Contemporary Islamic Studies

Wakaf pendidikan tinggi penting bagi membiayai pendidikan pelajar yang kurang mampu untuk meneruskan pengajian serta membiayai perbelanjaan pengurusan universiti. Pada masa kini, wakaf pendidikan tinggi menjadi topik utama Kementerian Pengajian Tinggi sebagai suatu mekanisme pembiayaan perbelanjaan mengurus universiti tanpa perlu bergantung sepenuhnya kepada pihak kerajaan. Objektif kajian ini ialah untuk menganalisis institusi pendidikan tinggi di Malaysia yang menggunakan wakaf sebagai salah satu mekanisme penjanaan aset untuk menjalankan operasinya dengan mengambil Universiti Islam Malaysia (UIM) sebagai model kajian. Kajian menggunakan metode kajian perpustakaan dan lapangan untuk mendapatkan data primer dan sekunder. Kajian lapangan menggunakan instrument temubual dengan responden yang terlibat secara langsung dengan pengurusan tertinggi Universiti Islam Malaysia (UIM). Dapatan kajian menunjukkan Universiti Islam Malaysia (UIM) berjaya menjadikan wakaf sebagai aset penjanaan pe...

Khadher Ahmad, Mohd Yakub @ Zulkifli Mohd Yusoff, Khalijah Awang, Rozana Othman, Monika @ Munirah Abd Razzak, Nurulwahidah Fauzi, Mohd Asmadi Yakob & Mohd Farhan Md Ariffin. 2018. TUMBUHAN SELASIH DALAM AL-QURAN DAN HADITH: ANALISIS TERHADAP MANFAATNYA BERASASKAN KEPADA PENYELIDIKAN SEMASA. Journal of Contemporary Islamic Studies (JCIS), UiTM Shah Alam, (e-ISSN: 0128-0902), bil. 4 (1): 106-125 (Indexed by MyCite & MyJurnal)

Recent economic crises have made the centrality of debt, and the instability it creates, increasingly apparent. This realization has led to cries for change—yet there is little popular awareness of possible alternatives. Beyond Debt describes efforts to create a transnational economy free of debt. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Malaysia, Daromir Rudnyckyj illustrates how the state, led by the central bank, seeks to make the country’s capital Kuala Lumpur “the New York of the Muslim world”—the central node of global financial activity conducted in accordance with Islam. Rudnyckyj shows how Islamic financial experts have undertaken ambitious experiments to create more stable economies and stronger social solidarities by facilitating risk- and profit-sharing, enhanced entrepreneurial skills, and more collaborative economic action. Building on scholarship that reveals the impact of financial devices on human activity, he illustrates how Islamic finance is deployed to fashion subjects who are at once more pious Muslims and more ambitious entrepreneurs. In so doing, Rudnyckyj shows how experts seek to create a new “geoeconomics”—a global Islamic alternative to the conventional financial network centered on New York, London, and Tokyo. A groundbreaking analysis of a timely subject, Beyond Debt tells the captivating story of efforts to re-center international finance in an emergent Islamic global city and, ultimately, to challenge the very foundations of conventional finance.

The contemporary era of the Islamic world is characterized by a passion for building its own life. This spirit faces a number of new problems at both internal and external levels. Hence the variations of Islamic progressive thought and movement emerged to provide solutions to these problems. This variation exhibits its distinctive character and can be shaped into a general pattern of structures composed of five aspects and fourteen components. The ideotheological aspect base consists of the principal sources and joints of Islam and prophethood. The methodological spectrum aspect consists of the legacy of Islamic tradition, law, and methodology. The aspect of ideality concept consists of the concepts of Islam and Muslims and the concepts of comparison of Islam and its treasures. The aspects of action zone consist of behavior, science and technology, politics, and social interaction. The aspects of reality and solutions consist of the reality of Islam and Muslims, the problems of Muslims, and progressive solutions. All these aspects and components move in a hierarchical and circular manner. Hierarchical motion shows the vertical-interactive relation from the highest level to the lowest level. Circular motion shows the referential relation of the lowest level that seeks to trace its sources at the highest level for the fulfillment of progressive solutions with reinterpretative and historical approaches.

