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Chapter One
The topic of the present study are the causes that
lie behind materialist tendencies. Before we proceed with the discussion it is necessary
that we first define the word 'materialism,' as a term current in common usage, and
specify its exact meaning for the purpose of the present discussion.
The word 'materialism' has various usages and all of
them are not relevant to our study while studying the cause for materialist inclinations.
For example, at times 'materialism' is used to refer to the school of thought which
asserts the principiality of matter in the sense that matter is something fundamental
(asil) and real in the realm of existence and not something imaginary and mental, an
appearance and a product of the mind. In this sense it is opposed to 'idealism' which
negates the real existence of matter and considers it a mental construct. In this sense of
materialism, we would have to categorize all theists, both Muslims as well as non-Muslims,
as 'materialists,' because all of them consider matter—as a reality existing in space
and time and subject to change, transformation, and evolution, and which is also
perceivable and tangible—as an objective reality existing externally and
independently of the mind and having its own properties. Being a 'materialist' in this
sense does not contradict with the concept of God or monotheism. Rather, the material
world and nature as a product of creation constitute the best means for knowing God. The
workings of Divine will and wisdom are discovered in the transformations which take place
in matter, and the Holy Qur'an, too, refers to material phenomena as the 'signs' of God.
Sometimes this word is used to imply the negation of
supra-material being, as an exclusivist school of thought which considers existence and
the realm of being as confined to matter, confining being to the realm of the changeable
and limiting it to space and time. It negates the existence of all that does not fall
within the framework of change and transformation and is not perceivable by the sense
organs.
Our present discussion centres around the causes for
inclining towards this exclusivist school of thought, and the reasons why a group of
people became protagonists of this exclusivist and negative theory, negating God and
imagining anything outside the ambit of the material world as non-existent.
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This manner of posing the issue, i.e with the
question 'What are the causes for inclining towards materialism?,' suggests that we claim
that man by nature would not incline towards materialism, and that materialism is an
unnatural tendency opposed to human nature (fitrah). And since it goes against the rule,
it is necessary to seek its cause and to investigate the reasons which have led to the
violation of the rule.
To put it more simply, it implies that faith in God
is equivalent to the state of health, and the materialist tendency is equivalent to
disease. One never asks about the reasons of health, because it is in accordance with the
general course of nature. But if we come across a person or a group which is sick, we ask
as to why they are sick. What is the cause of their illness?
This viewpoint of ours is completely opposed to the
view usually expressed in books on history of religion. The writers of these books
generally tend to pursue the question, 'Why did man develop the religious tendency?'
In our opinion, the religious tendency does not need
to be questioned, because it is natural; rather, the question that needs to be examined is
why do human beings develop tendencies towards irreligion?
Presently we do not intend to pursue the argument
whether being religious is something natural and the lack of religion unnatural, or if the
converse is true, because we see no need for doing so from the point of view of the main
topic of our discussion.
However, it is worth noting that we do not mean
that, as the monotheistic tendency is natural and innate (fitrah), no questions arise when
the issue is dealt with at the intellectual and philosophical level. This is certainly not
meant. This matter is just like every other issue that naturally— and despite
affirmation by natural instinct—gives rise to questions, objections and doubts in the
mind of a beginner when posed at the rational level, and satisfying answers to them are
also available at that level.
Therefore, we neither intend to disregard the doubts
and ambiguities which do in fact arise for individuals, nor do we consider them
consequences of an evil disposition or ill-naturedness. Not at all. The emergence of
doubts and ambiguities in this context, when someone seeks to solve all the problems
related to this issue, is something natural and usual, and it is these doubts that impel
human beings towards further quest. Accordingly we consider such doubts which result in
further search for truth as sacred, because they constitute a prelude to the acquisition
of certitude, faith, and conviction. Doubt is bad where it becomes an obsession and
completely absorbs one's attention, as with some people whom we find enjoying the fact
that they are able to have doubt concerning certain issues and who consider doubt and
uncertainty to be the zenith of their intellectual achievement. Such a state is very
dangerous, contrary to the former state which is a prelude to perfection. Therefore, we
have said repeatedly that doubt is a good and necessary passage, but an evil station and
destination.
