Exercise of the intellect (‘ aql ) is of significance in the...

Exercise of the intellect (‘ aql ) is of significance in the entire Islamic literature, which played an important role in the development of all kinds of knowledge, scientific or otherwise, in the Muslim world. In the twentieth century, the Indian Muslim thinker, Iqbal in his “Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam”, pointed out that ijtihad was a dynamic principle in the body of Islam.

He claims that much before Francis Bacon, the principles of scientific induction were emphasized by the Qur’an, which highlights the importance of observation and experimentation in arriving at certain…