Man and the Universe

DR. M. SAFDAR ALI BAIG
Reader, Osmania University

Thinkers have always endeavoured to know the reality of the material world and Man. A question arises as to whether the material existence of the universe and Man is real, or can it be doubted? According to Plato time, space, matter and the continuous process of cause and effect are merely a dream or deception.

George Berkeley maintains that Matter is not that which it appears to be, and we are not only ignorant of the real nature of things, but even of their existence. Though we perceive various things we cannot draw the conclusion that bodies really exist. The existence of material substance can be denied not only because we have no notion of it, but because every notion concerned with it is inconsistent and repugnant. The existence of matter implies inconsistency and nothing inconsistent can exist.¹

Berkeley holds that all the things are “sensible things,” and sensible things are those that are immediately perceived by the senses. For instance, we perceive light, colours and figures by our eye’s sight, sounds by hearing, taste by palate, odours by smell and we perceive tangible qualities by touch. So, we can say that the sensible world is that which we perceive by our several senses, and that which we perceive by our senses is nothing but the ‘idea,’ and the idea exists in our mind. It does not exist independently out of our mind. This implies that the reality which is manifest is only subjective or “mental.” ²

Berkeley argues that if all sensible qualities of a thing are taken away the thing cannot be perceived by senses, therefore, it is nothing but a combination of sensible qualities. Sensible qualities like size figure and colour are continually changing upon every alteration in the distance, medium or instruments of sensation. For example, the sunset clouds as perceived are red and purple, while actually they have no such colours. A microscope often discovers colours in an object different from those perceived by the unassisted eye’s sight. In jaundice, everyone knows that all things seem yellow. Thus, he says, all colours are only apparent and not really inherent in any outward object. In the same way filth and ordure do not have the same smell for the brute animals that feed on them with choice, as we perceive in them. So, smell is a quality that exists only in a perceiving substance or mind. If one of our hands is hot and the other is cold and they are both at once put into the same vessel of water in an intermediate state, the water will be felt cold to one hand and warm to the other. The water cannot be cold and warm at the same time. So, it can be said that sensible qualities are only relative to senses and have no absolute existence in nature. Naturally then we are altogether put off with the appearance of things. The very meat I eat and the cloth I put on, says Berkeley, have nothing in them like what I see and fell. We have no reason to believe in the material existence of the universe. Men eat, drink, sleep and perform all the duties of life and converse on them comfortably and convincingly as if they really know the things they are using and talking about. But this, according to him, is because ordinary practice does not require speculative knowledge; hence the vulgar retain their mistakes. ³

The sensible qualities of anything are deceptive, and our senses are relative, hence not reliable. Our ideas depend on both consequently ever changing and cannot be relied upon. So, neither the reality of anything is discernable nor the things are distinguishable. Moreover, the ideas are formed in the mind and are purely mental. Naturally it can be said that our knowledge of things is subjective. Thus, on such grounds, according to Descartes, we can suppose that no existing thing is such as the senses make us image it to be. All the things which enter into our minds are illusive like our dreams. Dreams, like painters, present us with copies of real things, but how do we know that the thoughts which come in dreams are more likely to be false than those we experience when awake? The former no less vivid and detailed than the latter. Descartes says dreams often deceive us even when we are awake, as sufferers from jaundice see everything yellow-coloured or the stars and other distant bodies appear to be smaller than they are. All the imaged things and whatever is related to the body can be a dream or merely a deception. Though man apprehends corporeal things, sees light, hears noise, feels heat, still, these things, it will be said, are false and he is only dreaming. ⁴

No doubt, a great variety of things we perceive in dreams is not present at that moment and sometimes does not exist in reality. When the senses deceive us in dreams and also when we are awake they are unreliable. So it can be concluded that the perceptible universe and our life is nothing but a dream, a long long dream; or in other words the world perceived by our senses is not the true world, but a mere appearance and illusion.