In the mid-90s, Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and the Iranian Ayatollah Khamene’i both banned bloody forms of self-flagellation such as tatbir (cutting the forehead with a sword), calling them backward and un-Islamic. They argued that Shi‘a Muslims ought to imitate Husayn by actively fighting against oppressors rather than passively mourning Husayn’s martyrdom. This prohibition has not been unanimously applied in all Muslim
countries, including Syria, where such practices persisted until the Arab Spring (when virtually all Shi‘a Muslims left the shrine-town where these practices were performed). By closely reading the linguistic, conceptual, and juridical discourses that circulated in Syria in order to justify this position, the paper shows that the performers of tatbir conceived of these rituals in revolutionary, rather than reactionary, terms. By examining the performance and reception of flagellation processions in terms of differing modalities of affect, the paper opens up spaces for rethinking ‘revolution’ and ‘redemption’ in contemporary Twelver Shi‘ism.

Conférence donnée le 12 octobre 2019 dans le cadre du séminaire "féminin pluriel" organisé par le département d'histoire des pays arabes et d'islamologie à l'université de Palerme, à l'occasion de la 5ème édition du Festival des littératures des migrants organisé par la mairie de Palerme.

Murad’s Commentary on the Eleventh Contentions is a rare and profound book. It consists of 100 pithy aphorisms - termed "contentions" - on a diverse array of topics ranging through ethics, cosmology, metaphysics, theology, law and history. Each contention is a terse distillation of Murad's often exquisitely crafted ruminations on a given matter followed by his own compressed elucidation (the commentary).  Though sometimes abstruse and esoteric, the book weaves itself into a dense, multi-faceted tapestry of insights into a range of contemporary issues that concern the religious mind.

Masyarakat Melayu dikenali sebagai sebuah masyarakat yang penuh dengan adat sopan, berbudi bahasa, saling hormat-menghormati, dan kuat ikatan persaudaraan. Hal ini telah digambarkan dengan pelbagai ungkapan, pepatah, perumpamaan, pantun, dan syair Melayu yang menyiratkan norma sopan-santun dan tata pergaulan orang Melayu.

Sebenarnya, kesopanan, kesantunan dan ikatan persaudaraan inilah yang menjadi kunci kejayaan bangsa Melayu pada suatu ketika dahulu sehinggakan mereka telah berjaya menghadiahkan diri sendiri dengan negara yang berdaulat, merdeka dan menjadi pemerintah di bumi sendiri. Mereka juga tidak terpengaruh dengan fitnah penjajah yang banyak membawa persepsi serong khususnya terhadap sejarah tanah air.

Apabila adat kesopanan, kesantunan dan ikatan persaudaraan masyarakat Melayu ini mulai longgar, maka identiti mereka pun turut berubah. Kalau dahulu segala unsur negatif dapat diketepikan dengan mudah dan setiap anggota masyarakat saling mempertahankan maruah antara satu sama lain, namun sekarang amat sukar untuk berbuat demikian. Pelbagai amalan negatif semakin menular dan merebak dalam masyarakat Melayu, terutamanya jenayah fitnah.

Hal ini bertepatan dengan hadis Rasulullah SAW yang bermaksud, “Akan muncul suatu zaman yang ilmu Islam dihapuskan, muncul berbagai-bagai fitnah, berleluasanya sifat kedekut, dan banyak berlaku jenayah.” (Riwayat Muslim)

Mohd Shukri Hanapi (2015). “Bahaya Jenayah Fitnah”, Dakwah, Isu 30, Nov-Dis, Kuala Lumpur: Yayasan Dakwah Islamiah Malaysia, hlm. 33-37.

Al-Andalus, an Arab and Islamic country in Iberia between 711 and 1492, has been highly controversial in modern Spain. Over the 19th century, Spanish nationalist historical writing developed a two-pronged approach to the Iberian medieval process. According to the Reconquista paradigm, the Christians conquest of Islamic territories represented a national liberation struggle while al-Andalus was merely considered the anti-Spain. At the same time, al-Andalus was also interpreted as the 'Islamic Spain', part of the eternal Spanish nation. While the concept of 'Islamic Spain'  came under heavy criticism since the 1970s and became nearly totally disregarded, the traditional idea of Reconquista has been preserved and remains considered as a suitable reading of medieval Iberia among relevant scholarly and non-academic outlets.

