Contemporary Topics of Islamic Thought
Muhammad Legenhausen
Islamic Culture and Relations Organization

Contemporary Problems of Christian Theology and Islamic Thought

Theology begins with the question of God. This is true for all the
major theistic theological traditions: Jewish, Christian and Muslim.
Typically, the theologian assumes that his readers believe in the faith
he intends to systematize, defend, and elaborate. He assumes that they
know who God is, and believe in Him. His task is to rationalize this
faith, first be demonstrating God's existence.

In modern Christian theology, however, one finds much hesitation and
doubt about whether this first theological task is at all appropriate.
The particular arguments presented by Maimonides, Aquinas and Ibn Sina
have come under philosophical attack, and more fundamentally, the
methods of demonstration employed by them have been attacked. Since the
Reformation, there has been much doubt about the relevance of Greek
logic and metaphysics to the project of elaborating the Christian
faith.

Similar doubts have become widespread in the Muslim world. Even among
the Shi'ah, who have continued to nurture a philosophical or
theosophical tradition, there are many who consider this tradition of
thought inappropriate as a ground of doctrine. This sort of opposition
to philosophy has a long history among the Shi'ah, and has been mounted
by some `urafa, muhadithin, akhbariyyun, and most recently by the
maktab-e tafkik.[12] Muslim detractors of philosophy, however, have not
offered very much as an alternative to the philosophical groundwork for
faith, but have tended to assume an innate acceptance of its basic
elements.

The criticism of philosophy among Muslim thinkers is further
complicated by two factors. First, what is generally criticized is the
specific philosophical tradition in Islamic thought stemming from the
works of Ibn Sind, Sohravardi and Sadr al-Muta'alihin. This leaves open
the possibility of a philosophical systematization of the faith along
other lines. So, the second complication is the readiness of many
critics of philosophy to elaborate philosophical theologies of their
own. The classic example of this movement is Ghazali's repudiation of
philosophy and his own philosophical elaboration of his creed, replete
with proofs for the existence of God, for His uniqueness, and for
various divine attributes.

Likewise, sufis in the tradition of Ibn 'Arabi have entered into a
philosophical dialogue with peripatetic philosophy in which they have
offered their own system of thought as a rational alternative to that
of the philosophers, while retaining the methods of demonstration and
many of the concepts employed by their opponents. Two brilliant
examples of this trend are `Abd al-Rahman Jami's Al-Durrah al-Fakhirah
and the correspondence between Khwajah Nasir al-Din Tusi and Sadr
al-Din Qunawi.

However, because of the ongoing and ever increasing confrontation with
Western thought and culture, doubts are raised about the entire
enterprise of rational systematic theology. These doubts have a
specific significance in the Western world due to the historical
movement from the Reformation, through the Enlightenment, to modern and
postmodern thought. In the world of Islam, on the other hand, the
significance of such doubts is radically altered by the fact that they
are a foreign import in many ways at odds with the entire tradition of
Islamic theology. It is true that some Muslims have demanded reliance
on the Qur'an and ahadith without the interference of rational
demonstration in ways strikingly similar to the demands of Christian
reformers, but the evolution of the rejection of philosophical theology
in Christian thought has led to a style of Christian theology that has
no counterpart in Islam; and additionally, the philosophical grounds
for rejecting any form of rational theology in the West are to be found
in schools of thought as diverse as existentialism and scientific
realism, all of which enter discussions among Muslims as aliens.

Philosophical reflection, at least in a broad sense not limited to any
specific school, has seemed to most Muslim theologians to be encouraged
by the Qur'an and ahadith, especially as interpreted by the Shi'ah. The
Qur'an is replete with exhortations to reflect upon its signs (ayat),
such as Behold! How repeatedly we display the signs that they may
understand. (6:65), and remonstrations against those who fail to
reason, such as Indeed, We have created for hell many of the jinn and
the men; they have hearts with which they do not understand... (7:179).
Because of the abundance of such verses, [13] it becomes impossible to
justify a thorough anti-intellectualism on religious grounds in the
context of Islamic culture. Muslim thinkers have not only taken
encouragement from Islam to engage in intellectual pursuits, they have
understood such ayat as those mentioned above as a divine invitation to
employ philosophical reflection for the purpose of understanding the
Qur'an and ahadith. Wisdom is prized by Muslims because the Qur'an
itself proclaims, He grants wisdom to whomever He wills, and he who has
been granted wisdom has been given abundant good; and none shall mind
it save those endowed with wisdom. (2:269). Muslims may differ over how
the term hikmah is to be interpreted in this ayah, and even if most
will agree that it does not refer to the specific tradition of
philosophical thought that has emerged through the centuries in Islamic
thought, few will deny that intellectual reflection is accorded great
religious value in Islam.

