Islam: The Concept of Religion and The Foundation of Ethics and Morality

by Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas

The work discusses the concept of the religion of Islam and its foundation in ethics and morality. The
author clarifies the term saadah, the Islamic term for happiness, in this monograph.

He explains the relation between happiness and true faith, righteous deeds, remembrance of God,
stability and peaceful calmness of heart and certainty of the truth. The human being's relation to
virtue and vice are clarified and the author's original thesis of tragedy (rooted in the religious
tradition of the West).

Genres: Islam, Religion, Philosophy

50 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, born September 5, 1931 in Bogor, Java, is a prominent contemporary Muslim thinker. He is one of the few contemporary scholars who is thoroughly rooted in the traditional Islamic sciences and who is equally competent in theology, philosophy, metaphysics, history, and literature. His thought is integrated, multifaceted and creative. Al-Attas’ philosophy and methodology of education have one goal: Islamization of the mind, body and soul and its effects on the personal and collective life on Muslims as well as others, including the spiritual and physical non-human environment. He is the author of twenty-seven authoritative works on various aspects of Islamic thought and civilization, particularly on Sufism, cosmology, metaphysics, philosophy and Malay language and literature.



Al-Attas was born into a family with a history of illustrious ancestors, saints, and scholars. He received a thorough education in Islamic sciences, Malay language, literature and culture. His formal primary education began at age 5 in Johor, Malaysia, but during the Japanese occupation of Malaysia, he went to school in Java, in Madrasah Al-`Urwatu’l-wuthqa, studying in Arabic. After World War II in 1946 he returned to Johor to complete his secondary education. He was exposed to Malay literature, history, religion, and western classics in English, and in a cultured social atmosphere developed a keen aesthetic sensitivity. This nurtured in al-Attas an exquisite style and precise vocabulary that were unique to his Malay writings and language. After al-Attas finished secondary school in 1951, he entered the Malay Regiment as cadet officer no. 6675. There he was selected to study at Eton Hall, Chester, Wales and later at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, England (952 -55). This gave him insight into the spirit and style of British society. During this time he was drawn to the metaphysics of the Sufis, especially works of Jami, which he found in the library of the Academy. He traveled widely, drawn especially to Spain and North Africa where Islamic heritage had a profound influence on him. Al-Attas felt the need to study, and voluntarily resigned from the King’s Commission to serve in the Royal Malay Regiment, in order to pursue studies at the University of Malaya in Singapore 1957-59. While undergraduate at University of Malay, he wrote Rangkaian Ruba`iyat, a literary work, and Some Aspects of Sufism as Understood and Practised among the Malays. He was awarded the Canada Council Fellowship for three years of study at the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University in Montreal. He received the M.A. degree with distinction in Islamic philosophy in 1962, with his thesis “Raniri and the Wujudiyyah of 17th Century Acheh” . Al-Attas went on to the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London where he worked with Professor A. J. Arberry of Cambridge and Dr. Martin Lings. His doctoral thesis (1962) was a two-volume work on the mysticism of Hamzah Fansuri.



In 1965, Dr. al-Attas returned to Malaysia and became Head of the Division of Literature in the Department of Malay Studies at the University of Malay, Kuala Lumpur. He was Dean of the Faculty of Arts from 1968-70. Thereafter he moved to the new National University of Malaysia, as Head of the Department of Malay Language and Literature and then Dean of the Faculty of Arts. He strongly advocated the use of Malay as the language of instruction at the university level and proposed an integrated method of studying Malay language, literature and culture so that the role and influence of Islam and its relationship with other languages and cultures would be studied with clarity. He founded and directed the Institute of Malay Language, Literature, and Culture (IBKKM) at the National University of Malaysia in 1973 to carry out his vision.



