Editoral

Abstract

This issue of the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences completes the Symposium on Political Governance, begun by Muhammad Salahuddin’s ijtihiid in the last issue. The lead article in this issue is a summary of Islamic political principles by Hasan Turabi, long-time head of the Muslim Brotherhood in The Sudan. Following this is an article by Sister Mona Abul Fadl, a Research Associate at the International Institute of Islamic Thought, taken from her new book, Alternative Perspective: Introducing Islam From Within, to be published by the World Muslim League in Makkah. She explores the core Islamic concepts of community, justice, and jihad, and concludes that the climax of Islamization is Istish had or martyrdom in submission to Allah. In the third article of the symposium, Fadel Abdallah uses ‘ijtihad to explore the textual and historical evidence showing both the absolute condemnation of slavery in Islam and Islam’s use of an indirect strategy to abolish it without unduly risking the destruction of the Muslim Ummah. This may highlight the symposium’s introductory suggestion by Muhammad Salahuddin that, within limits, even in extreme cases, balance and patience can be virtues. The second section of this issue presents two papers comparing the Islamization of knowledge with the process of building a new paradigm of thought and reality, which process many historians now believe is the precursor of all great advances in human knowledge and culture. The concept of paradigms is simply explained in the second article by Hasan Langgulung as applied to revolutionary change in the discipline of psychology. In the first article, Muhammad ‘Arif discusses the scholarly battle of the past two decades on the nature of paradigms. He concludes that, whatever criteria one uses, the Islamization of Knowledge as proposed by Shaheed Isma’il Faruqi introduces a true paradigmatic revolution in human history, compamble to the revolution that destroyed the decadent world of 1400 years ago when the original paradigm of Tawhid was revealed in Qur’an al karim. The Research Notes contain a scholarly piece by Professor Theodore P. Wright, Jr., identifying ten ways in which Jews as a group have influenced the development of thought and action in America and ten characteristics that explain why Jews have been able to exert this influence and Muslims have not. The concluding research note, The Shari‘ah and its Implications for Islamic Financial Analysis: An Opportunity to Study Interactions Among ...