 Bismillahi wa sallatu wa sallam wa rahmatullahi wa sallam wa rahmatullahi Salallahu alayhi wa sallam amma ba'adah As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh Brothers and sisters it gives me great pleasure to welcome you and to introduce you to a brand new show and a brand new podcast called The Hot Seat. To understand a little bit more about The Hot Seat we first have to understand the context of the modern day world we find ourselves living in in the year 2019. It is a world in which perhaps there are more doubts, misconceptions and misinterpretations that are thrown around about the religion of Islam than in any other period of time in the history of mankind. The internet is a number one source used by people globally to acquire information on any topic and it is riddled and full of false notions and erroneous ideologies about the Dean of Allah Aziz al-Wajab. Our kids, ourselves are being exposed to this kind of information on a daily and if not daily then at the very least weekly basis and whether we know it or not, whether we choose to accept it or not it is having an effect on ourselves, our hearts, our minds and ultimately our understanding of this beautiful religion. To further complicate the problem many of us find ourselves living in western societies where the governments and the social norms and pressures are constantly trying to redefine what is good and what is bad, what is accepted and what is rejected, what Islam is and is allowed to be and what Islam is never allowed to be. All of this my brothers and sisters ultimately leads to confusion, at least the ignorance and if Allah permits it can lead to misguidance. The hot seat has therefore been designed with the permission of Allah alone to counter these kind of modern day contemporary issues head on by using the knowledge and the guidance of the Muslims of the past, the early generations of Muslims, the best of generations. There's not a single Muslim on the face of the planet today that would doubt the fact that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala completed our religion for us over 1400 years ago and that that completed, holistic, perfect religion is just as applicable now in the year 2019 as it was back then. We truly do have classical solutions for contemporary problems. However this isn't your normal average Islamic lecture series, first of all it's not a lecture, it's a discussion between two parties, often opposing parties in an attempt to reach the truth. And secondly and perhaps more importantly it's a unique one of its kind interactive podcasts where you from the comfort of your own home have the opportunity to vote for and to choose the topic we'll be discussing on the show. You also have the chance to ask your own questions on these contemporary issues and to grill the speaker if you feel like you haven't been grilled enough on the show itself. I'll be releasing details of how you can do both of those things at the end of this episode. But for now without any further ado let's get into this episode of The Hot Seat. Salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Once again I'm joined on the Hot Seat podcast with Ustad Abdu Rahman, Hassan Hafidullah wa Ta'ala. Ustad how you doing today? Alhamdulillah Jazakallah Khairan. Jazakallah Khairan for joining me. We have a really interesting topic for discussion today and it's the old debate between reason and revelation. Reason broadly meaning logic and revelation obviously being a text. Are they actually in contradiction with one another? What happens if they appear to be in contradiction with one another? Which one do we prefer? All of these things we inshallah will be discussing over the next hour or so. I'd like to start as we normally do on the Hot Seat with a definition. What is the definition of akal in the Arabic language? Alhamdulillah Ya Rabbil Alameen. The term akal which is a root word of the word akal it goes back to the meaning of man'a. It's to prevent something or it's to stop something. The scholars they say that's why it's called iqalu al-ba'ir. The riding beast the rope that is that's tied on the camel or the horse is called iqal. It comes from the word or the same word it's the same word as akal which is to prevent the riding beast from running away. And the scholars they say the reason why akal is called akal is because it prevents the person from that which is not befitting. And that's what the author of the Kitam-u-Jamaqais al-Luga said. He said it means al-habis-u-andamimil qawli wal-fi'al. Akal is the thing that prevents a person from an unwise statement or an inappropriate statement or action. That's what akal is there for. But the teacher of Sibawihi Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Frahidi in the Kitab al-Ain some scholars they question whether the book can be attributed to him. But the point is that Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Frahidi he said that akal is naqid al-jahli it's the opposite of ignorance. And while we're at this point it's important to mention that the akal when it comes to the Quran and the sunnah it's actually divided into four. The first one is al-gharizah. The first one is al-gharizah al-leti ja'alahu fil-iisan. It's the innate ability that Allah has placed inside the human. It's in other words it's what people will consider you to be sane. And if you don't have it they will consider you to be insane. Or it's what distinguishes us from all other species and gives us that unique distinct characteristics and attributes. The second thing that akal is meant in the shariah of the Kitab al-Sunnah is al-alum al-dharuriah the essential knowledge. The knowledge which everybody really shares like everyone here knows that one is more than half essential knowledge. And number three which is al-alum al-nadriya theoretical knowledge