer, Knower.
31:22 Whosoever surrendereth his face to Allah and he has Ihsan (he is a Muhsin), then he verily hath grasped the firm hand-hold. Unto Allah belongeth the resolution of all things.
Allah SWT, in the Qur’an, states that the only thing that really distinguishes us from one another is taqwa.  Many have attempted to define this term.  I see is as coming from the root, q-w-y - indicating  strength, grasping with all your might.  We cling to Allah as tightly as possible, like a child to it’s mother.  We cling to the rope.  We climb the Cliffs of Insanity.  
They are not called the Cliffs of Insanity for nothing.  This place, beyond the Sidr al Muntaha, is not for the faint of heart.  You will either reach the top - the place of Certainty, or you will fall - the place of Insanity.  It takes courage, stamina, an intense drive toward the truth, and istiqama - unerring steadfastness.  It takes trust and it takes faith.  
It takes trust and faith.  Trust, to have faith in something or someone, is a relationship.  How do you explain what trust is?  We trust our friends because of our experiences with them.  We share experiences, and a relationship develops. We develop trust.  It does not appear overnight.  So when did we develop trust in Allah SWT?  Allah tells us in the Qur’an that in the world before this one, the world of Alaisa Rabbikum (Am I not your Lord?), we existed for a time.  Then he gathered us all before Him and asked, “Am I not your Lord?” and we responded “Ana Rabbiyy.”  “You are our Lord.”  We cannot deny Allah.  We affirmed Him in the past life.  So, then we died and were born into this life.  We come into the world with a relationship to Him.  Knowledge of Allah is in our fitrah, our innate nature.  And our experience in our youth can increase the trust we have in Allah.  But, no matter when we establish a relationship with Allah, it is the trust that develops over time that gives us the courage to grasp that rope.  We climb.
You reach the top.   And then you realize that all along... you already had certainty.  Only unshakable certainty in first principles, including the ultimate first principle, Allah, could have carried you up that cliff.  Only Yaqin, certainty, could instill such trust of a rope, whose anchor you cannot see.   But the climb gave you the opportunity to stand under your certainty, to act as if you are certain.  And only when you reach the top, can you truly say, no Raiba, no doubt remains.  
YAQIN
“Dhalik al Kitabu la raiba fi.”  “Dhalik al Kitabu la raiba.”  Here are the two readings of the second verse of Surah al Baqarah.  “This is the Book, there is no doubt in it.” “ This is the Book, no doubt.”  Not only is there no doubt in it, it is indeed Revelation.  
Notice something though… trust is not possible without belief in Allah.  Experience and rationality can lead you to the cliffs of insanity, but there is no certainty without revelation, and no revelation without Allah.  Without the relationship with Allah, you will never be able to trust the rope.  And you will fall into the Abyss of Insanity or turn back to a life of denial, where you will flutter around trying to ignore reality, trying to ignore the truth.  Truth has knocked at your door, and you have told it to go away because you are too busy searching for the truth.