Noura Bouhannash, Professor of Philosophy at Constantine 1 University in Algeria, works through her books on both the philosophical lesson and the fundamental and intentional lesson (Al Jazeera)
After decades of modernization and globalization that the Islamic world has witnessed, the Islamic system is still steadfast with its value and moral system in the face of the individualistic tide imposed by the philosophy of modernity and globalization through the mechanisms of individualism and consumerism. Ramadan is an important station for a Muslim not only to get closer to God through voluntary acts of worship and prayers as it is the “month of the Qur’an.” But also as a station for refining the soul and pruning the soul.
In order to understand the effects of the philosophy of modernity, globalization, and consumption on our customs and religiosity in Ramadan, and how the “month of the Qur’an” can be a shield for Muslims against the globalized consumer tide, Al Jazeera Net hosts the Algerian academic, Dr. Noura Bouhannash, professor of philosophy at the University of Constantine 1 in Algeria, who works through her books on all matters. From the philosophical lesson and the fundamental and purposeful lesson; She wrote many books, including “Ijtihad and the Controversy of Modernity,” “The Objectives of Sharia according to Al-Shatibi,” “The Rooting of Ethics in Arab-Islamic Thought,” “Ethics and Human Stakes,” “The Problem of Values in Bergson’s Philosophy,” and “Ethics and Modernity.”
Read also
list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4
Critical reading... How do you read a philosophical article and understand it?
list 2 of 4
Study: People learn to joke with others before they utter their first words
list 3 of 4
Ummm
list 4 of 4
Why does my child destroy things? How do I get rid of aggressive behavior?
end of list
According to Bouhannash’s vision, the Islamic world is witnessing the change of an important set of values due to global domestication, and the reality of Ramadan confirmed the dedication of a set of excessive consumer practices, blocking the soul from the task of refinement and pruning, as it is the ultimate goal of Ramadan.
It also shed light on the danger of Ramadan preaching programs whose purpose has deviated from being a human guide to turning them into a consumer commodity that capitalism trades in just as it trades in films and series. Bouhanash states, in her interview with Al Jazeera, that the modernist model is incompatible with Islam because it conflicts with its ultimate goals, because Islam is separate. of matter and makes the body loyal to God. As for modernity, its goals are material, and therefore, according to Bouhannash, it is difficult to talk about an Islamic modernity based on the present.
And to the text of the dialogue...
Every worship has its own philosophy, so what is the philosophy of fasting according to your perspective?
Let us go beyond the rhetorical bidding, and adopt the method of living, and then explore the remnants of Islamic morality, an anthropological form that has remained faint, within the folds of the structural pattern of Islamic society, to be a witness, to the effectiveness of Islamic law, encompassing the totality of man and leading him towards righteousness.
Sharia adopts a logical justification for its purposes based on the philosophy of monotheism, then its legislative tools take an educational approach, penetrating the human faculty as a training for the body. Guidance towards values, and evaluation of action in its pursuit of righteousness.
Sharia adopts a logical justification for its purposes based on the philosophy of monotheism, then its legislative tools take an educational approach, penetrating the human faculty as a training for the body. Guidance towards values, and evaluation of action in its pursuit of righteousness.
It is precisely the procedural value, according to which the philosophy of fasting applies, a biological training that educates the body on values, and it is precisely the thing in which Western morality failed, in its search for a balance between the relative and the absolute, between the moral and the vital, due to its lack of techniques for moralizing the self.
The wisdom of the imposed acts of worship and the required transactions is revealed in a supra-arbitration of the moral law that gives birth to the trustworthy Caliph, the human being whom the Qur’an assigns for the sake of universal caliphate. Fasting is not limited to this Quranic philosophy.
The essence of worship lies in attaining perfection, which fulfills the condition of spiritual infliction as a divine distinction granted to the person who is the Caliph. It is the legislative philosophy of the Qur’an, which is stated in the objectives of worship. It seeks to refine the soul and raise it to perfection, and to verify the superior leadership of morals, as it is the original essence of man, which is synonymous with the good life.
