679)Shi‘i Interpretations of Islam by Nasir al-Din Tusi: Three Treatises on Islamic Theology and Eschatology; from the Institute of Ismaili Studies.

"In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God"(Aga Khan IV, July 23rd 2008, Lisbon, Portugal)

"....in Islam, but particularly Shia Islam, the role of the intellect is part of faith. That intellect is what seperates man from the rest of the physical world in which he lives.....This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives. Of that I am certain"(Aga Khan IV, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, August 17th 2007)

"Our interpretation of Islam places enormous value on knowledge. Knowledge is the reflection of faith if it is used properly. Seek out that knowledge and use it properly"(Aga Khan IV, Toronto, Canada, 8th June 2005)

"Quran Symposium:....a reflection of how Islam's revelation, with its challenge to man's innate gift of quest and reason, became a powerful impetus for a new flowering of human civilisation.This programme is also an opportunity for achieving insights into how the discourse of the Qur'an-e-Sharif, rich in parable and allegory, metaphor and symbol, has been an inexhaustible well-spring of inspiration, lending itself to a wide spectrum of interpretations.In this context, would it not also be relevant to consider how, above all, it has been the Qur'anic notion of the universe as an expression of Allah's will and creation that has inspired, in diverse Muslim communities, generations of artists, scientists and philosophers? Scientific pursuits, philosophic inquiry and artistic endeavour are all seen as the response of the faithful to the recurring call of the Qur'an to ponder the creation as a way to understand Allah's benevolent majesty. As Sura al-Baqara proclaims: 'Wherever you turn, there is the face of Allah'.The famous verse of 'light' in the Qur'an, the Ayat al-Nur, whose first line is rendered here in the mural behind me, inspires among Muslims a reflection on the sacred, the transcendent. It hints at a cosmos full of signs and symbols that evoke the perfection of Allah's creation and mercy"(Aga Khan IV,Speech, Institute of Ismaili Studies, October 2003, London, U.K.)

"In sum the process of creation can be said to take place at several levels. Ibda represents the initial level - one transcends history, the other creates it. The spiritual and material realms are not dichotomous, since in the Ismaili formulation, matter and spirit are united under a higher genus and each realm possesses its own hierarchy. Though they require linguistic and rational categories for definition, they represent elements of a whole, and a true understanding of God must also take account of His creation. Such a synthesis is crucial to how the human intellect eventually relates to creation and how it ultimately becomes the instrument for penetrating through history the mystery of the unknowable God implied in the formulation of tawhid."(Azim Nanji, Director, Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, U.K., 1998)

"The Divine Intellect, Aql-i Kull, both transcends and informs the human intellect. It is this Intellect which enables man to strive towards two aims dictated by the faith: that he should reflect upon the environment Allah has given him and that he should know himself. It is the Light of the Intellect which distinguishes the complete human being from the human animal, and developing that intellect requires free inquiry. The man of faith, who fails to pursue intellectual search is likely to have only a limited comprehension of Allah's creation. Indeed, it is man's intellect that enables him to expand his vision of that creation"(Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan University Inauguration Speech, Karachi, Pakistan, November 11, 1985)

"The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims. Exchanges of knowledge between institutions and nations and the widening of man's intellectual horizons are essentially Islamic concepts. The Faith urges freedom of intellectual enquiry and this freedom does not mean that knowledge will lose its spiritual dimension. That dimension is indeed itself a field for intellectual enquiry. I can not illustrate this interdependence of spiritual inspiration and learning better than by recounting a dialogue between Ibn Sina, the philosopher, and Abu Said Abu -Khyar, the Sufi mystic. Ibn Sina remarked, "Whatever I know, he sees". To which Abu Said replied," Whatever I see, he knows"."(Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan University Inauguration Speech, Karachi, Pakistan, November 11th 1985)

"The creation according to Islam is not a unique act in a given time but a perpetual and constant event; and God supports and sustains all existence at every moment by His will and His thought. Outside His will, outside His thought, all is nothing, even the things which seem to us absolutely self-evident such as space and time. Allah alone wishes: the Universe exists; and all manifestations are as a witness of the Divine Will"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)

"Thus there was an absolute need for the Divine Word's revelation, to Mohammed himself, a man like the others, of God's person and of his relations to the Universe which he had created. Once man has thus comprehended the essence of existence, there remains for him the duty, since he knows the absolute value of his own soul, of making for himself a direct path which will constantly lead his individual soul to and bind it with the universal Soul of which the Universe is, as much of it as we perceive with our limited visions, one of the infinite manifestations. Thus Islam's basic principle can only be defined as mono-realism and not as monotheism. Consider, for example, the opening declaration of every Islamic prayer: "Allah-o-Akbar". What does that mean? There can be no doubt that the second word of the declaration likens the character of Allah to a matrix which contains all and gives existence to the infinite, to space, to time, to the Universe, to all active and passive forces imaginable, to life and to the soul. Imam Hassan has explained the Islamic doctrine of God and the Universe by analogy with the sun and its reflection in the pool of a fountain; there is certainly a reflection or image of the sun, but with what poverty and with what little reality; how small and pale is the likeness between this impalpable image and the immense, blazing, white-hot glory of the celestial sphere itself. Allah is the sun; and the Universe, as we know it in all its magnitude, and time, with its power, are nothing more than the reflection of the Absolute in the mirror of the fountain"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)

"According to a famous hadith of the Prophet Muhammad: The first(and only) thing created by God was the Intellect ('aql)(circa 632CE)

http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html




"In the first four chapters, he establishes the intellectual groundwork by exploring the basic issues of human origin and destination, existence and non-existence, perfection and deficiency, the relationship between the corporeal and spiritual worlds, the hidden and the manifest, the nature of time and space, etc."


