Islamic Weltanschauung A Brief Overview - Prof. Dr. Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas

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Islamic Weltanschauung: A Brief Overview*

Prof. Dr. Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas
Founder-Director, ISTAC

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim, Alhamdulillahi Rabbi’l-alamin, al-solatu wassalamu ‘ala ashrafi’l-
anbiya’I wa’l-mursalin.

Para hadirin yang dihormati sekalian,
Saya ingin memohon maaf kerana nanti saya akan sampaikan syarahan dalam Bahasa

Inggeris, dan juga saya mohon maaf bahawa syarahan ini tidaklah berteks. Jadi, oleh kerana itu
saya akan cuba memberi pandangan-pandangan yang berkaitan dengan apa yang telah dituliskan
di beberapa tempat.

Pertama sekali mengenai tajuk buku itu. Sebetulnya, orang-orang Islam masih belum
sedar bahawa [apa] yang disebut metafizika itu adalah wajib untuk kita memahami[nya] sebab
pandangan mengenai hakikat dan alam terangkum dalam sesuatu kerangka metafizik,
sebagaimana juga di kalangan orang Barat pun. Kalau kita sendiri tidak memahami kerangka
metafizik kita itu, tentu kita akan keliru dan terpesong ke arah pandangan mengenai alam dan
hakikat yang berbeza, dan yang lain, dan yang tidak seia dengan jiwa kita, bahkan yang tidak
benar. Jadi, oleh kerana itu, adalah penting untuk memahami apa yang disebut metafizik Islam.

Tajuknya, Prolegomena - maksudnya mukaddimah - mengenai apa yang dimaksudkan
sebagai metafizika Islam. Diberikan di situ beberapa kesimpulan, beberapa punca penting yang
menayangkan gambaran hakikat dan kebenaran semesta mengikut Islam.

I was saying that-with regard to the book - Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam, I
am only attempting an introduction, some introductory remarks on what this metaphysics of
Islam is, and that it is important for Muslims to understand this metaphysics because the
‘worldview’ (weltanschauung) of any civilization must be projected from within a certain
metaphysical system, even that of the Western people. There is no worldview that has come up
just by itself like that. It springs from a certain metaphysical system. Because of that, it is
important for us to have our own understanding of our own - what we call - “metaphysical
system’. Already, in many Muslim countries, when they speak about ‘worldview’, many scholars

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are talking about the view of this world. They have [actually] secularized their understanding of
the meaning of ‘worldview’. They think it is a view of this world. But to the Muslims, especially
the discerning ones, they know that the word dunya is not understood as separate from the word
akhirah, as far as Islam is concerned; as far as the [Holy] Qur’an is concerned. Therefore, when
we speak about worldview, we do not mean a view of this world. We mean a view of reality and
truth, a view of existence, because the worldview of Islam talks about existence as a whole, not
only existence in this world, but the world we came from and the world we are going to. So, if
Muslims do not take heed of this, then they are definitely going to go astray in their way of
looking at things, their way of believing, their way of religion. This is in fact going on in our
society, not only here, but in other parts of the Muslim world that I have had the opportunity to
visit.

The metaphysical system that I am talking about is something in the mind. I mean, all
these things that we are talking about begin in the mind. No doubt, there will be some
technocrats who think that what is pragmatic is to deal with only what is outside there. They
think that these things in the mind are not important. They are wrong because every practical
thing originates in the mind. The mind is the source of these things and one has to know what
goes on in that mind.

