Socrates and Luqman the Wise (Part I)
By Dr Basheer Ahmed Khan
Garden Grove, CA
Despite all its claim of adherence to the Judeo-Christian traditionthe Western world is Greco-Roman in style, substance and spirit. It is therefore essential that the Muslim world which is at conflict with it understands the History of Western Civilization. Otherwise, the two will continue to consider each other as demonic civilizations out to destroy the other to the glee of the proponents of the “Clash of Civilizations” and its sponsors.
There are three misconceptions which need to be dispelled to foster a cordial dialogue between the two. Firstly, it is wrong to believe that the Greco-Roman civilization is heathen and hedonistic with no divine spark. Secondly, it is wrong to believe that metaphysical and moral imperatives attributed to divine are deficient on intellectual gauge and therefore should be rejected. Thirdly, it is wrong to assume that Muslim countries are not a part of the Greco-Roman mosaic after centuries of interaction and colonization by Europe, and should be treated differently for the acts of a few miscreants.
The fact that the Abrahamic civilization in its early days interacted with the pagan civilization of Egypt in a spirit of harmony and symbiosis is evident from the fact that Joseph and Moses (peace be upon both of them), who were both biblical and Qur’anic figures, were sheltered in the palace of Pharaoh as treasury secretary (Ch 12 V55), and prince (Ch 28 V9) respectively in which capacity they contributed to the progress of this civilization. The same Egyptian Civilization sent Hagar AS earlier as its tribute to Abraham (Al Badaya) from whose progeny emerged the final prophet Muhammad (PBUH). By the time Muhammad SA was anointed as prophet the Egyptian Civilization had merged with Greco-Roman tradition to form the nidus of modern day Western civilization. The Egypt of those days sent Maria RA as tribute to Muhammad SA in response to his letter to the Vicegerent of Egypt Muqawqas (ArRaheeq al Makhtoom).
Civilizational relations are much akin to individual relations. When individuals are honest to each other the relationship prospers; when they become selfish and self-centered it turns into hostility. The same happened between followers of Abrahamic faiths and the Greco-Roman Civilization. When the religious people challenged the echelons of power on their misdeeds, and the state tried to manipulate and subdue religion for its own agenda, then religion and state entered into a hostile relationship. Religion, which is centered on the sovereignty of God, explained this conflict as the design of God to check one with the other (Ch2 V251). Under this pretext we put all the burden of our evil deeds on God and religion to escape incrimination and to avoid the responsibility of self-correction.
When Abraham (PBUH) had reached the ultimate reality of God through his inquisitive genius, the Greco-Roman civilization was also struggling to reach the truth in its own ways. At the time when Abraham (PBUH) had realized that there is a creator with infinite knowledge and power (Ch6 V74-79), Greco-Roman civilization also believed in Zeus with the same attributes which the people of faith attributed to God. The Greco-Romans in their tradition of understanding and explaining things through semantics and logic clipped the sovereignty of Zeus and made it a ceremonial god so that they could assert their sovereignty over people with or without his name.
With the pantheon of various gods adorning the temples, Greco-Roman kings remained sovereign to act according to their will under justification of their own philosophical arguments and logic. As the Greek society was undergoing metamorphosis to its maturity through intellectual endeavor, the sophists through their sophistry and sophistication gave justification to even the worse cause, espoused by the kings and desired by evil elements of society. Elites who were able to avail the services of these sophists enjoyed their lifestyle at the expense of others. This behavior of the elite and the “intellectuals” was hurting the society by being in conflict with the factual reality on which this universe operates. Centuries of this indulgence had brought the Greek society into decay. Socrates was born in such an environment in Greece in 470 BC to put the society on a moral track and to revitalize it.
Those who did not want to restrain their freedom under the belief of an Omnipotent, Omnipresent and Omniscient God wanted to explain our life and its purpose in philosophical terms to suit their preferences and prejudices. The plethora of concepts generated by these philosophers was so complex that a philosopher was sarcastically defined as a blind person who was trying to find a black ant on a black stone in a dark room. This was the euphemism to describe the futility of search of infinite truth by the finite minds. To complicate things further these prehistoric philosophical concepts, which were transferred from generation to generation through oral tradition, fresh interpretations, and selfish manipulation, became an enigma even for the “experts”.
Bertrand Russell disentangled this cobweb of complex ideas and explained the history of Western philosophy in a lucid way. About the ones that he could not explain he was candid enough to concede: “If I have failed to make Aristotle’s theory of universals clear, that is because it is not clear”. The names and the concepts that were revered under a shadow of mystery are laid bare in about eight hundred pages of his monumental work “The History of Western Philosophy”.
The genuineness of a person is judged by the causes he espouses and opposes and the group of people who support and oppose him. Mr Russell’s opposition of use of the atomic bomb against Japan and his incisive criticism of everything loathsome in the history of human civilization has made him a hero for all those who want to see the march of civilization on a forward course by learning from the mistakes of the past. He also has a powerful group of opponents who are forces of status quo ante. Russell’s “History of Western Civilization” is a remarkable book to understand the highs and lows of Western civilization both per-se and during its interaction with other civilizations.