also is referred to as akal theoretical knowledge. But theoretical knowledge means the knowledge that's specific to a person who has the ability to observe, the ability to research, the ability to critically analyze something. That's the third type. And the fourth one is al-amalu bil-ilm implementing knowledge is also called akal. When a person implements the knowledge that they know is also called or is also referred to as akal as Allah says وقال لو كنا نسمع أو نعقلوا ما كنا في أصحاب السعير فاعترفوا بذنبهم فسحقا لأصحاب السعير that they said if we had akal meaning if we implemented the knowledge that we had the information that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam brought to us if we took it on board and we implemented it we will not be from the inhabitants of the hellfire. There's one point I want to say which is whenever you hear the concept of reason versus revelation from those four is only referring to the theoretical knowledge. Okay that's the only type of logic or akal intellect that can kind of go against revelation or if it can whether it can or can't we'll speak about it more into the but it's that type it's the third type which is the theoretical knowledge not the other three. Okay that's that's the main type that we're obviously going to focus on in today's podcast but in the la. Do you want to unpackage that one a little bit more just tell us a little bit more about exactly what this type means. So when it comes to they say thinking or they say reasoning they divide it into three types the different type of reasoning is three the first one is deduction and the second type is induction and the third type is abduction. The deduction is a conclusion which is reached based on evidences that were gathered so it's based on observational evidence something you observed you reached a conclusion based on it sometimes it can be flawed sometimes it could be a fallacy it can be a an illogical absurdity. I'll give an example a person says an apple all apples are fruits and then they say this is a fruit which is two premise and the third the inference or the conclusion that they reach is that therefore it is an apple you can see how flawed that is right even though it might sound plausible in the first premise or it sounds or seems sound in its first two premise but the conclusion is wrong that's called deduction the induction is that a person observes many data they look at many things and from there they reach a final conclusion it's called induction and that's all based upon how much you've seen and how much you've observed you've observed and inshallah ta'ala later when i talk about the issue of is intellects and reasoning restricted or is it unrestricted we'll talk about it there inshallah ta'ala the final one is abduction and abduction starts usually starts with observing something and looking at something which the data and the information that you have regarding is very limited you don't have much and then you reach a general statement regarding it or you try to best explain it that's roughly what they all three mean i'd like to throw in a fourth one there when especially when we're talking about the role that this type of intellect has when it comes to the religion and this is something that i see that is quite common and it's it's the issue of confirmation bias where essentially a person is brainwashed into a religion from birth they're told that this religion is true and later on in life they may start to use their reason the intellect they may come across scientific knowledge and they interpret all of that information and they use and they interpret their reason the intellect in line with what they were previously taught from birth that this religion is true so either they'll reinterpret the text itself or they'll reinterpret the scientific information that they come across later on in life to make sure it matches the text and this is what i see many religious people doing would you agree with this you see there's a book i read recently is written by john lennox it's called the science very god i think that was the name of the book i'm a consign to explain everything i think it was one of those names the point is that john lennox mentioned something i think was very good and i really benefited from it which is he said that explanation are two types explanation are two types if someone came into the kitchen and saw you boiling water and they asked you what is this there's two explanations you can give i mean there may be many more there's at least two two explanations you can give you can give a scientific explanation by telling them that there's heat that is boiling the water from beneath then that which is agitating the molecules and you can give a scientific explanation you can also say oh i just want tea one explanation doesn't eliminate the other and this is the problem that i inshallah ta'ala want to tackle more which is that thinking and assuming that when science comes it shuts everything else and it's the only explanation and there's nothing else that can explain anything itself is it's an unscientific statement so i think we'll talk about that more inshallah ta'ala now okay the next you've unpackaged the issue of the logic and what the definition of the intellect is quite nicely and obviously we're well aware of what revelation is it's the qulana the sunnah in the islamic religion does the akal does the inset have any role what kind of level does it have in the religion the akal in our religion has a manzila rafi'a has a high position um allah tabarak wa ta'ala manat al-taklif for you to be burdened to come with salah to pray to allah az-wajala to pray pay your zakat to go to pilgrimage hajj all of that the condition for it is that you have akal the akal i'm referring to here is you have sanity allah tabarak wa ta'ala he