Introduction
According to Islamic traditions the Ilm, knowledge
is noor i.e. light which is most transparent entity in the universe. The most
elevated form of Ilm is wahe, revelation, which is transmitted through
non-physical means. Then it's recitation and recording need geophysical
dimensions of tongue and pen. Throughout the ages all forms of ilm have been
recorded and transmitted through various means and method involving geophysical
dimensions. Be it gazelle skins, camel bones, tablets, clothes and papyrus
papers.
Allhamdu Lillah, today recording, display and
disbursement of Ilm has come down to Electro-magnetic signals - digital medium
of Internet.
Internet and ISLAMIC LEGACY
(Islamic Heritage)
Early history of Islam reveals how the concepts
of ilm (knowledge), adl (justice), and ibada (ritual worship) were given
practical shape and generated an infrastructure for the distribution of
information and knowledge. As Islam made the pursuit of knowledge a form of
ibada, it shaped the outlook of the Muslims. Ilm or 'distributive knowledge'
was not limited to a particular field of inquiry or discipline but covered all
dimensions of human awareness and the entire spectrum of natural phenomena.
The all-embracing concept of ilm shaped the
outlook and made the pursuit of knowledge a religious obligation. Islamic
scholars have, throughout the ages, been engaged zealously in generation,
production, processing and dissemination of knowledge. It has never been
monopoly of individual, class, group or sex. Learning the Holy scripture, the
Qur'an, its recitation, its meaning, interpretation, and application provided
immediate stimuli. These early developments led to a highly sophisticated
infrastructure for the distribution of information and knowledge. Apart from
oral transmission of knowledge, documentation of the Qur'an and the traditions
were not neglected. After the unified compilation of the Qur'an by Caliph
Uthman, the next steps were taken by the compilers of hadith who evolved a
sophisticated process of documentation, authentication, and distribution of the
traditions among the seekers of knowledge.
By the end of first century A.H. and early
second century, sciences of Qur'an, sciences of hadith and fiqh had established
their methodology and schools of thought. Islamic culture, in Sardar's words,
'is essentially the culture of the book.' Its very heart is the Qur'an, the
Noble Reading. Because the Book of Guidance was the prime focus of Muslim
civilization, a whole range of activities related to it flourished. Writing,
reading, calligraphy, copying, illustrating, binding, publishing, selling,
storing, printing, cataloging, preparing bibliographies, building libraries,
all became so central during the classical period of Islam. The book and its
production was the key institution of the so-called Golden Age of Islam and one
of its most refined arts. Thus it is hardly surprising that Islamic studies
today has a heritage of a rich source of tradition and literature accumulated
over last fifteen centuries.()
The Islamic legacy is a unique civilizational
experience. It is a valuable resource of knowledge and record of human
experience. In words of J. Schacht: legacy of Islam in the sense of civilization
not merely religion, has been bequested to the modern world in fields such as
theology, philosophy, mysticism, Islamic law, political thought, economics,
culture, art, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, science, and
music.() Among its primary sources are
Qur'anic Sciences, Science of Hadith and athar of Sahaba and Tabi'een. The
secondary sources include Fatawa of Sahaba and Tabi'een, sciences of
Jurisprudence, opinions of popularly followed imams and distinguished scholars,
Islamic thinkers and philosophers. These are encyclopaedic heritage of
al-Gazali, Ibn Taymiyah, ibn Hazm, ibn Rushd and numerous other thinkers.
The assets of Islamic heritage and civilization
originated in the Islamic lands, much of it is still in manuscript form, dispersed
all over the globe. These are poorly cataloged and there is little hope or help
to trace them for researchers. Faut Sezgin's Geschichte des Arabischen
Schrifttums contains over 1.5 million entries on Islamic scientific manuscripts
covering the first four centuries of Islam. The current publication of books
and articles on Islam and the Muslim world has increased exponentially both in
the Muslim world and the West. Moreover, entire new disciplines, such as
Islamic economics and Islamic anthropology, Islamic Banking, have emerged in
the last decade or so. There are few languages in the world in which writing on
Islam is not produced. Even bibliographical control of this ever increasing and
linguistically diverse material is one of the major challenge facing the
Islamic studies domain today.
