سید عبدالله حسینی

 

A'udhuBillahi min ash-shaytaan-i'rrajeem. Bismillah-i'r Rahman-i'r Raheem.

 

On these series of philosophy of Islam, the topic of tonight’s discussion is “Obstacles of Logical Religious Epistemology”. For us to know what is the epistemology of religion and the logical epistemology of religion we have to first of all understand the different types of epistemologies that we have. Based on the four facilities that we have, we have four types of epistemology. 

 

One is an understanding knowledge which is based on the five senses, it is sense-based. You know the story of that person which went into a dark room inside which there was an elephant, but he didn’t have any knowledge about what is inside, so when he went inside, each of them came with one story. The one touched the leg of the elephant, when he came back and they asked him “what was there?” He said “I saw a pillar” The second one touched the ear and the he came back and he said “I saw a fan”, the third one touched the trunk came with another story. Based on the touching sense that you have, you come in a dark room with a kind of understanding of the subject that you touched. And a lot of other people that judge by the eyes. You hear something, you judge. Sometimes when every aspect of the subject is clear, maybe you can come with a good understanding, but when the aspects of the what you are talking about is not clear you don’t have a good epistemology of what you are talking about. That’s the one type, it is not a very good type of epistemology, but at the end of the day it is one of the facilities that we have. 

 

The second one is the scientific one. All examinations which are gone. For example, you go to a doctor and the doctor writes for you to have a blood test. So the test of the blood goes to the laboratory and then under the microscope a lot of information come out that in this blood I saw this one and that one, the viruses are all specified, the sugar, the iron of your blood. Everything comes out of the examination. That is scientific epistemology, that you come based on science and technology you test something and based on that test you come to a conclusion; that is called scientific epistemology which is quite good, but only when it comes to physical and chemical things. When it comes to soul, there is no such thing; there is no laboratory to put your soul under the microscope and realize what type of problems you have. 

And then we have the mystical epistemology which is more advanced. Molawi has got an experience in this world, Abu Reyhan Biruny has got some experiences in this world, Avecina, Sheokhul-eshraqhave got experiences, and Sheikh-e-Akbar MuhyedinibnArabihas got experiences and he wrote a book فتوحات مکّیه based on mystical epistemology that he had. He had a lot of visions, dreams and understandings. Based on the mysticism of Islam he came to some conclusions and those conclusions have been gathered in the forms of books. Hafiz has got his great poetry book that up today we are calling this book لِسانُ الغِیب “the tongue/language of the unseen” and still a lot of us make our decisions based on the poetry of Hafiz because of the mystical epistemology that Hafiz and the kinds of Hafiz have. We had great series and chains of a lot of scholars which based on eshraq even a philosophy has been (developed). Sheikhul-Eshraq is the one who combined the philosophy called thought with the Eshraq this is what I have realized, based on my knowledge, and this is what I’m combining with the eshraq with the (شهود) Shohud, with the type of relationship that I have established with my soul and the unseen world I have come to this conclusion’ 

So that is the third type which is quite an advanced one. There is only a problem with it. The first type of epistemology is available for everyone as every of use have five senses and based on our five senses we can come to conclusions. Even a blind person, if you give him and after just touching here and there at the end of the day he comes with some conclusion. That is either a ball or a cube or anything else. Even a blind person has got the access to the first one. In the second one the circle becomes narrower and only the scientists and specialists will have the access to the second type of epistemology, but the third one becomes narrower and it is for those people who have got more experience to the unseen world and as much are you are closer to Allah (SWT) you more clear vision. Some people sees something in dreams. Some people has got access even without a dream, in this situation that they are now the whole world is under their access, they can see things which are happening in America, for example. When you have the vision, when you come out of your body, when the soul came out of the cage of the body you’d become completely free. Exactly when you die, what happens? The jail has been broken and the soul has got the opportunity to fly anywhere that you want. A dead person’s soul is not limited to the body which was previously a cage. And even there is a poetry concerning that:

            مرغ باغ ملکوتم نیم از عالم خاک              چند روزی قفسی ساخته اند از بدنم

 

When the cage is broken and the soul starts flying all over the world like a free bird, for you it’s going to take one second to go to the moon and at the same time that you are on the moon, you’re going to be at the sun and earth and everywhere will be for you because what has created limitation for us is the element of place and time, but the absolute soul, the unlimited and uncaged soul does not have any time and place so you can fly anywhere. It is a very good type of epistemology, but unfortunately not available for everyone, it needs process of the purification of the soul. You have to have those, In Shaa Allah when we finish these series we are going to start talking about a lot of the mystical world of Islam. We have probably few years to get there In Shaa Allah we will talk about all aspects of religion and Irfan(عرفان), and mysticism, how to reach Allah, the process of self-building  and creating a good relationship with Allah (SWT) and reaching to Him and having this access to the unseen world which is all possible for everyone, but unfortunately we are imprisoned in that cage so we have to break it, but In Shaa Allah slowly we are going together have that flying journey which is going to be very pleasurable.

