The Muslim Thinkers Encounter with the Challenge of Thinking and Surrender

Although there is no opposition between the level of innate knowledge and the understanding of the principles of values, at first glance there seems an opposition and duality between knowledge and surrender. Rational knowledge also prepares, instead of duality, the background for surrender. Rationally there is no opposition between imitation and reasoning. The main part of this confrontation is due to ignoring reason’s command to its limitations and mistakes, which brings about the roots of clashes and, consequently, varieties of confrontations. With a descriptive-analytic method, this article tried to explain the encounter of some Ash’rite, Mu’tazilite and Shi’ite thinkers to the duality of thinking and surrender and show their resolutions to solve this challenge. It can be concluded that we are faced with a wide range of different views on the approach of reason in dealing with religious discussions and how to deduce the jurisprudential rules in Islam. Some groups consider it as necessary to use reason and rational reasons as a source and origin to gain this knowledge. The Mu'tazilite and Shiite theological schools are part of this group.