Critical Thinking and the Status of Imam Ali - Essay Example

According to Redha (50), critical thinking is concerned with reason, intellectual honesty, and open-mindedness as opposed to emotionalism, intellectual laziness, and closed-mindedness. From these two definitions, it can be concluded that critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined procedure of skillfully and actively applying, conceptualizing, synthesizing, analyzing, and evaluating the respective information generated from observation, experience, reasoning, reflection, and communication as a guide to belief and action (Ashraf, 300).

As a critical thinker, Imam Ali’s personality stood out and thus influenced many people.
In his life, we see that prophet Muhammad had elected him as his rightful successor. When the prophet died and another caliph was elected, he accepted him since the chosen ones by Allah’s people are chosen by Allah himself. Although he still believed that he was the rightful successor of Muhammad, he was prompted to pledge an alliance with caliph ABU Bakr since there was a growing division among the Muslim people concerning the rightful successor of Muhammad. He said that his delay in pledging allegiance was based on his belief before his title. In this context, he is a critical thinker since he chose to pledge allegiance to the caliph and his successor though he still believed he was the rightful successor to Muhammad. As a critical thinker, he did this to maintain unity among the Muslim people during the divide when Muslims were turning away from him. This is because he avoids emotional reasoning and acts in a manner that will help the nation to unite.

Ali believed and respected Muhammad to be the prophet of God. He accepted Prophet Muhammad’s decision to give him his daughter for marriage since the Prophet claimed to be following orders by god on the issues. He also carries out the work of writing the Quran although he no longer participated in politics or war. He did this because Muhammad had chosen him as one of the scribes to write the Quran. According to the Shia writers, he believed in worshipping God and he broke the idols that the people worshipped (Redha, 67).

On the assassination of Caliph Uthman by the rebels, he was among the people earmarked to succeed the Caliphate (Redha, 55). He declined this offer and said he would rather be their advisor than their leader. When nobody opted for the appointment of a caliph by the rebels, they threatened to bring worse consequences to the people of Medina. The followers of Prophet Muhammad asked him to be caliph. He then agreed to be elected as caliph. He showed disposition in this situation since he changed his stand on his appointment when there was a need.

In conclusion, the status of Imam Ali among other critical thinkers is quite high as he portrayed all the skills and traits of the one who is to be responsible for the lives of other people. This is evident by the way he handled situations when a problem arose, the sacrifices he made for the good of the religion, and the well-being of the Islam community at large. As mentioned earlier Imam Ali always made fairly calculated moves thus his critical thinking. He always thought of consequences for his actions before executing them. A typical example is when he chose to delay his allegiance to Caliph to enhance unity among Muslims. Writing the Quran requires sober and sound minds. The fact that he participated in this noble course tells something about his way of reasoning and critical thinking. Finally, Imam Ali preferred the humble position of an advisor as opposed to a caliph. Again, the role of being an advisor requires some significant level of critical thinking. All these aspects clearly define Imam Ali as who he is, a critical thinker. Read More