Islamic Science The Making of a Formal Intellectual Discipline

Abstract

The term "Islamic science" can be defined as the scientific way of defining
and comborating the uniquely monotheistic concept of tuwhfd
(unity), a concept that can serve as an epistemological manifold for intellectual
inquiry and development. In this context, science is taken as a systematic
way of looking at things or, in other words, as both a philosophy
of knowledge as well as an empirical methodology. When taken in its entirety,
science includes the whole spectrum of human inquiry ranging
from ontology to epistemology, from causality to cosmology, and from
the natural and social sciences to technology. It may be noted that beyond
an axiomatic application based on a metaphysical definition of tawhid,
there has been no scientific attempt to analyze and substantiate this
concept. This axiomatic application of tawhid, especially when dealing with
an analysis of developments in knowledge, raises certain epistemological
questions. As it does not scientifically define or discuss the very
premise-tawhid-on which the analysis is being based, this is to be expected.
Furthermore, for example, the axiomatic application of tuwhid to
purge the corpus of knowledge of its secular elements and then reconstruct
it within the tawhidi framework cannot be fulfilled, as it is unable
to furnish a tawhid-based scientific temperament without first providing
scientific combomtion of the concept itself. It is from such an epistemological
viewpoint that we find the contributions of Muslims to various
fields of leaming tend to be more sentimental than scientific.
The need to develop Islamic science also arises from the fact that
most modem scientists are known to be secular, as they have consciously
evaded the issue of the existence of a Creator. This is the result of their ...