 

However, it is a good type of epistemology but limited to those who have built their characteristics. They have managed to create their personality such that they can fly and they can have that vision, and it is not available for everyone. 

 

And then we have the forth one, the forth one is based on revelation (revelation-based knowledge) that the Prophet (SAW), the 124,000 prophets of Allah, the very close friends of Allah (SWT), when they have relationship with Allah directly through Gabriel, some of them hear direct voice of Allah (SWT) like in the case of Muses in the desert of Sina where he saw the tree and the tree said إنّی ‌ٰأنا الله and this is the story you read about in Quran; sometimes it is the type of relationship that our prophet had with Allah, the Gabriel comes and brings the message directly to the prophet, this is revelation-based epistemology. Based on this, this is the most exact one but it is limited to the prophets and limited to the messengers of Allah (SWT). It is not for everyone. 

 

So each of them is specialized for different types of people. Now for reaching our destination. We started our journey, the journey is through investigation of the truth and in this journey we have to first of all be walking on the right path, so we have to know this is the right path, we are not on the wrong side. And when you realize that this is the right path, even in the right path you have to walk rightly because if each part of this is wrong, then there is a problem. If you are in the right path but you can’t walk, you’re going to always staying at the beginning of the road, you have to start walking. The way doesn’t take you, you have to start walking. The direction is very important. Which direction are you walking? How are you walking? With the help of whom you are walking. The walking itself has got process, has got formulas. You cannot just walk anywhere! So first of all you have to walk on the right path and then you have to rightly walk, that you should not make mistakes, otherwise those mistakes are going to take you back.

 

Obstacles! On this journey toward perfection, toward reaching to Allah (SWT) there are a lot of obstacles. There are about 10-15 of them, but I have just summarized all in these three which are very important. 

 

The first one is fanaticism, the biggest enemy of mankind no matter who you are, if you are Muslim, or a Christian, or a Jew, or Hindu or Buddhist, or whoever you are, fanaticism is the enemy of the  knowledge, is the enemy of mankind, the enemy of epistemology . It’s an obstacle. With fanaticism you will not reach anywhere.

 

With fanaticism you do a lot of mistakes and I give the examples later on.

 

The other one is blindly following. Like billions of people around the world which they are just blindly following their parents, society, teacher, church. As I told you at the first night of our  series of lecture if you remember,it1s just enough for you to be born in Christian family to be Christian, in a Jewish family to be Jewish in a Hindu family to be Hindu and in a Muslim family to be a Muslim. You have no role,you didn’t play any role in choosing your path direction and that isalso one of the biggest enemies of epistemology and obstacles against finding the truth.

 

The third one is ignorance. Yeah, that is the big one.That’s why Islam is against ignorance. That we always emphasize that people have to properly understand Din and they should learn about religion and they shouldalways try to find the right pathbased on knowledge. The first word of the book that we received started with Reading

“اقْرَأْ بِاسْمِ رَبِّکَ الَّذِی خَلَقَ “: “Read in the name of the One who has created you!”  We started our revelation with reading. The reading has to be a part of our hobbits. Probably about one month ago I went to visit our leader and one of the advices he had was concerning writing novels for revolution and for the holy defense we had. Then he said not all of you are as eager as I concerning reading the book because as I if it’s 800 pages, I finishit in few days and I read. You know he’s the second fast reader in Iran. And I see a book like this read it so fast just scanning it.

Look at the rate of book reading inEurope.Their books did not start with read, how book started with reading. But the y read 10 times more than us.One of the best habits that you can have is to have alwayssomething on your side to read. But unfortunately we don’t (have such a habit.)

 

And ignorance is the biggest enemy we have.All of the problems of mankind are first because of ignorance and I gave you that example of the match and the darkness, that’s the situation. When everywhere is full of ignorance then of course you will definitely be able to progress with your small matches which produce light.

 

Fanaticism! You’re brain is a cage. You love with no reason. You hate with no reason. That is fanaticism. Your brother is fighting with someone else. You one day come and realize. But (you say) because my brother is fighting someone else, that’s fine. No reason. You just follow your brother even if your brother is wrong. This is fanaticism. 

