# If blind following in faith is forbidden, why must I accept a school's creed without question? *No blind following in faith, yet blind following of creeds: reason used once and discarded* - URL: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/zasz48lx_wi/s/7/ - Date: 2020-12-11 · Kind: discussion · Transcript tier: machine · Recording: Dr Javad T. Hashmi | Axis of Morality & Archetypal Myths in the Quran | MindTrap 46 |Mufti Abu Layth (22:39–29:42) - Status: general teaching - Watch from the start of the segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAsz48lX_WI&t=1359s - Recording page: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/zasz48lx_wi/ **Topics:** Reason and revelation; Creed and the schools of theology; Salvation and non-Muslims **Summary (not a quotation; machine-made, unchecked):** Mufti Abu Layth finds it paradoxical that schools forbid blind following in faith but demand blind acceptance of their creeds; the guest says traditionalists use reason only to reach revelation and then discard it, whereas reason must stay in continuous use. ## Longer summary After fixing the microphone, Mufti Abu Layth raises what he calls a paradox: people say one may not blindly follow in belief, citing the hadith that in the grave those who believed only because they heard others will be questioned, yet the Ash'ari and Hanbali schools say one must accept every point of their creeds. Amid further audio trouble, the guest says the consequence of their view is that reason is used only to arrive at God and the need for a prophet and is then thrown away, used instrumentally rather than rationally, whereas the Mu'tazila put reason and revelation on the same level and the philosophers gave reason precedence; he says modern reactionary conservatives equate reason with whims and desires. He cites Reliance of the Traveller as saying that someone on an isolated island who never heard revelation is not held accountable, which he says would allow such a person to commit any atrocity and be forgiven on becoming Muslim, and calls that absurd. He argues that reason is an ongoing tool in engaging with revelation, so that a verse saying something absurd would rightly make one question one's earlier conviction, and says he is inspired by the philosophers, the Mu'tazila and modern Islamic modernists. ## Sources and names cited - Dr Javad T. Hashmi (guest) - report: i heard the people saying something so i said it (unresolved; the questioning in the grave) - taqlid (blind following) - Ash'ari - Hanbali - Mu'tazila - Reliance of the Traveller ('Umdat al-Salik) ## Transcript (machine tier, 22:39–29:42) [22:19] So, my audio keeps cutting out. Um, it's the gym. It's the gin that I see. I'm hearing my voice back there. I took off my head to see if that will help. No, I think No, that won't help. Let me try. [snorts] Try [laughter] medical. Just do the doctor's advice. If it doesn't work, just take it out and put it back in. [laughter] Okay. [22:44] How's it? Good now, right? Good. Uh, yep. Good. Uh, I think if you do that setting or whatever because it's it's it's good, but it's just gone slightly lower. Whatever it was, is it not? But it's on the right setting now though. Is it okay? I think that's actually working a bit better. So, it might actually be your closeness to it. [23:07] Uh, as as you are a bit closer, move it closer. Yes. So, yep. Um, yeah. So this thing that you you were saying doc is it not a do you not you see I've always found it an such a a mind-boggling paradox that on one hand people say you see ina to believe in God you cannot blind follow because they say that you know the hadith teaches that in the grave you will be asked and those people who said look I saw such and such saying to believe this so I believed it and they you know so I didn't really think for [23:43] myself. But yet the schools of like you mentioned the Ashis or the Hambies they say it's haram to follow any of the point to not follow any of their points. So you have to blindfollow like if they say look we've got these 165 points. If you disagree if you say well you know 163 on the list I'm not really convinced. [24:10] No, no, no. You have to blindfollow it. But simultaneously, they'll tell you that actually it's you're not meant to blindfollow in faith in faith. Faith. Uh I I don't know. I've always found this quite paradoxical. Well, let's look at the consequences of this idea that they have. Let's take a manual effect. Sorry, it's awful. [laughter] It's no problem. It's It's all good. [24:37] I don't know why it keeps defaulting to this. All right. Yeah, that's So, let's let's look at the It's It's just gone. No, it's gone off. It did get better, but it just switched off as you said it. Oh my god. It's It's saying that it's on the right setting