Towards a Scientific Approach for Integrating Science’s Outputs and Islamic Concepts—Part 2

Abstract

The intellectual Muslim community lives in a dichotomy between faith and science. On one hand, the Islamic teaching tells us that knowledge brings us closer to God and substantiates our faith with rational evidence. On the other hand, the predominant western culture in scientific circles rejects the concept of believing in the unseen and classifies it under the topic of metaphysics, with all the negative connotations associated with this topic. As a result, the path of living according to faith and the path of scientific investigation grew divergent from each other, with no apparent point of intersection. This article is aimed at removing the obstacles erected by the empiricists in the scientific method, which hinder the integration of religious knowledge and scientific output in a unified framework. Our discussion of the scientific method from an Islamic perspective shows that rational and empirical faculties can be utilised to their fullest potential in a complementary manner. Emerging from the concept that religion and science are two valuable engines of human civilisation, an ideologybased approach for the study of natural systems can be adopted. This second part of the article sets the foundation for integrating induction and deduction in a unified framework.