Mind, Body, Soul

Criticism of “Why I am not a Traditionalist” – Part 1

Definitions and Perennialism

In 2002 “Hajj Muhammad Legenhausen” wrote an article “Why I am not a Traditionalist.“  This article has resonated with some readers.  Of course, this article and works like it (i.e. Against the Modern World, Sedwick) cannot compare in effectiveness to the continued adoration of vast communities to traditional approaches towards faith and living.

Still, it raises issues which merit a response to those who are quick to label traditional approaches as ‘perennial philosophy’ and cast traditional life and faith aside.

Legenhausen begins with an introduction and a section entitled “Traditionalism or Modernism?”  In these sections he asserts his conclusion is not an endorsement of modernism.  He believes that “both Traditionalism and modernism should be rejected”, since both simply accept claims by virtue of the fact that they are at odds with its opponent.  In his view, a modernist is a modernist because he does the opposite of traditionalists and traditionalists are the same in reverse.   As a substitute to these dueling polar approaches towards life, he offers what appears to be a very measured response: “Every claim and every practice must be subject to critical evaluation according to the criteria of religion and reason.”

The claim that Legenhausen is somehow the best discerner of religion and reason is a distraction from the real discussion.  The reality is reason and religion are used by everyone to come to some level of truth.  I have yet to meet a modernist who believes mass literacy should be pursued because it is merely the polar opposite of largely illiterate traditional societies.  No, the fact is that numerous ‘reasonable’ motives are given for each and every action they take.

The introduction to this article, as well as the article itself, suggest numerous times that ‘Traditionalism’ is a modern invention.  The article states, “Traditionalism is a modern European reaction against modernism” and “Traditionalism is a paradoxically modern reaction against modernism whose roots are to be found in 19th century Europe, especially France”.   This is a flawed ad hominem tu quoque argument, which holds that since those who espouse traditional ideas are living in the modern age, the very nature of the beliefs they carry are a reaction to modernity.   The argument falls flat on its face,  even with its constant repetition aside.

Islamic Traditionalists are called such because they are carrying a living tradition, regardless of what modernity has brought to replace it.  Was this tradition not in existence before Western modernity?    Hence, the best and most clear traditional teachers of Islam are not “Rene Guenon” who turned from modernity, but rather those like Rene Guenon’s Sufi teacher and the lineage (silsila) that the Sufi path that Guenon followed until the day he died.   Unlike Western ‘traditionalists’ who were espousing ideas of resurrecting traditional papal authority, Islamic Tradition never ‘died out’.   So how can it be swept aside as a reactionary understanding?

The need to resort to such techniques simply underscores the major flaw when trying to fit Islamic perspectives into a neat Western box in order to criticize it.   Yes, it is clear that from a Western European perspective, like the one Legenhausen is speaking from, embracing a Sufi tarikat (in the same vein as so-called ‘perennialists’ such as Lings, Guenon, and Burckhardt) would have been a rejection of a European modernity, which they were raised in, for an Islamic Traditionalism.  However, to consider that Islamic Traditionalism existed as ‘reactions to modernity’ on the part of the billions of Muslims who over history have been fortunate enough to be born into such a path is clearly a representation of a consistent Western hegemony in academic discourse.

According to the article’s definition, modernity is a ‘cultural condition’. If modernity is a cultural condition, then it must be absolutely clear that the Islamic world, for a large part, has not been completely consumed in modern culture. If one is unaware that traditional Islamic societies are still alive, quite oblivious to the high-minded academic discourse going on in the West, one needs only to visit the rural areas of most Muslim countries.  Even within the major cities traditional paths to faith and living have hardly been completely abandoned. There is a reason why ‘under-developed’ and ‘third-world’ are the adjectives that describe much of the living situations of Muslims.

The Euro-centric view continues in the definition of tradition, which Legenhausen describes as “confusing” to define. The article states,

“To call a non-Western society traditional is therefore to claim that it is similar in important ways to Europe before the Reformation. In contrast to modernism, traditionalism could be used to designate any movement of resistance to modernization, or the view that pre-modern societies are superior to modernized societies.”

This understanding can be clearly seen as a intellectual cop-out, as its clear that there must be key factors to traditional society that exist and help define them in their own right.  While traditionalism is again defined as a resistance to modernization, wouldn’t it be better to investigate the living principles that traditionalists hold that are being infringed upon by modernization and understand the dispute regarding these principles?

When describing Islamic Traditionalism Legenhausen states it is sourced from “Rene Guenon and Ananda Coomaraswamy”. Rene Guenon led a life of many philosophies and finally took initiation in the Shadhili Sufi Tarikat and died as a Sufi Muslim while Ananda Coomaraswamy was a Hindu. If we are defining “Islamic Traditionalist” as the philosophies of early Guenon and Coomaraswamy, then its clear that no traditionalist Muslim can really be considered an “Islamic Traditionalist”.

