Between Western Academia and Pakistan

Fazlur Rahman and the fight for fusionism

Bibliographic Data

ID3619794
AuthorsMegan Brankley Abbas (SUNY Geneseo, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume51
Issue3
Pages736-768
Publication date2017-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueModern Asian Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0026-749X • E-ISSN: 1469-8099
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0026749x15000517
OpenAlexW2616106742
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited19

In the wake of European colonization, Muslims across the globe have wrestled with the problem of intellectual dualism, or the bifurcation of knowledge into the distinct Islamic and modern Western spheres. This article examines the career of Pakistani intellectual and University of Chicago professor, Fazlur Rahman (1919-1988), who emerged as a particularly significant figure in this debate over intellectual dualism in the latter half of the twentieth century. Arguing that academic methodologies were integral for Muslim understandings of Islam, Rahman broke down the dichotomy between Western and Islamic knowledge in favour of a merging of the two, an approach I term 'fusionism'. He propagated this fusionist vision, with mixed success, in his native Pakistan and across the Islamic world. In his position as a respected professor at the University of Chicago, Rahman furthermore re-imagined and utilized the Western university as a valuable space for modern Islamic thought, thereby challenging any sharp boundary between the two discourses and their respective institutions

Dualism · Epistemology · Globe · Islam · Muslim world · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Theology · Education and Islamic Studies · Islamic Studies and History · Philosophy · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East · Psychology

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