Bridging Tradition and Modernity: A New Paradigm for Muslims | Prof Ali Abbasi

During a seminar on ‘Tradition, Modernity, and the Muslim Epistemology’ held at IPS on August 1, 2023. Prof Ali Abbasi, president, Al-Mustafa International University, Qom, Iran, said that the particular understanding of rationality and reason in the West has undermined traditional norms and beliefs. Despite the persistent, extensive, and expansive development of the Eurocentric epistemology and its aggressive implementation through colonial and neo-colonial means, the Muslim worldviews, doctrinal beliefs, and epistemological sources are still intact, vibrant, and dynamic. Muslims do not alternate between tradition and modernity to insist on putting aside all outcomes of modernity; it rather benefits from modernity and other human experiences to adopt it on the touchstone of its values, sacred ideology, and rational traditions. He emphasized that a single epistemology cannot claim its prevalence over all societies and civilizations, particularly those that have a rich legacy of knowledge, including Muslims. The negative consequences of the attempt of the Western civilization to dominate the diverse worldviews and indigenous values of other civilizations must be taken care of. Connecting mankind with spirituality and theories based on divine sources of knowledge is one of the primary things to undertake. He underlined that it is the duty of scientific and academic centers to resolve the ideological confusion.