PIVOT: THE SECRET OF THINKING AND WRITING

Today, just recovering at the hotel from the tiredness of yesterday's Istanbul city tour. However, the mind does not rest. At breakfast, lunch and dinner at the hotel, I have great discussion with Professor Masudul Alam Choudhury of the Sultan Qaboos University in Oman (my D.Phil internal examiner at Oxford twenty-two years ago, who gave me a pass to my thesis without any correction, and to some extent stimulated me to establish what is known today as ISDEV, or Centre for Islamic Development Management Studies).

The discussion ranges from academic thinking and writing to world politics and idelological clashes within the circle of Islamic economists. He is a brilliant analytical scholar and in a high standard of intellectualism indeed.

One pertinent emphasis he stresses repeatedly is the need for what he terms as 'pivot' for all Muslim scholars to possess. The pivot is the Tawhidic epistemology and worldview. Once one is having the pivot, thinking and writing become easy. It shapes the ideas and mould the writing in whatever areas one is specialising in. The thinking too has to be in continous manner, all the time, with passion and strong committment.

This is actually what has been attempted at ISDEV though in a quite different way of expressing and accomplishing it. The course on Islamic Epistemology and Tasawwur for Master students is definitely one of them. The other is the need to establish a coordinated school of thought at ISDEV as I have stressed in several ways to ISDEV fraternity. Islamic disciplines at ISDEV, be it In Islamic-based development, or in Islamic political economy, or in Islamic asset management, or in management of Islamic institutions, or in a near future in Islamic service management, all have to emerge from within Islamic mould, deconstructing any mould that is exogneous to Islam. This is the school of thought that what Professor Choudhury refers to as the 'pivot'.

The interesting discussion with Professor Choudhury has become a sort of pre-workshop discussion, before we embark on a relatively formal discussion at the real workshop tomorrow.