THE CONCEPT OF GOD IN WAH.ĪD AL- DĪN KHAN’S AL-ISLĀM YATAH. ADDĀ
By
* Muhammad Amin Abdul Samad
*
Dr. W. Haddad Oct. 17, 1978
God and Man in Contemporary Muslim Thought (397-702D)
INSTITUTE OF ISLAMIC STUDIES MCGILL UNIVERSITY
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INTRODUCTION This paper is an attempt to study the concept of God in Wah.īd alDīn’s book entitled al-Islām Yath.addā. Wah.īd al-Dīn Khān is a journalist. He is the editor of the weekly al-Jam‘īyah of Nadwat al-‘Ulamā’, Lucknow, India. According to Dr. ‘Abd al-S.abūr Shāhīn who revised the translation of the book, he is one of the three contemporary Muslim thinkers in the Indian sub-continent, who deal with contemporary Islamic issues raised through the advance of intellectual thinking. These three thinkers are: Abū ’l-A‘lā al-Mawdūdī, Abū ’l-H.asan al-Nadawī, and Wah.īd al-Dīn Khān. The book, al-Islām Yath.addā, was written in Urdu under the title of Ilmé Jadīd ka Challenge in 1964 and published by Academy of Islamic Research and Publications, Nadwat al-‘Ulamā’. Lucknow, India, in 1966. It was translated into Arabic by his own son, Z.afar al-Islām Khān, and revised by Dr. ‘Abd al-S.abūr Shāhīn of Cairo University. It was firstly published by Dār al-Buh.ūth al-Islāmīyah (Scientific Research House) in Kuwayt, 1970. The second, third, and fourth editions appeared in 1973. The object of the book is to defend Islam against atheistic trends, particularly in the Indian sub-continent, and to serve as introduction into Islamic faith by means of science. He presents the arguments of those who are against religion in chapter 1, and then he presents his arguments in refuting them in chapter 2. In chapter 3 he deals with the method of scientific evidence in proving that science, as well as religion, is based on the belief in the unknown (al-ghayb), and that science has its own limitations. In chapter 4 he deals with nature as evidence of the existence of God. Khān also wrote other books in Urdu entitled in Arabic as a. H.ikmat al-Dīn (Wisdom of the Religion), translated into Arabic by Z.afar al-Islām Khān, 1st ed. (Cairo: al-Mukhtār al-Islāmī, 1973); b. al-Islām wa ’l-‘As.r al-H.adīth (Islam and the Modern Age) which is also translated by .Z.afar al-Islām Khān, 1st ed. (Cairo: al-Mukhtār al-Islāmī, 1976).
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I. THE ARGUMENTS OF REJECTORS OF RELIGION According to Sir Julian Huxley (1887-1975), an English biologist and politician, the development of science in the last century is considered as knowledge explosion in breaking human mythology of deities and religion. Many atheists believe that religion is nothing but manifestation of human instinct in searching the true natures of the universe. Khān maintains that human instinct itself is good, but due to man’s limited information, he did not reach the true answer of the issue, especially concerning God and religion. Nowadays, with the development of science, it is time to review what our ancestors achieved. Khān mentions the three stages of the development of human thinking according to the French philosopher, Auguste Comte (1798-1857), as follows: 1. Theological stage, the use of theological interpretation of the phenomena of nature. 2. Metaphysical stage, the use of metaphysical interpretation, i.e., something beyond human understanding. 3. Positive stage, logical positivism, the use of interpretation through a certain rule that can be scientifically known. According to Khān the rejecters of religion base their arguments on three bases: biology, psychology, and history. A. Biological (and Physical) Arguments Khān mentions many arguments and statements of scientists who do not believe in God, among which are: the French astronomer, mathematician and physician Laplace (1749-1827) said that the astronomical order does not need any divine myth. Newton (1642-1727), the English physician, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher, denies the existence of God who rules the stars. He maintains that the universe follows a permanent law called “the law of nature”. David Hume (17111776), the English philosopher and historian, denies the existence of God. He says that he sees clocks are made in factories, but he does not see the maker of the universe.