Our present discussion concerns the
individuals or groups who have made doubt their abode and final destination. In our
opinion, materialism, although it introduces itself as a dogmatic school of thought, is in
fact one of the sceptic schools. The Qur'an also takes this view of the materialists, and
according to it they are, at best, beset with a number of doubts and conjectures, but in
practice they flaunt them as knowledge and conviction. (… they follow only surmise, merely conjecturing. (6:116)
)
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This mode of thinking is not new or modern. It
should not be imagined that this mode of thought is a consequence of modern scientific and
industrial developments and has emerged for the first time during the last one or two
centuries, like many other scientific theories which did not exist earlier and were later
discovered by man. No, the materialist thinking among human beings is not a phenomenon of
the last few centuries, but is one of the ancient modes of thought. We read in the history
of philosophy that many ancient Greek philosophers who preceded Socrates and his
philosophical movement, were materialists and denied the supra-material.
Among the Arabs of the Jahillyyah contemporaneous to
the Prophet's ministry there was a group with a similar belief, and the Qur'an, while
confronting them, quotes and criticizes their statements:
They say, 'There is
nothing but our present life; we die, and we live, and nothing but time destroys us.'
(Al-Qur'an 45:24).
This statement, which the Qur'an ascribes to a group
of people, involves both the negation of God as well as the Hereafter.
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The word 'dahr' means time. Due to this verse and
the term dahr occurring in it, those who negated the existence of God were called
'dahriyyah' during the Islamic period. We encounter such people in Islamic history who
were dhari and materialists (maddi), especially during the reign of the
Abbassids, when
various cultural and philosophical trends entered the Islamic world.
Due to the freedom of thought which prevailed during
that period with respect to scientific, philosophical and religious ideas (of course, to
the extent that it did not contradict the policies of the Abbassids), some individuals
were formally known as materialists and atheists. These individuals debated with Muslims,
with the adherents of other religions, and with believers in the existence of God, and
presented their arguments and raised objections concerning the arguments of the
monotheists. Thus they did enter into dialogue and freely expressed their beliefs, and we
find their accounts recorded in Islamic works.
During the lifetime of Imam Sadiq, may Peace be upon
him, there were certain individuals who used to gather inside the Prophet's Mosque and
express such views. The book al-Tawhid al-Mufaddal is a product one of such episodes.
A companion of Imam Sadiq ('a) named al-Mufaddal ibn
'Umar narrates: "Once I was in the Prophet's Mosque. After prayer I became engrossed
in thought about the Prophet (S) and his greatness. Just then 'Abd al-Karim ibn Abi al
'Awja', who was an atheist (zindiq), came and sat down at some distance. Later another
person holding similar views pined him, and both of them started uttering blasphemies.
They denied the existence of God and referred to the Prophet (S) simply as a great thinker
and a genius and not as a Divine emissary and apostle who received revelations from an
Unseen source. They said that he was a genius who presented his ideas as revelation in
order to influence the people; otherwise there was no God, nor any revelation or
resurrection."
Mufaddal, who was greatly disturbed on hearing their
talk, abused them. Then he went to Imam Sadiq, may Peace be upon him, and narrated the
incident. The Imam comforted him and told him that he would furnish him with arguments
with which he could confront them and refute their views. Thereafter Imam Sadiq ('a)
instructed Mufaddal in the course of a few long sessions and Mufaddal wrote down the
Imam's teachings. This was how the book al-Tawhid al-Mufaddal came to be compiled.
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As we know, during the 18th and 19th centuries
materialism took the form of a school of thought which it did not have earlier. That which
is ascribed to some schools of ancient Greece does not have a proper basis. Usually the
writers of history of philosophy do not know philosophy, and when they come across certain
statements of some philosophers concerning the pre-eternity of matter or some other
opinions of the kind, they imagine that this amounts to the negation of God and the
supra-natural. It has not been established for us that there existed a materialist school
of thought before the modern age. Rather, what did exist earlier in Greece and elsewhere
were individual tendencies towards materialism.
However, this is what has led many people to suppose
that perhaps there is some direct relation between the emergence of materialism as a
school of thought and science and scientific advancements.
