Sujood, More Than A Posture

Disclaimer

This is only an exploration of some compatibilities which i found between the works of Aristotle and the Quran, not a Quranic treatment of peripatetic philosophy. I find that the mode of thinking of the later Hellenic philosophers (particularly Aristotle and Plato) to be very proximate to those which guide many of the concepts found in the Quran, in fact, it seems as though the Quran takes them for granted, as in, it does not 'explain' them, but assumes their validity as it proceeds into more, so to speak, 'urgent matters'.

This may confuse many viewers but as the title suggests the concept of Sujood is not what it’s made to be, it does not exclusively pertain to the ceremonial or ritualistic sense of praying in which it’s commonly understood; that is, to physical acts of, say, bowing, praying or chanting, it’s a principle of motion. Let me explain

But before we proceed, we must first contend with an explanation of motion, Science and Philosophy's perennial bugbear.

The best explanation, now practically estranged from the modern scientific lexicon, is the Aristotelian conception of motion, included under the larger framework of ‘nature’; which unlike the definition adopted in its place, (that of Galileo and Descartes), conceives motion ontologically; nature and motion for Aristotle are coterminous, together describing:

“inner principle of change and being at rest”

This varies from the Cartesian or Galilean conception on which the modern edifice of physics is erected; a purely material phenomenon describing, as I relay it from the horse's mouth a

“a movement from place to place”

or a

“Mere change of place without inquiring into the forces produces that the change”.

Rene Descartes 'Principles Of Philosophy' sec 63

Or, according to Galileo

“All natural motion, whether upward or downward, is the result of the essential heaviness or lightness of the moving body"

De Motu (On Motion, chp1, p1)

Aristotle’s, by contrast, is rooted in Descartes so called “forces that produce change"(perhaps, it's a part of the whole movement away from the Aristotelian worldview)

The difference is so obvious that it makes the comparison look like 'false equivalence'.

An adequate understanding of the significantly richer Aristotelian definition will show it to be very consistent with the concept of sujood; motion here is not “a mere change of place”, an accidental displacement, a spontaneous movement, but rather a comprehensive inquiry into the principles that cause the phenomenon of motion in the first place, why should anything be disposed to change, and what is change in the first place?.

To him, it’s an intrinsic property of things; entelechy, by merely existing, things that are in existence are said to be in motion, that is, they are actualizing the form by which we come to know them, I.e the qualities that charactarize them and which we grasp as exclusive to them. Even when seemingly at rest, I.e physically motionless, they are actually in motion just by holding together their ‘form’, that is, by letting nature get her way, their qualities, their appearances, predispositions, insofar as these are contained potentially in them.

As proposed in other investigations, the language of the Quran is founded on principles of teleology, expressing precisely this organic sense of motion, and in teleology what matters, what takes precedence isn’t the occasion in which something is perceived to be physically changing its location, but rather that which renders it mobile (or motile), but what rendered it mobile isn't not this or that cause, not something external to it, but something which inheres in it. I.e its 'software'. Whereas in modern physics motion is, as best shown in kinematics and geometry, abstracted and separated from the things to which motion is attributed, and proposed by itself, in the Aristotelian sense, however, motion is not describable geometrically or in any topological form, it's something altogether 'intangible', or, let's say, something of which only the results are accessible to us; even discrete and quantified motion, the 'units' into which the movement is partitioned are all'results', they're a far cry from Aristotle's motion.

We attain this understanding of motion not so much by physical observation as by thought, motion here is a transition not in place, but from ‘potentiality into actuality’ from what’s possible and could be, to what’s actual and is. Motion is conceived in this sense because for Aristotle form comes before being, or as he put it

“actual being is a precondition of being in the process” (Metaphysics 1047b)

With this I find the Quranic sense of motion highly compatible. Aristotle, in his observations of nature, did not measure or calculate; find the root square of this, or the sum of that, and he didn't need to as a matter of fact, because, his observations were more concerned with the 'becoming' side phenomena. What he watches out for are those conditions which any given entity fulfils on its course towards what he calls 'actuality'. In other words, if all motion is based on motive, motion automatically becomes the study of 'causes' and 'principles'.

Aletheia, The Alethic modality, ‘nature’:

“To have a world means to have an orientation (Verhalten) toward it. To have an orientation toward the world, however, means to keep oneself so free from what one encounters of the world that one can present it to oneself as it is”

Hans-George Gadamar 'Truth & Method' p440

What we mean by Alethiea is what something is, 'Ontologically'. In itself, Aletheia describes a mode of disclosure, unconcealment, disambiguation; we can approach it by analogy to the alphabet, a mode of disclosure, an Alethic modal, insofar as all notions, all phenomena, all ideas are only ever expressible (let alone judged) within the narrow parameters of the 26 letters offered, in this case, by English, it’s the basic mould by which the universe with all its diversity is shaped; everything we know is predicated on the system of language. Language and number are prior to the ideas to which they give expression, this comports with the idea that actual being is a precondition of being in the process, the language is the 'real' (in Bradley's sense), and everything else belongs to it or 'derives' from it. Russell calls it 'formal', and gives examples of it 'Principle Of Mathematics' (particularly the chapter on Implication & Formal Implication, see 42 & 55)

And as with the alphabet, so is the case with any given entity, insofar as the entity is a form housing its own mode of disclosure; the analogue for the 20 odd letters of the alphabet is the list of fundamental attributes and dispositions that constitute the personality or identity of the entity and which predispose and orient it. In short its ‘nature’ as conceived by Aristotle,

Deontos, The Deontic Modality

There are two ways of understanding this mode,

Ideally or mentally, physically or mechanically.