Shi‘i Interpretations of Islam: Three Treatises on Islamic Theology and Eschatology

Dr Sayyad Jalal BadakhchaniI. B. Tauris Publishers
in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London 2010ISBN (Hardback): Hardback ISBN: 9781848855946

Synopsis
The celebrated 13th-century Persian scholar Nasir al-Din Tusi (1201-1274) was one of the most prominent Muslim scholars and scientists of the medieval era. Tusi dedicated himself from an early age to the search for knowledge and truth. In the course of his long and distinguished career, first under the patronage of the Ismailis at their fortresses in Persia and later in service of the conquering Mongols, he produced over 150 works on a variety of subjects from theology and philosophy to mathematics and astronomy.

In this publication, Dr Jalal Badakhchani brings together critical editions and English translations of three shorter Ismaili works of Tusi, namely Solidarity and Dissociation (Tawalla wa tabarra), Desideratum of the Faithful (Matlub al-mu’minin) and Origin and Destination(Aghaz wa anjam). In these treatises, Tusi provides concise philosophical interpretations of key motifs in Ismaili thought, with special reference to the existential condition of human beings, their primordial origin and nature, their earthly existence and their destiny in the Hereafter.

The Tawalla wa tabarra is grounded in the integral notion of solidarity and dissociation, based on a tradition attributed to Prophet Muhammad: “ Religion is love and hatred for the sake of God”. Tusi takes solidarity with the Imams and dissociation from anything alien to them as an indispensable condition for the seekers of truth. In the manner that Tusi describes it, this principle corresponds to the Shi‘i principle of walaya, the first pillar of Shi‘i Ismaili Islam as articulated by the Fatimid chief da‘i al-Qadi al-Numan in the opening chapter of his Da‘a’im al-Islam. Essentially, walaya requires recognition of the Imams descended from ‘Ali b.Abi Talib, and the demonstration of absolute devotion and obedience to them. Tusi’s object in this treatise in not merely to reaffirm an established theological principle of Shi‘a Islam, but also to delineate the internal, psychological and spiritual process by which solidarity may be cultivated and attained by the individual.

The second treatise, Matlub al-mu’minin, is a development on the main themes introduced in the Tawalla, reminding the reader of the essentials of faith, such as recognition of the Imam, the conditions of faithfulness, solidarity and dissociation, the degrees of certitude, etc. But in contrast to the brevity of Tawalla, it is a longer text with four chapters, and Tusi’s perspective is focused much more on the idea of origin and destination (mabda’wa ma‘ad) or, in his words: ‘Where has man come from, why has he come, and where is he heading to?’ Also, the Matlub goes much farther in its final chapter with a discussion of the seven pillars of Shi‘i Ismaili Islam. In common with his Fatimid predecessors, Tusi provides both the exoteric and esoteric meanings of religious rituals such as prayer, fasting, pilgrimage. He is careful in declaring that the observance of shari‘a practices is obligatory for all Ismailis, but it must be performed in both their exoteric and esoteric aspects.

The third and longest of the treatises collected in this volume, the Aghaz wa anjam, is notable for Tusi’s philosophical exegesis of the Qur’anic doctrine of Qiyama (Resurrection). In his Preamble to the discourse, Tusi admits to the difficulty of writing about the Hereafter, especially because his intention is to record an account ‘not as rendered by scholars,’ but by ‘men of insight’.
In the first four chapters, he establishes the intellectual groundwork by exploring the basic issues of human origin and destination, existence and non-existence, perfection and deficiency, the relationship between the corporeal and spiritual worlds, the hidden and the manifest, the nature of time and space, etc. In the chapters that follow, he ranges across a broad spectrum of eschatological themes from the soundings of the Trumpet and the in-gathering for Resurrection, to the reading of the Scroll of Deeds, Heaven and Hell, angels and satans, the rivers of Paradise, the Tree of Bliss and its counterpart the Infernal Tree.

Tusi concludes the Aghaz with the core message that appears in all of his Ismaili works; that the people of this world who have attained absolute certainty and unity of purpose with the Divine are already resurrected and liberated in spirit. Apparently for Tusi, the essence of this message is encapsulated in the famous Prophetic tradition which he quotes in the Aghaz,Tawalla and Matlub: “This world is forbidden to the people of the Hereafter, and the Hereafter is forbidden to the people of this world and both of them are highly forbidden to the people of God”. Throughout his discourse, Tusi maintains a highly subtle, dialectical balance between the exoteric and esoteric readings of the Qur’an, between fidelity to the letter of the text and its inner, spiritual meaning.

While Tusi’s hermeneutics is consistent with Qur’anic teachings, it draws conclusions which are in certain respects quite distinctive from those of the Sunni and the Twelver Shi‘i authors.

http://iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=112225&l=en



Easy Nash
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http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
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In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)