Beyond Struggle and Power: Heidegger's Secret ... - Interpretation

Book Review: An Islamic Philosophy of Virtuous Religions
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natural and not inherently evil, says Parens’ Alfarabi; it is how we choose to satisfy
them that can be good or evil. Hence, when excessive self-denial is
demanded as internal jihad, “[i]t so reifies its own excessive desires that it is
prone to finding them peopling the external world. Internal jihad transmogrifies
into external and offensive jihad” (71). Transmogrifying jihad may be
exactly what Alfarabi had in mind, but there is even more convincing evidence
of Alfarabi’s aversion to offensive jihad in Parens’ account of Alfarabi’s overarching
denial that the virtuous regime can be created or that any single religion
could be appropriate for all societies.
The specific role of religion in society is addressed in Parens’
third “wave” multiplicity argument, where a virtuous religion is described by
Alfarabi as one that, among other things, creates similitudes of truth for citizens.
To adequately express truth to citizens, the images must be specific to a
people’s local culture, history, and nature in order for it to make sense to them.
We might think of these similitudes as truth couched in culturally relevant
colloquialisms. If this is true, then every nation’s religion will be different. And
the idea of one, true, universal religion becomes a non sequitur. In fact, the mere
pursuit of a single universal religion would be a sign of failure to understand the
very nature of religion and its relationship to the not-quite-virtuous regime.
Alfarabi is hardly known for transparency, but he makes an
especially opaque statement at the end of Attainment of Happiness (sec. 62).
After just having spent pages and pages asserting that the true king-imamphilosopher
is the person (or group of persons) who creates the virtuous city
and attains happiness for it, Alfarabi tells us that a true king and imam is still a
king and imam even if no one acknowledges that he is and obeys him (and a
true philosopher is still a philosopher even if no city calls upon him to share his
wisdom). How could there be an excellent king if he doesn’t know how to get
anyone to obey him? If, as Alfarabi contends, one of the characteristics of the
king-imam-philosopher is that he knows which methods of instruction to use
on every segment of society and can bring together the persuasive arguments
for some and the compulsion for others to assemble a happy society, what
could possibly prevent him from being in charge? Parens interprets this oddity
primarily as an explanation to a king that domination is not what a king should
be about, even if that usually goes along with being king. This rendering is certainly
consistent with the multiplicity argument. Muhsin Mahdi, on the other
hand, finds Alfarabi’s claim that a philosopher-king could remain a philosopher-king
without ruling “not wholly convincing” because excellence in an art
or skill requires practice and not just a little of it (Alfarabi 2002, xxxv). Without