Of course...

Of course, it should come as no surprise that those whose eyes are fixed on that which is given by the senses, who have closed their eyes to that which is beyond sensory perception, who have denied the power of reason and rational understanding and who consider rational and metaphysical concepts to be invalid and meaningless(!) should also deny any place for philosophy among the human sciences.

They consider it to have no role but explaining some terms current in languages, and that its dignity must be reduced to that of linguistics. They present its function to be that of offering hypotheses for the solution of the problems of the sciences. This is most unfortunate, that someone who calls himself a Muslim, who is acquainted with the Qur’an, should relate such intellectual perversions and decadence to the Noble Qur’an.

They consider this to be cause for the honor of Islam and for Muslim scholars. Here, we do not intend to criticize positivist ideas, which are the basis of such fantasies, and in comparative discussions these will become more or less familiar. However, we consider it necessary to explain more about the rational and empirical methods so that the weakness of the arguments which have been made in this area become clear.

Analogy, Induction and Deduction Attempts to discover what is unknown on the basis of what is known are of three forms: Inference from particulars to another particular, that is, when two subjects are similar to one another and a judgment about one of them is known, we may infer the same judgment about the other, on the basis of the similarity which exists between the two of them. For example, if two people are similar and one of them is intelligent, we say that the other is also intelligent.

In logical terms this is called tamthīl (analogy) and in the terminology of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) it is called qiyās . It is obvious that the mere similarity of two things does not imply that the common judgment about them is certain, and thus, analogy is of no use for obtaining certainty and has no scientific worth.

Inference from particulars to a universal, that is, when we investigate the individuals of one essence and it is found that they share a common property, we may infer that this property holds of the essence, and that it occurs in all of its instances. In logical terms this is called induction, and it is divided into two kinds: complete induction and incomplete induction.