9 -12 Rabii al Akhir 1413 / 7-10 October 1992, Toronto, Canada

This conference was organized by the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), Toronto, Canada. Approximately 166 participants, representing various disciplines and different countries, attended the eight plenary and twenty concurrent  sessions. Its purpose was to bring together Eastern and Western knowledge through culture via an exchange of ideas and deliberations, an exposition of theories, and an examination of the contributions of various cultures-mainly China’s-to human civilization.

The papers presented and the discussions that ensued were extremely enlightening and concentrated on the following issues: a) the contributions made to knowledge by specific cultures (mainly Chinese, Indian, and Muslim); b) knowledge transferred from the West to the East does not consider the attributes of the East; c) the East is responsible for finding ways to adapting its cultures to imported knowledge; and d) social science knowledge is better generated when social science –hers abandon natural science methodologies (i.e., realism and positivism) and recognize that the social sciences should be based on qualitative research.

There were a few papers on the above-mentioned themes that were outstanding. Abdul Rahman, in his "Spheres of Life: Inheritance, Creativity, and Society," emphasized the holistic nature of knowledge. This knowledge does not underestimate or neglect the contributions of different countries (races) in developing the present (current) civilization. Abdul Rahman indicated that the lack of a holistic view of knowlege at present has also led knowledge to be fragmented.

Al-A'ali, in her "The Impact of Knowledge Transfer with Respect to Modem Bureaucratic Organizations and Human Relationships," posited an analysis of the fragmentation of knowledge by examining assumptions of human existence and human societies. Al-A'ali argued that knowledge is fragmented because it has been based on partial views of human existence and human societies. The first partial view assumes that individuals have their own real existence while societies do not, and the second view assumes that societies have their own real existence while individuals do not. Knowledge based on these views is partial and thus does not conceive of human knowledge as based on complementary underpinnings.

Mazrui, in his "The Post-Colonial University and the Challenge of Cultural Dependency: Some African and Arab Perspectives," elaborated on the issue of university dependence on multinational support. This support, through its own special institutions, creates a new form of colonialism: "cultural dependency." He also explained that a given culture cannot be viewed in isolation from other cultures. Thus the need to view cultures from a holistic and complementary perspective should be pursued.