Of course, the materialists themselves make a great
effort to present the matter as such, and they try to convince others that the cause of
the growth and prevalence of materialism during the 18th and 19th centuries was the
emergence of scientific theories and that it was the spread of science which resulted in
mankind being drawn towards it. This observation resembles a joke more than any noteworthy
fact.
The inclination towards materialism in ancient times
existed both among the educated as well as the illiterate classes. In the modern age, too,
the case is similar. Materialists can be found in all classes, and likewise there are
theistic, spiritual and metaphysical inclinations in all classes and sections, especially
among the learned. If what the materialists claim were true, in the same proportion that
advances are made in science and great scientists are born in the world, there should be
an increase in the inclination towards materialism among the scholarly class, and
individuals possessing more scholarship should be greater materialists, while in fact this
is not the case.
Today, we see on the one hand some
well well-known personalities like Russell, who, to a large extent, present themselves as
materialists. He says, "Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the
end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and
his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms." (Irving William
Knobloch, The Evidence of God in an Expanding Universe, cf. Russell, Mysticism
and Logic (Penguin Bo oks
1953), "A Free Mans Worship" )Thus Russell rejects the existence of a conscious and intelligent power ruling
the universe, although at other places he avers to be a skeptic and an agnostic.
(See Russell, Mysticism and Worship, (Penguin Books
1953), "A Free Mans Worship", pp.50-59)
On the other hand, we find Einstein,
the twentieth century scientific genius, expressing an opinion opposed to that of Russell;
he says "You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific minds
without a religious feeling of his own ... His religious feeling takes the form of
rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such
superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings
is an utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life
and work, in so far as he succeeds in keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire.
It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of
all ages." (As the original source
of Einsteins statement quoted by the author was not accessible to the translator, a
parallel statement of his has been cited here from Ideas and Opinions by Albert
Einstein (Calcutta: Rup & Co, 1984, first published by Bonanza Books, New York),
based on Mein Weltbild, edited by Carl Seerling, trans and revised by Sonja
Bargmann, pp. 40 (Tr.) )
Can it be said that Russell is familiar with the
concepts of modern science whereas Einstein is ignorant of them? Or that a certain
philosopher of the 18th or l9th century was familiar with the scientific concepts of his
age whereas the theist Pasteur was unaware and ignorant of them?!
Or can we say that William James, the monotheist or
rather the mystic of his time, Bergson, Alexis Carrell and other such thinkers were
ignorant of the scientific ideas of their time and their thinking was in tune with the
ideas of a thousand years ago, while a certain Iranian youth who does not possess a tenth
of their knowledge and does not believe in God is familiar with the scientific ideas of
his age?!
At times one sees two mathematicians, one of whom
believes in God and religion while the other is a materialist, or for that matter two
physicists, two biologists, or two astronomers, one with a materialist and the other with
a theistic bent of mind.
Therefore, it is not that simple to say that the
advent of science has made metaphysical issues obsolete. That would be a childish
observation.
We need to centre our discussion more on the
question as to what were the factors that led to the emergence of materialism as a school
of thought in Europe, attracting a large number of followers, even though the 20th
century, in contrast to the 18th and 19th centuries, saw a decline in the advance of
materialism and in it materialism even met with a kind of defeat?
This large-scale drift has a series of historical
and social causes which require to be studied. I have come across some of these causes
during the course of my study which I shall mention here. Perhaps those who have done a
closer study of social issues, especially in the area of European history, would identify
other reasons and factors. Here I only intend to discuss the results of my study.
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The Church, whether from the viewpoint of the
inadequacy of its theological ideas, or its inhuman attitude towards the masses,
especially towards the scholars and freethinkers, is one of the main causes for the
drifting of the Christian world, and indirectly the non-Christian world, towards
materialism.
We will analyze this factor in two sections:
1. Inadequacies in the ideas of the Church
relating to God and the metaphysical.
2. The violent conduct of the Church.
Section 1
In the Middle Ages when the clerics became the sole
arbiters of issues relating to divinities, there emerged amongst them certain childish and
inadequate ideas concerning God which were in no way consonant with reality. Naturally,
these not only did not satisfy intelligent and enlightened individuals, but created in
them an aversion against theism and incited them against theist thought.
