The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences Vol. 6 . No. I, 1989 119 Paradigms in R>litical Science Revisited: Critical Options and Muslim Perspectives Mona Abul-Fa.dl A CONVOCATION It is time for Muslim political scientists to come together to debate the state of the art in their field and to define the grounds and terms for its pro- spective evolution or transformation in the light of alternative perspectives. The underlying assumptions which provide the parameters and the key con- cepts which they currently apply in the course of their normal practice should no longer be assumed but should be questioned. To do so, they will need to be made explicit and examined in a new light. The developments of the past decade make this imminent in more than one way. ln the West the souJ- searching among social scientists bas intensified and contributed to shaking the profession out of its complacency. The resulting meta-critique has heighten- ed critical awareness. The decade has also coincided with a dawning epistemic consciousness among Muslims.1 Conscientious scholars and intellectuals have staked their claims to autonomy on the grounds of a critical disaffection with their field. 2 Dr. Mona Abul-Fadl directs the Research Project on \\estern Thought at the International Institute of Islamic Thought, Herndon, Virginia, and is the Chairperson of the Political Science Discipline Council of the Association of Muslim Scientists. This convocation is part of a separately published paper which is a supplement to this issue of AJJSS. It is intended as a working paper for open discussion at the upcoming lllT/AMSS Political Science Seminar. 1The earliest collective forum where a general critical overview of the disciplines was publicly articulated was possibly at the Islamabad Conference, in Rabi' al Awwal, 1402 (January 1982). See Islam: The Source and Purpose of Knowledge (Herndon, VA: International Institute of Islamic Thought. 1989). Given its origins and orientation, the emphasis was on discussing the education and academic dimensions involved in teaching these disciplines in modem Muslim universities. 2/bid. Despite the textbook emphasis, the concern with the dissonance of the epistemic foundations of modem sciences was pervasive as the keynote address by the late M. K. Brohi so succinctly illustrated . pp. 5-12 . Perspectives on this disaffection varied : i.e., in political 120 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences Vol. 6. No. I, 1989 Perceived disjunctures bred that kind of essential tension which prompted a review of foundational dimensions of consciousness and being. They iden- tified their source in dissonant cultural forces and processes comprising educa- tion, socialization and the reproduction of knowledge, values, and symbols as underlying the continuities and discontinuities in the fabric of the Um- mah. This constituted the diagnosed malaise.' In this process of critical in- trospection, the idea of the Islamization of knowledge was conceived. Its natural focus was the state of modem knowledge and its modes of diffusion and transmission along the educational and cultural arteries in the Ummah. It contested the myth of modem sciences as value-free, a myth that was par- ticularly dominant within Muslim societies themselves. Claims to value- neutrality were not only questionable as empirical reality, but they were even more dubious and questionable as a moral ideals. 4 The critical disaffection displayed by the movement of the Islamization of Knowledge towards the dominant conceptions and standards of knowledge in the West, and more particularly towards the way these were being transmitted and diffused in the Ummah were reinforced by more than doubt of prevai ling orthodoxy. There was a pervasive awareness of the existence within the Islamic heritage itself of constructive alternatives that were unjustly ignored, neglected, or otherwise left untapped. Critical attitudes within the dominant episteme itself added momentum to the indigenous movement and further reinforced a mounting conviction in the necessity and validity of an Islamic intellectual odyssey to rediscover the elements of a patent Islamic episteme and activate it in the modern context. The challenge for a nascent community of scholar- ship and intellect at this state is to shake off some of its own developing complacencies and to marshall its energies and creative potential to develope an original intellectual stance beyond its initial diffuse expression. It is in this context that Muslim political scientists are expected to come together science one reading took its standpoint from the Islamic legacy ('AbdulHamid AbiiSulayman: pp. 93 -118.) while another developed its stance from an incipient critique of its European legacy (Mahmood Ghazi 121-130): the framework for the alternative episteme received its maiden formulation here in the ~First Principles of Islamic Methodology" by the late (a/shahid) lsma'il al Faniqi (15-63). 3See the ls/amitatio11 of Knowledge : Workp/a11 and Principles (Herndon, VA: International Institute of Islamic Thought. 1982 and 1989). 4 Coming from the perspective of ~natural science", the case made here was all the more compelling. M. A. Kazi. (January 1982) See Islam: Source and Purpose of K11owledge. (Herndon. VA : International Institute of lslamic Thought, 1989), pp. 175-187. scholars addressing this perspective too have notably come a long way since then in their confident. competent, and knowledgeable articulations of the Islamic viewpoint. See Munawwar Ahmad Anees and Merry! Wyn Davies, "Islamic Science: Current Thinking and Future Directions" in Ziauddin Sarclar. ed .. The Revenge of Athena: Science , Exploitation and the 111ird Kbrld (London: Mansell. 