Post on 02-Jun-2018
transcript
8/10/2019 Fazlur Rahman Dr
1/2
BOOK
R VI WS
Jean Jacques
Waarde~bnrg
L'ISLAM D ANS LE MIRR AIR DE L'OCCIDENT.
Mouton Co.. Par isand Hague. 1963. pp.
XVI.
374.
The author of this work (from the inside of whose ti tl e page i t appears tha t
this is th e second edi tion) is a Dutch scholar of the Histo ry of Religion and is no t
an Ialamist-indeed, he does not claim t o know even the Arabic language. The
problem with which he is concerned i n this work also lies essentially in th e field
of Comparat ive Religion: How is i t possible for the follower of one religion to
come to a genuine and creative understandmg of another. It is, therefore.
primarily concerned with methodology. In the work under review the aut hor
has chosen as a test case th e attempts of the modern Wes t to understand Islam
and. hence, i t may be considered a practical application of thi s methodology-or.
rather. th e methodology is. so t o say, inductively supposed t o be inferred from
the actual instances provided in this book. Hence th e tit le of the book Islam
in the Mir ror of th e Occident .
The largest pa rt of t he work is devoted t o the life and work of five selected
Western -cholars of Islam-Goldziher. Snouck Hurgronje, Becker. Macdonald
and Massignon. Their life. background, nat ure and method of education, nature
and method of work on Islam and th ei r conclusions abo ut Islam are analysed in
great (and often repetitive) de tails. In each case i t is endeavoured to seek
out how the backgrounds-mental and otherwise-of these scholars have
coloured
their conclusions about Islam.
I
must confess tha t the author comes out with
certain start ling conclusions relative to th e five scholars studied. Among them.
he finds Massignon and Macdonald as coming nearest to the fufilment of his
requirements for creative study of another religion. About Massignon, he
asserts that he had identified himself with the object of his research. i.e. al-
Hal lej and Sufis in general. The only question is whether the selections of
al-Hallaj and Sufis in general as Islam or as representatives of Islam is itself not
ut te r subjectivism. Similarly, to sta te abou t Macdonald th at he mentally went
ou t of his own milieu and discovered t he 'Creator-God' of Islam by Whom he
was spiritually overwhelmed . seems t o me a dere lic tio n of al l standards of
objective appreciation-particularly when th e missionary Macdonald firmly
held th at Chris tianity was infini tely superior to Islam. (We are not. of course.
questioning here the
schol rship
ei ther of Massignon or of Macdonald) .
This raises th e basic quest ion of what i s th e object of studying another
religion than one's own? Is it pure. objective scholarship-irrespective of whether
this is achievable or completely achievable or not? Or, is i t in order
to create a
sympathetic understanding a t a human level
Or, thirdly, is it in order to enrich
one's own religious heritage Or , finally, is
it
in order t o create something
new
Numerous sta tements of the auth or interspersed al l over the book lend
support to each of the above alternatives.
H e not only insistently repeats th at
objectivity is absolutely requisite b ut thi s seems t o be t he legacy of the ent ire
Islamic Studies (Islamabad) 5:3 (1966)
Dr Muhammad Hamidullah Library, IIU, Islamabad. http://iri.iiu.edu.pk/
8/10/2019 Fazlur Rahman Dr
2/2
exercise of th is work.
On the other hand, he explicitly states th at i t is neither
possible nor desirable for the
studen t of another religion to be denuded of an
ini tia l point of view (see especialIy p. 324)-which. of course, must colour his
appreciation. There are other ques tions of a similar nature which arise from the
book bu t t o which i t is difficult t o give a satisfactory answer. Hi s decided
preference for Massignon and Macdonald t o the scholarly performance
(although
th is is a t times mixed with sarcasm, no dou bt) of Goldziher and Snouck Hu gr on je
would seem t o argue that appreciation of religious phenomena is something
over
and above th at of merely historical or sociological facts on th e other hand. he
explicitly rejects tha t there is a particula r "religious dimension" t o facts or their
appreciation and proclaims th at religious appreciation "arises ou t of" the consi-
dera tion of facts (pp. 319-20) H e also nowhere defines what a religious fact is.
In th e circumstances, we cannot do be tte r than state the process of religious
appreciation as the author himself has described i t to us. This is contained in the
last chapter of the book.
To "comprehend," according t o the author, is much more th an t o "know".
Afte r a knowledge of detailed facts, one has t o discover (project ? a coherence
in to these facts ao tha t they make a "whole". In the soul of th e researcher.
there mu st be an "openness (ouverture)" for the phenomenon studied and the
phenomenon studied mu st also "open itself up" to the menta l eye of the resear-
cher. There is no special method of religious research, which distinguishes i t
from other forms
of scientific research. nor is there a special dimension which
makes us appreciate religious facts in a way other than , say, scientific facts.
There must be no preconceived prejudices or depreciation of the phenomenon
studied; otherwise, there will be no mutual "openness". There has to be. how-
ever, an init ial po int of view, as we have seen before. But there must be to ta l
"epochy" or suspension of judgement on th e p ar t of the subject (p. 322). The
subject mus t be "attracted" or "drawn" by the power of the object and the former
mu st exhibi t a tota1:absence of spiri tua l act ivi ty in face of the religious phenome-
non. Among the objective facts of a religion. certain aspects have t o be "selected"
as central. Thus, in th e case of Islam. the concept of Allah. th e God, th e centre
of human activity, pervasive and transcendent, in Whom there is a sense of tota l
dependence, must be given th e central weight. (One wonders if this is quite true
of al-HallHj and his disciple Massignon ).
Th e question of all questions is, no doubt, what is the criterion of selecting
cent ral concepts of a religion and structur ing them. The book of Jean-Jacquea
Waardenburg is extremely interesting because i t raises all these questions a t
once. Th e di fficulties that we have underlined are no t so much criticisms of
Dr. Waardenburg but represent a frame-work of so many tensions endemic t o
the field of comparative religion-for al l study of a foreign religion is in the final
analysis an exercise in comparative religion. These difficulties are no t perhaps
so much objections to be answered or impediments to be removed bu t constitu te
genuine tensions within a healthy balance of which lies the hope for a fruitful
inter-religious dialogue for humanity.
RAWALPINDI
FAZLUR RAHMAN