didn't force or didn't burden a person to pray when they have no akal you know the famous hadith where the messenger sallallahu alaihi wasallam said rufi'a al-qalam wa an-salatatin the pen is lifted from three the one who is sleeping until he wakes up and the young child until he reaches age of puberty the kid until until the child reaches age of puberty he doesn't have to he doesn't have to pray and the insane one until he regains sanity again so number one the evidence to show how islam honors al-akal you can see that it won't if you don't have akal it doesn't burden you with anything number two is the quran and the sunnah if you look at it it pushed us and know hatha alaihi it urged us it encouraged us to use our intellects any i come across in the quran wa allah tabarak wa ta'ala he says i come across in the quran wa allah tabarak wa ta'ala also said those who you know you know you know you know they look at the sky they look at the earth they ponder over everything and allah is telling us to use our akal here i mean i was telling one brother one time what charles darwin did what charles darwin did when he traveled and gathered data information and it was something our religion urged us to do way before of allah tabarak wa ta'ala he said why did they not travel the earth and what are they going to do when they travel the earth he says they look at how the creation started so using our logic and using our minds is something the quran and the sunnah urged us to do the third is allah tabarak wa ta'ala he praised the people of allah praise the people who have a smart who are clever who use them in intellects and who reason allah tabarak wa ta'ala praise them the i allah says the only ones who take the reminder in are those who have intellect those who are who are mature minded also number four allah tabarak wa ta'ala he rebuked a people who chose to forsake using their intellects allah tabarak wa ta'ala he says allah tabarak wa ta'ala he says that when they're told follow that which your lord has sent down on to you they said we will follow that which was brought to us from our four fathers even if their fathers they didn't have and they were not guided will you still do that so these people didn't want to use their logic they just wanted to follow their follow their forefathers they just wanted to blind follow their their previous ancestors so you can see from those points that the akal has a high station in our religion now last but not least the fifth evidence among the fifth point is allah tabarak wa ta'ala he made the akal from the daruriat al khams the five things that need to be protected if a person ibn al qudam ar-rahim allah mentions in his kitab al-mughni and he brought a consensus and a tifaq and a nijmaa that if a person damages a person's brain it's like he killed him he has to pay a full deal he has to pay a full deal full deal means a full blood money like you kill this person because you took away from him what an essential component of the human so to say that the islam does not honor that islam does not honor the intellect and it doesn't honor thinking and reason it's a it's a mistaken belief and a false argument so what i'm getting from that then is that the intellect the akal is kind of like an overriding dominant feature in the religion and it should be prioritized above anything else so is that what kind of what you're saying now when it comes to the when it comes to reasoning when it comes to thinking when it comes to the mind ahlu sunnah are in the middle path they lie in the middle between those who are extreme in exaggeration and those who are extreme in negligence and you tend to find that any issue there's always two extremes which are diametrically opposing to one another they're divergently on different tracks the first group are extreme in exaggeration and there's another group which is extremely negligence ahlu sunnah are in the middle who are the people are extremely exaggeration and who are the people who are extreme in negligence ahlu kalam ahlu kalam are the mu'utazila the within islam we're talking about the mu'utazila who originated from Masim al-Ata and Amr ibn Ubaid the asha'ira and we'll talk more about that Fakhrudin al-Razi and Fakhrudin al-Razi is considered to be the real the man who put the most arguments for asha'iriya but he wasn't the man who placed the first bricks the first bricks was placed by abima alil joini you see them asha'ira the maturidiyya and the likes of these they're referred to as the they're referred to as ahlu kalam they went overboard when it came to the akal they went they exceeded their limits they came with extreme exaggeration in what way so they would say what that the akal is above everything else um they placed and they gave the akal uh and they gave allowance to the akal and a leadway to the akal in places that it's not its field of expertise it's not a place that it should talk in this is not its place even though we've agreed that it has such a high role in the religion which i want to expand on later inshallah but the akal according to the asha'ira and the maturidiyya they done gholu they went overboard with it um we know the akal it can't um the akal can bring you to uh the akal can bring you to the belief of Allah az-wajala and that Allah exists subhanahu wa ta'ala and it can bring bring you into the general uh guidance the comprehensive guidance but detailed issues of guidance the akal can't do that it's not its field of expertise and i'll talk about that later inshallah ta'ala the second group who are extremely negligence are the sofia the matasawifa the sofia they rebuked the akal and they rebuked anything related to the akal the the mindset and the the the thinking process and psychological observation all of that they they threw under under the bus for them it has no weight whatsoever