In the context of the epistemic doctrinal system, and after philosophical demonstration led us in the previous studies to establish “the necessity of divine grace” and the necessity of the existence of the messengers and prophets (AS) as an intermediary of guidance between the Creator and the creature, we stand today before the following epistemic entitlement: how do we demonstrate that the Messenger Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) is that true instance of the final message?

In this study, and on this site, we establish a rigorous methodology relying on the demonstrative rational proof springing from the very core of the noble Quran or formulated for its sake, distancing ourselves entirely from inference by material sensory miracles or shifting empirical variables.

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The Epistemological Approach: Why the Rational Proof and Not Another?

For the course of this study to become clear, we must draw the epistemological limits of the adopted method through the following points:

1. The Difference Between the Sensory Miracle and the Rational Proof According to Epistemology

The material sensory miracle — such as the saving of Abraham (AS) from the fire, the parting of the sea for Moses (AS), or the reviving of the dead by Jesus (AS) — is a temporal and spatial sign that perishes with the death of its witnesses, and turns, for the later generations, into a “historical report” that itself needs verification and the soundness of transmission.

As for the rational and epistemic proof standing in the Quran, it is an enduring argument, crossing the ages, addressing the human intellect directly in every era, and presenting a self-testimony of truthfulness that does not wear out, which the intellect sees plainly in every time and place.

2. Why Did We Exclude the Empirical and Sensory Proof?

In this study we do not take up the empirical and sensory proof; not because we do not believe in its value, but because the rational proof is stronger and more firmly established in rank than the empirical and sensory proof. The senses may err and be subject to deception, such as optical illusion, and experiment is governed by the circumstances of its instruments and the relativity of its results, whereas the self-evident and demonstrative rational judgments — such as the principle of non-contradiction and causality — are decisive, absolute rules that do not change with the change of time and place.

3. Our Position on the Studies of “Scientific Inimitability” in the Quran

Based on the foregoing, we will not rely in this study and on this site upon the studies of so-called “scientific inimitability.” This exclusion of ours does not proceed from a denial of the existence of scientific indications and inimitabilities in the Book of Allah; it is because we believe that inserting the shifting empirical method into the interpretation of the fixed Quranic text entails a grave epistemic risk and a gamble with the credibility of the inference.

For the scientific theory and experiment are in constant flux, and what science establishes today may be proven wrong in the future, and to bind the absolute truth to a shifting empirical variable carries a danger. Moreover, to judge decisively that a particular verse speaks precisely of this contemporary scientific inimitability is a conjectural projection that carries a hazard — unlike reason, which is distinguished by fixity and decisiveness.

4. The Centrality of Reason in Obligation and Worship

Our reliance on reason springs from its being the fundamental cornerstone of legislation and of the human being’s reckoning; in the transmitted narrations from the House of Prophethood: “Indeed, Allah is worshipped by reason.”

Among the clear logical witnesses to the centrality of reason is that if a human loses his reason on account of illness or insanity, legislative obligation and responsibility fall from him entirely, whereas one who was born lacking a sense — such as one born without the sense of hearing, sight, or smell — does not have obligation fall from him; rather the Lawgiver addresses him according to his epistemic capacity. So reason is the foundation of the address and of responsibility, and accordingly it must be the arbiter in establishing the foundation of the message.

Summary of the Epistemic Methodology of the Site

This method does not mean the denial of miracles or of the other subtleties of the Quran, but for the establishment of the pillars of the creed we have adopted a clear equation: the use of the rational proof to establish “the foundation” — that is, to establish general and specific prophethood and the absence of any contradiction with logic — and the use of the textual proof to establish “the instance” and the unseen details, after reason has completely submitted to the soundness of the source and that it is from Allah the Wise.

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Transcending the Quran Above Contradicting Logic in the View of the Shia Philosophers

al-Shaykh al-Mufid (336–413 AH / 948–1022 CE), the investigator Khwaja Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (597–672 AH / 1201–1274 CE), and al-Allamah al-Hilli (648–726 AH / 1250–1325 CE) set out from a decisive epistemic principle: “Reason is the inner proof, and it is the first balance by which the soundness of prophethood itself is known; so were it possible for the Quran to contradict reason in its self-evident matters, trust in the Quran and in reason together would collapse, and religion would vanish from its foundation.” To prevent this epistemic collapse, they formulated the following rules and demonstrations:

1. The Demonstration of “the Impossibility of Obligating What Cannot Be Borne” (al-Shaykh al-Mufid)

al-Shaykh al-Mufid (may Allah’s pleasure be upon him) established the equation that the Quranic address is directed at the responsible persons, and the responsible person must be rational.

