tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37190496761660634392024-03-13T10:03:25.630+00:00Critical MuslimsIntroducing alternative voices from the Muslim world (2008-2020)Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.comBlogger151125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-26312726218537439322020-06-09T19:00:00.000+01:002020-06-09T19:04:17.156+01:00Reforming Muslim Family Law: The Musawah Campaign & the Covid-19 Factor<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgahc2ROP7hQFgw_IF9RCsKkgvtrlwuOTrlf01oP7hEnp0Dd0eI_KTZo2JuiaNnwi96gHgWW9VqjH94vjs4CQh-QuMqiCE6XqrNnN7CXi0Uq00-RzZvT95uhO1Ni3Tpt6cXKAaF3EsAedJb/s1600/zainah+anwar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="277" data-original-width="187" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgahc2ROP7hQFgw_IF9RCsKkgvtrlwuOTrlf01oP7hEnp0Dd0eI_KTZo2JuiaNnwi96gHgWW9VqjH94vjs4CQh-QuMqiCE6XqrNnN7CXi0Uq00-RzZvT95uhO1Ni3Tpt6cXKAaF3EsAedJb/s200/zainah+anwar.jpg" width="135" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Zainah Anwar</td></tr>
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Since its foundation in Kuala Lumpur in 2009, <a href="https://www.musawah.org/" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Musawah</a> has been at the forefront of the campaign for women rights in the Muslim world. Amplifying its voice is aided by the involvement of leading women activists and intellectuals, such as <i><a href="https://www.facebook.com/officialSIS" target="_blank">Sisters in Islam</a></i> co-founder <b><a href="https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2013/12/31/muslim-women-award-zainab-anwar/" target="_blank">Zainah Anwar</a> </b>(Malaysia) and academics <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amina_Wadud" target="_blank"><b>Amina Wadud</b> </a>(American scholar of Islam) and <b><a href="https://www.zibamirhosseini.com/" target="_blank">Ziba Mir-Hosseini</a> </b>(British-Iranian legal anthropologist).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMo1_y0We7Am9PCFxo_RNNNNdQsIuTDD3I1ZTY7VO0qfP9z9cMCZGtu3RYBX4VzW-yQHKzRcm1sae6ovc_UN0U5hPupctssf1U9gKOpSH3GYT7OzRBZyugEf6cyR1KpTF-hTy_u-j8fiwq/s1600/AMina+Wadud.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="301" data-original-width="217" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMo1_y0We7Am9PCFxo_RNNNNdQsIuTDD3I1ZTY7VO0qfP9z9cMCZGtu3RYBX4VzW-yQHKzRcm1sae6ovc_UN0U5hPupctssf1U9gKOpSH3GYT7OzRBZyugEf6cyR1KpTF-hTy_u-j8fiwq/s200/AMina+Wadud.jpg" width="144" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Amina Wadud</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUvOnIOcl_fSY1iJLZjUMkjPRTcAHoz4HguhOxt-XTUlSA9QlYhJLi5HZPPPVFmL93OQ8cSnPQDEqnFQLYmMbVO351YUuLKOHadkB15jNy2HF8NJnvgCtcL1vYIvySTxiKVWcLwWMwQ-ZU/s1600/ziba+mir-hosseini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="166" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUvOnIOcl_fSY1iJLZjUMkjPRTcAHoz4HguhOxt-XTUlSA9QlYhJLi5HZPPPVFmL93OQ8cSnPQDEqnFQLYmMbVO351YUuLKOHadkB15jNy2HF8NJnvgCtcL1vYIvySTxiKVWcLwWMwQ-ZU/s200/ziba+mir-hosseini.jpg" width="120" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ziba Mir-Hosseini</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEishwShFDMaGPucUpvxJOZJWrf_5FonHwSRtdFmNcfJPg83WBGRpX0PsEe4Akxr1wGw1i3mqELgyUWvt3lUStzCfJtD62Q5rBbqH7ZMRRh9M3qRto8B7nNsnjTr1At9xp3-XhPaZ2fNC5oO/s1600/marwa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="172" data-original-width="124" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEishwShFDMaGPucUpvxJOZJWrf_5FonHwSRtdFmNcfJPg83WBGRpX0PsEe4Akxr1wGw1i3mqELgyUWvt3lUStzCfJtD62Q5rBbqH7ZMRRh9M3qRto8B7nNsnjTr1At9xp3-XhPaZ2fNC5oO/s1600/marwa.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marwa Sharafeldin</td></tr>
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The Jadaliyya website is now offering a new discussion platform revolving around a <a href="https://www.musawah.org/campaign-for-justice/" target="_blank">new justice for women campaign</a> initiated by Musawah. In her inaugural article, Egyptian legal scholar <a href="https://www.jadaliyya.com/Author/9967" target="_blank">Marwa Sharafeldin</a> uses the current Corona Virus/Covid-19 crisis to draw renewed attention to the disadvantaged legal position of women in many Muslim countries.<br />
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Here are some excerpts.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Family law is one of the most contentious laws to change in the Arab region and the Muslim world. One of the reasons given for this is its close association with religion.</span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">However, it is important to first observe how family law is deeply implicated in distributing wealth and in allocating power and resources. Because of the way that family law is constructed in some countries in the Arab region, it is usually in men’s hands where power and wealth is concentrated.</span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Returning to COVID-19, family law reform, and religion, there is a fundamental problem with the underlying philosophy of gender inequality found in family law practices, and the religious jurisprudence upon which they are based. But would we be tampering with religion if we call for the reform of Arab and Muslim family laws?</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-align: justify;">The answer is no. There is a difference between </span><a href="https://www.musawah.org/resources/knowledge-building-brief-1-shariah-fiqh-and-state-laws-clarifying-the-terms-en/" style="-webkit-appearance: none; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">shari‘a and <em style="-webkit-appearance: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">fiqh</em></a><span style="text-align: justify;"> (jurisprudence). Shari‘a is what Muslims believe to be the eternal message of God: unchangeable, divine, and relevant for all times and places. It is full of all things good. </span><em style="-webkit-appearance: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">Fiqh</em><span style="text-align: justify;">, on the other hand, is the human endeavor to uncover and understand this divine message. It is therefore changeable and subject to context. The Arab region’s family laws are not divine</span><span style="-webkit-appearance: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: underline;">,</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> because they are based on human </span><em style="-webkit-appearance: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">fiqh</em><span style="text-align: justify;">. </span></span></blockquote>
Read the whole article <a href="https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/41211/COVID-19-and-the-Necessity-of-Muslim-Family-Law-Reform-in-the-Arab-World?utm_source=Arab%2BStudies%2BInstitute%2BMailing%2BList&utm_campaign=f323b611df-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_07_11_12_52_COPY_52&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fa9122f438-f323b611df-158603413&mc_cid=f323b611df&mc_eid=3cc6c810be" target="_blank">here</a><br />
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<img alt="Musawah – Equality & Justice in the Muslim Family" src="https://wunrn.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/image001_5614285099b0a.jpg" /></div>
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Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-31745765028827698822020-05-31T11:00:00.003+01:002020-05-31T11:00:15.293+01:00GENDER & ISLAM: Interview with Lila Abu-Lughod<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div data-reddit-rtjson="{"entityMap":{"0":{"type":"LINK","mutability":"MUTABLE","data":{"url":"https://anthropology.columbia.edu/content/lila-abu-lughod"}},"1":{"type":"LINK","mutability":"MUTABLE","data":{"url":"https://www.jadaliyya.com/"}},"2":{"type":"LINK","mutability":"MUTABLE","data":{"url":"https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/41129/On-Teaching-Gender-and-Islam-in-the-Middle-East-An-Interview-with-Lila-Abu-Lughod-conducted-by-Jacob-Bessen-41129?utm_source=Arab%2BStudies%2BInstitute%2BMailing%2BList&utm_campaign=efd4bcf230-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_07_11_12_52_COPY_50&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fa9122f438-efd4bcf230-158603413&mc_cid=efd4bcf230&mc_eid=3cc6c810be"}}},"blocks":[{"key":"5gn3r","text":"Lila Abu-Lughod is one of the leading anthropologists studying women in the Muslim world.
