Islamization of Knowledge as a “Muslim Question”
The Critique of Islāmiyyat al-Ma‘rifah Between Universality, Cultural Locality, and the Rhetoric of the Crisis of Islam
Abstract
Islamization of knowledge (islāmiyyat or aslamat al-ma‘rifah) has emerged as one of the most significant Muslim global intellectual enterprises over the past half-century. Its efforts to integrate Islamic epistemology with Western knowledge systems have, however, subjected it to extensive criticism, a subset of which dismisses it as an ideological programme aimed at reviving religion, defying secularism, and subverting Western universal values. This article focuses on this subset of criticism and analyses its discourse by framing it within the broader context of the “Muslim Question.” Reminiscent of the historical Jewish Question, the “Muslim Question” continues to serve as a lens through which Islam and Muslims are systematically constructed as a problem. To retrace and investigate the inherent structure shared by the “Muslim Question” and this criticism, this study undertakes a discursive analysis of the decades-long critique of Bassam Tibi. It puts the criticism within the broader narrative of crisis; however, distinguishing it from the European rhetoric of the “crisis of Islam,” and questions it at the intersection of reasonable critique and Islamophobia. This article concludes that a critique of the Islamization of knowledge and its recent facet, knowledge integration (al-takāmul al-ma‘rifī), should acknowledge the plurality and diversity within Muslim intellectual traditions and resist homogenizing them under reductive categories. Such a merited study will have the potential to promote a more nuanced and balanced engagement with the intricate realities of contemporary Muslim thought and practice.
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