our session today what is an aesthetic approach to knowledge understanding the community my name is Emmanuel mudiay I'm a master's student here at the University and I have the honor to introduce to you a sentence by prayer today see he has since my career spent 12 years studying these dynamic intellectual sciences in the Middle East we're focused on interactions between this globe in Menomonee and Lake Anantha theology and also completed his memorization of the Quran which Ozma peasant holds a BA in philosophy from the University of London and is currently studying for his MPhil at the University of Cambridge a researcher at Baba Foundation he's the author of several philosophical studies and academic articles including the mystical synthesis of even behead deep and up budding and an theologian for the 16th century assemble and things as they are Neff cinnamon and the ontological foundations of objective truth so we're here for the CTS then for a time and then there will be a period for questions at the end bottom line we also want to encourage all to the day as to [Music] along Sullivan is in Murray Kentucky community in fact Americans to death determines why enemy team us probably he's mine is the meeting place of the angelic and the animal realm this understanding is very very the great Indian philosophy little mystic because he provides such a beautiful expedition of the meaning of if man is the meeting place between the angelic and the animal realms then he very uniquely spanning all of creation in his being is capable of being the vice-chair of the world big mechanic and the custodian of the worlds in all of its dimensions and taking care of the cultivation and the protection of the world and man by nature decides to know as aristotle says but of course what we subsequently know depends very much on what our vision of human nature is and if we are a meeting place of the angelic and the animal then our knowledge and our faculties of knowledge must also constitute windows onto those very different well this is equipped from toshko rosetta a very very important late Ottoman philosopher and theologian in a very standard digestible senses since to get give an idea very early on at the way in which the synthesis of the different faculties which City apartment alluded to we're very standard li understood to not lying any form exciting the way of deductive inference it as the rational president very standard reference to be in reviews every ASC very end of Linea ordinary reasoning the way of deductive inference in the way of Gnostic witnessing both of the two ways sometimes become resolved into the other except that the person in possession of them both becomes a meeting place of the two seeds mathematically that is the two seas of deductive inference and Gnostic witnessing or knowledge in nurses or the observed worlds and the unseen world knowledge pertaining to essences in NASA Hammond because ou can equally be acquired by a speculative investigation another or where spiritual purification plus P remember this is not a an esoteric Texas suspended dangerous about their own only the age of the shield or slow-witted a la pierna which is a very nice way to end a career should suffice themselves the spiritual purification alone solely due to their inability to learn the way of a little investigation another and so we see hints here a scheme that was understood in the Ottoman world and in the mobile world and in general and the developed and Islamic senses of the sources of knowledge there are three faculties sources so as city I'm beautifully laid out in his tall fundamentally the purpose or the incentive to know and seek knowledge is to respond to this extraordinary event of the revelation which we do with light ability with insightful people with knowledge that clearly by its own nature announced that it came from another world so we have as an element of man's nature mister admission which took into the angels reason and sense experience of course which belongs to the animal and you can see this lovely type shaped scheme of knowledge wave have revelation mystical admission sentence experience and reason and you can see with my very limited artistic capabilities each arrow is in both directions here so sense experience leads in Teresa it's only because of a welded sense experience on some accounts that are able to abstract the the universals which constitutive objects of a rational mind and reason on the other hand is that which renders the sensible world intelligible in the first list the empirical world itself being distinct is not competing empirical while of distinct why's it present itself as a distinct it's not because of the senses something's of empirical element it's because of the intellect either on the very bottom view imposing itself on the world all because the nature is fundamentally infused with rational principles and we have the same situation in regulation if you wanted to prove that revelation is true you wouldn't say to best from the parameters someone who doesn't believe the course and even when we come to believe in revelation there is certainly an experiential aspect this definitely or is there a rational aspect as well it's very difficult to believe in something which is rationally unacceptable and then the revelation also supports reason because there are many things beyond the Kenan reason exactly what happens to us after we die for example where exactly do we go what are those opposed not something that even any philosophers that I know was claimed in during their many who would prove resistance laughter like not the exact what it you know what's up it so we have this experience of course we have revelation and sales experience in there in that a symbiosis so now suddenly I had seen a few articles available so the scientist even their manifested nature nature is infused with this