Kajian ini adalah mengenai pemikiran ekonomi Syeikh Daud al-Fatani dalam kitab Furu’ al-Masa’il dan relevansinya dengan kontrak perbankan Islam di Malaysia. Kajian ini mempunyai lima objektif, iaitu menerangkan biografi pengarang; mengenalpasi konsep pemikiran ekonomi Islam dan potensi ulama Melayu sebagai pemikir ekonomi; merumuskan perbincangan mengenai kontrak muamalat dalam kitab Furu’ al-Masa’il; mengenalpasti amalan kontrak muamalat dalam perbankan Islam di Malaysia; dan menganalisis relevansi kontrak muamalat Syeikh Daud al-Fatani dengan amalan kontrak perbankan Islam di Malaysia. Kajian ini menghasilkan lima dapatan. Pertama, kehebatan dan keistimewaan tokoh ini bersumberkan aspek rihlah ‘ilmiyyah dan aspek kepengarangan. Kedua, bidang pemikiran ekonomi Islam adalah berasaskan landasan ijtihad, dan kemantapan idea dan kebijaksanaan sarjana. Ketiga, kemantapan kitab Furu’ al-Masa’il pada bab muamalat. Keempat, asas kekuatan muamalat perbankan Islam di Malaysia adalah dari asp...

"Jalaluddin Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, lived during the closing years of the Golden Age of the Islamic civilisation, the Abbasid caliphate (750 – 1258 C.E.) He was born in 1207 in Khorasan, present day Afghanistan, three years after the end of the Fourth Crusade and twelve years before the Mongol invasion of Muslim lands. He died in 1273, 15 years after the destruction of Bagdad in 1258."

The primary goal of this article is to describe spiritual and religious considerations of music in Islamic spiritual care for enhancing spiritual care to Muslims. In medieval times in the Muslim world, music played an important role in healthcare practices. For example music was used not only to enhance spirituality of patients but also to improve their health. Many Muslim scholars and musicians used musical theory and techniques as a way of connecting patients with the Divine, inspiring hope and finding meaning in their crisis, suffering and illness. Therefore music can be used in spiritual care for Muslims as a tool to connect patients with spiritual sources of strength.

This article argues that Islam Hadhari, as a model for development officially inaugurated during the administration of Malaysia’s fifth prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (2003–9), encountered failure. Its lack of success was significantly due to the rise of Islamist conservatives, who deliberately interpreted Islam Hadhari as a political instrument to impose Islamization from above in a manner not conducive to living in a spirit of peaceful coexistence in a multi-ethnic society. While on the one hand it promoted an Islam that cherishes the values of inclusivity, moderation and inter-religious tolerance, on the other hand Islam Hadhari unfortunately triggered defensive responses from Islamist conservatives. This ad hoc conservative alliance comprised religious leaders associated with the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), state religious functionaries, scholars affiliated to the opposition Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS: Parti Islam SeMalaysia) and Islamist non-governmental organizations. The rise of this Islamist conservatism aggravated ethno-religious relations during Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s premiership, leading to the setbacks experienced by his government in the general elections of 2008. By then, the death knell had been sounded for Islam Hadhari. It was steadily consigned to the graveyard of history by the administration of Najib Razak, who took over from Abdullah in April 2009.

During the onslaught of the Islamic caliphate on Kobanî, Syria, media outlets across the globe broadcast pictures of brave and often unveiled Kurdish women fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), a quintessentially male force of destruction. The images of women fighting Islamist male aggressors aroused outrage, admiration, and pity among observers. But had all Kurdish fighters been male or had women fought for ISIS, viewers might have reacted differently. To examine some of the most widely disseminated gendered pictures and videos of the Syrian uprising in the media, this article draws on Mohja Kahf’s three categories, which typify how Muslim women, Arab women, or both are perceived by the Anglophone reading and viewing public: the first is victims; the second, escapees; and the third, pawns of patriarchy and male power. While this typology helps in examining gendered images of the Syrian uprising, it also obscures the socioeconomic realities on the ground.

For centuries Muslims have asked whether the Qurʾan should be recited and memorized first and foremost, or whether one must prioritize understanding the meaning of its complex language. What is the best way to encounter God's Word? To explore this question, a women's Qurʾan lesson in a slum of Old Cairo illustrates modern Muslim anxieties over the place of discursive meaning in encounters with the Qurʾan. This article elaborates the concept of affirmation as an analytic to grasp how the women relate to the truth of revelation. Affirmation is a performative and discursive her-meneutic practice that deploys Qurʾanic citation, situates Qurʾanic concepts in daily life, and sutures the efficacy of Qurʾan education with correct language and with right action. Their lessons are indicative of reformist trends in Qurʾan education that open onto questions of meaning and understanding in relation to human interactions with divine speech.

