250829P - THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF IOK: THE WAY FORWARD

Presented at the Roundtable on ‘Institutionalization of Islamization of Knowledge: Agenda Forward’ at the regional meeting of representatives from East and Southeast Asia, Kuala Lumpur, held on 29th August 2025. By Professor Omar Hasan Kasule MB ChB (MUK), MPH (Harvard), DrPH (Harvard)

1.0 Islamization of Knowledge (IOK):

•  The movement to Islamize knowledge became prominent at the turn of the 15th century Hijri 1978/1980 and was contemporaneous with similar movements in all areas of Muslim life: economics, politics, social reform, etc.
•  IOK started as a wish, a vision, and a dream, but was soon concretized into definite tracks: De-Westernization of academic disciplines and adding Islamic values and concepts to knowledge. An offshoot of the movement focused on modernizing or strengthening classical Islamic sciences.

2.0 Islamization of Knowledge (IOK) vs Integration of Knowledge (IOK):

•  The term ‘Islamization’ caused a lot of polemical arguments because of the implication of imposing Islam on Muslim and non-Muslim societies, and was gradually replaced by the term ‘Integration of Knowledge’ starting in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
•  A parallel movement to integrate knowledge arose in the European and American intellectual circles and was generally a rebellion against an empirical source of knowledge that denied other sources of knowledge. The westerners realized that medicine, engineering, and other disciplines needed input from religions, cultures, and human non-rational thoughts, psychology, and emotions. 

3.0 Movement of Reactive Integration of Knowledge in the West:

•  Realization that knowledge that solves actual societal problems is multi-disciplinary. Knowledge cannot be compartmentalized.
•  Intra-disciplinary integration: within a single academic discipline.
•  Inter-disciplinary integration: from 2 different disciplines, for example, the interdisciplinary journal of education.
•  Multi-disciplinary integration: from several disciplines, e.g., a multi-disciplinary journal of educational research.
•  Trans-disciplinary integration: several disciplines addressing a single problem, e.g. transdisciplinary journal of management.

4.0 Return to Islamization of Knowledge:

•  Integration of knowledge in the Islamic sense converged with the Western one; the difference is in what we integrate into empirical knowledge. Muslims wanted to integrate values from the Qur’an and Sunnah.
•  It may be time to return to the term Islamization of knowledge to emphasize ideological distinctiveness.
•  The term Islamization of knowledge is still sensitive, and other terms have been mentioned and can be pursued to be pragmatic.

5.0 Balance Sheet of IOK:

•  The main achievement of IOK is the setting up of integrated schools and universities all over the world. This has been accompanied by the production of integrated curricula and integrated teaching materials. In the areas of banking, finance, and food, integration has been achieved by setting up working institutions.
•  The remaining challenge is inadequate research to develop the concept of IOK and to move from adding Islamic values to existing knowledge or subtracting non-Islamic ones to creating new integrated or Islamized knowledge to become creators and innovators and not consumers of knowledge by others.

6.0 International Climate Favoring IOK:

•  The rise of the far-right in Europe and America in the past 2 decades manifested by electoral victories and forcing conservatives and some liberals to accommodate the right agenda: anti-immigration, anti-foreigners, anti-liberalism, Islamophobia, etc.
•  The move to the right has reinforced Islamic identity and Muslims in the West, South, and East. They realize they are rejected by the Western civilization that they have admired and wanted to emulate.
•  Muslims, therefore, intellectually and emotionally look at IOK as an alternative to colonial knowledge and education systems.

7.0 Intellectual Resources for National Universities:

•  Thousands of highly educated and highly trained professionals with critical skills will be forced or will choose to return to their native countries.
•  They will populate local universities and give them what I estimate is a 10-year head start in science and technology.
•  They will be enthusiastic about IOK because they will have a motivation to assert their Muslim identity in the various disciplines of knowledge.

8.0 The Future of IOK in Textbook Writing:

•  The future of IOK is when we start writing textbooks and other teaching materials that integrate ilm aqli and ilm naqli.
•  The books should not aim only at adding Islamic values to existing knowledge but should also inspire research leading to integrated knowledge. We should stop consuming and should start producing knowledge.
•  There are many efforts in West Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Africa, etc., in writing textbooks.

9.0 Book Covers from East African Teaching Materials Projects:

10.0 Book Covers From East African Teaching Materials Projects, con’t. 1:

11.0 Book Covers From East African Teaching Materials Projects, con’t. 2:

12.0 Book Covers From East African Teaching Materials Projects, con’t. 3:

13.0 Book Covers From East African Teaching Materials Projects, con’t. 4:

Thank you!