“The Cognitive Structure of Proof and Interpretation in Ibn Rushd’s Fasl al-Maqal: A Critical Reading of the Levels of Knowledge and Methods of Belief”

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze the epistemological structure governing the relationship between demonstration (Burhan) and interpretation (Ta’wil) in Ibn Rushd’s The Decisive Treatise (Fasl al-Maqal), and to examine how these two concepts contribute to his conception of the relationship between philosophy (Hikmah) and religious law (Shari‘ah), while critically evaluating the methodological foundations and epistemological limits of this framework. The study was based on a central question concerning the extent to which demonstration can regulate the process of interpretation and establish harmony between rational knowledge and religious texts, considering the diversity of human capacities and levels of understanding. The study adopted a textual analytical approach to examine Ibn Rushd’s original writings, a conceptual approach to trace the meanings of central concepts within the Rushdian framework, and a critical approach to assess the coherence, strengths, and limitations of his epistemological structure.

The study found that Ibn Rushd constructed his project upon the principle of integration between demonstration and interpretation, where demonstration functions as the criterion for regulating the legitimacy of interpretation, while understanding religious texts remains connected to the rules of Arabic language and rational inquiry. The study also revealed that Ibn Rushd’s classification of knowledge levels and methods of assent into rhetorical, dialectical, and demonstrative categories represents an attempt to organize the relationship between different levels of human cognition. However, the critical analysis showed that this framework faces several methodological challenges, including the difficulty of establishing a precise and fixed criterion for distinguishing the people of demonstration from others, the possibility of disagreement among qualified demonstrators themselves regarding certain interpretations, and the fact that demonstrative knowledge remains subject to the limitations of human reasoning and its capacity for both error and correctness. Furthermore, the distinction between the apparent meaning of the text and its interpreted meaning, despite its role in regulating understanding, raises questions regarding the relationship between different levels of religious knowledge and the possibility that restricting interpretation to a specific intellectual group may create a form of epistemic authority.

The study concludes that the scientific significance of the Rushdian project does not lie in providing a final solution to the problem of the relationship between reason and revelation, but rather in its attempt to establish a methodological framework that seeks to reconcile them through rational, linguistic, and ethical principles, while acknowledging the theoretical tensions that reveal the limits of any human attempt to fully combine demonstrative certainty with the diversity of human interpretations.