https://youtu.be/uYAM7gMEd1g
She was recently interviewed by the Jadaliyya Website.","type":"unstyled","inlineStyleRanges":[],"entityRanges":[{"offset":0,"length":15,"key":0},{"offset":126,"length":9,"key":1}],"data":{}},{"key":"9voq0","text":"Here is a brief excerpt:","type":"unstyled","inlineStyleRanges":[],"entityRanges":[],"data":{}},{"key":"e6pai","text":"I find two tactics useful in teaching. First, I insist on historicizing. What are the major political transformations of the worlds we are studying? What is the history of the present? The dynamics of colonialism and anti-colonial nationalisms, as well as violence of current wars and occupations are crucial. Their impacts on the organization of gender, women’s possibilities, and the meanings of sexuality are profound and complex. I like to surprise students too by introducing matter-of-factly the long regional histories (and class politics, of course) of activist projects for legal reform, schooling, religious reform, and political enfranchisement—what students might understand as other histories of feminism.","type":"blockquote","inlineStyleRanges":[{"offset":0,"length":718,"style":"ITALIC"}],"entityRanges":[],"data":{}},{"key":"ak6k","text":"Second, and a bit more consistent with my anthropological commitments to learning about “other” worlds, I insist that students immerse themselves in the lives and texts of those whose reference points and ideals may be quite foreign to them. From precarious Yemeni plantation workers being cured of possession to Iranian youth being lectured by Ali Shariati on how Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet, should be their guide for revolutionary womanhood, I want them to confront and take seriously the unfamiliar. There are moral and intellectual worlds out there that challenge their everyday assumptions, values, and judgements. This is humbling. And it can be humbling even for students whose family backgrounds link them to the region. They rarely know much about the multiple worlds in which different communities live or the variety of aspirations they have. ","type":"blockquote","inlineStyleRanges":[{"offset":0,"length":862,"style":"ITALIC"}],"entityRanges":[],"data":{}},{"key":"1emdl","text":"To read the full interview, click here","type":"unstyled","inlineStyleRanges":[],"entityRanges":[{"offset":34,"length":4,"key":2}],"data":{}}]}">
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<span data-offset-key="8vhgc-0-0"><a class="_1FRfMxEAy__7c8vezYv9qP" href="https://anthropology.columbia.edu/content/lila-abu-lughod">Lila Abu-Lughod</a></span><span data-offset-key="8vhgc-1-0"> is one of the leading anthropologists studying women in the Muslim world. Based at Columbia University in New York, she made a name with her studies of Bedouin women, but in books like <i><a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674725164" target="_blank">Do Muslim women need saving?</a></i>, she has also engaged with more generic, politically charged, topics.</span><br />
<span data-offset-key="8vhgc-1-0"><br /></span>
<span data-offset-key="8vhgc-1-0"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="236" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uYAM7gMEd1g" width="420"></iframe></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="8vhgc-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="8vhgc-1-0">She was recently interviewed by the </span><a class="_1FRfMxEAy__7c8vezYv9qP" href="https://www.jadaliyya.com/"><span data-offset-key="8vhgc-2-0">Jadaliyya</span></a><span data-offset-key="8vhgc-3-0"> Website about teaching Gender & Islam in the Middle East:</span></div>
<div class="public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="8vhgc-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="8vhgc-3-0"><br /></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="d8ik4-0-0">Here is a brief excerpt:</span></div>
</div>
<blockquote class="" data-block="true" data-editor="b17e1b" data-offset-key="fqap9-0-0">
<div class="public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="fqap9-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="fqap9-0-0" style="font-style: italic;">I find two tactics useful in teaching. First, I insist on historicizing. What are the major political transformations of the worlds we are studying? What is the history of the present? The dynamics of colonialism and anti-colonial nationalisms, as well as violence of current wars and occupations are crucial. Their impacts on the organization of gender, women’s possibilities, and the meanings of sexuality are profound and complex. I like to surprise students too by introducing matter-of-factly the long regional histories (and class politics, of course) of activist projects for legal reform, schooling, religious reform, and political enfranchisement—what students might understand as other histories of feminism.</span></div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="" data-block="true" data-editor="b17e1b" data-offset-key="ekuu9-0-0">
<div class="public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="ekuu9-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="ekuu9-0-0" style="font-style: italic;">Second, and a bit more consistent with my anthropological commitments to learning about “other” worlds, I insist that students immerse themselves in the lives and texts of those whose reference points and ideals may be quite foreign to them. From precarious Yemeni plantation workers being cured of possession to Iranian youth being lectured by Ali Shariati on how Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet, should be their guide for revolutionary womanhood, I want them to confront and take seriously the unfamiliar. There are moral and intellectual worlds out there that challenge their everyday assumptions, values, and judgements. This is humbling. And it can be humbling even for students whose family backgrounds link them to the region. They rarely know much about the multiple worlds in which different communities live or the variety of aspirations they have.</span><span data-offset-key="ekuu9-0-1"> </span></div>
</blockquote>
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<div class="public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="e5v0q-0-0">
<span data-offset-key="e5v0q-0-0">To read the full interview, click </span><a class="_1FRfMxEAy__7c8vezYv9qP" href="https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/41129/On-Teaching-Gender-and-Islam-in-the-Middle-East-An-Interview-with-Lila-Abu-Lughod-conducted-by-Jacob-Bessen-41129?utm_source=Arab%2BStudies%2BInstitute%2BMailing%2BList&utm_campaign=efd4bcf230-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_07_11_12_52_COPY_50&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fa9122f438-efd4bcf230-158603413&mc_cid=efd4bcf230&mc_eid=3cc6c810be"><span data-offset-key="e5v0q-1-0">here</span></a></div>
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Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-41340855697051876302020-05-26T16:33:00.001+01:002020-05-26T18:52:26.338+01:00An international Islamic Entrepreneur: Reassessing Rashid Rida (1865-1935)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyPtuDzsES9w0IsYIBQkXMHJUDegiTOWD-OQm9Vn6hTw15YL5Koa8eDEjhTW6Lt8CO1vo0R_T5PaFNsQ_wt6roJ2DYtl2fnl81riXFmtK-_CM_ca9SR7Ds9kQrnJBoWc1EvGCCgzrfniWG/s1600/rashid-rida.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="532" data-original-width="493" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyPtuDzsES9w0IsYIBQkXMHJUDegiTOWD-OQm9Vn6hTw15YL5Koa8eDEjhTW6Lt8CO1vo0R_T5PaFNsQ_wt6roJ2DYtl2fnl81riXFmtK-_CM_ca9SR7Ds9kQrnJBoWc1EvGCCgzrfniWG/s200/rashid-rida.jpg" width="185" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rashid Rida (1865-1935)</td></tr>
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The latest book of historian of Islam <a href="https://as.vanderbilt.edu/history/bio/leor-halevi" target="_blank">Leor Halevi</a> sheds new light on an Muslim intellectual, who is simultaneously considered as belonging to the triumvirate of 19th and 20th-century Islamic reformism (alongside Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad Abduh), and a would-be Wahhabi because of his support for Saudi Arabia in the final years of his life.<br />
<br />
<i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/Modern%20Things%20on%20Trial:%20Islam%E2%80%99s%20Global%20and%20Material%20Reformation%20in%20the%20Age%20of%20Rida,%201865%E2%80%931935" target="_blank">Modern Things on Trial: Islam's Global and Material Reformation in the Age of Rida, 1865-1935</a> </i>offers a critical rereading of that image and presents an alternative interpretation of Rashid Rida (1865-1935). The following excerpts are taken from Muhammad Addakhakhny's review for the <a href="https://www.jadaliyya.com/" target="_blank"><i>Jadaliyya</i> </a>website.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span justify=""><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Rida is no longer a sullen fundamentalist who betrayed his sheikh or a Machiavellian who compromised his religion, as we have been told. As a publisher, editor, self-appointed mufti, entrepreneur, Arabic teacher for nonnative speakers, unofficial diplomat, and political dreamer, he led a life of activity and continuous contemplation. For Halevi, the Syrian cleric should not be subsumed into any one stereotype, or viewed as a one-dimensional man, but rather as a multilayered figure.</i></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;"> </span></span></blockquote>
Halevi's book is an interesting mix of intellectual and material history-writing.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_mtyuwdBpYHGyMtgSxfcC4d0M1gV7l2RKEjH6YiehY7xPe-rralF-ola4BXwjSHlVoj0SK18rd3qSHs019ZEaSeudQCZ3Vllaeh78WNFw-Seg0eNvE_woY3Aj-vY34i4YDsihat6BOqOF/s1600/hale18866_banner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="980" height="117" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_mtyuwdBpYHGyMtgSxfcC4d0M1gV7l2RKEjH6YiehY7xPe-rralF-ola4BXwjSHlVoj0SK18rd3qSHs019ZEaSeudQCZ3Vllaeh78WNFw-Seg0eNvE_woY3Aj-vY34i4YDsihat6BOqOF/s320/hale18866_banner.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span style="-webkit-appearance: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">Modern Things on Trial </span><span justify="">draws fragments of the daily life of early twentieth-century Muslim subjects who lived a breathtaking and unprecedented entrance of “western” goods to their cities. In this work, we are exposed to a materialist reading of Salafism</span></i></span></blockquote>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="text-align: left;">Rashid Rida is presented as an 'international Islamic entrepreneur', advocating a kind of 'laissez-faire salafism'. At the same time, Rida's contributions to Islamic reformism are often presented:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span justify="" text-align:=""><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>as an odd moment in a history of a progressive strain of thinkers or, even, as a failed enlightener. He moved, the story goes, from moderation to extremism. In other words, if one were to exploit Althusserian terms, some kind of epistemological break happened in his project after World War I</i></span></span></blockquote>
His contributions to Islamic reformism have been downplayed on grounds of his associations with Saudi Wahhabism:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span justify="">Yet there may be another explanation of this underestimation, namely, his relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood and its founder, Hasan al-Banna (1906–49). [...] </span><span justify="">Various Brotherhood ideologues have expressed their appreciation of Rida’s work and depicted him and Banna as brothers in arms.</span></i></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span justify="">Be that as it may, Islamists gave an exalted status to Rida and it is this exact status that has made him, to some extent, an ill-fated Muslim reformer.</span><span justify=""> </span></i></span></blockquote>
Click <a href="https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/41169" target="_blank">here</a> to read the whole review.</div>
Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-48586842216147842432020-04-24T11:44:00.002+01:002020-04-27T16:05:09.563+01:00The Corona Fatwas (2): Theological & Juridical Considerations <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As discussed in an earlier post on <a href="http://caroolkersten.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-corona-fatwas-islam-pandemics-and.html" target="_blank">Corona Fatwas</a>, Muslim religious scholars were quick to respond with legal opinions (<i>fatwas</i>), once the global dimensions of the Corona-Virus/Covid-19 pandemic became clear. Central to these pronouncements were the effects of social distancing, lockdown or quarantine measures on the communal aspects of Islamic religious practices. Most acute at the time of the eruption of the pandemic were the consequences for the weekly congregational noon prayers on Friday. But as the crisis continues, the questions also extend to the communal aspects during Ramadan, the annual month of fasting which commenced on 24 April, as well as the pilgrimage to Mecca, which is scheduled this year to take place in late July and early August.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The proclamation of these fatwas evinces the dialectical dynamics between politics and religion in the Muslim world: Governments seek religious sanction for the measures they impose on society in the face of this health crisis, while the (often state-sponsored) religious establishment of Islamic scholars and office holders derive authority and underscore their continuing relevance by making pronouncements on current affairs.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Square of Mecca's Grand Mosque lies deserted amids Corona-Virus pandemic fears</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">By way of update, here are some excerpts from a survey on the <a href="https://en.qantara.de/" target="_blank">Qantara website</a>, which gives an impression of the ongoing debates about the theological and juridical considerations in regards to the constraints on congregational prayers and other communal activities</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Given the swift and far-reaching reactions from Muslim scholars with regard to Friday prayers, it cannot be assumed that leading Saudi scholars would contradict the potential desire of the royal family to cancel this year’s hajj. In fact, in the almost global suspension of Friday prayers and other communal worship, we might see a kind of modern </span><span style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">iǧmāʿ</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">, a broad consensus from the legal scholars.</span></i> </span></blockquote>