Mentally/Ideally:

The best way to understand this is by thinking of it as a reference frame, or a point

of reference or a point of view from which we perceive something, as second person point of view. Perceiving anything sets it in opposition to ourselves, we build a scheme, we establish a spectrum or a boundary whose limits are the observer and the object of observation, we call it an object because it’s something as specific as we are yet outside of us, a counterpart. Whatever occupies that Not-I position, is called an object, hence our relation to it is called ‘objective’.

It’s how our own ideas and thoughts can be ‘objects’ of our own thought and contemplation;

Physically

Here we’re dealing with a physical objective, a place to be reached, or a project to be realized. I share with the place which I set myself to reach, say my home, as the objective to which my act of intention is directed. It’s the Place, ideal or physical, which dictates in which way, manner and direction I may move, in short it’s that in virtue of which we have ‘intention’. This intention, however, is nested on my own nature, hence the inseparability of form and motion in Aristotle’s system.

Potentiality implies actuality, actuality presupposes potentiality. Reason precedes action, an essentially dualistic scheme appears to charactarize all modes of being. Deontos is not a different thing than Alethiea, but merely Alethiea objectified, or turned into a goal, as for example how a plan is something both preconceived as well as something to be attained or actualized. In our language analogy, we possess the alphabet as a faculty or form; of which we project upon an external thing--as a net is casted at a school of fish--select and logical devised combinations; the object itself will have been linguistic, or shortly a projection. Thus the 'real', like language, is limited only in a certain, necessary, sense, its limitation is tantamount to 'actuality' or 'realizability', though it must be 'realizable' in many number of ways.

These two cooperate and are indispensable to one another, the mental spills over into the physical and the physical concretizes the mental every step of the way. The modalities is a program which modifies motion,

Episteme, The Epistemic Modality

This modality is implied in the former two, it denotes how, within the Alethic-Deontic parameters that we’ve just defined, or the point and its limit, we transition from one mode to the other, It’s the mechanism by which we conceive of Alethic point as opposed to the Deontic, or the Deontic as opposed to the Alethic.

The epistemic mode is how the above two communicate with each other, in the mental space this happens instantaneously, as in, we ‘see something’, but we don’t think of it in terms of motion, though it actually is mobile, a projection from the I to the Not-I; from the alethic source, to the deontic limit. When not instantaneous, we take liberty in thinking, we contemplate, as when we’re trying to solve a problem, we think in steps, we oscillate between parts of ideas, we combine, subtract, oppose, deduce etc. to reach the prospect that is the solution (the deontic limit) or if I’m trying to reach my house, the goal is attenuated into mini-goals, I walk to the bus stop, I scan my card, I traverse a certain number of blocs, I get off the bus, or I get to this or that street etc.. When perceived from a certain point, the objective seems 'expected', or 'anticipated' us, from another, we’re ‘dictating’, from another point, we see how both mutually influence and determine one another or how they conspire together so as to produce the effect sought.

A passage from S.Alexander's Space, Time & Deity' says it more eloquently;

“Reciprocal actions are at a certain instant of time simultaneous; and so far as there’s mutual interaction between movements within a substance (the parameter) there’s a more special simultaneity of events within it” (p278)

(The whole chapter is a must read).

In physical space we’re not afforded the luxury of freely alternating or jumping from one idea to the next, or of thinking about two things that are geographically speaking, miles apart, or temporally speaking, days or months apart. Here we confront the problem of physical space which in the mental sphere is non-existent, the epistemic mode is how we reach the deontic limit from the Alethic or how, we understand the deontic limit to be a limit with respect to an beginning point. The deontic mode here transforms from a vision or prospect, say a housing project, into a physical objective where we find ourselves dealing with the logistics of the vision; resource allocation, finances, manpower, transportation etc, what we’ve so effortlessly, and timelessly, built in the mental space is, in the physical, a question of ‘process’.

I here quote a passage from Cassirer's first volume of 'The Philosophy Of Symbolic Forms', another must read.

“The object of knowledge recedes more and more into the distance, so that for knowledge critically reflecting upon itself it comes ultimately to appear as an infinitely remote point, and endless task and yet, in this apparent distance, it achieves its ideal specification, in the logical concept develops that mediate grasp which characterises reason” (Ernest Cassirer 'p181)

Those modalities are interdependent and inseparable, they are actually modes which we enter into and which, depending on the mode, alter our perception of the world. We engage and dip in and out of these modes at any given point, and, It's not far fetched to say, 'instantly'.

