Islamic Anthropology: Introduction and Debates

Abstract

Islamic studies within anthropological approach are one area of concerns in the field of anthropology of religion. Generally, most anthropologists have long been interested in religion as a part of social structures and social institutions, or religion as culture. Since the early 1980s, however, a new wave of movement surrounding Islamic knowledge developed, centered on criticising the anthropology of Islam, which can also be called Islamic Anthropology. The debate on “Anthropology of Islam or Islamic Anthropology" appeared in articles and books written by Muslim sociologists and Muslim anthropologists.

These academic phenomena are crucial to understand Islamic anthropology of knowledge, and the debates revolve around two main points. First, this reflexivity demonstrates the search for a balancing point between Islamic knowledge and Western knowledge. At the same time, it illustrates the rising up of Islamic anthropology based on refutation of Western anthropologists or Non-Muslim scholars.

The goal of this paper is to present an understanding of the contexts and positions of Islamic anthropology including the debates.