Islamic Humanism ﷽ An alternative for thinking Islamic theology today 1 One of the great challenges of Islam, as a dīn and as a civilizational model, is to re- turn to humanism. In the last two centuries there has been a global move- ment that has brought humanity to a crossroad: individualism, materialism and nihilism are three of its products. The Cre- ation of Allāh, the Most High, has been reduced to an exploitable quantity while the world faces an environmental crisis ANTONIO DE DIEGO GONZÁLEZ 1 that is intimately linked to the spiritual cri- Junta Islámica de España sis we endure. Human beings have forgotten their role as Allāh's Caliphs (vicegerents) to instead become a new Pharaohs who think they have power, but in fact, they have nothing. The forgetful- ness of humanism, along with ethics (akhlaq) and moral values, is a reality that we may pay dearly in the coming decades. The philosophy of Modernity and, later, the postmodernity, from its constructivism and social cynicism, has managed to hide the metaphysical thought that, builds the spiritual experience: good, beauty and truth. These are transcendentals that most spiritual traditions have identified with at- tributes of the divine. 1Antonio de Diego González (1986). He is vice-president and imam-khatib of Junta Islámica de España and Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Universidad Pablo de Olavide (Seville, Spain). PhD. in Philosophy (University of Seville, 2016). He is executive director of Fundación Las Fuentes and the Ibn Masarra Forum of Islamic Thought in Cordoba. He is the author of a large number of publications on Islamic history and thought, including the books Sufismo Negro (2019) and Populismo Islámico (2020). - 2 - There have been ideologies, in recent thought simplified to simple "finite and years, that have tried to eliminate meta- quantitative existence" what traditional physical and symbolic thought —imaginal humanism and personalism consider a thought, as Henry Corbin2 would say— in "deep ontological reality", a reality with a pursuit of a longed-for progress, with to- fundamental metaphysical weight in Cre- tally messianic ideologies and with the ation (khalq). However, this is how this project of reaching the end of history matter is expressed in the Qur’an: whatever the cost, of reaching a paradise on earth. An end of history that would And when thy Lord said to His an- mean the apparent triumph of the human gels, "I will set up a caliph in the being over the metaphysical, the triumph land", they said, "You will set up of reason against evil and unreason, but one who will corrupt it and shed history would end up showing us that both blood, while we exalt you with projects lacked ethics and empathy to- praise and sanctify you. And He wards diversity. Projects which ultimately said, "Surely I know that which ye lacked spirituality to achieve an objective know not. (Qur’an, 2: 222) that is, without a doubt, beyond the worldly world (dunya). This ayah, moreover, exposes the unfath- omable nature (quddūsiyya) of the Both, modern and postmodern thought decision of Allāh, the Most High towards are opposite and equal, these were techni- the human being: the human being above fied ideologies, projected to turn nature his mistakes is placed by Him, may His and people into a sort of machines. A de- names be exalted. That is why the human sire that turned physical nature, which being transcends the biological sphere — ceased to be symbol and metaphor, into a as the French philosopher Emmanuel simple, totally dominatable mechanical Mounier explains in his famous work on system. If we were capable of dominating personalist philosophy4— to surpass him- and subduing nature, how could we not do self and become a "person", through a the same with human beings? It was only voluntary and conscious evolutionary act, necessary to apply pure ideology and thus to, subsequently, try to communicate it with everything, the result has been the tri- through love. umph of populism.3 Postmodern thought undervalues the role of the human being, Islam understands love (ḥubb) as the seed, his ethics and, above all, his spirituality. with all its potentiality, that can make the Postmodern thought has too much of the sane heart (lubb) green, that can become person, as a moral and spiritual evolution the way of communication and connec- of the human being and is uncomfortable tion with others. Or at least this is the way with humanism. it has been proposed over the centuries in the Islamic tradition. This kind of love, the