Reduciranje pojma ulema na vjerske autoritete kao jedan od važnih faktora stagnacije u muslimanskom svijetu / Reducing the Concept of the Ulama to That of Religious Authorities as One of the Major Factors in the Stagnation of the Muslim World

Abstract

In the history of Islamic civilization, particularly between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, the concept of the ulama underwent a process of differentiation. Historically, the term came to denote scholars exclusively within the religious domain—that is, religious authorities—while excluding scholars from other scientific fields and disciplines. Over time, an authoritative class of ulama, or theologians, was formed, with all other scholars remaining outside its institutional framework. Such a division of knowledge has no foundation in the Qur’an, since the Qur’an regards all branches of knowledge as Islamic insofar as it takes an interest in them and accords equal respect to all scholars and to all sciences that serve humankind and study the world as God’s creation within an ethical framework. This Qur’anic principle prevailed during the first several centuries of Islamic civilization, or Islamic culture. The subsequent division proved harmful, however, because it strengthened the authority of religious disciplines alone—those concerned with the study of Islam—while diminishing the status of other branches of knowledge and thereby hindering their inventiveness and creativity, despite the fact that such a distinction is manifestly unsupported by the Qur’an. This legacy continues to be reflected today in the misunderstanding and misuse of such expressions as “Islamic sciences,” “the sciences of Islam,” and “Islamic studies.”