Peter Adamson

For those of you who may not have come across Peter (who is a Professor of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy at King's London), here is the link to his history of philosophy blog but even more importantly here is the link to his history of philosophy podcasts that are also available through itunes.

The blog design

I recognise my own IT frailties and need to get some advice on design - some issues I've noticed (and others have commented upon) is the need to be buttons to link directly to reviews, articles and other categories - as it stands I just have them listed but they are not clickable and require scrolling back in time.

Bear with me as I try to sort these things out.

On some more books from Iran

First, I should mention Muḥammad Mujtahid Shabistarī’s Taʾammulātī dar qarāʾat-i insānī az dīn (first published by the famous Tehrani press Ṭarḥ-i naw in 2004). A key theme of reformist thinking is to propose humanist(ic) hermeneutics of the text and of reality. The slim volume contains some of his papers from the last decade and follows on the theme that he introduced at the end of his critique of the ‘official reading/interpretation’ of religion (naqd bar qarāʾat-i rasmī az dīn). Not surprisingly around half of the papers are concerned with matters of politics or governance (siyāsat, ḥukūmat, mardumsālārī). It wil be of particular interest to a student of mine writing his MA dissertation on Mujtahid Shabistarī and then going onto to write his PhD on the relationship between faith and freedom.

Second, on the visit to the impressive Dānishgāh-i adyān va madhāhib in the new town of Pardisan in Qum, I met some of the faculty and was introduced to some of their publications including their journals. One of the faculty, Shihāb al-Dīn Vaḥīdī presented me with a copy of his ʿAql dar sāḥat-i dīn: rābiṭa-yi ʿaql u īmān dar āthār-i Mullā Ṣadrā (published in 2008 by the University). This is yet another study of aspects of MS’s thought and focuses on a sort of conceptual history of the terms.

Third, from Bustān-i kitāb, I picked up an interesting study of the debate on whether philosophy is a pure pursuit or is compromised by its historical and intellectual context. Is there such a thing as ‘pure philosophy’ (ḥikmat-i nāb)? This is the title of the study by Muḥammad Riżā Irshādī-niyā that considers the question through an analysis of MS’s ethics both theoretical and practical (virtue ethics and applied) and then moves on to an examination of the hermeneutics and epistemology of mystical experience finally ending with a chapter on whether our understanding of reality is primarily mediated through scriptural tradition or reason (in some sense). In some ways the book is a bit more disappointing than my expectation when I picked it up. I was expecting some analysis of the MS school and tafkīk debate on the nature of philosophy and the foundations of our metaphysical knowledge as well as engaging more deeply with the argument on the nature of philosophy as such as interrogates whether the notion of Islamic philosophy obviates its being ‘philosophy’.

Another purchase from the same official outlet of the ḥawzeh was Muḥammad Ḥusayn Khalīlī’s Mabānī-yi falsafī-yi ʿishq az manẓar-i Ibn Sīnā va Mullā Ṣadrā. Another volume in the comparative genre so beloved of recent ḥawzeh outputs, the starting point is the Risālat al-ʿishq of the former that establishes the principle of erotic motion that underlies the cosmos and is taken up as another one of the ‘sisters of being’ by MS (i.e. ʿishq = wujūd). Anyway I haven’t finished it yet so cannot make a final assessment of it.

Finally, two volumes that I picked up from the Marʿashī bookshop next to the library – which remains one of the best places in Qum to pick up real gems including some old books. They usually stock publications of the major libraries and publishers including the Majlis Library in Tehran. Now one excellent publishing series of the Majlis Library is their Ganjīna-yi Bahāristān edition of risālas divided into subjects. Since I already had volume I of their ḥikmat and ʿulūm-i qurānī va ravāʾī series I was happy to find volume II of both. These works are of great interest because they publish treatises often by major figures from the Timurid/Safavid/Qajar periods. The volume on Qurʾānic and ḥadīth topics includes a collection of 40 ḥadīth by the famous figure of the school of Shiraz Shams al-Dīn Khafrī and a commentary on a ḥadīth by the Sufi and ḥakīm Quṭb al-Dīn Nayrīzī. The volume on ḥikmat includes a number of treatises on logic including al-Sharīf Jurjānī on propositions, a treatise attributed to Mīr Dāmād on the nature of logic and al-Fārābī on Zeno’s paradox. Another treatise of interest is a short work by Muḥsin Fayż on motion in the category of substance that is such a central metaphysical concern of MS.

