A Comparison of the Viewpoints of Ibn Taymiyyah and Bahrani on the Position of Reason in Religion

The notion of reason, its functions and boundaries is one of the significant and influential subjects forming the theories of scholars of religion that is sometimes either exaggerated or undermined. This article surveys different meanings of reason as well as the viewpoints of Ibn Taymyyah, the founder of Salafism, and Sheikh Yusuf Bahrāni, a prominent Shiite scholar, on it, shedding light on their commonalities and differences, despite the fact that both of them belong to Zāhiri School of interpretation. In practice, they both lay little store on reason while admitting its practicability to some extent. Similarly, they both reject the correlation of reason and law, in spite of accepting the theory of rational goodness and badness, and prioritize narration to reason in time of their discord.