II. The Function of ReasonMan is a finite being and the powers with which he is endowed
are necessarily limited in scope. Human reason is no exception. On
this ground, however, we are not justified in despising it and
refusing to employ it in solving the problems of life. The guidance
that reason gives is not the less valuable because it is not perfect. It is
reason that has raised man far above the animal level; to repudiate
reason is to sink to the animal level or even lower. Man cannot fall
back on instinct which is the mainstay of animals. Man outgrew
instinct when he developed reason. The glorious successes of
reason however, led man to overestimate its capacity: he expected
that reason would give him absolute knowledge. When this
expectation was not fulfilled, he became disillusioned with reason
and went to the other extreme in rejecting reason outright. Among
religious people too, both the mystics and the dogmatists are in
revolt against reason. The mystics seek guidance in mystical
experience and the dogmatists strictly in the letter of the scriptures.
They forget that both these things have to be interpreted by human
reason if they are to be of any use to man.
They forget that reason is the distinctive attribute of man and to
repudiate it is to repudiate the best in him. They forget that the
Qur’an does not lend support to this deprecation of reason. Rather,
it exhorts us to make full use of our rational power.
The Qur’anic view of reason and its place in human life deserves
careful consideration. Briefly stated, this view is that the long
evolutionary process culminated in the emergence of man,
characterised by the Qur'an as a "new creation" (23:14). It was at this
stage that "He breathed in him His Ruh" (32:9), and endowed him
with the capacities of "seeing, hearing and apprehending” (32:9).
Man was granted a mind (fuaad) which enabled him to think and,
through the instrumentality of intellect, to build up a system of
knowledge. Man will, indeed, be an ungrateful creature if he refuses
to value and make use of the best of Divine gifts. Reason converts
the raw grist collected by the senses into knowledge. The Qur'an
rightly assigns to reason an important role in human life:
The worst of beasts in Allah's sight are the deaf, the dumb, who do not
use their intellect to understand (8:22).
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