Preliminary Discourse

It is difficult to speak about religious revival without running into conceptual difficulties, especially when we locate the issue in the context of "religious vs secular" debate. Philosophical dilemmas aside, it presents considerable problems as we try to grapple with the theme from the standpoint of an intensely spiritual outlook. It is easy, of course, to distinguish between the "religious" and the "spiritual" as many have done, and caution in the manner of Rumi, against loving religion more than loving God. But this represents yet another symptom of a dualistic paradigm, and an antagonistic one at that, which introduces hostility into what is originally a harmonious relationship. Religion was revealed precisely to secure man's ascent to the knowledge (however limited), and ultimately love, of God. By definition then deviation from this path is a step outside religion. How then can love of religion ever substitute the love of God when to not love Go...

Of what value is the past for the Muslims in the twenty-first century? One may be surprised to be told that to engage with the present demands firm knowledge of the past, for therein lies the reservoir of Islam’s rich intellectual and scholarly tradition. This theme was the leitmotif of a recent discourse session with Shaykh Dr Afifi Al-Akiti at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), organised by the Assembly of Young Intellectuals (HAKIM) and Curiosity Institute. Dr Afifi, a Malaysian scholar who is currently KFAS Fellow in Islamic Studies at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, is also a Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Theology, University of Oxford, as well as College Lecturer in World Religions at Worcester College, Oxford. His doctoral thesis was on a group of philosophical writings called the ‘Madnūn Corpus’ attributed to the great theologian, philosopher and Sufi, Abū Ḥ āmid al-Ghazālī (d. 1111), on metaphysics and natural philosophy. Writings ...