A direct English translation of the Arabic word ‘ilm علم is “knowledge”, but the Arabic appellation is pregnant with meanings that transcend what knowledge implied for the likes of Plato, Pythagoras, and Euclid in antiquity or for the European Renaissance scientists of the 16th century like Galileo and Kepler.
There is nearly a thousand-year gap in the history of science since the days it started in Greek antiquity and the days of the European Renaissance. This millennium is often dismissed as the Dark Ages – an age in which the torch of science was switched off in Europe, but it played over the lands under the Arab and Muslim empire.
The English word ‘knowledge’ as a concept derives its meanings from interpretations given to it in antiquity and the Renaissance, notes Alparslan Acikgenc, Professor Emeritus of Islamic Thought at Ibn Haldun University in Istanbul and author of Islamic scientific tradition in history in which he recounts the intellectual flourishing that occurred in the Islamic world during the Golden Age of Islam, particularly from the 8th to the 13th centuries.
“None of the meanings of the English word knowledge equals the Arabic ‘ilm in depth of meaning and the wide incidence of use. There is no branch of Muslim intellectual life, of Muslim religious and political life, and of the daily life of the average Muslim that remained untouched by the all-pervasive attitude toward “knowledge” as something of supreme value for Muslim being,” argued Prof. Acikgenc, who was recently awarded the Distinguished Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas Chair of Islamic Thought by Her Majesty Queen Raja Zarith Sofiah of Malaysia.
Prof. Acikgenc made the comments during a lecture he delivered in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) late in February 2025 to mark the launch of the Arabic translation of his book by the Sharjah Institute of Heritage and Sharjah International Foundation for the History of Muslim and Arab Sciences (SIFHAMS), a research center affiliated with the University of Sharjah.