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The Church painted a human picture of God and
presented Him to the people in an anthropomorphic form. Those who were brought up to
conceive God with these human and physical features under the influence of the Church,
later, with advances in science, came to find that these ideas were inconsistent with
scientific, objective, and sound rational criteria.
On the other hand, the vast majority of people
naturally do not possess such power of critical analysis as to reflect over the
possibility that metaphysical ideas might have a rational basis and that the Church was
wrongly presenting them.
Thus when they saw that the views of the Church did
not conform to the criteria of science they rejected the issue outright.
There is a book titled The Evidence of God in an
Expanding Universe, consisting of forty articles by forty scientists belonging to various
fields of specialization, wherein each scholar has presented arguments proving the
existence of God in accordance with has own specialized area of study. This book has been
translated into Persian.
Among these scholars is Walter Oscar Lundberg, who
presents a scientific argument for the existence of God. In the course of his study he
examines why some people, including scholars, have developed a materialist tendency.
He mentions two causes of which one has been already
mentioned by us, inadequate ideas taught on this subject to the people in the church or at
home.
Our singling out the churches in this regard does
not mean to imply that those who give instruction on religious issues from our pulpits
(manabir) and mosques have always been informed and competent individuals who know what is
to be taught and possess an in-depth knowledge of Islam. One reason why we mention only
the church is that our discussion is about the causes behind materialist inclinations and
these tendencies existed in the Christian world and not in the Islamic environments.
Whatever materialism is found in Islamic societies has been, and is, the result of copying
and imitating the West. Secondly, there existed in the Islamic milieu a school of thought
at the level of philosophers and metaphysicians, which satisfied the intellectual needs of
the researchers and saved the scholars from the fate of their counterpart in Europe, while
there existed no such school within the Church.
In any case this is what Walter Oscar Lundberg says
There are various reasons for the
attention of some scholars not being drawn towards comprehending the existence of God
while undertaking scientific studies; we will mention just two of them here. The first
(reason) is the general presence of oppressive political and social conditions or
governmental structures which necessitate the negation of the existence of God. The second
(reason) is that human thinking is always under the impact of some vague ideas and
although the person himself may not undergo any mental and physical agony, even then his
thinking is not totally free in choosing the right path. In Christian families the
children in their early years generally believe in an anthropomorphic God, as if man has
been created in the image of God. These persons, on entering a scientific environment and
acquiring the knowledge of scientific issues, find that this weak and anthropomorphic view
of God does not accord with scientific concepts. Consequently, after a period of time when
the hope of any compromise is dashed, the concept of God is also totally discarded and
vanishes from the mind. The major cause of doing so is that logical proofs and scientific
definitions do not alter the past sentiments and beliefs of these persons, and it does not
occur to them that a mistake had taken place in the earlier belief about God. Along with
this, other psychic factors cause the person to become weary of the insufficiency of this
concept and turn away from theology. (Irving
William Knobloch, op. Cit, the article by Walter Oscar Lundberg)
Summarily, that which is observable in certain
religious teachings—and regrettably is also found amongst ourselves, to a more or
less extent—is that a characteristic concept is projected in the minds of children
under the name and label of 'God.' When the child grows up and becomes a scholar, he finds
that this concept is not rational and such a being cannot exist, whether it be God or
something else.
The child on growing up, without reflecting or
critically concluding that perhaps there might exist a valid conception, rejects the idea
of divinity altogether. He imagines that the concept of God he is rejecting is the same as
the one accepted by theists, and since he does not accept this creature of his own mind,
which is the product of popular superstition, he does not believe in God. He does not
notice that the concept of God which he is rejecting is also rejected by the theists, and
that his rejection is not the rejection of God but is the rejection of something that
ought to be rejected.
Flammarion in the book God and Nature observes:
"The Church presented God in this manner: 'The distance between his right and left
eye is 12000 leagues.' " It is obvious that persons with even a meagre knowledge of
science cannot believe in such a being.
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Flammarion quotes a statement of Auguste Comte, the
founder of positivism and what is known as scientism, which offers a good view of the way
God was pictured by such scholars as Auguste Comte living in the Christian environment of
that time. Flammarion says: Auguste Comte has said: "Science has dismissed the Father
of nature and the universe from his post, consigning him to oblivion, and while thanking
him for his temporary services, it has escorted him back to the frontiers of his
greatness."
