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==Terminology== | ==Terminology== | ||
As an entailment of their commitment to intellectual accommodation | As an entailment of their commitment to rational inquiry, epistemic pluralism, and intellectual accommodation, adherents of Rationalist Islam employ self-designations contextually rather than absolutely. Terminological choice is treated not as a fixed badge of immutable identity, but as a communicative instrument governed by audience, subject matter, pedagogical objective, and strategic relevance. | ||
This | This practice follows from a broader view of language itself. Religious, philosophical, and civilisational vocabularies are understood less as self-sufficient essences than as historically situated vehicles for communicating truth. Different traditions may preserve overlapping apprehensions of reality under different symbolic forms. Rationalist Muslims therefore regard the contextual adoption of multiple, even apparently divergent, labels as intellectually legitimate and pedagogically useful, provided that the underlying substantive orientation remains unchanged. The point is not terminological inconsistency for its own sake, but the articulation of one stable orientation through whatever vocabulary is most intelligible, resonant, or strategically appropriate in a given setting. | ||
Accordingly, Rationalist Muslims may identify themselves by a range of designations, including the following. | |||
''' | '''Mystic''' | ||
<br /> | |||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as mystics because they understand religion and philosophy to require not only doctrinal or intellectual assent, but also inward transformation, purification of perception, direct apprehension, and the cultivation of heightened consciousness. At the same time, they distinguish their position from forms of mysticism they regard as anti-intellectual, sentimental, vague, or detached from disciplined metaphysical inquiry. | |||
'''Rationalist Mystic''' | |||
<br /> | <br /> | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as | Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as rationalist mystics because they reject the reduction of mysticism to mood, aesthetic sensibility, emotional intensity, or an ineffable “vibe.” Mysticism, on this account, requires philosophical grounding, conceptual discipline, and integration into an increasingly refined and corrigible model of reality. Mystical apprehension and rational inquiry are therefore treated not as opposites, but as mutually reinforcing dimensions of a single search for truth. | ||
''' | '''Gnostic''' | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as | <br /> | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as gnostics because they place strong emphasis on transformative knowledge, inward unveiling, and direct apprehension of reality. The designation also serves to distinguish their orientation from forms of religion centred primarily on external conformity, formal observance, or exoteric adherence without corresponding depth of understanding. | |||
''' | '''Esotericist''' | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as | <br /> | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as esotericists because they affirm the existence of inner meanings, symbolic depth, graded disclosure, and teachings not always suitable for universal or undifferentiated public presentation. Esotericism, in this context, does not imply arbitrariness or obscurantism, but rather the claim that truths differ in communicative suitability according to audience, readiness, and circumstance. | |||
''' | '''Theist''' | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as | <br /> | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as theists in order to distinguish themselves from atheists while preserving conceptual focus on necessary existence and ultimate reality. The term is useful where the immediate objective is to prevent discussion from being prematurely burdened by the psychological, historical, and cultural associations attached to Islam, religion, or Muslims as social categories. In such contexts, “theist” allows the argument to proceed first at the level of metaphysical logic before wider doctrinal and civilisational implications are introduced. | |||
''' | '''Neoplatonist''' | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as | <br /> | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as Neoplatonists because they affirm a range of ideas historically associated with Neoplatonic philosophy, including metaphysical hierarchy, ontological gradation, intellectual ascent, and the derivation of lower orders of reality from higher principles. The term is used not necessarily to imply exhaustive doctrinal identity with historical Neoplatonism, but to indicate substantial affinity with its metaphysical architecture. | |||
''' | '''Christian''' | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as | <br /> | ||
Rationalist Muslims may identify themselves as Christians insofar as they venerate Christ as the philosopher-king of his time. Although the historical Jesus is not regarded as their primary influence, he is treated as a genuine secondary influence whose mission they see themselves as continuing in transformed form: namely, a self-sacrificial, charismatic, mystical, revolutionary socio-political movement directed toward global wellbeing. Within this interpretive framework, Plato conceived the philosopher-king, Jesus attempted it, Muḥammad achieved it, and Khomeini revived it. The designation therefore signals not confessional conversion to normative Christianity, but recognition of Jesus as a real participant in the same broader civilisational and noocratic lineage. | |||
''' | '''Muslim''' | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as | <br /> | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as Muslims insofar as they understand Islam, at its most fundamental level, as submission to ultimate reality, namely God. Such submission is not restricted to inherited formulations, communal convention, or literalist dogma, but extends to reality wherever it discloses itself and by whatever reliable means it is disclosed. Different domains of inquiry accordingly require different epistemic instruments: the scientific method for the natural world, the historical-critical method for history, and logic for philosophical and metaphysical questions. Should superior epistemic methods emerge in future, those too would be adopted, since submission is owed not to any single inherited method as such, but to truth itself. | |||
