APQ - APPON PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

The epoch’s long debate between the Western and Islamic intellectual traditions on the boundaries between reason and revelation may be settled on the assumption of the distinctiveness of philosophy and religion as ontological systems. However, the problem is that, whereas as ontologies, they may be accepted for their explanatory powers, as epistemologies, there remain questions rooted in their conditions for justification. In other words, the supposed dichotomy between the validity of reason versus prophetic revelation remains an epistemic sour- point in dispelling the supposition of a conflict between philosophy and the Quran, for instance. It also poses a challenge for providing sufficient arguments for establishing their accordance as coherent truths about reality. In view of the above, this paper is a contemporary re-examination of the epistemological issues on the boundaries between religion and philosophy. It adopts a qualitative research approach and deploys the expository and critical methods of philosophical inquiry to highlight and explain the correlation between philosophy and the Qur’an in terms of subject matter and epistemic content (that is, what both seek to portray as knowledge). Exploring the arguments of critical Islamic thinkers such as Al-Kindi, the paper argues the case that, in terms of subject matter and theme, there is no inconsistency between philosophical and religious truth. It looks at some of these subject matter and themes under the branches of philosophy, and their correlates in the Quran. In the final analysis, the major point made is that philosophical truth and prophetic revelations are in accord with each other. Hence, if at all, there are technical and methodical differences, other than any logical inferiority of one over the other.

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