Some Books I picked up in Iran

Apart from these political thought volumes which I gratefully received, I went ahead and bought some things which looked interesting or necessary.

In the necessary group were:

Asrār al-āyāt – the new SIPRIn edition which looks like an improvement on the old standard edition – as I am systematically acquiring the new corpus it seemed important – and they’ll all look nice in the same green covers on the shelf (!)

Maḥmūd Shihābī’s al-Naẓrat al-daqīqa fī qāʿidat basīṭ al-ḥaqīqa – published by the Anjuman-i ḥikmat (where I had an interesting meeting with some students and Sayyid Muḥammad Yūsuf-i Sānī especially on the nature of ḥikmat in MS and whether there was a critical culture of the study of Islamic philosophy in Iran today). Shihābī was one of the founders of the Anjuman and a professor at Tehran University, well known for his edition of Ibn Sīnā’s al-Ishārāt wa-l-tanbīhāt with the commentaries of Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī and Quṭb al-Dīn al-Taḥtānī. It was originally published back in 1976 and comprises an Arabic study on this critical principle of monism expounded by MS. The work was a response to a Shaykhī friend of his who basing himself on the critique of Shaykh Aḥmad al-Aḥsāʾī and of the Kirmānī leader of the time Mīrzā Abū-l-Qāsim Khān Ibrāhīmī, wanted to understand MS’s position. So the text is a defence of the Ṣadrian position and of Sabzavārī’s explanation in response to the Shaykhī critique. Its reissue is interesting not because the Shaykhīs are important in contemporary Iran but because of the attack on philosophy and mysticism led by the maktab-i tafkīk and their allies focuses upon the issue of the simple reality encompassing all things as heresy. Given my recent interests in the tafkīkīs and in the Shaykhīs it seemed sensible to get this.

In the interesting group were:

ʿAbd al-Sattār Lāhūrī’s Majālis Jahāngīrī, a little known text edited by ʿĀrif Nawshāhī and Muʿīn Niẓāmī based on a unicum and published in Mīrāth-i maktūb’s series of studies and texts from the Indian subcontinent. This Mughal period was pivotal to the reception of philosophy and the intellectual traditions from Iran into India so I am hoping to find material useful to my background project on an intellectual history of Islamic thought in India in the Mughal period.

The Political Thought of Mullā Ṣadrā??

I was briefly in Iran last week having some meetings and giving a lecture. The original idea was to go to the Bunyād-e Mullā Ṣadrā’s annual conference which was supposed to be in Isfahan on the interesting topic of Shiʿi philosophy. Anyway an email came a couple of weeks before saying that it had been cancelled but given that I had a visa (and they’re quite difficult to come by these days), I decidedly to book a flight on Iran Air (not really a good idea) and go anyway. As ever, any trip to Iran involves the customary buying, receiving and exchanging of books. As I was giving a lecture on selfhood and the nafs in Safavid philosophies at the Pazhūhishgāh-i ʿulūm va farhang-i islāmī (ISCA in English) at the Daftar-i tablīghāt (a large building on the Ṣafāʾiyyeh roundabout opposition the Bustān-i kitāb shop), I spoke to the (Sharīf Lakzāʾī) chap in charge of their political thought unit – which specialises and he does in particular on the ‘political thought’ of Mullā Ṣadrā.

[One PhD student who completed with me a few years ago wrote on the ethics and politics of Mullā Ṣadrā – the dissertation is apparently forthcoming as a book in English and Persian. I remember the supervision being quite a struggle – especially over the issue of vilāyat-i faqīh]

Intriguing – since I do not think MS ever wrote on the topic and in fact as I told SL, a better candidate for a Safavid precursor to vilāyat-i faqīh would be Mīr Dāmād, MS’s teacher and not the student. So I got these books:

