Lecture 5

The Main Characteristics of Islam

Divine Nature of Islam (الربانية )

The totality of Islam has its origin from the Word of Allah SWT, the Noble al-Qur’an, and its message is brought and manifested through the words and deeds of our Prophet Muhammad SAW, as his wife, Aisyah RA said, “The character of the Emissary of God was al-Qur’an.”

Al-Qur’an , the principle source of Islam, has remain intact, untouched by foreign pollutants, and without any mixture of falsehood in its truths, “Surely We have sent down the Message, and surely We are its guardian,” (15:9).

The duty of the Messenger is to communicate it accurately to others and propagate it faithfully and diligently, without mixing any human ideas—referred to in the Qur’an as ahwa or “whims”—with Divine revelations.

“By the star when it sets, your comrade (Muhammad SAW) is not astray; neither does he err, nor does he speak out of whim. This is nothing but a revelation revealed,” (al-Najm 53:1-4).

“It is true that you will not able to guide everyone you love, but Allah guides whomever He will. And He knows best those who receive guidance,” (al-Qasas 28:56).

Some of the important and fixed principles of Islam:

• Allah SWT, which includes His existence and all His attributes, is unchangeable. His Oneness, His Eternity, His Power, His Will, is all permanent Divine Realities.
• The entire universe is Allah’s creation. Allah Most High willed its existence and it came into being.
• All of Allah’s creation, that is, the objects and living beings, are in a relationship of servitude to their Creator, who alone is the Master.
• Action without faith in Allah is just as useless as faith without action. Islam demands submission in the heart, and submission in actions.
• In the sight of Allah only Islam is the true religion and Allah does not accept any other faith or way of life.
• Man, as a species, is the noblest of all the creatures on earth, because he is the khalifah and the ‘abd, servant of Allah SWT as well.
• All the people on earth came from one origin, and hence in this regard, they are all equal. They acquire merit and rank with respect to each other through their faith, consciousness of Allah, and good deeds.
• The ultimate purpose of man’s existence is the worship of Allah, in the sense of complete obedience to Allah alone. All deeds of a Muslim are considered as worship as long as his intention is directed towards Allah SWT, the action is not prohibited in Islam, and it brings benefit to the doer and His other creatures.
• In Islam, the basis of human groupings is belief and adherence to the way of Allah, not ethnicity, or nationality, or country or race, or any other earthly cause.
• The life of this world is a test of belief and action, and the life in the Hereafter is a product of accounting and reward.

Comprehensiveness (الشمولية )

Islam is a way of life; hence it covers all aspects of human life and affairs. It deals with spiritual and material aspects, matters of worship, and social, economic, political and cultural aspects of human affairs.

Islam covers all human responsibilities either in relation between Allah SWT and man, between man and man, and between man and the universe.

Islam is a comprehensive religion since it is the final religion and the universal religion.

Islam gives the explanation of the totality of existence, including its beginning, it’s functioning after the beginning, the various changes that take place in it, its growth and development, and its administration, governance and regulation.

Islam connects all these realities in such coherent, natural and logical consequences as appeal to man’s intuition and intellect, indeed to the total personality of man, as self-evident truths and in a deeply satisfying manner.

In Islam, all our actions, even the seemingly trivial ones, must be performed as acts of worship that is performed consciously as constituting a part of God’s universal plan.
The purpose of this life is to permanently and constantly worship Allah SWT in all forms of actions of human life.


Balance (التوازن )

Islam is a religion that gives to each aspect of human life its need without any imbalance or exaggeration. The material, social, spiritual, cultural, and intellectual aspect of human life is treated in a balance manner.

Islam never asks people to focus only on the spiritual dimension of their life or the material, or the moral. But Islam put each dimension in its right place and legislate the necessary instruction to fulfill and meet the need of that dimension of human life.

Islam gives man a balance between what is knowable and what is unknowable, between all the various sources of knowledge available to human understanding and comprehension, between Allah’s Divine Power and Will and human’s free will, between man’s dual responsibility as a khalifah, and as an ‘abd.

Also in relation to the inner qualities of the human soul in relation to his Creator, of finding a balance between fear and hope, anxiety and contentment, of awe and love.

Lecture 4 Part 4

General Overview of Islam

Ihsan

The Prophet SAW defined ihsan as “to worship God as if you see Him, for if you do not see Him, He sees you.”