• The logical trial: al-Shaykh al-Mufid holds that reason judges the ugliness of the Wise demanding of His servants the assent to what reason deems impossible, such as the coincidence of two contradictories or the existence of a partner to the Maker resembling Him in essence; because demanding assent to the impossible is “obligating what cannot be borne,” which is ugly rationally, and Allah is transcendent above ugliness.

• The point of establishment: based on this, al-Mufid decides that everything that comes in the Quran of outward verses that the ignorant may imagine to contradict reason — such as the verses of anthropomorphism and limbs, like:

“the hand of Allah”

or:

“The Most Merciful established Himself upon the Throne”

are verses that must be interpreted and adjudicated according to the given and rational firm text so as to accord with absolute transcendence. For the Quran, in its reality and essence, is transcendent above any clash with logic.

2. The Demonstration of “Rational Beautification and Uglification and the Safeguarding of Divine Wisdom” (the Investigator al-Tusi)

In the book Tajrid al-I’tiqad, which is regarded as the mainstay in theological philosophy, the investigator al-Tusi, and the famous commentary of al-Allamah al-Hilli, formulated a demonstration resting on the negation of futility from the acts of Allah, exalted is He:

• The logical trial: reason perceives independently, before the coming of the revealed law, the goodness of justice and the ugliness of injustice. And since Allah is absolutely wise, it is impossible for Him to do the ugly or to command it.

• The point of establishment: when we come to the noble Quran, we find it corresponding to this independent rational judgment with the utmost precision; for it negates injustice from Allah absolutely:

“And Allah does not intend injustice for the servants.”

and it makes the necessity of justice a general ruling. al-Tusi and al-Hilli demonstrate that the correspondence of the legislative system in the Quran with the independent moral and rational system of humans is a proof of the truthfulness of this Book; for were it from other than Allah, it might contain legislations rationally ugly or contrary to logic, and its being free of that establishes its divine source.

3. The Rule “Reason Is the Foundation of Transmission” and the Impossibility of Contradiction (al-Allamah al-Hilli)

al-Allamah al-Hilli laid down a rigorous epistemological rooting to regulate the relationship between reason and the Quran, clarifying the rank of each:

• The logical trial: we do not know the truthfulness of the Quran (transmission) except after reason first establishes for us: the existence of Allah, His attributes such as wisdom and truthfulness, the impossibility of lying being attributed to Him, and the establishment of the miracle for the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family). So reason is “the foundation and the ladder” that brought us to faith in the Quran.

• The point of establishment: al-Allamah al-Hilli says: were the Quran to come with a text contradicting the explicit dictates of reason and its decisive rules, and were it to demand of us that we give precedence to transmission over reason, we would have invalidated reason, which is the foundation. And if reason is invalidated, everything that reason established is invalidated by consequence — including the Quran itself. This epistemic contradiction is impossible. Thereby al-Allamah al-Hilli demonstrates that the Quran is transcendent, existentially and legislatively, above contradicting logic and reason; rather it corroborates it and rests upon it.

4. The Formulation of the Distinction Between “the Impossibilities of Reason” and “the Perplexities of Reason” in the View of the Three

These eminent scholars agreed on sorting the epistemic issues to protect the text and logic:

• The impossibilities of reason: these are the matters rejected logically in themselves, such as a thing being existent and non-existent at the same time. al-Mufid, al-Tusi, and al-Hilli decisively affirm the Quran’s complete freedom from these impossibilities.

• The perplexities of reason: these are the transcendent unseen issues that reason is incapable of reaching by itself without support, such as the detailed structure of the resurrection, the isthmus (barzakh), and the realities of the dominion. Here the philosophers decide that the Quran does not contradict reason; rather it supplies it with knowledge exceeding its independent capacity for discovery, so reason accepts it because it falls within the sphere of “the existentially possible” and not within the sphere of “the logically impossible.”

