Living The Quran
From Issue: 641 [Read full issue]
Sources of Knowledge
Al Isra (The Night Journey) - Chapter 17: Verse 36
"And do not follow that of which you have no knowledge. Indeed, the hearing, the sight and the heart - about all those [one] will be questioned."
Islam decrees that people should be guided by knowledge rather than by conjecture and baseless assertions. The sources or means of knowledge are three:
- true reports
- reason, and
- five senses
A believer must accept the true report but can study its meaning and draw certain conclusions from it, if he or she has the authority to do so. The data perceived by reason and the five senses may be either true or false and require further investigation.
Islam states that belief should be based on, or at least corroborated by, knowledge and that it is in no way incompatible with knowledge. Therefore, accepting the existence of God and beings such as angels and jinn is not dogmatism, but rather a scientific attitude. There are scientific criteria that support the acceptance of their existence.
First of all, even if our five senses cannot perceive these truths, God has actually given humankind other senses with which to be able to perceive them. More than 100,000 Prophets, who were able to use those senses, who never lied during their lives, and who were followed by innumerable people, as well as millions of saints, have informed us of their existence; in addition to these, millions of other people have had similar experiences.
Secondly, denial of the Divine Revelation as a source of knowledge means accusing all the Prophets and saints, whose truthfulness has been witnessed and accepted, of being the meanest liars in human history, and designating their billions of followers as fools who blindly follow liars. Moreover, to cite just one example of truthfulness out of the countless ones, both in the Quran and the sayings of God's Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, there are many predictions, most of which have proven true. The remaining ones are waiting for their due time to be proven true. There are indeed so many scientific facts which have been discovered or are being discovered in parallel with developments in science that these alone are sufficient to establish the truth of the Divine Revelation.
Compiled From:
"The Quran: Annotated Interpretation in Modern English" - Ali Unal, pp. 578, 579