iranphilosophy

Lectures on Defining the Islamic Entity

isphilosophy — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 05:02:04 +0000

Dr. Sharam-eh Pazooki: “Islamic Arts have matured and insinuated in the context of mysticism.”

16th gathering in the series of “Lectures on Defining the Islamic Entity” has been held in Naqshe- Jahan Research Center.

Dr. Sharam-eh PazookiAccording to the Public Relations of this organization, Dr. Shahram-eh Pazooki, the lecturer of these gatherings, tried to “define the Islamic entity by means of a mystical approach.” After illustrating some difficulties in way of holding such an approach, he claimed it to be the only practical method of giving an account on the being and entity of Islamic arts. He mentioned that the main difficulty in taking such a position is our preliminary doubt in the very possibility of this subject being realized. We’re speaking of something whose very existence is not fully proven to us, and any response that we set forth for such a scientific doubt, which is of value of course, will depend on our approach to this subject and in turn the definition of Islamic arts. Such a doubt is driven out of the fact that the very literal term and the significance which nowadays is attributed to the arts, is essentially a modern one which, since has been applied from about two centuries ago, does not have a proper place in mysticism and theology’s traditional texts. As a result, if we step into the discussion with such an understanding there will be definitely no such a thing as Islamic arts of any help as far as the present debates on the fundamental concepts of arts. On the other hand, we have, throughout the Islamic world, an abundance of Islamic artistic works which should be defined in term of a different understanding and such a thing is only to be found in the mystical and philosophical texts.

After having outlined this scheme in question and drawn a basic conclusion on the subject, he tried to give a brief account on mystical approach and its stand in religion. He continued his discussion with introducing a pair of threefold categorization regarding the religions’ norms so that the mystics being involved in such a case become well-illustrated. In the first category, mystics reckon religion as consisting of three aspects of religious tradition, path, and truth which, in a respective order, pertains to its appearance, inner nature, and the entity. The matter of art comes into discussion in application to the path, since, due to our traditional understanding, the artist is a man of the path and what he brings into existence in his artistic work is an manifestation of the very beauty which he has already observed while being on the path and engaged with the mystic conduct. As a result, while brining this norm, path, into discussion, the mystics have lectured on the arts as well.

In the second categorization, the mystics consider religion as being consisted of the three statures of Islam, faith, and splendor. In this case, it is in the stature of splendor where the discussion of arts takes place.

In clarifying this point, Pazooki pointed at the ambiguous signification of the Quranic term “splendor.” “Splendor has got both moral and aesthetic significations.” He said. “That’s because it means both doing splendidly and seeing splendidly. In the eyes of the mystics, beauty is not subjective, but rather takes to itself an existential significance, and according to a mystic’s view, all creatures are beautiful since they’re not merely God’s creation but, rather, his manifestation, and the artist is the one who perceives this appearance in the world. The essential consequence of such a view is rejection of the individualistic modern view as well as the notion of lack of a sui generis criterion regarding art and beauty.”

After these points having been mentioned, Pazooki lectured on the mystical principles and concepts manifested in the topic of Islamic arts and excluded the concept of manifestation as the most important one. This concept which is only to be witnessed among the mystics is concerned with the peculiar relationship between God and the other creatures. Due to such a concept, creation essentially is in meaning equal to the manifestation of the divine’s beauty in shape of the creatures, and, of course, one should not fail to understand that this notion does not mean the transmigration of God into the world. Two other concepts which can hold meaning in relationship with one another are the concepts of splendor (beauty) and love, nevertheless, both of these concepts, seen in light of this approach, holds a peculiar signification.

According to Pazooki, love is the mystics’ interpretation and definition of faith. Splendor is art’s descendent and love its ascendant arc. In a sense which, in the status of splendor, God’s beauty becomes manifested in the creatures and he who perceives this manifestation arrives at the statues of love and is a man of art and contemplation; even if such a person be not an author of the artistic works in the modern sense of the word.

