Imtiyaz Yusuf - Essential Writings Ismail Al Faruqi

The copyright holder and the publisher of this book would like to thank with acknowledgment the following publishers for granting permission to quote from the cited materials:

• For The Essence of Religious Experience in Islam, Numen 20, no. 3 (1973), E. J. Brill, Leiden, Netherlands.
• For History of Religions: Its Nature and Significance for Christian Education and the Muslim-Christian Dialogue, Numen 12, no. 1 (1965), E. J. Brill, Leiden, Netherlands.
• For On the Significance of Niebuhrs Ideas of Society, Canadian Journal of Theology 7 (1961), University of Toronto Press, Journals Division.
• For Islam: Religion, Practice, Culture & World Order , International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), Herndon, VA, USA. With special thanks to Dr. Ahmed Alwani and Obay Altaleb, Vice President and Associate Director, and Publication and Translation Director of Marketing and Distribution, respectively, of IIIT.
• For Meta-Religion: Towards a Critical World Theology, American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences , 1986, IIIT, Herndon, VA, USA. With special thanks to Dr. Ahmed Alwani and Obay Altaleb, Vice President and Associate Director, and Publication and Translation Director of Marketing and Distribution, respectively, of IIIT.
• For Towards a Historiography of Pre-Hijrah Islam, Islamic Studies 1, no. 2 (1962): 65-87. Special thanks to Professor Dr. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Editor of Islamic Studies and Director General of the Islamic Research Institute (IRI) at International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
• For Islam and Other Faiths (2007), Islamic Foundation Leicester, UK. With special thanks to Haris Ahmad, Managing Director of Kube Publishing, Leicestershire, UK.
• For Rights of Non-Muslims under Islam: Social and Cultural Aspects, Journal of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (Summer 1979), Taylor & Francis, Oxfordshire, UK.
• For The Ideal Social Order in the Arab World, 1800-1968, Journal of Church and State (1969), published by Oxford University Press.
• Excerpts from A Comparison of the Islamic and Christian Approaches to Hebrew Scripture, Journal of Bible and Religion (1963), published courtesy of Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Academy of Religion.

• Excerpts from The Concept and Practice of Christian Mission, International Review of Mission (1976), published courtesy of WCC Publications, Switzerland.
• Excerpts from Muhammad Rasjidi and Ali Muhsin Barwani, Christian Mission in the Muslim World: Two Case Studies, International Review of Mission (1976), published courtesy of WCC Publications, Switzerland.
• Excerpts from On the Nature of Islamic Dawah, International Review of Mission (1976), WCC Publications, Switzerland.
• Excerpts from Islam and Art, Studia Islamica (1973), published courtesy of E. J. Brill, Leiden, Netherlands.
• Excerpts from On Arabism: Urubah and Religion
  (1962), published courtesy of Djambatan, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
• Excerpts from Islam and Christianity: Diatribe or Dialogue, Journal of Ecumenical Studies , published courtesy of Temple University, Philadelphia, USA.

I smail al-Faruqi, whom I first encountered in the early 1970s when he delivered a series of lectures in Kuala Lumpur on Islam and Modernity, was an intellectual luminary whose abilities as a teacher were prodigious. My fond memories of al-Faruqi during our early encounter are described briefly in Islam and Knowledge Al-Faruqis Concept of Religion in Islamic Thought (2012) edited by Professor Imtiyaz Yusuf.

As teacher, al-Faruqi inspired intellectual discourse as the means of expanding thought and understanding while stressing the importance of intellectual pursuit and asanah . In Al-Tawhid: Its Implications for Thought and Life, he articulated the link between spirituality and activism as well as between self and society, as being indispensable for the removal of injustice, oppression and discrimination. The internalization of tawhidic ethics he argued would result in the inculcation of itqn (perfection and pursuit of excellence) and piety in ones heart, by which one is able to stand by true principles amidst continuous temptation rather than succumbing to utilitarianism and pragmatism.