Sustainability Science in Pre-Islamic Malay and Islamic Malay Perspective

The nature of science of sustainability is studied based on an etymological study of the Malay word lestari and the English word sustain. The results are confronted with the meaning of present knowledge and scope of the subject and highlighted their differences. Since ekonomi/economics and matematik/mathematics have been involved deeply in sustainability, the historical development of the meanings and scopes of the two sciences are also examined both in the Malayonesian and the Anglo-Western civilization which include the etymological study of the two sciences. The purpose is to show the changing nature of their respective meanings and scopes of the two subjects and hence closely related to the nature of the science of sustainability. Until now, it is shown that the present economics and mathematics could not resolve issues in the sustainability. This lead to a need for a better definition and formulation of economic and mathematical theories geared towards a better definition of sustainability and hence hopefully resolve many existing issues in the letter subject.