Many Western people are still confused as to how Islam works. Thus, they continue to fall for all sorts of (second rate) sophistry, as when a Muslim retorts, “Well, what about this verse that preaches peace and tolerance?” Or, “can you tell me the full context of that Koran passage, hmmm?” Or, “that text you quoted may seem radical, but here’s another which is very moderate—so what’s your point?”
The net result is that the typical Westerner walks away convinced that Islam—like much of “Christianity” in the West—is whatever one wants it to be.
Put differently, Muslim apologists are essentially bating gullible Westerners into projecting their own relativistic epistemology—the belief that everything is whatever its beholder wants it to be (hence why members of the U.S. Supreme Court have difficulties defining what a woman is).
As such, I’m beginning this mini-series of articles dedicated to fleshing out how Islam actually works. The fact is that there is little room for mystery when it comes to what Islam demands of its adherents.
This is because the earliest Muslim thinkers and articulators of Islam—the “mosque fathers” if you like—understood that, unless an agreed upon methodology for determining what Islam teaches was established, there would be no unity among the umma, which would lead to social and political chaos.
So they came up with, as they call it, a very systematic science to determine what Islam teaches and requires of its followers. In fact, the word ‘ulema—which collectively refers to the learned sheikhs and scholars of Islam—can and is often translated as “scientists,” for that is what they see themselves as—scientists of Islam.
Their first order of business was to determine the sources of knowledge, known in Arabic as usul al-fiqh (more technically translated as the “roots of jurisprudence”). They are four: 1) the Koran, 2) the Sunna (example) of Muhammad, 3) consensus (ijma‘) of the umma, especially the ulema; and 4) analogical reasoning (qiyas).
Based on these four, what Islam demands of its followers is easily established—with no room for “but what about this verse?”
Continue reading below.
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