Towards an Uṣūlī Methodology of Social Studies

Abstract

The process of excluding Divine revelation as a source of knowledge refers back to historical circumstances specific to the movement of Western society's intellectual development and the internal conflict between religious and scientific thought, a conflict which was not experienced in the history of Islamic thought. Louay Safi’s article discusses means of identifying methodological and scientific features that consider revelation as apriori basis of knowledge, and utilization of rational inference of textual and material/empirical evidence as a tool of social theorization in addition to the use of sensory knowledge. Safi addresses the rationality of revelation and methodological integration between divine and sensory knowledge. He then discusses revelation and its relation to social sciences, sources of knowledge, rules of textual rational inference, historical sources, and rules of empirical inference in methodological integration between textual and historical inference.