The crisis of humanism, on a global scale, ḥubb, is constructive and raises the possi- also goes hand in hand with a lack of bility of empathizing through the cosmic moral empathy towards "the other" and a rhythm (āqalb, which shares root with questioning of the sacred dimension of hu- heart: qalb) that Allāh, the Most High, man life as a "transcendental existent". marks in His creation. Modern thought has been reduced to an- thropocentrism the profound experience And it should not surprise us that it is the of living in creation. While postmodern human being who is the subject that 2 See his great work L'imagination créatrice dans le soufisme d'Ibn ‘Arabi (1958), in which he approaches the mystic from Murcia with a brilliant hermeneutics of the symbol and a fascinating mystical geography where the sensitive and the intelligible meet. 3 See De Diego González, Populismo Islámico (2020). 4 Mounier, Le Personalisme, p. 85. Tafsira - Papeles de diálogo teológico | nº 1, January 2022| ISSN: 2792-8551 < http://foroibmasarra.juntaislamica.org/tafsira> - 3 - perceives and measures of all this experi- intended to be imposed by force, but for ence. The caliph of Allāh is the person, believers to recognize it (ta'rif) as the fitra, who has already become aware of his own the primordial nature, realizing, paradoxi- consciousness, in the consciousness of the cally, its material finitude and its infinitude of Allāh (taqwa). For he knows metaphysical infinitude. —as Ibn ‘Arabi tells us in a reflection on the origins and creation of the human However, also in the dīn of Islam, human- body— that his caliphate is on earth, but ism has been replaced by ideology. An neither in the heavens nor in the Garden ideology makes people believe that it is to come.5 about justice or the social dimension, but it lacks empathy and is based on its own In the dīn of Islam, the decadence of hu- communitarianism and nationalistic inter- manism has been accompanied by a ests. In it the human being as a person degradation of theological and intellectual does not matter when it becomes a value, production. It is a kind of doctrinal mate- a number, and the same with nature. This rialism and a false literalism that hides an has caused considerable damage in the Is- essentialist and ideological proposal very lamic world. typical of Modernity. The last two centu- ries —with luminous exceptions in the However, orthodox Islamic theology has peripheries of the Arab world as West Af- been incapable of reacting to this reality rica or Indian Subcontinent— have and, in the last fifty years, there are hardly offered short-sighted and impoverished vi- any theological developments that can re- sions of what Islam can offer. The ritual, spond to the decadence of humanism and with all its symbolic complexity, was re- its derivatives: environmental problems, duced to a simple daily praxis, while the bioethical challenges, ethics of coexist- intellectual was subjugated by the political ence, etc. It seems as if Islam has become and ideological. The human being, as the stagnant in the scholastic and museistic centre of the Islamic spiritual experience, experience of the Holy Word, and few un- has been supplanted by a self-interested vi- derstand that both the Qur’an and the sion of the community directed towards a Sunna are realities to be lived fully and be- populist end and giving an apparent sense yond ideologies and worldly politics. They of security in the face of the challenge of are paths to be built and constructed. the spiritual journey (sayr). Could humanism be a way for Muslims to- Islam, for hundreds of thousands of people day to rediscover and recognize the in the world, is no longer an individual spiritual and social dimension of Islam? process of recognizing (ta‘rif) the signs of This is something I propose to discuss in Reality (ḥaqīqa), but a subjugation to a this paper from three different spheres: the worldly power that claims to have an in- person, the social world and the lived terpretation of what is divine (ilahiya). A world, three basic points to begin a great process in which reason (‘aql) ceases to be spiritual revolution. useful to the dīn from desires (aḥwān) and sentimentality, so typical of blind imita- tion (taqlīd), becoming tools of social 2 control. And, if we look at the Sunna, the social ethics of the Prophet ﷺ was so far The person (shajṣun) is the centre of spir- removed from that, for in his political life itual experience in Islam. It is true that he never used these kinds of strategies. In- Allāh