Arguments
Question:-
There are differences of opinion and endless arguments between the sects of Islam and between Islam and other. Why? Is not Truth One? How can one decide between them?
Answer:-
The Truth is one, but it can be looked at from different view points, formulated in words differently by different people and in different language system and it can also be looked at through distorting lenses and selectively ignoring different parts or aspects and systematizing the rest in different ways.
Ever since the introduction of Greek Philosophy and formal logic into Islam, there have been continuous arguments and controversies about all kinds of things, which in essence are irrelevant to the practice of Islam. They merely constitute mental gymnastics and jugglery due to attachment to words rather than understanding that which the words point to.
This applies to the controversy about whether the Quran is created or uncreated and about the controversy between Muslims and Christians about Jesus. The contestants create dichotomies by taking opposite sides in reaction to each other, thereby, moving themselves away from the centre where the truth lies.
A Muslim Intellectual:-
I'm not quite sure what you mean, but what you seem to call "attachment to words" I call taking the Quran seriously, and by that I mean I take the words of the Quran seriously. Are you suggesting this is some kind of error?
Comment:-
If you take the Quran seriously then you will understand and accept what the Quran tells us - i.e.. that there is no god but Allah and that He has no partners, that He is not begotten nor begets, and that His Word is Truth and that He has created all things with Truth.
You will stop confusing yourself and others by introducing verbal trickery and the idea of a separate Logos from Greek Philosophy about which you can argue as to whether it is created or uncreated.
Muslim Intellectual:-
As for formal logical thinking, clear reasoning, based on logical rules of inference, is the antidote to confusion.
Comment:-
You are mistaken. I have written several articles to show that all confusion is caused by people giving different meanings to the same word or the same meaning to different words, either deliberately to prove their points, or to cause confusion, or unconsciously because of past experiences, or the limitation of their faculties, motives and actions.
That is why there is controversy in Philosophy, Politics, Literature, Religion and everywhere else in human affairs. Even in science. The only way of coming to agreements is if a set of people undergo the same experiences because of the same disciplines in the same situation e.g. a laboratory, using the same terms and conceptual system for the same actions, observations and experimental results.
Muslim Intellectual:-
Take, for example, the issue of the uncreatedness of the Qur'an. In all the time its been discussed in this forum and elsewhere, I still have not seen a single good argument in favor of it.
Comment:-
What you have seen or not, understood or not, is connected with your capacity for perception, motives, assumptions, experiences. Controversy arises because others have seen and understood different things.
The Quran tells us:-
"He said: The Truth is, and the Truth I speak." 38:84
"He it is Who created the heavens and the earth in truth. In the day when He saith: Be! it is. His Word is the Truth" 6:73
Where in the Quran does it say that Truth is created or that it is uncreated. Where does it say that His Word is a creation or not a creation.
Do you take the reference to Allah's speech or word literally? Do you think He has a mouth and tongue, and also arms and legs and so forth? Do you think that Truth is separate from Allah or is it an attribute of Allah? What does the following mean:-
"He begets not nor is begotten and there is nothing like Him." 112:3-4
Is it not the case that all these silly arguments are about the word "Word", but that the reality it stands for has been completely ignored.
Let me repeat - the controversy is silly and irrelevant.
If you regard the Quran to be a book of paper and ink then it is created. If you regard the Quran as Truth from Allah then it is not.
The Quran also tells us that Jesus was a word and spirit from Allah, but that he was created a human being. He was born and died on earth - he was, therefore, certainly a creation.
But what of the Word he carried?
What of the Spirit which is in all men - "So when I have fashioned it, and breathed into it of My Spirit, then fall ye down before him, prostrating yourselves before him (in obeisance)." 15:29
("The Spirit is by the Command of my Lord" 17:85)
Why were the angels required to bow before man. Was it not because they had something divine in them? Why is it we are required to make no distinction between Allah and the Messengers (4:150) i.e. those who are inspired by the Spirit and carry the Word of God.
Truth is not separate from Allah but part of the attribute of Allah. But again you might object to the words I have used here rather than trying to understand what I am referring to.
If that is what you wish to do then carry on...but without me.
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