REOPENING THE LOST DIALOGUE

NUR KIRABAEV

A major task faces philosophical sciences in these modern times -- the task of studying the unity of world history, not only through revealing the similar and coinciding traits of different civilizations (diversity in unity), but also through comprehending the fact that each one of them is a distinct form of development of definite human facets as a cultural-historical entity (unity in diversity).

In this approach, an important role belongs to the task of disclosing the paradigm of Islamic civilization and comprehension of its worldwide historical role, which not only reveals but also determines its sociocultural closeness to other civilizations in their all-human dimension. Analyzing a large variety of diverse cultural and ideological phenomena reveal this spiritual paradigm, first of all, of that historical period during which the paradigm acquired its complete, consistent form. Thus, philosophical reconstruction and description of the Islamic culture presupposes knowledge of, what (in the Heideggerian sense) determined the vision of the world and humankind. The comprehension of this "being what" presupposes a historical-philosophical consideration of the cultural phenomena and ideological images of an epoch. Consequently, both the philosophy of history and culture and the history of philosophy and culture should be considered as two sides of one uniform cognitive process.

In speaking about the values of Islamic, it is important to indicate the subject content of the generalized perception of concrete-historical types of people in relation to aims and norms of their behavior, which is embodied in a concentrated expression of the historical experience and meaning of culture in the Islamic civilization as well as in the world. The question is the spiritual orientations, with which the representatives of Islamic civilization, as individuals and social groups, correlate their actions and way of life. The values of Islamic culture and cultures of other civilizations are largely determined by so-called substantial values which constitute the basis of value-consciousness in their wholeness. The substantial values of Islamic culture are, to a large extent, determined by the specifics of the formation and development of the Arabic caliphate.

The characteristic features of classical Islamic culture as a paradigm of Islamic culture are largely determined by certain circumstances: (a) it was formed as an inalienable part of the single Mediterranean culture and civilization; (b) it has saved and enriched the cultural, scientific and philosophical traditions of Antiquity; (c) it developed the humanistic character of the Mediterranean culture, albeit, in different historical conditions.

By classical Islamic culture we mean the culture which is connected with the birth and strengthening of the Arabic caliphate; that which under the aegis of the new monotheistic religion of Islam, proclaimed by Muhammed in the 7th century, spread its authority and influence to a vast territory from Gibraltar to the banks of the Indus; and that which became the new center of interaction and mutual enrichment of diverse cultural traditions. The “Golden Age” which developed on the basis of Islamic culture occurred from the 9th to the 12th centuries precisely when the Islamic culture began to influence the world’s material and spiritual cultures.

One of the major characteristics of classical Islamic culture is the fact value-ideological trends more than Western European science play the role of structural elements, which define the character of cognition, interpretation and the sphere of the admissible understanding of the epistemological image of the world. Value-ideological trends have a common paradigm, in which are based a definite totality of evaluations and perceptions and which relate to the utmost basis of human existence in the world, in his/her own nature and in connection with the Cosmos, as reflected by the Islamic-world outlook. Precisely, within this problem field of knowledge -- the ideal of knowledge in Islam -- the thinkers of medieval Islam solved each and every problem of culture and politics, ethics and aesthetics, philosophy or law. All the major philosophical and sociopolitical trends of medieval Islamic society, although not limited only to specific subjects of cognition in relation to political problems, acted as political theory, to theories of philosophy - as philosophical, of law - as legal, and of morals - as ethical, etc.

The specifics of the ideal of knowledge in Islamic culture are defined by Shariat, in accordance with the fact that faith and reason not only contradict each other, but are complementary to each other in the problem field of knowledge. Thus, medieval Islamic culture developed to such an ideal of knowledge, which can be described as united, integral and even complex. For example, the work of the famous thinker al-Ghazali (1058 -1111), The Revival of Religious Sciences, can be equally regarded as a philosophical, legal, religious, linguistic and a cultural work, i.e., an interdisciplinary study, in the modern sense of this term. Moreover, the famous Averroes spoke about al-Ghazali, saying that with philosophers, he is a philosopher; with Sufists, he is a Sufi; with the Mutakallims, he is a Mutakallim. Many representatives of Kalam wrote their works not only on religious, but also on philosophical and natural science problems. The writings focused less on the weak differentiation of sciences and more on the specific, spiritual atmosphere of the Islamic culture, based on the famous dictum of Prophet Muhammed: "Go for knowledge, even to China."

In the medieval Arab-Islamic civilization, "knowledge" gained an all-embracing importance and status, which has no equivalence in other civilizations. The "knowledge" of which we speak is both secular and religious. However, its high status in the system of values of medieval Islamic society is by itself a significant indicator: it tells us, at least, that there were many educated people in that society. Even specialists, so far, cannot fathom the actual scale of Arab book publications: even the few manuscripts of that immense literature, which reached us more or less safely, number more than hundreds of thousands.