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1. The Rational Proofs Mentioned “Within” the Core of the Quran and How It Addressed the Other

The noble Quran established the soundness of the message in its address to the other — whether an atheist, a polytheist, or one of the People of the Book — through a methodology that combines rational proof with moral fairness, using clear logical syllogisms:

1. The Proof of “the Biography and the Sudden Transformation” (the Demonstration of Psychic Causality)

The Quran formulates a rational demonstration relying on the assessment of the personal biography of the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) before the sending:

“For I have remained among you a lifetime before it. Do you not then reason?” [Yunus: 16]

• The rational trial: the human being is a creature subject to psychic norms and epistemic gradualness. The Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) lived among his people for forty years (“a lifetime”), no lie was reported of him, he was not known to seek leadership, and he studied neither philosophy nor rhetoric. Reason judges the ordinary and psychic impossibility of a human being suddenly transforming, after forty years of absolute truthfulness and calm, into lying and audacity toward Allah by claiming prophethood, and coming with speech that the eloquent are incapable of, without preludes. This sudden transformation, unexplained materially, establishes rationally the existence of a “cause outside the material human system,” which is revelation — thereby establishing his prophethood.

2. The Proof of “the Extension of Time and the Absence of Divergence” (the Demonstration of Logical Coherence)

The Quran formulates a rigorous rational rule subject to scientific criticism to clarify its source:

“Do they not then contemplate the Quran? Had it been from other than Allah, they would have found in it much divergence.” [Al-Nisa: 82]

• The rational trial: human thought is governed by the law of change and by being affected by psychic and environmental circumstances. If a human composes a book over the course of 23 years, in fluctuating circumstances between oppression, war, migration, victory, joy, and sorrow, it is rationally impossible that his ideas would not contradict, his principles waver, or the level of his scholarly and linguistic eloquence change. The coming of the Quran with a coherent epistemic and legislative structure whose first part corroborates its last, with no contradiction in it, is a decisive rational proof that its source is outside the reach of the human capacity subject to influences.

3. The Proof of “the Challenge of Incapacity Together with the Availability of Motives” (the Demonstration of Exhaustive Enumeration with the Opponents)

This is the famous challenge demonstration, formulated logically to address the masters of eloquence:

“And if you are in doubt about what We have sent down upon Our servant, then produce a chapter like it and call upon your witnesses other than Allah, if you are truthful. But if you do not — and you will never do it…” [Al-Baqara: 23-24]

• The rational trial: this proof rests on a clear equation: if this speech were human, then humans are equal in the nature of their capacities, and the rest of humans should be able to produce the like of it. The polytheists of the Arabs bore severe enmity toward the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family), and they had a fateful motive to invalidate his call by the word rather than by waging wars and shedding their blood. Their complete incapacity, historically recorded, to produce even a single chapter, together with the availability of the linguistic capacity and the severe motive, is a rational proof that this text is beyond the reach of human capacity.

4. The Demonstration of Confining the Rational Possibilities (with the Deniers of the Maker)

When the Quran addressed the deniers of the existence of the Maker or those denying the message, it placed their minds before a rigorous logical trial that confines the possibilities and binds them to the truth:

“Or were they created from nothing, or are they the creators? Or did they create the heavens and the earth? Rather, they are not certain.” [Al-Tur: 35-36]

• The rational trial: this syllogism confines the possibilities to three, with no fourth rationally: either they came into being from nothing, without a cause and a bringer-into-being — and this is invalid by the self-evidence of reason, which denies absolute chance and the assertion of the existence of a thing without a cause; or they are the ones who created themselves — which is a logical impossibility, because the one lacking a thing cannot give it, and the non-existent does not create an existent. So there remains only the third possibility, decisively, which is the existence of the Wise Creator and the trustworthiness of His message corresponding to the existential system.

