Seyed Rouhollah Noorafshan; Javad Rezaei Esfahrood
Abstract
This research aims to introduce and evaluate the approach of the Islamic Sciences Academy in confronting Western humanities. The methodology is descriptive-analytical and based on a ...
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This research aims to introduce and evaluate the approach of the Islamic Sciences Academy in confronting Western humanities. The methodology is descriptive-analytical and based on a library study. The findings indicate that the principles of the primacy of agency (asālat al-fā'ilīyah) and guardianship (wilāyah) form two fundamental bases of evaluation for the Academy. On the one hand, the Academy ascribes several main characteristics to Western humanities. This evaluation, combined with the civilizational perspective held by the Academy, leads to the rejection of all existing approaches toward Western humanities. The Academy considers only its own approach—the so-called "systematic theory"—as effective in relation to Western humanities. The outcome of this approach is that in the course of producing Islamic humanities, the use of Western sciences is considered impossible, and even assuming the existence of positive elements within Western civilization, these elements cannot be isolated or extracted. Despite some strengths, this approach has significant weaknesses, the most important of which are: reliance on false foundations; weakness in theoretical development; contradictions within the approach; and dominance of anti-Western attitudes over research-based Western studies.