is the centre of Reality (ḥaqīqa), but terestingly, Islam, from its birth, presented it is the person who experiences it and to itself as a holistic reality that was not whom the revelation was descended. He is 5 Ibn ‘Arabi, Futuḥāt, Vol. 1, p. 374. Tafsira - Papeles de diálogo teológico | nº 1, January 2022| ISSN: 2792-8551 < http://foroibmasarra.juntaislamica.org/tafsira> - 4 - no longer the biological human being, but normative reading as opposed to a theol- an existent who has become conscious of ogy where the ancient transcendentals, the Reality of the sacred (mutaqīn). At the especially beauty, prevailed. same time, he is confronted with the sym- bols through which the sacred manifests So, literalist and essentialist tendencies, es- itself and, moreover, he benefits from it pecially Salafism and Wahhabism, immediately or under a promise of salva- institutionalized a morality of prohibition tion. and a politics of institutionalized ugliness masked in virtue and austerity.7 This situ- The absolute model of person is the ation was enough to displace the person as prophet Muhammad ﷺ, whom tradition the subject of the Islamic experience, obvi- identifies with al-insān al-kāmil (the per- ously limiting the possibility of developing fect man), is the one who had even an Islamic humanism. embodied the descended revelation itself (tanzil). And in the face of that gift of the At that point, the believer ceased to be an sacred, he transmitted it to mankind as a asset, a focal point, and became the target new (bashira). The human being when he of criticism, the criminal, wrongdoer of all becomes a person, as it happened to the evil. Salafist theologies presented the hu- Messenger ﷺ, needs to annihilate his ego man being as a deviant, fallen being, far (nafs) and give through love (ḥubb) build- from what "a Muslim should be" living — ing both in intimacy and socially. according to them— in a corrupt world. Therefore, this experience is never selfish The nature of the person, for the Salafists, because this subject is annihilated by is not that of a creative potentiality but of Allāh, the Most High, it only seeks to re- a corrupting potentiality that must be produce the gift given through raḥma stopped by returning to a past time, to a (potential matriciality) in the likeness of lost paradise. In this way, the believer does the divine. A raḥma that is projected into not enjoy a present time, but lives in an the future that comes into tension with the eternal nostalgia. Normally these theolog- eternal present of Allāh, may all His ical proposals go hand in hand with a names be exalted. communitarian vision of the political, that is, a nationalistic experience that reduces Omid Safi in his anthology Radical Love empathy with the global world. For this (2018) raised how all this approach was reason, in this way of living Islam, the be- not alien to the Islamic tradition, as it had liever remains halfway to achieving been developed in Sufism (taṣawuff), fulfilment and, above all, to reaching spir- which with names like Rumi or Ibn itual fulfilment. The believer is often ‘Arabi, among others, had realized all this weighed down by a puritanical moral out- and had developed it doctrinally and, look and the fear of acting freely takes hold more intimately, as a path of travel. A path of him. Hence this proposal, based on the of travel that these same authors, espe- previous theological orientation, has been cially the Sufi master Ibn ‘Arabi, had to fertile ground for a type of ideology —as complement with the juridical protection Khaled Abou El Fadl explains— that that Islam offered both to the individual seeks to redeem the sins of "the others" and to society: the sharia.6 with violence, whether symbolic or physi- cal. This arises from frustration with a Khaled Abou El Fadl, for his part, points world that provokes an unhealthy nostal- out that Modernity had a very negative in- gia for what morally should be and, unable fluence on the Islamic epistemological to change it, must carry out a cathartic act: structure and generated a puritanical and 6 Ibn ‘Arabi, Futuḥāt, Vol. 8, pp. 160-171. 