EDITORIAL

Abstract

This is the tenth year of the existence of AJISS. Starting from a publication schedule of twice a year in 1984 to three times a year in 1989, it became a desk-topped quarterly in 1993. In 1992, due to increased demand, we began printing AJISS simultaneously in Washington, DC, and Malaysia. This year, it will also be published in Pakistan as well as translated into Turkish in Turkey, in shii. Allah. We are grateful to Almighty Allah for our widespread readership and for the contributions sent from around the globe. In this issue, we feature two articles on various theoretical aspects of the Islamization of knowledge. The first one, by Ibrahim A. Ragab, discusses theory building in the Islamic social sciences. He argues for an alternative social science framework based on the Islamization paradigm, which he asserts could integrate both empirical and nonempirical elements of behavior into a united system of explanation. Exploring the possibility of using knowledge derived from revelation as a major source in the process of theory building, he encourages Muslim social scientists to draw upon the rich insights derived from the transcendental sources, but only after subjecting the resulting propositions to stringent verification. Ragab assures us that this new model rejects unwanted dogmatism, unwarranted exclusiveness, and a parochiality that shuns anything that comes by way of non-Muslims. Muslim social scientists, he opines, will have to reorient their critical approach to their disciplines and also acquire a better understanding of the religious sciences: revealed knowledge. This would ensure a Muslim contribution in the social sciences, a contribution that disappeared during centuries of stagnation in the Islamic ummah. In the second paper, Louay Safi examines the progress of the Islamization of knowledge project over the last decade. He outlines the general framework, analyzes the work of its proponents and critics (al Faruqi, al Buff, Rahman, 'AbuSulayman, Arif, Umziyan, Abul-Fadl), and proposes modifications aimed at overcoming the difficulties inherent in the original plan. Safi makes it clear at the outset that even though the production of ...