Category: Posts

Recent blog posts.

Islam and the Pandemic

I will speak virtually at the Islamic University of Indonesia. It will be recorded on February 8 and will premiere on February 13, 2021 at the university’s YouTube channel.

Islamic Study and Islamic Economy in Society 5.0 era

I will speak virtually at the Muhammadiyah University of Magelang, Indonesia, on February 11, 2021.

First issue of IJIA (International Journal of Islam in Asia) is out now.

Volume 1 (2020); Issue 1 (December 2020) in International Journal of Islam in Asia

The establishment of the International Journal of Islam in Asia (IJIA) aims to offer an academic platform for all aspects of research on Islam in Asia, particularly to shed light on understudied Muslim communities. The original intent of creating the journal was to promote scholarly endeavors and research works concentrating on the study of Islam and Muslim societies in Southeast Asia. The region was, and still is, sadly referred to as the periphery of the Muslim world even though it has one of the largest Muslim populations in the world. The Muslim Southeast Asian region manifests a sheer unparalleled diversity of cultures, traditions and mores which have survived for centuries despite the influence of Western modernity, coloniality, and the ascendance of the nation-state system. Through careful and long deliberation among us, the editors, and the publisher, it was decided to expand the regional scope of IJIA to cover the entire Asia and accommodate diverse epistemic backgrounds that could go beyond disciplinary boundaries.

Aside from academic articles, the journal will aim to include policy research that comprises historical and contemporary Muslim communities in Asia and the Asian Muslim diaspora. The journal also aims to cover an eclectic group of articles that vary in their topics such as but not limited to, theoretical, methodological, empirical, religious, spiritual, and critical studies of Islam, including mundane praxes and lived Islam. It is interesting to explore Islamic theories and how they fit or (dis)connected to the ground realities of Muslims’ everyday lives. Moreover, it is necessary to analyze the critical variations of Islamic views when we speak about belief, faith, credence, truth, religion, religious, religiosity, spiritual, and spirituality.

The editors encourage multi-, inter- and transdisciplinarity and eclectic contributions from both scholars and practitioners (e.g. preachers, spiritual/religious leaders, and policy makers) to facilitate a holistic approach towards the study of Islam and of Muslim societies in the entire continent. Although we welcome all research backgrounds and knowledge orientations, for example, a decolonial lens on Islam, we are particularly interested to receive submissions that are relevant to MENA-Asia relations, Islamic thought and intellectual history, Islamic philosophy, intra-Muslim (Sunni and Shi’i) relations, Sufism, canonical and periphery Islam, Islam and ethnicity, Islam and modernity, Islam and politics, Islam and the State, Islam and geopolitics, Islamic Studies and Area Studies, and relations between Muslims and non-Muslims across Asia.

Introduction
Authors: Nassef Manabilang Adiong, Deina Abdelkader, and Raffaele Mauriello

Sinicizing Islam: Translating the Gulistan of Saʿdi in Modern China
Authors: Alexander Jabbari and Tiffany Yun-Chu Tsai

Islamic Feminism and Hegemonic Discourses on Faith and Gender in Islam
Author: Farah Shahin

Buddhism according to Modern Muslim Exegetes
Authors: Ahmad Faizuddin Ramli, Jaffary Awang, and Zaizul Ab Rahman

Religious Tolerance of Madrasa Students according to Their Religious Affiliation: An Empirical Investigation
Authors: Sadia Shaukat and Anthony William Pell

The Defence of National Identity as a Revolutionary Concept: Gharbzadigī, Islamic Modernisation, and Anticolonialism
Author: Alessia Tortolini

6th Islamic Governance Symposium

You are cordially invited to attend the 6th Islamic Governance Symposium with the theme, “Innovation and Technology in an Islamic System of Governance,” organized by the UBD Institute of Policy Studies and in collaboration with the Institute for Leadership, Innovation, and Advancement (ILIA) and with the Sultan Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien Centre for Islamic Studies.

The event will be held on November 08, 2020 from 8:00am to 4:00pm at ILIA Room 1, ILIA building of the University of Brunei Darussalam (UBD). Click here to register.

For more information, kindly contact +673.832.9747 or email office.ips@ubd.edu.bn. Thank you.

Muslim Governance and Salafi Orthodoxy

Adiong, N.M. (2020) “Muslim Governance and Salafi Orthodoxy.” In: R.J.G. Ong, ed., Security Sector Reform and Governance in the Philippines. National Defense College of the Philippines and Security Reform Initiative, Inc., pp. 131-153.

Muslim Governance and Salafi OrthodoxyDownload

The spread of Salafi orthodoxy (also known as the Wahabi-Salafi-Jihadist creed or sometimes shortened, Salafism) changed the dynamics of present-day believing Muslims. Using petro-dollars to build mosques, disseminate unscholarly translations of Qur’an and hadiths, and provide bursaries to Muslim Filipinos to learn Salafi orthodoxy in the Middle East, particularly in Saudi Arabia, lead to the disturbance of pre-1960s polyphony of Islamicate cultures in the region. From forbidding Christmas greetings, wearing Saudi/Arab-styled clothing, banning certain music, disenfranchising women to treating non-Muslims (even Muslims that do not subscribe to Salafi orthodoxy) as enemies of the religion. It raises the pertinent question of how, in just over a half century, Salafi orthodoxy penetrated Moro’s multicultural traditions. The article started addressing Muslim perspectives on authority and territoriality as imperative components of an ideal Muslim governance. Despite these ideal notions in Muslim history, the last section presented an aberrant ideology that had supplanted historical views on authority and territoriality. Salafi orthodoxy became the dominant political theology which had affected the security of contemporary Muslim Filipinos.