A Contrastive Study of the Classification of Knowledge in Islamic Civilization

With the gradual development of the grounds of Islamic civilization, the division of science into various disciplines and the classification of branches of knowledge according to their criterion was pursued as one of the fundamental scientific need in the Islamic world. In the Middle Ages there was a traditional specialized type of classification and the perspective of each branch of knowledge and its relationship with other branches became evident, and it is in this way that intellectual and cultural needs of Islamic world were satisfied. Providing an overview of the main kinds of classification and comparing between them, the author points out to the factors and grounds of the various kinds of classification, their strenghts and weeknesses and their course of development. The criteria of classification, such as theosophical and non - theosophicalknowledge, intellectual and shari knowledge, practical and theoretical arts, Arabic or non -Arabic identity of knowlege, etc have been the subject of speculation in this essay.