Towards Establishing an Internal Paradigm for Islamic Scholarship in Europe

This editorial for the fourth issue of the Ijtihad Journal for Islamic and Arabic Studies addresses three important points. First, establishing a peer-reviewed academic journal that is published regularly is by no means an easy task. Such endeavors are usually undertaken by well-funded research centers and prestigious universities with substantial human, logistical, and financial resources. When we launched this journal almost two years ago, we were fully aware of the risks involved, as we were embarking on an ambitious project marked by challenges, uncertainties, and difficulties. This initiative emerged in response to a significant gap in Arab and Islamic studies in Europe and the West; namely, the lack of scholarly work that adopts an internal, academically rigorous, and objective approach to Islam. In contrast, the dominant paradigm remains an external, Orientalist, and Islamological approach. Most European and Western universities have centers, departments, or journals dedicated to the study of Islam, however; most address the subject exclusively from an external perspective, one often shaped by traditional Orientalist assumptions and ideological influences. This applies not only to Western scholars, but also to some Arab and Muslim researchers who have followed this methodological path in a largely uncritical and conventional manner. This does not imply a rejection of external approaches to Islam; rather, we maintain that such approaches, when employed in isolation, are insufficient for presenting Islam in a balanced and objective way. In recent decades, there has been a growing call within Western academia for the adoption of an internal approach to Islam in both teaching and research. The methodological orientation chosen by Ijtihad Center and Journal seeks to reconcile internal and external readings of Islam by grounding research in internal sources, concepts, and interpretive frameworks, and subsequently engaging critically and constructively with Orientalist and Islamic studies scholarship, taking advantage of its insights and objectively addressing its limitations and biases.