when you that's why you find the matasawifa they the awliya are sometimes considered to be people who are insane you go to some places in the world and you find that they are they're worshiping or that they see a willier man who's taken thrown off his clothes who's naked and they'll say this is a willy mean awliya Allah az-wajala uh the matasawifa if you look at the they they a lot of them drank alcohol and they were instead they were intoxicated and they uh so they don't and that's something that damages the sanity right that's something that damages the akal and the way that the person thinks so the sofia they went to the other extreme of not giving any consideration to the akal and so when like scientists and and in modern day western uh academic series type of sofia then they think this is what is slams like this is what the religion is like which is not true now so where are ahlul sunnah in between them today so ahlul sunnah believe that the akal it has a majal it has a position it has a field it's it's got a role in the religion and its role is not unrestricted they believe that the akal even though it has a great station in our religion even though it's considered high but they say it's it's it's not free to do whatever it wants and um they say that the akal they give many examples i just want to give you a basic understandable example that many can digest and that is your mobile phone it works right yeah does it not mean a lot to you yeah it does not do a good job but when you go to another country your network doesn't necessarily work or if you go to a place where there is no network your phone stops working so this has a boundary of how it works the akal is like your eyesight your eyesight it works it functions you can see things but it's limited what it can see can't see everything you is there's a distance you can see up to the akal is exactly the same is there's a distance in how far it can see you can't just make your eyesight's unrestricted and say i can see any and everything you see when they say three things three things ahlul sunnah say that the akal is restricted here he can't talk about it this is not his field of expertise the first one is and the akal can't talk about the unseen okay because remember what i said to you before the in the induction sorry the deduction the induction and the abduction which are the three kind of reasoning all three of them they all base are based on observation things that you can see and that's what the akal works on the akal works on what it can see it works on what it can observe that's where it then brings a conclusion from that's where it brings inferences from but if you don't have the ability to see something then akal has no room to talk about these issues number two is and now let us to kill the hidayati the akal cannot by itself guide now he can't you see it's not it's not independent in guiding that's why imr qayyim said that the akal is not independent in guiding it can't be the akal cannot give you detailed guidance no sorry i really want to unpackage this because this is where most of the discussion takes place you're basically saying that the akal has limitations oh without a doubt how do you come to know that islam is a truth and worshiping in idol is false you see when i said it's restricted and it's limited that doesn't mean it's not functioning it doesn't function of course it functions and i said it to you before that's something that you created for you to worship what you created and that depends on you is an illogical absurdity exactly so it's actually your logic and your reasoning that you come to know the ultimate truth about the world itself and the reason why we created to worship Allah alone if that's the case with the ultimate truth the most important thing then how can you say that for things lower than that the akal won't work okay the kitab daru ta'arud al aql wal nakal ishekul samtimi said something very powerful in there he said i took you to a doctor you were ill you said i need a doctor who if you specialize in this and uh can someone uh can can you take me to the doctor or can someone take me to the doctor i put my finger up i said i can help you let me take you to the doctor so i grabbed you by the hand and i took you to the doctor now that i've taken you to the doctor and you sat and you spoken to the doctor and you've conversed with the doctor the doctor of course is going to prescribe a medicine for you and he's going to tell what your illness is how about if i say to you i was the one who brought you to the doctor you wouldn't have known the doctor so listen to me now don't do what the doctor told you do this because i'm the one who brought you to the doctor you're going to be like that's an illogical absurdity what are you talking about yeah i understand i understand what you're saying here's i want you to understand something this issue shekul samtimiya he authored a book on it 10 volume book and i'll tell you something very important you see within islam there were smart uh thinkers before i go into this there was a point i was going to mention i just don't want to forget it okay i said that the akal even though it has a weight in our religion there's three things it cannot talk about the first one was what i said is the second i said is that that the akal cannot independently guide you by itself without no revelation it can't and if anybody tries to do that it'll be misguided you see the third thing i mentioned i was going to say was that the akal cannot and no less to kill you if two people are disputing one another you can't necessarily reconcile them with just rational arguments you cannot because every individual's rational mind is not superior to the other yours is not higher than mine there has to be a higher authority that can govern all of us that's why