''' | '''Inner Circle Muslim''' | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as | <br /> | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as Inner Circle Muslims because they hold that philosophers, mystics, sages, and religious founders such as Muḥammad, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, and others frequently presupposed or enacted hierarchical structures of knowledge and instruction. On this model, discipleship is not epistemically flat. Followers, students, initiates, believers, and supporters may instead be distributed across concentric circles of increasing intimacy, trust, responsibility, and understanding, extending outward to the ʿawāmm, or general public. Higher truths, deeper symbolic meanings, and more sensitive political or metaphysical teachings are therefore not always communicated uniformly, but may be disclosed in graded form according to readiness, capacity, and circumstance. | |||
''' | '''Imami''' | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as | <br /> | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as Imamis in a sense broadly similar to their use of Shiʿi and Twelver Shiʿi, but with more explicit emphasis on the Imam as a philosophical and political category. In this usage, the Shiʿi Imam is understood functionally as the Arabic equivalent of the philosopher-king: the figure in whom intellectual excellence, moral authority, spiritual depth, and rightful leadership converge. | |||
''' | '''Shi'i''' | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as | <br /> | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as Shiʿis because they understand the essence of Shiʿism not merely in genealogical or confessional terms, but as recognition of the individual who is most fully wise, just, philosophically grounded, mystical, self-sacrificial, charismatic, and oriented toward the establishment of noocracy for the sake of global wellbeing. In this sense, Shiʿism is construed as principled alignment with the rightful bearer of intellectual, ethical, and political authority once such a figure is discerned. | |||
''' | '''Inner Circle Shi'i''' | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as | <br /> | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as Inner Circle Shiʿis for the combined reasons implied by both the Inner Circle Muslim and Shiʿi designations. They hold that Shiʿi Imams such as Muḥammad al-Bāqir and Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq possessed not only broad publics of sympathisers and followers, but also more intimate circles of disciples, students, and initiates to whom deeper teachings, esoteric interpretations, and forms of strategic political knowledge were entrusted. The designation therefore indicates both allegiance to the Imam and recognition of graded access to truth, mission, and responsibility. | |||
''' | '''Ja'fari''' | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as | <br /> | ||
Rationalist Muslims may identify themselves as Jaʿfari in a sense closely related to the Twelver Shiʿi, Imami, and Shiʿi designations outlined above, but with particular emphasis on Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq. He is regarded as exemplifying many of the qualities and concerns central to Rationalist Islam, including intention, jurisprudence, mysticism, secret politics, intelligence, underground teaching, and intellectual greatness. The designation also carries a historiographical advantage: even when approached through the historical-critical method, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq’s life, teachers, interlocutors, and legacy are comparatively more recoverable than those of many other early figures. Jaʿfarism is therefore useful not only symbolically, but also methodologically, as a marker of identifiable continuity. | |||
'''Sunni''' | |||
<br /> | |||
Rationalist Muslims may identify themselves as Sunni insofar as they understand themselves to be committed to continuing the sunnah of Muḥammad, construed not narrowly as a catalogue of inherited outward practices, but more substantively as a mode of charismatic, poetic, philosophically grounded, mystical, intellectually graded, ecumenical, and socio-political revolution. In this usage, “Sunni” denotes continuity with the living pattern and civilisational mission of Muḥammad rather than exclusive adherence to later sectarian boundary-making. | |||
'''Twelver Shi'i''' | |||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as | <br /> | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as Twelver Shiʿis for several reasons. Many are descendants of, born into, or raised within Twelver Shiʿi households and therefore continue to bear the imprint of Twelver devotional, cultural, ethical, and communal life. Some also did, at least at certain points, believe in the longevity of the Twelfth Imam. More broadly, many retain solidarity with Twelver symbolic and social worlds, and in Twelver settings may preserve reverence for the idea that the philosopher-king ideal remains in occultation, hidden from the world, and that historical labour should be directed toward making his appearance, or the conditions of his appearance, a reality. | |||
'''Akbarian''' | |||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as | <br /> | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as Akbarians because of their affinity with Ibn ʿArabī, al-Shaykh al-Akbar, especially in relation to waḥdat al-wujūd. The designation indicates substantive metaphysical sympathy with Akbarian modes of thought, particularly where they concern unity, manifestation, and the structure of reality. | |||
'''Salafi''' | |||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as | <br /> | ||
Rationalist Muslims may identify themselves as Salafi in a partly strategic and partly polemical sense, often in order to establish rapport with Salafis while unsettling contemporary monopolies over the term. The point is to show, first, that the salaf themselves did not agree on every matter later elevated into decisive markers of orthodoxy, and second, that some among the salaf would likely have been more sympathetic to, or at least more tolerant of, certain Rationalist Muslim beliefs and practices than many present-day Salafis are. The designation is therefore used not to collapse into contemporary Salafism, but to contest its historical self-certainty from within its own symbolic vocabulary. | |||
