C.3	An AKU Institute Devoted to Study of Islamic Civilisations
		The projected course of graduate studit's leading to a Master's Degree from Cambridge was described for the Commission by Dr. Aziz Esmail at our London meeting. It embraces a two year programme (three years in total time) with courses on the following subjects, plus several others : "The Quran : Meaning, History and Text"I "Authority, Power, and the Body-Politic: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives" ;"Law, Ethics and Society"; "Reason and Imagination"; "Religious Beliefs, Ritual Expression and Social Change"; "Critical Approaches to Modernity : the Encounter of Cultures : Islam and the West".
		As we have said, the Commission has found this programme very helpfully suggestive for what might be developed in AKU. It has the breadth of mind and spirit, the firm commitment to objectivity and standards of modern scholarship, and the high quality leadership we want to see in AKU's future. Its non-normative approach, elevated above sectarian dogma, commends itself particularly to the Commission. The agenda before AKU's Institute will certainly differ considerably from IIS's present agenda. The educational purposes we propose for the AKU Institute would aim not only at graduate study but at first-degree liberal education within and beyond AKU; the research topics it would pursue, cannot now be foreseen in detail but they would undoubtedly embrace humanistic studies and studies of social problems that will differ from those to which IIS would (properly) give priority. Needless to say the new role we envisage for AKU in this field would in no way encroach upon the mat, current responsibilities of IIS to the Ismaili Ja which would continue as before.
	3.8	We do not think it proper for this Commission to try to specify in detail what the AKU Institute we are proposing should do. We believe that this sort of planning ought to be left for the founding leadership of the Institute aided by a Task Force that would have appropriate engagement of the central administration, the Board and its relevant committees. But we should give some indications of the broad conception of the Institute that has led us to enthusiasm for it as an important component of the future AKU.
	3.9	We believe that AKU should study Islam within its framework as a set of civilisations, rather than primarily or solely as a religion; and see these civilisations in wider analytical and comparative perspectives. In particular the AKU Institute should address the meaning of modernity, contemporary problems of the Muslim world, and the encounters of Islam and the West. It will have a research agenda but should also, and perhaps Inore importantly, make synthetic efforts at grasping the character of Islamic civilisations as they have been, and the complex social, cultural and historical processes they undergo in the modern world. This is an enterprise with basically educational and philosophical purposes, one that may help individuals and societies find meaning and purpose in the traditions and the worlds they inhabit. It is, of course, an intellectual enterprise of a high order, demanding first-class talents and erudition. We would assume that such efforts could only be successfully executed by original and creative scholars who would also engage in their own specialised research. But we would think the intellectual distinction of this AKU Institute should be found at least as much in its synoptic and educational works as in monographs of specialised research. We would hope that the Institute would provide the materials for enlightened treatment of Islamic civilisations in the liberal education of AKU students, and for as many other students and readers as these materials may reach.
	3.10	This educational programme of the AKU Institute would have much in common with the "civilisation" courses that developed strongly in higher education in the United States in the decades following World War II. The Commission believes that these courses may be a source of helpful indications about what may be developed in AKU. They have presented the civilisations of the Western world, East Asia, Africa and other regions, cultures and times in a comprehensive fashion, depicting their achievements, their institutions, and their interactions with other civilisations. We should suppose there might well be a similar scope in what this Institute may develop on Islamic civilisations for the educational benefit of AKU and other students.
		There should be exposure in this kind of education to the great artistic and intellectual achievements of Islamic civilisations, to the glories of the Alhambra and the Taj, and the minds of Ibn Rusbd and Ibn Sina. There are reasons for a prominent place of the arts and humanities in the kind of education in Islamic civilisations we are envisaging, but it should be complemented by solid understanding of institutions and their histor and sober depiction of flaws and limitations. Since the rise of the European hegemony in the 17th and 18th centuries, the history of Islamic civilisations has inevitably been deeply engaged with its Western encounters. There is thus a sense in which there is less need for education in the Islamic heritage to be de-parochialised, as Western education has had to be. But since the relations of Islam and the West have been and remain so emotionally charged, the presentation of Islamic civilisations in their wider contexts present difficulties that will test the mettle of the AKU's Institute.

Page 1 2 3

[Previous] [Next]