Roshd Model: the Roshd Cognitive/cultural paradigm

Roshd Model: the Roshd Cognitive/cultural paradigm Dr.Mohammed Babaammi- translated by Mohammed Bahriz

Roshd paradigm is a model that I developed to look through a central epistemological question: What’s the relationship between thought and action, knowledge and application? Therefore, I am supposed to provide the whole framework of this model for the reader to understand. From the “explanatory model” to the “Roshd model” The explanatory model is a concept that was coined by Abdelwahab ElMessiri by which he succeeded to break through the classical dichotomy ofobjectivity vs. subjectivity. In his critique to the contemporary Arab thought, he say: “one of the problems in the contemporary Arab thought is that this latter is still tied to the direct and superficial close content analysis, it’s still unaware of the abstract understructure of the relations built inside the text, or as I call them, the cognitive/cultural models and patterns” We should be aware not to put El-Messiri in the same jar with the late structuralism, this latter that takes off the content from the text and transforms it to a deaf abstract language structure, chewed like a tasteless gum. And the reader eventually gets the absolute power to inject any meaning he wants into it, according to his mood and desire, however, El-Messiri doesn’t defend the pure content analysis that is reduced to the direct content of the text, throwing against the wall every framework and every context, be it neutral or biased, and every relationship, be it substantial or trivial. Herein, comes the facts of reality as a central factor in the process of analysis, whereas the content analysis method gets itself bound to the verbal, historical or immediate facts with no ability of transcendence, this will result to the distortion of the meaning into fractional, and reduced observations, ignoring the whole picture and the comprehensive relations, and ignoring also the significance of “the worldview” in the process of understanding as well. In the context of dealing with the prophetic text, El-Messiri has come up with a very significant example when he said: “let’s imagine an Islamic scholar dealing with the prophetic text from the closed-content analysis perspective, then it’s obvious that he will fail in linking them to the other global Islamic concepts” and it’s quite the same thing when it comes to Quran when it’s literalistically approached. 1

It’s extremely important to understand that the relation between the idea and reality, between the text and reality, and between the model and reality is not a simplistic and single-dimensioned relation, but, rather a multi-dimensioned, complex, complicated, and boundless one. It’s a relation that takes into consideration the human perspective, his premises, his beliefs, it doesn’t completely submit to them though. We might ask: what’s the relation between the explanatory model and reality? El-Messiri says that it’s a spiral relation, this reminds us of the action research school that puts the relation between action and research in a spiral form, he says in this regard: “we sculpt our presumptive paradigmaccording to our confrontations with a given reality, and upon our contemplation on it, and through our inquiry and scrutiny. After shaping the paradigm, we use our minds and we generate new presumptive relations that solidify it and refine it, then we project it back to reality, but, reality usually challenges the paradigm, adjusts it and refines it again.” Briefly, El-Messiri concludes that the movement is from reality to mind then from mind to reality” and this movement is basically what we call: Roshd Paradigm.

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Roshd model is built on the idea of “maturity” which means that, naturally, everything has to pass through some circumstances in order to reach the stage of maturity, either it is material or moral, natural or human, this may explain the fact that the creation is always in a determined amount of time, despite the ability of being less than that, or even outside the notion of time. Allah has created the heavens and the earth in six days, he creates the human being in nine months, and he ripens a fruit in one year…etc. The lesson behind this, is the fact that the creator prepares that creation to walk in coherence with the divine law that manages the universe, without breaking through it, however, this doesn’t mean that this law has its own will or it can go beyond Allah’s almightiness, for the causes and the results are all by the creation of Allah, with no ability of going against His will, or walking against his designed path. This maturity might seem as an obvious stage to reach when it comes to plants, animals and other creations apart from the human being, which makes it 2