now. Okay. So, Okay. So, let's look at the consequences of this belief. Yeah. Um, if you look at Reliance of the Traveler, a manual effect, right? [25:06] It act It switched off again. Is it Is it the Skype thing? I'm I'm getting very frustrated with my computer. [laughter] We'll have to get [laughter] to the screen. We go. This is a seminar about patience. And then we're like smashing the screen. [laughter] Okay. How is this is this good? Is this okay? [25:30] You see the the only problem with this it'll it'll feed back my uh thing. Yeah. Wolfy sub. Is there the feedback better or I think it No, you don't. No, I think it'll keep uh I think it was all right the way it was to to be fair. It's us. Why is it that you're moving away and it's pulling out? That's not the issue. It's it's nothing that I do. It's it's good right now. Uh okay. [25:56] Okay. Let's try again. So if we look at the consequences of this belief on basically what they're saying is you need to use reason in order to arrive at God and the necessity for a prophet once you establish that then you take your you take your uh r human reason and you take it and you throw it in the garbage can after that all you need it is to get to that belief and then after that then it's just a fiestic belief that is you just trust the text and the revelation. [26:27] Now, of course, they still use reason, but they use it instrumentally, but they don't. So, they're instrumental um rationalists, not rational, sorry, they use reason in an instrumental fashion. I don't consider that rationalism. I don't consider that very rational. Rather I think uh that's why I say we need to look at other groups in history like the mazes who put reason and revelation at the same level or the Islamic philosophers who even gave reason precedence over revelation. [26:58] I think we need to consider these other options and value human reason. I will say that today like no other time in history because of modernity you have reactionary conservatives especially who will say that reason is a bad thing that this is just they equate reason with your whims and your desires and that I was always taught growing up that religion is against whims and desires which is your human rationality. [27:31] So you should throw your human rationality in the garbage can. Now what's the consequence of this belief? The consequence of this belief is like I said open up and now I know my mic is not going to like this and it's going to cut out probably but [laughter] it's a fan I think my mic is a fan of Reliance of the Traveler but if you open if you open this manual of juristprudence of Islamic juristprudence you go to the very beginning and it says something quite shocking. [27:57] It says if you live on an island isolated region and you have never heard of the revelation then you are not uh religion is not oblity is obligated upon you. You're not held accountable for anything you do because you haven't reached revelation. So the consequence of that is you can go murder, rape, kill, you can kill babies, eat babies, and then once you get the revelation, you can just become Muslim and everything you did was forgiven without even seeking repentance for what you did. [28:29] That's an absurd belief. So we need to think about this. Is this a reasonable belief system to have? And here's what else I'll say. You don't just need reason to arrive at the truth of revelation. Reason is an ongoing tool that you use in engagement with revelation. So for example, let's say I'm convinced that the Quran is from Allah, right? Yeah. It's not just a one step that I did that at one point in time in my life and after that I never needed reason again. [28:57] No, every time I visit the Quran, I am using my human reason. And secondly, if I find a verse that I never knew about before. For example, let's say, and this is, God forbid, I'm just giving up an giving an example, but let's say I found Oh, I didn't see this verse. This verse actually says that humans come from an alien race of donkey uh Martians, right? [29:24] Once I let's say let's say I never had seen this verse before. Well, then even though I had at one point in time been convinced with my human rationality that this Quran is from Allah, now once I see this verse, my reason would say, "Wait a second, it might not be." I'm not trying to say that the Quran is something that we should not believe in. But what I'm saying is that we we we have to use reason continuously. Reason is not something that we just use to arrive at revelation and then stop. ## Cite Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment ZAsz48lX_WI/s/7. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/zasz48lx_wi/s/7/ Not a fatwa: these answers were given to specific people at specific times. Ask a qualified scholar about your own situation.