The Rescuing of Muslim Anthropological Thought

Abstract

Akbar S. Ahmed, Toward Islamic Anthropology: Definition, Dogma, and
Directions, Islamization of Knowledge series (2) New Era Publications/International
Institute of Islamic Thought 1976, 77 pp.
Talal Asad, The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam, Center for contemporary
Arab studies, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. 1986, 22 pp.
I. The Malaise and its Remedy
Both of these scholarly publications may be seen as statements of the need
for Islamic anthropology. They contain expressions of the discontent of Muslin
anthropologists with the state of the art of contemporary anthropological studies.
Many Muslim anthropologists and other social scientists share in the feelings
evident in these essays and well stated in the late Dr. Ali Shari'ati's Civilization
and modernization:
When I feel my own religion, literature, emotion, needs and pains
through my awn culture, I feel my own self, the very social and historical ...