The series, the imam and the layman (2)
(Question of a layman: by observing Muslims, I have the feeling that your
faith is more a prison than a freedom. So your Muslim faith,
freedom or prison?)
Imam response
The School of Libertines that willingly free themselves from religions (this is the meaning of the word libertine at 16th century) consider those who adhere to it, and act of faith, as prisoners and attached to a rigid and intolerant dogma. But before analyzing this perception which disturbs the reality of things, it is necessary to conceive the notion of faith in the Islamic horizon, because if the Jews belong to “the community of the law” and the Christians to “the community of charity”, the Muslims, them, say they are readily representing “the community of faith”. It was therefore vital for a Muslim, since the origin of Islam, to know what it is; It has been and will remain a question of life or spiritual death for the Mohammadian community.
Faith is said in Arabic “Imân”. Not so simple to translate because it has several senses including that of load, responsibility, guarantee, loyalty or confidence. Whoever has faith, assumes his responsibility as a man and therefore, arouses confidence around him, but the Koran warns that this implies a serious commitment. This is already a first meaning that I can offer.
“Yes, we proposed the deposit of the faith to the heavens,
to earth and mountains. They refused to do it,
They were frightened by this responsibility. He’s the man
who took care of it, but he is unfair and ignorant ”. Koran 33.72
But faith is also, give its assent to communication or information. It is a question of declaring as true a word and of remaining faithful to him as the impetuous theologian Fakhr-Al-Dine Al Razi, a disciple of Avicenna and Ghazali according to his own statements, said. The French moralist philosopher Ollé-Laprune, the master of Maurice Blondel, will join (partly) 7 centuries later Al Razi, by writing: “I adhere to your word because I trust you, to my assent which attaches, not to things, since they are out of my reach, but to you, to you alone and to your testimony, my assent is act; There is not a knowledge here, but belief ”. For the Catholic philosopher Ollé-Laprune, belief is just a (AS) feeling. However, as Iqbal wrote, “We cannot deny that faith is more than just a feeling. It has a kind of cognitive content “and this idea” constitutes a vital element of religion “. The Turkish Topç philosopher will even consider belief as the foundation of knowledge. We will understand better certain formulas of the Koran, incomprehensible for many Western thinkers, associating faith with knowledge:
“Did they not go on earth, having a heart capable of
Reason, ears capable of hearing? However, these are not the
looks that are blind, but the hearts that
are in breasts »Koran 22.46
One of the radical differences between the modern West and traditional Islam is in this understanding of faith, assimilated to knowledge. Nevertheless, some other Western thinkers came to the same result as Islam on this issue. This is the case of the philosopher Withehead who “noticed with finesse that” the eras of faith are eras of rationality “”. “In truth,” wrote Iqbal, because of the role it must fulfill, religion requires a rational foundation of its ultimate principles, even more than scientific dogmas. Science can disregard a rational metaphysics; In fact, she has ignored it so far. Religion can hardly allow itself to refrain from seeking a conciliation of the differences of experience and the justification of the environment in which humanity is found. ” Because, indeed, no human being, “would dare to venture to act based on a questionable conduct principle”.
Islam will teach man that the greatest duperie is to take it for the end of his actions. He must know and (re) know. The believer accepts his own limits and has faith in God who does not have it. Faith is therefore well knowledge at the start. However, knowledge never prounds but always releases, it will therefore be our first assertion and answer to your question.
Let’s go further. Having regard to what we mentioned above, the one who carries and assumed faith, the Mou’mine (believing in Arabic), declares the word of the Koran and the Prophet (ç), as truthful. But for that, it is necessary to have an ability to accept the truth. This aptitude we all have it in us and, add the masters, she sleeps as a potential and only asks to be awake. The Koran recalls this ability to believe in the original testimony formulated by humanity.
“Am I not your Lord?” –
Surely! We testify to this »Koran 7.172
This last point opens the field of intimate and will generate a whole spiritual literature (true Sufism) to understand what to the depth of man will allow him to rekindle this ability and necessarily perpetuate it. The believer, thanks to his faith, will seek “to remain faithful to the end”.
On another level, that of the history of ideas, I will show you that Muslim faith is not a prison. Do you know, what was the first theological school in the land of Islam? Answer: Mutazilite school (born at 8th century). If we reread the work of Ahmad Amin (M.1954) we learn that this school has put at the heart of its theology the development of human freedom and it recalls what its thinkers wrote: “It is better to exaggerate in the sense of the power of reason and freedom of will than in the opposite sense” (Doha al Islam; p 70). Is there more radiant answer to this criticism which was distilled by certain historians, and the most controversial is Ernest Renan?
Now there is a last point that I would like to approach. Faith in many of us has lost its true meaning in our mind. The prophet’s words (ç) announced it: “The hour will come from the moment when confidence/faith disappears” – a companion questioned him: “And how will she be lost?” “, The Prophet (ç) replied:” When society entrusts its affairs to people who are not worthy of it “. It is true that there are people who direct the community without being worthy of it. They have their diploma in religious sciences but they often lack a science that do not acquire in schools. And there, I will recall this lesson by Imam Chafi’i: “Knowledge is divine light, and know that this light only comes with the abandonment of turpitudes”.
If many among us seem prisoners it is surely by lack of faith and excess of bad actions, and when we take the time to deepen the question well what the Koran asks us to do, we will recognize that enslavement is always interior and that true liberation can only be spiritual. So, of course, we have the habit of the Muslim, the rite, but we did not taste the faith fully. If you, the laymen, have the feeling of seeing Muslim faith as an imprisonment is that you cannot yet see its true cause and confuse the habit and the body that wears it. Avoid making mistakes about appearances. Idries Shah brings us this story:
“A pedantic, acerbic religious, and who lacked sense of humor,
Leave his house one day when he saw a soufi in the street.
” Dog ! “Creamed Sufi. The religious threatened him with the fist, and
cursed all the Sufis. And the dog against which the Sufi had put it
In guard rushed over him and bit him … “
Here is dear profane, an attempt to answer your second question, and know that absolute knowledge belongs only to God.