There is a small essay in it about Socrates. As I was reading it a thought came to my mind. Could Socrates described in this essay by his student Plato be the same Luqman the wise mentioned in Qur’an? Qur’an describes Luqman as a man of wisdom who had reached the reality of God through his wisdom. I was more inclined to this thought in view of the fact that Qur’an being the book of complete truth had always given credit to where it belongs and criticized where it was due. It appreciated the Pharaoh of Joseph’s time and criticized his wife (Ch12 V54 & 28-29). It appreciated the wife of Pharaoh of Moses’ time and criticized the contemporary pharaoh (Ch10 V83 & Ch66 V11). Correcting the serious allegation made against God of Israel in Deuteronomy Ch 20 V 16-17, Qur’an says: Our command to Children of Israel was that they should enter the Promised Land prostrating and seeking forgiveness; dwell in it and eat from its produce, but the transgressors changed our command and were punished for it (Ch 9 V 161-62). In consonance with this spirit of an impartial arbiter if Qur’an mentions Socrates as Luqman it is appropriate.
As we read the various exegesis about the chapter on Luqman (Ch31 V 12-19), we learn that he was an African slave who was given wisdom by God. Nonetheless, the well-read Arabs did have a record of authoritative statements attributed to Luqman, and one such was appreciated by Nabi SA when it was presented to him by Savaid bin Samith RA of Medina. Medina being on the route of trade with the Byzantine Empire, it is not unlikely that the truth seeking people of Medina brought this document from there. To the contrary, the authenticity of “Fable de Luqman,” which is now available, is doubted because of its poor language and content (TafheemUl Qur’an). Shabbeer Ahmed Usmani RA in his exegesis on the Chapter of Luqman writes: Luqman recognized the truth through pure intellect which prophets received through revelation.
Mr Russell contends that if we have to believe in what Plato has mentioned about Socrates as true then Socrates is a perfect Orphic saint in the dualism of heavenly soul and earthly body. His indifference to death is the final proof of the mastery of his soul over his body. At the same time, he is not an orthodox Orphic; it is only the fundamental doctrines of Orphism that he accepts and not the superstitious and ceremonies of purification (HOWP).
Mujaddid Alf e Saani Shaikh Ahmed Sarhandi RA has said: There is no pure intuitive or intellectual knowledge with us human beings as our prides and our prejudices pollute both. If we can overcome our prides and our prejudices, then we shall see that the correctly understood revealed knowledge of the prophets is akin to the intellectual understanding of our life experience (Tareekh e Dawath o Azeemath Vol 4).
While the prophets of Jewish tribes were struggling to purify religion by cleansing the impurities and corruption that had crept into scriptures, Socrates as a luminary of Greek civilization, tried to do it on an intellectual plane but neither the intellectuals nor the religious paid any heed to them. We see that at the time when Socrates was struggling to find solutions to the problems of Greek society, in China Confucius (479 BC), in India i Siddhartha Gautama Buddha (563 BC), and in Iran i Zoroaster (660 BC) werestruggling to solve the same problems in their societies. When the efforts of these great souls could not save the world and when the last of the Israeli prophets, John the Baptist and Jesus Christ (Peace be upon all of them) were treated cruelly, the world went into the Dark Age. God fulfilled His promise to make Ishmael into a great nation through Muhammad SA. And Muhammad SA restored the reality of the past. Thus we see that the Qur’an, if read and understood correctly, is a brief chronicle of the world’s recorded history bringing into light the good, the bad, andthe ugly of our past in a balanced manner to pave the way for a bright future.
Looking at the way that the universal message of Islam based on knowledge was made a sectarian religion, and the Orphic ceremonies of penance and purification became the sum and substance of Islam, goes to say that we not only misinterpreted the real teachings of Islam during the rule of the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasty, but we also destroyed the link between the Abrahamic faiths and the Greco-Roman civilization either deliberately or because of the constraints on scholarship. Insha’Allah, I will try to establish this link between the intellectual searches of Socrates and the revealed teachings and Abrahamic faith to prove that intellectual endeavors and faith are not in contradiction with each other but complementary provided both are pure.
When we read the life and work of Socrates, as described by his great student Plato and interpreted by the esteemed historian and philosopher Bertrand Russell in his book “The History of Western Philosophy," we see lot of similarities between the teachings of Socrates and that of the prophets to suggest that Socrates could be Luqmanthe wise. All the scholars of exegesis are almost unanimous that Luqman was not a prophet. Yet, his name is mentioned in the Qur’an to prove the point that the message of the Qur’an is not something alien, but what all people of true wisdom have arrived at in the past, and Luqman’s story is cited as the example.
The holy Qur’an introduces Luqman thus: We bestowed upon Luqman Wisdom (Ch 31 V 12) and then goes into detail his advice to his son, which epitomizes the gist of faith and religion. Plato’s work “Apology,” which is supposedly an account of the statements made by Socrates before the judges during his trial, is a testimony to the fact that Socratic wisdom was akin to the Qur’anic concept of wisdom and not the sophistry of a sophist to suggest that Socrates could be the Luqman mentioned in the Qur’an.
Socrates lived in the brief oligarchic period at the end of the Peloponnesian wars. The Oligarchs of his time put Socrates on trial because the emphasis on virtue in his teachings was a threat to their rabid authority. In fact, some of the children of these Oligarchs were pupils of Socrates; they were granted exemption from giving testimony in the trial, lest they testify the facts that absolve Socrates of the allegation leveled against him. One of the charges leveled against Socrates was that he was using his eloquence to mislead the younger generation. Socrates responded by saying, “The only eloquence I am capable of is that of truth.” He further says, “Men of Athens, I honor and love you, but I shall obey God rather than you” (HOWP). This is the same reply which Abraham (PBUH) gave to his people (Ch 2 V131). (To be continued)
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