What he means is that earlier every event that took
place in the world was explained by relating it to God as its cause. For example, if
someone got a fever, the question why the fever had come about and from where it came had
the answer that God had sent the fever. That which was commonly understood by this
statement was not that it is God who governs the universe and that to say that He had
caused the fever implied that He was the real and ultimate mover of the world. Rather,
this statement meant that God, like a mysterious being, or a magician engaged in sorcery,
had all of a sudden decided to cause fever without any preparatory cause, and so the fever
came about. Later science discovered its cause and it was observed that fever was not
brought about by God, but by a certain bacteria.
Here God retreated one step. Henceforth the theist
was forced to say that we will shift our argument to the bacteria: Who created the
bacteria?
Science also discovered the cause of bacteria by
identifying the conditions in which they come to exist. Again God had to retreat one step,
and the argument proceeded by asking the cause of that cause. God's retreat continued,
and, at last, with the spread and expansion of science the causes of a large number of
phenomena were discovered. Even those phenomena whose causes were not yet discovered were
known for certain to possess causes belonging to the category of causes already known.
Thereat man had to dismiss God for good with an apology, because there no longer remained
any place and post for Him.
The state of God at this stage was that of an
employee in an office in which he was initially given an important post, but with the
recruitment of more competent individuals his responsibilities were gradually taken away,
and eventually, when he was divested of all his earlier responsibilities, there remained
no post and place left for him. At this time the manager of the office approaches him,
thanks him for his past services, and with an excuse hands him the dismissal orders and
bids him farewell once and for all.
Auguste Comte uses the term 'Father of nature' for
God. His use of this term for God shows the influence of the Church in his thought.
Although he was against the teachings of the Church, his own concept of God was derived
from the Church's ideas, from which he was not able to free himself.
Taken together, the observations of Auguste Comte
suggest that in his opinion God is something similar to a part and factor of this world,
albeit mysterious and unknown, by the side of other factors. Moreover, there are two types
of phenomena in the world, the known and the unknown. Every unknown phenomenon should be
linked to that mysterious and unknown factor. Naturally, with the discovery of every
phenomenon and its becoming known as a consequence of science, the domain of influence of
the unknown factor is diminished.
This mode of thinking was not characteristic of him,
but it was the thinking that prevailed in his environment and era.
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Hence the main thing is that we ascertain the
station of Divinity and comprehend the place, position and 'post' of God. Is the position
of God and the Divine in the realm of being such that we may consider Him to be one of the
beings in the world and a part of it? May we allot Him a certain function among the
various functions that exist in the world, thereby affecting a division of
labour, and
then, for determining God's special function, examine the various effects whose causes are
unknown to us, so that whenever we come across an unknown cause we have to attribute it to
God? The consequence of such a mode of thinking is to search for God among things unknown
to us. Naturally, with an increase in our knowledge, the area of our ignorance will
continually diminish and the domain of our theism, too, will diminish to the point where
if some day, supposedly, all the unknown things become known to mankind, there would
remain no place for God or any theism.
In accordance with this line of reasoning, only some
of the existing realities are signs of God and manifest and mirror His existence, and they
are those whose causes are unknown. As to those things whose causes have been identified,
they lie outside the realm of signs and indications of the Divine Being.
Hallowed be God! How wrong and misleading this kind
of thinking is, and how ignorant it is of the station of the Divine! Here we should cite
the words of the Qur'an, which observes in this regard:
They measured not God
with His true measure. (Al-Qur'an 6:91)
The ABC of theism is that He is the God of the
entire universe and is equally related to all things. All things, without any exception,
are manifestations of His Power, Knowledge, Wisdom, Will, and Design, and are the signs
and marks of His Perfection, Beauty and Glory. There is no difference between phenomena
whose causes are known and those whose causes are unknown in this regard. The universe,
with all its systems and causes, is in toto sustained by His Being. He transcends both
time and space. Time and time-bound entities, and similarly space and spatial objects,
irrespective of their being finite or infinite—that is, whether they are temporally
limited or extend from pre-eternity to eternity, and regardless of whether the universe is
limited in its spatial dimensions or infinite, and, ultimately, whether the entire expanse
of existents is finite or infinite in time and space—all these are posterior to His
Being and Existence and are Considered among His emanations (fayd.)
