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    The Role of Sufism in the Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam

    The final purpose of Iqbal’s philosophical speculation is the foundation of the premises for a future and fruitful discussion about the role of Islam in the modern world. For this reason he couldn’t avoid to compare the nature and the contents of his speculation with the spiritual approach of classic Sufism.
    It is important to underline that Iqbal places his reflections about Sufism inside a wider speculation endowed with an eminent philosophical character. For example, while discussing the mystic experience of Abd al-Mu’min, Iqbal is actually speaking about the language of psychology and the inability of this science to penetrate and explain the deep meaning of religious and mystic experiences. “This is the reason why I say that modern psychology has not been yet touched even the outer fringe of the subject. Personally, I do not at all feel hopeful of the present state of things in either biology or psychology. Mere analytical criticism with some understanding of the organic conditions of the imagery in with religious life has sometimes manifested itself is not likely to carry us to the living roots of human personality”, “ these ways of looking at the matter cannot, in the least, affect the ultimate aim of religious life, that is to say, the reconstruction of the finite ego by bringing him into contact with an eternal life-process, and thus giving him a metaphysical status of which we can have only a partial understanding in the half-choking atmosphere of our present environment”.
    Iqbal’s references to Nietzsche seem to prove the presence of this kind of prospective. According to Iqbal the weakest part of Nietzsche philosophy can be found in the doctrine of eternal recurrence, which only leads human being to metaphysic desperation denying the value of the becoming, which instead Iqbal reads as a distinctive mark of being. Nietzsche was unable to justify from a metaphysical point of view the value of temporality because, according to Iqbal, he didn’t understand that the being and the becoming are involved in a deep relation. The process of becoming across temporality, interpreted as an open possibility, allows the being to find fulfilment in the possibilities of his essence.
    The experience of the relation between the finite ego and the Infinite Ego is based on several levels, not only the mystic and the spiritual one. This is the reason why the nature of mystic states and the spiritual trainings of the classic schools of Sufism need to be analysed and interpreted inside the general discourse about the metaphysic nature of the human being, which shapes at the end also the nature of the possible relation between creator and creation.
    Even when the direct reference are only few, sufism has a deep and important role in the Reconstruction of religious thought in Islam, where Iqbal tries to establish the premises for a renaissance of Islamic thought. In Iqbal the notion and the role of Sufism seems to be quite problematic as the role and the heredity of Islamic philosophy. This is due to the fact that Iqbal in his metaphysics thought is actually trying to inaugurate a new phase of Islamic thought, literally straining continuously to overcome the limits of language of classical metaphysic, which prevent Islamic philosophers to understand the deep meaning of the quranic message, which is eminently anti-classical.
    The deep relation between metaphysical speculation, religious anthropology, sufi spirituality and reflection on Ijtihad is according to Iqbal the key to open a new era of Islamic history from different points of views. This is the reason why Sufism needs to be interpreted inside the dimension of the true Islamic tradition which involves also a new philosophical approach aiming to a reconstruction of a truly Islamic philosophical discourse. The early tight relation between Greek philosophy and Islamic thought prevented muslim thinkers from understanding the true spirit of quranic revelation and also from a philosophical thought rooted in Islamic message. Most probably, even when Iqbal is not completely clear about this point, in classical Sufism can be found elements which cannot be taken back to Islam and for this reason also Sufism, exactly like philosophy, needs a new approach more suitable not only for the modern mentality but also for a renewed Islamic cultural and philosophical approach.
    The reflections about the universe, his character and general structure, the role of human beings and the kind of conduct that befits the place occupied, are all connected because the role of human being is related to the nature of universe existing a deep connection between his essence and that of the cosmos where he lives. This justifies ultimately the necessity of interpreting Islamic thought and spirituality in the light of a truly quranic approach.
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