Islamic Theology Quotes
This is a very important point as most Muslims believe that the actual wording of the Sharia—Islamic Law—comes from the Prophet directly and are not the words of various legal scholars which is just what they are. Needless to say, there are many differences and even contradictions depending on time and the particular scholar. Islam however has no authority that religiously is higher than any other. In that respect, it is like Judaism. There is not a recognized religious hierarchy as there is in Christian churches.
This is another of De Tocqueville’s prescient statements that in retrospect seem so amazing given the time. This quotation could serve as an op ed in a newspaper of any of the industrial democracies of the early 21st century. However, he did not have the information of the details we have today that showed Islam as the pinnacle of scientific, philosophical, literary and medical achievement at the beginning of the second millennium, while the Christian nations of Europe were mired in the Dark Ages. It was the same Koran but a very different interpretation and framework that led to the decadence while it was the Protestant Reformation that triggered a Christianity that was hospitable to modernity and enlightenment.
His views are a mix of modernism and fundamentalism. He favors democracy and elections but also favored the Taliban destroying the great ancient Buddha statues when he was called an idol worshipper for urging the preservation of art.
Ibn Rushd is generally considered the greatest of the Islamic philosophers. In this famous quotation he observes that the Koran is contradictory when it addresses issues of determinism and free will, a subject inquired about in most religions philosophies. While the same thing can be said of the Bible, what surprises some, is that a great Islamic scholar could say that there were contradictions in the Koran as many think of Islam as requiring literal adherence to and faith in the validity of the Koran. Contradictions are not admitted as possible. It illustrates that not all Islamic scholars are fundamentalists, but also that the leading Islamic scholars of the 12th century could hold such a view and freely publish it. Such ideas might get one killed in fundamentalist parts of Pakistan or Saudi Arabia today. Although valid for Muslims, the Hadith is less well known than the Koran which is recited by all good Muslims.