Hence it is extreme ignorance to think in a Church
like manner and to imagine, like Auguste Comte, that while looking for the cause of a
certain phenomenon in some corner of the universe we would suddenly discover the existence
of God, and then celebrate and rejoice that we have found God at a certain place. And if
we do not succeed and are unable to so find Him, we should become pessimistic and deny
God's existence altogether.
On the contrary, it is precisely in this sense that
we must reject the existence of God, that is, a God who is like any other part of the
world and is discoverable like any other phenomenon in the course of inquiry into the
world's phenomena is certainly not God, and any belief in such a God is aptly rejected.
In more simple terms, we should say that this kind
of quest for God in the universe is like the conduct of someone who when shown a clock and
told that it has a maker wants to find its maker within the wheels and parts of the clock.
He searches for a while and on finding nothing except its different parts, says: 'I did
not find the maker of the clock and this proves that he does not exist.' Or it is like one
who on being shown a beautifully stitched dress and told that this dress was stitched by a
tailor, says, 'If I find the tailor in the pockets of this dress I will accept his
existence, otherwise I won't.'
This kind of thinking is totally wrong from the
Islamic point of view. From the viewpoint of Islamic teachings, God is not on a par with
the natural causes so that the question should arise whether a certain external entity has
been created by God or by a certain natural cause. This kind of dichotomy is both wrong
and meaningless, because there cannot be a dichotomy or an intervening 'or' between God
and natural causes for such a question to be posed. This form of thinking is anti-theist.
Theism means that the whole of nature in its entirety is a unit of work and an act of God
in its totality. Hence it is not correct to ask concerning a part of it whether it is a
work of God or nature, and then to consider it to be a work of God on failing to identify
its cause, and as related to nature and with no connection with God when its natural cause
is known.
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Auguste Comte suggests a classification of the
stages of the historical development of the human mind, which, most regrettably, has more
or less been accepted, though from the point of view of those acquainted with Islamic
philosophy it is mere childish talk. He says that mankind has passed through three stages:
In this stage man explained phenomena by resorting
to supernatural forces and considered God or gods to be the cause of every phenomenon. In
this stage man discovered the principle of causality, but was not able to identify the
causes of things in a detailed manner. Since he had grasped the principle of causality, he
considered the cause of every event to lie within Nature. In this stage he postulated the
existence of forces in Nature with the judgement that certain forces exist in Nature which
are ultimately responsible for the occurrence of phenomena.
In this stage, in view of the fact that man thought
in metaphysical and philosophical terms, he could not go beyond the assertion that a
certain event had a cause without having any answer to the question about the nature and
character of the cause itself.
In this stage man identified in detail the causes of
things in Nature. During this stage, man turned away from thinking in general
philosophical terms and adopted the experimental approach to the study of phenomena,
discovering the causal links between them. It became completely evident to him that the
phenomena are related to one another in a chain. Today science considers this approach to
be correct, and, therefore, we call this stage 'the scientific stage.'
These three stages suggested by Auguste Comte could
be possibly correct when viewed from the angle of the common people and the masses, in the
sense that at one time the common people considered the cause of an event, such as a
disease, to be some invisible being such as a demon or a jinn, and there are such persons
and groups even today among educated Europeans. At a later stage they were able to
recognize the order present in Nature and henceforth they attributed the cause of illness
to the causes surrounding the sick person, believing that natural factors were responsible
for it. Also, all those who have not studied medicine and have no medical knowledge but
believe in the general order of nature have a similar kind of understanding.
During another stage the relationships between the
various phenomena was discovered by the means of scientific experiments. This was not a
new thing in itself and existed in the ancient period as well, although the eagerness to
study natural phenomena and their causal relations is greater in the modern era.
