Islamization of Knowledge A Critique

Abstract

The Islamization of knowledge, as envisioned by al Faruqi, is a
critical, revivalistic response to intellectual modernity.' Its objective is a
timeless but it can only be realized by challenging it and engaging
Muslim scholars in debate over it. By so doing, we are able to refine the
work plan for Islamization. The following critique is therefore presented
in the hope that its suggestions will contribute toward an authentic
Islamic tespotlse to intellectual modernity.
Exposition of Islamization
For al Faruqi (1982), the some of the crisis of Muslim society lies
in the mdem-Islamic dichotomy of the current educational system. The
colonial, and therefore alien, vision still survives and is being disseminated
through educational institutions, which are the breeding ground of
self-estrangement from Islam. Such early educational reformem as Sayyid
Ahmad Khan and Muhammad 'Abduh did not realize the harm of modem
knowledge, for they assumed that
modem subjects are harmless and can only lend sttength to the
Muslims. Little did they realize that the alien humanities, social
sciences, and indeed the natural sciences as well, wee facets of
an integral view of reality, of life and the world, of history, that
is equally alien to that of Islam. (Ibid.)
One of his particular concerns is the harmful influence of a university
education on a Muslim student whose sentimental attachment to Islam
cannot withstand the onslaught of scientific truth. After four years of
alienating influence, his/her Islamic consciousness would be ravaged. The
solution to this alienation is to be found in the Islamization of knowledge,
an understanding that seeks to rebuild the humanities, as well as the social
and natural sciences, in order to establish them fitmly on an Islamic basis
consistent with Islamic objectives. Every discipline is to be "recast" to
embody the principles of Islam and remolded to incorporate the
"relevance" of Islam along a triple axis constitutive of tawhid (unity) ...