International Seminar on Islamic Thought

Abstract

“Islamic thought” has received a great deal of attention since the 9/11
tragedy and the American-led invasion of Iraq. As a result, the conference
organizers considered it timely to invite selected individuals to discuss
this topic at the International Seminar on Islamic Thought, which was
held at the National University of Malaysia (UKM) on 7-9 December
2004.
The conference attracted a sizeable number of participants from within
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations region and beyond. The large
contingent of presenters (100+) was placed on thematic panels designed to
cover the following topics: ethics, psychology, education, the environment
and technology, theology, philosophy, the Shari`ah, gender, social development,
economics, civilization, and Qur’anic studies. The organizers divided
the panels into specific time-slots. The languages of presentation were
Bahasa Melayu, English, and Arabic.
Given the large number of presenters, it is difficult to highlight all
aspects of this conference. Therefore, interested readers are advised to get
hold of the CD that contains all of the papers that were presented or sent for
inclusion. These papers were edited by Ahmad S. Long, Jaffary Awang, and
Kamaruddin Salleh, and the digital publication was titled Islam: Past,
Present, and Future.
Prior to the seminar, the organizers invited Minister of Higher
Education Dato Shafi’ to give his input and support. This was then followed
by contributions from the dean of the Faculty of Islamic Studies, which is
an integral part of UKM, and two of the organizers. The seminar was officially
opened with an important public forum on “Islam and Globalization,”
chaired by Abu Bakr Ibrahim, who is a member of the Department of Usulud-
Din (UKM). This forum was addressed by the two keynote speakers:
Irfan Abdul-Hamid Fattah, who hails from Iraq and is attached to the
International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM), and Azizan Baharuddin,
director of the Centre for Civilizational Dialogue at the University
of Malaya (UM).
Fattah argued for replacing globalization with universalism, which he
considered to be more suitable because the latter term is not beset with
problems and has no negative connotations. Azizan addressed the issues of
science and technology, as well as economics in relation to globalization ...