(IFER)
This page is currently under construction.
طَلَبُ العِلْمِ فَريْضَةٌ على كلِّ مسلمٍ ومسلمه
"Seeking of Knowledge is an obligation upon every Muslim, Be It a man or a woman" Mishkaat
"Read! In the Name of your Lord Who has created (all that exists). He has created man from a clot (a piece of thick coagulated blood). Read! And your Lord is the Most Generous. Who has taught(the writing) by the pen. He has taught man that which he knew not" (96: 1-5)
"Elevated status is accorded to those who seek, possess, teach and act upon knowledge. Dismiss any thought of equality between those who know and those who do not" (39:9)
"Verily in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day - there are indeed signs for men of understanding; Men who remember Allah, standing, sitting, and lying down on their sides, and contemplate the creation of the heavens and the earth (with the thought) "Our Lord! Not for nothing have You created (all) this. Glory to You! Give us salvation from the suffering of the Fire."(3:190-191)
"Say: Travel through the earth and see how Allah originated creation; so will Allah produce the second creation (of the Afterlife): for Allah has power over all things." (29:20)
The above Quranic verses undoubtedly reveal Allah’s instruction
to man about the attainment of knowledge. In fact one-eighth of the Qur’an
is a call for Muslims to seek Allah’s signs in the universe and hence
that science is a spiritual as well as a temporal duty for Muslims. Perhaps
the most widely used argument one hears is that the Prophet Muhammad had
exhorted his followers to “seek knowledge even if it is in China,” which
implies that a Muslim is duty-bound to search for nowledge
With the advent of Islam in the 6th century, its followers, as instructed by Quran, placed huge emphasis on the attainment of all forms of knowledge, including the undertaking of scientific research. Muslim rulers established governments which had set up the unrivaled intellectual centers for science, philosophy, medicine and education.
Not only were great Caliphs able to expand Islamic rule to all corners of Asia and Africa as well as part of Eurpoe, they established just societies and provided exceptional opportunities to their subjects, both Muslims and non-Muslims. Within one hundred years of passing away of the holy prophet, the Islamic empire extended from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to Central Asia in the east. The subsequent empires of the Umayyads, Abbasids, the Fatimids, the Mughals, the Safavids, and Ottomans were among the largest and most powerful in the world.
The Islamic civilization, within its first five hundred years, gave rise to many centers of culture and science and produced notable scientists, astronomers, mathematicians, doctors and philosophers. This period is often referred to as the Golden Age of Islam. The great institutions of political and civil administration intiated and established by Caliph Omar (PBUH) inspired rulers for centuries.
Not only were great spiritual, moral and humanistic principles followed, they significantly invested in economic infrastructure, established educational institutions, enhanced knwoledge at all levels and made great advancements in engineering, industry and technology. Great libraries and the Houses of Wisdom were established in Baghdad and other major cities around the Muslim world, attracting scholars from all corners of the globe.
The Qur'an acknowledges and even encourages the acquisition of a broad spectrum of beneficial knowledge, including scientific knowledge, and urges humans to reflect on the natural phenomena as signs of God's creation. For more than five hundred years since the 6th century, almost the entire scientific development took place in the Muslim world. The Muslims at the time were influenced by Quranic injunctions and hadith such as "The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of martyrs" which highlights the merits of knowledge.
The Guinness Book of World Records recognizes the University of Al Karaouine in Fez, Morocco as the oldest degree-granting university in the world with its founding in 859. Al-Azhar University, founded in Cairo, Egypt in the 975, offered a variety of academic degrees, including postgraduate degrees, and is often considered the first full-fledged university in history. The origins of the doctorate also dates back to the ijazat attadris wa 'l-ifttd ("license to teach and issue legal opinions") in the medieval Madrasahs which taught Islamic law.
By the 10th century, Cordoba had 700 mosques, 60,000 palaces, and 70 libraries, the largest of which had 600,000 books. In the whole al-Andalus, 60,000 treatises, poems, polemics and compilations were published each year. The library of Cairo had two million books, while the library of Tripoli is said to have had as many as three million books before it was destroyed by Crusaders. The number of important and original medieval Arabic works on the mathematical sciences far exceeds the combined total of medieval Latin and Greek works of comparable significance, although only a small fraction of the surviving Arabic scientific works have been studied in modern times.