7 Abou El-Fadl, Reasoning with God, pp. 271-276. Tafsira - Papeles de diálogo teológico | nº 1, January 2022| ISSN: 2792-8551 < http://foroibmasarra.juntaislamica.org/tafsira> - 5 - an execution or a bombing.8 It is the an- (‘ibāda) that is remembrance of Allāh nulment of the "other", of the person who (dhikr). These practices are the formers of must walk his own path and make mis- the path of transformation, the change of takes to get up again. The absence of consciousness towards Creation (khalq) empathy and raḥma towards the other is a through ritual praxis such as prayers sign that the person and his dignity, as cre- (ṣalāt) or fasting (ṣawm) with a clear voca- ated by Allāh, is of no importance to him. tion of personal purification. After this, the subject begins the journey to become a To return to an Islamic theology of the person with a very particular ‘ibāda: the person (shajṣun) means to revalue the hu- zakat, which is, in itself a profound act of man being not as a "corrupt being" but as purification of personal goods and social a "being with creative potential", as stated justice, which leads the individual to live in the Qur’anic verse quoted in the previ- the akhlaq (ethics). And this is where spir- ous epigraph. He is not just a passive ituality and ethics meet in the Sunna, the being, but a "being-towards-Allāh". The second part of the shahada from the free- human being has limitations, failures, but dom that gives a believer the complete Allāh, the Most High, keeps for Himself surrender (tawakkul) to Allāh, the Most something that we do not know what it is. High. This is part of the mystery, so necessary in a theological approach. The Qur’an says: It is of little use for us to know and be "We created the human being by mould- learned with the ancient texts if we are ing him in the most beautiful way and then then incapable of interiorizing them, of We made in him the lowest of the low doing —as Henry Corbin explains (Qur’an 95: 4-5)". But, on the other hand, throughout his work9— ta‘wīl, hermeneu- the human being can reflect and enhance tic exegesis with our heart (qalb), that raḥma that Allāh, the Most High, has interiorizing and transforming ourselves for creation and, at the same time, be able with the sacred word of the Qur’an. to translate it to others. That is the mu- hammadian model that Islam proposes, in For this reason, materialism and individu- which the remembrance (tadhkira) of alism are set aside when we approach the Allāh builds the actions if the human be- person from the person, because we can- ing recognizes that he is not only himself, not quantify that person or his or her but that he is part of a creation. Therefore, experience. Each person is unique, excep- ethics (akhlaq) is innate to the human be- tional and must build himself. Once he ing and does not end in normativity but is begins this journey, he must apply these projected as an act of creation (khalq). The experiences, more than knowledge, to so- human being is sacred insofar as he comes ciety. The community of believers from a divine creation, hence his actions (jama‘at) will only be possible if this trans- (‘amal) are as important and as his inten- formation has taken place, otherwise it tions (nīya). will be another type of political commu- nity, but not a community of sincere The person (shajṣun), from the Islamic ex- believers. For it demands a profound re- perience, cannot be built without sponsibility towards the other that even if spirituality or ethics (akhlaq). It needs I cannot know him completely —para- both to achieve its completeness, both are phrasing the Jewish philosopher the two parts of the shahada: the divine Emmanuel Levinas — I have to serve him. presence and human praxis. In the same way that spirituality, at least in Islam, is But it is not a servitude of recognition not only mystical, but involves a rituality (‘ubudiyya), but one that is done out of 8 Abou El-Fadl, Reasoning with God, pp. 268-269. 9 Corbin, L'imagination créatrice, 1958. Tafsira - Papeles de diálogo teológico | nº 1, January 2022| ISSN: 2792-8551 < http://foroibmasarra.juntaislamica.org/tafsira> - 6 - love (maḥabba) and out of full empathy. purification (tazkiyya) of our ego (nafs) This is not just an experience for believers and even, already established as a person but is universal. This is how the generous (shajṣun), we contemplate others as such Qur’an mentions the matter to us: without the community (jama‘at), without the social world we are nothing. Without Verily those who are pacified and this community, Islamic humanism would believing, obedient and sincere, pa- be non-existent. Islam is a social dīn, the tient, humble, generous, fasting, Sunna emphasizes it to us, and the Qur’an and modest, who remember Allāh confirms it. It is not an ordinary group, but so much, whether they are men or the community demands deeper processes women, Allāh keeps for them for- of empathy and fraternity, for it is