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<i><span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit;">The Islamic tradition has a few fitting precedents for taking drastic steps in the interest of infection control, including with regard to practicing the religion, which may go some way towards explaining the broad consensus. According to one story about the Prophet (<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">ḥadīṯ</span>), which is well-evidenced in the sources, Muhammad also called on believers not to travel to a country where the plague was known to have broken out, and not to leave their own country when there was an epidemic of this kind there. This early form of restriction on travel can serve as a present-day starting point for comprehensive preventative health measures.</span></i></blockquote>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Islamic Legal Maxims</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Aside from the Higher Objectives of Islamic Law (<i>maqasid al-shari'a</i>) mentioned in the previous post, also featuring prominently in the religious discussions that are taking place now are the so-called Legal Maxims (<i>qawa'id fiqhiyya</i>).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Islamic law also contains a few central legal maxims on which sweeping restrictions on individual and </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">communal </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">religious practices could be based. The starting point for these maxims is the legal proposition that counts as one of the five basic maxims that span all the legal schools: “Harm should be eliminated” (</span><span style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">aḍ-ḍarar yuzāl</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">)).</span></i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit;"><i>These maxims could serve to justify a potential short-notice cancellation of the upcoming hajj. In the first version, the harm would be the further spread of coronavirus and the resultant rapid increase of people falling ill with Covid-19 both during the pilgrimage and afterwards</i><i>.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="background-color: black;">In opposition to this is the benefit to the individual pilgrims, who are fulfilling their religious duty through the hajj – and in this, according to many religious scholars, there is also a general benefit, since the annual hajj also serves a collective interest in the preservation of the religion.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In terms of the Higher Objectives (<i>maqasid</i>), this part of the debates points at an evaluation of the relative importance of protecting and preserving life and religion respectively.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Aside from theological-juridical considerations, the survey notes that historical precedents too can be used to vindicate the possible drastic measure of cancelling this year's Hajj. As was also pointed out in the <a href="http://caroolkersten.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-corona-fatwas-islam-pandemics-and.html" target="_blank">previous post</a>, a hint in that direction was already given in a <a href="https://www.darah.org.sa/index.php/st-and-rep/darah-events/257-40" target="_blank">statement</a> of the King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives (<b><a href="https://www.my.gov.sa/wps/portal/snp/pages/agencies/agencyDetails/AC100/!ut/p/z0/04_Sj9CPykssy0xPLMnMz0vMAfIjo8zivQIsTAwdDQz9LQwNzQwCnS0tXPwMvYwNDAz0g1Pz9L30o_ArAppiVOTr7JuuH1WQWJKhm5mXlq8f4ehsCJQryHYPBwBS8Svn/" target="_blank">KAFRA</a></b>), identifying no less than forty earlier instances of cancellations of the Hajj throughout history.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">For the full article, click <a href="https://en.qantara.de/content/muslims-and-the-covid-19-pandemic-no-pilgrims-in-times-of-coronavirus" target="_blank">here</a></span></div>
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Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-2145468288193322852020-04-03T13:44:00.001+01:002020-04-25T15:40:39.092+01:0040 years of religious totalitarianism and the closing of the Muslim mind<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Books by Kim Ghattas & Ben Hubbard</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In early 2020, two books written by experienced Middle
East reporters appeared only weeks apart from each other: </span><i>Black Wave </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">of</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> former BBC and </span><i>Financial Times</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> correspondent </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.kimghattas.com/"><span lang="EN-GB">Kim Ghattas</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> and </span><i>MBS, </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">by </span><i>New York Times </i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Beirut bureau chief</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/ben-hubbard"><span lang="EN-GB">Ben Hubbard</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">. While each offers a distinct perspective
on recent developments in the Middle East, their narratives work their way to the
assassination of the Saudi journalist </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamal_Khashoggi">Jamal Khashoggi</a>.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">Both authors interpret this murder as </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">an important game changer in a
political and intellectual climate that has only become more turbulent in the
wake of events that have rattled the Muslim world since the beginning of the
new millennium, but the roots of which can be traced back several decades.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Born in Beirut at the beginning of the civil war, in </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/kim-ghattas/black-wave/9781472271099/"><i><span lang="EN-GB">Black Wave:</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> <i>Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Rivalry that Unravelled the Middle East</i></span></a></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">, Lebanese-Dutch Kim Ghattas traces the origins of the competition between two Middle Eastern super powers: Saudi Arabia, a desert monarchy claiming to safeguard Sunni Islam, and, on the other side of the Persian Gulf, the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is set on spreading its own revolutionary interpretation of Islam and postures as the self-proclaimed protector of the oppressed Shiʽa minorities in the Muslim world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ghattas explicitly identifies a watershed year that has set in motion a dynamics that eventually spiralled out of control of the main political actors, becoming a ‘torrent that flattens everything in its path’ (2). 1979 saw not only the fall of a key Western ally in the Middle East, the Shah of Iran, it also witnessed the occupation of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by religious zealots accusing the ruling Al Saudi dynasty of corruption and hypocrisy, while further east, Afghans mobilized in a religiously inspired resistance movement after Communist infidels invaded the unruly mountain country from Soviet Central Asia. What Ghattas does not mention is that, according to the Islamic calendar, 1979 coincides with the year 1400; the start of the fifteenth century of the Islamic era which formally began with the migration of the Prophet from Mecca to Medina in 622CE. According to one hadith, Muhammad once said that after his demise there would be a <i>mujaddid</i>, a religious 'renewer' </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> for every century of the Islamic era.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">While sections of the population-at-large embraced
this religious revival, others remained sceptical and, as time progressed, many
became concerned and disillusioned as yet another form of totalitarianism began
oppressing the people.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Farag Foda</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nasr Abu Zayd</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Progressively-minded intellectuals were among the key
victims when the ‘Arab Renaissance’ (</span><b style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><i>Nahda</i></b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">), which had begun in
the late nineteenth century, was replaced by an ‘Islamic
Awakening’ (</span><b style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><i>Sahwa</i>)</b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> that plunged the Middle East and the wider
Muslim World into darkness.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Artistic
creativity, cultural vibrancy and political experimentation with secular
ideologies gave way to a closing of the mind and further curtailment of freethinking and criticism. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the title chapter of
her book, Kim Ghattas narrates the exile of the literary scholar </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://caroolkersten.blogspot.com/2010/07/nasr-hamid-abu-zayd-1943-2010.html"><span lang="EN-GB">Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> and the assassination of agronomist-turned-writer </span><b style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Farag Foda.</b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Widening the historical
angle, she notes that, a few decades earlier, literary icons like Taha Husayn
(1889-1973) were also not immune to the wrath of religious zealots.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwaiZKGZIMn4inlUI8r0gkNC-kqTi5cyuzSOz0yba8iecAMO9zmIQeaambELnvQasWDrw9sPxYyyjCsqhpD8ohtEuKsfHOL77m_MSNqdydleAgevRiItbO5Ct1iBJ-3YhSm7nCGaRN46WP/s1600/90418810991693640360no.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwaiZKGZIMn4inlUI8r0gkNC-kqTi5cyuzSOz0yba8iecAMO9zmIQeaambELnvQasWDrw9sPxYyyjCsqhpD8ohtEuKsfHOL77m_MSNqdydleAgevRiItbO5Ct1iBJ-3YhSm7nCGaRN46WP/s320/90418810991693640360no.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ayatollah Khomeini on route to Iran (1979)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Kim Ghattas illustrates the ominous atmosphere that
has taken hold of the Middle East with the cold harshness of Ayatollah
Khomeini, the religious scholar who had become the face of opposition to the
Shah and of the Iranian revolution. Responding to a question what he felt when
returning to Iran after more than fifteen years in exile, the cleric’s curt reply
was: “</span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">hichi</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">” – nothing.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Or the
hypocrisy of Saudi King Fahd. Caring more for the gambling tables of Monte
Carlo than the prayer mat, he began styling himself as the Custodian of the Two
Holy Mosques to underscore the Islamic credentials of the Saudi regime.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">One of <i>Black Wave</i>’s merits is that it does not solely focus on the main characters in this drama. Kim Ghattas also includes a cast of secondary players</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxJXDoORZo_MdpPLfcg0aOA3if2w4ggY_P_M3I5D6MkDx-Qw9kx-U1Hhz3fo6kJ_b9hNGoQSP4QjyFwlhTimN0fAsy9MTcoEaXNORhZ4Y1T74M2UverEvh2XHkK9eTOYGKHiYSDUkS-mfp/s1600/sami+angawi+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="417" data-original-width="420" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxJXDoORZo_MdpPLfcg0aOA3if2w4ggY_P_M3I5D6MkDx-Qw9kx-U1Hhz3fo6kJ_b9hNGoQSP4QjyFwlhTimN0fAsy9MTcoEaXNORhZ4Y1T74M2UverEvh2XHkK9eTOYGKHiYSDUkS-mfp/s200/sami+angawi+%25282%2529.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Saudi architect Sami Angawi</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">For example, the Saudi architect </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://caroolkersten.blogspot.com/2010/12/new-york-times-is-carrying-article-by.html">Sami Anqawi</a>. Holding a PhD in Islamic architecture from SOAS, Angawi heads the<a href="https://archnet.org/authorities/142" target="_blank"> Amar Center for Architectural Heritage</a>.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> His
heartache over the destruction of the old inner city of Mecca symbolizes the deplorable loss of cultural heritage in the wider Muslim world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Kim Ghattas plots the many connections among lesser
political actors, such as those between the Lebanese Shiʽi politician Hussein
al-Husseini, the cleric <span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060518143130/http:/www.imam-moussa.com/"><span lang="EN-GB">Musa al-Sadr</span></a></span>, and
Mostafa Chamran, an Iranian physicist who briefly served as the first post-revolutionary
defence minister only to die two years later on the battlefield during the
bloody Iraq-Iran war (1980-1988). She does not shy away from
conjecture and speculation. What if al-Sadr had not vanished in Libya in 1978?