There is a story how there has been a dispute between certain groups of artists-the Greeks
on the one hand, the Chinese on the other. They both argued in the same matter. Each one
claimed that they are the best artists in the world. Then the Sultan said, “Let me decide as to who
is better than who. Therefore, you should compete in this grand hall and I will put a partition
between you in this hall, one of you will be on this [left] side, the other on the right side, and you
will do your work. I will provide everything you need and when you have completed and I have
seen both of your works, I will declare which is the best.” And so the artists began to work. One
with colours, with all kinds of hues. The other with stones, marbles. Then after several months,
with a large clamour of drums, the Chinese proclaimed that they have completed their work and
the Greeks also did likewise. Therefore, the Sultan ordered the partition to be set aside. When he
looked to the left - the work of the Chinese - he saw the marvelous beauty, the colours, the
intricate designs, the carvings, such that as they say, his heart missed a beat to see the beauty that
was there. When he looked at the other on the right - the work of the Greeks-he saw only a slab,
a very tall white marble but he did not see the marble. What he saw was the work of the Chinese

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artists reflected there, because it has been polished so fine that whatever was on that [Chinese]
side appeared on this one [Greeks], inside. So, when he looked at that, he saw this [the Greeks’
work] was more marvelous than that one [the Chineses’ work], because this contained not only
the material, the physical, but the non-physical. It is the combination of both.

The mind is like that, in other words, it ‘contains’ both the physical and the non-physical.
In fact the word ‘physical’ originated from that [mind]. So this being the case, one should not
belittle [the mind]. In the case of the Western society, they are not belittling the mind, but they
did belittle metaphysics. They did belittle many things that are in fact the characteristics of mind,
like intuition, like religion. They did belittle these things, and we, in some of Muslim countries,
seem to be following that.

The world is not composed of scientists and technocrats [only]. Scientists and technocrats
will not exist without the existence of those who actually think, who from their thought actually
produce works, whether they be of the arts or others. Therefore, the greatness of any nation does
not depend on buildings. We have seen how many nations in the past - they also built glorious
buildings, the so called seven wonders of the world - but it is not just those buildings that make
[them] great. These buildings are just really the effect of something greater than that. Again, [it
is], what is in the mind [that matters], what is captured in that marble as we said just now. It is
that that make them great, that made people remember them. So it is not in the building of high
towers. There has been also in the past stories of certain people who built high towers and what
happened to them. This external sort of exhibition, of course, is not necessarily a sign of
‘maturity’, a sign of greatness.

I spoke just now about the word ‘maturity’. Now, that also; it is a word that comes from
the vocabulary of ‘development’ which in itself is what they call an amoeba word. It is a word
that has no definite character and shape, changing all the time. In fact it has no meaning. That’s
why it is doing that. Remember that this word ‘development’ - the Western thinkers and
philosophers themselves know this word originated in the West - it is a product of Western
thought, and it originated around the 18th and 19th centuries, perhaps during the Industrial
Revolution. This word did not occur in Western languages before that. It is the result if
secularization as a philosophical program which has been going on in the Western society since,
let us say, about 700 years in the past. The idea of [the] so-called ‘development’ which we are
now using - all Muslims are using [it] - they do not realize that there is no equivalent term in any

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Muslim language. Even in Malay you use the word ‘pembangunan’. There is no word really for
‘development’ because that idea is strange to us. In fact, perhaps, to Eastern civilization as a
whole, it is strange, because the idea of development implies again a kind of linear evolution, a
kind of movement from ‘infantility’ to ‘maturity’. That is how the secularists interpret
themselves. ‘To be mature, to ‘develop’, it is the language of modern Western secular man. In
fact the moment we use the term, we already accept the presuppositions of Western hegemony -
we have surrendered. When you say ‘pembangunan’, already it implies that we are not ‘bangun’,
we have been lying down, we have been asleep, we have been stupid, we have been ‘bodoh’!
That is what it [‘pembangunan’] means.

Similarly when we speak about ‘maturity’. Let me tell you another different story - if you
allow me to do so. That is about a mountaineer, who climbed the tallest mountain in the world.
This mountaineer, when he reached the top - as you know, the top of mountains are all ice - he
saw there at the summit in the ice a huge serpent of horrible aspect, grotesque. He thought, “If I
were to take this serpent down, if I were to cut the ice - no matter how huge it is I will endeavour
to do that - and to bring it down the mountain to the city, and to exhibit it to the people, then I
will be famous. Not only that, I will have wealth since I will charge people who want to see this
wonderful marvelous creature”. So he labored and proceeded to hack the ice. He finally
[successfully] brought it down and it was exhibited in the center of the city. The citizens came
and looked with awe at this terrible, fearsome creature of enormous size. Then gradually, of
course, the sun began to melt the ice and slowly it melted and melted until finally the warm
revived the snake. The snake was not dead! It was really alive, it was just frozen and it [later on]
destroyed, devastated the whole city and its inhabitants.

This is the mountain of ego. That snake is that ego, that pride, that arrogance, that
ignorance that resides, lies and ambushed in every self. It is the conquest of that mountain [of the
ego] that means ‘maturity’, that means ‘courage’, not the conquest of some earthly mountains.
That is the thing that you have to continually struggle against, every day. That is why the Prophet
(s.a.w) said that the greatest struggle is the struggle against the self. So maturity refers to that,
not to the conquering of mountains. Those mountains have been conquered by many people
including the mountaineers who lived at the foothills. Every day they climb that mountain. So I
mean these are some of the things. Why are we saying these things? Why are we using the
‘language of secularization’, the language of the Western modern secularists, unless of course,

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we ourselves have become like that, think like that and use terms that they use. So in this
particular respect, when we speak about this metaphysics of Islam, we are referring to, as we said
just now, the vision of reality and truth that is in the minds of discerning Muslims. It resides in
the mind but is projected outside of the external world.

Now, there are certain fundamental elements in that [Islamic] metaphysics that does not
change. I am saying this because we know it is based on history, based on facts, it is not just a
theoretical matter. It is unchanging like, for example, first, the conception of God; the meaning
of Revelation; the nature of religion; of man and the psychology of his soul; the meaning of
knowledge; of freedom; of vices, virtues and values; and finally the meaning of happiness. These
are the key fundamental terms that project the worldview of Islam around which this
metaphysics is established. That does not change throughout the ages unlike of course in the
West. In the West, they have been changing all the time. This continual change makes their
worldview-which is actually a big system-a kind of big ‘paradigm’. What they call now
‘paradigm’, [is] a word which we are also using, as if [our worldview] in Islam also is like a
paradigm, having to change and to develop. In their case they developed because that was what
happened to them in history. This is because of the ‘disenchantment’, the failure of Christianity
to convert the Western people, the Western peoples’ rejection of belief in Christianity. That is
what is causing them to continually strive and struggle like Sisyphus pushing the stone up the
hill. When the stone rolls down again, they push it up again and so on, eternally. It is actually a
tragic view of life, and that also they are trying to impose upon us, especially to our writes in the
Muslim world.

Another matter is that, the parliamentary system in the world requires that all decisions
be made known to the public. But [it is] the scientific community and the technocrats of our life
in this century that have changed more than the parliamentary system. They feel not obliged to
justify anything. They do things without explaining to the people. This is all the result if this idea
of ‘development’, as we said, and the rise of the so-called scientific method which they have
applied on human behavior. Therefore, they have dehumanized the human being. Of course, it
does not harm the technocrats because they have forgotten how to become human. It harms,
however, those who still have humanity in them. But then, they also do not know - the
technocrats, for example, according to the Western scholars and philosophers themselves - how
it is to be human. They do not know where we are now and where we are going to, where we

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have come from. They do not want to know because that kind of knowledge hampers their kinds
of action. What I am saying is not just my words. These are also the words of Western
philosophers, thinkers and psychologists.1

Among the psychologists, they say there is now an elimination of meaning. For example,
one of them, if I am not mistaken in a work entitled Psychology and The Abolition of Meaning,
says that there is continual change and things have lost their meaning and finally of course the
meaning of human existence itself.2 So now, this thing [take place] because as we said, of the rise
of ‘social anarchy’. Some of the social scientists are responsible for this, as if society is
authoritative. It is important, I think, for our Muslim leaders especially those who are in position
of power that this power is not necessarily, as far as knowledge is concerned, be put in the hand
of so-called ‘society’, because society, generally speaking, does not have knowledge. I am
speaking only about knowledge and yet, for example, many major decisions [which pertain to
knowledge], the society is asked to make decision, the common people. Therefore, there is a rise
of what we call just now ‘social anarchy’, and ‘intellectual anarchy’ as well. Everything seems to
be subjective. We are going back again to the time of the ancient Greeks where [they were]
people calling themselves ‘sophists’ who denied the possibility of knowledge. That is what our
people have become. We have been asking, well, “What does he know?”; “That is what he
thinks, somebody else may think something else”. So, in reality they are denying the possibility
of knowledge. They never admit authority. It is important I think, any authority - be it political,
religious, cultural, literary - has to be respected, especially those in positions of power, especially
our leaders. But if they do not respect the authority, if for example, certain things are wrong in a
certain language, and people say this is wrong, and people who know say it is wrong, but they
[the leaders] still insist, “No, it is right!”, that means a rejection of authority. Similarly in other
things, in religious matters, I mean one who is not well versed in religion, he should not be
talking about religion, especially in public, because that is dangerous, and that it is creating
dissension.

National honour ultimately depends on integrity, and on humility of knowledge because
it is knowledge that brings about humility. Humility does not mean bowing down to ignorance.
There is a Malay saying, “Ikut rasmi padi, jangan ikut rasmi lalang”. In other words, because
the ‘padi’ stalk, when it is full of grain, it bows down to the earth. But they forgot, it says not to
bow down to ‘lalang’. It means to bow down to what is good. This analogy came from the

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Qur’an itself. The Qur’an speaks about the tree that is laden with fruit and how when there is
fruit, it sort of hangs down, and so [are] wisdom and authority. That is what humility means. I
think myself of the word tawadu which comes from the Arabic language, fram wada’a. Of
course, generally speaking in dictionaries they say tawadu means to make oneself low, to abase
oneself. But in reality, dictionaries [in this case], are not very really precise about interpreting the
meaning of this word. Actually it means ‘to put yourself in your right place’. That’s what it
means, because wada’a, ‘putting’ yourself. It is wrong for, say, a certain authority, to make
himself be put aside, neglected in the company of the illustrious. If he were called to a meeting,
it is not correct for him to allow himself to sit at the back. He should go in front because that is
his place. If he did not do that, it means he has no respect for himself, no respect for the
knowledge that he has, that God has given him as a gift. So, ultimately the word tawadu means
‘to understand, to put yourself in your right place’. That implies you must have knowledge of
right place.

In my writings, I have been saying about right places: that adab is compliance with your
right place; that justice is the condition of things being in their proper places; that existence is the
place of any thing, in the order of being, of reality. So, this idea of knowing the proper place
obviously requires knowledge and one should act accordingly then. So, humility does not mean
that we have to bow down before ignorance, before injustice, before stupidity. No! We have to
say something. We have to assert what is right even at the expense or detriment of our own
selves, our own external selves.

This is all that I wish to say. I have only given a very brief outline of what that book
contains, as far as the worldview [is concerned]. We deal there with the meaning of religion. We
began by talking about what the religion of Islam is. In the Introduction, a great deal of what I
have been saying become clearer. Then in the next chapter, I talk about the problem of
happiness, a definition of happiness, what we understand by happiness, because this happiness
has not bee, according to Western philosophy, until now it is something that is continually
slipping from the grasp of attainment. They said it is indefinable. Of course, we cannot agree
with that because we understand something differently. We do not define happiness simple as a
physical thing, as emotion and feelings. It is of a higher level which has nothing to do with
emotion and feelings, which does not arise from that. Although it does influence what the Qur’an
speaks about when it says about the nafs al-mutma’innah. To the Muslims, that is what the

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highest level of happiness is. Of course to the Western people, it is not like that, but why should
we be following [them]? We have to make our own definition of the meaning of ‘development’,
the meaning of ‘freedom’.

We talk about Islam and the philosophy of science, of how without the philosophy of
science we will be deviating and putting ourselves again in the locus or vision of Western secular
man. The book goes on talking also about the meaning of existence, about definitions like what
is ‘essence’, because these are things that are being discussed also in the West today-what is the
‘essence’ of reality, what is ‘reality’, what is ‘truth’. All these kinds of things, of course, we have
to try to clarify based on what Islam says. By that, I mean, what is in the Qur’an, the hadith and
the interpretation of these by the truly learned scholars of the past. Because of that, we have to
understand the past again to know ourselves, because our crisis is the crisis of identity.

Saya mohon supaya dimaafkan kalau sekiranya ada apa-apa yang tampak terlancar
walaupun pada faham saya, saya tidak terlancar melainkan sebenarnya menyatakan apa yang
saya nyatakan tadi mengenai makna kedewasaan, pembangunan dan sebagainya, sebab itu adalah
satu perkara yang patut saya tegur. Begitu juga mengenai agama sebab ada kenyataan-kenyataan
yang tidak sihat, yang tidak benar yang pernah diberikan oleh pemimpin-pemimpin kita dan
tidak patut kita diam saja. Sebab tugas kita, tanggungjawab kita, adalah untuk membetulkan
kesalahan-kesalahan. Diharap bahawa tugas-tugas pemimpin pun adalah untuk menerima dengan
baik pendapat-pendapat yang benar, tidak menyoal-nyoal misalnya, seolah-olah kita ini
disamakan dengan orang-orang di tepi jalan, yang tidak tahu menahu tentang masalah-maslaah
yang disebut. Jangan dipermainkan soal hadith dan lain-lain itu semua. Jadi, saya minta maaf
saja, kerana berani mengeluarkan kata-kata ini. Dengan itu saya mohon maaf sekali lagi.

I thank you very much for your patience and I pray to God to guide you and us always on
the right path. Assalamu’alaikum wrt. wbt.

Transcribed by,
Wan Azhar Wan Ahmad

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________________________________________________

*This is a transcription of an unscripted address by Prof. al-Attas at the launching ceremony of his book
Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam on 24th June 1996 at ISTAC. The ceremony was officiated by the then
Deputy Prime Minister Dato” Seri Anwar Ibrahim. This transcription was later corrected by Prof. al-Attas himself in
July 1998. Due to his tight schedule, Prof Attas did not thoroughly peruse this transcription for further refinement of
the language as well as the content. Therefore readers have to take into consideration these facts while reading, as
language in speech and writing may differ in style and presentation. All words in square bracket [ ] are transcriber’s.
1 Prof. Attas directs our attention to a work of Wolfgang Sachs (ed), The Development Dictionary (Johannesburg:
Witwatersrand Univ. Press, 1992, 4th impression 1995). In this book, a number of western philosophers, thinker and
psychologist, some of whom are the world’s most eminent critics of development, explore ‘development’ as a kind
of worldview and review its key concepts in the post-war era. They examine, analyze, scrutinize and criticize the
notion. They say, “It is a perception which models reality, a myth which comforts societies and a fantasy which
unleashes passion”. They call for a bidding farewell to the whole Eurocentric development idea. They argue that this
is urgently needed in order to liberate people’s mind for bold responses to the ethical and environment challenges
now confronting humility.
2 In the actual address, Prof. Attas mentioned that the name of the psychologist is John Ralston Saul. However, in a
private discussion on 22nd July 1998, Prof. Attas rectified and pointed out that the actual psychologist meant is
Jeffrey Burke Satinover. Satinover’s article cited in the speech is published in First Things, New York, no. 40, Feb.
1994. Satinover is a psychiatrist in private practice in Westport, Connecticut, USA; a former President of the C.G.
Jung Foundation of New York; a former Fellow at the Yale Child Study Center; and a lecturer in Psychiatry at the
Yale University, School of Medicine. Though Prof. Attas was mistaken with regard to the actual author, he is still
right in naming John Ralston Saul since Saul has already written a work on the same subject, prior to Satinover’s
article. In Voltaire’s Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West (New York: Free Press, Vintage ed. 1992),
Saul shows how the West’s obsessive fondness of rationalism has made a large number of people cripplingly
dependent on process-minded experts whose rational systems are deprived of both meaning and morality.