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Reliance of Traveler |
Arabic |
Arabic Translation Word for Word |
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a4.2 As for the basic
obligation of Islam, and what relates to tenets of faith, it is
adequate for one to believe in everything brought by the Messenger of
Allah (Allah bless him and give: him peace) and to credit it with absolute conviction free of any doubt. Whoever does
this is not obliged to learn the evidences of the scholastic theologians.
The Prophet (
Rather, what befits the common
people and vast majority of those learning or possessing Sacred Knowledge is
to refrain from discussing the subtleties of scholastic theology, lest
corruption difficult to eliminate find its
way into their basic religious convictions.
Rather, it is fitter for them to confine themselves to contentment with
the above-mentioned absolute
certainty.
Our Imam Shafi'i ( lengths in asserting that engaging
in scholastic theology is forbidden. (A: What he meant thereby was the heretical scholastic
theology that proliferated in his time and put rationalistic theories
ahead of the Koran and sunna, not the science of theology ('ilm
al-tawhid) by which Ash'ari and Maturidi scholars (dis: x47) have clarified
and detailed the tenets of faith of Sunni Islam, which is an important part
of the Islamic sciences.) He insistently emphasized its unlawfulness, the
severity of the punishment awaiting those who engage in it, the disgrace of
doing it, and the enormity of the sin therein by saying, "For a servant
to meet Allah with any other sin than idolatry (shirk) is better than to meet
Him guilty of anything of scholastic theology."
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a4.2 As for the fundamental obligation of Islam and
matters pertaining to beliefs, it suffices to believe in everything
brought by the Messenger of Allah (Allah’s prayer and peace upon him) and to hold it with firm conviction, free from all doubt. It is not incumbent upon one who attains
this to learn the arguments of the theologians [...] for the Prophet (Allah’s prayer and peace upon him) did not require anything from anyone
beyond what we have mentioned, nor did the Rightly Guided Caliphs or any of
the Companions or those who followed them in the early generations. Indeed,
the correct course for the common people and the majority of those seeking
knowledge and jurisprudence is to refrain from delving into the intricacies
of theological discourse, lest a flaw creep into their beliefs that would be
difficult for them to rectify. Rather, the correct course for them is
We are limiting ourselves to what we have mentioned regarding the sufficiency
of firm belief. This statement has been explicitly made by groups of our
eminent scholars and others.
Our Imam al-Shafi'i, |
a4.2
holds the reason little to no critical thinking skills have been applied to shariah.
The wording of shariah here, makes it a “basic obligation of Islam, and what
relates to tenets of faith, it is adequate for one to believe in
everything brought by the Messenger of Allah and to credit it with absolute conviction free of any doubt.” This comes
from Qur’an 5:101,
O you who have believed, do not ask
about things which, if they were revealed to you, it would be harmful to you. …
Why is Critical Thinking Important?
This brings us to the perfect time
to discuss the meaning of critical thinking. Richard Paul and Linda Elder wrote
in their book Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your
Professional and Personal Life, (2002), that a person who uses critical
thinking must become a critic of his/her own thinking. Meaning that a person
must improve his/her ability to practice the art of skilled thinking (p. 13),
and this adds a second level of thinking (p. 14).
Basically, “strong-sense critical
thinkers are not easily tricked by slick” wording.[1]
William Graham Sumner understood this.
He wrote, they “cannot be stampeded … are slow to believe … can hold things as
possible or probable in all degrees, without certainty and without pain … can
wait for evidence … can resist appeals to their dearest prejudices.”[2]
Critical thinkers strive to develop essential traits that create a disciplined mind. For this reason critical thinkers develop the following essential traits:
·
Intellectual Courage
·
Intellectual Humility
·
Intellectual Empathy
·
Intellectual Autonomy
·
Intellectual Integrity
·
Intellectual Sense of Justice
·
Intellectual Perseverance
·
Intellectual Fair-mindedness
· Intellectual Confidence in Reason
When Islam through the Qur’an or
shariah gives direction to not ask questions, it suppresses intellectual
courage. “Intellectual courage may be defined as having consciousness of
the need to face and fairly address ideas, beliefs, or viewpoints toward which
one has strong negative emotions and to which one has not given a
serious hearing. Intellectual courage is connected to the recognition that
ideas that society considers dangerous or absurd are sometimes rationally
justified (in whole or part). Conclusions and beliefs <created within>
people are sometimes false or misleading. To determine what for
oneself what makes sense, one must not passively and uncritically accept what
one has learned.”[3] Islam
is teaching the opposite of intellectual courage by teaching not to ask
questions. It teaches intellectual cowardice.
