The Intellectual Impact of American Muslim Scholars on the Muslim World,
with Special Reference to Southeast Asia
Osman Bakar
Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding
Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service
Georgetown University
June 2003
Introduction
Shortly before the tragic events of September 11, several leading
Malaysian newspapers carried a feature article by Bernama, the country’s
National News Agency, based on an interview with me. The subject was
Islam in America. Two of the points I raised aroused considerable
interest. One was the extraordinary diversity of Islam in the United
States. The other was the possible emergence of the United States in the
next few decades as the most creative and productive center of Islamic
intellectual life in the world, in spite of Muslims constituting only a
small minority in the United States and an even more numerically
insignificant part of the global ummah of 1.4 billion people. This
prediction about the future of Islam in the United States may sound
overly optimistic, but the optimism is not without a rational basis.
Numerous factors favor the emergence of an American Islam that is
spiritually dynamic and intellectually robust - provided that American
Muslims remain faithful to the tenets of their religion. The
intellectual freedom and cultural openness that characterize the United
States stand out as the most important of these favorable factors.
In the interview, I spoke of the United States as “the second Mecca,”
referring to the extraordinary ethnic, cultural and theological
diversity of Islam in this country. What I meant was that apart from
Mecca – and Medina – the United States is the only place in the world in
which every ethnic Muslim group in the ummah and every Muslim school of
thought current in 1.the world are found. Islam in the United States is
indeed a microcosm of the Muslim world. Its potential significance for
both this country and the Muslim world is obvious. If the American
Muslim community succeeds in coping with its diversity and pluralism and
produces a distinctive and cohesive American Islam, interacting
harmoniously and creatively with American diversity and pluralism, it
will be in a position to serve as an influential model for the rest of
the ummah. This will have far-reaching consequences for the entire
world. The idea of the United States of the near future becoming a major
world center of Islamic learning and intellectual life and thought, even
if not the most advanced in the world, is exciting.
The idea is not new, but has existed in various Muslim circles for some
time. After all, the phenomenon of a twenty-first century Western Islam
exercising much influence on the rest of the ummah would not be without
historical precedent. Medieval Spanish Islam, which Maria Rosa Menocal
calls “The Ornament of the World,” was once the enlightened western wing
of Islam.1 There is broad agreement in these discussions that if the
United States were to emerge as the leading center of Muslim
intellectual life, its influence on intellectual developments in the
Muslim world would be enormous. While real achievements for the American
Muslim community in the two domains of the development of an American
Islam and the impact of an
American Islam on Islam elsewhere are within its practical reach,
progress in the two spheres is not proceeding at the same pace. The
creation of a distinctively American Islam is still in its initial
stage. American Islam identity and culture itself is not yet
well-defined. In contrast, the intellectual relationship between
American Muslims and the Muslim world has been forged gradually over the
last two decades to the benefit of both. American Muslim scholars are
already having a visible impact on contemporary intellectual life and
developments in various parts of the Muslim world.
Selengkapnya lihat di:
http://cmcu.georgetown.edu/PDFs/Intellectual_impact_of_American_Muslim_scholars.pdf
Wassalam, Bandaro Kayo
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