The Qur'an and the Secular Mind; A Philosophy of Islam (2008) - Shabbir Akhtar

4 Introduction
Islam root and branch. I seek to steer between polemical, abusively critical,
perspectives and those of a wholly committed and zealous defensiveness. I subject
Quranic claims to the bar of reason and analysis but without the prejudicial
rigour to which Islamic claims are often subjected. We examine the challenges
which modern scientific rationalism presents to all believers. Only an intellectually
untested faith prefers the security of assumption and dogma to the rigours
of intelligent exchange and the patience of the painstaking search for relevant
evidence. We no longer live in an age of religious and moral innocence, an age
terminated for all religions with the entry of the secular pretender. I deny, suspend
and occasionally disown pietistic and apologetic motives in the larger interests
of objectivity. This scholarly detachment, more at home in philosophy than theology,
is part of a modern attempt to redress an ancient imbalance in Islamic
reflection.
One would have to be consumed by philosophical zeal to say that ‘Thou shalt
think!’ is now the first commandment. That presupposes a mistaken view of religion.
We should be suspicious of any view of religion in which the intellectual
dimension is prominent. To attribute seminal importance to thinkers, rather than
martyrs, is a choice Islam has resisted, a decision which explains its virility in
an age of secular indifference and relentless hedonism. In the hour of crisis, no
religion has been preserved or saved by mental efforts alone. Sincerity of moral or
religious commitment and the right kind of zeal are hardly something we associate
with thinkers, let alone restrict it to them.
Nonetheless, as I argue in Chapter 3, Muslims must understand the complex
history of the emergence of conscientious scepticism about religion. Respect for
the authority of revealed scripture should not, I argue, blind us to the range and
complexity of our modern inclinations, motivations and experiences. Muslims
should not ignore the findings of that sophisticated body of theory about the personal
and societal existence of human beings which is a signal achievement of
secular intellectual culture.
The Quran must patiently tolerate disciplined secular interrogation. It is mistaken
loyalty to Islam to think that its interests are best served by isolating
its doctrines hermetically from the current of contemporary secular thought.
If Muslim thought remains entrenched in the fortress of ancient doctrine, remains
secure but provincial, the critic would rightly suspect that this faith needs a
protective but patronizing lenience in order to survive the trials of contemporary
rationalism. Equally, however, the Muslim has the right to critique the limitations,
excesses and exaggerations of secular humanism, a neglected theme that receives
its due at the end of Chapter 3.
I argue in Chapters 11 and 12 that Muslims must develop a religious rationalism
with core doctrines responsive to religious needs and standards while
they make appropriate, indeed unavoidable, concessions to modern thought.
The result should be a rational religious outlook in which we defend only what is
defensible and not the totality of the received tradition. In its full healthy development,
such a religious rationalism aims to be a form of religious humanism.
More modestly, it conscientiously refuses to cherish unempirical or otherwise