Interview of Dr Osman Bakar by Dr Hamid Naseem Rafiabadi.

28 December 2023

Transcribed by Safiyyah Sabreen Syeed [1]

Dr Hamid Naseem Rafiabadi: There are different terms used in the Quran like Aql, Tafakkur, Tadabbur, Ta’aqqul, Hikmah, Nazar and Basira. These are the different ways or methods of knowledge. Or we can call them the different sources of knowledge. How has the Quran integrated these different sources? I have noticed that in the Quran that Tafakkur is mostly related to religious matters. Ta’aqqul is common sense. Tafakkur is mostly related with science. As the Quran says “Yatafakkaruna fi khalqis samawaati wal ardhi” (They reflect over the creation of the heavens and the earth.) (Quran 3:191) So we can see how the Quran has integrated the sources of knowledge.

Dr Osman Bakar: The approach of the Quran is integrated. The Quran does not separate between the physical and non-physical sciences. The Quran uses the term ‘Basira’. Yes, from the viewpoint of language, we can say it means sight or insight, what can be seen or perceived. But the Quran uses both (its meanings of physical as well as spiritual sight or insight)

Dr Hamid : Not only physical but also spiritual (vision).

Dr Osman: It includes the physical but does not confine it to the physical. The Quran is interested in a total vision.

Dr Hamid: As the Quran says, “ there are signs on earth for those with sure faith. As there are within your selves. Do you not see?” (Quran 51:20–21)

Dr Osman: Allah swt has used each word very carefully (in the Quran). If one particular word is used to describe a phenomenon. But in another place a different word is used for it. So we have to look at the context and semantics.

Dr Hamid: During the time of the Sahaba, they used to discuss these terms ‘takakkur, tadabbur, ta’aqqul’. How did they see these terms? So for example, the first generation scholars like Ibn Abbas, then earlier scholars like Tabari, then Ghazzali and Ibn Kathir, how different were the meanings given to these terms by these different generations of scholars ?

Dr Osman: For that I think we need the help of history, the history of ideas in Islam. Certainly we have to consult how the Mufassiroon (exegetes of the Quran) had been reading these terms in their times. There has been a historical development (regarding terminology). In the beginning the interest in these terms was there. Some of the sahaba discussed these terms. Over the centuries, the coinage of technical terms took place. The Islamic spiritual tradition was developed. There was a change in semantics. So for example the Quran implied a much broader meaning but later some people semantically narrowed them down. For eg. the word ‘Fiqh’, if you go into the semantics of this word, Fiqh in the Quran means ‘general understanding’. But later it became a technical term. Ghazzali points it out.

Dr Hamid: Imam Ghazzali does say that before, the meaning of ‘fiqh’ was related to Deen. Now it has become related to (matters of) Dunya. So a lot of change has taken place.

Dr Osman: It is our job as professors and academics to make sure that the original meaning is not lost.

Dr Hamid: This was about the earlier period, related to the Quran , Sunnah and the life of the Prophet (saw) and the Sahaba. Now going to the period of the Mutakallimun. How did they use these terms because (during that time) there was a great impact of Greek Philosophy? Earlier Muslims saw things in the light of the Quran and Sunnah. But now (during the Kalam period) they were seeing in the light of the Quran, (sunnah), Greek Philosophy and other streams of thought. How did this impact the meanings of these terms?

Dr Osman: Yes, all these are issues that we can study. But it must be done when the goal is clear. We want to make sure that the Ummah enjoys greater clarity of thought, not worse. Whatever we want to do, we want to clarify methods. We don’t want to confuse people.

Dr Hamid: There surely is a lot of confusion. I was reading an article that discussed how (allegedly) there can be no Islamization of knowledge and this is not integration, but disintegration of knowledge.

Dr Osman: People today don’t want to use the term ‘Islamization of knowledge’. They want to go with ‘Integration of Knowledge’. If the context of the debate related to the Integration is lost sight of, then there will be more confusion. I was lucky to study Mathematics at the college level. The discipline that uses the concept of Integration alot is Mathematics. We perform Integration all the time in Mathematics. When you perform integration, you are integrating into something more broader and more comprehensive. You don’t integrate into something which is narrow. With limited ideas we can get data. Then we integrate that into broader fields of knowledge or into a broader theory. That is the idea of Integration of Knowledge.

