Free and Unrestricted Learning Will Make the World One
“Shed the ‘small me’ and createthe ‘large we’” says Professor Okuda. We spoke to him about hisfirst attraction to the Islamic world, the importance of programsthat link Japan and Arab nations, and the new perspective of worldthat can be obtained through such exchanges.
OKUDA, Atsushi
ProfessorFaculty of Policy Management
My First Encounter with Islam
Originally I was not particularlyinterested in Islam as a religion. As an undergraduate studying law,I was looking at the categorization of world areas through thedifferent kinds of legal system. As part of that study, I took acourse in Islamic law. That was my first introduction to Islam. Withthe coming of the Renaissance in the twelfth century, Europe startedto adopt elements of Arab culture in various fields. While I wasstudying this time period, I noticed that law was the only area notmentioned. I thought this was strange and started to focus myresearch on the Arab and Islamic impact on the codification of lawsin Europe. I needed to study the legal code that did not exist inJapan at that time and went looking for it to Frankfurt, Sicily, andthen to Murcia in southern Spain. I attended an internationalacademic conference there. That was an important experience for me. Ifound a Spanish book that presented the intellectual history of theMuslims and Christians in Spain during the Middle Ages. Afterreturning to Japan, I finished my paper based on the legal code I hadfound and also translated the Spanish book into Japanese.
Becoming Free
At that time, much had been publishedin Japan on medieval Spain, but hardly anything even on basicresearch of Islamic law. At the suggestion of my research advisor, Iset aside my comparative research on Islamic and Spanish laws andtook up an in-depth study of Islamic law. I found an appeal in thelaws of Islam that I did not sense in other legal studies. I was 29years old at the time. Four years later at the age of 33, I moved toSyria, and for six years I learned about Islam through academic studyand daily experience in that Islamic society. Allah is the one trueGod according to Islam, and Muslims follow the teachings of theQur’an, upon which Islamic law is founded. This may make it soundlike people’s lives are restricted in many ways, but in fact theirlives are quite free. Believing in Allah alone means that you are notconcerned about or limited by other things, such as ethnicity,nationality, or systems. To live under Islam means not to be swayedby anything or anyone other than Allah. It means to live freelywithout being the prisoner of anything. This way of life is quiteattractive. That is why Islam has continued to spread throughout theworld and through the ages regardless of ethnicity and nationality.
The Unrestricted Nature of Islam andSFC
While I was living in Syria, KeioUniversity asked me if I wanted to teach Arabic at their ShonanFujisawa Campus (SFC). My goal was not to teach language but to studyand teach about Islamic law. I was perplexed how to respond to theoffer. When I spoke to some people at SFC, I discovered that languageeducation at the Faculty of Policy Management and the Faculty ofEnvironment and Information Studies was not just teaching language.The campus is also home to the Graduate School of Media andGovernance, which would allow me to pursue in-depth research. Idecided to take advantage of this opportunity and moved back toJapan. Once I was here, I realized that SFC was truly an open andfree place. There are none of the usual barriers found at Japaneseuniversities amongst academic faculties or research areas. Thisfreedom is very similar to that in Islam, which also has no barriersin Islam’s way of thinking. To study Islam—where one is bound bynothing but Allah—requires an environment that promotes free andboundless thinking and research. SFC is an ideal place for researchon Islam because SFC takes an interdisciplinary approach to identifyand resolve issues.My laboratory has students with a wide variety ofinterests. We create videos, develop educational materials, andorganize exchange programs while conducting Islamic studies. We arealso involved in joint work with other laboratories. Right now weare conducting research on the Qur’an database with ProfessorYasushi Kiyoki and members of his laboratory. The specialty ofProfessor Kiyoki is semantic space of database. I am thrilled to seedevelopment of this project in the future.
Arab Students Welcoming Program (ASP)
Okuda laboratory hosts a program calledthe Ahlan wa Sahlan Program, or ASP (Ahlan wa Sahlan means “welcome”in Arabic.). Under this program to promote cultural and academicexchange between Japan and the Arab world, we have invited studentsfrom Arab nations to Japan eight times so far. ASP offersopportunities to Arab and Japanese students to study each other’slanguage and experience each other’s culture. Language studyincludes creating study videos of daily conversations, and thestudents often collaborate on video skits that they produce. Thisprogram was inspired by the 2002 visit by SFC students to AleppoUniversity in Syria for language training. The Arab students werevery helpful and kind to the SFC students. While we were on the busback to the Damascus International Airport, the SFC students saidthey wanted to do something for their new Arab friends in return. TheJapanese students said they wanted to do for the Arabs what the Arabshad done for them. My students even offered to raise the necessaryfunds themselves. When I heard this, I naturally wanted to getsomething started, too. That is how ASP was created, and the programhas been held every year since 2002. As of academic year 2009, wehave welcomed a total of 36 Arab students to SFC. More than 40 SFCstudents participated in the program in 2009.
I have been tellingstudents to see the world that is faster than the speed of light.Human being exists in a web of interconnections that goes beyondethnicity, nationality, and, of course, time. People are allconnected not just in this world but in the next, as well. Studentscan practice learning about these concepts through ASP where theyhave opportunities to learn and create things together. I am pleasedto say that the program is slowly bearing fruit. An Arab student saidthat, by interacting with students in Japan, he realized that nothingcould come of just hating other countries, societies, and people. Herealized that in other countries there were people just like himstudying at university and that they could join hands and do thingstogether. When I change, the other changes too. As this circle offriendship widens, peace can spread in the world. I believe thatpeace is created not by diplomatic efforts, but the efforts ofacademia, which is not limited by national or personal interests.This is why ASP needs to continue long into the future.
From a “Small Me” to a “Large We”
I would like to see a “large we”created between Japan and Arab nations in the future. Today we aredivided into “us and them” or “small mes” based on ethnicityand nationality. We need to think about how “us and them” can betransformed into one “we”. The key here is to shed the “smallme” and to change ourselves. If we both change, we will become a“large we”. If we can do this, not just Japanese and Arabs, butthe entire world can become one. To achieve this, people need to dothree things. First, they need to understand things correctly byacquiring a wide range of knowledge, unbounded knowledge that is freeand unlimited. Next, they need to act based on acquired knowledge.Finally, they need to tell others what they have learned. In reality,this is an ongoing process of trial and error. Together with mystudents, I will continue to strive towards the creation of a “largewe” by improving on my learning, and putting knowledge intopractice.
Professor, Faculty of PolicyManagement,Keio University
OKUDA, Atsushi
Professor Okuda received hisbachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in law from ChuoUniversity. He was a research assistant at the InternationalUniversity of Japan (IUJ), a full-time research fellow at the IUJInstitute of Middle Eastern Studies (today’s IUJ ResearchInstitute), as well as visiting researcher at Aleppo University’sInstitute for the History of Arabic Science and vice president ofthat university’s Japan Center for Academic Cooperation. He becamean Associate Professor at the Faculty of Policy Management at KeioUniversity in 1999 and has held his current position since 2005. Hespecializes in Islamic studies, Islamic law, and Arabic language. Hispublications include Human Rights in Islam: Allah and Man in IslamicLaw (Keio University Press, 2005) and Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?The History and Theory of Islamic Law (Keio University Press, 2003),which is a Japanese translation of articles by Prof. Dr. Wael Hallaq.
(30 June 2010)
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