symbolic quality and then we have the relationship between reason and mystical cognition I went down into every relationship with the kind of extrapolating from there the the relationship of recent and mystical cognition is very important because it was often thought on a sense of narrative of his planet intellectual history that it was always an either/or it was always making a choice to either follow the path depression this evolved to be a full he's a terrorist but of course history tells us other ways and one very very important [Music] distinction which was made in the developing Islamic Sciences is that between the discount intellect and the receptive in today so the discussion intellect is what a shaker everyone calls an optimum - were not effective and the receptive internet that happened in hexacarbonyl so very often rationalists don't understand that there is a quaint which recently materials 11 o'clock but on the other hand he said terrorists you want to call them that then understand the reasons still have decimal place and if you broaden your understanding of the intellect there's a possibility entirely using the to the intellect in the sense of ordinary rational investigation is seen as the kind of output tip of a single diffusion of intelligibility and in keeping with this to help us to see just how integrated is welcome to the laser system this is in shuttle of Morocco's by essentially for Jenny the most important work of the last 600 he is without the single down hundreds of the super commentaries but your journey although very but will during Lee proficient in project but he's from the school of anatomy and he tells us here that the Spiritual Exercises of those who denied the truth of Islam amongst the Jews and Christians leave them to fuss brutal beliefs it is necessary that the Spiritual Exercises be accompanied by a rational investigation so this idea that reason is just logically trumping it's kind of embarrassing that the mother will continue to rely on that kind of silly syllogistic motive of thought when the course everything is really direct experience and the truth is the monks on mount athos santa teresa of avila and many mystics believe that their experiences confirmed their creed so there's great danger there the spiritual experience can be a proof for the individual there can't be a proof for the society proof written for Institute it's great and let's look now at the way in which get out of the purely theoretical and see how this was manifest in an actual civilization there's no greater figure perhaps as a patron of the the implementation of this scheme then the great Sultan Muhammad the second and there's a famous story of Scone is in the Canary family who one of the primary scholars telling one of his sons that he was with the Sultana he said and mistletoe and colony human and never back in our Illuminati party who kept on taking the old muscle Fierro cavanna the so time said to me Monday those who seek after the sciences of the truth are the calamity alleged the Sufis and the Philosopher's well that wouldn't well that would demand maja comment he made a hat will afford it and we must adjudicate between these different groups or the other led to the Sultana comment on liya Dalila more hakama may have either no doctor right mental journey and I said to be someone who can carry out a certification between those proves too difficult other than Jamie famous Asian areas is to lust and the great scholar of many of the senses other also some common plant lady Russell in Marja let's say you know Tim is immune to maja common with Cora phonetically said it's a hakama Thea they have had that thought so sultan muhammad khan sent him a messenger with beautiful gifts and the siege to to carry out this duplication and so government very Julie wrote this very famous now very famous book a little fabula which carried out these this adjudication now the extraordinary thing about this adjudication is that this was an imperial request and a fair man journey if you read the book you'll find that he favors the Sufis on every single question it's very interesting in Jude occasionally and that was obviously not deemed a problem in the arts of an establishment and we can see that from face that he was really protected sisters mountains of evidence that I varying thought this sentence in sensible attitude where was closely into 2007 from the moment the Delta basically was installed the first head of the first ever from memory Simonton and he was - - so this somewhat unfamiliar picture comes out of this beautiful insight which I must describe to my mentor and aquila of the distinction between in this was now very much discredited account of two broad ages I exaggerate a bit by calling it an actual Dark Age amateurs that's obviously very common but this is the clear implication which is that the great building a church runs for about 800 - coming under 1258 that captures the West imagination so much and is usually populated by these scientific figures look they had en optics - we had physics - we had as mathematics he has to with we were also great energy contributors to this incontestably wonderful modern world and then you have the Dark Age whether it's about faith philosophers who managed to pop into existence despite the kind of anonymously inhospitable environment of legalism but one is helpers le who's interesting to see as a skeptical stage comes through to certainty and even rushed is the Kennedy tragic philosopher who tries to refute the salience of spiritism but then sadly fatal there needs to be becoming the commentator in the Western and then even Kaoru pops into existence another three hundred years later and found civility and mother Sandra who ever synthesize all of the sources of knowledge and this is something much closer to the truth and I again over this first stage to city admin because