Islamization of Knowledge Methodology of Research in Political Science

Abstract

Islamic science, as an active creative agent, once imparted life and motion
to Islamic civilization and society. It is now confined within the walls of
old schools and imprisoned among its classical books. Having embraced the
new sciences and accepted Western behavioral modes of thinking, the Muslim
intelligentsia has made Islam into an abstract spirit fossilized inside traditional
forms of ancient mores, customs, rites, and rituals. This situation alone pmides
enough justification to reconstruct the methodology of Islamic sciences, but
the on-going Islamization movement makes such an attempt even more
pertinent. “To recast knowledge as Islam relates to it, is to Islamize it. . . .
To this end, the methodological categories of Islam . . . must replace the
Western categories and determine the perception of ordering reality.”l
This article is an attempt to contribute to reconstructing the methodology
of social sciences with specific reference to political science. This is
accomplished by identifying and exposing, through systematic contrast with
Islamic principles, the weaknesses of elements and key concepts molded in
the crucible of Western culture and civilization. This is essential because
Islamization warrants, ipso facto, liberating people from the world-view of
the West so that they can strive toward that state of perfection reached in
Madinah under Divine guidance during the age of the last Prophet (SAAS)
of Islam ...