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B. Psychological Arguments Psychologists say that religion is only the produce of human subconsciousness. God is only a projection of man on a cosmic screen. Subconsciousness is the treasury of forgotten things which do not appear except in abnormal conditions, like: madness and hysteria. It is, like an iceberg which most part of it is hidden below the sea-level, constitutes 8/9 of men’s sub-consciousness. Freud maintains that sub-consciousness could receive ideas in childhood and lead to unreasonable act (behaviour). This, according to Freud, includes religious beliefs. The concept of Hell and Paradise go back to the echo of human wishes that emerge during man’s childhood. As these wishes do not occur, they remain in his subconscious mind. Then this sub-conscious mind imagines the existence of another life where his wishes become fulfilled. This also happens to a man whose wishh cannot be fulfilled in his wakefulness is fulfilled in his dream. (pp. 23-26). C. Historical Arguments The arguments of rejecters of religion are also based on history. They say that ancient people when they were facing disasters, like: flood, earthquake, illness, etc., they created imaginative powers to save them. These people went further until they found what they called God that was more powerful than man. Julian Huxley says that religion is the products of a kind of interaction between man and his surrounding. (p. 27) According to the Communist philosophy religion is a historical hoax, because this philosophy looks upon history on economic basis. Lenin (1870-1924) said: “We do not believe in God. We know very well that men of the church, feudal barons and bourgeoisies do not talk to us in the name of God but for the purpose of exploitation and their own personal benefit….”
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II. CRITIQUE ON REJECTERS OF RELIGION Khān gives us his critique on the arguments of the rejecters of religion as follows: A. Biological Arguments According to Khān the idea that events (natural phenomena) occur according to the law of nature without supposing the existence of an unknown god is not acceptable. It is because, quoting the idea of an unidentified scholar, he says that nature is itself a fact, not an explanation. He says further that all inventions are not the explanation of the cause of the existence of religion, but they are the external framework (al-haykal al-z.āhirī) of the universe. Modern science explains exclusively what is happening, not why it happens. In order to clarify this view Khān gives the following example: A chicken comes out of an egg. People believed that God took it out of the egg. But through microscope we find that on the 21 st day of the egg a small horn appears on the bike of the chicken, which is used to break the egg. This horn disappears some days later. The rejecters of religion and God say that this means that God does not take the chicken out of its egg. Khān contends that this new finding does not explain the real cause, but it leads us to a new event. The issue is no longer breaking the egg, but the appearance of the horn that is needed by the chicken on the 21 st day of its being laid. The use of microscope etc. is merely an investigation of the fact in wider extent, not an explanation to it. Again Khān quotes an American scholar, Cecil B. Haman, professor of biology who says: “Nature does not explain, she is herself in need of explanation.”1 Khān 1
Wah.īd al-Dīn Khān, , al-Islām Yatah.addā, p. 30, quoting the view of Cecil B. Haman in George H. Blount, The Evidence of God in an Expounding Universe (N.p., n.d.), p. 221. Another example given by Khān is about the mystery of the redness of the blood. Blood contains red cells, so that it becomes red. These cells contain hemoglobin which turns into red colour when the red cells interact with oxygen in the heart. Cells which contain hemoglobin are made in the liver. The relationship among these things is based on the law of nature. Why does this law of nature
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also cites Prof. A. Harris in his critique on Darwin’s theory of the selection of species. Harris says that the evidence of the law of natural selection does explain the survival for the fittest, but it does not explain the process of the occurrence of this fittest.2 B. Psychological Arguments Khān contends that it is true that man’s mind (dhihn) restores ideas which might appear later in different forms. But this does not come to the conclusion that religion is a fake. It is because the use of analogy in this case is not in its proper place, for it is the use of unnatural proof from a natural event. It is, according to Khān, like a person who saw someone making an idol and stated that he was the one who created man. Khān argues further that we cannot compare the statements of prophets which reveal the secret of this universe with that of a madman who speaks with strange words as the result of his ideas stored in his mind. Suppose that the inhabitants of another planet come to the earth and that they can hear, but they cannot speak. They are going to investigate how man can speak. Suddenly the wind blows, the branches of trees rub one another and make sound, and this occurs several times. They make the conclusion that man speaks by rubbing his upper jaw with the lower one, so that they produce sound. This view, Khān argues, does not reveal the secret of speech in man. Likewise, a man on the street who speaks strangely due to his ideas in his sub-conscious mind cannot reveal the secret of prophethood. (p. 32). In the beginning, before being born, man’s sub-consciousness is empty, because it is merely a treasury of information and things seen by him. Therefore, it is impossible for him to state what he has never known or seen before. We see that religion brought by prophets contain eternal fact which has never come to the mind of anybody any time.