Allah says in the ayah if you say something so you made three important points that i think it's worth talking about in a little bit more detail the first point i don't think there can be much disagreement on this the akal can't tell you about knowledge of the unseen because we can't see that the second point the point that you mentioned where the uh the first point is very important because it's sorry to interrupt you but it's important because this is where a lot of the modern-day militant atheists argue about the they say that okay how are you going to reconcile the the law of nature um and uh and miracles and it's very important that they understand that the akal has no medial to talk about these issues of miracles that's just that it's not its boundaries and its level limits even though we can see stuff certain things around us and we can see the laws of the universe operating around us we know it's completely unrealistic for example for a sea to be split open because we've been living a life and that just doesn't happen in life and now you're saying that for example musa aleyhi salam split open a sea this is what you would classify as a miracle with the permission of Allah of course i mean there's no that doesn't match up to the intellect i'm sorry i know again that's my point that again for the akal to understand that go it's not its medial it's not it's filled shouldn't be talking about so unseen so anyone can claim anything i can say on the way here to shaja i just saw a four-legged man who was had a face of the horse it's unseen to you and your intellect says no this doesn't seem right but i my point is your intellect has a limit you have to believe but that's my point it brings you to the issue of number one do you think that the akal that's what i want you to understand do you really think that the akal for example there's many things that we cannot fathom but we still believe in them we still we can't fathom what's an example for example we believe in gravitational force no one can actually define for you what gravity is we can see the effects of gravity working right now i can see the effects of that but that's exactly god right i can't scientists are saying that we don't for example atheists some atheists are saying today we don't believe in god because we can't observe him we can't see him we need to see him seeing is believing yes so everything has become empirical evidence so i'm seeing gravity now so my question to you is but you're not seeing gravity you're seeing the effects of gravity correct yes so exactly so my point is that Allah Azza wa Jalla you're not seeing him but you're seeing the effect of what he's done and i think this is this is important that it's understood well um i just think there's many ways i can tackle that point but i just want to make it simple and easy for the people i wanted them i want them to understand is don't give the akal an unrestricted see your eyesight as i said before it can see but it needs light to see if you switch off the light in your room your eyesight even though we can see it can't see in the dark you see the issue i have with this is that the akal the akal even though it can it works it functions it's good it brings about a lot of amazing things in this world you know but if there's no revelation to shine the path for it the akal it'll go all over the place when einstein developed the general relativity i mean the relativity theory um before him was isek newton who had already pushed his theories was was put under the under scrutiny it was undisputed many scientists um they trialed it they tested it and there was no need for anyone to come after and to try to correct or modify or but i but einstein did and so this is the power of human mind i was reading the enigma code you know the enigma code when german the world war two the german were using the enigma code there was a man by the name of allen toring what he did was that he looked into the enigma code he read it through mathematical theories mathematical equations and was able to break the enigma code and basically stop world war two or bring it to an halt save millions of people and again i may not agree with these people's akid and their belief and whatnot um but it does show you the the the power of human human reasoning the power of the you know akal and the power of thinking and there's no dispute and argument regarding that you know but the point here is is that when when somebody just puts the akal into a a place that he doesn't deserve it's you know the akal is like a leader okay it's like a leader it governs a particular land he can't govern the whole entire world it governs a particular land and as time goes on that the akal sorry the leader he loses his position so there are times when the the logic and the mind and the human the human thinking there's moments where the nakal will say to it wait nakal being the text and the revelation will say to it look this is not your it's not your field this is not you're not you're not entitled to speak about it don't you think your approach is actually leading to a community of backwards people so we i think islam and the muslims is one of the only communities that i've seen where the akal the intellects actually look down upon where someone comes up with an opinion and you said don't worry about him he just uses intellect in every other community in the world they actually push forward critical thinking logic reasoning these are seen as good things and in our community we seem to suppress it and say no don't use your intellect this is making science the scientific people are laughing at us so it's making us look backwards okay this issue i really want people to understand is that the issue of revelation and reason having to be reconciled between the two is actually not true what do you mean