The essence of worship lies in achieving perfection, which fulfills the condition of spiritual infusion as a divine distinction that the human being, the Caliph, has attained. It is the legislative philosophy of the Qur’an, which is stated in the objectives of worship. It seeks to refine the soul and raise it to perfection, and to verify the superior leadership of morals, as it is the original essence of man, which is synonymous with the good life.
The book “Ethics and Human Stakes” by Noura Bouhannash (Al Jazeera)
Worship voluntarily disciplines the body and demonstrates the connection between the body and the spirit. Through fasting, the body comes to the values that it realizes and practices. It becomes a method of refining the vital energy of humans - training by which the body is trained to be patient and patient - and a balance between self-interest and altruism.
Current science has proven the goodness of fasting. At the level of the physiological system, abstinence from eating constitutes a means of treatment and life for the body. At the level of societal moral consolidation, fasting creates compassionate human relations. By act of altruism.
Fasting refines instincts and establishes values, so that the ego feels sacrifice and poverty before God. The wisdom of fasting also creates self-balance and prevents a person from falling into Nimrodism and Qarunism, as they are characteristics of modern and post-modern man, and characteristics of the globalized time.
Fasting refines instincts and establishes values, so that the ego feels sacrifice and poverty before God. The wisdom of fasting also creates self-balance and prevents a person from falling into Nimrodism and Qarunism, as they are characteristics of modern and post-modern man, and characteristics of the globalized time.
How should a Muslim deal with Ramadan, in light of the expansion of modern and post-modern practices in our contemporary reality?
The colonial lesson recognizes a qualitative uniqueness of Western imperial hegemony that has no parallel in history. Western power is not limited to geopolitical expansion, but rather the capitalist phenomenon linked to imperialism requires the leakage of hegemony into the human self. Which means educating people to consume and building psychological and societal systems that revolve around a single goal, which is to recycle consumption. It works to give birth to the consumer who has been cut off from the supply of the soul, so that he becomes a cog in the individual machine of the capitalist production cycle.
Western power is not limited to geopolitical expansion, but rather the capitalist phenomenon linked to imperialism requires the leakage of hegemony into the human self. Which means educating people to consume and building psychological and societal systems that revolve around one goal, which is to recycle consumption
The same applies to Muslims. Can fasting break the chain of selfishness and hedonism that dominate in times of excessive liquidity? How can fasting be a repulsive force that re-disciplines the self towards moderation? What is the role of Islamic worship in breaking the chain of voluntary slavery to the consumer system?
It must be recognized that modernity and post-modernism are carrying out a process of demolition - sometimes slowly and sometimes rapidly - of the anthropological structure of Islamic society, which has absorbed Sharia law and permeated its structures for centuries, as it undergoes a systematic process of dismantling, in which established moral habits are replaced by emergent consumer habits. In a global context, it elevates extravagance and makes it a lifestyle.
The book “Ijtihad and the Modernity Controversy” by Noura Bouhannash (Al Jazeera)
The truth is that devotional fasting denies the phenomenon of extravagance, describing it as a negative value and a vice that God does not like. Fasting was imposed to protect man from the ends that man today reached in ignorance of history. In the context of global domestication, Ramadan has become a space for practicing excessive consumption with its global fluidity. Instead of refining the soul, the Muslim has resorted to consumer habits that undermine the ultimate purpose of Ramadan as a spiritual time.
Can a Muslim return the gains of fasting as liberating values, based on martyrdom as a system of freedom? This restoration requires activating the energy of self-criticism, criticizing the reality of modernity, and openness to the Islamic model, openness of thought and action. Then the Muslim will restore the characteristics of Ramadan creation, which presents a humane model for humanity trapped in the slavery of consumption.
How did Ramadan transform from a month of worship to a month of consumption? How can Ramadan rationalize our consumption habits?