'''Red Shi'i''' | |||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as | <br /> | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as Red Shiʿis in a sense broadly aligned with ʿAlī Sharīʿatī’s distinction between “Red Shiʿism” and “Black Shiʿism.” By this they mean a militant, awakened, and historically conscious Shiʿism directed against passivity, ritualism, sedation, and apolitical religiosity. The designation is used to oppose forms of Shiʿi identity centred merely on mourning, inherited symbolism, devotional spectacle, or hagiographical glory, and to affirm instead the revival of Muḥammad’s struggle against oppressors and for active global justice. | |||
'''Khomeinist''' | |||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as | <br /> | ||
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as Khomeinists because they regard Rūḥollāh Khomeini as the figure who inaugurated the Revival Era through revolution, resistance, and the reanimation of the Muhammadan movement under modern conditions. This designation is strengthened by the fact that many adherents are near-contemporaries of that era and therefore understand it not merely as distant history, but as a living civilisational turning point. They venerate Khomeini for his emphasis on Muslim unity, his refusal to allow minor jurisprudential, and even certain doctrinal, differences to eclipse larger geopolitical and moral struggles, and his attempt to restore religion to the plane of historical agency. They also esteem his philosophy, politics, geopolitical vision, anti-imperialism, opposition to ethnosupremacy including Zionism, support for the oppressed including Palestinians, Black people, and victims of Western hegemony, as well as his charisma, bi-domainal genius, willingness to override rigid jurisprudential dogmatism, mysticism, poetry, and commitment to the demands of a resistance economy. | |||
==Cognitive dispositions== | ==Cognitive dispositions== | ||
Revision as of 22:58, 22 April 2026
Rationalist Islam is an epistemic-led, principle-first, and rational-empirical branch of Islam that grounds views, practices, and identity in a set of independently justified and domain-specific rational principles.
Adherents adopt “Islam” and "Muslim" as identities only after critical assessment of historical evidence suggests that Muḥammad substantially aligned with these principles. Rationalist Islam is, therefore, a continuation of the historical Muhammadan movement with the aim of maximising the wellbeing of all sentient inhabitants of the world.
The guiding maxim often associated with Rationalist Islam is “Religion as movement — not monument,” emphasising an ongoing, adaptive, principle-led, evidence-based, ethically purposive project rather than static veneration and dogma.
Proponents describe Rationalist Islam as a continuation — and internal reformulation — of the broader Near Eastern and Mediterranean “wisdom tradition,” drawing a conceptual lineage from classical philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus), biblical and late antique sapiential currents (including the Jesus movement’s emphasis on justice and inner transformation), through Muḥammad’s proclamations, early and medieval Islamic philosophy (falsafa) and mysticism (taṣawwuf/ʿirfān), and extending into modern historical-critical and scientific methods.
Terminology
As an entailment of their commitment to rational inquiry, epistemic pluralism, and intellectual accommodation, adherents of Rationalist Islam employ self-designations contextually rather than absolutely. Terminological choice is treated not as a fixed badge of immutable identity, but as a communicative instrument governed by audience, subject matter, pedagogical objective, and strategic relevance.
This practice follows from a broader view of language itself. Religious, philosophical, and civilisational vocabularies are understood less as self-sufficient essences than as historically situated vehicles for communicating truth. Different traditions may preserve overlapping apprehensions of reality under different symbolic forms. Rationalist Muslims therefore regard the contextual adoption of multiple, even apparently divergent, labels as intellectually legitimate and pedagogically useful, provided that the underlying substantive orientation remains unchanged. The point is not terminological inconsistency for its own sake, but the articulation of one stable orientation through whatever vocabulary is most intelligible, resonant, or strategically appropriate in a given setting.
Accordingly, Rationalist Muslims may identify themselves by a range of designations, including the following.
Mystic
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as mystics because they understand religion and philosophy to require not only doctrinal or intellectual assent, but also inward transformation, purification of perception, direct apprehension, and the cultivation of heightened consciousness. At the same time, they distinguish their position from forms of mysticism they regard as anti-intellectual, sentimental, vague, or detached from disciplined metaphysical inquiry.
Rationalist Mystic
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as rationalist mystics because they reject the reduction of mysticism to mood, aesthetic sensibility, emotional intensity, or an ineffable “vibe.” Mysticism, on this account, requires philosophical grounding, conceptual discipline, and integration into an increasingly refined and corrigible model of reality. Mystical apprehension and rational inquiry are therefore treated not as opposites, but as mutually reinforcing dimensions of a single search for truth.
Gnostic
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as gnostics because they place strong emphasis on transformative knowledge, inward unveiling, and direct apprehension of reality. The designation also serves to distinguish their orientation from forms of religion centred primarily on external conformity, formal observance, or exoteric adherence without corresponding depth of understanding.
Esotericist
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as esotericists because they affirm the existence of inner meanings, symbolic depth, graded disclosure, and teachings not always suitable for universal or undifferentiated public presentation. Esotericism, in this context, does not imply arbitrariness or obscurantism, but rather the claim that truths differ in communicative suitability according to audience, readiness, and circumstance.
