{bit.ly/Ghazali1} The Ghazali Project (discussed in detail in a sequence of 10 lectures linked in How to Launch an Islamic Revival?) is based on complex analysis and diagnosis of the current difficulties facing the Ummah. This lecture is a part of a sequence of Ghazalian Webinars delivered on Sundays to the Jakarta Chapter of the Ghazali Project, headed by Lisa Listiana. The YouTube Video provides a recording of the complete lecture. It is followed by a detailed writeup of the first part of the talk. For the second part, see Central Ideas Part 2

Given below is a writeup of first part of this talk articulates the issues made in greater detail:

Stating the Problem

The Message of Islam – the complete and perfect final message of God to mankind – led ignorant and backwards Bedouin to world leadership, and created a magnificent civilization which enlightened the world for over a thousand years. Today, Muslims all over the globe are ignorant and backwards, and our civilization is far behind others on many apparent measures of success.

• DIAGNOSIS: What is the reason for our current backwardness?
• CURE: What is the solution – the path to progress?

Proposed Solutions

Dominant: We have fallen behind the West (in knowledge, character, wealth, power). We must acquire Western knowledge and skills.

Islamic: The Message of the Quran is complete and perfect. We have failed to follow or implement it, and this is the reason for our failure. But there are huge differences of opinion about exactly what aspect of the Quranic message needs to be emphasized, to find our path to Islamic revival. Some of the differing diagnoses are the following:

1. Dominant: Islam tells us to pursue knowledge, even in China.
2. Tableegh: We need to strengthen Eeman, and fulfill our prime responsibility: spreading the message to humanity.
3. Political: Islamic governments are needed to implement Shari’a.
4. Salafi: purify Deen, engage in Jihad, re-establish Khilafa,

The Ghazali Project differs from the above diagnoses, and attributes the current disease of the Ummah to the Root Cause: Loss of KNOWLEDGE. Islam is a religion which prizes KNOWLEDGE. Allah T’aala gave extremely precious knowledge to mankind:

• (Allah T’aala) will give mankind knowledge of what they do not know
• This day I have perfected your religion and completed my blessing
• This (message) is better than all that they might gather
• The believers will be led to light, and unbelievers to darkness

This message led Muslims to love of learning, of gathering knowledge from all possible sources, which was the root of progress of Islamic Civilization. The extreme emphasis of Islam on learning leads to a:

Puzzle: Why are Muslims ignorant & backwards today? What happened to love of learning? The answer can be found in the prophecies made by our Prophet Mohammad SAW:

• Islam came as a stranger, and will become a stranger. So glad tidings to the strangers.
• My Ummah will follow the ways of the Jews and the Christians, to the extent of crawling into lizard-holes after them.

In all dimensions of life, we are following the ways of the West. Economic, Political, Social, Trade & Commerce – Institutions are patterned after the West. Fully & Purely Islamic institutions do not exist. But among all Western institutions in use throughout the Islamic world, the KEY institution is EDUCATIONAL: this shapes the minds of the youth, and hence the future. Western education creates colonized minds, with reverence and awe for Western accomplishments. Therefore, the Key Battle is Intellectual: the Battle for the control of Knowledge to be imparted to the youth in our society. In order be able to create change, it is important to understand the historical processes which led to the current situation, where an alien civilization has been given the power to brainwash Islamic youth.

Brief Outline of Historical Process

1: Europeans colonized the globe. About 90% of Islamic lands were under Western control in early 20th Century.

Why did this happen? How did this happen? These are important questions, we set aside for now. See: The Deadliest Weapon: Fabricated History: http://bit.ly/AZDeadly

2: Colonization occurs via conquest of MINDS. Soft power is invisible, but far more powerful than the hard power. Educational process glorifies achievements of West, and puts all the rest at ZERO! For more detail see, http://bit.do/azcok

The conquest of minds is achieved by the educational process. The two key goals of education in the British colonies are clearly spelled out in Lord Babington Macaulay’s minute on education:

1. A single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.
2. We must do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern,  –a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.  (The Coconut Class)

Western education creates the impression that no knowledge was ever produced by the East. All useful knowledge is creation of the West. Furthermore, it creates reverence and awe for the European Civilization, and hatred and contempt for our own religion, culture, race, and heritage. The educational process creates a mindset which can be labeled as The Modern Mu’tazila (http://bit.do/aztmm), characterized by the belief that knowledge produced by West is equal or superior to the knowledge revealed in the Quran. The Ancient Mu’tazila believed that Greek Philosophy (which they called reason) was equivalent in validity to the Quran. Today, Islamic Economists also argue that “rationality” (as defined by Europeans) is part of Islamic teachings. In case of conflicts between Economic Theory and Islamic Teachings – Shari’a Engineering is done to make Islam compatible with West. A simple way to explain the problem is via an ancient fable:

