Ismail Raji al-Faruqi
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Ismaʻīl Rājī al-Fārūqī ( ar, إسماعيل راجي الفاروقي January 1, 1921 – May 27, 1986) was a Palestinian-
American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
philosopher. He spent several years at
Al-Azhar University , image = جامعة_الأزهر_بالقاهرة.jpg , image_size = 250 , caption = Al-Azhar University portal , motto = , established = *970/972 first foundat ...
in Cairo, then taught at several universities in North America, including McGill University in Montreal. He was Professor of Religion at Temple University, where he founded and chaired the Islamic Studies program. Al-Faruqi was also the founder of the International Institute of Islamic Thought. He wrote over 100 articles for various scholarly journals and magazines in addition to 25 books, of the most notable being ''Christian Ethics: A Historical and Systematic Analysis of Its Dominant Ideas''. He also established the Islamic Studies Group of the American Academy of Religion and chaired it for ten years. He served as the vice-president of the Inter-Religious Peace Colloquium, The Muslim-Jewish-Christian Conference and as the president of the
American Islamic College American Islamic College (AIC) is a private Islamic university in Chicago, Illinois. It accepts students from all backgrounds and claims to prepare students for "leadership and policy making roles in American society; and for management and staff ...
in Chicago.


Early life and education

Al-Faruqi was born in
Jaffa Jaffa, in Hebrew Yafo ( he, יָפוֹ, ) and in Arabic Yafa ( ar, يَافَا) and also called Japho or Joppa, the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is known for its association with the b ...
, in British-mandate
Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...
. His father, 'Abd al-Huda al-Faruqi, was an Islamic judge ('' qadi'') and a religious man well-versed in Islamic scholarship. Faruqi received his religious education at home from his father and in the local mosque. He began to attend the French Dominican
Collège des Frères de Jaffa Collège des Frères de Jaffa ( he, קולג' דה פרר; ar, مدرسة الفرير في يافا) is a French international school on Yefet Street #23 in Jaffa, a district of Tel Aviv. A part of the La Sallian educational institutions, it open ...
in 1936. His first appointment was as a registrar of cooperative societies (1942) under the British Mandate government in Jerusalem, which appointed him in 1945 the district governor of
Galilee Galilee (; he, הַגָּלִיל, hagGālīl; ar, الجليل, al-jalīl) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Galilee traditionally refers to the mountainous part, divided into Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and Lower Galil ...
. Subsequent to the partition plan of
Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...
, and the creation of the independent Jewish state of Israel in 1948, al-Faruqi at first emigrated to Beirut, Lebanon, where he studied at the
American University of Beirut The American University of Beirut (AUB) ( ar, الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت) is a private, non-sectarian, and independent university chartered in New York with its campus in Beirut, Lebanon. AUB is governed by a private, aut ...
, then enrolled the next year at Indiana University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, obtaining his M.A. in
philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
in 1949. He was then accepted for entry into Harvard University's department of philosophy and was awarded his second M.A. in philosophy there in March 1951, with a thesis entitled ''Justifying the Good: Metaphysics and Epistemology of Value'' (1952). His dissertation was deeply influenced by the phenomenology of
Max Scheler Max Ferdinand Scheler (; 22 August 1874 – 19 May 1928) was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology. Considered in his lifetime one of the most prominent German philosophers,Davis, Zachar ...
(1874–1928), particularly the latter's notion of
axiological intuitionism Axiology (from Greek , ''axia'': "value, worth"; and , ''-logia'': "study of") is the philosophical study of value. It includes questions about the nature and classification of values and about what kinds of things have value. It is intimately co ...
. Al-Faruqi argued that Scheler's axiological intuitionism privileged feeling as knowing, thus recognizing the logic of the heart as an ''a priori'' emotional intuition of value. Such recognition could justify carving out a conceptual as well as practical space for the emergence of a critique of post-Enlightenment Reason from the standpoint of a non-Western philosopher. However, he decided to return to Indiana University; he submitted his thesis to the Department of Philosophy and received his PhD in September 1952. By then he had a background in classical philosophy and the developing thought of the western tradition. At the beginning of 1953, he and his wife were in
Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
. He then moved to Egypt, where he studied at Al-Azhar University (1954–1958) again with a view to acquiring another PhD. In 1958, al-Faruqi was offered a position as a visiting fellow at the Faculty of Divinity at McGill University in Canada. During his two-year tenure at McGill, he studied Christian theology and Judaism, and became acquainted with the famous Pakistani Muslim philosopher
Fazlur Rahman Fazal ur Rahman or variants may refer to the following people: Politicians *Fazal-ur-Rehman (politician) (born 1953), Pakistani Islamic fundamentalist politician *Fazlur Rehman Khalil (born 1963), Pakistani Islamist politician *Fazlur Rahman Ma ...
. During these years, al-Faruqi was preoccupied with his anti-Zionist Arab identity. Rahman reminisced in 1986 that al-Faruqi's blunt anti-Zionism and his refusal to play the detached scholar "frightened" his McGill colleagues. Although he was soft-spoken with unfailing smiles, at McGill he was considered to be, in Rahman's words, "an angry young Muslim Palestinian". In order to challenge al-Faruqi's Arabocentric views of Islam, and to broaden his scope of understanding the ummah, in 1961, Rahman arranged a two-year appointment for him in Pakistan at the Central Institute of Islamic Research. Rahman intended to expose al-Faruqi to the cultural diversity of Muslims and their contributions to Islam. "Except", Rahman (1986) later recalled, "it was his Arabism which drew a great deal of fire both inside and outside the Institute, as well as his academic preference for Cairo".