It derives from the word husn, which designates the quality of being good and beautiful.

To be aware that Allah SWT is seeing us is taqwa, but to be able to see Him is ihsan.

Ihsan is subsuming taqwa and all the other good characters of a Muslim. In other words a Muhsin is the one who is able to see the Will of Allah SWT, His Will manifesting in all the other good characters of a Muslim.

“And unto Allah belongeth whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth, that He may reward those who do evil with that which they have done, and reward those who do good with goodness,” (53:31).

“Indeed Allah is with those who keep their duty unto Him and those who are doers of good,” (16:128).

Imam Nawawi, in his commentary of the hadith of the angel Jibrail AS, said “This is the station of the true vision (maqam al-mushahadah). Whoever is able to directly see the King shies away from turning to other than Him in prayer and busying his heart with other than Him.”

Lecture 4 Part 3

General Overview of Islam

Taqwa

All these performances of ibadah are done only for the sake of Allah SWT, for the sake of being near to Him, and for the sake of only remembering Him.

It is about acquiring one of the most important virtues in Islam, which is taqwa, as as in Surah al-Hujurat (49:13), “O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other. Verily the most honored of you in the sight of God is the most righteous of you.”

“If you do what is beautiful and are God-wary – surely God is aware of what you do.” (4:128).

“Be wary of God, and know that God sees what you do” (2:233).

“Be wary of God. Surely God knows the thoughts in the breasts.” (5:7)

“Whoso fulfills his covenant and is wary of God-surely God loves the God-wary,” (3:76).

Taqwa usually carries various meanings such as dutifulness, piety, righteousness, good conduct, guarding against evil, God-fearing, and God-consciousness.

All these Ibadah are performed to make our hearts lessened the love for this world as in Surah al-Ankabut, “What is the life of this world but amusement and play? But verily the Home in the Hereafter, that is life indeed, if they but knew” (29:64).

Imam al-Ghazali said the love of this world is the origin of every fault, the basis of all corruption, the source of all the diseases of the heart such as jealousy, backbiting, cheating, ostentation, arrogance, anger, pride, greedy, stinginess, laziness, and etc.

These are the inward sins, as Allah SWT says in the Qur’an, “Leave the outwardness of sin and its inwardness,” (6:120). The good characters would be sincerity (اخلاص), truthfulness (صدق ), contentment (رضى), remembrance (ذكر ), watchfulness (مراقبة ), generosity (كرم), God-fearing (تقوى), gratefulness (شكر), humbleness (تواضع) , modesty (حياء), courage (شجاعة) and etc.

Lecture 4 Part 2

General Overview of Islam

Islam

Arkan al-Islam is the pillar of the religion which is called Islam. A pillar is a support, something that holds up a structure; hence everything else in Islam depends on these five pillars.

Islam means submission to Allah’s Will, and hence it demands action, either internal or external, in accordance to the Will of the Creator. As Aisyah RA said, “The character of the Emissary of God SAW was the Qur’an.”

Thus the whole purpose of Islam is about following and emulating the actions and deeds of our beloved Prophet Muhammad SAW, as he said “I was sent only to perfect the noble qualities of character.”

The First Pillar; The Shahadah:


The first pillar is the fundamental act upon which all Islamic activity depends. It is to acknowledge verbally that one accepts the reality of Allah SWT and the prophecy of Prophet Muhammad SAW. Hence, the latter part is also including an acceptance of the Message that was brought by Prophet Muhammad SAW, which is al-Qur’an.

It is the most basic act of being a Muslim, that is simply to say the two sentences, “There is no god but God” (la ilaha illa’llah) and “Muhammad is God’s Messenger” (Muhammadun rasul Allah), with the words “I bear witness that” (ashhadu an) are added before each sentence.

“God bears witness that there is no god but He-and the angels, and the possessors of knowledge-upholding justice; there is no god but He, the Inaccessible, the Wise,” (3:18). “The religion before God is Islam……” (3:19).

The Second Pillar; Salat:


Salat or ritual prayer comes as second most important after shahada. But for a Muslim it is the most fundamental act; the Prophet SAW said that salat is the “centerpole” of the religion, suggesting the image of a tent with a single pole holding it up in the middle and with other poles as secondary supports.

