IISTD Action Plan #1 of 4
(for
IIIT & AMSS in U.S.A., and
others World Wide)
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
IISTD/Institute of Islamic Sciences,
Technology, and Development (USA)
Islamization of
Social and Humanistic Sciences:
An Action Plan for
Islamization Through Discipline-Oriented First or Second Majors,
Through Secular Colleges & Universities in N. America & World Wide
( Proposed for IIIT, Intl. Institute of Islamic Thought; AMSS,
Association of Muslim Social Scientists; and others World Wide )
by: Prof. S. Waqar
Ahmed Husaini, President, IISTD
Abstract
* IIIT/International Institute of Islamic Thought ( < www.iiit.org > ),
AMSS/Association of Muslim Social Scientists (< www.amss.net >), others
world wide, should develop Plans to Islamize social sciences and
humanities as the Islamic foundation for all knowledge. See also, ISNA <
www.isna.net >.
* IISTD Action Plan #2 gives an
Islamization Plan for natural sciences & technology through secular
colleges & universities in
USA
& world wide through Independent
Study or Self-Study
(a)
by students for General Education Requirements, Electives, and
Islamic Discipline- Oriented Double Major or a Minor, and (b) by
non-students and students world wide.
* IIIM/ International Institute of
Islamic Medicine ( IISTD Action Plan #3 ) should similarly develop Courses
and Programs in Islamic Bio-Medical Ethics for "Secularized Medical
Colleges" and for "Pre-Medical Under-Graduate Studies". < www.iiim.org >.
*** * ***
A. Introduction:
Islamization of knowledge/`ilm
and the 'two cultures' ( ideological and technological ) is an individual
duty/ fard `ayn. Secularism and secularization are kufr ( lit.
"rejection" ) of Islam since they reject the jurisdiction of God and
Islamic ideology in the 'two cultures'. Islamization is also a necessity as
secular ideologies of Muslims have failed to promote al-din (
the complete Islamic system/din ), reason, life, posterity,
wealth, and honor: al-din,`aql, hayat, nasl, mal, `ird.
Muslim
"religious mentality" and cultures are dominated by takhsis (
reductionism ) which is by implications worse than secularism since it even
rejects Islamic this-worldism. Takhsis, as a distortion or deviation)
from true Islam, was diagnosed by Imam Ghazali, d.505 AH/1111 AC. He
pointed out that even in his times “fiqh”, which means understanding
and knowledge of all kinds, was being restricted to Islamic Law. Takhsis
gradually progressed like a cancer until it restricted fiqh to only
family law, and "Islamic studies" to certain medieval humanistic sciences,
while rejecting the natural sciences, technology, and even many social
sciences. The latter included Islamic economics, the development of natural
resources and, therefore, agricultural, industrial, and economic
development. Numerous books with the titles Kitab al-Kharaj ( Book
of Taxation ) and Kitab al-Amwaal ( Book of Economics )
were either completely lost, and others that remained have become the
“Abandoned Books of the Sunnah” of Prophet Muhammad ( Kutub as-Sunnah
al-Mahjoorah ). E.g., of the estimated 21 books on Kitab al-Kharaj
produced in the Second and Third centuries Hijrah, only three exist today;
translated into English and published from Leiden by the Israeli scholar,
Ben Shemesh, 1950s to 1960s!
Revelation
of the Quran was completed and Prophet Muhammad passed away in 10 AH/632 AC.
Within a hundred years after that, during 82-130 AH/ 700-750 AC, Muslims had
achieved “world intellectual supremacy” and “world intellectual hegemony”
in all the branches of knowledge ( George Sarton, Introduction to the
History of Science ). It is estimated that in 82 AH/ 700 AC, Muslims
were only about 5% in Persia, 3% in Iraq, 2% in Syria and Egypt, and less
than 1% in a few other countries except Arabia ( Richard W. Bulliet, in
Conversion to Islam, ed. Nehemia Levtzion; and Husaini, Islamic
Thought in the Rise and Supremacy of Islamic Technological Culture ).
This supremacy or its dominant influence in the West lasted for at least
seven centuries till the end of the 8 th AH/ 14th AC century.
