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Knowledge and issues related to it are essential to any human being as knowledge
means light and life, whereas ignorance mean darkness and death2. Man is a creation
with knowledge potentiality, in fact from Islamic perspective man experienced such
potential and knowledge since as earlier as his pre-existent state before coming into
this bodily being3. Therefore, one of the essential mission of man in this world is to
develop this potentiality and to regain such knowledge with which he will be able to
know himself and his Lord, thus, to act and fulfil his duty in this life accordingly.
highly acknowledge anything related to knowledge including for instance the people
of knowledge and their role4, and the efforts of acquiring knowledge5. This also
explains the involvement of Muslim scholars in all fields of knowledge, which in turn
1 This paper is an extended version of our earlier article entitled: Konsep Ilmu dan Pembelajarannya
mengikut pandangan Ab al-Barakt al-Baghdd (547H.) published in Jurnal Usuluddin, December
1998, 8: 97-106.
2 Al-Rad, 13: 16, Fatir, 35: 20 and al-Hadid, 57: 9.
3 Al-Araf, 7: 172. For further elaboration on this matter see S.M.N. al-Attas, Prolegomena to the
Metaphysics of Islam, Kuala Lumpur: UTM, 2014 (First published in 1995), p.46 and chapter on The
Nature of Man and the Psychology of the Human Soul especially p.143ff.
4 Al-Zumar, 39: 9, al-Mujadilah, 58: 11, al-Tawbah, 9: 122, al-Dhariyat, 51: 55, al-Nahl, 16: 125.
5 Al- Baqarah, 2: 269, al-Anbiya, 21: 7.
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has produced great contribution to the development and advancement of knowledge
attempt to benefit and elaborate various philosophical discourses from other traditions,
the very purpose of their philosophizing should not be limited to merely this physical
life and simply for the sake of rational exercises as Islam itself has its influence in their
of among the fundamental knowledge that man has explored in history, the Muslim
scholars should have engaged in a way or another with philosophy. On the other hand,
as knowledge is based on certain system and framework, Islam has also provided its
own system and framework in knowledge. Thus, any attempt to read Muslims
This paper deals with one of the major issues in epistemology namely on the
teaching it on the other hand, have close relationship with the notion of knowledge
the knowledge. Those who limit the knowledge merely within physical realm will
certainly limit the notion of knowledge and the method of its acquisition. As a result,
some would think that knowledge is merely empirical and therefore the sense
perception is the considered the only way to acquire knowledge. Ab al-Barakt in his
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knowledge would influence our understanding on different forms of teaching-learning
process and methods. Apart from this, his attempt to connect the notion of acquisition
of knowledge with God and the role of the unseen is very interesting.
Science (ilm), cognition (idrk) and knowledge (marifah) in general is the same in
between the self and the known objects. Therefore, knowledge is only possible
whenever there are subject, object and the connection between both.
categorized into two categories namely the external physical existent (wujd ayn) and
the mental existent (wujd dhihn). And, since all these existences are expressed
categories of existent, namely the linguistic (wujd lafz) and the scriptural (wujd
1) Knowledge of the physical things which involves all physical objects around us.
2) Knowledge of the mental existence which involves all mental forms in human
3) Knowledge of the linguistic expression that expresses and describes the object
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4) Knowledge of the scripture which represents the notion of the objects through
is based on the objects of knowledge, and since the objects of knowledge will
determine the channels through which the knowledge of those objects are acquired,
then this classification will also consider those possible channels of knowledge as part
it will included all possible knowable objects and deal not only with the acquiring
both subject and object of knowledge. The objects of knowledge on the other hand are
of four categories. But how knowledge of the object is acquired? And, how a knower
of the objects transfers his knowledge to the others? Does an interaction between a
knower and others is sufficient in knowledge transfer? Is there any other requirement
needed in order to assure that knowledge is properly transferred and the process is
perfectly accomplished?
first method is teaching by means of transferring the information from the teacher to
the student without really concern whether the student understood and received
properly the message of the information or not. He terms this form of education as
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an arq al-taawwur wa al-aql) which concerns more on the quality of perception and
understanding of the student as compared to merely transmission the information8.