always come to a definite goal? Khān says that science states only what happens, but it does not explain why it happens. 2 Ibid., pp. 30-31, quoting A. Lunn, Revolt against Reason (N.p., n.d.), p. 133.
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B. Socio-historical Arguments Khﾄ］ reproaches those who maintain that religion is a socio-historical process, because he contends that religion is a single reality and always remains so. People might differ in accepting or rejecting it. Its true nature cannot be investigated in the same way as investigating the process and the development of architecture, so to speak. Otherwise, religion would be without God, like that of Buddhism, so that, as Julian Huxley put it, the god of the present time would be the society itself and its political aims, the messenger would be the parliament, while the temples of this modern god would be the huge factories and dams.3
III. THE METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE Knowing reality (fact) through experiments and inspection cannot approve or disapprove the true nature of religion, because, according to Khﾄ］, it is not scientific evidence. One example is that formerly ships were made of wood, because people through their experiment believed that wood floated and iron sank in water. This conclusion is not totally true, for if we put a piece of iron into a plate it will not sink in water. Again, in the beginning of this century, through a weak telescope we saw heavenly bodies like light, so that we believed that they were clouds of gas and vapour. Now, by using a stronger telescope we found that the same heavenly bodies are stars looked like clouds due to their extreme distance from the earth. Dealing with facts Khﾄ］ quoted the view of Prof. A.E. Mender who divides facts into two categories: perceived facts, and inferred facts. Perceived facts are what we know directly, like: climbing is more difficult than descending. Inferred facts are what we know through deduction, the process of reasoning, e.g., the law of gravity that binds many facts, like the fall of the apple from the tree, and the turning of the moon in its orbit. 3
Ibid., pp. 34-35, quoting J. Huxley, Religion without Revelation (N.p., n.d.), no page.
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Inferred fact is also like knowing the rationality of the universe and the existence of relationship among every part of it. According to Khān it is not true to say that religion is only belief in the unseen, while science is belief in scientific perception. Religion and science are both based on the belief in the unseen. However, religion’s field is the final true nature of things, while science confines itself to the basic aspect of things.
IV. NATURE AND SCIENCE SPEAK ABOUT GOD A. The Skepticism about God John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), the English economist and philosopher, was taught by his father that the question “who created me?” is not sufficient to prove the existence of God, because another question would follow automatically, “then, who created God?” According to the English philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), the second question is enough to reject the indication of the first one. According to Khān, this view of skepticism is based on the atheists’ rejection of the pre-existence and eternity of the creator of the universe. They say that if this view is to be accepted, then the universe should also be pre-existent and eternal. Since there is no indication proving that the universe creates itself, the above statement should not be accepted. But now, with the invention of the Second law of Thermo Dynamics the above argument becomes void. It is because this law proves that the universe cannot be eternal, that heat always moves from hot existence to non-hot existence, not vice-versa. Therefore, the weakness of the universe increases daily, until time will come where there would be no more left any useful power for life and work. So, there would be a beginning for the universe, and there would be a creator as the first mover. There is much evidence of the existence of the beginning of the universe. For example, astronomy states that the universe expands, stars and other heavenly bodies become farther away from each other. So, there should be a beginning where these bodies were together in a certain place, then a huge explosion occurred, which took place about 5 trillion (5 with 12 zeroes) years ago. Believing in this astronomical discovery, that the
