Islamic science discussions in the context of present science of philosophy: Syed Muhammad Naqui̇b al-Attas in context

This study is an attempt to contextualize Islamic science discussions in the Muslim world in the context of contemporary philosophy of science with regard to the grand project of Islamization of presentday knowledge. This grand project was first initiated by Professor al-Attas in the context of the possibility to (re)-construct Islamic science after the second half of the 20th century. Since then many other Muslim thinkers entered into the debate and thus this idea has been intensively discussed up to present-day increasingly taking a major place among the contemporary discussions in philosophical circles. In a common framework it is possible to mention three aspects of the contemporary science debate on the axis of Islamization of contemporary knowledge. First of them is liberating humanity but especially the Muslim community from contemporary political, economic, environmental, social and mental problems which infect their worldview. In addition to this, the first aspect includes a search to return knowledge to its original state. The second aspect includes the re-establishment of the ties which are detached from ancient tradition of science in the Muslim world in terms of preparing the ground for analyzing the issues in order to find solutions for these problems. The third one is the fact that as contemporary scientific approach is taken to be responsible for leading the first two issues, which make up the main body of our study, then the Islamic science debate must develop a new alternative perspective and a new scientific paradigm replacing the presentday conception of science. With this last statement we claim that the new conception of science to be established in the context of Islamization of contemporary knowledge as a reaction to modern scientific perspective is supposed to introduce an alternative mentality of science to the modern scientific paradigm. In the light of these discussions our study will attempt to discuss and provide an analysis of Professor al-Attas' philosophy of science and the critique he leveled against the modern conception of science. From this perspective we shall try to see how he defends the possibility of establishing the roots of Islamic scientific tradition once again in our times. Thus this study is an overall result of the grand Islamization project which is now dominating the scholarly discussions in the Muslim world. Keywords: Islamization of contemporary knowledge, Islamic science, modern science, worldview, epistemology, al-Attas, Seyyid Muhammed Nakib.