not getfulness of their faults and an about politics but about alignment of in- exalted reward. (Qur’an, 33: 35) tentions. This qur’anic ayah speaks about the paci- The community that emerges from the fied (muslimīn) and the believers Sunna of the Messenger ﷺ is a challenge (mu’minīn) as people who have become in these times where individualism and and "Allāh keeps for them the oblivion of lack of solidarity is gaining space. How- their faults and a lofty reward", a reality ever, Islam proposes a social space in that we can understand as a profound which to live and rejects, outright, asceti- plenitude, beyond the material. Beyond cism, celibacy, monasticism and other cultures, imposed morals and interested "negative excesses". These are not options ideological readings. within the Sunna of the Prophet ﷺ, they are not viable for a full social life. It is not The person (shajṣun), so full of taqwa, about denying a person's life (shajṣun), takes his caliphate towards the Creation once he has become one, but about shar- (khalq). And it is from there that he tries ing it with others, it is not about, for to remind, being a servant (‘abd), that Cre- example, restricting sexuality or affective ation of the command of Allāh, the Most life, on the contrary, it is about aligning it High, to sayyidina Adam (as) and of the towards Creation (khalq). Thus explains Messenger ﷺ, facing a thousand hostili- the imām al-Kasānī, an important Hanafi ties, but with the certainty that he fulfils jurist, that both spouses have a mutual His command. It is impossible for the right —based on the Sunna— to sexual en- community and the social to function if joyment except for the exceptions that human being does not recognize his provided for in the sharia.10 And the fact is brothers as people with the capacity to as- that conjugal or family life is the first step sume the command and, at the same time, of the social sphere of the human dimen- a defiant moral autonomy that leads them sion of life. So, with all aspects of social to walk the straight path (ṣirāt al-mus- life, because the sincere believer under- taqīm). Assuming this, assuming the stands that the social sphere co- person makes life neither absurd nor participates with his personal sphere —alt- empty, but sacred and enveloped with a hough it does not invade it— and, in most unique mission that Allāh, the Most High, cases, improves it. This is another reason has written for all of us. why the dīn of Islam is eminently human- istic because the social sphere becomes a preferential space for personal develop- 3 ment. The believer, while perfecting himself as a person in privacy, socializes, No matter how much we perfect the inner shares, builds, and improves his relation- work, that we give ourselves to the ships in the public space. 10 Al-Kasānī, Badā'i al-Sanā'i, 2:331. Tafsira - Papeles de diálogo teológico | nº 1, January 2022| ISSN: 2792-8551 < http://foroibmasarra.juntaislamica.org/tafsira> - 7 - believers (mu’minin), once purified and Justice (‘adl) is the key value in under- oriented towards ‘ibāda, to share these ex- standing all this, but equally so is humility periences for and with others. This (khushu’). Without both, a person's social experience is what we might call Islamic experience is wasted. And at the same humanism, it is what enables us to go be- time, we have to try to reflect the divine yond ourselves to understand that the raḥma, which is able to green that waste- sacred, revelation and symbol cannot just land of experience. Because the raḥma is remain within us, but is a shared heritage. the potential matriciality so that those ac- And, at the same time, it is a mechanism tions are blessed even if they seem far from in the face of the tyranny of unreason and what we mean by spirituality. Hence, so- the reign of taqlīd, of blind imitation, cial ‘ibādah such as zakat or ḥajj is as which is so much in vogue in this post- purifying as personal ‘ibādah: prayers or modern world. It is spirituality that invests fasting. The social ‘ibāda purifies and im- tradition so that it becomes a necessary proves us by projecting raḥma into the reference, it is ma'rifa (recognition, deep public space. The social, the public, adapts knowledge) that allows us to look again to the human being with the 'ibāda and and recognize the multiplicity of the hu- achieves that the raḥma is, finally, shared man and its convergence in the experience in coexistence. The sharia is presented as of tawḥīd (uniqueness) that believers rec- the path to follow, the method