Nahjul Balagha (a collection of sermons and letters by Maula Ali) reports a profound statement: “Surely God has characterised the angles by intellect without sexual, and the animals with anger and desire without intellect. He exalted man by bestowing upon him all of these qualities. Therefore, if man’s intellect dominates his desire and passion, he rise to a rank higher than that of angles, because he achieves this rank despite the obstacles that do not vex the angles.”
This remark is emblematic of the importance of the use of reason and intelligence in Islamic tradition. The Quran repeatedly exhort its students to apply their minds to understand the signs of God contained both in the word (Quran) and work (Creation) of God. It says: “Do they not then earnestly seek to understand Quran or are their hearts looked up by them?” (47.24).
The Quran disapproves of those who instead of making an effort to understand the Book, show misplaced reverence towards it: “And those who when they are reminded of the signs of their Lord, fall not deaf and blind thereat” (25.73). It is important to note that the Quran uses the same Arabic word ayat (proofs, evidences, verse, lessons, signs, revelations, etc.) booth for its own sentences and for all creation in the universe, animate and inanimate: “Behold! In the creation of the heavens and the earth; in the alternation of the night and the day; in the sailing of the ships through the ocean for the profit of mankind; in the rain which God sends down from the skies and the life which He gives therewith to an earth that is dead; in the beasts of all kinds that He scatters through the earth; in the change of the winds and the clouds which they trail like their slaves between the sky and the earth; (here) indeed are signs (ayats) for a people who understand” (2.164).
http://newageislam.com/ink-of-the-scholar-is-holier-than-blood-of-the-martyr/islamic-ideology/d/2761
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5:24 AM
Moderate Islamist here
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