bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Mortgage Financing for Muslim Americans
Authors: Ebrahim Muhammed-Shahid
Published: December 2020

Islamic economics is a rapidly growing discipline seeking to redirecteconmomic behavior under the umbrella of Islam. This field combinesmalleable modem economic concepts with immutable moral principles inits attempt to address the economic climate of a given society. The mostsignificant differences between Islmaic economics and the world’s moreprevalent economic systems are the Islamic ban on rihl (usury) and theIslamic institution of zakah. The ban on usury is based on the verse:0 you who believe, fear Allah and give up what remains due toyou of usury if you are indeed Believes. And if you do not, thenbe warned of war (against you) by Allah and his messenger,while if you repent you shall have your capital. Do not wmngand you shall not be wronged (wan 2:278-9).This paper addresses mortgage firiancing problems on real propertythat Muslims face as a result of Islam’s ban on interest. The United Stateshas a unique tax system designed to enmurage investment in real property.Congtess allows property owners to deduct all mortgage interest,along with operating expenses and depreciation writeoffs, from incometaxes. This is an indirect form of government subsidy ...
Sociology in Iran
Authors: Farooqui Jamil
Published: December 2020

The book, with the help of empirical data, provides valuable informationabout the development of sociology as a discipline in Iran. It explains howthe discipline was introduced in one of the colleges of Tehran in 1946 andgradually, over a span of twenty-five years, became a popular subject ofteaching and research. The number of qualified students and staff is alsosteadily increasing. But more importantly, Iran now has a unifonn B.A.degree program consisting of 144 credit hours in eight 17-week semesters.Five categories of courses related to different areas and subareas are provided:general, base, main, elective, and specialized courses. In all of these courses,sociology and its various branches are mentioned.The M.A. degree program has been developed with the intention of preparinga competent cadre of future teachers for the higher centers of learning.The program is similar to that found in European and American universities,with the exception of courses on the social thought of Muslim thinkers andthe social ideas of Muslim philosophers, theologians, intellectuals, and historians.A doctoral program has also been introduced for training universityfaculty and researchers. The program requires thirty credit hours over a periodof seven semesters. Out of these credit hours, twenty-two are required courses ...
The Scandinavian Conference on Middle East Studies
Authors: Roald Anne Sofie
Published: December 2020

The Nordic Association of Middle East Studies, which was establishedin 1989 in Uppsala, Sweden, recently held its second conference.Delegates from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland participated.John O. Voll (who has with Swedish ancestors), chairman of the MiddleEast Studies Association (MESA), came as guest lecturer.The conference's leitmotif was "Diversity and Unity of the MiddleEastern World," which was also the theme of Voll's lecture. By reconceptualizingthe understanding of Middle East as a holistic region, one inwhich sociopolitical, economic, and cultural patterns have been regardedwithin a narrow "Muslim" or "Islamic," framework, he objected to standardizedconcepts and generalizations. He used the case of the Egyptianpeasant-how new developments and changed structures have transformedthe peasant of the 1970s into the different peasant of the 1990s.He also argued that concepts themselves can be actors in history whenthey have been conceptualized. Thus they do not always describe reality ...
A Report on the International Seminar on Religions and Contemporary Development
Authors: Altalib Omar
Published: December 2020

The International Seminar on Religions and Contemporary Developmentwas sponsored by the Sunan Kalijaga Stale Institute for IslamicStudies, located in Jogjakarta, Java, Indonesia. This seminar was a majorevent for scholars of Islamic studies in Indonesia, as it was opened by theIndonesian Minister of Religious Affairs, Munawir Sjadzili. The conferencesecretary, Rifa'i Abduh, and the conference chair, BurhanuddinDaya, organized the conference in order to addres.5 the is.5ues of religiousfundamentalism, and Islam and development.Peter Clarke (King's College, University of London, UK) spoke on"Contemporary Problems of Religion in Europe." He stated that technologyhas become a religion, for many Europeans actually believe in it.In the same way that Christians believe that God can do anything andeverything, secularists believe that technology can do anything and everything.Bert Breiner (Selly Oak College, Birmingham, UK), speaking onthe same is.5ue, said that religious groups in western Europe have tendedto accept the dominant epistemology of scientific empirical objectivity:The major problem of religion in contemporary Europe is thequestion of revelation. Unless religious thinkers can evolve anunderstanding of religious truth in general, and of religion in particular, which is independent of this particular epistemologicalprinciple, it will have little to offer the development of contemporaryEuropean civilization.Martin van BNinessen (University of Leiden, the Netherlands) addressed"Muslim Fundamentalism: Can It Be Understood or Should It BeExplained Away?" He thinks that it can be understood and notes that violentaction in the name of Islam is not a direct result of radical religiousdoctrines, but a consequence of certain social factors that may predisposesome people to militancy. How a person becomes a fundamentalist canbe explained by the religious climate in his/her family, the accessibilityof certain literature, and the frequency of contact with recruiting activists ...
The Neglected Sunnah
Authors: Gwynne Rosalind W.
Published: December 2020

