Now it was the result of his treatment of the subjects that many people
do not know the difference between the two, because of his bringing
both of them together. He has also insisted upon the fact that he knew
the cause of doing so, as he did in his _Al Tafriqa bain al Islami
wa-z Zindiqah_. In it he has noted down many kinds of interpretations
and has decided that their interpreters were not infidels though they
may go against the consensus of opinion. Since he has done so, he is
dangerous to the Law for some reasons, to philosophy for others, and to
both for some other reasons. So this man, by disclosing them, has shown
that he is dangerous for both the things in reality and profitable to
them only by accident. For teaching philosophy to one who is not fit
for it, will either falsify philosophy or religion absolutely or will
show conformity between them by accident only. The right thing would
have been not to disclose philosophy to the common people at all. But
if teaching of it was absolutely necessary, then only that section of
the people should have been taught who saw that religion was opposed
to philosophy, in order to show them that it was not so. And also it
might have been taught to those people who thought that philosophy
is opposed to religion. This may have been shown to either of these
sections, that in reality they did not possess a knowledge of their
substance and truth, that is, of religion and philosophy. Moreover,
they would know that the opinion about religion, that it was opposed to
philosophy was one which was either about some innovation in religion,
and not about its principles, or is an error in understanding that is,
a wrong interpretation of it, as was shown in the case of knowledge
about particulars and other things. That is why we were compelled in
this book to explain the principles of religion. These principles,
when intently looked into will be found in perfect agreement with
philosophy. Such is also the case with the opinion which says this
philosophy is opposed to religion. It only shows that the man has not
had a sufficient training in either philosophy or religion. This is the
reason that we were compelled to explain it in our tractate entitled
_Fasl al Maqal fi Muwafiqat il Hikmat lil Sharia_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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