“Intellect and Religion in Islam and the West”

Abstract

The paper argues that the relationship between intellect and religion has been an essentially harmonious one in the Islamic context. Despite various disputes over the place of the intellect in relation to religion, one does not observe the two elements being pitted in opposition to each other in any radical or extreme manner. This is to be contrasted with the philosophical situation that has prevailed in the West since the 18th century Enlightenment movement. Religion is deemed antithetical, in large part, to the free operation of the intelligence, as a result of the secularisation of thought and culture in western society. The present paper addresses this theme in relation to the criticisms being voiced by highly influential intellectuals within the West itself; and by reference to the perspectives of certain Muslim philosophers, Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd, for whom there was no contradiction between intellect and religion.