جزیره علم

 Mahdi Movahed-Abtahi

BASIR Inst. for Medical and Islamic Research

Tawhid paradigm Manages Practice of Scientific Knowledge

Religious science has raised many debates on religion and science`s role but most of theories and studies that the philosophers of science and religion, natural scientists, religion leaders, and other researchers presented, have not solved related challenges and remaining questions:

1. How does science relate to monotheism vs. polytheism?
2. How paradigmatic approach superior related theories?
3. Is there any similarity between religion and paradigm?

Before any assay, I must clarify my assumptions:

• Religion means a popular meaning or -as in my view- refers to monotheistic religions originated from revelation (Judaism, Christian, and Islam as the last version of divine revealed religion).
• Revelation is the origin of knowledge directly (via prophecy or scripture) or indirectly (via Imams), the most characteristic of the religion.
• Paradigm –in Kuhn`s view- epistemologically and methodologically guides scientists to interest and to work in a specific discipline of knowledge and in a subtle manner. So, paradigm values directly supreme scientific society in a specific trend, not as a model.
• Science is a discipline of human knowledge with specific epistemology and methodology.

Therefore, I will explain tawhid paradigm`s role through four arguments :

1. How the idea of tawhid lies at the heart of last version of monotheism (Islam).
2. How tawhid (unity and unicity of God) disseminates values originated from fundamental values which reflect a unique source.
3. How Islam represents tawhid paradigm for practice of knowledge.
4. How tawhid paradigm manages practice of scientific knowledge through ‘commitment’ of the society to its ‘values’, ‘guidance’ of its practitioners to ‘attracted’ experiments (insights), and ‘amazing/surprising’ (healing) them via its ‘surprising solutions’ (miracles).

More discussion asserts the process of knowledge and science production.

In this article, I do not discuss on objectivity vs. rationality or on competitor religious paradigms. I focus on Islam as the last version of divine revealed religion, use ‘religion’ to refer to monotheistic religions (Islam, Christian, Judaism), and put away not revealed believes such as polytheism or pagans.

In this article, I abstain from 1) too focus on specific debates emerged within Christianity vs. Judaism, rational vs. natural sciences, and etc, 2) known methodology and epistemology of writers on religious science (elmedini) for ignoring scientific explanation of knowledge production or articulating knowledge management theories in their claims and discussions.

I adopt the followings as my prepositions: 1) science as a “discipline of human knowledge defined by specific epistemology and methodology”, 2) science encounters natural, rational, and humanities instead of only natural science, 3) fact is an exegetical concept distinct from our interpretation of fact.

Here I show the similarity between religion and paradigm. Monotheism religions represent primitive values that guide applicable values in each religion. Also, these primitive values originate from a unique germinate value named as the unique God. Tawhid is an Islamic theory of value`s originality and productivity know. So, tawhid likes a paradigm guiding its followers. So, I can desire tawhid as a meta-paradigm encounters all monotheistic religions. Now, I must describe its functions and role in the process of knowledge production.