Twenty Aberrations in the Knowledge of Islam - Leslie Terebessy - Bog

"Methodology" in research is the experience of uncovering knowledge. Knowledge is the awareness of truth. Ignorance is the reverse of knowledge. Reliable methodology enables us to proceed from darkness to enlightenment. Methodology enables understanding. It requires relating the factors of knowledge in Islam: revelation, tradition, the ulema and reason. It also requires defining the purposes of exegesis and jurisprudence, two of the religious sciences in Islam. Exegesis endeavours to understand text; jurisprudence deduces the rulings (laws) from the knowledge of revelation. Thus, jurisprudence presupposes exegesis. If the exegesis is flawed, jurisprudence will also be flawed. This does not guarantee, however, that if any exegesis is reliable, the results of jurisprudence will also be reliable. For errors may take place even in jurisprudence deduced from flawless exegesis. Both exegesis and jurisprudence require the engagement of reason. Without reason, no exegesis or jurisprudence is possible. Among of the errors of traditional exegesis and jurisprudence is that these disciplines were evolved with a reduced use of reason. This was based on: "the hadith that reportedly goes to the prophet, according to which he forbade the use of 'reason-based tafsir' as a form of disbelief (kufr)." The rejection of reason proved disastrous. For it rendered exegetes and jurists that refrained from the use of reason handicapped. Reliable methods of exegesis and jurisprudence are derived from revelation, knowledge from the Most High. The assumptions of a reliable methodology must agree with the teaching of revelation. Problems in methodology resulted in a corruption of the knowledge of revelation. The corruption resulted from the repression of reason. The repression of reason resulted in a reinterpretation of the knowledge of revelation. The corruption of knowledge ensured the fall of the umma. The religion of peace was reinvented as a blueprint for waging wars of aggression and territorial expansion, through recourse to the teaching of abrogation. The teaching of abrogation enabled unscrupulous ulema to tamper with the teaching of revelation. By designating jihad al-talab as a religious requirement, the sixth pillar of Islam, hawkish ulema did not just render lawful what Allah prohibited; by advocating wars of aggression to propagate religion by the sword, hawkish ulema ensured the fall of the Muslim umma. For the wars of aggression, which required Muslim to become aggressors, resulted in retaliation by non-Muslims assaulted with jihad al-talab. The retaliation by the Mongols, for example, triggered by the abhorrent mass murder of Mongol traders and ambassadors, vanquished the Abbasid caliphate. The peaceful co-existence of the umma within the "global village" requires a reassessment of the traditional perceptions of revelation, to bring them into line with the teaching of the Book of Allah. For traditional renditions veered from the teaching of revelation, for example on the meaning of jihad. It is necessary to reject exclusive renditions of Islam in favour of the tolerant Islam practiced by the prophet and taught by revelation. Thomas Kuhn argued in the Structure of Scientific Revolutions that science evolves through a series of revolutions, where a scientific paradigm is challenged and replaced by a more advanced paradigm, that explains reality more fully and comprehensively. This takes place when a scientist uncovers an aberration in the existing paradigm. Islamic religious disciplines were penetrated by a range of anomalies, arising from the repression of reason, which restricted reflection. The ensuing aberrations encompassed the treatment of tradition as revelation, the subordination of revelation to tradition, and the re-interpretation of the religion of reconciliation as a religion of war, by means of recourse to the alleged abrogation of the peace verses by the verse of the swor