Abul-Fadl, Mona. “Contemporary Social Theory: Towards Tawḥīdī Projections in the Principles of Theorization and the Need for an Alternative,” Translated by Aref Atari. Year 2, Issue 6 (Fall 1416 AH/ 1996 CE), Pp. 69-109.

Abstract

Mona Abul-Fadl introduces a critical examination of contemporary social theory in the West and reveals the underlying characteristics of the epistemological perspective that has defined the features of that theory and formed its arguments, methodologies, and development in light of the oscillating culture type. Her study comes in the context of calling for reexamining social theory and reconstructing it in accordance with a tawḥīdī epistemological framework (tradition of inquiry). She explains the concept of social theory in the context of the dominant tradition of inquiry paradigm, premises and founding assumptions of contrasting epistemic fields (culture types), philosophical antecedents of contemporary social science, and the dominance of “Eros” and “Thanatos,” or the “cult of conflict”/perpetual struggle concepts in explaining social theories. Her research further discusses the concept of social theory from the perspective of the median culture type, and based on an Islamic political and social paradigm.