According to Professor Whitehead, the modern scientist, the traditional theory of materialism is wholly untenable. It reduces one-half of Nature to a ‘dream’ and the other half to a conjecture. Nature, therefore, according to him is not a static fact situated in an adynamic void, but a structure of events possessing the character of a continuous creative flow which thought cuts up into isolated immobilities, out of whose mutual relations arises the concept of space and time. Thus modern science agrees with Berkeley whose criticism it once regarded as an attack on its very foundation, says Dr. Iqbal. ⁵

Dr. Iqbal, the philosophic poet of Urdu and Persian, holds that it is obvious that colours, sounds, etc., are only subjective states and form no part of Nature. That which enters the eye and the ear is no colour or sound, but invisible ether waves and inaudible air waves. Nature, he says, is not that which we thought her to be. Our perceptions are illusive and cannot be regarded as appropriate means which disclose the reality of Nature. The traditional theory of Matter, he says, should not be accepted for the obvious reasons that it is based on the evidence of our senses. Further, according to modern physics, the old concepts are not acceptable, and the empirical attitude which lead to scientific materialism has finally ended in a revolt against the concept of matter. ⁶

Descartes holds that though all the things that enter our mind are illusive like our dreams, and we want to conclude that everything is false, yet we who think of everything must be something. “I think, therefore I am,” says he, in order to think it is necessary to be. There is something that we cannot doubt: no demon, however cunning, can deceive us if we do not exist. Let him deceive us as much as he will, still he can never cause us to be nothing so long as we shall be thinking that we are something. The statement “I think, therefore I am,” says Bertrand Russell, makes mind more certain than matter. Descartes continues, “I am then a real thing, and really existent, but what thing? a thinking thing.”  ⁷

Dr. Iqbal also believes that the material existence of the universe is an illusion but not man’s self, which really exists and which cannot be doubted. He says,

            Agar gui ke man wahm-o-guman ast
            Namudash chun namud-e-in-o-an ast
            Bagu ba man ke dara-e-gumen kist?
            Yaki dar khud nigar an bi nishan kist” ⁸

(If yousay that ‘I’ is a mere illusion,
And it also appears like other things;
Tell me who is he that is deluded?
Who is he that thinks and is still called an ‘illusion’.)

Berkeley does not actually refute the reality of the universe, he refutes only the common concept of Matter and its appearance. He believes that there is a substance of the universe which is a spirit. This spirit itself is a mind, and all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have no subsistence outside the Mind. This Mind or eternal Spirit is unintelligible. ⁹

This notion is more or less similar to the concept of ‘Unity of Being’ according to which there is only one Reality which is the Spirit or the Mind, i.e., God. God manifests Himself in all forms, shapes and colours of the universe and is the Essence of all existence. Of all the manifestations of God, Man is the highest expression of God’s manifestive faculties, according to the Sufis particularly Shaykh Muhyid-din Ibnul Arabi who maintains that Man is the manifested conciousness of God, exteriorized and made visible. Man is the highest and most venerable of God’s creations. He is something like the soul of the universe. In fact, he says, the whole universe was created for him so that he could understand God through it. That is the reason why he becomes the cause of creation. God, according to a Hadith (Tradition), wanted to make Himself known and understood, so He created the universe. But nobody could know God except Man in every respect, in His aspects of the Real and the phenomenal. Even angels knew Him only in His Transcendental Nature and not in relation to the phenomenal world. So, Man was created, without whom the universe was incomplete. ¹⁰ It is also clear from the Quran that Man is the best among God’s creations. The Quran points out,

“Of the goodliest fabric We created Man, then brought him to the lowest of the low.” (95: 54)

Prophet Muhammad says, “Innalaha khalaqa adama ala suratchi” (God created man in His own image). Ibnul Arabi argues that Man is the only being who deserves to be called the ‘image’ and the ‘mirror’, which reflects nearly all the Attributes of God, rather he reflects God Himsetf. ¹¹ Prophet Muhammad says, “Man arafa nafsohu facad arafa Rabbohu” (One who understands his own self understands God). The Quran also points out,

“We are closer to him than his jugular vein.” (50: 15)

The Western mystics also hold that to ascend to God means to withdraw into the depths of our own self. “To mount to God” says the writer of “De Adhaerando,” is to enter into ones own self. For he who inwardly entereth and intimately penetrateth into himself, gets above and beyond himself and truly mounts up to God.” ¹²

Man is to God says Ibnul Arabi, as the pupil is to the eye, through him God beholds His creation, that is why he is named as “Insan” or “Mardum” (both the words mean pupil). Man is originated through his body and eternal because of his soul. He says we are God’s Attributes that describe Him and our existence is only an objectification of His Existence. God is necessary for us to exist and so are we necessary for Him that He may be manifested to Himself.” ¹³

Abdul Karim Jili says that Man is a mysterious universe in himself. He is the supreme being in the universe because no other creation bears those godly qualities that have been given to him. Both God and the universe reflect themselves mysteriously in him. Without his particular being there can be no inter-relation between the two. Jili and Ibnul Arabi both call man the preserver and maintainer of the universe. Ibnul Arabi believes that Man guards the creations of God just as the king guards his treasuries by scaling them. He is to the universe what the seal of the king is to his treasuries. He also holds that Man should be guarded and honoured, for “he who takes care of Man takes care of God.” Destruction of human beings is a grievous fault and a serious crime. ¹⁴

