The Relation between Reason and Religious Law in the Avicenna's Wisdom and Aquinas' Philosophy and its impact on the Relation of Religion and Politics

The major problem in the Islamic world has been always the relation between religious law and reason. Assuming Leo Strauss's theory about what he called 'Classical Political Philosophy,' with Aristotle's 'lack of politics' in the Islamic world and Plato's 'laws' in the Christianity at the middle ages, and with comparing the thoughts of Avicenna and Aquinas about this relation, this paper attempts to address 'Practical Wisdom' to light the relation between religion and politics and its results. The research question is: what is the relation between reason and religious law/revelation, and what is its impact on practical wisdom. The hypothesis is that Avicenna limited the reason to the theoretical wisdom as pursuing Happiness in the hereafter by dividing the wisdom to practical and theoretical, with the domination of Plato's understanding in practical wisdom, led to a situation in which politics follow the religion. On the contrary, by entering Aristotle's epistemology, Aquinas place reason and revelation in theoretical and practical wisdom, which complement each other, with a kind of coordination and independence; and in the realm of practical wisdom, the legislator's reason and god's law complete that. As a result, Aquinas's idea led to the separation of politics and religion.