Through Force or Faith? — Page 222
?— A Reply to Pope Benedict XVI 222 Quran tells us, about those who were punished by God, that َو اْوُلاَق ْوَل اَّنُك ُعَمْسَن ْوَا ُلِقْعَن اَم اَّنُك ْۤيِف ِبٰحْصَا ِرْيِعَّسلا And they will say, ‘If we had but listened or possessed sense, we should not have been among the inmates of the blazing Fire’ ( S u rah al-Mulk, 67:11). In the presence of this seminal teaching, for someone to claim that the God of Islam can do something irrational, such a claim is quite irrational in itself. Islamic precepts are so reasonable and logical that Professor Leaman, who is a renowned scholar of Islamic, Jewish, and Eastern disciplines, writes with reference to the relationship between Islam and logic: I do not know if it is ever useful to rank religions with respect to rationality, but were this to be done, there is lit- tle doubt that Islam would score highly. (Prof. Leaman, A Brief Introduction to Islamic Philosophy, 2001, p. 15) Can Something Irrational be Ascribed to God? The question arises whether, from Islam’s perspective, God can give commands contrary to logic, or can irrational acts be attrib- uted to God. In this regard, Holy Quran tells us that God is capa- ble of carrying out all His intentions. َّنِا َهّٰللا ىٰلَع ِّلُك ٍءْيَش ٌرْيِدَق