Islam has experienced the era of rational thinking. There have been dissenters to the literalist Islamic worldview. Their message was that the primary and secondary sources of Islam must not be taken literally, but conceptually.

At stake is the fundamental principle of the 'Word of God' in the Quran, which traditionalists (those protecting the sanctity of the orthodox beliefs) claimed to be literal, final and unchangeable. To them, revelation always ruled over reason.

From our modern perspective, also at stake is the contention that the literalist Muslim 'thinking norm' does not have any avenue for realising its own mistakes.

A single example would hope to portray the point. Surah 55.5 of the Quran states that herbs and trees bow down to God. Orthodox Muslims believe that the word of God is not to be changed, so they contend that herbs and trees do indeed bow down to God in a manner that humans would perceive and perform this, by lowering their heads.

Al-Kindi (d. 803), an eminent Islamic scholar, pointed out that the word 'bow' in this context should not be taken literally, for herbs and trees do not have the head, nor the bones and muscles for this very human action.

He said that, in this context, the world 'bow' should be conceptualised - to make obeisance seems most apt in this instance. The point he was making was that God's words must be taken not literally, but conceptually. In other words, reason should prevail over revelation.

Reformist or radical early Muslim thinkers, known as the Mu'tazilites, would initiate a new body of Islamic wisdom based on reason or on conceptualisation, known as ijtihad (independent reasoning).

Under this, Islamic teachings and philosophies were given liberal and deductive analysis. To them, revelation must be balanced by reason. It would have opened the door to Islamic intellectualism.

However, there arose the inevitable conflict and confrontation between traditionalists and the radical Mu'tazilites, between revelation and reason, between orthodoxy and reform. Religious orthodoxy won the day. Revelation ruled over reason.

The Islamic worldview ever since is that all that mankind needs to know about religion, temporal life on earth, as well as life after death has already been sorted out under taklid . No new information, no new knowledge, need be explored and discovered anymore.

Indeed, sometime after the periods of the great traditionalists Al-Azhari (d. 935) and Al-Ghazzali (d.1111), Islamic philosophy would find the analyses of ijtihad to contradict and endanger the sanctity of taklid . To counter this perceived threat, the doors to ijtihad were slammed shut.

Observable phenomena

In fairness and with the benefit of hindsight, we can concede that the essence and postulates of knowledge under taklid were not entirely shortsighted. In fact, it fitted well with the level of knowledge and thinking norms during the material times, when the sum total of human knowledge was limited.

Human knowledge was then bound within theology, philosophy, mathematics, medicine, astronomy, some alchemy, physics, geography and geology. Theology was the single major area that governed human thinking. The other disciplines were of rudimentary nature compared to our present level of knowledge of them.

In the past, human knowledge was necessarily limited to experience and the observable phenomena. In the second century, for example, Galen (c. 130-200), the eminent Greek physician evolved the theory that the human body was made up of four humours - blood, phlegm, choler and bile.

Their balance in the body promotes good health or leads to disease. This was taken as the medical truth of the time. Prognosis would be from chants, and horoscopes; potions would provide cures.

Today, our knowledge of human anatomy and the microbial world let us know that diseases are brought about by viruses and germs, or even by DNA irregularities.

Today, the field of medicine has furthermore progressed by leaps and bounds. There are preventive cures to social ailments like developments in nutrition, public health and sanitation habits. For the individual, there are antibiotics, drugs, vaccines, surgery and gene therapy.

Human knowledge in medicine has increased so much that no one doctor can be a master in all. He has to specialise. Today every medical profession has its own consultants, specialists and surgeons.

Scientific thinking

Knowledge based on the observable phenomena received a really big boost with the advent of the scientific revolution. A number of early thinkers were challenging hand-me-down intellectual wisdom that in effect invited a new way of thinking altogether.

It is difficult to determine when exactly this shift in thinking began although some historians have attributed it to the Greeks some 2,500 years ago. But it has one essential feature totally different from the traditional thinking norm.

This rational thinking norm is based on humans' perception of truth, of what is good, as perceived by the individual, and not by any central authority. What is 'good' is based on what an individual thinks what goodness is and not what a central authority deems it to be.

It is based on knowledge that appeals to human reason and intellect, not on the fearful dictates of religious dogma or on conformist traditions and customs.

Copernicus (1473-1543) was a major early contributor to this quantum leap and breakthrough thinking norm. He had observed and made the claim that planet earth rotated around the sun when the wisdom of the day contended that the earth was the center of the universe. Here is one individual who stood against the wisdom of his time.

About a century after him, Galileo (1564-1642) made another momentous contribution to the human intellect. In a radical departure from the traditional outlook, he contended that every 'truth' inherited from the past must not be accepted without question. Instead they must be tested and experimented upon to determine their veracity.

He insisted further that the experiment must be recorded and the results made known to everyone. Anyone in turn can repeat the experiments, validate or refute the results and let the outcome determine the truth.

