Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

Chapter Twelve: The Demonstration of Primordial Nature

Since the validity of moral arguments has been widely questioned in Islamic philosophy and the sages of Divine wisdom have demurred from them, this should not be confused with another set of arguments, which have been called the demonstration of primordial nature(burhān al-fitra) . The demonstration of primordial nature does not claim that the truth of certain principles pertinent to the practical reason(al-‛aql al-‛amalī) , that is, the moral codes, presupposes the truth of ontological propositions pertinent to the theoretical reason. In other words, it is not its objective to justify theism by discursive analysis of moral codes and their commonality across diverse cultures or to trace moral laws to a lawgiver, and so forth. In the light of this, the demonstration of primordial nature or burhān al-fitra is in no way identical to the moral arguments.

The human being is characterized by two dimensions, namely, the practical dimension and the epistemic dimension. It is his practical dimension, which is the focal point of the demonstration of primordial nature. It reaches the Necessary by rational analysis of man’s factual propensities.

Usage of Reciprocity in the Demonstration of Primordial Nature

The demonstration of primordial nature focuses on a reciprocal(mutadhā’if) portion of the human being’s reality. That is, on the basis of reciprocity(tadhā’uf) of his certain reciprocal attributes, it traces the existence of one side of reciprocity to the existence of its other side.

Two reciprocal things, such as highness and lowness, being a parent and being an offspring, being a lover and being a beloved, are realities the mutual of which relationship is governed by comparative necessity(al-dharūra bi al-qiyās) . In these instances, the existence of one side of reciprocity is always sufficient evidence for the existence of the other side.

Highness and lowness, two qualities abstracted from the comparison of external objects, are reciprocal realities. This means that whenever highness is actualized, its other reciprocal side, lowness, becomes actual as well; and when highness has potential existence, lowness is potential as well. The reciprocity between highness and lowness is real reciprocity(al-tadhāyf al-haqiqī) , and the objects, which are described by the qualities of highness or lowness, have figurative reciprocity(al-tadhāyuf al-mashhūrī) .

Being a parent and being an offspring are also two reciprocal qualities. That is, if being an offspring is potential, paternity is potential as well, and when being an offspring is actualized, paternity becomes actual too. Although the essence of a parent may exist before the actualization of the quality of paternity, nevertheless, his characterization by the attribute of paternity is subject to actualization of the quality of being an offspring. Likewise, the actual attribution of being an offspring to someone is subject to the truth of an actual attribution of paternity to a parent’s essence.

Love is also a real reciprocal reality. Its two sides are “belovedness” and “loverness.” Similar to paternity and highness, which are not actual without the actuality of being an offspring and lowness, belovedness is not actualized without the actual existence of loverness. Similarly, being a lover does not have any meaning if the existence of a beloved is not established.

Another instance in which the relationship of two things is dominated by reciprocity is gravitation. If one entity is being gravitated, it indicates that another entity, which is its gravitater exists, because being gravitater and being gravitated are two reciprocal qualities, and the gravitater and the gravitated simultaneously become characterized with these two qualities.

For instance, when a celestial body is observed to be gravitated by something, it does not take enormous mental effort to deduce the actual existence of the center of its gravitation. Moreover, even the force of gravitation of the gravitater can be measured from the extent of how much gravitation has been exerted on the gravitated body. In this fashion, astronomy proves certain stars, which thanks to their enormous mass and gravity that do not allow light to escape are invisible.

The demonstration of primordial nature, on the basis of reciprocity, a justified grounds of inference employed in every dimension of human life, demonstrates a reality that is the other side of the human being’s many reciprocal attributes. For instance, by making use of attributes such as love and hope, the argument traces these reciprocal attributes to the absolute recipient of love and the compassionate bastion of hope.

Two Expositions of the Demonstration of Primordial Nature

Imagine a storm-ravaged sailor whose ship, caught in the terrifying waves of the sea, has broken; and it is obvious to him that the ostensible and natural implements of succor cannot be availed to him. While on the verge of drowning, such a person cannot even think, yet he feels the hope of succor in the depths of his being and does not lose the prospect of rescue. This optimism, which is manifested as his invocations, is a reciprocal reality, and therefore, its other side is existent. This is so because, in the said supposition, it is none of the ordinary implements of succor, and rather, none of the finite realities, which is the object of his hope and the addressee of his prayers. Hope and prayers are directed towards a reality that is not finite and, as the beacon of hope, answers the supplications of the hopeful when all of the finite and conditional instruments are beyond one’s reach. Such an absolute reality, whose power and authority is not subject to any condition, is God.

