bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Health and Medicine in the Islamic Tradition
Authors: Warren Dennis Michael
Published: December 2020

The late Dr. Fazlur Rahman, Harold H. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Islamic Thought at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, has written this book as number seven in the series on Health/Medicine and the Faith Traditions. This series has been sponsored as an interfaith program by The Park Ridge Center, an Institute for the study of health, faith, and ethics. Professor Rahman has stated that his study is "an attempt to portray the relationship of Islam as a system of faith and as a tradition to human health and health care: What value does Islam attach to human well-being-spiritual, mental, and physical-and what inspiration has it given Muslims to realize that value?" (xiii). Although he makes it quite clear that he has not attempted to write a history of medicine in Islam, readers will find considerable depth in his treatment of the historical development of medicine under the influence of Islamic traditions. The book begins with a general historical introduction to Islam, meant primarily for readers with limited background and understanding of Islam. Following the introduction are six chapters devoted to the concepts of wellness and illness in Islamic thought, the religious valuation of medicine in Islam, an overview of Prophetic Medicine, Islamic approaches to medical care and medical ethics, and the relationship of the concepts of birth, contraception, abortion, sexuality, and death to well-being in Islamic culture. The basis for Dr. Rahman's study rests on the explication of the concepts of well-being, illness, suffering, and destiny in the Islamic worldview. He describes Islam as a system of faith with strong traditions linking that faith with concepts of human health and systems for providing health care. He explains the value which Islam attaches to human spiritual, mental, and physical well-being. Aspects of spiritual medicine in the Islamic tradition are explained. The dietary Jaws and other orthodox restrictions are described as part of Prophetic Medicine. The religious valuation of medicine based on the Hadith is compared and contrasted with that found in the scientific medical tradition. The history of institutionalized medical care in the Islamic World is traced to awqaf, pious endowments used to support health services, hospices, mosques, and educational institutions. Dr. Rahman then describes the ...
The Eighteenth Annual Conference of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists
Authors: Abdullah Omer Bin
Published: December 2020

The Annual Conference of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists(AMSS) has acquired a certain niche for itself in the academic life of Muslimsin North America. Each year the Conference is attended by Muslim andseveral non-Muslim scholars from across North America and overseas.The 18th Annual Conference was held in conjunction with the 15th AnnualConference of the Association of Muslim Scientists and Engineers (AMSE).This provided an opportunity for exchange of ideas among specialists fromvarious disciplines. It was coordinated by the AMSS Vice President Dr.Salahuddin Malik. In all, some forty papers on Islam and Muslims werepresented followed by interesting discussions.Dr. Taha J. Al- 'Alwani, President of the International Institute of IslamicThought (IIIT) was the keynote speaker at the Banquet. The Isma'il and Lamya'al Fariiqi Memorial Lecture was delivered by Dr. Ralph Braibanti of DukeUniversity. One highlight of the Conference was the well-attended InterfaithTrialogue which was addressed by Dr. James Evans of Colgate Divinity School,Dr. Tamara Sann of St. John Fisher College, Rabbi Judea Miller of Rochester,NY, and Dr. Jamal Badawi of Halifax University, Nova Scotia, Canada.The Conference, which was spread over twelve sessions, included eighteenpanels on a variety of subjects.The First Session comprised two panels: Business and Economics inIslam where Dr. Ausaf Ali reflected on the "Systemized Theory of the IslamicEconomy." Dr. M. E. Biraima's paper, which was presented in his absence,discussed "A Qur'anic Model For a Universal Economic Theory." Dr. HishamAhmad of the University of Chicago spoke about the "Qur'anic Perspectiveon the Creation and Distribution of Wealth and Economic Justice," whileMohamed R. Bouz.akuk of the University of Oklahoma spoke on "lbn Khaldun:The Economist."The parallel panel on Language and Education featured Dr. M. A. WaheedFakhri of Chicago State University who introduced the 1989 survey of fulltimeIslamic Schools in North America. Dr. Ni'mat H. Barazangi of Cornellspoke on "North American Parents and Children: Theoretical Model forIslamization of Education," and Dr. Kamal Nimer of the Islamic Saudi Academyfocused on adult education ...
Paradigms in Political Science Revisited
Authors: Winkel Eric A.
Published: December 2020

