মুখ্য বিষয়সমূহ
লেখকের সংক্ষিপ্ত পরিচিতি
Isma'il Raji al-Faruqi (Arabic: إسماعيل راجي الفاروقي January 1, 1921 – May 27, 1986), was a Palestinian-American philosopher, widely recognised by his peers as an authority on Islam and comparative religion. He spent several years at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, then taught at several universities in North America, including McGill University in Montreal. He was Professor of Religion at Temple University, where he founded and chaired the Islamic Studies program. Al-Faruqi was also the founder of the International Institute of Islamic Thought. He wrote over 100 articles for various scholarly journals and magazines in addition to 25 books, of the most notable being Christian Ethics: A Historical and Systematic Analysis of Its Dominant Ideas. He also established the Islamic Studies Group of the American Academy of Religion and chaired it for ten years. He served as the vice-president of the Inter-Religious Peace Colloquium, The Muslim-Jewish-Christian Conference and as the president of the American Islamic College in Chicago.
Al-Faruqi and his wife, Lois Lamya al-Faruqi, were stabbed to death in their home in Wyncote, Pennsylvania on May 27, 1986.
Early life and education
Al-Faruqi was born in Jaffa, in British-mandate Palestine. His father, 'Abd al-Huda al-Faruqi, was an Islamic judge (qadi) and a religious man well-versed in Islamic scholarship. Faruqi received his religious education at home from his father and in the local mosque. He began to attend the French Dominican College Des Frères (St. Joseph) in 1936.
His first appointment was as a registrar of cooperative societies (1942) under the British Mandate government in Jerusalem, which appointed him in 1945 the district governor of Galilee. Subsequent to the partition plan of Palestine, and the creation of the independent Jewish state of Israel in 1948, al-Faruqi at first emigrated to Beirut, Lebanon, where he studied at the American University of Beirut, then enrolled the next year at Indiana University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, obtaining his M.A. in philosophy in 1949. He was then accepted for entry into Harvard University's department of philosophy and was awarded his second M.A. in philosophy there in March 1951, with a thesis entitled Justifying the Good: Metaphysics and Epistemology of Value (1952). His dissertation was deeply influenced by the phenomenology of Max Scheler (1874–1928), particularly the latter's notion of axiological intuitionism. Al-Faruqi argued that Scheler's axiological intuitionism privileged feeling as knowing, thus recognizing the logic of the heart as an a priori emotional intuition of value. Such recognition could justify carving out a conceptual as well as practical space for the emergence of a critique of post-Enlightenment Reason from the standpoint of a non-Western philosopher. However, he decided to return to Indiana University; he submitted his thesis to the Department of Philosophy and received his PhD in September 1952. By then he had a background in classical philosophy and the developing thought of the western tradition. In the beginning of 1953, he and his wife were in Syria. He then moved to Egypt, where he studied at Al-Azhar University (1954–1958) again with a view to acquiring another PhD.
In 1958, al-Faruqi was offered a position as a visiting fellow at the Faculty of Divinity at McGill University in Canada. During his two-year tenure at McGill, he studied Christian theology and Judaism, and became acquainted with the famous Pakistani Muslim philosopher Fazlur Rahman. During these years, al-Faruqi was preoccupied with his anti-Zionist Arab identity. Rahman reminisced in 1986 that al-Faruqi's blunt anti-Zionism and his refusal to play the detached scholar "frightened" his McGill colleagues. Although he was soft-spoken with unfailing smiles, at McGill he was considered to be, in Rahman's words, "an angry young Muslim Palestinian". In order to challenge al-Faruqi's Arabo-centric views of Islam, and to broaden his scope of understanding the ummah, in 1961, Rahman arranged a two-year appointment for him in Pakistan at the Central Institute of Islamic Research. Rahman intended to expose al-Faruqi to the cultural diversity of Muslims and their contributions to Islam. "Except", Rahman (1986) later recalled, "it was his Arabism which drew a great deal of fire both inside and outside the Institute, as well as his academic preference for Cairo".