Would a movement like Hezbollah have had a chance to emerge and replace Amal as
the main political representative of Lebanon’s Shiʽites? Would even the Iranian
revolution have unfolded the way it did?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYmLEP8ZS0mekF7qKBQtRa7lUzhwL-tkgUSIKilHXsv7d0KcsizqrEHH4qyIXqqhJiEtZp2r1G4puIB-3io8giAatXA9ZLqF_9KjI2iHsjKSlh7GFedWYoE-FueMt6kGpTmDKiFTKKUuOG/s1600/Musa_al-Sadr_%2526_Mostafa_Chamran_%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="261" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYmLEP8ZS0mekF7qKBQtRa7lUzhwL-tkgUSIKilHXsv7d0KcsizqrEHH4qyIXqqhJiEtZp2r1G4puIB-3io8giAatXA9ZLqF_9KjI2iHsjKSlh7GFedWYoE-FueMt6kGpTmDKiFTKKUuOG/s320/Musa_al-Sadr_%2526_Mostafa_Chamran_%25282%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Musa al-Sadr (l.) & Mostafa Chamran (r., with glasses)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Or take Maarouf Dawalibi, a former prime minister of
Syria turned lackey of the Al Saud regime. After the military coup of General Zia ul-Haq in 1977, Riyadh sent him to Pakistan to orchestrate the country's new Islamization policies. Among other disastrous outcomes, it caused the unleashing of a South Asian variant of sectarian confrontations, epitomized by the slogan ‘Shia Kafir’, whereby Pakistanis were turned on each
other. Meanwhile the frontier town of Peshawar on the border with Afghanistan
hosted a veritable Who-is-Who of Jihadism. Here not only future al-Qaeda leaders bin
Laden and al-Zawahiri set up shop, appearances were made by Muhammad
Islambouli, brother of Sadat assassin Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli, and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/quietist-jihadi/9C679BEC1787A474A49E78E96476E8CE" target="_blank">Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi</a>, the Jordanian Islamist ideologue whose writings inspired
IS and who himself had a family connection with one of the Mecca siege
ringleaders.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In <span lang="EN-US"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/601932/mbs-by-ben-hubbard/" style="font-style: italic;">MBS: The Rise to Power of Prince Mohammed bin Salman</a><i>, </i>Ben Hubbard too showcases not just a royal drama of Shakespearian proportions. </span></span>Despite the title, this book is not so much a
biography of the current heir apparent, as a sketch of the changes taking place
in Saudi Arabia that nobody had thought possible five years ago. It deals not
only with the battle of the titans for the Saudi throne, but also what is
taking place behind the scenes of the rivalry within the dynasty’s top echelons. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hubbard maps how a presumed upstart princeling outmanoeuvred his own well-established and very powerful uncles and cousins.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Part of an
explanation lies in the fact that the crown prince’s father, King Salman, had
served not only for many decades as governor of the Riyadh province. He was also
the head of the Al Saud family council. In that role he was not simply the
enforcer of internal discipline, keeping all princes in line in order to
protect the integrity of the dynasty from challenges, internal and external,
Salman also knew about the skeletons in everybody’s closet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRDVd0e5J_w7N0l5gWbYxMqVOEtNAwRUK8r23OuKS5b1PPNdcjNnYffW_y7oTTdaUdi2Hi0RcPM1t-43sNl649nDbIGthqhZAIGG9OKvxwojcyG7eg0V2hj8yBczGhMarpL90bGYUqp2QC/s1600/MBS+%2526++Salman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="840" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRDVd0e5J_w7N0l5gWbYxMqVOEtNAwRUK8r23OuKS5b1PPNdcjNnYffW_y7oTTdaUdi2Hi0RcPM1t-43sNl649nDbIGthqhZAIGG9OKvxwojcyG7eg0V2hj8yBczGhMarpL90bGYUqp2QC/s320/MBS+%2526++Salman.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crown Prince Mohammed with his father King Salman</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">As Prince Mohammed became increasingly close to his
father, he put that information to good use when pushing his older and experienced cousin Mohammed
bin Nayef (MBN) out of the way, deposing him as crown prince and taking away his job
as minister of interior in the Summer of 2017. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The coup de grace came in early 2020, when MBS had MBN arrested, together with Salman’s last surviving full brother, Prince Ahmad.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The same is probably true for the wave of arrests on corruption charges that had taken place in
the Fall of 2017, in which dozens of princes, businessmen and former ministers
were rounded up to be kept in the capital's Ritz-Carlton hotel as 'guests of the king'. There they were detained until they had settled with the new anti-corruption Czar: MBS himself (often by signing away their assets and fortunes). While sending shockwaves and instilling fear in the country's elites, the move made the new heir apparent tremendously popular with Saudi Arabia's youthful population, who regard him as one of theirs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The individual meteoric rise of a minor second-generation prince from the '<a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/saudi-arabia-game-of-thrones/" target="_blank">Sudairi Seven</a>' lineage may have caught many more senior princes off
guard and surprised outside observers. However, for quite a while, members of MBS's entourage had been preparing the ground for this power struggle in which the new possibilities of IT technology were exploited to
the fullest: Most prominently, the computer-savvy commoner <span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saud_al-Qahtani"><span lang="EN-GB">Saud al-Qahtani.</span></a></span> Working in the Royal Court since the early 2000s, he eventually became
the Saudi equivalent of Steve Barron in the US or Boris Johnson’s spin doctor
Dominic Cummings. With money not being an issue, al-Qahtani purchased or had
spyware developed with which Saudi Arabia was turned into a virtual
surveillance society, complete with troll armies to harass regime critics and
advocates of change on other terms than those initiated by the new de facto ruler.