In the Qur’an, there are at least four forms of salat:

1. Allah SWT and the angels perform a salat whereby they bless His servants: “It is He who performs the salat over you, and His angels, that He may bring you forth from the darknesses into the light,” (33:43).
2. All creatures in the heavens and the earth perform salat as the expression of universal islam: “Have you not seen that everyone in the heavens and the earth glorifies God, and the birds spreading their wings? Each one knows its salat and its glorification,” (24:41).
3. Every Muslim performs the salat, which is to say that the term is applied to one of the specific forms of worship revealed to all the Prophets: “And We delivered [Abraham], and Lot…….And We gave him Isaac and Jacob as well, and everyone We made wholesome …… And We revealed to them the doing of good deeds and the performance of the salat,” (21:71-73).
4. In the most common usage of the term, salat refers to the specific form of ritual that is the second pillar of Islam: “Recite what is sent of the Book by inspiration to thee, and establish regular Prayer: for Prayer restrains from shameful and unjust deeds, and remembrance of God is the greatest (thing in life) without doubt. And God knows the (deeds) that ye do,” (29: 45).

Hence, a salat that is performed with a total humility (خشوع) would prevent that individual Muslim from any shameful and unjust deeds.

Moreover, salat is a way of purifying oneself physically and spiritually, as in the Prophet SAW said, “Tell me, if one of you had a river at his door in which he washed five times a day, would any of his filthiness remain?” The people replied, “Nothing of his filthiness would remain.” He said, “That is a likeness for the five salats. God obliterates sins with them.”

The Third Pillar; Zakat:


It is commonly translated as “alms tax”, and is defined as a certain percentage of one’s acquired property or profit for the year that is paid to the needy, “The alms are only for the poor and the needy, and those who collect them, and those whose hearts are to be reconciled, and to free the captives and the debtors, and for the cause of Allah, and (for) the wayfarers; a duty imposed by Allah. Allah is Knower, Wise,” (9:60).

In another verse, “And the believers, men and women, are protecting friends one of another; they enjoin the right and forbid the wrong, and they establish worship and they pay the poor-due, and they obey Allah and His Messenger. As for these, Allah will have mercy on them. Indeed Allah is Mighty, Wise,” (9:71). “Of their goods, take alms, that so thou mightest purify and sanctify them; and pray on their behalf,” (9: 103).

Hence, zakat is also a way of purification from one’s sins; even the word itself has the meaning of purity, justness, integrity, honesty etc.

The Fourth Pillar; Fasting:

Fasting or sawm is to abstain from eating, drinking, sexual intercourse and other things that break the fast, with the intention of worshipping Allah SWT from the first crack of dawn (Fajr) until the setting of the sun (Maghrib) during the month of Ramadhan.

“O you who believe! Fasting has been made obligatory upon you just as it was made obligatory upon those who were before you, so that you may have Taqwa,” (2:183).

Fasting is an ibadah that is done strictly between the individual Muslim and Allah SWT, since nobody would know that he is fasting unless he said so. It is a way of disciplining the one who fasts from his idle desires, as the Prophet SAW said, “When any of you is observing sawm (fasting) on a day, he should neither indulge in obscene language nor should he raise his voice; and if anyone reviles him or tries to quarrel with him, he should say, I am observing fast.” Fasting will help a person to curb his anger, and be more patient and tolerant.

The Prophet SAW said, “Five things break the fast of the faster-lying, backbiting, slander, ungodly oaths, and looking with passion.”

The Fifth Pillar: Hajj:

Hajj is a pilgrimage to the Masjidil Haram in Mecca beginning on the 8th and ending on the 13th day of the last lunar month, Dhu’l-Hijjah. Muslims are required to make Hajj once in their lifetimes, but only if they have the means to do so.

“And Hajj to the House (Ka’bah) is a duty that mankind owes to Allah, those who can find a way there,” (3:97).

“For Hajj are the months well-known. If anyone undertakes that duty therein, let there be no obscenity, nor wickedness, nor wrangling in the Hajj. And whatever good ye do, (be sure) God knoweth it. And take a provision (with you) for the journey, but the best of provisions is right conduct. So fear Me, O ye that are wise,” (2:197).

