Through Force or Faith? — Page 233
Chapter 5 — Faith and Reason: Islamic Perspective 233 the world today. He has attributed the view of this extinct school of thought to the entire Islamic world and attempted to create the impression as if Islam is a religion counter to reason. The Pope has very unfairly ignored the rationalist school of thought of Muslims all together. He has not mentioned the great philosophers, saints, religious scholars, and hermits, the likes of such renowned ‘ration- alist’ thinkers as Avicenna (Ibn Sīn ā ), Averroes (ibn Rushd), Imam R ā zī, Imam Zamkhshar i , Ibn Khuldūn, etc. , the works of whom were used for centuries in the curriculum of logic and philosophy in Christian European universities. As far as Islam is concerned, rational recourse is an important principle of the Holy Quran, implementation of which is oblig- atory for every Muslim. Additionally, man is exhorted to use his God-given gift of mind and reason. God presents Himself as an example that all His actions are in accord with wisdom, reason, and justice. It is forbidden to attribute any irrational act to God, and the Holy Quran considers such a thing extremely abhorrent ( Banī Isr ā ’īl, 17:91–96). In these verses, the infidels of Makkah place unreasonable demands on the Holy Prophet s as. In response to this, God the Almighty instructs the Holy Prophet s as to tell those infidels, ‘Sub hā na Rabbī’, that is, ‘say, my God is Holy, and He is above and beyond such absurd things’. Therefore, in the light of these verses, it becomes quite evident that the Quran declares God Almighty to be free from anything which is irrational or absurd. These verses also repudiate all such statements which dare to say that, according to Islam, irrationality can be attributed to God. We seek God’s refuge from this kind of thinking.