Najih O. Salhab

Najih Oussama Salhab (Arabic: ناجح أسامة سلهب February 1980 – ) is a Palestinian intellectual, and one of the well-known Mu'tazila scholar of Islam nowadays.

He was born in the city of Hebron in west bank, Palestine. He attended a public schools till he finished high school in 1998 (scientific branch), then he joined Palestine Polytechnic University (PPU) in Hebron studying electrical engineering. Salhab was known for most of his teachers as the smart boy who is asking questions all the time, and for his class mates as Mr. Newton.

Salhab has eagerness to all kind of knowledge, in that context he studied hard for biology, chemistry, math, and physics of College Board SATII to strengthen his scientific background, he passed them. He got many IT studying programs and courses, peace education programs, and even in very specialized psychology courses.

If there some people who are suffering of reading addiction syndrome, so Salhab will be one of them. Who interested in reading philosophy, theology, science, philosophy of science, and epistemology.

Najih Salhab studied jurisprudence from many Sheikhs (Salafi and Ash'ari), he acquired a knowledge of the Islamic disciplines of the Qur'an and the Hadith. He also studied theology (kalam), and Sufism. Then he turned to Mu'tazilah school of thought. After that, Salhab was known for his stand as a Mu'tazili scholar against non-rational acts which done by the name if Islam, such as Apostasy and stoning to death.

Muʿtazilah is an Islamic school of thoughts based on reason and rational thought that flourished in the cities of Basra and Baghdad, both in present-day Iraq, during the 8th–10th centuries. The adherents of the Mu'tazili school are best known for their assertion that, because of the perfect unity and eternal nature of Allah, the Qur'an must therefore have been created, as it could not be co-eternal with God. From this premise, the Mu'tazili school of Kalam which is the Islamic philosophical discipline of seeking theological principles through dialectic. Kalām in Islamic practice relates to the discipline of seeking theological knowledge through debate and argument, proceeded to posit that the injunctions of God are accessible to rational thought and inquiry: because knowledge is derived from reason, reason is the "final arbiter" in distinguishing right from wrong.

Salhab had developed a theory regarding reason, Divine revelation, and the relationship between them. To him, it is the human intellect that guides a human to know God, His attributes, and the very basics of morality. Once this foundational knowledge is attained and one ascertains the truth of Islam and the Divine origins of the Qur'an, the intellect then interacts with scripture such that both reason and revelation come together to be the main source of guidance and knowledge for Muslims.

Since 2004, Salhab has devoted tremendous efforts to spread a peaceful rational version of Islam using Islamic Mu'tazilah school of thoughts interpretations, he published tens of articles through social media and internet in Muslim world, doing many discussions, meetings, and debates in fever for promoting reason, plurality, tolerance, and coexistence.

The term neo-Muʿtazilah refers to the resuscitation of the theology of the Muʿtazilah Islamic school of theology by a group of Muslim intellectuals in the modern time. The resuscitation process commenced upon the historical discovery of valuable Muʿtazilah books in some caves in Yemen in early 1950s. A team of Arab scholars and historians shortly after undertook the mission of republishing these books. In early 1980s a Jordanian Islamic scholar called Amin Naef Thiab expanded this mission by officially establishing a new branch of Muʿtazilah. After Thiab’s death in 2005, the branch was led by his devoted students.

Nowadays, hundreds of Muʿtazilah activists, writers, researchers and thousands of their followers and supporters exist around the world, but mainly in the Middle East region. The neo-Muʿtazilah heavily rely on social media channels and other internet outlets to reach out to the public.

Salhab is one of the most prominent scholars and well known activist within the branch and in the internet circle.