This article analyses an ongoing conflict between two groups (Bargil and Kardal) over the management of a mosque located in an area near London. Based on fourteen months of intensive fieldwork, including participant observation, informal chats and semi-structured interviews, this article offers an in-depth and original account of the transformations taking place in mosques concerning the role of imams and mosque committee members. By analysing the object of conflict, the organisational structure, the dynamic of the groups and its leaders, as well as the process of bureaucratisation of mosques as a material condition, I intend to scrutinise the role and status of the imam and mosque committee members. The primary aim of this article is to reexamine and challenge the narrative of decline in religious authority (in Western mosques) propounded by some scholars as being the result of individualisation and the rise of new religious figures outside traditional institutions. I suggest that rather than experiencing a decline in imams' religious authority, mosques have become controlled by the bureaucratic authority of the committee members. In other words, imams' religious authority is still exercised, yet only within the bureaucratic framework set by the committee members.

“‛Ο δέ ’Ιησοϋς ’ειπε, Μή Κωλύετε αύτόν ‛ός γάρ ούκ έστι καθ’ ‘ημων, ‘υπέρ ‘ημων ’εστιν.”
---St. Mark
(“Dan Yesus berkata, Jangan menghalangi dia, karena tidak bersama kita,
sebab dia [juga adalah] bagian dari kita.”)

“’Αλλ’ έν παντί ’έθνει ‘ο Φοβούμενος αύτόν, καί ’εργαζόμενος δικαιοσύνην, δεκτός άυτώ έστι.”
---St. Peter
(“Tetapi di setiap manusia (ada) yang merasa khawatir (takut kepada) dia, (karena seseorang itu) ialah
yang dapat menegakkan keadilan, adalah untuk menyambut datang kepadanya”.)

Anyone acquainted with Africa's rich social history cannot deny the fact that Islam – as a dynamic religious tradition-has indeed been an integral part of its identity. In fact, it was Ali Mazrui, the Africanist, who powerfully described this dimension when he highlighted the continent's triple heritage (of which Christianity and African Religious Tradition also form a part). Though Khalid Diab, the Egyptian-Belgian journalist, significantly remarked that, " Islamic Civilization is so hard-wired into Europe's cultural, social and intellectual DNA that it would be impossible to expunge its influence " (Al-Jazeera 8 Jan 2015), one is of the view that Africa neatly fitted that profile since it – more than any other continent-tangibly reflect that. Indeed when one scans the length and breath of the continent, one comes across various types of evidence that points to the fact that Muslims left behind their footprints in almost every sector of the continent. These have since become part of Africa's continental heritage and most of them have fortunately been preserved by its numerous nation-states. For example, when traveling through central Africa one finds many scholarly manuscripts that have yet to be edited and that cover different themes. And when moving to East Africa's coastal regions one comes across numerous historical sites/towns such as Kilwa that are clearly reminiscent of Muslim influence. And as one travels further south of the continent, one finds ample proof that point to the Muslims' presence. All of these perceptibly demonstrate that one cannot sidestep the Muslim contribution to this continent's identity. So the purpose of this presentation is fivefold: the first is to conceptualize the term 'Islamic Civilization' that intends to act the essay's theoretical frame; the second is to briefly reflect upon the continent's social history south of the Sahara; the third is to comment on the rich Islamic manuscript collections and other heritage items that contributed towards the making of this civilization continentally; the fourth is to narrate in summarized form the status of Timbuktu as an educational centre; and the fifth is to tabulate the challenges that the continent currently faces in its attempt to preserve and protect its heritage items such as manuscripts from those who wish to destroy them.

I use Edward Said's metaphor of exile to identify an archive that offers an alternative discourse in the study of Islam. By drawing on Western and Muslim traditions, this archive occupies a place of exile that does more than constructing a representation of the Muslim world. Like Said's work, it continues the critique of Orientalism. In addition, it includes a deliberation on ethics that has generally eluded the dominant discourse on the making and unmaking of the Islamic World. I contrast this archive with a post-Orientalist discourse that sometimes takes a deconstructivist approach to Islam, and sometimes one that emphasizes agency. The use of agency draws attention to Muslim imbrication in the social, political, and religious fields, but fails to account for political and economic hegemonies. Such strategies side-step the continuing dominance of Western political power games in Muslim societies and states. I therefore turn to scholars in exile and propose that their interest in critique and ethics offers a different way of imagining the Islamic world. Their questions and concern offer a different perspective to 'post-Saidian' Islamic Studies.

