The closing of the Muslim mind - Essay Example

‘The Closing of the Muslim Mind’ is thus a revelation that has actually opened a number of thoughts as to how Islam actually fought and battled through the years to survive with the sleight of reason. On the first page of the book, the author writes, “This is the story of how Islam grappled with the role of reason after its conquests exposed it to Hellenic thought, and how the side of reason ultimately lost in the ensuing, deadly struggle.” In history, there has been a certain time when this religion was better respected as compared to the amount of scrutiny it is made to serve today.

In those days, Islamic scholars and philosophers had the higher hand on the normative thoughts that breached the world and opened up to a lot of debate regarding the closeness between Islam and Christianity. The author writes that this was the time when the great leaders of Islam never felt ‘intellectual inferiority’ from others. This book talks about how the people of Islam fear Allah and how their personal free will bows down before Him. The author has also delved into the Shari’a or Islamic law and writes about how reason is overcome by old tradition when it comes to a number of things.

He writes about how a number of Islamic scholars preach how to live modern lives by giving people the freedom of their own living, and how the same contradicts when it comes to following the law, or listening to Allah. In Islam, it is written that whatever happens in a person’s life, depends on Allah, or happens because he willed it to and thus, because of the same blind thinking, the author states that a large amount of free thinking was lost due to such contemplation. Free thinking allows a man to live life as he pleases, and not be bound by societal norms that might end up crushing his potential; however, the Islamic law states a number of things that have today brought upon and inflicted a lot of pain on a number of