DIVINE REASONING

emerged during the Abbasid Caliphate. Notable members include Al-Farabi (d. 950 CE), Ibn Rushd (d. 1198 CE), and Al-Razi (d. 1210 CE). To explain Quranic ideas and reflections, they adopted a model based on Greek philosophy. This philosophy relied on deductive reasoning, which, by its very nature, is an unrealistic approach. Consequently, their detailed explanations of the Quran’s intellectual teachings often led to the saying, “He who becomes too caught up in logic loses sight of the truth.” A line of poetry from a Persian poet describes this entire body of work quite well. “Philosophy cannot uncover the truth. It only made the secret even more mysterious.” The second group in this context is the one that attempted to explain the Quran’s rational thinking through the concept of Wahdat al-Wujood (Unity of Being). This can be summarised in one phrase: monistic rationalism. Well-known books from this group include Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyah by Ibn Arabi, Masnavi by Maulana Rumi, and The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam by Allama Iqbal. This method, which we are calling monistic rationalism, was even more problematic than the earlier Greek rationalism. If the first approach could be described as a logical riddle, then the second method amounted to a significant intellectual divergence. It reinterpreted the Islamic belief in the oneness of God (Tawheed) into the idea of Wahdat al-Wujood (Monism).