tradition and they have their role and function in education. In fact, experts in
pedagogical studies continue to debate on how to refine these methods to suit modern
educational system. The quality of student and knowledge acquired by them depend
very much on the effectiveness of these methods of teaching. Without going into detail
Obviously by mentioning these two methods of teaching does not mean that
not elaborate further the method pedagogically, but his concern on the role of teacher
and student in education may open new perspective on how this process should be.
not a real teaching. The student may and may not listen to the lesson taught, and if
they listen they may and may not understand properly what has been transmitted in
teaching. In this method of teaching, the role of the teacher is simply to transmit the
information by means of linguistic expression or writing. They cannot assure that the
transmitted information is heard and understood by the student as this later efforts
depend on the student themselves. Thus, the understanding of the student is not from
the teacher as the efforts to listen and understand is by the student. The role and
efforts of the teacher cannot assure the understanding of the student, what more to
assure their perception, reception and even rejection of the transmitted information.
Therefore Ab al-Barakt prefers the second method of teaching in which the quality
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However, since the role of the teacher is merely to transmit the information and
cannot assure the understanding and reception of the student of the informed facts,
then how does he explain the possibility of the second method of teaching? In other
word, how could we implement teaching by means of perception and intellection? Who
Ab al-Barakt asserts that the real teacher is the one who has the ability to
fulfil such requirement in teaching and not merely to express the idea. He should be
able to instil proper comprehension and perception of the knowledge in students mind,
and could guide them to either receive or reject such understanding based on
human teachers as it is obvious that not all teachers are able to teach all knowledge
to all students, and whatever perceived by the students may not necessarily caused
by the teaching of the teachers. In fact, Ab al-Barakt believes that while teaching,
the teacher is actually transmitting something that may in a way help the student to
understand, perceive, receive or reject the message of knowledge and this also
depends on how appropriate the occasion and instance of such transmission was10.
This implies that not all forms of transmission help and that the occurrence of
any transmission alone may not necessarily resulting proper acquisition of knowledge
sources although the teacher may have certain role in accommodating the
achievement. It is also a kind of blessing for the student because not all student may
blessed with knowledge which is closed to his innate nature (firah). In this case, and
with this kind of blessing, he may not need any teacher among human being.
Therefore, it is not really surprising when we read about some philosophers who may
10 Ibid.
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learned about how some people become great philosopher even though they did not
have teachers11.
to observe in a sense that we can see how the later generation of scholars, for
knowledge develops and certainly the later generation of scholars may have better
chance to engage themselves with the later development in knowledge. But, is this
facts?
merely facts then he may not consider the second method of teaching which is
acquire better knowledge, it clearly shows that he is not referring to simply knowledge
of facts. In addition, when he talks about a non-human teacher, it indicates that this
teacher is not the one who just provide facts but also understanding and knowledge.
In fact, he clearly states that by non-human teacher he means the Real and Prime
Teacher which is God who has Absolute Knowledge. He is the One who reveals
knowledge from the Mother of Book (Umm al-Kitb), that is the Primary Knowledge
This is Ab al-Barakts view on the Real Teacher and the true notion of
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
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teaching facts and transferring information alone but also assuring proper
understanding and knowledge in which the student will be able to benefit from the
knowledge in deciding his way in life. It is a kind of true inspiration or intuition from
knowledge13.
knowledge as occurred among the Saints and revealed knowledge like in the case of
man is not from man himself because if this is the case then every individual will
certainly decide and prefer to acquire all the knowledge. Moreover, it is known that the
learned man. This has proven that the acquisition of such knowledge is not due to
manly efforts, but it is from the blessing of the unseen Real Teacher14. This is also in
line with the statement of the Quran that whoever is blessed with the knowledge of
determined by the method of teaching involved in the process. He asserts that only
the Real Teacher is able to conduct teaching by means of perception and intellection
(talm an arq al-taawwur wa al-aql) that could ensure proper understanding and
13 It is important to note that many scholars agreed that Ab al-Barakt is consider among the pioneer
of the Illuminative school (Ishrq) in Islamic philosophy that influence the later illuminative philosophers
like al-Suhraward, see Ab Rayyn, Muammad Al, Ul al-falsafat al-ishrqiyyah inda shihb al-Dn
al-Suhraward, Iskandariyah: Dr al-Marifah al-Jmiiyyah, 1987.