1) Najaf Lakzāʾī’s Andīsha-yi siyāsī-yi Ṣadr al-mutaʾallihīn – part of a long series of monographs on thinkers published by ISCA. The original edition dates from 2001. I have yet to examine the contents in details. But it comprises five chapters: the historical background to the political personality of MS (did he have one? Setting aside the fictive oppositional and anti-monarchical posture portrayed in the famous Jām-i jam serial Rawshantar az khāmushī), the place of political thought in MS’s philosophy, the political life in MS’s thought, religious government (ḥukūmat-i dīnī) in MS’s thought (read: vilāyat-i faqīh in MS), and establishing the structure of religious government in MS’s thought. The main text is followed by 10 appendices providing summaries of political thought present in his major works – al-Shawāhid al-rubūbīya being the most controversial. But much of this material relates on discussions on imāma or merely reflects the ideal of Platonopolis expressed in al-Fārābī and those influenced by him (including of course MS).

2) Four volumes of articles edited by SL entitled Siyāsat-i mutaʿāliya dar manẓar-i ḥikmat-i mutaʿāliya. Vol I is focused on MS, vol II on theoretical and practical issues, vol III on the politics of the human and the imamate and its relationship to politics, and vol IV on the relationship between ethics and politics. The Aristotelian and Platonic frames remain clear. Much of this is not really about MS himself or his thought but involves studies of those from his school including the recent great thinker ʿAllāma Ṭabāṭabāʾī (and making him a political supporter of the revolution troubles me even more than making the long departed MS one).

3) ʿAlī-Riżā Ṣadrā’s Mafhūm-shināsī-yi ḥikmat-i mutaʿālī-yi siyāsī is another short study.

These developments raise an important question about the relationship of philosophy and politics in Iran. Do thinkers in the public sphere use philosophy to justify a certain form of politics? Or is the study of philosophy an end on itself? Or do some engage in politics to defend the scope and legitimacy of a certain metaphysics? Is it even possible nowadays to study MS and his school as a critical historical-philosophical inquiry without being implicated in a politics that one finds distasteful? It reminds me of my first trip to Iran many years ago and being at a shab-i yaldā party. Engaging in small talk and being asked what I did, I said I study Islamic philosophy being naive to its connotations in those days. Those with whom I was speaking changed their attitude towards me immediately and one of them said, ‘I hate Islam – it’s the cause of all of our troubles’. I did not realise at that time that the very phrase ‘falsafa-yi islāmī’ had been political co-opted and I had foolishly placed myself in a camp without being aware of it. The legitimacy and possibility of speaking about and critically evaluating ‘Islamic philosophy’ today, thankfully, is still I think possible in other places and an endeavour worth pursuing even if to conclude that Islamic philosophy, much like Heidegger famously said of Christian philosophy, is a bit like a square circle, a nonsensical and impossible concept.

Muslim Politics in Europe - Data yawn

While the study of Muslim communities in Europe is not exactly a new subject and was part and parcel of research into issues of immigration, integration, multiculturalist policy and racism within the social sciences (exacerbated by the upheavals of 1989 – the Rushdie affair and the foulard islamique), the academic scene has been dramatically transformed in a post-9/11 world, exacerbated by the events in Madrid and Amsterdam in 2004 and London and Denmark in 2005. The presence of Muslims in Britain therefore has become problematised both in terms of social as well as security policy. In response to policy requirements, focus has shifted not just to the study of ideology but also to the demographics. The Yearbook of Muslims in Europe Volume 1. Edited by Jørgen S. Nielsen, Samim Akgönül, Ahmet Alibašić, Brigitte Maréchal & Christian Moe (Leiden: Brill, 2009) is a useful example of collaborative work that covers basic surveys of communities in various European states (and significantly Europe is not defined in simple EU terms), some analyses of major controversial themes and assessments of some of the major interpretative approaches to the study of Muslims in Europe. However, the potential problem of a yearbook is that it can only provide a series of snapshots that are rendered obsolete almost as soon as they are published – especially in the case of a series published in such an expensive manner.