5. The Demonstration of “Mutual Prevention and Existential Correlation” (with the Polytheists)

In its address to plurality and polytheism, the Quran used the law of “consistency and order” to establish divine oneness and the soundness of the message through a conditional proposition:

“Had there been within them [the heavens and the earth] gods besides Allah, they both would have been corrupted.” [Al-Anbiya: 22]

And it deepened this meaning with His saying:

“Then each god would have taken away what he created, and some of them would have overcome others.” [Al-Mu’minun: 91]

• The logical trial: were there in the universe more than one manager and will at the rank of divinity, the wills would diverge — as when one wills motion and the other rest, or one wills life and the other death for some person — which leads either to the incapacity of one of them, so his being a god is invalidated, or to the disturbance of the laws and the corruption of the cosmic order. And since the universe proceeds with a steady geometric consistency, with no clash in it, reason judges the oneness of the bringing-into-being cause, and consequently the soundness of the message of divine oneness.

6. The Shared Epistemic Ground, the Historical Trial, and the Requirement of Demonstration (with the People of the Book)

When the Quran addressed “the religious other” (the Jews and the Christians), it relied on the methodology of dismantling the shared epistemic structure and binding them to the demonstrative rules:

• Arguing by the previous Books: it called them to correspond to the facts present in their books, of which his people were ignorant:

“Say: So bring the Torah and recite it, if you are truthful.” [Al Imran: 93]

• The call to a common word (philosophical fairness): it defined a fair dialogical starting point relying on the shared essence, which is the liberation of human awareness from subservience to other than Allah:

“Say: O People of the Book, come to a word common between us and you, that we worship none but Allah…” [Al Imran: 64]

• Demanding of the adversaries the scholarly proof and casting off conjecture: it always demanded of the adversaries the scholarly proof:

“Say: Produce your proof, if you are truthful.” [Al-Naml: 64]

and it combated blind subservience to the forefathers without scrutiny, and reproached those who follow guessing and conjecture in the fateful issues of creed:

“They follow nothing but conjecture, and they do nothing but guess.” [Yunus: 66]

The demonstration (burhan), in the terminology of the philosophers, is the highest rank of the logical syllogism yielding certainty, and this continuous use of logical trials establishes that the Quran trusts the human intellect as an authority able to understand the truth.

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2. The Rational Proofs Advanced by the Muslim Philosophers Concerning the Soundness of the Prophethood of the Seal (pbuh)

The philosophers and theologians of the Imami Shia — such as the investigator al-Tusi (597–672 AH / 1201–1274 CE), Mulla Sadra (979–1050 AH / 1571–1640 CE), and al-Allamah al-Tabataba’i (1321–1402 AH / 1904–1981 CE) — set out from a rational assessment of the reality of the final prophethood through clear demonstrations and trials:

1. The Demonstration of “the Unlettered Environment and the Epistemic Leap” (Existential Disparity)

• The rational trial: reason and the philosopher look at “the volume of inputs compared to the outputs.” The inputs are the environment of the Arabian Peninsula: a Bedouin society, predominantly illiterate, idolatrous, superstitious, and tribally quarrelsome, entirely lacking schools, libraries, philosophical academies, or codified legal systems.

• The point of establishment: the outputs are the noble Quran, which came with an integrated legislative, legal, economic, judicial, and epistemic system that rivals — indeed exceeds — the greatest that the philosophical and legal civilizations, such as Rome and Greece, produced. Reason judges the impossibility of an integrated global system being suddenly born from the womb of an environment devoid of epistemic components; because “the one lacking a thing cannot give it.” This immense epistemic leap is a rational proof of the existence of an unseen support (revelation), thereby establishing the prophethood of the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family).

2. The Demonstration of “the Correspondence of the Sharia with Innate Nature and Independent Reason” (the Witness of Self-Truthfulness)

The Imami philosophers set out from their being among the “Adliyya” (the Justice-affirmers) who acknowledge the rule of “rational beautification and uglification”:

• The rational trial: the laws and systems that humans lay down, however great their intelligence, are inevitably affected by their egoism, their class biases, or their epistemic deficiency, so that gaps appear in them that time corrects and from which reason later disavows itself.

• The point of establishment: when the Quran came, it came corroborating the independent rational judgments; it commanded justice, benevolence, and the fulfillment of the covenant, and forbade injustice, aggression, and indecencies. The Exalted says:

“Indeed, Allah commands justice and benevolence.” [Al-Nahl: 90]

We find the Quranic content built upon pure divine oneness, transcendent above embodiment and polytheism, and corresponding entirely to what “independent practical reason” and “sound human innate nature” judge. Truth yields nothing but truth, and the uprightness of the method and its absolute efficacy for purifying the self and building society is a self-witness in it that it is from the source of truth and absolute perfection, which demonstrates the truthfulness of the prophethood of its bearer (peace be upon him and his family).

