Very slightly modified and updated paper, planning to submit to AJISS -- Asad Zaman -- DMSSS02 attached below sent to Ovamir Anjum on 10th June 2018 for preliminary comments prior to submission to AJISS.

Invited paper for the Proceedings of ATCOSS -- Third Arab Turkish Conference on the Social Science, March 2013. --- However, I could not attend -- an the paper was not published. As a result, paper can be re-written and re-packaged for other audiences.

Popular Version: Three Myths Fostered by a Western Education, published in 3 parts in the Intellect

For closely related materials, see also Social Sciences, Western Social Sciences

Abstract: The European Enlightenment led to the development of several views which are incompatible with Islam. These views are part of a Western education. It is an urgent need for Muslim scholars to develop alternative methods and subject materials for the education of Muslim children

the vast majority of Muslim children face the practical necessity of acquiring a Western education. However, Western educational processes developed over centuries have been designed to inculcate a world view which is strongly opposed to Islamic teachings. Here we want to focus on three key background messages built into a western education:

1. The Enlightenment Myth: The human race was living in primitive ignorance and superstition, until the light of reason first dawned in Europe around the sixteenth century. With the Enlightenment of Europe, mankind as a whole became mature, and able to think for itself.

2. Deification of Science: The idea that all valid and useful knowledge is scientific knowledge as developed in the West.

3. The Myth of Progress: Over the past three centuries, people of European origins have developed spectacularly and have achieved pinnacles of glory. The rest of us must strive to emulate their path so that we too can become like them.

Each of these myths runs counter to central messages of Islam. Substantial research is required by Muslim scholars to create a body of knowledge which counters misconceptions generated by a Western education. In this paper, we will sketch the directions of research that are needed.

6. References.

Bauman, Zygmunt. Modernity and the Holocaust. Cornell University Press, 1989.

Bello, Walden, Shea Cunningham, and Bill Rau. Dark victory. London: Pluto Press, 1994.

Chittick, William C. Science of the cosmos, science of the soul: The pertinence of Islamic cosmology in the modern world. No. 196. Oneworld Publications Limited, 2007.

Easterlin Richard A., McVey, Laura Angelescu and Malgorzata Switek, et al. (2010). The Happiness-Income Paradox Revisited. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 107 (52), 22463-22468

Feldman, Noah (2003) After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Glover, Jonathan. Humanity: A moral history of the twentieth century. Yale University Press, 2012.

Goody, Jack. The theft of history. Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Hart, Michael H., and Diane Chin. The 100: A ranking of the most influential persons in history. Hart Publishing Company, 1978.

Himmelfarb, Gertrude. The de-moralization of society: From Victorian virtues to modern values. AA Knopf, 1995.

Maulana Taqi Usmani: What is Christianity?

Perkins, John. Confessions of an economic hit man. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2004.

Perkins, John. A game as old as empire: The secret world of economic hit men and the web of global corruption. Ed. Steven Hiatt. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2007.

Sen, Amartya. Development as freedom. Oxford Paperbacks, 2001.

Sheldon, K. and Lyubomirsky, S. (2006) ‘Achieving sustainable gains in happiness: change your actions, not your circumstances’, Journal of Happiness Studies, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp.55–86.

Syed Abul Hasan Ali Nadvi: Insani Dunya Per Musalmanon Kay Urooj -o- Zawaal Ka Asar

Tuchman, Barbara W. The march of folly: From Troy to Vietnam. Ballantine Books, 2011.

Porter, Roy (2001), The Enlightenment (2nd ed.), ISBN 9780333945056,

Russell, Gül A. The'Arabick'interest of the natural philosophers in seventeenth-century England. Vol. 47. Brill Academic Pub, 1994.

Stavrianos, Leften Stavros. Global rift: the Third World comes of age. New York: Morrow, 1981.

Stiglitz, Joseph E. The price of inequality: How today's divided society endangers our future. WW Norton & Company, 2012.

Wallace-Murphy, Tim. What Islam did for us. Paul Watkins, 2006.

Zaman, Asad “An Islamic Worldview: An Essential Component of an Islamic Education,” Lahore Journal of Policy StudiesVol. 1 No. 1, p95-106, June 2007.

Zaman, Asad “Origins of Western Social Science” Journal of Islamic Economics, Banking and Finance, vol 5, number 2, May-August 2009, p. 9-22

Zaman, Asad “European Transition to Secular Thought: Lessons for Muslims,” to appear in Insights,Da’wah Academy, IIUI, 2013.

Zaman, Asad “Deification of Science and its Disastrous Consequences,” Draft. 2013. available from asadzaman.net