Another reciprocal reality that can also serve as the middle term of the demonstration of primordial nature is love. Love is an existential attribute and its reality presupposes the existence of the entity, which is its object, namely the beloved.

The human being’s perpetual struggle to attain maximal and absolute happiness, wealth, power, beauty, and other perfections such as wisdom, knowledge, fame, glory, life, and so forth, is an undeniable dimension of his personality, and an indication of his intense love for them. In the light of this, it is fair to ask what is the real extension of the other side of the reciprocal reality of the love, which permeates the human being’s existence, and who is its object.

This question cannot be answered in terms of worldly perfections, because worldly perfections are finite, whereas the human being is in love with the absolute. He does not struggle to reach the finite and conditional. Rather, he is in pursuit of the infinite, the unlimited, the absolute. The tangible evidence of this is the fact that no matter how happy he is, he wants to be happier; no matter how wealthy he is, he desires to accumulate more wealth; no matter how powerful he is, he still longs for more power; and no matter how beautiful he is, he yearns to be more beautiful. This principle of love for the superlative and the maximum is true with regard to every perfection.

Asking and interviewing different individuals is not a method that can lead to a single or a set of definite and satisfactory answers. Everyone depicts a different sketch of his beloved entity and many people despise something, which they once loved. Few are not the thirsty who fall in love with mirage and chase it until their deaths. However, despite all this, people’s hearts are caught in the mystical cords of a beloved whom they many times fail to identify. And if people pursue finite perfections, it is due to the marks, either true or false, that these finite entities bear from that Infinite Reality.

Just as the human being’s heart and soul is an external reality, the entity for whom the heart yearns and for whom the soul craves is also an external reality. The human life is not driven by the conception of love. It is the external reality of love and affection, which gives it energy and pushes it forward. Man is gravitated by love, and undoubtedly, this practical propensity has a real gravitater. When people feel the passion of love and receive energy and motivation from it, they choose the direction of their lives according to their interpretation and understanding of the object of their love. If their interpretation were correct, it is fair to assume that they come by happiness and satisfaction when they reach their beloved. However, if their interpretation is false, they spend their lives in the pursuit of a beloved that is simply not.

If man should see the Divine visage in finite entities - that is, they do not attract him towards themselves but rather lead him to God - and love them, given it is because of his love for the Infinite Reality, this love is a figurative love(al-‛ishq al-majāzī) . As a figurative thing, it does not have any objectivity by virtue of its essence, and is a passage or medium[181] toward another thing. However, if the finite entities do not illustrate for him the way to God and inspire the individual’s greed to acquire them for their own sake, their love, like the love of a mirage, is a false love. In view of the difference between majāz or a passage, and falsehood, false and erroneous things cannot be the passage to truth and veracity.

The Minor Premise of the Demonstration of Primordial Nature

As far as its major premise is concerned, the cogency of the demonstration of primordial nature, whether based on hope or love, is well secured. It can hardly be disputed that the reciprocal realities of hope and love require two sides. The argument’s difficulty lies in its minor premise, as its tenability rests on proving that the human being, from the depths of his reality, not in his thoughts and surmises, is hopeful of and in love with an absolute and eternal being.

When someone whose ship has been wrecked in a virulent whirlpool in a dark night and whom the roaring waves of the sea have filled with terror places his hope in a reality, which is independent from all instruments, he finds Him. Such a person reaches the argument’s conclusion, the Almighty God, before its minor premise. This is because at that instant, from the window of his urgency and need, he attains shuhūd of the absolute reality, and therefore, his knowledge - which is intuitive, and not conceptual - is antecedent to his hope. That is, in proportion to his existential capacity(al-si‛a al-wujūdiyya) , he first attains the shuhūd of absolute reality and then becomes hopeful and optimistic. It is similar to what occurs when one sees something with the physical eye. He first sees it and then develops a craving for it. Obviously, after being rescued from drowning, when he describes his experience in the conceptual framework, he places his experiential observation as the minor premise of the syllogism. For someone, however, who lives through the vanities of his ego and whose sight has been blinded by worldly comforts, the cogency of this demonstration is dubious.