We are at a crossroads where the time is ripe for the emerging Muslim thought to once again set the standard for universal participation and debate. My continual argument with Mona Abul-Fadl's concept of kairos in The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Vol. 6, No. 1, (September 1989 supplement) is whether the openness of the discourse realm is a result of what Gai Eaton describes as the process of decomposition releasing explosive gases, where the "ripeness" is putridity, or a beneficial progress of ideas. Does postmodern deconstruction, decentralization, and destruction create a foothold for the remembering of Islam? Or will the Islamic discourse enter the scene to be trivialized and relativized in the encounter? From my perspective, I tie the movements of the paradigms to the political encounter with the other, where the self-described American establishment was forced to recognize the non-white, the non-male, the non-consumer. More sensitive to complexities, calmer in her approach, and without any reductionism or oversimplification, Mona Abul-Fadl recognizes the "mundane" links of ideas, but treats them with respect nevertheless. It is her insight to see in the tanzil, in the physical and already interpreted descent of the Qur'an and Sunnah, the one rope on which we may spin, in shaa Allah, the Islamic discourse for it to achieve grounding and affirmation in a world of chaos and alienation. We are in a time when a metacritique may now become possible, where the crisis in Western thought coincides with a dawning epistemic consciousness among Muslims. "We are living," she notes, "at the threshold of a critical era which is steadily being acknowledged as such. The designation 'post­modernity' indicates the direction of the transition away from the established canon of values and beliefs identified with the European Enlightenment." ...
The Islamic University
Authors: Wilmot Fadlullah
Published: December 2020

In order to promote a better and more comprehensive understanding of an International Islamic University within the dynamic socio-cultural setting of the contemporary world, the International Islamic University held a four­day seminar during Muharram 8-10, 1410/August 10-14, 1989. The seminar was also designed to look at the inunediate and long-term development plans and strategies of the University to ensure that high international standards are maintained as well as practical relevance to the local socio-politico­economic environment. The Islamization of knowledge has multifaceted dimensions and implications for scholars in developing the integrated university curriculum with the appropriate teaching materials and the achievement of moral-intellectual excellence.Originally planned as an internal affair, the seminar generated interest among the academic community in Malaysia and neighboring countries so that it finally involved over 600 participants, including the academic staff of the University. There were 26 speakers from various countries and disciplines. Professor Abdul Hamid AbuSulayman in his introduction mentioned the need for Muslims to regain the intellectual dimension. He emphasized that Islamization of knowledge is not confined to the Shari'ah disciplines Islamic thought integrates two sources of knowledge-revealed knowledge and human knowledge. He mentioned the plan of the University to introduce a system whereby graduates could, in five years, obtain two degrees-one in revealed and one in worldly knowledge. In his usual erudite and scholarly manner Professor al-Attas discussed the purpose of the university and the Islamic concept of knowledge. He emphasized that the division into fardhu 'ain and fardhu kifayyah did not imply that there was no connection between the two but the division was a moral one in order to prevent compulsory knowledge being absorbed into worldly knowledge. Professor al-Attas clarified that in order to understand what we want from a university we must first understand the nature of mankind and in order for us to understand the nature of mankind we must understand the Qur'anic teaching regarding human beings, which deals not only with the body but also with the soul ...
The Third International Zakah Conference
Authors: Arif Muhammad
Published: December 2020

The first International Zakah Conference was held in Kuwait in 1984 (1404 H) at the invitation of Kuwait Zakah House. The second International Zakah Conference was held in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in 1986 (1406 H), at the invitation of the Zakah and Income Tax Department of the Kingdom. The Third International Zakah Conference, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, intended to achieve the following goals:

i) To provide a comprehensive picture of different socio­economic and organizational dimensions of Zakah institutional systems currently operating in Muslim countries and communities.ii) To study the economic significance of various institutional frameworks.iii) To focus on the effects of the mandatory payment of Zakah to the state.iv) To compare different systems of Zakah collection and disbursement in use in different IDB member countries.v) To provide a forum for exchange of views and sharing of experiences of Zakah administration both for scholars and administrators.

The principal theme of the Third International Zakah Conference was the institutional framework of Zakah. The conference was jointly organiz.ed by: i) Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRI'I) of IDB, Jeddah, ii) Islamic Affairs Division, Minister of Religious Affairs in the Office of the Prime Minister of Malaysia, iii) Zakah and Income Tax Department, Ministry of Finance and National Economy, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, iv) Zakah House, Kuwait, and v) International Shari'ah Board for Zak.ah, Kuwait. The conference began with a welcome address on behalf of the President of the Islamic Development Bank, Jeddah. The address highlighted the importance of the conference in contributing toward the establishment of a more effective Zakah system in the Muslim Urrunah. Mr. Abdul Ghafar bin Baba, Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, in his opening speech, emphasized ...
The Qur’an and Modern Science
Authors: Khalil Imaduddin
Published: December 2020

IntroductionAnyone who reads the Qur’an carefully and endeavors to attain a properunderstanding of its attitude towads science will face a great number of iiyiitwhich cover science in all its aspects. These fall into four categories: 1) mattersrelated to the reality, horizons, and aims of science or, to put it more precisely,the “philosophy of science and theory of knowledge,” 2) the methodologyof discovering scientific facts, 3) the laws that apply in the various fieldsof science-particularly natural sciences -called the pure sciences, and 4)those laws discovered through experimental methodology and meant to beapplied by a person in hidher capacity as vicegerent of Allah (SWT) onearth, who has been entrusted with the task of creating a higher and betterlife and a finer world. This field is known as the applied sciences.There is undoubtedly a very close relationship between each of thesecategories. Philosophy analyzes the aims of science while methodologyprovides a modus operdndi for discovering facts; that is, it explains the lawsand systems which control the cosmos, the world and life, and which protecttheir movements in time. In turn, these laws and systems furnish humanitywith the formulae which enable individuals to explore the wondrous structureofcreation. Consequently, these laws and systems become the means by whichhumanity can achieve the progress and development of human civilization.Such knowledge can free humanity from the drudgery of day-to-day earthlyexistence, raise its eyes to the heavens and satisfy those spiritual needs whichdistinguish it from all other creatures. An individual can thus perform moreof the duties required of him/her in hidher capacity as vicegerent, and fulfillhidher role of bringing civilization and development to the world ...
Social Sciences and Social Change
Authors: Siddiqui Dilnawaz A.
Published: December 2020