Part one comprises thirty-seven country reports from Albania to Malta for the year 2008. A short chapter discusses the very category of Muslim which is many ways is an objectification of modern politics in a post-1989 context. Following this, various categories of issues are developed for each country ranging from basic population figures, the relationships of religious communities and institutions with the state, an outline of those organisations, mosques and religious centres, education and access, festivals, food, dress, media, law, opinion, cultural events, and issues around life-cycle from birth to death. The breadth is informative since there is little academic research on some of these countries. Nadia Jeldtoft is her piece raises the question of defining ‘Muslim’ and the dangers of focusing too narrowly on practice and religiosity as well as a caution against assuming individuals affirm and understand their identity in similar terms. One cannot comment on all of the reports so it is probably best to say something about three different contrasting entries. First, the entry on the UK by Tahir Abbas is a useful and short survey covering the required sections. It would be worth commenting on the demographic shifts – after all the 1989 events and Muslim politics under New Labour primarily concerned communities of South Asia origin, while more recent immigration has brought new actors onto the scene from Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Somalia among others. It would also have been useful to indicate issues at the centre of the debate in 2008 such as the question of sharia accommodation under British legal jurisdiction. Second, the entry on Turkey by Ahmet Yildiz stands out because it concerns a country with a clear Muslim majority and so one would have thought it would require a separate discussion – majority-minority dynamics and their differing impact on state relations is significant and worth comment. Third, the entry on Poland is indicative of those surveys of countries with small numbers of Muslims. However, the relationship with Muslim communities is long standing going back to the medieval period. On the whole the raw data involved in these entries is indicative.

Part two on analysis comprises chapters on the relations between Turkey and the EU, youth issues, the veil, the media and religious freedoms – and there is no denying the importance of these issues. But there are further umbrella themes missing, most important among which is the question of ‘sharia in the West’ to cite the title of a recent important volume on political thought: how can secular, liberal states accommodate ‘theocratically’ minded communities? Another significant theme is immigration and the labour market and the response within Europe among the far right. Yet another relates to the training of religious leaders and the intersection of the role of Muslim seminaries and Islamic studies departments in universities, most controversially debated recently in Tubingen.

The final part includes nine reviews of major relevant publications. One can always quibble over this selection as well, given the absence of major works such as Jytte Klausen’s The Challenge of Islam and studies on the phenomenon of Islamophobia. Ultimately the issues that arise from the study of Muslims in Europe are not just demographic and sociological but also political and theological.

Given the size and information in the volume, it is unfortunate that there is no index. But overall the volume makes a useful contribution, at least, in terms of bringing together useful and often divergent and mutually exclusive lines of research into one place. As such, it can play a role in providing background for further serious research into the major theoretical challenges to understanding the role of Muslim communities in contemporary Europe.

Is Pluralism only a political issue?

Pluralism has become somewhat of a hegemonic approach to dealing with diversity and the epistemic peer conflict that arises out of the many rational thinkers and actors defending quite divergent views on the nature of reality. Our liberal overlapping consensus certainly points towards pluralism in a number of human spheres of activity and religiously-minded individuals active in the public sphere are required to adhere to that consensus. This rather slim volume of articles edited by Abdou Filali Ansary and Sakeena Ahmed brings together quite a glittering line-up of intellectuals from Middle Eastern and Muslim backgrounds to consider historical and philosophical perspectives on pluralism and how in different Muslim contexts one finds responses to the challenges of such a consensus. Liberty and tolerance are not quite enough: pluralism requires a far more involved engagement with the other, an attempt to know the other and to foster a more interpenetrated living beyond more co-existence. Live and let live (or ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ in another context) are no longer options within a post-multicultural liberal democracy.

In his introduction, Filali-Ansary argues that it is not just the social and political context of the world which we inhabit that pose the challenge of pluralism; in fact, scripture itself forces one to consider the other and challenges the exclusivity of one’s own position – in this context, he draws upon sūrat al-Māʾida verse 48 which he describes as proposing a ‘pluralist vision’. It is thus for the contributors to respond to that challenge: that unity is not divinely mandated but difference (with each community possessing its own sharīʿa and way of life) is, and that difference requires people to compete and strive for the good and suspend judgement and final destination to God. Of course, such a reading of the Qurʾanic verse is itself a deeply contemporary act, forsaking any attempt to contextualise the verse in its revelation or even within its exegetical traditions (whose own diversity could make a useful case). But Ansary is keen not to over-determine the positions set out in the collection. Diversity is a basic fact of life: instead of trying to read pluralism into history and to make normative Islam compatible with pluralism, the book is designed to demonstrate multiple responses and ways in which the challenge of diversity is addressed. This reader would have wanted a clearer statement of how the social fact of diversity can be decoupled with a theoretical espousal of pluralism – as well as a clearer statement of what is meant by pluralism because at least in terms of religious pluralism it is neither identical to ‘universalism’ or a ‘globalism’ of fact and idea.

