Introduction
This book by invoking the Tawhidi ontological foundation of the Qurâanic law and worldview is also a study on taâwil, meaning deepening in exploring the hidden meaning of Qurâanic verses. On this aspect of learning the Qurâan, there is the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad as follows1: âThe Quran possesses an external appearance and a hidden depth, an exoteric meaning and an esoteric meaning. This esoteric meaning in turn conceals an esoteric meaning so it goes on for seven esoteric meanings (seven depths of hidden depth).â A saying of the Prophet Muhammad goes as follows: âIn truth, the Qurâan possesses an inner and outer, and its inner possesses another inner up to seven inners.â2 Furthermore, there is a hadith of Prophet Muhammad that states the Qurâan has an inner meaning, and that this inner meaning conceals a yet deeper inner meaning, and so on (up to seven successive levels of deeper meanings), has sometimes been used in support of this view.3
It is only taâwil of the overarching meaning of Tawhid as law in the Qurâan that the socio-scientific study of the Qurâan covers the universal meaning,4 its explanation, and application of Tawhid as law as the way and substance that is implied in the context of the term âshariatanâ in the Qurâan. When the meaning of the term âshariâahâ denotes the common Qurâanic law and the universal and unique worldview of Tawhid as law, then the meanings of Tawhid and shariâah coincide. Other than this common worldview of Qurâanic law, shariâah over the ages became a sectarian and human-concocted law of jurisprudence. In this form, neither the resulting extraneous nature of juristic interpretation by maqasid al-shariâah nor shariâah-compliance are acceptable within the Qurâanic fold. The unique focal point is that the Qurâanic meaning of Tawhid and âshariatanâ must be unequivocally premised on the worldview of unity of knowledge that the Qurâan has explicated in terms of organic and symbiotic embedded relationships between all things in pairs (pairing of the universe). Without this unique foundation of knowledge and worldview it is impossible to learn from the Signs of Allah by unity of knowledge in the order and scheme of âeverythingâ. The human-concocted origin of shariâah as jurisprudence and its rampant practice today is permanently oblivious and unknowing about this cardinal taâwil of the Qurâanic worldview of Tawhid in terms of its meaning of symbiotic pairing of the universe in its generality and details (Qurâan 36:36).
The equivalence of shariâah and Tawhid is therefore stated as follows:
Tawhid = Shariâah = Way of arising from learning in and leading towards the understanding of monotheistic oneness in the scheme and order of the symbiotic universal reality.
Hence, the emergence of Qurâanic socio-scientific thought is ontologically premised in the taâwil of Qurâanic verses. Thus, Tawhid as the pairing of the generality and particulars of the universe is the taâwil meaning of organismic and symbiotic relations of oneness. âShariatanâ implies the way derived from and towards confirmation of Tawhid as universal law âbetween the heavens and the earth and all that is below it and above itâ. Such depth of learning and discovery is by taâwil the ways of understanding the signs of Allah in the order and order and scheme of âeverythingâ (Qurâan 41:53)5. Shariâah as jurisdiction fails in this by its absence of premising knowledge explicitly in Tawhid as the paired unity of knowledge extending between the heavens and the earth by symbiotic manifestation.
Indeed, Tawhid is ontologically primal. It dawned as reality in the universal order at the moment of creation (kun fa-yaqun in the Qurâan). At the simultaneous moment of creation, Tawhid as total law depicting the signs and understanding of the oneness of Allah in the order and scheme of things was revealed in two of its integral forms. Firstly, it entered the domain of intrinsic belief in monotheism (iman in the Qurâan). Simultaneously, it expatiated as organic unity of knowledge in the generality and particularity of the world-system in respect of the signs of Allah. The two elements together form the universal and unique functioning of Tawhid as law in âeverythingâ. Now if we denote {Ξ} as the levels of comprehending unity of knowledge in respect of the signs of Allah in everything, and {Δ} as the degree of belief, then the embedding of belief in knowledge causing the configuration of knowledge and the world-system can be denoted by {Ξ(Δ)}. Since {Δ} remains intrinsic but not measured and thus not parametric, so Tawhid as law is functionally configured for abstracto-empirical work by measured consciousness at the level of {Ξ}. {Δ} remains implicit and unmeasured quantitatively at the level of moral construction of the social order. Yet it is of fundamental importance in the invoking of the true power of taâwil in understanding Tawhid in the order and scheme of âeverythingâ. We thereby write in recursively continuous and evolutionary meaning of unity of knowledge and the world-system:
(Ω, S) â {Δ} â {Ξ(Δ)} â {x(Ξ(Δ)} â continuity by the endless exercise of taâwil of the Qurâan and the sunnah (Ω, S) for manifestation by law in the world-system. {x(Ξ(Δ)} denotes the world-system in generality and details induced by unity of knowledge. Recursive continuity as sustainability of Tawhid in knowledge, space, and time continuum is denoted by pairing, â.
If the compound mapping over the entire string shown above and denoted by â is denoted by F, then taâwil in the mathematical sense is explained by,
This formal mathematical expression of taâwil means that taâwil is ontologically premised in the precept of Tawhidi unity of knowledge as conveyed by the learning string in terms of F(Ξ(Δ)). Taâwil is the learning experience in Tawhidi unity of knowledge in deepening depth of its meaning and application. It is so heightened across the knowledge, space, time, dimensions that are all embedded in unity of knowledge {Ξ(Δ)}. The recursive symbol â establishes the case of equivalence and circular causality along the entire evolutionary learning path, the TSR, in respect of Tawhid and the world-system in continuum. A(Ξ(Δ)) and α(Ξ(Δ)) in the above expressions denote positive coefficients of the force of learning in terms of Tawhidi unity of knowledge along the belief-induced evolutionary knowledge induction caused by continuous exercise of taâwil.
Neither maqasid al-shariâah nor the shariâah-compliance idea has been able to launch an analytical study of the imminent Qurâanic socio-scientific world-system extending between the âheavens and the earth, and across all that is below the earth and above the earthâ. The present work unravels such a methodology by way of using the approach of taâwil of the Qurâanic centrepiece of Tawhid and its derived methodology as a theory of the universal and unique law in the Tawhidi ontological framework of organic unity of knowledge and the world-system. The contents of this work are divided between theory and applications to current topics. A comparative and critical study of Tawhid as Qurâanic law contra shariâah as Islamic jurisprudence is maintained in the formalism of theory and application.
The language of the text is rigorously analytical spanning areas of taâwil of the Qurâan and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (hadith). This includes analytical philosophy of science, specialized knowledge of the world-system of Islamic economics and society, quantitative analysis and implications, comparative study in these areas between Islamic and contemporary scholarship. Such a work of bold and rigorous erudition, though not in compliance with the outmoded Islamic traditional understanding and the school of theocracy, is in full consonance with the Qurâan and sunnah. The book is critical of the sectarian (madhab) conception of relational independence of facts. Thus, the non-creative outlook of shariâah contrasts with universality and uniqueness of Tawhid as the analytically established law explaining the monotheistic organic unity of being and becoming in âeverythingâ. This wide and strict methodological development of the Tawhidi worldview is articulated in this work. The book is thereby an erudite contribution to the world of learning that would interest all in scholarship who would like to understand the ontological analytical foundation of taâwil in the Qurâan concerning the imminent socio-scientific universe of unity of knowledge as theory and application.