Debates on Islam and Knowledge in Malaysia and Egypt

Abstract

Although the debate on the arrival of the lslamization of knowledge (IOK)concept continues among today's scholars, giving it a practical frameworkis generally credited to the late Ismail Raji al-Faruqi, a PalestinianAmericanscholar and a founding member of the International Institute ofIslamic Thought (HIT). Mona Abaza, associate professor in the School ofHumanities and Social Sciences at the American University in Cairo,acknowledges this. She took over 10 years to collect and present herresearch in this book. The book is divided into three parts with 14 chapters,a hefty 71 pages of notes and bibliography, and a small index. The facts andfigures about Malaysia covered in the initial pages are from mid-1998 andtherefore, unfortunately, are outdated.In the "introductory reflections," which constitute part 1 of the book,Abaza submits that the topic under discussion is controversial even amongMuslim academics. Nevertheless, she has set out to compare the IOK endeavorsin two very distinct cultures whose Islamizers, she believes, have a primarilysecular training but an Islamic outlook. While Malaysia propagates ...