easy for our minds to perceive that straightforward, natural process. However when it comes to the world of people, the world of ideas, the world of beliefs, the world of souls, the world of societies, here we crash through the difficulty of perceiving the significance of Roshd/maturity, and its meaning. So we confound between the signified and the signifier, and between facts and likelihoods, then, we lose, by that, our path in the caves of illusions and false notions, we might not know that at all, or, we might feel it but, alas, we can’t tread our way out of it. Sheikh Shaarawi has defined the word Roshd as: “the good conduct of things beforehand, and the right choice of the path towards the thing you are about to achieve”. By pondering upon the Kahf Surah as whole unit of wisdom, and upon the story of “Dhul-Quarnain” in particular, we come to define Roshd also as “the internal ability of tracing the chain of causes” as Allah says: “and We gave him the means of everything, so he followed a way”. (Kahf Surah) Examples from real life: One day i went out from the mosque after a dawn prayer was over, right by the door where people were picking up their shoes, i saw a man, his face reflects gentleness, and tranquility, however, this view of mine didn’t last long, for the man didn’t mind to spit on the ground, with no concern of disgust and wrong deed, with no feeling of breaking one of Islam principles. My question is: how can we describe this inconsistency between Dawn prayer, from one hand and this disruption of a moral value of such importance in Islam? Especially when we read in the Quran that the Prayer (Salaat) forbids indecency and evil things, but the prayer of this man didn’t prevent him from doing so, and violating a civilizational value. Can we judge that he is not a believer or he is not a Muslim? But we are not allowed to do that by the text itself, because he didn’t commit an act of blasphemy, or any jurisprudential violation. I suggest expressing this situation by the model of “Roshd”/righteousness/maturity, as a result, we can say that this man couldn’t reach the stage of Roshd yet, so he is Muslim but not mature/righteous. In Canada, I stood on people’s commitment to a clean environment, from this point of view I.e. order, and beauty, they have attended the stage of maturity/righteousness. Among them, live thousands of Muslims from Arab origins and most of them are of high qualified competency and respectful positions in the different spheres of life, but, while I was once waiting for my flight to an Arab country, I observed just in the ticket counter of this country some 3

scraps of paper thrown all over the place, a view that takes away the beauty of the airport. I asked myself, what’s wrong with these people? How come that people living in such a clean and organized place are behaving in such a strange way? Can we say that they are not Muslims? Of course not, but, how can we understand this paradox, how come that the counters of all other countries regardless to their belief, are all clean except for this country, and I might not exclude few other Muslim countries from this too. Shall we blame it on religion? Or doubt Islam? Or say, as some ideas, trends and people think, that Islam has come to insure the afterlife, and it has nothing to do with this life? Neither this, nor that, I would say that some of these immigrants who went there and accommodated themselves with the circumstances of this country which is, materially speaking, mature to a great extent, however, they didn’t get rid of their “cognitive/cultural paradigm” in fact, they are deterred by law and rigor, and once they feel a certain freedom they go back to their old behaviors. Thus, they are not righteous yet and the surrounding environment alone cannot turn somebody into a conscious, mature and righteous personality. Few years after Jacques Chirac stepped down from serving his country as a president; scandals, that involve fraud and violation to the law, people and values, started to appear on the surface, and sweep through media How can we understand such a behavior from the top position in the hierarchy of one the oldest countries of civilization? We would say that the man didn’t truly believe in what he used to do, but, he was somehow, obliged to. We would add also that he is not morally mature and righteous, for, despite of his position, he stayed a “teenage” to the last day of his life. No deterrent, agreement, law, or even paparazzi media couldn’t prevent him from doing what he did, because he was able to hide whatever he wants, he was beyond the law, and beyond the eyes. And he was yet, under the level of Roshd, this case is among many other stories of people of such caliber, and examples for “scandals of the world leaders”, and “women controlling the decision” are all over the place. The main conditions of Roshd: After we scrutinize the different dimensions of the context, consider the premises, and ponder upon the conclusions, we come to see that Roshd according to the Quranic text has clear conditions, if they are fulfilled then Roshd is attended,

