The Delineation Of The Relation Between Religion And Philosophy

I

This treatise inquires through sacred Law[2] whether the learning of philosophy is permitted, dangerous, or commended by the Law.

If it is commended, is it only approved? Or is it obligatory? [14]

We maintain that the philosophy is nothing other than to look into creation and to ponder over it in order to be guided to the Creator. In other words, philosophy is to look into the meaning of existence.

The knowledge of creation leads to the cognisance of the Creator, through the knowledge of the created.

The more perfect becomes the knowledge of creation, the more perfect becomes the knowledge of the Creator.

The Law encourages and exhorts us to observe creation.

Thus, philosophy is either a religious injunction or as something approved by the Law.

But the Law:

• urges us to observe creation by means of reason
• demands the knowledge thereof through reason.

The Quran says: “Wherefore take example from them, ye who have eyes.”[3]

That is a clear indication of the necessity of using the reasoning faculty, or rather[15] both reason and religion, in the interpretation of things.

Again it says: “Or do they not contemplate the kingdom of heaven and earth and the things which God hath created.”[4]

This is a plain exhortation to encourage the use of observation of creation.

And remember that one whom God especially distinguishes in this respect, Abraham, the prophet. For He says:

God says: “This did we show to Abraham: the kingdom of heaven and earth.”[5]

“Do they not consider the camels, how they are created; and the heaven, how it is raised.”[6]

“(Who) meditate on the creation of heaven and earth, saying, O Lord thou hast not created this in vain.”[7]

There are many other verses on this subject: too numerous to be enumerated.

Thus we must look into creation with the reason.

The observation which the Law approves and encourages must be of the most perfect type, performed with the most perfect kind of reasoning.

The Law emphasises the knowledge of God and His creation by inference. So it is incumbent on any who wish to know God and His whole creation by inference, to learn the kinds of inference, their conditions and that which distinguishes philosophy from dialectic and exhortation from syllogism.

This is impossible unless one possesses knowledge beforehand of the various kinds of reasoning and learns to distinguish between reasoning and what is not reasoning.

This cannot be done except one knows its different parts, that is, the different kinds of premises.

Hence, for a believer in the Law and a follower of it, it is necessary to know[17] these things before he begins to look into creation. They are like instruments for observation.

By the study of the law, a student discovers the necessity of knowledge of legal reasoning with all its kinds and distinctions. A student will find out by observing the creation the necessity of metaphysical reasoning. He has a greater claim on it than the jurist.

If a jurist argues the necessity of legal reasoning from the saying of God: “Wherefore take example from them O ye who have eyes,”[8] a student of divinity has a better right to establish the same from it on behalf of metaphysical reasoning.

One cannot maintain that this kind of reasoning is an innovation in religion because it did not exist in the early days of Islam. For legal reasoning and its kinds are things which were invented also in later ages, and no one thinks they are innovations.

Such should also[18] be our attitude towards philosophical reasoning. There is another reason why it should be so, but this is not the proper place to mention it. A large number of the followers of this religion confirm philosophical reasoning, all except a small worthless minority, who argue from religious ordinances. Now, as it is established that the Law makes the consideration of philosophical reasoning and its kinds as necessary as legal reasoning, if none of our predecessors has made an effort to enquire into it, we should begin to do it, and so help them, until the knowledge is complete.

For if it is difficult or rather impossible for one person to acquaint himself single-handed with all things which it is necessary to know in legal matters, it is still more difficult in the case of philosophical reasoning.

If before us, somebody has enquired into it, we should derive help from what he has said. It is quite immaterial whether that man is our co-religionist or not; for the instrument[19] by which purification is perfected is not made uncertain in its usefulness, by its being in the hands of one of our own party, or of a foreigner, if it possesses the attributes of truth. By these latter we mean those Ancients who investigated these things before the advent of Islam.

Now, such is the case. All that is wanted in an enquiry into philosophical reasoning has already been perfectly examined by the Ancients.

All that is required of us is that we should go back to their books and see what they have said in this connection. If all that they say be true, we should accept it and if there be something wrong, we should be warned by it. Thus, when we have finished this kind of research we shall have acquired instruments by which we can observe the universe, and consider its general character. For so long as one does not know its general character one cannot know the created, and so long as he does not know the created, he can[20] have no knowledge of the Creator.

Thus we must begin an inquiry into the universe systematically, such as we have learned from the trend of rational inference. It is also evident that this aim is to be attained by the investigation of one part of the universe after another, and that help must be derived from predecessors, as is the case in other sciences.

Imagine that the science of geometry and astronomy had become extinct in our day, and a single individual desired to find out by himself the magnitude of the heavenly bodies, their forms, and their distances from one another. Even though he were the most sagacious of men, it would be as impossible for him as to ascertain the proportion of the sun and the earth and the magnitude of the other stars.

It would only be attainable by aid of divine revelation, or something like it. If it be said to him that the sun is a hundred and fifty or sixty times as big as the earth, he would take it to be sheer madness[21] on the part of the speaker, though it is an established fact in the science of astronomy, so that no one learned in that science will have any doubt about it.