The early Malay figures` understanding of causality with special reference to the views of Hamzah Fansuri, Abd al-Ra`uf al-Sinkili, Shams al-Din al-Samatra`i and Nur al-Din al-Raniri

Abstract

This dissertation traces the early Malay figures understanding of causality. This is qualitative research with using descriptive, historical and hermeneutic methods. Philosophical mysticism approach is using for the content analysis. In this study, we find that the principle of causality is based on the internal/metaphysical experiment and not on the empirical/physical experiment. The principle of causality covers all forms of existence and includes all beings in the universe. From here, the problem of causality and the division of being as cause and effect become the essential problem in the thoughts of philosophical mysticism. The concept of wujdiyyah is the main teaching of Hamzah Fansuri and other Malay figures and from this, their concept of causality can be understood. All of the Malay figures have similar points of view on causality. They are in agreement with the concept of tajall based on the thought of Ibn `Arab?. All of them also agree that Allah is the ultimate cause and is the only existence while the world is merely a shadow or the effect of that existence. For them, there is a natural law but that law is not just in the physical or empirical realm of phenomena, but also resides in the metaphysical realm of ultimate reality and from the tajall of this realm the physical can exist. They are all in agreement that each world has different laws and different nature.