this is what the government agent really was at the same stage of the formation so it's the formation of the schools of Lords the physical philosophical translations from Greek even seen an extraordinary disease that actually trained favored Martez nism unfairly I contend in the state of formation a very important figure at the end integrating services into the census and then in the development community sewers and standardization the thought of himself but then I believe the thief period fairly opportunity days due to the death of America's values that is the period of flower which is when the senses are being developed further and feather fluffer dinner Ossie implements the jalapeno cocina which is a lament for leaving quite empty philosophical in many ways and very very gently a very dialectical rather than truly demonstrative is Imam al-ghazali he tells us in them and separately but trucking around he went in the hole ever sent in curriculum to Kalama and then the school of appearances given are abated the school of anatomy surgery literally been fully invested with the web with the works of Cena and if they are given up any doubt to the play city who's really probably one of the first to looks like I just zoomed in by touching the screen [Music] one of the fish to carry out these one of the first to carry out the beginnings of the services that were taste begin the first head to professor Osmond Madison what's happening is shirazi who's the greatest commentator on several empty another great philosophical to go shut up it's cool to the business and also refers very appreciatively to even out of the is room for reasonable see later and many others and then we have the period of synthesis and I think the first great figure here is mother finale first affluent trade minister who really without any but I'm taking anything away from a great thinking on the subject but really most of the innovations ascribed to well a septa should be ascribed to mala finale about 150 years earlier all of the principles of the synthesis of emergent knowledge of present in his miss backgrounds in a very clear fashion there are many people in Iran today who all there's a huge feather feather to agree with that understand that very well they have said that money because even come add another variable figure in the synthesis apartment Germany director know when our team in in Iran just before the settlement invasion of the Hakim see who was killed in fact by the central government our hockey will see a booty in India surely Allah Himself booty I was the Nana Lucy in their army Ibrahim granion the Hejaz touch represented the list go home and this I I'm saying goes up to 1923 I mean at the end right anyhow Ibrahim happiest memory who does the same thing and the reason for this the fundamental reason is because ours was not a weld of isolated individuals popping into existence and disagreeing with each other and a new view followed this call of every Cartesian or whatever these are all schools which are intertwined to come out of one another and constitute a single flowering there's no rationalism over on this side and the mysticism of this so look at how they all come out of one another furthering the university American even horribly curse bondage and then the great Morales school that comes up with resins teaching we have mercy regional Tulsi the inventor and who supposed to having the common modern era person companies between 77 Jesus especially a kind of untouchable figure his books were where where core parts of the Greek term he corresponded with the Buddha we a very rich the subtle correspondent went after the reverential of the following and both of them were the teacher but in reality they were both teachers of Petrina Shirazi and as you can see everyone is interlinked here separately under McAuliffe Inari only has one intermediary between him and certain little Inori which is his father and you can see the interlink linking all the way up series which are generally the most important author of later Colleran perhaps accompanied when the hinari they were both at barians but the most famous were very intense logical works and some [Music] now thinking about to very briefly cover which comes out of our welcome Thomas foundation under the direction of one of the great things about timing dr. Greene Manhattan who has revised the study of best principles and they understand we know the subordination and subordination of the sciences in his book because all of this was possible the subordination of the animal to the angelic was everything possible if the sciences are also reflecting the order of me under all in their proper places so we have metaphysics which in a way corresponds to the engine level of cognition which provides all of the other sciences with their first principles so there's no sense of the isolated mathematician who know nothing but mathematics but is revered as this kind of genius of moment he's just going as deep as far too deep into quantity alone and that's not even possible in our tradition to be trained in our tradition meant necessarily to be trained in all of the senses and of course it's human nature that the individual is more attracted to a particular sense and that's no way a problem I mean is that that's something to be encouraged but every student in the other members that would have to study Chakravarti we're talking about the workers at The Wiltern complexity in order to really get use out of me so metaphysics provides the best principles it provides the most basic definitions and physics and mathematics and the other senses cannot even proceed without metaphysics providing those principles so how we do in detail well look what all out went out here is the idea then you can see that revelation metaphysics are both in the way the highest science and in the later traditional the entirety of metaphysics