Islamic Thought and its Implications for Current Sociological Inquiry: A Multiplex Approach

Can a multilevel analytical perspective of human self and action integrate insights from religion and the social sciences? This project aims to introduce and assess the utility of what we term a ‘multiplex’ analysis of the human person and action. By a multiplex approach we refer to the age-old Muslim conception of reality known as maratib al-wujud (levels of existence). Generations of Muslim philosophers, theologians, and jurists alike have systematized this diverse hierarchy, which constitutes existence (e.g. visible and invisible), knowledge (e.g. rational, empirical, and intuitive) in their respective areas of research. At the social level, multiplexity accommodates diversity and offers a comprehensive and holistic perspective of the human person (body, mind, and soul) and human action (observable and unobservable), an approach that goes beyond the current binary oppositions (e.g. idealism vs. materialism) and yet without succumbing to relativism. This view has precedent in Islamic intellectual history as well as in other major religions of the world. We feel that it has serious potential for contributing to the recent interest in multilevel frameworks for the study of human action; this includes the field of prosocial behavior, which refers to the study of voluntary acts that are intended to benefit another person or group. Our focus on prosocial action was motivated in part by the great challenge it presents to the conventional one-sided explanatory models being applied in the social sciences such as social constructionism with its exclusive focus on discourse, and behaviorism which accounts solely for biological motives. We plan to develop a network with traditional and modern scholars, hold workshops and closed debates to test whether religious and scientific approaches can be integrated (culminating in an edited volume), offer lectures, develop a syllabus, publish a peer-reviewed paper, produce videos. and develop a website for the network.