Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas > Quotes

“Today I meet with Dr. Syamsuddin Arif. He said Prof. al-Attas says, "I don't read much but I think a lot”
― Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas

“Ibarat manusia tanpa keperibadian, universiti moden tidak mempunyai pusat yang sangat penting dan tetap, tidak ada prinsip-prinsip utama yang tetap, yang menjelaskan tujuan akhirnya. Ia tetap menganggap dirinya memikirkan hal-hal universal dan bahkan menyatakan memiliki fakulti dan jurusan sebagaimana layaknya tubuh suatu organ - tetapi ia tidak memiliki otak, jangan akal (intellect) dan jiwa, kecuali oleh dalam suatu fungsi pengurusan murni untuk pemeliharaan dan perkembangan jasmani. Perkembangannya tidak dibimbing oleh suatu prinsip yang akhir dan tujuan yang jelas, kecuali oleh prinsip nisbi yang mendorong mengejar ilmu tanpa henti dan tujuan yang jelas.”
― Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Islam and Secularism

“Definisi epistemologis yang paling tepat untuk ilmu, dengan Allah Subhanallahu wa Ta'ala sebagai sumbernya, ialah tibanya (husul) makna (ma'na) sesuatu benda atau objek ilmu ke dalam jiwa. Dengan memandang jiwa sebagai penafsir maka ilmu adalah tibanya (wusul) diri (jiwa) kepada makna sesuatu hal atau suatu objek ilmu.”
― Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Islam and Secularism

“It is like the thirsty traveller who at first sincerely sought the water of knowledge, but who later, having found it plain perhaps, proceeded to temper his cup with the salt of doubt so that his thirst now becomes insatiable though he drinks incessantly, and that in thus drinking the water that cannot slake his thirst, he has forgotten the original and true purpose for which the water was sought.”
― Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Islam The Concept of Religion and the Foundation of Ethics And Morality

“To know how to put what knowledge in which place is wisdom (hikmah). Otherwise, knowledge without order and seeking it without discipline does lead to confusion and hence to injustice to one's self.”
― Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Islam The Concept of Religion and the Foundation of Ethics And Morality

“When the man, by means if 'ibadat, succeeded in curbing his animal and canal passions and has thereby rendered submissive his animal soul,making it subject to the rational soul, the man thus described has attained to freedom and existence;he has achieved supreme peace and his soul is pacified, being set at liberty, as it were, free from fetters of inexorable fate and the noisy strife and hell of human vices.”
― Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Islam and Secularism

“Justice and injustice indeed begins and ends with the self.”
― Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Islam The Concept of Religion and the Foundation of Ethics And Morality

“Justice implies knowledge of the right and proper place for a thing or a being to be; of right as against wrong; of the mean and limit; of spiritual gain as against loss; of truth as against falsehood.”
― Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Islam The Concept of Religion and the Foundation of Ethics And Morality

“The greatest challenge that has surreptitiously arisen in our age is the challenge of knowledge, indeed, not as against ignorance; but knowledge as conceived and disseminated throughout the world by Western civilization; knowledge whose nature has become problematic because it has lost its true purpose due to being unjustly conceived, and has thus brought about chaos in man's life instead of, and rather than, peace and justice; knowledge which pretends to be real but which is productive of confusion and scepticism, which has elevated doubt and conjecture to the 'scientific' rank in methodology; knowledge which has, for the first time in history, brought chaos to the Three Kingdom of Nature; the animal, vegetal and mineral.”
― Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Islam The Concept of Religion and the Foundation of Ethics And Morality

“Muslims must be warned that plagiarists and pretenders as well as ignorant imitators affect great mischief by debasing values, imposing upon the ignorant, and encouraging the rise of mediocrity. The appropriate original ideas for hasty implementation and make false claims for themselves. Original ideas cannot be implemented when vulgarized; on the contrary, what is praiseworthy in them will turn out to become blameworthy, and their rejection will follow with the dissatisfaction that will emerge. So in this way authentic and creative intellectual effort will continually be sabotaged. It is not surprising that the situation arising out of the loss of adab also provides the breeding ground for the emergence of extremists who make ignorance their capital.”
― Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Islam and Secularism

“The secularizing 'values' and events that have been predicted would happen in the Muslim world have now begun to unfold with increasing momentum and persistence due still to the Muslims' lack of understanding of the true nature and implications of secularization as a philosophical program.”
― Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Islam and Secularism

“The common understanding among Muslims, no doubt indoctrinated by Western notions, is that a secular state is a state that is not governed by the 'ulama', or whose legal system is not established upon the revealed law. In other words it is not a theocratic state. But this setting in contrast the secular state with the theocratic state is not really an Islamic way of understanding the matter, for since Islam does not involve itself in the dichotomy between the sacred and the profane, how then can it set in contrast the theocratic state with the secular state?”
― Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Islam and Secularism

“But the philosophical and scientific process which I call 'secularization' necessarily involves the divesting of spiritual meaning from the world of nature; the desacralization of politics from human affairs; and the deconsecration of values from the human mind and conduct.”
― Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Islam and Secularism

“Seeing that he owns absolutely nothing to ‘repay’ his debt, ‘his own consciousness’ of the fact ‘that he is himself the very substance’ of debt, so must he ‘repay’ with himself, so must he ‘return’ himself to Him Who owns him absolutely.”
― Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Islam The Concept of Religion and the Foundation of Ethics And Morality

“Man is like an island set in isolation in a fathomless sea enveloped by darkness, saying that the loneliness his self knows is so utterly absolute because even he knows not his self completely.”
― Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Islam and Secularism

“Change, development and progress, according to the Islamic viewpoint, refer to the return to the genuine Islam enunciated and practised by the Holy Prophet (may God bless and give him Peace!) and his noble Companions and their Followers (blessing and peace be upon them all!) and the faith and practice of genuine Muslims after them; and they also refer to the self and mean its return to its original nature and religion (Islam).”
― Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Islam The Concept of Religion and the Foundation of Ethics And Morality

“The International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC)... to establish a superior library reflecting the religious and intellectual traditions both of the Islamic and Western civilizations.”
― Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Islam and Secularism