Muslims gradually descended into their “Dark Ages”, roughly during the 17th
to 19th centuries AC., despite continuous efforts of Islamic
reformist scholars and movements. Muslim behavioral cultures became
anti-reason, anti-science, and anti-world in general. A Muslim became, by
and large, "apolitical; asocial; amilitary; anethical [ in social ethics ];
unproductive; an egoist ... shaken neither by the misery, poverty, disease,
and subjugation of his own society nor mankind" ( Ismail & Lamya al-Faruqi,
The Cultural Atlas of Islam, p. 304 ).
Takhsisiyyah (
reductionism ) has provided a most fertile ground for the growth and
dominance of secularism among “modern Muslims”. The Quran has 6226 verses.
There are 6 verses on the key words for siyaam/fasting and 8 for
Hajj; but there are about 920 verses on water resources sciences, and
1400 on economics. ( Waqar Husaini, Water Resources and
Engineering in the Quran; Economics in the Quran. ) Therefore (i)
all the natural and social sciences and technology are Quranic, Islamic and
religious sciences; in the true Quranic sense of the concepts, they are “al-fiqh”
( Islamic “knowledge, understanding” ) and the al-Uluum ash-Shar`iyyah
( the sciences or knowledge made “apparent or obvious”, shara`a, by
God Almighty ). The key word Allah, God, occurs in the Quran about
2,700 times, Rabb ( Nourisher for God ) about 970 times, and the
pronouns for God innumerable times. Thus (ii) all kinds of knowledge are
and must be Islamicised under the Quranic concept of God and the related
paradigms; and no knowledge ( `ilm ), or any aspect of the
ideological and technological cultures, can be outside the jurisdiction of
Islam. “… and whoever does not judge by/enforce ( uhkam ) what God
has sent down [ as His Laws of nature and ethics, aayaat ], such are
the wrong doers/zalimuun ), … evil doers/fasiquun … the
Rejectors/kafiruun [ of Islam ]” ( Quran 5: 45, 47, 44 ). (iii)
Therefore, the Denial, Rejection, or evasion of Islamization through
secularism and other alternate ideologies is kufr, or Rejection of
the Islamic system ( al-din ) in some parts or all its parts. Modern
Muslims, mostly due to the takhsisiyyah and secularized education
systems, and other cultural sub-systems like the mass media, are kept
ignorant of Islamic intellectual heritage and contemporary applications of
Islamic thought in various disciplines. They superficially believe in and
perform the five daily salat ( prayers ), undertake siyaam
( fasting ) and Hajj, consume halal-meats, keep a beard, and wear
hijaab, while pursuing secularism in both the ideological and
technological cultures. Even modern “Islamic” movements and organizations,
and “Islamic” schools and universities, are drowned in secularism instead of
pursuing the vision of “Islam as a whole”, as-silm al-kaaffah ( the
whole Submission, or the all-encompassing holistic Islam, Quran 2: 208 ).
Takhsisiyyah and secularism are kufr through design and in
their applications with the most serious consequences for both this life and
the Hereafter: “ … do you then believe in a part of al-kitaab, and
you are Rejectors ( takfiruuna ) of the other [ parts ]? Therefore,
what is the recompense of those who do so among you except humiliation in
the life of the world, and on the Day of Resurrection they shall be
consigned to the most grievous punishment. And God is not unaware of what
you do.” ( Quran 2:85. From kataba, He prescribed or He wrote, al-kataab
would mean (1) the Book which is the Quran and (2) also all the laws
prescribed by God through the social and natural sciences, humanities, and
technology. Thus if one follows God’s laws of physics but rejects His laws
of chemistry or economics, the severe consequences for the latter are
unavoidable ). The solution for these problems is Islamization of all
knowledge and the “two cultures”: the Muslim takhsisiyyah religious
and secular education systems, and all areas of the ideological and
technological cultures. The key to this is Islamization of the social
sciences and humanities; their applications lead to Islamization of the
natural sciences and technology ( IISTD Action Plan #2 ), and Islamization
of the medical and health sciences ( IISTD Action Plan #3 ).
B.
Islamization needs a
two-pronged strategy once we have amassed "Islamic knowledge":
Islamization is both reclamation of the
Islamic parts of "modern secularized knowledge" and the "two cultures", and
their re-Islamization through modern or ijtihadiyyah Islamic thought.
i) Borrowing or imitation/taqlid
for Re-Islamization: Modern secularized knowledge and the two cultures
are partly Islamic due to epistemic and historical reasons, and partly
kafirized. They were Islamicized during the early Hijrah centuries and
assimilated by the West and the East. They were partly kafirized in
recent centuries as Muslims withdrew from the intellectual battles of
civilization due to takhsis and
their anti-world religious mentality.
