ecture by Prof. Nathan J. Brown, Max Planck Institute for Religious and Ethnic Diversity – 22 February 2024 

In this lecture, Prof. Nathan J. Brown (George Washington University; also a fellow at the Hamburg Institute for Advanced Study) examined how different higher-education systems engage with Islam both as a living religious tradition and as an academic discipline. He contrasted “education in a religious tradition” (e.g. Islamic theological instruction, mosque-based learning, religious schools) with “education about a religious tradition” (i.e. academic study of Islam, religious studies, theology in universities) and explored how the separation (or overlap) between these modes has evolved only relatively recently in many parts of the world. 

A key focus was on how universities structure religion: how departmental organization, curricula, disciplinary boundaries, and institutional cultures affect what kinds of questions get asked about Islam, how scholars engage with religious communities, and how students perceive Islam in relation to secular and non-secular domains. Brown also connected these educational structures to broader models of state-religion relations—arguing that the way Islam is taught or studied in universities reflects and reinforces particular political, legal, and cultural arrangements between religion and the state. 

The lecture raises important implications:

How might academic study influence religious belief and practice when religious actors engage with university-based scholarship?

How do institutional norms (e.g. what is acceptable to study, the extent to which religion is treated through theological vs. social/scientific methods) shape popular understandings of Islam?

What are the consequences for policy and society when religious authority and academic authority interact or clash?

https://www.mpipriv.de/1759398/2024-02-22-does-studying-islam-change-it-how-universities-structure-religion?utm_source=chatgpt.com