ABSTRACT
The colonized Islam and science discourse that emerged in the nineteenth century made its most daring attempt to securely lodge itself in the Islamic tradition by finding a niche in the very heart of the tradition: the Qur'anic exegesis. Perhaps it was in the very nature of things that instead of seeking roots in the Islamic scientific tradition, the proponents of the new discourse sought legitimacy and sanction for their program in the Qur'an; for they would have found nothing in the Islamic scientific tradition that could justify their agenda. As we have seen in chapter 4, and throughout this book, the Islamic scientific tradition had never sought legitimacy for science by directly invoking the Qur'anic text in support of its various findings; it operated within the metaphysical and ethical universe of Islam and within a hierarchy of knowledge wherein it had a legitimate place as a birthright. It was linked to all other branches of knowledge that had emerged within the Islamic civilization through an organic relationship that had evolved over time. Most of all, it was linked to the central vertical axis of the Islamic civilization which held all of its diverse manifestations in historical time with a reality that was atemporal and transcendental.