Dr. Iqbal maintains that Man in whom egohood has reached its relative perfection occupies a genuine place in the heart of the Divine Creative Scheme, and thus possesses a higher degree of reality than things around him. Of all the creations of God he alone is capable of consciously participating in the creative life of his Maker. Endowed with the power to imagine a better world, and to mould what ‘is’ into what ‘ought to be’, the ego in him aspires, in the interest of an increasingly unique and comprehensive individuality, to exploit all the various environments on which he may be called upon to operate during the course of an endless career.” ¹⁵

Man, according to Iqbal, is the vicegerent of God and has come to constitute the Kingdom of God on earth. The Quran points out,

“And it is He who has made you His representatives on earth.” (6:165)

Iqbal exclaims:

            “Naib-e-haq dar jahan budan khush ast
Bar anasar hukmran budan khush ast” ¹⁶

(It is a blessed task to deputize God on earth,
And to dominate the forces of nature.)

According to the Quran the earth is a ‘source of profit’ to Man, and God says, “We have caused you to grow from the earth.”

Thus, man was placed, says Iqbal, in an environment which however painful was better suited to the unfolding of his intellectual faculties. His career has no doubt a beginning but he is destined to become a permanent element in the constitution of being. It is only as an ever-growing ego that he can belong to the meaning of the universe. The question that arises is how to make the soul grow and save it from corruption. The soul grows through action and life offers a scope for the ego-activity. It is the deed that either leads the ego to dissolution, or disciplines it for a future career. Personal immortality is not one’s right, it should be achieved by one’s personal effort. Life is continuous. Man always marches on. wards to receive ever fresh illumination from an Infinite Reality which ‘every moment appears in new glory’. The recipient of divine illumination is not merely a passive recipient. Every act of Man creates a new situation, and thus offers further opportunities of creative unfolding. ¹⁷

Iqbal argues that whatever may be the final fate of Man, it is not the loss of individuality. Even the scene of ‘universal destruction’ immediately preceding the Day of Judgment cannot effect the perfect calm of a full-grown ego. ¹⁸ The Quran also makes clear,
“And there shall be a blast on the trumpet, and all who are in the Heavens and all who are in the earth shall fade away, save those in whose case God wills otherwise.” (39 : 69)

Who can be the subject of this exception, says Iqbal, but those in whom the ego has reached the highest point of intensity? ¹⁹

¹ Berkeley: Complete Works. (tr. A. C. Fraser. Oxford. 1705-1721) Vol. 1. pp. 444, 451.
² Ibid. pp. 383, 425, 421, 418.
³ Ibid. Pp. 384, 388, 390, 393, 395, 398, 443, 449.
⁴ Descartes: Philosophical Writings. (tr. N. K. Smith. London. 1952) Pp. 140, 145-146, 206-207.
⁵ Iqbal: The Reconstruction of Religious thought in Islam, (London. 1934) P. 33.
⁶ Ibid. Pp. 81-32.
⁷ Descartes: op. cit. Pp. 140-141,203,205.
⁸ Iqbal: Gulshan-e-Raz-e-Jadid. (Delhi. 1962) p. 126
⁹ Berkerley: op. cit. Pp. 260-261
¹⁰ Dr. A. E. Affifi: The Mystical Philosophy of Muhyid-din Ibnul Arabi. (Cambridge. 1939) Pp. 83, 79.
Rom Landau: The Philosophy of Ibnul Arabi. (London. 1959) Pp. 38-39 .
¹¹ Affifi: op. cit. Pp. 83, 78.
¹² E. Underhill: Mysticism. (London. 1949) p. 304.
¹³ Ibnul Arabi: Fusus-al Hikam. (Cairo. A.H. 1312.) Pp. 19, 78, 181. R. A. Nicholson; Studies in Islamic Mysticism. Pp. 156, 83.
¹⁴ Nicholson: op. cit. P. 156
Affifi: op. cit. P. 83.
Ibnul Arabi: op. cit. P. 324.
¹⁵ Iqbal: op. cit. Pp. 68-69       
¹⁶ Iqbal: Asrar-e khudi [Delhi. 1962] P. 39.
¹⁷ Iqbal: op. cit. Pp. 81-82, 11, 113, 112, 116-117.
¹⁸ Ibid. p. 111.
¹⁹ Ibid. p. 111.