is really absorbed into later Kalama theology and then there's a discussion about well does that make does that mean the others you just use metaphysics we don't have to keep on talking about them as distinct areas is theology only the higher sense of several religious sciences or just embrace all the other senses there are many people understand they form a constitution of course between religious and other senses but here we have an LLC the owner of the sciences the honorific subject matter and the subject of cranek exegesis the Word of God it is that's the master status of religion because it is direct with the book this does not negate theology including metaphysics also being the master sense because what any weak Sadducees depends upon it becoming demonstrated that he speaks just as the theology depends upon the book for the establishment and determination of many of its questions each of them are thus in a sense the mask of the other I wouldn't understand this very very clearly in the if simply a question of direction the revelation is coming down to us and we are going up to the revelation and so many things is actually in terms of our movement for inflation and the actual regulations is the highest source of the source of knowledge of course in master diamond Hansel's but in terms of its descending been given to us and so one way in which this ordination of the senses works Melora of the earring the subject matter of natural sense who a latissimus reactivated is the body and self our assets in change while month warranty electromagnet enhancer module but accepted matter metaphysics is the existence insofar as it is a persistent so something which which studies existing things in so far as they are existent any conclusions which we come to them saying well necessarily apply to all of the lower centers as well because that embraces everything and a body in separatist superintended changing it's obviously an existent and so all the outcome of existence will also apply to it it's just a more narrow determination of innocence so how did this word I'm trying to give you an idea of the complexity and the sophistication are awaiting here but then I was told by their organizers to try to keep things from various essentials and then all that action bring it down any barrier central to the list basis but it's a but it but it what I hope is but if any of this interests you that you can put down if you're not raising system of course you can put down some of these tension and we can pursue this together in the future because I'm in Cambridge so we have we have there are more lambda which is the transcendentals building blocks of many physics other modules existence of mania quiddity Italian individuation al getler unity one physical would you believe necessity must be lightly and was early now this is actually very simple any existent thing in the world has to have has to must have all of these things apply to it there's no way actually there's nothing you could conceive of right whether it's a sky or a tree or an angel which is not which doesn't exist go tautology that doesn't have a nature is it individual isn't it into individual not just an angel in general is we can for example doesn't have a share in what them and Katherine and doesn't have a chair yoga and doesn't have some relationship to different forms of causality and what there are my sections which take out the first thousand ages is developed understanding would be sensitive if they systematically what up water those things and once you determine what all of those things are they will then apply necessaries and necessarily transitively to everything else that you you there will be in the background with everything else to you then totally under studying in the special sense so during the india okay so this is it's a bit of a sudden shift here but I want to draw attention to the fact that in Islam the purpose of the census is to know God by being the perfect man in so far as we are able it's very unambiguous follows right from our definition of human nature and there's no getting out of it we're not studying empirical science so that we can make exciting practical and practices we simply weren't it was never an interest and it did exist in the context of the civilization never consider complete insanity so we have this wonderful statement from this government so we have an extraordinary thing here there's consensus amongst the people of the alphabet and in would come back today there's no consensus whatsoever especially on this point very much in England to this day listen this is a bone of contention well it wasn't over the last six hundred years very much at all a battleship who developed an American chef Canora moments or the Larkin system and we have this understanding because reaching the pinnacle in the senses if they're understood is embracing all clearly direction of the mystical infos the transcendence not just from the so mirroring the profitsystem way by following the Sunnah as that becomes more perfect the knowledge of his inward reality must also have a terminal perfect as in this understanding which was not be centered was not heretical was not unusual and was said he not an identification of God with his creation we have the little muhammediye with very strong proof taste and very very early hadith the person at one of the sellers as well the perfect image of gods names and attributes of the principle of cosmology of which all the other creational essences of branches and the way to to achieve this was again with another framework which if we want to commit the genetic code in case it comes from Greece and so on but the truth is this was discovered we have an understanding of knowledge as corresponding to objective reality we have an understanding of all those four sources of knowledge being effusions from the knowledge of God there is