Social science, formerly referred to as sociology, along with anthropology, archaeology, and economics, is the discipline produced by Modernity. Modernity had a deep impact in the Islamicate as it reached to most of the Islamic countries through the colonial powers. Social science, therefore, was developed in the colonized lands with Eurocentric views in mind replacing Fiqh which was the social science for Muslims.
Both Fiqh and social science are concerned with "human action" ('amal). Social problems have been addressed and solved by fiqh in Muslim societies and by social sciences in Western societies. However, since the 19th Century, there has been an intense struggle and mutual interaction between these two scientific traditions in Muslim societies. Western social science has conquered the domain of Fiqh and attempted to perform its functions. If we examine social change in Muslim societies during the last two centuries, we will realize that the Westernization movement in those societies focused mainly on social institutions and relations. However, it does not seem possible to understand Westernization by ignoring the mental and cultural basis on which social institutions and relations are built.
Understanding the points of differentiation between fiqh and social sciences and the functions of these two societal sciences cannot be realized without a comparison at the level of civilizations because fiqh is the product of the Islamic Civilization and social science is the product of Western Civilization. As Ibn Khaldun states, science is one of the aspects of civilization, hence, one of the subjects of the discipline of 'umran. Hence, in order to understand the changes in science we must first understand the changes in civilization, which they largely depend on.
There are two main rival theoretical imaginations and worldviews in understanding social science: “uniplex” and “multiplex”. Uniplex means a single layer while multiplex means multiple layers. Some theories assume that reality has only a single layer, either material or ideal. In contrast, some theories see this dichotomy between materialism and idealism as a false dichotomy and view reality as multiplex, which includes both material and non-material levels.
This lecture series will try to understand the process of decolonization of social science from Fiqh and multiplex point of view.
Prof. Dr. Recep Şentürk
Prof. Dr. Recep Şentürk currently serves as a professor of sociology at Ibn Haldun University. He was the founding president of Ibn Haldun University (IHU) in Istanbul (2017-2021). After graduating from the School of Islamic Studies at Marmara University, he did his MA in Sociology at Istanbul University. He pursued his Ph.D. in Sociology at Columbia University, New York. He served as a researcher at the Center for Islamic Studies (İSAM) in Istanbul, and the founding director of the Alliance of Civilizations Institute. He is head of the International Ibn Haldun Society. He published widely in English, Arabic, and Turkish on a whole range of topics, including social theory and methods, civilization, modernization, sociology of religion, networks of ḥadīth transmission, Malcolm X, Islam, and human rights, modern Turkish thought, and Ibn Khaldūn. Among his books are in English, Narrative Social Structure: Hadith Transmission Network 610-1505, Malcolm X: The Struggle for Human Rights, and in Turkish; Open Civilization: Towards a Multi-Civilizational Society and World; Islam and Human Rights; Ibn Khaldun: Contemporary Readings; Malcolm X: Struggle for Human Rights, Social Memory: Hadith Transmission Network 610-1505. Şentürk’s works have been translated into Arabic, Japanese, and Spanish.
VIDEOS:
LECTURE TWO: Rethinking Social Sciences Beyond the Canon
LECTURE THREE: Multiplexity as a Social Research Paradigm
LECTURE FOUR: What is Nazar?: Pure Reasoning and Religious Reasoning
LECTURE FIVE: Multiplex Human Ontology
LECTURE SIX: Studying Human Action: Fiqh and Tasawwuf
LECTURE SEVEN: Multiplex Ethics and Human Rights
