Studying Islam in the Arab World: The Rupture Between Religion and the Social Sciences (Routledge Studies in Islamic Philosophy) - Softcover

Hanafi, Sari

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1032564091 ISBN 13: 9781032564098

Publisher: Routledge, 2025

Synopsis

Addressing the rupture between religious and social sciences in Arab universities, this book provides a critical assessment of the curricula of Shariah and Islamic Studies departments across the Arab World, arguing for increased interdisciplinary dialogue.

Based on over 250 interviews with university students and teachers, this study is the sum of five years of field research observing the curricula and teaching styles of colleges in the Shariah sciences. The author provides critical insight into these curricula by focusing on case studies in Lebanon and Jordan, Morocco, Kuwait and Qatar, and in Malaysia. In doing so, the book aims to answer the following questions:

• What is the aim of religious education?
• Does it aim to create people who specialize solely in religious affairs, or does it aim to form the student according to a comprehensive human framework?
• What is the nature of the relationship between the social sciences and the Shariah sciences?

The book concludes by examining three pioneering institutions which have introduced alternative curricula in teaching Shariah studies.

The book has wide geographic and ideological coverage, and will appeal to university students, academics, and policy analysts working across a range of disciplines, including the philosophy of knowledge, Islamic law and education, and sociology.

About this title

About the Author

Sari Hanafi is Professor of Sociology, Director of the Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies and Chair of the Islamic Studies program at the American University of Beirut. He is also the President of the International Sociological Association. He co-authored Knowledge Production in the Arab World: The Impossible Promise (2015).

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1032564091
• ISBN 13: 9781032564098
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 326