Islam through the shariah and the
Qur’an depends on the inability of one’s intellectual humility to detect bias
in her/her own judgement. “Intellectual humility may be defined as
having a consciousness of the limits of one’s knowledge, including a
sensitivity to circumstances in which one’s native egocentrictism is
likely to function self-deceptively. This entails being aware of one’s
biases, one’s prejudices, the limitations of one’s viewpoint, and the
extent of one’s ignorance. Intellectual humility depends on recognizing that
one should not claim more than one actually knows. It does not imply
spinelessness or submissiveness.”[4]
Qur’an 5:101 and RofT’s a4.2
insistence to have “absolute conviction free of any doubt,” stamps on intellectual
empathy’s awareness “of the need to imaginatively put oneself in the place
of others so as to genuinely understand them.”[5]
Intellectual empathy “also correlates with the willingness to remember
occasions when one was wrong in the past despite an intense conviction of being
right, and the ability to imagine being deceived in a case at hand.”[6]
Because Islam insists none of its
adherents hold or ask questions, their adherents cannot have intellectual
integrity. Paul and Elder define intellectual integrity “as recognition of
the need to be true to one’s own thinking and to hold oneself to the same
standards one expects others to meet.”[7]
If a person stops asking questions
about what he/she believes or what he/she reads, that person stops placing a
belief in his/her own ability to reason and come up with correct conclusions.
This is what Islam requires of its believers. This makes its scholars
oppositional to critical thinking skills.
Critical
thinking, questioning what you are told or learn or read is not allowed in
Islam. It is in the Qur’an, codified in shariah. This stands in direct
opposition to Judeo-Christian beliefs. Judaism and Christianity encourages
their followers to ask questions to learn more about their beliefs. You can
find catechisms for Jews and Christians. They are entirely based on asking
questions about beliefs.
This
also points out the importance of learning through social interaction, which is
also negated in a4.2. Apparently, there are forbidden things to discuss about
Islam. It makes sense if Islam is a
totalitarian form of government or a cult that has things if questioned or
discussed would cause the downfall of it’s existence.
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Reliance of Traveler |
Arabic |
Arabic Translation Word for Word |
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a4.2 continued His other statements expressing
the same meaning are numerous and well known. But if someone has doubts (Allah
be our refuge) about any of the tenets of faith in which belief is
obligatory (def: books u and v),and his doubt cannot be eliminated
except by learning one of the theologians' proofs, then it is obligatory for
him to learn it in order to remove the doubt and acquire the belief in
question. |
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a4.2 continued The
meaning is many and well-known...
And
if, Allah forbid, one doubts something of the fundamental tenets of faith
that must be believed, and one's doubt is not dispelled except by learning
one of the proofs of the theologians, then it is obligatory to learn that in
order to remove the doubt and acquire that fundamental principle.
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This
response to the use to questions that may have arisen from critical thinking. The claim here is that if a question causes
doubt, then the one who has doubt should become a scholar or one who knows
“sacred knowledge” and this will remove the doubt. In essence this has returned
us to discussing secret knowledge granting higher rewards, which is the
definition of Gnosticism. But, there is an inherent problem with the way this
is worded. The wording here does not address what happens to those who are learning
sacred knowledge to quench their doubt, when they do not achieve belief. Why is
that? This is stated in a way that excludes that possibility. Why?
[1] (Paul
and Elder, p. 24)
[2]
[3] (Paul and Elder, p. 22)
[4]
ibid
[5]
Ibid, p. 26
[6]
Ibid,
[7] Ibid, p. 27
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