Theist
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as theists in order to distinguish themselves from atheists while preserving conceptual focus on necessary existence and ultimate reality. The term is useful where the immediate objective is to prevent discussion from being prematurely burdened by the psychological, historical, and cultural associations attached to Islam, religion, or Muslims as social categories. In such contexts, “theist” allows the argument to proceed first at the level of metaphysical logic before wider doctrinal and civilisational implications are introduced.
Neoplatonist
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as Neoplatonists because they affirm a range of ideas historically associated with Neoplatonic philosophy, including metaphysical hierarchy, ontological gradation, intellectual ascent, and the derivation of lower orders of reality from higher principles. The term is used not necessarily to imply exhaustive doctrinal identity with historical Neoplatonism, but to indicate substantial affinity with its metaphysical architecture.
Christian
Rationalist Muslims may identify themselves as Christians insofar as they venerate Christ as the philosopher-king of his time. Although the historical Jesus is not regarded as their primary influence, he is treated as a genuine secondary influence whose mission they see themselves as continuing in transformed form: namely, a self-sacrificial, charismatic, mystical, revolutionary socio-political movement directed toward global wellbeing. Within this interpretive framework, Plato conceived the philosopher-king, Jesus attempted it, Muḥammad achieved it, and Khomeini revived it. The designation therefore signals not confessional conversion to normative Christianity, but recognition of Jesus as a real participant in the same broader civilisational and noocratic lineage.
Muslim
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as Muslims insofar as they understand Islam, at its most fundamental level, as submission to ultimate reality, namely God. Such submission is not restricted to inherited formulations, communal convention, or literalist dogma, but extends to reality wherever it discloses itself and by whatever reliable means it is disclosed. Different domains of inquiry accordingly require different epistemic instruments: the scientific method for the natural world, the historical-critical method for history, and logic for philosophical and metaphysical questions. Should superior epistemic methods emerge in future, those too would be adopted, since submission is owed not to any single inherited method as such, but to truth itself.
Inner Circle Muslim
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as Inner Circle Muslims because they hold that philosophers, mystics, sages, and religious founders such as Muḥammad, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, and others frequently presupposed or enacted hierarchical structures of knowledge and instruction. On this model, discipleship is not epistemically flat. Followers, students, initiates, believers, and supporters may instead be distributed across concentric circles of increasing intimacy, trust, responsibility, and understanding, extending outward to the ʿawāmm, or general public. Higher truths, deeper symbolic meanings, and more sensitive political or metaphysical teachings are therefore not always communicated uniformly, but may be disclosed in graded form according to readiness, capacity, and circumstance.
Imami
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as Imamis in a sense broadly similar to their use of Shiʿi and Twelver Shiʿi, but with more explicit emphasis on the Imam as a philosophical and political category. In this usage, the Shiʿi Imam is understood functionally as the Arabic equivalent of the philosopher-king: the figure in whom intellectual excellence, moral authority, spiritual depth, and rightful leadership converge.
Shi'i
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as Shiʿis because they understand the essence of Shiʿism not merely in genealogical or confessional terms, but as recognition of the individual who is most fully wise, just, philosophically grounded, mystical, self-sacrificial, charismatic, and oriented toward the establishment of noocracy for the sake of global wellbeing. In this sense, Shiʿism is construed as principled alignment with the rightful bearer of intellectual, ethical, and political authority once such a figure is discerned.
Inner Circle Shi'i
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as Inner Circle Shiʿis for the combined reasons implied by both the Inner Circle Muslim and Shiʿi designations. They hold that Shiʿi Imams such as Muḥammad al-Bāqir and Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq possessed not only broad publics of sympathisers and followers, but also more intimate circles of disciples, students, and initiates to whom deeper teachings, esoteric interpretations, and forms of strategic political knowledge were entrusted. The designation therefore indicates both allegiance to the Imam and recognition of graded access to truth, mission, and responsibility.
Ja'fari
Rationalist Muslims may identify themselves as Jaʿfari in a sense closely related to the Twelver Shiʿi, Imami, and Shiʿi designations outlined above, but with particular emphasis on Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq. He is regarded as exemplifying many of the qualities and concerns central to Rationalist Islam, including intention, jurisprudence, mysticism, secret politics, intelligence, underground teaching, and intellectual greatness. The designation also carries a historiographical advantage: even when approached through the historical-critical method, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq’s life, teachers, interlocutors, and legacy are comparatively more recoverable than those of many other early figures. Jaʿfarism is therefore useful not only symbolically, but also methodologically, as a marker of identifiable continuity.
