Unconventional Duha Research Unitary

The Need for Purification of Intellect

When Muslims hear the word tazkiyyah (purification), they usually think of the heart (qalb) — purifying the self from pride, envy, arrogance, or anger. But what about the ʿaql (intellect)? Just like the heart, the mind can be clouded by disease. The most dangerous disease is not ignorance, but captivity: when intellect becomes enslaved to frameworks not its own.

Today, many Muslim minds are schooled in secular categories. Knowledge is divided into “religious” and “secular.” Rationality is assumed to be neutral, when in fact it has been colonized by philosophies that deny Allah. To free the Muslim mind requires not abandoning reason, but purifying it — tazkiyyat al-ʿaql.

Step 1: Recognize the Captivity

The first step of purification is recognition. A colonized intellect assumes:

“Science” = neutral truth, while “religion” = belief system.

“Rational” = secular; “religious” = irrational.

Revelation is only for rituals, not for knowledge.

But the Qur’an reminds us that all knowledge is from Allah: “And He taught Adam the names — all of them.” 2:31

To recognize captivity is already a step toward freedom.

Step 2: Return to Fiṭrah as the Ground of Intellect

Ibn Taymiyya argued that fiṭrah is the soil from which reason grows (El-Tobgui, 2020). Every human is born with this primordial orientation — to recognize Allah, to love truth, to reject falsehood.

Modern psychology confirms this: moral intuitions appear in children before social conditioning (Haidt, 2012).

Purification means silencing the noise of colonial categories so fiṭrah can speak again. Practices: dhikr, tafakkur, moments of silence in nature.

Step 3: Recenter Revelation as Orientation

Reason without revelation becomes directionless. Like an eye without light, it can see nothing. Revelation (waḥy) provides orientation:

Qur’an and Sunnah as anchors.

Ijmāʿ as protective boundary.

Qiyās and ijtihād as ʿaql flourishing in application.

“Indeed, this Qur’an guides to that which is most upright.” 17:9

Re-centering revelation does not strangle intellect — it frees it from illusion.

Step 4: Deschooling Secular Categories

Colonialism trained Muslims to think in borrowed binaries: “science vs religion,” “sacred vs secular,” “modern vs traditional.” These must be unlearned.

Replace them with tawḥīdic categories:

ʿUlūm naqliyyah (revealed sciences).

ʿUlūm ʿaqliyyah (rational sciences).
Both belong to Allah, united in purpose.

Reading al-Ghazālī, Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn al-Qayyim, and Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas helps untangle these knots.

Step 5: Historical Reconnection

Purification also means re-learning history. When ʿaql was guided by waḥy, Muslims produced grammar, astronomy, medicine, jurisprudence, architecture.

When ʿaql sought autonomy (Greek philosophy, speculative kalām, modern secularism), it fell into contradiction and stagnation.

History reminds us: flourishing is possible only when intellect walks with revelation.

Step 6: Contemporary Application

Purified intellect does not retreat from modernity — it re-engages it with tawḥīd.

Psychology: Without rūḥ, it cannot heal the soul.

Economics: Without zakāh and justice, it produces oppression.

Science: Without ethics, it becomes destructive.

Tazkiyyat al-ʿaql means approaching every discipline with revelation as compass and fiṭrah as ground.

Step 7: Continuous Tazkiyyah of the Intellect

Just as the heart requires lifelong purification, the intellect requires constant cleansing.

Daily practices of tazkiyyah al-ʿaql:

Dhikr: keeps mind humble before Allah.

Duʿāʾ: “Rabbi zidnī ʿilmā” 20:114.

Shūrā with scholars: prevents arrogance of intellect.

Critical reading: detect secular assumptions in what you consume.

Ibn al-Qayyim (1999) said: “Reason is like the eye, revelation is like the light. Without light, the eye sees nothing; without the eye, light is not received. Together they are vision.”

Toward a Liberated Intellect

Purifying the intellect is not about rejecting reason. It is about freeing it — from secular captivity, colonial categories, and egoic autonomy.

The task of the Ummah is not to abandon modern knowledge, but to heal the Muslim mind so it once again thinks with tawḥīd. This is the path of tazkiyyat al-ʿaql: from captivity to clarity, from arrogance to servanthood, from blindness to light upon light.

References

al-Ghazālī, A. H. (2000). Deliverance from error (R. J. McCarthy, Trans.). Louisville: Fons Vitae. (Original work published ca. 1095).

Crick, F. (1994). The astonishing hypothesis: The scientific search for the soul. New York: Scribner.

El-Tobgui, C. S. (2020). Ibn Taymiyya on reason and revelation: A study of Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa-l-naql. Leiden: Brill.

Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. New York: Pantheon.

Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya. (1999). Miftāḥ Dār al-Saʿāda wa manshūr wilāyat al-ʿilm wa-l-irāda (M. al-Saʿīd, Ed.). Cairo: Dār Ibn ʿAffān.