Revelation And Reason In Islam

ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: ISLAM REVELATION AND REASON IN ISLAM REVELATION AND REASON IN ISLAM A. J. ARBERRY Volume 3 ROUTLEDGE Routledge Taylor & Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK First published in 1957 This edition first published in 2008 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Transferred to Digital Printing 2008 © 1957 George Allen & Unwin Ltd All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 10: 0-415-42600-6 (Set) ISBN 10: 0-415-43887-X (Volume 3) ISBN 13: 978-0-415-42600-8 (Set) ISBN 13: 978-0-415-43887-2 (Volume 3) Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. A. J. ARBERRY Litt.D., F.B.A. REVELATION AND REASON IN ISLAM The Forwood Lectures for 1956 Delivered in the University of Liverpool London GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN RUSKIN HOUSE LTD. MUSEUM S T R E E T FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1957 SECOND IMPRESSION 1965 This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act 1956, no portion may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiry should be made to the publisher PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY PHOTOLITHOGRAPHY UNWIN BROTHERS LIMITED WOKING AND LONDON CONTENTS I page 7 II page 34 III page 61 IV page 89 INDEX 119 I T HE problem of the relationship between revelation and reason is indeed one of the most famous and profound topics in the history of human thought. It is a topic which, though debated without intermission now for some two thousand years, appears not to lose anything of its fascination and freshness, for all the dust overspreading the countless volumes of dead, or seemingly dead metaphysics and theology. In choosing as my theme for this course of lectures 'Revelation and Reason in Islam' I am all too conscious of the slightness of the contribution to that long debate which it will fall to me to make, in so short a time and upon the basis of knowledge so limited. If it were possible to institute a full review of this sublime dilemma as it affected and was affected by the Mohammedan faith, that would undoubtedly take us some considerable distance towards understanding and stating the problem as a whole. The problem as a whole has never yet, so far as I am aware, been anywhere stated; and until the whole problem has been correctly stated, it is obviously vain to look for anything approaching a satisfactory solution, assuming that a satisfactory solution is in any case discoverable. It should not be necessary to stress, what is so apparent as to be a truism, that the true nature of the conflict or concord between reason and revelation will not be seized by those who confine their curiosity to its manifestation in Christianity alone, or in Judaism alone, or in Islam alone. Each system of beliefs resting upon faith in a Divine revelation introduces it