Sunni
Rationalist Muslims may identify themselves as Sunni insofar as they understand themselves to be committed to continuing the sunnah of Muḥammad, construed not narrowly as a catalogue of inherited outward practices, but more substantively as a mode of charismatic, poetic, philosophically grounded, mystical, intellectually graded, ecumenical, and socio-political revolution. In this usage, “Sunni” denotes continuity with the living pattern and civilisational mission of Muḥammad rather than exclusive adherence to later sectarian boundary-making.
Twelver Shi'i
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as Twelver Shiʿis for several reasons. Many are descendants of, born into, or raised within Twelver Shiʿi households and therefore continue to bear the imprint of Twelver devotional, cultural, ethical, and communal life. Some also did, at least at certain points, believe in the longevity of the Twelfth Imam. More broadly, many retain solidarity with Twelver symbolic and social worlds, and in Twelver settings may preserve reverence for the idea that the philosopher-king ideal remains in occultation, hidden from the world, and that historical labour should be directed toward making his appearance, or the conditions of his appearance, a reality.
Akbarian
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as Akbarians because of their affinity with Ibn ʿArabī, al-Shaykh al-Akbar, especially in relation to waḥdat al-wujūd. The designation indicates substantive metaphysical sympathy with Akbarian modes of thought, particularly where they concern unity, manifestation, and the structure of reality.
Salafi
Rationalist Muslims may identify themselves as Salafi in a partly strategic and partly polemical sense, often in order to establish rapport with Salafis while unsettling contemporary monopolies over the term. The point is to show, first, that the salaf themselves did not agree on every matter later elevated into decisive markers of orthodoxy, and second, that some among the salaf would likely have been more sympathetic to, or at least more tolerant of, certain Rationalist Muslim beliefs and practices than many present-day Salafis are. The designation is therefore used not to collapse into contemporary Salafism, but to contest its historical self-certainty from within its own symbolic vocabulary.
Red Shi'i
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as Red Shiʿis in a sense broadly aligned with ʿAlī Sharīʿatī’s distinction between “Red Shiʿism” and “Black Shiʿism.” By this they mean a militant, awakened, and historically conscious Shiʿism directed against passivity, ritualism, sedation, and apolitical religiosity. The designation is used to oppose forms of Shiʿi identity centred merely on mourning, inherited symbolism, devotional spectacle, or hagiographical glory, and to affirm instead the revival of Muḥammad’s struggle against oppressors and for active global justice.
Khomeinist
Rationalist Muslims identify themselves as Khomeinists because they regard Rūḥollāh Khomeini as the figure who inaugurated the Revival Era through revolution, resistance, and the reanimation of the Muhammadan movement under modern conditions. This designation is strengthened by the fact that many adherents are near-contemporaries of that era and therefore understand it not merely as distant history, but as a living civilisational turning point. They venerate Khomeini for his emphasis on Muslim unity, his refusal to allow minor jurisprudential, and even certain doctrinal, differences to eclipse larger geopolitical and moral struggles, and his attempt to restore religion to the plane of historical agency. They also esteem his philosophy, politics, geopolitical vision, anti-imperialism, opposition to ethnosupremacy including Zionism, support for the oppressed including Palestinians, Black people, and victims of Western hegemony, as well as his charisma, bi-domainal genius, willingness to override rigid jurisprudential dogmatism, mysticism, poetry, and commitment to the demands of a resistance economy.
Cognitive dispositions
“whatever is, is; whatever is not, is not.”
Every entity or proposition is self-identical and distinct from its negation.
“nothing can both be and not be in the same respect.”
Nothing can both be and not be in the same respect.
“every real state of affairs has some reason or ground.”
Every real state of affairs is intelligible; it has some reason, ground, or explanation for why it is rather than not, even if that reason is intrinsic.
“some things exist but could, in principle, not have existed.”
There exist beings whose non-existence involves no contradiction.
Explanation cannot be self-grounding or infinitely deferred; every chain of dependence must terminate in something self-sufficient.
Conative dispositions
1. Preference for truth over comfort
2. Desire for personal development
3. Desire for the maximisation of global wellbeing
4. Desire to actively participate in the maximisation of global wellbeing
5. Tendency for self-sacrifice
The Rational Entailments
From the cognitive and conative dispositions follows a series of entailments that together constitute the framework of Rationalist Islam. They are not adopted as beliefs, asserted as doctrines, or accepted by tradition, but are said to follow by necessity from the structure of reason itself.
Each entailment represents what any rational intellect must affirm once it accepts the laws of thought and the intelligibility of being: that contingent existence requires grounding, that explanation must terminate in the self-sufficient, and that the pursuit of knowledge within each domain must proceed according to the logic appropriate to that domain. What follows, therefore, are not articles of faith but the logical unfoldings of reason — the positions that reason itself necessitates concerning existence, knowledge, and ethics.
Rationalist Islam proceeds on the principle that no claim is exempt from reason’s jurisdiction. Every position is derived — not asserted — by applying the Five Prior Rational Commitments. What follows is a continuous sequence of conclusions that any rational agent should grant once those priors are accepted.