Likewise, there is a veritable ocean of narrations attributed to the
Prophet' and Imamstextolling the intellectual virtues of wisdom,
knowledge and reason. For example, it is reported that the Prophet'
said, "The virtue of knowledge is more beloved to Allah than the virtue
of worship". [14] As with the Qur'an, the narrations both encourage the
use of the intellect and pose problems for philosophical reflection.
Muslim sages have made use of philosophical terms for the rational
investigation of religion, and they have used terms drawn from the
religious sources to articulate their philosophical reflections. [15]
They have been inspired by the Qur'an and ahadith to develop various
philosophical ideas, and they have used philosophical ideas drawn from a variety of sources as aids to the understanding of scripture.

In the context of this sacred value placed on knowledge and the
intellect, there remains plenty of room for discussion about what kinds of knowledge and wisdom are to be valued, what the intellect is and
what are its functions. Muslim critics of philosophy may argue that
philosophy has been used inappropriately to interpret scripture, or
that it is sorely limited and must be supplemented by imagination to
provide any understanding of religious topics, or that its
demonstrations serve only as allusions to the divine. These sorts of
points arise from within Islamic culture where they have been and
continue to be debated. The Western critiques of natural theology have
an entirely different flavor. Islamic culture has not produced a
concept of iman like that of Christian faith as the latter is taken to
stand independent of and beyond reason and knowledge. Islamic culture
has not produced any sort of theological antirealism of the sort
debated in Western circles. Islamic thought has not given rise to the
atheism and agnosticism that have emerged from Christian culture and
whose religious significance continues to be discussed by Christian
theologians and philosophers.

For these and many other reasons, Western theological concerns arrive
on the shores of the world of Islam as an invasion. The Muslim response
often seems as pointless as that of a person who argues with the
newscasters on television. Despite all the talk about interfaith
dialogue, the dynamics of the ways in which the world of Islam
confronts the West force Muslim intellectuals to consider Western ideas
very seriously, even if the engagement is accompanied by anxiety and
apprehension, while Western thinkers are generally quite content to
ignore what goes on in the intellectual third world. Islamic
theological reflection is, shunted off as a specialty item for
connoisseurs of esoterica. Dialogue is thus stifled, not because of ill
will per se, but because there is no demand and no pressing need for
Westerners to listen to Muslims, while Muslims cannot avoid listening
to the Western discussions with which the entire world seems to
reverberate.

One reaction this situation has provoked among some Muslims is a
retreat into tradition. The glories of the past are recounted and
redoubled with a firm intention to abandon the Satanic modern world in
favor of a puritanical return to the pristine Islam of days gone by.
This reaction is resisted by Muslims who would prove that Islam is
perfectly well suited to serve as an ideology for the development of
modern societies. There can be no escape from the repetitive
counterpoint of these attitudes in social-religious thinking at least
until the impact of Western thought in the Islamic world is
sufficiently understood, accepted for what it is, and met by
constructive critique and synthesis in harmony with the evolution of
contemporary Islamic theology.

The heart and soul of the Muslim world is thoroughly imbued with
religion. If Muslims are not to lose heart and lose their souls, the
task of rational reflection on religion must be taken up again with
full awareness of all the currents of thought that wash across the
contemporary world of Islam.

The West must be understood not only as cultural invader, but as itself
tormented by the twists of modern and postmodern thought that have led
it to the verge of nihilism in more than one guise. In order for
Muslims to orient themselves in the contemporary world, religion must
be seen not as something to be merely defended, but as offering a way
forward with valuable guidance for all of humanity. We cannot ourselves
be saved unless we can invite the entire world to salvation, and before
we can offer anything inviting, we need to understand the differences
in our cultural and intellectual climates as well as the common
problems they face. The invitation to salvation extended by Muslims
need not take the form of offering a choice between death and Islam;
what I mean by this is that we should not take the attitude that for
the Muslim invitation to salvation to be successful it must result in
formal conversion to the religion of Islam as ordained by Allah,
subhanna wa ta'ala, through His final Prophet ('s). The Qur'an itself
tells us to address the People of the Book in an effort to come to a
common word upon which we can agree. [16] The common word to which we
invite the People of the Book must itself be understood as a means of
salvation, at least in the sense that it offers a way out of the
wretchedness faced by those who would deny it. In order for us to be
saved, we must be able to understand from what it is we wish to be
saved, and how religion may save us from it. From an eschatological
point of view, salvation means escape from the fire of hell, but the
power of this image should not cause us to neglect the worldly failings
which culminate in hell and are presaged in the ugliness and cruelty
the world too often manifests.