A number of distinct features of the modern library were introduced in the Islamic world, where libraries not only served as a collection of manuscripts as was the case in ancient libraries, but also as a public library and lending library, a centre for the instruction and spread of sciences and ideas, a place for meetings and discussions, and sometimes as a lodging for scholars or boarding school for pupils. The concept of the library catalogue was also introduced in medieval Islamic libraries, where books were organized into specific genres and categories.
Several fundamental common law institutions may have been adapted from similar legal institutions in Islamic law and jurisprudence, and introduced to England by the Normans after the Norman conquest of England and the Emirate of Sicily, and by Crusaders during the Crusades. In particular, the "royal English contract protected by the action of debt is identified with the Islamic Aqd, the English assize of novel disseisin is identified with the Islamic Istihqaq, and the English jury is identified with the Islamic Lafif." Other legal
institutions introduced in Islamic law include the trust and charitable trust (Waqf), and the agency and aval (Hawala), and the lawsuit and medical peer review. Other English legal institutions such as "the scholastic method, the license to teach," the "law schools known as Inns of Court in England and Madrasas in Islam" and the "European commenda" (Islamic Qirad) may have also originated from Islamic law. These influences have led some scholars to suggest that Islamic law may have laid the foundations for "the common law as an integrated whole.”
The Muslim world produced great inventors in the field of physics and chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, geography as well as in medicine and the social sciences. Earlier some inventions by Greek, Chinese and Indian scientists were known, however these civilizations fell back into darkness for many centuries. The mathematician Al-Khwarizmi, from whose name the word algorithm derives, is considered to be the father of algebra. Muslim chemists and alchemists played an important role in the foundation of modern chemistry. Scholars such as Will Durant and Alexander von Humboldt regard Muslim chemists to be the founders of chemistry. In particular, Geber (polymath) is regarded as the "father of chemistry". Some of the other most famous scientists from the Islamic world al-Farabi (polymath), Abu al-Qasim (father of modern surgery), Ibn al-Haytham (universal genius, father of optics, founder of psychophysics and experimental psychology, pioneer of scientific method, "first scientist"), Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī (universal genius, father of Indology and geodesy, "first anthropologist"), Ibn-e-Sina (universal genius, father of momentum and modern medicine), Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī (polymath), and Ibn Khaldun (father of demography, cultural history, historiography, the philosophy of history, sociology, and the social sciences), among many others. During those five hundred years great advances were made in engineering and technology such as paper mills, gun powder, windmill, hydropower, windpower, steam power, fossil fules, crankshafts and water turbines and many more. The models of Islamic architecture, philiosophy, calligraphy, literature and poetry speak of themselves. Damascus and Baghdad had the institutions of learning unparalleled in the rest of the world.
During 11th and 12th centuries, Muslim empires suffered severe setbacks due to crusades which caused severe harm to many institutions of learning in Islamic world.
From 13th century, European scientists also joined in the efforts of scientific research. Since the 15th century, Muslim nations declined further as Muslim rulers around the world engaged in luxury and comforts and Europeans strengthened themselves on all fronts.
Many people complain about repeated internal violence in Muslim states during those thousand years. However, it is important to note that there were long periods of stability followed by temporary phases of political volatility. It was often caused by some unscrupulous elements which led to assassinations and hostilities amongst rival political groups. Such incidents were always overcome through return of successful governments headed by caliphs who continued the path of progress. Western civilizations faced much larger challenges through disputes amongst their countries during their period of growth. This eventually led to two world wars and killing of millions of people and division of Europe in leftist eastern and right wing western blocks. However western civilizations have been able to maintain the course of progress. Thus it would be unwise to highlight the occasional violence from within during more than thousand years of Muslim rule as it also did not hinder their progress. The first five hundred years of this Muslim rule were a fine example of perfectionism followed by another five hundred years when Muslim rulers failed to maintain the high standards of morality set by their predecessors. In comparison, one would notice that current western civilization is marred by many evils which was not the case during the Golden Age of Islam. The western civilization to a large degree followed socio-capitalism and are able to provide high standards of living with adequate social welfare schemes, health care and a high level of education to its own people. In the name of human freedom, however, and hidden by capitalist interests, they exploited human weaknesses and promoted evils such as alcohol, gambling, sex etc. An extreme form of capitalism always existed as a part of western economies. Western nations also failed to a great extent in their duties towards poorer and weaker nations and further subjugated such countries through invasions and mass killings.