The present article is a contribution to the continuing discussion ofsunnah. I hope to show the scholar who deals with texts referring tosunnah that he or she is not, when interpreting a text containing the word,confined to a choice between the sunnah of the Prophet, local sunnah,and the sunnah of the Companions and the early community. It is quitepossible that the sunnah referred to is the sunnah mentioned in theQur'an, namely, the sunnah of God.We must remember certain characteristics of Sunnah. a) it is setintentionally by one having the authority to do so-the imam; b) it ismeant to be imitated and not changed, and c) the imam who sets thesunnah shares responsibility for the deeds of thcse who imitate him.What seems to be missing from most discussions of sunnah is the factthat it is a Qur'anic notion as well. Joseph Schacht, for example, quotesno Qur'anic occurrences, not even in his 1963 article that asserts that thesunnah of the Prophet was precisely to follow the Qur'an. Bravmann'scitation of Q 8:38 at the end of his discussion of the phrase madat sunnatal awwalin is the only Qur7anic instance of the word that he cites in hisown voice; the othem are in quotations from al Shafi'i, Ibn Hisham, andal Baydawi. Apparently neither Mustafa al Siba'i nor Muhammad alKhatib’ refer to the sunnah of God.The sunnah that God sets for Himself is certainly authoritative, unchanging,and meant to be imitated. But it is more important to note thatGod’s sunnah is also what God Himself does, what He has prescribed forHimself. Human beings know that God will inevitably do a certain thingbecause He has always done the same thing in the past. These are universaland unchanging rules and, as such, can form the basis for logicalarguments. The branch of modem legal logic called rule-based reasoningholds that such reasoning is prior to all other forms, since no communicationusing the word in the concrete and not the metaphoricalsense can even take place until the interlocutors agree on certain rules,such as the rules of language ...
Islamization of Knowledge
Authors: Mohamed Yasien
Published: December 2020

The Islamization of knowledge, as envisioned by al Faruqi, is acritical, revivalistic response to intellectual modernity.' Its objective is atimeless but it can only be realized by challenging it and engagingMuslim scholars in debate over it. By so doing, we are able to refine thework plan for Islamization. The following critique is therefore presentedin the hope that its suggestions will contribute toward an authenticIslamic tespotlse to intellectual modernity.Exposition of IslamizationFor al Faruqi (1982), the some of the crisis of Muslim society liesin the mdem-Islamic dichotomy of the current educational system. Thecolonial, and therefore alien, vision still survives and is being disseminatedthrough educational institutions, which are the breeding ground ofself-estrangement from Islam. Such early educational reformem as SayyidAhmad Khan and Muhammad 'Abduh did not realize the harm of modemknowledge, for they assumed thatmodem subjects are harmless and can only lend sttength to theMuslims. Little did they realize that the alien humanities, socialsciences, and indeed the natural sciences as well, wee facets ofan integral view of reality, of life and the world, of history, thatis equally alien to that of Islam. (Ibid.)One of his particular concerns is the harmful influence of a universityeducation on a Muslim student whose sentimental attachment to Islamcannot withstand the onslaught of scientific truth. After four years ofalienating influence, his/her Islamic consciousness would be ravaged. Thesolution to this alienation is to be found in the Islamization of knowledge,an understanding that seeks to rebuild the humanities, as well as the socialand natural sciences, in order to establish them fitmly on an Islamic basisconsistent with Islamic objectives. Every discipline is to be "recast" toembody the principles of Islam and remolded to incorporate the"relevance" of Islam along a triple axis constitutive of tawhid (unity) ...
Islamic Revivalism in Recent Western Writings
Authors: Qutb Sayyid
Published: December 2020

This article revolves atound certain presuppositions, themes, andthmries related to a selected number of westem writings on Islamic nxurgencein the m&m Arab world. In this regard, I purport to examine thefollowing claims: 1) Islamic resurgence is a widespread traditional, cultural,and political phenomenon in modem Islam; 2) some westem (andeven Muslim) studies of Islamic TesuTgence have touched only the surfaceand, therefore, their methodological orientation has been inadequak, 3)as a facet of modem Islam, Islamic resurgence has reinterpreted theIslamic tradition in a creative and unique way; and 4) although the majorleaders of the Islamic movement have placed philosophy outside the paleof Islam, one is tempted to study Islamic resurgence as a philosophicalexpression of modem and contemporary Muslim Societies.'In order to show the theoretical inadequacy of the writings on Islamictevivalism, I would like to discuss four Fecently published studies:Emmanuel Sivan, Radical Islam: Medieval Theology and Modern Politic?W. Montgomery Watt, Islamic Fundamentalism and Moderniq;Leanard Binder, Islamic Liberalism: A Critique of Development Ideologied;and Ronald Nettler, Past Trials and Present Tiibulation.In Radical Islam, Sivan proposes the following two ideas: First, tohave a better understanding of the thinking of modem Islamic resurgence,especially that of Sayyid Qutb," one has to study the influence exerted ...
Between Modernity and Post-Modernity
Authors: Winkel Eric
Published: December 2020

