Axioms & Intentions

Table of Contents

Five Simple Axioms

BioIslam relies on five supernatural axioms. Just as we trust the axioms of algebra, we entrust BioIslam with axioms that are non-falsifiable.

Afterlife — There exists an alluring afterlife, the akhirat, at the far end of an enchanted unseen world, the ghayb.
Pluralism — Belief in God/Allah ﷻ and any of his many Prophets, like Muhammad or Jesus ﷺ, can deliver afterlife bliss.
Pristineness — The Quran is aurally-pristine, the singular sound of God/Allah ﷻ, even if cryptic and non-chronological.
Prophetic hope — Muhammad ﷺ is the last Prophet thus far, but Isa/Jesus ﷺ will return to clarify and cleanse.
No Utopia — Until Isa/Jesus ﷺ returns, no utopia is viable — yet our efforts to reduce suffering will be rewarded.

Are they true? A pro-science person can neither prove nor falsify these axioms since they are supernatural. Scientistic people are quick to dismiss the supernatural — BioIslam eschews this error, because the naturalistic methods of science are not equipped to validate or invalidate such supernatural claims. Hence, until clear evidence to the contrary emerges, even pro-science people can benefit from accepting them provisionally, a worthwhile wager.¹ This is a mindset of optimism about the afterlife, a hallmark of Islam. The Prophet Isa/Jesus ﷺ outlined the afterlife, and Prophet Muhammad ﷺ amplified our understanding of it in vivid detail. Belief in the afterlife is an intuitive and aspirational mindset, similar to one that engages in high-brow music or art or any aesthetics. As such, it is a deeply personal claim, and cannot be reduced to a true-false binary. Hence, critics bear the burden of falsification, contrary to the atheist position that those who make a claim bear the burden of evidence.²

The first and last two axioms are most optimistic, an essential antidote to the suffering that still engulfs our earth, despite many centuries of the ‘Enlightenment’. This transcendent hope offsets the dark and depressing forecasts of some intellectuals.³ Note that the first axiom leads with the akhirat rather than God/Allah ﷻ since a vivid vision of the afterlife is what distinguished Islam most from its predecessors in monotheism, Judaism and Christianity. The Quran refers to the akhirat approximately 116 times and it appears in almost every sura.⁴ The belief in the unseen, the ghayb, means we will not be able to arrive at naturalistic explanations for all phenomena — although, since we are pro-science, we must continue to try. There remain open questions about the ghayb, whether references to heaven, angels, jinn and the devil are real or metaphorical. These will only be clarified during the earthly return of the Prophet Isa/Jesus ﷺ, discussed later, but until then there is no reason to assume they are not real, since only God/Allah ﷻ knows. The fourth axiom, where the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ is sandwiched between the two descents of Isa/Jesus ﷺ, is perhaps the hardest to convince a scientistic person of, but is a non-falsifiable leap of faith.

The “No Utopia” axiom requires waiting for Prophet Isa/Jesus ﷺ to return to earth to clarify God/Allah’s message to humanity and to cleanse earthly corruption. This is commonly called descent or nuzul Isa by Muslims or ‘second coming’ by Christians, a core of Traditional Islamic belief, as discussed extensively in Hoping for Isa/Jesus. In both BioIslam and Traditional Islam, the Prophet Isa/Jesus ﷺ is the anointed Messiah or al-Masih, the ‘Christ’. His descent and renewed Prophecy can only be validated by his ability to perform miracles that exceed the explanatory power of science. Prior to that miraculous moment any attempt to engineer a broad utopia will fail, as many tragically have, especially after the hyper-rationalist Enlightenment.⁵ Until his descent, the best we mortals can do is adopt the sincerest interpretation of Islam we are capable of, given our highly varied powers of perception and comprehension. Although this is an attitude of tragic realism, where ultimate justice and final solutions are deferred to the return of al-Masih, it relies on the optimistic assumption of an alluring afterlife, hence avoids falling into the trap of either nihilism or utopianism. Meanwhile, while earthbound, our test of faith — our higher struggle or jihad — is to incrementally increase the good in this world and inhibit the bad. This is a humble theohumanistic alternative to the failed formulas that command good and forbid evil.⁶ This tragic-yet-optimistic mindset inspires BioIslam’s quest to alleviate the Big Five problems.

