as for faruqi, i think al-attas has a point to make about faruqi hijacking his islamization idea. quite true as alattas presented that paper in jeddah in the 70s.

mechanicalized — true as well. but justifiably so, in my opinion. social sciences require precision. also the fact that IIIT is far more universal and practical than ISTAC/attas. the implementation i think was timely in the 80s and not in haste. well, i guess it was a bit of a mistake for IIIT to have invested so much of their focus in Malaysia and put too much trust in Mahathir. and look at the collapse now…

I love al-attas, especially so for his traditionalist approach. but he seems to have gone nowhere. people have not built upon the foundation of al-attas as they have upon faruqi’s.

unfortunately, faruqi somehow had this naive detest for sufism and somewhat odd admiration for the wahhabis. having said that, to be fair he was a very outgoing activist and pragmatic thinker, right in the thick of the action. faruqi also had a good team, good networking, solid professionalism, tolerated dissent and encouraged more innovation. whereas al-attas somewhat subdued, and a lone ranger due to his peculiar personality.