One can infer the character of value orientations from the behavior of the educated stratum of medieval Islamic society which was imitated by the majority of the educated. That group was the true embodiment of traits, which were obligatory for every cultured, educated person. This was the famous group, Adibs, who embodied the cultured and educated image. Adab, comprised an aggregation of the norms of being educated and well-mannered and presupposed both secular and religious knowledge, partially including philosophy, astronomy and mathematics as well as a definite model of behavior.

Factors which are important in understanding the paradigm of Islamic culture are the non-existence of church as an institution, and, accordingly, the lack of orthodoxy and heresy, in the sense understood in Christianity, and, especially, the widespread religious and legal pluralism within the framework of a uniform Islamic world view.

In describing the paradigm of Islamic culture and civilization, it is advisable to separate two dominant component parts: Islam and Hellenism. In its history, this culture has exhibited and continues to exhibit both its “Western features,” i.e., elements of Judaism, Christianity and Hellenism, and its "Eastern features." Considering the latter circumstance of departing from the essence of its component parts allows us to understand the humanistic character of Islamic culture, with its attempts to make man/woman more human and to facilitate the fulfillment of his/her desire for grandeur.

There are three aspects of humanism in medieval Islamic culture:

1. religious humanism, which proclaimed the human being as the highest of all of God's creatures;

2. adab humanism, whose ideal -- Adab, which was formed in the 9th century -- corresponds to the characteristic European 16th-century ideal of humanitas, i.e., the ideal of developing the physical, mental and moral capacities of every person, in the name of common good;

3. philosophical humanism, being more conceptualized, the essence of which Abu Haiyan at-Tawhidi shortly and sharply expressed in this dictum: “Man has become a problem for man.”

With respect for and recognition of the existence of universal traits and principles of humanism, it is a fact that every culture and civilization, at its peak of development and prosperity, works out its own model of humanism. Within the framework of Islamic culture, humanism reveals itself in different forms. This phenomenon appeared for the first time in the East during the rule of Khosrov Anushirvan and was represented by Barzue Pavel Pers and Salman Pak. This form was followed by another form of humanism, which developed under the influence of Hellenistic gnosticism, hermetism and neo-Platonism; this humanistic quest, which was concentrated around the theme of a "perfect human being" was represented by Ibn Arabi, Abd al-Karim al-Jili, al-Khallaja and Sukhrawardi. The last form of humanism directed its attention to the greatness of human reason, as in the Hadiths, where the Prophet, Muhammed, is ascribed to have said: "Anybody who cognizes God will cognize me,” and "The first thing created by God is reason." A major representative of this humanism is Muhammed Ibn Zakaria ar-Razi, who rejected the Revelation and affirmed the autonomy of human reason in the spirit of European Enlightenment.

The ambivalence of Islamic culture, grounded in the principles of Shariat and on the historical existence of the Arabic caliphate, is considered from the point of view of the correlation within it of the temporal and sacral, as well as of the exoteric and esoteric character of its “being what.” Taking into account the great role of Shariat in temporal affairs and the prevalence of earthly purposes in human behavior and thinking, it is necessary to point out that Islamic culture kept and keeps a consistent link between perceptions about the cosmos and ethics. this circumstance precisely allowed, in its time, "alien science" to be considered as philosophy, oriented on ancient tradition and established as an inalienable part and parcel of its Islamic culture. It, also, allows even today the door to be kept open for modern European science and culture.

The correlation of the exoteric and esoteric in the context of problems of reason and faith is noted the characteristic along with of their complementariness. An analysis -- on the theological-philosophical level of solving the problem of the correlation of reason and prescriptions of faith -- exhibits, in spite of the differences of various thinkers on this question, the majority of them belonged to the exoteric tradition, which gives priority to reason instead of faith. More so, they prepared the ground for Sufistic esoteric knowledge and its intellectual attempts to harmonize Shariat and Tarikat for the substantiation of their own Sufistic approach to the given problem. Sufism has not considered the correlation of reason and faith as "by itself a real problem,” but added it into the general system of Prescriptions of Faith, Ways and Truth (Shariat-Tarikat-Hakikat). Meanwhile, it is necessary to note that the Shariat-Tarikat-Hakikat system organized the "logical form" of action of the knowing subject in quest of his/her own absolute, thereby facilitating the emergence of many variations, one of which is the doctrine of al-Ghazali. Sufism is an historical and an integral phenomenon, and its study is thought to be important with due regard to the archetypes of Sufist culture.

