Professor Azyumardi Azra, a renowned intellectual and scholar in Southeast Asia, was born in West Sumatra in 1955. He received his M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from Columbia University with a PhD in “The Transmission of Islamic Reformism to Indonesia: Networks of Middle Eastern and Malay-Indonesian ’Ulama’ in the 17th and 18th Centuries” (Professor Azyumardi Azra, 2016). Azyumardi Azra became rector of the Syarif Hidayatullah State Institute of Islamic Studies in 1998. He carried out large-scale institutional reform to modernize Islamic education. He was instrumental in elevating the institute to university status by introducing new departments such as Psychology, Economics, Business Sciences, Engineering, Medicine, Sociology and Politics.
Syarif Hidayatullah served as the first rector of the Islamic State University (UIN) from 2002 to 2006. He served as president of the Asian Historians Association from 2010 to 2012. He was the editor of the Indonesian Journal of Islamic Studies published by the Center for the Study of Islam/Pusat Pengjaikan Islam dan Masyarakar (PPIM). Professor Azra has been a visiting scholar at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Leiden University, Oxford University, University of the Philippines, New York University, Columbia University and the University of Melbourne (Azyumardi Azra, n.d.). Azyumardi Azra has a moderate and centrist understanding of Islam. He embraced the five founding principles of Indonesia, cultural pluralism and interfaith dialogue. He has received Indonesia’s highest honorary award “Bintang Mahaputra Utama” for his contribution to Indonesia’s social cohesion.
He received the Fukuoka 2014 award for his initiatives in promoting international academic exchange, cultural and interfaith dialogue. In 2004 he authored The Origins of Islamic Reformism in Southeast Asia. In this book, he demonstrated that the connection and interaction between Islamic Reformism and neo-sufism that developed from the 19th century onwards was in fact long-standing. This book paved the way for the study of modern Islamic thought and comparative ideological diffusion, revealing the long history of cultural exchange between East and West. Azyumardi Azra has published eighteen books and has a liberal and moderate line of thought (Academic Prize Azyumardi Azra, 2014).
References
Academic Prize Azyumardi Azra. (2014). Fukuoka Prize Retrieved from https://fukuoka-prize.org/files/download/en/LaureatesI18n/laureate_blocks/9e930e1b-1996-4afc-9b10-3722ad100080/value01/value02
Fakultas Adab dan Humaniora. (n.d.).Azyumardi Azra. Retrieved from 3 March 2022, http://azyumardiazra.lec.uinjkt.ac.id/home