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universe has a limited age, is contradictory to the view of denying its creator. It is, according to Khān, like believing that Taj Mahal built itself without any engineer or a builder. B. Astronomical and other Discoveries There are many discoveries that indicate the existence of God, among which are as follows: It takes 1,000 million light-years to go around the universe, according t Einstein (1879-1955)’s theory. But in 1300 million light-years this universe would have expanded to double of its present size, so that turning around the universe with the speed of light would never end. The universe consists of about 500 trillion galaxies, each with about 100 billion stars, and all of them move in order. The atom represents the same system of the universe. The electrons turn around the proton billion times in a second. All these, Khān argues, indicate the existence of a very intelligent creator. Men themselves invent many instruments by imitating nature, like camera. From the jelly fish the Russian invented an instrument that can receive infrasonic vibrations, so that it can predict the occurrence of flood, earthquake, etc. between 12 and 15 hours before it happens. C. The Wonderful Spirit of the Universe Another evidence of the existence of God is the wonderful spirit of the universe (rūh. al-kawn al-gharībah). We discover the checks and balances of nature. Examples: If the earth were smaller or bigger than it is now, there would be no life on earth. If it were as big as the moon, its gravity would decrease and became 1/6 (one-sixth) of the present one, and there would be neither water nor air. At night everything would become frozen, while in the daytime everything would become burned. On the contrary, if the earth were as big as the sun, the gravity would increase 150 (one hundred and fifty) times. Weight will increase 500 (five hundred) times, and men would be as big as rats. If the amount of oxygen on earth were 50 % (fifty per cent) in the air instead of 21% (twenty-one per cent) the ability of burning of fire
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would increase. If a tree were on fire the whole jungle would be burned. On the other hand, if the amount of oxygen were only 10% (ten per cent) in the air, man’s activity and power of reason would decrease. Khān concluded that if the whole knowledge about universe were revealed to us we would never be able to compile it. This is what Allah says in the Qur’ān:
“And if all the trees in the earth were pens, and the sea, with seven more seas to help it (were ink), the words of Allah could not be exhausted. Lo! Allah is Mighty, Wise.” (Q. 31:27). And again,
“Say: Though the sea became ink for the words of my Lord, verily the sea would be used up before the Words of my Lord were exhausted, even though We brought the like thereof to help.” (Q. 18:109). With regard to the possibility of the existence of the universe by accident Khān mentions the view of J. Huxley. According to Huxley if six monkeys sat and stroke the buttons of typewriters for millions of years, it would not be impossible that we should find in some pieces of the latest paper they have written one of the poems of Shakespeare. So is the case of the universe which is the result of a blind work. On the other hand an American scientist Chris Morrison gives us an example to prove that the possibility of accidental creation of the universe is far less compared to the fact of the planned creation of it. He says that if we take ten coins and write one number on each of them from one to ten, put them in our pocket and mix them, the chance to pick the coin no. 1 is one to ten. The chance to pick no. 1 and 2 in order is one to one hundred; no. 1, 2, 3, and 4 in order is one to 10 000; no.1 to 10 in order is one to 10 trillion.4 4
Ibid., pp. 66, quoting Man Does not Stand Alone (N.p., n.d.), p. 17.
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Khān contends that there are more than one hundred chemical elements in the universe and the possibility of creation by accident is one out of 160/10 (10 with160 zeroes). The creation of protein particle which contains 40 000 elements among the 5 kinds of basic elements is possible, but it needs elements 5 billion times of the present amount of elements in the universe, and it needs time more than 243/10 (10 with 243 zeroes) years. According to Prof. G.B. Lathes protein particle consists of longchains of amino acids. There are 48/10 (10 with 48 zeroes) ways of combining these chains. Wrong chains would make the protein a killing poison instead of a living thing. Another argument of Khān to refuse the creation of the universe by accident is as follows: According to science the age of the earth and the universe is respectively about 9/2 (2 billion) and 12/5 (5 trillion) years, while the amount of time needed for the creation of protein particle by accident is 243/10 (10 with 243 zeroes) years. Khān wonders how, in a very short time (i.e., 12/5 compared to 243/10 years) appear a million kinds of animals and 200 000 kinds of plants, and spread everywhere on earth. Above all, among these kinds of animals, comes a creature of high class called “man”.