Dr Hamid: (This is) the theory of all things.

Dr Osman: That’s why I emphasize that our most important instrument of Integration of Knowledge is the principle of Tawhid. This principle of Tawhid needs to be understood at different levels. Tawhid is present at many different levels of knowledge. And what the Quran does is to integrate these different levels of knowledge. Allah integrated the whole of knowledge in this principle of Tawhid. This is the unity of God and His Qualities or Asma al Husna. This is the theoretical principle of Integration. Everything should be integrated with this principle. Thus, there is a lot of work to be done.

Dr Hamid: Now going to Muslim Philosophers, starting from Al Kindi, Al Farabi, Ibn Sina etc, What areas should we focus on for philosophical integration?

Dr Osman: If we are talking about today what the modern world has achieved is all in terms of data. They have developed so many fields of study, for example in Biology. We require a Philosophy of Biology. The modern mind is so good at collecting data. But they do not have a good conceptual instrument. They do not have a good integrating principle. They have never performed any real Integration (of Knowledge). They have integrated only some but never all (fields of knowledge). So they have a lot of scattered data. (On the contrary) Allah has blessed us with the Tawhidic Principle which can be understood at various levels. For example, at the level of Biology, which I call Tawhid understood at the Bio-physical level. This is the idea of Unity. Unity is present everywhere. Years back when I wrote my book, Critique of Evolutionary Theory, I criticized the modern theory of Evolution, precisely because of its poor performance at integrating the great biological data, collected by Darwin. (That is) because they don’t have an integrating principle. Islamic Biology (on the contrary) would offer a different principle by which you could integrate all the facts about living organisms like plants, animals and humans. Now we are going deep into the study of cells, genome and DNA, plenty of data but no fresh ideas are coming out of this field. Why? Because they stick to just one level of Reality. They don’t want to go to the other levels of Reality.

And this is true even for the social sciences. Now we live in a world where interactions between religions are very real. We have data from different religions. It is open to us as we no longer live in an isolated world. We are face to face with other religions. So how do you make sense of terms pertaining to religious ideas used by different religious communities ? We can make sense of these despite the difference in terminology because of the commonality in the idea. There may be some common ideas underlying those different concepts. This is the future of Islam. Because we belong to the religion of Unity, the Quran will be the Book that’s meant to integrate all these different phenomena.

Dr Hamid: In these times, religion is used for disintegration. Whereas the Quran calls for Integration when it says, “Come to a common word between us and you all.” (Quran 3:64)

This is an interesting point. So we can say philosophy or science in this sense has disintegrated knowledge in the western context. Whereas our philosophy has integrated knowledge at different levels and in different ways.

Dr Osman: We need to have a philosophy precisely to come up with this concept of Integration.

Dr Hamid: I feel that the people who are dealing with the Integration of Knowledge are not invoking Philosophy. They do not have a grounding in Philosophy. They are just talking about it at the sociological level. They are not going deep into the roots of Integration. It needs a philosophical touch and then we can integrate it with our own legacy.

Dr Osman: Allah has blessed us with that precisely. The Ummah has been blessed with this Tawhidic Principle which is a (unifying and) integrating principle.

Dr Hamid: A lady asked me a question about how Muslim philosophers (and theologians) retained (and protected) the Principle of Tawhid? I told her that whatever their denominations they retained the principle of Tawhid. [2]

Dr Osman: We have nothing to fear from the ideas that come from other sources. Because the principle of Tawhid is intact.

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[1] Text within brackets is written by the scribe. I seek forgiveness from the scholars if I have misunderstood a term or sentence. The audio was not very clear. Below are some introductions.