1) Metaphysical rationalism
2) Foundationalism
3) Epistemic parsimony
4) Ontological parsimony
5) Primacy of Consciousness
6) Analytic idealism
7) Oneness of consciousness
Monism • Nondualism
8) Ontological priority
9) Gradation of consciousness
Gradation of existence • Gradation of reality • Tashkīk al-wujūd
10) Meta Consciousness
Ahura Mazda • Allāh • Aten • Baha • Brahman • Dao • 'Ēl • Father • God • God the Father • Necessary Existent • Necessary Existentiator • Necessary Reality • Pure Consciousness • Shangdi • Tao • The Divine • The One • Unconditioned Reality • Vishnu • Waheguru • Wājib al-Wujūd • Yahweh
11) Necessary simplicity
Al-Basāṭah al-ilāhiyyah • Divine simplicity • Monotheism • Oneness • Oneness of Allah • Oneness of God • Tawhīd
12) Absolute necessary simplicity
13) Conscientiation ex conscientia
Badā'a • Creatio ex deo • Origination
14) Necessitarianism
ʿAdl • Divine justice
15) Eternalism / Eternal Creation
16) Rule of one
17) First conscientiate
First creation • First intellect • First light • Image of God • Imago dei • Mashīyya • Nūr Muhammadiyya • Ontologically first dependent existent • Pen • Perfect creation • Qalam • Universal intellect
18) Intermediary conscientiates
Angels • Immaterial existents • Malāʾika
19) Observable universe
Cosmos • Dunyā • Material dimension • Material realm • Material world • Multiverse • Natural World • Olam HaZeh • Physical world • Sensible dimension • Sensible realm • Sensible world • Universe
20) B-theory of time
Tenseless theory of time
21) Compatibilism
Divine Decree • Divine Predestination • Illusion of Libertarian Free Will • Predestination • Qadar • Soft determinism
22) Perdurantism
23) Physical empiricism
Empirical method • Scientific method
24) Mindfulness
Dhikr • God consciousness • Meditation • Salāh • Taqwā
25) Self-cultivation
26) Superiority of intellect
27) Rational self-governance
28) Mysticism
'Ibādah • Islām • Servitude • Submission • Worship
29) Prayer
Ṣalāh
30) Fasting
Ṣawm
31) Charity
Almsgiving • Zakāh
32) Pilgrimage
Ḥajj
33) Resistance
Discipline • Exertion • Fighting • Holy war • Jihād • Sacred battle • Striving • Struggle
34) Heightened consciousness
Altered state of consciousness • Anubhava • Enlightenment • Henosis • Ilhām • Nirvana • Noetic mystical experience • Nubuwwah • Perfect knowledge acquisition • Prophethood • Samadhi • Revelation • Wahī
35) Gradation of Intellect
Cognitive heterogeneity
Messengership • Risālah
37) Global cultivation / Maximisation of Personal & Global Wellbeing (Constrained)
38) Noocracy
Epistocracy • Imāmah • Mulk al-Hakīm • Perfect Manhood • Philosopher Kingship • Velāyateh Amr • Velāyateh Faqīh • Wilāyah al-Amr • Wilāyah al-Faqīh
39) Philosopher King
Demigod • High-Conscious Individual • High-Integration Individual • Hujjah • Imām • Infallible • Insān al-Kāmil • Insān ‘alā Khuluqin ‘Adhīm • Integrate • Mālik al-Hakīm • Ma'sūm • Messenger • Meta-Conscious Agent • Nabī • New Man • Perfect Human • Perfect Man • Perfect Rational Animal • Philosopher King • Prophet • Rasūl • Transhuman • Übermensch • Valīyeh Amr • Valīyeh Faqīh • Walīy al-Amr • Walīy al-Faqīh
40) Intellectual Accommodation
Tawriyyah
41) Intellectual Dissimulation
Taqīyyah
42) Cognitive reframing
43) Motifs and Imagery
Motifs—light, ascent, circle, garden, path—translate abstract truths into memorable forms that shape imagination and action. Repetition builds identity; symbol stabilises norms.
44) Mythos for Most
Symbol and story teach where proof cannot yet reach. Properly used, mythos is not falsehood but imaginal pedagogy—true content rendered in forms accessible to typical abstraction bandwidths. It is accommodation at scale.
45) Repurposing Myths and Legends
Existing cultural materials can be redeemed: stripped of false metaphysics, rekeyed to the Necessary Existent and rational ethics, and redeployed for formation. Continuity with correction preserves social capital while elevating understanding.
46) Metanarratives
Human agents reason within stories. A metanarrative integrates metaphysics, ethics, and destiny into an intelligible arc that motivates virtue and sacrifice. Without a shared narrative, social coordination and long-range projects degrade.