Atiyeh, the head of the Near East Section of the
Library of Congress, is quoted: in terms of quantity, basing my judgment on a
variety of sources, I estimate the number of monographs, including pamphlets,
textbooks and translations published in the Arab World, Turkey and Iran, at
about 16,000... of the 16000 titles, 6000 (or 37.5%) are of the research or
permanent value.()
The world famous British enumerative
bibliography, Index Islamicus contains 26,076 entries of periodical articles
for the period 1095 to 1955. But as, Geoffrey Roper interestingly notes: the
first of later cumulative volumes covering the period 1956-1960, listed 7296
articles, which is 28% of the total in the main volume for only a tenth of its
time-span, reflecting both improved coverage and the rapid increase in the
output of articles on Islamic subject. The figure rose to 8,135 for 1961-1965,
and in the five-year cumulation for 1976-1980, it reached 14, 187 articles,
which is more than half the total for the fifty years of the original volume.()
In terms of number of periodicals, the Chicago University Library's accession
list has over 1800 Islamic periodicals and newsletters dedicated to Islamic
studies alone. While Roper estimates that at least 24,000 periodicals of
related subjects in arts, humanities, social and general sciences are to be
scanned for Islamic studies bibliographical purposes, including the specialized
periodicals.()
Role
of Islamic Information Scientist
The world today is approaching, if it has not
already exceeded, the point of information overload. It is not the case that
information is not being effectively used, but that the effective use of
information is just a small fraction of what it potentially could be given the
appropriate collection, organisation, storage and retrieval mechanisms.
Dealing with the challenges of the Information
Age requires a depth of understanding and ability to work in integrated and
co-operative modes. The vast spectrum of Islamic Research and Development
activity in the academic and public institutions of the Muslim World to day go
unreported internationally. Scholars and institutions work in isolation. The
simple bibliographic control of Islamic research and publications is not
compiled anywhere comprehensively.
Scholars in Islamic studies have access to very
few organised national or international information services. This is despite
the fact that in the last two decades their need of information has multiplied
several folds. Muslim intellectuals, social scientists, natural scientists,
architects, planners and decision makers believe that if they had access to
proper and relevant information sources, they would become more professional
and more productive
Sardar asserts that Islamic Studies librarians
and information scientists have to play a leading role in establishing an
information infrastructure for Islamic heritage. According to Sardar, there are
two specific functions to be fulfilled by Islamic Information scientist: the
first as a civilizational gatekeepers; and the second as purveyors of ideas.
They must have the skills, expertise, and computational tools to identify the
most important and relevant sources of knowledge and information to save the
valuable time and resources of researchers and students, intellectuals and
thinkers. The role of Islamic information scientists as civilizational
gatekeepers is intrinsically linked to their role as purveyors of ideas.()
ENABLING
TECHNOLOGIES
The distribution of computing power to the user
through growth of personal computers, PCs, has led to change in the concept of
computing information. Apart from dealing with the alphanumeric data, present
day applications include photographic or raster images, sound, and moving
pictures.
The last two decades, 80s and 90s, have seen an
explosion in the number of on-line databases available. The total number of
on-line databases available now runs in the thousands with their subject
matters ranging from the serious and scholarly to narrow and special interests.
The majority of these databases are in English and offer references only i.e.
to obtain the material referenced the searcher must use alternative methods
such as a conventional library or an off-line document delivery system.
The revolutionary developments in the field of
mass media and mass communications coupled with computers have overwhelmed the
information industry. The extent of IT application and communications network
is seen in developed countries as a critical factor in maintaining
competitiveness in all areas of research.
Enabling technologies have created opportunities
for databases to include material in non-Roman languages such as Arabic and
which can contain and distribute the material proper in addition to the
references to the item. Emerging computer communication and information
technologies have the potential for solving many problems in Islamic research
and Muslim societies. Modern
information technologies offer an exciting
opportunity for Islamic scholars. Access to the primary and secondary literatures have been one of the
most complex problems of modern research.
The eighties have seen some positive
developments which indicate that cooperation is becoming a reality in the
Muslim world. There has been progress in setting up data communication services
in the Middle East. The emergence of Gulfnet was one indication of this: a
computer-to-computer network, it linked eight academic and research
institutions in the Gulf region.
Enabling technologies have emerged creating the
opportunity for multinational distributed databases network to be created and
maintained in a multi-lingual and multi-disciplinary environment.
The Islamic eLibrary is one such innovative
project for cooperation and development through Internet.