The Tree of Tradition: Using Seyyed Hossein Nasr's Conceptual Framework to Diagnose the Causes of the Current Islamic Crisis
Keywords:
Islamic epistemology; perennial philosophy; fundamentalism; modernism; knowledge problem; sophia perennis; Islamic civilization; Nusantara epistemology; traditional Islam; Seyyed Hossein NasrAbstract
Through the prism of modern Islamic epistemology and the expanding conversation on Islamic intellectual reform in the twenty-first century, this essay offers a conceptual extraction and thematic synthesis of Seyyed Hossein Nasr's landmark work, Traditional Islam in the Modern World (1987). The main contention is that Muslim societies are currently experiencing a crisis that is essentially not just political or sociological but also one of knowledge (epistemological), aesthetics (environmental), and spiritual equilibrium (cosmological). This study systematically identifies three major domains of crisis described in Nasr's work using a qualitative content analysis methodology with a hermeneutic-philosophical approach derived from Gadamer's (1989) and Ricoeur's (1981) frameworks: (1) the erosion of sacred knowledge (al-'ilm al-muqaddas) and its replacement by secular rationalism; (2) the degradation of Islamic aesthetics and the sacred built environment; and (3) the disturbance of cosmic gender relations and spiritual balance in Muslim societies. By mapping Nasr's diagnostic triangle of traditionalism, modernism, and fundamentalism onto a structured conceptual framework, it becomes clear that modernism and fundamentalism have one thing in common: they both reject the perennial wisdom (sophia perennis) that is fundamental to the Islamic intellectual tradition. The organizational factor for comprehending Nasr's conception of Islamic integral wholeness is the image of the "Tree of Tradition," which consists of roots (usul), trunk (tawhid principle), branches (Islamic disciplines and arts), and fruits (civilization). According to the findings, real renewal (tajdid) must come from inside tradition rather than from outside imposition, and one of the most promising modern applications of this idea may be the "Nusantara epistemology" that is developing in Indonesian Islamic higher education. This research advances the fields of comparative religion, Islamic philosophy of knowledge, and the sociology of Muslim intellectualism.
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