Editing Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas (section)

==Islam and metaphysics==
Al-Attas maintains that modern science sees things as mere things and that it has reduced the study of the phenomenal world to an end in itself. Certainly, this has brought material benefits, however, it is accompanied by an uncontrollable and insatiable propensity to destroy nature itself. Al-Attas maintains a firm critique that studying and using nature without a higher spiritual end has brought mankind to the state of thinking that men are gods or co-partners. ''"Devoid of real purpose, the pursuit of knowledge becomes a deviation from the truth, which necessarily puts into question the validity of such knowledge."'' [Islam and Secularism, p.&nbsp;36]

Al-Attas views Western civilisation as constantly changing and 'becoming' without ever achieving 'being'. He analyses that many institutions and nations are influenced by this spirit of the West and they continually revise and change their basic developmental goals and educational objectives to follow the trends from the West. He points to Islamic metaphysics which shows that Reality is composed of both permanence and change; the underlying permanent aspects of the external world are perpetually changing [Islam and Secularism, p.&nbsp;82]

For al-Attas, [[Islamic metaphysics]] is a unified system that discloses the ultimate nature of Reality in positive terms, integrating reason and experience with other higher orders in the suprarational and trans-empirical levels of human consciousness. He sees this from the perspective of philosophical Sufism. Al-Attas also says that the Essentialist and the Existentialist schools of the Islamic tradition address the nature of reality. The first is represented by philosophers and theologians, and the latter by Sufis. The Essentialists cling to the principle of ''mahiyyah'' (quiddity), whereas the Existentialists are rooted in ''wujud'' (the fundamental reality of existence) which is direct intuitive experience, not merely based on rational analysis or discursive reasoning. This has undoubtedly led philosophical and scientific speculations to be preoccupied with things and their essences at the expense of existence itself, thereby making the study of nature an end in itself. Al-Attas maintains that in the extra-mental reality, it is ''wujud'' (Existence) that is the real "essences" of things and that what is conceptually posited as mahiyyah ("essences" or "quiddities") are in reality accidents of existence.

The process of creation or bringing into existence and annihilation or returning to non-existence, and recreation of similars is a dynamic existential movement. There is a principle of unity and a principle of diversity in creation. ''"The multiplicity of existents that results is not in the one reality of existence, but in the manifold aspects of the recipients of existence in the various degrees, each according to its strength or weakness, perfection or imperfection, and priority or posteriority. Thus the multiplicity of existents does not impair the unity of existence, for each existent is a mode of existence and does not have a separate [[ontological]] status"''.{{Citation needed|date=March 2010}} He clarifies that the Essence of God is transcendent and is unknown and unknowable, except to Himself, whereas the essence or reality of a thing consists of a mode of existence providing the permanent aspect of the thing, and its quiddity, endowing it with its changing qualities.