 

You should not even help your country if it is wrong. Look at Mohammad Ali Clay What’s happened? He was wanted to be arrested in a time he refused to go to war for Vietnam when America attacked Vietnam and he was 18 years old and had to go to military service. He refused to go. (He said) this is wrong. I cannot do this. No matter who is the person that you are facing;if it’s your father, teacher, husband, sister etc. fanaticism says “just help”. He is related to you. Finish. But logic says “No”.Ask who’s right and who is wrong and try to help the right side. Even if it is the enemy of your brother and don’t’ help your brother if he’s wrong. It’s so easy. But fanaticism says “No. Justhelp your brother.” That’s the cage which if you have fanaticism you will not find the truth, because if you are fanatic about Islam you won’t get. Even about Islam doesn’t be fanatic. If you are fanatic about Christianity your will not reach any way.

 

All of the problems that we have with ISIS are because of fanaticism. This people have got this type of brained-washed ideology that “we are the right. We are the righteous people we are truth. In everywhere around the world they are allcompletely pigs and dogs they have been created to be killed and we are the only right people of the world.” It is fanaticism; otherwise if youjust think a little bit and you are not fanatic, you would not easily come over with your wrong ideology.

 

The second one is blindly following. Look at this picture here. All of people in the row the think they are progress toward light then you see you’re following somebody blindly and he’s fallinginto the hell and you are also with him. 

 

Following is fine but when you don’t know somebody else, no. you go to a doctor. This man has been into the university he has got a PhD and he is specialist in eye.  You never have been to a university at all. So when your eye has got a problem you have to go to anophthalmologist and then he will do some examination, put your eye into lensometer and at the end of the day he will say your eye has cataracts, so you need to have an operation. He knows better than you. You don’t say “yes” or “no”. Whateverdoctor, the ophthalmologist, tells you, you will follow blindly. That’s fine. No one has gotany problem with following some one more knowledgeable blindly. But a blind person should not follow another blind person. Blind person should follow somebody who has got eyes. He knows the way. Following a blind person who is following another blind person will lead us to a wrong direction. Blindly following is one of the biggest obstacles against the proper epistemology that we have.

 

Look at The road map to the truth. It’s very important for us to have it. If not, we‘re not going to reach anywhere properly. That road map is very clear but majority of the people of the world don not follow it. Based on the personality of the people they judge about the truth: “That father at the church is a very good person, so Christianity must be right.” That’s not the proper way. “This father at the other church helps a lot of people. He is very kind. Whenever I go, he talks, I gain tranquility so Christianity must be right.” These are not the criteria of being right. Righteousness has got signs and we discussed about it before. The criteria of the right religion, they are for you not to make a mistake.

 

Find the truth andwhen you find the truth, based on that truth you can judge who is right-who is wrong. The whole problem of the world is that they are following people and they think that this man is the statue of truth so truth has been compared with personalities of people,not people compared with the truth. that’s the problem.

 

”اعرف الحق تعرف اهله" is here. Fortunately only we, the school of thought of Ahl-al-Bayt, have got this formula. No one else. Wherever you go they talk very clearly about this wrong process that “Look at Jesus. Look at this. Look at that.” And then finally they want you to follow this particular religion because of this figure.Say Baba, for example. They put him there like a statuethey say “yeah, he is the man. Look! He gives ashes here and there, look at him, he produces balls from his hands. Look at him! Look at his face. Such a nice-looking God sits there!”

 

While you have to find truth. Truth has got definition, criteria, and indices. Based on them you should first find out is this the direction right or not. Then compare every single one with that piece of truth: Your leadership, system, friend, father, mother, brothers, and children, everyone if you want to know if this person is right or not, here it’s the scale. Based on that truth you can weigh people. Sometimes you put a person in one part of the scale and compare others with that person instead of the truth. It is not the right way. 

 

If it has beensaid, concerningsome of our big personalities like Imam Ali (pubh) that you know “they are farooq. Like criterion. Because kinds of personalities like prophet, they became statue of truth. They are walking truth. They are Walking Quran.” That’s fine. Ifsomebodyis infallible. If somebodyhas got right direction-relationship with Allah and in that direct relationship with Allah he has reached to the point of infallibility and high level, then of course, they become statue of truth. You can compare the rest of the people with prophet easily. That’s why Allah called him “أُسوَةٌ حَسَنَةٌ”An example for the rest of the community. But then, not every single person, especially who is not infallible, should not become statue for us. Every single person can make mistake, only the 14infallible persons can become statute of the truth,But Not others.We have to realize it or we’ll always make mistake. Some persons will come and present ideas which probably can be dangerous at the same time they talk to you they seem very interesting but later on you’ll realize you’ve been making mistakes for many years.

 

It’s very important for us to have this process: First Know the Truth. Then Based on The Truth you go and search and compare every one with the truth then you won’t make mistake.

