What is “Islamic science”? Many would answer: “It is the religious sciences.” However, the distinction between “religious sciences” (the Quran, the Sunnah, the hadith, the shari’ah, etc.) and “secular sciences” (natural sciences, human sciences, and the humanities) is not Islamic, contrary to what is believed today.

The history of Islamic civilization—with that of mosques, universities, libraries, and manuscripts—shows that research and teaching integrated a diversity of knowledge such as mathematics, logic, architecture, commerce, international relations, etc. We also find this diversity of knowledge valued and taught within the framework of Islamic science, for example in the work of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Redynamiser les sciences de la religion .

This book invites us to revitalize Islamic science today. Because Islam is not simply a set of subjects related to religion, alongside all the subjects related to "profane" life: it is a way of seeing and orienting all areas of knowledge and activity in life.

So, how can Islam enlighten and guide the way of doing “human sciences”? In other words, how can it help to better understand the human being and transform society to build a more just world? This is the big question addressed here, through the work of Al-Faruqi.

About the author

Isma'il Raji al-Faruqi (1921-1986) is one of the greatest intellectuals who still inspires the current era, the Western and Muslim world, especially in Asia, the Arab and Anglo-Saxon world. All his work revolves around a great idea: the sublime love of God must be realized through the love of the True, the Good, the Just and the Beautiful, in all human activities. Islam is then a concrete path that leads to the formation of a good person and a just human civilization.