The conception and conceptualisation of knowledge and the sciences, as well as the adaptation of methods and theories, are in each civilization formulated within the framework of its own metaphysical system forming its worldview. Each metaphysical system, and thus also the worldview it projects, is not the same for every other civilization; it differs from one another in accordance with differences in the interpretation of what is taken to be ultimately true and real. If knowledge and the sciences that grow from it are not aligned to the statements and general conclusions of revealed Truth, then what is taken to be true may not always be truly so, nor what is taken to be real to be really so; and such interpretation must therefore undergo recurrent corrective revision necessitating what is called ‘paradigm shifts’ which involve also changes in the worldview and the metaphysical system that projects it. We do not agree with those who take the position that reality and truth, and values derived from them, are separate, and that they articulate their meanings within the paradigms of relativity and plurality having equal validity.
Since we maintain that knowledge is not entirely a property of the human mind, and that the sciences derived from it are not the products solely of unaided human reason and sense experience possessing an objectivity that preclude value judgement, but that knowledge and the sciences need guidance and verification from the statements and general conclusions of revealed Truth, it is incumbent upon scholars and the learned among us who are entrusted to teach and to educate to acquaint themselves with a clear understanding of the metaphysics of Islam and of the permanently established constituent elements of the worldview derived from it. This is because that metaphysics is not only established upon reason and experience as reflected in the intellectual and religious tradition of Islam, but also upon the articulation of the revealed religion itself about the nature of reality and of truth in verification of the Revelation. The book that now lies between your hands sets forth preliminary discourses on the nature of the metaphysics of Islām.
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