Islamization of Knowledge and Modern Sciences

The Discourse of Seyyed Hussein Nasr

Abstract

Seyyed Hossein Nasr is a renowned scholar, philosopher, and author of more than fifty books and over five hundred articles. His works have been translated in more than fifteen languages. A whole section has been dedicated to him in the Library of Living Philosophers, and he is the first Muslim and non-western philosopher included in the group. He extensively writes on Islamic Sciences, Modernism, Perennial Philosophy, Islamic Worldview, and Sacred Science.
This paper is a descriptive study based on his own writings as well as other scholars’ writings on his views about knowledge and modern sciences. As Nasr is a traditionalist par excellence, therefore, he believes that the modern science has lost the concept of sacredness in his endeavour after the renaissance in Europe. Desacralization has spread many chaos and disorders in the world, therefore, there is a dire need for Re-enchantment of the world in the realm of Sacredness, which can be achieved in his belief through the reconstruction of knowledge and Islamization of knowledge. And this will start with the realization by the Muslims that the Islamic notion of ʻIlm is very different from the contemporary concept of knowledge.
In this regard, his unique and diverse perspectives have been considered such as his strong onslaught on Modernity and the loss of the element of sacredness in the Modern Sciences, as well as modern world’s necessity for the Scientia Sacra, the Reconstruction of knowledge and the Islamization of knowledge in his view, which is comprehensively presented in this article. This paper finds that the knowledge needs to be reconstructed at least in the Muslim societies based on Islamic values as Seyyed Hossein Nasr recommended for a prosperous future of the Islamic world.