From the desk of Amhar Maulana Arifin,
Subject : Islamization of Knowledge: A New Approach Toward Reform of Contemporary Knowledge (summary)
It is the first journal I’ve summarized when I was a freshman in Economics Faculty. it is a wonderful journal about islamization of knowledge written by Abdul Hamid A. Abu Sulayman. it explain comprehensively about crisis of knowledge and another ummatic disease that Muslims face in this modern era, it also explain the solution how to cure it especially through improvement in islamic political sc ience.
here is my summary, and at the end of this page, I provide links to download the journal.
A NEW APPROACH TOWARD REFORM OF CONTEMPORARY KNOWLEDGE – SUMMARY
I. THE CRISIS OF KNOWLEDGE
There are some issues which become the evidence of the impotence of the ummah, but the sole cause of the ummah’s crisis is the misconception of knowledge. It is the main cause of the depressing crisis that we face.
Some Islamic countries already counter this crisis by two solutions. For the first, a group of countries who counter it by reviving the perspective envisaged by traditional thinking. The second, the group of countries who adopt foreign tactics, imitating their technic, organization, and intellectual style, but all of them face the failure.
We can conclude that thesesolution are not useful, then, we need to reconstruct all of aspect of civilization, culture, and knowledge, and the redefinition of knowledge become the starting point for this reconstruction.
A. How The Crisis of Knowledge Began
We must realize that Islamic civilization began by knowledge, prophet Muhammad taught Muslim with divine revelation that become the source of knowledge, all of scholar refer every aspect of life to the source of knowledge (Al-Quran &Sunnah). It is the cause of the improvement in every aspect of Islamic civilization, and knowledge.
But after long time, the western civilization has grown up by the raising of intellectual aspect in their civilization, and in another side, the Islamic civilization face the crisis of knowledge because of some cases will be explained later. Then the Islamic civilization defeated by western civilization.
Muslim lost their confident, virtues, qualities, energy, seriousness, creativity.There is not any important improvement again in Islamic civilization.The crisis has blockade the Muslim productivity and motivation. The problem caused the depressing crisis of knowledge in the Islamic civilization.
B. The Split of Leadership
Prophet Muhammad already established the caliphate system, it is the most perfect leadership system in Islamic view, than, the tribal men infiltrated in the army and they brought the tribal system. It caused the infiltration between caliphate system and the tribal system. After this infiltration the hybrid Islamic leadership system began.
This hybrid system caused the dichotomy between intellectual and political leadership, there was no harmony between them. Many scholar harmed by the leaders because of their thought was not in accordance with the government. It is the fundamental cause of crisis.
This dichotomy also caused the dichotomy between religion and politics, because in the Islamic view, knowledge and religion can’t be separated.We know that the Islamic civilization began by knowledge. Then it caused the fruitless struggle against alien though followed by the closing off the gate of Ijtihad.
II. THE PRESENT CRISIS IN ISLAMIC THOUGH
The main cause of the present crisis in Islamic though are The Inability of our thinker to measure the extent of change in the realm of knowledge, culture, and civilization in the modern world, the inability to locate the strength point in the source of Islamic knowledge and to learn from past experience.
The solution of this case is restoring the ijtihad, changing our attitude toward reason, reforming our knowledge, culture, and civilization. We must steer the Islamic movement in the right direction.
To do this, we need to rectifying the relationship between revelation and reason, redefining the scope of knowledge, and establishing the Islamic infrastructure and education.
A. Rectifying the relationship between Revelation and Reason
The divine revelation might be the subject of misunderstanding, so we must becareful, our mind must be used in the framework of revelation. Mind is an indispensable source of knowledge. We must rectify the relationship between revelation and reason to reform our civilization.
B. Redefining the Scope of Knowledge
We face the wrong perception that only orthodox scholar who only can redefine the scope of knowledge.We need to redefine the scope of knowledge by specialization in every aspect of knowledge, because the modern knowledge has moved immensely and become complex, so it need the specialization andijtihad can be done in every branch of knowledge.
C. Establishing an Islamic Infrastructure and Education
The dichotomy between political and intellectual leadership become the main cause of the weakness of the Islamic culture and knowledge. And it caused the dualism of knowledge in Islamic civilization. Then, we need to reconstruct the program of education.We need to add the text in each field of religious knowledge. We need to establish an Islamic Infrastructure and education.
III. ISLAMIZATION OF A DISCIPLINE: POLITICAL SCIENCE
The most important discipline need to be Islamize soon is political science, Because it has a little attention from Islamic scholars, the dichotomy between intellectual and political leadership caused the crisis, and the failure of making the vision because of the mistakes in the methodology.
A. Example of Deficiency
There are intellectual deficiency in our civilization, there are the mistakes of the scholars in deciding the law. For example the mistake of IbnuRusyd in deciding the law of cutting the trees because of the contradiction between prophet Muhammad decision and Abu Bakar decision when wars.
B. The Caliphate: A Case Study of Confusion
There are a group of scholar who think that caliphate is no more than a autocracy system. It was the mistake perception. We need to study all the official and unofficial factor for this case, We must subject every aspect of heritage to specialized and systematic study to gain more benefit and prohibit us from misunderstanding. We need to study more elaborated than before.
C. Un-islamic Concept and Terminology
There are many alien concept which already infiltrated in our system, it is cause the bad impact in our civilization.
1. Democracy
2. Sovereignty
3. The Separation between Church and State
These concept has some fundamental differences with the Islamic system.
IV. POLITICAL STUDIES IN MUSLIM UNIVERSITIES
We need to reform the Islamic knowledge in general and political science in particular.We need to reconstruct the ummah and prepare the future leader by preparing the Islamic cadres.Research center and academic institutes should now take up the challenge.
THE CONCLUTION
It is important to rebuild our culture and make the new Muslim civilization which better than before, Muslim must save their homeland and their faith from the colonialism and another crusher knowledge, the crisis must be solved as soon as possible to cure Islamic civilization sickness. The only one way to reconstruct our civilization is by redefining the knowledge especially in political side and all aspect of knowledge in general.
It is important to begin the redefining the Islamic knowledge to be applicable and solid as good as possible. According to the beginning era of Islam, the Islamic civilization has gained the high level of civilization and can give the contribution to the world civilization because of knowledge that taught by the excellent leader which taken from Al-Qur’an and his sunnah. So the Islamic civilization can grow up in the future according to the conception of knowledge.
To steer the Islamic civilization in the right direction we need to rectifying the relationship between revelation and reason, redefining the scope of knowledge, and establishing the Islamic infrastructure and education.
One of the most important aspects of knowledge need to be Islamize and steered to the right direction is political science, because the main cause of the backwardness of the ummah is the split in the leadership. We need to build the good political system by understanding the caliphate system elaborately and examine it comprehensively. In another case, we need to erase the impact of un-Islamic systems in Islamic political system properly.
As the important action to begin this agenda, we must reform the educational system and the curriculum in Islamic universities especially in political science. All of Islamic research center and academic institutes have the important responsibility for this agenda. We must save our homeland, our culture, our civilization, and our knowledge. The Islamic civilization will be more exist and lead the world civilization in the future, Insha Allah.
TO DOWNLOAD THE JOURNAL CLICK HERE
Amhard Insight 