Despite all its secularism, the Western world is the inheritor of
Christendom. Its values are rooted in references to divinity. The
United States, for example, was built on foundations laid by those who
had attempted to convene theocracies in the new colonies. So, the loss
of certainty about God, let alone the idea of the death of God,
threatens to undermine the humanity of Western man, unless some
foundation for human values can be found to replace the theological
structures many would be happy to see left in ruins.

This is reason enough for some Christians to seek to preserve their
faith in God. But while it may provide sufficient motivation for the
attempt, it cannot by itself provide answers to is the intellectual
doubts that pervade contemporary Western culture.

In addition to the doubts about God raised by philosophers primarily in
criticisms of the proofs for His existence, the doubts raised by social
critics have had a greater influence on the secularization of Western
culture. While Voltaire (16941778) accepted that the concept of God was
needed to maintain social order in his remark that if God did not exist
it would be necessary to create Him, the Russian anarchist Mikhail
Bakunin (1814-1876) exclaimed that if God did exist it would be
necessary to destroy Him, because so much oppression had been carried
out in His Name. If Voltaire's remark suggests that God may be little
more than a convenient fiction, Bakunin suggests that the fiction may
be quite inconvenient. The Marxist critique of religion has also been
accepted by many who are skeptical of other aspects of Marxist
doctrine. Today some feminists object to the concept of God as a prop
for patriarchy, and homosexuals complain that prejudice against them is
maintained by reference to God. In general, such thinkers quite
correctly realize that an orientation toward God serves as a constraint
on the satisfaction of various human desires, and is incompatible with
what many consider to be of utmost value.

Western thought is caught between two competing claims to moral
allegiance. On the one hand, there is the transcendent God Who demands
absolute obedience as the ultimate authority. On the other hand, there
is a secular ethos based on the values of human freedom and
self-determination. Western religious liberals attempt an awkward
compromise that would coerce the divine will to conform to humanistic
values. Moral direction is derived from the human, and then the
transcendent God is called in and would be forced into complicity. He
is allowed to stand above the world, but not to interfere with human
judgments about what is right and wrong. Deist theology is at least
honest about this.

In Muslim culture, on the other hand, reference to God does not occur
in the context of the doubts and secular values that plague the West,
or at least not to the same extent. The major form in which secular
values come into conflict with Islam is in the form of nationalism.
Muslim intellectuals often see themselves as Arabs or Iranians or
Indonesians or whatever, and only then as Muslims. Sometimes Islam is
only accepted as an _expression of national culture. They seek direction
in life in terms of the historical development of their people or
nation, and relegate religion to the private sphere of personal
spirituality and ceremonies, on the model of what they perceive to be
the role of religion in technologically advanced societies. The
conflict is between religious and secular ideology, which usually is
discussed in terms of the scope of religion, but there is little of the
direct confrontation with God common in the West. There is no death of
God theology among Muslims.

Muslim modernists may advance harsh criticisms of Islam as it has been
understood within their traditions, but they are not willing to extend
the criticism to God Himself. Western angst about God has not taken
root in the world of Islam, al-hamdu liAllah, and questions about how
to justify belief in God, which have figured so prominently in recent
Western philosophy of religion, appear curiously irrelevant to the
primary theological concerns of Muslims.

Nevertheless, Muslim theology must begin to consider seriously the
problems of Western philosophy of religion if Islam is to be presented
as a way of salvation for all people, including those of the West. We
can no longer rest content with the traditional proofs because the
standards of reason to which they appeal are no longer universally
accepted. This does not mean that traditional Islamic theology and
philosophy can or should be simply swept aside; rather the issues of
theology require a more fundamentally critical treatment than they are
usually given. We need to begin by considering how the basic concepts
of theology, concepts of God, man and the world, are treated in Islam
and in Christian culture, and how rational reflection on these concepts
and their different treatments in the Islamic and Christian traditions
can help us to clear a path to theological understanding.