Islamic thought and Muslims lost their "world intellectual supremacy" and
"world hegemony" ( cf. George Sarton, Intro. to History of Science ).
However, the rational (`aqliyyah) parts of "modern secularized
knowledge" are quite Islamic; but philosophically ( metaphysics, ethics,
etc.) they are based on la ilaha ( there is no god ).
ii) Original/innovative reasoning/ijtihad,
or "Islamic modernization": This requires developing new
principles and their application in the "two cultures" through use of
reason/`aql in the understanding/fiqh of Quran, Sunnah, and
the Islamic heritage of Muslims and non-Muslims, i.e., ijtihad fil-Quran,
fis-Sunnah, fit-thurath. Muslims are doing this increasingly by giving
"modern"/ijtihadiyyah scientific interpretations to Quranic verses;
explanation/tafsir of Tabari or Zamakhshari can not be used for
fiqh of natural sciences and technology. Similarly, ijtihad must
be used in socio-humanistic sciences; not everything in the "Muslim
heritage" is Islamic.
C. Proposed Action Plan for IIIT,
AMSS, and others to Islamize Socio-Humanistic Sciences and Education
through Secular Colleges and Universities in N. America, and World
Wide
AN IMPORTANT ASPECT OF THIS “ACTION PLAN” IS TO GRADUALLY/BI-TADREEJ
ISLAMIZE EXISTING SECULAR COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES, NOT
ESTABLISH NEW TAKHSISIYYAH ONES; NEITHER SOLVE THE PROBLEMS OF
CIVILIZATION. IDEALLY, ISLAMIZATION MUST BE PURSUED RIGOROUSLY IN 'ISLAMIC'
STATES BY INDIVIDUAL SCHOLARS & INSTITUTIONS AS WAS DONE
DURING THE EARLY A.H. CENTURIES THROUGH UNEASY COOPERATION WITH THE RULING
ELITES OF UMAYYID, ABBASID AND OTHER DYNASTIES. FREEDOM; PROMOTION OF
DIVERSITY, ETHNICITY and MULTI-CULTURALISM;
AND THE FLEXIBLE ACADEMIC STRUCTURE IN N. AMERICA, PROVIDE OPPORTUNITIES
FOR ISLAMIZATION FOR THE BENEFIT OF MANKIND.
The following must be adopted and adapted
to suit the situations in each country and region. Some salient aspects
of this Proposed Action Plan in the U.S. context are:
1) AMSS/IIIT must have a Secretariate
supported by a Waqf/Trust founded through the cooperation of Islamic
centers, and the specialized bodies and organizations of ISNA/Islamic
Society of North America, ICNA/Islamic Circle of North America, the Ministry
of Imam Warith Muhammad, and others.
2) The 20+ Discipline Groups of AMSS/IIIT
must be revived and expanded under competent believers in Islamization. They
must post on web sites of AMSS and IIIT the "Description of Courses" for
every discipline, with a Plan similar to and more advanced than that of
IISTD.
3) Initially these will be Self-Study
courses for Muslim and non-Muslim students. Gradually, these must be
added to the curriculum of Departments, Centers, and inter-disciplinary
Institutes in colleges and universities as well secondary and other schools.
4) The web sites of AMSS, IIIT, and
others must identify "focal points" or advisors for each course for students
to interact. Such courses must be taken in any secular 2-year
college/university through a student's initiative as General Education
Requirements, Electives, and an "Islamic Discipline-Oriented First or
Second Major, or a Minor". The Muslim Students' Association in secular
schools and colleges, and the local Muslim community and Islamic centers,
should play a key role in promoting such Self-Study courses until they
become a part of the curriculums.
5) This Action Plan will produce students
with a Double Major or Minor in every discipline, competent for the private
and public job markets in USA and world wide; the Second Major is Islamic
discipline-oriented. As faculty members in 2-year colleges to universities,
they must be devoted to Islamization through teaching, publications,
consultancy, and professional practice.
6) Islamization of Muslim pseudo-Islamic
takhsisiyyah/reductionist lower and higher education systems ( e.g.,
madarasah ) must also be undertaken. The 'traditionalist' systems
will easily and willing accept Islamization if their "modernization" is not
an excuse to impose secularization.
*** *** *** |