Concept of Civilisation and Sustainable Development: A Maqasidic Orientation

This paper discusses the concept of “civilisation” and “civilisational sustainable development” with special reference to maqasid and values system in Islam. Islam, in its very nature, posits that civilisation is an integrated and a multi-faceted social phenomenon involving intellectual, social, socio-economic, cultural, spiritual, moral, material, and other aspects. The concept…

Civilisation and hierarchy go hand-in-hand

As I have outlined in detail (Bowden 2009, 2009a Vol. 1), virtually since its inception in the mid Eighteenth century, the term civilisation has been imbued with both descriptive and evaluative dimensions. It is in large part because of this evaluative and normative nature that the concept of civilisation is…