Female Speaker:
From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Carolyn Brown:
Well, good afternoon.  On behalf of the Librarian of Congress, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you here this afternoon for a lecture by Professor Maroun Aouad entitled "Arab Medieval Philosophers' Doctrines on War."  

I am, I should tell you, Carolyn Brown, Director of the Office on Scholarly Programs in the John Kluge Center here.

Before we get started, I would ask that if you have cell phones and other kind of electronic devices that not only beep and bonk and play nice tunes, but they also can interfere with the recording that's going on.  So I'd ask you to please turn those off.

I'm going to say a word about the Kluge Center, that is the sponsor for this lecture.  The Center promotes advanced research in the collections of the Library of Congress.  Established with a generous endowment given by John W. Kluge in 2000, the Center provides financial support for the world's most accomplished senior scholars and most promising junior scholars to conduct research here at the Library.  The Center further promotes the scholarly enterprise through lectures, seminars and small conferences.  I urge you, if you're interested in staying in touch with this, to check the Library's homepage.  It's very simple: www.loc.gov, and on the lower left-hand corner, you can click on a button for e-mail alerts and that will let you know, if you follow through, the kinds of other events that you might be interested in here.  If you want to know more about the Kluge Center, you can do the same thing and on the homepage you'll see Kluge Center so by all means, stay in touch.

Today's speaker, Dr. Maroun Aouad, is a scholar of medieval Arabic philosophy and the author of a very distinguished work on Aveorres, the medieval Arabic philosopher from Spain who lived from 1126 to 1198.  Dr. Aouad received his Master's degree in law from the Universite de Lyon and doctor in philosophy from the Sorbonne.  He is the Director of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, and has been a researcher there since 1985.  He is also the recipient of numerous awards, fellowships, and honors including the Delalande-Guerineau Prize given by the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in 2004.  Dr. Aouad has been a distinguished visiting scholar here in the Kluge Center for six months which have gone really, really fast, at least for us.  I hope they have for you as well.

Much of Dr. Aouad's work looks at medieval Arabic philosophy in the context of elements ancient Greek philosophy in, of course, the Western medieval world with particular concern for logic and rhetoric.  And through his study, he helps us see how that work might actually help us understand better the world that we're living in.  I'll give you a brief example.  If you saw the posters, I think we described it but it's worth repeating.  

For example, according to Dr. Aouad, studies about jihad, the duty required by Islamic law to wage war under certain conditions, such studies are numerous, but they have limited interest because they tend to link the concept of jihad to its restrictive juridical and historical characteristics within a specific region and specific civilization.  Much less attention, Dr. Aouad tells us, has been paid to the doctrines on expansive war that are held by Arab medieval philosophers who, like Averroes, were at times influenced by Plato.  Those doctrines are grounded in pure reasoning and not based on revealed law.  They raise problems and give answers, actually, that are more universal than just the narrow universe, actually it's not so small, but just the Islamic world.  

So Dr. Aouad's lecture will deal with these rational explanations and their relationship to the concept of jihad, which is familiar to us, at least in the newspaper version, and I think you'll find the version that Dr.  Aouad addresses is going to sound very different.  So we have a good bit to learn from his meticulous and accomplished scholarship and I ask you to please welcome Maroun Aouad.

[applause]

Maroun Aouad:
Thank you very much, Dr. Brown.  I would, of course, first thank the Library of Congress, the Kluge Center and the African and Middle Eastern division for the opportunity they gave me to work in the best conditions on my present scientific projects, one of them being, as you said, an inquiry into the doctrines of just war as held by the medieval philosophers, writing in Arabic.

"As for the other nations, which are not good and whose conduct is not human, there is no way of teaching them other than this way, namely to coerce them through war to adopt the virtues."  This striking statement was not made by a fundamentalist in the name of Islam, but by one of the greatest medieval philosophers, Aveorres, of Aveorres portrayed by Raphael in his fresco on The School of Athens and by Boniyuto [spelled phonetically] in his Triumph of Thomas of Aquina.

Aveorres lived, as you said, in 12th Century Andalusia, that is Muslims' Spain, that is part of Spain and North Africa, a region that was governed at this period by the Almohad dynasty, a reformist dynasty, with strong fundamentalist trends.  Aveorres always lived between Cordoba, Seville, and Marrakech.  He was, of course, a philosopher.  He commented on, for example, on almost all of Aristotle's work and on Plato's "Republic," introducing often new ideas.  He was also a jurist and physician and, above all, a great public servant.  He was chief judge of Cordoba, judge of Seville and court physician.  He was, of course, not the only philosopher writing in Arabic.  Other great names as well known, for example, Al-Farabi died in 950 and Avicenna died in 1037.  

But I will here concentrate on Aveorres because he gives us the most explicit account of the reasons of offensive war and introduced a new, important point of view.  I will also make some comparisons with the other philosophers writing in Greek or in Arabic.  

