Research Methodology in the Human Sciences

The theory of "Islamic humanities" has proponents and opponents among Muslim thinkers who might be classified into different groups. In the opposition to Islamic humanities and denial of religious humanities, Mustafa Malekian's view is of due consideration. Following a critical approach and a descriptive-analytic method, this paper examines prof. Malekian's viewpoint in the light of Allameh Misbah's who comes from the proponents of Islamic humanities. The author has achieved the conclusion that prof. Malekian's claim is inconsistent with sound semantic epistemological and methodological foundations. It seems that not only religious humanities are possible but also have occurred. Prof. Malekian mentions five prerequisites for the possibility of Islamic humanities three of which are impossible and thus he denies it. He mentions the deficiency in humanities as one of the presuppositions proposed by the proponents as an opposition between humanities and Islamic doctrines but prof. Malekian denies such an opposition to be in need of a constant reconstruction of humanities. This paper shows that such a wide-ranging opposition has occurred. Prof. Malekian also considers "a method to convince others to embrace religious points of views" as other impossible presuppositions. However, the author has shown that he has confused the method of producing knowledge with that of education. Thus it is possible to logically make use of Islamic resources in order to produce humanities.