Prioritizing Reason over Revelation
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. The questioner says: Some people exaggerate in prioritizing reason over revelation, and they argue from this that Allah, Glorified and Exalted, does not address us except with what we can comprehend, and that He cannot demand of us what we cannot comprehend.
Answer:
Does this speech mean that He does not address us except with what we can comprehend? There are things that the mind cannot grasp, my brother. There are things that the mind cannot grasp. So you must submit to Allah, Mighty and Majestic, even if your mind does not grasp it, or the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) commands you to submit even if your mind does not grasp it.[Yunus 10:39]
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. The questioner says: Some people exaggerate in prioritizing reason over revelation, and they argue from this that Allah, Glorified and Exalted, does not address us except with what we can comprehend, and that He cannot demand of us what we cannot comprehend.
Answer:
Does this speech mean that He does not address us except with what we can comprehend? There are things that the mind cannot grasp, my brother. There are things that the mind cannot grasp. So you must submit to Allah, Mighty and Majestic, even if your mind does not grasp it, or the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) commands you to submit even if your mind does not grasp it.
Rather, they have denied that which they encompass not in knowledge and whose interpretation has not yet come to them.
بَلْ كَذَّبُوا بِمَا لَمْ يُحِيطُوا بِعِلْمِهِ وَلَمَّا يَأْتِهِمْ تَأْوِيلُهُ
Source
شرح إغاثة اللهفان من مصائد الشيطان لابن القيم، فصل ومن كيده العجيب : أنه يشام النفس حتى يعلم أي القوتين تغلب عليها — islamhouse.com (1:17:18)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.