Darʾ Taʿâroud al-ʿAql wa-n-Naql - Ibn Taimiya - (7/45)

Darʾ Taʿâroud al-ʿAql wa-n-NaqlIbn Taimiya

by these verses and hadiths you have conveyed to us contradicts the propositions through which we came to know that you are Allah’s Messenger, speaking truthfully on His behalf. We cannot both believe your claim to messengership and accept your reports of these matters. Rather, believing your claim to messengership requires us to reject what these reports imply. What, then, are we to do? Can they be interpreted in a way consistent with that through which we know you are truthful?

Or are we commanded to read words whose apparent meaning is unbelief and falsehood that undermines the foundations of our faith, while turning our hearts and minds away from understanding, pondering, and examining them?”

This entails tremendous torment for the mind and grave corruption of the heart. If a man is commanded to read certain words night and day, reciting them both in prayer and outside it, and to be certain that they are true, not false, and that whoever disbelieves in a single letter of them is an unbeliever, while those words contain reports whose apparent and understood meaning contradicts the very grounds on which he knows and affirms their truth—indeed, that meaning is falsehood, error, and unbelief—this leaves him bewildered and unsettled, and afflicts his heart with the gravest sickness. His suffering and the pain in his heart would be far greater than any bodily illness or pain in his hand or foot. For if he accepts the grounds on which he believed this Messenger, he undermines the words that the Messenger declared to be true and truthful. The very proof that established the Messenger’s truthfulness would thus establish the falsity of the meaning understood from his reports. Conversely, if he affirms the truth of the meaning understood from his reports, he invalidates the evidence of the Messenger’s truthfulness.

It is well known that if his reports contradicted something they knew through reason, other than that through which they knew him to be truthful, this would cause bewilderment, suffering, and corruption whose extent Allah alone knows. How much more, then, if what contradicted his reports were the very grounds on which they knew him to be truthful?

عليه هذه الآيات والأحاديث التي أخبرتنا بها يناقض هذه القضايا التي علمنا بها أنك رسول الله الصادق عليه، فما يمكننا أن نجمع بين تصديقك في دعوى الرسالة، وبين الإخبار بهذه الأمور، بل تصديقك في دعوى الرسالة التي يقتضي تكذيب مقتضى هذه الأخبار، فكيف نصنع؟ هل لها تأويل يوافق ما به علماً أنك صادق؟ : أم نحن مأمورون بأن نقرأ ما ظاهره كفر وكذب يقدح في أصول إيماننا، ونعرض بقلوبنا وعقولنا عن فهم ذلك وتدبره والنظر فيه؟ . وهذا فيه عذاب عظيم للعقول، وفساد عظيم في القلوب، إذا كان الرجل مأموراً أن يقرأ في الليل والنهار كلاماً، يقرأ به في صلاته وغير صلاته، ويجزم بأنه صدق لا كذب، وأن من كفر بحرف منه فهو كافر، وذلك الكلام مشتمل على أن أخبارها ظاهرها ومفهومها يناقض ما به علم وصدق ذلك الكلام، بل هو باطل وضلال وكفر، فيورثه ذلك الحيرة والاضطراب، ويمرض قلبه أعظم مرض، ويكون تألمه لذلك ووجع قلبه، أعظم بكثير من مرض بدنه ووجع يده ورجله، فإنه حينئذ إن قبل ما به صدق هذا الرسول قدح في الكلام الذي أخبر أنه حق وصدق، فيكون ذلك الدليل الذي دله على صدقه، دله على كذب المفهوم من أخباره وإن صدق المفهوم من أخباره، أبطل شاهد صدقه. ومن المعلوم أن أخباره لو عارضت معقولاً لهم، غير ما به علموا صدقه، لأوجب ذلك من الحيرة والألم والفساد ما لا يعلمه إلا الله، فكيف إذا كان المعارض له ما به علموا صدقه؟ .