However, this manner of classification of human
thought is incorrect, because if we were to divide human thought into stages, our
criterion should be the ideas of thinkers and not the thinking of the masses and common
people. In other words, we should take into consideration the world view of outstanding
individuals. Here it is that we find the classification of August Comte to be wrong
through and through. Human thought, whose real representatives are the thinkers of every
age, has certainly not passed
One of the eras or stages of thought is the stage of
Islamic thought. From the standpoint of the Islamic method, all these ways of thinking can
possibly be present simultaneously in a certain form of thought. That is, in the form of
thought which we call 'Islamic,' all these three kinds of thought are capable of
coexisting. In other words, a single person can at the same time have a mode of thought
which is theological, philosophical, and scientific. From the point of view of a thinker
cognizant with Islamic thought, the question does not arise as to whether the cause of an
event is that which science tells us, or that which philosophy explains in the form of a
force, or that which is named God. Hence, those like Auguste Comte need to be reminded
that there exists a fourth mode of thought in the world of which they are unaware.
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To this point we have pointed out the role of the
Church in the process of inclination towards materialism from the point of view of the
inadequacy of its theological concepts. Yet in another way, which was more effective than
the inadequacy of its theological ideas, the Church has played an important part in
driving people towards adopting an anti-God stance. This was its coercive policy of
imposing its peculiar religious and scientific doctrines and views and depriving the
people from every kind of freedom of belief in both these areas.
The Church, apart from its peculiar religious
beliefs, had incorporated a set of scientific doctrines concerning the universe and man,
which had mostly their philosophical roots in Greece and elsewhere and had gradually been
adapted by major Christian scholars into its religious dogma. It not only considered any
dissent in regard to the 'official sciences' impermissible, but also vehemently persecuted
those who disagreed with these dogmas.
Presently, we are not concerned with the issue of
freedom of religion and religious belief and that religious beliefs should inevitably be
studied freely because otherwise that would go against the very spirit of religion, which
is to guide to the truth. Islam supports the thesis that belief in religious doctrines
ought to be based on research and not on conformity or compulsion, in contrast to
Christianity which has declared religious dogma a prohibited zone for reason.
There were two other aspects in which the Church
committed a major mistake. Firstly, it placed certain scientific notions inherited from
the earlier philosophers and Christian theologians in the rank of its religious tenets,
considering opposition to them to be heresy. Secondly, it did not stop at exposing the
heretics and excommunicating those whose heresy had been proven and confirmed, but
instead, like a violent police regime, it investigated the beliefs and convictions of
persons by employing various tactics and tried to detect the faintest signs of dissent to
religious beliefs in individuals and groups and persecuted them in an indescribably
ruthless manner. As a result, scholars and scientists did not dare entertain any ideas
opposed to what the Church considered as science; that is, they were constrained to think
in accordance with the Church's thinking. This intense repression of ideas which was a
common thing from the 12th to the 19th century in countries like France,
England, Germany, Holland, Portugal, Poland and Spain, naturally resulted in the
development of a general extremely negative reaction towards religion. The tribunals held
by the Church and known as the Inquisition were initiated with an objective reflected in
the very name given them. Will Durant says:
The Inquisition had a special
procedure of inquiry and prosecution. Before the inquisition held its tribunal in a city,
the summons of faith were communicated from the church pulpits. The people were asked to
inform the inquisitors of any heretics or pagans that they knew of. They were encouraged
to denounce and accuse their neighbours, friends and relatives. The informers were
promised total secrecy. Anyone who knew a heretic and would not denounce him or hid him in
his house faced denunciation and excommunication ... The methods of torture varied from
time to time and from one place to another. Sometimes the accused was left to hang with
his hands tied behind his back. Or he would be bound in say a way that he could not move,
then water was poured into his throat so as to suffocate him. Or his arms and fists were
so tightly bound with ropes that they cut into his flesh and reached the bones.
(Will Durrant, The Story of Civilization,
Persian transl. Tarikhe Tamaddun, v18 p350)
He also says
The number of victims between the
years 1480-1488, that is in eight years, exceeded 8800 burnt on stakes, and 96,494
condemned to severe punishments According to estimates, from the year 1480 to 1808 more
than 31,912 were condemned to death by fire and 291,450 were condemned to severe
penalties. (Will Durrant, The Story
of Civilization, Persian transl. Tarikhe Tamaddun, v18 p360)
George Sarton, the distinguished scholar and famous
authority on history of science in his book Six Wings: Men of Science in the Renaissance,
has a discussion under the caption 'witchcraft,' where he relates the crimes committed by
the Church in the name of campaign against witchcraft:
Divines and religious scholars, consciously or
otherwise, considered apostasy to be the same as witchcraft. Men quickly conclude that
those who disagree with them are bad people. Magicians were men and women who had sold
their souls to the Devil. On the assumption that heretics and irreligious persons also
communed with the Devil, their persecution and torture were readily permitted and those
who were orthodox in their faith could say to themselves: These trouble-making and
disruptive people are magicians and they should be dealt with in this way, because they
are neither capable of a straight faith nor eligible for pardon.
