Perhaps its [Traditional Muslim education's] greatest trouble was that it had created the same dualism between the religious and the secular, between this-worldly and that-wordly, from which Christianity, for example, had suffered from its very beginnings. The "religious" scholar had become a "professional" in his own field, but he was ignorant of and unable to cope with the problems of the world he lived in. Now the test of true spirituality or religious life is that is should solve [e: or attempt to solve] these problems creatively; otherwise its claims to being spiritual or religious are untenable. And so Iqbal asks Rumi [in his poem Pir-i-Rumi wa Murid-i-Hindi]:My lofty thoughts reach up to the heavens;But on earth I am humilated, frustrated, and agonized.I am unable to manage the affairs of this world,And I constantly face stumbling-blocks in this path.Why are the affairs of the world beyond my control?Why is the learned in religion a fool in the affairs of the world?and he gets the following shattering answer:Anyone who [claims to be able to] walk on the heavens;Why should it be difficult for him to stalk on the earth? (58)
Fazlur Rahman's Islam & Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition (1982)
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