to coexist ognize in the dīn of Islam. with the diversity that the Most High has given us. The prophetic experience, the Sunna, inte- grated, like few others, in addition to these That is why the social space is a place spiritual experiences, the experience of in- where we live together. We live together, terculturality and diversity. Islam, in its we think together, and we build together. beginnings and in its classical develop- We cannot run away from it. That is why ments, was never nationalist or a good approach is humanism, which in- communitarian, it is not a spiritual experi- vites us to live the fullness, to experience ence based on a pact but on the totality and to understand that in front of transmission of a universal and symbolic us there are people with the same depth as message for all humanity. us. They are not just indeterminate num- bers, but beings with potential, with spirit It is not enough to say that only we are the and with the capacity to transform. It is chosen ones, but we work so that this sal- more than a moral space, it is an authentic vation —in the worldly world through the vital space where to be free with Allāh, the Sunna and in the world to come through Most High, surrendered to Him. actions— can be intuited by every person on earth through our akhlaq (ethics) and Convivencia, like that practiced by our An- our adāb (manners). Therefore, the social dalusian ancestors, starts from sphere is essential as it constitutes the understanding the other, from accepting space where spirituality takes real space, their otherness and from respecting what the mystical ceases to be elevated and be- He has dictated. But how can this be done comes concrete to be the present of Allāh in a world with an enormous lack of spir- on earth.11 It is of no use to be mystical, if ituality? afterwards the heart does not burst before the injustice towards others and towards Sincere spirituality is the link between the the Creation (khalq) with which Allāh, the individual and the social as it acts as a Most High, has blessed us. symbolic translator. It is this that enables us, as full persons (shajṣunin) and 11 From Diego Gonzalez, Khutbas of Dar al Rum, pp. 197-198. Tafsira - Papeles de diálogo teológico | nº 1, January 2022| ISSN: 2792-8551 < http://foroibmasarra.juntaislamica.org/tafsira> - 8 - This is why the human being, and his so- It is He Who descends water from cial projection must approach the living heaven: from it you drink, and with world as something sacred, as a reflection it emerges the pasture for your cat- of the sacred, of the quddusiyya (unfath- tle, with it grows grain, olive trees, omability) of the command of Allāh, the palm trees, vines, and all fruits. A Most High. Our commitment, our actions, Sign is, indeed, for people who med- our decisions only benefit and harm our- itate. It rules the night and the day, selves, as the Qur’an says: the sun and the moon, and the stars for your benefit. A Sign is indeed for And no one will bear the burden of the people who meditate. And for another, but if anyone is overbur- you he hath multiplied on earth dened, he shall not be helped, even many colors. A Sign is indeed for if he is a family. Only warn those the people who accept the admoni- who are humble before their Lord in tion. (Qur’an, 16: 10-13). secret and establish their ṣalāt. Whoever purifies himself, purifies It is a beautiful multiplicity to know His himself for his own benefit. And it is greatness, to allow ourselves to be in awe towards Allāh the ultimate destina- of His designs, to understand that without tion. (Qur’an, 35: 18) this world we could not exist. Humanism towards the lived world supposes recog- Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was charged only nizing this multiplicity as necessary for the to warn us those who were left and was ex- human being and recognizing the great- plicitly told, as the above verse confirms, ness that he possesses thanks to His that in Islam no one can intercede or bear mandate. It is an apparently simple exer- the burden of what others did. This is true cise, but it hides a great show of humility. humanism: the responsibility is one's own, In Islam, humanism means, precisely, ad- but the impact and legacy are everyone's mitting that we are not the centre of the in this worldly world, in this lived world. Universe, but, on the other hand, that we are a primordial reality and responsible for Creation. So, responsibility weighs more 4 than metaphysical protagonist itself. The living world is our