In addition to the above, fasting no longer has an impact on the Muslim - in a time of excessive global acceleration - in achieving its educational and disciplinary goals that lead towards righteousness. Worship has become a place for shopping and a space from which the spirit that martyrdom instills in the heart has disappeared.
As a result, the impact of Ramadan on the soul diminished, as it was merely a habit and a ritual that was repeated over and over the years of life and had no effect on the soul. Values in Islam precede the demands of the body, while it is considered a central goal and a use value in the modernist system into which the Muslim has been thrust, lacking the tools for advancement that guide him towards righteousness that protects him from the dominance of the globalization system.
As a result, the impact of Ramadan on the soul diminished, as it was merely a habit and a ritual that was repeated over and over the years of life and had no effect on the soul. Values in Islam precede the demands of the body, while it is considered a central goal and a use value in the modernist system into which the Muslim has been thrust, lacking the tools for advancement that guide him towards righteousness that protects him from the dominance of the globalization system.
The truth is that the changes that have taken place in the Islamic world lead us to a careful reading of the phenomenon of capitalist domestication, to which all the peoples of the world have been subjected, and to looking at the nature of modernization as a Western paradigm (model) that breeds the world in service of the productive core.
The colonial situation was a pivotal stage for dismantling the authority of Sharia, according to Wael Hallaq. As for post-colonialism, it is considered a dangerous stage in terms of the identification of the modern national state in the Arab-Islamic space with the systematic steps of Western modernity, without considering the nature of these steps based on a reference that undermines testimony from its foundations and from its foundations. Then its devotional tools.
The colonial situation was a pivotal stage for dismantling the authority of Sharia, according to Wael Hallaq. As for post-colonialism, it is considered a dangerous stage in terms of the identification of the modern national state in the Arab-Islamic space with the systematic steps of Western modernity, without considering the nature of these steps based on a reference that undermines testimony from its foundations and from its foundations. Then its devotional tools.
It is clear that what colonialism has done is not comparable to what the modern post-colonial state is doing, in terms of domesticating the human being according to the Western model, within a patriotic national framework that supports the goals of the Western paradigm, through the means of self-culture, so religion has been subjugated to this demand, through a bureaucracy that serves Western centralism. , on Islamic sites.
Therefore, fasting became an abstinence from pleasure without refining it, causing it to inflame it. We do not forget that globalization, through its media arms, has played a dangerous role in removing the Muslim person from his contexts of worship, to consider worship as a consumer field.
The era of modernity and post-modernism was able to reverse the relationship - between the moral law and the vital law - which the Sharia is responsible for regulating them with the supremacy of the moral law. Thus, the order assigned to the construction of the worshiping human being was reversed, so that Islamic existence witnessed a central imbalance in the purposes of worship as a whole, and then the educational and edifying context of fasting.
The result: The era of modernity and post-modernism was able to reverse the relationship - between the moral law and the vital law - which the Sharia is responsible for regulating them with the supremacy of the moral law. Thus, the order assigned to the construction of the worshiping human being was reversed, so that Islamic existence witnessed a central imbalance in the purposes of worship as a whole, and then the educational and edifying context of fasting.
There is a decisive prophetic hadith regarding the matter of the spiritual and physical life of mankind, which has been proven by contemporary science and practical experience: “We are a people who do not eat until we are hungry, and if we eat we are not satisfied.” In the sense of refining the self and taming it to contentment, it is an educational plan undertaken by the family, and then by the nation if it recognizes its liberating model and frees itself from the yoke of slavery into which the reality of modernity has placed it.
The Muslim had to present his model for humanity, but he complied with the consumerist model, so he replaced the virtues and perfections assigned to worship with the vices of consumption that changed the situation, so the Muslim became a dead human being, just like the human being who worships the idols of self and money. Will he remove the yoke of global slavery and replace it with the freedom of servitude to God? Energy freed from the obligations of the global consumer system.
