EDITORIAL

Abstract

Ftom the papets presented at the twenty-first annual conference of the AMSS in 1992, we have chosen here Sirajul Hussain's short article on "Islamic Science: Making of a Formal Intellectual Discipline." The other papets presented at the conference are being published sepamtely in the form of conference proceedings and should be available in one volume at the twenty-second mual conference. This will be held at the headquarters of the IIIT on 15-17 October 1993. In this paper, Sirajul Hussain discusses some epistemological issues related to the foundation of "Islamic science" as a formal intellectual discipline. He stresses the need for establishing an ontological necessity for the uniquely monotheistic concept of tawbiii in Islam in terms of recent developments in neuropsychology. This would show that the tuwltidi episteme proceeds essentially in a purely non-Euclidean space. In this way, we can show that the tuwh7liepisteme is amenable to scientific corroboration. He also emphasizes the need to structure Islamic science as a formal academic course to be taught at the undergraduate and gtaduate levels. Dilnawaz Siddiqui discusses selected major issues in instrUCti0~1- communication technology from an Islamic perspective. He tries to lay the groundwork by identifying major issues from a broad Islamic view. In addition, he outlines theoretical assumptions behind the identification and analysis of instructional technology and develops six sets of relevant issues classified under the categories of humanity, message, medium, methods, milieu, and measurement. Mumtaz Jafari examines critically the objectives, the evolutionary context, and the value system in which counseling flourishes. Right at the outset, he makes it clear that he is not providing an alternative framework based on Islamic teachings. Rather, he is making a modest attempt to examine critically the parameters of western counseling in order to illustrate the contrast between fundamental premises of Islamic ideology and practice. The framework used is the Islamic outlook on life and the associated objectives and values that Islam regards as determinants of human ...