From Arabism to Islamism
In 1963, after returning to the United States, he was hired as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago's Divinity School. Between 1964 and 1968, al-Faruqi established himself as an associate professor at the Department of Religion at Syracuse University, where he initiated its programme in Islamic Studies. In 1968, he accepted a position at Temple University as a professor of religion, where he also founded the Islamic Studies Programme. He held that position until his death in 1986.
Much of al-Faruqi's early thought is associated with what he called urubah (Arabism). In his 1962 book, On Arabism: Urubah and Religion, he argued that urubah comprises the core identity and set of values which embrace all Muslims, a single community of believers (ummah). Al-Faruqi formulated the notion of urubah in contradistinction to two other hegemonic ideologies: Arab nationalism and non-Arab Islamic revivalism. Adopting an overtly essentialist position, he argued that more than merely the language of the Qur'an, Arabic provided the only possible linguistic structure within which the Islamic conception of the world could be apprehended. Therefore, he asserted that urubah captured the core of Muslim consciousness, its values and faith – it was inseparable from the identity of all Muslims (al-Faruqi, 1962: 2–30).
He also maintained that urubah was the only context within which the non-Muslim Arabs countries could integrate into their larger societies. Even non-Muslim Arabs, according to al-Faruqi, could identify with urubah expressed in the Qur'an. In effect, urubah left non-Muslim Arabs and non-Arab Muslims at the mercy of combined linguistic and religious essentialisms. Any other form of consciousness and identity was a distortion created by colonial penetration (al-Faruqi, 1962: 211).
Though few would question Arab influence on non-Arab Muslim faith and culture or Arab Muslim influence on non-Muslim Arabs, the implication that they both find their ultimate expression and fulfilment in al-Faruqi's interpretation of Arabism might be regarded by some as an attempt to establish the hegemony of Arab Islam or, more precisely, Arab Muslim culture. Both Arab nationalists and non-Arab Muslim intellectuals shunned al-Faruqi's agenda to bring non-Arab Muslims and non-Muslim Arabs together through urubah. While many Muslim intellectuals such as Fazlur Rahman agreed with al-Faruqi's assertion that the Qur'an could not achieve the same eloquence and expressiveness in any other languages except Arabic, they were critical of al-Faruqi's blatant Arab chauvinism. Al-Faruqi's sojourn in Pakistan did little to alter his doctrine of urubah.
Interestingly, it was in the United States several years later that he began to question the foundations of his earlier position. In 1968, for the first time he encountered members of the Muslim Students' Association (MSA) at Temple University. The convergence of Muslim students from diverse cultural backgrounds dramatically swayed his perception of Arab versus Islamic identity. In the spring of 1968, while a patient at the Johns Hopkins Ophthalmology Centre, al-Faruqi confided in one of the active members of the MSA, Ilyas Ba-Yunus, "Until a few months ago, I was a Palestinian, an Arab, and a Muslim. Now I am a Muslim who happens to be an Arab from Palestine" (Ba-Yunus, 1988: 14).
Scholarly Achievements
Al-Faruqi's signature
Al-Faruqi's early emphasis was on Arabism as the vehicle of Islam and Muslim identity. He was also one of those who proposed the idea of Islamization of knowledge and founded the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) together with Sheikh Taha Jabir al-Alwani, Dr. Abdul Hamid Sulayman, former Rector of the International Islamic University, Malaysia (IIUM) and Anwar Ibrahim, in 1980.
During his years as a visiting professor of Islamic studies and scholar-in-residence at McGill University, a professor of Islamic studies at Karachi's Central Institute of Islamic Research as well as a visiting professor at various universities in Northern America, he wrote over 100 articles for various scholarly journals and magazines in addition to 25 books, of the most notable being Christian Ethics: A Historical and Systematic Analysis of Its Dominant Ideas. He also established the Islamic Studies Group of the American Academy of Religion and chaired it for ten years. He served as the vice-president of the Inter-Religious Peace Colloqium, The Muslim-Jewish-Christian Conference and as the president of the American Islamic College in Chicago.