you see i don't believe there is no conflict to be honest between a sound mind a sound reasoning and an authentic revelation an authentic text there's no conflict between the two to be honest the conflict is something on your side they're not contradicting one another you think they are but there isn't okay let's use that let's take an example shaytan urinates in the ear of the person who misses slated fudger is that an authentic text oh no without a doubt okay i wake up in the morning i can't feel i can't feel the urine i can't smell the urine my intellect is clearly contradicting what the sound text is saying it you see again you're saying that what is considered to be proof and what is considered to be uh an evidence is that which can be seen smelt is that all you say that's my intellect you're saying the insect is limited no i'm not saying i'm actually saying that intellect is actually you believe in things you can't see you believe in things that you can't hear you believe in things that you can't smell you believe in things that you can't that are not empirical give me an example of something i believe in like that you believe in the cosmos you believe in the the beginning the starting of this universe and how it started you believe in many things that gravitational force i just said to you there are many things that you believe in which you can't observe okay but all of these things i can observe the effect of it i can't observe the effect of your yes now you can i'll tell you the effect how sleeping paralysis is something that is exactly what the messenger sallallahu alaihi wa sallam i told us he told us alaihi sallam that sleeping paralysis is uh shaitan for example telling the person go to sleep um this is the important concept i want to understand i want i want us to understand there's many other things i want to talk about i just don't want to go into it now because uh due to it not being the correct podcast for it but there is a concept which they pushed what they call it the god the the god of the gaps whenever you can't explain something you just squeeze and god in there and that's your answer for everything and and then as time goes on science will disprove it and the god would pop out of that gap and the gap gets more tighter and tighter as time goes on and that's what they say and i don't want to go into that now i really want to discuss that when we if we if we ever have a podcast on atheism and their their their common arguments but let me go back to what i was saying is that there is no conflict really between sound sound sound reasoning and an authentic text there isn't what did adiqa the scholars they say any individual who's closer to the revelation you'll tend to find that they have the most soundest reasoning i was reading um laris krauss he allows incest i mean he says that you know that's because he's far from revelation so you see that he will uh richard dorkins he permitted and he can see he doesn't see any problem with mild pedophilia so the the distance from revelation is actually causing the intellect to actually become more deficient that's what you're yeah exactly i'm let me give you an example of some islamic thinkers for instance i was saying before sheikh waslam the book he wrote he wrote a kitab this kitab is a refutation on uh fakhrudin ar-razi he's refuting he's refuting fakhrudin ar-razi fakhrudin ar-razi was one of the greatest islamic thinkers he was a person who used akal to its maximum you know he used it to its max he stretched his brain he was a great thinker without a shadow of a doubt uh it was there's something he came up with which was known as al-qanun al-kulli i want to explain it quickly qanun al-kulli is that um he too premised and uh infer inference two premises and a conclusion so he said qazia that the akal goes against the nakal the akal which is the reasoning and thinking and rationality versus text so he already he as you mentioned before confirmation bias he already alluded he already he suppositions that there is a conflict between nakal and akal okay and then he said takdim al-akli an al-nakal which is the second premise he brought that you give presidents to the rationality over the text and then last but not the evidence for that is that the akal is the foundation and the nakal is the subbranch it's or in in other words in other wordings he said in text a benefits us speculation like it doesn't it's speculative it's actually not clear-cut shekh al-sam'tamiya felt okay this is this doesn't make sense so what shekh al-sam'tamiya did was he responded to him in 44 different angles 44 different perspectives 44 different which in 10 volumes and beginning he responds first of all he divides his answers into two shekh al-sam'tamiya first when he makes it into a jawab mujman a general answer and that is four lines okay that is that could be enough but of course they won't take it so what he did was it then he went into 44 different angles of responding to fakhrudin al-razi shekh al-sam 10 volumes okay and these argument that fakhrudin al-razi to be honest he brought he wasn't the first to actually bring it al-qadi abdel jabbar al-hamadani al-mu'tizli salih before him abou ma'ali al-juayni salih before him in the kitab al-irshad also even abou hamid al-ghazali salih in his kitab al-qaloun al-ta'weel if today that book has been translated in its totality if it could be translated in the English language it's an amazing book ibn ul-qayyim said you can actually say it's the masterpiece of sheikh al-sam'tamiya's works and that man fakhrudin al-razi imagine this i was reading tariq al-islam by limam ad-dahi bi-rahimahullah um that fakhrudin al-razi say he mentioned that fakhrudin al-razi in his latest stages his last moments of life he said i wish i didn't busy myself with these philosophical arguments i didn't