Aveorres deals with war in two kinds of works.  First in his juridical works and mainly in his "Bid_yat al-Mujtahid."  If we translate the title it would be "The Beginning for One Striving for Independent Reflection."  In this book he raises the following question: what does Islamic law say about war?  And the basis of his reflection in this case is the Qur'an, of course, and the Prophet's Mohammad tradition, that is the saying and the deeds of the Prophet Mohammad.  These are the two bases of Islamic law.  But he deals also with war in his philosophical work, and the longest passage on war occurs at the beginning of his commentary on Plato's "Republic."  The commentary on Plato's "Republic" is a rational analysis of the virtue city, that is, the city in which the citizens accomplish their human virtues, and by virtues, we have to understand, their perfections.  So the virtue city is a city in which the citizens accomplish their perfections.  

The passage on war is added to Plato, so it's a commentary on Plato but Aveorres adds a whole big long passage on war.  It deals with the rational justification of war.  I will focus on this passage, and begin with a problem Aveorres tries to solve in it.  So, the problem: to bring about virtues in the virtue city, the rulers use demonstrative reasoning, scientific reasoning, only with the elect few, with their colleague philosophers.  But, with the multitude, with the great start of the city, they have to use persuasive reasoning that is, rhetorical reasoning.  Rhetorical reasoning, persuasive reasoning is less difficult than demonstrative reasoning and for this reason is understandable by the multitude.  It is, as one of my colleagues says, it is a kind of relaxed reasoning.  I dealt in several books with this question.  I published several books dealing with Averroes' commentary and on rhetoric.  

But here, let us focus on our problem, so with the multitude, to bring about the virtues in the virtue city the ruler has to use rhetorical reasoning.  But, there is a problem.  To be efficient, rhetoric has to be addressed, according to Averroes, to prepare [unintelligible]: you cannot persuade everybody.  Let us read the text one of our handout.  

This first way of teaching that is, the rhetorical way, will mostly be possible only for whichever of the citizens who grew up with these things from the time of his youth.  So first one has to acquire the virtues without knowing them, and then only a certain knowledge of these virtues may occur, first acquisition and then knowledge by demonstrative reasoning or persuasive reasoning.

Here Averroes' thought is firmly rooted in Aristotelian and Platonician pedagogy.  According to Aristotle in his "Nicomachean Ethics" Book 10, Chapter 9, according to Aristotle, people who are able to become virtuous are only potentially virtuous at the beginning of their life, only potentially virtuous.  It is the duty of the families and the roles of the state to instill in them habits and adequate ideas corresponding to the virtues.  The method for instilling these habits is the following:  First, one has to force the children, constrained, to force the children to repeat the good actions corresponding to virtues by resorting to rewards and chastisements.  This repetition of the actions leads to good habits.  Second, one has, according to Plato, to educate them through music and gymnastics.  By music Plato means imitative speeches, essentially poetical, expressing with melody, ethical precepts.  These speeches aimed to discipline the soul, as for gymnastics, its aim is to discipline the soul and the body.  Once the habits and the right opinions are acquired, the actualization of the virtues is no more painful and difficult.  At the beginning, virtuous actions are painful, but once the youths are forced to repeat these actions, they acquire habits and the actualization of habits became pleasant, and pleasant not because of an external [unintelligible] or because of chastisement where they lead to save us from the chastisements.  No, they are pleasant because of the realization of the habit, itself.  At this stage only, arguments may intervene to explain the definition and the reasons of the virtues.  One has to be somehow virtuous before understanding arguments about virtues.  And once people understand what they are doing, of course, their activity becomes more efficient, more voluntary, and more perfect.

Of course, there is an assumption in all this is that the rulers, who force people to act virtually, the rulers know what are the virtues.  But the consequence is that the foreigners to the excellent city are not prepared since their youth to be inclined to the virtues by rhetorical speeches.  Foreigners to the virtuous city are not able to understand persuasive speeches since they were not educated for that.  So the problem is how to instill virtues in the foreigners to the excellent city in another way than persuasion, since they cannot be persuaded of the good, of the virtues, what is the way to follow with them?

To solve this problem, Averroes deals with two other questions: what to do with people who have an aptitude for something but who are unable to understand persuasive speeches?  And the second question: do the foreigners to the virtue city have an aptitude for virtues?  Let us begin with this last question.

Do the foreigners to the virtue city have an aptitude for virtues?  This question is examined by Averroes on the occasion of a criticism of Plato.  "For Plato," says Averroes, "it seems that only the Greeks are disposed to the virtues."  Disposition is, of course one can say, a non-humanist position.  Not every human being deserves to realize this essence of human being.  Not every human being is able to realize the essence of human being.  Only the Greeks are capable of that.  That is Plato's position, and Averroes criticizes this non-humanist opinion.  

