With reference to the conceptual
network in the Qur’an, the notion of causality is embedded in the structure of
Islamic worldview projected by the Qur’an. The above explication suggests that sabab
denotes the meaning of cause, but we notice that it can be clearly defined
as cause only by referring to the Medinan surahs[1] and not of the Meccan surahs as has been
reflected in al-Qur'an, ( ØÉd 38:10) and
(al-Mu’min 40:36-37).
Nevertheless, it does not necessarily follow that during the Meccan
period the idea of divine causation had not been comprehensible, because the
concept of causality in the Qur'an is not always expressed in terms of sabab
or asbÉb. There are a number of Qur'anic verses that show divine
causation in terms of God-man and God-nature causation, where God is portrayed
as having unlimited power and majesty, and invites man to believe in Him. The
idea of causality is imbedded in the verses that describe God and His creation
or nature (al-ayÉt al-kawniyyah), and those were revealed mostly during
the Meccan periods and became a part of the fundamental elements of the
worldview of Islam.
From the point of view of the
worldview, formation[2]
we may infer that the term sabab was used to refer to the meaning of
causation in Medina after the concept of causality became vividly discernible
in the Meccan period. This corresponds to Alparslan’s theory of the emergence
of the Islamic worldview that the Meccan period in general emphasized the
formation of world-structure, while the Medinan surah stressed on man-structure
and ethical-structure.[3]
The fact is that the Meccan surah comprised mostly[4]
of the exposition about nature and the commandment to men to observe, to
reflect, to think and to understand all this God's creations by using their
senses. This is in order that men shift their admiration about nature to God,
from the creature to the Creator and from the caused to the Cause.[5]
Even though the Meccan surahs
emphasized on the world-structure, there were already some verses, which
conveyed the concept of divine causation in relation to human existence and
acts. It should, however, be deemed as the seed for the formation of
man-structure and ethical-structure that occur in greater proportion during the
Medinan period. It is in the Meccan surah that God is described as the Cause of
human existence along with human acts. “He created men from clay, by first
fashioning him and then breathing into him of His spirit”[6];
Then He made mankind inheritors in the earth[7]
and gave them guidance towards truth[8]
and provided for them sustenance and caused them to die and again brought them
back to life.[9]
This was then repeated in the Medinan surahs in stronger messages that God
created the human being and decreed their destinies.[10]
However, unlike the Meccan surahs that contain no commandments in a legislative
sense, the Medinan surahs consist of some regulations necessitated for the
establishment of the new Muslim society and these constitute man-structure and
ethical-structure.[11]
These historical facts show that the concept of causation in the Qur'an is
related closely to the worldview of Islam.
As far as the worldview is
concerned, it is quite essential in this respect to note that the concept of
causality in the Qur’an can be traced from the concept of Divine Causation.
Imbedded in this concept is the notion of creation expressed in various terms
like khalq, khÉliq, bÉrÊ, faÏara, fÉÏir, badÊ'. It is because those related terms of creation
have reference to supernatural order of being and Allah, the Creator, governs
the entire worldview of Islam. It is from this point of view that the Qur'anic
worldview, including its concept of causality, is diametrically different from
the JÉhilÊ Weltanschauung,[12]
Greek views of the cosmos or the modern secular Western worldview.
In the Qur'anic worldview the
world, with all its natural causes, depends absolutely on the will of God to
whom it owes its being, order and harmony; it is a sign pointing to something
"beyond" itself, without which it makes no sense; whereas for the
other worldviews the world is the ultimate reality, a self-subsisting entity
and intelligible in itself. The obvious problem with the latter is that they do
not look at this ordered universe as the sign or miracle pointing beyond
itself, they view the processes of nature as having self-sufficient causes and
as ultimate reality. Just as they do not care about a sign pointing
beyond this world, their attention is almost exclusively centered on the span
of life on earth in the very present world, with major emphasis placed on the
end of the life. What will come beyond this life span is of no concern to them.
Shifting from the perspective of
worldview formation, we shall elaborate the concept of causation in the Qur'an
from two focal themes: the causation in natural events and human acts. The
former has some bearing upon the problem of creation and of the creature (alam)
that bring about the concept of reality (al-haqiqah), while the latter
is closely related to the complex idea of the nature of human being, his
destiny, his freedom and more importantly his power in conceiving the reality
and truth (al-haqq). The core of the issue here is about the concept of
nature and the human being, yet the concept of God is the foremost and the
fundamental one.
[1] See al-Qur’an, al-Kahfi 18: 84, 85, 89, 92; al-Baqarah 2:166
[2] For further detail of worldview formation
see Alparslan Acikgence, Islamic Science, towards definition, (Kuala
Lumpur: ISTAC 1996): 70-71
[3] The term “world structure”,
“man structure” and “ethical structure” implies
the conceptual structures in
the Qur’an constituting the worldview of Islam.
[4] ‘Abd
AllÉh ShaÍÉtah noted that the
verses concerning the nature (al-ÉyÉt al-kawniyyah)
amounts to 750, mostly revealed during the Meccan periods. See ‘Abd AllÉh ShaÍÉtah, TafsÊr al-ÓyÉt al-Kawniyyah, (Cairo
: DÉr al-I'tiÎÉm, 1980): 53.
[5] Ibid., 30
[6] Al-Qur’an, ØÉd
38: 71-72
[7] Al-Qur’an, FÉÏir
35:39
[8] Al-Qur’an, YËnus
10:35; al-Qur’an, al-DhÉriyÉt 51:20-21.
[9]
Al-Qur’an, al-RËm 30:40
[10] Al-Qur’an, al-Baqarah 2:30, 28, 29; al-Qur’an, al-Tawbah 9: 51; al-Qur’an, al-ÙalÉq 65: 3.
[11] The verses that deal with the hypocrites,
which is of ethical-structure, for example, belong only to the Medinan surah
(al-Qur’an, al-NisÉ’4:144; See
the whole surah of al-MunÉfiqËn 63).
[12] According to
Izutsu the Jahili worldview did not attach great importance to this
semantic field of supernatural beings, meaning that the idea of Allah's being
the very source of human existence was meant very little to the mind of the
pre-Islamic Arabs. Izutsu, T.. God and
Man in the Kur’an: Semantics of the Koranic Weltanschauung. (Tokyo: The
Keio Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies, 1964),130
