International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology Vol. 29, No. 7, (2020), pp. 3462-3470 ISSN: 2005-4238 IJAST Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC 3462 The Muslim Approach to the Study of Religions Amjad Mahmud Hussain amjad.hussain@marmara.edu.tr Marmara University Mohd Aderi Che Noh aderi@fsk.upsi.edu.my Sultan Idris Education University Abstract This article highlights the need for Muslims to study other religions and philosophies for a number of reasons. This article describes the study of religions by Muslims in the past, and it attempts to explain how Muslims in the past were so successful at studying other faiths. The main aim of the article is to provide a methodology for contemporary Muslims to study the ‘other’. With that in mind the article provides an insight into the contemporary approach towards phenomenology of religion and offers an alternative route to approach the study of religions. Keywords: study of religions, phenomenology of religions, methodology, epoche, khushūʿ, tawāḍuʿ Nowadays, our world is fast becoming smaller by an ever-growing globalization of industry, media, internet, on-line global social networks, migration and tourism. In this new world, where the east and the west meet, a need to comprehend human beings’ religious diversity is becoming paramount. In a world where religion is a part parcel of the human culture, some may even say a very important or most important aspect, it is important to recognize that this diversity that exists within the wider human beings’ society must be better understood in order to be navigated for a peaceful co- existence. In this article I am not putting forward an argument for whether or not all of these diversities are subjectively good or bad for humanity, but I am simply presenting these religions and diversity within our societies as a reality on the ground. Moreover, in our contemporary world religious views of various people seem to be playing a large role. It is interesting to note that it was only a few decades earlier that countless thinkers had begun claiming that religion was a thing of yesterday. For more than two centuries the western world and, to an extent, the wider world felt the major changes brought about by an ever growing secular society, where it experienced the demise of empires, the establishment of nation states, the making of a new global financial system and the supposed slow steady decline of faith or even disinterest in the ‘sacred’. One academic went as far as to describe this period as a time where “religion seems to have lost much of the enormous advantage it once possessed as virtually the universal source of consolation, explanation and hope to women and men trapped in an unchanging order.” Still, only two decades afterwards various thinkers have had to acknowledge that religion is very much alive, and that amongst the majority of population in the world, religion still seems to play a major role. Therefore, at this juncture it is becoming evident that it is not only in the west but also in the east that there is a need to understand the various religions, their histories, their adherents, and the recent developments that have taken place within their faiths so as to understand this diversity, and to develop some kind of aptitude in order to co-exists within the present world. Ninian Smart, mostly thinking at that time of western societies, touched upon this same need three decades ago when he wrote, The voyage into other folks’ beliefs and practices may turn out to be a journey into your neighbourhood. It is common today for varieties of people to live together in the great cities. In London, New York, Los Angeles, Sydney, Singapore, Frankfurt, and Paris, most of the great religions and ideologies are present. This pluralism is richer because each of the traditions includes many forms: Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Baptists; Shi’a and Sunni Muslims, and Muslims from Morocco, Indonesia, and Egypt; Buddhists from Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and