Metaphysical Vision: The Pertinence of Islamic Cosmology in the Modern World w/ William Chittick

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]What we call knowledge, what we call intellectual, what we call science is a form of transmitted knowledge.

[00:00:12]That's the way people talk. Always people talk like this. Even very very smart people. Well, scientists now know that. Well, you don't know it. And how do you know the scientists know it? This is belief in authority figures.

[00:00:29]So modern science has taken the role of theologians and jurists. It tells us how to think.

[00:00:40]Uh not that people think well this is where truth is to be found. Well what about religion?

[00:00:48]That well that's personal belief. You can believe whatever you want.

[00:00:53]What about uh uh practice of uh of Yeah.

[00:00:58]Yeah. Sure. Do that. That's good for you. Help society.

[00:01:04]Um what about belief in God? Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Believe in God.

[00:01:11]But real knowledge, you want certainty about everything, you have to study science because science offers you certainty. Science offers you grounding.

[00:01:19]Science offers you a foundation. People take it for granted that scientists speak truth. This is called of course this taking it for granted is what of course many people have called scientism belief in science where science is playing the role of religion.

[00:01:39]But what this has meant for us hundred years and more in the Islamic world is that all the smart people have been encouraged to study knowledge that is science knowledge as it is understood in the west and those who are left over sort of the drakes have ended up going to the madresses because they couldn't get into the universities and this is a generalization and it's being unfair I'm sure But there's uh there are too many examples of this and what the matter is basically the teacher following the rules.

[00:02:22]Uh there are a few madresses left especially in Iran and and these are some of these have been revived that deal with the intellectual sciences that is understanding truth reality understanding God first to understanding how things are.

[00:02:43]So this bifurcation that you see in Muslim intellectuals, people are very smart, people with university education, their worldview is rooted in modern scientific thinking and as far as they're concerned, this is truth because science agrees. They don't quite realize that they're saying exactly what the old uh previous generation were saying.

[00:03:12]Well, this is what you must do because there's an here. There's a consensus of the that everyone has to do it this way.

[00:03:20]Therefore, you have to follow the consensus of the This is what they're talking about. There's an of the scientists. They don't know it. This is not their own personal knowing. It is what they have heard.

[00:03:32]So, people's lives are built on hearsay, the scientific hearsay.

[00:03:39]uh and they are not interested in another route to knowledge which is based on understanding reality per se and that goes back to the issue of toh there is nothing real but the reality the absolute reality where is this explicated this knowledge in the intellectual tradition the philosophers all of them are going after what is the heart and root of the reality of all things? They may not use the language of of the Quran in expressing this. But this is uh and that's the big that's one of the big distinctions with the Sufi teachers who always are rooted in the language of the Quran.

[00:04:28]Uh but the philosophers know very well that there's nothing real but the real and so the metaphysics of Islamic philosophy is very profound and when they do talk about cosmology the nature of reality the nature of the reality out there it is embedded in this metaphysical vision.

[00:04:50]It's a a vision of the one extending into the many and an explication of how the many can return to the will return to the one because the return to God is compulsory. No one gets away from it and but should voluntarily return to God through practicing the straight path while they have the chance in this life.

[00:05:16]So this is in philosophy it's in Sufism the strength of philosophy I think for modern for modern people is precisely because it's so precise and logical and we're trained in you know at least we think we're trained in thinking clearly in university context on you know you wonder more and more as a teacher who've been doing this for 40 years I wonder more and more if the students have maybe lost that message uh but anyway That's the way it used to be.

[00:05:47]We're trying to uh teach the students how to think clearly. And the hope is that once uh people learn how to think clearly, they'll they'll be a benefit to themselves first of all and the society as well.