Science in the Islamic Polity in the Twenty-First Century 25-29 Shawwal 1415/26-30 March 1995 Islamabad, Pakistan

Abstract

This conference was a rare occasion for Muslim scientists and scholars
to assemble and discuss the challenges facing the ummah. Inaugurated
by Farooq Ahmad Khan Leghari, the president of Pakistan, the conference
consisted of fifty papers presented in eight inaugural and plenary sessions.
The issues discussed were of both theoretical and practical import.
The theoretical papers focused on such questions as the nature and significance
of science, the concept of Islamic science, and Islamic epistemology.
According to Ziauddin Sardar, who gave the public lecture "Islamic
Science: The Way Ahead," science is a highly complex and multilayered
activity, for
no single and simple description of science can reveal its true
nature; no romantic ideal can describe its real character; no sweeping
generalization can uncover its authentic dimensions. In particular,
both the extreme positions of scientific fundamentalism and
fundamentalist relativism are untenable.
He stated that science has been under the influence of the dominant
western paradigm and that the selection of research priorities is of fundamental
importance in scientific research, for "often it is the source of funding
that defines what problem is to be investigated.'' Some 80 percent of
American research is funded by the "military-industrial complex" and is
geared to producing military and industrial equipment.
As modem science is based on western values and the priority given to
scientific investigation is determined by western requirements, science
must be indigenized. Muslim countries have a valuable and untapped reservoir
of knowledge and experience. so such an indigenization would be like
a rediscovery. But this process, Sardar maintains, "must begin by a rejection
of both the axioms about nature, universe, time, and humanity as well
a5 the goals and direction of western science and the methodology which
hac; made meaningless reductionism, objectification of nature, and torture
of animals its basic approach." By Islamic science he means a scientific
activity pursued within the framework of a set of fundamental Islamic concepts.
Sardar supports the concepts, identified by Muslim scientists at the
Stockholm Seminar (1981), that should shape the science policies of
Muslim societies: tawhid (unity), khiliifah (trusteeship), 'ihiidah (worship), ...