The Prophet SAW said, “Whoever makes pilgrimage (Hajj) to this House (the Ka’bah) and he does not have sexual intercourse, nor does he commit any transgressions, he will come out of his sins just like the day that his mother gave birth to him.”

Lecture 4 Part 1

General Overview of Islam.

Iman

Derives from the verb amuna, to be faithful, reliable, trustworthy, and from the verb amina, to be safe, to feel safe.
It is the essence of tawhid, i.e., a faith confirming that there is no other god but Allah SWT, and the Prophet Muhammad SAW is His Messenger.
It is the fitrah of all human beings that have made the covenant with Allah SWT before they come into this world.
The Prophet SAW defined the word iman by saying, “Faith is knowledge in the heart, a voicing with the tongue, and an activity with the limbs.”

There are six principles of Iman:

Believe in Allah SWT and all His Divine attributes and names.

He is the Creator and Sustainer of everything that exists, either in the invisible world or in the visible world.
He is Unique in His Attributes, Eternal, Omnipresent, Omnipotent and Omniscient.
He is the Creator of the universe, the Creator of cause and effect, the Creator of all natural laws.
He is All-Powerful, All-Wise, All-Knowing, All-Seeing.
He is free from every flaw and weakness and none may have the power to interfere with His work. He is the Creator, Controller and Governor of the entire universe.
He is the only One, and none can be compared with Him.

Believe in Allah’s Angels:

The Arabic word for angel, malak, or malaikah, means “messenger”.
They are messengers in the sense as the one who carries the message from Allah SWT, or carries the order or command of Allah SWT (35:1).
They were created from light, and their first function is only to glorify Him.
Their number is numerous, and they carry various other functions such as reciters, glorifiers, dividers, casters, pluckers, writers, watchers, envoys, and etc.
There are angels who always carrying the Throne of Allah SWT (40:7). Others who circle around the Throne, always praising and glorifying Him.
They witnessed the creation of Adam AS (2:34), and they are also entrusted to carry the human soul to the embryo in the womb. And there are angels who provide our sustenance (2:98). And when death comes, they are the one who is entrusted to take our souls, and the one who will question the souls in the grave.

Believe in all the Revealed Books:

There are many revealed scriptures being revealed to many of the Prophets before Prophet Muhammad SAW. The important ones are the Books of Ibrahim AS, the Taurah of Musa AS, the Zabur of Daud AS, and the Injil of Isa al-Masih AS.

These books are part of our faith and we must believe in them as much as we believe in the Last Revelation, the Word of Allah SWT, al-Qur’an.
Al-Qur’an is a Divine miracle, and it has been preserved in its pristine purity, unlike the other books which only exist in the form of translation and has been mixed with words created by man.

Believe in all the Prophets:

There are 124, 000 Prophets and there are 25 important of them mentioned in the Qur’an.
5 of the Prophets are considered as أولو العزم : Prophet Nuh AS, Prophet Ibrahim AS, Prophet Musa AS, Prophet Isa AS, and Prophet Muhammad SAW.
The Prophets have been appointed to guide his people, and were being given revelation in the tongue of his people, as in the Qur’an, “We have sent no messenger save with the tongue of his people” (14:4).
The essence of the message is the same, which is to guide people to confess Tawhid, i.e., the Unity of Allah SWT, and submit to the only One Lord. However, the details of the message is different, “To every one of you (Messengers) We have appointed a right way and an open road. If God had willed, He would have made you one nation” (5:48).

Believe in the Life after Death:

That the life of this world and all of that is in it will come to an end on an appointed day. Everything will be annihilated. That day is called Qiyamah, i.e., the Last Day, or Qiyamah al-Kubra.

That all the human beings who have lived in the world since its inception will then be restored to life and will be presented before Allah SWT Who will sit in judgement on that day. This is called Hashr (Resurrection).

That the entire record of every man and woman—of all their doings and misdoings—will be presented before Allah SWT for final judgement. The one who excels in goodness will be rewarded; one whose evils and wrongs outweigh his good deeds will be punished.

That those who emerge successful in this judgement will go to Paradise, and those who are condemned and deserve punishment will be sent to Hell.

There is also Qiyamah al-Sughra, the lesser qiyamah or the world of barzakh (23:99-100) and (25:53). It is the next life in the grave where there will be immediate questioning, reward and punishment.
Our Prophet SAW said, “People are asleep, and when they die, they wake up.”

