Faraz Rabbani – Weekly Q&A Why Is Philosophy Considered Haram

There's a question, why is philosophy haram? Philosophy

is not unconditionally haram. One has to understand

what are we talking about. Right?

What the in philosophy

is a range of disciplines,

right?

What the ulama

discouraged people from studying

is

the

unguided

speculations

of

those

who speculated

about truth without guidance.

Right?

The unguided

speculations

of those who spoke about

truth

without

the bedrock of guidance.

Right? Because philosophy

is

a in its pure sense is the human

quest

for

truth and meaning.

Now we have guidance. We have guidance.

Absolute truth

in revelation.

So the believer's duty is before one goes

to random speculations about the truth

and how to live it,

that one learn revelation.

How? By seeking

what is called beneficial knowledge.

To have clarity about our beliefs,

our guidance, our conduct, our values,

and how to live as an upright believer

who seeks good in his relationship with God

and seeks good in his relationship with Allah's

creation and who does good in life.

Then in that, there are different aspects of

the philosophical tradition that the ulama of theology

brought into

the Islamic tradition

as being

useful means

of understanding

and explaining

the truth and how to live it.

But that is found within the Islamic tradition.

One should be well grounded in that before

one needs to look here and there.

One of our dear teachers here at Seekers

asked about the issue of studying some of

the works of classical philosophy to understand,

and he's an he's a he's a scholar

himself now. This

and,

one of the very respected scholars of our

time said that the ulama

looked into philosophy

and

took

on the basis of

principles and values what is needed

by

the thinking

Muslim

in their

quest for truth and quest for understanding meaning.

And there's a beautiful book related to this

by a distinguished

Lebanese scholar of the 20th century

that's actually translated into English.

It's called

The Story of Faith

by

Nadeem Jisr by Sheikh Nadeem Jisr. And I

believe it's available through various online booksellers and

stuff. The Story of Faith by Nadeem Jisr.

And it's a valuable work.