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 ...