Last year I wrote a series of blogs about Islam, the Qur'an and rationality. Like others who have discussed faith & reason in recent times, I too was motivated by the desire to address a popular fallacy: that religion, or religious belief, is irrational. It wasn't the only reason why I felt to write about these matters, but it was a…
Was the Universe Expecting Us?
Freeman Dyson, one of the world's foremost theoretical physicists, wrote: 'The more I exam the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense knew we were coming,’1 Today scientists don't hesitate to acknowledge this wondrous fact of how tailor-made to life our universe is.…
How the Qur’an Justifies Itself
In a previous posting about Islam's rational monotheism (which can be read here), we saw how the Qur'an utilises a rationalist discourse to substantiate some of its main theological doctrines. As for how the Qur’an vindicates itself and rationalises its claim of truly being the Word of God, it deploys the following line of argument: ♦ Firstly,…
Islam’s Rational Monotheism in a Nutshell
Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad explains: ‘In the Western milieu, converts to Islam claim that they are attracted to what they regard as its clear, rationally-accessible teachings, unobscured by elaborate mysteries. It is not only insiders who wish to take this view. Non-Muslim academic accounts ... now frequently draw attention to the central role of reason…
Reason, Revelation, Religion: How Do They Fit Together?
The Qur’an undoubtedly requires human beings to accept the authority of religion for whatever lies beyond the scope of reason or ‘aql. It never demands that he accept what is against reason. ‘The messengers,' said Ibn Taymiyyah, 'came with knowledge that reason is incapable of attaining to: never did they come with what reason deems…