From Arabism to Islamism

In 1963, after returning to the United States, he was hired as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago's Divinity School. Between 1964 and 1968, al-Faruqi established himself as an associate professor at the Department of Religion at
Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...
, where he initiated its programme in Islamic Studies. In 1968, he accepted a position at Temple University as a professor of religion, where he also founded the Islamic Studies Programme. He held that position until his death in 1986. Much of al-Faruqi's early thought is associated with what he called ''urubah'' (Arabism). In his 1962 book, ''On Arabism: Urubah and Religion'', he argued that urubah comprises the core identity and set of values which embrace all Muslims, a single community of believers ( ummah). Al-Faruqi formulated the notion of ''urubah'' in contradistinction to two other hegemonic ideologies: Arab nationalism and non-Arab Islamic revivalism. Adopting an overtly essentialist position, he argued that more than merely the language of the Qur'an, Arabic provided the only possible linguistic structure within which the Islamic conception of the world could be apprehended. Therefore, he asserted that ''urubah'' captured the core of Muslim consciousness, its values and faith – it was inseparable from the identity of all Muslims (al-Faruqi, 1962: 2–30). He also maintained that ''urubah'' was the only context within which the non-Muslim Arabs countries could integrate into their larger societies. Even non-Muslim Arabs, according to al-Faruqi, could identify with ''urubah'' expressed in the Qur'an. In effect, ''urubah'' left non-Muslim Arabs and non-Arab Muslims at the mercy of combined linguistic and religious essentialisms. Any other form of consciousness and identity was a distortion created by colonial penetration (al-Faruqi, 1962: 211). Though few would question Arab influence on non-Arab Muslim faith and culture or Arab Muslim influence on non-Muslim Arabs, the implication that they both find their ultimate expression and fulfilment in al-Faruqi's interpretation of Arabism might be regarded by some as an attempt to establish the hegemony of Arab Islam or, more precisely, Arab Muslim culture. Both Arab nationalists and non-Arab Muslim intellectuals shunned al-Faruqi's agenda to bring non-Arab Muslims and non-Muslim Arabs together through ''urubah''. While many Muslim intellectuals such as Fazlur Rahman agreed with al-Faruqi's assertion that the Qur'an could not achieve the same eloquence and expressiveness in any other languages except Arabic, they were critical of al-Faruqi's blatant Arab chauvinism. Al-Faruqi's sojourn in Pakistan did little to alter his doctrine of ''urubah''. It was in the United States several years later that he began to question the foundations of his earlier position. In 1968, for the first time he encountered members of the Muslim Students' Association (MSA) at Temple University. The convergence of Muslim students from diverse cultural backgrounds dramatically swayed his perception of Arab versus Islamic identity. In the spring of 1968, while a patient at the Johns Hopkins Ophthalmology Centre, al-Faruqi confided in one of the active members of the MSA, Ilyas Ba-Yunus, "Until a few months ago, I was a Palestinian, an Arab, and a Muslim. Now I am a Muslim who happens to be an Arab from Palestine" (Ba-Yunus, 1988: 14).


