In the flourishing classical Muslim civilization, Islam was synonymous with knowledge (ilm). Contemporary Muslim civilization, however, is like a stagnant lake, slowly but surely acidifying. The oxygen that can breathe fresh life into it is a fully-fledged revival of ilm: the pursuit, the generation, the processing, the retrieval, the dissemination, the analysis and the criticism of knowledge must become the prime focus of all Muslim individuals and societies.
In this book, four Muslim academics dissect the problem – what has happened to ilm since the classical period? What has been the effect of imperialism? Is there a way to revive the civilization of the book? How do we learn islamically? – before setting down plans for re-educating Muslims so that all of them might recover the true meaning of knowledge for their own lives.