First, even if the Greeks were the most disposed to theoretical wisdom, this wisdom is also well-spread among other people.  By theoretical wisdom, one has to understand knowledge of things not depending of our will.  For example: knowledge of God, metaphysical [unintelligible] or knowledge of the nature.  Even if the Greeks, says Averroes, were the most disposed to theoretical wisdom, this wisdom is also well-spread among other people, for example, Andalusia, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt.  Second, some nations, of course, are more inclined to one kind of virtue than to another.  The Greeks are more inclined, perhaps, to theoretical wisdom but the Kurds and the Jiradica [spelled phonetically], that is the Basques, groso modo, but the Kurds and the Jiradica are more inclined to courage.  So, almost all human beings says Averroes are fit by nature for realizing the human essence.

Text number two: the majority of the kinds of nations have indeed disposed that these virtues be broadcast and apportioned among them.  Averroes' position is not trivial.  It is a position not only to Plato, but also to Aristotle, Avicenna, and Al-Farabi.  All of them think that there are people who are slaves by nature, that is, people who are not able to understand both ends and to reason about means to accomplish them.  Aristotle, Avicenna, Al-Farabi all of them think that not all human beings deserve to be really human beings.  That is not Averroes' position.  

Now that it is established that foreigners are apt to the virtues, it remains to answer to the other question: what to do with people who have an aptitude for something but who are not able to understand persuasive speeches?  The answer to this question is presented by Averroes as a common observation.  "Children," he says, "children, servants, and citizens of the non-virtuous cities have aptitudes but they are unprepared to rhetorical speeches, to persuasive speeches.  The heads of the households and the rulers instill discipline in them through constraint."  So the aptitude of the people, unprepared to understand rhetorical speeches are to be accomplished through constraint.

Text number three: His two ways of teaching the virtues are natural is clear from how the heads of households instill discipline in their children, youth, and servants.  Also, similar to this is the way followed [unintelligible] for those who grow up in cities who are not good.  They castigate their people by means of disgrace, occasionally flogging with rods and execution.  In fact, this is not pure observation.  He presents it as an observation but, in, fact as we saw, this is Aristotle's doctrine in the "Nicomachean Ethics."  Children have to be forced to become somehow virtuous.

So now we have the meaning to solve our initial problem.  I remind you of this problem.  It was how is it possible to lead foreigners to the virtuous city, how is it possible to lead them to virtue given the fact that they are not able to understand persuasive speeches?  So the answer is the following.  Since the aptitudes of the people unprepared to be persuaded are realizable through constraint, since the aptitude to virtue of the foreigners is an aptitude of people unprepared to be persuaded, then the aptitude of the foreigners is realizable through constraint.

Text four: As for the other nations, which are not good and whose conduct is not human, why there is -- the why is atavistic [spelled phonetically] device, but the meaning is as for the other nations which are not good and whose conduct is not human there is no way of teaching them other than this way, namely, to coerce them through war to adopt the virtues.  So Averroes's thesis is, demonstrative thesis for the moment, is that the only just war is a war which by the virtue city against all other nations to lead them to virtues.

What are the main sources of Averroes?  Let us use as a guiding thread what Averroes says about his predecessors in the passage on war of his "Commentary on Plato's Republic."  Plato, according to Averroes, Plato sustains that the excellent city waged war by necessity either to take from other cities their money because of a vital need or to improve its life or to defend itself.  It is a selfish war, mostly defensive.  

If we examine Plato's text, but I don't have time to do it here, and mainly "The Republic," we see that Averroes' interpretation seems accurate.  Plato's opinion is of course -- is rejected by Averroes on the ground of his humanism as we saw.  

Averroes quotes also Aristotle in this passage.  He presents him as one of his indirect sources.  He says, "This is what Aristotle has said about the wars of the virtuous city according to what Abu Nasr Al-Farabi reports."  But, in fact, if we look at the authentic Aristotle, we don't have this doctrine of civilizing war addressed to the whole mankind.  Aristotle doesn't advocate such doctrine.  He writes, for example, in "The Politics," "the proper object of practicing military training is not in order that man may enslave those who do not deserve slavery, but in order that first they may themselves avoid becoming enslaved to others.  Then, so that they may seek sensitivity [spelled phonetically] for the benefit of the subject people, but not for the sake of the world-wide despotism.  And thirdly, to hold despotic power over those who deserve to be slaves."

So, according to Aristotle, there are three kinds of justified war: defensive war, civilizing war, but directed only to some people who are able to become virtuous and, third, war to enslave those who are slaves by nature.  Then, finally, civilizing war is only one kind of just war, according to Aristotle, and it is not aimed towards the whole mankind.  

Aristotle's "Politics" is not Averroes' source, and it couldn't be his source since Aristotle's "Politics" was not translated into Arabic.  But Averroes' source is, perhaps, a letter falsely attributed to Aristotle, a letter to Alexander which was written much later than Aristotle.  In this letter, the author tells Alexander the Great, tells Alexander the Great that now that he has acquired large countries through his armies, it is time to use this acquired thing in the best manner that is to bring felicity to mankind.  Here we have the idea of a civilizing war directed against the whole mankind to civilize human beings, but it's a pure statement, no arguments.