47) Religion
48) Religious beliefs
Arkān al-īmān • Pillars of faith • 'Uṣūl al-dīn
49) Religious laws
Branches of religion • Furūʿ al-dīn • Pillars of practice
50) Need for Dogma
“Dogma” means publicly fixed minima of right belief and practice that coordinate a civilisation. It protects the many from costly error while leaving upper tiers open to demonstration and qualified debate. Dogma is not a substitute for truth; it is a civic guardrail toward it.
51) Confessional identity
Shahāda • Testimony of Faith
51) Need to Encourage and Control Behaviour
Where demonstration alone will not move median behaviour, law, institutions, incentives, and norms are rational instruments to align action with the good. This is an application of PSR to collective life: effects follow causes; therefore, design the causes.
Hagiography
Apotheosis • Deification • Divinisation • Ghulāt / Ghuluw • Heroisation • Legendary accretion • Mythicisation • Myth-making • Mythologisation • Mythopoeia • Sacralisation • Tawallā
Heresiography
Tabarrā
Timeline
Formative Era (387 BCE - 27 CE)
Classical Antiquity • Antiquity
387 BCE (c.), Athens, Greece
Plato begins noocratic revolution
- Plato founds the Academy to cultivate a new generation of virtuous, logical leaders trained in ethics and abstract thought to improve society and political life.
387 - ? BCE (c.), Athens, Greece
- Plato conceives Theory of Ideas
- Plato conceives Theory of Soul
- Plato conceives Form of the Good
- Plato conceives Allegory of the Cave
- Plato conceives The Philosopher King
- Plato conceives The Noble Lie
335 BCE, Athens, Greece
Aristotle founds the Lyceum
335 BCE - ?, Athens, Greece
Aristotle conceives formal logic
Embodiment Era (27 CE - 245 CE)
27 CE (c.), Galilee, Roman Judea (modern Occupied Palestine)
Jesus begins local cultivation for noocratic revolution
- Jesus begins his public ministry using parables and aphorisms to teach about ethics. He advocates the reversal of social hierarchies and preaches the transformation of world order, which he calls the coming "Kingdom of God." He gathers followers, including an inner circle of disciples and social outcasts.
29 CE (c.), Jerusalem, Roman Judea (modern Occupied Palestine)
Jesus begins regional cultivation for noocratic revolution
- Jesus travels to Jerusalem for Passover, debates Jewish authorities on the subject of God, causes a disruption - often referred to as the cleansing of the Temple - and directly challenges local Jewish religious leadership.
30 CE (c.), Jerusalem, Roman Judea (modern Occupied Palestine)
- Jesus is demonised by Jewish ethnocratic propaganda
- Jesus is executed by Roman timocratic crucifixion
161 CE, Rome, Roman Empire (modern Wider Mediterranean World)
Marcus Aurelius establishes noocratic revolution
Emanation Era (245 CE - 610 CE)
Antiquity • Late antiquity
245–270 CE (c.), Rome, Roman Empire (modern Italy)
Plotinus conceives The One
Plotinus conceives Emanation by the One
Plotinus establishes Neoplatonism
412–485 CE, Athens, Eastern Roman Empire
Proclus popularises Platonism
485–528 CE, Syria, Eastern Roman Empire
Pseudo-Dionysius symbolises Neoplatonism
Dawn Era (610 CE - 661 CE)
610 CE, Mecca, Hejaz (modern Saudi Arabia)
Muḥammad begins noocratic revolution
622 CE, Medina, Hejaz (modern Saudi Arabia)
Muḥammad establishes noocratic revolution
632 CE, Medina, First Islamic state (modern Saudi Arabia)
Muḥammad dies in suspicious circumstances
Abu Bakr restores clanocracy
Ali begins noocratic revolution
Fāṭima al-Zahrā dies following suspected clanocratic arson attack
656 CE, Medina, Rashidun Caliphate (modern Saudi Arabia)
'Uthmān ibn 'Affān is assassinated by sword
656 CE, Medina, Rashidun Caliphate (modern Saudi Arabia)
ʿAlī establishes noocratic revolution
661 CE, Kufa, Rashidun Caliphate (modern Iraq)
ʿAlī is assassinated by kratocratic sword
Hasan ibn ʿAlī protects noocratic revolution
Hasan ibn ʿAlī is assassinated by poison
Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī begins noocratic revolution
680 CE, Karbala, Umayyad Caliphate (modern Iraq)
Husayn ibn ʿAlī is assassinated by clanocratic sword
732 CE, Medina, Umayyad Caliphate (modern Saudi Arabia)
Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq begins noocratic revolution
765 CE, Medina, Abbasid Caliphate (modern Saudi Arabia)
Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq is assassinated by clanocratic poison
Islamic Golden Age (820 CE - 1270 CE)
Early Middle Ages • High Middle Ages • Occultation Era
820 - 870 CE (c.), Baghdad, Abbasid Caliphate (modern Iraq)
al-Kindī
940 – 1060 CE (c.), Basra, Iraq
