Knowledge as Light

Abstract

The question of knowledge presents itself as one of the most important issues for human thought and society because it is through knowledge that we establish a bond with God, ourselves, other human beings, the world, its meaning and purpose. We establish sociopolitical systems and civilizations on the basis of it. Defined as such, no society can dispense with knowledge. Knowledge, however, transcends the limits of social function and reveals something of the deepest nature of the human being. Our state of being-inthe- world and being-created-by-God is revealed to us in our knowledge of ourselves. More importantly, we do not simply exist but also know that we exist. It is this knowledge that enables us to make sense of the world, conceive it as an intelligible state of being, and realize our place and role in it. Knowledge, however, is always the knowledge of something. Every meaningful statement is the affiition or negation of something. In knowing a physical entity, a concept, or a feeling, we affirm or negate the existence of that “thing” which has become the subject of our knowledge. This “thing” and the “of” of our judgments ultimately hark back to the allencompassing reality of being, because what can be affirmed or negated cannot be other than being. In this regard, there is no knowledge that precedes being. Every cognitive act directed toward ourselves or other things that can be the subject of human knowledge is grounded in the all-inclusive and penetrating reality of being. This aspect of being has been called in Islamic philosophy the in&@ al-wujud, “expansion of being,” and sometimes al-sarayun al-wujiid, “penetration of being.” In sharp contrast to the epistemologies of subjectivism, one is before one knows. Our existence always precedes our knowledge of it, even though the latter may effect and mode the former in a myriad of ways. Said differently, the reality of being is not exhausted in the deliverances of conceptual thought.’ ...