Kazuo Shimogaki 's working paper, number fourteen in the IMESseries, is a critical essay of The Islamic Left, a so-far one-time-onlyprivately produced journal. Three of its five articles are written by HasanHanafi, a professor at Cairo University, and a summary/translation ofHanafi's first and most important article. The essay itself abounds ingrammatical and typographical errors, while the swnmary/translation isdone very well. There is enough evidence that Shimogaki has a sharpmind, and I anticipate eagerly future works.Unfortunately, Shimogaki 's subject matter is not very enlightening,even though many reasons are given for the study of The Islamic Left.Hanafi is located firmly in a reformist tradition with al Afghani and• Abduh. He has all the prejudices of an Egyptian Arab, 1 indulges in endlessanalyses of the "reality" of the Muslim world (with the smug convictionthat his gaze is universal), revels in a knee-jerk hatred of Sufism,2and makes his case for technological boosterism. He also takes forgranted the "backwardness" of the Muslim world, as if the prime accomplishmentof western civilization (which is the creation of nuclearweaponry-what else has engaged the wealth and brain power of theUnited States as much?) was bungled by Islamic civilization.Shimogaki attempts to reform Hanafi in light of postmodernity, buthis own understanding of postmodernity is sketchy (in other words, verypostmodern). Seeing postmodemity teleologically, Shimogaki writes thatHanafi "has not yet reached the newest thought movement in the West, ...
A Holistic and Institutional Analysis of Islamic Education
Authors: Rahman Mawdudur
Published: December 2020

IntroductionKnowledge is the source of economic, social, and political energyas well as divine enlightenment. An individual or a nation succeedsonly by gaining and using beneficial knowledge. Gaining usefulknowledge and using it for a proper cause for the pleasure of Allah isemphasized in Islam. The Qur’an mentions repeatedly the importanceof knowledge (Qur’an 30:22, 36:36, 39:9, 58:11). The Prophet alsoemphasized the importance of acquiring knowledge in many contexts:“A person who follows the path of acquiring knowledge, Allahwill make easy for himher the passage to paradise” (Muslim) and “Aperson who goes out of hisher house in search of knowledge, he/sheis on Allah’s way till the person returns” (Tirmidhi).The Prophet encouraged Muslims to be unrelenting in their searchfor useful knowledge and considered an ‘dim (learned person)superior to an ‘abid (worshiper) (ibid.). In the Qur’an, Allah reservedhigher ranks for people of knowledge (Qur’an 58:11). The Prophetsaid: “Wisdom is the lost property of the faithful, who deserve it mostwherever it may be found.” Muslim scholars accepted all usefulknowledge that is consistent with Shari‘ah (al Faruqi 1992).We acquire knowledge through formal and informal educationsystems. Schools, colleges, and universities are institutions thatprovide formal education. In addition to schools and universities, wegain knowledge from such informal sources as the family unit, social ‘groups, and personal undertakings. Islam made the acquisition of ...
BRISMES 1994 Annual Conference
Authors: Asmal Abu-Bakr M.
Published: December 2020

The annual conference of the British Society for Middle EasternStudies (BRISMES) was hosted by the Department of Middle EasternStudies at the University of Manchester and concentrated on thetheme of "Culture: Unity and Diversity." About two hundred participantsdeliberated over approximately ninety papers of varying standards,in addition to the three plenary sessions. This was achieved bygrouping the speakers, many of whom were from overseas, intothirty-four panels covering such diverse themes as law, politics, language,literature, poetry, culture, identity, history, religion, architecture,mysticism, media, economics, and agriculture. A balance wasalso maintained between the historical and the contemporary in manyof these areas. Each session. featured up to five panels, each withbetween two and four speakers. These were held simultaneously inorder to give all of the participants in each session the opportunity tochoose the one panel that would be of most interest to them. Some ofthe panels were hosted by special interest groups: The Society forMoroccan Studies; The Association for Cypriot, Greek and TurkishAffairs; The Manchester University Research Group on Central Asiaand the Caucasus; and two panels in memory of Avriel Butovsky.The focus of the conference's attention was the plenary session oneach of the three days. A different guest speaker was present for eachsession. The most striking presentation was that of Seyyed HosseinNasr (George Washington University, USA). The opening plenaryaddress was by Bozkurt Guvem; (Ankara, Turkey), and the closingplenary session featured Tayeb Salih (London, UK).After the opening speeches, Bozkurt Guven????. currently advisor tothe President of Turkey and formerly an anthropologist and architect,was called upon to speak on the "Quest for National Identity inTurkey: Cultural Continuity of Historical Diversities." He began byfocusing on the dilemma that a quest for identity generates due to itsdeep-rootedness in the sociocultural and historical consciousness ofpeople at the individual, collective, local, national, static, and transitionallevels. In answer to the question "Who are you?," one's identityis as much dependent on the attitude of the perceiver as it is on theperception that the perceived has of himself or herself. It is therefore ...
Editorial
Authors: Nafi Basheer
Published: December 2020