Believe in Predestination (Divine Decree):

Allah SWT has created and decreed everything in its specified measurement, all the natural laws, and all the good and evil of human actions.

Believe in قضاء (divine decree, destiny) and قدر(divine foreordainment, predestination).

Qada’ is a divine decree on all human beings. It is a decree in the womb concerning which the angel is ordered to foreordain one’s sustenance and term of life, and whether he shall be unfortunate or prosperous. It is also a decree of Allah SWT on the good and evil that befall on human beings at times appointed by Him.
Such decree may be changed as Allah SWT said, “Allah erases what He will, and He consolidates what He will, and with Him is the Mother of the Book” (13:39).

Qadar is a divine foreordainment on all His creatures, that everything is decreed in its specified measurement: “Surely We have created everything with a measuring out,” (54:49), and “With Him are the keys to the Unseen; none knows them but He. He knows what is in land and sea; not a leaf falls, but He knows it. Not a grain in the earth’s shadows, not a thing, fresh or withered, but it is in an explicit Book,” (6:59).

Two different schools of theology, Qadariyyah and Jabariyyah, which have 2 opposite views on human freedom and Allah’s Over-powering Will.

Lecture 3

Selective Contemporary Ideologies(Secularism, materialism, and postmodernism.)

Secularism

There are two definition of secularism:

First, it is a system of doctrines and practices that disregards or rejects any form of religious faith and worship. This is a total rejection of any religious beliefs. The person who professed this is either called as atheist or agnostic.

Second, the belief that religion should not enter into the affairs of the state and the public, e.g., in politics, in education, and in economics.
In other words, religion is a private matter and it is practiced by individual for their own individual and personal reasons.

Religion is still accepted according to different individuals and has its own practical benefits for that person who professed that religion.

But outside the realm of private matters, religion does not have any importance and only some religious principles are being used if they are deemed to be worthy based on various individual judgement. Hence, the overarching system is the secular system that is totally based on human reason and desires.

The term secular comes from the Latin word saeculum, which means ‘this age’ or ‘the present time’, and this age or the present time refers to events in this world; hence, it also means ‘contemporary events’.

Secularism is an ideology, which means it has its own set of values or perception of the reality and its main tool for understanding this reality is through human reason that is not guided by a true revelation.
Any values that come from religion are only useful or practical according to human needs that can change from time to time.

Ultimately, religion should be banished from the realm of human affairs either public or private.
Secularization is the process towards secularism. It is defined as the deliverance of man “first from religious and then from metaphysical control over his reason and his language.”

It relativises all values and produces the openness and freedom necessary for any kind of human action.
All actions of man are relative to that particular time period, all values become relative. Goodness and badness have less sacred values, and there is less sense of accountability, since accountability has now become relative.

There are three main components of secularization:

• The disenchantment of nature, which is to dispel nature (i.e. all the existing things around us including man and the natural world) from being attached to any kind of supernatural and animistic beliefs or any kind of metaphysical realities, other than what has been proven true and certain from scientific empiricism and quantification. Nature is only understood in naturalistic interpretation and changes in accordance to natural laws and causes.
• The deconsecrating of values from any kind of transcendental and religious attachment, i.e. values are then being determined by human reason that is not guided by revelation. Values then become relativised and changes in accordance to human needs and fancies.
• The desacralization of politics: Political authority has a lot of power in determining public affairs such as the education system, the management and distribution of wealth and ensuring law and order. Hence, in secularization, religion has very limited control in managing public affairs. In Islam, however, any kind of ruling authority in Islam has its legitimization only when it is in total conformity with the Syari’ah of Allah SWT.

Materialism

In materialism, there is only one reality, which is this physical universe as being described and interpreted in accordance with scientific principles and methodologies.

Anything that cannot be measured and quantified to be existed “materially” is deemed to be non-existent. Metaphysical problems such as God and moral values are considered to be non-existent in materialism.

Everything that exists in this world moves and changes in accordance with the immutable laws of science; hence, everything then can be conceived like a machine, and can be manipulated by man, who is the most complex kind of machine.

Even in the human being, his emotions and his consciousness are part of the biological machine of the human body, and these must be proven to have some sort of substantial existence based on scientific observation and experiment.

Only the physical body exists, and hence the needs and wishes of the body have a paramount importance in materialism. Materialism is the foundation of the modern world view.

