I h ave never before heard of sites applying this level of paranoia. In this case, the function is really not a threat to anyone since it may only be called from PHP scripts. It returns information about the PHP configuration so that scripts can act accordingly.
I suggest you ask your provider why the function is disabled. I doubt you will get a rational answer, but who knows. If they stonewall you I would suggest finding a more responsible provider. You do not have to put up with this kind of thing.