The second decade of the association's existence culminated in a veryencouraging conference in Dearborn, Michigan this year.The conference highlights included a keynote address by Ali Mazrui,Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities, State University of New Yorkat Binghamton, and addresses by 'AbdulHamid AbuSulayman, past presidentof AMSS and current rector of the Islamic University of Malaysia, and MunirAhmad Khan, director of the Pakstan Atomic Energy Commission. Mazrui,who focused on the Gulf crisis, spoke about the double standards practicedby the West in dealing with the Muslim ummah. AbuSulayman stressed theneed for reform of character at the individual level for achieving lasting socialchange.The Isma'il and Lamya' al Faruqi Memorial Lecture was delivered byJohn Esposito, director of the Center for International Studies, Holy CrossCollege, Worcester, Massachusetts and past president of the Middle EastStudies Association (MESA). He reminded the Muslim social scientists ofIsma'il al Faruqfs tradition, urging them to become activists and scholarsof Islam at the same time.The conference proceedings were spread over nineteen panels whichoffered a variety of papers on Islam and Muslim life by scholars from NorthAmerica and overseas.The tradition that had been revived three years ago was maintained, andthus the Association of Muslim Scientists and Engineers (AMSE) also heldtheir annual conference concurrently with this year's AMSS conference. Theother tradition that continued was the trialogue between representatives ofthe three Abrahamic faiths.Another feature of the program was the incorporation of the AMSSBusiness Administration seminar. This program featured two panels. In thefirst panel, Ahmed M. Abo-Hebeish of Northrop Corporation discussed theframework of debtor-creditor relations as the foundation of financial accountingin Islam, and Mohamed A. El-Badawi of California State University addressedthe issue of computing zakatable funds.The other panel (Session 5: Panel 10) in this discipline had fourpresentations. The seminar chairman, Ghouse A. Shareef of Bellannine Collegein Kentucky, spoke on "Acountability, Congruency, and Equilibrium as the ...
The International Conference on Islam and Development in Southeast Asia
Authors: Altalib Omar
Published: December 2020

The International Conference on Islam and Development in SoutheastAsia was held during September 25-26, 1991, at the Equatorial Hotel, KualaLumpur, Malaysia. The conference was jointly organized by the Academyof Malay Studies (University of Malaya), the Islamic Academy (Universityof Malaya), and the Information and Resource Center (Singapore) and wassponsored by the Hanns-Seidel Foundation. The conference's stated aim wasto demonstrate the differences in programs for cooperation between Islamiccountries, the integration attempts of developing countries, and the actualeconomic and political situations of Southeast Asian countries.There were four main panels in the program: a) Islam and Developmentin Southeast Asia: A Historical Perspective; b) Islam and the Political Process;c) Islam and Economic Development; and 4) Islam and the Future of theRegion.In the first panel, Khoo Kay Kim (professor of Malaysian history,University of Malaya) pointed out that Muslims have historically emphasizededucation, while in modern times they have tended to allow education tobe shaped by outside rather than inside influences. In addition, Muslimeducation in Southeast Asia has lagged behind national development. Atpresent, the education system in Malaysia continues to produce students who ...
Toward Explaining Communal and Ethnonational Resurgence and Separatism
Authors: Ahmad Mumtaz
Published: December 2020

Liberalism and the Quest for Islamic Identity in the Philippines, by KennethE. Bauzon. Published by the Acorn Press, Durham, NC, in association withDuke University Islamic and Arabian Development Studies, 1991, pp. xx + 219.Ethnicity, Pluralism and the State in the Middle East, edited by Milton J. Esmanand Itamar Rabinovich. Published by Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London,1988, pp. viii + 296.Ethno-National Movements of Pakistan, by Tahir Amin. Published by Instituteof Policy Studies, Islamabad, Pakistan, 1988, pp. xxix + 285.Most of the scholarly writings on Muslim minorities have focused on thesocioeconomic and political issues and religious concerns that tend to dividethese minorities from the mainstream of their respective societies. Particularemphasis is often given to the religious nature of the conflict between the Muslimminority and the non-Muslim majority communities, especially as it relatesto the pracesses of socioeconomic change and modernization in the larger society.This conflict is also explained in terms of integration versus separatism,universalism versus particularism, and secularism versus communalism.Theorists of the civil society persuasion have looked at the politics of minorityunrest as essentially a product of socioeconomic changes brought about bythe processes of modernization, including social mobilization, and the expansionof education and mass communication. Hence, according to this perspective,ethnic and religious particularism in postcolonial societies is a necessaryconcomitant of modernity. The statist view, on the other hand, regards thepolitics of religious and ethnic separatism as a function of public policies.Nothing is predetermined and inevitable; public policies can restructure andreshape the environment within which communal and ethnonational movementscan either flourish or disappear ...
Opening Address
Authors: Al ‘Alwani Taha J.
Published: December 2020

