The Architecture of Critical Thinking in Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas's Epistemological Project: From the Deconstruction of Western Modernity to the Restoration of the Tawhidic Vision

Abstract

This paper examines the epistemological project of Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, arguing that his critical thinking operates through three interlocking mechanisms that together constitute a distinctive architecture of philosophical critique: the deployment of the Islamic worldview (ru'yat al-Islam lil-wujud) as a metaphysical criterion against which the claims of Western modernity are evaluated; the systematic deconstruction of Western modernity's conceptual vocabulary through the project of dewesternization of knowledge; and the restoration of the concept of adab as both the normative framework within which genuine knowledge is possible and the critical instrument through which the disorder of contemporary Muslim intellectual life is diagnosed. Drawing on al-Attas's primary texts, principally the Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam and The Concept of Education in Islam, and engaging with the secondary literature of Wan Daud and Stenberg, the paper concludes that al-Attas's critical architecture, while philosophically formidable, faces a persistent challenge in translating its metaphysical achievements into concrete and replicable research methodologies. The paper situates this assessment within the broader contemporary debate on epistemic decolonisation, arguing that al-Attas's project remains an indispensable resource for any serious engagement with the relationship between Islamic epistemology and Western modernity.