IN SEARCH OF SUITABLE KNOWLEDGE THE NEED OF ONTOLOGICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL PLURALISM

WARDAH ALKATIRI

ABSTRACT

This article points up a very crucial, yet non-political and non-economic issue, involved
in the enduring conflict between Islam and the West which, unfortunately, has not been
given adequate attention academically. The article highlights debate among Muslim
thinkers regarding Muslim’s reconstruction of knowledge project that emerged as
reaction against the perceived incompatibility between modern knowledge system and
the ‘Islamic minds’. The project aims at cognitive transformation towards a ‘unified
systemic worldview’ of Islam where no barrier would appear to exist between the sacred
and the secular. My argument was made from the perspective of secularization theory
and the Perennial Philosophy approach of religion. Accordingly, with the concept of
human as spiritual being - a contrast to Western’s vantage point in social sciences in
which human is perceived to struggle only for economic gain and power - this article
explains Muslim’s reconstruction of knowledge project as reaction against cognitive
dissonance inasmuch as inconsistencies appear between one’s belief, cognition and
action. This proposition runs counter to the often cited Foucault’s ‘power/knowledge’
explanation in which Muslim’s resistance to modern knowledge system appears as
merely anti-colonial/anti-imperial struggles. The paper ultimately suggests the need of
ontological and epistemological pluralism to exist, to make the dialogue between Islam
and the West possible.