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The ḥadīth ‘al-farāʾiḍ niṣf al-ʿilm’ is often cited without verification, including by Western scholars, particularly J. N. D. Anderson who interpret it literally. Unauthenticated ḥadīths are prone to methodological bias and normative error; therefore, their authenticity and legal implications warrant critical scrutiny. This study analyses the ḥadīth using sanad and matan criticism and explores interpretations of ‘half knowledge’ and their implications. Using a qualitative Critical Ḥadīth Studies framework, 13 sources were assessed in a takhrīj evaluating transmitters and context. Ḥadīth compilations, works of criticism, and tafsīr literature were mapped to identify evaluative patterns and interpretive diversity. Across thirteen collections, the ḥadīth was graded ḍaʿīf to ḍaʿīf jiddan. The hadith serves as a pedagogical stimulus, not a normative legal basis. Weak hadiths can undermine fatwas and legal certainty; therefore, inheritance law must rest on rigorous epistemic validation and integrate contemporary hadith criticism in legal education. This research represents a methodological innovation, moving hadith criticism away from mere descriptive narration toward an integrated epistemic-juridical analysis anchored in the new direction of Critical Hadith Studies. It further demonstrates how systematic mapping of interpretive approaches yields a replicable model that advances current methods of hadith authentication.

This paper addresses the longstanding tension between reason and revelation in Islamic religious epistemology, with a focus on the thought of Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728/1328). It aims to reassess his critique of philosophical theology (falsafa and kalām) and explore his constructive alternative to rationalist metaphysics. The study adopts a descriptive–analytical methodology, combining close textual reading of Darʾ Taʿāruḍ al-ʿAql wa al-Naql and Naqd al-Manṭiq with conceptual analysis informed by contemporary religious epistemology and philosophy of religion. The findings reveal that Ibn Taymiyyah advances a triadic epistemological model centered on revelation (naql), reason (ʿaql), and innate disposition (fiṭrah). He refutes the autonomy of reason, redefines logic as a tool rather than a judge, and repositions fiṭrah as an intuitive foundation for belief. His approach emphasizes the harmony of sound reason with authentic revelation and challenges the epistemic assumptions of speculative theology. By presenting a comparative table of rationalist and Taymiyyan epistemologies, the study demonstrates how Ibn Taymiyyah’s framework anticipates key themes in Reformed Epistemology and the cognitive science of religion. The conclusions suggest that his vision offers a coherent, theocentric paradigm for religious knowledge that is highly relevant to the contemporary philosophy of religion and Islamic theology.

This intellectually vigorous and critically engaging study provides a cultural and linguistic critique of V. G. Kiernan's translation of Muhammad Iqbal, the foremost Muslim poet and philosopher, with reference to such larger questions as ideology, power, and discourse, as well as their complicity with the practice of (mis)translation. Providing an illuminating and incisive account of the cultural and linguistic distortions, the book shows how misrepresentations and mistranslations abound in Kiernan's work. It invites the reader, especially scholars of the field, to pay close attention to the nuances and subtleties of translation, which, in a cumulative way, rewrite the original text in the process of translation. The politics of translation, in apparently innocuous ways, brings about and perpetuates the marginalization and exclusion of non-European works. Contrary to the common view, translation is deeply enmeshed in cross-cultural power struggles and mired in ideological dogmas and preconceptions. In the contemporary world where Islam and Muslims are increasingly portrayed as \"cultural others\", the book comes as a timely rejoinder to the domesticated introductions of Iqbal in the West.

Over the past half-century, the study of Islam in the Muslim world has been preoccupied with three global projects: maqāṣid al-sharīᶜa (the higher objectives of revealed law), al-wasaṭiyya al-islāmiyya (Islamic moderation), and aslamat al-maᶜrifa (Islamization of knowledge). Of these three, the latter has been the most substantial enterprise due to its ambitious work plan, extensive scope, and far-reaching influence. However, in recent decades, the Islamization of knowledge project has undergone significant developments culminating in its reformulation as ‘knowledge integration’ (al-takāmul al-maᶜrifī). This paper traces and analyzes the key manifestations of this notable transformation. Firstly, it surveys the various contexts of eschewing the concept of ‘Islamization’ and adopting ‘integration’. Secondly, it examines the conceptualization of the construct of ‘al-takāmul al-maᶜrifī’ within pre-modern and contemporary Islamic contexts. Thirdly, it investigates the practical implementation of knowledge integration with a special focus on the domain of higher education. The question that brings all three sections together is whether the knowledge integration model embodies a true paradigm shift or is a mere name change while bearing on the old rationale and approach of Islamization. The present paper argues that, under the banner of al-takāmul al-maᶜrifī, a shift from an internally focused intellectual effort to one that envisions new opportunities for epistemological renewal is recognizable at the individual level. However, institutionally, the application of this paradigm is still pending full and effective realization.

This article examines the Ashʿarī theological framework of Imam Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Sanūsī (d. 1490) and its potential for shaping contemporary Muslim engagement with science. At the heart of al-Sanūsī’s thought is a tripartite typology of judgements—legal (ḥukm sharʿī), nomic (ḥukm ʿādī), and rational (ḥukm ʿaqlī)—as articulated in The Preliminaries of Theology (al-Muqaddimāt). This classification distinguishes between rulings grounded in revelation, patterns observed in nature, and conclusions drawn from reason. Unlike other theological approaches, al-Sanūsī’s model integrates core Ashʿarī doctrines such as radical contingency, occasionalism, and divine command theory, offering a coherent synthesis of metaphysics, empirical inquiry, and ethics. Building on recent scholarship that re-engages with Ashʿarī theology in the context of Islam and science, this article argues that al-Sanūsī’s schema offers a meta-framework—one that positions science not merely as an object of analysis but as a locus for theology.