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Through the ages, the space of knowledge has changed, and science has deepened and expanded, so the young child knows more than the mature man did hundreds of years ago.. and this child has access to technology and uses the human mind more than his parents. The world has become other than the world, and we are unfortunately still in the midst of logical battles in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and certainly not in the twenty-first century.. Is there a contradiction between the use of reason, the breadth of thought and the increase of knowledge, between belief in God and his messengers.. in my understanding no.. A large part of my belief stems from using my mind, searching in references, and deriving meanings from the reference of my knowledge of science, astronomy, medicine, my experience in life, and my listening and enjoying the opinions of others different from my own, which motivates me to search for the truth. If they agreed on the definition, there would be no reason for the battles.. Enlightenment is one of these words, which mobilized my students in “The Dreamers of Tomorrow” to my question. The following dialogue took place between us, which indicates their broad horizons, the desire of young people for knowledge, and their belief in science as a way and a means to knowing the universe and its Creator. :
The educated young man said: What do you mean by the word enlightenment, Doctor? What is its relationship to reform and renaissance?
.. I said: Enlightenment is a term that expresses an intellectual, cultural and philosophical movement that emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe, defending rationality and logic, and calling for the tightness of the power of reason as a means to establish a legitimate system of morals and knowledge. Logic dominated the world of ideas in the European continent during the eighteenth century, and from this emerged a European scientific intellectual movement, known as the Renaissance Humanism movement. The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, written by him (Newton in 1687), is considered by some to be the first major Enlightenment work. Philosophers and scientists in that period spread their ideas on a wide scale, by conducting scientific meetings in academies, forums, literary salons and cafes, and through printed books, newspapers and publications. The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the dictatorial monarchy and the authority of the Church, and paved the way for political revolutions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Many groups of intellectual movements in the nineteenth century, including liberalism and the neoclassical movement with its intellectual origins, belong to the Age of Enlightenment.
Enlightenment includes a set of ideas that focus on: 1- The supremacy of reason, as it is a basic source of knowledge. 2- High ideals such as freedom, sophistication, tolerance and brotherhood. 3- The constitutional rule, and the separation of religious institutions from the political administration of the state. 4- Individual freedom. 5- Religious tolerance. 6- Follow the scientific method. As well as 7- questioning the inherited beliefs without reference, a position that the philosopher (Emmanuel Kant) highlighted in his wonderful article “Dare to Know”, saying that the protection and education of man lies in becoming mature, capable of self-reliance, and that He uses his mind to free himself from instinctive beliefs in the given facts, whether those innate instincts formed in the field of knowledge, or those inspired by customs, and this is his only means of modernity and advancement.
The young man said: What is the harm in using knowledge, reason and logic?! What are the limitations that hinder enlightenment in this sense?
I said: The restrictions are many, the most important of which is the human comfort in order for the matter to remain as it is, since change requires effort and joint concessions and a transition from one time to a new time in which responsibilities change, and orientations are multiplied, and the nature of human beings is that they are enemies of what they are ignorant of. In addition, if the rule is established for a political or religious sect, why do they expose themselves to convulsions that may rob them of kingship or control over peoples? But this is our responsibility before the society in which we live, and it is an educational mission to liberate us from ignorance, obscurantism and the tyranny of absolute dictatorial regimes to freedom regulated by law, and a mind that expands to accept differences over the diversity of its names, but rather respect it.
Nature has endowed every human being with an instinctive ability to understand, which makes him equal to everyone and others, provided that he learns and is freed from the corruption of superstitions and ignorance, and the liberated man uses his mind correctly and automatically, where laws must be non-tyrannical, and based on natural rights. And his colleague said: What is upset about that, Doctor, and why is this battle between the advocates of enlightenment and the clergy, and who are the pioneers of enlightenment ideas in this era?
I said: There is no harm, and there should be no difference.. The issue was in eras when knowledge was not available as it is today. The scientific revolution that preceded the Age of Enlightenment had great effects on its philosophers and thinkers, and some European rulers tried to apply the ideas of the Enlightenment to religious and political tolerance, which later became known as enlightened absolutism, and we call it in Arab culture a just dictatorship. Many of the major political and intellectual figures in the American Revolution itself were closely associated with this movement, and this was reflected in the drafting of the Constitution of the United States of America.
The young man said: What was the effect of the hostility between priests and churchmen, and the ideas of enlightenment that seem to us ordinary today?
I said: With their stance, they corrupted the movement of contemporary history. They did not win for their religion, nor did they achieve victory over their enemy. Rather, with their stance, they were like a natural door that opened wide for advocates of atheism and revolution against the church and religion together, as they portrayed the situation as a conflict between religion and science. And not between churchmen and scholars, between reason and superstition, between light and darkness, between progress and backwardness, and the concept of enlightenment meant fortification with the logic of science and rationality against this religion and its men who represent ignorance and superstition. progress versus backwardness.
The term enlightenment was the expression of the outcome of this battle, which was decided by history and reality in favor of the Almighty
M, reason and light, against the church and its views, and the whole battle was crystallized as a struggle between religion in its general sense and all the meanings of enlightenment, which are rationality and progress.
The smart young man said: But this should not pass to us now!
I said: Unfortunately, the battle with all its circumstances and circumstances has moved to our Arab world, without the Islamic clerics realizing that Islam has no priests, and that religious institutions do not control or rule. Just as the advocates of enlightenment in our Arab world did not realize that Islam is not the Church, nor our Arab world is Europe, nor is Islamic civilization the European civilization in its dark ages. Unfortunately, the two sides, the clergy and the advocates of enlightenment began portraying the battle in our country as a struggle between Islam and science, between religion and reason.
It is not surprising that some of our advocates of enlightenment took the same principle. They may have made the same mistake. Some of them declared war on Islam and its men in order to declare themselves enlightened and advocates of free thought. And as scholars in the West declared that the religion represented by the church is just a myth, and its men are symbols of ignorance and exploitation of religion, and based their sayings on the Inquisition, similarly, the advocates of enlightenment in our countries began to attach the same accusations to Islam and its men. Religion and obligation, and perhaps one of the most important tasks is the difficulty of transferring this existing conflict to a new arena of modernity and the use of reason and logic without repetition of intellectual battles that took place hundreds of years ago in Europe. And they control.
For the rest of next Wednesday…