Over the past four hundred years, Islamic rulers lost power due to their weaknesses and were unable to face the onslaught of western countries. In response to such adversity, Isalmic institutions of learning adopted a much more conservative approach and confined Islam to a few basic beliefs and rituals. For some strange reasons, the pioneers of scientific research and knowledge turned against it. The Islamic scholars started opposing scientific inventions and worldly knowledge. Whether it was a conspiracy by the new rulers of Muslim lands to misguide the coming generations of Muslims or if it was a reaction by the Islamic institutions in an effort to oppose the invaders and the new rulers of their lands, will remain unknown.
Islam was now turned into a mystical religion which had basic beliefs in the lord of the universe, his prophets, angles, life hereafter and practice of basic prayers, rituals and some charity. Even rituals of prayers, quran recitation etc had lost true significance as most Muslims did not understand the meaning of what they recited and practiced. Attainment of knowledge was discouraged and not only did Muslims themselves not participate in scientific research, they even opposed the scientific knowledge produced by others. Use of many scientific instruments was declared haram, institutions providing modern education were declared un-Islamic and Muslims were told to confine themselves to the study of Quran and Sunnah and that too their conservative interpretation developed during last couple of centuries. Certainly these Muslims had no resemblance with the Muslims of the past golden age of Islam.
For more than last two hundred years, traditional Islamic institutions ignored basics of “Ilm” (knowledge), "tafakkur (reflection and contemplation)", Ijtehad ( Strive intellectually to comprehend problems) and Ijma (Consensus). While the rest of the world took huge leaps in all forms of knowledge, Muslims continued with the earlier interpretations of spiritual beliefs, legal, economic, scientific and social theories. They failed to address the challenges of modern times. Rapid development in various sciences and technology brought about rapid changes in the living of human society. Islamic institutions failed to develop an understanding of these changes. While during the golden age of Islam, Muslims took lead in the development of various sciences, today’s Muslims even failed to learn what others have developed.
The aim of IFER is to develop an understanding of various modern subjects and issues in light of Islam. This will help in clarifying doubts in the minds of Muslims living in modern societies. IFER will collect research papers from intellectuals and experts of different fields who have studied the Quran and Hadith. They will be asked to interpret the Quran and Hadith to research their specific field and prepare theories and guidelines. IFER also aims to research the true spirit behind the fundamentals and prescribed duties of Muslims so as to give Muslim masses true understanding of the rituals they undertake as their religious duties. The rituals and religious practices should not only be looked at as tools for seeking salvation in the life hereafter or assuring a place in Jannah but also as means of developing the character of a momin.
IFER is not seeking confrontation with the established institutions but will help them consider the changes needed through persuasion, negotiation, cooperation and coordination. Research papers will help the participating scholars in developing new theories based on Islamic principles, redefine halal and haram in gray areas and prepare formulae to face the challenges of modern day living.
IFER also aims to inspire Muslim youth to excel in education, impress on Muslim governments to invest extensively in education and research and award not only the Muslim scientist but even non-Muslim scientists who are willing to come to their countries for strengthening their research institutions.
Furthermore, IFER aims to influence Muslim governments to promote social welfare, eliminate corruption in all aspects of public life and endorse an Islamic form of democracy. Muslim scholars will be asked to prepare papers to help Muslim governments in implementing such programmes.
Inshallah, such an effort will help Muslim ummah in preparing themselves to lead the world again in all fields while maintaining Islamic principles as the foundation of their life.
IFER's activities will mainly utilise the Internet as a platform. It will have a team of eight to ten scholars (in different countries) who will evaluate the submitted papers and publish them on the IFER website for further discussion. Readers from around the world will be asked to post their comments. Once a consensus is reached after necessary amendments to the original work, the new concept will be admitted by IFER as an acceptable theory within the Islamic framework. IFER will then submit these theories to leading Islamic institutions. IFER will negotiate and discuss with these institutions to reach an agreement so that the new theories and concepts could be conveyed to Muslim Ummah.
The ultimate effort of IFER is to research and follow Islam of the Golden age which had inspired Muslims to be the leaders of the world in all fields. In doing so, Muslims will regain the glory of the past, find an honourable place in the world community and eventually lead the world again by example.
REFERENCES:
1. Joel L. Kraemer (1992), Humanism in the Renaissance of
Islam
2. Matthew E. Falagas, Effie A. Zarkadoulia, George Samonis (2006). "Arab
science in the golden age (750–1258 C.E.) and today"
3. Ibrahim B. Syed PhD, "Islamic Medicine: 1000 years ahead of its
times"