1988) . Mona Abdul-Fadl Paradigms in Political Science Revisited 121 periodicaJly to renew their resolve and to reexamine and update their agenda as they look to the future. Why Paradigms in the Discipline? The originality of their stance within the discipline is contingent on their ability to articulate a distinctive perspective drawing on Islamic sources. The latter include the pristine originating, authentic and authenticating sources embedded in the I iving f%~ry: tanz.il and sunnah, as well as in the historical legacy of the Urrunah up to and including its present. This calls for evolving a discursive tradition drawing, in the first instance, on the Muslim historical experience and political context and illuminated by a developing intellectual Islamic sensibility. The challenge to Muslim scholarship and intellect is not only to conceive of the possibility of this alternative perspective, but to for- mulate this conception at successive levels of refinement to diversity its ar- ticulation and relate it to multiple contexts. This will evidently occur in the course of dynamic interaction in a setting which. is already structured and tempered by the prevailing language, norms and modalities of an existing political discourse. We refer to this structured dimension of the prevailing discourse as a paradigm. This is because a paradigm suggests an implicit normative and cognitive order that organizes our thinking in a certain field and provides it with foundations and a framework while also setting its parameters and its boundaries. As such. concepts, theories, perspectives, and worldviews, as well as the beliefs and values implicit in them, are all con- stitutive of a paradigm to the extent that they contribute to the djsciplinary matrix, the exemplar, research prograrrune, or to the tradition that structures the discipline. 5 As such, paradigms ultimately refer to tacit constructs that can be conceived at difference levels of social reality and that assume dif- ferent forms. 5The literature on the ·'paradigm debate" is immense. but we can basically distinguish between two kinds. that coming from a history and philosophy of science perspective. and that coming from within political science. Principal examples of the fonner include T. S. Kuhn. Vie S1mcrure of Sriemific Revo(utio11s (Chicago, L962): Imre Lakatos & A . Musgrave. ed .. Criricism and the GroMh of Knowledge (Cambridge, JgJO); Frederick Suppe. ed .. n,e Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Urbana, Illinois, 1971): Stephen Toulmin, Foresight and Understanding: An lnquirv inro the Aims of Sciences (N.Y.: Harper & Row, 1961) and Hunum Undemanding. vol. I, (Princeton, 1971) . The literature in political science is more diffuse: among its direct topical contributions are: Sheldon Wolin, "Paradigms and Political Theory" in P. King, and B. C. Parakh. Polirics and Experience (Cambridge, 1968), Thomas Spragcns, The Dilemma of Contemporary Political Theory: Toward a Post-Behavioral Science of Politics (New York: Dunellen Co .. 1973). Maria Falco. eJ., 771rough rhe Looking Glass: Episremology and the Conduct of Political Inquiry (Washington. DC. 1979); and John Gunnell. Philosophy, Science and Political lnquil)•: Other titles used more extensively m thi~ paper will be cited below. 122 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences Vol. 6, No. l. 1989 It is in this sense that there is a need for examining paradigms in political science, as well as paradigms in politics. Probing the field at the paradigmatic level is one of the most challenging, and effective ways to come to grips with basic questions and to cultivate a critical sensibility. The challenge and effect in this particular instance would be to participate in the current discourse and seek to contribute to it , without being submerged in it. We too could observe the rules of the game at this state, as they have been set by others, without abandoning that margin of autonomy and integrity which would enable us to take the creative initiatives to restructure the discourse and orient it beyond its present bounds. Is such an aim justified and on what grounds do we stake our claims? I shall merely suggest that the imminence of a paradigmatic shift in the social sciences, including political science, is only accentuated by a pervasive sense of dissatisfaction in the field. Despite the mood of despair, an orienta- tion or readiness to adapt to or to adopt new ways of thinking is also percepti- ble. In these circumstances, the prospects for generating or regenerating an Islamic paradigm in the field are particularly alluring-and imminently plausi- ble. The rest is a matter of critical reflection in the light of a familiar passage which can be recalled to advantage in this context: "The transition from a paradigm in crisis to a new one from which a new tradition of normal science can emerge is far from a cumulative process, one achieved by an articulation or extension of the old paradigm. Rather, it is a reconstruction of the field from new fundamentals, a reconstruction that changes some of the field's most elementary theoretical generalizations as well as many of its paradigm methods and applications ... "6 Paradigms, it is maintained, are essentially intellectual constructs to deal with social realities. It is granted that the latter are amenable to their own generating mechanisms which constrain and limit the validity and power of a given paradigm and it is conceded that social realities may therefore not be simply the function of paradigms. What, then, does this mean for our venture into this debate as Muslims coming from a novel perspective? Here I would suggest that the reconstructive potential of a perspective that ad- dresses both levels, the epistemic and the socio-historical, is immense. Clearly, at the latte r level, a vital Islamic impulse is at stake in much of the contem- porary social and political fermentatfon in the Muslim Umrnah-a telling in- dicator of the enduring relevance of the Islamic perspective to social realities. 6Thomas H. Kuhn , n1e Structure of Sciemific Revolu1io11, 2nd Edition, Enlarged (Chicago. 1962. 