Hi all,

I read this article for my RELG340 class (Heritage of Islam) and thought it had an interesting, if not controversial perspective on the reason for the “decline” of the Islamic Sciences. It was written by Fazlur Rahman, from his Islam 2nd ed. book in “Chapter 11: Education”. I attached the PDF file here : Fazlur – Islamic Education

I hope it worked… It starts are the very bottom of page 185 and continues until the end. It’s mostly about the education system, but of course education systems are hugely influential on intellectual output. In a nutshell, Fazlur attributes the “inner constitution of these religious sciences… [that were] created as to make them apparently absolutely self-sufficient… All other knowledge was superfluous, if not utterly condemnable” (186). The focus on maintaining a specific understanding of Islam (primarily by the `ulama) stifled any other types of intellectual exploration and led to the stagnation and eventual decline of this scientific renaissance.

I don’t necessarily agree with what Fazlur has to say, schools such as Mu’tazili were focused on the importance of human reasoning and were greatly influenced by Aristotelian thought… Also, the religious sciences paved the way for a fresh arena of theological and philosophical debate that probably influenced the intellectual culture at the time. What do you guys think?

Note: Figured out how to find the article, on the top of the page, in the blog bar, there is a ‘media’ option, hover your mouse over that and it’ll give you an option to go the the ‘library’, click on it, and the article, titled: ‘Fazlur – Education’ will be there.

Celeste

Posted: 01|25|10 at 1:33 pm. Filed under: Uncategorized.
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