What is the essence of religion? What is the truth behind man’s faith? Does faith transcend reason? What is more superior? Could faith be rationalized? Has knowledge, which serves as man’s means to access the secrets of the universe, developed in a way leading to a conflict between knowledge itself and religion, based on the conception that religion and knowledge are apart from each other? Some claim that religion belongs to the realm of the unseen; it is a deliverance to Allah; thus, it ought not to interfere in our world. This conception is confirmed by the following saying that we always use: "Religion is for Allah and the homeland is for everyone," meaning we ought to leave religion up to Allah, for He is more entitled to it, and Allah ought to leave the homeland up to us, without interfering in its affairs in any way!
Some believe that faith is superior to reason, since faith is connected to the unseen, which the mind possesses no means to reach. In accordance with this view, the man who wishes to open up to faith ought to live faith in his soul and heart, for what makes one believe is emotions and not the mind, since it is the soul that opens up man to the horizons of faith and not knowledge. However, is this view accepted by Islam? Does the Qur’an refer to it in any of its verses?
As we get closer to the point, another horizon is revealed ahead of us; which is the image of man in Islam: Is the image of man in Islam that of the rational man who would not believe in anything before examining it thoroughly, and would not attempt doing anything before rationalizing it? What is the image of man in this world?
Perhaps we have plunged even deeper into backwardness, where man had imagined that the more he approached rationality, the further he became from religion, and the more he opened up to knowledge, the further he proceeded towards the unseen. Unfortunately, this is what set the foundation for the conflict between knowledge and religion, and this is what drove many religious people to turn themselves and their children away from knowledge and reason. They came to believe that if they opened before their children the doors of knowledge and reason, they would eventually deviate from the course of religion.
When we focus in the beginning on the basis of faith in the Qur’anic concept, we notice that the Holy Qur’an confirms that Allah wants man to be aware of the responsibility he ought to shoulder before Him beforehand:
“And We never punish until We have sent a messenger.” Surah Al-Isra (17:15)
and:
“Allah does not charge a soul except [with that within] its capacity.” Surah At-Talaq (65:07)
When we shoulder our responsibilities towards Allah, He would not hold us responsible for the consequences of our actions until He lays down an argument on the basis of which He can later judge us. In other words, Allah grants us mind and reason, and sends messengers who enlighten us and provide knowledge of all sorts of issues and details that we might encounter in our lives. Once we manage to stimulate the mind and open up to the messages, and once the mind succeeds in embracing religion, all the inquiries it might bring up before the messages or that the messages might bring up before it, man would be judged on the basis of the argument Allah has already laid down. If the mind manages to accept the message by means of reasoning, dialogue, debates, and inquiries, then the argument would have been established.
Consequently, Muslim scholars tend to believe that Allah does not punish the man who does not possess the means for acquiring knowledge or the potentials to realize the truth, for then, Allah would not have laid down the aforementioned argument, but rather, He would judge him for the actions he undertakes according to his free will, considering that the mind, in many issues of the universe, is not in need of messages. However, if he is not acquainted with what the messengers have delivered, then the argument on the basis of which man would be judged would not be considered valid. Consequently, he would not be punished.
We conclude that in the issue of faith, we do not shoulder any responsibility except through an argument—when Allah lays down an argument on the basis of which He would judge us. This argument consists of two items: the mind and a messenger; a mind that is governed by common sense and reason, and a messenger who acts in accordance with the message he brings along. In some traditions it was narrated that: "The mind is an internal messenger while the messenger is an external mind," meaning that the messenger is not merely a person who brings words that people are not entitled to inquire about or discuss, but rather he presents a mind that interacts with the people's minds, so that the mind would explore the truth, knowing that the message is brought to help it in other domains. Moreover, the mind helps the message to convey its concepts and positions in life; thus, we conclude that there are no problems or disharmony between the message and the mind concerning what the mind could realize from what the message has brought along.
Source: An excerpt from the book Jurisprudence Between the Seizure of the Past and the Horizons of the Future