Absolute Reality in the Qur’an

Absolute Reality in the Qur’an – Book Sample

Prelude – Absolute Reality in the Qur’an

This book intervenes in both the conceptual and applied theory of multi- causal and multiverse unity of knowledge. It does so by exploring the interrelations generated by treating monotheistic law as an epistemic methodology. Monotheistic law, when used as epistemic methodology explains ‘everything’ using rigorous analytical approaches, formal models, and applications. The combination of the conceptual, cognitive, and applied evidence arising from the monotheistic law of unity of knowledge and its impact on both the generality and particulars of the world- system stands for the meaning of the absolute reality in the Qur’an.

Thus, the absolute reality of truth emanates from the monotheistic law of one-ness and the unified world-system in the good things of life. This is the knowledge-model of absolute reality. Further, the absolute reality of the ‘de-knowledge’ model paradoxically unravels the nature of conflict, individualism, and differentiation which together characterize the true nature of falsehood.

Hence, absolute reality is the perpetual struggle of truth against false-hood in the framework of monotheistic unity of knowledge and the unified world-system. Such a reality is induced by the consilience of knowledge. Within this framework, absolute reality reveals itself not by religious dogmatism, but rather by the distinct parts of the monotheistic methodology.

These parts are as follows: the ‘primal ontology,’ or the foundational axiom of monotheistic unity; the ‘secondary ontologies’, or explanatory replications of the law of unity in the particulars of the world-system; ‘epistemology’ as the operational model; and ‘phenomenology’ as the structural nature of events induced by the monotheistic law (i.e.,by viii PRELUDE

 knowledge emanating from the law). The imminent methodology remains the unique explanatory reference of all events across continuums of knowl-edge, space, and time, placing evolutionary learning into the context of a higher understanding of the absolute reality.

Indeed, the interaction between man and the world-system, man’s well-being, and the nature of reality all define the sustainability principle for life-fulfilling potentiality. Thus, removed from any dogmatic and abstruse idea of God and the created universe, the absolute reality must represent the conceptual realities that inter-causally feed into and are regenerated by the wide spectrum of evolutionary learning processes across a plethora of emergent paths. Sustainability in all such fronts and the evidential events arising from experiences of the embedded relationship between God, mind, and matter must be all that characterizes wellbeing and sustainabil-ity. The monotheistic law is not a claim of any particular religion. It is a meta-religious precept which undergirds reality as we know it. Therefore, the monotheistic law is amenable to analytical study and applications which will create sustained wellbeing for all. Such sustainability thus becomes a multi-causal organically systemic case of what we refer to as consilience: yet another name for the episteme of systemic unity of knowledge. Its meaning is understood in terms of systemic interrelationships of unity between life-sustaining choices, a rejection of adverse life-choices, and a development of consciousness inside the structure of and along the lines of life-sustaining choices. All these explanatory and quantitative functions are realized by the use of sound analytical and applied ways of actualizing expectations.

The Structure of The Book

Part I: The Absolute Reality: The Methodological Worldview

In Chap. 1, we address the key questions of the book: (1) How and what are the meanings of ontology, epistemology, and phenomenology as derived from the precept of absolute reality? (2) Where can we find the finality, uniqueness, universality, and organic holism of the theory of monotheistic unity of knowledge and its moral reconstruction of the world-system? (3) What does it mean to be organically system-unified in terms of the methodological worldview of relational unity of knowledge? (4) Why and how should the universe and its generality and specifics be studied in terms of organic unity? (5) How is this approach substantially

different from systemic differentiation and methodological individual-ism of mainstream socio-scientific studies? (6) How are these system- characteristics presented in reference to absolute reality? (7) What is the symbiotic nature of the universe shaped and explained in social and scientific theories and applications with a methodology consistent with the consilience of the monotheistic unity of knowledge?

