Professor Ismail Faruqi

The family, is indeed, the best tool for Islamic Da'wah in the West. There is no institution, there is no mechanism that I know of, that can convey Islam as well as the living example of an Islamic family in the West. The Islamic family, if it is rightly Islamic, is the very ideal to which Western people today aspire. In other words, the reality of Western people today stands diametrically opposite; if they can say that they can stand at the bottom of human, social and ethical development, because of what we see happening around us in their midst, the Islamic family with its ideals, with its norms and standards, stands at the opposite highest, and therefore, there can be no better way of convincing Western man, the non-Muslim man or woman, of the value of Islam, of the greatness of Islam, than to invite them to visit a Muslim family. But then, the Muslim family must be a good one. In other words, it must be truly Islamic and it must live up to the standards expected of an Islamic family. And now as to the dialectic of this relationship.

Dr. Ismail R. al-Faruqi and Dr. Lois Lamya al-Faruqi
 
Tawhid, or the doctrine of absolute unity, transcendence, and ultimacy of God, implies that only He is worthy of worship, of service. The obedient person lives his life under this principle. He seeks to have all his acts to conform to the pattern, to actualize the divine purpose. His life must therefore show the unity of his mind and will, the unique object of his service. His life will not be a series of events put together helter skelter, but will be related to a single overarching principle, bound by a single frame that integrates them together into a single unity. His life thus has a single style, an integral form in short, Islam.
 

Mengenang 20 Tahun Pemergian Ismail Ragi al-Faruqi (Mei 1986-2006) Warisan Kesarjanaan Ummah

Oleh: Mohd. Shah Abdullah

Kira-kira 20 tahun lalu peristiwa itu amat menyayat hati. Pada 27 Mei 1986, dalam waktu dinihari bulan Ramadan al-Mubarak, Prof Dr Ismail Faruqi dan isteri, Lois Lamya al-Faruqi dibunuh dengan kejam setelah ditikam bertalu-talu oleh seorang lelaki misteri. Anak perempuannya Anmar al-Zein terselamat, itu pun terpaksa dirawat dengan lebih 200 jahitan juga akibat tikaman si-penjenayah yang tidak berhati perut itu. Kejadian dalam banglo kediamannya di Wyncote, Pennsylvania, Amerika Syarikat itu amat tragis kepada seluruh umat Islam termasuk pengikut beliau, sebahagian besar adalah anak murid beliau yang diasuh di Universiti Temple, Philadephia. Semuanya bungkam, terkejut, kecewa dan bersedih. Ismail Ragi al-Faruqi adalah professor Pengajian Islam, khususnya dalam disiplin perbandingan agama, satu cabang kepakaran khusus yang amat diperlukan dalam mempertahankan maruah dan wibawa Islam dan ummah. Kepakaran itu amat diperlukan dalam suasana hari ini ketika umat Islam menghadapi pelbagai cabaran globalisasi selain dilabelkan sebagai agama yang menganjurkan keganasan.

The great task facing Muslim intellectuals and leaders is to recast the whole legacy of human knowledge from the standpoint of Islam. The vision of Islam would not be a vision unless it is a vision of something, namely, life, reality, and the world. That vision is the object of study of various disciplines. To recast knowledge as Islam relates to it, is to Islamize it, i.e., to redefine and reorder the parameters and the data, to rethink the reasoning and interrelationships of the data, to reevaluate the conclusions, to re-project the goals, and to do so in such a way as to make the reconstituted disciplines enrich the vision and the serve the cause of Islam.