Editorial 

In this issue of AJZSS, some of the changes that we plan to introduce 
to the journal‘s contents and layout begin to take shape. AJZSS, from this 
issue onwards, will only accept and publish articles with endnotes. Each 
issue will include four main research essays or more, in addition to our 
expanded Book Review, Reflections, and other regular sections. It is our 
intention that MISS will now seek to provide a historical dimension to the 
modem Islamic experience, especially that of the late nineteenth and 
early twentieth centuries. Lawal‘s “Islam and Colonial Rule in Lagos,” is 
an example of this category of research that will be appearing in future 
issues of the journal. To elucidate the need for this dimension, it may be 
helpful to explain a few aspects of modem Islamic intellectual history. 

The Islamic reform movement is, in many respects, the greatest intel- 
lectual endeavor of the Muslim mind over the past two centuries. Its 
emergence came against a backdrop of western encroachment and the 
inability of the Sufi-dominated Muslim world to respond adequately to 
such foreign challenges. Reformists emphasized renewal by revising the 
Prophet’s tradition against the stagnation brought about by a Muslim 
mind that had become enslaved to a blind and uncritical imitation of the 
ways of earlier generations (tuqtid). They advocated, moreover, a synthe- 
sis of what is “Islamic” and what is “modem and western.” 

Today, Muslims and Islamic intellectualism are in greater need of 
comprehending and analyzing the context of the reform movement, the 
Islamic response to the weserrn challenge, and the sweeping moderniza- 
tion process that was to ensue. The main reason behind such urgency is 
that although the reformist model succeeded in upholding Islamic tenets 
and achieved a limited reconstruction of Islamic self-confidence, it can no 
longer provide a basis for renewal (tujdd) or answer the major questions 
confronting the contempomy Muslim world. 

The importance of al ‘AlwW’s most recent elaboration of the Islami- 
zation of Knowledge vision for renewal, “The Islamization of Knowl- 
edge: Yesterday and Today,” is that it goes beyond the reformist 
enterprise. By invoking the Qur’an and its absolute dominance over all 
other Islamic sources, the author suggests a new path for the development 
of an Islamic weltanschauung. Many pursuits of the Muslim social scien- 
tists have already shown that this process is effectively underway. 



Ghadbian’s article on “Islamists and Women in the Arab World: 
From Reaction to Reform” is an exposition of a very interesting moment 
in the evolution of Islamic discourse on women, as the hitherto defensive 
position is graudally assuming a creative and constructive attitude. In 
both cases, the challenges of modernity are the prime movers. 
Mohamed‘s “Fi.fruh and Its Bearing on Islamic Psychology” is another 
example of the possible Islamic response to modernity. Using methods 
and approaches of psychology, Mohamed pushes Islamic attempts to for- 
mulate psychological theory one step further. 

Finally, in a lengthy discussion of “The Islamic Impact on Western 
Civilization Reconsidered,” Koshul reopens the protracted debate on this 
favorable issue to Muslim scholars. In contrast with the apologists’ her- 
itage, however, Koshul is not concerned with how Europe benefitted 
from the scientific inventions and discoveries of the Mmlim world’s 
scholars and scientists. The crux of his contribution is his analysis of the 
influence of methods, developed in an Islamic milieu, on the rise of mod- 
em European sciences. If Koshul’s conclusions are correct, then there 
must be an explanation for the relative stagnation that extended from al 
G W i ’ s  death until the emergence of the reform movement. 

Basheer Nafi