[0:00]All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the Worlds Peace and blessings be upon our prophet Muhammad, his family and companions. Oh Allah! Nothing is easy except what You have made easy If You wish, You can make the difficult easy. We need this dua when we discuss such a topic that has some difficulty and confusion. It is a very important topic because it establishes the foundations upon which knowledge is based Many people had their knowledge stranded because of the disturbance they had in the topic of this lecture So getting a firm grip on today's topic will help, if Allah wishes, in building a sound lifelong knowledge base So the topic is very important. Our topic is Epistemology. The title of this lecture is Facilitating Islamic Epistemology and an Overview of some of its schools The elements of this lecture.. This lecture is composed of six elements The first element is a preface, The second is the meaning of Epistemology and its components, The third is the importance of Epistemology, and its consequences. The fourth is a historical overview of Epistemology, The fifth is the possibility of knowledge (Knowledge: between Doubt and Certainty), And the sixth is the Sources of Knowledge: between Islam and Philosophy, Sunnah and Bid’ah (heresy). Six elements. We will try to cover them as much as possible We pray to Allah for guidance and facilitation The first element: Preface I will draw your attention to five points in the preface
[2:19]The first point I will not restrict myself to the layout of Epistemology as in the books of philosophy Rather, I will rearrange some topics, I will focus on some topics,
[2:37]I will skip some topics, so we can focus on Epistemology from an Islamic perspective, and I will skip the topics that are related to knowledge but are not that important. The second point in the preface I will ensure mentioning the Islamic viewpoints on Epistemology, because I do not want the outcome of this lecture to be a philosophical lesson about the schools of Epistemology without knowing right from wrong and truth from falsehood This is an issue that faces some of those who talk about topics that have many schools they present these different schools and refer to the Islamic perspective and move on.. What did you learn? You might not have a clear conclusion The third point in the preface Some claim that discussing Epistemology is trivial and does not contribute to building knowledge They might be excused if it was presented to them incorrectly, or if it was presented in an abstract fashion without addressing its importance The truth is that Epistemology is not just important, it is serious Epistemology and knowledge are very serious because any deviation influences knowledge composition for the rest of people's life. This is why it is very sensitive and serious, and not just important. The fourth point in the preface, It is very important. The western thought went through three periods The first period is the period of religious domination, where christian values dominated the western societies. This period is called the Middle Ages Then came the period of revolution on religion and favoring the mind and physical facts over facts and moral values provided by religion, which is known as modernism Knowledge in this era was provided as facts, and that man can discover the facts of the universe, and that human mind is independent on religion, and that it is capable of reaching the truth. This period continued for several centuries Then came the third period, which is the most dangerous, it is postmodernity Postmodernity says that neither religion nor mind can reach the truth In fact, there is nothing called truth. It is a relative aspect. There are no absolute facts, and humans cannot.. Who said that humans are the center of the universe? Humans are just an atom in a footnote of the universe and they are not the center. As what Abdulwahhab Almasiri said "A world where there is no steadiness except for movement, and no absoluteness except for relativity" Is it clear? It is a brief sentence, but it is profound. We are living the consequences of postmodernity.
