Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas
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D. Litt) | |
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Notable work | [1] Islam and Secularism, Historical Fact and fiction, The Concept of Education in Islam : A Framework for an Islamic Philosophy of Education, Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam, Islam: The Covenants Fulfilled |
Awards | Iqbal Centenary Commemorative Medal (Pakistan) |
Era | Islamisation of knowledge |
Syed Muhammad al Naquib bin Ali al-Attas (
He is the author of 27 works on various aspects of Islamic thought and civilisation, particularly on Sufism, cosmology, metaphysics, philosophy and Malay language and literature.
Early life and education
Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas was born in
After World War II, in 1946 he returned to Johor to complete his secondary education. He was exposed to Malay literature, history, religion, and western classics in English.
After al-Attas finished secondary school in 1951, he entered the Malay Regiment as a cadet officer. There he was selected to study at
While an undergraduate at University of Malaya, he wrote Rangkaian Ruba'iyat, a literary work, and Some Aspects of Sufism as Understood and Practised among the Malays. He was awarded the Canada Council Fellowship for three years of study at the Institute of Islamic Studies at
In 1965, al-Attas returned to Malaysia and became Head of the Division of Literature in the Department of Malay Studies at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. He was Dean of the Faculty of Arts from 1968 until 1970, where he instituted more consultative reforms. Thereafter he moved to the new National University of Malaysia, as Head of the Department of Malay Language and Literature and then Dean of the Faculty of Arts. He advocated the use of Malay as the language of instruction in the university. He founded and directed the Institute of Malay Language, Literature, and Culture (IBKKM) at the National University of Malaysia in 1973.
In 1987, with al-Attas as founder and director, the
Malay literature and Sufism
He authored Rangkaian Ruba'iyyat a literary work that was among the first ever published in 1959 and the classic work, Some Aspects of Sufism as Understood and Practised Among the Malays, in 1963. His two-volume doctoral thesis on The Mysticism of Hamzah Fansuri, which is the most important and comprehensive work to date on one of the greatest and perhaps the most controversial Sufi scholars in the Malay world earned him the PhD in the UK in 1965.
Al-Attas engaged in polemics on the subjects of Islamic history, philology, and Malay literary history and Sha'ir. He established that Hamzah Fansuri was the originator of the Malay Sha'ir. He has also set forth his ideas on the categorisation of Malay literature and periodisation of its literary history. He contributed to the history and origin of the modern Malay language.
His commentaries on the ideas of Fansuri and al-Raniri are the first definitive ones on early Malay Sufis based on 16th- and 17th-century manuscripts. In fact he discovered and published his meticulous research on the oldest extant Malay manuscript, wherein among other important matters, he also solved the issue on arrangements of the Malay-Islamic cyclical calendar. He was also responsible for the formulation and conceptualisation of the role of the Malay language in nation building during debates with political leaders in 1968. This formulation and conceptualisation was one of the important factors that led to the consolidation of Malay as the national language of Malaysia. As the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, University of Malaya, he implemented a more systematic implementation of Malay as an intellectual and academic language in the university. [citation needed]
Islam and Metaphysics
Al-Attas maintains that modern science sees things as mere things, and that it has reduced the study of the phenomenal world to an end in itself. Certainly this has brought material benefits, however it is accompanied by an uncontrollable and insatiable propensity to destroy nature itself. Al-Attas maintains a firm critique that to study and use nature without a higher spiritual end has brought mankind to the state of thinking that men are gods or His co-partners. "Devoid of real purpose, the pursuit of knowledge becomes a deviation from the truth, which necessarily puts into question the validity of such knowledge." [Islam and Secularism, p. 36]
Al-Attas views Western civilisation as constantly changing and 'becoming' without ever achieving 'being'. He analyses that many institutions and nations are influenced by this spirit of the West and they continually revise and change their basic developmental goals and educational objectives to follow the trends from the West. He points to Islamic metaphysics which shows that Reality is composed of both permanence and change; the underlying permanent aspects of the external world are perpetually undergoing change [Islam and Secularism, p. 82]
For al-Attas,
The process of creation or bringing into existence and annihilation or returning to non-existence, and recreation of similars is a dynamic existential movement. There is a principle of unity and a principle of diversity in creation. "The multiplicity of existents that results is not in the one reality of existence, but in the manifold aspects of the recipients of existence in the various degrees, each according to its strength or weakness, perfection or imperfection, and priority or posteriority. Thus the multiplicity of existents does not impair the unity of existence, for each existent is a mode of existence and does not have a separate
Awards and achievements
Al-Attas developed a style and precise vocabulary that uniquely characterised his Malay writings and language. He has also studied Islamic and Malay civilisations. In 1975, he was conferred Fellow of the
He is the first holder of the Chair of Malay Language and Literature at the National University of Malaysia (1970–84), and as the first holder of the Tun Abdul Razak Chair of Southeast Asian Studies at
He was also a
Honour of Malaysia
- Malaysia : Commander of the Order of Loyalty to the Crown of Malaysia (P.S.M.) (2011)[2]
Ancestry
Syed Naquib is of mixed ancestry; His father, Syed Ali al-Attas, was the son of a
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Bibliography
A list of works by Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas is as follows. He authored more than two dozen books and monographs, and a lot of articles.[4]
Books and monographs
- (1959) Rangkaian Ruba'iyat (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka).