In general, the Muslim had to present his model for humanity, but he complied with the consumerist model, so he replaced the virtues and perfections assigned to worship with the vices of consumption, which changed the situation, so the Muslim became a dead human being, just like the human being who worships the idols of self and money. Will he remove the yoke of global slavery and replace it with the freedom of servitude to God? Energy freed from the obligations of the global consumer system.
Are we witnessing a new religious consumerism due to “preaching programs,” instead of focusing on building a direct relationship with acts of worship such as fasting, prayer, and others?
The world of globalization is witnessing a global expansion in the power of authority, through the media, which performs a dangerous function in domesticating human consciousness, including the worship of the idea that leads to submission and domination to the consumer model.
On the other hand, the field of advocacy in the Islamic world is witnessing dramatic chaos due to preaching programs that have taken the fatwa as a guide to Islamic public opinion. Rather, it has a role in religious division and the division of young people into groups that fight among themselves in the service of hierarchical authorities internally and externally.
It is not possible to ignore the relationship between the preaching programs and the political and ideological backgrounds that lead the Arab and Islamic region with a leadership that fulfills the condition of ignoring the essence of rising Islam and establishing false science as a religion that numbs the people according to the Marxist saying.
Islam does not accommodate the institutional establishment of religious authority, let alone taking the media authority as a position to distribute the idea and establish it as a field for belief. In this context, many Ramadan advocacy programs fell within the logic of direction and possession.
The positions that truly distinguish the preacher are what prove his value. Accordingly, we find a few of those who investigated the relationship between knowledge and work well, were able to read the purposes of worship, and had a profound influence on the viewer that led to piety and piety.
The danger of guidance in religion seems great, as the believer considers the preacher as a saying in the place of the legislator after his absence, which is a very dangerous point that led to the dispersion of the religious position and its taking the form of an influential media scene, as it is in films and series.
Media preachers forgot that fatwas require piety, that a Muslim scholar did not issue fatwas unless he had a solid foundation in piety and piety, and that speaking about religion requires knowledge of fundamentalist and jurisprudential rules.
The screens were full of star preachers whose lives conflicted with the goals of religious work, and piety turned into benefit and the purpose of preaching into hypocrisy.
The truth is that the positions that truly characterize the preacher are what prove his value. Accordingly, we find a few of those who investigated the relationship between knowledge and work well, were able to read the purposes of worship, and had a profound influence on the viewer that led to piety and piety.
Has our move away from religious practices such as family ties and concern for one’s neighbor perpetuated modernist individualism and led to what Zygmunt Bauman spoke about regarding the fragility of human ties in modern times?
To understand the premises contained in the previous answers, we say that liberalism, as an essence of modernity, considers the human being a use value, and works to create human relations, based on benefit, to be mathematical relations. In addition, the structure of the contractual society, as a result of which the modern state was born, in which the individual precedes society. Its healing is legal, not moral.
As for the society assumed in the Islamic model, its contract is a fiduciary contract, in which individuals are equal, and compassionate relationships are established in accordance with the supremacy of the moral law linked to the divine covenant.
This image, which was absorbed by Islamic society, is slowly disappearing due to the modern domestication of society, in accordance with the neoliberal deal (an economic philosophy that supports free market capitalism and limiting state intervention in the economy) that the post-colonial national state is making with the world order drawn up by globalization.
Individualism gradually seeped into the Islamic self, and became a worshiped idol in place of otherness, which was ensured by working to cultivate the compassionate space between subjects, through measures of legal orders: obligatory and voluntary rulings or charity.
Thus, individualism gradually seeped into the Islamic self, and became a worshiped idol instead of otherness, which the compassionate space between people was responsible for cultivating through the measures of legal orders: obligatory and voluntary rulings or charity.
It is necessary to acknowledge that the path taken by Islamic society indicates the disintegration of relationships and the loss of the values implanted in the societal body. This is seen in the family that was inspired by the Western model and followed its path, adopting the modernist style in a nuclear (non-extended) family. Subjects no longer meet except according to civil law, with little influence from the covenant.
