The Incoherences and The Greatest Intervention

Allah t’ala is the one that cures, and yet our Messenger (saw) said that all things have a cure except death. 

At root this is the conflict between our Theologians and our Philosophers. 

The latter said that all effects have causes, and the Most Gracious is the ultimate cause and reason for all things. 

And then that the efficient (most direct) cause of all effects are natural in origin. That they are a consequence of the Most Gracious creating and sustaining a natural order, that we can investigate and deliberate upon. This is that all illnesses have a cure except from death itself, which as a prescription is a command for us all to search for those cures. 

 The Theologians worried that this emphasis on the natural order of things would necessarily divorce God from His Creation. 

And so they invented the theory of occasionalism, that the Most Gracious continuously recreates this World, and that it is He that ensures that proper effects follow on from proper causes. 

And that it is He who gives life and apportions death, and cures from illness whomsoever He wills. 

But the most interesting thing about this conflict in outlook is that it was concluded by a jurist who came to be recognised through out our lands as our champion, and who is most known for his regard for Mysticism (Tassawuf) associated with our religion. 

Al- Ghazali’s background was within Fiqh (jurisprudence), which is given over to analytical thought, and his intelligence there is second to none. But he could not find  any satisfaction there for a malady within his own soul. That is why it is said that he turned to Mysticism. 

In the battle between theology and philosophy, mysticism was a non-entity. 

It had been rightly sidelined to the edges of our religion which advocates as rational approach to life. 

The Messenger (saw) famously said, “Tie your camel first (in order to prevent it running off), and then have faith”. 

This speaks on so many different levels. 

That faith is rational. 

That we should all have regard for cause and effect: that proper effects naturally follow on from proper causes.

That faith is not secondary to these, but equal to them. 

One of main issues that the Theologians had with the Philosophers was the Philosopher’s account for miracles. 

For they explained them as natural phenomena, coming from within what God had already determined as their created nature. That God does not intervene, nor need, nor want to intervene. 

When we recall the miracle of Ibrahim (as) then we would say that the nature of fire is to burn. That God made it cool for him, and changed it’s nature for him points to a real intervention that is only brought more home to us when we consider the conversation had between Ibrahim (as) and the angel of the fire. 

We live in the age following on from Ghazali’s defeat of Ibn Sina. 

The scientific endeavour was predicated on every proper cause having its proper effect. In God’s speech He declared : “No change will you find in the Sunnat Allah - the ways of God”. 

And also indicated that His laws go beyond the physical laws of each of the sciences when He (swt) said “Allah t’ala will not change the state of a people until they change their very own selves”. 

When the Theologians interpreted the Speech to bolster their claims towards the theory of occasionalism, they overstepped the bounds and neglected some of the speech in favour of other parts of it. 

The basis of interpretation especially when it is done via the religious classes should primarily be when one portion informs another, and not to take one and leave the other. 

They in effect nullified the first portion of the Messengers words when he (saw) said “Tie your camel first…”

And this sounded the death knoll for all of our Islamic Sciences, and then for all of our endeavours to understand God’s ways and His Creation (the natural sciences). 

God’s command to look at creation, look again and your eyesight will come back confounded, humbled and in awe, lay neglected. 

Instead we, as a Nation, should return back to the interpretive sciences, not least in regards to the greatest of endeavours of trying to understand the Quran and it’s ongoing miracle. 

And those interpretive sciences are speculative in nature, and are distinct from the religion which is fully complete and fully perfect. 

Glory be to God who created such perfection, within His cosmos, speech and religion. 

All thanks is due to Him, that made us part of that perfection that He continually blesses with uncounted sustenance. 

He is Allah, greater than all of His creation and far above. 

One of God’s known names is al-Batin, the Hidden One, which contrasts with a second of His names - az-Zahir, the self evident One. 

He is also Al-Adl, the Just. 

And part of His quality of being the Hidden and the Just is that He sets up and sustains laws which He does not breach. 

It is these laws that lend perfection to creation, and they should be a source to stand in awe of the Most Gracious. 

But we can only stand in awe of them if we investigate them, turn our eyes and our minds towards understanding them. 

And then when we know that He is the One that created and sustains the laws that cause movement and change, that even then He is the One who is fully able to intervene. 

And part of His intervention is that it so perfect that it does not break with His Laws, and therefore He commands from us patient perseverance, and loves the patient - those that never lose their hope. 

Those whose faith is not in vain, those that continue to believe past the pain. 

And this intervention is fully a personal miracle, except when He protects you from the people. 

Then consider the life of the Messenger (saw), how he was protected at every juncture.  That is one of his greatest miracles. 

There is no doubt that that intervention changed the whole course of human history.  

A greater intervention there never was.