Al-Faruqi viewed the existence of Israel as an affront towards the religion of Judaism due to its state ideology of Zionism. He said that the injustice caused by Zionism is such as to necessitate war. He proposed a resolution in which Israel is dismantled and its institutions de-Zionised; and that former Israeli Jews who have renounced Zionism would live as an “ummatic community” and move freely throughout the Muslim world: "[Islam] requires the Jews to set up their own rabbinic courts and put its whole executive power at its disposal. The shari'ah, the law of Islam, demands of all Jews to submit themselves to the precepts of Jewish law as interpreted by the rabbinic courts, and treats defiance or contempt of the rabbinic court as rebellion against the Islamic state itself, on a par with like action on the part of a Muslim vis-à-vis the Islamic court."[1]
Death[edit]
On May 27, 1986, a knife-wielding man broke into the Faruqi home in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, and attacked al-Faruqi, his wife Lois Lamya, and their daughter, Anmar al-Zein. Faruqi and his wife died from their wounds. Their daughter survived the attack but required 200 stitches to close her wounds. Prominent religious figures and politicians paid tribute to the Faruqis at a memorial service held in Washington in late September. The event was organized by the al-Faruqi Memorial Committee, which is made up of the Council of Presidents of Arab-American Organizations, the Islamic Society of North America, the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC).
At about the same time, ADC published an eight-page "Special Report" on the murders, including a detailed account of the crime, its victims, and the current status of the investigation. Although nothing was missing from the house, some investigators working on the case believe the murders resulted from a bungled burglary attempt. However, the police lieutenant in charge of the investigation described the incident as an assassination, saying that "someone took it upon themselves" to kill Faruqi. In light of the rise of violent anti-Arab and anti-Muslim incidents in those recent years due to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the report suggests that the murders could very well have been politically motivated. Faruqi was known for his support for the Palestinian cause and articles criticizing Zionism.[2]
Bibliography[edit]
A list of publications by Ismail R. al-Faruqi follows.
Books[edit]
(1953) From Here We Start, tr. from the Arabic of K.M. Khalid. Washington, DC: American Council of Learned Societies
(1953) Our Beginning in Wisdom, tr. from the Arabic of M. al Ghazali. Washington, DC: American Council of Learned Societies
(1953) The Policy of Tomorrow, tr. from the Arabic of M. B. Ghali. Washington, DC: American Council of Learned Societies
(1962) `Urubah and Religion: An Analysis of the Dominant Ideas of Arabism and of Islam as Its Heights Moment of Consciousness, vol. 1 of On Arabism, Amsterdam: Djambatan
(1964) Usul al Sahyuniyah fi al Din al Yahudi (An Analytical Study of the Growth of Particularism in Hebrew Scripture). Cairo: Institute of Higher Arabic Studies
(1968) Christian Ethics: A Systematic and Historical Analysis of Its Dominant Ideas. Montreal: McGill University Press and Amsterdam: Djambatan, Amsterdam
(1980) Islam and the Problem of Israel. London: The Islamic Council of Europe ISBN 983-9541-34-X
(1982) Trialogue of the Abrahamic Faiths, ed. Herndon, VA: IIIT ISBN 0-915957-25-6
(1982) Islamization of Knowledge. Herndon, VA: IIIT
(1982) Tawhid: Its Implications for Thought and Life. Kuala Lumpur: IIIT
(1985) Islam and Other Faiths. Beltsville, MD: Amana Publications
(1986) The Cultural Atlas of Islam. New York: Macmillan
(2012) Islam: Religion, Practice, Culture & World Order, London; IIIT (posthumous work updated and edited by Imtiyaz Yusuf)
Translated Texts[edit]
M.H. Haykal, The Life of Muhammad (Arabic: Hayat Muhammad). Translated by Faruqi into English.
