The Islamic Personality by Sheikh Taqīuddīn An-Nabahānī

The Muslims saw their lives as only for the sake of Islam and their existence as only for the purpose of carrying the Islamic Call. Islam was the only basis for their unity and reason for their revival. It is the only source of their dignity, glory and hope. This is why their souls and minds became possessed by it, so they devoted themselves to it and embarked upon studying it and understanding it. They dedicated themselves to the Qur’ān, to its understanding and explanation. They devoted themselves to the ahadīth, to its transmission and collection. And they began to deduce rules which solved the problems of people. And they pursued reports about the Prophet  and his campaigns, memorising them and transmitting them. They gave their attention to the military expeditions (maghazi), conquests, by documenting them and transmitting them. The mixing of Arabs with non-Arabs in the conquests led to a corruption in the pronunciation of Arabic by the Arabized population and by the Arabs and since the Qur’ān cannot be understood without the Arabic language, the Muslims devoted themselves to the Arabic language, studying it, explaining it and putting down principles (for grammar) and studying the jahili (pre-islamic)

poetry and the traditions of the Arabs, their speeches and periods in order to understand the Book of Allah  and the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah . When the people of other religions entered into Islam they still possessed intellectual cultures and carried traces of kufr thoughts, and when the intellectual stuggle between the Muslims and the enemies of Islam took place they dedicated themselves to the rational sciences, studying them to explain the ‘aqīdah of Islam to the people and demonstrate it with the rational evidence. The types of disciplines were divided into branches and the Islamic disciplines became diversified as a result. They dealt with many things and came to be enriched every time the conquests expanded even further and developed each time people embraced the deen of Allah . When the Islamic state became vast and the aspect of concentrating on the countries that had been opened was preferred over the aspect of conquest, many Muslims began to devote themselves in research in the disciplines, sciences, lessons and in-depth study. A multi-faceted Islamic culture took shape among the Muslims; the people dedicated themselves to learning it so long as it served Islam and elevated the position of Muslims. Generally, the Muslims were only interested in this culture and not in other cultures despite their interest in the universe in terms of science and industry. Each scholar, whatever type of culture he specialised in, and every writer whatever his literary orientation and even every mathematician, scientist or craftsman whatever his path, they were cultured first by the Islamic culture, then they learnt other things. As for some scholars who became famous for science like Muhammad ibn al-Hasan in mathematics, Ibn Batuta in geography, Ibn al-Athir in history, Abu Nuwas in poetry etc. This fame does not imply that they only studied the science for which they became famous. Rather, they and others like them studied all of the Islamic culture and then turned to a branch of knowledge and became famous for it while they had grasped the rest of the branches of Islamic culture as well. As for this Islamic culture, it contained topics that were fundamental to the culture because the meanings mentioned in them is what was intended for the Muslim, like tafsīr, hadīth, Sīrah, history, jurisprudence (fiqh), foundations of jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh) and tawheed and it contains what are actually tools for understanding those topics that are fundamental, like the sciences of the Arabic language and logic (mantiq). The Muslims devoted themselves to all of these and since the sciences serving as tools are a means of understanding the intended fundamental meanings then the knowledge of the intended meanings is what should be aimed at. Therefore, we shall restrict ourselves to presenting a glimpse of the tafsīr, hadīth, Sīrah, history, jurisprudence (fiqh), foundations of jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh) and tawheed in order to give a brief illustration of each.