المنعطف الحضاري

Abstract

This work aims at constructing a theory of intellectual reform that accounts for cultural and structural factors, and the way they interact.  Taking a dynamic approach, this paper focuses on the processes of reform and how each process has bearing on and is contingent upon other processes.

Key factors of intellectual reform are identified, which include sophistication of vision, intellectual vitality, perspective elaboration, diffusion into educational institutions, and literal versatility.  In addition, they include institutional autonomy, organizational capacity, and financial resources.  The paper identifies the internal dynamics within each of these factors, then shows how these dynamics interact with each other.  The paper concludes with an application of the model to the Islamization of Knowledge effort, pointing to critical factors and bottlenecks that affected its course of development.

Abstract

This paper develops a classificatory scheme of knowledge output: the philosophy level, the theory level, the model level, and the application level.  I will use this scheme to illuminate on four, seemingly unrelated, issues:  1) While development is frequently seen as a mechanical process of low level structuration or culturation, this paper argues that it involves philosophical dimensions too.  2) Development involves drawing on the products of “advanced” nations.  Using the suggested scheme shows that this is possible only at the lower levels of knowledge.  3) Sustained development requires first a theoretical base built along the lines of the Islamization of Knowledge logic.  And 4) The concept of the Islamization of Knowledge is misinterpreted by casual readers as an out-right rejection of modern “scientific” output.  This paper argues that the Islamization of Knowledge is a digestive process that calls for the interaction of world cultures guided by a specific philosophical prism.

If the title of this paper sounds confusing, then it is my duty to show that “development” is not a mundane practice that has no relation to philosophy, and that what is known as the Islamization of Knowledge is not an “armed-chair” discourse that has no bearing to reality.*   And Since my duty is to solve a puzzle, some degree of simplification is inevitable.  I apologize for the highly learned reader for treating an abstract subject at the level of concrete examples.

* I am using the term Islamization of Knowledge because of its popular use, although I think that it is confusing, inaccurate, and misleading.