The year which has just ended has presented the Muslim world with a majorchallenge: the bipolar world order which provided some kind of balance betweenthe East and the West disintegrated and was replaced by a unipolar one.How will this affect us?The new world order is an order controlled by a single superpowex whichhas its own philosophy, thought, and culture. If we look closely, it seems thatits philosophy stands on a collection of what appears to be mutually opposeddualities which both necessitate the various elements of conflict and make allattempts to end the resulting polarization and conflict futile. But the recentdemise of the opposite pole and the end of the Cold War does not mean thatthe world is about to witness a period of peace, tranquility, and security in theshade of this so-called new world order. hther, the inherently belligerent natureof this entirely Western-controlled civilization precludes such a development,for such an order requires an opponent, either real or imagined. In other words,if one is not readily available it will have to be created, so that the fight canbe carried on elsewhere. While many are now saying that the nature ofthe conflictmay shift from military to economic power, this does not automaticallymean that positive developments will occur or that the world can expect trueand constant security, tranquility, or peace from this civilization.It is thus all the more disconcerting that the Islamic world finds itself ina state of unpreparedness and disarray unprecedented in all of its lox history,and that the collapse of the Soviet Union, the other Western pole, leaves therole of adversary to the Islamic world. All of this suggests that the Islamic world,which is now infirm, divided, and unable to protect its own resources, will befaced with the prospect of becoming a battleground over the course of the nextfew decades.It is therefore essential that Muslim scholars, thinkers, research institutes,universities, and enlightened political elites undertake the responsibility of ensuringthat the Islamic world passes through this coming period of crisis successfully ...
EDITORIAL
Authors: Syeed Sayyid M.
Published: December 2020

We are pleased to present the first summer issue of our new quarterlyschedule. This will, in sha' Allah, be followed by our fall issue in September1992 and winter issue in December 1992.In this issue, Mahmoud Dhaouadi discusses the nature of human culturalsymbols such as language, thought, religious beliefs, knowledge, cultural normsand values, and science. The essay develops a basic theoretical framework forstudying the nature of what he describes as a cultural-symbolic soul. It thenproceeds to apply this new concept to understandmg as well as devising a potentialexplanation of the dynamics of cultural-symbolic exchange and confrontationbetween human groups regardless of time and space constraints. Dhaouadiattempts to provide a balanced contribution to the ever-growing body ofknowledge in the modem social and behavioral sciences by trying to work outa synthesis between theory and application, which, if executed successfully,would enhance the scientific credibility of the behavioral and social sciences.Dhaouadi pleads that by paying attention to other epistemologies, ideas,concepts, theories, and methodologies, an initial step could be taken towardsresolving the crisis which the social sciences have been experiencing in the Westsince the 1970s. He believes that the continuing growth of the body of knowledgein the Islamic behavioral and social sciences will equip its practitioners withthe knowledge to make constructive contributions to the reform of Westernbehavioral and social scientific thought.Muhammad Y. Faruqi traces the development of ijma' from the practiceof the Companions of the Prophet to the classical fuqaha' . The jurists of thefour established schools of fiqh consider ijma', a concept which evolved as alegal doctrine during the second hijri century, as the third source after the Qur'anand the Sunnah.Farqui discusses the kinds of ijma' and raises the issue of the infallibilityof ijma' . He argues that if the views of the classical jurists were adopted, ineffect no one would be allowed to disagree or have a different opinion, as thiswould jeopardize the ummah's infallibility. He supports Ibn Hazm's view thatconsensus must be based on a nass from either the Qur'an, the hadith, or both.As these sources are infallible, any resulting consensus will also be infallible.He brings up the interpretation of al Juwayni, who states that there is noclear Qur'anic or hadith text referring to the principle of ijma'. Al Juwayni provesthe authority of consensus by arguing that there are certain issues related to haram ...
An Islamic Framework for Employer-Employee Relationships
Authors: Akhtar M. Ramzan
Published: December 2020

