Substantiating the Islamic Creed with Pramanas
Every claim demands supportive evidence. Although evidence is not proof in itself, the presence of overriding and convincing evidence is often treated as reliable proof of the claim. Science accepts perception (through five senses) and/or empirical data as evidence. Likewise, law accepts eye witnesses, DNA samples, voice and text records, documents etc. as evidence. Ontological questions, however, often lie beyond the scope of such evidences. Islam answers certain pressing ontological questions on the existence of God, life after death and divine revelation. But since all these concepts lie in the realm of ghaib, we require certain epistemological tools to substantiate them - to answer the question, ‘How do we know them to be true?’ For this, let us turn to our own country's ancient epistemological tools, the pramanas, and check how they might help us in substantiating the Islamic creed. In Indian philosophy, Pramanas refer to the ‘means of knowledge’ or the ‘criteria’ that we use ...