Averroes quotes also Farabi in his passage, and he writes that Al-Farabi is his source concerning the information about Aristotle.  Some works of Farabi are lost so we can only look at the preserved works.  So, in the preserved works, Farabi deals with just war essentially in two texts.  First, in his "Attainment of Happiness."  In this book, Farabi says that there are two methods for the virtuous city to spread virtues in common people, persuasion and constraint.  This doctrine is similar to Averroes' doctrine, but there are differences also.  For example, on one side, Al-Farabi has some statements that seem to be humanist but, on another side, he doesn't have any criticism of the non-humanist opinion.  And in his "Selected Aphorisms," translated by Charles Butterworth, he is, in my view, more clearer.  In his "Selected Aphorisms" he reviews the different types of just war in the virtuous city.  

There are several descriptions of the meaning of this text.  I will give roughly here my very simple interpretation.  So there are several different types of just war: the first one, defensive war; the second one, war to acquire wealth due to the virtuous city; third, civilizing war; and fourth, war against people who are naturally disposed to slavery.

Al-Farabi produced here in this passage a link between war and virtue and he, as you see, had an idea of civilizing war.  But this civilizing war is only one kind of just war, and it is not aimed toward the whole mankind since he admits that there is a lot of kinds of just war whose aim is only to enslave other people.  So Al-Farabi is partially of our sources.  He is a very source for the link between war and pacification, but not for the idea of universal offensive civilizing war.  

More interesting is, I think, the Islamic law that Averroes quotes in his passage on war.  In these lines, he identified somehow the philosophical obligation on war based on rational analysis as we saw to the religious obligation, that is the text number five.  This is a way in which matters are avenged in those laws belonging to this our divine law that proceed like the human laws for the ways in it that lead to God, may he be exalted, are two, one of them is through speech and the other through war.  So here he says that our divine law proceed like the human laws.  By human laws, one has got to understand laws that were not cruel but by laws that are in conformity with the human essence, human essence that could only be understood rationally by philosophers.  So by human laws, one has to understand the rational law, the philosophical law.  So he says that our divine law proceeds -- by our divine law he means the Muslim law command, Mohammed's tradition, our divine law is in conformity with the philosophical law.  And as example he gives the question of persuasion and war, both of them advocate persuasion to convert, advocate to convert other people either by persuasion or by war.

What does our divine law, our Muslim law, say about persuasion and war?  The call of persuasion in the Qur'an is obvious:  625, call to the way of your Lord with wisdom and goodly exaltation, and have disputations with them in the best manner.  This verse is often quoted by the philosopher writing in Arabic [spelled phonetically].  

The universality of the Islamic message is also admitted since the early middle ages by Muslim scholars, by scholars in the Muslim world.  They rely for example on this tradition, this saying of the Prophet Mohammed, "I have been sent," says Mohammed, "to the red and to the black."  By red one has to understand the people with white skin.

But about war, the Qur'an and the prophetical tradition are not so clear.  There is no common doctrine about it in the Qur'an and in the tradition.  Some verses incline to ignore the infidel, completely ignore them.  Others incline to peace; others to convert by persuasion and others, to defensive war and finally others, to offensive war to convert.  For example, verses that seems to incline to offensive war, the famous sword [spelled phonetically] verse, 9:5.  "So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters where ever you find them and take them captives and besiege and lie in wait for them in every ambush.  Then if they repent and keep up [unintelligible] and pay the poor aid [spelled phonetically], leave their way free to them."

These apparently contradictory verses are interpreted in two manner by Muslims.  There is an interpretation that says that in all these cases, it is only defensive war that is meant.  There is another interpretation that says that no, there is also precepts advocating offensive war in the Muslim law, offensive war to give the infidels the opportunity to convert.  But in any case, the Muslim scholar insists that war has to be put under very strict conditions.  One of them being the good intention of the warrior.  The warrior has to wage war in the past for the sake of God, not for personal interests.  The second interpretation, I mean the interpretation that favors offensive war is the one that prevailed in the Middle Ages by the scholars, and it is the one supported by Averroes in his book on law.

So, now we saw that apparently the philosophical law of war and the law on jihad apparently are in harmony.  But that doesn't go without difficulty because Islamic law on jihad is going on revelation, and it concerns the Muslim's theocratic society why the philosophical law of war is grounded on reason and it concerns the excellent, virtuous city built according to rational criteria.  Nevertheless, Averroes claims that there is a harmony between civilizing war and jihad.