In 1987, with al-Attas as founder and director, the International Institute of Islamic Thought a

Reviews

[S.M.Y Kayseri · Rating 4 out of 5]

al-Attas introduced a crucial concept in his Introduction,

"Language reflects ontology. Introducing key concepts foreign to to a language involves not merely the translating of words, but also the translating of symbolic forms belonging to the super system that (potentially) not compatible with the worldview projected by the language into which it is translated..."

This important point, I suspect, what lies behind the manifold layers of confusion ever present in the modern people, especially of the Muslim people who stood at the watershed areas between the horizon of Islam and modernity. We are becoming more accustomed with words such as moderate Islam, fundamentalistic Islam, separation between religion and the state. Even the English word religion from the Latin "religio" failed to depict what "religion" really means according to the Islamic worldview.

An example that could be used to demonstrate how devastating language can be. The year 2000 until now are filled with the conundrum of choice. The word choice itself shined beyond its original connotations, now it radiates a certain moral high-ground. Having a choice, come what may, seems to be subconsciously conceived as better than having none at all, despite all researches demonstrating the many fallacies behind the paradox of a choice. Choice and its sister concept, freedom now equals to a moral option that is thought to be necessarily made available universally, while at the same time reducing all of the choices into relativistic values. The fight for universality of choice exactly lies behind the Western conception of "becoming" instead of "being", as there's only a "becoming" reality, everything is reduced into uncertainties, doubt and change, in a word: chaos.

But observe freedom as according to Islam through its Arabic corollaries. Freedom to act and thus choice, in its truest sense, should be translated into "ikhtiyar". And the word originated from the word "khayr" which meant good or beneficial. Thus, the concept of freedom to act according to Islam is exactly the exercise of the rational soul in arriving to a choice beneficial for him and his surroundings, instead of the more popular definition of choice as simply having two options or more. Think about it. Why should a bad choice should be included in deciding an action? And the act of choosing the bad choice is no longer exercising your freedom of choice (for exactly the purpose of our soul is to gain the beneficial, rather than incurring loss), but simply an act of injustice to our soul! But when the ontology behind "choice" is reduced according to relativistic Western notion, it became a free-for-all confusion and mayhem. People actually think that choosing a bad thing as exercising their freedom of choice, just to spite the majority!

And this is why al-Attas wished to recalibrate our entire notion regarding religion. Religion should no longer be conceived as a polar opposite of something, say the profane or the state; but an embrace of a totality of good and beneficial, a vehicle that described Reality in its clearest state. Religion should not be understood as the Latin word "religio" which focused on the liturgical and scriptural sense of it, but of term "din".

The term "din" should be explicated into 4 primary significations of indebtedness, submissiveness, judicious power and natural inclinations or tendency.

1. Indebtedness. The verb "dana" derived from "din" conveys the meaning of being indebted, a state in which one finds oneself being in debt, and with it the sense of under obligation, judgment and convictions followed. From the word "dana" we can further expand it into the words of "madana" and "tamaddun" which translates into a civilized life and civilization respectively. The term "din" does not merely implies a slavish indebtedness as Nietzsche would like to believe, but an active role of organising the microcosm which is the self into a bustling cosmopolitan busy with profitable trade and social life, a reflection of the complexity and diversity of macrocosm. This indebtedness should promote an active improvisation of the self and community exactly because we are being indebted to God for our existence.

If you reflexively thought "I never asked to be born", please read the above passage for freedom and choice again. It is because of the greatest good that we exists, a locus manifested from His Divine Attributes and a theatre of His Manifestations and therefore an obligation for us to return such Gift to Him in the best presentation as possible. The trade in the cosmopolitan would be described as profitable and bountiful transactions, and a corollaries of the word "din" is recurrent rain. And the meaning conveyed by the phase recurrent rain implies manifold returns and profit to the ground it serves to prosper, thus the act of preserving our existence and the submissiveness that follows would be not for the purpose of abasement but the eventual improvisation of our soul. In the act of selling ourselves to God (via submissiveness), we actually strike a deal that is manifold of its return. And this is clear from the verse, "Who is willing to loan (himself) to God a beautiful loan (that is himself) in which he would multiply its benefit many times over?". The word loan, "qardu" has the same connotation with the word "dayn" i.e. debt or loan, which in return a derivation of the same word of din.