Al-Qahtani’s hackers even broke into the phones of tech industry giants such as
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_7WM0dKIUI6QAj6rcI0fgJf9AKAU4s8s0iHTdb6qw-i3VPTBp0zwMjxzeAy6KWAEoHsxYNTnHmViDYmS_gdtE4twHaYYVZXqjngDOZmhOAOHMTlb2cZirTGPF8-_RppAO3S-gGQI_Bu7X/s1600/qahtani+%2526+mbs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="422" data-original-width="750" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_7WM0dKIUI6QAj6rcI0fgJf9AKAU4s8s0iHTdb6qw-i3VPTBp0zwMjxzeAy6KWAEoHsxYNTnHmViDYmS_gdtE4twHaYYVZXqjngDOZmhOAOHMTlb2cZirTGPF8-_RppAO3S-gGQI_Bu7X/s320/qahtani+%2526+mbs.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Saud al-Qahtani & Mohammed bin Salman</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is what was taking place behind the screens of
the public façade that MBS was erecting. Creating an image of himself as not merely an audacious religious reformer who
dared to take on Saudi Arabia’s religious establishment by defanging the hated
‘religious police’ and insisting with a straight face that there was no such
thing as Wahhabism. He also postured as a self-styled visionary and futurist. With a nod
to <span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/a-hologram-for-the-king"><span lang="EN-GB">Dave Eggers</span></a></span>, in the
chapters ‘A Hologram for the Crown Prince Part one and Two’, Hubbard discusses
MBS’s plans for a hi-tech new megacity in the Red Sea region; a
castle in the sky combining a fantasy of grandiose proportions with the most
banal designation: Combining ‘neo, Latin for “new”, with <i>mustaqbal</i>,
meaning “future” in Arabic, [MBS] shrank the name to NEOM’ (169).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ0ye_kLAIqMIubcL_ScHCrCiFsAONHFs4Iy5gHIz_XwlSqqR2E3w33n2aprsPsjRGE_KTcG7o-8-IoL6QJIYySHHHD6O6mNt32PdfylgHl0h0nhiLjo8HjPKpe9FDxxXxbZq3LAaMZ4Xb/s1600/NEOM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="548" data-original-width="1000" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ0ye_kLAIqMIubcL_ScHCrCiFsAONHFs4Iy5gHIz_XwlSqqR2E3w33n2aprsPsjRGE_KTcG7o-8-IoL6QJIYySHHHD6O6mNt32PdfylgHl0h0nhiLjo8HjPKpe9FDxxXxbZq3LAaMZ4Xb/s320/NEOM.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The royal rivalries, megalomaniac development schemes, and ill-conceived foreign adventures in Syria and Yemen are paralleled by simultaneous repressive measures against activists and critics.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">These include women rights campaigner </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://twitter.com/LoujainHathloul">Loujain Al-Hathloul</a> and her husband, stand-up <a href="https://fahadalbutairi.com/" target="_blank">Fahd Albutairi</a>;</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> religious dissident such as </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://twitter.com/salman_alodah"><span lang="EN-GB">Salman al-Awda</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (Ouda) and </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEnBBh-hYRc"><span lang="EN-GB">Ahmed al-Ghamdi</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">, who surprised his former colleagues in the General Presidency for the Propagation of Virtue & Prevention of Vice by appearing on TV with his wife; and Saudi bloggers </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://twitter.com/oamaz7"><span lang="EN-GB">Omar Abdulaziz</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> and </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://www.raifbadawi.org/">Raif Badawi</a></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn6JrBP2RvW9SdGL8kpYpkCsbXjadNNVNF8wI6TdIt4cw5m_DMZ_3xT3p7itO8PJJ_IxP5MSdz_xVHa19V3YNCPEJqc7ksZ78xxmBGSBVcZ6nHfAJNXDOPdD_vFkmu2Hal1vAdZ46VMwX-/s1600/Hatloul+albutairi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1082" data-original-width="1440" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn6JrBP2RvW9SdGL8kpYpkCsbXjadNNVNF8wI6TdIt4cw5m_DMZ_3xT3p7itO8PJJ_IxP5MSdz_xVHa19V3YNCPEJqc7ksZ78xxmBGSBVcZ6nHfAJNXDOPdD_vFkmu2Hal1vAdZ46VMwX-/s200/Hatloul+albutairi.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Loujain al-Hathloul & Fahd Albutairi</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4rOZ9nAp8lEqPDYslmGxPWSAflKcBcJdF3nWWcBzfmmVTS7WAM9y2o9FcKe8nG7xQdxHk5mes2E15UxnsdgzY9n9Pjc8afuPLpK-nGBlYJ9DaPiBgzUuI3KXxfTeU4XYWJ8K50i5TinBs/s1600/al-ghamdi+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="840" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4rOZ9nAp8lEqPDYslmGxPWSAflKcBcJdF3nWWcBzfmmVTS7WAM9y2o9FcKe8nG7xQdxHk5mes2E15UxnsdgzY9n9Pjc8afuPLpK-nGBlYJ9DaPiBgzUuI3KXxfTeU4XYWJ8K50i5TinBs/s200/al-ghamdi+%25282%2529.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ahmed al-Ghamdi & his wife</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">At least as central to the book as the figure of MBS is Jamal Khashoggi, who also makes frequent appearances in <i>Black
Wave</i>. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Singling out the Khashoggi case comes as no surprise, because he was personally known to both writers.</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">If the crown prince features as the protagonist, then the Medina-born journalist is cast in the role of the antagonist. It sets the stage for a drama pitching a grandson of the kingdom's founder against a grandson of the latter's personal physician; a scion of a dynasty hailing from the deep interior of the Arabian Peninsula versus an intellectual of Ottoman descent from the cosmopolitan Hijaz.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Both Ghattas and Hubbard note Khashoggi’s flirtation with the Muslim
Brotherhood and early admiration for Osama bin Laden when reporting from
Afghanistan in the 1980s. They ponder the ambiguities surrounding his repeated
firing from editorial positions with the Saudi media and his simultaneous
closeness to royals such as Prince Turki al-Faisal. Khashoggi not only followed
this former head of the Saudi intelligence service on his assignment as
ambassador to Washington, his newspaper columns often were a mix of loyalty to
and mild criticism of the monarchy’s politics.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9p-C8NC89hEkDH3sJor24kg5BFnCtLhDb_iVemadv_nd5hXfLMxky8-V6SwzYcVGSv4iAyy-EfT3X2cB4dKRzFpH1jhuoSp65MFPE22IMuQ6O9a5lSzdFQ1fHur-oxRHwAhvUgVPDhpIa/s1600/Jamal-Khashoggi-Rocket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="800" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9p-C8NC89hEkDH3sJor24kg5BFnCtLhDb_iVemadv_nd5hXfLMxky8-V6SwzYcVGSv4iAyy-EfT3X2cB4dKRzFpH1jhuoSp65MFPE22IMuQ6O9a5lSzdFQ1fHur-oxRHwAhvUgVPDhpIa/s320/Jamal-Khashoggi-Rocket.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jamal Khashoggi reporting from Afghanistan in the 1980s</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Things changed dramatically for Khashoggi as he became
increasingly uneasy about the Monster of Frankenstein into which the
manipulation of religion for political purposes had morphed. While during the
1980s, it seemed to serve a purpose in Afghanistan and in the Iraq-Iran war, political Islam eventually spiralled out of control, escaping from the puppet masters' hands. It turned the post-9/11 Muslim world into a depressing scene of political instability,
religious polarization, social disintegration and outright civil war.</span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1xNesj6fgki7CmJze50pBx9Aft0Xf1FGTkop5aig8gqcTCzSklJGTCTQo29gR2d0sQp5VMfgscFuYV3Hop-YdzopadCHvUsrMLaVpjPgaDXEbTJT8H9aqmj-YT6oCNMFpmEN_YjsloBP0/s1600/khashoggi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="414" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1xNesj6fgki7CmJze50pBx9Aft0Xf1FGTkop5aig8gqcTCzSklJGTCTQo29gR2d0sQp5VMfgscFuYV3Hop-YdzopadCHvUsrMLaVpjPgaDXEbTJT8H9aqmj-YT6oCNMFpmEN_YjsloBP0/s200/khashoggi.jpg" width="188" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jamal Khashoggi</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Unable to
hold his tongue, but finding the usual outlets in Saudi Arabia closed to him, in late 2017, Khashoggi went into voluntary exile in the USA, where he continued
to write <span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://jamalkhashoggi.com/"><span lang="EN-GB">commentaries</span></a></span> for the <i>Washington Post</i> on
developments in the Arab World. He was dead within the year.</span></div>
</div>
Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-73582902206584681662020-03-25T12:46:00.000+00:002020-04-25T15:30:42.859+01:00The Corona Fatwas (1): Islam, pandemics and religious scholarship<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
As several Muslim
countries are severely hit by the Corona virus/Covid19 outbreak, the faithful not
only look to health authorities and medical specialists for official guidance
and scientific information, they also have questions for Islamic religious
scholars regarding the impact on the acts of worship (<i>ibadat</i>), first and
foremost that of congregational prayer.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHyZhJYNoqU75BMcWWmpbjmoxy2_DCIDVI_sLWKyI-Cft6fewQkL8d_-Dp80VgZlKXwjjOOYnMr0oe8nvEWsdq_ePOYgWuXR9dhkgxoWsaVR_WZq78B-jb0pPVM6EvdMT4sCKbzhjc0ry-/s1600/Allam+corona+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="203" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHyZhJYNoqU75BMcWWmpbjmoxy2_DCIDVI_sLWKyI-Cft6fewQkL8d_-Dp80VgZlKXwjjOOYnMr0oe8nvEWsdq_ePOYgWuXR9dhkgxoWsaVR_WZq78B-jb0pPVM6EvdMT4sCKbzhjc0ry-/s200/Allam+corona+%25282%2529.jpg" width="171" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Egypt's Grand Mufti</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">One of the earliest
responses came from<b> Egypt</b>’s <b><i><a href="https://www.dar-alifta.org/foreign/default.aspx">Dar al-Ifta’<span style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">,</span></a></i></b> the Office of
the country’s Grand Mufti. On 26 February 2020, <b><a href="http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/64550/Egypt/Politics-/Egypts-new-Grand-Mufti-elected-for-first-time-ever.aspx">Shawqi
Ibrahim Allam</a></b>, issued a <i><a href="https://www.dar-alifta.org/ar/ViewResearch.aspx?sec=fatwa&ID=15287">fatwa</a></i>
or legal opinion on the relaxation of obligatory prayers, in which the matter
was still very much approached as a Chinese affairs with little anticipated influence
elsewhere. </span><br />
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span>
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span>
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Nevertheless, the fatwa offers a lengthy consideration consisting of
a wide variety of citations from Islamic legal sources written by historically
important religious scholars on the effects of pandemics on religious practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Allam invokes a hadith
narrated by the Prophet’s wife Aisha on Medina as a safe refuge and quotes from
writings on the plague by Andalusian jurist Abu al-Walid al-Baji (1013-1081CE).