The Problem of Aladdin’s Lamp: The ancient, battered, and plain lamp was traded for a bright, shiny, and new lamp by Aladdin’s wife, who was unaware of the Jinn inside the old lamp. Similarly, today we have accepted a fake and shiny Western substitute for knowledge as the real thing, and given away our old and battered traditional wisdom captured in our intellectual heritage. The problem today is to cleanse our eyes, to recognize that the modern knowledge dazzles our eyes, but is worthless in comparison with the deep wisdom of the Quran and the teachings of Islam. See: The Second Crisis of Knowledge in the Islamic Civilization: http://bit.do/az2ck  

The Key Problem Facing the Ummah: PROVE that Quran offers wisdom FAR superior to West. The Quran does not teach chemistry, biology, physics, technology! So, in what way is the Quran superior? How can we counter Macaulay’s claim that a SINGLE SHELF in  European library is superior to ALL of the literature in Arabic (and in the Islamic Civilization). Today – looking at our reading habits, libraries, and the courses being taught in our universities – we would be forced to AGREE with Macaulay! – how can we reject this, and assert the superiority of the Quran? This is the central goal of the Ghazali Project. We start with the first step:  

Western Knowledge is DECEPTIVE: Western philosophers make highly exaggerated claims about the value and content of Western knowledge. In fact, it is not what it appears to be. For more details, see lecture on The Dazzle of Western Knowledge, which is linked in the Ghazalian Webinars: http://bit.ly/AZwebinars; the title comes from a verse by Allama Iqbal, which highlights the central problem facing the Ummah today: My eyes were not deceived by the dazzle of Western knowledge, They were protected by the dust of Madina and Najaf. We have replaced our intellectual heritage (Madina & Najaf) with Harvard and Oxford. To counter Modern Mu’tazila, we must do Tahafatul Falasafa: prove the Incoherence of Western philosophers. But how can we prove Western knowledge is a deception, when wonders of Western technology surround us and deeply impact our daily lives!! Our eyes, minds, and hearts, testify to the vast superiority of Western knowledge, in terms of its impact on the world today. But the wisdom of the Quran is not available to those who are impressed by the West. ONLY after rejecting Western wisdom can we learn to appreciate the wisdom of the Quran. Among Muslims, the standard approach has been to try to HARMONIZE and COMBINE the two intellectual traditions of the East and the West: Teach both side by side, as in IIUI and IIUM. This cannot succeed because these two traditions are in dramatic conflict with each other. For more details, see “The Crisis in Islamic Economics” http://bit.do/azcie. Just like Imam Al-Ghazali analyzed Greek philosophy in depth to refute it, our Ghazali Project calls for an in-depth critical examination of the nature of Western knowledge:

“Deconstruction”: Unwrapping the Structure of Western Knowledge. There are layers upon layers of Deception that we need to work through, to understand this structure. This deconstruction will reduce or diminish the glitter and glamor of Western knowledge. Only THEN will wel be able to understand the far deeper, far more relevant, and immediately meaningful, useful, and precious knowledge of the Quran. We must begin with some historical background. The adoption of Christianity as a state-religion by Constantine led to suppression and persecution of all knowledge outside the narrow confines of Christianity. This is what led to the dark ages, where, for a long time, the West was very ignorant and backwards. European progress started when they came into contact with the advanced civilization of the Muslims. The reconquest of Al-Andalus gave Europeans access to millions of books in Islamic Libraries. Translations of these books led to the European Enlightenment. See: The European Historical Experience: http://bit.ly/AZcol2. Catholic resistance to this influx of new knowledge led to the breakup of Christianity into two major factions. This experience of over a century of extremely violent religious warfare between Protestants and Catholics has had an enormous influence on the Western intellectual tradition. In particular, this led to a dramatic change in the meaning of the word “religion”.Christianity – like Islam, and all other religions – is all encompassing. It is a DEEN: a way-of-life. BECAUSE it explains the PURPOSE of our lives, and describes the best way to live, individually and collectively. Religious warfare forced Europeans to reject the idea that religions teach us a way of life. Instead, they redefined “religion” to mean a personal belief system, and replaced the DEEN (way-of-life) of Christianity by Social Science. Western Social Science attempts to explain how should we organize our personal, family, community, national, and human affairs. In the “Puzzle of Western Social Science” (http://bit.ly/AZpss ) I have shown how these sciences are based on the experience of European societies, but are falsely generalized and claimed to be universally applicable to all societies. This is one of the central deceptions of Western knowledge: see “The Grand Deception: Western Social Science” (http://bit.ly/AZgdss1). Those trained in the Western intellectual tradition learn to think of the DEEN of Europeans as “knowledge” on par with the knowledge of physics, chemistry and biology. To undo this deception, we must learn to recognized the social sciences of secular modernity – economics, politics, and others – as a European religion (DEEN) rather than a form of knowledge.  This is one of the central goals of the Ghazali Project.

