A Comparative Study Between Reflexive Thematic Analysis in Social Sciences and Qur’anic Thematic Analysis in Qur’anic Sciences
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33102/jmqs.v17i2.326Keywords:
Thematic Analysis, Social Sciences, Al-Tafsīr al-Mawḍū’i, Qur’anic Sciences, Comparative AnalysisAbstract
Islamization of social sciences is a collective religious obligation (farḍ al-kifāyah) to serve the Muslim community. Thus, it is steadily progressing after being established last century. However, the Western secularly oriented social scientists as typically sceptical, especially the positivistic, or post-positivistic ones. Moreover, editors of established journals also are reluctant to acknowledge the application of traditional Islamic methodologies in the Islamization of Knowledge (IoK) researches due the methodological integrity issues such as the validity issues according to their practice. But then, Islam has a lengthy history of traditional methodologies dated back to the time of the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. whose prophethood began in the seventh century C.E. Since then, he had founded initial Thematic Analysis methodology in interpreting the Holy Qur'an with another relevant part of it intertextually, and his prophetic guidance (al-Sunnah), which is more developed in the Fundamentals of Islamic Jurisprudence (Usul al-Fiqh) for its significant role to the Islamic Jurisprudence (al-Fiqh al-Islamī). Thus, by rights it has to be equivalently recognized like other de/post-colonial/subaltern methodologies especially when it is being used in IoK movement that revers the revelation (al-Naqlī) above the human intellect (al-ᶜAqlī). This paper is a comparative study between the Reflexive Thematic Analysis method that is commonly used in the Social Sciences and the Qur’anic Thematic Analysis (QTA – Al-Tafsīr Al-Mauḍūᶜī) methodology under the Qur’anic Sciences (ᶜUlūm al-Qur’ān). Some compatible methodological fusions allowable in Islam are suggested for the QTA to stay relevant in merging the Islamic Studies into the contemporary Social Sciences.
References
AbuSulayman, AbdulHamid. The Qur’anic Worldview: A Springboard for Cultural Reform. Edited by Dr. Anas S. Al-Shaikh-Ali and Shiraz Khan. Herndon, USA: The International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2013. https://iiit.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/books-in-brief_-_the_quranic_worldview.pdf.
Al-Khālidī, Ṣalāh Abd al-Fattāḥ. Tacrif Al-Dārisīn Bi Manāhij Al-Mufassirīn [Tr. Introduction to Methodologies of (Qur’anic) Exegetes for the Students]. 3rd ed. Damascus, Iraq: Damascus, Iraq, 2008.
Al-Muṭairī, Muḥsin Hāmid. Tafsīr Al-Qur’ān Bil Qur’ān: Ta’ṣīl Wa Taqwīm [Trans. Qur’anic Exegesis with the Qur’an: Origin and Correction ]. Riyadh, KSA: Dārul Tadamuriyyah, 2011.
Al-Shawabkah, Murad. “Al-Tafsīr Al-Mauḍuᶜī (Trans. Qur’anic Thematic Exegetical Analysis).” Mawdoo3. Last modified June 16, 2020. Accessed March 18, 2021. https://mawdoo3.com/التفسير_الموضوعي.
Āl Ja’afar, Muslim, and Muhyi Hilal Al-Sarḥān. Manāhij Al-Mufassirīn [En. Trans. Methodologies of the Exegetes]. Damascus, Syria: Darul Ma’rifah, 1980.
Al Alwani, Taha Jabir. “Toward An Islamic Alternative In Thought and Knowledge.” American Journal of Islam and Society 6, no. 1 (September 1, 1989): 1–12. https://www.ajis.org/index.php/ajiss/article/view/2830.
American Psychological Association. “Thematic Analysis – APA Dictionary of Psychology.” American Psychological Association. Last modified 2020. Accessed April 1, 2021. https://dictionary.apa.org/thematic-analysis.
APA Dictionary of Psychology. “Comparative Method .” American Psychological Association . Last modified 2020. Accessed April 14, 2021. https://dictionary.apa.org/comparative-method.