What is the solution of this difficulty?  The solution is in the "Decisive Treatise" which is was also translated by Charles Butterworth.  Averroes's "Decisive Treatise," in which Averroes says that the Qur'an uses sometime demonstrative methods, but that more usually the Qur'an uses rhetorical, persuasive methods since it aims to convert the great majority of people.  And the result is that some passage of the Qur'an agree plainly with philosophy, while others disagree apparently.  "In this case," says Averroes, "it is possible to interpret this passage in order to join philosophy."  This passage are somehow symbols of rational truce.  Consequently one could say that the Qur'an verses on jihad, to expand the abode of Islam, are symbols of the war expanding the war to virtuous cities.

So now we have several sources for Averroes's book seven [spelled phonetically]:  Aristotle, for his pedagogy and his theory of rhetoric, not directly for his doctrine of war, So Aristotle and the Islamic law and, of course, Farabi.  How do they relate one to the other?  Averroes himself gives us an answer in a passage in which he deals with the emergence of philosophy, six.  It is possible for individuals to grow up with these natural qualities that we have attributed to them, developing moreover so that to choose a general common [unintelligible] law that not a single nation can have chosen and besides their particular law would not be far from the human laws.  If these conditions are fulfilled, wisdom would have been completed in their time.  This is as matters are in these times of ours and in our law.  

So Averroes says that if we have in some people natural qualities to become philosophers and rulers, natural qualities.  If we add to that the common laws, that is the laws that very simple rules that everybody knows, for example, one has to respect his parents. that is in every society.  If we have natural qualities to become philosophers, if we add to that the common natural law, and we add a third element, particular laws, that is conventional laws deferred [unintelligible] from society to society, particular laws that are near to human laws, that are somehow symbols of human laws, we have wisdom.  I remind you that human laws here are the rational, the philosophical laws.  He adds that by our law, that our law, the Muslim law is such a particular law.  Our law is a law near to human laws, to the philosophical laws.  The nearness of Muslim law to human law, that is the law of the philosophers, allows the emergence of philosophical sort.  

The strengths of Muslim law is that it is not only a symbol expressed in sentences in books, but also it is a constituent of a real society.  It is a thing, a practice symbolizing other things, rational things.  So Muslim's legislation must have been a determinant factor of the education of the philosophers living in the Muslim states.  This applied also to the doctrine of civilizing war.  Without the Muslim law, Averroes wouldn't have been attentive to the elements of the philosophical traditions that he used to build his doctrine on war.  

Finally, Averroes doctrine on war, on war bringing civilization to the whole mankind seems to be a philosophical transformation of the Islamic jihad.  With the help of the works of Al-Farabi, Plato, Aristotle, Averroes confronted by the subject of jihad peculiar to the Islamic civilization and by scattered elements in the philosophical tradition on the question of war, elaborated his doctrine of just war.  

Conclusion:  What is the significance for us of Averroes' doctrine?  The significance of Averroes' doctrine is to show us clearly what are the prerequisites, the grounds of the idea of a war whose aim is to build civilization to mankind.  The prerequisites of this idea are the following:  First, the state should be convinced that it has the knowledge of what is best for human being.  Second, the state should be convinced that all human beings living outside it deserve, also, what is best for them.  Third, the state should be convinced that these human beings are not ready to be persuaded of what is best for them and are, for this reason, similar to children.  

The consequence following from this premises is a duty to wage universal civilizing war.  The only way to avoid this consequence seems to question the premises.  I think that it is difficult nowadays to question the second premise, namely, that all human beings deserve to accomplish what is best for them.  But the two other premises are not so evident.  Is any state able to know what is best for other people?  And are foreign people so devoid of culture that they are not able, in the long run, to be persuaded.  Finally, one could disagree with Averroes' conclusion, but we have to be thankful to him for having showed us, perhaps for the first time in human history, the basis of a rigorous analysis of the rationality of civilizing war.

Thank you very much.

[Applause]

Carolyn Brown:
Dr. Aaoud will accept questions.

Female Speaker:
I wanted to ask you, in his virtuous city, the virtues are specific in the case of the virtuous city.  The virtues are specific virtues.  Why in the case of Averroes is not so much specific virtues as it is elite system?  Isn't that qualitatively different?  

Maroun Aouad:
Of course.  For Averroes theoretical wisdom is the most important virtue but it cannot be reached plainly by average citizens.  It can only be reached plainly by the philosophers who rule the city.  And there are other virtues that are, perhaps, more important as courage and [unintelligible] but they are linked to.  One cannot be perfectly courageous nor be perfectly wise.  So, at every stage of the society, people are able to reach to some degree the whole system of virtues.  Even common people have some theoretical needs.  They want to know who was at the origin of the work?  What is the destiny of our soul?  Everybody wants to know that but everybody will not know it with demonstrative arguments.  But everybody has to know it and everybody will reach the perfection possible for him.  

And, of course, you are right.  The rulers who are capable of perfect wisdom will know all the virtues perfectly and the most important virtue, which is theoretical wisdom, more perfectly, also more -- better than people.  So it's a system of virtues directed by theoretical wisdom and everybody is capable to understand somehow this system of virtue but at his level with his needs.