Integration of Knowledge: To understand Integration of knowledge we must first understand the concept of Islamization of Knowledge. Islamization of Knowledge is a conceptual framework that advocates for the integration of Islamic teachings with modern academic disciplines, such as the social sciences, management sciences, humanities, sciences, engineering, and technology. This model posits that all knowledge and science should be consistent with the principles of Islam, aiming to foster a holistic understanding of the world through an Islamic worldview. While, the roots of this view date back to the Prophetic era, but in the current era this initiative traces its roots to the 1977 Makkah conference, an influential event that triggered a dialogue among Islamic intellectuals regarding the role of Islam in shaping knowledge and understanding in the modern world. Among these intellectuals, Isma’il Raji al-Faruqi played a pivotal role in formalizing and articulating the concept. Al-Faruqi expressed his concerns about the secularization of knowledge in Muslim societies which he identified as the main reason for the “the malaise of the ummah” . The Islamization of Knowledge encourages a shift from segregated learning (where religious and secular knowledge is separated) to an integrated system interpreted through an Islamic lens. The concept of the Islamization of Knowledge has significantly influenced the establishment of various academic institutions, leading to the establishment of institutions such as the Islamic Universities of Malaysia, Pakistan and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (USA), all of which focus on intellectual development and research inspired by the principles of the Islamization of Knowledge. Various scholars such as Abu Sulayman Abdul Hamid, Mohd Kamal Hasan, Sayyid Naquib al Attas and Osman Bakar have contributed to this project. Dr Osman Bakar prefers to use the term Integration of Knowledge instead. In his book the History and Philosophy of Islamic Science he argues for the revival of Islamic Science, Philosophy and Epistemology, all of which are crucial for the project of Integration of Knowledge. This project is a blessed endevour that aims to bring about a global intellectual revival in the Ummah just on lines of the intellectual revolution that was brought about by the Prophet (saw) with the revelation of the Quran.

Dr Osman Bakar is a doctorate in Islamic philosophy from Temple University, Philadelphia (USA) is currently holder of Al-Ghazali Chair of Epistemology and Civilizational Studies and Renewal at the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC), International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). He is also Emeritus Professor in Philosophy of Science at University of Malaya. He was formerly Distinguished Professor and Director of Sultan Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien Centre for Islamic Studies (SOASCIS), Universiti Brunei Darussalam. Dr Osman was also formerly Malaysia Chair of Islam in Southeast Asia at the Prince Talal al-Waleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University, Washington DC, and Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic and Research) at University of Malaya. Dr Osman is author and editor of 40 books and more than 300 articles on various aspects of Islamic thought and civilization, particularly Islamic science and philosophy in which he is a leading authority. His most well-known books are Classification of Knowledge in Islam (1992) and Tawhid and Science (1992). His latest books are titled Al-Farabi: Life, Works and Significance (2018) (new second edition) and Colonialism in the Malay Archipelago: Civilizational Encounters (co-editor) (2020). He has been named among the 500 most influential Muslims in the world since 2009. He was made a Dato’ in 1994 by HRH Sultan of Pahang and a Datuk by HM the King of Malaysia in 2000. His major contributions include popularizing “Islamic science” and the intellectual discourse of “religion and science”, and he has contributed to advancing cross-cultural studies, history and philosophy of science. His intellectual contributions made an impact in his own country, Malaysia, as well as in different parts of the Muslim world. He is the principal founder of the Islamic Academy of Science, which was founded in 1977.

Dr Hamid Naseem Rafiabadi is a senior academic and an award winning Philosopher and author from the Kashmir valley. He was the Director at International Centre for Spiritual Studies Islamic University of Science and Technology (IUST) Awantipora. Formerly he was head of the Department of Islamic Studies of Kashmir University. He served as the Dean Social Sciences, Central University and Head of the Department of Religious Studies at Central University, Kashmir, along with teaching Religion and philosophy at Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi, India. He is the Academic convener of the Committee for Philosophy, IOS, New Delhi, Youth convener and governing body member of World Fellowship of Interreligious Councils (WFIRC) Kerala. He was the Core Group Member of International Center for Religion and Diplomacy (ICRD) Washington USA, Honorary Director of Islamic Relief and Research Trust (IRRT) Kashmir and Governing Committee Member of All India Milli Council.

He has written 60 books on Islamic Philosophy, Epistemology, World Religious and Inter Religious Dialogue, Peace and Islamic contributions to civilization, science and technology. He was the resource person in several workshops conducted by IIIT Malaysia at Malaysian and Indonesian Universities from 2014 to 2015. He is an expert on Nursian thought and has delivered several key note lectures on Nursi, at Turkey, India and Malaysia. He is writing an encyclopedic Tafsir of the Qur’an, two volumes of which have already been published.

[2] This question was asked by me. You can watch the interview here https://youtu.be/vQH14x2Ya9Q?si=1bwy-6vP3FS63q5m