 

Then accept the truth even it’s bitter and against you. LIKE the time you make an accident. You say sorry brother it was my fault. Every day in our lives we try to make others (seem) problematic and ourselves as the perfect one. And that is the point that we’re going to make great mistakes. The greatness of mankind is that you can accept your mistake.

(Part 3-3)

 

Somebody was sitting on a big Member and he was asked “why you are sitting there?” he said “I’m sitting because my knowledge is so much. If I was going to sit where my knowledge is not… you know, when you want to compare my status with my ignorance I was going to stay probably a hundred meter up, but that is the statue/place/level of my understanding. Unfortunately we are living in an age that everyone is a professor, everyone is a doctor, everyone claims that they are following the truth and everyone thinks that they are right. 

Only when we accept that we can make mistakes, only when we accept that we need to correct ourselves, our idea, our morality, our relationship, our Aqidah (عقیده), our basic principles, everything if we just come to conclusion that we are human beings and we can make mistakes and we need right road and roadmap to reach to the true epistemology, then you can realize. So the first thing is that you remove any type of fanaticism, even concerning Shia school of thought don’t be fanatic. I have been discussing in a very big gathering in South Africa and I have said very clearly that if somebody over there who can come and prove to me that Shia school of thought is not the right religion, I’m really ready to come and announce that I was Shia and now I’m becoming this because of logic. But bring the logic for me. We should be just follower of true logic and that should be our limitation only. Illogical aspects, illogical thoughts should not have any place in our life, relationship, family, studies, and society; as soon as illogicality comes the problems start, but until we have logical minds, logical ideas, logical people then we have no problem. Only in the environment of logic you are actually progressing.

 

I went to London and as I parking, a friend of mine Mr. Shajareh, when he parked, he parked against the direction of the other car. For example they are driving on the left side, so automatically the cars are parked facing the left; so there was a car facing left, but he went and he parked exactly opposite to that car, and I started shouting “This is London, you can’t do this!” He said “No, but this is legal” I said “wow, why?” He said “look, they think, they think if I force this car to park in line with the other ones all facing that side, he has to take a lot of time, a lot of traffic, he has to turn and go and reverse, and this and that, and create traffic. He just goes from this line straight and park there, go and come back. It’s parked, it is not driving, so what’s the problem?” why? Because logic is there. And unfortunately when there is no logic we have problem here. Just look at the problems that we have in traffics here in Iran. Just imagine when we are in the four-way and the light goes, the chaos starts. But believe me in South Africa, an African country, as soon as the light goes off then there will be an automatic regime, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four (in order). If it takes five hours it is fine, no one is going to rush; no one is going to honk, but then we say we are civilized and they are not. We have reading, but they are acting. And if you are in a highway, you won’t see four-five lines, three lines and three lines, finished! They will not start coming here, that side. Everything has got a law, order. There is always the side roads that if it is in Iran they are going to always be full, but you cannot see even one car going to the right or the left shoulder of the road. They say they recognize, maybe there is somebody’s life in danger, and somebody has made an accident, let him go and pass. And just imagine when there is a siren, everyone stars now going this side, that side, exactly like our country. You hear the siren and you try to find your way behind the ambulance because, you see, this car is going to reach earlier so let me behind him to be reaching to where I am.

 

We don’t have any logic behind our action and that’s why we have problems. In every aspect of life, when we have logic we have prevailed, and wherever there is no logic we have failed. And process of growing economically, my brothers and sisters, we have to grow like body organs. You know, when a baby is born is two kilos; the head is so much (size), the mouth is so much, the nose is so much, the ear is so much. Now imagine a baby grows up, the ears grow but the chin remains very small, the nose goes like Pinocchio, and the hands remain small, one leg grows, the other leg remains small; just imagine such a baby, it becomes a cartoon, it’s like a caricature. So we have to grow in our country like body organs. Every day we register 1,500 cars in Tehran but we don’t make 1000, 2-3 kilometers of roads, and then we say why there is traffic! 

 

We bring so many cars we don’t teach people how to use it. First car comes then the learning; first mobile comes then the learning, everything we just get it and then we don’t go to learn and get driving license; we just get into our sister’s car and ask “please teach me”, so when we kill somebody and when we break the car, and even we say “let me buy for you a Pride so if you beat somewhere or hit somewhere, there won’t be any problem” That logic is nowhere in the world. Because logic is not there. So brothers, the best type of epistemology is that we should not be fanatic about whoever we are, and then we should be completely neutral when it comes to decision making and we should not take sides, we should not be in favor of here and there, the only thing that should prevail in our mind and our idea in our life should be only one thing logic, and logic and logic.

 

Discussion