A Methodological Comparison of Islamic Theological Models and Modern Sociology (With an emphasis on conflicts and interactions of classical approaches)

I will deal with the methodological relation between two epistemic models of Islamic theology and modern sociology with respect to conflicts and interactions. The main question is how to distinguish methods deployed by Muslim theologians and sociologists in their classical readings. Results of investigations show that conflicts or interactions between deployed methods in classical readings of both Islamic theology and modern sociology traces back to their respective goals. Although these sociologists, just like theologians, seek to respond to ethical concerns and needs, theologians adopt intellectual and transmitted (based on transmitted traditions) methods to arrive, with certainty, at the possibility of achieving reliable truths regarding the relation with God as the origin of being, but sociologists adopt quantitative and qualitative methods to confidently discover principles governing human social lives in contemporary circumstances. Theological methods are directed at fundamental meaning-giving goals, and sociological methods are concerned with ordinary assurances about everyday life. We should preserve the distinction between these two fields, but when it comes to the external and historical realization of theological goals, there should be interactions between them to clarify historical and objective possibilities of each period in its process of realization.