Some of the characteristics of the modern world view:

• The universe is an impersonal phenomenon, governed by regular natural laws, and understandable in exclusively physical and mathematical terms. God has withdrawn from any direct activity in the universe, since the universe is conceived like an elaborate working of a clock.
• The human mind is capable by its own rational faculties of comprehending the order of the universe, and that order was entirely natural. Human reason and empirical observation replaced religion as the principal means of comprehending the universe. And that universe can be known objectively by the human mind.
• However, on the same stroke, that human mind is incompetent and beyond its faculties to understand life and the universe beyond what has been proven to be true by scientific empiricism and experimentation. Religion and metaphysical problems gradually being put aside as a personal occupation and it is fundamentally distinct from the public objective knowledge of the empirical world.
• This world and this life are more real and have more claims towards existence than the other world as conceived in many traditional religions. Embracing this world in its fullest sense is the ultimate aim of the modern man since it is this life that can be confirmed to really exist.
• Hence, understanding the whole of existent should be independent from any religious constraints in order for man to decide for himself any matters regarding his life and destiny. He is the master of his own destiny who is capable to decide what is best and good for him.

Postmodernism

When science was becoming so confidently and convincingly true and the Western man was becoming so successful in utilizing his scientific knowledge in conquering the natural world and the rest of the world through their Industrial Revolution and Imperialism, one of their philosophers, Immanuel Kant (d. early 19th century), began to criticize the foundation of that scientific worldview itself with his famous work Critique of Pure Reason.

Kant was able to formulate and criticize that there is no such thing of knowing the universe with a total objectivity. Man only knows objective reality of the universe precisely to the extent that reality conforms to the fundamental structures of the mind.

What man knows is a world permeated by his knowledge, and causality and the necessary laws of science are built into the framework of his cognition. Observations alone do not give man certain laws; rather, those laws reflect the laws of man’s mental organization. In other words, the mind does not conform to things; rather, things conform to the mind.

Space and time are “a priori forms of human sensibility”. They are not drawn from experience but are presupposed before that experience. And so with the law of causation. The mind does not derive cause and effect from observations, but it is already predisposed in our mind’s intellectual cognition.

Hence, the foundation of the scientific worldview is based on a shaky ground, i.e., science couldn’t claim anymore that it has the real objective truth about the universe and about life itself.

Hence, nothing actually in the possession of the mind of the Western man that can bring him nearer to the Truth: not even in his religion, in his philosophy, or even in his science.

Hence, the birth of Postmodernism, as being articulated by its founder Friedrich Nietzsche (d.1900), who has already anticipated the coming of nihilism in the Western worldview.

Some of the characteristics of postmodernism:

• Postmodernism rejects all truth claims. Nothing has an intrinsic nature which may be expressed by or represented. Everything is a product of time and change. Truth is relative and nothing is absolute, except for absolute relativism.
• There is no ultimate Reality. Reality is what has been created in each epoch by various groups of people, and none of them can claim to have the real Truth.
• Human existence and the existence of the universe are purposeless. There is no meaning to our existence except what we would like to construct it for our own various practical reasons.
• It accepts multiplicities of truths either in science, religion, philosophy, or anything that the human mind can conceived of.
• It generates doubt in all perspectives, since no one can claim to have the absolute truth.

Postmodernism’s impact to other human cultures:


Although postmodernism relativizes all values, the Western scientific dominating worldview is still at its core. It acts like a double blade that seek to destroy the foundation of other cultures and values, and at the same time promoting and continuing Western domination towards other non-Western people, either in economy, in politics, in education and in many other cultural and traditional elements.

One of its tools is globalization, which is a way of ensuring that Western worldview will always remain colonizing the mind, body and spirit of the rest of the world.

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Lecture 2

Types of Worldview:

Scientific Worldview:


Scientists share certain basic beliefs, attitudes, and practices on how to view and gain knowledge about the natural world.

The world is understandable:


Science presumes that the things and events in the universe occur in consistent patterns that are comprehensible through careful and systematic study.
They believe that through the use of the intellect, and with the aid of instruments that extend the senses, the human mind can discover the natural laws that govern the universe.

