From Knowledge to Wisdom: An Islamic Attitude

Advancements made in the biological-physical sciences in the past two hundred years have unprecedentedly increased our recognition of the world. Besides, progress, in applied dimensions of science, has given much vigor to mankind for using nature and control of human minds. But the outcomes of science and technology have been both beneficial and non-beneficial for man; for example, technical and scientific knowhow has produced more means of human welfare and promoted living standard considerably. On the other hand, this knowledge has been used for human destruction and dilapidation of the ecology and future of mankind is being threatened by burden of balefulness. To us, this balefulness, once being emerged, emanates from separation of knowledge from wisdom and rooted within sovereign universalism of secularism in the modern scientific communities. Nowadays, scientific investigations are conducted to secure desires of scientific communities or the powerful people and knowledge-wisdom separation triggers anxiety, lack of sense of security and weakness of ethics and spirituality. The learned people believing in such universalism appreciate the results of their actions and forget that science should serve people rather than exploit them. But in a deistic field, science accompanies wisdom and is applied for solving problems of man and human communities; an objective where God is pleased and man is prosperous. In this belief, nature is regarded as divine endowment which is up to man to keep it preserved. In this way, all plans related to technological and scientific advancements should be coordination with divine order and meet legitimate requirements of people and human communities.