The Sources of Religious Knowledge

Hussein Al-Haji

Summary

In this article I will show that there are many sources, through which one can get to religious knowledge, relying on the logical deductive approach, along with the deportments of reasonable people that have been confirmed by reliable tradition.

One of those sources is reason, like in knowing the fundamentals of religious doctrines, such as the existence of the Creator, His attributes and oneness, resurrection, prophethood, general imamate, and also some practical rulings, like morals.

Other sources are perception and the transmission of traditions (hadith) from the infallibles (authority), because the infallible authority has taken knowledge from its original source, that is revelation and inspiration, and then it has been transmitted from him to us, either directly from him by senses, or through reliable transmission.

The sources of religious knowledge are: “sensual, reason, inspiration, revelation, authority.”

Through this article, I conclude that these sources are within the circle of the sources of human knowledge, and interrupting any one of them means the interruption of human axiomatic knowledge of human beings; and consequently, nothing shall be safe!

Keywords: source, knowledge, religion, reason, revelation, inspiration, authority.

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)