Remembering Islam A Critique of Habermas and Foucault

Abstract

Introduction
Jean Baudrillard suggested we "forget Foucault" because his status as
one of the greatest thinkers of the West in this century belied his commitment
against state power. A similar criticism may be levied against Habermas,
whose ideal communication community merely reproduces and perpetuates
so-called modern secular Western epistemologies. If we take seriously the
anarchic thought of Habermas and Foucault, we conclude that the
epistemologies created in the past few hundred years are pernicious, pervasive,
and truth-distorting. But their vision of the possible world which would
emerge after the death of these epistemologies is extremely restricted and
inadequate. I suggest we "remember" Islam as the divine guidance of God
(SWT), which provides the basis for a truly emancipatory meta-critique. The
extension of an Islamic critique into the realm of anarchic thought gives it
more precision and sophistication.
Social and Natural Sciences: The Islamic Perspective [1981] lays the
foundation for an Islamic critique of Western episternologies and the rebuilding
of the Islamic sciences by exposing the inadequacies of Western epistemologies
and by outlining the guidelines along which Islamic epistemologies must direct
the intellectual power of Muslim scholars. The contributors to Social and
Natural Sciences denounce the modernized and socialized versions of Islam
arising in this century. These versions borrowed their essence not from Islam
but from the capitalist, neo-colonial West or from the Marxist-Leninist East.
I suggest we characterize the first part of this Islamic critical endeavor as
anarchic in that it recognizes the Western epistemologies are neither benign
nor local, but in fact carry interest-full, imperialist, dominating designs on ...