As mentioned frequently on this website, “thinking” is mentioned in the Quran itself so often that its significance as an imperative is indisputable. Thinking, in Arabic the verb form of ‘aql which in modern Arabic means “mind” or intellect, is used in parallel with “faith” or “to have faith in/ believe”, implying that without thinking there can be no faith. This stands in direct opposition to the Christian concept of a “leap of faith” in which the believer accepts “absurdity” — precepts that contradict one’s own logic — and therefore “leaps” over or sidesteps the intellect in favor of a particular belief, such as the confounding of human with divine in the deification of Jesus. Some Islamic movements such as the salafi, reject the use of the mind in favor of unquestioning adherence to a dogma based on certain hadeeths or sayings of Prophet Mohammad, and narrow interpretations of Quranic text, in effect creating an Islam much like “evangelical” Christianity: dogmatic, rigid, and hostile to logic or scientific or abstract thought, which are viewed as dangerous.
The Quran clearly admonishes the exact opposite: freedom of thought and faith arrived at by one’s own inquiry and inherent logic, based on a clearly elucidated tenet that faith in Allah is the logical conclusion of deep and unadulterated (by compulsion) meditation and intellect-based thinking which at its core is reverence for Allah. Thinking, in the Quran, takes place in the heart, where it sorts out intuition, experience, emotions, ideas, and uses logic.
114 Chambers 