14 See Ab Sadah, Muammad usayn, al-Wujd wa al-Khuld f falsafah Ab al-Barakt al-Baghdd,
Cairo: Dr Ab Huraybah li al-ibah, p. 86.
15 Al-Baqarah, 2: 269.
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acquisition of knowledge and this Real Teacher is not among human-teacher but, as
he has specifically stated, this Real Teacher is God Himself. He also mentions about
the Mother of Book (Umm al-Kitb), which he considers as among the sources of
knowledge, from which man gains their knowledge with the guidance of the Real
Teacher. Thus, although the teaching and guidance is from the Real Teacher, but
reading the Book is done by man. Therefore, from the perspective of the reader, man
should have certain requirement in order to be able to read the Book and acquire the
knowledge from it. This requirement would include among others the personal
read a lot of books and he felt like the more he read the more he became confused of
what had been written on the subject, partly because of either the interpretations are
too extensive and mislead the reader or because the explanations are too concise that
the reader fails to grasp its message. Therefore, he decided to focus on reading what
he called as the Book of Existence (aifat al-Wujd) and try to learn directly from this
source. There he started to realize a lot of understanding and be able to make sense
On the other occasion, while describing the reading of this Book of Existence,
he realized that the ability to perceive what is revealed by the Book is different from
one reader to another. This is due to the preparation that one has, apart from the
guidance of the Real Teacher, as we can understood from the above presentation. He
mentions that indeed some people have better psychological and spiritual preparation
than the others that enable him to grasp better knowledge from the Book of Existence
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From this point of view, we can understand the other perspective in matters
related to the acquisition of knowledge. Apart from the role of the Real Teacher as the
prime factor in the acquisition of knowledge, and apart for teaching by means of
for the reader of the Book of Existence so that he will be able to grasp proper
Knowledge as presented above is referring not only to merely facts but meaning and
understanding. It also includes the judgement of the knower on the meaning and
aql). This form of teaching is possible only for the Real Teacher. The role of human-
teacher on the other hand is merely to transmit the information in the right occasion
and time that may assist the student to finally grasp the knowledge with the blessing
of the Real Teacher. Thus the final result of the process of acquiring knowledge is
Interestingly Ab al-Barakt did not merely view this from the epistemological
perspective, but also considers it as among the ontological facts. He exploits the idea
as one of his argumentation on the existence of God. Based on the notion of causes
and effects and based on the idea that the chain of causes and effects cannot continue
without an end, he asserts that the chain of teacher of the teacher also should ends at
Baghdadi in Mohd Zaidi Ismail, Kreativiti & Imaginasi Dalam Psikologi Islami, Kuala Lumpur: IKIM, p.
29-53.
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the Prime Teacher who is the Real Teacher, he concludes that whoever reflects on
this matter will finally arrive at the existence of that Real Teacher, which is God. In
other word, the chain of teacher-student, i.e. the human-teacher who studied from his
former teachers and teaches his students, cannot continue except to end at the
primary source of his knowledge where the knowledge of this Primary Source is of,
from and by His Essence. He does need any other teacher to teach Him as He is the
source of all knowledge. This argument is called the argument of knowledge and its
teaching and learning (Dall al-Ilm wa talmihi wa taallumihi). He believes that this
1. His idea on the Book of Existence (afat al-wujd) which explains the
important of observing directly the object knowledge which is this universe and
creation is not new in Islamic tradition. In fact, it has it root in Islamic teaching
as stated in various verses in the Quran like for instance al-Baqarah, 2: 164,
understood by all great thinkers in the past and elaborated by our modern great
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3. On the creative elaboration of his view on knowledge and its acquisition which
argumentation and its structure are not new as it is based on the notion of
causes and effects which argues that the chain of causes and effects should
necessarily ends at the primary cause, but his application of the elements of
knowledge and its acquisition in the argument is new and was never proposed
before. In fact, this form of argumentation has its echo in later thinker Ibn
Taymiyyah who states that God is the Creator of all existence and He is also
4. From the Islamic point of view, his statement that this argumentation is
accepted by the Prophets is not baseless. Although he did not mention any
verses from the Quran or any ahadith to support the idea, but this notion is
clear revealed in several verses of the Quran such as the verse that God taught
Adam the names of all thing (al-Baqarah, 2: 31) and that God taught man what
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