This means that our standards of rationality themselves must be subject
to critical review and evaluation. The roots of the most profound
doubts about religious reason lie in the success of the empirical
sciences and technology as they have developed in the West. When it is
observed that the standards of reasoning employed in the sciences
differ markedly from those used by theologians, it is natural to wonder
if the former cannot suffice for all human purposes. The vindication of
theological reasoning requires an explanation of how the progress of
the natural sciences can be justified in its own terms. Theology can no
longer afford to ignore the philosophy of science. Religion declares
that God is the creator of the natural world. So, the methods that have
been successfully used to unlock the secrets of the natural world must
be understood as revealing the workings of His creation, at least on
some level. What is needed, as Seyyed Hossein Nasr puts it, is a sacred
science. [17] Until a way is found to elaborate an understanding of
the natural sciences as sacred, as governed by standards of reasoning
which are a branch of the more encompassing methods of rational
reflection that apply to theology and philosophy as well as to
mathematics, physics, medicine and cognitive science, theology will
remain susceptible to the charge that its concerns are peripheral, or
may be safely dismissed. Furthermore, since theology must draw upon the
imagination as well as reason, it must show how its imaginative work
can enlighten and deepen the dry findings of empirical research and
applied mathematics.

The elaboration of the sciences as sacred does not require an
uncritical acceptance of all that has been accomplished by secular
science; to the contrary, it is through critical appraisal that the
call for sacred science is to be vindicated. The program, however, must
aim at integration rather than isolation and protection, for the
strategy of isolating and protecting religion from critical
confrontation with other areas of human knowledge has been largely
responsible for the marginalization of religion in Western societies.

Traditional formulations of theology, whether Jewish, Christian, Muslim
or Hindu, have not limited themselves to discussions of divinity; they
have included cosmology as well. The theological affirmation of sacred
cosmology must be regained in the encounter with modern science for
theology to remain sound, for classical theological cosmologies have
always freely made use of the current sciences of their times without
entering into the details of astronomical data. Often, more than the
basic outlines of religious cosmologies formulated under the assumption
of a geocentric universe can be revised to accord with post-Copernican
theories, because religious cosmologies are mostly concerned with the
world as the creation and sign of God, regardless of its physical
shape. Nevertheless, the physical shape of the cosmos assumed in the
past was taken to have a symbolic value in harmony with the religious
point of view, and this has not yet been recovered.

The legacy of theology is no less one of anthropology than cosmology.
If the modern natural sciences have posed a challenge to theology's
concern with cosmology, the modern human sciences threaten its
anthropology. Indeed, anti-religious sentiments are much more prevalent
among psychologists and sociologists than among physical scientists.
[18] Islam portrays man as a theomorphic being who due to negligence
has fallen astray from his divine aim, and who has accepted a covenant
with God by means of which he may obtain divine guidance to his own
felicity through the reminders sent by God with His prophets (may the
peace and benedictions of Allah be with Muhammad and his folk, and with
them). This religious anthropology is not merely descriptive; it has
practical implications for how we are to live, how we are to orient
ourselves, how we may truly serve God. Morals and politics thus become
as central to theology as its more theoretical claims about human and
divine nature.

Here religion must confront the social critics mentioned earlier. If
they have raised doubts about God on the basis of secular human values,
the theologian must find a way to introduce religious values. In Islam
this introduction has two dimensions with infinite ramifications: the
exterior and the interior, zahir and batin, whose first division is
that of shari'ah and tariqah. Shari'ah is the exterior way, which
includes Islamic law. The law itself is infused with values, for it
tells us how we are to conduct ourselves in worship and in our dealings
with others. It points toward an ideal of human flourishing in
religious community under divine covenant in which the individual
aspires to the complete submission of his or her own self in conformity
with the law. Attention to the detail of the law is not a cold legalism
by which the right to salvation is purchased, but a reflection of the
pious heart seeking the completeness of submission to God. This means
that the law itself is not to be understood as a mere canon of
regulations, but as infused with value as the outward realization of
the inner quest for the divine.

The inner quest itself is called tariqah, which, like shari'ah also
means way or path. The verbal synonymy of these two terms indicates the
inseparability of the inner and outward aspects of religion: it is
logically impossible to walk down one without treading upon the other,
for both are merely different names or aspects of divine guidance. The
inner quest cannot take shape except within the framework of the
outward precepts of religion; and the divine law becomes an empty
formalism unless its observance is the outward _expression of taqwa, the
God-wariness described by Him, the Exalted, as the best provision for
spiritual wayfaring: And make provision, and verily the best provision
is taqwa (2:197)

The inner way or tariqah is a quest with various stages along which one
must pass, and the arrival at each station requires acquisition of a
specific virtue. Here the world appears as the ground to be covered,
the battlefield for the greatest jihad, the struggle against the self.
Man is understood not as a static essence, but as in a dynamic
condition of transformation, or, in the terminology of Sadr
al-Muta'alihln, substantial motion, whose human culmination is the
perfected human being, insan kamil, the polished mirror of God, for
whom the world itself is also transformed so that God is seen in all
things.

