Monograph on Reason and Rationality in the Qu’ran

Kalam Research & Media (KRM) is pleased to announce the publication of Dr. Ibrahim Kalin’s essay, Reason and Rationality in the Qur’an. This essay was originally presented by Dr. Kalin at the Royal Aal Al-Bayt Institute’s conference in November 2011 which was held at the Baptism Site in Jordan. A revised version of this essay was later published in 2012 by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre (RISCC) in Amman. This monograph version prepared by KRM, in collaboration with RISCC, includes some minor updates and a new Foreword by Dr. Paul Hardy.

Dr. Ibrahim Kalin, who is a leading Turkish scholar on Islamic philosophy, and currently the Spokesperson for the Turkish President, argues in this essay that the world is indeed intelligible to the human being, and that the Qur’an continuously invites the reader to a spiritual, moral, and intellectual journey to discover that intelligibility. In contrast to modern theories of rationalism, this essay maintains that the ontological foundations of rationality subsume reason within the larger context of existence. The Qur’an considers human reason as part of a larger reality whose meaning cannot be unveiled or encapsulated by logical analysis, conceptual abstraction, or rational discourse alone.