Challenges of Modernity

and its response from Nasr

About Seyyed Hussein Nasr

Hossein Nasr (born April 7, 1933-) is an Iranian University

Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University, USA.

and a prominent Islamic philosopher.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, currently University Professor of Islamic Studies
at the George Washington University, Washington D.C. is one of the
most important and foremost scholars of Islamic, Religious and
Comparative Studies in the world today.
Nasr was the first Muslim to deliver the prestigious Gifford
Lectures, and in year 2000, a volume was devoted to him in the
Library of Living Philosophers.
Professor Nasr speaks and writes based on the doctrine and the
viewpoints of the perennial philosophy on subjects such as
philosophy, religion, spirituality, music, art, architecture, science,
literature, civilization dialogues, and the natural environment
Nasr speaks Persian, English, French, German, Spanish and Arabic
fluently.

Awards and honors

In year 2000, a volume was devoted to him in the

Library of Living Philosophers. Templeton Religion and

Science Award (1999)
First Muslim and first non-Western scholar to deliver the
prestigious Gifford Lectures
Honorary Doctor of Uppsala University, Sweden (1977)
He was nominated and won King Faisal Foundation
award, but his prize was withdrawn upon the prize
knowledge of his being a Shia. He was notified of
winning the prize in 1979 but later the prize was
withdrawn with no explanation.

As Author

The HarperCollins Study Quran

In Search of the Sacred, with Ramin Jahanbegloo
Islam in the Modern World
Islam and the Plight of Modern Man
Ideals and Realities of Islam
An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines
Knowledge and the Scared online
Islamic Life and Thought
Islamic Art and Spirituality
Sufi Essays
Sadr al-Din Shirazi and His Transcendent Theosophy, 2nd edition
A Young Muslim's Guide to the Modern World
The Need for a Sacred Science
Traditional Islam in the Modern World
Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis in Modern Man

As Author cont.
The Islamic Intellectual Tradition in Persia, edited by Mehdi Aminrazavi
The Garden of Truth: The Vision and Promise of Sufism, Islam's Mystical

Tradition
Three Muslim Sages
Science and Civilization in Islam
Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study
Religion and the Order of Nature
Muhammad: Man of God
Islamic Studies: Essays on Law and Society, the Sciences, and Philosophy
and Sufism
The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity
Islamic Philosophy from its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the Land of
Prophecy
Poems of the Way
The Pilgrimage of Life and the Wisdom of Rumi
Islam: Religion, History, and Civilization
Islam, Science, Muslims, and Technology: Seyyed Hossein Nasr in
Conversation with Muzaffar Iqbal

As Editor

The Essential Frithj of Schuon

Religion of the Heart: Essays Presented to Frithjof Schuon on his Eightieth Birthday,
edited with William Stoddart
History of Islamic Philosophy, edited with Oliver Leaman
The Essential Sophia, edited with Katherine O'Brien
An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, edited with Mehdi Aminrazavi (5 vols.)
Islamic Spirituality (Vol. 1: Foundations; Vol. 2: Manifestations)
Shi'ism: Doctrines, Thought, and Spirituality, edited with Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr and
Expectation of the Millenium: Shi'ism in History, edited with Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr and Hamid

Dabashi
In Quest of the Sacred: The Modern World in the Light of Tradition, edited with Katherine
O'Brien
An Annotated Bibliography of Islamic Science, edited with William Chittick and Peter Zirnis (3
vols.)
Isma'ili Contributions to Islamic Culture, edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Mecca the Blessed, Madina the Radiant, photographs by Ali Kazuyo Nomachi; essay by Seyyed
Hossein Nasr

Works about Nasr

The Works of Seyyed Hossein Nasr Through His Fortieth

Birthday, edited by William Chittick

Knowledge is Light: Essays in Honor of Seyyed Hossein
Nasr, edited by Zailan Moris
Beacon of Knowledge - Essays in Honor of Seyyed
Hossein Nasr, edited by Mohammad Faghfoory
The Philosophy of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, edited by
L.E. Hahn, R. Auxier, and L.W. Stone
In Search of the Sacred by Seyyed Hossein Nasr and
Ramin Jahanbegloo Hamid Dabashi

People living in the Islamic World today

Purely
Traditionalis

No longer
belonging in
Islamic
Socities

Blatant
Modernist

Traditional
valtues and
Combination
of
Modernissm

So called
Fundamentali
st

Peoples of Islamic world those who are interested in religion

Ulema

Traditional Modernist
Authourites
(Interested
in general
in religion)
(Sufi)

Who are the Muslim modernists?

Graduates from Western educational

institutions: blind acceptance is an idol

Graduates from Islamic worlds educational
institutions
Influenced by modernized Hindus,
Buddhists and other Orientalists.
Example: Jet palne and education

The Western World and its Challenges to Islam

Modern civilization having developed the critical mind and the power of

objective criticism.
Traditional Islamic sharp points and edages are disappear in the milliue
domibated
The edges of doctrines become corrided and their sharp form gradually fades
away.
Truth and error become ever more confused and even sacred rites and
doctrinal formulations, gifts of God to man, become hazy and indefinite.
To keep silent in the name of adab is a act of disbeliever.
Some modernists harmonize Islam and other ideologies: like Islam and
Secularism, Islam and Modernism etc. It is proved that Islam is not complete.
If some one introduces some ism to day, tomorrow he will bring another new
ism for people.
But he who understand the structure of Islam in its totality knows that it can
never allow by Islam.