Berry, J.W. “Acculturation.” In Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology, 27–34. Elsevier, 2004. https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/B0126574103003846.
Bevilacqua, Alexander. The Republic of Arabic Letters : Islam and the European Enlightenment. 1st ed. London, UK: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2018.
Boyatzis, Richard E. Transforming Qualitative Information: Thematic Analysis and Code Development. 1st ed. USA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 1998.
Braun, Virginia, and Victoria Clarke. “Can I Use TA? Should I Use TA? Should I Not Use TA? Comparing Reflexive Thematic Analysis and Other Pattern‐based Qualitative Analytic Approaches.” Counselling and Psychotherapy Research 21, no. 1 (March 18, 2021): 37–47. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/capr.12360.
———. “One Size Fits All? What Counts as Quality Practice in (Reflexive) Thematic Analysis?” Qualitative Research in Psychology 18, no. 3 (July 3, 2021): 328–352. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14780887.2020.1769238.
———. “Thematic Analysis.” In APA Handbook of Research Methods in Psychology, Vol 2: Research Designs: Quantitative, Qualitative, Neuropsychological, and Biological., 57–71. Washington: American Psychological Association, 2012. http://content.apa.org/books/13620-004.
———. “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology.” Qualitative Research in Psychology 3, no. 2 (2006): 77–101. Accessed January 1, 2021. https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=uqrp20.
Braun, Virginia, Victoria Clarke, Nikki Hayfield, and Gareth Terry. “Thematic Analysis.” In Handbook of Research Methods in Health Social Sciences, 1–18. Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2018. http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-981-10-2779-6_103-1.
Clarke, Victoria, and Virginia Braun. “Thematic Analysis.” The Journal of Positive Psychology 12, no. 3 (May 4, 2017): 297-298-undefined. Accessed January 1, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2016.1262613.
Cooper-White, Pamela. “Intersubjectivity.” In Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion, edited by David A. Leeming, 882–886. Boston, MA: Springer US, 2014. https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-1-4614-6086-2_9182.
DeCarlo, Matthew. “7.3 Unit of Analysis and Unit of Observation.” In Scientific Inquiry In Social Work. Press Book, 2018. Accessed May 6, 2021. https://scientificinquiryinsocialwork.pressbooks.com/chapter/7-3-unit-of-analysis-and-unit-of-observation/.
Farlex. “Abdel Rahman Badawi: Philosopher, Scholar, Thinker and Poet - (Obituary).” Free Online Library. Last modified 2002. Accessed January 6, 2021. https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Abdel+Rahman+Badawi:+philosopher,+scholar,+thinker+and+poet....-a091660285.
Gökkır, Necmettin. “A Western Impact on Contemporary Qur’anic Studies: The Application of Literary Criticism.” Usul- ilmi araştırmalar Dergisi 2005/1, no. 3 (2005): 67–90.
Grosfoguel, Ramón. “The Structure of Knowledge in Westernized Universities: Epistemic Racism/Sexism and the Four Genocides/Epistemicides of the Long 16th Century.” Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge XI, no. 1 (2013): 73–90.
Hall, Budd L., and Rajesh Tandon. “Decolonization of Knowledge, Epistemicide, Participatory Research and Higher Education.” Research for All 1, no. 1 (January 1, 2017): 6–19. https://scienceopen.com/document?vid=402538a1-354c-486e-a4df-b2cb26135164.
Hussein, Abdul-Raof. Theological Approaches to Qur’anic Exegesis. Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2012. Accessed December 31, 2020. https://openmaktaba.com/wp-content/uploads/books/Islamic-English-Books/%28Culture and Civilization in the Middle East%29 Hussein Abdul-Raof - Theological Approaches to Qur’anic Exegesis_ A Practical Comparative-Contrastive Analysis-Routledge %282012%29.pd.
Munroe, Paul T. “Intersubjectivity.” In The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, 1–3. Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2019. http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosi067.pub2.
