Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Quest for an Islamic Episteme: Humanism as a Case Study

Abstract

Looking for an Islamic humanism in the Western sense of the word is utterly irrelevant to the spirit of Islam which poses man as a vicegerent of God, not as his structural opposite. The essence of all values in Islam issues from God and obedience to God frees man from superstitions and systems that limit his potential by endowing him as a moral agent with the freedom to choose between good and evil. Al-Faruqi & al-Faruqi (1986) show the epistemological biases of Western intellectual traditions which distinguish between two realms of knowing the world: the secular, rational mundane world and the fantastic, irrational religious world. This distinction is not problematic in Arabic Islamic religious tradition and is not the outcome of the separation of church and state.