C.3	An AKU Institute Devoted to Study of Islamic Civilisations
	3.1	In earlier sections of this report we have presented arguments and evidence that changes in n the world have made the mission of the Aga Khan University as a Muslim university more important than it was a decade ago. Agitated concerns over the proper role of Islam in the economies, the public lifeand governance of Muslim countries, and tensions in the relations of Islam with the "West" are now at high levels; and they seem likely to remain so in the coming decades. The well?being and serenity of the Muslim Ummah in the 21st century will depend on many things, on economic growth, on improvements in education and health and other requisites of the good life to which AKU may contribute through its various faculties and programmes. But we have also proposed in Section V that AKU pursue its special mission as a Muslim institution by developing : (1) research and scholarship on Islamic civilisations and the contemporary Muslim world; (2) education for AKU students and materials for the education of others, Muslims and non-Muslims; (3) a participation with others, Muslim and nonMuslim, in coping with the problems of the modern world. We regard these matters as of great urgency, and recommend that an Institute of Islamic Civilisations be given first priority as AKU broadens beyond its present fields of activity.
	3.2	We believe that AKU is exceptionally well-placed to develop as a unique Muslim university in the 21st century. There is the comparative advantage that Professor Keenan stressed in 1983, viz., that unlike other Muslim universities it need not be hostage to a particular government or the conditions in a particular country, and can devote itself in exceptional freedom to the "Islamisation of modernity". The name of the Aga Khan has also been associated with the highest levels of scholarship through such beneficences as the Aga Khan Professorships of Iranian and of Islamic Art and Architecture at Harvard, and the Aga Khan Professorship of Architecture and Design for Islamic Culture at MIT. Through these professorships and the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture (AKPIA) at these institutions it may be fairly claimed that the name of the Aga Khan has been decisively associated with the building of the academic field of Islamic art and architecture - a field which hardly existed as a living academic communit , before these benefactions and programmes. In the wider domains of practice, the Architectural Awards Programme has brought similar association of the Aga Khan's name with concern for promoting the quality and cultural sensitivity of architecture in the Muslim world, an association now being extended through the Historic Cities Support Programme. Indeed, over the field of its interests, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture stands nearly alone. In a less conspicuous way, the Institute of Ismaili Studies has engaged many of the world's leading scholars of Islam, and is now launching a very promising new graduate programme in Islamic studies.
	3.3	AKU thus has freedom, resources and a prestigious tradition behind it that give the potential for very important, perhaps even unique, contributions as a Muslim university. But what does it mean to be a Muslim university and what, concretely, must AKU do to fulfil the missions we have sketched out for it ?
	3.4	We have described briefly in Section III.4 of this report the pattern of distinction between universities in the Muslim world based on Western models and universities that are devoted to Islamic learning. We have also described two efforts, in Jordan and Malaysia, to develop forms of higher education that seek to combine imported professional and scientific education with Islamic elements, aiming to produce graduates who are good Muslims, as well as competent citizens of their countries and the modern world. There have clearly been similar aspirations for AKU to be a Muslim university in more senses than that it seeks to serve the Muslim world and has most of its activities therein.
	3.5	Such aspirations appeared in responses to the Harvard Committee's recommendations on AKU studies of Muslim culture and societies. A 1988 paper on the proposed Faculty of Islamic Humanities for AKU that grew out of the Harvard report spoke of avoiding "purely secularistic analytical positions"; and Mohammed Arkoun, one of the principal architects of the new programme at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, has resisted "purely ethnographic" views of cultures. [In Ouverture sur l'Islain Paris (Grancher) 1992, and certainly elsewhere in his abundant writings.] Aspirations of AKU to be an educational institution in more than technocratic respects inevitably press it to more than analytical concerns with Islam and Muslim societies. Our acceptance of missions for AKU in the education of both Muslims and non?Muslims in the modern world must imply the sympathetic agreement in the Commission with such a stance. AKU in a great part of its present and future work must have the detached and critical stance of modern learning. But as a university representing and studying the Islamic tradition from which it springs it cannot rest in cool detachment. It must seek ways to combine disciplined, objective inquiry with imaginative efforts to use its heritage to provide visions of the meaning of life in the modern world.
	3.6	In pursuing these high objectives, the opposite pole to pure detachment of adopting an apologetic or defensive attitude - championing rather than understanding, insisting on dogma rather than elucidation - must be avoided. This is particularly important in view of the strident manifestation of such attitudes in some of the contemporary extremist Islamic movements.
	3.7	What should then be the course between these poles for AKU ? Intellectually and conceptually, the non-normative and constructive programme in graduate studies now being launched by the Institute of Ismaili Studies in collaboration with Cambridge University has appealed strongly to the Commission. The missions of IIS and AKU are different and we see good reasons to keep them distinct. But the approach to Islam as a civilisation in the historical and non?normative ways that appear in the programme with Cambridge has commended itself to us as appropriate for AKU. We therefore quote at some length, salient passages from the Institute's current philosophical statement :
		"The programme seeks to avoid a division of pertinent disciplines ... in the study of Muslim societies ... [aiming] to produce an integrated analysis ... conceived as broadly as possible ... The premise is that 'Islam' can more fruitfully be treated as a civilisation (our emphasis, here and subsequently) rather than a religion only ... This means ... that religious developments will be seen as part of the development of thought and culture in Muslim societies [and] those aspects of culture, like art, poetry, and architecture, which are not always treated at par with doctrine, law or religious practice, will be so regarded in this programme ... As culture cannot be studied in isolationfrom society ... [the] inter-relationship of ideas and meanings to social andpoliticalforces will be treated as one of the keys to integrated understanding of the subject." (this last sentence slightly re-arranged).
		"... the diverse definitions and schools of thought which emerged in Islam must be understood historically ... A historical approach to Islam must be balanced by a due appreciation of the meaning religious ideas have for their followers ... The programme willgive due attention, therefore, to the role of poetic and imaginative discourse in the shaping of spiritual life in Muslim cultures ... While the approach to Islam as a civilisation is intended to integrate as well as enlarge both the subject matter and the angles of study, this does not preclude an appreciation of the enormous diversity of Muslin, societies ... The diversity of these expressions [of Islam] must be noted without normatire judgements of their validity ... Similarly, the programme will examine the important 'Classical' languages (Arabic, Persian) but also national ' regional or local vernaculars ... Two other objectives of this non?normative approach [are] ... to reexamine the emphasis on 'learned' ... Islam to the relative neglect of ' opular'and oral traditions ... p and to pay full attention to the practic(d manifestation of Islamic ideals in living societies.
		".. . [Tlhere is a su rviving tendency in the field of Islamic studiesfor the studies of the past to proceed along separate lines from those of contemporary Muslim societies ... The intellectuol framework of this programme is designed to bridpe this gap ... The study of the vast changes introduced in [contemporary Muslim] societies in the modern period will pay attention to the meaning and images of the past, which are current in these societies ...
		"The polarity of 'Islam' and the 'West' assumed in much of contemporary discourse about the subject, needs to be subjected to critical analysis ... The overlap of some of the more fundamental issues of society and culture today (across Western and non?Western lands, or across the developed and developing worlds) will be noted without the distortions inherent in too facile an opposition between the 'West'and 'non-West'."

Page 1 2 3

[Previous] [Next]