The authors, Syed Muhammad Naquib Al- Attas ends the book with solutions in the final

chapter- The Dewesternization of knowledge. He provides the guidance to face the

challenges arisen that is caused by what is identified from the previous chapter- Muslim
Dilemma, which is the confusion and error in knowledge. He explained clearly the key
concept of religion, the nature of man, the nature of knowledge, the concept of wisdom, the
concept of justice, the concept of right action, and also the concept of university.

The other important idea that has in his book is about justice. “We have said that justice
implies knowledge, which also means that knowledge is prior to justice. We have defined
justice as a harmonious condition or state of affairs whereby everything or being is in its
right and proper place”. This statement emphasizes that before the person do a justice should
include inside the knowledge. It is very useful for the Muslims today to engage knowledge
wherever condition they faced. This statement still has connected with the previous
statements, even these statements from the difference chapter. This is the weakness of his
book, which mentioned the same discussion in the difference chapter. This could make the
readers are not interested to read twice for the same discussion. Perhaps, the author has a
purpose why this idea should be explained twice.

In the final chapter, the author also use the analogy of invitation to a banquet to partake of
fine food to elucidate the relationship between the adab and the knowledge.

The other important of his book mentions about the aim and purpose of education. “As the
philosophical basis for the purpose and aims of education, and for the establishment of an
integrated core-knowledge in educational system, it seems to me important to recollect the
essential character Islamic vision of reality”. He believes that the aim of education is an
integrated of knowledge, and it seems like Islamic vision of reality. It means that Islamic
vision of reality is centered on being, so is that being in Islam as a Hierarchy from the highest
to the lowest. In this statement shows that author is very philosophical, he looks beyond
everything.

By explaining these seven concepts, according to my opinion, its already comprehensive

enough as they interrelated to one another. Futhermore, the seventh concept (concept of
university) is the form of implementation in relation to all the previous concepts. However,
most of his statement did not follow with example that could be easy to readers to understand
his point of view.
As a conclusion, this book reveals the external and internal problems in the Muslims over the
world. However, Syed Muhammad Naquib Al- Attas only describes a few of problem from
the secularism. He only focused to the internal problem, which it can be seen in the two
chapters. The author also describes the same topic in the difference chapter that it could be
placed in the one chapter. As a reviewer, I might be misinterpreting his writing and the
overall idea of this book as this book is a major reference to many Muslim nowadays.
Anyway in my opinion, people must be exposed to this book, for the benefit is worth the time
spent.