Ibn Rushd… The Reconciliation of Reason with the Text
The crisis of Islamic thought at no stage
resulted from a shortage of texts,
but rather from the fear of employing reason
to understand those texts.
At the heart of this historical tension
emerged the name of Ibn Rushd,
as one of the most courageous
and intellectually consistent minds in Islamic history,
and among the strongest defenders of the human right
to think and employ reason
without departing from the circle of faith.
No Contradiction Between Wisdom and Sharia
Ibn Rushd began from a decisive premise:
Sound reason cannot contradict sound transmission.
If a contradiction appears to exist,
the problem lies not in religion,
but in understanding—
that is, in the mind that transmits it.
Through this reasoning,
he established a highly significant theoretical foundation:
Philosophy is not an adversary of Sharia,
but a tool for understanding it more deeply.
Freedom of Ijtihad… A Duty
Ibn Rushd did not regard free thinking
as a philosophical luxury.
Rather, he considered it a religious duty
for those capable of it.
In his view,
human beings worship God in no nobler way
than by knowing His creations
and reflecting upon the order of the universe
and its laws.
Thus, ijtihad was not a departure from religion,
but an authentic practice at its very core.
Against the Excommunication of Minds
Ibn Rushd faced a fierce wave of accusations of unbelief,
not because he denied the texts,
but because he defended reason
and its right to engage with the text,
under a clear principle:
The mujtahid, if he is correct, receives two rewards;
if he errs, he receives one reward.
Through this understanding,
Ibn Rushd dismantled the sanctity of the single opinion
and removed the most dangerous weapon
from the hands of the opponents of intellectual freedom:
the weapon of religious accusation.
The State and Reason
Ibn Rushd did not separate
freedom of thought from sound governance.
In his vision,
no state can be upright
if reason is besieged,
and justice cannot be built
in a climate that criminalizes questioning.
For this reason,
his defense of freedom of opinion
was not merely a philosophical argument,
but a defense of the very condition
of human civilization.
Why Was Ibn Rushd a Pivotal Thinker?
Because he demonstrated
that faith does not require repression to endure,
that religion is not protected by closing minds,
and that the text should not be feared
from responsible interpretation.
For this reason,
the West benefited from his thought,
while our Arab and Islamic societies
lost him for a long time.
To be continued.
Cairo: five in the evening, according to the time of Al-Mahrousa.
