The Function of Reason — Essence of Islam Vol. 2

14 Sep, 2026 Essence of Islam 0

Essence of Islam Book Cover by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (AS)

Introduction

In this discourse from Essence of Islam (Volume 2), Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (AS), the Promised Messiah and Mahdi, expounds upon The Function of Reason, presenting profound spiritual insights and scriptural verities.

Book Series: Essence of Islam (Volume 2)
Author: Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian (AS)
Section: Part 2: Revelation, Inspiration, Vision and Dream
Navigation: Book Table of Contents | « Previous: Differences Between Satanic and Divine Revelation | Next: The Law of Nature Demands Revelation »

along which creates every kind of facility for reason and delivers a person from a host of difficulties which confront him on account of the shortness of age, insufficient knowledge and lack of insight.
[Brahin-e-Ahmadiyya, Ruhani Khaza’in, vol. 1, pp. 292-309, footnote 11]
[Essence of Islam, Vol. 2, p. 96]

It is true that reason is also a lamp which God has furnished to man, the light of which draws man towards truth and saves him from a variety of doubts and suspicions and sets aside different types of baseless ideas and improper conjectures. It is very useful, very necessary and is a great bounty. Yet, despite all this it suffers from the shortcoming that it alone cannot lead to full certainty in the matter of the understanding of the reality of things. The stage of perfect certainty is that man should believe that the reality of things exists as it in fact does exist. Reason alone cannot lead to this high degree of certainty. At the outside, it proves the need of the existence of something, but does not prove that in fact it exists. This degree of certainty that a person’s knowledge should proceed from the stage of ‘should be’ to the stage of ‘is’, is acquired only when reason is joined by a companion which, confirming its conjecture, converts it into fact, that is to say, regarding a matter concerning which reason says it ‘should be’ that companion informs that in fact it ‘is’. Reason only establishes the need of a thing; it cannot establish its existence, and these are two distinct and separate matters. Thus, reason needs a companion which should supplement the defective ‘should be’ of reason with the affirmative ‘is’ and which should give information of facts as they truly exist. So, God Who is most Compassionate and Generous and desires to lead
[Brahin-e-Ahmadiyya, Ruhani Khaza’in, vol. 1, pp. 78-80, footnote 4]
[Essence of Islam, Vol. 2, p. 96]

The ideas of reason do not suffer only from the defect that they lack certainty and cannot comprehend the finer points of matters Divine, but they also suffer from the defect that discourses based upon reason alone are largely ineffective in persuading the heart. The reason is that for any discourse to affect the heart it is necessary that its truth should be so well established in the mind of the hearer that no room should be left for doubt and the heart should believe that what it is being told is not subject to the possibility of error. We have just shown that reason alone cannot lead to perfect certainty. It is thus obvious that the effect that is produced on the heart by perfect certainty cannot be expected from reason alone and this is confirmed by daily experience. For instance, when a person returns home from having sojourned in a distant country then everyone inquires from him about that country and they are all deeply affected by what he relates out of his personal knowledge provided he is not suspected of telling lies; rather he is a respected and truthful person. Why are his words so effective? They are effective because he is known to be a righteous person and it is believed that whatever he relates of the circumstances of that country he has observed with his own eyes. Therefore, his discourse affects the hearts and his statements appeal to the hearers as if they had seen those events that he describes with their own eyes. Sometimes it happens that when he relates a pitiable tale it so affects the hearers that their eyes are filled with tears as if they had witnessed the event themselves.
But if a person who has not moved beyond the four walls of his house and has never been abroad, nor has heard anyone describe the circumstances and conditions of another country, were to begin to discourse upon the circumstances and conditions of another country out of his imagination, it would produce no effect upon the hearers. In fact, they would charge him with madness and insanity in that he relates that which is beyond his observation and experience and is above his imperfect knowledge. It is like the story of a foolish person who was praising wheaten bread and when he was asked whether he had ever eaten it, he replied that he had not eaten it but that his grandfather used to say that on one occasion he had seen someone eating it.
Unless someone in the estimation of his hearers comprehends any event fully, his discourse would produce no effect upon their hearts and he would make himself a laughing stock. That is the reason why the discourses of worldly-wise people have never attracted the attention of anyone to the hereafter. Their hearers continue to think that, as the speaker was talking from conjecture, they could oppose him with their own conjectures, as neither side had witnessed the reality. This is the reason that when some wise people expressed themselves in support of the existence of God, other wise people opposed them and wrote books in support of atheism. The truth is that the thinking of even those who express themselves to some degree in support of the existence of God was not altogether free from atheistic ideas, nor is it free now. Consider the Brahmus. Do they ever regard God as possessing perfect attributes? Do they believe that He possesses the attribute of speech as a living being should? Do they regard Him as Controller and Sustainer? Do they believe that God is Ever-Living and All Sustaining and that He can speak to righteous hearts? On the contrary, they consider Him as fictitious and like the dead who has been invented by human reason through its own imagination. No voice is ever heard from him. In fact, he is not God, but an idol lying in a corner. I wonder how these people are pleased with such childish ideas and what fruit do they expect from their fictitious thinking? Why do they not search like true seekers for the God Who is Powerful and Ever-Living and is capable of affirming His own existence and can revive the dead in an instant by the call: I am Allah? When they know that the light of reason is smoky then why do they not seek Perfect Light? They admit that they are ill, but they do not seek a remedy. It is a pity that they do not open their reason is imperfect and unreliable. What a pity! Is it proper to continue to harp with such cheek on the same dead thought which has already been demolished by an array of powerful arguments?… It is true that the reality of things is disclosed to some degree by arguments based on reason, but reason does not complete all stages of certainty. The instance cited by them refutes their proposition. The fatal quality of arsenic is not established by reason acting by itself, but this quality was determined as a certainty when reason through proper experimentation discovered the hidden quality of arsenic. This is what we desire to make clear, namely that to determine as a certainty the lethal quality of arsenic reason had to have recourse to a companion, namely proper experimentation. In the same way, in order to determine as a certainty Divine matters and the reality of the life after death, reason needs the help of Divine revelation and without its help reason cannot arrive at firm conclusions in matters of faith, as in other matters. Without the help of an appropriate companion, reason is helpless, imperfect and incomplete. Within its own limits, reason cannot determine anything as a certainty unless it has the help of a companion. Without such help it cannot escape error, especially in matters of Divinity in which the reality is hidden behind veils and no sample of it is available in this world. In these matters, imperfect reason cannot lead one to perfect understanding, let alone escape all possible error…. The difficulties that we encounter in matters relating to that unseen world, and the surprises with which we are met in imagining the conditions of that unseen and hidden world, compel us to confess that in order to discover correctly the circumstances of that world, and to
[Brahin-e-Ahmadiyya, Ruhani Khaza’in, vol. 1, pp. 327-335 footnote 11]
[Essence of Islam, Vol. 2, p. 98]

