「記憶」のフィールド・アーカイビング：イスラームがつなぐ共生社会の動態の解明

“Muslims and Islamic Studies in Japan ”

Lecture 1

Islamic studies in wartime Japan began to flourish in 1938 (one year after the outbreak of the Japan-China War) with the establishment of several research institutes. The purpose of their activities was, above all, to mobilize the Muslims in China to counter both the Chinese nationalists and communists. Prof. Akira Usuki will explain the characteristics distinguishing Islamic studies during the war years from the postwar period in Japan. He will then critically discuss how the wartime ideology of the “Greater East Asia Co- Prosperity Sphere” situated the roles of Muslims in Asia, introducing the political thought of Shumei Okawa, a representative ideologue of that period, who published a Japanese translation of the Quran in 1950.

Lecture 2

Muslims living in contemporary Japan number approximately seventy thousand. The majority of this population is comprised of immigrants from various Asian and Middle Eastern countries, such as Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Iran, who came to Japan in search of employment during the mid-1980s and early 1990s. Many married Japanese women and raised their family in Japan. Muslims have managed to influence their communities (by importing halal foods and building mosques, for example) while conforming to local societies there. Prof. Keiko Sakurai will explain their socio-economic backgrounds, share insights into the daily lives of Muslims in Japan, and examine their social interaction with Japanese society.

Prof. Akira Usuki specializes in Palestine/Israel studies and teaches modern Middle Eastern history at Japan Women’s University, Tokyo. His publications include The Invisible Jews: The Orient of Israel (1998), Fundamentalism (1999), and Palestine-Israeli Conflict in Global Dimension (2004). (All in Japanese)

Commentators :

Pierre Abi-Saab (al-Akhbar)

Massoud Daher (Lebanese University)

Timur Göksel (American University of Beirut)

Sari Hanafi (American University of Beirut)

Toufic Houri (Imam Ouzai College of Islamic Studies)

Hilal Khashan (American University of Beirut)

Observers :

Akimitsu Ikeda (Lebanese University)

Sylvain Perdigon (Institut Français du Proch-Orient)

Mitsuko Sano (University of Saint Joseph)

Mahmoud Soueid (Institute for Palestine Studies)

Seiko Sugita (American University of Beirut)

Sorry, this entry is only available in 日本語.

“A Tatar Islamic Thinker Abdürreshit Ibrahim’s Travelogue to Japan, 1909″

Japan Center for Middle Eastern Studies (JaCMES) is now launching a series of lectures “The Middle East and Japan”, in which various subjects of the relations between the two areas will be discussed. The first lecture meeting deals with a travelogue written by a Tatar Muslim Abdürreshit Ibrahim (1857-1944), who traveled from Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan today, to Japan through Siberia and stayed in the country for five months in 1909. This Islamic thinker in exile contributed his vivid descriptions of the Far East country to a local journal published in Kazan. He compiled the articles and other lectures on Japan as well as other parts of Asia into a book titled “The World of Islam” (‘Alam-i Islam) in Ottoman Turkish and published it in Istanbul in 1910. During his stay in Japan, Ibrahim met and talked with a number of people of varieties, from a rikisha (a coach pulled by a man) driver to Hirobumi Ito, the first, fifth, seventh and tenth Prime Minister. Ibrahim was the first Muslim intellectual to introduce the modern Japanese society and culture to the Middle East, basing on his own experiences of life in the country.

Professor Hisao Komatsu teaches the modern history of Central Asian countries and Ottoman history at the University of Tokyo. Prof. Komatsu translated Ibrahims travelogue from Ottoman Turkish into Japanese and published it with his wife Prof. Kaori Komatsu of the University of Tsukuba.

Professor Abderrahim Benhadda of University of Muhammad V, Rabat, is specializing in Ottoman history, from the view point of international exchange between the Empire and Morocco. Prof. Benhadda is planning to translate the travelogue from Ottoman Turkish into Arabic.

Sorry, this entry is only available in 日本語.