The Islamization of Knowledge: Critique and Alternative

In recent decades, there has been much discussion on “Islamically grounding” the social sciences, which some researchers have described as being traditionally “Western” in nature. This debate was particularly prominent in Middle Eastern countries in the early nineties and played out in books, articles, and doctoral theses. Nonetheless, while this project received a positive response from a small group of researchers, it attracted a largely negative response from many in the social science community. This chapter discusses the problems raised with approaches of Islamization of Knowledge (IoK) and taʾṣīl (grounding), pondering whether such projects are theoretically insightful or rather serve as a form of identity politics. It shows that the social sciences include several dimensions which are not found in the Islamized social sciences. Furthermore, these Islamized sciences constitute a closed system in the face of “Western” social sciences, only searching for an Islamic social philosophy, and thereby ignoring other important dimensions. On the basis of this analysis, the chapter suggests a new approach of “separation, connection, and pluralistic praxis” as an alternative to IoK and similar projects.