EDITORIAL

Our first paper, by Abdul Khaliq, discusses the Islamic view of faith and morality. The author shows how one’s faith in God, from the Qur’anic perspective, is a commitment, as it implies both a whole metaphysics and an entire philosophy of life. In our personal lives, we need a healthy metaphysics...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Sayyid M. Syeed
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: International Institute of Islamic Thought 1992
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/e910d23d4a944cc79ff6a802fbee235b
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario:Our first paper, by Abdul Khaliq, discusses the Islamic view of faith and morality. The author shows how one’s faith in God, from the Qur’anic perspective, is a commitment, as it implies both a whole metaphysics and an entire philosophy of life. In our personal lives, we need a healthy metaphysics for our moral behavior. Similarly, the sciences also need a metaphysical outlook, for this will provide significant pointers as to the direction in which scientific progress should advance. Abdul Khaliq further argues for a close relationship between the physical sciences and metaphysics. He assures us that this intimacy will not jeopardize the positive sciences’ autonomy and their freedom of inquiry. His paper ends with the assertions that the cause of moral degeneration is to be sought in the loss of digious faith and that a rejuvenation of religious faith can automatically reinstate morality. The Department of History of Science at the University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, organized a conference on “Tradition, Transmission, Transformation: An Ancient Mechanics in Islamic and Occidental Culture,” held on 6-7 March 1992. It was here that J. L. Berggren made an outstanding presentation entitled “Islamic Acquisition of the Foreign Sciences: A Cultural Perspective.“ We are publishing a revised version of this paper here. Berggren illustrates how cultural factots may have affected the Islamic world’s reception and acquisition of foreign sciences. The process of Islamizing the mathematical sciences inherited from the classical Greeks is instructive, for by studying it we realize that Muslim scientists were tesponding to the needs, concerns, and criticisms of a civilization profoundly different from that of classical Greece. Berggren shows how Islamic mathematics was not just good Greek mathematics done by people who happened to write in Arabic. He also suggests that it is important for us to understand the terms on which Islamic culture of that time approached classical Greek culture. In fact, to spell out these terms of Islamization is even more crucial for us today, as we seek to facilitate the adoption of modern sciences into an Islamic worldview. In his keynote address to the International Seminar on Malik Bennabi, Anwar Ibmhim complained that “it is an indictment of our parochialism that Bennabi has been neglected because he wrote in French. It is an even greater indictment that he is neglected because he was an individual thinker and not the idealogue of a movement. Neither is sufficient teason for original thought to be marginalized.” We need to correct this situation and make an extra effort to ensure that Bennabi’s ideas accessible to researchers and also to encourage more translations, discussions, and writings of this very important ...