Osman Bakar

Osman Bakar (born 1946) is an emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Malaya, the Chair Professor and Director of Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Centre for Islamic Studies (SOASCIS), Universiti Brunei Darussalam and an Islamic philosopher. He is a fellow at the Center for Civilisational Dialogue in the University of Malaya and Doshisha University in Japan and a former President of the Islamic Academy of Sciences of Malaysia. A recipient of the honorary title of "Dato" by the Sultan of Pahang in 1994 and "Datuk" by the King of Malaysia in 2000, he was Included in the list of 500 most influential Muslims in the world in 2009 and 2012.

Born in 1946 in a small village near the town of Temerloh in the east coast state of Pahang in Malaysia, Osman Bakar received his high school education at Malay College Kuala Kangsar. Upon completion of his high school education, he left Malaysia with a scholarship to study mathematics at the University of London and graduated with a bachelor's degree in June 1970. He then returned to Malaysia to become a tutor at Department of Mathematics in the newly founded National University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. Few months later, Osman returned to London on a study leave in order to pursue postgraduate studies in Algebra at Bedford College, University of London. The following year, he obtained his Master of Science. Osman started his doctoral study at the same College, specializing on algebraic group theory. He became intensely interested in religion and philosophy and began spending more time on Islamic thought and both Western and Islamic philosophy, than on algebra. He was particularly attracted to the writings of two great Muslim thinkers, the Iranian philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and the medieval Persian mystic al-Ghazzali. The writings of both thinkers exerted a profound influence on his intellectual outlook which resulted in termination of his doctoral study in mathematics. Osman returned to Malaysia in October 1973 and became a lecturer of the Department of Mathematics at the National University of Malaysia. In October 1981, Osman went to Temple University, Philadelphia to pursue his doctoral studies in Islamic philosophy of science under the supervision of Nasr. He wrote a thesis entitled Classification of the Sciences in Islamic Intellectual History: A Study in Islamic Philosophies of Science that has been published under the title Classification of Knowledge in Islam.After obtaining his PhD, Osman was promoted to Associate Professor in 1989 and Professor in 1992 as Chair of Philosophy of Science, a post that he still holds. From July until December 1992, he was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Department of History of Science, Harvard University where he undertook research on Mathematics in Muslim Culture. In 1995, he was appointed the University of Malaya’s Deputy Vice Chancellor in charge of academic and human resource matters. He resigned from the post in June 2000 to take up a new appointment at Georgetown University, Washington DC as Malaysia Chair of Islam in Southeast Asia.

Osman has made a major contribution to the popularization of Islamic science and intellectual discourses on religion and science, and to the advancement of cross-cultural studies of history and philosophy of science. His intellectual contribution has had an impact, not only in his own country, Malaysia, but also in various parts of the Muslim world. He is the main founder of Malaysian Islamic Academy of Science established in 1977.  He was its first Secretary-General (1977-1981) and later President (1987-1992). Among the objectives of the Academy is to promote studies and research in religion and science, particularly from the Islamic point of view. In 1991, he founded the Academy's bilingual biannual journal Kesturi, a publication dedicated to the pursuit of the unity of knowledge. He was the journal's first Chief Editor.

Osman has authored eighteen books and more than three hundred articles. Some of his publications include:

As author

• Islamic Civilisation and The Modern World: Thematic Essays (2015).
• The History and Philosophy of Islamic Science. Islamic Texts Society, Cambridge (UK) 1999; 1991 edition published by Secretariat for Islamic Philosophy and Science, Science University of Penang and Nurin Enterprise, Kuala Lumpur under the title Tawhid and Science.
• Classification of Knowledge in Islam. Islamic Texts Society, Cambridge (UK) 1998; 1992 edition published by Institute for Policy Studies, Kuala Lumpur.

As editor

• Science, Technology, and Art in Human Civilizations (ed.) University of Malaya Press, Kuala Lumpur, 1992. (in Malay)
• Tawhid and Science (1991).
•  Islam and Contemporary Scientific Thought (ed.) Islamic Academy of Science, Kuala Lumpur, 1989. (in Malay)
•  Critique of Evolutionary Theory: A Collection of Essays (ed.) Islamic Academy of Science and Nurin Enterprise, Kuala Lumpur, 1987.