Likewise, someone who witnesses his own reality and observes his love for God by shuhūd, sees the infinite visage of his beloved before or during his shuhūd. For him also, in the phase of interpretation and notional understanding, the demonstration is tenable. For people, however, who have pledged their hearts to finite and conditional beings and who waste their lives in the fantasy of reaching them, or who lack any such fantasy and call the world ruined and decrepit, and view themselves as desolate wanderers, this demonstration is not easily comprehensible. Such individuals are inattentive to their hope and love for the Almighty God and deny the hope and love of other people.

Notwithstanding the fact that the Divine hope and love genuinely permeates the primordial nature of every individual, the tenability of this demonstration does not rest on the presence of hope or love in every individual. A single instance in which hope or love is held with respect to an absolute reality is sufficient to substantiate the argument. In other words, just as the argument retains its cogency if the arguer intuitively feels the passion and love of an infinite reality inside himself, likewise it is tenable if he observes it in another individual who speaks of its blazing flames in such fiery and brilliant terms as, “So if Thou were to place me for my sins with Thy enemies and put me in the congregation of those who deserve Thy punishment and separate me from Thy lovers and friends, then O’ my Lord, my Master, my Ruler, even if I endure your punishment, how would I endure separation from Thee; and even if I endure the blazes of Thy fire, how would I endure not being able to see Thy benediction.”[182]

Because love is a reciprocal reality and the existence of a lover presupposes the existence of a beloved, the presence of love in relation to the infinite and unconditional reality, even in one individual, proves the existence of an infinite Divine beloved. However, if the existence of such love is doubted, it can be established by drawing attention(tanbīh) , observation, and rational argument. For instance, the existence of love for the finite and conditional entities can be illustrated by introspection or observation of others; and then absence of happiness in vanity-driven lives, and the plenitude of malice and spite towards the putative beloved entities after they have been reached, can explain the falsity of such forms of love.

The glitters of the world, despite their attraction for the followers of the dūnya, are a saltwater, which does not quench thirst, but rather increases it. Lives of individuals whose most adequate object of love and devotion is the worldly life do not have tranquility. Rather, their vexation, discontent, parsimony, and most importantly, the feeling of being separated from the real beloved, ever increase. The more the seeker of wealth comes closer to it, and the more he accumulates, the more his avarice for what he does not have and the worse his fear of losing what he has.

It is not difficult to prove that the human being is in love and that finite things like the world are not the real object of his love and devotion. In view of these premises and the reciprocity of a lover and a beloved’s relationship, the everlastingness of soul and the existence of incorporeal realities can easily be established. And when the falsity of the affections with respect to finite and conditional things, whether corporeal or incorporeal, is proved, it becomes clear that the real object of the human being’s love is the infinite God.

A Criticism and Its Evaluation

It may be objected that the reciprocity of hope and love is acknowledged, and a hopeful individual or a lover, because of reciprocity between the two sides of hope and love, must have hope or love in relation to something. This, however, fails to prove the external existence of the thing, which is the object of hope or love, as it cannot be ruled out that the individual is hopeful, or in love with something, which is merely in his mind and has solely mental existence. It follows that the object of hope and love does not have to be an external object; rather the reciprocal nexus may also exist between the individual and an artifact of his own imagination. In other words, hope or love may be held with respect to an external reality or may be extended to something, which does not exist except in an individual’s fantasy. Therefore, the inference of an external existence from this mere reciprocity is unjustifiable.

The response to this important criticism is that the demonstration of primordial nature revolves around the reality of hope and love and proceeds from their external reciprocity. It is not founded on people’s conceptual surmise or knowledge or the description they give about the objects of their hope or love.

In the version based on hope, the person who is pessimistic of every finite and conditional implement does not entertain any concept or notion. At the emergency scene of, an earthquake, he bumps against the wall instead of using the exit. What he finds his being imbued with is the reality of hope, not its concept. This hope, because it is an external reciprocal reality, requires two sides that exist in the external world. Certainly, its other side cannot be a finite and conditional thing that the individual is pessimistic about.

In the case of love as well, the argument is not based on how individuals describe their object of affection so that their beloved entities could be the artifacts of their fantasies.

The love that permeates the human being’s reality and gives motivation and energy to his life is not directed to a mental image. By pinpointing that finite entities are not what the human being is in love with, or by direct shuhūd, reason identifies the true object of man’s love, irrespective of what people think who their beloved is.