3. The Demonstration of “the Impossibility of Contradiction Between Creation and Legislation”

Sadr al-Muta’allihin (Mulla Sadra, 979–1050 AH / 1571–1640 CE) sets out from the view that the universe and the Quran are two books of a single Maker:

• The rational trial: the existential order (the universe) proceeds according to rigorous rational, mathematical, and causal laws that Allah deposited in it, and the legislative epistemic order (the Quran) Allah sent down as guidance for humans. And since the source of the universe and the source of the Quran is a single cause, which is Allah the Wise, it is impossible in the divine wisdom for the two books to contradict. For the human intellect that reads the laws of the universe is the same one that reads the verses of the Quran, and the absence of any logical or existential clash between the reality of the universe and the Quran is a proof that the wellspring of the two propositions is one, which establishes the soundness of the message.

4. The Demonstration of “the Sudden Transformation and Moral Consistency Amid Variables”

• The rational trial: the human being is subject to the norms of psychic, behavioral, and social gradualness, and his principles and traits are affected by the surrounding circumstances, rising and falling. The noblest Messenger (peace be upon him and his family) remained among his people for forty years, known in them as the Truthful, the Trustworthy, and no seeking of leadership or delivering of legislative or philosophical sermons was reported of him.

• The point of establishment: it is impossible, ordinarily and psychically, in the judgment of reason, for a human to transform suddenly, after forty years of stillness and absolute truthfulness, into claiming prophethood recklessly and lying against Allah, then to hold firm to this claim amid wars, pursuit, siege, victory, and weakness, without any change in his moral conduct or disturbance in his ascetic principles. This complete steadfastness and sudden transformation demonstrates rationally that the mover of the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) is not a personal human motive; it is a decisive higher obligation that took him out of the state of personal choice and made him supported by divine revelation.

5. The Demonstration of “the Decisive Unseen Reports and the Political Gamble”

• The rational trial: the human being, by his nature, is ignorant of the future. And any leader or reformer who claims prophethood falsely, it is rationally impossible for him to bind the fate of his call and creed to decisive and precise future prophecies; because a single error in them is enough to end his call entirely and expose him before his followers and his enemies.

• The point of establishment: the Quran contained decisive unseen reports, in highly complex circumstances, such as the report of the defeat of the Persians and the victory of the Romans within a few years:

“Alif Lam Mim. The Romans have been defeated, in the nearest land; but they, after their defeat, will be victorious, within a few years.” [Al-Rum: 1-4]

and that at a time when the Persians were at the height of their destructive power and the Romans in the darkest periods of their collapse; likewise the report of the conquest of Mecca and the Muslims’ entering the Sacred Mosque in security while they were in a state of weakness and pursuit:

“You will surely enter the Sacred Mosque, if Allah wills, in security.” [Al-Fath: 27]

The realization of these events with an unerring geometric precision establishes, for the intellect of the philosopher, that the source of this speech is detached from the limits of human time and place, which decisively proves that the Quran is the speech of Allah and that the prophethood of Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) is a truth established with the certainty of reason and logic.

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Conclusion of the Study

Arriving at the truthfulness of the message of our noblest Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) through the gateway of the rational proofs in the noble Quran represents the summit of epistemic and demonstrative maturity. This study has undertaken to clarify that the Quran does not demand “blind faith”; it enacts reason as an arbiter and moves in the space of absolute accord with innate logic and human necessities.

The purification of the arena of inference from the temporary sensory proofs, and from the fluctuations of the empirical method by excluding the gamble of “scientific inimitability,” has granted this study a solid firmness; where “the foundation” was established by the decisive, unchangeable rational proof, leaving to the textual proof the task of drawing and defining “the instance” and the unseen details.

And based on what the giants of thought — the investigator al-Tusi, al-Shaykh al-Mufid, al-Allamah al-Hilli, and Mulla Sadra — established, the noble Quran remains the enduring epistemic miracle, and the continuous self-witness that the one who brought it is the seal Messenger of Allah, supported by divinely-granted revelation, and the true, perpetual link between the earth and heaven.