Why Ulama can not confront Modernism and

Modern world?

Religious institutions are backdated

Muslims leaders did not concentrate

regarding Islamic Education

Curriculum is not updated to confront West
Political causes

How and why confront will

be?
Shahadah, as a sword, must be used to break the

false idols of the new age of ignorance

(jahiliyyah) which so many Muslims accepts
without even bothering to question their nature.
It should never be forgotten that in the present
situation any form of criticism of the modern
world based on meta-physical and religious
principles is an act of charity in its profoundest
sense and in accordance with the most central
virtues of Islam.

Hope for the future

Vast majority of Muslims
Wide Muslims border
Islamic Culture is still a living reality
Reactions against so called Muslim modernists from Muslim

societies
Present generation of modernized Muslims is much less
confident about the absolute value of Western civilization
Rejection against of so called Muslim modernists an
indication that Islamic culture still possesses vitality.
Iranian proverbs: As long as the root of the plant is in
water, there is still hope

Some Western challenges to Islam

Marxism
Socialism
Darwinism
Freudian Theory
Existentialism
Enviornmental Crisis

Marxism
Marxismis a worldview and

method of societal analysis

that focuses onclassrelations
and societal conflict, that uses
a
materialist interpretation of h
istorical development
, and adialecticalview of
social transformation.
In the mid-to-late 19th
century, theintellectual tenets
of Marxism were inspired by
twoGerman philosophers:
Karl MarxandFriedrich Engels.

Marxism developed a blind and

unintelligent obedience wich lead to a

senseless cofrontation and finallya
mental sclerosis resulting in untold harm
to the youth of Islamic society.
People are ready to solve their societal
problems according to Marxist point of
view not form Islamic point of view.
Marxism wirh an Islamic veneer, creating
a most tempting trap for certain simple
souls. This insidious use of religion, often
with direct political aims in mind, is is
fact more dangerous than anti-rekigious
and al least honest Marxism, and
corresponds to the thought and attitude
of that class of ment whom the Quran
calls the munafiqun.

Socialism
Socialismis a social and

economic system characterised

bysocial ownershipof the
means of productionand cooperative management of the
economy, as well as a political
theory and movement that aims
at the establishment of such a
system. "Social ownership" may
refer tocooperativeenterprises,
common ownership,
state ownership, citizen
ownership of equity, or any
combination of these.

Darwinism
Darwinismis a theory of

biological evolution developed

by Charles Darwin and others,
stating that all species of
organisms arise and develop
through the natural selection
of small, inherited variations
that increase the individual's
ability to compete, survive,
and reproduce.
Charles Robert Darwin
published
On the Origin of Species

Darwinian theory of evolution, wich is

meta-physically impossible and logically

absurd, has been subtly woven in certain
quarters into some aspects of Islamic
thought dealing with the life and history
of manking to produce a most
unfortunate and sometimes dangerous
blend.
The general tendency among Muslims
affected by the evolutionist mentality is
to forget the whole Islamic conception of
the march of time. Eschatalogical
narration Quranic verses and hadiths
were ignored even the coming of Imam
Mahdi.
Evolutionary ideas enable men to forget
God.

References
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. (1989). Expectation of

the Millenium: Shiism in History, State

University of New York Press
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. (1988). Islam and the
Plight of Modern Man. Lahore, Suhail Academy
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. (1997). Man and
Nature. Chicago: Kazi Publications
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. (1987). Traditional
Islam in the Modern World. London: KPI

Freudian Theory
Sigismund Schlomo was

an Austrianneurologist,
now known as the father
ofpsychoanalysis.
In creating psychoanalysis, a
clinical method for treating
psychopathologythrough
dialogue between a patient
and a psychoanalyst. He
rejected the reality of God
and was opposed to the
mainstream of Jewish life.

Psychoanalytical thought, which is

agnostic or even in certain cases

demonic.
But the subjective literature based on
psychoanalysis is more harmful for
Muslim society. Muslim youth who
become acquainted, and even
inflicted, with the malady of seeing the
world through the spectrum of a
psychological agnosticism.
The influence of psychology and
psychlanalysis, combined with an
athesistic and nihilistic point of view
and disseminated within the Islamic
world tahrough literature and art,
presents a major challenge to Islam.

Existentialism
Existentialismis a term

applied to the work of certain

late 19th- and 20th-century
philosophers who, despite
profound doctrinal
differences,shared the belief
that philosophical thinking
begins with the human subject
not merely the thinking
subject, but the acting, feeling,
living humanindividual.
Kierkegaard,Dostoyevsky,
Nietzsche,Sartre the founder

After 2nd world war, It

had a serious effect

upon Muslim world.
Existentialism works
especially in its
agnostic vein, an
insidious danger for
Islamic intellectual
life.

Enviornmental Crisis
Enviornmental crisis, which was brouht into

being by modern civilization.

Islam and its sciences have a particularly
urgent and timely message which, can help
to solve, to the extent possible major
challenges to the world.

Thank You for patient hearing