The Beauty of Intentions

Can our subconscious bias alter the outcome of inferring the Quran’s Inside Pillars. To be honest, yes, that is a risk all interpretations entail. Hence, purity of intentions is key to maintaining our integrity. The process requires extracting LPs and rolling them up into Inside Pillars. This invariably involves subjective judgements. Whether in extracting LPs, or in assessing which hadith are Good versus Dark, each interpreter should operate on a sincere best-effort basis.

Traditional ulama will criticize the iterative induction model as risky because each generation could reinterpret Islam according to its own norms or whims. For example, in the past half century, capital punishment has become controversial in America, widely reviled in western Europe, even when the courts confirm there is no reasonable doubt. However, it remains commonly accepted in most Muslim countries. If Islamic scholars, such as who have been educated in the West, reinterpret the Quran to justify the abolishment of capital punishment, will that be an authentic interpretation of the divine message? At least one major scholar went in that direction.⁷

But is this challenge different from the historical evolution of interpretations within Traditional Islam? For example, as discussed extensively in Tragic Errors, slavery was once widely practiced in the world, despite express Quranic guidance to free slaves. BioIslam’s assessment is that the Prophet ﷺ very likely ended slavery in his vicinity, as did the Prophets before him, but later rulers rolled back those reforms. The ulama belatedly extended support to the 20th century Muslim rulers to end riq-slavery, perhaps embarrassed by the West’s initiative to end slavery, and the moral high ground that was claimed with it. As noted in the detailed discussion of riq-slavery, a few prominent Islamic scholars would allow for it to be reinstated in the future under certain dystopian scenarios.

The ‘Urf’ Factor

There have been surprisingly large changes in the opinion of ulama over time, as we saw in the earlier discussion of abrogation. An eminent scholar notes that the consensus of the ulama is influenced by changing social norms, the urf, even on sensitive and contested topics like sexuality. He says, “From the perspective of Islamic law, in matters such as marriage age, the expected conduct of men and women in a sexual relationship, and even the details of what sort of sex is allowable or harmful all fall within the boundaries of ‘urf’, or custom. Within the wide bounds of the Shariah, the moral and legal restrictions and liabilities on such matters are set by what a particular culture deems normative.”⁸ This suggests that when ulama realize that society has deviated from the historical norm through progressive forces outside Islamdom, they might adjust their opinions in a catch-up effort. If there is a valid argument for responsiveness to social change, there is also one for proactiveness, since such change will undoubtedly continue.

A Future ‘Urf’ – With BioIslam, we are, in a sense, extending the urf argument into the future. By envisioning what an advanced Type I civilization might look like, i.e. by hypothesizing a desirable future urf, we can interrogate what must we do now to get us there in a generation or two, through a judicious blend of science and spirituality. The future will arrive with or without our input, so why forgo the opportunity to shape it? This well-intentioned exercise helps us extract the Latent Principles from the Quran, and roll them up into the five Inside Pillars.

Thus, in both Traditional Islam and BioIslam there exists the possibility of subsequent generations arriving at significantly new interpretations of the religion in the light of improved scholarship, cumulative historical awareness, economic conditions and the reigning urf. Does this generational reinterpretation presents a risk of losing the original Islam, or an opportunity to distill higher degrees of Quranic wisdom, in service of improving the ummah’s ultimate condition? The answer depends on our predilection toward taqlid versus ijtihad, conformism versus independent reasoning. Even if we restrict ijtiahd to qualified scholars, we have to acknowledge the challenge of unconscious bias, which can be either epigenetic or socially-conditioned. On the former, our predisposition toward the taqlid-based status quo vs. ijtihad-led progress has an epigenetic or psychological basis; some people have neophobia and are inherently less open to new paths of inquiry.⁹The social-conditioning bias comes from a deep desire to defer to the community, to preserve ones stature within it, to the point of smothering any moral intuition that arises from an independent evaluation of the faith. Since our knowledge of the original Islam is very limited, as discussed in Historical Truth, we can never be entirely sure how to choose between taqlid or ijtihad. Erring on the side of the latter is better since it is more likely to result in innovative approaches that target the Big Five problems.