In this issue of AJISS, some of the changes that we plan to introduceto the journal‘s contents and layout begin to take shape. AJISS, from thisissue onwards, will only accept and publish articles with endnotes. Eachissue will include four main research essays or more, in addition to ourexpanded Book Review, Reflections, and other regular sections. It is ourintention that AJISS will now seek to provide a historical dimension to themodem Islamic experience, especially that of the late nineteenth andearly twentieth centuries. Lawal‘s “Islam and Colonial Rule in Lagos,” isan example of this category of research that will be appearing in futureissues of the journal. To elucidate the need for this dimension, it may behelpful to explain a few aspects of modem Islamic intellectual history.The Islamic reform movement is, in many respects, the greatest intellectualendeavor of the Muslim mind over the past two centuries. Itsemergence came against a backdrop of western encroachment and theinability of the Sufi-dominated Muslim world to respond adequately tosuch foreign challenges. Reformists emphasized renewal by revising theProphet’s tradition against the stagnation brought about by a Muslimmind that had become enslaved to a blind and uncritical imitation of theways of earlier generations (taqlid). They advocated, moreover, a synthesisof what is “Islamic” and what is “modem and western.”Today, Muslims and Islamic intellectualism are in greater need ofcomprehending and analyzing the context of the reform movement, theIslamic response to the weserrn challenge, and the sweeping modernizationprocess that was to ensue. The main reason behind such urgency isthat although the reformist model succeeded in upholding Islamic tenetsand achieved a limited reconstruction of Islamic self-confidence, it can nolonger provide a basis for renewal (tajdid) or answer the major questionsconfronting the contempomy Muslim world.The importance of al ‘AlwW’s most recent elaboration of the Islamizationof Knowledge vision for renewal, “The Islamization of Knowledge:Yesterday and Today,” is that it goes beyond the reformistenterprise. By invoking the Qur’an and its absolute dominance over allother Islamic sources, the author suggests a new path for the developmentof an Islamic weltanschauung. Many pursuits of the Muslim social scientistshave already shown that this process is effectively underway ...
The Islamization of Social Sciences in Nigeria
Authors: Mikailu S. A.
Published: December 2020

IntroductionThe Islamization of social sciences is part and parcel of developingand promoting knowledge that conforms to the norms of Islam. This canbe attained by motivating scholars to develop scholarship using an Islamicperspective through the introduction of new social science courses basedon Islam, Islamizing (i.e., rearticulating along Islamic lines) existing conventionalsocial science disciplines, and promoting the movement ofIslamic attitude to knowledge.The Islamization of Knowledge undertaking in Nigeria can be tracedto the period of the Sokoto Jihad leaders, whose scholarly writings coveredsuch aspects of life as politics, economics, and medicine. However, withthe passage of time and, more especially, with the coming of the Britishcolonialists and the concomitant infiltration of western scholarship, theIslamization of Knowledge pioneered by the Jihad leaders gradually beganto fade. At first, the North opposed vehemently the spread of the westernsystem of education, because it was linked with Christian missionary propaganda(Fapohunda 1982). As such, the emirs of the North and their subjectsstood fmly against this alien system, a stance that accounts for thedisparity in western education between the South, that had welcomed it,and the North.Unfortunately, like most other Muslim countries, Nigeria continues tosuffer from the colonial legacy of the West. In particular, its elites are theworst victims of colonization of mind by the West’s so-called secular ideology.Its education and other systems of life continue to be based largelyon the structure of that secular ideology.Education is the single most important instrument for grooming andchannelling a society in the desired direction. To rescue Muslim societiesfrom the yoke of western secular civilization and to reestablish Islamiccivilization requires the decolonization of the secularized minds and spiritsof the elites as well as of Muslim intellectuals (the ulama), professionals,and political leaders, on the one hand, and the training of youngpeople in Islamic knowledge and education, on the other. In order toreturn the society to the Islamic system of life, the first task is the Islamizationof the educational system (both formal and informal) for the Muslimsand the Islamization of the country’s ulama ...
Missing Dimensions in Contemporary Islamic Movements
Authors: Al 'Alwani Taha J.
Published: December 2020

Opening RemarksThis paper will examine dimensions that seem to be absent, whethertotally or partially, from the thought and practice of certain contemporaryIslamic movements in the Muslim world, many of which may be viewedas extensions of the liberation movements that played significant roles inmaintaining the ummah's identity at the tum of the twentieth century. Wewill address these movements and remind them, for "remembrance doesthe faithful a world of good" and "wisdom is the pursuit of the faithful;wherever it is found it should be cherished."Since God created Adam, people have fallen into two categories: thosewho perform their roles according to the teachings of revelation and thosewhose roles originate from their own ideas, desires, and views or thosethat have been passed down from their ancestors. The first type sees historyas the outcome of conflict between humanity and nature. In responseto the latter, the true religion-Islam-has been the indispensable sine quanon for correcting humanity's basic assumptions, rebuilding its vision,helping it to find peace of mind, and providing it with answers to quintessentialquesions.The use of Islam as the foundation for both thought and practice is theforce that drives activist Muslims. In the Qur'an, God revealed a perfecttext that responds to questions of existence at all levels.1 Moreover, Godhas linked the Qur'an's totality and all-encompassing explanatory nature tothe responsibility of witnessing that, after the Prophet, was passed on tothe ummah.2 Through the testimony of the Prophet and of the ummah, God will certainly cause His purposes to prevail.3 We define this witnessing asa consciously responsible type of witnessing that has its own economic,social, and intellectual characteristics based on a specific societal order, onthe one hand, and a specific scientific and methodological order on theother. Our responsibility in witnessing, then, is much greater than we haveenvisaged or put into practice in the past.Certain dimensions that are absent from our perspectives and practicesmay be uncovered by weighing them against the objectives manifest in therepsonsibility of witnessing.4 This process makes the issue of reform andchange a composite, as opposed to a simple, one. Moreover, both factorsrequire an awareness that must be "methodological" and that examines alldimensions at the levels of both theory and application. In this way, wemay gain an understanding of the agents that affect change and generatedeviation and the resulting crises ...
Western Domination and Political Islam
Authors: Koshul Basit B.
Published: December 2020