responsibility, Therefore, in the journey towards the per- there cannot be an authentic humanism son (shajṣun) there is a moment of which does not have a sincere and deep humility, of recognizing the Creation look at our immediate reality. Once we as- (khalq) and of becoming aware of the liv- sume our personal work and its social ing world. Otherwise, we arrive at the correlate, after rethinking the concept of paradox and nightmare of Modernity: community and understanding that with- since the world we live in is pure machine, out coexistence there is no way to Allāh, it we have little value to give it and much use is time to face the lived world. A world to make of it. We can quantify everything formed by chemistry and physics, by ani- and thus it loses its value. mals and plants, by a visible reality so strong that it envelops us, protects us, and Ibn ‘Arabi said in his Futuḥāt that the threatens us, a reality before which we are Earth —the essence of this living world of amazed. For if there was diversity in soci- which we spoke— had been molded from ety, the human being is surprised by the the vivified clay left over from the creation diversity in nature: of Adam (as).12 It shares life with what is most precious in the human being, in this symbolic sense, the Earth shares in human 12 Ibn ‘Arabi, Futuḥāt, Vol. 1, pp. 379-387. Tafsira - Papeles de diálogo teológico | nº 1, January 2022| ISSN: 2792-8551 < http://foroibmasarra.juntaislamica.org/tafsira> - 9 - nature and it is Ibn ‘Arabi himself who ex- date palms and so many different ce- horts the human being to respect it as a reals grove, olive groves and sister, leaving implicit a hadith that he ex- pomegranate trees so similar, so dif- plains to us: ferent. When they bear fruit, eat them, but give a little on the day of Do not hate one another, do not harvest. And do not waste it, for in- envy one another, do not forsake deed He loveth not those who waste one another, so be servants of Allāh it. (Qur’an, 6: 141) as brothers. It is not lawful for you to be angry with your brother for Creation, the living world, is our responsi- more than three days (Sunan Abu- bility as it has been entrusted to us by Dawud, 4910). Allāh, the Most High. The caliphate of the human being is to become aware that the Ibn ‘Arabi suggests this should give us an living world is to be listened to and pro- opportunity for thought. Because in the tected in the same way as we would do following lines, with a beautiful poem, he with ourselves, as did, in his time, the warns us that the human being tends to Messenger of Allāh ﷺ. Indeed, Allāh, the fight against himself and the Earth itself Most High does not love those who waste and is ungrateful to creation. And the fact His Creation for their own benefit, for the is that this is a blessed space, ready to be harm they create only harms themselves. discovered, to be lived, to which we give Thus, the Qur’an says: "Evil only harms little importance due to our lack of aware- oneself and no one shall bear the burden ness towards deep knowledge (ma‘rifa). It of others (Qur’an, 6: 164)". is the Earth that serves us, and we should serve it. Symbolically the Earth has infi- And this, like a circle that returns to its be- nite possibilities, infinite baraka given by ginning, indicates to us that the lack of Allāh, the Most High. And it is the divine savouring (dhawq) of the lived world is law —according to Ibn ‘Arabi— that pro- due, fundamentally, to a lack in its con- vides it the opportunity to consider it. It is struction as a person (shajṣun) and, pure symbolism, in beautiful words, what therefore, the inability to understand the Ibn ‘Arabi transmits to us in Futuḥāt that importance of the common good questions a finite vision. And although it (maṣlaha) at the social world. How can we is a symbolic, allegorical plea, it allows us build ourselves, singular and plural at the to see what is in that deep Earth so closely same time, if we are not able to contem- linked to our mundane world. Can we re- plate the lived world? How is it possible duce our world to simple materialism? that we wait for the beauty that is to come if afterwards we are not able to contem- However, many philosophers and scien- plate the instant? tists, over the centuries, have added to that vision, belittling the metaphysical experi- The lived world has no material limits if ence of the lived world in search of an the believer wants to understand and alt- idea, a material vision, or simply control hough it is an accumulation of signs —and in a desire