SavioursOfIslamicSpirit-Volume3 ... - WordPress.com

THE CORE OF THE MUJADDID’S MOVEMENT 165“The truth of the matter is that mind has limits Withinwhich it is rigidly confined; ii cannot therefore hope tocomprehend God and His qualities; itself being only oneof the many atoms created by God.”1There is yet another fact, conceded now, that the intellectcannot give its verdict independently and objectively withcomplete impartiality. Those who have studied the workingof intellect know that there is nothing like ‘pure intellect’.Attitudes and sentiments, dispositions and circumstances, theway it is groomed and disciplined, beliefs and fascinations,doubts and apprehensions and inattention and forgetfulnesscan hardly be shaken off by the intellect in the discharge ofitis function in a perfect and judicious manner as commonlybelieved by the people.But, one is amazed to find that the philosophers havecompletely disregarded these significant facts in bringing theirminds to bear upon the subjects like the nature and attributesof God and similar other matters without possessing even therudimentary information about them. They have investigatedand discussed these issues with the self-confidence of a chemistwho makes his experiments to test the properties of differentchemicals. The fact of the matter is that the theories anddiscussions of such philosophers are no better than fantasiesand fables or the fairy tales of metaphysics of which a fewsamples will be cited later on.Theosophy is another method of attaining the knowledgeof God just the other way round but similar to that adoptedby intellectualism and philosophy. Its guiding principle is thatintellect, learning and reasoning faculties block the way insteadof opening the door to the discovery of ultimate truth.It considers the vision of Ultimate Reality necessary for attainingits knowledge, and this can be had through self-purification,1. An Arab Philosophy o f History (Selections from the Prolegomena ofIbn Khaldun of Tunis), Tr. Charles Issawi, London, 1950, p. 166