Is Taqlīd anti-intellectual? - A debate on the value of tradition

When we reason, when we think and formulate our thoughts we might think we are free and autonomous, in the sense that we come to our own conclusions without someone else telling us what we should think. But is this really the case? We might like to tell ourselves that we are independent, but we should recognize that we are shaped by our surroundings, or to put it slightly less strongly, at the minimum we are influenced by it most of the time. It creates assumptions that are taken for granted, it pushes us around and introduces us to new ideas. Our background, for example our cultural background, could prevent us from even entertaining certain ideas in all seriousness and it is hard to step outside of this social cultural conditioning completely. But at least it is clear that we make attempts, or set the ideal, of looking at things objectively and with fresh eyes, so as to best come to truth and the understanding of reality as it is. I at least tend to associate the endeavor of intellectual thinking with these goals.

But then there are also schools of thought that do - and advocate - the opposite. They adhere to tradition and ground themselves in it. They see it as a stable base from which to encounter the world. The outset of reason often leads to change and the ones who oppose reason do so for they do not welcome change. They believe the stability and continuity of tradition is what we need. In the Islamic tradition this is called Taqlīd. Doing Taqlīd makes you a Muqallid and it means you're letting yourself be led by tradition and is a form of imitation. You are bound by it. This sets you in certain directions and limits your scope and sight, but might offer clarity and stability.

The way I set it out it seems to be that taqlid is by its nature anti-intellectual. But we can question whether this is actually the case and as hinted at in the beginning of this short essay, whether it only applies to religion, or that its dynamics can be found everywhere, whether consciously adhered to or not. Are we ever free from the forces of taqlid? And to what degree does it inhibit intellectual thinking?

To start to get closer to answering these questions we should ask what it means to think intellectually. One way to approach this is by identifying certain traits or attitudes that influence our thinking in such a way that we can start to call it intellectual thinking. Intellectual thinking seems to be associated with being critical, with being logical, with coming to new and greater truths. This last point is probably the goal of intellectual thinking; it is seen as an approach to find knowledge; which is Truth. A relatively modern field of epistemology looks at those ‘traits’ in order to help us find the best way to come to this knowledge; virtue epistemology. It recognizes that the path to knowledge always goes through us; we cannot filter ourselves away and so it makes sense to look at the people who (want to) come to know and to figure out what kind of person is the most successful in coming to knowledge. They identify the traits they recognize and call them intellectual virtues. Examples are: reliable faculties, open-mindedness - which helps to entertain and explore new possibilities -, intellectual courage - which is the courage to explore new and possibly strange, conflicting or even frightening ideas -, as well as intellectual autonomy according to Battaly (Battaly 2008). She identifies virtuous thinkers as reliable truth producers.

Following this virtue epistemological approach to intellectual thinking it seems to be clear that in more than one aspect it differentiates from Taqlid; it seems to be the deliberate attempt at reaching the opposite kind of attitude. From this point of view the conclusion that taqlid is anti-intellectual seems to be easily and justifiably drawn. On the other hand however, the traditionalists that adhere to taqlid might argue that in their worldview there is no need to come to knowledge through these virtues. True insight into reality needs not to be found, it is already given to us in the form of prophetic revelations by God and the tradition safeguarded them and transmitted them to us. So following the tradition that traces itself back to the Prophet, may he be blessed, and explains it to us is actually the best way to come to knowledge. The virtues of open-mindedness and the like will not help with that project and might in fact do the opposite where they confuse us and let us stray away from the path of the Prophet. In their eyes it might not only be unnecessary but also dangerous.

Yet it is not always clear what taqlid is or what it refers to. It is sometimes used by people in the Islamic tradition who embrace it as they see it as something good, while others in this diverse tradition use it to criticize others. And sometimes even groups accuse each other of practicing taqlid while denying that they themselves do it; some say strict adherence to sunna, which is the example of the prophet, is taqlid, but in turning away from sunna they just focus on the Quran, as they don’t want to blindly follow the tradition and instead want to think and interpret for themselves but in that they shut everything other than the Quran off and so they get themselves in another limited worldview which in some ways is even more closed, which gets them in a nice circular motion back into doing taqlid.

So can we ever be free from taqlid? If we understand taqlid in the broad sense of referring to thinking imprisoned and limited by tradition, by beliefs and prejudices we can understand how it might be extremely difficult to ever free ourselves from it and the answer to whether we think we should strive to do so or not might be different for everyone. If you embody a traditionalist worldview, which might even be a strict scientific one if you ask me, the answer might be that we should not, or only to a certain degree and if you happen to have been maneuvered into one that is more in line with the virtue epistemological thinking you will probably argue that we should strive to free ourselves from taqlid and develop the opposite virtues. So we can see how the answer to the question whether taqlid is something bad or not probably depends on your own taqlid.

Source: Battaly, Heather. “Virtue Epistemology.” Philosophy Compass 3, no. 4 (2008): 639–63. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00146.x.