Fazlur Rahman Malik

His Background and Education

Fazlur Rahman Malik (Urdu: ‫ )فضل الرحمان ملک‬was a well-known scholar of Islam; M.
Yahya Birt of the Association of Islam Researchers described him as "probably the most learned
of the major Muslim thinkers in the second-half of the twentieth century, in terms of both
classical Islam and Western philosophical and theological discourse."

Fazlur Rahman was born in the Hazara area of British India (now Pakistan). He came

from a Punjabi family steeped in traditional Islamic learning; and then went on to familiarise
himself with modern critical thinking at Oxford under H.A.R. Gibb and Van Der Bergh. His
birth and death date is on 21th September 1919 and 26th July 1988. His death is due to the
complications of heart surgery. He was a polyglot. He knew Urdu, Persian, Arabic, Indonesian
and English. His father, Maulana Shihab al-Din, also was a well-known scholar of the time who
had studied at Deoband and had achieved the rank of alim, through his studies of Islamic law
(fiqh, hadith, Qur'anic tafsir, logic, philosophy and other subjects).

His early education was in Islamic schools followed by an M.A degree from Punjab
University, Lahore in 1942 with First Class in Arabic. He was awarded the PHD by Oxford
University in 1949 for his thesis Avecenna’s Psyschology. Afterwards, he began a teaching
career, first at Durham University where he taught Persian and Islamic philosophy, and then
at McGill University where he taught Islamic studies until 1961. In that year, he returned to
Pakistan to head up the Central Institute of Islamic Research which was set up by the Pakistani
government in order to implement Islam into the daily dealings of the nation. However, due to
the political situation in Pakistan, Fazlur Rahman was hindered from making any progress in this
endeavor, and he resigned from the post. He then returned to teaching, moving to the United
States and teaching at UCLA as a visiting professor for a few years. He moved to the University
of Chicago in 1969 and established himself there becoming the Harold H. Swift Distinguished
Service Professor of Islamic Thought. At Chicago he was instrumental for building a strong Near
Eastern Studies program that continues to be among the best in the world and so far he also has
been the only Muslim to receive the prestigious Giorgio Levi Della Vida prize (1983). He also
became a proponent for a reform of the Islamic polity and was an advisor to the State
Department.

Since Fazlur Rahman's death, his writings have continued to be popular among scholars
of Islam and the Near East. His contributions to the University of Chicago are still evident in its
excellent programs in these areas. In his memory, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the
University of Chicago named its common area after him, due to his many years of service at the
Center and at the University of Chicago at large.

He wrote a lot of books including:

 Islam,
 Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition,
 Major Themes of the Qur'an,
 Islamic Methodology in History, Central Institute of Islamic Research, 1965.
 Revival and Reform in Islam : A study of Islamic Fundamentalism
 Prophecy in Islam: Philosophy and Orthodoxy (Midway Reprints Series) 
 Islam in the modern world (Paine lectures in religion) 
 Metode dan Alternatif Neomodernisme Islam and etc.

His Contributions

Fazlur Rahman contributed many things to the field of Islamic Studies. However, there
are four important contributions that must be acknowledged to reflect Fazlur Rahman’s influence
on that field. First, Fazlur Rahman brought a unique multicultural blend of Sunni Islamic
traditionalism, progressive Islamic modernism and Western scholasticism. His background in the
traditional Islamic science enabled him to be well-versed in Islamic jurisprudence and the hadith.
His foundation in Islamic modernism enabled him to see that one could recapture the vibrancy of
Islam and face the challenges of modernity with enthusiasm. And then, his training in Western
philosophy exposed the Hellenistic influence on the Islamic philosophers and on traditional
Islam as a whole. As a result, he asked by President Ayyub Khan to use his diverse background
to face the sociopolitical realities of Islam in the context of modernity. It means, he is the one
who had fortune to advocate a move from Quranic orthodoxy to Quranic orthopraxy in Pakistan.

Second, Fazlur Rahman’s search for the truth led him to challenge attitudes in traditional
Islam and in Western writings on Islam. He had the courage to be innovative amidst rigid Islamic
and Western attitudes. He stood on particular social, political, religious issues in Pakistan even
though it produced much controversy. For instances, his stand on the Muslim Family Laws
Ordinance, the appropriateness of family planning devices, the advocacy of modern banking
methods and the appropriateness of the mechanical slaughter of animal for food. In spite of price
paid for challenging Islamic traditionalism, he continued to advocate the necessary ingredients
for a true Islamic reformation. He also disputed many of the Western attempts to understand
Islam. Many of early Western attempts to understand Islam portrayed it as a fatalistic, archaic
and static creature with very little to contribute to Western scholarship. Fazlur Rahman
represented a refreshing voice which exposed the West to an Islam that it had never seen before.

Third, Fazlur Rahman’s methodology was interdisciplinary to the core. The holistic,
multi-disciplinary study of Islam challenged the students of North America to view Islam in its
contextual expressions throughout the world. His approach demanded that the student of Islam
be well-versed in the political, social, economic and religious backgrounds of the Quran and in
today’s Muslim countries. His methodology insisted that historical research be linked with
reality of contemporary settings. This methodology allowed the students of Islam to discover the
dynamism of the Muslim experience. His approach opened the door for Islamic studies to
dialogue with the broader field of Religious Studies.

Lastly, Fazlur Rahman left a legacy in the form of his students. He will continue to
impact the study of Islam in North America through their influence. The contributors of this
volume represent the heartbeat of Islamic Studies in North America. His students can be found
teaching in many of the major colleges and universities throughout the United State and Canada.
His constant striving for a better understanding of Islam in the context of modernity has been
transmitted to his students. Many of his students have contributed important works to the field of
Islamis Studies in the larger field of Religious Studies. Fazlur Rahman’s students and admirer
represent a legacy of isalmic scholarship which can never be content with simplistic but always
strives for depth, accuracy and viability.

In conclusion, the full impact of Fazlur Rahman’s thought, methodology and writings
cannot be fully measured. The fact that his works have been translated into several languages
reveals that his work appeals to the heart of Muslims from a variety of socio-cultural contexts.
The fact that one can find his name referenced in large portion of works in Islamic Studies
reflects that his thoughtful reflections and daring articulations are indeed noticed by those
working in Islamic Studies. Then, the fact that he was often asked to contribute to volumes that
focused on religious dialogue reveals that his thoughtful reflection was seen by those outside of
the Islamic Studies.