Female Speaker:
If I understood correctly, there's both a stream of philosophical thinking and a stream of rhetorical arguments for understanding.

Maroun Aoud:
Yes.

Female Speaker:
Are both of those streams still alive and well in today's discussions from the Muslim world?

Maroun Aoud:
I don't think that, in the immediate period as today, I don't think that every scholar will divide knowledge in this manner.  Because usual understanding of the Muslim scholar that everybody is able to reach truth.  For Averroes and the philosophers, there is really a division in the society between the class.  People are only able to understand rhetorical reasonings, and people, the elect, who are only able to understand the most active reasoning.  This is a division which cannot be changed.  I don't think that, in general, that Muslim scholar, I mean by that, scholars of the Book, the Qur'an, will so easily admit this division, either today or in the medieval period.

But in any case, I would insist on this point, that rhetorical passages arguments are not so rigorous as demonstrative arguments but they are, nevertheless, rational arguments, insist that they are not empathetic arguments grounded on passions.  No.  Rational arguments but simplified arguments.

So that's my answer.  Philosophy is not important, not a very important factor in Muslim society but perhaps in every society as of today or in the Middle Ages.

Female Speaker:
Thank you very much for most stimulating but extremely complicated arguments, and I'm totally outside of your field so my question is very na•ve.  What I understood is on one hand, the virtue is the key factor, which is not linked to ethnicity or a nation and all the other violent forms of nationalism or ethnic movements are often tied to not something that you educate, but to your blood and where you're born and all of that.  So the emphasis on virtue on one hand is very tolerant as long as you can educate them.  On the other hand, what I didn't quite understand is is only a particular set of virtues that are allowed, and therefore the enormously tolerant way of emphasizing virtue as the key factor is somewhat juxtaposed with another, which is to say that a particular set of virtues are universal rather than allowing another type of virtue.  Is that a --

Maroun Aoud:
Yeah.  But he was not trying -- he saw that the virtues were one that were developed by Aristotle and Plato, and he thought this was universal.  There are no other virtues of wisdom, courage, temperate [spelled phonetically] motivation.  He thought that this is universal virtue and this is a virtue one has to expand -- has to bring all mankind to these virtues even, as I said, with constraint.  But, of course, he had not the idea of other possible virtues, but he is a son of his time.

Dr. Brown?

[Clear]

Carolyn Brown:
Yes, I'm trying to better understand the context.  If he was writing and arguing in the context of Plato and the Greek philosophers, did he look at the Qur'an or where is the Muslim part of the argument?  Or the Qur'an or -- what would have been Qur'anic philosophy at that point?  How does that fit?

Maroun Aouad:
He made his analyses by grounding his reasoning on, of course, Greek philosophers but going further because, as we saw by the Greek philosophers, the idea of universality is not there.  So he brought this new idea, war, civilizing war, has to be waged to all the foreigners to the virtue city, every human being because every human being deserves to be a human being.  That's the new point he brought relatively to the Greek tradition with the exception of this letter to Alexander, but which is given without arguments.  So that's the novelty.

Now, he says on the other side that this idea, one finds it in the Qur'an, as he says, because he interprets the Qur'an advocating jihad, war, to convert every human beings.  The problem is, as I said, that in the Qur'an there is, of course, this universal, in any case, [unintelligible] interpretation of the Qur'an, the universalism of war.  But the Qur'an doesn't give the reasons of this universal doctrine and second, the Qur'an advocates war to expand the Muslim theocracy and how do these two things connect?  And he gives the answer.  

The answer is that the Qur'an for him is a symbol of the truth.  The Qur'an is only a symbol; it's a symbol of the truth and this symbol of the truth is an image of the philosophical analyses, it's a kind of image.  And not only he gives a solution, but he gives also the way to understand how he arrived to this solution.  And it is that, as he says, if a person lives in a Muslim society he may have qualities to become a philosopher, natural qualities, he will, of course, know the natural law, but since he lives in a society whose law, Muslim law, is an image of truth, he will be able to reflect on this image and to attain the truth of law.  So Muslim society, the Muslim law brought him to understand the truth of law which is not absolutely similar to the Muslim law but which is the model of the Muslim law.  He arrived to that by reflecting on the Muslim law, and by paying attention to the Greek tradition.  So it's complex.  It's complex.  I think it's somehow profound.

[laughter]

Male Speaker:
[Inaudible] ...one statement.  Truth does not contradict truth in the "Decisive Treatise."  Are you going to say that...

Maroun Aouad:
Yeah but I didn't say that.  No, there is no contradiction.  The Qur'an is a symbol, an image.  The truth is in the philosophical, it's only a philosophical truth, and when the Qur'an, as he says in the "Decisive Treatise," when the symbol seems to contradict the philosophical truth, you have to interpret the symbol, not in the direction of the symbol, but in the direction of the philosophical truth.

