Islam and the conceptual bases for its analysis: the first phase of Dr. Roberto Marín Guzmán’s islamological production (1978-1990)

Abstract

Dr. Roberto Marín Guzmán (1955-2024) introduced Islamic and Arab studies to the academic world in Costa Rica. In his early years, beyond the topics he analyzed, he had a very clear goal: to establish the basic analytical parameters for understanding the nature of Islam and the societies that generated it, the Arabs, as the founding belief of a new form of social organization (the ummah, faith community). In this sense, at the dawn of the 1980s, when he was in the midst of his first phase of training as a scholar in the field of Islamology, he sought to establish very precise contours to define what Islam was, and the theoretical elements necessary in order to approach this historical phenomenon of great magnitude in the history of humanity. The following article aims to analyze precisely how Dr. Marín Guzmán built the field of Islamic and Arabic studies through an analytical deepening of his academic production during his formative years in this field, which took place between 1978 and 1990.