Al Faruqi and Beyond

Ismlil was born in an influential family in 1341 AH/1922 AC in Palestineduring the British Mandate. He received his early education in traditionalIslamic schools and his college education from the American University,Beirut. At age 24, he was appointed as governor of Gallilee-the lastPalestinian, before the Zionist occupation. Forced to migrate, his family tookrefuge in neighboring Lebanon. Having thus experienced this “fall” at thevery onset of what was promising to be a brilliant political career in anotherwise independent Palestine, the refugee in Isma’il tumed toward the higherreaches of modem education in the contemporary West.Ismlil concentrated in philosophy first at Harvard and then at Indiana,where he earned his doctoral degree. He spent four years at Al Azhar inEgypt, followed by two years at the School of Divinity at McGill, and twoyears at the newly established Islamic Research Institute in Islamabad, Pakistan,which gave him ample opportunity to apply his philosophy to religion or,more appropriately, to apply his religion to modem secular philosophy. Thisis what gave “the wounded Palestinian” a new weapon with which to starton a course of an intellectual encounter with the West. His books on OnArabism, The Origins of Zionism in Judaism, and The Christian Ethics camein a succession in the 1960’s. Naturally, as Rahman (1406 AH/1986 AC) pointedout, while involved in this undertaking, he disturbed some and antagonizedothers. What is amazing is that in doing this, the “Arab Warrior” conqueredhimself ...