Scholarly Achievements

Al-Faruqi's early emphasis was on
Arabism Pan-Arabism ( ar, الوحدة العربية or ) is an ideology that espouses the unification of the countries of North Africa and Western Asia from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea, which is referred to as the Arab world. It is closely c ...
as the vehicle of
Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
and Muslim identity. He was also one of those who proposed the idea of Islamization of knowledge and founded the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) together with
Taha Jabir Alalwani Taha Jabir Al-Alwani (طه جابر علواني), Ph.D. (1935 – March 4, 2016), was the President of Cordoba University in Ashburn, Virginia, United States. He also held the Imam Al-Shafi'i Chair in the Islamic Legal Theory at The Graduate Sch ...
,
Abdul Hamid AbuSulayman Professor Emeritus Dato' Dr. Abdul Hamid Ahmad AbuSulayman (1936 – 18 August 2021) was an internationally renowned Islamic scholar, thinker, educationist and author of many books and articles on the subject of Islam and Islamic reform, especia ...
, former Rector of International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), and
Anwar Ibrahim Anwar bin Ibrahim ( ms, انور بن ابراهيم, label= Jawi, script=arab, italic=unset, IPA: ; born 10 August 1947) is a Malaysian politician who has served as the 10th Prime Minister of Malaysia since November 2022. He served as the 12 ...
, in 1980. During his years as a visiting professor of Islamic studies and scholar-in-residence at McGill University, a professor of Islamic studies at Karachi's Central Institute of Islamic Research as well as a visiting professor at various universities in Northern America, he wrote over 100 articles for various scholarly journals and magazines in addition to 25 books, of the most notable being ''Christian Ethics: A Historical and Systematic Analysis of Its Dominant Ideas''. He also established the Islamic Studies Group of the
American Academy of Religion The American Academy of Religion (AAR) is the world's largest association of scholarly method, scholars in the List of academic disciplines, field of religious studies and related topics. It is a nonprofit member association, serving as a profes ...
and chaired it for ten years. He served as the vice-president of the Inter-Religious Peace Colloqium, The Muslim-Jewish-Christian Conference and as the president of the
American Islamic College American Islamic College (AIC) is a private Islamic university in Chicago, Illinois. It accepts students from all backgrounds and claims to prepare students for "leadership and policy making roles in American society; and for management and staff ...
in Chicago. Al-Faruqi viewed the existence of Israel as an affront towards Judaism due to its state ideology of Zionism. He said that the injustice caused by Zionism is such as to necessitate war. He proposed a resolution in which Israel is dismantled and its institutions de-Zionised, and that former Israeli Jews who have renounced Zionism would live as an "ummatic community" and move freely throughout the Muslim world:


Death

In May 1986, Al-Faruqi and his wife were murdered in their Pennsylvania home, in a knife attack committed by Joseph Louis Young, who was also known as Yusuf Ali. Young confessed to the crime and was sentenced to the death penalty and died in prison of natural causes in 1996.


Bibliography

A list of publications by Ismail R. al-Faruqi follows.