busy myself with this rationality there's a line of poetry that he said he said i've traveled around all these academic researches i've looked at all of them i've only seen people who were confused and people who didn't know where things were going i've looked at all of this and it's true fakhrudin al-razi did and he said in another line of poetry he said i looked at these these philosophical methodologies and discourses and i saw that it doesn't answer any questions there's another famous lines of poetry that's attributed to him which is um he said the final ending of all of these philosophical arguments the final conclusion and the end result has become that misguided nothing substantial and these are the words of a man who was one of the greatest islamic thinkers and actually prioritizing his early life the akhullah over the text when he got into some something he mentioned that when when you say al imam according to the shahara when they say the imam they mean fakhrudin al-razi that's it is him no one else i really want you to understand one thing scientists they have to understand that science explains science argues and proves things but it's not in any way shape or form able to respond and answer everything science will never science will never ever tell us why we're in this universe what is our purpose in this dunya science will never and he can't that's not his field he won't be able look at one scientist today he has so many different beliefs so many different theories that are contradicting one another his his own views are changing i was reading the kitab al-araa fakhrudin al-razi written by a man called muhammad al-zarkani he wrote a kitab on fakhrudin al-razi i'm currently trying to summarize the book he's talking about the the athar al-falsafiyah the another sheikh his name is called abdulaym al-ahmad al-ansari he wrote another kitab on the philosophical arguments of fakhrudin al-razi and how it affected his aqeida these researchers are written him fakhrudin al-razi in one issue before he had like three or four different views to the extent sheikh was simultaneously in his fifth volume in minhaj sunnah nabui he said it's sometimes hard to even say this is what fakhrudin al-razi believes the reason is because fully dependent on the aqeida it confuses you you don't know what to say okay there is another issue that um some people bring up actually the reason and the motive behind this behind people like yourself pushing the fact that the text is superior to the intellect is actually they want to control people people will ask them questions they don't want people to think on their own they want to be able to tell people exactly what to do how to practice their religion and it's just a form of control what do you have to say about that no if that would that would that would that would be a good argument if we were saying you have to follow humans and you have to follow myself and that makes that's a good argument but if you're saying that you and i both are forced to follow that text then as much as you have to so do i so i don't think it's me trying to control you or you trying to control me we're both being you know we're both it's both necessary and both of us and it's required from both of us to follow the the text there is a whole new argument however and that is when you say that the text is superior to the intellect actually the scholars of hadith who are the ones with the permission of Allah who are actually preserving the text they tend to disagree with you for example you have imam ibn al-Jawza who said things like for a text to be authentic a condition upon it is that it can't go against the the reason so you're sitting here saying that the text the authentic text should be pushed above the intellect because the intellect has invitations and he who is actually the one who's authenticating the text is actually saying i only authenticate if it goes in line with my reason again what you have to understand is number one as i said to you before the text doesn't go against the intellect i already said that that doesn't happen and if it does it's subjective it's what you think and you just have to take it to what you just have to take it someone who knows it and someone who can explain it to you he said Allah's texts they don't oppose one another so what do you do take it to a person of knowledge i promise you he'll show you there is it's a deficiency on your side he said if there is a conflict between a text and your rationality you're unable to fathom it there's three one of three situations i remember this all the time if you see a text supposedly going against the rationality or it's going against the thinking process then it's one of three this text is not even authentic in the first place it's weak number two you are unable to comprehend the text correctly and number three the aqal is actually deficient you're an insane person you're one of those three situations so it's not possible that the aqal and the aqal go against one another and the aqal i'm talking about here is i'm talking about the aqal which is which is it's healthy it's sound the person is not a lunatic the person is not deranged the person is not insane and the text is authentic two things that are contradicting one another have to both be present right whatever it is you can't have two things you think are contradicting one another when one doesn't even exist second is that try to understand it properly in the first place at the last but not least then question your rationality to be honest and if let's give me some advice and if i'm a layman muslim and i come across a text that to me it on the apparent it contradicts my intellect where do i go from there sorry there let's let's start with that question where do i go from there just like if you read a medical book who do you take