Reason and Transmission

As a Muslim, you are often demanded to suspend your mind regarding religious matters and accept your faith through transmission (Naql) rather than reason ('Aql).

This is the primary rule that the "consensus" of traditional religious clerics has established.

Anyone who activates their mind to derive God's rulings or contemplate His verses may be accused of disbelief or heresy. It is as if the Quran was revealed only to religious clerics, making them the sole parties entitled to contemplate and interpret God's word to the general public. Had that been the case, God would have granted minds only to them and commanded us to follow them exclusively!

Therefore, we are told to disable our minds before religion and settle for transmission, because by disabling our minds, we remain their followers, resorting to them for every minor and major detail, allowing them to control our lives. By activating our minds, they fall, and their tradition falls with them.

Well, if religion is based on transmission and not reason, then by this logic, our Prophet Abraham should have worshipped idols, as that was the religion of his fathers. It was what he found them upon; in other words, it reached him through transmission. However, he was not convinced by his fathers' religion because his mind could not accept what his people were doing. Thus, he rejected idol worship and set out to find his Lord, as God informs us of his story in Surah Al-An'am.

The Question is:

Was our Prophet Abraham wrong or right in activating his mind and rejecting his fathers' religion?

• ❌ Whoever says he was wrong has truly gone far astray.
• ✅ Whoever says he was right has effectively dismantled the theory of clerics who prioritize transmission over reason.

Prophets are our role models, not religious priests. The Quran is our reference and the sole source of religion, not books of tradition.

In many verses, God addresses us and demands that we use our minds approximately fifty times.

In fact, He informed us that failing to activate and utilize the mind would be a cause for entering the Fire.

God mentioned in the Quran:

• • "Indeed in that are signs for a people who reflect" (6 times)
• • "That they might reflect" (3 times)
• • The word "they reason" (22 times)

He also called for not neutralizing it: "And do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge" [Al-Isra 36].

He made knowledge the foundation of monotheism: "So know that there is no deity except Allah" [Muhammad 19].

He denounced those who do not use their minds:

• • "Nay! but their hearts have become rusted" [Al-Mutaffifin 14]
• • "Or are there locks upon their hearts?" [Muhammad 24]

Moreover, He condemned them and described them as being more astray than cattle: "They have ears but do not hear with them... they are like cattle; nay, they are more astray" [Al-A'raf 179].

After all this, a religious cleric appears to tell us: "Your mind is like a donkey; when you reach the Sheikh, tie it up outside and enter to receive the transmission without reason."

Another Sheikh tells us with total audacity: "Prioritizing reason over transmission is the path of those who are astray."

When we mention this frequency (50 times), we must wake up from our slumber and realize clearly that God wants us to activate our minds. He will hold us accountable for our own understanding, not for what clerics understood, and He will judge us individually.

Summary:

Act with your mind, and beware of disabling it. What will benefit you is your contemplation of God's Book and acting upon it. You cannot contemplate God's Book unless your mind is switched on. Following a "grand sheikh" or a "learned scholar" will not benefit you, for on the Day of Resurrection, they will disown you, just as God has informed you.

God has spoken the truth, and the ignorant have lied.