Research Themes
Responding to a Need for Representative Scholarship
Research at AKU-ISMC concentrates on issues that are critical to all contemporary societies, particularly those that remain relatively unexplored within Muslim environments.
Areas of research include:
- Law in Muslim contexts
- Entrepreneurship and development
- Governance and civil society
- Bioethics
- Pluralism
- Cities and cosmopolitanism
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- Historiography
- Gender and Muslim identities
- Muslims in Western contexts
- Transnational migration
- Education about Muslim societies and cultures
- Religious education and citizenship
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Research at the AKU-ISMC falls into three interconnected themes:
- The Construction of Knowledge about Muslim Societies and Cultures
Building on contemporary work in the sociology of knowledge, historiography, education theory and other fields, the Institute seeks to examine the ways that knowledge about Muslim cultures and societies is created, negotiated and legitimized, and the diverse effects of this knowledge in social, political and educational realms.
- Understanding the Processes of Change in Muslim Societies and Cultures
This research area addresses questions pertaining to processes of change and new forms of socio-economic, political and cultural practice in Muslim-majority societies and in Western countries with Muslim populations.
- Governance in Muslim Contexts
The initiative seeks to contribute to an area in which Muslim societies are facing significant challenges today, namely that of governance. The initiative will provide a platform for intellectual interaction between different constituencies (academics, policy makers, constitutional experts, journalists, ulema, etc.) and will focus on the deep structural issues at the root of governance challenges in developing contexts and seek to understand the processes in theory and practice.
