The fundamental epistemology of Islamic socio-scientific inquiry is premised on the Qur'an, Sunnah (traditions of the Prophet Muhammad) and Ijma (consensus by means of discursions on specific issues). The discursions that establish Ijma form extensive interactions among the agents involved to form certain rules of conduct and comprehension on specific issues facing the socio-scientific order at every moment of the life of an Islamic society, nation, community and the world nation (Ummah). Such interactions that are premised on the above-mentioned Islamic epistemological roots comprise an activity called Ijtehad. It is important to note here the extensive disciplinary nature of Ijtehad, for although the Islamic epistemology is kept immutable on matters of discurions, yet there is the widest nature of discourse possible on interpretations of the injunctions of the Qur'an and Sunnah on specific issues facing the Islamic community at any time. Secondly, such discourse can extend interdisciplinarity to the widest possible field of knowledge. In this case all that combine together to derive rules from the Qur'an called Ahkam, become accepted as valid Islamic research methodology. In this sense, Ijma itself is neither a static concept nor a state of full consensus at any time and space. Ijma can be majority rule on a given issue but consensus is sought as discursions continue over the life of the Ummah.

The epistemological foundation of Islamic socio-scientific order is thus seen to be premised on a pervasiveness of knowledge and not on the coercion of laws, rules and discipline that may emanate from self-righteous perceptions on specific issues. Now various kinds of knowledge as they are derived from the Qur'an and Sunnah are to be understood here. These are the Qur'anic precepts of Stock of Knowledge, Flow of Knowledge, the knowledge of the non- anthropic animate world, knowledge of the inanimate world and the knowledge of the hidden world. We will explain these briefly now. 

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