So we end up with two ‘Traditionalists’, one group represented in those sufi Sheykhs whom most of these European converts flocked to as students and then the 20th century European convert students themselves.   The first group has been a connected chain of teachers and students holding Islamic traditional principles high for over 1400 years, and the second group has largely passed on, leaving behind a legacy of works which documented their thinking on their individual steps towards accepting Islam.  The result of these works enchanted much of the Orientalist West with a new perspective.  Which one is Legenhausen arguing against?

It depends.

The need for Legenhausen to initially box ‘Islamic Traditionalism’ to a convert European philosopher and a Hindu is necessary in order to introduce Legenhausen’s rebuttal to broad pluralistic viewpoints.   It should also be considered that Legenhausen wrote a rather long published work attacking religious pluralism, so this article provides another outlet for his thesis.  These broad pluralistic viewpoints allowed Guenon, Lings and others to learn about Islam to the point that they adopted it as their final faith in a long journey of soul seeking.   However, at the end of their journeys, how pluralist were these core 20th century (non-Hindu) ‘Islamic Perennialists’ (Guenon, Lings, Burckhardt) really?  How far was this pluralism from the pluralism which is inherent in the Quranic views of other faiths?

Guenon, while labeled a ‘Perennialist’, ended his life saying ‘Allah!’ and wrote a scathing condemnation of theosophy and other such philosophies.   No ‘Islamic Traditionalist’, even if you consider Guenon among them, are such excessive religious pluralists as their opponents make them out to be.  They found philosophies and aspects of different faiths that they vastly disagreed with.  And therefore what we have for most of the article is another flawed argument structure: the strawman.

Even though Legenhausen agrees that Guenon rejected Theosophical principles, he later equates Guenon’s Perennial viewpoint to the Theosophical understandings of Blavatsky. “Even if Guénon decisively rejected the Theosophical Society, the key ideas of the Traditionalists regarding the unity of religions… are clearly stated by Madame Blavatsky in the introduction to The Secret Doctrine”.

What’s wrong with the sort of pluralism advocated by Blavatsky and the Traditionalists is that it depends on a rather questionable reading of the texts of the world’s religions. It requires that one hold that certain similarities in doctrine, especially esoteric doctrine, constitute the core of the religions, and that differences be dismissed as deviations. Blavatsky supported this interpretation with the dubious claim that she had discovered the original secret teachings. The Traditionalists, on the other hand, claim that through intellectual intuition they are able to discern the common essence. The method used is implausible. It is assumed at the outset that the religions have a common esoteric essence, and the texts are interpreted so as to accord with this principle. This is question begging.

However, isn’t this the very core of the Islamic teaching about other faiths? If a ‘Perennialist’ is someone who believes that prophets were sent to all nations and that most faiths have deviated one extent to another from a core of Islam that those prophets brought, then I believe all Muslims are ‘Perennialists’.   Sheykh al Akbar Ibn Arabi (R) was asked about how to treat Christians by the Sultan, and his reply:

“The religious laws (shara’i') are all lights, and the law of Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace) among these lights is as the sun’s light among the light of the stars: if the sun comes out, the lights of the stars are no longer seen and their lights are absorbed into the light of the sun: the disappearance of their lights resembles what, of the religious laws, has been abrogated (nusikha) by his law (Allah bless him and give him peace) despite their existence, just as the lights of the stars still exist. This is why we are required by our universal law to believe in all prophetic messengers (rusul) and to believe that all their laws are truth, and did not turn into falsehood by being abrogated: that is the imagination of the ignorant. So all paths return to look to the Prophet’s path (Allah bless him and give him peace): if the prophetic messengers had been alive in his time, they would have followed him just as their religious laws have followed his law.

This view of measured ‘pluralism’ was not dependent on Guenon or Coomaraswamy, this was an integral part of Islamic teaching from the very beginning!   Legenhausen then criticizes Martin Lings comments about the Hindu caste system, associating him with the pluralism of new-age philosophies:

“Traditionalists such as Martin Lings continue to defend the Hindu caste system as being a part of authentic tradition, rather than condemning it on the basis of Islamic teachings.”

This selective reading of Martin Lings neglects to point out that even his understanding of the Hindu faith was predicated on the necessity of the elimination of the caste system, to achieve a “Golden Age”.  Specifically Martin Lings says, “The Golden Age is by definition an age when men are ‘above caste’” (Ancient Beliefs and Modern Superstitions).   Hence while it is debateable whether Martin Lings actively sought out to condemn this or that aspect of other faiths (which is really a modernist way to behave), it is clear that he sought to demonstrate that there was a recognition of the superiority of Islamic principles within the Hindu tradition.  Avid polemicist Ahmad Deedat  did just this to even greater extents, yet one finds few looking to call him a deviated ‘perennialist’.

[continued]