Chapel Hill, N.C., 2003. This book closely examines presen-
tations by Japanese Buddhists at the World Parliament of
Religions in Chicago in 1893. Opinions are divided as to
whether the World Parliament of Religions was a major con-
tributor in the formation of the study of religion in Japan.Staggs, Kathleen M. In Defense of Japanese Buddhism: Essays from
the Meiji Period by Inoue Enryo ̄ and Murakami Sensho ̄. Mi-
crofilm, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1987. Both Enryo ̄ Inoue (1858–
1919) and Sensho ̄ Murakami (1851–1929) had a Jo ̄do
Shinshu ̄ Buddhist background and applied a modern meth-
od of free inquiry to Buddhist and religious studies. Inoue
also published unique works on the superstitious aspects of
folk religion.
Tamaru Noriyoshi. “Religious Studies in Japan: A Preliminary
Report.” In The Notion of “Religion” in Comparative Research:
Selected Proceedings of the 16th IAHR Congress, edited by Ugo
Bianchi. Rome, 1994.
Primary sources in Japanese
Anesaki Masaharu. Shu ̄kyo ̄gaku gairon (An Introduction to the
Study of Religion). Tokyo, 1900.
Anesaki Masaharu. Fukkatsu no Shoko ̄ (The Dawn of Revival).
Tokyo, 1904.
Kishimoto Hideo. Shu ̄kyo ̄gaku (The Study of Religion). Tokyo,
1961.
Yanagawa Keiichi. Gendai nihonjin no shu ̄kyo ̄ (Religions of Con-
temporary Japanese People). Kyoto, 1991.
Secondary sources in Japanese
Isomae Junichi and Hidetaka Fukasawa, eds. Kindai nihon niokeru
chisikijin to shu ̄kyo ̄ (Intellectuals and Religion in Modern
Japan). Tokyo, 2002. A detailed biographical work on Ane-
saki with critical essays and a comprehensive catalogue of his
writings.
Shimazono Susumu, and Yoshio Tsuruoka, eds. Shu ̄kyo ̄ saiko ̄ (Re-
considering the Concept of Religion). Tokyo, 2004. This
contains a few articles on the concept of religion in Japanese
contexts.
Suzuki Norihisa. Meiji shu ̄kyo ̄ shicho ̄ no kenkyu ̄ (The Trends of Re-
ligious Thought in the Meiji Era). Tokyo, 1979.
Tamaru Noriyoshi, ed. Nihon no shu ̄kyo ̄ gakusetsu (Theories of the
Study of Religion in Japan). Vol. 1, Tokyo, 1982; vol. 2,
Tokyo, 1985. A collection of articles on early Japanese schol-
ars of religion, such as Seiichi Hatano (1877–1950), Enku ̄
Uno (1885–1949), and Chishin Ishibashi (1886–1947).
Limited availability.
SAKOTO FUJIWARA (2005)
STUDY OF RELIGION: THE ACADEMIC STUDY
OF RELIGION IN NORTH AFRICA AND THE
MIDDLE EAST
The academic study of religion in North Africa and the Mid-
dle East builds upon a long and rich tradition of comparison
and analysis of the history, beliefs, and practices of different
religious communities. Most of the major universities in the
region currently teach the comparative study of religion
within an Islamic studies curriculum, whether or not the uni-
versity and its programs are intended to be secular. Despite
the relatively limited visibility of the comparative study of re-
ligions in regional institutions, the scholarly discipline can
be traced back to a vigorous and creative scholarship that
flourished at least as early as the tenth century.
The disciplinary approach and institutional organiza-
tion of the study of religion in the Middle East and North
Africa is based largely on a scholarly tradition developed in
the premodern period, particularly during the eleventh,
twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. Several well-known schol-
ars wrote far-reaching and influential works during this peri-
od that still serve as the basic textbooks for the contemporary
university study of religion.
AL-B ̄IRU ̄N ̄I. Perhaps the single best example of the study of
religion within Islamic civilization comes from the penetrat-
ing works of al-B ̄ıru ̄n ̄ı (973–1050). Attached to the Ghaz-
navid court in what is today Afghanistan, al-B ̄ıru ̄n ̄ı pro-
duced two important works studying ancient and
contemporary religions. The first, titled Book of the Remains
from Bygone Centuries, contains al-B ̄ıru ̄n ̄ı’s account of pre-
Islamic civilizations. The second, titled the History of India,
is an encyclopedic catalog and analysis of the culture of
South Asia. The information in al-B ̄ıru ̄n ̄ı’s study of India
comes both from firsthand observations in northwest India
and from his extensive study of Sanskrit and related Indian
languages and texts. Combing both ethnographic and textual
research, al-B ̄ıru ̄n ̄ı’s work is primarily descriptive, though a
rudimentary analytical framework utilizing more generic cat-
egories such as “ritual” and “belief” is evident from
al-B ̄ıru ̄n ̄ı’s observations.
MILAL WA NIHAL. Most influential in many contemporary
university programs in comparative religion is a body of
scholarship known under the Arabic term al-Milal wa al-
Nihal, roughly translated as “Sects and Heresies” and is often
understood as heresiographical or doxographical in nature,
though individual authors provide different rationales for
their works. In general, this scholarship presents an overview
of beliefs attributed to different groups both historically and
contemporaneous with the writers. These beliefs are often
grouped into three broad categories: Islamic beliefs and sects,
beliefs and sects of “People of the Book” (Arabic, ahl
al-kita ̄b) or “revealed” religions, and everything else, includ-
ing other religions and philosophers. Sometimes this catego-
rization is reduced to Muslim and non-Muslim beliefs, as in
the work of Fakhr al-D ̄ın al-Ra ̄z ̄ı in which he discusses Jews,
Christians, Mazdaeans, dualists, Sabians, and philosophers.
Ibn Hazm. Abu ̄ Muh:ammad Al ̄ı Ibn Ah:mad, known
as Ibn H:azm (994–1064) was one of the most prolific writers
on other religions and their relationship to Islam. In his al-
Milal wa al-Nihal work, Ibn H:azm discusses doctrines per-
taining to Islam, Mazdaeans, Christians, Bra ̄hman:s, Jews,
various philosophers, dualists, and others. The book is orga-
nized according to specific topics rather than particular reli-
gious groups, but the topics themselves are loosely arranged
according to what Ibn H:azm sees as sectarian divisions aris-8780 STUDY OF RELIGION: THE ACADEMIC STUDY OF RELIGION IN NORTH AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST