Sociology of Religions: An Islamic Perspective

Abstract

The study of religions becomes one of the prominent interest among Western scholarship nowadays. They have pioneered in many scientific studies of religions which contain empirical, experiment and rational study of religions such as anthropology study of religion, psychology of religion and sociology of religion. However, there are some critics regarding their approach on the study of religions from Islamic perspective. Therefore, this paper aims to give some critical view on one of the scientific approaches namely the sociology of religion. Four aspects are to be scrutinized by analyzing religion as a human phenomenon, the stance of Islam towards the concept of religion, the conceptual framework of Islamic sociology with highlighting the Islamic civil society as its core model. The study of religions becomes one of the prominent interest among Western scholarship nowadays. They have pioneered in many scientific studies of religions which contain empirical, experiment and rational study of religions such as anthropology study of religion, psychology of religion and sociology of religion. However, there are some critics regarding their approach on the study of religions from Islamic perspective. Therefore, this paper aims to give some critical view on one of the scientific approaches namely the sociology of religion. Four aspects are to be scrutinized by analyzing religion as a human phenomenon, the stance of Islam towards the concept of religion, the conceptual framework of Islamic sociology with highlighting the Islamic civil society as its core model.