The book is then divided into two parts. The first on historical contexts comprises two chapters, one by Aziz al-Azmeh (currently completing an ambitious history of Allāh that is keenly anticipated) on pluralism in historical Muslim societies, and the other by Sami Zubaida on the relationship between the private and the public (perhaps with the notion that this distinction whilst upheld with more urgent legal enforcement in the contemporary is actually breaking down). The second part comprises studies of various contemporary contexts from Bangladesh and India through to the major challenges of globalisation and global liberalism in the contemporary world. Al-Azmeh’s brief piece is more of a caveat: the very unified notion of ‘Muslim societies’ requires further interrogation and that the notion of pluralism (with the implication of political and religious plurality that is sanctioned by the state) does not arise drowned in various forms of corporatism and communalism. Therefore, his point is that the historical ‘experience’ does not really offer resources for an argument in favour of pluralism today. Simplistic equations of traditional concepts with modern liberal-democratic ones will not do. Al-Azmeh at heart remains an old-fashioned enlightenment intellectual equally suspicious of traditionalist arguments as he is of newfangled multiculturalist ones. Zubaida similarly issues a caveat about extrapolating too much from historical spaces of co-existence and plurality because the challenge for today relates to the role and space of religiosity in the Habermasian public sphere.

In part two, Amena Mohsen’s study of civil society in Bangladesh really offers some perspectives on conflict management while using notions such as civil society, fundamentalism, nationalism and so forth too loosely. What this chapter offers as a vision of how to deal with pluralism is therefore not clear to this reader beyond presenting a snapshot of the problems. Akeel Bilgrami deals with the issue in a similar manner with respect to India but also with an eye to the civilizational clash discourse within American academia. Bilgrami is concerned with political conflict and diversity which he argues is a good. In some ways his short piece links into his recent work about to find expression in a work on Muslim identity politics. Nur Yalman’s piece is a nuanced work of an anthropologist of religion addressing the challenge of globalisation and using Ottoman and other historical examples to show that cultures are never monolithic, unchanging entities that fail to influence or be influenced. Nevertheless, his conclusion is in a political direction, arguing that the concerns of human rights necessitates an orderly and just society with liberties underpinned by legal and political institutions that are tolerant and inclusive. But the cold fact of institutional development within modernity is insufficient: one needs to develop a culture of openness and acceptance in interpersonal relations. Ridwan al-Sayyid and Adel Daher’s contributions bring us to the most pressing political challenge: can (political) Islam find accommodation with secular, liberal democracy? Al-Sayyid’s chapter evokes a nostalgia for the liberal age in the Arab world both in the pre-modern and modern times, offset and transplanted by revivalism and Islamism and he asks whether there are serious alternatives available now that historicise the faith and extricate people out of cultural pessimism. Daher is pessimistic and does not think that Islamists can be reconciled with value pluralism or the common conception of the ‘just’ in procedural democracy. His political framework is more Rawslian than Habermasian.

While the contributors are leading academics in the field, it is perhaps slightly disappointing not to find some leading Muslim philosophers who have contributed to the discourse on pluralism. One would also have liked to see a more engaged and sustained form of argument – many of the contributions are far too brief. There is also a focus upon the political: while one acknowledges that many of the challenges that Muslims face in the contemporary world may well be of a political nature, it is a missed opportunity in the context of this volume not to discuss value pluralism and religious pluralism in more depth especially as a number of contemporary Muslim theologians are engaged in that discourse. Religious pluralism can therefore allow for a ground of justification that functions in the political sphere. At the same time, one accepts that communities sometimes described as being theocratic and exclusivist with respect to their views on epistemology and soteriology are clearly capable of entering a Rawlsian style bargain for participation in the public sphere and recognition of civic and legal pluralism. Thus, this volume is a wonderful appetiser, and one wishes to see further volumes published in this series that will really give us something to chew over and ponder on the challenge that diversity, globalisation and pessimism pose to us.