The Position of Revelation in the Clamp of Deism and Shirk

Abstract

Deists do not accept the idea of God's intervention in the world, but they argue that reason has infinite authority. Those who adopt the idea of deism adopt the idea that God did not intervene in the world after the first creation. Since revelation, religion, and prophethood are regarded as God's intervention in the world, prophethood in particular is considered impossible in terms of its possibility and necessity. It is known that there is an Indian belief group called Berāhime, which adopts ideas in the same vein as the idea of deism. The followers of this belief objected to the idea of prophethood from a rational point of view. According to them, if there was such a thing as prophethood, God would have created this idea in the minds. In addition, according to the Berāhime, reason and revelation are in contradiction, and worship is absurd and meaningless. On the other hand, there is no aspect of the concept of the miracle that looks at the truth. When we look at the specific characteristics of these two schools, it is understood that both of them are fed from the same source. The human model that these and similar schools of thought want to build desires a lifestyle that has nothing to do with worship and in which God does not control and question them. This lifestyle undoubtedly brings to mind the pre-Islamic "Jahiliyya Period" understanding of shirk. Because the polytheists also believed in the existence of Allah and recognized Him as a holy and supreme Creator. The fact that a community that believes in Allah rejects or objects to institutions such as prophets and revelation is important in terms of the subject under consideration. The polytheists, while believing in God, wished that God would not interfere with them, especially in matters such as worship. This shows that the polytheists adopted a deistic lifestyle whether they realized it or not. In our opinion, there is a parallelism between the idea of Deism and the idea of shirk. The dangers of the idea of Deism, which attracts the attention of some people today, reveal the importance of the subject. The aim of this study is to show that Deism and Berāhimah serve similar purposes and ultimately encourage people to live a largely worldly life of shirk.