Why Ijtihad journal? 

The Arabic and Muslim population group has become a significant component of contemporary pluralistic Western and European societies, whether on the demographic, institutional or cultural level. The demand for various intellectual, educational, linguistic, and economic products has expanded among Muslims in the face of limited opportunities that do not meet the existing needs. Or rather, there is an offer, but it does not suit the requirements and needs of Muslims. This also applies to the field of knowledge, which requires further evaluation, qualification, and diligence to keep pace with the new civilizational conditions in Europe and the West. The presence of Islam in the West brings about  important transformations from the context of immigration to the context of citizenship, from the problematic phase to the contributory phase, and from the passive presence to the active engagement.

When we evaluate the reality of Muslims in Europe, nearly half a century after the start of labor migration in the 1960s, we find that they have been able to achieve a significant number of educational, institutional, legal and political gains. Thus, Muslims in general, and the last Muslim generations in particular, began to participate and contribute positively to education, scientific research, civil society, political work, media, and many other areas. The element of original Islamic identity has not been absent in the midst of these transformations dictated by the new secular and pluralistic context in which Muslims live. Rather, identity has always remained present, whether in the media, political discussions, or in educational, academic, and research institutions.

For many centuries, Islam has been confined to Orientalist theories that study its various theological, jurisprudential, ethical, and linguistic topics from outside the Islamic cognitive and methodological reference. This Orientalist preoccupation has led to the establishment of what is known as the fields of Arabic Studies, Islamology, Islamic Theology, and Qur’anic Studies. These are specializations that are hardly devoid of faculties of arts, languages, and theology in different European and Western universities. This has enriched Islamic and Arabic studies at the level of academic programs, specialized conferences, research publications, and peer-reviewed scientific journals. Thus, each college or department of religious or linguistic studies became unique and famous for its special trainings or programs in Arabic and Islamic studies. Some universities were known for holding international scientific seminars specializing in some issues of Islam and the Arabic language, while some academic centers published peer-reviewed monographs and journals dedicated to Arabic and Islamic studies.

Regarding peer-reviewed scientific journals that specialize in Islamic and Arabic studies in Europe and the West, we have noted five critical observations, which are as follows:

1. Most of these journals are published by European and Western non-Islamic universities and research centers, and they take Islam and Arabic language as their primary research subject.
2. In their approach to Islam, in most cases, these journals are based on external “Orientalist” and critical principles, and they require researchers, Muslims and non-Muslims, to submit to the objective and methodological standards they adopt.
3. These journals study Islam and Arabic culture from an outside perspective without giving much importance to the inside approach, whether traditional or contemporary, adopted by researchers with Islamic doctrinal background.
4. There are some journals that not only set strict methodological standards, but also subject research to their own evaluation system, which is not devoid of ideological and Orientalist interpretations that do not accept Islamic theological, jurisprudential, and moral postulates.
5. There is a new trend in many international peer-reviewed journals, which is requiring “very high” financial fees from researchers in exchange for publishing their articles. This makes the profit goal dominate academic research at the expense of scientific, educational and methodological goals.

This means that despite the great (and somewhat positive) development that Arabic and Islamic studies have witnessed in Western and European universities and research centers, their academic work on issues of Islam is not devoid of subjective and ideological interpretation despite the claim of neutrality and objectivity. In the midst of this undesirable situation affecting Islamic research in the Western academic world, the idea of establishing a peer-reviewed journal arose. On the one hand, this journal will focus on dealing with Islamic and Arabic topics from within their original reference, while benefiting from the achievements of Western scientific research, especially methodologically, technically and communicatively. On the other hand, this journal will approach Islam and Muslim issues from within the European and Western context, with openness to objective approaches coming from outside Europe and the West. Thus, in this approach, we give space to study Islam from its inside perspective, which is lacking in Arabic and Islamic studies adopted in the West. At the same time, we start from within Europe and the West to approach the Islamic cultural, religious, literary and academic presence there and discuss Western studies that deal with that Islamic presence as well. It is worth noting here some European academic experiences that have recently begun to adopt a teaching and research approach starting from inside of the Islam, most notably the experience of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Louvain in Belgium. There, the Muslim student and researcher enjoys sufficient space to receive Islamic sciences exactly as they are taught in Islamic universities, while giving space to traditional and contemporary external Western approaches.

By Dr. Tijani Boulaouali

Editor-in-Chief