to quantify Creation. Thus, so this is emphasized throughout the many contemporary ideologies challenge, Qur’an— it converges into a symbol. Our with an extractive perspective, our respon- responsibility to this lived world is total, it sibility to the world. Haughty visions is fundamental to following the dīn of Is- towards nature, incapable of building lam as a path of fulfilment and return to something beyond. And yet, the Qur’an Allāh, the Most High. Spirituality and eth- says: ics, that converges in the Sunna, are the necessary tools to realize all this. And it is And it is He who made gardens with now that we should develop a methodol- vineyards and others without them, ogy, an approach so that this becomes an Tafsira - Papeles de diálogo teológico | nº 1, January 2022| ISSN: 2792-8551 < http://foroibmasarra.juntaislamica.org/tafsira> - 1 0 - experience for everyone, an experience of the divine, but without being trapped wholeness. (jadhba) in this dimension. Therefore, humanism cannot be built 5 without a balancing of the reason (‘aql) and the heart (qalb). The great poet and The main idea of this text was a question, scholar Muhammad Iqbal said in a beau- which asked whether we should return to tiful poem that narrates the confrontation humanism in Islam. And the fact is that between the reason and the heart, and in this work, which is a document of analy- which, finally, the heart obtains a final vic- sis, does not pretend to be a truth but a tory because of its divine nature and its beginning to start questioning each one of capacity to understand more subtle reali- us about the situation of our dīn. How- ties.13 But this final victory of the heart, ever, I would like to give some sort of that of a heart that receives the mundus im- conclusions on the above three points that aginalis described by Corbin14, is not could serve as a methodology. possible without the reason that questions it: "I am like the Khaḍir in the blessed Although some consider that Islam would stages, / I am like the interpreter of the need a process of Reform, in the style of Book of Life and it is through me that, that which took place in Protestant Chris- shining, the Divine Glory winnows".15 tianity, I do not believe that with a return to Tradition from a sincere and humble The human being needs both realities to hermeneutic. However, that return cannot subsist in each of the places (maqāmāt) on come without perceiving that tradition which we pass in our life. Iqbal, who was and humanism in the Islamic dīn are inti- a great humanist, knew that the reconcili- mately linked. The union of the two is an ation of both was necessary to be able to overcoming of ontological impoverish- build because reason alone tends towards ment in the consideration of the three ideology and idolatry (shirk) and the heart realities is a basic and minimal condition. alone tends towards jadhba, which in the And this is essential because the future of Islamic tradition is known as being "spirit- the dīn, and above all its credibility, is at ually raptured" and inaction. It is not a stake. matter of living in mysticism, but of apply- ing this attitude of spiritual awareness to First, humanism is an opportunity for all daily life. of us who call ourselves believers in a world in crisis because it represents the re- Secondly, tradition —understood as the turn and care for the person (shajṣun), the legitimate transmission of knowledge revaluation of the social space as a univer- from master to disciple— is a key part of sal community and, finally, the care for this. It is not simply the transmission of the earth are aspects that the Qur’an and any knowledge, but that which has a trans- the Sunna had already warned about. Vi- cendent character for the believer. For tal attitudes force us to position ourselves Muslims the Tradition is in the Sunna and and purify ourselves (tazkiyya) to subse- in all those who have revived it (tajdīd) up quently live them. Humanism, as such, to the present day. But, today, many ques- means regaining control of our caliphate tion this tradition, accusing it of being in worldly life (ḥayāt al-dunya) and appre- innovative and preferring conjunction be- ciating every moment, being grateful to tween authoritarian ideology and essentialist literalism. It is epistemological 13 Iqbal, Bāng-i-Drā, pp. 28-29. 14 Corbin, L'imagination créatrice, p. 224. 15 Iqbal, Bāng-i-Drā, p. 28. Tafsira - Papeles de diálogo teológico | nº 1, January 2022| ISSN: 2792-8551 < http://foroibmasarra.juntaislamica.org/tafsira>