Tag: islamic culture
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East Asia in the Islamic Civilization: Han-kitab as Minority Literature
The following is adapted from Dr. Qayyim Naoki Yamamoto’s lecture Muslim Scholars in Japan: Contemplating Islam in a Non-Muslim Society. It is part three of a three-part lecture series entitled ‘East Asia and Islam: Present, Past, and Future’ at the Centre for Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (CAMES). This lecture was generously transcribed and edited…
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Towards An Islamic Theory of Culture Part III: It Starts and Ends With Tawḥīd
The theocentricity of Islam is distinguished from other faith traditions through the principle of tawḥīd (absolute monotheism). Faruqi argues that tawḥīd is not merely a tenet of creed, but also a philosophical foundation. All matters of a Muslim’s life, his belief, spiritual and social obligations, are all in service of tawḥīd. When taking Islam as…
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Is it Possible to Create a Japanese Islamicate Culture?
In history, Islam showed itself to be culturally friendly… In China, Islam looked Chinese; in Mali, it looked African. Sustained cultural relevance to distinct peoples, diverse places, and different times underlay Islam’s long success as a global civilization.
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Towards An Islamic Theory of Culture Part II: On Islamicates and Third Ways
The modern history of the Balkans region presents a great analogy for the West’s anxieties towards the Islamic world, an uncanny image of an Islamic heritage which the heirs of Christendom wished to forget. From the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s, through to the rise and fall of Yugoslavia such an image…
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Towards An Islamic Theory of Culture Part I: On Culture & The West
While the term “cultural studies” would not emerge as a distinguished academic discipline until the 1960s (with the establishment of the Centre for Cultural Studies in Birmingham), culture as an aspect of social life was first given serious consideration in the nineteenth century. During this period, many of the thinkers occupying the academic sphere of…