Pazooki recognized the concept of analogy as the next concept which was to be pointed at whose meaning, of course, should be perceived in the mystical concept. If one, who is in love and sees the manifestations of the beauty of God in the world, represents this splendor in the literary works, has gained the statue of the analogy and manifestation of God in other creatures. Thus, his work is a representative of such a manifestation. Another principal concept is the concept of the proportion between the form and the meaning which is of high importance in mystical understanding. Due to this concept, not any given meaning is able to reach embodiment in any given form, and because of this very notion, in pure mystical view, a work’s subject matter being Islamic would not suffice, by itself, for having it categorized as an Islamic artistic work. The final concept in this list is the concept of Islamic art’s symbolic discourse. The question of discourse and its philosophy holds a high status in Islamic mysticism. One of the questions regarding such an issue is the entity of analogical discourse which, in a mystical approach, is the discourse of Islamic arts and this point, all by itself, is another justification for the mystics treating the issues of art and beauty.

Dr. Pazooki, in the end, re-stated his question about the being and entity of what is called the Islamic arts and, consequently, concluded that “the artistic issue in their modern sense and the theorizations on the essential concepts of art like that of the entity of beauty, creativity, or genius are of no significance in the Islamic world. Hence if one delves into the matter with such an approach, there won’t be anything as the Islamic art. But there is no doubt that there are great works of art in the Islamic world, then one is but to return to the original and mystical understanding of art in the world of Islam and by means of its principles make an effort to perceive such kind of works. To interpret these works in accordance with the principles of the modern art is but to abstract something from its real context and space and to evaluate it by means of outsider criteria and certainly doomed to fail.

Lectures on Defining the Islamic Entity

isphilosophy — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 05:02:03 +0000

Dr. Sharam-eh Pazooki: “Islamic Arts have matured and insinuated in the context of mysticism.”

16th gathering in the series of “Lectures on Defining the Islamic Entity” has been held in Naqshe- Jahan Research Center.

Islamic Arts have matured and insinuated in the context of mysticism

isphilosophy — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 04:49:57 +0000

Dr. Sharam-eh Pazooki: “Islamic Arts have matured and insinuated in the context of mysticism.”

16th gathering in the series of “Lectures on Defining the Islamic Entity” has been held in Naqshe- Jahan Research Center.

Against a Universal Theory of National Minority Rights

isphilosophy — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 04:19:43 +0000

Omid Hejazi

deathofsocrates3bRecent political history of the West shows that struggles of national minorities for recognition and cultural rights have led to various multicultural policies in western democracies during last decades. In many Western countries national minorities are granted some political and language rights: the status of Quebec in Canada, Scotland in the United Kingdom, Flanders in Belgium, Catalonia in Spain, Puerto Rico in the United States, the Swedish minority in Finland, the German minority in Italy, and the French and Italian minorities in Switzerland are all examples of the contemporary pattern for accommodating ethnocultural and national diversity. Through this pattern national minorities have been offered some degree of territorial autonomy within the federal system along with some form of official language status. These policies were quite successful in handling the challenges posed by cultural claims of national groups in multinational states. In many cases multicultural policies were enforced by the states in order to avoid more extreme and violent consequences of ethnic conflict such as civil war or secession that could destabilize the central state. This is particularly true in the case of Quebec in Canada

The practical success of these policies in managing ethnocultural challenges in a peaceful and democratic way created enthusiasm in academia to study and theorize these policies in the late 80s and the early 90s. New theories of liberal multiculturalism emerged at both areas of politics and philosophy. In political theory, liberal theorists tried to provide and defend some particular political model for accommodating ethnocultural diversity i.e. the nation-based federalism form of devolution of power. At the level of political philosophy, we have witnessed the emergence of extensive literature on moral justification and arguments which were developed to show why recognition of national minorities is normatively right and why demand for minority rights is consistent with liberal justice and equality. They defend multicultural policies not only as practically successful but as morally right and politically correct. Although most of the multicultural theories were developed based on the experience of particular national groups in the West, with little or no attention to the situation of minorities in non-Western societies, many multicultural theorists had the tendency to universalize their theories to the international level; they saw multiculturalism not as a contingent political model but as a demand of equality and justice.