The first two decades of the twentieth century saw the direct or indirectcolonization of the Muslim world by various western countrie , thusrepresenting one of the bleakest periods of Muslim history. In the interwaryears some rays of hope emerged in the Muslim world with thelaunching of various independence movements. This period also saw therise to prominence of two Islamic movements that were to have a majorinfluence on the Islamic response to the western challenge for the rest ofthe century: the Ikhwan al Muslimum in Egypt and the Jama'at-i Islam1in the Inda-Pakistani subcontinent. The socioeconomic, geopolitical, andintellectual-cultural challenge of the West to the Muslim world producedvarying responses on the part of the Muslim world. While movementssuch as the Wafd Party or the Muslim League represented the "nationalist"response to this challenge, the Ikhwan and the Jama'at were manifestationsof the "Islamic" response.After more than fifty years of struggle, it is becoming painfully clearthat the response articulated by these movements to the western challengeis proving co be ineffective. Despite some impressive historical achievements,they find themselves marginalized in their own countries, havingalmost no influence whatsoever on policy formulation and the intellectualand cultural character of society, for these areas continue to be dominatedby westernized elites. As a result, Muslim intellectuals have started to ask"Why?" Why have these movements, which at one time held so muchpromise and even produced some impressive results, failed to respondadequately to the western challenge, and what steps need to be taken toremedy the shortcomings? Questions of this nature are being asked ...
Designing the Islamic Component of a Proposed World Religion Curriculum for South African State Schools
Authors: Basson Ray
Published: December 2020

An aspect of curriculum policy-making under the past Nationalistgovernment had to do with policy being used to develop and impose thestate’s nationalist and religious ideology-Christian National Educationonall schools in South Africa after its assumption of power in 1948. Oneconsequence of this policy was that the rich diversity of South Africans asa people holding to multiple, positive, and idiosyncratic beliefs linked tovarious communal identities was sacrificed to a state-imposed pseudocommonality.Part of the challenge of educational reconstruction under thedemocratic government elected in April 1994 is to develop curricula thatboth recognize the diversity of positive ideals, beliefs, and faith whileremaining impartial, if not agnostic,’ toward any one belief and to contributeto the development of a new and shared national identity.Following ministerial approval, an “Accommodation Model” forteaching religion has been announced recently. In it, schools are allowedto choose between teaching “one . . . faith” as an academic curriculum, a“world religion” curriculum, or a “combination” of the two, as religiouseducation in the core curriculum and/or as an academic subject leading tocertification. We suggest that the impetus for a world religion curriculumhas to do with a desire to develop in all students an understanding of thediversity of faiths in the country and to move away from the solely Biblecenteredprograms of the past. In this article, we consider the design of theIslamic component for inclusion as one component in the proposed worldreligion curriculum. Its purposes are considered against the backdrop of ...
The Mistaken Identification of “The West” with “Modernity”
Authors: Voll John Obert
Published: December 2020

The relationships between Islam and the West are complex. Even theperceptions of those relations have an important impact on the nature ofthe interactions. If the basic images that are used in discussing “Islam andthe West” are themselves ill-defiied or viewed in inconsistent ways, therelationships themselves are affected in sometimes dangerous ways.Inconsistent and contradictory terms of analysis can lead to misunderstandingand conflict.One of the most frequent conceptual mistakes made in discussingIslam and the West in the modem era is the identification of “the West”with “modemity.” This mistake has a significant impact on the way peeple view the processes of modernization in the Islamic world as well as onthe way people interpret the relationships between Islam and the West inthe contemporary era.The basic generalizations resulting from the following analysis can bestated simply: 1) “modernity“ is not uniquely “western”; 2) “the West” isnot simply “modernity”; and 3) the identifixation of “the West” with“modemity” has important negative consequences for understanding therelationships between Islam and the West. Modernity and the West aretwo different concepts and historic entities. To use the terms interchangeablyis to invite unnecessary confusion and create possible conflict’andinconsistency. This article will address the problem of definition and theapplication of the defined terms to interpreting actual experiences andrelationships.Understanding the difficulties raised by the identification of theWest with modernity involves a broader analysis within the frameworkof world history and global historical perspectives. In such an analysis, ...
Media in the Middle East
Authors: El-Affendi Abdelwahab
Published: December 2020