IntroductionIslamic teachings envisage a balanced society achieved through thefunctioning of Islamic institutions. This paper visualizes three main institutions:ukhiwah, ‘adl, and ihsan. Ukhuwah (brotherhood) promotes the bonds ofbrotherhood, and ‘adl (justice) enforces a system of individual and socialobligations. Islam stresses the importance of meeting one’s obligations, becauseeach obligation has its corresponding right. Thus, an individual’s effort to meethidher obligations leads to the fulfillment of everyone’s rights. This does notmean that Islam forbids one from demanding hidher rights, even though thisdemand does pose a problem related to human nature: an individual wants his/herrights and also some part of another person’s rights. Therefore, one group’sdemand for its rights tends to encroach upon the rights of another group, whichcauses social friction and disorder. The institution of ihsan (benevolence) goesone step further: it exhorts individuals to forego their rights for the sake of others,which is considered an act of piety.This paper will study employer-employee relationships in the light of thethree institutions mentioned above. A framework for conducting employer-employeerelationships is formulated and is then used to determine, from theIslamic point of view, the proper wages. The findings of this paper show thatan economically efficient and equitable wage structure can evolve within thisframework and that such a wage structure would promote the parties’ mutualrelationships which, in turn, would lead to industrial peace.The body of the paper is organized as follows: a review of the existingliterature on the subject, the development of an Islamic framework for employer-employeerelationships, a discussion of the Islamic approach to wagecompensation, and some concluding remarks ...
EDITORIAL
Authors: Syeed Sayyid M.
Published: December 2020

Our first paper, by Abdul Khaliq, discusses the Islamic view of faith andmorality. The author shows how one’s faith in God, from the Qur’anic perspective,is a commitment, as it implies both a whole metaphysics and anentire philosophy of life. In our personal lives, we need a healthy metaphysicsfor our moral behavior. Similarly, the sciences also need a metaphysicaloutlook, for this will provide significant pointers as to the direction in whichscientific progress should advance. Abdul Khaliq further argues for a closerelationship between the physical sciences and metaphysics. He assures usthat this intimacy will not jeopardize the positive sciences’ autonomy andtheir freedom of inquiry. His paper ends with the assertions that the cause ofmoral degeneration is to be sought in the loss of digious faith and that arejuvenation of religious faith can automatically reinstate morality.The Department of History of Science at the University of Oklahoma,Norman, OK, organized a conference on “Tradition, Transmission, Transformation:An Ancient Mechanics in Islamic and Occidental Culture,” held on6-7 March 1992. It was here that J. L. Berggren made an outstandingpresentation entitled “Islamic Acquisition of the Foreign Sciences: A CulturalPerspective.“ We are publishing a revised version of this paper here. Berggrenillustrates how cultural factots may have affected the Islamic world’sreception and acquisition of foreign sciences. The process of Islamizing themathematical sciences inherited from the classical Greeks is instructive, forby studying it we realize that Muslim scientists were tesponding to the needs,concerns, and criticisms of a civilization profoundly different from that ofclassical Greece. Berggren shows how Islamic mathematics was not just goodGreek mathematics done by people who happened to write in Arabic. He alsosuggests that it is important for us to understand the terms on which Islamicculture of that time approached classical Greek culture. In fact, to spell outthese terms of Islamization is even more crucial for us today, as we seek tofacilitate the adoption of modern sciences into an Islamic worldview.In his keynote address to the International Seminar on Malik Bennabi,Anwar Ibmhim complained that “it is an indictment of our parochialism thatBennabi has been neglected because he wrote in French. It is an even greaterindictment that he is neglected because he was an individual thinker and notthe idealogue of a movement. Neither is sufficient teason for original thoughtto be marginalized.” We need to correct this situation and make an extra effortto ensure that Bennabi’s ideas accessible to researchers and also toencourage more translations, discussions, and writings of this very important ...
Faith and Morality
Authors: Khaliq Abdul
Published: December 2020

There is a point of view popular with some religious thinkers-amongthem Muslims-that religion and morality are two separate institutions andhave very little to do with each other. This is because the former is centeredin God, while the latter is entirely human in content and approach. Accordingto this view, an individual can be moral without subscribing to anyrecognizable religion. Furthermore, a deeply religious person occupies a stationin life where usual relations with the world, including those with otherpeople, are perceived as being so lowly and mundane that they become irrelevant.This is, to say the least, not the essential Qur’anic standpoint.The Qur'an , as well as a number of sayings of the Prophet, does not envisagean estrangement between God and humanity. Human beings are said tohave been created after the image of God: Who is nearer to each person thanhisher own jugular vein (Qur'an 50:16). They a so close to each other thatthey may possibly enter into a mutual dialogue. There is thus an organicallyintimate relevance of the individual’s religious faith with the subsequent performanceof the corresponding moral actions. In the Qur’an, the word amanu(they held on to faith [in God]) is almost invariably followed by ‘amilu alsalihat (they performed good actions). However, it must be undelstood thatfaith is not an honorific term, a characteristic that may be inculcated into anperson’s character in its own right. It rather refets to a barely psychologicalstate, an attitude of mind A person may have faith in the all-good God or insome evil being(s) (Qur’an 4:31). In the first case, such an individual isnecessarily good, in the other, he/she is bound to be morally bad ...
The American Jewish Experience and the Emergence of the Muslim Community in America
Authors: Sarna Jonathan D.
Published: December 2020

