S. Waqar Ahmed Husaini

Secularism is kufr, the rejection of God Almighty and Islam by denying them jurisdiction in all disciplines and their application in "the two cultures", the ideological and technological. Muslims in North America first responded to the challenge of secularised education by establishing week-end Islamic schools; they impart mostly the knowledge of Islamic rituals and personal morality. A second phase was begun when Muslims started full-time Islamic schools that impart knowledge in almost all disciplines just like the secular schools. Examples of the latter are Clara Mohammed Schools and W. Deen Mohammed High Schools, and the schools established through the Islamic Society of N. America and local initiatives. Such schools are on increase in recent years. However, contradictions between Islamic and secularized knowledge are not being resolved mainly because of lack of Islamized knowledge in every discipline, textbooks, and trained teachers. A solution for this problem can be found by adopting IISTD Plan of Action; it creates a new breed of Muslims in secular colleges and universities who Islamize all knowledge and themselves through "discipline-oriented Islamic studies".

Islamization is not reinventing the wheel. It is partly borrowing and assimilation of the "truths", regardless of their pre-Quranic or contemporary non-Muslim or Muslim origins. Islam is the system of truth, din al-haqq. God Almighty is the Originator ( badi` ) and Creator ( khaliq ) of the true laws and principles of the natural sciences and technology as well as the social and humanistic sciences; men discover them by applying God-given reason ( `aql ) if it is not contaminated by man's own un-Islamic association ( shirk ) of any kind. Therefore, Muslims have no hesitation in borrowing the "truths" of science or philosophy from the contemporary non-Muslim peoples of the West or the East. Historians of ideas and civilization can prove to some extent that the best in the modern West or East is of medieval Islamic origins. Muslims must thus apply the principles of ijtihad ( formulating an expert Islamic opinion ) to develop modern Islamic thought in every discipline.

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Excerpt from:

IISTD Newsletter, Vol. 2, No. 1, Zul Qidah 1419/ February 1999.

Editor, Prof. S. Waqar Ahmed Husaini, IISTD President,

and, Visiting Scholar, Stanford University, 1986-continuing

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