12 - Defending the Faith: Islamic Theology

At the height of the Islamic Golden Age, Muslim scholars debated some of the greatest Christian and Jewish theological minds on the very principles of their faith.  These experts in rationalism argued that the very principles of logic and reason dictated that their faith must be true and that rational inquiry of the natural world would prove this so.  Questions about the nature of God, of free will, and eternity were being examined by thinkers from many religions who developed arguably the most sophisticated answers to these issues.   At a time when Europe was filled with superstition and persecution, this marked one of the greatest intellectual exchanges in history. Yet this very spirit of open inquiry and debate would produce a conservative backlash. Today, we look at the beginnings of Islamic Theology.