“Isma’il Faruqi is a good case of the modern intellectual who is a believer and provides a good example for thinking about what it means to be a ‘believing intellectual’ in the modern era,” said Georgetown University’s history professor John Voll who presented the Annual Isma’il Faruqi Lecture at IIIT on August 26 to an audience of over 80 scholars, activists and community leaders. Speaking on "The Challenge of the Believing Intellectual: Religion and Modernity," Professor Voll, who is also associated with the Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, reviewed how an understanding of what it means to be an intellectual has evolved over time. In the past, an intellectual could not be committed to anything, any faith or any cause; he would have to be above any commitment to be objective, or be secular in a sense. Times have changed and now it is possible to speak of being an intellectual and yet be committed to a faith or a cause, as Ismai’l Faruqi certainly was. That is why now we can speak of a believing intellectual, an intellectual who can examine issues from a unique perspective. Professor Voll opined that one of the most frequent conceptual mistakes made in discussing Islam and the West in the modern era was the identification of “the West” with “modernity.” This mistake has a significant impact on the way people view the processes of modernization in the Islamic world as well as on the way people interpret the relationships between Islam and the West in the contemporary era. Modernity is simply a phase of world history, a “set of processes that brought an end to the traditional lifestyles of medieval civilizations.” There can be and there are several “modernities”, each in a different cultural or civilizational environment, such as in Muslim societies. The techniques and infrastructure of change give modernity its unique character, according to Professor Voll. This understanding of modernity and modernization is the only way that ...

The Swahili translation of Dr. Taha Alwani's book (La Ikhraha fi ad-Dean) has just been released.

IIIT started its 4^th annual Summer Students program on June 28^th, 2010 with an opening session that included welcoming  remarks and an introduction to IIIT, its history, vision and mission and current activities, featuring Dr. Jamal Barzinji, Vice President of IIIT and Dr. Iqbal Unus, Director of the Fairfax Institute, the instructional division of IIIT.

Volume 27, Number 2, Spring 2010 issue of the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences (AJISS), a joint publication of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists of North America (AMSS) and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), has been published.

Click here for the table of contents.

“Islamic finance is a serious alternative that academia is still ignoring,” said Dr. Muhammad Fahim Khan, a distinguished economist speaking at a seminar at IIIT on May 28.  

In his lecture entitled “Islamic Finance: Future Directions and Agenda for Research", Dr. Khan focused on the inherent problems of Islamic Finance, its current challenges and future directions. He started off with outlining the political circumstances of the 1970s that gave rise to Islamic financial institutions such as the events in Afghanistan, the retreat of Russia, the Islamic revolution in Iran, the Islamization policy of the military government of Pakistan (under Zia Ul Haq), and Sudan’s commitment to Sharia. Islamic resurgence – he maintained – was seen at the horizon and economic institutions – and not social institutions – were to take the lead. It was not a good ...

The Islamic Principles and Methods of Teaching

Al Ijtihad: The Journal of the Islamization of Knowledge and Contemporary Issues, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2010.

“Because people have different views, their interpretation of religion and its influence on society is subjective, leading to stereotyping and clash of civilizations,” said Dr. Hisham Altalib speaking at  the “Understanding Interfaith Conference” organized by the Center of Interfaith Study and Dialogue (CISD) at Nazareth College in Rochester, New York, on April 11 – 13, 2010.

 At the Abrahamic Faiths session during the conference, three speakers engaged in a dialogue about the effects of stereotyping and prejudice on interfaith relations. Dr. Eboo Patel was the main speaker who spoke eloquently on the great utility of Interfaith understanding, particularly among the youth.

Speaking about the influence of religion, Dr. Altalib observed that “no one knows if God is on his or her side, even though they claim to be on the side of God.” He added that “two observers examining history may conclude that ...

The book addresses the sensitive topic of Hadith authentication, focusing on the criteria adopted by classical scholars to maintain that concentration on the continuity and accuracy of the chain of narrators, rather than the textual content of Hadith, has led to particular Hadith being included which either contradict other Hadith directly, project the Prophet (S) in an uncharacteristic light, or do not reflect and/or conflict with the teachings of the Qur'an.