Male Speaker:
Very quickly.  You have a beautiful passage, your last statement, your last number six, and you dropped the last sentence from it when you presented it to us.  Is there a reason for that?

Maroun Aouad:
No, it's only because it's not the point.  The point is what is it the emergence, how philosophy could emerge.  The point for me today was not to see how the virtue city may emerge, what I wrote about these lines many things.

Male Speaker:
[Inaudible].  ...the use of war for civilization.  Has he considered the Qur'anic teaching of love, at all, how it comes in to play?  Love, L-O-V-E.  Yes, because I think the Qur'an also believes that God is love, I believe.  If that's what it is, then how is it that in order to civilize people, war is such necessary and more important than love, itself?  


Maroun Aouad:
[Inaudible]...solidarity and democracy [spelled phonetically], everything [inaudible].  The interest of the other citizens.  [inaudible]   Then there is somehow, solidarity.  For other people, they cannot understand that.  They cannot understand that you have to explain to them, actually [inaudible] but they cannot understand.  [inaudible] They are like children, able to understand that, [inaudible] ...to have behavior that resembles solidarity.  So you force foreign people to behave according to the [inaudible] by doing acts.  [inaudible] and one day and when they do biggest act, they acquire habits doing these tasks and when they acquire these habits, then they will be able to understand, to discuss the Qur'an [inaudible] in an authoritative way but to understand the argument of love, they have first to practice love and this practice cannot be happy without constraint.  [inaudible].

Male Speaker:
The question that follows is whether these missions of civilization by way of force, those who are thinking about this, whether they, themselves, have been forced to learn forcefully to be civilized the way they are or are they imposing their own philosophy on people the way they want to direct their lives?

Maroon Aouad:
[Inaudible] That was a common pedagogy at this period.  But what I want to stress, give me this possibilities, is that I would like you to think about his analyses as something useful not only to understand the Muslim wars, but every civilizing war, and every civilizing war has to do with this premises, every civilizing war.
	
Please understand me but [unintelligible] 

Female Speaker:
That leads into my kind of question or comment which, of course, is that the three principles that you outlined at the end of your talk sounded to me like the standard operating procedures for the Roman Empire, and living in Spain as he did, I wonder to what extent, I mean, the philosophical components would not have been developed as much by kind of Roman thinkers but also I was wondering if there was any kind of influence or any connection there because the Romans also seemed to have this universalizing claim advanced through war and then with coercive elements to persuade the people to adopt Romanitas.  

And then also just picking up on the other question:  Obviously there's a lot of historical evidence available at the time that civilizing warfare didn't lead to virtue, it led to rebellion.  And so is there ever a kind of historical moment where he tries to explain the failure of certain types of civilizing war or is this kind of, again, purely philosophical where you're going to assume through Aristotelian pedagogy that coercion leads to virtue and not reexamine that, you know, historically doubtful premise at all?  You know, historically doubtful premise at all.


Maroun Aoud:
About the Roman Empire, he doesn't reflect directly on the Roman Empire.  He was interested, as usually philosophers were interested by Greeks, by Greece and by their society.  But it is possible that his "Doctrine" has a stoic origin.  The stoics had the idea of universal state but it was a very complicated idea.  It was a new topic.  You are classicist?  

Yeah, so the stoic ideology, I remind you that an emperor was a stoic philosopher, that is not Qur'an [spelled phonetically], Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius.  So the stoics thought was, of course, the idea of a universal state, utopian reality, and brought in a sense by what?  And I quoted the letter, the falsely attributed letter to Aristotle, which praises Alexander for having conquered the world, and it says to him now it is time to civilize the world.  So this letter written after Cristos [spelled phonetically] was probably written in a Roman milieu, and through this way Averroes could be influenced by the Roman Empire.  

Your second question, an interesting one which --

Female Speaker:
[inaudible]...leading to rebellion as opposed to...

Maroun Aouad:
Yeah, the [inaudible] of civilizing war.  He has in his "Commentary on Nicomachean Ethics."  The "Nicomachaen Ethics" is a famous book on ethics written by Aristotle.  In his "Commentary on Nicomachean Ethics," when dealing with equity, he says something about the jihad.  He says that -- I remind you of the problem.  The problem of equity is of following that laws are general, written laws, unwritten laws, in any case laws are general and they cannot succeed in every case.  Some exceptions to laws and its equity, it is a duty of equity to correct laws or to complement laws by resorting to the intention of the legislator.  Not to take laws in their statements but resorting to the intention of the legislator and to correct them.  That is the problem of equity, and he gives as example the law of jihad in Islam.  

He says the law of jihad in Islam tells us that we have to wage war to every foreign nations.  But he says in some circumstances, this law, it is our duty not to apply this law.  Why?  Because one of the circumstances, if the risk is to lose, if we are not sure to be able to expand civilization, we don't have to apply this law.  We have to suspend it.  So again, in this philosophical way, he is an abstract philosopher.  He is a philosopher.  He will not speak.  He has some illusions, he has some lies about concrete situations, but he always tries to reflect his experience in an abstract manner because as philosophers, and this was by very conscious by Farabi, by Averroes, and all the Muslim philosophers, they say that our duty as philosophers is to speak to all nations and not only to the Muslim nations.   Yes?

