EDITORIAL

Abstract

This issue is unprecedented in a variety of ways. It has five papers with extremely interesting materials, four Research Notes, four Book Reviews, eight conference/seminar reports, and one letter to the Editor. Its lead article has been written by one of our top intellectuals displacing many conventional notions to assert that Islamization is a force of global renewal. It is rare that one reads such a nicely worded, well-argued, and refreshing article. This issue begins with a selection from the Holy Qur'an and commentary by the AMSS President, AbdulHamid AbuSulayman. These selections always inspire the readers and provide the best framework for conceptualization. The lead article by Mona Abul Fadl of the International Institute of Islamic Thought contends, and rightly so, that Tmhidi Episteme is as relevant to modernity as anything else could be. Following her article are two papers germane to Islamic thought. In the first, Husain Kassim presents Sarakhsi's Doctrine of Istihsan as an approach towards Ahkam al-Dunya. In the second paper Hakim Rashid deals with the socialization of Muslim children in America. Discounting the dichotomy within and across societies between ideal and actual behavior in the West, he asserts that acquisition of knowledge, skills and socialization among Muslim children must conform to the Qur'an and Sunnah. The third section on Islamization of Disciplines also presents two papers. In the first one, Mohammad Siddiqui describes an Islamic framework for the study of interpersonal communication. The other paper, by A. al Tayob, is a review of the religious, political, and social transformation of the Arabs after the advent of Islam. He compares pre-Islamic Arab societies with Muslim Arab societies and states that religio-cultural-political transformation in them was the expression of the holism of the Qur'an which was capable of underhung the meaningfulness of the past, thus bridging the gap between past and present. The following section has four Research Notes. Rizwan Malik organizes his note in two parts. In the first, he discusses the role of the 'Ulama in the political development of late 19th and early 20th century India. In the second, he raises an interesting question concerning whether the role of 'Ulama was based on Islamic issues or was shaped by its response to British power. In the following note, Marwan Obeidat examines Royal Tyler's Algerine Captive (1797), affirming that such novels and others like them, includmg the accounts of early travellers and missionaries gave a fragmentary and grossly inaccurate ...