Nowhere in the Islamic tradition is knowledge understood as a human production. It is the dedication to knowledge in the Islamic tradition that gives rise to individuals and societies.
American Muslim scholar and Associate Professor of Qur’anic Studies at the Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar Dr Joseph EB Lumbard made these remarks on Friday as he delivered a talk titled ‘Beyond Specialization: An Islamic Vision of Education’ at the Habib University.
The talk was the third public lecture in the varsity’s flagship Reshaping Philanthropy in the Islamic World Lecture Series.
“We do not, as is too often assumed in modern parlance, produce knowledge. Rather, we transmit knowledge through knowledge. We cultivate knowledge through tarbiyah. We discover truth through kashf. We verify truth through tahqeeq. And we recognize truth through ma’rifah,” said the scholar.
The lecture brought together a wide cross-section of Karachi’s intellectuals, civil society representatives and thought leaders, alongside members of the Habib University community, including students and faculty, for a wide-ranging discussion on how Islamic knowledge traditions could address some of the fundamental challenges facing modern higher education.
Dr Lumbard’s scholarship spans Qur’anic studies, Sufism and Islamic philosophy. His academic career has included appointments in Cairo, Boston and Sharjah, and he has also served as the adviser for interfaith affairs to the Jordanian Royal Court under King Abdullah II.
In the lecture, he focused on what he described as an intellectual crisis in contemporary higher education. He argued that modern academia had increasingly fragmented knowledge into isolated disciplines, often divorced from ethical purpose and spiritual meaning. Drawing on the Islamic intellectual history, he presented a vision of education that sought not merely to produce technical specialists, but to cultivate intellectually and morally integrated human beings.
He spoke about the effects of technology on humans that resulted in cognitive decline and subsequently reduced knowledge and wisdom to information, “Increasing reliance upon technology creates a world where the very tools many now use to access information ensure that the human faculties required for knowledge act ever more rapidly. Study upon study has shown the cognitive declines associated with excessive social media immersion and now with the cognitive offloading through regular use of artificial intelligence. Once heralded as great tools of enlightenment, the computer, the internet, the cell phone, and now artificial intelligence drift further from these vaunted objectives as we humans succumb ever more to our basest desires,” the scholar said.
By linking knowledge with philanthropic institution-building, the lecture invited the participants to reconsider how higher education might serve society in a more holistic and responsible manner.
The lecture series was introduced by Dr Nauman Naqvi, associate professor in the comparative humanities programme at the Habib University, who highlighted the urgency of rethinking philanthropy as a long-term investment in knowledge, institutions and ethical leadership rather than short-term charitable relief.
“Habib University’s Reshaping Philanthropy in the Islamic World initiative is grounded in a critical intellectual and moral concern. While generosity in Muslim societies remains deep, the direction of that generosity has increasingly drifted away from long-term institution building, particularly in higher education, where sustained social transformation is made possible. Historically, Islamic philanthropy was not conceived as episodic or reactive charity alone,” he said.
The session concluded with a question and answers segment, during which audience members engaged Dr Lumbard on topics including the role of ethics in the pursuit of knowledge, relevance of Islamic intellectual traditions today and institutional challenges facing higher education in Muslim societies.
