American Journal of Islam and Society

AJIS 40th Anniversary Editorial

Katherine Bullock — 2024-02-05

For forty years, AJIS has been a trusted platform for researchers, scholars, and practitioners, serving as a conduit for the exchange of ideas, the dissemination of cutting-edge research, and the cultivation of intellectual dialogue. Many of us found this journal a space for ruminating, discussing, and developing our own narratives on our Islamic heritage and what it means in the contemporary world. Especially compared to anti-Islamic biases in other corners of academia, AJIS is a coming “home.”

One constant throughout the past four decades is the journal’s commitment to scholarship that documents and explores Islam’s rich religious, intellectual, legal, philosophical, and social heritages. The assumption is that these various perspectives have meaningful things to say about the human condition and our place in the world. Debate, discussion, and disagreement all appear in these pages, but always grounded in an underlying steadfastness that Islam is a faith tradition that is not obsolete; that Muslims can contribute positively to humanity’s betterment. That said, the journal is not a place of religious homilies. This is an academic journal, with a double-blind peer review process. Articles that are published thus pass muster in the discipline in which they conduct their research. Let us thank the authors who have entrusted us with their groundbreaking research, pushing the boundaries of knowledge and enriching our understanding of critical issues in our disciplines. Let us thank the journal’s editors, editorial boards, diligent reviewers, and committed staff members who have meticulously upheld the journal’s reputation for excellence, contributing to its sustained success.

Maqasid al-Shari`ah, Maslahah, and Corporate Social Responsibility (2007)*

Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki — 2024-02-05

The doctrine of corporate social responsibility (CSR), which has
emerged and developed rapidly as a field of study, is a framework
for the role of business in society. It sets standards of behavior to
which a company must subscribe in order to impact society in
a positive and productive manner while abiding by values that
exclude seeking profit at any cost. Despite the many attempts to
construe CSR initiatives, it remains open to wide criticism for its
inherent problems via-à-vis justification, conceptual clarity, and
possible inconsistency. These problems are more acute when it
comes to implementing and operationalizing CSR on the ground,
especially in a situation that involves trade-offs.
This paper offers an instructive understanding of CSR from
an Islamic perspective. In particular, the implication of maqasid
al-Shari`ah (the Shari`ah’s objectives) and the application
of maslahah (the public good) to CSR are discussed in detail to
shed light on how Islam’s holistic and dynamic perception of CSR
take into consideration reality and ever-changing circumstances.
These principles also provide a better framework that managers
can use when faced with potential conflicts arising from the
diverse expectations and interests of a corporation’s stakeholders.

*This article was first published in the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24, no. 1 (2007):
25-43

Toward a New Framework of Islamic Economic Analysis (2020)*

Akhmad Akbar Susamto — 2024-02-05

Despite a profusion of literature, efforts to develop Islamic economics
as a discipline have not brought about anticipated results.
This paper argues that it is the absence of clarity on what would
make economics “Islamic” which impedes the development of
Islamic economics. To fill that absence, this paper proposes three
conditions under which an economics can be considered “Islamic”,
and then defines the scope of Islamic economics and its methods.
Finally, this paper suggests three implications which, taken
together, entail that developing Islamic economics and building
its body of knowledge is less complicated than was feared.

*This article was first published in the American Journal of Islam and Society 37, no. 1-2 (2020):
103-122

Shaykh Google as Ḥāfiẓ al-Aṣr: The Internet, Traditional ʿUlamā’, and Self Learning (2020)*

Emad Hamdeh — 2024-02-05

More than any other period, the last hundred years have witnessed
a rise in the accessibility of information through books, media,
and the internet. This introduced new ways of learning and sharing
Islamic knowledge. In this article, I consider how traditional
Islamic knowledge and pedagogical techniques are challenged by
the growing number of lay Muslims participating in religious discussions
through print and the internet. I explain why the ʿulamā’
perceive self-learning as a threat not only to the ostensibly proper
understanding of religion but also to the redefinition and reinvention
of their authority. I observe how print and digital media
caused a shift away from the necessity of the teacher and facilitated
autodidactic learning and claims to authority. Despite their criticism
of self-learning, Traditionalists have embraced the internet in
order to remain relevant and to compete with non-experts.

Writing is inferior to speech. For it is like a picture, which can give
no answer to a question, and has only a deceitful likeness of a living
creature. It has no power of adaptation, but uses the same words for
all. It is not a legitimate son of knowledge, but a bastard, and when
an attack is made upon this bastard neither parent nor anyone else
is there to defend it.
—Plato

*This article was first published in the American Journal of Islam and Society 37, no. 1-2 (2020):
67-101

Popular Sovereignty, Islam, and Democracy (2003)*

Glenn E. Perry — 2024-02-05

This article examines the idea that Islam’s rejection of popular
sovereignty makes it incompatible with democracy. I show
instead that sovereignty (“absolute despotic power,” popular or
otherwise) is a sterile, pedantic, abstruse, formalistic, and legalistic
concept, and that democracy should be seen as involving
“popular control” rather than “popular sovereignty.” Divine
sovereignty would be inconsistent with democracy only if that
meant unlike in Islam rule by persons claiming to be God or
His infallible representatives. A body of divine law that humans
cannot change would be incompatible with democracy only if it
were so comprehensive as to leave no room for political decisions.