Chapter 2 makes a brief comparative study of diverse approaches to dis-covering the nature of the monotheistic law of unity of knowledge and its functioning as a holistic science of ‘everything’. Such a comparative search leads to the nature and discovery of the consilience nature of monotheistic unity of knowledge; and the delineation of the contrary rationalistic viewpoint in what we refer to as ‘de-knowledge’.

The idea is systematically developed to lay down the starting of the analytical discourse to follow in this work. This will finally lead to the applied examples of selected areas of study. The questions raised in this Chapter are thus commenced to be addressed throughout this work.

In Chap. 3 the moral law is explained in terms of the monotheistic law of unity of knowledge. The explanation is non-technical; yet analytical in nature for the informed reader. Consciousness as the inner causa-tion of the mind-matter unified interrelations, meaning phenomenology with non-dualism, is explained as the natural consequence in the realm of the ontological and epistemological perspectives. The imminent methodology and its formalism are derived from the precept of the absolute reality. Examples from experience are used to explain the clarity of the precept of the absolute reality.

Thus the phenomenon of moral and ethical embedding caused by the interactive, integrative, and evolutionary learn-ing nature of complex multi-causality between unity of knowledge, mind, and matter across the progress of time, is formally explained.

The meaning of the absolute reality carried through Chaps. 1 and 2 into the continuing exegesis of the verses of the Qur’anic chapter of the Chapter, R’ad (Thunder) is used to explain the multilayer systemic for-malism of organic unity of knowledge between the learning and pairing systems. Complex and extended interaction between the representative variables qualify the multilayer systems.

The complex organic interconnec-tivity between the cognitive and quantitative variables; and between the quantitative and qualitative multi-variables is studied in the framework of complexity with organic unity. The topic of human discourse is explained within itself and with the interacting world-system as it unravels. Thereby, the vertexes of the interrelations in the field of the absolute reality are x PRELUDE

circularly interconnected in the sense of the interactive, integrative, evolutionary model of organic unity of knowledge across multilayer systems that are represented by their multi-variables and entities.

In Chap. 4 the human interpretation and codification of the monotheistic law is shown to go through a process of learned discourse to establish the purpose and objective of the shari’ah, the Islamic law of worldly affairs (muamalat).

Thus the shari’ah has a core that remains immutable in terms of its ontological, epistemological, and phenomenological meanings. The periphery of the shari’ah is generated by the interpretation and discourse of the learned ones as presented by the Qur’an and the sunnah. This chapter will argue that the extension of discourse in the sense of the open- ended systemic organic interrelations by the monotheistic law opens up the gates to profound extensions of the shari’ah. The domains of science and society do not remain independent of the extended understanding of the shari’ah as derived from the monotheistic law.

Consequently, Islamic law in as far as it arises from the premise of the Qur’an and the sunnah reaches out to the farthest extant of knowledge of the universe in its holistic (interconnected) totality by way of organic relations in the framework of unity of knowledge.

Consequently, when the interpretation and extensions by the learned ones is introduced into the shari’ah by way of learned discourse, then the domain of the shari’ah extends to the universal system of holistic unity and to the understanding of the unification of the organic relations across diverse systems.

We will call such widening knowledge-induced systems of relations and enti-ties that are guided by extendibility in the socio-scientific order as the world-system. The complexity of such continuously evolving and ever- emergent world-systems will be characterised in the generalized model of unity of knowledge, and its characteristics of ontology, epistemology, and phenomenology. Examples will be presented of socio-scientific systems in the context of extendibility of the unitary world-systems and their detailed nature of intra- and inter- systemic organic relations.

In Chap. 5 the problems to be studied are, (i) the theme of balance (wasatiyyah) between the moral law and the wellbeing criterion estab-lishing equivalence with the concept of sustainability and co-integration. (ii) The interactive, integrative, and evolutionary learning worldview in the light of the wellbeing (maslaha) criterion is formalized as the inter- systemic complex unification of being and becoming of the episteme of unity of knowledge.