Scientific knowledge is changeable:


Science is a process of gaining knowledge about the natural word.
The process depends on making careful observations of the natural phenomena and then formulates theories out of those observations.
Changes in scientific knowledge are inevitable because new observations may challenge prevailing theories.

Scientific knowledge is durable:

Although scientists reject the notion of attaining absolute truth and accept some uncertainty as part of nature, most scientific knowledge is durable.
The modification of theories is the norm in science, as powerful constructs tend to survive and grow more precise and to become widely accepted.

Science cannot provide answers to all questions:


There are many matters that cannot be scrutinized under scientific practices, especially the metaphysical questions, e.g., the existence of God, good and evil, freedom and freewill, mortality, the purpose of life, and etc.

Science demands evidence based on these three methodologies:

Empiricism: Everything should be based on empirical research experimental analysis.
Rationalism or logical reasoning: That is by using the principles of logic and reason.
Skepticism: Nothing is accepted as a final fact. Every fact is questionable until it is proven true by the two methods above.

Science is based on two tools: hypothesis and experiment:


Hypothesis is the first stage of research which then has to be confirmed with experimentation.
Through experiment science engages in discovering a series of causes and effect.
Then a certain formulae are formulated so that almost all events in nature can be described with a quantitative mathematical analysis.

Next is,

Advantages of scientific worldview:

Scientific research is exact and precise since it is formulated in a quantitative mathematical language.
It gives man lots of data and information about our physical world.
Through its formulation, it can predict quite accurately many natural phenomena, and assist man in the invention of various kinds of machines.

Science enables man to control and dominate nature with the application of technology.
Shortcomings of scientific worldview:
Science is not a complete way or the only way to interpret life and the universe. Its research is only concern with the “primary qualities” of nature, and not the “secondary qualities.”

From scientific viewpoint, the purpose of existence (universe & life) is not known. Thus scientific worldview is knowledge of the part, and not the whole.

Science is theoretically unstable and less enduring, so it is incapable to provide a firm, eternal, and unshakable foundations for a belief in the unseen world.

Science is not capable of providing a comprehensive and consistent explanation on life and the universe. This is mainly due to the limitation of its tools (hypothesis and experiment).

As a result of its limitation, Western science considered the natural world as something separate from the Creator. His intrusion into the running of the world and His continuous sustenance of it are not accepted in the modern scientific worldview.

Since the physical consequences of scientific research is manifested in the application of technology, and the bearer, i.e., the one who carries the responsibility of this application is the human being himself, then he has the moral responsibility to ensure that the technology does not harm him and the natural world.

However, since the activities in science does not concern about moral responsibilities, then the application of scientific knowledge depend on the moral values of the scientists and the engineers which sometimes can have harmful consequences.

Philosophical Worldview

The term philosophy comes from the Greek word philosophia, which is a compound of philos and sophia, the former meaning love, the latter, wisdom. Therefore, philosophia means love of wisdom.
Philosophical worldview depends on reason, which based upon self-evident principles that is undeniable to the mind.

It uses method such as logical reasoning, deduction and induction.

Both philosophical and scientific worldviews are conduce to action but in different ways:

• The scientific worldview conduces to action by giving human the power and capacity to control the world. But philosophical worldview conduces to action by giving the reason for action and the criteria for human choice in life.
• The philosophical worldview is seeking answers to the basic metaphysical and cosmological questions.
• The philosophical worldview is influential in the way man encounters and responds to the universe. It guides man to shape his attitude and his outlook towards being and the universe, giving him meaning to his life, or leads him away into nothingness.

Religious Worldview:


Religious worldview is based on supernatural and transcendental beliefs. Both religious and the philosophical worldviews, by contrast with the scientific worldview, cover the same domain, both seeking the answers of the totality of being and the universe.

Revelation and unseen are sources of the religious worldview, while mere reason is the source of philosophical worldview.

Philosophical reasoning is a tool in Islamic worldview. Its application is subservient to the overarching Islamic worldview.

To answer some of the metaphysical and cosmological questions, Islamic worldview relies to some extend on reason, and support facts of the Qur’anic revelation with reasonable demonstrations of the intellect (أدلة عقلية ).

Religious worldview is more stable than the scientific and philosophical worldview in terms of having certain and unchangeable principles that cover the belief system, the practical part on devotion and other human activities including the ethical, social and economical.

Religious worldview gives sanctity towards its belief system and practices.