Quranic Reason

This page will present brief excerpts from the writings of leading Islamic thinkers, offering Qur'anic perspectives on the challenges that Muslims have confronted since the rise of modernism, and the best way to address these challenges.

Martin Lings, "What is the spiritual significance of civilization? in: A Return to the Spirit: Questions and Answers (Fons Vitae, 2005): 63-64.

(...) Islam embraces the whole of life, and no one doubts this. But what is actually happening today in many if not most Islamic countries is that life is embracing Islam - embracing, no, for it is a strangelhold rather than an embrace! Life is crowding religion out, pushing it into a little corner, and stifling it more and more so that it can scarcely breathe.

And what is the remedy?

(...) Thanks to the outer aspects of the Islamic civilization [in the past], the whole of life was in fact penetrated by religion, and I see no other remedy for our present religious crisis but a return to that noble civilization whose function it is to create a worthy setting for the spirit of the religion, a setting that makes relatively easy the fulfilment of our ritual obligations. Nor can the community dispense with the help of anything that makes this spiritual life easier, for man was created weak. But this return can be accomplished only by widespread setting of examples.

William Chittick, "Slumber Seizes Him Not," Parabola (Spring 2005)

Among the many Quranic names of God, one became current in Islamic languages as a
virtual synonym for Allah itself, and that is al-Haqq. Translators usually render this name as"the Truth," but it also means [the] real, right, appropriate, just, and worthy (along with the corresponding nouns). It signifies, in other words, that there is nothing true, real, right just, and worthy but God. The more we stress this point, the more we assert God's transcendence.

.....

In remembering Giod, the goal is to recognize the Real in both his transcendence and immanence and to be constantly mindful of the rights and responsibilities placed upon Adam's children by the manifestation of signs in the universe, society, and the soul. Worthy remembrance demands living in the world rightly and appropriately. In other words, the goal is to wake up fully to the way things are and to live in constant state of wakefulness and mindfulness.

.....

What then is awakening? It is to become aware of the Real, the True, the Right, and the Worthy. It is to act appropriately and worthily by giving all that have rights their right and by accepting one's responsibilities before God and creation. It is to affirm the unity of the Real with such incessant meditation and invocation that the Real totally dominates awareness. It is to see the face of the Real wherever we turn. It is to recognize in every fiber of our being that we are always and forever servants of the Real.