no problem and so on Plato discovered this truth it's not that to the Greeks invented paper discover this truth and later commentators discovered these truths in the Koran as well which is that human nature is our ethical nature is to be a composite of desire of anger and of insulation and rent action must presuppose the subordinate nest of anger and desire to insulate and at the same time whenever an action involves the civil nation of anger and desire to live it will that the resulting trait will be in the golden mean which is say for example the government mean between wastefulness and Iceland is generosity the government mean between recklessness and cowardice is territories exactly so this was absolutely standard as we'll see from this final I know I crammed in so much in this I do apologize for not knowing better how to give a presentation probably only have to present as few things as possible but these are my limitations so look at how this Greek that distinction was integrated into the most Orthodox work of testability in the whole of our tradition they allow these chefs here commentating and behold your Lord said to the Angels I will create a vice chair and a famous betters they said well in place there in one morning they're in the shed blood but we do celebrate your praises and glorify you everything he said I know what you know not it's as if the Angels knew that the one way to study what made the Khalifa of the world the custodian west-german terribly abused words had been possesses three faculties that each pivotal to his life situation there's a desire and anger which can lead to corruption with the shedding of blood and the intellectual faculty which called faculty which calls into knowledge and obedience the Angels looked at each of these faculties one by one who said what is the wisdom in making him the custodian leave the angel was already accepted by all the good that could be anticipated from the intellectual pregnancy yet we are freed from the antagonism towards it threatened by these two other faculties of desire anger the angel did not know that the compound of these faculties yield to benefit the individual faculties taken under anything short of such as the ability to encompass all things and worlds the origination of Arts and Sciences and the drawing out of the positive characteristics of all the existence is the purpose of knowledge rooster the drawing out the positive characteristics of all the existing things from potentiality into actuality which is the purpose of the Equator because the world and to close this is the great moment of the secret the intelligibility of existence being transferred to man is adamant all all of the names which are many interpretations meet all of the divine names but also all of the nature's of things and of course that's the continuation of their lives in manners the custodian because it's the meeting place between the and relativity and the animal and because he because of the composite nature of his faculties but mystical the revelatory the rational and the sensible is alone able to encompass all worlds and things and we see these coming together contradictory attributes in the process of manifesting this parametric is left in the world the prophet salallahu alaihe said listen was the perfect abundance of all human take the Prophet mystic husband/father were really bringing it all together all of the effort in the temper of elderly man's entitlement to the custodianship is choose the perfect receptivity was nature to opposite attributes says that he is able to be a locus of manifestation mother of the opposite divine names again and and accomplished the habitation cultivation and construction of both the output and spiritual worlds and this is not very intelligent and the final cause of a personal the sentence is to achieve humans perfection they stick matter the maths which ultimately comes to choose union with the alien to our years perhaps they're actually standard in our later levels which is extraordinary things better hope that it's really true and very briefly because this is kind of necessary disjointed why did it all fall apart well I've never found the statement of why as clearest alongside the degeneration of the Ottoman Empire continued the degeneration in the face of modern empirical science of the oldest errors that have four long centuries taking charge of the argument defending the Creed of Islam now this degeneration is dead not from any deficiency in the old sense itself as well become territories of this book but as a result of the perspectives of a group of individuals who formed upon month muddled sense in order to curry favor with the nations that had won victory by means of the weapons that they had derived from that sense it was thus they misspoke Marshall victory fate intellectual victory [Applause] thank you so much for this presentation we don't have much time so I'm going to immediately open to questions from the audience I have a few that I can add but I think since for social are the primaries to hear from all of you so please raise your hands and if you can please try and keep the question as wearing this beautiful well would you like to take a couple so let's take two or three in order to get [Music] [Music] yeah [Music] and this takes off that question how can they still make sure that they have not your testicle and then find the top 15 question how to do that micelle support so just to repeat the question for the video and anyway here how should scientists approach questions which might directly in the modern approach from science might directly contradict something that comes from revelation and in terms of the probation period the deformation pyramids and I've made texted to hear any of the trawlers at the takings clause that I said I should be screw out of the damn velocity yeah so just started the video of