Consider well that without revelation it is not possible to arrive at complete certainty, or to escape error, or to base oneself on the true Unity of God, or to overcome one’s passions. It is revelation through which we are able to affirm that God ‘is’ and the whole world calls on Him because He ‘is’. It is revelation which from the beginning has inspired the hearts with the assurance that God ‘is’. It is through revelation that worshippers find delight in worship and the faithful are satisfied with regard to the existence of God and life after death. It is revelation which has enabled millions of the righteous to leave this transient world with great steadfastness and with the eagerness of the love of the Divine. It is revelation the truth of which has been attested by the blood of thousands of martyrs. It is revelation through whose power of attraction kings put on the garment of beggars and many wealthy people preferred poverty to riches, and by its blessings millions of unlearned old women departed this world with eager faith. It is the one vessel which has so often carried numberless people through the whirlpool of creature-worship and doubt to the safety of the Unity of God and perfect certainty. It is revelation that is the friend of last moments and is the helper in serious conditions.
The harm that has been done to the world by pure reason is not a hidden matter. What made Plato and his followers deny that God is the Creator? What made Galen doubt the immortality of souls and the reality of Judgement? What made philosophers deny that God has knowledge of all particulars? What made great philosophers worship idols? What led to the sacrifice of roosters and other animals before idols? Was it not reason unaccompanied by revelation?
It is not correct to state that many people became pagans even when following revelation and fashioned for themselves new gods. This was not the fault of true revelation, but was the fault of those who mixed falsehood with truth and preferred the worship of their passions to the worship of God. Yet, Divine revelation did not neglect their reform and did not forget them. Fresh revelation reformed the matters which had led them astray.
[Brahin-e-Ahmadiyya, Ruhani Khaza’in, vol. 1, pp. 163-164 footnote 11]
[Essence of Islam, Vol. 2, p. 103]

Of course it is true that reason is not without its use and its benefit, nor have we so alleged, but we cannot escape the obvious verity that through reason and conjecture alone we cannot arrive at that perfect certainty which can be achieved through the combination of reason and revelation, nor can we escape mistakes and errors and established. That being the case at the very first step then what can this defective reason discover about the other matters of the life after death?
[Brahin-e-Ahmadiyya, Ruhani Khaza’in, vol. 1, pp. 336-338, footnote 11]
[Essence of Islam, Vol. 2, p. 104]

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Introduction