George Sarton refers to the book Hammer of the
Magicians, which was written by two Dominican priests on the instructions of Pope Innocent
VIII (r. 1484—1492) and which was, in fact, a practical manual on how to conduct the
Inquisition of those accused of heresy and witchcraft. He says:
The book Hammer is a practical handbook for the
Inquisitors and in it are found the details of the methods of detection, prosecution and
punishment of magicians.... The fear of the magician was the real cause for killing them
and these killings themselves became the reason for a heightened fear. In that period, a
psychic epidemic had developed the like of which has not been seen until the present age
of enlightenment. The proceedings of some trials of the Inquisition recorded in precise
detail have survived. The Inquisitors were not bad people. They imagined themselves to be
better at least than the ordinary people, because was it not that they were ceaselessly
striving to uphold the word of truth and the name of God?! Nicolarmy, the inquisitor of
Lourn was the cause of 900 magicians being burnt to death during a period of fifteen years
(1575—1590). He was a conscientious man, and during the last years of his life he had
a sense of guilt for having overlooked to kill some children. Has anyone the right to
desist from killing the young of a viper? Bishop Tersepeter Binzfold issued verdicts for
the death sentence of 6500 people.
He goes on to observe:
When the Inquisitors arrived in a new region, they
used to announce that anyone suspecting someone of being a magician should provide
information about it. Anyone concealing information was liable to exile and fine.
Providing information in this regard
was considered a duty, and the names of those who provided information were not disclosed.
The accused—among whom were possibly persons whose enemies had slandered
them—were not informed of the crime they were accused of and were kept in the dark
concerning the evidence of their culpability. It was assumed that these people were
sinners and criminals, and the burden of proof lay upon them to prove their innocence. The
judges adopted all kinds of mental and physical means for exacting a confession of sin and
identifying collaborators. For encouraging the accused to confess, they were promised
pardon or extenuation. But the judges imagined that honouring a promise given to magicians
and heretics involved no moral obligation and the promise was kept for the short time
which the accused took to say what had to be said. Every act falling outside the limits of
honourable behaviour was committed against the accused and was justified as it was done
for a holy cause. The more they tormented and tortured the people, the more they thought
it necessary. What we have said can be easily confirmed by referring to the Hammer and
other books and can also be pictured more vividly by studying the proceedings of the
trials, of which there are plenty.
(George Sarton, Six Wings: Men of Science in the Renaissance (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1957), Persoan transl. Shish Bal, pp296-8)
After discussing this issue for three or four pages,
George Sarton observes:
Belief in magic was truly a mental
illness more dangerous than syphilis, and was the cause of the terrible death of thousands
of innocent men and women. Apart from that, an attention to this matter reveals the dark
side of the Renaissance, less appealing than other things which are usually said about
this period, but knowing which is necessary for a correct understanding of the events of
this age. Renaissance was the golden age of art and literature, but at the same time it
was also a period of religious intolerance and cruelty. The inhuman character of this
period is such that, excepting the present age, it has no parallel in history.
(George Sarton, Six Wings: Men of Science
in the Renaissance (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1957), Persoan
transl. Shish
Bal, p303)
Religion, which should have been a guide and a
harbinger of love, acquired this kind of countenance in Europe. The very notion of
religion and God came to be associated in everyone's mind with violence, repression, and
tyranny. Obviously, the reaction of the people against such an approach could hardly be
anything except the rejection of religion and the negation of that which constitutes its
very basis, God. The severest blow is struck on religion and to the advantage of
materialism whenever religious leaders, whom the people consider as the real
representatives of religion, put on a leopard's skin and wear a tiger's teeth and resort
to excommunication and accusations of heresy, especially when private motives take this
form.
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