SYED AHMED’S NATURALISM AND MODERN EDUCATION: AN INTERPRETIVE APPROACH

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to address some of the essential features of Syed Ahmed’s naturalism as a method of interpreting the possibility of man’s progress, particularly in the field of education in the context of revealed text. This may help one to understand his modernist theory of education and naturalism in the context of Islam (revealed text), and make one realize that Islam is not an obstacle in the way of progress, provided it does not lead one astray from the teachings of Islam proper. In the first section, I will briefly make some reference to some of the currents of naturalism proposed by western thinkers in nineteenth-century Europe (West) as a background in order to typify how it is different from the religious naturalism inspired by the revelation, expounded by Syed Ahmed. In the second section, I will argue why Syed Ahmed’s naturalistic argument is an effort to develop a methodology to provide a rationalistic explanation of Islam and in no way an attempt to replace God with nature. Unlike his western contemporaries, Syed Ahmed’s theory of nature is rooted in the revealed text. Hence, in my view, according to him, nature is not real in itself and like the world, man and any other creature, it is also a creation of God. It entails that nature in separation from its creator has no meaning and is always governed by the laws set down by God. The above arguments are not only helpful in enriching one’s perspective of Syed Ahmed’s conception of naturalism but are also crucial to establishing how one can draw a modernist theory of education from his naturalism.