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Towards the Construction of a Contemporary Islamic Educational Theory 
Fathi Malkawi     
  
Islamization of Knowledge: Conceptual Background, Vision and Tasks       
Salisu Shehu

Economic Guidelines in the Qur'an  
S.M. Hasanuz Zaman    

Contribution of Islamic Thought to Modern Economics  
Misbah Oreibi    

An Introduction to Islamic Economics       
Muhammad Akram Khan

Islamic Thought and Culture       
Isma'il R. al Faruqi

Islamization of Knowledge: Background, Models and the Way Forward
Malam Sa'idu Sulaiman

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Cultural Diversity and Islam PDF Print E-mail

Abdul Aziz Said and Meena Sharify-Funk, eds. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 2003. 240 pages.

As a compilation of papers presented at an international conference (1998) on “Cultural Diversity and Islam” at American University in Washington, DC, this volume brings together the contributions of a wide array of scholars. It has four sections and twelve chapters dealing with diversity and/or pluralism in relation to Islam. The first section, “Cultural Diversity in Civilizational Perspective,” provides a macro (and at times comparative) perspective on Islam and diversity. In chapter 1, the editors prepare the ground for discussion by providing some definitions, potential questions, and chapter summaries. They also explain why they prefer the concept of diversity over pluralism.

In chapter 2, Seyyed Hossein Nasr discusses what he calls “a theoretical  and practical dilemma” in Islam: unity vs. diversity. Entitled “Unity and Diversity in Islam and Islamic Civilization,” this chapter makes general statements about the nature of diversity in Islam and how unity and uniformity differ. Nasr argues that “Islam’s refusal to reduce this unity-in-diversity to mere uniformity, far from weakening the faith, has been a major cause of its strength through the ages” (p. 33). To understand more fully how Islam created a unitary civilization that has thrived on diversity, he looks at different cultural zones within Islam.

The issue of Islam and diversity is often discussed in reference to the assertion of Islam’s compatibility with democracy as well as the challenges produced by globalization, which brought Islam into closer contact with western and other cultures. It is uncommon for scholars addressing such issues to raise the question of power.

Sulayman S. Nyang’s excellent article in chapter 3 brings the issue of power into the equation. Looking at what he calls the factors and forces responsible for the continuity and discontinuity in Muslim opinions toward cultural diversity, Nyang’s account teases out the specific events that have been shaping Muslim societies in relation to issues of diversity. For example, he elaborates on how and why the European conquest and colonization of Muslim lands created the cultural and philosophical transformations that led to the Muslims’ enthronement of nationalist ideas. He identifies seven developments as crucial to engendering the ensuing crisis of cultural alienation: (1) the Age of Discovery, (2) the Industrial Revolution, (3) the European colonization of Muslim lands in the nineteenth century, (4) the transplantation of nationalist ideas and their acceptance by Muslims, (5) the rise of communism, (6) the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and, finally (7) the collapse of the former Soviet Union and the resulting growth of Euro-American hegemony.