Past/Scheduled Activities

The Kenan Rifai Center for Sufi Studies, Kyoto University held the first international symposium “Islamic Studies and the Study of Sufism in Academia: Rethinking Methodologies”at Main Conference Room, 3rd floor, Inamori Memorial Foundation Building, Kyoto University.

The center invited 35 leading researchers as speakers who specialize in various regions and areas from Turkey, USA, China and Japan, and the researchers made presentations on Islamic Studies and the study of Sufism. Moreover, fruitful discussions with young researchers were carried out.

Over two days, about 120 people participated in the symposium and Turkish Ambassador Ahmet Bülent MERİÇ also visited. The symposium was broadcast live through You Tube and most advanced studies of Sufism, Saint Cult, and Tariqa were presented worldwide.

In addition, books on Studies of Sufism, Saint cult Tariqa in Japan, Quran translated into Japanese, and Japan-Turkey related documents were exhibited and attracted many of the participants.

Date: May 20th-21st,2017
Venue: Main Conference Room, 3rd Floor,Kyoto Unversity Inamori Foundation Memorial Hall
Program：

May 20th
Opening Session:
KOSUGI Yasushi (Former Dean of ASAFAS and Director of the Center for Hadhari Islamic Civilizational Studies at Kyoto University)
TONAGA Yasushi (Director of the Kenan Rifai Center for Sufi Studies, Kyoto University)
Cemalnur SARGUT (Founder of Kerim Foundation, Advisor to Üsküdar University Chancellor and Director of TÜRKKAD İstanbul Branch)
Mehmet KÖSE (President of Turkish Republic Prime Ministry the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities)
A. Bülent MERİÇ (Turkish Ambassador)
 
Keynote Speech I: TONAGA Yasushi, KOSUGI Yasushi (15 min. each)
Keynote Speech II: TU Weiming and Mahmud Erol KILIÇ (20 min. each)
 
Session 1
1. Carl ERNST [chair] “Orientalist Legacies and the Academic Construction of Sufism”
2. MURATA Sachiko “Sufism in Chinese”
3. Osman Nuri KÜÇÜK “The Epistemological Problem of the Contemporary Islamic Thought: Loosing Hikma (Wisdom)”
4. TONAGA Yasushi “General Tendency of Islamic and Sufi Studies in Japan”
 
Session 2
1. Omid SAFI [chair] “Mawlana, Mevlana, Rumi”
2. TAKAO Ken’ichiro “Sufism under Syrian Ba‘th: Ahmad Kuftaru
and His Tariqah”
3. Bruce LAWRENCE “Is adab axial or incremental to madhhab-iʻishq (Sufism)?”
4. William CHITTICK “Moses in the Religion of Love”
 
Closing Conference of the Project of the Bridge of Two Easts Education Program for Sufi Culture
Cangüzel Güner Zülfikar [chair] (20min.) “Searching New Horizons in Methodology of Sufi Studies”
Participants of the Program (15 min. each):
1. Kotoko MADONO
2. Qayyim Mashuk Naoki YAMAMOTO
3. Kie INOUE
4. Kazunori MATSUDA
5. Makoto SAWAI
 
May 21st
Session 3
1. NAKANISHI Tatsuya “Ma Dexin and Ibn ‘Arabī’s Theories Regarding the Afterlife: A Chinese
Expression of Sufism during the 19th Century”
2. Ahmet Murat ÖZEL “Reading the History of Sufism from the View of the Classification of ʻIlms [Science]”
3. Juliane HAMMER “Studying American Sufism: A Reflection on Boundaries, Authenticity, and Politics”
4. James MORRIS [chair] “Teaching “Sufi” Studies in Undergraduate Settings: Religious Studies and the Liberal Arts”
 
Session 4
1. MORIMOTO Kazuo [chair] “Sayyido-Sharifology Twelve Years Later”
2. TAKAHASHI Kei “The Institutional Origin of the Ulama-Sufi Dichotomy in Modern Egypt”
3. NINOMIYA Ayako “Concepts of affiliation and membership of Tariqa: Medieval India’s case”
4. OGURA Satoshi “Indic Deities translated by means of the oneness of existence: in the case of Muḥammad Šāhābādī’s Persian translation of the Rājataraṅgiṇīs”
 
Session 5
1. MARUYAMA Daisuke “Mystic, Miracle, and Mediation: The Interpretation of the Relation between Allah
and People in Contemporary Sudanese Sufi Tariqas”
2. YASUDA Shin “Islamic Hospitality in Adab Literature (temporary)”
3. ARAI Kazuhiro [chair] “Saint Veneration in Indonesia and the Emergence of Hadrami Sada: Shaping Historical Perception by Using the Current Situation?”
4. WAZAKI Seika “Searching for “our Islam”: Sufism, tariqa and the government policies towards Islam in post-Soviet Central Asia”
 
Session 6
1. miriam cooke “Framing the Lives of Female Sufi Saints”
2. YAMANE So “Dual Trends of Sufi Poetry in South Asia”
3. Emine YENITERZI “Significance of Literature in Sufi Education”
4. Cemil AYDIN [chair] “Islamic Studies, Geopolitics, and Racialization of Muslims: Lessons from the 20th Century”
 
Concluding Session
Cemâlnur SARGUT [chair]
TONAGA Yasushi
AKAHORI Masayuki
William CHITTICK
Carl ERNST
Mahmud Erol KILIÇ

A symposium to celebrate the Center was held at Üsküdar University, Istanbul. This was the start of “The Bridge of Two Easts: Education Program for Sufi Culture,” a Sufi education project that will continue into the following year. Presentations were given from the Japanese side by Yasushi Tonaga, Director of the Kenan Rifai Center; Masayuki Akahori, Professor at Sophia University; and Maruyama Daisuke, Associate Professor at the National Defense Academy of Japan.

http://tasavvuf.uskudar.edu.tr/en/project/67/the-bridge-of-two-easts-sufi-culture-education-program-project
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK9gn3NAv6U

The symposium also appeared in Turkish news

https://www.dailysabah.com/life/2016/10/25/turkey-japan-to-join-hands-for-sufism-project-1477334042