Ma`rifat Falsafi

The problem of “religious science” and “Islamic humanities” is one of the contemporary intellectual challenges. One prevalent approach, distinguishing between “descriptive statements” (facts) and “normative statements” (values), has confined the domain of religion solely to values and norms, thereby treating descriptive sciences as inherently neutral. This paper, employing a critical-analytical method, challenges this dichotomy. The main argument is founded on Ethical Realism, according to which values and “oughts” are also objective, mind-independent realities (nafs al-amri). Consequently, normative statements, much like descriptive ones, are reality-describing (truth-apt), and there is no essential dichotomy between them. By defining religion as “the set of truths pertaining to the comprehensive felicity of humankind,” this research proposes an alternative theory. It posits that the “religiousness” of a proposition depends on two conditions: 1) Its truthfulness and correspondence to reality; 2) Its relevance to human felicity. Based on this framework, contingent factors such as the personality or intention of the discoverer, or the geographical location of scientific production, have no bearing on the intrinsic religious status of the proposition itself. Ultimately, the “Islamization of sciences” is redefined not as a rejection of human sciences, but as a critical process of discerning true propositions from false ones and discovering new truths within the domain of human felicity.