Another Introduction to Islam The Myth of the Value-Free Study of Religion

Abstract

“ . . . a form of secular intellectual arrogance which, even while it
cannot claim absolute certainty for a particular hypothesis, deems
its findings superior to the content of religious truth.” (p. 267)
David Waines, Introduction to Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1995). x + 332 pp. (hardback).
Following the recent events in the Muslim world, bookshops have
been flooded by works on the subject of Islam. On examination, it
becomes clear that very few authors are willing, or indeed able, to write
about the cultural phenomenon of the Islamic religion. Waines shows
with his Introduction to Islam that he is one of those few. The approach
taken in the book raises important methodological issues for the study of
Islam and religion in general. Waines’s phenomenological approach raises
doubt about the validity of a purely secular account of Islam which
attempts to be “value-free.” The author is on the right track in terms of a
social anthropological perspective in saying, “Religion is not a thing, but
a happening, and it is people who make things happen.” This reminds the
reader that Islam too has to be understood within its social and historical
manifestations.
In general, Waines portrays Islam in accordance with the phenomenological
approach, from the traditional Muslim standpoint, and leaves the
readers to judge Islam for themselves. In the introduction he states “It
seemed more appropriate to present the Qur’an and the Prophet
Mohammed as Muslims might recognize them, rather than as others
have described them.” It is in this approach that he generally breaks with ...