Pars Today

Pars Today- Research on religion has drawn more attention and has been welcomed for the past four decades and, today, it has got a lot of subcategories.

Religion

Some define religion as follows: "Religion is a set of beliefs, laws, and regulations which both deal with the principles of human vision and speak of the principles of his tendency. It also includes the ethics of his life. In other words, religion is a set of beliefs, ethics, laws, and regulations which have been granted to human beings through the revelation and wisdom for the administration of the individual and society and training of human beings." (Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli, Knowing Religion, p27)

Religion is a strong force in human life which has always been with him and has a life as long as history. Today, a lot of evidence and documents have been discovered which indicate that human beings are inevitably religious. Researchers have not found any ethnicity devoid of a kind of religion. The most primitive civilizations were accompanied by religions and each of those religions has developed and become perfect in a very intricate way to have its impact on human life.

The holy Qur'an says in verse 13 of chapter Shura, "He has prescribed for you the religion which He had enjoined upon Noah and which We have revealed to you, and which We had enjoined upon Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, declaring, 'Maintain the religion, and do not be divided in it.'"

Wisdom

According to many philosophers, the main feature differentiating human being from other creatures and animals is his "wisdom" and the "power of reasoning and thinking". As a matter of fact, "the scale of one's application of wisdom in the way of sublimity and action", is one of the basic causes of evaluation of human beings in various communities.

The holy Qur'an calls those humans who do not apply reasoning and thinking as four-footed animals or even more astray. Verse 179 of chapter Al-A'rāf reads in this regard, "Certainly We have created for hell many of the jinn and humans: they have hearts with which they do not understand, they have eyes with which they do not see, they have ears with which they do not hear. They are like cattle; rather they are more astray. It is they who are the heedless."

The Ahl al-Bayt (progeny) of the Prophet of Islam, too, call wisdom as the "hidden proof". A hadith reads in this regard, "Indeed, Allah has two proofs over the people: an apparent proof and a hidden proof. The apparent proof is the messengers, the prophets, and the Imams (Peace upon them). But the hidden proof is the wisdom." (al-Kafi, v1, p16)

Religion and wisdom

We conclude that, from the viewpoint of the Qur'an and what the Prophet and the Infallible Imams from his Ahl al-Bayt stress, religion and wisdom are inseparable. So, if a person or a sect wants to stick to seemingly religious rituals and abandon reasoning and thinking, they have neither understood religion nor, according to the verses of the Qur'an, can they consider themselves in the path of God and the prophets.

That today, scholars of the Islamic world, especially Shias, do not consider outfits like, DAESH, al-Qaeda and Bokoharam as Muslims, and deem them as forged and manipulated currents moving in the path of the colonial powers, which mainly stems from this fact. This much emphasis in Islam on reasoning and social coexistence cannot get along with the type of lifestyle which is devoid of reasoning and thinking and shows antihuman conducts. DAESH did not fight with the archenemy of Muslims, Israel, but, it shed the blood of hundreds of thousands of Muslim women and children in Syria and Iraq.

Key phrases: What is religion? definition of religion, Wisdom and religion, thinking in the Qur'an, The relation of religion and thinking 

RM/BK