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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Reason, Physicalism, and Islam FAITH-IN-REASON In contrast, classical Islamic notions of ‘intelligence’ or ‘reason’ embraced the faith-induced dimension of knowledge yielding conviction and moral-volition in the operation of human intelligence, being intimately joined with its cognitive or perceiving-knowing dimension.

This ‘ practical ’ ethico-religious dimension of reason has a close connection with ethical endeavor and moral-volition, namely the faculty of conation . Ethics is the domain of Practical Reason or ‘prudential-mind’ ( ‘aql amali> ), involving the faculty or power of conation (volition, will-power): the impulse or striving to change one’s behavior and act in accordance with the directives of both inner conscience and outer guidance or divinely revealed imperatives.

The centrality of ‘intelligence-reason’ ( al-‘aql ) for Islamic Ethics ( akhla>q ) unfolds out of the fundamental insight that the human volitional impulse arises within us prompted by our own understanding, and directed by the reception of divine guidance from without.

As one of its most basic functions, ‘intelligence-reason’ energizes the efficacy of ‘ conscience ’, thereby possessing a conative or exertive force since without the native intelligence created in us by God no ethical response is possible. This crucial insight is ultimately responsible for the great emphasis placed on reason as the condition for ‘moral obligation’ ( takli>f ) among the Mu‘tazili> and Ash‘ari> theologians.

Even more significantly, the human reception of divine guidance mediated by revelation depends ultimately upon the efficacy and integrity of our reasoning-principle or intelligence. Without their divine provision of reason , humans would be incapable of comprehending and properly responding to God’s guidance.

And the more abundant is an individual’s native endowment of reason , then the greater is the possibility for the individual to attain a larger magnitude of understanding and thereby realize a higher level of response . The unfolding of the manifold dimensions of Islamic meditations on the role of reason in religious and spiritual thought and experience flow in one way or another from this master idea.