Efforts to foretell the future of the American Jewish community date farback to the nineteenth century, and for the most part the prophecies have beenexceedingly gloomy. Former president John Adams predicted in a letter toModecai Noah in 1819 that Jews might "possibly in time become liberalUnitatian Christians.” A young American Jewish student named WilliamRosenblatt, writing in 1872, declared that the grandchildren of Jewish immigrantsto America would almost surely intermarry and abandon the rite of circumcision.Within fifty years “at the latest,” he predicted, Jews would be“undistinguishable from the mass of humanity which surrounds them.“ Justunder a century later, in 1964, Look magazine devoted a whole issue to the“Vanishing American Jew,” at the time a much-discussed subject. More recently,in 1984, Rabbi Reuven Bulka, in a book entitled The Orthodox-Reform Rift and the Future of the Jewish People, warned that “we are headingtowards a disaster of massive proportions which the North American Jewishcommunity simply cannot afford.”So far, thank God, all of these predictions have proven wrong. TheJewish people lives on. Some might consider this a timely reminder that (assomeone once said) “prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.“Othem may view our continuing survival as nothing less than providential:evidence that God, in a display of His divine mercy, is watching over us. Athird view, my own, is that precisely because Jews are so worried about survival,we listen attentively to prophets of doom and respond to them ...
Secular Education and the Political Socialization of Muslim Children
Authors: Rashid Hakim M.
Published: December 2020

As discussions of the "New World Order" intensify, Muslims around theworld are increasingly questioning the relevance of this phrase to their livesand to the future of the ummah. For many Muslims, the popularization of thisterm signals a need to reexamine those processes that shape the transmissionof the Islamic worldview from one generation to the next. The proposed"New World Order" seems much too reminiscent of the "Old World Order,"an economic and political order characterized by the economic subservienceand political impotency of most of the Muslim world. Muslim social scientistsare beginning to examine those processes and factors that might create thekind of "New World Order" that liberates rather than oppresses Muslims.One a m of inquiry that must be addressed is that of political socialization,as it is a phenomenon that occm within virtually every human culture.In essence, it is a process that involves the individual's acquisition of sociallyand culturally approved attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors as regards thepolitical world. As a social science subspecialty, it represents a convergencebetween political science and child development. Much of the literature dealingwith political socialization therefore focuses on the institutions and mechanismsthrough which children are politically socialized over time.Within the Muslim world, the study of political socialization is critical toacquiring an understanding of how Muslim children learn about the multidimensionalnature of the political world. How do they learn about politics?What kinds of political socialization models might be developed to reflecttheir experience? What are the relative effects of institutions like the familyand school on their political socialization? These are just a few of the questionsthat must be addressed within an approach to political socialization thatreflects the cultural integrity of Muslims.This paper will explore the potential impact of secular education on thepolitical socialization of Muslim children. It will begin with a discussion ofa variety of political socialization models that have been developed in theWest. Nationalism, as a central dimension of political socialization, will bediscussed with particular emphasis placed on how schools promote nationalismin children. The conflict between nationalistic and Islamic identities willbe explored as it is manifested in the secularized educational curricula ...
Islam, Politics and Social Movements
Authors: Fazalbhoy Nasteen
Published: December 2020

This book contains thirteen well-researched case studies on social movements in North Africa, India, the Middle East, and Iran. Each movement differs,as the issues and concerns vary according to area. This diversity is mademanageable by a neat categorization taking into account geography, periodization,and problematics, for example, and by the editors' clear explanation,in the first part of the book, of how the articles are arranged. In the second partare articles by Von Sivers, Clancy-Smith, Colonna, and Voll. Each authoranalyzes resistance and millenarian movements in precolonial (i.e., nineteenthandearly twentieth-century) North Africa. Part three, with articles by Frietag,Gilmartin and Swdenburg, deals with more contemporary issues, such asIslam and nationalism in India and Palestine. Part four discusses labor movements in Egypt and northern Nigeria (Beinin, Goldberg, Lubeck), while partfive looks at the Iranian revolution and the mles of Imam Khomeini and AliShari'ati in defining and inspiring it (Algar, Abrahamian, Keddie).One of the main issues that must be addressed when dealing with socialmovements in Islamic societies is whether they are really "Islamic" or whetherthey just happen to be taking place in Muslim Societies. Lapidus, in his introductoryessay, brings out the main issues when he says that the movements arestudied "in order to explore their self-conception and symbols, the econofnicand political conditions under which they developed, and their relation toagrarian and capitalist economic structum and to established state regimes andelites" (p. 3). The authors look at social, structural, and ideological featureswithout giving exclusive primacy to one or the other. Burke stresses this point.In his article, he discusses methodological issues and places the studies in thecontext of contemporary modes of analyses such as the "new cultural" and the"new social history" methods inspired by E. P. Thompson and others. Thisessay is an invaluable introduction to the case studies. Placing the movementsin the context of changes occurring in the Islamic world as well as in the contextof wider political and social events, the essay allows one to make comparisonsacmss the different areas covered in terms of popular culture, patternsof collective action, the problem of Islam and secularism, and other aspects.The articles range from the role of Islamic symbols (i.e., the mosque inIndia) in articulating new political organizations designed to deal with the ...
Third International Conference on Islamic Economics
Authors: Anwar Muhammad
Published: December 2020