Muslim, Musṭafā. Mabāḥits Fi Al-Tafsīr Al-Mawḍū’i [En. Trans. Researches in Exegetical Thematic Analysis Methodology]. 3rd ed. Damascus, Syria: Darul Qalam/Dar Al-Shamiyyah, 2000. https://mustafamuslim.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/مباحث-في-التفسير-الموضوعي.pdf.
Rizvi, Sajjad. “Reversing the Gaze? Or Decolonizing the Study of the Qurʾan.” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion (December 17, 2020): 1–17. https://brill.com/view/journals/mtsr/aop/article-10.1163-15700682-12341511/article-10.1163-15700682-12341511.xml.
Saeed, Sohaib. “The Shāhīn Affair and the Evolution of Uṣūl Al-Tafsīr.” Journal of Qur’anic Studies 21, no. 3 (October 2019): 114–144. https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/jqs.2019.0401.
SAGE Publishing. “CAQDAS Links - Online Resources.” SAGE Publications. Last modified 2020. Accessed March 2, 2021. https://study.sagepub.com/node/31740/student-resources/chapter-1.
Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. Epistemologies of the South: Justice against Epistemicide. Edited by Boaventura de Sousa Santos. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2016. Accessed March 31, 2021. https://unescochair-cbrsr.org/pdf/resource/Epistemologies_of_the_South.pdf.
Schwartz, Seth J., Jennifer B. Unger, Byron L. Zamboanga, and José Szapocznik. “Rethinking the Concept of Acculturation: Implications for Theory and Research.” American Psychologist 65, no. 4 (2010): 237–251. http://doi.apa.org/getdoi.cfm?doi=10.1037/a0019330.
SCIMAGO. “The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences.” Last modified 2021. Accessed May 7, 2021. https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=5600153107&tip=sid&clean=0.
Sparkes, Jason Idriss. “Tradition as Flow: Decolonial Currents in the Muslim Atlantic.” Wilfrid Laurier University, 2020. https://scholars.wlu.ca/etd/2300.
Tayob, Abdulkader. “Decolonizing the Study of Religions: Muslim Intellectuals and the Enlightenment Project of Religious Studies.” Journal for the Study of Religion 31, no. 2 (2018). http://ref.scielo.org/gn52hn.
Terry, Gareth, Nikki Hayfield, Victoria Clarke, and Virginia Braun. “Thematic Analysis.” In The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research in Psychology, edited by Carla Willig and Wendy Stainton Rogers, 17–36. 2nd ed. London, UK: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2017. http://methods.sagepub.com/book/the-sage-handbook-of-qualitative-research-in-psychology-second-edition.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Acculturation - Anthropology.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Last modified 2018. Accessed March 16, 2021. https://www.britannica.com/topic/acculturation.
Ushama, Thameem. Methodologies of the Qur’anic Exegesis. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: A.S. Noordeen, 1995.
van de Vijver, Fons J. R. “Types of Comparative Studies in Cross-Cultural Psychology.” Online Readings in Psychology and Culture 2, no. 2 (March 1, 2009): 1–13. https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/orpc/vol2/iss2/2.
Wakefield, Jerome C. “The Concept of Mental Disorder - On the Boundary Between Biological Facts and Social Value.” American Psychologist 47, no. 3 (1992): 373–388.
Willig, Carla, and Wendy Stainton Roger, eds. The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research in Psychology. 2nd ed. London, UK: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2017. http://methods.sagepub.com/book/the-sage-handbook-of-qualitative-research-in-psychology-second-edition.
“American Journal of Islam and Society.” Last modified 1984. Accessed May 7, 2021. https://www.ajis.org/index.php/ajiss.
“Publons - Reviewers Database.” Accessed December 20, 2020. https://publons.com/about/home/.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
Copyright (c) 2021 Nur Afifah binti Abas, Mohd Nizam bin Sahad
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The copyright of this article will be vested to author(s) and granted the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, unless otherwise stated.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
