Reasoning ... A Moral Requirement In Islam

There are multifarious kinds of thoughts among people in this world. For instance you will find people who are called deists who belong to the Deism. “Deism is the belief in the existence of God based solely on natural reason, without reference to revelation” (Collins English Dictionary).

One of those deists was the famous English philosopher Sir Antony Flew (1923-2010). He was a prominent atheist until December 2004 when he declared astonishingly that he had become a deist. He rejected the ideas of a life after death, of God as the source of good. He was particularly hostile to Islam. In a December 2004 interview he said: “I’m thinking of God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins” (Associated Press, 10 December 2004). In 2007 Harper Collins, New York, published  “There is a God” written by Antony Flew with Roy Varghese.

Those people claim boastfully that their belief in God is by natural reason. But if they sincerely use their natural reason they will find out that God is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. They think that religion does not let its adherents use their reasoning. Islam, however, not only lets them do that, but most of the Qur’anic chapters are full of verses urging the readers to use their faculty of reason given by God. Hundreds of verses in the Qur’an urge the readers to observe nature around them, and ponder on their own nature thoroughly.

“Have they not reflected upon the dominion of the heaven and of the earth, and what things God has created, and that it may be that they term is already near? In what fact then after this will they believe?” (7:185).

“And on earth there are signs, visible to all who seek truth to believe. And within your own selves, will you not then perceive? And in the heaven is your provision, and (there is also) what you are promised. So by the Lord of the heaven and the earth, it is as assuredly true as (the fact) that you have (power of) speech” (51:20-23).

God urges people in the Qur’an to contemplate and look at the wonderful things unfolding around them: the space in the heavens above, the globe of the earth; and to consider that all things God created in pairs: gender in humans, plants and animals, by which one individual is complementary to another, by the subtle forces of nature. There is also day and night, positive and negative electricity, forces of attraction and repulsion. Everything in the universe has its counterpart, pair, or complement. God alone is One, with none like Him or needed complement. There are many noble things to contemplate!

“He (it is who) brings forth the living out of that which is dead, and brings forth the dead out of that which is alive, and gives life to the earth after it had been lifeless; and in such (a manner), you shall be brought forth. And among His signs is that He created you of dust, and then, lo, you become human beings spreading. And of His signs that He created, for you from yourselves mates that you might find peace by their side, and He ordained between you affection and mercy. Surely in that there are signs for a people who reflect. And of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the differences of your tongues and your colors. Surely in that there are signs for all who are possessed of (innate) knowledge!” (30:19-22).

Philosophers like Antony Flew, although they have already proved scientifically that there is a God who created the universe, that God has excellent attributes, and wisely has given all creation its natural laws, however at the same time, they do not believe that this God, the Creator, is continuously sustaining His creation, giving orders to human beings and has given them certain free-will and power as a trial, and will question them and will give them requital in the hereafter.

“O mankind, if you are in doubt about the Resurrection, then lo (consider that) We have created you from dust then, from a drop, then from an embryonic lump complete and incomplete, that We may make clear to you. And We establish in the womb whatever We will for a specified time, then We bring you forth as infants, and then that you may come of age. And there are some of you who are taken away, and there are some of you who are relegated to the most abject time of life, so that after (having had) some knowledge, he no longer knows anything. And you see the earth torpid, yet when We send down water upon it, it stirs, and swells, and grows (plants of) every delightful kind. That is because God, He is the Truth, and because He revives the dead and has power over all things; and because the Hour will come, whereof there is no doubt, and because God will resurrect those who are in the graves” (22:5-7).