Reason vs. Islam

In this short essay from Jonathan David Carson, we take a look at the historical differences between the metaphysical views of Islam and those of the West. Metaphysics, for the Greek philosophers, was the science of first principles; the basic facts about the universe which give rise to all of the others. It should be clear by now that the different metaphysical views of Islam and the West are at odds, and that mainstream Islam as it is currently understood by most Muslims themselves, is incompatible with the basic philosophic foundation of the modern Western world. And it is because of these fundamentally different world views, which are at the root of these two systems, that we are seeing the conflicts which rage across the globe today.

Every system of thought is based on certain axioms; certain basic fundamental ideas on which the whole is built. In the West we have developed, over thousands of years, a system based on reason, logic and science. The ancient philosophers, such as Aristotle, showed that the world in which we live is governed by laws of nature that are regular and predictable. From this original observation we have gone on to discover the laws of physics, chemistry, electromagnetism and a host of others that describe the way the world around us works. Thus the basis of our society and culture in the West is the recognition that the universe is intelligible and knowable. Reason and logic allow us to see the underlying causes and effects at work in the world around us. And this knowledge gives us the standard of living and the constant progress which we enjoy in the West as we use natural laws to improve our lives with ever better technology, as well as a constant evolution in the methods of creating wealth and comfort for those of us who live in the civilized part of the world.

Islam, however, rejects this view of the world. For the devout Muslim the pursuit of science and reason are considered "un-Islamic." The view that any cause and effect could be independent of "the will of Allah" is considered apostasy. The Muslim believes that everything which happens is the direct will of Allah, and any attempt to understand the regularity and predictability of the universe denies the will of Allah to do as he pleases. The logical consequence of this was, for the whole of Islamic culture, the rejection of science and reason. And because of that rejection, mainstream Islam has been in decline for centuries and has remained at the level of primitive tribalism even today. And while Muslim societies may use technology, it remains true that the Islamic world is parasitic on the West; using its products but contributing nothing to the advance of knowledge and growth that is characteristic of the civilized world.

In the end Islam must seek to destroy the civilized world or it will pass into the dustbin of history along with every other anti-intellectual creed and system of thought that has gone before. Modern civilization is built on a foundation of freedom of thought informed by the understanding of a rational and intelligible universe. The proof is all around us. Fanatics, unfortunately, have a habit of ignoring the facts and tend to cling to their beliefs no matter how irrational they may be.