The Anatomy of Knowledge & the Ontological Necessity of First Principles

This paper in the series explores one of the first principles of metaphysics, the principle of identity in its logical form, namely, the principle of non- contradiction, and the relationship between its metaphysical and logical dimensions. It is invariably the task of revelation to provide definable and recognizable references that can be brought into human understanding. 

Logic is given the role of providing in us an eternal order reflective of the order of creation, a role that bestows upon it, therefore, a certain sacrality. The Kantian conceptualist contention, now often encountered, establishes the basis for the contemporary de-ontologization of logic, since it creates a split between second intentions and first intentions, ensuring that reality has no input into the workings of the mind. Secondary intelligibles, however, are based on first intelligibles – things that exist – and thus they are ontologically dependent and reflective of that order.

The logical thus can never contradict the metaphysical, and the metaphysical can never in turn be illogical. This seamlessness between the two orders is critical to the safeguarding of a sound intellectual discourse enabling the human soul to understand its existential condition, a condition that remains the same regardless of time and place.

Being ‘Good’: An Ontological View of Ethics

Gandhi, Islam, and the Principles of Non-violence and Attachment to Truth

Metaphysics & Sociology

Vocational Society

Response to Cardinal Scola’s House of Lords Speech

This text published today serves as a response to Cardinal Angelo Scola in his speech at the House of Lords, by offering his frank reflections on the presence of Muslims in Europe.

This was addressed positively as a factor that contributed to the construction of a ‘good life’ for all communities, on the one hand, whilst on the other, stated negatively that the mere presence of Muslims in Europe constituted a potentially inassimilable problem and a challenge to the status quo.

The Intelligibility of the Islamic Tradition in the Context of Modern Thought

A speech addressing the social philosophies and institutions, many of them common to Muslims and Christians, comprising a vocational and godly society.

Muhammad Shahrur’s “Cargo Cult”: A meditation on his underlying conceptual framework

The purpose of this paper is to present an integral critique that explores the underlying conceptual structure of the work of Muhammad Shahrur.

It is the author’s contention that every thinker and writer is an inheritor of a chain of ideas or an intellectual system that he necessarily manifests in his writings, consciously or unconsciously. There is no such thing, in other words, as an orphan idea or an idea without a conceptual genealogy.

This means that the integrity or soundness of any idea is narrowly dependent on the pedigree of its genealogy or silsila. The value of Shahrur’s thought is therefore inevitably linked to the value of the origin of his ideas, which we have briefly attempted to trace and evaluate in this paper.

It is hoped that this model of critique may become an effective tool in understanding the mechanics of the varying and hybridised conceptual systems that ‘reformers’, or one should say ‘intellectual adventurers’, have recently introduced into the Islamic world.

The Roman Catholic Church’s position on Islam after Vatican II

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