- (1963) Some Aspects of Sufism as Understood and Practised among the Malays (Singapore: Malaysian Sociological Research Institute).
- (1968) The Origin of The Malay Sha'ir (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka).
- (1969) Raniri and the Wujudiyyah of the 17th Century Acheh (Kuala Lumpur: Monographs of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society).
- (1969) Preliminary Statement On A General Theory of The Islamization of The Malay-Indonesian Archipelago (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka).
- (1970) The Mysticism of Hamzah Fansuri (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press).
- (1970) The Correct Date of the Terengganu Inscription (Kuala Lumpur: Museum Department).
- (1971) Concluding Postscript to The Origin of The Malay Sha'ir (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka).
- (1972) Islam dalam Sejarah dan Kebudayaan Melayu (Kuala Lumpur: Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia).
- (1975) Comments on the Re-Examination of Al-Raniri's Hujjatu’l Siddiq: A Refutation (Kuala Lumpur: Museum Department).
- (1977) Islām: Faham Agama dan Asas Akhlak (Kuala Lumpur: Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (ABIM))
- (1978) Islam and Secularism (Kuala Lumpur: Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (ABIM); reprint, Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation (ISTAC), 1993).
- (1980) The Concept of Education in Islam (Kuala Lumpur: Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (ABIM); reprint, Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation (ISTAC)).
- (1986) A Commentary on the Hujjat al-Siddiq of Nur al-Din al-Raniri: Being an Exposition the Salient Points of Distinction between the Positions of the Theologians, the Philosophers, the Sufis and the Pseudo-Sufis on the Ontological Relationship between God and the World and Related Questions (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Ministry of Culture).
- (1988) The Oldest Known Malay Manuscript: A 16th Century Malay Translation of the `Aqa’id of al-Nasafi (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya).
- (1989) Islam and the Philosophy of Science (Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation (ISTAC)) (tr. into German by Christoph Marcinkowski as Islam und die Grundlagen von Wissenschaft, Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 2001)
- (1990) The Nature of Man and the Psychology of the Human Soul (Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation (ISTAC)).
- (1990) On Quiddity and Essence (Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation (ISTAC)).
- (1990) The Intuition of Existence (Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation (ISTAC)).
- (1992) Islam: The Concept of Religion and the Foundation of Ethics and Morality (Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation (ISTAC)).
- (1993) The Meaning and Experience of Happiness in Islam (tr. into Malay by Muhammad Zainiy 'Uthman as Ma'na Kebahagiaan dan Pengalamannya dalam Islam, Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC; and into German by Christoph Marcinkowski as Die Bedeutung und das Erleben von Glückseligkeit im Islam, Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 1998)
- (1994) The Degrees of Existence
- (1995) Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam: An Exposition of the Fundamental Elements of the Worldview of Islam (Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC)).
- (2001) Risalah untuk Kaum Muslimin (Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC)).
- (2007) Tinjauan Ringkas Peri Ilmu dan Pandangan Alam (Penang, Malaysia: Universiti Sains Malaysia).
- (2011) Historical Fact and Fiction (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: UTM Press).[5]
- (2015) On Justice and the Nature of Man (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: IBFIM).
- (2023) Islam: The Covenants Fulfilled (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Ta'dib International).
See also
- International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation
- List of Islamic scholars
References
Citations
- ^ Wan Daud & Uthman 2010, pp. 13–57.
- ^ "Bahagian Istiadat dan Urusetia Persidangan Antarabangsa". Istiadat. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
- ^ Abaza 2002, pp. 93–94.
- ^ Hefner 2009, p. 262.
- ^ See Wei Zhi, Roy; Sulaiman, Aisyah (10 September 2011). "Book sheds new light on history". New Straits Times. Archived from the original on 10 September 2011.
Works cited
- Abaza, Mona (2002). Debates on Islam and Knowledge in Malaysia and Egypt: Shifting Worlds. Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1505-3.
- Hefner, Robert W. (2009). Remaking Muslim Politics: Pluralism, Contestation, Democratization. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-2639-1. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
- Wan Daud, Wan Mohd. Nor; Uthman, Muhammad Zainiy (2010). Knowledge, Language, Thought, and the Civilization of Islam: Essays in Honor of Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas (1st ed.). Skudai, Johor Darul Ta'zim, Malaysia: UTM Press. ISBN 9789835207259.
General references
- M. Ismail Marcinkowski, "Dr. Marcinkowski explains what ISTAC has to offer". Education Quarterly (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) no. 7 (November–December 1999): 28–29.
- Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud (1998), The Educational Philosophy and Practice of Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas: An Exposition of the Original Concept of Islamisation, ISTAC, Kuala Lumpur.