This Special Issue will, I hope, shine a spotlight on Islamic communication research and also expose Islamic scholars to the wider communication world.
Indonesia is probably the best location for such research. The archipelago has the largest Muslim population of any country. Despite its majority, Islam is not the official religion. Instead, there is a national ideology called Pancasila (Sanskrit for five principles) that are: Indonesian nationalism, just and civilised humanity, democracy, social prosperity, and belief in one God. There is therefore an inherent tolerance towards different religions. For example, during one visit to the capital Jakarta, I gave lectures to an Islamic university, a Catholic university and a public university.
Against the backdrop of this tolerance is the rise in the number of Islamic universities. This is not unexpected; religious groups have started many educational institutions in developing countries both to uplift and to evangelise. Institutions, however, tend to develop a life of their own. Here, like good university administrators everywhere, the administrators of these Islamic universities also want to raise the ranking of their universities. Being a religion-based university, however, they face conservative pressures. In Islam, communication is placed in the department of evangelism. That is, communication is seen as a tool to spread Islam.
As communication scholars know, however, very little research is actually conducted on improving the dissemination of any messages. Instead, much of communication research is sociological (understanding society) and psychological (understanding the individual).
So the Islamic communication scholars have banded together to form an association among themselves to encourage communication research from the mid-2010s.
Meanwhile, the more established ASPIKOM (Asosiasi Pendidikan Tinggi Ilmu Komunikasi or Association for Higher Education in Communication Studies) organised the first international conference in 2018 in Palembang, Indonesia, in the English language. Previous conferences by the Association had been at the national level in the Indonesian language.
That 2018 conference was interesting for me. I heard the ASPIKOM song. (Yes, all communication associations should have their own songs.) And I also heard much fun and laughter during sessions when the audience asked what I thought were some pretty sharp questions of the presenters—the questions were critical but always posed in a friendly and often jocular tone.
The 2018 conference was followed by the 2019 regional conference of the International Communication Association (ICA) in Bali. The plan was to have an international communication conference every two years.
The pandemic of 2020 slowed, but did not halt, those plans. In 2023, the ICA Indonesia Chapter was inaugurated, helmed by Dr. Dorien Kartikawangi who had also played a key role in both the ASPIKOM conference of 2018 and the ICA regional conference of 2019 in Bali.
Meanwhile, in late 2019 I visited Islamic University of Bandung for a conference and met the dean of the faculty of communication Prof Septiawan Kurnia. We discussed collaborations of various kinds before, settling on a special issue around Islamic communication research.
I hope you will enjoy these fruits of the efforts of Dorien Kartikawangi, Septiawan Kurnia and his colleague, Arba'iyah Satriani.
Authors and reviewers have learned about the rigours of publishing in a top tier academic journal. Some manuscripts went through more rounds of revision than would be usual.
It has been said that satisfaction is achievement after struggle. And in that sense, this Special Issue on Islamic communication research has been satisfying.
I expect that we will see more such research in the future.