In a previous meditation, I put forth a thematic distinction between two orders: the dunyā and the ‘alam. I also stated that this distinction corresponds to two existential orientations: being-in-the-dunyā (inwijād) and being-in-the-‘alam (al-tawājud). I now want to suggest that these two existential orientations correspond to two forms of participation: participation in a lower-order and participation in a higher order. The existentialist Christian philosopher Gabriel Marcel describes this desire to participate in a higher order as follows: “A straining oneself towards something, as when, for instance, during the night we attempt to get a distinct perception of some far-off noise.” From a Quranic perspective, man is constituted by a duality: ruh (spirit) and tin (clayness). The former ascends in a desire to participate in a higher-order, the ‘alam whereas the latter descends towards a sedentary lower-order, the dunyā. In our thoroughly secular age, in what order do we participate?
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To confront and overcome oppression requires a critical consciousness, that is, an awareness of the dynamics and reality of oppression as a state of being. To illustrate, an acritical position on oppression would reduce oppression to violence. Such a position, however, overlooks a critical dimension of oppression. How so? The root word for ‘oppression,’ as Marilyn Fyre points out, is the element ‘press:’ “Presses are used to mold things or flatten them or to reduce them in bulk, sometimes to reduce them by squeezing out the gases or liquids in them.” She says, “Something pressed is something caught between or among forces and barriers which are so related to each other that jointly they restrain, restrict, or prevent the thing’s motion.” In other words, oppression as a form of elusive power (rather than pure violence) operates (1) re-molding man (read: re-creating) in its own image and (2) demobilizing man by managing the threshold of dissent (read: determining what is possible and impossible, real and unreal). The critical point is this: oppression as an elusive power amounts to a state of alienation (read: a state of being) wherein man is sheared of his unique and existential possibilities (i.e. existential uniqueness) such as choice, the determination of an authentic and original project, and the determination of a future.
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“The People Demand the Fall of the Regime.” With those words, the Arabo-Muslim world overcame the fear of freedom and the anguish and anxiety-ridden state of indecision. The unthought – the future – became an active subject of a newly emerging collective consciousness. To revolt is to enact a process of self-affirmation, of becoming. To think about the future and to act in the present towards the determination of a future is to make a resolute choice, leaving behind the anguish of indecision. The future demands of the self a resolute choice, the projection of a collective project – liberation – onto the future. The past and future converge in the present. The collective self’s attitude towards the future can be authentic or inauthentic. Calvin Schrag explains: “In unauthentic existence, the future is simply expected or awaited (Gewartigen). Unauthentically understood now, which is not yet real, the future is past peripheral to the Dasein’s existential projects. Dasein awaits the future but does not seek to penetrate it and discern its relevance for his present decisions. ” In contrast, in an authentic attitude towards the future, “the present is chosen as the decisive moment, and the future is pre-enacted in existential anticipation.” Despite the events that would follow, the Arab Spring opened up new existential horizons, which made it clear that the collective Arabo-Muslim self can enter history as a subject rather than a docile object.
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Ikhlāṣ is often translated as sincerity in one’s intentions and actions. I want to suggest, however, that it is more than that. Ikhlāṣ, in essence, is (1) an existential openness to the Truth and (2) a fidelity to the Truth – both of which amount to an existential orientation. Ikhlāṣ, as such, is a prerequisite of any belief or action. This orientation of openness and fidelity is not a one-time event. To receive the truth, one must receive the truth from God. To receive the truth, one must begin with an attitude of openness. Ikhlāṣ is an active and perpetual struggle in the face of obstacles that impede sincerity, such as mundane motives or “bad faith.” ‘Ata Allah al-Iskandarani states, “Actions are lifeless forms, but the presence of an inner reality of sincerity (ṣirr al-ikhlās) within them is what endows them with life-giving Spirit.” This demands that the object of consciousness is not only Truth but that the ascertainment of truth is an ultimate concern. Ikhlās is not reducible to a cognitive orientation (i.e., pure intentionality), for its fruits envelope the totality of the self, which Kierkegaard calls an inward appropriation of the Truth. Saint Augustine reminds us that we desire (I desire, therefore I am), and thus, the question is, what does one desire?
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Secularism is the philosophy of alienation. How so? In my previous meditation, I described secularism as the sacralization of the immanent: a misplacement of transcendence (the immanent being the dunyā). The consequence is the alienation of the self from itself and the alienation of the self from God because the world, man, and God are recreated, as though ex nihilo in the image of the secular. The secular other– through his gaze – “shatters my world by sucking me into his projects and shearing me of my unique possibilities.” Kierkegaard explains, “And in this encounter, he strives to affirm himself by rendering me into a possibility for him.” To shear man of his “unique possibilities” is to strip man of his existential uniqueness: the desire for transcendence and drive to the sublime (what Paul Tillich calls spiritual self-affirmation). Taha ‘Abd ar-Rahman explains that man, in his primordial nature, is a vertical being (al-tawājud) that exists in two worlds: the seen and the unseen and in his deformed state, man is a horizontal being (inwijād) dwelling only in the mundane and immanent world. These “unique possibilities” are illustrated eloquently by Ali Shariati, who explains, through the Qur’an, that man is constituted by a dual nature for he is created from both clay and the spirit. The former is sedentary, drawn to the worldly and mundane, whereas the latter ascends towards the sublime. The tension between these two constitutive elements in man is a perennial struggle.