Now the above modalities, taken together and understood, and, more importantly understood as operating in synergy produces in a new concept

Sujood

In Surat Alhaj verse 18, we’re told that sujood is a mode in which diverse forms of life are participate, amongst which, interestingly, are trees, Mountains and stars; how does this to make sense if Sujood is understood as no more than a certain physical posture?

Additionally how, as verse 83 of surat Alumran states, can something perform sujood ‘involuntarily’? Or be, in some sense, ‘coerced’ into it.

What does it mean for a tree or a mountain to be in Sujood? (Surat Hajj 18)

As said, motion is teleological, and is to be understood in terms of the above three modalities; this is a basic definition, however motion only ascends into ‘sujood’ when the object of movement (deontic mode), of action, of tension, stands to the subject of motion (that which acts) as the highest possible thing to which it can aim. Think of it as the analogue or equivalent of scenario ‘reaching my house’ where the process is attenuated into steps. The objective, or, the deontic limit is vast enough as to be the rationale behind every act. Only that here the objective isn’t as relatively urgent and proximate as ‘reaching my house’, but distant, distant enough as to be a point after which one journeys in a lifetime. like the N or S signs on a compass which aren’t so much physical places as indicators of direction.

This here justifies the Aristotelian concept of nature as synonymous with motion. Because if the motion is inherent, it is, necessarily, 'infinite', which is what 'the environment' as we understand it demands from its creatures.

If we ask why anything moves, sure we can give an answer, but in no way do such answers exhaust the question at hand, for instance a lion goes after a buffalo, ‘because it’s hungry’; but this is only a relatively true. Adequate, but other, higher reasons can be given, e.g ‘it needs to survive’ and the only way that guarantees that is feeding; hence the lion goes after the buffalo because by eating it it survives’, a yet higher reason can be given, that the lion goes after the buffalo because it’s in the lion’s nature, as a predator to do so; a yet higher one, perhaps the highest would be, ‘the lion goes after the buffalo because it’s how the relation is innately or naturally constituted; a transcendent order determined it this way, had furnished in the lion the precise faculty, I.e the sharp claws and Canines, by which it may take on something of the size of a buffalo. Thus we see that in each case we’re ascending the rungs of reason, and that the ascent always leads to a kind of superordinate plan, and that the 'higher' the reason, the more 'relations' involved.

What this means is that sujood is the quintessential motion, the equivalent of Aristotle’s ‘nature’. Motion only attains its meaning here; what enables anything to move is the fact that there’s an objective or motive, and this objective isn’t, for the lion, the buffalo, or for the plant the source of light, these are relative objectives, or attenuations of a much vaster objective, or wholistically speaking, the real objective. Here the true objective, the object of sujood, isn’t the immediate object of desire or fear, or hunger expressed impulsively by the creature, but that which gives these contextually ambiguous pursuits their 'basis', meaning, it’s the order that made it so that the buffalo is pray to the lion, or the lion a predator to the buffalo, or the source of light, the object of the flower, it’s the motion towards that order itself which gave each of these things their dispositions. Here the object towards which the different species are tending is one, it’s the order to which, by merely executing or fulfilling their biological needs, they give immediate proof and expression to.

Sujood has two senses;.

The first mode of sujood excludes free will, it describes how all creation share one goal or object; in that, by simply being, or, existing, by fulfilling their given biological task, they are already involved in sujood, a turtle knows only how to be a turtle, a stone a stone, a tree a tree. Every creation here is restricted and limited to it

s cosmic role, a program is encoded it outside of which it is incapable of operating, this is the first sense of sujood. This is what Abraham discerned as observed the celestial objects, he discerned the most basic and fundamental program of the universe, motion or sujood, which he started with, he saw that the constellation, the sun and moon all share this; they all have a function of some sort, beyond their apparent differences, they’re all charactarized by ‘process’, by 'ontological' motion.

The second sense of sujood involves what the creature does by will in the context just mentioned, within the limit prescribed, here is involved the ethos of the creature; that a human being acts in a human like way, to speak in a human way, to walk on two legs, describes a mode of sujood that’s characteristic of and exclusive to humans, but how he chooses to articulate himself within the biological parameters allotted to him, where his two legs take him, what he chooses to invest his human intellect into, the ideas he chooses to represent and stand for, expresses and thereby completes the concept of sujood, as here that which is outside one’s control, that is, the biological plan meets that which is within one’s control, his actions or ethos, the former is subordinated to the latter and is placed in service of an idea, a deontos. Now the idea automates him/her as he does his own body.

When God asks the earth to swollow the water from noah’s flood, an action was elicited, whose execution is contingent on the earth’s given constitution and lies within its capacity. Here the elicitation shows the earth’s capacity for free will, and by executing the divine command it was involved in sujood.

Now if said transcendental idea is identical to that superordinate & wholistic plan as accounted for by the creator in all his decrees, then the ethos of the specific creature and the agenda of his creator are in perfect harmony, and this ethos when conceived linguistically and ascribed a term becomes, for us, Islam. Islam is a mode of sujood, or 'sujood' as such. If sujood is the quintessential motion, then Islam is the quintessential sujood. Here the side of sujood which lies within the domain of free will harmonizes with the biological plane, perfect consistency is attained, and sujood thereby attains its true sense.