The Demonstration of Primordial Nature in The Noble Qur’ān

The Noble Qur’ān is not a mere book of philosophy, which comprises abstract notions and discursive arguments. In addition to impartation of wisdom, the Noble Qur’ān describes its duty as the purification of souls. In Qur’ānic verses, its two features of education and purification are not separated from one another. Purification being the objective, and thus, antecedent to education, it mentions purification before education. In the few cases that education has been mentioned before purification, it is because education is a prerequisite of purification. For this reason, the Qur’ān mentions educational and moral guidance side by side and its epistemic expositions are coupled with real-life examples. For instance, while explaining virtue, it speaks of its epitome, that is, the virtuous man:

Virtue(birr) is not that ye turn your faces to the East or the West; virtue is rather the person who believeth in God and the Last Day and the angels and the Book and the Prophets and giveth his wealth out of love for Him to the kinsmen and the orphans and the poor and the traveler and the needy and for those in bondage [to ransom slaves]; and established prayer and payeth the alms; and those who fulfill their promise when they make a promise and the patient ones in distress and affliction and in the time of war; these are they who are truthful and these are they who are the God-fearing.[183]

A book that is solely concerned with theorizing about topics such as ethics, home economics, and so forth, when it explains virtue, it mentions values like faith, justice, and piety. However, when the Majestic Qur’ān explains virtue and righteousness, it mentions the virtuous men. The commentators who have failed to notice this fine point have had trouble in this and similar verses, and some have suggested that “birr”(virtue) should be read “barr”(virtuous) - as has been recited by some narrators of Qur’ānic recitations - and some have assumed an annexed noun in meaning, that is, “the people of virtue”.

Given the demonstration of primordial nature can have a remarkably positive influence on the moral excellence of individuals, and its first premise is attainable by self-purification and shuhūd on an individual basis, it is one of the arguments, some of which were mentioned, that can be derived from verses of the Noble Qur’ān.

In the chapter of Luqmān, the Noble Qur’ān says,

Has thou not seen that the ships sail on the sea by the blessing of God, that He may show you some of His signs? Surely in this are signs for every steadfast, grateful [person]. And when covereth them a wave like mountains they call upon God in sincere devotion unto Him, but when He bringeth them safe to land, some of them are lukewarm, and none disputes Our signs except every ungrateful traitor. [184]

In the chapter of Spider it says:And when they embark on ships, they call on God sincerely, vowing worship [only] unto Him, but when He delivereth them safe to the land, behold! They associate [others with Him] .[185]

This and other similar verses indicate that the hope of a person who is pessimistic of every finite entity is a reciprocal reality the other side of which cannot be a finite entity. The reality of the object of hope, in the life-and-death situation of someone whose ship is about to be swallowed by a storm, is witnessed by shuhūd; and later, after being saved, this shuhūd becomes the premise of a discursive argument for the Necessary.

In some other verses, the demonstration of primordial nature has been explained by making use of love towards God.

And thus We were showing Abraham the Kingdom of the heavens and the earth, and that he may be of those who are sure. When the night overshadowed him, he saw a star and said, “This is my Lord.” But when it set he said, “I love not the setters.” When he saw the moon rising, he said, “This is my Lord.” But when it set, he said, “If my Lord does not guide me, I would certainly be of the people gone astray.” When he saw the sum rising, he said, “This is my Lord; this is greater.” But when it set, he said, “O’ my people! I am clear of what ye associate. I have turned my face to Him who originated the heavens and the earth, being upright, I am not of the associators.”[186]

In the first of the above verses, God points out, We showed the Kingdom of the heavens and the earth to Abraham; and for its reason, He suffices to say, “and that he may be of those who are sure.” A statement such as this indicates that showing the Kingdom to Abraham, peace be with him, had many reasons, and one of them was to secure certitude. Interpreters have presented a great variety of opinions regarding the nature of Abraham’s reasoning. Some consider these verses reflect the demonstrations of motion, hudūth, and contingency and necessity. However, Abraham’s, peace be with him, discourse includes no indication to these arguments.

The middle term of Abraham’s demonstration, peace be with him, is love and affection. The Deity, which it proves, is a Deity that is loved and adored. Abraham, peace be with him, negates the divinity of celestial bodies on the grounds that love cannot be proportioned to something that is finite. He argues from his love and affection for an infinite and eternal Deity who is the Creator of the heavens and the earth.

All praise belongs to God, the Lord of the worlds.