As evidenced by its subtitle, this book is a mighty ambitious work. Theeditors, recognizing the "woeful lack of information on the [Middle East's]media systems," present the book as "the first comprehensive study of thestructure and functions of the mass media in the Middle East." And it tooka lot of hard work, being the "culmination of more than two years ofresearch and writing by 32 mass media scholars from across the MiddleEast and the United States."The books covers twenty-one countries. The Middle East is definedhere as most Arab countries (Morocco, Sudan, Yemen, and Somalia wereleft out) plus Iran, Turkey, Israel, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.There is no question that a serious gap in information exists in the areathe book attempts to cover. It is also safe to say that the researchersinvolved did a great job, assembling in one volume a wealth of infomiationon the structure of the media in the Middle East. One can at a glance gleanup-to-date information about what publications are produced in each country,who owns them, what radio and television channels are available, whattimes they broadcast, what regulations exist, and how the media fit in thefuller picture ...
The Role of Muslim Psychologists in the New Paradigm of Human Development
Authors: Nadeem Khurshid Ahmad
Published: December 2020

The Islamization of Knowledge movement is gaining steady momentumamong Muslim scholars. Efforts are being made to examine differentacademic disciplines from an Islamic perspective, which is a clear indicationof the growing desire to develop a new hework of knowledge. Oneresult of this is the above-mentioned conference, which was organized bythe Society for the Advancement of Muslim Psychology (SAMP), Pakistan,with the collaboration of the International Institute of Islamic Thought(IIIT), Pakistan.SAMP was founded by Syed Azhar Ali Rizvi, chairman of theDepartment of Psychology, Government College, Lahore, some ten yearsago. Among the society’s objectives are:to promote the cause of Muslim psychology as a basic as well asan applied science, and of Muslim psychologists as academiciansand professionals working for the welfare of the individual and thesociety; to explore ways and means of improving the quality oftraining, research, and professional competence of Muslim psychologists;and to apply the teachings of the Qur’an and hadith andthe interpretations of eminent Muslims thinkers in the diagnosis,treatment, and rehabilitation of those who need psychological care ...
A Neoimperial Discourse on the Middle East
Authors: Coury Ralph
Published: December 2020

The critique of orientalism has had a major impact upon MiddleEastern and Islamic studies and in other areas of western and Americanintellectual life. However, despite this impact, there is no question that traditionalorientalist representations of the Arab and Islamic maintain a strikingvirulence, that they remain deeply marked by imperialist and racistlegacies, and that scholars often recoup and rehabfitate such perspectiveseven when they seem to be challenging them. I would like to illustrate theseobservations through a consideration of the work of the American authorPaul Bowles and of the treatment his work has received by American critics.It is, of course, customary for scholars to justify their work by statingthat their topic has not received the attention that it deserves. However, if Isay that Bowels's representation of the Arab/Muslim has been neglectedstrikingly, I am being honest as well as self-serving. Bowles is America3most prominent expatriate author and is also the only American whose fictionand nonfiction have dealt largely with Morocco and North Africa. It isnatural to assume that his work and its treatment can provide special insightinto the fate and fortune of the critique of orientalism, especially in the presentcontext of a Bowles revival that is becoming a veritable flux.Bowles has reflected, variously and throughout his literary career,many of the standard features that have characterized the representation ofthe Arab/Muslim since the nineteenthcentury. This is apparent in his interviews,nonfiction essays, and travel pieces, but also in the short stories andnovels that have appeared for nearly fifty years; from the 1940s into the1990s. In 1952, for example, he told Harvey Breit in an interview in theNew York Times:I don’t think we are likely to get to know the Muslims very welland I suspect that if we should we would find them less sympatheticthan we do at present and I believe the same applies to theirgetting to know us. At the moment they admire us for our techniqueand I don’t think they would fmd more than that compatible.Their culture is essentially barbarous, their mentality is that of apurely predatory people ...
An Introduction to Islam
Authors: Mohamed Yasien
Published: December 2020

David Waines, Islamic lecturer at Lancaster University, divides AnIntroduction to Islam into three parts. Part 1 deals with the Qur'an and theSunnah in the formative period, and part 2 is devoted to Islamic teachingsand practices, including separate chapters on Islamic law, theology, Sufism,and Shi'ism. The connecting thread in these first two parts is the ways inwhich Muslim scholars have explored "revelation and the experience oftheir Prophet, Muhammad" (p. 3). Part 3 treats Islam in the modern world,recounting the period over the last two centuries during which Muslimshave been challenged by western hegemony and have sought to establish amodem sense of Islamic identity.This is a comprehensive, wide-ranging, and up-to-date treatment ofIslamic history and culture. It is by no means the only recent introductionon Islam by a western scholar: Victor Danner's The Islamic Tradition: AnIntroduction (1988) deals with the Islamic intellectual and spiritual traditionwithin the context of other religious traditions. Frederick M. Dermy'sAn Introduction to Islam (1985) offers a comprehensive, simple account ofIslam, and Annemarie Schinunels' Islam: An Introduction is a concise and ...
In Search of a Boundless Ocean and New Skies
Authors: Waghid Yusuf
Published: December 2020

