ion of culture that are the cu tomary focu of ocial cience analy i . In recent year, everal of the Council ' area committee have directed attention to the indigenou conceptual y tern -ae thetic, intellectual, piritual~f the ocietie they tudy. In mo t contemporary re earch, however, the weight of tudy ha been on what i cognitive, functional, and y tematic. ince the thru t of We tern intellectual culture ha been to pre toward the rational and the objective in philo ophy, in the natural and phy ical cience , and of cour e in the ocial cience, thi empha i i not urpri ing. In the proce ,however, the analytical tool that have been developed have been Ie well- haped to tudy the ae thetic, the emotional, and the piritual, a well a alternative y tern of rationality, which define much of human life, and which contribute importantly to ocial a well a to per onal action. A a re ult of it analytical tool, the We tern ocial cience ha e often either ignored or found it difficult to deal with action and con traints derived from tran cendent y tern of faith, belief, and feeling, and their re ulting imperative. The emotional power and degree of commitment of I lam evident throughout the world today make Mu lim ocietie an obviou , indeed important, ubject of tudy for tho e intere ted in exploring the e larger i ue. he in titution of our own ociety empha ize the eparation of religion and politic; in tho e countrie where I lamic idea are powerful, thi eparation i denied. Mu lim thinker and actor are con tantly debating how to relate and integrate all a pects of human experience and all phere of per onal and ocial life. Becau e the e debate are 0 explicit, and the ucce e and failure in implementing them have been 0 numerou and varied, the debate and their outcome hould provide e pecially intere ting data and theory for tho e concerned with imilar i ue in any ociety.
Research programs At its fir t meeting in New York on October 1-3, 1985, the committee con idered two kind of activitie , the fir t related to haping re earch, the econd to creating an infra tructure for encouraging peciali ts to ee their work in the larger context of Mu lim ocietie generally. In its re earch program, the committee plan to work a a continuing eminar over the next few year . It ha irlentified two broad theme that will be the focu of work hop cheduled to follow the 1986-87 fall and pring meeting of the committee. Additional participants will join the committee for each of the e work hop , forming a group MARCH
1986
that will have the opportunity to work together over everal meeting . Out of many po ible tarting points, the committee decided to choo e two theme that will, in different way, direct attention to the fundamental que tion of the meaning of being Mu lim. The fir t work hop, "Movement and Exchange in Mu lim elfDefinition," will fir t meet following the committee' April 1986 meeting in ew York. The econd workhop, "On Being Mu lim in on-Mu lim Countrie ," will follow the fall meeting in Pari . The two topic are linked by their focu on ituation in which the ignificance of Mu lim ymbol i heightened either by travel or by the implication of long-term re idence in a colonized or plural ociety. uch experience can timulate parochial and ethnic elf-awarene a well a more univer al tie . The projects are thu grounded in a concern with the nature, ource, and hi torical tran formation of individual and group identity among Mu lim in variou etting, and the implication of the e identification for indi idual , for larger communitie , and for whole ocietie.
Movement and exchange Thi project derive from the high cultural value placed by Mu lim on travel, for example, on the required pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj), but al 0 on purpo ive travel (rihla) , often in pur uit of knowledge, and on travel to take up re idence in a Mu lim etting when one i hampered from living a fully Mu lim life (hijra). Movement ha fo tered continuou exchange among Mu lim that have erved to communicate, renew, and re hape the received tradition. The term "movement" encompa e travel timulated by ritual law, my tic piety, trade, education, pro elytization (daCzva) , and migrant employment. Ca e tudie of uch movement both highlight and define what it mean to be Mu lim and provide an opportunity to inve tigate the experience of movement on Mu lim . elf-dp.finition . The e elf-definition are not only per onal: they have been ignificant for the development of common in titution and for common involvement in ocial and political action. The working paper for the fir t meeting will all be comparative, typically working from primary re earch in the main part ofthe paper, upplemented by analy e ba ed on econdary ource to ugge t com pari on . There will, in addition, be at lea t one paper on I lamic legal theory related to movement, prepared by a Mu lim cholar. 5