Islamic Science

Abstract

The term "Islamic science" can be defined as the scientific way of defining and comborating the uniquely monotheistic concept of tuwhfd (unity), a concept that can serve as an epistemological manifold for intellectual inquiry and development. In this context, science is taken as a systematic way of looking at things or, in other words, as both a philosophy of knowledge as well as an empirical methodology. When taken in its entirety, science includes the whole spectrum of human inquiry ranging from ontology to epistemology, from causality to cosmology, and from the natural and social sciences to technology. It may be noted that beyond an axiomatic application based on a metaphysical definition of tawhid, there has been no scientific attempt to analyze and substantiate this concept. This axiomatic application of tawhid, especially when dealing with an analysis of developments in knowledge, raises certain epistemological questions. As it does not scientifically define or discuss the very premise-tawhid-on which the analysis is being based, this is to be expected. Furthermore, for example, the axiomatic application of tuwhid to purge the corpus of knowledge of its secular elements and then reconstruct it within the tawhidi framework cannot be fulfilled, as it is unable to furnish a tawhid-based scientific temperament without first providing scientific combomtion of the concept itself. It is from such an epistemological viewpoint that we find the contributions of Muslims to various fields of leaming tend to be more sentimental than scientific. The need to develop Islamic science also arises from the fact that most modem scientists are known to be secular, as they have consciously evaded the issue of the existence of a Creator. This is the result of their ...