THE PROCESS OF SEPARATION

The Process of Separation ~ 8 ~ THE PROCESS OF SEPARATION Philosophy places emphasis on total knowledge of things. It seeks to delve beneath the external nature of things into their inner essence. For almost five thousand years, particularly in the period when Greek philosophy dominated human thought, philosophers had been attempting, with no success, to achieve this aim. But in the 16th century, when scientific research began in Europe, scientists found it to be in their interests to separate the reality of things from the properties of things. They divided knowledge up into two categories: Knowledge of things and Knowledge of truths. They came to the conclusion that it was not possible to achieve absolute knowledge of truths, for truth is of a subtle nature and cannot be weighed and measured in the scales available to man. (Qur’an: 17:85) Unlike the philosophers, they came to the conclusion that man has been given, as the Qur’an points out, only a ‘little knowledge.’ Science is determined to put this ‘little knowledge’ to practical