The stars tremble in their courses over man’s upward march lestthis fallen star should become the perfect moon!’The central question this article addresses is whether human beingscan act creatively. I shall first tackle the related question of how God’s creativityis distinguished from that of humanity and then move on to themore complex question of the nature of human creativity.God’s Creativity is Different from That ofHumankindThe Qur’an relates rubb (lord) to khalq (creation):He said: “Our Lord [rubb] is He who gives to everythmg its . . .[khalq] . . . and further gave (it) guidance. (Qur’an 20:50)’The noun khalq is considered by lexicographers to be derived from theroot verb khaluqu (to create, to make, to originate). And if God (ulKhaliq) created or orignated, then khalaqa is a verb that signifies His creativeability. According to al Raghib, khalq is used to describe the creativity(ibda) of a thing without imitation (ikhtiza’): He assigns this roleof khulq to God (al Khaliq). For a1 Tabataba‘i “the God of the universe isone, He alone created and He alone manages it.“ In fact, the link betweenGod as rabb and khalq is accentuated by al Tabari, who considers rubb tobe “the owner to whom the creation . . . belongs.’“ Moreover, this...
Islam and the West
Authors: Nasr Seyyed Hossein
Published: December 2020

When discussing this most important and timely issue, before anythingelse and beyond all current passions and prejudices, one must pause and askwhat we mean by the two terms Islam and the West. Which Islam andwhich West are we considering? Is it traditional Islam as practiced by themajority of Muslims, the Islam of pious men and women who seek to livein the light of God‘s teachings as revealed in the Qur’an and in surrender toHis will? Or is it modernist interpretations that seek to interpret the Islamictradition in view of currently prevalent Western ideas and fashions ofthought? Or yet, is it the extreme forms of politically active Islam that, inexasperation, before dominance by non-Islamic forces both outside andinside the borders of most Islamic countries, takes recourse in ideas andmethods of certain strands of recent Western political history, including, insome cases, terrorism, which is against Islamic law and which was notinvented by them?Nor is the reality of the West in any way homogeneous. In fact, practicallythe only political unity observed in the West these days appears inits hatred of Islam, as shown in the case of Bosnia and Chechnya, whereone has observed, with very few exceptions, the uniformity of silence,indifference, and inaction by various voices in the West in the face of theworst kind of human atrocities. Otherwise, the opposition of forces anddiversity of what is usually called the West is so blatant as to hardly needmention. But since it is ignored in many quarters that speak of global orderbased on what they call Western values, it must be asked if the West ischaracterized by Trappist and Carthusian monks or European andAmerican agnostic or atheistic “intellectuals” on university campuses or inthe media. One wonders if the Westerners are those who still make pilgrimageto hurdes in the thousands, or those who journey, also in thethousands, to Las Vegas or the birthplace of Elvis Presley. This diversityand even confrontation within the West is of the greatest importance notonly for those in Europe and the United States who speak of confrontationwith the Islamic world on the basis of the idea that there is an at least relativelyunified West, but also for the Muslims, at least some of whom arein general fully aware of deep divisions not likely to be integrated intounity soon but which are in fact on the verge of creating disorder and chaoswithin the very fabric of Western societies ...
Muslim Women's Studies
Authors: Kahf Mohja
Published: December 2020

Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of Aisha hint Abi Bakr.By D. A. Spellberg. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994, 243 pp.Qur'an and Woman. By Amina Wadud-Muhsin. Kuala Lumpur: FajarBakti, 1992, 118 pp.Denise Spellberg's survey of the legacy of 'A'ishah and AminaWadud-Muhsin's exegesis of the Qur'anic exposition of gender are foraysin the field of Muslim women's studies. Both works study the place ofMuslim women in the textual heritage of the community, but their pointsof departure are different. Spellberg proposes that 'A'ishah's legacy, aproduct of exclusively male writings in texts from the classical Islamiccenturies, is a reflection of Muslim men's interpretations of early Islamichistory and their opinions about the proper place of women in their owntime. Such interpretations, Spellberg shows, are charged with the politicaltensions of their contemporary societies. Yet 'A'ishah 's "legacy alonedefied idealization as completely as it denied comfortable categorization"by the Muslim men whose texts represent and construct her, Spellbergasserts (p. 190).Wadud-Muhsin acknowledges the way in which another copiousIslamic scholarship emerged, motivated by the need to understand theQur'anic utterances about women. Her focus is not, however, on thoseinterpretive texts of men that form an authoritative tradition explaining themeaning of the Qur'an. Wadud-Muhsin argues that the question ofwoman in the Qur'an must be reconnected directly to the primary text.She proposes approaching the Qur'anic text without the assumptions aboutgender of the classical interpreters, whose work constitutes the Islamic traditionof exegesis, but also without the assumptions that undergird contemporaryfeminist readings of the Qur'an. She offers a herrneneuticalmethod for understanding the place and meaning of gender in the Qur'an,based on the consistencies of the Qur'an itself: its contexts, language, andthe worldview of its texts as a whole. The effect of this, Wadud-Muhsinsuggests, would be to transcend the gender biases of narrower readingmethods and arrive at a fuller appreciation of the text's guidance for menand women.Both works began as dissertations, Spellberg's in history, WadudMuhsin'sin religious studies. Each brings to Muslim women's studies anode of questions about the process of textual interpretation. The ...
Authority
Authors: Al-'Alwani Taha J.
Published: December 2020