How is Ramadan able to transform the amputee human being into the kawthar human being in the language of Taha Abdul Rahman?
Worship was imposed in Islam in order for a person to revive the life of the spirit and become a Kauthar person (with a believing soul), in whom the signs of caliphate are achieved, as being faithful to values and keeping the covenant.
Ethical philosopher Nikolai Hartmann asserts that man is the only being who can integrate axiology (values) into ontology (existence); Meaning that the values for him are an achieved reality and a journey of the body in the orbit of the soul that ends with righteousness in the two worlds.
In exploring the nature of worship in Islam, we glimpse its miraculous ability in the amazing ability it requires to integrate morality into reality, by giving priority to the moral law over the biological law, and fasting clearly performs this process.
Piety makes the body loyal to God, and in its sincerity values are characterized by behavior, and that is the moral pattern of Ramadan, but turning it into a ritual ritual has made it lose the ability to revive a person, so the Muslim has become a dead, amputated human being, buying and selling his values in the global shopping space.
Piety makes the body loyal to God, and in its sincerity values are characterized by behavior, and that is the moral pattern of Ramadan. However, turning it into a ritual ritual has made it lose the ability to revive the human being. Therefore, the Muslim has become a dead, amputated human being, buying and selling his values in the global shopping space.
If Protestantism is behind the spirit of capitalism, according to Max Weber, then what does Islam establish? Are there religious and spiritual values that belong to the spirit of the age?
The relationship between Islam and modernity is a worrying one. Can Islam be modern according to the Western paradigm? The truth is that the answer is negative, as the priorities are different and the premises are different. We are faced with two models that do not fit together at all. In Islam, money will not be a state among the rich.
The ultimate goal of economic work in Islam is to spread material good, as a means only and not an end, which means that the actor will give up benefit and profit as a final goal. Rather, the goal of amassing wealth is to spread good things on earth and combat poverty. Islamic history contains images of personalities who elevated righteousness over material interests, and Islam did not spread in Asia except through moral conduct.
The ultimate goal of economic work in Islam is to spread material good, as a means only and not an end, which means that the actor will give up benefit and profit as a final goal. Rather, the goal of amassing wealth is to spread good things on earth and combat poverty. Islamic history contains images of personalities who elevated righteousness over material interests, and Islam did not spread in Asia except through moral conduct.
Moral values are common values among humans, in which the ruler does not rise above the ruled, and the rich have mercy on the poor. The Islamic vision depends on developing brotherhood and compassion among people, with procedural tools that make wealth, for example, a trust borne by the taxpayer.
Zakat is growth and blessing, while charity is a sign of a person’s love for God and God’s love for him. It uproots selfishness (stinginess and miserliness), making generosity one of the values that characterize individuals, to spread throughout society, and a characteristic of human transcendence, so a person feels responsibility and compassion towards his brother.
Zakat is growth and blessing, while charity is a sign of a person’s love for God and God’s love for him. It uproots selfishness (stinginess and miserliness), making generosity one of the values that characterize individuals, to spread throughout society, and a characteristic of human transcendence, so a person feels responsibility and compassion towards his brother.
The point is that Islam bases its educational work on man on techniques that seep into the self in a connection in which the relationship between the soul and the body is balanced, and expands the vision of existence, with monotheism, which means an extended time in which death is eliminated and nihilism disappears. From this perspective, Islam constitutes a model of human righteousness that prevents homeostasis. Pre-Islamic times.
As for the stagnation in imitation, it is a phenomenon that leads to the cultural decline of the nation. We are reminded of the shortcomings of the elites in the Islamic world, and their division between the tradition of the ancestors and the tradition of Western modernity.
Malek Bennabi is an Islamic thinker who was able to follow a third path. Where he read Islam in a way that went beyond tradition and opened the horizon of the Islamic renaissance.
Source: Al Jazeera