Many scholars, among them Omar S. Kasule (“Islamic Epistemology and
Integration of Knowledge in the Islamic University” [2009]) and Fathi Hasan
Malkawi (Epistemological Integration: Essentials of an Islamic Methodology
[2014]) call for the epistemological integration of knowledge. I seek to answer
this call, in part, by demonstrating the relevance of Pierre Bourdieu’s
(d. 2002) theory to the study of Islam, Muslims, and Islamic movements.
One precedent in this direction is Stephane Lacroix’s Awakening Islam: The
Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia (2011), which
studies the Saudi Sahwa movement from the 1950s to the 1990s. I contend
that studies of Islam must go even further in this direction. As this approach
deserves our attention, I will present Bourdieu’s theory to those who study
Islam and Muslims.
American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences