Can the Islamic Intellectual Heritage be Recovered?
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ The following is an article by Dr. William C. Chittick. By “the Islamic intellectual heritage” I mean the ways of thinking about God, the world, and the human being established by the Qur’an and the Prophet ( s.a.w. ), and elaborated upon by generations of practising Muslims. I use the term “intellectual” to translate the word “ ‘aqli ”, and by it, I want to distinguish this heritage from another, closely related heritage that also has theoretical and intellectual dimensions. This second heritage is the “transmitted”, “ naqli ”, heritage. Transmitted knowledge is learned by “imitation”, “ taqlid ”, that is, by following the authority of those who possess it. This sort of knowledge includes Qur’an recitation, ahadits , Arabic grammar, and jurisprudence. It is impossible to be a Muslim without taqlid , because one cannot discover the Qur’an or the practices of the shari’ah by oneself. Just as langu...