Stories of reason and intellectual experiments are rarely documented in our Arab culture, whether traditional or contemporary. This places a greater burden on historians of Arab and Islamic culture. The intellectual experiences I know of that have been documented are either blatant transformations, such as the transition from one religion to another, as al-Samawal did in the eighth century AH, or the transition from doubt to certainty, as Mustafa Mahmoud did. They may also be intellectual experiments with a consistent approach, lacking distinct transformations, such as the experiences of Abd al-Rahman Badawi and Zaki Najib Mahmoud.

The thesis before us, despite its short duration and the brief period of transition it discusses, is unique in its quality. It narrates the transition from purely activist Islamic thought to grounded Islamic thought. The first approach calculated priorities using a purely rational standard, claiming to be closer to reality. The second approach places reason in its proper place, which is absolute subservience to the Quranic text, only to discover that this subservience to the Word of God Almighty is what truly liberates the mind from any other subservience, such as submission to whims or prevailing opinion. I congratulate all intellectuals on the publication of this treatise, and I also congratulate Dr. Muhammad al-Hashimi on this courageous approach, which I consider one of his most notable personal gains from this experience.

Dr. Muhammad al-Saeedi

Member of the Saudi Fiqh Association

Head of the Department of Islamic Studies at Umm al-Qura University

Al-Obeikan Publishing