Kamal al-Din al-Nabhani (January 3, 1929 – December 31, 2006) was a Lebanese politician who was one of the founders of the
Islamist political party of
Hizb ut-Tahrir
Hizb ut-Tahrir (Arabicحزب التحرير (Translation: Party of Liberation) is an international, political organization which describes its ideology as Islam, and its aim the re-establishment of the Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate) to resume Isl ...
.
Early life
Kamal al-Din al-Nabhani was born on January 3, 1929, in
Beirut, Lebanon.
Thoughts
Philosophy and theology
In his books ''Thought'' and ''System of Islam 2'' (based on the work of his father Taqi al-Din al-Nabhani), Nabhani placed heavy emphasis on modes and models of the psychology behind human thought and its concepts. He defined the thought process and how it becomes a conviction or concept. He discussed the internal working of thoughts, convictions, and concepts in shaping the
Nafs
''Nafs'' () is an Arabic word occurring in the Quran, literally meaning "self", and has been translated as "psyche", " ego" or " soul".Nurdeen Deuraseh and Mansor Abu Talib (2005), "Mental health in Islamic medical tradition", ''The Internati ...
(emotions and sentiments). He also explained how people reach conclusions and the psychology behind the process. This process derives from his father's roots in non-Ascetic legalistic
Sufism and from his first teacher and maternal grandfather, Ismail al-Nabhani.
Nabhani's definitions of thought have been used in the study of computer science, artificial intelligence, and information processing and i
London South Bank Universitys information technology department.
After many philosophical discussions on the nature of thoughts and emotions, Nabhani concludes that the only way to bring about change is through discussion, refutation, and revival of the relevant thoughts and emotions. From this philosophical basis, he argues that force does not work to change peoples' ideas. He also argues that a decline in Muslims' mental, emotional, and conceptual lives led to the decline of Muslim culture and the eventual destruction of the Caliphate. He believed the first major step in the decline of Muslim culture was confusion and conflict with new foreign ideas, mainly
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
,
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
, and
Eastern philosophy.
He argues that the Islamic world does not know how to address and contextualize these ideas because they have become insular and complacent instead of preserving Islamic thought and philosophy and keeping it relevant to a world in flux. The heavy emphasis on pinpointing, defining, and changing peoples thoughts, convictions, or emotions via stronger thoughts, diagnosis, and refutation of the process an individual uses to reach their particular "incorrect" view has become a recurring argument used by the Hizb ut-Tahrir political party on most issues.
Faith vs. rational belief
Nabhani claimed that Islam is founded on the rational belief and not blind faith, quite similar to
Ghazali's
Kalam
''ʿIlm al-Kalām'' ( ar, عِلْم الكَلام, literally "science of discourse"), usually foreshortened to ''Kalām'' and sometimes called "Islamic scholastic theology" or "speculative theology", is the philosophical study of Islamic doc ...
argument. However, both Nabhani and Ghazali argued that after ''Aqeeda'' (belief) is established, divine laws in the Quran are beyond question due to the "mind" of God being beyond human comprehension. Nabhani loosely affirmed rationalism (though not that of the
Mu'tazili), but argued that it can establish belief in a God just like Ghazali and Ghazali's teacher al-Juwayni, contrary to the common western notion of rationalism. Nabhani tried to outline materialist arguments and axioms to prove that one unlimited creator of the universe, God (
Allah), can be proven by rational deduction. He believed that both the dependency and limited physical nature of every tangible thing within human perception ultimately point to an unlimited creator who is beyond need and dependency, an absolute infinite.
Books
*''Saving Palestine'' - 1950
Sheikh Muhammad Taqiuddin al-Nabhani
, Hizb ut-Tahrir
Hizb ut-Tahrir (Arabicحزب التحرير (Translation: Party of Liberation) is an international, political organization which describes its ideology as Islam, and its aim the re-establishment of the Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate) to resume Isl ...
.
*''The Message of the Arabs'' - 1950
*''The System for Society'' - 1950
*''The Ruling System in Islam'' - 1953
*'' The Economic System In Islam'' - 1953
*''The Social System in Islam'' - 1953
*''The Party Structure'' - 1953
*''The Concepts of Hizb ut-Tahrir'' - 1953
*''The Islamic State'' - 1953
*''The Islamic Personality'' (in three volumes) - 1960
*''Political Concepts of Hizb ut-Tahrir'' - 1969
*''Political View of Hizb ut-Tahrir'' - 1972
*''Introduction to the Constitution or the Reasons That Make it Obligatory'' - 1963
*''The Khilafah'' - 1967
*''Presence of Mind'' - 1976
*''A Burning Call to the Muslims from Hizb ut-Tahrir'' - 1965
*''Thinking'' - 1973
*''The Jurisprudence of Prayer''
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Nabhani, Taqiuddin
1929 births
2006 deaths
Arab people in Mandatory Palestine
Palestinian Islamists
Members of Hizb ut-Tahrir
Al-Azhar University alumni