Al-Attas as a Public Intellectual and Cultural Critic
Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas is a Malaysian philosopher who has worked as both a public intellectual and a cultural critic. Al-Attas puts forward the concept of questioning Western ideologies such as secularism. He argues that the cultural imperialism of the West was primarily achieved through language, noting that Western secular concepts infiltrated the Islamic worldview by altering the semantics of foundational Arabic and Islamic terms. To him, civilizational decline begins with this linguistic confusion. To counter this, al-Attas states that true education cannot be acquired without discipline (adab).
Al-Attas argues that proper education includes knowledge about the Almighty and knowing the position and hierarchy of humans in the world. Discipline (adab) can be considered the master idea that strengthens al-Attas's ideologies on knowledge and education. He asserts that discipline helps us to understand the hierarchy of knowledge, meaning that adab is far better than mere methodology.
Because of a lack of value in education, Muslim societies face many political and social problems. Al-Attas maps out a specific chain of civilizational decay: a confusion of knowledge leads directly to a loss of adab, which in turn results in the rise of false leaders. Consequently, undeserving individuals are gaining authority throughout the world. In an interview with Hamza Yusuf, al-Attas stated that this loss of adab is the main reason for the contemporary problems currently faced by Muslim societies. To address this, al-Attas introduced a curriculum in which education is acquired by including basic Islamic elements such as tawhid (the unity of God), justice, and knowledge.
Al-Attas argues that severe Westernization destroys Muslims, as the epistemological dependency on the West regarding knowledge forces Muslims to look at the world through Western ideologies. He makes Muslims aware of the cultural imperialism that the West has spread throughout the world. The remedy al-Attas introduced for these problems is the Islamization of knowledge. However, he distinctly argues that one cannot simply add Islamic elements to modern sciences. First, knowledge must be "dewesternized"—meaning it must be stripped of its secular, humanistic, and dualistic Western philosophical foundations—before it can be properly Islamized.
Al-Attas did not fully oppose all Western ideologies, but he urged Muslims to acquire intellectual clarity. He proposes eradicating an epistemology containing assumptions and rumors, and returning our thoughts to basic Islamic principles such as revelation and yaqin (certainty). Ultimately, he introduced an education system which includes metaphysics and moral discipline.
Why Al-Attas is Considered a Public Intellectual
Unlike other philosophers whose works remain strictly within academic philosophy in a scholarly manner, al-Attas's works address the public and actively engage with the broader cultural and educational problems of Muslim societies. Through his works, Islam and Secularism and The Concept of Education in Islam, al-Attas critiques secular worldviews and argues for the implementation of the Islamization of knowledge. He built institutions for implementing his ideologies, such as the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation (ISTAC).
Al-Attas did not write solely for a narrow audience; he actively interacted with Western philosophy and contributed to discussions on educational reform, language, culture, and the identity of Muslim societies. Unlike other intellectuals whose works were purely academic, al-Attas's works had practical implementations. He is considered a public intellectual due to his direct engagement with the large-scale societal and political issues within Muslim societies.
Ideologies Criticized by al-Attas
Al-Attas primarily criticized the ideology of Western secularism. He argues that secularism separates religion from knowledge, ethics, and moral discipline, treating reality as purely material. He states that most of the problems faced by Muslim societies stem from confusion regarding truth and Islamic elements. This confusion is caused by secularism affecting core concepts such as religion (din), knowledge (ilm), and ethics/discipline (adab).