İBN RÜŞD’ÜN TE’VİL ANLAYIŞI VE AKTÜEL DEĞERİ ÜZERİNE

Year 2009, Volume: 1 Issue: 7-8, 215 - 239, 30.11.2009

Mesut Okumuş

Abstract

Ibn Rushd (Averroes) was an influential, eminent and ratioanlist Islamic
thinker of the history of Islamic thought. He educated in theology, Islamic
law in his early life and besides them medicine, mathematics and philo
sophy. He attempted to harmonize religion with philosophy without synt
hesizing them or obliterating their differences. He believed that the Qur’an
contained the highest truth while maintaining that its words should not
be taken literally. He argued that religion and philosophy are brothers and
does not contradict each other. Ibn Rushd accepts that there are three
types of human. The first and largest in number, is receptive to ideas that
can be expressed logically; the second is amenable to persuasion and the
third, few in numbers, will only be convinced by conclusive evidence. He
believed that Qur’an not only contains verses to the simple masses, but
also to the enlightened few philosophers highest truths. He gave allegorical
interpretation method (tawil) right to the philosophers and adviced them to
use al-Ghazali’s five being classification. However, this constrictive attitu
de and his advices has not been accepted by muslim scholars in general
and thelogians, exegetes and lawyers in particular. Moreover, today the
meaning and content of the ‘philosopher’ has changed a little bit more and
has narrowed.

Keywords

Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Qur’an, philosophy, religion, exegesis, tawil.

Ibn Rushd’s Allegorical Interpretation (Tawil) Method And Its Actual Validity

Abstract

Ibn Rushd (Averroes) was an influential, eminent and ratioanlist Islamic
thinker of the history of Islamic thought. He educated in theology, Islamic
law in his early life and besides them medicine, mathematics and philo
sophy. He attempted to harmonize religion with philosophy without synt
hesizing them or obliterating their differences. He believed that the Qur’an
contained the highest truth while maintaining that its words should not
be taken literally. He argued that religion and philosophy are brothers and
does not contradict each other. Ibn Rushd accepts that there are three
types of human. The first and largest in number, is receptive to ideas that
can be expressed logically; the second is amenable to persuasion and the
third, few in numbers, will only be convinced by conclusive evidence. He
believed that Qur’an not only contains verses to the simple masses, but
also to the enlightened few philosophers highest truths. He gave allegorical
interpretation method (tawil) right to the philosophers and adviced them to
use al-Ghazali’s five being classification. However, this constrictive attitu
de and his advices has not been accepted by muslim scholars in general
and thelogians, exegetes and lawyers in particular. Moreover, today the
meaning and content of the ‘philosopher’ has changed a little bit more and
has narrowed.

Keywords

Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Qur’an, philosophy, religion, exegesis, tawil.

References

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