Our reward, in both the dunya and akhirat, will be determined not by the specific outcome of our iterative rediscovery process but by the sincerity of the intention that motivates it. The innovative depth of Islam lies in its embrace of intentionality, the concept of niyyah that is cited numerous times in the Quran. After the passing of the Prophet ﷺ there never has been one universally agreed upon Islam and there never will be until the fifth axiom kicks in, which is the return of Prophet Isa/Jesus ﷺ to clarify God/Allah’s message. Until that end-time, we must settle upon an interpretation that we can not only sincerely believe in, but also one that can alleviate the Big Five problems.

The Enchanting Beauty

The intention to believe in a divine power can lead to an enchanting spiritual beauty. Throughout history, humans have attempted to access the non-material world through myth, magic and music. With the rise of positivism during the Enlightenment – belief only in that for which there is material evidence – most intellectuals have distanced themselves from myth and magic, since it is easy to demonstrate their falsity. Music remains a powerful mechanism to appreciate the divine, and in Traditional Islam, it is expressed through the oral tradition of reciting the Quran and frequent prayer.

The Traditionalists have excelled at preserving and transmitting the aural joy of the divine verses through their beautiful qiraat, the melody of the azaan, the call to prayer, the communal duaa that sometimes follows, and the symphony of meditative zikr, for those who choose to vocalize it. As noted earlier, a reliable oral tradition preserved the enchanting rites and recitation of the Prophet’s companions and first descendants, the sahaba and the tabiun. The cosmic beauty, at times a surreal haunting beauty, of this aural-Sunnah is superlative. When executed enthusiastically, its celestial charm eclipses its semantic facticity. It offers a soulful connection to our spiritual lineage. It aids our ascent, up the secret staircase, to the better half of our homo duplex selves. It initiates a divine phase shift, from the ephemeral to the eternal, from the profane to the profound, a therapeutic escape to a metaphysical realm. Its sublime syncopations, and stylized synchronicity, unite us across class and race. Its communal performance extracts us from our egocentric cave, and imbues a sense of altruism. It salves our anomie, since it uplifts us from the meaningless mechanics of the modern materialistic machine. This is the embodied Sunnah we can trust and treasure, and which BioIslam adores.

Footnotes

Blaise Pascal (d. 1662), a philosopher-mathematician, is uncertain about the existence of God. He use probability theory and decision theory to construct a decision matrix, leading to the conclusion that the advantages of believing outweigh the risks of disbelief, so it is logical to believe in God or at least take steps toward belief. See Pascal’s Wager in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Bertrand Russell, a philosopher-mathematician, proposed a Teapot Analogy, which has been repurposed more recently as a Flying Spaghetti Monster Analogy. It suggests that if we claim a teapot is orbiting the sun, beyond the scope of our best telescopes, the burden is on us to prove it (Ross Douthat, The Teapot Analogy, The Atlantic, Jan. 2009).
John Gray and David Benatar are examples of pessimistic philosophers who challenge the narrative that the ‘Enlightenment’ has transformed the world into a measurably better place.
Kecia Ali and Oliver Leaman, Islam, The Key Concepts”, 5.
Attempts at large-scale utopias include the Marxist/communist projects in the Soviet Union and Mao’s China, which resulted in the death of tens of millions, and the continued impoverishment of hundreds of millions, relative to those who embraced decentralized and capitalist economic models. An entertaining read on many small-scale Failed Utopias can be found in Vice Magazine, Apr. 2018.
Michael Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought
Tariq Ramadan, Europe’s most prominent Muslim scholar, has called for a moratorium on capital punishment.
JAC Brown, The Moral Problem of Slavery, pdf download, 75.
Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind. He identifies two psychological conditions, neophobia and neophilia, which might partly explain behaviors like religious conformism versus progressiveness.