how should our day-to-day expect us as students and how we go to so in anticipation which i think is about how the mountain biologists for example can be guided by revelation and the truth is I think we have to be very courageous in a way and rid ourselves of this constant need to kind of relate what we're doing here at Cambridge to kind of is the might it in some way you know I want us all to do very very well at Cambridge but let's try and study within the framework of the providing press is actually created across over if we were in Cambridge in in the 14th century that would be wonderful because there's so much process almost exactly the same thing just a few things that important things that need to be tweaked but there's so little crossover the way of the month analogous notes of the world is such a it's simply sound to the traditional Muslim mind and there's no metaphysical structure that's clear so you can't really engage with it tomorrow sciences centre doesn't believe in essences typically he doesn't believe the species are real things they're aggregates their compasses always in this frame of denominators you know these random county line forces come together and then go a weld up in resistance you know you have a kind of idea of there are all sorts of metaphysical solutions contained in the work the the world view which is grounding most contemporary scientific activities Natural Sciences but their main physical perceptions which are not examined because we've lost that idea of relationality the senses say for example the the assumption that nature is distinct nature's can come out of accidental multiplications the other thing is justice interception which permitted the point of view make any sense whatsoever and there's no empirical evidence we told them that they couldn't be any empirical it's a metaphysical question so what I would suggest is that we don't try to do a synthesis between the modern University and parent and our tradition until we know the modern domestic very very well we know our tradition very very well and then we can start thinking about you but at this point it's important to understand what we're doing in university but to remain within the framework because everyone's about mixing things together in a manner which is not justified and actually will only lead to failure in every possible way having the first clear thing which is necessary is to understand our tradition deeply and then to understand they are folding designing English history and they're floating wasting all the the assumptions the of the second revolution the rejection of the realist medieval scholastic synthesis you know that crossover was not a closely recent president it wasn't that you know scientific came together and all kind of left up their sleeves the medievals health facility of them - not realized the truth is many fool from a deeper metaphysical outlook the structure was far more sophisticated and powerful than that of the main proponent to the psychic revelation whether it's bacon or bacon or Galileo the honestly little children compared to the medieval scholastics but it's a shift an ideological shift away from a realist essences based metaphysics to an obsession with empirical sense and the manipulation of nature manifestation of empirical knowledge that is collected in practical continental so the second question about martinis and actually last one is great contribution again there's a very cool thing about the NIA iverson which is probably not in the world today blackberry we have nominators and the truth is if you when you study the text of the tradition which I actually groaning I mean we didn't know that the tempest engine is a very much just imagine he was within the core framework because with that my pleasure is not coming with a comprehensive philosophy he came to correct seven serious errors and the scriptural the faithfulness description of the MARTA cities who and that's a context or ability we are actually on seven key tenets of creed but if you look at the later a share in terms of metaphysics they agreed they disagreed with the amount actually [Music] there's a the impact just having a strong sense of of the reality of things how it's actually worth as a huge impact on everything and in terms of some sort of I didn't a spiritual or personal impact of having this structure of knowledge that would be something which wouldn't have a very immediate date it would be something which you know one would have to have a quite a close familiarity with that Strep journal is that you know to stop having a very clear in factor one speaking or one's writing and so on but but I think just understanding that both in the medieval West and in Islam have a very similar structure which is a strategy which makes it awful lot more sense I believe you know it sounded quite a dogmatic statement but I I think there's a sinner because the whole base is important and Augustine and so one thing which is a very positive thing on a personal engage with what we're doing here and I think unfortunately there's time for any more questions just want to say in conclusion that you know what CD Jackson has presented you the importance of it really can't be overstated for those of you who may be studying eccentric history it's a fundamentally different narrative to the one that works you talked which is the decline narrative but then outside of the field of Islamic history it is one I see you as I'm saying that will change our whole worldview and how we experience the external world and our internal world so I think the session has raised a lot of very important questions we will have additional opportunities later in the day to continue the discussion to approach senior has several breaks and then in our final session as well when you will intend to bring everything together for nobodies these things [Music] [Applause]