*This article was first published in the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 20, no. 3&4
(2003): 125-139

Muslim Women and the Politics of Representation (2002)*

Jasmin Zine — 2024-02-05

This paper examines the politics of knowledge production as it relates to Muslim women in western literary traditions and contemporary feminist writing, with a view to understanding the political, ideological, and economic mediations that have historically framed these representations. The meta-narrative of the Muslim woman has shifted from the bold queens of medieval literature to colonial images of the seraglio’s veiled, secluded, and oppressed women. Contemporary feminist writing and popular culture have reproduced the colonial motifs of Muslim women, and these have regained currency in the aftermath of 9/11.
Drawing upon the work of Mohja Kahf, this paper begins by mapping the evolution of the Muslim woman archetype in western literary traditions. The paper then examines how some contemporary feminist literature has reproduced in new ways the discursive tropes that have had historical currency in Muslim women’s textual representation. The analysis is attentive to the ways in which the cultural production of knowledge about Muslim women has been implicated historically by the relations of power between the Muslim world and the West.

*This article was first published in the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 19, no. 4 (2002): 1-22

Islam, Slavery, and Racism: The Use of Strategy in the Pursuit of Human Rights (1987)*

Fadel Abdallah — 2024-02-05

Slavery is one of the most controversial and arresting topics in human
history. The question of Islam in relation to slavery has been an issue of
concern among scholars for a long time. It became a question in which many
Orientalists found a convenient gap to pass through in their attacks against
the system of governance and justice in Islam. This self-righteous criticism
against the attitude of Islam towards slavery is part of a long Western tradition
of scholarship based on stereotyping, overstating, and selectivity of Islam
in particular and the Orient in general. Most of the time, the statements of
these scholars are presented in a sugar-coated style of language that is more
dangerous than if they were presented in a critical, open, and direct language.
Thomas Carlyle, Renan, Goldziher, Macdonald, von Grunebaum, Gibb and
Bernard Lewis are good examples and representatives of this tradition.

*This article was first published in the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 4, no. 1 (1987): 31-50

The Islamic Secular (2017)*

Sherman A. Jackson — 2024-02-05

It is common to assume an inherent conflict between the substance
of the category “religion” and the category “secular.” Given
its putative rejection of the separation between the sacred and
the profane, this conflict is presumed to be all the more solid in
Islam. But even assuming Islam’s rejection of the sacred/profane
dichotomy, there may be other ways of defining the secular in
Islam and of thinking about its relationship with the religion.
This is what the present essay sets out to do. By taking Sharia as
its point of departure, it looks at the latter’s self-imposed limits
as the boundary between a mode of assessing human acts that
is grounded in concrete revelational sources (and/or their extension)
and modes of assessing human acts that are independent of
such sources, yet not necessarily outside God’s adjudicative gaze.
This non-shar`ī realm, it is argued, is the realm of the “Islamic secular.”
It is “secular” inasmuch as it is differentiated from Sharia as
the basis for assessing human acts. It remains “Islamic,” however,
and thus “religious,” in its rejection of the notion of proceeding
“as if God did not exist.” As I will show, this distinction between
the shar`ī and the nonshar`ī has a long pedigree in the Islamic
legal (and theological) tradition. As such, the notion of the Islamic
secular is more of an excavation than an innovation.

*This article was first published in the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 34, no. 2 (2017): 1-31

Psychology and Religion: Their Relationship and Integration from an Islamic Perspective (1998)*

Amber Haque — 2024-02-05

Religion is a pervasive and influential phenomenon in the lives
of many people. Instances of religious behavior are easily found
in almost all societies and cultures of the world. However, psychology
as a behavioral science has largely ignored the study
of religion and its profound impact on human behavior. This
article attempts to explore the relationship between psychology
and religion and how these two disciplines interact. After a general
overview of the relationship between the two disciplines,
Islamization of psychology is suggested as a way out of the current
impasse between psychology and religion.

*This article was first published in the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 15, no. 4 (1998):
97-116

Rethinking Islamic Education in Facing the Challenges of the Twenty-first Century (2005)*

Rosnani Hashim — 2024-02-05

The Muslim ummah, as a world community, faces many challenges at the threshold of the new century. The fateful event of 9/11 has revealed yet another facet of the problems plaguing Muslim society: the existence of radical, or what some media have labeled “militant,” Muslim groups. Despite the Muslim world’s condemnation of the 9/11 terrorist attack, the United States considered itself the victim and thus launched its “war against terrorism” against the alleged perpetrators: the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Iraq, which was alleged to be building weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and assisting al-Qaeda, became the second target. Iran would have become the immediate third target if the international community had supported the Bush administration’s unilateral declaration of war against Iraq. But it did not, for the allegations could not be proven.

*This article was first published in the American Journal of Islamic Societies 22, no. 4 (2005): 133-145