A philosophical analysis of Islamic culture and the search for a philosophical basis of Islamic culture necessarily demand exposition in its paradigm of the stable and the changing in the course of historical development. A due regard to this problem is important in analyzing all conceptions oriented towards reforming or modernizing Islam. As a rule, all tasks undertaken hitherto in creating Western models of Islamic development have failed, owing to the fact that the traditional, fundamental principles, which constitute the spirit of the Islamic culture, were taken as historically surmountable and transient phenomena.

The sociohistorical and political realities inevitably show that the comprehension of the essence of traditional and modern are closely interconnected with the fundamental principles of the political-legal culture of Islam and the dominant ideological-cultural movements within the framework of developing Islam. an analysis of the classical theories of the state in Islamic political thought, conducted by such famous authors as al-Mawardi, al-Juweyni, al-Ghazali, shows that the Shariat principles, never obviated the historical realities of the Arabic caliphate, but largely fixed themselves as a lever on historical precedents. The doctrine that the state is but a conductor of the principles of Shariat is a permanent constituting part of these conceptions. But the whole issue comes down to three questions: who holds real political power? in what ways are power and authority understood? and what are the consolidating element and moral-spiritual basis of the civil Islamic society? The idea of the unity of religion and state is rooted not only in religious feelings of solidarity, but also in the necessity of understanding that Islam is expected to establish equality and justice in socio-political and economic relations. The recognition of the fact that Islam is a way of life and a definite type of modern world outlook allows us to understand the essence of the idea of the Islamic state. A good example of this is the analysis undertaken in the study of the state ideology of Saudi Arabia: Wahhabism. An analysis of Wahhabism shows how the traditionalistic doctrine of Abd al-Wahab, based on Islamic traditionalism from Ibn Hanbal to Ibn Taymiya, maintains the spirit of Islamic culture and tries to provide answers to the challenges of the 20th century.

modernity is usually regarded as the completeness of being, but history shows this is not entirely so. Research of Islamic culture and philosophy shows us not only a surface knowledge of it, but also frequently even a distorted image of it. In speaking about the problem of stereotypes, it is imperative to recognize that mistaken cultural-philosophical and political-ideological stereotypes of the Islamic civilization predominate even in different researches and in the consciousness of the masses. This is indicated by the widespread usage in the mass media of the term Islamic fundamentalism whose content is interpreted widely and arbitrarily and is misunderstood as religious extremism. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish Islamic fundamentalism from Islamic extremism. In general, stereotypes result from either insufficient knowledge or inadequate methodology and may be formed in accordance with the ideological and sociocultural purposes of the cognizing subject. In this work a critical examination is made of the European stereotypes in relation to Islamic culture; special attention is given to the critique of the methodology of European civilizational, Russian historiosophical and Marxist formational approaches towards Islamic society and its culture. The categories and methodology of studying Islamic culture have been worked out and have specified new alternative approaches to correct the commonly held stereotypes.

In examining the general cultural stereotypes, one can identify, for example, the attempts to portray Islam and Islamic culture according to the concepts and categories of the Christian tradition. As a rule, something analogous to Christian orthodoxy, theology, ideology, etc. is sought in Islam, but these phenomena simply do not exist in the Islamic culture. However, on the basis of such stereotypes, a stable image has been formed in the research tradition of so-called Eurocentrism. This image and similar perceptions, for example, regard Kalam as the orthodox and dominant theology in Islamic philosophy and culture. It is inappropriate to abstractly discuss Islam and Islamic culture without considering the fact that Islam and Islamic culture have their own specific features in different historical epochs and in different countries. More than this, attempts are undertaken to negate the humanistic character of Islamic culture and, for example, to regard the Sufism of Ibn Arabi as the single existing variant of Sufism as such. Sufism is no less multifarious in its manifestations, than Islam itself. The European civilizational, Russian historiosophical and Marxist formational approaches to Islamic society and its culture have much in common. For example, they commonly share the so-called missionary approach which views Western or Russian missions to the Islamic world as both progressive and emancipatory.

The specific features of Islamic culture and civilization, in general, should not be examined within the context of contrasting the so-called East and the so-called West, the old and the new, past and present, tradition and renewal, religious and national; but, on the basis of their mutual connections and mutual cooperation. The thrust of this study is devoted to an analysis of different points of views about how to compare, using the philosophical-value dimension, the classical Arab-Islamic culture, which was open to mutual cooperation with other cultures, and the modern Islamic culture, which, though not in confrontation, apparently is not receptive to the modern inter-civilizational dialogue. In the present world of Islamic culture, the singular, significant problem is to define, what is unchangeable and what should be retained in the solution to the question about the correlation of Islam, as a civilizational phenomenon, and nationalism, as a national-state dimension, within the context of the transition of the Islamic society of the East to an industrial and post-industrial stage of development.