A COMPARATIVE AND CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE SCIENTIFIC EVOLUTION OF ISLAMIC AND WESTERN CIVILIZATIONS DURING THE BASIC PERIODS OF HISTORY

A comparative and critical study of scientific development in Islamic and Western civilizations from historical, philosophical, and methodological perspectives. It argues that scientific inquiry in classical Islamic civilization, particularly during the Islamic Golden Age, emerged from an integrated worldview that harmonized revelation, reason, and empirical observation. Knowledge was seen as unified, with theology, philosophy, and the natural sciences forming complementary dimensions of a coherent intellectual tradition. Scholars such as Ibn al-Haytham exemplified a method that combined experimentation with metaphysical reflection. In contrast, Western science especially since the Scientific Revolution developed through a gradual separation of science from religion and metaphysics. Thinkers like Galileo Galilei advanced empirical and mathematical approaches that increasingly defined science as autonomous from theological authority. The paper examines the epistemological foundations, institutional structures, research methodologies, and ethical frameworks of both traditions. It evaluates their major achievements and internal limitations, while assessing their broader civilizational consequences. Ultimately, it explores how differing conceptions of knowledge shaped scientific progress and influenced the moral, cultural, and intellectual trajectories of Islamic and Western societies.