it to as expertise you take it to specialized person you ask him you say what is this what is what is what do the scientists mean in this regard what do they what do what does this term mean what what is meant by this so the same book the same thing when you read the revelation take it to the expertise there's the people who are specialized in this field and if the answer i'm given it just still doesn't comfort my intellect for example what should i prioritize you see Allah told us the the from the beginning of al-islam from the beginning of revelation Allah told us in the Quran that there's always been two camps okay the first camp is those who follow the revelation and those who follow their desires Allah says in the ayah if they don't follow you Muhammad then know that they are following their desires the way that the people follow their desires in different ways okay is in different ways a group of people follow their desires by giving the akal an unrestricted strength an unrestricted platform where the akal can do what it wishes and how it wishes that's one form of people oppose it with their desires another group of people the Sufiya who oppose it based on their their feelings and what they feel like there are those who oppose the akal based on customs and cultures you see they'll say to you our values is not this and our this you know the third people is the statements of the imams of their madhab and they'll say to the our madhab doesn't believe this and our imam never said this so desires and revelations always been a conflict but not akal you've mentioned before on this podcast previously that we should follow the religion the way the companions followed it now there was a hadith again where the companions were sent away on a battalion and the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam set one of them as the leaders Amir and he he commanded the other group the rest of the group to jump into a fire now if they were to follow the text like you're suggesting they would have jumped into the fire because the messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam put this guy in charge and he also said you should follow the amir but they didn't they said no this doesn't make sense to us they didn't ask someone notice how they didn't ask the messenger they actually just said this doesn't make sense to us so we're not going to jump in the fire afterwards they went then went and asked the messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and he said you did the right thing by not jumping the fire doesn't this show that actually there are occasions where when you approach with a text and it doesn't make sense to you that it is okay to follow what you believe that's what they did right okay what you have to understand is messengers and prophets were sent with with that which is textual and that which is that's reasonable prophets didn't come with things that are not reasonable things that can't rationally be fathomed they can't be understood as I said to you before the proof of Allah against the creation is two things the first one is both of them are the proof of Allah against the creation so what these sahabas did was they took the reason and the revelation and they reconciled it they brought it together there was no conflict to be honest they just saw that this is how it's done what they did was they obeyed the leader as the prophet told them sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and that which is good see the concept of obedience it's not unrestricted you know I mean it's the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam didn't say unrestrictly obey him the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam obey him so the akal would tell you that the obedience where it where it is and what it's not and the prophet all he did was sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he reinforced that he said that the obedience is in that which is ma'roof but they didn't say our akal tells us not to obey the leader at all in any way shape or form then you would say to me they did go against what the messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said so even the fact that they didn't jump in the fire the actually revelation has told you not to commit suicide not to bring harm upon yourself so we're actually following the revelation anyway by not doing that okay are there any statements from the companions that talk about the limitation of the akal and how the the text itself should be followed over the akal I told you the statement of the what I didn't say it was a statement but ibn abbas radiallahu ta'ala anhu that he said that the akal is like the eyesight just like the eyesight is limited in seeing he said that the akal is also limited in in in how far it can see and so both of them are governed by both of them are governed by the text what did ibn utaymin said something very powerful he said that the sharia it gave governorship and leadership to the akal and then he can take it down if it won't switch this to you see also ibn al-shatibi said in simple terms shatibi said follows and the text is the leader okay that was a really fascinating discussion jazakh allahu khairan for the points that you made today until next time i hope you enjoyed and benefited from that discussion please do share it with your friends and family members if you feel like they might benefit too and don't forget to hit that subscribe button below so you're notified of any new episodes check out www.thehotseatpodcast.com that's the hotseatpodcast.com on there you'll find a little bit more information about the podcast and you'll also have the chance to vote for which topic you'd like to see discussed on the show you can also ask questions on the website to the speaker 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