EDITORIAL 

It is with a great sense of pride that we announce the quarterly publication 
of the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences with this issue. We started 
in 1984 with two issues a year, and in 1990 added a third. We are now glad 
to provide issues of M I S S  corresponding to the four seasons of the year. 
We have been encouraged to increase our journal‘s frequency due to the 
overwhelming response and appreciation of its uniqueness on the part of 
individual scholars, institutions, contributors, and subscribers. May Allah 
bless our well-wishers and help us to further enhance the scholarly role of 
MISS. 

In this issue, Amriah Buang introduces a hitherto neglected subject to 
the Islamization of knowledge: human geography. Asserting that this field 
has reached an epistemological impasse, she describes the nature of the 
contending philosophies currently characterizing human geography and thereby 
highlights those difficult-to-reconcile epistemological points of contention. 
Buang briefly recounts the nature of structuration theory, which is proposed 
by some geographers as a solution to the present impasse, and then subjects 
it to a preliminary Islamic evaluation. 

In an earlier issue (MISS 8:2, September 1991), Fazal Khan proposed 
a theoretical perspective on the process of the Islamization of the entertainment 
video medium with special reference to Pakistan. In this issue, he explores 
some empirical basics of the Islamization of the enculturation model based 
on his study of youth viewers of Pakistani television. 

Theodore Wright, Jr., critiques the concepts and value assumptions of 
existing literature in the field of comparative politics in order to bring out 
the built-in Eurocentric bias which it has acquired through its Judeo-Christian 
and secular-humanist orientation. He suggests a research agenda for Muslim 
and sympathetic non-Muslim specialists with the intent of recasting the 
perception of reality in terms which are objective and thus less biased than 
those currently found in the contemporary modern discourse of comparative 
and developmental politics. Wright’s concerns are well appreciated and his 
agenda should be taken seriously by Muslim researchers, but dependence 
on empirical data alone is not going to solve the problem. Muslim social 
scientists must participate in advancing Islamic positions on current issues 
based on the Qur’an, the hadith literature, and the insights gained from their 
expertise. For example, while an unbiased study of the preponderance of 



military rule in Muslim countries muld be welcome, it should not be presented 
as a chamteristic of Islam. Many present-day problems and institutions in 
the Muslim world do not have their origin in Islamic teachings, although 
they may have historically become associated with Muslim society. 

Iftikhar Malik, a historian, deals with identity formation in the Muslim 
world. He discusses how Islam is the basis of Muslim identity and how the 
present debate is mainly one of seeking a synthesis within a number of young 
political (national and ethnic) and old sociocultural identities. Focusing his 
attention on ethnonational movements in South and Central Asia, he shows 
how they interact with Islam's supraethnonational role. Malik is concerned 
about the %st's perception of these movements and how it misconstrues them. 
It is his contention that mutual religious and ethnic sensibilities demand a 
better appreciation and a more humane understanding of the developments 
in the Muslim regions for several reasons: we are living in an interdependent 
world, Muslim regions are very close to the West, and Islam is emerging 
as the second major religion in a multiethnic North America and Europe. 

Mohamed H. El-Badawi and Sultan M. Al-Sultan have investigated the 
feasibility of using the net working capital approach and the owner's net equity 
approach to determine the zakatable amount of trade assets. In addition to 
showing the relationship between the two approaches, they introduce the 
principles and conditions of zakah accounting for business and then discuss 
the net working capital approach. This is followed by an analysis of how 
to determine the growing capital as the basis for ascertaining the zakatable 
amount through an examination of the elements of working capital and the 
financial tmnsactions during the year. An analysis of the owner's equity 
approach is then used to determine the zakatable amount, and both approaches 
are applied to a numerical example in order to contmst the growing capital 
with the zakatable amount. 

Mona Abul-Fad1 reflects on American foreign policy in the Middle East. 
She shows how misplaced apprehensions about Islam as a disruptive force 
in the modem world order lay at the basis of American policy. It is her 
contention that these apprehensions serve to justify a politics of unmitigated 
greed and moral duplicity which continue to hinder the possibilities of justice 
for the majority of the region's people. Abul-Fad1 limits her discussion to 
retracing the impediments and pointing to the possibilities for aligning 
American foreign policy in the Middle East more closely with the requirements 
of an ethical approach. This approach, in her opinion, would be more in 
tune with the ground realities and the aspirations that inspire the public 
conscience both in America as well as in the Middle East. 

Mumtaz Ahmad has written a review article on three recent publications 
related to the resurgenw of Muslim ethnic minorities: Liberalism and the 
Quest for Islamic Identity in the Philippines; Ethnicity, Pluralism and the 



Editorial v11 

State in the Middle East; and Ethno-National Movements of Pakistan. The 
article provides a rich critique of the explanations given for communal and 
ethnonational resurgence and separatism. 

We have a book review of Islamic Spain by Mhammad Benaboud. This 
fits in well with the first 1992 issue of MISS, the year in which to remind 
our readers of the fall of Grenada and the end of the Islamic presence of 
Spain exactly five hundred years ago. We hope to publish some more researches 
on this important topic during this year. AbdulHamid AbiiSulaymh's book 
The Islamic Theory of International Relations, which deals with how the 
Islamic world relates to the rest of the international community, has been 
reviewed by Glenn E. Perry. 

The conferences covered in this issue are the 20th Annual Conference 
of the AMSS, which was held in Detroit, MI, during October 1991, and the 
joint AMSS-Hamdard University conference held in Karachi, Pakistan, during 
January 1992. We have also included the inaugural address of Tfthihii J. al 
Alwiini given at the Pakistan conference. The conference papers will be 
published by the Hamdard Foundation of Pakistan. 

Sayyid M. Syeed.