Abu qassim

Declaration of Resolutions,

Prof Dr Cemil Ackdorgan, ISTAC

We praise Allah (SWT) that The Conference on Islamic Science and The Contemporary world took place with banquet of knowledge and wisdom, alhamdulillah. There were papers covering wide range of areas in the Islamic scientific tradition. As a concluding resolution there is a long way for us to traverse.

We are now well aware of our duty towards our scientific tradition and the way we are required to reflect on the outlook of this tradition to our educational institutions, which will project Islamic Science as the wisdom and understanding of the meaning of existence and human life.
We are therefore required to represent science in the contemporary world as and endeavor to enrich itself with moral sensitivity towards Allah, His creation as cosmos and towards ourselves respecting basic human values and realization of Quranic truth: we have made the children of Adam honorable.

As Muslim, we need to have an Islamic philosophy of science that can harmonize scientific change and progress with the idea or permanence. This is to ensure that the Muslims are protected in their religious beliefs and at the same time enjoy the benefits of real scientific progress.

Muslim must create an authentic Islamic Science that both tradition and contemporary in nature. Towards this end, scholars and scientists must wok together in producing new knowledge on the basis of Islamic principles.

We need to develop a holistic understanding of various branches of knowledge-including scientific engineering and knowledge-this is consistent with the teachings of Quran and the Tawhidic wordview in which the material and spiritual are not seen as dichotomous modes of existence, but as continum is our goal.

Islamic Science in Contemporary Education: Defining Its Legitimate Place and Role
Prof. Emeritus Datuk Dr. Osman Bakar, ISTAC, IIUM

The subject of Islamic science in contemporary education is a contentious (debatable) issue. Contemporary Muslims are deeply divided over the issue of whether or not to give a respectable place and role to Islamic science. A large part of the problem lies with the fact that the very idea of Islamic science itself is hotly contested. Muslim attitudes toward Islamic science range from those who reject it as conceptually totally meaningless to those who accept it as a legitimate form of science relevant to Muslims at all times. What sort of role to be given to Islamic science in our contemporary world and in the future or whether or not to give any role at all to it is very much determined by the kind of attitudes one has toward this science. In this paper, he had discussed the various Muslim views about Islamic science and their respective implications for the contemporary state of affairs pertaining to Islamic science. His own view is that, philosophically and theologically speaking, Islamic science is a legitimate (valid) concept. Our interest in Islamic science is not simply historical in nature: nostalgic about a glorious past. Rather, we believe in its intrinsic worth (essential value) as an integral and holistic form of nature, the principles of which are relevant to human needs in all their dimensions and at al times. It is only with such a view of Islamic science that we could be serious enough in giving a respectable place to this science in our system of education and securing a legitimate role for itself in the contemporary world.

Islamic Science: Grounds of Opposition

Among Muslims there are still many who either oppose the expression “Islamic Science” or are in different toward it. Include this group are the Muslim scientists who have been trained within the philosophical ambience of secularism reductionism and scientism even though intellectually, hey may not be aware of such an ambience. Muslim opposition to the Islamic Science thesis is justified on two grounds.

First, science is value-free or culturally neutral. Science is science. There is no such thing as ‘Islamic Science’ or ‘Christian Science’ or ‘Hindu Science’ or for that mater any science to which we can add an adjective with religious connotation.

Second, Muslims in the past had never used the term ‘Islamic Science’. This shows there is no necessity for characterizing science as Islamic.

Role of Religion for The Development of Science
Prof Dr Hans Daiber, Dept of Oriental Studies, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, University of Frankfurt, Germany

The mentioned role of religion became significant for the development of sciences in Islam. Islamic religion stimulated scientific thinking and achievements of civilization. This was possible because of permanent challenges by neighboring cultures, which urged Islam to remember its own fundaments.

Here, we detect a polarity between reception and adaptation of new, foreign cultural elements on the one side and the consolidation of the indigenous Quranic-Islamic traditions on the other side. This polarity exists until today. Islam and science do not exclude each other.

A precondition is, that Islam does not take over the role of science and science does not take over the role of Islam. The harmonious cooperation of both roles could become a chance of Islam, in which religion is restricted to the restricted to the regulation of the rules of modern society.