Reza Gholami’s Speech On international session of second Islamic humanities congress/ 17/11/2013
In the name of Allah the compassionate the merciful
First of all, I would like to welcome our guests especially international guests.
For opening this session that is organized for exchanging opinions about developing of the Islamic humanities, let me give you a brief introduction.
The our most important aim of the Islamic humanities, is to help human to understand universe and human correctly, and answer to questions, which the modern philosophies have not succeeded in answering to them.
We believe, the secular humanities can not understand universe and human and also the relations between them deeply.
Maybe the main reason that we can call this condition to “the modern ignorance”, is the new philosophies have ignored The creator. They have thought that the universe doesn’t have clear aim. We should find the principled difference between secular humanities and Islamic humanities in this big ignorance.
Today, although the human has a kind of shallow approach to the world, it has deprived itself of pure human accomplishments.
I have some important questions:
What’s the real difference between human and animal?
Have the human entered to this world just for showing itself as a new face of the animality?
What’s the real relation between modern human life and the substance of the human now?
It’s true that there are differences between human and animal higher than psychological or intellectual differences. The human is the lord of all creatures, and come to the free will field to reach itself to the highest level of pure accomplishment. It’s clear that the duty of the humanities is highlighting the way of the accomplishments. Of course, we know, we can not expect that the western humanities highlights this way.
Maybe, some of the scholars don’t understand the Islamic humanities concept yet.
The Islamic humanities (in simple definition) are the sciences and knowledge, which are under the umbrella of the Islamic worldview.
Based on this definition, all of the sciences are the part of the Islamic humanities, if they are under the umbrella of the Islamic worldview.
We should pay attention, the Islamic humanities have selected various Situations for each methods based on its proficiency. So, it’s natural that we can not define the same situation for all of the methods. In fact, each method or the sources of the knowledge has particular territory in the Islamic humanities. Let me give an example to illustrate the point: we can not expect that the positivism method solve our problems in ontology or eschatology and also, we can not expect that the philosophy methods solve all of our problems in management or economy.
Of course, we think, the various sources and methods could have cooperation to solve some of the problems in the ontology or anthropology. (For instance)
Therefore, all of the methods are Islamic completely as long as stay under the umbrella of the Islamic worldview. This is very important that the result of the scientific operation (for example: in economy of science) is obligatory for Moslems.
One of the important discussions in Islamic humanities is discussing about situation of the Divine knowledge in epistemology. Has it same level or value with other knowledge or sciences? No. We believe that the Divine knowledge have unique circumstance and efficiency in Islamic humanities. Actually, divine could answer to a lot of deep questions surely, but the human sciences could not.
In our opinion, the Islamic humanities are the obvious result of the free thinking. Free thinking that we can find it in depth of Islamic studies, has confronted with a kind of monopolist in western humanities. In fact, intellectualism has not allowed to different methods and sources for sharing together in humanities.
Intellectuals believe that, a lone method which human can solve the human problems is positivist methods. Actually, secular humanities boycott other methods based on absurd reasons. This opinion is against the free thinking. In fact, today, we face developed dogmatism in western humanities that has been imposed on human by intellectualism.
In the Islamic humanities congress, we want to provide the suitable ground for firstly, critiquing the secular humanities and secondly, theorizing about Islamic humanities.
Last year, the first congress was organized here. It has offered the good achievements toward explaining the philosophy of Islamic humanities.
This year, in second congress, we have been concentrating on different fields of humanities. Actually, we want to study about methodologies and structures of humanities in different scientific fields.
Of course, our situation in different fields is not the same. For example, Moslems thinkers have progressed to Islamic economy during last decades. They could offer some theories beyond philosophy discussions for solving economic problems in the Islamic world such as Islamic banking.
In Islamic politic we could offer theory and system of Islamic democracy. Islamic democracy has competed with system of liberal democracy closely. Today, the system of Islamic democracy is the experienced and successful system in Iran, and the Moslems can use it in their countries as a successful model.
Meanwhile, we can see good progressing In the Islamic law and Islamic education. For example, today, we can present a strong international law based on Islamic law to open legal knots in the world.
Also, about education, we can see the efforts of Moslems thinkers in around the world to produce the Islamic education.
We are happy that the motivations of the Moslems scholars to offer strong Islamic humanities increase today and there are the numbers scientific departments that have been established during last two decades.
We declare our readiness to cooperate with Moslems thinkers for developing and deepening the Islamic humanities.
In our believe, Islamic world is moving toward new Islamic civilization. This civilization well be the global phenomenon and change the human life in around the world deeply. We shouldn’t forget that the human is in dramatic condition, so we should try to get rid of western plan about the world.
Although the Islamic humanities has key role in the new Islamic civilization, we should invest in Islamic humanities seriously.
I am so glad about this session, and I many thanks again for your attendance.
Also, I would like to express my appreciation to the director of international department of congress, Dr. HossainDoostar, his assistant, Dr. Mirhossani and scientific director of international department, Hojat-o-Islam Dr. Ali Mesbah and his colleagues in Imam Khomeini institute.
I ask Dr. Mesbah to continue.