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News item on Faruqi’s murder

Ismail Faruqi Online
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Scouring the World Wide Web, we came across this news article from 1986 archives reporting the murder of Dr. Faruqi and his wife on the day it happened. Truly, it was a sad day when this unfortunate incident happened. May Dr. Faruqi and his wife be received into His Jannah for their service to Islam, insha’allah.

AROUND THE NATION; Islamic Scholar and Wife Slain in Pennsylvania
Published: May 28, 1986

An Islamic scholar and his wife were stabbed to death early today and their daughter was seriously wounded.

Ismail al Faruqi, a 65-year-old professor at Temple University, and his 59-year-old wife, Lois, an art scholar, were found dead with multiple stab wounds in their home in this suburb of Philadelphia, the police said. Their 27-year-old daughter was stabbed in the chest and arms.

The weapon apparently was ”a 15-inch survival-type knife” found near the body of Professor al Faruqi, said Lieut. Robert Krauser of the Cheltenham Township police.

Sgt. Alan Butan said the Federal Bureau of Investigation was providing technical assistance to the police ”because of al Faruqi’s prominence in the Islamic world.” — AP

Ismail Faruqi Award ceremony

Ismail Faruqi Online
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Reading Time: 2 minutes

The Ismail Faruqi Award Ceremony was a bi-annual award given to International Islamic University of Malaysia scholars who produced outstanding and exemplary academic work, and was named after Dr. Ismail Raji al-Faruqi. At the time of this writing we are unsure whether this Award has been discontinued or still ongoing.

The following is part of the opening text by then Deputy Prime Minister Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim on 28 February 1995, which summarily highlights the purpose of this Award.

This bi-annual award to IIU scholars who produce outstanding, excellent and exemplary academic work was established in honour of the memory of al-marhum Professor Ismail Raji al-Faruqi who during his lifetime had made profound and invaluable contributions not only to Islamic scholarship but to learning as a whole.

Indeed I was most privileged to have been given the opportunity of knowing him personally, as a leading scholar of his generation and as a friend. To be sure, he exacted uncompromising intellectual standards and lived by a strict regiment of academic discipline. But, at the same time, he was never lost in mere philosophical abstractions. He was acutely conscious of the realities of the time and the condition of the contemporary ummah. In this regard, he exemplified the conjunction between theoretical learning, ilm, and the righteous deeds, amal salih. He devoted the best years of his life, before his death under tragic circumstances, to the upliftment of the ummah, in inspiring and guiding its youth especially.

Perhaps his greatest legacy is the establishment of the International Institute of Islamic Thought. It was born out of his concern to revive the culture of learning in the hearts and the minds of the ummah. Through this institution he had enabled the mobilization of the intellectual resources of Muslims worldwide, bringing together scholars who had had Western education and those who had undergone the traditional Islamic disciplines.

In conferring these awards, we are recognizing scholars who have contributed towards the realization of al-marhum al-Faruqi’s vision.

Review of “Islam and Other Faiths” by Isma’il Raji Al-Faruqi

Ismail Faruqi Online
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Reading Time: 8 minutes

Islam and Other Faiths

Ataullah Siddiqui (ed.), “Islam and Other Faiths” by Isma’il Raji Al-Faruqi.
Leicester: The Islamic Foundation and IIIT, 1999, ISBN: 8603-7276-6
Review by Anne Sofie Roald

The very first glimpse of “Islam and Other Faiths” by the late Isma’il Raji Faruqi filled me with excitement and curiosity. Here was an outstanding Muslim scholar venturing into a field that is at once virgin and full of intellectual promise. I had read only two books by him before: “Tawhid: Its Relevance for Thought and Life” and “The Islamization of Knowledge”. The contents of the former are in tune with the tenor of the papers which comprise the present book, being, inter alia, a philosophical statements of the unity of God and its implications. The Muslims in the western countries are truly in great need of studies such as the present one that would help them deconstruct and subsequently reconstruct the role they should play as minorities.

My study of the present collection of papers, which have been painstakingly selected and edited by Ataullah Siddiqui, reinforced the already positive impression that I had of the author. Faruqi stands out as one of the very few Muslim philosophers and scholars who earnestly attempted to interact with Islam’s two sister faiths, Judaism and Christianity, and articulated the theoretical foundations of such interaction.

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Islam and the Problem of Israel: The Three-Cornered Nature of the Problem

Ismail Faruqi Online
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Reading Time: 7 minutes

From Chapter 1: “The Three-Cornered Nature of the Problem” in Ismail Raji al Faruqi, “Islam and the Problem of Israel”, Islamic Council of Europe (1980)

A. Historical Preview

The problem of Israel confronting the Muslim World today has neither precedent nor parallel in Islamic history. The Muslim World has tended to regard it as another instance of Modern colonialism, or at best, as a repetition of the Crusades. The difference is not that Israel is neither one of these; but that it is both and more, much more. Unfortunately, there is no Islamic literature on the subject. The need for this analysis of the problem is, therefore, as great as the present moment which calls upon the Arab World in particular and the Muslim World in general to accept Israel as an integral member of a world-of Muslim-nations in Asia-Africa.

