A Call for Developing Islamic Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign!

Islamic Studies is as an area of scholarly inquiry within our nation’s academic institutions as nascent as it is vital. World events during the past decade underscore the imperative need for Islam to be studied in a context that is as interdisciplinary and global as Islam itself. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has an opportunity and a responsibility to be at the forefront of filling this area of academia. Doing so will require attention and resources.

The complexity of Islam, the Islamic tradition, and the impact of its 1.4 billion followers through every aspect of global society necessitates scholarship that is interdisciplinary, cross-national, and comparative. Academia within the United States suffers from a shortage of classes on all aspects of Islam. There are 4,186 institutions within the United States; of these schools, there are only fourteen institutions that have firmly established Islamic Studies programs. Four additional institutions are in the developing stages, actively searching for the funding and faculty to expand the breadth of their programs.

  While the University of Illinois does offer a basic core of courses on Islam and has one full time faculty member devoted to Islamic studies, there is a great need for additional courses. Depending on faculty expertise, courses have the potential to span anthropology, history, economics, art history, women studies, political science, and comparative literature disciplines, to collaborate with the Program in Jewish Culture and Society, and to address the complexities of contemporary issues.

            In no way should this request for attention towards developing Islamic Studies be misinterpreted as a call for solely congratulatory works. The absence of critical inquiry constitutes the absence of honest scholarly inquiry entirely. We best serve as an academic institution when we are able to explore the tensions that face our world with open dialogue, rigorous study, and intense debate: one of the most exigent tasks of our day is to understand and advance the objective study of the Islamic world, its religious beliefs, social and moral values, cultural traditions, and contemporary challenges and opportunities.