A General Look at the Islamic and Islamic Philosophy Studies in the USA

Islamic studies in the United States of America is a dense, productive, and globally acclaimed field because of the numerous academic opportunities and international publications in many languages, especially English. However, as in the general of Western universities, the Islamic philosophy/history studies at the universities of the U.S. is rather rare. In this article, firstly, the general state of Islamic Studies from the past to the present in the USA will be analyzed with a descriptive method and the rare position of Islamic Philosophy within the Islamic Studies will be examined. Secondly, the prominent names of the Islamic Philosophy in the Post-Orientalist process and their works will be evaluated. In conclusion, because of the general structure of the U.S. university system, it is revealed that the studies of Islamic Philosophy in the USA are quantitatively less than that in the European and Islamic geographies. This situation can be explicated by two ways. The first is the Islamic Philosophy’s weak relation to the knowledge-power target which is the basic principle of the American state philosophy and to the political interests of the U.S. This circumstance forms the background of the Post-Orientalist tendency. The second is the growing interest in the phenomenological method and the dominant positions of cosmopolitanism and interdisciplinary approaches in the American higher education system. Summary: The Islamic studies in the leading universities of the world and the Islamic philosophy studies taking place within these studies are a significant academic area of interest. This interest has a history of 150 year-time in the United States of America. In recent years, there has been not only a significant increase but also a diversity in the Islamic studies in the United States. There has not been yet any academic work examining both the situation of Islamic studies in the U.S. and the Islamic philosophy studies in particular. By considering the latest developments, it is required to maintain studies concerning the field and to trace missing points in the studies of the Islamic philosophy. From this point of view, we will benefit from the research concerning university curricula, web scans, and written materials in the present article. Additionally, we will descriptively analyze the subject by scanning related books, articles, and other sources. The reason why we preferred this method is to present the general picture rather than carry out an in-depth research and to give information on the present circumstances. We did not choose other methods