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Next he stresses the agreement of
scholars on the conditions for easing the rules concerning prayer in times of
cataclysmic events, quoting a range of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>scholars from the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maliki and Shafi’i
schools of law, including the hadith scholar Imam al-Nawawi (1233-1277); but
also mentioning Hanbali scholars, such as Ibn Qudama (1147-1223CE) and Ibn
Taymiyya (1263-1328CE). The latter specifically references the positions and
actions of ‘Rightly-Guided Caliphs’ (<i>al-khulafa’ al-rashidun</i>) and ‘Pious
Ancestors’ (<i>al-salaf al-salih</i>). He also draws on the sixteenth-century
Afghan commentator al-Mala Ali al-Qari (d. 1605) and the contemporary Indian
scholar Abd al-Salam Mubarakpuri (1909-1994).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Further clarifications
followed on 17 March 2020. In two additional fatwas with even lengthier preambles,
in which the Grand Mufti also mentions the importance of taking into consideration
the advice issued by the WHO and decrees promulgated by the government to
safeguard the welfare of the population, Shawqi Allam stresses that<a href="https://www.dar-alifta.org/ar/ViewResearch.aspx?sec=fatwa&ID=15301">
prayers</a> remain obligatory even when <a href="https://www.dar-alifta.org/ar/ViewResearch.aspx?sec=fatwa&ID=15300">communal
gatherings</a> are prohibited for health reasons.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Meanwhile confusion
abound in the Muslim country that appears to be hardest hit so far by the
pandemic outbreak: <b>Iran.</b> On 17 March 2020, there were media reports claiming
that Supreme Leader Ayatollah <b>Ali Khamene’i </b>had issued a <b><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/coronavirus-pandemic-kill-millions-iran-200317135500255.html">fatwa</a></b>
prohibiting unnecessary travel, meant to curb the practice of visiting shrines
of the Shi</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">ʽ</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">i imams and other sanctuaries,
which is a widespread practice among Iranians. Others <a href="https://apnews.com/6e92d93551ee6c6ae51d0acaaad9eb32">denied</a> that the
Ayatollah had done so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaA1SWMDFik45Yllz-XsZ0z6L3Oor9bRmuG54EdFcbxRUnGuog0hyphenhyphenk_2GqbffhFxxQKszEUPmQ5bxyV8HtJ_1TNXCMcR9ddxussLF0hEL6l4cREQB-uycYB_FzxctIHEWLzWDMq8MDMAIV/s1600/iran+corona.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaA1SWMDFik45Yllz-XsZ0z6L3Oor9bRmuG54EdFcbxRUnGuog0hyphenhyphenk_2GqbffhFxxQKszEUPmQ5bxyV8HtJ_1TNXCMcR9ddxussLF0hEL6l4cREQB-uycYB_FzxctIHEWLzWDMq8MDMAIV/s400/iran+corona.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In his <b><a href="http://english.khamenei.ir/news/7451/The-surge-in-production-is-a-means-of-power-for-the-country">address</a>
</b>to the nation on occasion of Persian New Year (<i>Nowruz</i>) and the Day
of the Prophet’s Mission (<i>Eid al-Mab</i></span><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">ʽa</span></i><i><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">th</span></i><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">), a week later, Khamene’i only touched tangentially on the Corona Virus
outbreak:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="background: mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Of course, these days, we are faced with the
spread of a rampant disease and pandemic. This virus is inflicting casualties
and advancing in almost all countries in the world. Now, some countries
announce what is happening in their countries and some do not. One understands
from what they say that some of their statements are not very compatible with
the reality. The virus is progressing. This disease is the manifestation of
this ayah, “Be sure we shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some
loss in goods or lives or the fruits of your toil.” It both causes panic – some
people are really afraid – and creates economic problems. Besides, it inflicts
loss, and it causes casualties and other damages. However, after that God says,
“But give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere.” [The Holy Quran, 2:
155]. Patience is necessary here as well. Here, patience means doing the right
thing and acting in a reasonable manner</span></i><span 13.0pt="" font-family:="" font-size:="" lang="EN-US" quot="" rial="" sans-serif="">.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p>Because of the dire situation in Iran, the Supreme Leader did not deliver the speech publicly at the shrine of Imam Reza in the eastern Iranian city of Mashhad.</o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In the most populous
Muslim country in the world, the<b> Indonesian Council of Religious Scholars </b>(<i>Majelis
Ulama Indonesia</i> or<b> MUI </b>for short) had also issued a fatwa (<b><a href="https://mui.or.id/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Fatwa-tentang-Penyelanggaran-Ibadah-Dalam-siatuasi-Wabah-COVID-19.pdf">Fatwa
Nomor 14</a></b>) offering a detailed nine-point opinion calling on Muslims to
be cautious, avoiding taking part in congregational prayers in hazardous areas
where the chance of transmitting the Corona virus was great. In a <b><a href="https://www.pikiran-rakyat.com/nasional/pr-01353399/inilah-9-poin-fatwa-mui-142020-dalam-upaya-pencegahan-covid-19">press
conference</a></b>, Dr Asrorun Niam Sholeh, secretary of MUI’s Fatwa Committee,
explained that this legal opinion calling on Indonesian Muslims to act responsible and
not endanger fellow citizens was underpinned by the importance of safeguarding
the so-called <i>al-dharuriyat al-khams</i> (‘Five Necessities’; protection of
life, religion, intellect, offspring and wealth) defined in the Higher
Objectives of Shari</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">ʽ</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">a’ (<i>maqasid
al-shari</i></span><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">ʽ</span></i><i><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">a</span></i><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">, the Islamic equivalent of a philosophy of
law). </span><br />
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
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<br />
Underscoring the significance of the proclamation was the<b><a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/03/17/indonesian-ulema-council-urges-govt-to-map-covid-19-prone-areas-to-support-fatwa-on-mass-prayers.html">
presentation</a></b> of the fatwa to the chairman of the Indonesian Mosque
Council, former Vice-President Yusuf Kalla, who earned a reputation of
efficient and effective leadership during the 2003 Tsunami disaster.<br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So far, the <b>European
Council for Fatwa and Research</b> (<a href="https://www.e-cfr.org/european-council-fatwa-research/" target="_blank">ECFR</a>) has not come with a formal
fatwa, issuing instead a statement (<b><i><a href="https://www.e-cfr.org/%d8%a8%d9%8a%d8%a7%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d8%ac%d9%84%d8%b3-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a3%d9%88%d8%b1%d9%88%d8%a8%d9%8a-%d9%84%d9%84%d8%a5%d9%81%d8%aa%d8%a7%d8%a1-%d9%88%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a8%d8%ad%d9%88%d8%ab-2/">bayan)</a></i></b>.
Released on 2 March, it opines that hazardous situations endangering public health
are a valid reason for not taking part in congregational and communal prayers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_4iuIwfLynJp7D_8EVtzCr0fh1QOW67DxM9TDm-9f4Rm3PHdfAozbAHK6yk3j2c8WNZivjrKvclG-a9IfPF3OKlEK2dB0bQMHzSxx8QrHJ-KO2nwMxAt5HCpXr2kb6gsR8lGHYPNaW122/s1600/mecca+corona.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="675" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_4iuIwfLynJp7D_8EVtzCr0fh1QOW67DxM9TDm-9f4Rm3PHdfAozbAHK6yk3j2c8WNZivjrKvclG-a9IfPF3OKlEK2dB0bQMHzSxx8QrHJ-KO2nwMxAt5HCpXr2kb6gsR8lGHYPNaW122/s320/mecca+corona.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Muslims are also
eyeing <b>Saudi Arabia</b>, where the Corona Virus crisis impacts not only on domestic
religious practice, but where its effects also reverberate globally. Home to <i>Al-Haramayn
al-Sharifayn</i>, the Two Holly Mosques of Mecca and Medina, where Muslims from
all over the world congregate in large numbers year around, the <b>Council of
Senior Religious Scholars</b> had to perform a balancing act. On 17 March 2020, it
ruled that communal prayers at all mosques in the country would be <a href="https://www.spa.gov.sa/viewstory.php?lang=en&newsid=2048697">halted</a>,
except for the Grand Mosque of Mecca and the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina. </span><br />
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-2NsRW0jJQmNsw82ljP44yyUZ142pZtgsKIuLR3TrZbxpWIdLwNwX2FTuhQ_zt9xvq487u14ZlHPOQf2zMgjjaO_09Ak4I397t-BG6Hl502Ni0ChuhhI1vSflizGqtYAw1ZeUnT2FCqu1/s1600/al-Muni.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="150" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-2NsRW0jJQmNsw82ljP44yyUZ142pZtgsKIuLR3TrZbxpWIdLwNwX2FTuhQ_zt9xvq487u14ZlHPOQf2zMgjjaO_09Ak4I397t-BG6Hl502Ni0ChuhhI1vSflizGqtYAw1ZeUnT2FCqu1/s200/al-Muni.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abdullah al-Muni'</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span>
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">However
pictures of a deserted square around the Kaaba for the sake of a massive
sanitation exercise did go around the world. Then, on</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> 23 March 2020,
Shaykh Abdullah al-Muni</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">ʽ</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">, a
member of the Council of Senior Ulama, issued a fatwa calling for the <b><a href="https://alkhaleejonline.net/%D9%85%D8%AC%D8%AA%D9%85%D8%B9/%D8%A8%D8%B3%D8%A8%D8%A8-%D9%83%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%88%D9%86%D8%A7-%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%88%D9%89-%D8%AC%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%AF%D8%A9-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D8%B9%D9%88%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D8%AA%D9%84-%D8%AA%D8%B9%D8%B2%D9%8A%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%8B">death
penalty</a></b> for anyone infected with the Corona Virus who spread the
disease in Saudi Arabia.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span>
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span>
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Aside from the hazards
surrounding communal and congregational prayers, Saudi Arabia has another
concern in connection to the Corona Virus: The impact it may have on the annual
pilgrimage to Mecca (<i>Hajj</i>), which is due to take place between 28 July and 2
August. Perhaps in preparation for the possibility of the stringent and monumental
decision to <b><a href="https://english.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2020/3/9/could-the-hajj-be-cancelled-because-of-the-coronavirus">cancel
this year’s pilgrimage</a></b>, the King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and
Archives (<b><a href="https://www.my.gov.sa/wps/portal/snp/pages/agencies/agencyDetails/AC100/!ut/p/z0/04_Sj9CPykssy0xPLMnMz0vMAfIjo8zivQIsTAwdDQz9LQwNzQwCnS0tXPwMvYwNDAz0g1Pz9L30o_ArAppiVOTr7JuuH1WQWJKhm5mXlq8f4ehsCJQryHYPBwBS8Svn/">KAFRA</a></b>)
released a <a href="https://www.darah.org.sa/index.php/st-and-rep/darah-events/257-40">statement</a>,
relating that throughout history there are forty recorded instances of a
cancellation of the annual pilgrimage due to pandemics, political turmoil, and
natural disasters.</span><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-EG" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-EG; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