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but if one of them is disrupted, then the entire structure of Roshd will collapse down, among this conditions: • There is a Roshd that encompasses all the spheres of life, and there is a partial one that is restricted to a given field without others, for instance, someone who is mature in managing his finances is not necessarily mature in building up a family, or in controlling his lusts. • The comprehensive Roshd is the substance of all the religions and the finality of the divine messages, Islam then is Roshd by itself and Roshd is from the soul of Islam. • Allah (SWT) gives Roshd to everyone who followed the right chain of causes, and strived to be so, for instance the one who endeavors to have Roshd in the material world will undoubtedly have the fruit of his effort, as long as he works hard: “We do extend Our help to all, these as well as those out of the bestowing of your Lord. And there is no check on the bestowing of your Lord” (Issraa Surah: 20) • There is an individual as well as a collective Roshd, social, civic, and civilizational. • Roshd is a result of patience (Sabr) • Roshd means understanding of the causes, delving into the substance of thing, and avoiding the superficiality, and futility. • Roshd is served by Allah to his servants after they’ve exhausted all the means, and strived hard to reach it, it’s the fruit of our labour, but not an up for grabs for the lazy and careless ones.

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Dr.Abdelwheb El-Messiri has worked on his Idea that he called: “The Fiqh of Bias” (Fiqh Altahayuz) which is to be an overwhelming epistemological breakthrough; for, it touches upon the central question of the ongoing debates between east and west, Islam and imperialism, human and anti-human, but, since we are in a deferent context, approaching the problems of civilization from another perspective, which is, basically, the relation between thought and 5

action, knowledge and practice. Thus we tend to suggest here, a new Fiqh which is: “The Fiqh of Roshd”. Among the interests of this Fiqh is that it approaches the roots and the causes of civilization, and traces its stage of flourishment and development, it also sets the light on the shifting points from backwardness to civilization, from disability and weakness to force and power, on the individual, as well as the collective level. The Fiqh of Roshd carries on in the footsteps of Malik Bennabi’s theory of Colonisibility by which he, pertinently, has set out a diagnosis to the problems of civilization, however, he didn’t go further than that, by proposing solutions, not the textual and the verbal solutions, but, concrete and real solutions that are characterized with maturity and righteousness, implanted after that in reality, observed, and assessed according to what ought to be achieved vis-à-vis the existent. This is what Malik Bennabi couldn’t demonstrate. Notwithstanding, enough for him to be the one who puts the finger on the wound, and maybe Roshd Model will be able to overcome the hurdle and descends to real life, to be observed and refined from its different dimensions until it reaches its stage of maturity, then it will be handed over ,to those who will carry on the road, not as a final and absolute solution, but as a clear and well-designed path, that compels selftranscendence , and invokes an internal ability to trace and follow the real chain of causes . On the Roshd Cognitive/cultural paradigm The cognitive system of Roshd is not a philosophical school or a religious doctrine or even a social movement, even though it may intersect with all of these in certain points, either by approval or disagreement. What is Roshd model? It is a thoughtful attempt to understand reality and interact with the surrounding events; it’s on the other hand an institutionalization of individual and social actions and behaviors from transcendent and absolute starting point, based on the word of God and all what is strongly related to. However, at the level of application, this institutionalization is characterized by human experience i.e. it is exposed to mistake and relativity in terms of it reliability. It, therefore, recognizes the limits of human knowledge. The baseline of this model lies on the line that connects thought with action; it displays that arduous journey between knowledge and its implementation. Moreover, the model strives hard to answer the much repeated question: what is the relation between the human thought and his action with 6

other words, how could information become knowledge and how is knowledge transformed to behavior? It’s also an attempt to understand Allah’s rhetorical question in this verse: “O believers! Why do you say, what you do not do?” (As-Saff) It’s an effort as well, to understand the strict statement that follows this question: “Most hateful is it to Allah that you say, what you do not do.”(As-Saff) The model is also an attempt to apply the prophet’s request to Allah: “O Allah, I ask you to bless me with a beneficial knowledge” So, what does beneficial knowledge “I’lm naafi’”mean? What are the ways to make a beneficial use of knowledge? What are the reasons that hindered us from setting a universal civilization starting all along from the Quran? Where does the flaw lie in all this? I believe that any theoretical answer to these questions would not be fruitful enough, because the urgent need today is for effective models that could form an answer to these deep questions, I also believe that the Roshd model is just one model among many others, and it is one attempt among many other attempts, for, it represents a fruit of an ‘individual’ as well as a ‘collective’ thought, a ‘single’ as well as ‘plural’ actions.

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