Religious Studies and Islamic Studies : Toward the Normative Approach(<Special Issue>Islam and Religious Studies)

Abstract

Western religious studies originated from theology. On the other hand, "theology" did not exist in the Islamic world, but traditional Islamic scholarship was "religious studies" from the beginning. However, Western religious studies did not choose the way which carries out inclusion of the "religious studies" of Islam, but assigned another discipline as "Islamic studies" (Oriental studies, area studies) to Islam, and it has developed the concept of religion without due consideration of Islam. Thus, Western religious studies and Islamic studies are in fact based on the unconscious normative premise of refusal of the truth-demand of Islam, contrary to their self-image of value-free, neutral, objective, and descriptive research. This paper proves the necessity of the normative approach in Islamic studies, elucidating the essentially normative nature of language, and presents the new paradigm of Islamic studies which is concerned with distinguishing true Islam from false Islam, and thus able to be linked with traditional Islamic scholarship so that dialog with the Islamic world is possible.