Books

* (1953) ''From Here We Start'', tr. from the Arabic of K.M. Khalid. Washington, DC:
American Council of Learned Societies American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
* (1953) ''Our Beginning in Wisdom'', tr. from the Arabic of M. al Ghazali. Washington, DC: American Council of Learned Societies * (1953) ''The Policy of Tomorrow'', tr. from the Arabic of M. B. Ghali. Washington, DC: American Council of Learned Societies * (1962) ''`Urubah and Religion: An Analysis of the Dominant Ideas of Arabism and of Islam as Its Heights Moment of Consciousness'', vol. 1 of ''On Arabism'', Amsterdam: Djambatan * (1964) ''Usul al Sahyuniyah fi al Din al Yahudi'' (An Analytical Study of the Growth of Particularism in Hebrew Scripture). Cairo: Institute of Higher Arabic Studies * (1968) ''Christian Ethics: A Systematic and Historical Analysis of Its Dominant Ideas''. Montreal:
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and Amsterdam: Djambatan, Amsterdam * (1980) ''Islam and the Problem of Israel''. London: The Islamic Council of Europe * (1982) ''Trialogue of the Abrahamic Faiths'', ed.
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, VA: IIIT * (1982) ''Islamization of Knowledge''. Herndon, VA: IIIT * (1982) ''Tawhid: Its Implications for Thought and Life''. Kuala Lumpur: IIIT * (1985) ''Islam and Other Faiths''.
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, MD: Amana Publications * (1986) ''The Cultural Atlas of Islam''. New York:
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* (2012) ''Islam: Religion, Practice, Culture & World Order'', London; IIIT (posthumous work updated and edited by Imtiyaz Yusuf) * (2021) ESSENTIAL WRITINGS ISMAIL AL FARUQI, Selected and Edited by Imtiyaz Yusuf (Kuala Lumpur:IBT Books) https://ibtbooks.com › shop › essenti...


Translated texts

* Translated by Faruqi into English.


Articles

* "On the Ethics of the Brethren of Purity and Friends of Fidelity (''Ikhwan al Safa wa Khillan al Wafa)", '' The Muslim World'', vol. L, no. 2, pp. 109–21; no. 4, pp. 252–58; vol. LI, no. 1, pp. 18–24 * "On the Significance of Reinhold Niebuhr's Ideas of Society", ''
Canadian Journal of Theology ''The Canadian Journal of Theology'' was a quarterly academic journal of theology published by the University of Toronto Press that appeared from 1955 to 1970. Notable contributors were Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann, Paul Tillich, Norman Pittenger, ...
'', vol. VII, no. 2, pp. 99–107. Reprinted in ''Muslim Life'', vol. XI, no. 3 (Summer 1964): 5–14


In the press

* ''An Anthology of Readings on Tawhid''. Kuwait: IIFSO * ''Training Program for Islamic Youth''. Kuwait: IIFSO * ''The Life of Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab''. Riyadh: The Ministry of Higher Education


References

* Muhammad Shafiq, ''Growth of Islamic Thought in North America: Focus on Isma'il Raji al Faruqi'', Amana Publications, 1994 * Imtiyaz Yusuf
Islam and Knowledge: Al Faruqi's Concept of Religion in Islamic Thought
London: I. B. Tauris, 2012. Festschrift in honor of Prof. Ismail al-Faruqi.


Notes


External links


Ismail Faruqi Online
A website on the life and works of Dr. Ismail Faruqi
Every Muslim is a Scientist
Clip of Dr. Ismail Faruqi in documentary The Book of Signs (Science in the Quran), which was based on the work of Dr. Maurice Bucaille {{DEFAULTSORT:Faruqi, Ismail al American political writers Palestinian emigrants to the United States * * Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Al-Azhar University alumni Temple University faculty 1921 births 1986 deaths American Muslims Palestinian academics People murdered in Pennsylvania People from Jaffa Palestinian non-fiction writers Palestinian philosophers American murder victims Deaths by stabbing in Pennsylvania Palestinian murder victims Palestinian Muslims 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers American male non-fiction writers 20th-century American philosophers 1986 murders in the United States McGill University faculty University of Chicago faculty Muslim scholars of Islamic studies