Galileo then staged his epochal experiment on the rate of fall of falling bodies: would objects of unequal weight fall at the same speed? The conventional wisdom was that heavier solid objects would fall at a faster rate than lighter ones. In his celebrated experiment, he found that the rate of fall of solids is the same whether or not they are of different weight.

He ushered the advent of the Renaissance's scientific age. Since then nothing was blindly accepted as the truth; everything had to be tested, experimented, measured, and recorded. Every scientific fact must be predictable, in that the outcome to action must be foreseen and expected. Also, every scientific fact must avail itself of falsification.

Galileo's scientific methodology would have challenged wisdom inherited from the past via the traditional thinking method. The inherited wisdom prevalent and sanctioned in his time carried with it some subjective, and erroneous, beliefs characterised by dogma, superstition, legend and myth.

Passive intellectual stance

Truth is impossible to ascertain in the event, for what is truth to one is blasphemy to another.

When wisdom is given the scientific treatment by way of analysis, experiment, measurement and record, then 'truth' becomes a more objective and definite information. It universally appeals to the human intellect.

The whole thinking process of analysing, testing, experimenting, verifying and recording is known as the scientific method. It is a direct product of the rational thinking.

With humans developing the scientific method of securing knowledge came the age of science. Science being the understanding of nature, and with humans applying what they understood of nature, they have been able to create new tools and new technology. These in turn are harnessed to improve their conditions of living. But from our perspective, we have to remember always that science is a product of the rational thinking norm.

These new developments in thinking have brought about the Industrial Revolution, modernisation and urbanisation, the capitalist economic system, explosion of human knowledge. It has enabled the democratic system of government, of colonisation even.

Virtually all of these happened within the European nations, chiefly Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal. America came later, although when it did, its contribution to human intellect was phenomenal. In any case, together they have moulded the modern human civilisation into what we know it to be today.

The glaring point is that no one single Muslim country was known to play a part in the scientific thinking revolution. Islamic intellectuals were making contributions to early human scientific and intellectual studies and development as we have averred. But there was little follow through after the initial activities. They were completely muted when Copernicus and Galileo made their radical postulations; a passive intellectual stance that lasts to this day.

What could have been the reason for the overlong silence? We can only surmise that Islamic intellectual growth was truly bound by the comforts and certainty of t aklid ; that the door of ijtihad declared closed in the 12 th and 13 th centuries was still stoutly bolted in the times of Copernicus and Galileo, and the long list of scientists thereafter till to-date.

Insofar as we know, the Malay thinking is digging deeper into the comforts of the traditional thinking norms, complacently oblivious to the shift in the dependence of human civilisation on the traditional to the scientific thinking norms.

Even within Islamic philosophy itself, there has been no parallel explosion in the level of Islamic intellectualism. Islamic subjects taught to future generations retain their old level of knowledge, lacking expansion. To this day we witness Islamic religious schools all over the country teaching the same subjects and syllabus that has been carried down more or less from the early days of Islam.

The Malay mind

How and where does the Malay mind fit into the picture?

Their mind as we know is closed, and therefore they are conservative and conformist in spirit and disposition. They are literalist thinkers and bound by the Law of Excluded Middle in their judgment. Their thinking norm is not scientific in nature but governed by the static and retrogressive taklid - one that is strong in total acceptance, conformity, orthodoxy and conservatism. It is also closed to any debate and analysis.

It is a thinking norm that had fitted well in the era of the observable phenomena, when human knowledge was limited and life was pretty straightforward.

Thinking affects behaviour, so the Malay laggardness in economic competitiveness is a result of this simplistic and closed mental frame. This could be a more plausible explanation to them being under par even when injected with a massive dosage of affirmative action programmes for over four decades in Malaysia.

Colonialism might have played a part in their mental laggardness, but only a small part. Their closed mind had been there even before colonialism came onto the scene in 1511. This was the year when the Portuguese came a-calling. Today, the Malay mind is still closed.

Should they wish to level the playing field, then the Malays have to realise that they inherited this traditional thinking norm, this closed mind. With it comes the attendant literalism, circumscribed by the Law of Excluded Middle, and by their intellectual colour-blindness.

They have to be aware that the modern world is more complex, and shaped by the scientific and intellectual revolution brought about by the scientific method. The modern world has been shaped by the open mind.

The scientific method is in turn the product of rational thinking. The Malays have to discard their traditional thinking frame to be replaced by the rational and scientific.

Putting the blame on colonialism to his thinking shortcomings is no longer correct. They have to undergo a process of self-assessment, address their thinking features and institute some radical changes within.

They have to learn to conceptualise, to question all inherited wisdom; to have the courage to question every inherited wisdom. They have to cure their colour-blindness. They have to learn that conceptually they can be wrong.

There is so much for them to learn, so much for them to unlearn, so much for them to re-learn. We suggest one starting point - unbolt the closed doors of ijtihad .

Part 1 was posted yesterday.

AB SULAIMAN is an observer of human traits and foibles, especially within the context of religion and culture. As a liberal, he marvels at the way orthodoxy fights to maintain its credibility in a devilishly fast-changing world. In his free time, he loves to read, travel and play golf (although his game could be better).