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Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-45698852868436634192019-12-22T09:12:00.003+00:002019-12-22T09:50:04.372+00:00Syrian Muslim intellectual and critic Muhammad Shahrur (Shahrour) (1938-2019)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The Syrian intellectual <a href="https://caroolkersten.blogspot.com/2013/05/muhammad-shahrur-from-engineer-to.html" target="_blank">Muhammad Shahrur</a> (Shahrour) has passed away<span id="goog_874381313"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_874381314"></span> at the age of eighty in <a href="https://www.thenational.ae/uae/renowned-islamic-scholar-muhammad-shahrour-dies-1.954672" target="_blank">Abu Dhabi</a>. Although he made name as a thinker and writer about Islam, and the interpretation of the Qur'an in particular, Shahrur was neither a traditionally trained <i>'alim</i>, nor a conventional scholar of religion. Educated as a civil engineer in the Soviet Union and Ireland, he made a living as a foundations expert in the construction industry and only published his first book on Islam in 1990.<br />
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His<a href="https://shahrour.org/?page_id=108" target="_blank"> <i><b>The Book and the Qur'an: A Contemporary Reading</b></i></a> was both admired and derided. Not shying away from courting controversy, Shahrur's writings are characterized by a tone that is both anti-clerical and anti-traditional. While reaching hundreds of thousands throughout the Muslim world, the book was criticized and dismissed by both the Islamic religious establishment and other Muslim academic scholars of Islam, including figures such as <a href="https://caroolkersten.blogspot.com/2010/07/nasr-hamid-abu-zayd-1943-2010.html" target="_blank">Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd</a>, who considered Shahrur's approach methodologically naive.<br />
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Shahrur's interpretation of scripture was part of a broader epistemological concern with reconciling revelation with advances made in the modern sciences. His idiosyncratic approach shows even greater confidence in the modernity project than the nineteenth-century reformer <a href="https://icsru.au.dk/projekter/individual/sedgwick/books/muhammadabduh/" target="_blank">Muhammad Abduh </a>(1849-1905) or the Pakistani-American <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fazlur_Rahman_Malik" target="_blank">Fazlur Rahman</a> (1919-1988). While his vocabulary is reminiscent of that of the controversial exegesis by fellow engineer <a href="https://www.alfikra.org/index_e.php" target="_blank">Mahmud Muhammad Taha</a> (1909-1985), Shahrur's 'scientific hermeneutics' drew on the neo-Kantian idealism and logical positivism of Western mathematician-philosophers, such as Alfred Whitehead and Bertrand Russell.<br />
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To learn more about Shahrur/Shahrour's work, click on the book cover images below for one of the few translations of his writings in English, Andreas Christmann's edited volume, or the section of the chapter on Scripture in my<i> Contemporary Thought in the Muslim World </i>(pp. 69-72).<br />
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<a href="http://www.gerlach-books.de/attachment/INFO_GerlachPress_Shahrour_Islam_and_Humanity_Oct2017.pdf" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41obwl0PM5L._SX309_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" style="text-align: left;" width="124" /></a><a href="https://brill.com/view/title/14878" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii38tldtRf1nPP2CEe9rEgH_c3VFu_6bbJdZH-V04ucklks90c2R0xG64Dy-vWFzUmYEOdznyMx09ABZ57sbmGTvlLf81vo_nLc9qzGQ4_g4q9SkZo8MhjURkdyK3ioDTFHEfvbPenuzpN/s200/shahrur+book.JPG" width="132" /></a><a href="https://www.routledge.com/Contemporary-Thought-in-the-Muslim-World-Trends-Themes-and-Issues/Kersten/p/book/9780415855082" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="https://www.routledge.com/Contemporary-Thought-in-the-Muslim-World-Trends-Themes-and-Issues/Kersten/p/book/9780415855082" height="200" src="https://images.tandf.co.uk/common/jackets/agentjpg/978041585/9780415855082.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>
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Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-28574203541640984452019-11-29T17:40:00.002+00:002019-11-30T00:04:20.167+00:00Amin Maalouf: From writing historical fiction to political commentary<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Amin Maalouf (*1949)</td></tr>
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Since the 1980s, Lebanese-born but France-based author Amin Maalouf has built up an impressive reputation as a writer of captivating historical novels and fictionalized biographies set in the Middle East. Books like <i><b><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/12/books/on-a-camel-moving-forward-in-time.html">Leo the African</a> </b></i>(1986), <i> <b><a href="https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/voices/book-review-poetry-lovers-tricked-by-a-drowned-manuscript-samarkand-amin-maalouf-tr-russell-harris-1552997.html%3famp" target="_blank">Samarkand</a></b></i><br />
(1988), and <i><a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/amin-maalouf/the-gardens-of-light/"><b>The Garden of Light</b></a> </i>(1991) put Maalouf on the map as a literary writer highlighting evocative episodes from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, featuring an Andalusian Muslim who converted to Christianity only to revert to Islam again; a lost manuscript of Omar Khayyam; and the story of the founder of Manicheism respectively.<br />
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However, <i><b><a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/amin-maalouf/the-rock-of-tanios/">The Rock of Tanios</a> </b></i>(1993),<i> </i>for which Maalouf was awarded the prestigious <a href="https://www.academiegoncourt.com/tous-les-laureats-prix-goncourt">Prix Goncourt</a>, had a more overt political purport. Set in his native Lebanon, it narrates the rivalries between competing religious sects in the nineteenth-century, obviously pointing at the Lebanese Civil War that had erupted in 1975, and that saw clan leaders with the same names at each other's throats again. It ravaged what was once considered the 'Switzerland of the Middle East', resulting also in Amin Maalouf seeking voluntary exile in France.<br />
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Aside from historical fiction, Maalouf has also written a history of<a href="https://saqibooks.com/books/saqi/the-crusades-through-arab-eyes/"> the crusades through Arab eyes </a>(1983), and a lengthy essay on <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/amin-maalouf/in-the-name-of-identity/">identity and violence</a> (1993), and a <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/amin-maalouf/origins-4/">family history</a> of relatives who settled in the Caribbean (2008). His intellectual stature was further affirmed by his election to the <i><b><a href="http://www.academie-francaise.fr/les-immortels/amin-maalouf">Académie Fran<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">ç</span>aise </a></b></i>in 2011 (Chair 29 to be precise, which was once held by Ernest Renan, the Orientalist and philosopher with notoriously negative views of Arabs and Muslims).<br />
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In his most recent book <i>The Sinking of Civilizations </i>(<i><a href="https://www.grasset.fr/livres/le-naufrage-des-civilisations-prix-aujourdhui-2019-9782246852179"><b>Le Naufrage des Civilisations</b></a></i>), he engages with the shift from cultural traditions to economic interests as the determining factor in the formation of mentalities which seem to colour not only regional politics in the Middle East, but global affairs. While the rise of populism is often explained as a nostalgia for cultural purity in response to a sense of crisis in new identity formations in an increasingly interconnected world.<br />
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Speaking to the Qantara Website about his new books, Maalouf observes:<br />
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<i style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">In the Arab world, petrodollars gave certain traditional societies influence and took it away from others. Saudi Arabia has gained more influence than any other, while Egypt, which did not have any oil,</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> but played an important intellectual and political role, saw its significance dwindle. The instability that the petrodollars brought to many countries in the region – such as Iraq – had an impact on the rest of the world. What's more, the oil crisis of the 1970s was a decisive factor in the development of a new mentality in the West, which found expression in another economic policy, Thatcherism. [...] </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Pan-Arabism, which was seen as the most promising ideology during the presidency of Nasser in Egypt and raised expectations and motivated people, was utterly swept away by this defeat. Nasser died shortly after the war; there was nobody to fill his shoes. Instead, the door was opened for a form of nationalism that had a strong religious component. However, the radical Islamism that spread out from the oil-producing states caused tension and divisions within Arab societies. This was clearly illustrated by the Arab Spring. </span></span></i></blockquote>
Read the whole interview<b> <a href="https://en.qantara.de/content/interview-with-lebanese-writer-amin-maalouf-petrodollars-proved-stronger-in-the-middle-east">here</a></b><br />
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Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-91706638055865104222018-11-29T12:04:00.001+00:002018-11-29T12:04:56.675+00:00Critical Muslims in the context of critiques of 'Religion' as an analytical category<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Here is a cross-link to my guest contribution to the blog maintained by the <b><a href="https://criticalreligion.org/">Critical Religion Association</a></b> at the University of Stirling:<br />
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<a href="https://criticalreligion.org/2018/11/28/critical-muslims/">Critical Muslims by Carool Kersten</a><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">seeks to understand what we are thinking about when we think about religion: for example, why has much of western culture identified one particular kind of ritual as ‘religious’ whilst other kinds of ritual are seen as ‘secular’ (such as military parades). Not all cultures make these divisions, but the dominance of western cultural norms around the world from the colonial era onwards has impacted in profound ways on how people globally think about these issues. </span><i style="color: white; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Critical Religion</i><i style="color: white; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </i><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">examines religion from a positive critical standpoint, with a view to showing how open to re-interpretation or re-conceptualisation the term ‘religion’ is today in our intellectual, social, and cultural spheres. We try to do this in ways that seek out and identify the limits of the language we employ so that we can move beyond these limiting terms and concepts.</span><br />
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<span style="color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Seek </span></div>
Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-21969968405315038532018-10-05T13:45:00.000+01:002018-10-05T13:45:50.334+01:00Critical Muslims - showcasing new and creative ideas and thinkers from the Muslim world<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dariush Shayegan & Abdolkarim Soroush</td></tr>