The second division of exterior/interior involves the recognition that
shari'ah and tariqah themselves each have exterior and interior
aspects. For shari'ah there is the external form of the law and the
inward submission to it. The inward submission to the law is perfected
through tariqah, whose outward _expression takes the form of the
spiritual instructions given by the guide to the aspirant and whose
inward form is the spiritual wayfaring itself, the passing through
stations and states and the acquisition of virtue.

So, we find that Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, teaches of God
and man and the world. Its theology includes cosmology and
anthropology. The anthropological aspect has both theoretical and
practical dimensions, and the practical has both exterior and interior
through each of which, especially the latter, the concepts of God, the
world and humanity are informed and deepened.
It is through this circle of ever deepening insight that Islam presents
its own perspective on the most fundamental questions posed by man in
every age. The questions are answered by drawing the questioner into a
whirlpool of rational reflection, insight, value and practice. On the
social level, the drawing in gives unity to the Muslim community,
symbolized by the circumambulation of the Ka'abah during hajj. This is
where the individual as well as the community focus themselves. So too,
theological work must begin with its orientation toward God, circle
about the related concepts of humanity and the world, and end, finally,
with reference to Him, glory be to Him!

Theology presents itself in two modes. First, theology is doctrinal. It
elaborates and systematizes credal statements. Secondly, theology is
suggestive. It recommends the acceptance of its credal statements. We
could put this another way by contrasting descriptive theology with
prescriptive or normative theology. Descriptive or doctrinal theology
is comparatively straightforward. Here we are busy with the attempt to
understand the teachings of a religion, or the teachings of various
interpreters of the religion, its theologians, exegetes and gnostics.

Normative theology is more difficult, because the standards of
assessment immediately come into question. Traditionally the normative
weight of theological reflection has been sought in the force of
logical necessity. One must accept the claims of the theologian or
suffer the eternal pain of contradiction. Whoever fails to accept the
results of theological reasoning is threatened with the loss of his
humanity, for humanity is defined in terms of the reason upon which the
theologian rests his case. This sort of approach seems offensively
authoritarian to modern sensibilities, although why this should be so
is seldom considered. Mathematicians and philosophers often present
their results as the dictates of more or less pure reason, and no
offense is taken, not even by the most liberal of Christians. So why
should anyone be insulted or offended when the same sorts of methods
are applied to religion? The answer to this question will be found when
it is understood that the standards of reasoning employed by
traditional theology have become subject of dispute. The sorts of
arguments and the methods of reasoning about theological topics whose
validity has been considered obvious in the Islamic traditions of
theological reflection often fail to persuade those nurtured in modern
Western culture. Insistence on the obviousness or selfevidence of our
own standards of reasoning provides no remedy to this impasse. Our
theological writings must offer those who do not share our views a way
in, and we will not be able to provide such a port of entry until we
become familiar with the intellectual geography of the points of
embarkation of those whom we would have enter into conversation with
us. If there is no common ground of sufficient breadth for meaningful
discussion to take place, such ground will have to be constructed. Our
language and the ways in which we use it to express our rational
reflections will have to be expanded to the point that we are able to
explain the views we oppose and why we oppose them, and at the same
time are able to recast the claims of our own traditions of Islamic
thought in forms accessible and attractive to others.

If we are to accomplish this task of constructing a normative Islamic
theology through which the world may be invited to salvation, even
though the world is largely intoxicated with modern or postmodern
secular Western culture, a good place for us to begin work is by
looking at the problems of Christian theology. Christian theology has
been attempting to respond to modern currents of Western thought for a
long time. We should be willing to learn from its successes and
failures. At the same time, many of the problems of Christian theology
are familiar to Muslims. How are we to explain divine knowledge, evil,
the creation of the world out of nothing, life after death, and most of
the other facets of our creed? For most of the topics to be found in
Islamic theology, discussions may be found among Christian philosophers
and theologians. These common problems provide a point of contact. But
in order to build upon these common issues to the point that Muslim
theologians can address the concerns of those immersed in secular
culture, the aim in reading what modern Christians have to say about
the traditional problems of theology must be to try to see why the
traditional arguments from their own tradition have come to seem
inadequate, and what steps they deem appropriate to remedy these
inadequacies.