Thus we can conceive the importance of language as it provides an ontological shift of meaning. Religion now, understood in the way it is meant to be, should be a vehicle that promotes the transcribing of Reality holistically instead of cherry-picked moments and situations. There is no dichotomy in the concept of religion in Islam, as much as there's only a single Reality, only made refracted by the man-made parceling.

Next, al-Attas strive to define the concept of knowledge. Again the entire meaning behind knowledge has been desacralized and devalued by the Western lenses; knowledge now are being conceived as the act of cognising the process and machinations of a thing. The knowledge regarding a thing is being conceived in a tight vacuum, a singular and arbitrary collection of facts. But knowledge as conceived by Islam is the knowledge of the totality of a thing, specifically according to al-Attas, "the arrival of the soul at meaning". And meaning is arrived at when the proper place of anything in a system is clarified to understanding. Thus, knowledge as conceived from Islamic perspective is the proper position of a clarified data in a web of meaning. The sensual data, including its properties and processes would only arrive to a two-dimensional understanding of a thing, say a cube. But knowledge as understood properly would expand the thing into a system of meaning, which surrounding nodes of information acts as a mirror that elucidates the many facets of existence of the thing i.e. its totality.

As knowledge is being conceived as a piece of puzzle, it bears several significance. Firstly, there exists CORRECT and PROPER data that reflects the Reality, instead of information that is relativistic as conceived by the West. Second, ONLY the proper data would fit inside the puzzle, which essentially a picture of Reality waiting to be re-cognized by the PROPER APPLICATION of rationality. Thus, there is no leeway for relativism in the logico-epistemological framework of knowledge as conceived by Islam. This is important because if knowledge would be conceived as merely interpretation of reality, then the answer towards it would be another and another layer of conjectures and speculations. The "reality" as conceived by the Western man is actually a pseudo-reality as it is built from a castle of cards from polemics and rhetoric in trying to beat the competing relativistic body of thought.

The third aspect covered by this monograph includes the depiction of Reality as conceived by Islam. As I hinted above, Reality conceived by the Islamic worldview is that of "being" rather than "becoming". The certainty of derived from above discussion on knowledge of the Reality is superadded to the Revealed Knowledge that bears tidings of things escaped from the sensual realm. Islam sees no contradiction behind this as their entire Reality is based from the "being" axis. Contrary to the fate of the West, where progress meant the dismantling of relativistic values, entire generations are locked in a tragic similar to the Grecian ones. The young conceived that the ideals of the people of the middle age did not do them any justice, thus they are preparing another set of ideals to be carried over. The middle-aged now despaired that their system of values provide them no solace, seek redemption in throwing themselves in desperate act of securing bigger house, bigger paychecks and bigger issues to boast on. The elderly would then be the shared object of despise, conceived as a body of population that supply now defunct system of values and possess no real value to the community, except an expensive hindrance. Such is the vigorous cycle fated to the relativistic model of the becoming in the West.

[S.M.Y Kayseri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an exemplar work on the introduction to Islamic metaphysics. I won't write about it too much as this book is included as one of the monographs in al-Attas Prolegomena to Islamic Metaphysics which I already poured my thoughts into.

[AFIQ DANIAL · Rating 5 out of 5]

"لَكُمْ دِينُكُمْ وَلِىَ دِينِ"

[Izzat Isa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bagaimana etika dan moral manusia dibentuk? Penulis menyatakan dalam agama Islam, ia telah terbina secara sendirinya apabila kita memahami hubung kait antara Allah Yang Maha Berkuasa dan manusia sebagai hambanya. Makna 'agama' itu sendiri juga telah menjelaskan konsep ini dan terdapat perbezaan antara kefahaman berdasarkan ajaran agama Islam dengan tamadun Barat.