It is an established methodological principle that when any item of religious knowledge reported to be based on either the Quran or the Sunnah of the Prophet appears to be in conflict with reason, the judgment of reason—provided that it is genuine—takes priority and, consequently, the item in question is subjected to interpretation.
Imam said nursi
I recently read a famous quote taken out of context. “The isnād is from the religion; were it not for the isnād anyone could say anything they wanted“. The trouble with this is that most people will not only not challenge this claim, they are not aware of its context.
Despite common misconception, the sanad played only a minimal role in Islamic thought. Its sole purpose was to ascertain a probability of accuracy in the recording of a primary source, namely the Quran. This concept was later extended to hadiths, though with less scrutiny since the early school around Imam Malik used the concept of ijmā‘ to determine the probability of normative practice around the community of Medina. Beyond the initial preservation of the Quran and hadiths, the sanad played no role in legitimacy or authority of a claim. In fact, any claims to authority based on a sanad between some author and his/her student must be dismissed as a logical fallacy: appeal to authority. The source of the claim is not evidence of the claim.
So if someone wishes to accept the claim “isnad is from the religion” with respect to the Quranic legacy without qualification, that is a decision I can respect. But to extend that same a priori commitment to any domain beyond the proofing of the Quranic message, I find nothing respectable about wanton abandonment of ones own intellect.