The article advances the argument that Islamic law, more than a mere legal system, represents a legal tradition. A legal tradition stands at the heart of civilisations generally, and Islamic civilisation particularly. Constitutional design in Muslim states must have this backdrop in mind because modern constitutionalism is typically carried out within the framework of modern nation-states, instead of civilisations. The danger then is that the constitution may end up as a kind of “fiat constitution”. By excavating the historical and philosophical foundations of the modern constitution, the article then shows that the very idea of constitutionalism itself actually accommodates the idea of legal tradition, but unfortunately in practice, it is often ignored when designing the constitution of Muslim states. The article also identifies six core constitutional fault lines of contemporary Islamic civilisation, areas which are most vulnerable to conflicts.

This paper (in Bahasa) portrays Musa Asy'arie, one of Yogyakarta Muslim intellectuals, who believes in free thinking in liberating following others' schools of thoughts. Asy'arie found its own way to find truth in interpreting the messages of the Quran, treating non-Muslims, and analyzing economy from Islamic perspectives. This is semi-biographical account of his struggle to find himself to become intellectual.

Indonesia has been home to some of the most vibrant and complex developments in modern Islamic thought anywhere in the world. Nevertheless little is known or understood about these developments outside South East Asia. By considering the work of the leading Indonesian thinkers of the twentieth century, Michael Feener, an intellectual authority in the area, offers a cogent critique of this diverse and extensive literature and sheds light on the contemporary debates and the dynamics of Islamic reform. The 2007 book highlights the openness to, and creative manipulation of, diverse strands of international thought that have come to define Islamic intellectualism in modern Indonesia. This is an accessible and interpretive overview of the religious and social thought of the world's largest Muslim majority nation. As such it will be read by scholars of Islamic law and society, South East Asian studies and comparative law and jurisprudence.

The centuries old ambivalence of South African Muslims towards the ruling class and a desire for coexistence with it have, in recent years, made way for a confident Islam ready to confront the world and to reject all the values of that class. We propose to briefly look at the events from 1970 onwards which facilitated this trend and to examine how the Exodus paradigm acquired a South African significance for Islamists who sought inspiration and/or legitimation from the Qur'an for resistance against apartheid. This hermeneutical appropriation of the Exodus paradigm by Islamists (2) there was reflective of a broader re-reading of the Qur'an. This re-reading did not only occur within their actual historical situation but also within the formative context of contending ideologies within the liberation movement.

Roads to Paradise: Eschatology and Concepts of the Hereafter in Islam offers a multi-disciplinary study of Muslim thinking about paradise, death, apocalypse, and the hereafter. It focuses on eschatological concepts in the Quran and its exegesis, Sunni and Shi‘i traditions, Islamic theology, philosophy, mysticism, and other scholarly disciplines reflecting Islamicate pluralism and cosmopolitanism. Gathering material from all parts of the Muslim world, ranging from Islamic Spain to Indonesia, and the entirety of Islamic history, this publication in two volumes also integrates research from comparative religion, art history, sociology, anthropology and literary studies. Unparalleled and unprecedented in its scope and comprehensiveness, Roads to Paradise promises to become the definitive reference work on Islamic eschatology for the years to come.

No serious scholar of Islam can deny the impact that modernity and postmodernity have had upon contemporary Islamic thought. In this chapter I will outline how current Islamic thought has been impacted upon by these intellectual discourses. I will proceed from the inception of modernity and go on to discuss developments in the post-modern period. In my final analysis I will discuss contemporary Islamic thought and the discontents of modernity and postmodernity. By taking recourse to the work of current-day Islamist thinkers who are responding to the intellectual challenges of modernity and postmodernity we are able to gauge the deep introspection that these two very important paradigms nave effected upon contemporary Islamic discourse. From this perspective then, the impact of modernity and postmodernity upon Islamic discourse can hardly be construed negatively. The secular/Islamist polemic is an essential contributing factor to the emergence of a clearer conception of Islamic identity in current times. While the issue of identity will not be addressed in significant detail, the critique of modernity and postmodernity that is offered is certainly compelling evidence suggesting the emergence of a far more articulate and clearer Islamic self-image. The task of exploring the conception of an authentic Islamic self-image is beyond the scope of this chapter, but interrogating the philosophical discourses of modernity and postmodernity is an absolutely essential preliminary step that lays the necessary groundwork for such a venture.

The case of the Rohingyas highlights a glaring paradox in South East Asian society. While heads of state and the foreign ministries eagerly push for an integrated ASEAN Community, where member states would benefit from economic prosperity and material infrastructure, thousands still remain on the periphery, disconnected from government to government affairs, that are increasingly seen as not representing their interests.