The Third International Conference on Islamic Economics was held inKuala Lumpur, Malaysia, during 23-25 Rajah 1412/28-30 January 1992 underthe auspices of Malaysia's International Islamic University (IIU) and in collaborationwith the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) and the International Associationof Islamic Economics (IAIE).In his welcome address, 'AbdulHamid AbiiSulayman, rector, IIU, KualaLumpur, Malaysia, stressed that Islam provides an alternative to the economicsystem of the West and its reformed model, Marxism, which has collapsed.The conference was opened by Datuk Sri Anwar Ibrahim, financeminister of Malaysia, and was concluded by Datuk Amar Dr. Sulaiman Hj.Daud, education minister of Malaysia. While recognizing the importance ofimplementing Islamic principles in areas such as trade and finance, AnwarIbrahim felt that efforts to promote growth and generate wealth are morepressing. He stressed the need for creating wealth to eradicate poverty, apivotal concern of Islamic economics.Datuk Daud emphasized that institutions of higher learning shoulddevelop rigorous and meaningful analytical tools comparable with Western ...
World Conference on the International Islamic Calendar
Authors: Ilyas Mohammad
Published: December 2020

The University of Science Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia, and the Organizationof Islamic Confetence’s Standing Committee on Scientific and TechnologicalCooperation (COMSTECH), tecently otganized and hosted the WorldConference on the Intemational Islamic Calendar. The theme, “Towads aUnified World Islamic Calendar,” was discussed during eight sessions by aninternational audience consisting of about two hundred dignitaries, ulama,policymakers, scientists, and professionals from twenty-five countries and tenmajor international organizations. It was also genemusly sponsored by fifteenother agencies, including the Intemational Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT).The conference was opened by Tun Dato’ Sen Haji Hamdan SheikhTahit, head of the State of Penang. This matked the initiation of the systematicimplementation process for the intemational Islamic calendar. Dato’Haji Musa Mohammad, vice Chancellor of the University of Science Malaysiaand conference chainnan, thanked the planners in his welcoming address. Hewas followed by M. A. Kazi and Ambassador M. Mohsin, who addressed theconfetence on behalf of COMSTECH and OIC respectively. Kazi stressed theimportance of developing a uniform and systematic intemtional Islamic lunarcalendar through continued and detailed study by those qualified to do so.Ambassador Mohsin pointed out the need to unify the existing calendars inthe Muslim world. The OIC, he said, is in the process of making this aregular priority item in its agenda and is ready to give its full support.The keynote addtess, “Internationalizing the Islamic Calendar: The Challengeof a New Centuty,” was delivered by Mohammad Ilyas. He highlightedsome of the work that had gone into developing the calendar program, explainedwhat progress has been made on predicting the new moon’s visibility,and related how this can be used for an international Islamic calendar. Healso focused on the interrelation of science, the Shari‘ah, and policy and itsimplication for the question of implementation.The conference also heard reports from members in Australia, Nigeria,Tanzania, the United States, Egypt, Itan, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia,Turkey, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, ...
An Islamic Perspective of Organizational Controls and Performance Evaluation
Authors: Rahman Mawdudur , Al-Buraey Muhammad
Published: December 2020

An organizational performance evaluation is one part of a largermanagement control process involving complex relationships between variablesat the social, the organizational, and the individual levels. Thephilosophy, criteria, and methods used in performance evaluation varygreatly between different social and organizational cultures. In this paper,we address the issue from the perspective of a specific religion,’ Islam,and the culture which it has created, Islamic culture (IC), and compare itwith a secular culture (SC). Improvement and effectiveness in secular organizations(SO) are driven by economic considerations: while Islamicorganizations (IO) are required to look beyond such considerations. Thesupremacy of economic considerations limits an SO’S vision to thme materialisticaspects which provide the domain for deriving individual, social,and organizational goals and, at some point, everything must add up todollars and cents. An SO also derives transitory goals from economic considerations,for its organizational process emphasizes utilitarian and objectiveprinciples which state that profit maximization (or optimization) ispossible and also provides the criteria by which to measure success. In anIO, utilitarian objectives are allayed by spiritual needs, where the ideal is“reasonable profit,” and where there are sanctions against excessive profits.By definition, an organization is a purposive human system with purposesand goals which organizes and ptocesses material and human resomesfor the generation of output. For an SO, output is determined bysocial and economic goods and services, and a system’s success is measuredby its output’s quality and cost efficiency. The system’s reward isthe profit earned. Most of its output and reward measures are necessarilyquantitative and extrinsic in natute. An individual is, like any other partof that system, a supportive element vis-his the production of goods andservices. Thus the individual is part of a process driven by economic andquantitative criteria of success, one which has no room for hisher ownmoral and ethical standards. In other words, religious standards play noformal role in the SO management process.
Islam and the Economic Challenge
Authors: Ahmad Imtiaz Uddin
Published: December 2020