The Ghazali Project begins with the most important question we all face: How should I live my brief, unique, and precious life?  What is the best use I can make of my short amount of time on this Earth?               ALL human activity DEPENDS on the answer to this question. The rejection of religion as a basis for knowledge created an Impossible Dilemma for Europeans: they were forced to build knowledge from ZERO!  Religion provides us with the basic framework to organize our thoughts. It provides answers to fundamental PURPOSE questions: Why was the universe created? Why were human beings created? What is the meaning of our lives? What will happen to us after we die? What is the best way to spend our brief lives?  Any “social science” – how to live our lives as individuals and as communities – obviously depends on the answers to these questions. Western intellectuals were forced to discard the standard religious answers provided by Christianity, and to create new answers to these fundamental questions starting from ZERO. But this is an impossible enterprise. These questions cannot be answered by observations and logic, the sole tools which were acceptable to Europeans. The Europeans solved this dilemma by creating answers, but pretending that these answers are universally acceptable, and forced upon us by “reason” alone. Undoing this deception, and learning to see the toxic moral framework on which Western Social Science has been constructed, is at the heart of the Ghazali Project.

Political Science: Vast disagreements among Christian sects on answers led to over a century of extremely destructive religious warfare. Religious wars in Europe ended with the Treaty of Westphalia.  The FIRST body of secular knowledge to emerge was POLITICAL SCIENCE: how to organize affairs between and within nations, without religious basis. The key principles embodied in the Treaty of Westphalia were to allow nations to freely chose their own national version of Christianity, and also to protect rights of minority sects within each nation. For more details and historical context, see: http://bit.ly/tawney2 which summarizes Chapter 2 of RH Tawney: Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. One of the critical elements of the transition to Secular Modernity was a CHANGE in the conceptualization of society. In traditional conception, a nation is like one body, where all parts work together for a common goal. A secular society is a collection of groups with NO COMMON purpose. Political Science must devise rules to allow them to live together in peace. This is accomplished by the rule-of-law, which defines how to resolve conflicts in society. Instead of sacred laws, secular law is based on consensus, or imposed by power. A key goal of secular society is to allow all groups maximum freedom to pursue their separate goals, subject to rules which regulate conflicts which will inevitably arise in this process.

Secular Modernity: One of the critical elements of the European transition to secular modernity was the restriction of the scope of Religion to a PERSONAL belief. European historical experience led to the conclusion that use of religion to organize society and nations leads to permanent warfare. European intellectuals ignored the possibility that the fault lay with a peculiarly European mixture of Christianity and power politics. The conceit that European were at the apex of human civilization, while all other societies were primitive and barbaric led them to belief that lessons from European experience were universally valid.  All other societies would develop and evolve to be like Europe.

Freedom and Wealth: The second critical element of secular modernity was the promotion of freedom and wealth as final goals. Since there is no agreement on goals, social consensus in a secular society can only be achieved on allowing every group freedom to pursue their own goals, and wealth to enable this pursuit.  It is of great importance to understand that both of these are intermediaries – freedom is valuable because it is freedom to do something valued, and wealth is useful because it allows purchase of something prized. Neither is of value for its own sake. Nonetheless, in the transition to a secular society, these means came be regarded as ends, valued for their own sake. As Weber recognized, this is highly irrational, but nonetheless central, to Western society “Man is dominated by the making of money, by acquisition as the ultimate purpose of his life. Economic acquisition is no longer subordinated to man as the means for the satisfaction of his material needs.” Similarly freedom, initially prized to allow everyone to pursue their own goals in peace, became an end, prized for itself, without any thought as to the higher purposes for which it was to be used.

Europeans solved the dilemma of how to organize society without agreement on common purpose, by abandoning discussion of purpose in the public domain. However, the drive to lead meaningful lives, guided by purpose, is fundamental to our human existence. Failure to discuss purpose cannot remove purpose from any discussion of human lives. However, the secular mindset did lead to concealment of purpose under the guise of “rationality”. When Christianity was confined to a personal belief system, a new way-of-life (DEEN) emerged to replace it, which may be labeled as “secular modernity”. The impact of this development can be traced in all areas of intellectual development. Of particular significance are the following:

1. Politics: Explicit agreement that no moral considerations guide international relations. Machiavelli made the beginnings, and Hegel argued that states create morality and therefore are not bound by it.
2. Economics: The assumption that it is “rational” to attempt to maximize pleasure from consumption of goods and services, and to make this the basis for our economic lives.
3. Philosophy: How to create sound knowledge, starting from ZERO?
4. Epistemology: What is “knowledge”? What are the criterion for VALIDITY of knowledge? How do we know if something is TRUE, and how do we determine if something is FALSE?

END OF PART 1 of Talk. Second Part of Talk goes on to discuss Islamic Epistemology, and how this differs dramatically from Western because of the central importance given to PURPOSE of our lives, which is neglected and concealed in Western discourse.