THIS is in response to Mubarak Ali’s piece ‘In quest of truth’ (Sept 2). In his article the writer has inferred that enlightenment was a continuation of Greek philosophical tradition, that Ghazali was responsible for the decline of philosophical thought and scientific inquiry among Muslims and that Iqbal believed in truth inherited from ancestors and accepted it as it is.

It appears as if the writer has misunderstood the ideas of Iqbal and Imam Ghazali ( even if he has read their primary texts).

To begin with, Greek philosophy was based on the principles of deduction which follows the path of universal knowledge to particular knowledge, like mathematics, or deductive logic. Socrates assumed that a truth already exists in its complete form and a person would eventually reach it if he follows the path of reasoning and logic. That is why he used ‘Socratic method’ to engage people in a debate and get them to realise their irrationality and walk them to the path of logic and reasoning. Following syllogism would serve as example of Greek (universal to particular/deductive) logic.

All birds can fly Duck is a bird Therefore, a duck can fly The ideas of enlightenment, on the other hand, were a continuation of scientific revolution which was based on inductive logic and scientific method. This method was formalised and elaborated by Francis Bacon in his ground-breaking Baconian method.

According to Bacon, deduction was not the right path of go and that its scope is limited to what reason allows. Instead, he proposed that the only way forward for human intellect would be inductive logic that allows a scientist to test a particular principle in laboratory setting and then assume that these principles would be generally applicable to the whole universe (particular to universal).

It was this principle that later became the basis of scientific revolution, which eventually lead to enlightenment. Therefore, scientific method and after that the enlightenment were actually a 180-degree turn from Greek philosophy.

As far as Ghazali is concerned, one cannot blame him for the decline of philosophical thought among Muslims. His critique of rational metaphysics is one of the best literatures written on the subject. He used pure reasoning devoid of religious assertions to show that pure reasoning does not possess the ability to reach the metaphysical truth. He used the methods of rationalists to write one the greatest critiques on rationality.

Instead of Ghazali, it was the weakness of the subject of reasoning that led to its decline among Muslims. Ghazali’s conclusion was further strengthened by the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant in his book Critique of pure reason.

In fact, Ghazali was far ahead of his time as his argument against the necessary connection between cause and effect is almost exactly the same as the one David Hume proposed 600 years after Ghazali’s death.

Mubarak Ali’s understanding of Iqbal is also very limited. Just to begin, why would Iqbal name his book The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam if he intended to conclude that the truth inherited from his ancestors was final and does not need any reconstruction? If you read this book, I am sure, you will find that Iqbal’s ideas brought Islam at par with the philosophical traditions of his time.

I urge Mubarak Ali to do a little more research before writing about his ‘quest for truth’.

MUHAMMAD UMER GURCHANI Rawalpindi