The "Science of Methodology" and Heritage Classifications
Yahya Mohamed
The channels of knowledge related to the understanding of religious discourse, on which Islamic thought, in general, is based, have not yet developed into "methodological" frameworks with their various branches and sciences. Instead, they emerged and flourished under the titles of sciences and doctrines, starting from the blogging era during the early centuries of the Hijra until the present day.
In the sense that this phenomenon began to accompany the history of Islamic thought to the present day, as this thought is still a fragmented articulated structure that has not been able to establish the science of methodology as a basic logic for understanding the overall channels of knowledge that aim to understand the religious text, despite the accumulation of problems related to the chaos of Knowledge production and its corruption.
Yes, we do not deny the existence of divisions and classifications that have been made in the sciences since the beginning of the blogging era, Although the Science of Methodology cannot do without classification, what happened has nothing to do with what we are discussing. They are just classifications that do not clarify the methodological phenomenon or the axiomatic system between the mechanism and cognitive production.
The concept of this system includes some theoretical assumptions on which a set of derived or inferred results are based, and it is an approach applied in both mathematics and physics. It is also employed by epistemological or philosophical theories. The most prominent examples of it are related to Euclid's axioms and their well-known engineering derivatives. Moreover, most of the aforementioned divisions and classifications are characterized by generality and do not seek to take into account the strategy of understanding the text or the discourse, but rather their concern is to carry the sciences on their general path.
One of the earliest examples that have reached us is attributed to the esoteric chemist Jabir ibn Hayyan al-Kufi (died around 199 AH), who classified the sciences based on theological considerations, as he sees the sciences divided into two types: religious science and worldly science. Then he divided religious science into what is legitimate (Sharia) and rationalistic. Legitimate science consists of the apparent and the hidden, while rationalistic science is divided into two branches: the science of letters and meanings. The science of letters is further divided into natural and spiritual, and the spiritual is divided into light and dark, while the natural is divided into four sections: heat, cold, moisture, and dryness. The science of meanings is philosophical and divine. All of this is attributed to the field of religious science, as for worldly science, it is divided into honorable and lowly.
This binary division has persisted, sometimes dividing the sciences into the ancients and Muslims sciences, and other times into transmitted and rationalistic sciences. The latter division has dominated over others, such as Ibn Khaldun's division, which included Sufism in the category of the science of transmission. Likewise, al-Ghazali did before him, when he divided science into legal and rationalistic, considering that one interfere with the other, as in his treatise “Al-Ladunniyyah”, and in “Al-Mustasfa”. In "Al-Mustasfa," he considered the sciences divided into religious and rationalistic. He further divided them into three types in the same book: pure rationalistic sciences, such as mathematics, geometry, and astronomy; pure traditional sciences, such as Hadith, Tafsir, and others; and mixed sciences, such as jurisprudence and its principles.
There are other classifications, as in the division established by the jurist ibn 'abd al-barr al-namari (died in 463 AH), which came in line with the division of the philosophers. He believes that "the sciences among all religious people are three: the highest, the lowest, and the middle sciences. The highest science is the knowledge of religion, in which no one is allowed to speak except with what Allah has revealed in His books and on the tongues of His prophets, peace be upon them, as a text. Middle science is the knowledge of worldly sciences, in which knowledge of a thing is acquired through knowledge of its counterpart, and it is inferred based on its genus and type, such as the knowledge of medicine and engineering. The lowest science is the rules of crafts and types of work, such as swimming, horsemanship, tailoring, embroidery, calligraphy, and similar works that cannot be compiled in a book or described by definition, but rather are acquired through practical training. This classification of sciences is also held by the philosophers, except that the highest science for them is the science of analogy in the metaphysical sciences that transcend nature and astronomy."
The Ikhwân al-Safâ' also divided the sciences into mathematical, Islamic Legal, and philosophical sciences. The Islamic Legal science was further classified into six categories: 1- downloading, 2- interpretation, 3- narratives and news, 4- jurisprudence and the Sunnah and rulings, 5- remembrance, exhortation, asceticism and mysticism, 6- and dreams.
Also, there is a septuple classification attributed to Ibn Hazm Al-Andalusi (died in 456 AH). He believes that "sciences are divided into seven categories in every nation, in every era, and in every place, and they are: 1- the legislation of each nation, as each nation must have its own beliefs that are either proven or refuted. 2- their news and history. 3- their linguistics. for nations are distinguished in these three sciences. And the remaining four sciences are agreed upon by all nations, namely: 5- the stars, 6- the Numerology and medicine, which is the suffering of bodies, 7- the philosophy, which is the knowledge of things as they are in terms of their limits from the highest races to individuals, and divine knowledge.
The science of Islamic legislation is divided into four categories: the Quran, the Hadith, the jurisprudence, and the Theology. The knowledge of the Quran is divided into the understanding of its recitation and its meanings. The knowledge of Hadith is divided into the understanding of its texts and the knowledge of its narrators. The knowledge of jurisprudence is divided into the rulings of the Quran, the rulings of Hadith, what Muslims have unanimously agreed upon, and what they have differed in, as well as the knowledge of the different forms of evidence and what is valid and what is not. The Theology is divided into the understanding of their articles and arguments and the knowledge of their proofs, what is valid through evidence and what is not. The science of grammar is divided into its ancient audible form and its modern principles. The science of linguistics is solely focused on its audible aspect. The science of history is divided into hierarchical levels..."
But whatever is said about these classifications, whether they are arbitrary or accurate, they do not clarify to us the link between the epistemological method and its own products, nor does it explain to us the relationship between them and the understanding of the religious text. They generally go beyond this scope, and some of them serve to scatter what should be collected according to the strategy of understanding the text or discourse. In this case, the logic of division is determined according to the spirit of the epistemological process and the nature of its inferences, regardless of the subject of science that it deals with, whether it is jurisprudence, theology, interpretation, or others. Moreover, some of these classifications involve the merger of some sections or sometimes restricting and omitting others, such as the rationalistic science, as it is sometimes taken as a sign of the science of theology and the like, while at other times it is associated with the field of philosophy. These two fields are distinct from each other, despite the exchange of influence and impact that has occurred between them in reality.