During the past several decades, the importance of education in the fields of medical, engineering and technology has been stressed to the extent that those studying social sciences and humanities sometimes feel as if they were superfluous.
However, after a long time, they were given encouraging news, when experts and educationists eulogised social sciences at a seminar, held in the second week of February 2012, in Islamabad. Higher Education Commission (HEC) Executive Director, Prof. Dr. Sohail H. Naqvi, declared promotion of social sciences at institutions of higher education vital for bringing about good governance, the rule of law, peace and tolerance in society. He said that the HEC was committed to developing social sciences and a number of practical steps had been taken in this regard. Subjects related to social sciences had been included as an integral part of the BS four-year programme, he said, emphasising the importance of close linkages between campuses and communities.
Prof. Dr. Mohammad Nizamuddin, chairperson, National Committee for Development of Social Sciences, completely agreed with the assertions of Dr. Naqvi. "The study of human sciences attempts to expand and enlighten the human being’s knowledge of his or her existence, their interrelationship with other species and systems, and the development of artefacts to perpetuate human expression and thought," he said. "It is, in fact, the study of the human phenomenon."
Dr. Nizamuddin told Cutting Edge, in Islamabad, that a countrywide consultation process with stakeholders had been launched to improve the state of social sciences in the country. He said that all possible efforts would be made for provision of equitable, accessible and high quality higher education in Pakistan. The educationist also called upon civil society representatives to work closely with the Higher Education Commission to secure the goal.
Making known future plans, Dr. Nizamuddin, who is also the Vice Chancellor of Gujrat University, said that every year thematic conferences in the fields of social sciences, arts and humanities would be arranged throughout the country.
Explaining social sciences, Zafarullah Khan, executive director of Centre for Civic Education, Islamabad, said that human science - also known as humanistic social science, moral science and human sciences - refers to the investigation of human life and activities through a phenomenological methodology that acknowledges the validity of both sensory and psychological experience. It includes but is not necessarily limited to humanistic modes of inquiry within fields of the social sciences and humanities, including history, sociology, anthropology, and economics. Its use of an empirical methodology that encompasses psychological experience contrasts with the purely positivistic approach typical of the natural sciences which exclude all methods not based solely on sensory observations. Thus the term is often used to distinguish not only the content of a field of study from those of the natural sciences, but also its methodology.
Referring to latest developments, Zafarullah Khan said that latterly, human science has been used to refer to "a philosophy and approach to science that seeks to understand human experience in deeply subjective, personal, historical, contextual, cross-cultural, political, and spiritual terms. Human science is the science of qualities rather than of quantities and closes the subject-object split in science.
"In particular, it addresses the ways in which self-reflection, art, music, poetry, drama, language and imagery reveal the human condition. By being interpretive, reflective and appreciative, human science re-opens the conversation among science, art, and philosophy."
Dr. Nasser Ali Khan, Member Operations and Planning, HEC, does not believe that social sciences are unimportant subjects. He says that social sciences have a wide scope. Social sciences comprise academic disciplines concerned with the study of the social life of human groups, animals and individuals including anthropology, archaeology, communication studies, cultural studies, demography, economics, human geography, history, linguistics, media studies, political science, psychology, social work and sociology.
He states that social sciences are sometimes criticised as being less scientific than natural sciences in that they are seen as being less rigorous or empirical in their methods. This claim has been made in the so-called science wars and is most commonly made when comparing social sciences to fields such as physics, chemistry or biology in which corroboration of the hypothesis is far more incisive with regard to data observed from specifically designed experiments. Social sciences can, thus, be deemed to be largely observational, in that explanations for cause-effect relationships are largely subjective. A limited degree of freedom is available in designing the factor setting for a particular observational study. Social scientists, however, argue against such claims by pointing to the use of a rich variety of scientific processes, mathematical proofs, and other methods in their professional literature.
Another major reference in our society is religion, as far as the study of social sciences is concerned. Deplorably, one area of knowledge that has deeply been neglected by the Muslims in the past is the arena of social sciences. Except for the Islamisation of Knowledge project and the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, both initiatives launched by American Muslims in the early 1980s, there has been very little attempt by Muslims to indigenize social sciences.
Dr. M. A. Muqtedar Khan, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Delaware, the USA, writes in an article that social sciences, unlike Islamic sciences, which are essentially normative paradigms, have an empirical focus. Social sciences are more interested in understanding and describing the world as it is, rather than on postulating on how it ought to be. Without being prejudicial about what is more important, we must realise that while medieval Islamic sciences do provide a view of how the world ought to be a thousand years ago they do not equip our jurist-scholars with the training and tools necessary to understand the world as it is.
Dr. Khan, who is also the founding Director of the Islamic Studies Program at the University of Delaware, believes that one of the most important objectives of Islam is to enable its followers to live an enlightened life. The Quran does not hide its preference for those who possess knowledge and those whose faith is tempered by reason. Muslims correctly value those who have knowledge and the Ulema have for centuries determined how Muslims understand Islam and the world. But over time Muslims have mistakenly began equating knowledge with a narrowly defined conception of religious knowledge, and scholars with again with a narrowly defined concept of scholarship. Thus, ironically, as the frontiers of knowledge expanded and human understanding of things and the scope of sciences expanded, -- sometimes astronomically - the Muslim vision of what is knowledge and who is knowledgeable shrunk.
Today, without doubt, Pakistan particularly, and the Muslim world at large, lag behind other societies in its production and consumption of knowledge. Today most Muslims think of knowledge as that limited to the familiarity with medieval Muslim understanding of law and jurisprudence. Scholars are only those who "memorise" the Quran and the traditions and are familiar with pedagogical and epistemological tools developed a thousand years ago. It is, therefore, not surprising that under the intellectual leadership of this class of scholars the Ummah has gone from one low to another.
The most important function that social scientists can perform is provide our leaders and the attentive public with an empirical understanding of our existential conditions. Without an accurate analysis of where we are, effective remedial policies cannot be articulated. Social scientists provide the in-depth analysis necessary for informed decision-making.
The Quran in a beautiful passage praises those who reflect on the empirical realities of our world - contemplate the creation - in Surah Al Imran:
“Verily in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day - there are indeed signs for men of understanding; Men who remember Allah, standing, sitting, and lying down on their sides, and contemplate the creation of the heavens and the earth.” [Quran 3:190-191].
The Quran also exhorts Muslims to undertake empirical study in Surah Al Ankabut. “Say: Travel through the earth and see how Allah originated creation.” [Quran 29:20].
The success of non-Muslims and the failure of Muslims in worldly matters can be explained only through the knowledge deficit that plagues the Muslim community. The Quran once again is so clear on this issue: “Allah will raise up to (suitable) ranks (and degrees) those of you who believe and who have been granted knowledge.” [Quran 58:11].
Dr. M. A. Muqtedar Khan believes that social scientists must not only be consulted but also encouraged to research, speak and write freely on the most important and pressing issues such as external and internal security, geopolitics, globalisation, inter-faith politics, economics, social and public policy and short- and long-term planning. Other issues that they can enrich are normative discussions based on empirical experience of institutions and polities that are best suited for our times. Social sciences are now very diverse, very complex and very advanced. They deal with issues all across the board and their findings impact policy at all levels. There is no denying the fact that the future belongs to those who have thought the deepest about it.
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