Articles[edit]
"On the Ethics of the Brethren of Purity and Friends of Fidelity (Ikhwan al Safa wa Khillan al Wafa')", The Muslim World, vol. L, no. 2, pp. 109–21; no. 4, pp. 252–58; vol. LI, no. 1, pp. 18–24
"On the Significance of Reinhold Niebuhr's Ideas of Society", Canadian Journal of Theology, vol. VII, no. 2, pp. 99–107. Reprinted in Muslim Life, vol. XI, no. 3 (Summer 1964): 5–14
In The Press[edit]
An Anthology of Readings on Tawhid. Kuwait: IIFSO
Training Program for Islamic Youth. Kuwait: IIFSO
The Life of Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab. Riyadh: The Ministry of Higher Education
প্রকাশনা প্রতিষ্ঠানের পরিচিতি
International Institute of Islamic Thought
The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) is a privately held non-profit organization.
The Institution is concerned with issues of Islamic thought. It was founded in 1981 in Pennsylvania, and is headquartered in Herndon, Virginia, in the suburbs of Washington DC.
Controversy has surrounded Islamist radicalism at the Institute, which was founded with seed money from the Muslim Brotherhood. The FBI has raided the Institute seeking evidence of contributing terrorists, while members have been arrested and found to be active leaders of terrorist organizations. An Institute book justified jihad against Israel and as liberation struggle, not terrorism.[1]
The Executive Director and Director of Research at IIIT, Dr. Louay Safi, is currently professor at Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies in Doha, Qatar and political spokesman for the Syrian National Council.
History and mission:
The Institute describes itself as an intellectual forum working from an Islamic perspective to promote and support research projects, organize intellectual and cultural meetings, and publish scholarly works.[5]
The Institute publishes works produced by its own research programs, as well as contributions from around the world, in Arabic, English, and other major languages. IIIT publications include over 400 titles, distributed in various series and topics, in addition to quarterly journals in English and Arabic.[6]
A book by IIIT official Abdul Hamid AbuSulayman entitled "Violence," published in 2001, said Israel is a "foreign usurper" that must be confronted with "fear, terror and lack of security." The book maintained "Fighting is a duty of the oppressed people." Palestinian fighters must choose their targets "whether the targets are civilian or military," it said, adding that any such attacks should not be "excessive." The book said such attacks were justified acts of a liberation struggle, not terrorism.
Muslim Brotherhood Affiliations:
The Institute was founded in 1981 by members of the Muslim brotherhood (i.e. Dr. Jamal Bazinji, Dr. Hisham Yahya Altalib, Dr. 'Abdul Hamid Ahmad Abu Sulayman, etc.) and with seed money from the Muslim Brotherhood.[1] It has branches and offices in a number of major cities worldwide.[7]
In 2003 a Muslim Brotherhood document was discovered that listed the International Institute of Islamic Thought as one its organizations in America.[8]
Basheer Nafi and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas:
In 1996 Basheer Nafi, who had been working as a top-level researcher and editor at the Institute, was arrested by federal Immigration and Naturalization Service agents and charged with immigration fraud. He was considered an active leader of the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization who was working for a network of academic front groups, and was linked as well to the Islamist militant group Hamas.[9][10][11] He pleaded guilty to a lesser violation of his visa status, and was deported and barred from entering the U.S. for five years.[12]
Sami Al-Arian and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad:
On March 20, 2002, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officials raided the Institute and closed the Institute temporarily. The agents were seeking evidence that the Institute was contributing to terrorists, and seized about 25 computers and documents that included financial records, mailing lists, and staff lists.[13] The search was part of a larger FBI-Customs Service series of raids that included 19 other business and non-profit entities known as Operation Green Quest. "Such a massive ream of documents came out of those search warrants," one law enforcement official said, "it takes incredibly lengthy investigative work."[13]
