Can the Seminary Produce Islamic Human Sciences?
An Interview with Professor Dr. Mohammad Abbas Kawrani
Afaq Journal strives to monitor the intellectual and scientific issues occupying Shia seminaries (hawzas) worldwide, fostering serious dialogues with researchers and thinkers on the epistemic challenges confronting contemporary Islamic thought.
Editorial Note: We are not at a stage of claiming that a complete, integrated system of Islamic Human Sciences has been fully realized. Rather, we stand at the stage of critiquing the distorted foundations of modern sciences, highlighting the strength of the Islamic vision of the human being—specifically through the lens of “Pure Muhammadan Islam”—and paving the way for long-term scientific accumulation within a healthy academic environment. For indeed, only a wholesome plant yields a fragrant scent in the near future.
1. What specifically do you mean by the term “Islamic Human Sciences”?
By Islamic Human Sciences, I mean the systematic attempt to construct knowledge regarding the human being, society, behavior, history, culture, and all human phenomena starting from an Islamic worldview of humanity, existence, the universe, and nature—rather than merely appending a Qur’anic verse or a Hadith to an already existing human science.
The fundamental distinction lies in the fact that Islam does not view the human being as a purely material entity independent of its Creator, nor as a mere byproduct of environment, economics, genetics, or social structures. Rather, Islam views the human being as a created, inherently needy (mufteqir) creature before God, endowed with immense material and spiritual dimensions, and capable of both spiritual elevation and moral degradation.
Hence, the “Islamicity” of the human sciences does not mean decorating Western sciences with a few religious texts. Instead, it requires re-evaluating the scientific and academic methodology used to understand the image of the human being itself, along with the concepts, classifications, and ultimate aims upon which the human sciences are built.
However, I do not claim that an Islamic alternative is ready today. We are in a foundational phase. One of its main goals is to identify where certain modern conceptualizations contradict the Islamic worldview, and to establish a specialized social and scientific environment—cultivated either within an Islamic state or an Islamic civilization, and safeguarded by sound reason, religion, values, ethics, divine revelation, and merciful guidance (al-tasdeed al-rahmaniyy). We then leave the task of building methodology and codifying mature scientific alternatives and models to scholars and specialists across time, through rigorous scientific interaction with others.
2. Where does the core problem lie in Western Human Sciences?
The problem does not necessarily lie in every empirical finding reached by modern human sciences; these sciences contain significant epistemic achievements that cannot be ignored and upon which contemporary scholars have been trained. Rather, the problem lies deeper—within certain philosophical and anthropological assumptions that have been generalized across vast domains of these sciences.
Key Structural Flaws Include:
Colonial Legacy: The impact of colonial backgrounds in understanding foreign societies within the social sciences.
Mentality of Hegemony: The drive to control and manage individuals when interpreting human behavior, particularly within psychology.
Financial & Political Influence: The impact of financial elites and power policies on scientific trajectories, elevating certain unproven hypotheses to the status of established theories.
Unwarranted Generalization: Extrapolating specific, localized conclusions to all human beings, religions, and social phenomena.
When the foundational model of the human being in research is materialist, individualistic, relativistic, or severed from Divine purpose, it directly skews the interpretation of behavior, ethics, family, sexuality, religion, society, and even the meanings of freedom and happiness. While specific empirical findings may hold true within their narrow experimental scope, their overarching philosophical interpretation or absolute generalization across humanity remains deeply flawed.
3. How should a Muslim researcher approach Western Human Sciences?
I advocate neither absolute rejection nor uncritical acceptance. The most productive stance is to utilize scientific achievements while rigorously examining their premises, methodologies, and conclusions to uncover instances of distortion, error, bias, or overgeneralization.
We are not faced with a binary choice of accepting Western human sciences in their entirety or tearing them down completely. A Muslim researcher can leverage statistical tools, field methodologies, sociological surveys, and accumulated empirical data, while posing critical questions:
Is the interpretation assigned to these data points the only possible interpretation?
Do the concepts and classifications utilized truly reflect the human condition across all times and places?
From this baseline, the process of reconstructing specific disciplines can begin—not through a pre-packaged theoretical decree, but through the active engagement of Muslim scholars and field specialists with both the Islamic heritage and contemporary knowledge. Naturally, building a stable, integrated scientific ecosystem requires institutions and an Islamic state capable of funding scientific research and sustaining an environment that allows this project to accumulate across generations.
4. What is the methodology for producing knowledge in Islamic Human Sciences?
At this stage, there is no need to rush into establishing a closed, “final methodology.” It is sufficient to define our general orientation: the Qur’an, the Prophetic Sunnah, Intellect (Aql), empirical observation, and modern scientific data are all valid tools and sources that must enter the research process, provided the function and boundary of each are clearly understood.
