On Western academic Islamic studies

You know, was thinking about, western academic Islamic studies programs. You know, the Islamic studies departments of different universities in America and The UK and so on. And the types of, publications that they put out, the type of research they do, and the type of academics that they produce. And I was comparing it in my mind to journalism. You know, back in the day, say thirty, forty years ago, if you went into a newsroom, you would see almost exclusively white people, white men.

But they would be from diverse backgrounds, and they would have, diverse, political and ideological perspectives. And back in those days, journalism was more or less a blue collar profession. Now that's completely changed now. Now journalism is basically PR, and it has the status, the economic status of PR, and they're highly paid. But now if you go into a newsroom, it's very colorful.

You have multiplicity of ethnicities and multiplicity of races and so on, which is a very shallow form of diversity because even though you'll find in many newsrooms white men, white women, black men, black women, Latinos, Asians, and so on, and a diversity of religious backgrounds even, not so much, but a little bit, There's some diversity in those types of areas, but what you'll find is that there is extreme ideological uniformity. A uniformity of world view, a uniformity of perspective, and, of course, a uniformity of class because, at this point, most journalists are in the upper income level. It's a professional field. It's not a blue collar field. This seems to me to be the case with the Islamic studies departments in most western universities.

Back in the day, it would have been white men, you know, writing about, you know, orientalist types. Now, you've they they they've understood the, strategic value for gaining credibility by having Arabs and, Pakistanis and Asians and so on, and Muslims, you know, actual Muslims in their Islamic studies programs and in their Islamic studies faculty. But there's uniformity of ideological view. There's uniformity of of worldview and ideology, uniformly western perspective. So you have this very shallow diversity that actually masks or camouflages extreme homogeneity of what actually matters, is ideology and worldview and perspective, and the intellectual vantage point of the academics.

So they ensure that they have Muslims on the faculty, but they ensure that those Muslims adhere to a very western perspective on Islam and not a traditional Islamic perspective. So I'm not saying that the works that they produce or the scholars that they produce are useless. You can get a lot of information, but you have to understand that this has been written from a a very uniform western perspective. Even if the scholar who wrote it is Muslim, has a Muslim name, has a Muslim background, is ethnically, you know, from a Muslim country if they're Arab or Asian or what have you. But their perspective is decidedly western in their approach to Islamic studies.

So you can read their material, look at their material, you can get things from it, but you just have to know that this has been written from a non Muslim vantage point. A Muslim has written it, a Muslim has done the research, and a Muslim has published it, but it's essentially coming from a non Muslim perspective. I'm not saying that those brothers and sisters who are in those programs are not Muslims, not at all, but there's a sort of a vetting process in those types of institutions, in most institutions, in most mainstream, you know, major, institutions that, impact thought and opinion and perspective, they ensure that, anyone who is going to work and publish through those institutions, is conforming with the mainstream viewpoint. So I wouldn't say dismiss the work that comes from these kinds of institutions and don't dismiss these scholars. They do have a lot of information.

They do have a lot of knowledge. But when you consume their material, do it with a great deal of scrutiny.