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Welcome to the
Muslim College,
London
Muslims living
in the West have for long felt the need for
establishing a religious academic institution
specialising in the study of Islam, its culture and
history. It is not difficult to recognize that
religious education and guidance in Western
societies requires a type of scholarship that is in
many ways different from the scholarship available
in Muslim countries.
Muslims living in the West face two major
challenges. The first is a challenge to religious
faith in general and to the Islamic faith in
particular; the second is a challenge to the ethical
and social values enshrined in the Holy Qur'an and
the Sunna.
These challenges have been faced largely without the
guidance of adequately-trained scholars. In matters
of religion, Muslim communities in the West have
come to rely for religious leadership on Imams and
scholars whose training is mainly rooted in the
cultural and educational environment of their
countries of origin.
This training is not always sufficient to deal with
the cultural environment of modern Western Europe
and the USA nor with problems arising from
interaction with Western societies. With the growing
number of Muslims living in Western Europe and the
USA, and the accelerated movement of people and
ideas across national and cultural borders, Muslims
today are living an unprecedented experience of
multiculturalism.
This widely recognized development in the nature of
relations between religions and cultures imposes new
theoretical as well as practical issues on Muslims
whether in minority or majority situations. Western
societies also face no less acute questions. A
greater degree of mutual understanding cannot be to
the detriment of either; Muslims both in the West
and in the Muslim world stand to gain a great deal
from such an enterprise.
The West and the world of Islam are now much more
aware of each other than in previous centuries. This
calls for a new and more objective analysis of their
common characteristics and differences.
Islam is a religion of long and established
traditions of learning. These traditions, however,
developed in a largely favourable milieu, and by
absorbing various elements of their local
environments became highly diversified and
differentiated.
It is, therefore, imperative to understand Islamic
traditional culture in its historical and social
context. This is a prerequisite for the revitalising
of Islamic thought and making Islamic contributions
in the realm of ideas relevant to the human
condition.
In answer to these needs, the Muslim College came
into being. |