The “Problem of Israel” is a three-cornered affair, involving the Muslim World, Western Christendom and the Jews. The first two have been locked in struggle ever since the rise of the Islamic state in Madinah in 622. Indeed, even earlier. Christian commercial interest had pushed Abyssinia into launching a colonialist venture in South Arabia in 560 A. C. and an attempt to destroy the power of Makkah in the “Year of the Elephant,” or 570 A. C., the year of the birth of the Prophet Muhammad (salla Allahu `alayhi wa sallam). Even as early as that time, Western Christendom saw fit to use the religious zeal of Eastern Christians in order to exploit both them and the pre-Islamic Arabs for commercial profit.

Pre-Islamic Arabia was a religious vacuum at the time, and the Christians of the West who held the reins of power in their hand were not concerned with preaching the faith. Rather, they were immersed in political struggles on the internal front, and economic and military struggle on the external. Arabia had no significance for them except as a trade route. When the new Islamic state began to raise its head following the integration of Makkah and most of the tribes of Western and South Arabia, Byzantium saw fit to mobilize its puppet armies in South Palestine and Jordan, a move which brought about the first military encounter between Islam and Christendom, the Campaign of Mu’tah (9 A.H./631 A. C.).

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Review of “Islam and the Problem of Israel” by Isma’il Raji al-Faruqi

Ismail Faruqi Online
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Reading Time: 4 minutes

Islam and the Problem of Israel

“Islam and the Problem of Israel” by Isma’il Raji al-Faruqi
Review by Haniffah Abdul Gafoor

The issue of Israel is an emotive one, irrespective of individuals’ affiliations (‘neutrals’ included). Bearing in mind the misrepresentation and misinterpretation of Islam today, a work analysing the two (Islam and Israel) has the potential of being an explosive read.

This new edition of Islam and the Problem of Israel is a succinct and thoughtfully organised reader. The author, though Palestinian himself, offers a reasonably fair appraisal of the issue at hand from a Muslim’s perspective. Some readers might find the strong vocabulary makes the read challenging, and this may sometimes be burdensome. The topic is approached in an organised and sequential manner. The historical, religious and political perspectives of the state of Israel are described before the relationship between Israel, Judaism, Zionism (all quite distinct entities) and Islam is discussed. The author briefly clarifies the distinction between Judaism as a religion, Zionism as a political concept of statehood (for a given race), Israel as nation-state, and the Jews as a race. He describes the problem as three-cornered, involving the Muslim world, Western Christendom, and the Jews.

The book begins with a brief historical discourse on the Jews, touching on their persecution by the Christians, their community living in ghettos, their emancipation (with the French revolution) allowing the Jews equality in European society, the assimilation of Jews in Europe, and the birth of Reform Judaism as a liberated sect of Judaism (which, among other things, legitimised liturgical use of the vernacular language instead of Hebrew, and allowed choirs and musical instruments in synagogues).

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Review of “Islam in the Modern National State” by Erwin I. J. Rosenthal

Ismail Faruqi Online
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Reading Time: 4 minutes

Islam in the Modern National State by Erwin I. J. Rosenthal.
Cambridge: The University Press, 1965. pp. 416. $10.50
Review by Isma’il Raji al-Faruqi

The problem of the relationship of Islam to the national state and the confrontation of its Law with modernity have been the subject of much controversy. Many books have appeared which seek to define the problems and evaluate tha solutions possible or proposed. This work is perhaps one of the most comprehensive. It surveys classical political thought in Islam as well as its gradual dislodgement from the centers of Muslim political power; it analyzes constitutional theories, contemporary reforms and the role of education in a number of Muslim states. The amount of information Dr. Rosenthal collected is quite impressive; and, where it is purely repetitive, the book undoubtedly takes its place among the best in the field.

The book jacket announces that the author “writes always as a detached observer. He does not apply the categories of the West to what is essentially Muslim dilemma and problems.” This notwithstanding, it asserts “There has been no counterpart in Islam of the Reformation in the West and so [sic!], in the absence of radical reform, a vulnerable religious and political system has capitulated stop by step to a secular nationalism.” In Chapter I, entitled “The Hum Situation”, where the author analyzes the nature of the problem, he writes: “From Descartes on, philosophy and science in the West have been based on a new attitude toward God and the Universe…Nor must we forget the…principle of freedom of conscience which was first established in the realm of religion by Luther and his Reformation. This new spirit…produced the political philosophy of Hobbes and Locke, which in turn..triggered off the French Revolution…directed equally against political and ecclesiastical tyranny. There evolved a new concept of state and nation which…can easily be reconciled with deism, but not so easily with the God of revelation, the creator and ruler of the wilverse. Hence [sic!] Muslims must either choose between the sovereignty of God and the sovereignty of the people…” (p. 6). It is nothing short of amazing how — even when he expressly plans and commits himself to be objective, whén try as he may — the Western Islamicist is incapable of putting his own cultural predilections and prejudices in enoche. That Islam did not have “the Reformation”, “Descartes”, “Locke”, “Luther” and “the French Revolution” is neither a critique, nor a description, nor an understanding of Islam but a shallow piece of Westernism. One does not understand America by saying of it that it did not have a Genghis Khan!

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