Points to ponder from al quran

The Quran calls for critical thinking and reasoning

 
The Quran:

● harshly criticizes the inertia of a vegetative existence that lacks critical thinking and cognition (7:179, 8:22, 10:100-101, 11:24);

● puts responsibility on every individual to personally question, analyse and verify (39:18, 17:36, 5:105);

● calls not to accept or follow anything mindlessly, warning that doing so would lead to eventual interrogation by the course of nature (17:36);

● describes unquestioning minds as polluted (10:100);

● describes unreasoning folks as subhumans (7:179, 8:22, 25:44);

● asks to produce objective evidence besides subjective experience (2:111, 21:24; cf. 3:86, 12:26-27, 21:24, 37:156-157);

● demands substantiating arguments with hard evidence to validate a conventional belief (2:111, 4:174, 5:104-105, 8:42, 10:100, 11:17, 17:36, 37:156-157);

● asks to investigate every single report, rumor and information with direct and/or circumstantial evidence before judging or giving credence to it (49:6, 12:26-27);

● cautions about hasty judgement and jumping into conclusions (17:11, 37:69-71);

● maintains that deduction from unverified, potentially flawed premises generates uncertain inferences (5:104; cf. 2:170, 17:11, 37:70);

● insists that believing in a ready-made proposition or accepting a popular hypothesis, without deep observation and reasoning, is misguiding (2:170, 5:104, 10:100-101, 31:21, 33:67, 37:69-71);

● asks not to debate in matters of which one has no knowledge (3:66);

● asks not to follow conjecture, as conjecture can in no way substitute the truth (10:36, 49:6, 45:24, 6:116, 53:28, 2:111, 21:24);

● calls to critically examine all specific information and then to try to impute a general principle through the process of inductive reasoning (39:18; cf. 8:22, 7:179, 10:100-101, 17:36, 46:26);

● advises to doubt and not to blindly follow the stereotypes, traditions and footprints of the ancestors (2:170, 7:28, 5:104-105, 6:112, 7:70, 21:52-54, 26:74, 37:69-71, 43:22-24);

● states that the misguidance due to this blind following (taqlid) of the ancestors, which sprouts up from faulty premises and branches into a ‘tree of poisonous fruit’, leads a society to a living hell (37:62-71; cf. 17:60, 31:21, 44:43, 56:52);

● invites to deeply observe ‘all that is in the Heavens and the Earth’ (10:101);

● calls to uncover the truths about life and the universe through sensory perception, observation and contemplation (7:185, 29:20, 30:50, 50:6-7, 88:17-20);

● highlights the importance of scientific observation (2:259, 3:137, 6:11, 6:75-79, 6:99, 7:185, 10:101, 15:16, 16:36, 27:69, 29:20, 30:9, 30:42, 30:50, 35:44, 37:88, 40:21, 45:13, 47:10, 50:6, 80:24, 86:5, 88:17-20);

● asks to read the divine messages holistically, without being blunted by mechanical shallowness born of haste and impatience (21:37; 75:16-21, 20:114);

● asks to study the Quran through thinking, analysing and reasoning (2:17-18, 3:79, 4:82, 12:2, 23:68, 25:73, 43:3-4, 47:24);

● encourages scientific inquisitiveness and its associates, i.e. experiencing, experimenting and reasoning, as important steps towards attaining conviction (2:260, 6:75-79, 10:100-101, 23:80, 37:88); 

● demands faith not based on wishful thinking or emotion, but based on evidence and reasoning (4:174, 8:42, 10:100, 11:17, 17:36, 74:30-31);

● insists that without deep observation and reasoning, one cannot ‘read’ the divine messages (‘scientific facts’) of the universe (12:105, 25:73, 40:13, 46:26);

● proclaims that those who lack this essential compass of observation and reasoning remain lost in the darknesses of ignorance (6:39, 2:17-18);

● asserts that the above are denied access to the divine treasures of the universe and so remain deprived of material prosperity and spiritual progress (39:62-63);

● asks to be free individuals without the sheeple mentality to be shepherded by someone (2:104);

● asks not to be captivated by the number or the influence of a majority (19:73, 12:106, 54:43-44);

● asks not to be followers of a crowd, since a crowd is too often prone to misdeed and misjudgement (6:116; cf. 10:36, 12:106, 16:83, 19:73, 36:62);

● asks not to be entranced by the charisma of the celebrities, leaders and ‘the great ones’, and not to be cowed by the unquestioning obedience of the authorities and establishments (23:24, 33:67, 5:104-105); and

● constantly appeals to humans to use their intellect and reason, to be free-thinking and sceptical, to be truth-seekers and iconoclasts (2:170-171, 2:242, 2:269, 3:118, 3:190, 6:74-83, 6:110, 7:169, 8:22, 10:42, 10:100-101, 11:51, 12:2, 12:106, 12:111, 13:4, 13:19, 16:67, 16:83, 17:36, 21:10, 21:57-67, 23:68, 23:80, 24:61, 29:63, 30:21, 30:28, 38:29, 39:9, 39:18, 39:21, 40:54, 45:23, 46:26, 47:24, 54:44, 59:14).