[6:49]We are living its consequences in the streets The consequences include the aesthetic standards, popular arts, the moral breakdown, and removal of the absolute moral values. All of these are consequences of postmodernity. What is the benefit of mentioning this in the preface of our lecture “An Introduction to Epistemology”? The benefit is to say that humanity needs us. This is not an emotional or motivational talk. This is a genuine talk. Humanity is living a period of degradation, It is unusual from moral and knowledge perspectives. So you as a Muslim, despite the delay in many aspects, which you should admit and do not blame others for it, no matter what you lack in other fields, you should trust that you have a knowledge source. People need this knowledge source upon the chaos in the knowledge that we are living nowadays. So it is important to clarify Epistemology in Islam. The last point in the preface After contemplating these points that are related to Epistemology.. and now we will learn what is Epistemology.. your belief and love, respect, and certainty will grow in this religion that connects the dots, and reveals the great facts and realities clearly. It elucidates the pieces of evidence and proofs for topics that people debated and struggled in. So if Epistemology and Islam's standpoint of it are presented correctly, your belief and love of this great religion will grow. This was a necessary preface before getting into Epistemology. How many points does it consist of? Five points. I believe that they pave the way to talk about Epistemology. What is Epistemology? Epistemology is generally defined by its components you know that terms can be defined from several perspectives sometimes terms are defined by their components This is the case if we are talking about what is present but if we are talking from the perspective of logical conceptualization, there will be many considerations that will be explained, if Allah wills, in the lecture of an Introduction to Logic Epistemology is generally defined by its components.. by its contents I don't want to immerse you with plenty of definitions so I will choose one definition, which is mentioned in the Philosophical Dictionary by Jameel Saliba He defines Epistemology as: The research into the nature of knowledge, its origin, value, means, and limits. The research into the nature of knowledge, its origin, value, means, and limits. Through this definition and other definitions,
[10:46]we can say that the most important components of Epistemology are three components.. three aspects, the first aspect is the possibility of knowledge. What does the possibility of knowledge mean? No, its nature is a different aspect. The possibility of knowledge means are we able to know or not?
[11:20]Meaning that can we reach certainty or can we not? Can we form certain knowledge? Or is it that this world is surrounded by doubt and humans cannot get out of doubt to certainty We can include another topic under the possibility of knowledge we can include the limits of knowledge some people make it a separate aspect but we can include it meaning that if we say that certain knowledge is possible, what are the limits that we can reach with this knowledge? So I will present these two aspects together. The second aspect of Epistemology is the sources of knowledge. In my opinion, the sources of knowledge are the most important topic in Epistemology What are the sources from which we can obtain and draw knowledge? Its coherent order is right after the aspect of the possibility of knowledge, right? Because if you say that knowledge is possible, a question arises: From where can you draw this knowledge in which you prove its possibility? What is the benefit of mentioning the sources of knowledge if you did not study its possibility? You might also have a disagreement upon its possibility. Then comes the third aspect In my opinion, it is the least important despite covering many pages in the books of philosophy It is the nature of knowledge so I will not talk about the nature of knowledge in this lecture Though some might be surprised that I skipped a topic that covered many pages. Our topic is the facilitating Islamic Epistemology so we should focus on the important and beneficial topics it is good to read about the nature of knowledge, but only after establishing the basics. it is important that the nature of knowledge does not take a great portion of this introductory lecture. The nature of knowledge addresses the different schools that talks about the nature of knowledge; Realism, idealism, critical realism.. Idealism has a long and detailed story; some of its aspects are unbelievable and contradict common sense For example, some branches of Idealism say that what we see and live is immaterial. it is mentally constructed. You'll wonder, how can people reach such a conclusion?! But when you see books and philosophers discussing it, you'll say Subhan Allah (glory be to Allah) One of the worst methods of torture is the Chinese water torture, in which water is dripped onto the prisoner’s forehead
[17:02]The importance of Epistemology and its consequences The first point is that building human knowledge links to answering many aspects of epistemology meaning that if people did not answer the question of what are the approved sources of knowledge that can build knowledge, they will have a disrupted knowledge journey Therefore, the importance of Epistemology is that it has answers for questions that govern the knowledge journey This is the first point. The second point The importance of Epistemology manifests because many of the doctrinal deviations in the Western thought are not because of a detailed suspicion and not because of weak evidence of the truth and not because of misrepresentation but are a result of deviations in the sources of knowledge Those who adopt experiments as the only source of knowledge They will not believe in Allah's existence even if you discuss the pieces of evidence for ten hours Why? Because they do not acknowledge the logical pieces of evidence that you acknowledge but they acknowledge only one source for knowledge which is experiments The more deviation in sources of knowledge occurs the more deviation in faith occurs so why are we talking about the importance of Epistemology? Because many of the great deviations in the Western thought is a result of deviation in the sources of knowledge
[19:18]Since we lost our influential role we started importing and echoing western thoughts...
