Abu al-Hasan now turned to his question. "Master," he asked, "once when I was young, I felt unbearably depressed and out of sorts. I turned to the writings of Arab philosophers on the subject of the soul, hoping to find some means of support and cure for my condition. However, my quest soon resulted in complete failure; I seemed to be in one valley, as the phrase has it, while they were all in another. That is how I came to realize what the chief of the peripatetics had undertaken with regard to their views and realized that they were completely at a loss when it came to warding off sorrows. Master, I am completely unable to comprehend what the Muslim followers of Aristotle have to say on the topic; it all makes no sense. Instead I regularly resort to my drum and chanting; either that, or else I seek a safe haven in mystical writings on the stations and conditions of the path to God. So, tell me, are those followers really possessed of the kinds of qualities that you have noted and attributed to them?"
"As we all know full well," I replied, attempting to make things clear and simple, "verdicts on things are a subset of the way they are conceived. Both aspects operate in conjunction with the mind and its various abilities, levels, and categories. In such a context there's a huge difference between lower viewpoints and higher ones! The differences between them are like those between branches and roots or between segments and totalities. Thus, whenever I am standing, as it were, on the balcony used by someone who is a genuine and fervent observerthe status, shall we say, of lively, innovative learning that is in itself an emblem of lofty position, then I am able to see that our peripatetics worshipped Aristotle and made it their practice to follow his lead in absolutely everything. As a result where they were concerned, individual initiatives in creative thinking fell first into neglect and thereafter atrophied completely. However the most precious qualities that are needed involve a continual process of reexamining legal judgments and the use of creative ideas; and, as a direct consequence, a complete avoidance of traditionalist and sedentary attitudes. Ibn Rushd was totally in awe of Aristotle, placing him above everyone else and following in his footsteps to the ultimate degree. As a consequence, he believed that truth had reached its perfection with Aristotle, all of which led him to be blind to the fact that his number one teacher-Aristotle-failed to match the achievements of either Ptolemy or Galen-the latter in medicine and anatomy, the former in astronomy and his mathematically based theory regarding the galaxy. Ibn Rushd went so far as to tie himself up in knots over his own Aristotelianism, at least as he chose to see things. In his discussion of the earth's age, for example, he restricts God's knowledge to that of totalities and not partialities, and denies the possibility of the resurrection of individual souls and bodies. All these postures constitute assertions and arrogations, involving issues that Ibn Rushd adamantly refused to reveal to the general populace or discuss with them, a refusal that extended even to jurists, theologians, and mystics. The stated reason is that he regarded such ideas as the primary impediment to empirical truth. However, his famous definition unequivocally states that truth can never be opposed to itself, but rather accords with, and provides evidence of, it. Wisdom is the twin sister of law. But, beyond such troubling ironies as this, the actual situation is that these dilemmas and others like them are specifically ones that are difficult, if not impossible, to resolve empirically. If the human mind decides to broach such topics, it may well reach the extreme that most resembles a linden tree-producing blooms, but no fruit; or, if you prefer, like someone trying to rub oil on themselves from an empty bottle.
"Quite apart from all this, Aristotle himself places empirical logic in the specific context of mathematics and physics alone. In fact, even Ibn Rushd explains metaphysics by providing an explanation of what his great forebear and teacher meant: `The essential has no proof, nor to that which is itself the essence; in other words, absolute proof. It is that which provides both existence and causality together.' I may be able to excuse Ibn Rushd, the renowned commentator, for trying to explain something that he does not fully understand, but I still have to express my regret that he fails to draw attention to another son of the same Spanish city, the great scholar Ibn Hazm, who, in his work, An Approach and Introduction to Logic, discusses proof and principles of analogy. Such procedures may be valid for matters of physics, he says, but in matters of law all they can offer is deception and sheer nonsense. This then is the situation in this particular matter and others as well, including the ones you have mentioned. God alone knows how they are to be interpreted."
My companion was paying the closest possible attention to what I was saying, even more than the group of students.
"`God alone knows how they are to be interpreted,"' he repeated, as soon as he saw me taking a sip of my drink. "Master, I can recall that, when I was living in Guadix, I read Ibn Rushd's work entitled The Decisive Treatise [Fasl al-Maqal]. What amazed me most was the highly speculative way in which he interpreted certain verses from the Qur'an. I remember in particular his discussion of the third verse in Surat Al `Umran [III]: `Its interpretation is known only to God and those who are steeped in learning, saying what is reliable and everything that is with their Lord.' In that sentence Ibn Rushd is linking the phrase `those who are steeped in learning' to the word God (may He be praised and exalted!), thus leaving the verb "saying" with no subject. In both syntax and sentence structure this is neither idiomatic nor correct. Isn't that the case?"
"Yes indeed, my brother, you are absolutely correct. Experts on the readings of the Qur'anic text are unanimous in their rejection of the idea of concluding the sentence after the words `steeped in learning' and leaving out the rest, just as they are with other similar phrases from the text, such as `woe to those who pray,' or `do not approach the prayer.' In the eminent scholar Ibn Hazm's work that you have just mentioned, he had specifically referred to this grievous error some time earlier, in showing that it is crucial for seekers of the truth to follow the rules of grammar. He invoked the terrible tale that tells how a caliph wrote to one of his provincial governors with the following command: `Count the number of transvestites in your community, using the verb to count [ahsa].' Unfortunately the governor read the word wrongly, as castrate [akhsa], and proceeded to castrate all the transvestites he came across. God alone possesses the power and glory…"
"Master," Abu al-Hasan now asked, "did not the great scholar Ibn Sina [Avicenna] express his utter aggravation at the dominance of Aristotelianism and the way it held sway over Muslim peripatetics..? Did he not say on the subject that `throughout his career he has been devoted to what is past, not allowing himself any respite in which to revise his own thinking? Were he to do so, would he not come to realize that what the ancients have to say needs to be placed in a context that demands further investigation, or even reformulation and correction?"'
"Yes indeed, you're right. That particular sentence occurs in the introduction to his work Logic of the Orientals. For a while I was really thrilled and excited by it, believing, as I did, that our author's attachment to Plato would serve as the prelude to an entirely new and productive direction! But, like lightning that brings no rain, such feelings soon collapsed and vanished once I had actually perused the book with the attention it warranted. It was then that I became aware of the slavish way in which it replicates Aristotle; the same thing applies to the Book of Cures, where you will find Ibn Sina going so far as to adopt an assertion that the Greek philosopher had espoused fourteen centuries earlier in his Politics, namely that there exist people who are naturally and necessarily born to be slaves-from such notions we seek refuge in God, who liberates and honors mankind and creates them as people who can speak from a single soul; and we equally seek refuge in the chosen Prophet of God, his recorded practice, and the constitution as outlined in his sermon during the Farewell Pilgrimage."