Female Speaker:
Who were they writing for?

Maroun Aouad:
That's a question not really solved.  First of all, there was somehow a kind of caste of philosophers.  They named themselves Philosipha [spelled phonetically].  The Philosipha, one meant philosophers in the Aristotelian tradition.  So there were some people who were interested in the Greek tradition and they read their books and discussed between themselves.  So this was a small caste.  But they were read also by their enemies, the theologians, because the theologians tried also to bring reason in the discussion, but it was reason to defend the revealed text.  There are famous texts, against the philosophers, by great theologians, Al-Ghazali.  But the question becomes more interesting if we see if they have influence outside this circuit [spelled phonetically].  We have some hints but one has to do the work; it's not really done.

For example, let us take our Averroes example.  He was very near to the caliph, the Almohad caliph.  The Almohad caliph was at the head of a fundamentalist movement, somehow like Bin Laden's movement.  

[Laughter]

But he was -- when Almohad came to power, they killed everyone, even the children of the former dynasty.  They killed everybody whom they suspected to have deviated from Islam.  It was a very hard movement.  

And we have the famous story of his first encounter with a caliph.  He was brought to the caliph by the physician of the court, Ibn Tufail, and there the caliph asked Averroes about the creation of the world and about metaphysical questions.  Averroes was afraid.  He thought he is asking me these questions because he suspects that I am a philosopher and he will condemn me.  But the caliph, to put him at ease, explained to him what is in Aristotle's text about this question.  And so Averroes noticed that the caliph was, somehow, very learned in Greek metaphysics.  That's one anecdote.  That's not solved the problem but it's revealed.  The other fact is that sometime after that, Ibn Tufail told Averroes that the caliph would like to have commentaries on Aristotle, and that was what encouraged Averroes to do these commentaries.

So the answer to your question is that the caliphs may have been, some caliphs, some rulers, may have been very interested in rational thought, but they saw, probably, that for common people religion has to be maintained.  Philosophy is only to be discussed among learned, very learned people and it is completely in harmony with Averroes' doctrine, doctrine Averroes thought the demonstrative reasoning, philosophy is reserved to some people and if somebody reveals to common people this demonstrative argument, he has to be put to death.  That's what Averroes said because he thinks that if you will bring philosophy to common people, they will not understand it, they will lose their norms and it will be dangerous for them.  So one can imagine that many rulers were in the same mood.  

One of my colleagues used to say that Averroes was, in fact, the great ideologue of the Almohad regime which is very amazing so he compared him, I think, to Marx, to the Communist regime.  Perhaps so -- Almohad rulers at this time were thinking, like Averroes, that rational thinking has to be discussed among the ruler classes to prepare the city, but this rational thinking is not to be explained to the masses.  The masses are only able to understand the Qur'an in its [unintelligible].  

Male Speaker:
What parallels or distinctions do you see between what Averroes was doing and St. Thomas Aquinas with Christianity and reason and Aristotle?

Maroun Aouad:
As you know, I will not -- It's a great question but the important, as you know, Averroes was one of the main sources of Thomas of Aquina.  Thomas of Aquina knew Aristotle at the first stage through Averroes' "Commentaries," only after that through translation from Greek.  I think that -- to say something very, very quickly, I think that Averroes is a radical rationalist.  He's also, he's absolutely -- reason is above faith.  If faith contradicts reason you have to reject faith in favor of reason.  Of course you have not, as I say, to reveal this point to common people but that's the main point.

For Thomas of Aquina there is, nevertheless, reason, as our Pope says, philosophy is a way to understand the reasons of faith, but philosophy will never understand all the reasons of faith.

Averroes is more radical.  He thinks that reason, and particularly Aristotle, could understand, somehow, all the principles of the Universe.

Is that an answer your question?  

Female Speaker:
I get the sense that when you said this is all about civilizing wars in general you might have something to say about more current wars and maybe that this has a form for certain American wars.  I was thinking that it doesn't pertain the same way to Iraq as it might to Serbia because of the issue of trying to convince or persuade a country or something like that.  But I was wondering if you wanted to say anything about that.

[laughter]

Maroun Aouad:
No.

[laughter]

Yeah, but I think that a historian of philosophy might do, needless to say, what I say but not to go any further.  We can discuss this and rest a while. 

Carolyn Brown:
Well, I think at this point we should thank Dr. Aouad who clearly has been provoking us in new ways with that last devilish question.  But thank you for an excellent lecture and we can continue informal conversations at the reception at the back.

Thank you.

[applause]

Female Speaker:
This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.  Visit us at LOC.gov.

[End of transcription]