FREEDOM OF ENQUIRY

~ 36 ~ such unfavourable circumstances, he finally died on May 12, 1003, in Rome.8 From the beginning of recorded history right up to the time of Islam, there had been no such concept as intellectual freedom. That is why we hear of only isolated instances of individuals who in ancient times, were given to scientific thinking. And scientific thinking could not spread beyond those individuals. For want of intellectual freedom, such thinking was nipped in the bud. Islam, for the first time in history, separated religious knowledge from physical knowledge. The source of religious knowledge, which came into general acceptance, was divine revelation (the authentic version of which is preserved in the form of the Qur’an), while full freedom was given to enquiry into physical phenomena, so that individuals could arrive at their own conclusions independently. The Sahih of Imam Muslim, the second most authentic book on Hadith, dating from the second century Hijrah, contains a chapter headed as follows: “Whatever the Prophet has said in matters