It is of no use to come to the problems of Christian theology with the
smug confidence that they can all be solved by means of the resources
of the Islamic traditions of kalam, falsafah and `irja-n . Likewise,
there is no guarantee that the nation in possession of the most
valuable natural resources will be able to effectively use those
resources in order to pursue its own political and economic objectives.
We must learn how to use our natural and intellectual resources
effectively in the contexts of the contemporary economic, political and
intellectual environments, and if we are to do this as Muslims,
efficiency is to be measured in units of accordance and submission to
the divine will. Neither economic power nor intellectual strength has
any value for the Muslim unless he is able to place them at His
service.

Once we come to understand what is novel in modern Christian treatments
of traditional problems of theology, and why these novel elements have
been adopted, our own Islamic theology will be enriched, even if only
to the extent of incorporating a sufficient amount of new vocabulary to
refute the modern ideas we find unacceptable. This is a risky business,
and its risks need to be faced conscientiously. If we are to be
successful at it, we must remain critical at every stage of the
process. No doubt there will be some unfortunate souls who, in the
attempt to understand modern Christian thought about contemporary
theological issues, will be swept away in the currents of thought that
dominate the West. The worst way to learn is through repetition of the
mistakes of others. Our learning of modern Western approaches to
theological issues must be one whereby we become conversant with the
language of modern religious concerns to the extent that we are able to
express our own ideas in the new language. It is of no use to repeat
the expressions of the language of modern Christian theology with an
Islamic accent. The language must be mastered, and fluency in the
language of modern Christian theology requires an effort no less than
that needed to master a new language. The stage at which learning
occurs through the repetition of stock phrases has long since past.

In creative writing, the phrase finding one's voice is used for the
process of learning to master the techniques of writing to the point
that one is able to develop one's own style and themes. Muslim
theologians now have to find their own voices to express their concerns
and views. It is not enough even to master the language of modern
thought to the point of professional proficiency. The pen must be
wielded with a flourish and beauty. However, as Muslims we have no
desire to join the cacophonous choir of so many modern writers who seek
their own voices for the sake of glorying in their own individualities.
Our aim is to use our newly found voices to echo the refrains of the
eternal divine message, so that the attention of our listeners turns
from our voices to the message it carries.

So, the first step is to find common problems. This is easy. Next, we
are to read contemporary Christian responses to these problems in order
to gain fluency in the language of modern religious thought in the
Western world. This is difficult. After that (or simultaneously), we
can try to begin to understand the new topics and problems and
approaches to them to be found among contemporary Christian thinkers:
environmental ethics, the social gospel, feminism, various topics of
pastoral theology, process theology, reformed epistemology,
anti-realist theology, and much more. No matter how difficult this is,
it is absolutely necessary for Muslims to begin exploring these issues.
We need to begin the task of trying to formulate answers to the
questions our children will soon be asking. In order for those answers
to have the degree of sophistication necessary to satisfy young
inquisitive minds, the urgency of these questions in modern culture
must be properly appreciated, the language in which these questions are
framed must be one in which we are fluent, and we must be sufficiently
well grounded in our own traditions so that we are able to utilize that
fluency to articulate answers to the new questions grounded in the
glorious Qur'an and the teachings of the Ahl al-Bayt (peace be with
them), and we take refuge in Him, the Exalted, to preserve us from
error.

[12] This school of thought is current among a group of Shi'i scholars
who argue for the separation (tafqiq) of theology from philosophy.

[13] For a small sampling, see (2:219), (2:242), (2:266), (3:191),
(6:98), (7:176), (7:179), (9:81), (9:122), (10:24), (12:2), (13:3),
(16:11), (30:8), (39:42), (59:21).

[14] Bihar al-Anwar, Vol. 1, p. 167.

[15] See Seyyed Hossein Nasr, "The Qur'an and hadith as source and
inspiration of Islamic philosophy," in History of Islamic Philosophy (2
vols.), Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman, eds., (London:
Routledge, 1996), 27-39.

[16] (3:63).

[17] Seyyed Hossein Nasr, The Need for a Sacred Science (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1993).

[18] See David M. Wulff, Psychology of Religion (New York: John Wiley &
Sons, 1991), 204f.