Introduction
To get things off the ground, I will begin this book by introducing some of the fundamentals of the Islamic faith , both historically and in terms of doctrine. In particular , I want to discuss aspects of the religion that lend it to what I will call an “Evidentialist” interpretation (or as some scholars have put it, a “Rationalist” interpretation). In this context I will discuss the first ever state-sponsored (and Evidentialist) theology of Islam—Muʿtazilite theology —and compare it with its later (anti-Evidentialist) rival Ashʿārite theo logy , as well as to some of the more traditional, literalist understandings of the faith that one finds in Hanbalite theology and jurisprudence. As we will see, both the Muʿtazilite and Ashʿārite theological schools were extremely philosophically sophisticated (they are both known as part of Kalām (rational) theology )—to the point where the boundary between philosophy and theology become rather blurred. And it was during the period of Muʿtazilite dominance that we see the great Islamic philosophers (the Falasifa) first come into ascendance, often appropriating (but also going beyond) philosophical moves made in Kalām, and indeed the dialectic they follow often mirroring the fundamental differences between Muʿtazilite and Ashʿārite views. The central and most fundamental issue was a rather simple one: what is the role of independent reason in Islam?
Islam: The Beginning
Islam begins with a series of events that befell the Prophet Muhammad. These events occurred when Muhammad was 40 years old, in the year 610. The Prophet was born in Mecca in the year 570 into an Arab clan. The Arabs at this time were a pagan collection of disparate nomadic, Bedouin tribes living in the Arabian Peninsula. The tribes were disunited and often at war with one another, but they shared a number of values, especially tribal loyalty and independence. They lived in the shadow of two more unified and dominant empires in the region: the Eastern Roman Empire and the Persian Empire.
Importantly, in respect of the rise of the Islamic philosophers (who were known in Arabic as the Falasifa) two centuries later, the Eastern Roman Empire underwent significant change towards the middle of the mid-seventh century and Greek (as opposed) to Latin was instituted as the official language. Historians refer to the Eastern Roman Empire from this point on the “Byzantine Empire”, after the Greek name for Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) before Constantine had made it his capital.
In 610, in a cave in Mount Hira (in modern-day Saudi Arabia) where he had taken to meditating, Muhammad was said to be visited by the Archangel Gabriel (in Arabic Jibrāʿīl). The Archangel commanded Muhammad to Recite! And though Muhammad was reluctant at first, and though (so it is sometimes said) also illiterate, he wrote down the words Allah sent via the Angel. Some say that these were then written on codex (a kind of parchment),1 and some say that these may have been merely recited and remembered. These words, together with several other revelations that occurred throughout Muhammad’s life, constitute the Koran —the Islamic bible.
Muhammad’s central message was that Allah commanded him to “Purify my house” (Koran 2:125). That is, to “purify” Mecca from the pagan, polytheistic (shirk) idols and to set the path for Tawhīd (from the Arabic for “One”—Wahed): monotheism, divine unity, oneness, and the idea that there was one God under which all tribes should unite.
Tawhīd and Reason
I think it is this emphasis on divine unity—Tawhīd—that, at least partly, explains how for very many people (and a certain kind of Islamic theology ) Islam is thought to be a religion that promotes the use of reason. This has several underlying causes.
First, the overwhelming emphasis on divine unity was not new. It is a concept Jews, Christians, and the Zoroastrians also endorsed. Indeed, Muhammad did not think his message really contradicted those religions and in the Koran we see that Jesus, for instance, was considered a genuine prophet. Moreover, the Koran requires us to believe in the message of Jesus, qua messenger of God . However, Muhammad seemed to have thought that Christianity had somehow warped the truth of divine unity (the Tawhīd) in countenancing the notion of the Holy Trinity. In the Koran , Jesus never himself endorses the Holy Trinity, and one reason why God may have chosen to speak again through a new messiah was to ensure that his true and pure message, which had been somehow adulterated, was properly received, once and for all (Muhammad is said to be the “seal of the prophets”). Muhammad’s prophesy is thus said not just to be an interpretation of the word of God , but the word of God itself. This emphasis on divide unity and rejection of the Christian Holy Trinity gives Islam some resemblance with the Jewish faith . Indeed, the two religions appeared so similar to Muhammad that he is sometimes thought to have assumed that the Jews would automatically convert to Islam. But Muhammad did not assume that they would convert simply because he was offering the same religion to them, just differently packaged. He must have thought that there was something about Islam that made it an improvement over Judaism. It is interesting to surmise what exactly that improvement was supposed to be; and the answer shows us something important about how Islam was perceived.
Perhaps the explanation is simply this: the Koran is the unadulterated word of God . When we read the Koran we are reading the word of God , and not an interpretation of what God says. So, in this respect, compared with the Torah (for instance), which was composed by many writers over several centuries, it could be considered superior, and certainly more homogenous or monolithic. But why should Muhammad have expected the Jews just to accept his word that he was reciting the word of God ? Perhaps he felt that they would be able to immediately and directly see the intrinsic divineness of the words of the Koran . That Muhammad might have thought that is plausible; but I think it can only be part of the story, given the spiritual sensibility required to do so. It seems to me that part of why Muhammad must have thought the message of the Koran so persuasive was just that, that it was persuasive. That is, that if we engage our God-given faculty of reason, we will come to see the superiority of the Koran over what had come before and that, as such, the Koran constitutes progress.
Importantly, this seems to imply one can be a Muslim without labelling oneself as such. For instance, Jesus is said to be a Muslim and to have “walked the straight path”. This is, on the face of it, a rather radical idea. In fact, I cannot overestimate how radical this appears. Martin Luther, much later in the sixteenth century, was considered a radical by virtue of his edict that the “just shall live by faith ”; that is, so long as you had faith (i.e., correct Christian beliefs ) you can enter Heaven (the test of whether or not you have lived the just life). But the Muslim religion seems to imply here a much more radical thesis—one does not have even have to read the Koran to qualify as a good Muslim (Jesus could not have read the Koran , for instance) and one does not even need to identify one’s beliefs as Islamic in order to qualify as a Muslim . That said, the šahāda —the profession (witnessing) of faith for a Muslim , and one of the “five pillars” of Islam—involves profession not just that “there is no God but God ” (lā ʾilāha ʾillā llāh) but also that “Muhammad is the messenger of God ” (muḥammadun rasūlu llāh). So it does seem that belief in Muhammad’s being the seal of the prophets is required in order for one to qualify as a Muslim . However, one might ask: on what grounds must a good Muslim believe this? As we will discuss in later chapters, according to many of the Falasifa, we should believe that he is the messenger because the message withstands rational scrutiny. The ultimate proof for determining whether a prophet is genuine is the truth.
A second reason why we might think that Islam is a rational religion is that the word Islam means “submission” or “surrender”. A Muslim is someone who surrenders his whole being to the divine will (i.e. practises Islam, “walks the straight path”). There are two important observations to note about this.
Islam is often taken to be a religion that is all about obedience. And it is easy to see how the words “submission” or “surrender” can suggest that. But I would like to risk presenting a...