Promoting Personal Religious Experiences Could Spread Superstitions
This is according to Muslim scholar Hojat-ol-Islam Ali Reza Ghaemi, speaking in a recent forum on ‘near-death experiences (NDEs)’. He referred to the issue of religious experiences in different cultures and religions and said such experiences are not the basis of religiosity in Islam. Excerpts from his speech at the forum are as follows:
One might say that Christianity followed a natural path by moving toward Protestantism or in Buddhism the religious experience of Buddha has centrality but this is not the case in Islam.
Religions have three dimensions that are related to rationality, experience and Fiqh (jurisprudence) and law. Their importance is not the same in religions. For example in Christianity there is little emphasis on law and jurisprudence, in Islam great emphasis is given to rationality and jurisprudence and in Judaism the third dimension is given more emphasis.
The basis of religiosity in Islam is not religious experiences. I am not saying that religious experiences are void and worthless or illusions but what I mean is that religiosity in Islam cannot be founded upon such issues but it should be based on rationality and intellect.
Promoting such issues in society could lead to the spread of superstitions. People may feel good about seeing those who have such experiences as NDEs but the negative impacts of such issues should also be studied. None of the great Arifs (mystics) founded such issues as the basis in scholarly affairs or running the society.
In general, one cannot say whether religious experiences are realistic or not. They are similar to the issue of dreams. In Islamic tradition, a dream is sometimes considered to be true and sometimes not.
Religious experiences are of different kinds. Some of them are realistic but they need interpretation, and not everyone is capable of interpreting them.
As for NDE, many of those who have had such an experience talk about seeing a tunnel after death. But there are conflicting reports about such experiences as well. That is why such experiences cannot be reliable epistemologically.
