How did the universe come into existence?

It's a question that most of the world's religions seek to answer.

According to the Abrahamic faiths, the world can only exist with the existence of a being

who was not caused by something other than itself.

And this they call Yahweh, Allah, or God.

Philosophical arguments to this end come in many forms,

one of which, from the medieval Islamic philosopher Ibn Sina,

known in the West as Avicena, claims that we can prove the existence of this

necessary being with absolute certainty. If something can exist, there must be an uncaused

being. And from this concept alone, Avicenna says that we can deduce every other property

that Muslims attribute to Allah. In this interview, we'll be discussing Avicenna and the Philosophy of Islam

with Dr. Muhammad Salad Zarapur. Currently lecturer in philosophy at the University of Manchester,

Dr. Zarapur completed his first PhD at the Tarbite Madras University in Iran and his second PhD

at the University of Cambridge, publishing extensively in philosophy of religion and having

worked on major initiatives such as the Global Philosophy of Religion Project, it is safe to say

that Salah is one of the world's leading experts in Islamic philosophy. Islam claims to solve the

problem of existence, but its implications extend far beyond the origin of the cosmos.

Allah is a being invested in his creation, a being that will judge, reward, or punish us for our

good and bad deeds. Who permits us to live and to suffer, and differs from the God of Judaism

and Christianity in his nature and actions? Thus, we should ask not only whether belief in Allah's necessity is reasonable,

but whether the beliefs of Muslims are more or less reasonable than those of their Abrahamic cousins. Hello and welcome to episode 110 of the Panseye cast.

I'm the divinely simple Jack Syves.

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