The raids led to the convictions of two people, including Abdurahman Alamoudi, who worked for the SAAR Foundation. Alamoudi admitted that he plotted with Libya to assassinate the Saudi ruler and was sentenced to 23 years in jail.[14][15][16]
A leader of the Institute, Iqbal Unus, his wife and daughter brought suit charging that their rights were violated and the government was guilty of assault, trespass, and false imprisonment when their home was searched in the raid. A federal judge dismissed the suit, however. The lawsuit had also named a terrorism researcher, Rita Katz, as a defendant, but the judge dismissed her from the case and awarded her $41,000 in legal fees.[15]
The Institute was a leading financier of Sami Al-Arian's now-defunct World and Islam Studies Enterprise, a "think tank" shut down after the FBI confiscated its files in 1995. That think tank raised money for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which the State Department labeled a terrorist group in 1995.[17][18] Al-Arian pleaded guilty in 2006 to helping a terrorist organization, and was sentenced to 57 months in prison. Taha Jaber Al- Awani, an officer of the Institute, was named an unindicted co-conspirator in Al-Arian's case.[19]
The Institute, whose money was believed to come from wealthy Saudi Arabians through the SAAR Foundation (a tightly connected Herndon-based network of more than 100 organizations; also known as the Safa Group), also funded other Al-Arian organizations, including the Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace, the Islamic Academy of Florida and the Islamic Committee for Palestine.[20][21] Two incorporators of the Islamic trust that owns the Islamic Academy of Florida were Jamal Barzinji and Hisham Al-Talib, both of whom also served as directors of the Institute.[22]
Attorneys for the Institute claimed that the raid violated its free speech and privacy rights, and asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Theresa C. Buchanan to order the boxes of records returned. But on May 4, 2002, the Judge found that the investigative agents had acted properly, and declined to lift her order sealing the affidavits, though she urged prosecutors to return seized property as soon as possible.[23]
In October 2002, Virginia Representative James P. Moran, Jr., said he was returning donations from the Institute, as: "I don't want any contributors to my campaign contributing to any individuals or organizations, even inadvertently, that might fund terrorism or organizations involved in terrorism."[24]
In 2007 he refused to answer questions to a grand jury about the Institute, he was found guilty of civil contempt and jailed for 13 months. On October 16, 2006, and on March 20, 2008, Al-Arian refused to answer questions about the Institute before a federal grand jury, asserting that he believed his life would be in danger if he testified. He was charged with criminal contempt the following month for unlawfully and willfully refusing court orders that he testify as a grand jury witness.[14][25][26][27] On September 2, 2008, he was released from custody and put under house arrest at his daughter Laila's residence in Northern Virginia, where he is being monitored electronically while he awaits trial on criminal contempt charges.[28] While under federal law, Al-Arian could not be jailed for more than 18 months for civil contempt, the law does not have a time limit for criminal contempt.[29]
The Institute canceled its $1.5 million offer to Temple University for an endowed chair in Islamic studies after concerns were raised about the Institute's possible funding of suspected terrorists, it was reported in January 2008. Negotiations between Temple and the Institute broke down after trustees and others pressed Temple to reject the gift. Temple president Ann Weaver Hart had said that “after much discussion and consideration, Temple decided to neither accept or reject this generous offer. The university indicated that no decision regarding this matter would be made until post-9/11 federal investigations of the IIIT are complete."[30]
সংশ্লিষ্ট বই
AT TAWHID Its Implictions for Thought and Life
লেখকঃ Ismail Raji Al Faruqi
প্রকাশনীঃ International Institute of Islamic Thought
- প্রিয়তে যোগ করতে লগিন করুন
- লাইব্রারীতে যোগ করতে লগিন করুন
পিডিএফ লোড হতে একটু সময় লাগতে পারে। নতুন উইন্ডোতে খুলতে এখানে ক্লিক করুন।
দুঃখিত, এই বইটির কোন অডিও যুক্ত করা হয়নি