Any study of authority will need to consider the subject from a numberof different perspectives, including an analysis of concepts and howbese are formulated, and a study of the effects of these concepts at boththe practical and theoretical levels. The study that ensues does not claimto be the last word on the subject. Rather, its purpose is to open the doorto further examination and inquiry and to critically analyze the main concept,in addition to the network of concepts attached to and contingentupon it.I shall not spend a great deal of time analyzing the lexical aspects of theconcepts we are about to study, because terms and concepts are two differentthings. In a study of terminology, it might suffice to identify the lexicalroot and its particular meanings and then move on to a discussion of theusages appropriate to a particular field, subject, or science. Thereafter, onemight attempt to define the term in a way that gives a clear idea of itsintended meaning. A concept, however, may be described as a term connectedto a network of philosophical and culhual roots. Furthermore,regardless of the diversity of its roots, a concept will always correlate withthe epistemological paradigm in which it functions. Certainly this assumptionholds true in regard to Islamic concepts or those concepts that are keyto an understanding of the Islamic order.Surrounding the Islamic concept of divine authority, for example,there is an entire network of related concepts. Unless these related conceptsare understood, both on their own and within the larger context ofthe Islamic order itself, the concept of divine authority will remainunclear. This network includes, for example, the concepts of divinity, creation,worship, the world and the hereafter, the divine discourse, the lawfuland the unlawful, the classification of texts as relative or unqualified or ...
MUSLIM YOUTH ORGANIZATIONS IN BRITAIN
Authors: Gilliat Sophie
Published: December 2020

Muslim youth organizations reflect some of the most dynamic andimportant issues currently facing the British Muslim community. Thequestion of young Muslims and the organizations in which they areinvolved must be a matter high on the agenda of all with an interest inthe future of Islam in Britain. In talking about Muslim youth movementsin the past and present, one is at the same time looking ahead into thenext millennium: the picture is one of exciting new directions, uncertainty,threat, and promise.In the first part of this paper, I will examine the emergence anddevelopment of Muslim youth organizations in Britain, paying attentionto questions such as their goals, membership, leadership, ethos, andactivities. In the second section, I will assess what needs the differentorganizations appear to be fulfilling and, in this part of the paper, I willfocus on issues relating to ideology, identity, belonging, the future ofIslam, and the resolution of generational conflicts. As the discussionprogresses, some assessment will be made of the significance of the differentMuslim youth groups as elements of the wider Islamic communityin this country and a consideration as to where they fit into the over-allstructure of Muslim activity.It is not my intention to survey every youth movement that has everexisted and what their activities and ideologies have been. Instead, thefocus will be on three major youth organizations, all of which contrastwith each other in quite significant ways, and yet which share somecommon aspirations. In a sense, they will provide the context for themore theoretical second section of the discussion. By concentrating onthree particular groups, a whole variety of other youth groups have ...
Al-Mughtaribun
Authors: Altalib Omar
Published: December 2020

The focus of this book is on "the gradual transformation of American Muslims'perceptions and self-identification, coaxed by the ways American civillaw has penetrated and come to dominate their daily lives" (p. vii). Hence, thebook attempts to show the link between law and society by using Muslims inthe United States as a case study. It is of interest to sociologists, legal historians,political scientists, and scholars of religion and touches on the themes ofcivil rights, freedom of religion, social change, the status of minorities, andassimilation.Moore shows how Muslims in the United States have been affected byAmerican immigration law (chapters 2 and 3), religious liberty laws affectingMuslims in prison (chapter 4), hate crime legislation affecting mosques (chapter5), and zoning laws that affect mosques (chapter 6). The sources Mooreuses are historical: court records, interviews, magazine articles, and newspaperstories. She points out that there has been a great transformation in theAmerican legal system's attitude toward Islam. In 1811, the New YorkSupreme Court ruled (in People vs. Ruggles) that the "religion of Mohammed"is an impostor religion, a superstition, and is equally false and unknown(p. x). ln 1962, on the other hand, the District of Columbia U.S. District Courtruled (in Fulwood vs. Clemmer) that Muslims believe in Allah as a supremebeing and as the one true god. It follows, therefore, that the Muslim faith is areligion {p. 82).Have American legal institutions been responsive to the Muslim community?Has the American legal setting transformed the Muslim community? Theanswer to the first question, according to Moore, is that in the 1800s, "No"; butgradually the courts have become more responsive and continue to be moreresponsive as time passes and as Muslims become more politically active. Theanswer to the second question is "Yes."How has the American legal setting transformed the Muslim community?It has limited the numbers of Muslims in the United States (through immigrationrestrictions). It has increasingly allowed Muslims in prison to pray jum'ah,wear kufis on their heads, eat nonpork foods, and obtain copies of the Qur'an.It has protected Muslim mosques from vandalism through stiffer penalties forpeople committing such a crime. It has also restricted the establishment of ...