This is the first part of a series of "review" on Ziauddin Sardar's book "Desperately Seeking Paradise." It is not going to be a sequential review but more of the parts which resonate with me.
This first part is on the chapter called "the Inquiry Years" where he talked about Al-Faruqi's idea on Islamization of knowledge and his opposition towards it. While the years he described were in the 80s, I do remember that such ideas were still big in the 90s when my friends and I were active in the Muslim Society on campus. The Muslim intellectuals, similar to those described by Sardar, were almost obsessed with the need to Islamize knowledge. I think I still have the book by Al-Faruqi that was quoted in Sardar's book. Now, I wonder what happened to this movement - have it been abandoned? Where did the energy and effort go to? Perhaps it is still there but now, things seemed to be hijacked by the issue of terrorism and extremism; the need for "moderate" Muslim voices.
Coming back to the book, I like how Sardar argues against Islamization of Knowledge. In his "discussion" with Al-Faruqi, he mentioned in the book:
"we must Islamize the disciplines...establish the specific relevance of Islam to each area...Al-Faruqi picked up the knife and fork lying in front of him..."Think of them as a discipline...Now in the West....People eat with their left hands...we Muslims eat with our right hands. So all we have to do is to switch....Certain disciplines would require that kind of transformation."I was dumbfounded..."Forks and knives emerge out of a particular context....part and parcel of a certain etiquette of eating...disciplines are not, as you seem to think, made in heaven, they are not a priori given...Disciplines are born within the matrix of a particular worldview and are always hierarchically subordinated to that worldview...Islamizing disciplines already infused with a materialistic metaphysics and western, secularist ethics is tantamount to a cosmetic epistemological face-lift."His description of his group's (the Ijmalis) idea to knowledge echoes within me - emphasizing on ethics and interconnectedness. That the pursuit of knowledge is a form of worship and that it must be pursued in the promotion of values that enhances the Muslim society and culture amongst others. These were some of the topics of discussions between my friends and I, if I recalled correctly. I believe the LKI 2 topics (part of FMSA leadership training) that we worked on in the late 1990s were geared towards this idea that the Ijmalis were promoting. That is the reason why I think I enjoyed this section of his book. If only the LKI 2 seminar series could have continued.
In my own experiences, having been a scholar and also a teacher, it is difficult to Islamize knowledge as propound by al-Faruqi. As Sardar mentioned, such effort only lent to a "cosmetic face-lift" especially in the subjects I was specializing in. However, Sardar's idea if ethics and promotion of values within the subject is quite reachable. For example, while I couldn't, for the life of me, think of how I could Islamize Operations Research (Optimization), I could utilize it in beneficial applications that would serve the society better, thus exercising the connectedness between knowledge and the Quranic value of public interest. I do hope that the younger generations of Muslims will build upon what the Muslim intellectuals of the past have started, especially in this challenging times. We truly need fresh ideas in creating a new worldview that is not defined by terrorism or extremism. Perhaps there are new works out there already...if so, that is very good and hopefully I will get to learn more. If not, then as Muslims, it is our duty to once again revive these Islamic intellectual works.
Another thing about this book is the funny yet almost brutally honest way Sardar has written it, an autobiography of his life so far. His description of people make most into caricatures (almost) and that makes the book easy to read while dealing with some pretty heavy issues such as discussed above. Next time, I'll touch on another topic that he brought up in his book, Insya Allah. Till then.
