Islamization or Rehabilitation of Knowledge? (Paperback) | Released: 09 May 2021

"The conditions prevailing in the Muslim world are far from satisfactory. There is poverty, illiteracy, and misery. There is extremism and terrorism. There is a culture of denial. The situation is urgent. These challenges require reform, especially the reform of Muslim thought. For there is "a crisis in the Muslim mind." This crisis was precipitated by the repression of reason, through its association in the explanation of revelation with kufr or disbelief. The repression of reason resulted in a misunderstanding of the teaching of revelation and its replacement by tradition as chief guidance. Hence, religious thought requires reconstruction. This requires the rehabilitation and the engagement of reason. It is through reasoning that we attain knowledge. But rather than focusing on the corruption of the knowledge of Islam, tainted by flawed reasoning, unwarranted accretions, and problematic practices, Islamists advocate the Islamisation of knowledge. This is analogous to putting out a fire in the neighbour's house before extinguishing a bigger fire at home. It is urgent to rehabilitate reason that was spurned more than a millennium ago. Anti-rationalism has a troubling past in Islam. Islamists urge the Islamisation of Western knowledge because they perceive it as "unIslamic," tainted by beliefs at odds with the Islamic worldview. But the corruption of the knowledge of Islam is a bigger problem than Western knowledge. "UnIslamic" knowledge is a bogeyman. The fundamental difference in the epistemology of revelation is not the difference between knowledge that is Islamic and knowledge that is unIslamic; it is between knowledge and ignorance. Empirical knowledge is not unIslamic; it is descriptive. To refer to this knowledge as unIslamic is to refer to the knowledge of Allah's world as unIslamic. What requires Islamisation are the arts and humanities, for example economics. There is a pressing requirement to articulate a usury-free economic paradigm. But contrary to what we would expect from the efforts to Islamise knowledge, we encounter a baffling reticence to Islamise economics. What we encounter in the plethora of efforts to replicate usury-based finance, is a Westernisation of Islamic finance. This is a manifestation of Westoxication, or a "captive mind," the unquestioning replication of Western patterns of thought. We encounter an eagerness to replicate usury-based finance, as confirmed by the use of profit and capital guarantees in financial contracts rather than ensuring that all Islamic contracts are based on and reflect risk-sharing, as required by Islam. Efforts of this kind could result in an erosion of authenticity. The umma fell because it drifted from the Book of Allah to follow books of manmade traditions, akin to hearsay. Revelation says that Allah never changes the condition of people until they first change what is inside themselves. What did Muslims change? They turned from Allah to the prophet, from revelation to tradition, and from ethics to rituals. They began to "judge" by what Allah did not reveal. This was a "tragedy." They turned to following man-made laws derived from reports by transmitters rather than revelation transmitted by the prophet. Rather than following revelation, they followed tradition. This was a relapse from revelation to tradition. They began replacing parts of revelation by tradition with the assistance of the teaching of abrogation. In a few cases they even placed tradition above revelation. They asserted that "tradition judges revelation," and that "revelation requires tradition more than tradition requires revelation." They turned the relationship between revelation and tradition, and that between Allah and His prophet upside down. In this way they flouted tauhid, tampered with the teaching of revelation and corrupted the knowledge of revelation. Hence, knowledge of revelation requires rehabilitation. This requires the re-engagement of reason.