The flourishing of multicultural theories in the academia and its successful practice in the West in the 90s was concurrent with the collapse of Communism and ethnic war in the Eastern Europe. Fear of speared of ethnic violence created international incentive to generalize already developed Western multicultural model to the international level in order to better handle future ethnic conflict around the world. During 1990 to 1995, various attempts have been made by different international organizations for developing regional and global norms of minority rights: European Charter for Regional and Minority Language in 1992, Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities in European Union in 1995, UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities in 1992, and Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 1993 are the main examples.¹ By that time, many liberal multiculturalists felt very optimistic about global agreement on a universal set of minority rights that could be enforced through international organizations as a supplement to the UN human rights.

However, now after fifteen years, the initial optimism in the project of universal theory and practice of minority rights has turned into a total disappointment. There is a global retreat from enforcement of multicultural policies; since 1995 there have been little important advancement in codifying the norms of international minority rights; and even the main proponents of multiculturalism, such as Will Kymlicka, describe the whole project of international minority rights “full of conceptual confusions, moral dilemmas, unintended consequences, legal inconsistencies, and political manipulation” (Kymlicka, forthcoming NASSP, p.1)

The reasons for this withdrawal have been the subject of much social, political and philosophical investigation. Many have referred to pragmatic problems and dangers that multicultural policies could pose for the stability of developing countries. Kymlicka, for example, talks about the geo-politic security of post-communist countries and the way territorial autonomy of national minorities in this region can result in insecurity and destabilization of the central states (Kymlicka, forthcoming NASSP).² He mainly argues that though Western model of multiculturalism is normatively a desirable model and a long-term ideal for non-Western countries, it has short-term harmful upshots which are too risky and costly to be taken by the international community. The absence of mutual trust between majority and minority is another pragmatic problem.³

But putting aside all pragmatic concerns, there are some more philosophical problems for the project of universal minority rights at the level of justification which have been mostly ignored. As I said earlier, liberal theorists have developed a normative framework that justifies multiculturalism and politics of diversity, not only as practically useful, but as a fair and desirable policy for distributing power between majority and minority. Now, the question is whether we can invoke these normative frameworks to justify a universal theory of minority rights in the global context. Putting it another way, whether the underlying moral justifications for the rights of national minority is normatively universal enough to be applied to every culture and society including non-liberal ones? If the theory of multiculturalism as a theory of justice is not universal in its essence, then, other than some short-term pragmatic reasons, we would have no demand by justice to see these policies as a long-term goal for every country.

My aim in this paper is to go over the two main arguments for the cultural rights of national minorities and explain why I think neither of them works as a universal justification for minority rights. These are the arguments from the autonomy of individuals and the arguments from nation-building. I would like to show that from a philosophical perspective the project of universal multiculturalism works only if we find alternatives theories that justify cultural rights not on liberal basis or Western history but against a more universal background. The second option is to come with several contextual theories that each justifies the same set of minority rights in different contexts. My suggestion is based on the second option. It is basically the extension of Rawls theory of “overlapping consensus” into a case-based theory of national minorities.⁴

A more recent example is UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007

For more discussion see (Peetush, 2003)

Theories of trust-building in “dividend societies” in political science have been mainly developed to address this issue. See (Offe, 2001)

It’s important to remind my readers that in this article I use Multiculturalism only to refer to cultural demands of national minority, not immigrants, aboriginal people or other cultural groups. Moreover, I discuss the rights of national minorities only within the liberal tradition. I will not discuss communitarian approach to cultural rights. I agree with Susan Okin in saying that” it is much easier to make arguments for collective rights if one starts with communitarian rather than liberal premises.6 But there are many problems with communitarianism, not the least of which are that it has failed to enunciate a clear, positive, political theory, and that it is often vague or inconsistent both about what a ‘‘community’’ is and about what should happen when the claims of one level of community conflict with those of another” (Okin, 1998, p. 663)