I consider the task of reviewing this book an honor as well as a challenge.My task is made even more difficult and the challenge moE significantwhen I read excellent reviews from both intellectual spectra,Western as well as Islamic. From the West, Kenneth Boulding, an eminentbehavioral scientist and social economist, expresses his admirationboth for the author’s readable style as well as the depth and the maturityof his knowledge when he writes:This is an excellent work . . . His understanding is quitesophisticated. At the same time his style is clear and he writeswith humanity and a very deep concern for the welfare of thehuman race.From the East, the book has already received and incorporated commentsand suggestions from a number of economists at the forefront ofresearch in Islamic economics, among them Dr. Nejatullah Siddiqui andProfessor Khurshid Ahmad. The latter economist has very succinctly summarizednot only his own views but also thm of other Islamic scholarswhen, in the foreword, he writes:Dr. Chapra has dealt with the subject as a trained social scientistand objective Islamic scholar. His grasp of the contemporarysystems and their problems is thorough and incisive, his presentationof Islamic economic order is concise and convincing. Hisbalanced critique of the western systems as well as that of thecontemporary Islamic society is presented in a style that isscholarly yet simple, clear and prescriptive. . . . Dr. Chapra hasclearly demonstrated that well being can not be attained throughthe pursuit of material possessions alone and that efficiency andequity can become operational concepts only if they are redefinedin the context of their linkage to moral values and socioeconomicstructures.”
Nationalism and Internationalism in Liberalism, Marxism and Islam
Authors: Perry Glenn E.
Published: December 2020

Professor Amin, who teaches international relations at Quaid-i-AzamUniversity in Islamabad, has provided us with a short but insightfulanalysis of twentieth-century writings from the Liberal, Marxist, andIslamic traditions on the issue of "nationalism versus internationalism."Pointing out that Western writings treat the "nation-state" as "a universalform," he presents two main arguments: a) nationalism emerged from"Western liberal culture" and is now "seriously challenged by a varietyof communitarian internationalisms," of which Islamic revivalism is themost important in the Islamic world (p. 5), and b) Islamic revivalismoftenmisunderstood as being a backward-looking "fundamentalism" -is"a reaction against Liberal and Marxist internationalism which are seenas the two imperialist ideologies of the West" (p. 6).Amin briefly states the essence of the three traditions-the Liberalbelief in nationalism as natural, with "world unity [envisaged as emerging]through the prism of nation-states" (p. 7); the Marxist goal of a "classlessworld society" (p. 7); and the Islamic idea of all "believers . . . belong [ing] to one global community, the ummah" (p. 10). Insisting that thedialogue among the three trends is facilitated by understanding all of them"from within and through their main spokesmen" (p. 10), he proceeds witha chapter on the representative literature of each. Each chapter is dividedinto three sections: traditional writers, modernization theorists, and postmodernizationtheorists.Perhaps reflecting the author's Western education, the book's longestchapter is the one on Liberalism. He begins with Toynbee, whom hedescribes as "an internationalist par excellence in the Western communitariantradition" (p. 13). Three other Liberal writers are categorized as"traditional"-E. H. Carr, Hans Kohn, and Carleton Hayes. Under the designationof modernization theorists, Amin deals with Karl Deutsch andErnest Gellner, while the section on post-modernization theorists looksmainly at Walker Conner and A. D. Smith.In the chapter on Marxism, Amin analyzes Marx and Engels as "traditionalwriters." Lenin is classified as a "modernization theorist," while ...
Islam and Arabs in Early American Thought
Authors: Khawaja Mabel
Published: December 2020

The introduction to this book credits the author with clarifying theoperative attitudes of Americans towards Islam by looking at the causeand result of the Muslim image in American literature. However, regretis expressed that Sha'ban had to be heroically selective about a subjectradiating in many rich directions. Apparently, the book offers fresh insightsand new possibilities for exploration and discovery, therebycontributing significantly to the enhancement of a literary tradition thatcame to the forefront with Said's Orientalism. Sha'ban studies orientalismin tenns of America's exposure to and understanding of Islam by focusingon Muslims of nineteenth-century North Africa and the Middle East.Even though the book's thrust is political, Sha 'ban challenges the readerto review familiar American writers and trends from an unfamiliar perspectiveas he traces the historically biased approach of Americans intheir dealings with the Muslim world.In chapter one, “A Place for My People,“ the author explains howAmerica’s Puritan beginnings shaped its self-image and its attitude towads“the Arab world, its people and land.” The Pilgrims saw themselvesas the chosen people in a promised land. Under the umbrella of aprovidential plan and the divine covenant, they were heirs to the kingdomof God in the new world and therefore shared a common responsibilityto execute the divine mission. Unlike European monamhs who relied onreligion for personal privilege (i.e., the Divine Right theory), Puritansshifted away from emphasizing the personal and private aspects of Christianityto its communal or corporate nature. They constantly endorsedtheir national responsibility to share the benefits of their chosen status ascitizens of God’s kingdom with the rest of the world ...