Secularism, Islam and Modernity by Ansari M T; Ansari M. T.; Ansari M. T

Author:Ansari, M T; Ansari, M. T.; Ansari, M. T.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-93-515-0013-1
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2013-12-24T16:00:00+00:00

The heart, according to Iqbal, is a kind of inner intuition or insight in which sensation, in the physiological sense of the word, does not play any part, yet it is not justifiable to call it merely supernatural, mystic or psychic. ‘The total-Reality, which enters our awareness and appears on interpretation as an empirical fact, has other ways of invading our consciousness and offers further opportunities of interpretation’, and our intuitive level is as normal as the sensory level and ‘facts of religious experience are facts among other facts of human experience and, in the capacity of yielding knowledge by interpretation, one fact is as good as another’.19 Facts of religious experience to become knowledge, need interpretation, as do other facts of experience. That is, they also need critical examination. Iqbal’s notion of intuition appears to be similar to that of Bergson,20 but there are certain important differences which cannot be ignored.

For Bergson, intellect is not a truth-knowing faculty at all. It is practical in its essence and only enables us to act efficiently in the constant flux of things. For him the essential function of intelligence is to see the way out of a difficult situation and to find what is most suitable, or ‘what answers best the question asked’. Intellect is counterpoised with instinct in Bergson’s thought and what is called intuition comes very near to biological instinct rather than the ‘intuition’ of the Sufi. The difference between man and an ant—Bergson refers to them, respectively, as the lord of the soil and the lord of the sub-soil,21 is more fundamental for Bergson than the difference between a prophetic vision of reality and an ordinary man’s awareness of it. Moreover, the dualism between intellect and will and intellect and intuition is fundamental and irreconcilable for Bergson. For Iqbal, on the other hand, they are not irreconcilable; the difference between them is not of kind, but only of degree. Bergson’s dualism between matter and life is the ground on which the dualism between intellect and intuition is based. Iqbal sees no such ultimate distinction. Iqbal writes, in very clear terms, about this dualism:

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