1968). Mona Abdul-Fadl Paradigms in Political Science Revisited 123 The fact that this intellectual revival taps the same impulse is equally com- pelling. In both instances, this perspective appeals to a reconstruction of fun- damentals in mind and society. The way in which this reconstruction is envisaged , the idea of address- ing the transition , accounts for the elements of realism and historicism in this perspective. There is little room for either metaphysical speculation , or for a chiliastic agitation for the millenium. But the state of the transition is itself the state of the reconstrUction and as such it is bound to and engage all the factors/elements in the situation. The strength , plausibility, and allure of an Islamic paradigm in the social sciences evidently lies in its validity as a mode of discourse, as well as in its viability as a standard of effective action . In a sense, the "context of discovery" is the historical arena itself. while the "context for justification" is inherently generated. This double relevance e~ances its reconstructive potential in both areas . Its activation , however, depends on how far enterprising scholars, Muslims and others, are able to articulate and relate this perspective to the times and how effective they can be in engaging the existing paradigms in an evolving discourse. Let us shift back to the implications of the current paradigm debate from a Muslim perspective and to its potential contribution to the debate. It could be noted that the forum for this engagement may be as broad and diffuse or as concrete and specific as the discourse itself. To take an example from the current debate in the discipline: on one occasion, the search for a "miss- ing paradigm", opened up a debate suggestive of opportunities for engaging the current discourse from a Muslim perspective. 7 Admitting the variety of approaches leading to the nature and scope of the discipline, might it not be possible to arrive at a more coherent conception of the whole by develop- ing a synthesis out of these approaches. The issues at stake in this debate can be explicitly addressed , or tacitly assumed. Once we are aware of the epistemic dimension of the discipline, the symptoms and configurations of an ongoing debate can be recognized without necessarily articulating them as such. The point provisionally made here however, it that while the current debate in the West proceeds unabated at the epistimec and the methodological levels, it is doubtful that it addresses root issues in the epistme; it seems rather to present us with so many redun- dant notes on the same scale. As scholars coming from an Islamizing perspective, we suspect that the paradigmatic debate may not be radical enough, and that in the few instances when it might verge on the radical, it is inhibited in its form of expression. 7This was the theme o f the meeting of the Southern Political Science Association in IWB. See W. T. Bluhm, ed .• The Paradigm Problem in Political Science: Perspectives from Philosophy and from Practice (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1982) . 124 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences Vol. 6. No. I. 1989 In one case. for example, a bold initiative is taken to break the discipline into a perspective which is at variance with prevailing orthodoxies by percep- tively exploring neglected strands in the "pre-modern" Western tradition. But the author waxes apologetic in broaching the effort and , in the guise of misplac- ed objectivity, he invites more ambiguity than illumination. 8 As Muslim political scientists interacting in this global flux , there is much that we could bring to the debate, whether to sharpen existing perspec- tives, or to help in fonnulating alternatives. Our ability, however, to impart substance and direction will be a function of our own vitality in creatively mining the unique sources at our disposal. As guardians of an authentic heritage that belongs to humanity at large we are obliged to take the initiative in demonstrating its meaning and relevance. In so doing, we shall be paving the ground for others to compete in what is ultimately a joint human and intellectual endeavour. Our own history, from a brilliant moment in our past , teaches us that once the standards have been set, they also provide the very logic for an open setting in which everybody may contribute. Contrary to prevailing misconceptions, the "lslamicate"' was not a syncretist culture ac- cidentally evolved. Its underlying ethos was firmly grounded in a paradigm of knowing and being that lent itself to the openness and opportunity it assumed. ln this exploratory essay the paradigm issue will be tackled in three separate units. The first depicts the fluidity in the field. It focuses upon situational elements which allow an imminent shift on its horizons. This focus then shifts briefly to the self image and the role of Muslim social scientists to outline some of the logistics called for in approaching the paradigm discourse. In the last unit, the discussion will be even more selective as it addresses aspects of an Islamic perspective, by way of example, to demonstrate the thrust and possibilities of evolving an alternative paradigm. Clearly. this is where the sense and the burden of creativity lie. Yet, the priority at this initial stage of a formative intellectual debate will go to a critical and discriminating assess- ment and assimilation of the iss ues currently at stake in Western discourse. Islamization of knowledge, as scholars are well aware, does not take off from a tabula rasa, nor does it evolve in a void. In every case, there is a context as weU as a text that need to be considered. This constitutes the subject of "Paradigms Revisited ." 8Philip Dyer, The Quest for Political Order (University Press of America. 1985). The author states ~\\e should not be too complacent in our belief that the modem day has a monopoly on crulh~ in the area of non-<:umulative knowledge (the moral domain). He goes on ro argue for the relevance of some epistemic questions which might otherwise be avoided in a materialist sensate culture. In introducing highly pertinent vistas he stresses that it is merely to "raise doubts: and discla.ims any other intentions. Given the prenuse of the endeavor, "to enlighten- in a resistant context , what might be an inteUectually laudable Stance, lacks verve. It leaves him fighting a retreat with every inch of ground covered .