Brethren of Purity hold secret meetings
950 CE (c.), Damascus, Ikhshidid Syria (modern Syria)
al-Fārābī islamicises Neoplatonism
980 – 1037 CE, from Bukhara, Samanid Transoxiana (modern Uzbekistan) to Hamadan, Medieval Persia (modern Islamic Republic of Iran)
Ibn Sīnā conceives Proof of the Truthful
1186 CE (c.), Aleppo, Ayyubid Syria (modern Syria)
Shihab al-Din Yahya ibn Habash Suhrawardi conceives Illuminationism
1191 CE (c.), Aleppo, Ayyubid Syria (modern Syria)
Shihab al-Din Yahya ibn Habash Suhrawardi is executed by familiocratic violence
1200–1240 CE (c.), Mecca, Hejaz (modern Saudi Arabia) and Damascus, Ayyubid Syria (modern Syria)
Ibn ʿArabī conceives Unity of Existence
1220 - 1270 CE (c.), Maragha, Medieval Persia
Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī synthesises mysticism and science
Gunpowder Age
Mīr Dāmād conceives atemporal origination
Mulla Sadrā conceives Transcendent Theosophy
Oil Age
1890 CE (c.), London, Britain
British Foreign Office plots to exploit Persian oil
1901 CE, Tehran, Qajari Persia (modern Islamic Republic of Iran)
Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar sells off oil exploitation rights of 75% of Persia to Britain in exchange for personal profit
Awakening Era (1940 CE - 1979 CE)
Late Modern Period to Early Contemporary Period • Pre to Early Information Age
1940 CE (c.), Qom, Pahlavi Iran (modern Islamic Republic of Iran)
Ruhollah Khomeini begins noocratic revolution
1948 CE, British-occupied Palestine, (modern Zionist-occupied Palestine)
Britain transfers occupation of Palestine to European Jewish Zionists
1954 CE, Qom, Pahlavi Iran (modern Islamic Republic of Iran)
Muhammad Husayn Ṭabāṭabāʾī establishes intra-Qur’ānic exegesis
1971 CE (c.), Tehran, Pahlavi Iran (modern Islamic Republic of Iran)
Ali Shariati delivers 'Red Shi'ism vs. Black Shi'ism' lectures
1977 CE, Southampton, Britain
Ali Shariati dies in suspicious circumstances
1977 CE, Tehran, Pahlavi Iran (modern Islamic Republic of Iran)
Morteza Motahhari co-founds Combatant Clergy Association
Revival Era (1979 CE - Today)
Late Modern Era • Middle Information Age
1979 CE, Tehran, Post-Pahlavi Iran (modern Islamic Republic of Iran)
Ruhollah Khomeini establishes noocratic revolution
1979 CE, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Morteza Motahhari is assassinated by Iranian seculocratic gunfire
1979 CE, Qom, Islamic Republic of Iran
Ruhollah Khomeini tells representatives of the tribes of Khuzestan and a delegation from Turkmen Sahra, "We Muslims are busy bickering over whether to fold or unfold our arms during prayer, while the enemy is devising ways of cutting them off."
1979 CE (c.), Beqaa, Lebanon
Hassan Nasrallah begins noocratic revolution
1982 CE, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Ali Khamenei tells 60 Minutes Australia that the worst enemy is America
1989 CE, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Ruhollah Khomeini dies
Ali Khamenei protects noocratic revolution
2001 CE, New York, America
Unidentified pilots fly planes into iconic American sites
2001 CE, Virginia, America
Senior military officer tells Wesley Clark that America has plotted to attack Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Islamic Republic of Iran
2001 CE, Afghanistan
America and European proxies begin war on Afghanistan
2003 CE, Iraq
America and European proxies begin war on Iraq
2006 CE, Washington D.C., America
America uses Jewish Zionist proxy Israel to attack Lebanon
2007 CE, Somalia
America begins its bombing war offensive on Somalia
2011 CE, Libya
America starts war on Libya
2011 CE, Sudan
America completes split of Sudan
2015 CE, London, Great Britain
Britain's Channel 4 broadcasts ex-CIA spy officer's American propaganda unchallenged, including, "The thing was ideal when IS was advancing on Baghdad because Sunnis were killing Shias. That's exactly what we need... our best hope right now is to get the Sunnis and Shias fighting each other and let them bleed each other white."
2024 CE, Dahieh, Lebanon
Hassan Nasrallah is assassinated by Jewish ethnocratic airstrike
2026 CE, Islamic Republic of Iran
America and Jewish Zionist proxy Israel begin armed riots in Islamic Republic of Iran
America and Jewish Zionist proxy Israel begin war on Islamic Republic of Iran
2026 CE, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Ali Khamenei is assassinated by American plutocratic & Jewish ethnocratic airstrikes
2026 CE, Chicago, America
Leading American political scientist John Mearsheimer says American sanctions from 1971 to 2021 alone murdered 38 million people