A Critical Study of the Nature and Applications of Salafi Rationality in Understanding Religious Texts

Rationality is the application of reason and its presence in culture and society; it has such different types as instrumental rationality, critical rationality and Islamic rationality. By this research it is intended to explain the nature, functions and Salafist rationality critically which in this research tries to express its perspective on understanding religious doctrines and propositions with a descriptive and analytical method. The findings of the research show that the basis of the Salafist system of thought and rationality is formed by serious attention to two important religious sources, namely "Book" and "Tradition", and an outstanding inferential method, namely the "Salafi" method. Contradictory to the fact that they theoretically accept qiyas, istihsan and istislah as the rules and principles of their ijtihad; However, in terms of practice, they find such limiting conditions that in fact "reason" is short of entering these methods of ijtihad and these principles are reduced to very limited rules of jurisprudence in the circle of texts, from "effective ijtihad principles" to " Redundant and unnecessary rules.