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“What has happened to the transcendent ground in [this] connection? It has become, let us say, immanentized. We still have, of course, the quest of the ground, we want to know where things come from. But since God (in revelatory language) or transcendent divine being (in philosophical language) is prohibited for agnostics, they must put their ground elsewhere.
“In Search of the Ground,” in Conversations with Eric Voegelin, 13–16Let us reflect and begin with a fundamental question: what is man? As Gabriel Marcel so eloquently explains, man is that being with ontological capacities (the capacity to ask) and ontological concerns. He is that being who raises the question: who am I? It is fundamentally the desire to understand the self (hence the dictum, know thy self) and one’s place in the cosmos (was this not the question that caused Oedipus anguish?). This desire is part and parcel of a desire, Marcel explains, to participate in some form of transcendence.
The fundamental problem of secularism, in stripping the world of any relationship to the divine, is that it conjures an image of the world as a sealed-off totality stripped of any relationship to divine and, in turn, alienates man from that desire to participate in transcendence and meaningfully poses the question: who am I? But does this mean that secularism does away with our desire for meaning? No. It cannot. The human condition, in its intrinsic capacities and desires, does not allow so. And so, secularism misplaces those capacities and desires. The secular order cannot do away with the desire to sacralize or participate in transcendence. The secular order sacralizes the immanent, which is to say, it immanentizes the transcendent (e.g., by reducing the transcendent to what is immanent: the nation, the libido, etc.). In other words, it reduces the transcendent to a lower-order, an immanent order, which it treats as transcendent (e.g., think of martyrdom as dying for one’s nation). To think about this from a Qur’anic perspective, it is to reduce the transcendent (and the participation therein) to an immanent dunyā, which becomes a pantheon of idols. These reductions amount to a two-fold alienation: the alienation of the world from the uniquely transcendent (reducing the cosmos to a mundane dunyā) and an alienation of man from participating in that transcendence.
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Most certainly, one exceeds all bounds once they think they are self-sufficient.
Qur’an 96: 6-7Secularism is a legitimation and system of fetishization. Fetishization is the process wherein that which is man-made appears to be absolute, divine, and closed. I want to focus on this last feature – closure – as it is the hallmark of the fetishized order. The act of closure is the illusion that the order is self-sufficient; its legitimacy and logic are entirely immanent. This is the negation of exteriority, wherein exteriority means that which is beyond the self or the order. To illustrate, consider the idea of a free-market in Capitalism. The logic of Capitalism is the idea that the market is entirely self-sufficient. The Qu’ran refers to this as istigna, or self-sufficiency. The order then appears as though its forged social contract created man ex nihilo. Secularism is fetishization, more so, the philosophy of fetishization in that it conceives of itself as a self-enclosed totality, declaring the sovereignty not of a uniquely transcendent God but the world, the dunyā. The idea of the world as a sealed-off totality legitimates the idea of the political space as an autonomous space of action, which in turn renders the political space a space of pure power.
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All praise is for Allah—Lord of all worlds,1
In describing our existential situation, Martin Heidegger speaks of man as being-in-the-world. I am not referring to the world as that physical-temporal object that is external to the mind. Rather, “The world is what we perceive.” In other words, the nature of the world in which we find ourselves depends on our attitude towards the world, which is grounded in our perceptions of the world. I suggest we extend this insight, drawing on the Qur’an, to two existential situations: and states: being-in-the-dunyā and being-in-the-‘alam. Thus, one can perceive the world in one of two senses: the world as a closed dunyā or the world as an open ‘alam. These represent two radically different existential orientations which, being existential, determine our perception and relation to the world.
The dunyā, which means that which is drawn near to consciousness, is the world of alienation, concealment, and diversion. It is the closed world and as such, is fetishized in that it appears to be absolute and self-sustaining (al-istighna). It alienates man from his God-given primordial self (the fitra) and, in turn, alienates man from God. The Qur’an describes the dunyā as groundless. The Qur’ān encapsulates this groundlessness with the term bāṭil, which denotes a lack, or what is ephemeral in its duration in contradistinction to the stability of haqq, or truth. Bāṭil is characterized by hāwa, which connotates falling or emptiness as in the case of the noun hāwiyyah, which means an abyss. The dunyā, as the Qur’ān describes, is the ever-ephemeral world of illusions beset by desire. It is groundless because it lacks permanent grounds (i.e., exteriority, which means that which is beyond itself, such as immutable laws or God.)
On the other hand, the ‘alam, which means ‘sign’, is that world that points to the grandeur of God. The Moroccan philosopher Taha ‘Abd ar-Rahman expresses when he distinguishes between man as a vertical being and man as a horizontal being: al-inwijād wherein man dwells in one world (the seen, divorced from the unseen, the transcendent) and al-tawājud wherein man dwells in two words, the seen and the unseen. The task at hand is to transcend the closed dunyā in our drive towards the Sublime (See forthcoming essay, Islam and the Meta-Order).