To view her slide presentation, click here
Dr. Hiroko Kushimoto converted/reverted to Islam in 2007 when she was in Kedah doing her field research in 2006-2007 for a year and a half in a Pondok school in Kedah for her Ph.d thesis where she wrote extensively on the anthropological interpretation of Islamic Education happenings in Malaysia entitled “Transformation of the culture of Islamic Learning : Anthropological Analysis of Malay Muslim Society” .
She presented papers and write journals throughout these years on
- “Islam and Modern School Education in Journal Pengasuh: Review of the Kaum Muda – Kaum Tua Dichotomy”
- “In the name of Al- Azhar : State Control of Ulama Training in Malaysia” at Seminar “South-east Asian Foreign Study at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University : Comparing Indonesia and Malaysia” in September 2012
- “Culture of Islamic Learning in Contemporary Malaysia: the Role of Traditional Element” in SIAS (IAS Center at Sophia Uni) and KIAS Joint workshop tradition in Modernism: Reformation and Revival in July 2012
- “Transmisi Pengetahuan Ilmu Tasawuf di Dunia Melayu”.
- Singapura bagi mengkaji tentang perkembangan Maulud Nabi Muhammad saw di sini dan di rantau ini .
If In the last dialogue we were honored and enlightened by a Singaporean scholar, Dr Syed Khairuddin al-Junied’s motivating words and thought provoking anecdotes which depicts CASIS as an OASIS in the middle of a thirst quenching desert ; This particular session previewed a Japanese scholar which has enliven that OASIS with a taste of its winter sonata breeze.
We have acquired much beneficial food for thought through Dr Hiroko’s stories of her experience and journey towards becoming a scholar in not only a presumably patriarchal field, but also in an environment where Islam is a minority. Dr. Hiroko talks about the transformation of Islamic education in Malaysia and how she discovered that the pattern to these transformation was more to the level of elements rather than the system itself. She relates her thesis of these transformation to the Malaysian alumni of al-Azhar University and that the modernization of al-Azhar university affects on the promotion of such positive attitudes for the employment of the element of modern schooling to the Islamic learning.Unfortunately her thesis was written in Japanese, but for further elaboration in English, you can view her presentation during CASIS’s Scholar’s Dialogue here.
