What are “Islam” and “Islamization”?

Islam, from the Arabic root word salama means “submission” and “peace”. The Quranic definition of Islam would be “submission” to God's laws and principles of each and every social and natural science, their applied sciences, and technology; one obtains, consequently, “peace”, or benefits, in life on earth and the Hereafter. An opposite of Islam ( salama ) is kufr ; it literally means “rejection”, “ingratitude”, and “concealing”. The consequences of kufr are harm, or punishment, in proportion to the severity of the particular disobedience. A simple example would be one's falling or being pushed down from a height, against God's laws of gravity, and getting hurt or killed conseuently.

Islamization is introduction of Islamic metaphysics, ethics, values, rationalism, etc. in any branch of knowledge, such as physics or economics, and its application. The Author's books are examples of his “strong striving, effort” (lit., jihad ) in the pursuit and promotion of Islamization.

The Institute of Islamic Sciences, Technology, and Development, IISTD, also promotes Islamization of knowledge and the three education systems worldwide. The latter are in the context of Muslim individuals, communities, and nations whether Muslims live as a minority or a majority. These systems are:

(1) the Muslim ‘religious' education systems. These are based on takhsis , (lit., limitation, restriction, reductionism). Islam is wrongly bifurcated into the so-called “religious” and “worldly” spheres. Islam's, and God's, jurisdiction is thereby restricted” to some disciplines, or their parts. Muslim “religious” institutions, in recent centuries, have gradually excluded in their curriculum the natural sciences and technology, and even most of the socio-humanistic sciences; they are “restricted” to rituals, some or the superficial aspects of some disciplines, etc. E.g., Fiqh and Shariah are deprived of their Quranic Arabic meanings and concepts; they are subjected to takhsis and distortions. Thus Fiqh and Shariah are used for “Islamic law” which has been restricted to only certain aspects of personal and family laws.

(2) the secular and secularized education systems; and

(3) the “mixed” education systems. These are secular with some “religious” education in both the “restricted” and the thoroughly distorted contexts.