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After a long period of neglect, the Critical Muslims blog is given a new lease of life with posts on two Iranian thinkers: The late <a href="http://caroolkersten.blogspot.com/2018/10/dariush-shayegan-1935-2018-real.html">Dariush Shayegan</a>, who passed away this Spring, and <a href="http://caroolkersten.blogspot.com/2018/10/abdolkarim-soroush-on-rumi-sufism-and.html">Abdolkarim Soroush</a>, currently one of the most renowned philosophers from Iran.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click on the image to check this book</td></tr>
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Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-65486414456731384622018-10-05T12:54:00.000+01:002018-10-05T14:30:31.424+01:00Abdolkarim Soroush on Rumi, Sufism and Pluralism in the Muslim World<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In a recent<b> <a href="https://en.qantara.de/content/interview-with-islamic-scholar-and-philosopher-abdolkarim-soroush-the-sufis-were-prophets-of">interview</a></b>, Abdolkarim Soroush (*1946), Iran's best known living philosopher, explained the continuing relevance of the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Jalal ad-Din Rumi (1207-1273). Aside from the power of the poetry itself , Rumi's writings also offers a window on religious knowledge that is different from discursive Islamic theology:<br />
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<i><span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Sufism or mysticism or </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">irfan, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">as I like to call it, is a way of life that combines this world and the other world.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> Irfan </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">actually comes from the word </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">marifa, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">which means, "to know, knowledge". </span></span></i></blockquote>
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<i><span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Is </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">irfan</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> part of theology? It all depends on the meaning of theology. If you translate theology into </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">ilm al-kalam</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">, it is not part of theology because, in that case, theology means demonstrative science – looking for the footsteps. You work with proof (</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">burhan</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">) and with evidence (</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">dalil</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">). But an </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">arif</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> doesn't look at </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">dalil</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">, he is looking for the thing itself and not the signs of it. Therefore Sufism cannot be part of </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">ʿilm al-kalam</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> in the traditional sense of Islamic theology. In traditional Islamic thought, theology and Sufism are two utterly different approaches.</span></span></i></blockquote>
In contrast to the prophets associated with the foundation of new religious traditions, Sufis play a different role in the dissemination of religious experience and knowledge, offering interpretations that are more in tune with the demands and challenges of today's increasingly interconnected world.<br />
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For earlier posts on the thought of Abdolkarim Soroush on this blog, click <b><a href="https://caroolkersten.blogspot.com/2012/03/critical-rationalism-and-religious-and.html">here</a> </b>and <a href="https://caroolkersten.blogspot.com/2013/12/critical-muslim-perspectives-on-quran-2.html"><b>here</b></a><br />
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Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-55861312151991109002018-10-05T11:59:00.002+01:002018-10-05T12:54:27.125+01:00Dariush Shayegan (1935-2018): The real initiator of the Dialogue of Civilizations<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In 2000, the then president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mohammad Khatami, surprised friend and foe by launching the Dialogue of Civilizations initiative, when addressing the UN's General Assembly. Clearly intended as a counter narrative to the 'Clash of Civilizations' Thesis which had by then begun to dominate the discourse on post-Cold War world order, its roots can actually be traced to another Iranian, who passed away on 22 March 2018.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dariush Shayegan</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The philosopher Dariush Shayegan, of mixed Persian and Georgian parentage and educated at a British boarding school, before switching to a Francophone university education in philosophy, Sanskrit and Asian religions, brought with him the cosmopolitan disposition and intellectual outlook to explore the avenue of intercivilizational dialogue in late 1970s-Iran. When this trajectory was cut short by the revolution of 1979 and subsequent establishment of the Islamic republic, Shayegan returned to Paris to continue researching and teaching philosophy and Asian religions in self-imposed exile, until again moving back to Iran in 1991. As observed by Stefan Weidner in his obituary of Shayegan:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">His thinking was worlds apart from the fashionable, post-colonial theory that rejects the cultural and religious depths of colonised societies. [...] </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Paradoxically, it was in the West itself – where the question as to the role of tradition and spirituality in the face of materialism and secularism had been posed at a much earlier stage – that Shayegan found the best answers. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Click </span><b style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><a href="https://en.qantara.de/content/obituary-iranian-philosopher-dariush-shayegan-the-science-of-balance">here</a></b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> to read the full obituary</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">.</span></span></span></div>
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Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-64344399783640556832017-11-26T10:38:00.002+00:002017-11-26T11:11:39.004+00:00The Middle East is not the place to learn about Islam today: Jasser Auda<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The Canadian-Egyptian scholar <b><a href="http://www.jasserauda.net/portal/biography/?lang=en">Jasser Auda</a></b> must have turned quite a few heads with his statement that Muslims from across the world should not look to the Middle East for knowledge about Islam and certainly not send students there for a religious education:<br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: #222222;"><a href="https://www.themalaysianinsight.com/s/23423/"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>We need to stop the trend of sending people to the Arab world, which is at a really low historical point these days, to learn about Islam</i></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"> </span></b></a></span></blockquote>
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He made these remarks at a roundtable discussion entitled "Reclaiming the Centre: The Role of Religion in a Multi-Racial Society", organised by the Centre for Nation-Building Studies at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ideselangor/"><i>Institut</i> <i>Darul Ehsan</i></a> in Malaysia.</div>
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Auda is one of the leading proponents of so-called "<i>Maqasidi</i> thinking", a strand of contemporary Muslim thought advocating a reinterpretation of Islamic law by returning to its most fundamental philosophical underpinnings encapsulated in a subfield of traditional Islamic legal learning known as the <i><b>Maqasid al-Shari'a</b></i>, generally translated as 'Higher Objectives of Islamic Law'.</div>
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With a dual academic background in computer sciences and religious studies, complemented with many years of participating in study circles dispensing traditional Islam learning at Al-Azhar in Cairo, Auda first made a name for himself with a book entitled <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Maqasid-Al-Shariah-Philosophy-Islamic-Law/dp/1565644247/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493214724&sr=8-1&keywords=jasser+auda"><i>Maqasid al-Shariah as Philosophy of Law: A Systems Approach</i></a>. For a while he was associated with the Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics (<a href="https://www.cilecenter.org/en/">CILE</a>) in Doha, Qatar. He now heads the <i><b><a href="http://www.jasserauda.net/portal/maqasid-institute/?lang=en">Maqasid Institute Global</a></b></i>, a think tank registered in the UK, USA, Malaysia and Indonesia. </div>
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While touring the world to give lectures and talks, or take part in panels, roundtable discussions and other forums, Auda's ideas find particularly receptive audiences in Southeast Asia: Aside from appearing in Arabic and English, his writings have also been translated in <a href="http://pts.com.my/buku/memahami-maqasid-syariah/">Malay</a> and <a href="https://www.belbuk.com/membumikan-hukum-islam-melaui-maqasid-syariah-p-45876.html">Bahasa Indonesia</a>. It seems that it is because of his recognition of the importance of embedding Islamic doctrine in the respective cultural settings of different parts of the Muslim world that his thinking has traction in that particular region.</div>
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Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com63tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-51642110518783902272017-11-10T18:18:00.002+00:002017-11-10T18:20:40.573+00:00Cultural distinctiveness is no excuse for rejecting universal human rights standards<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Morris Ayek</td></tr>
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In a recent contribution to the Qantara website, Syrian writer <a href="https://www.fatum-magazin.de/autoren/morris-ayek.html"><b>Morris Ayek</b></a> rejects the idea that Muslim countries have a right to make reservations on grounds of their 'cultural distinctiveness' regarding the applicability of the UN Declaration on Human Rights and other instruments of international law that have been derived from it. With his uncompromising defence of the validity of universal human rights standards, he joins the ranks of other Muslim intellectuals, such as the legal scholars <a href="https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/aannaim">Abdullahi an-Na'im</a> (cf. also this <a href="http://caroolkersten.blogspot.nl/2017/07/the-safest-place-for-muslim-is-in.html">earlier post</a> on this blog) and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/searchforbeauty">Khaled Abou El Fadl</a>. Both would agree with Ayek's observation that:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abdullahi an-Na'im</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Regardless of the culture from which they emerge, universal values apply to all. For example, the concept of universal human rights is universally applicable, even though it has its roots in Western civilisation.</b></span></i></span></blockquote>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjoqGiG6WXt7F37iAkmI-7tR1I4Uh5jVEgZnkibOsnKlRB2a4_5AB93FLNh0iO1KdAyszFhyml5ctH6ZZB1-f5rVL8EoqG3VRnEA4OqTeU22LoMHumHc2oUgpyd5fVyM64KT0tMGlmWpzm/s1600/Abou+El+faDL.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="708" data-original-width="661" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjoqGiG6WXt7F37iAkmI-7tR1I4Uh5jVEgZnkibOsnKlRB2a4_5AB93FLNh0iO1KdAyszFhyml5ctH6ZZB1-f5rVL8EoqG3VRnEA4OqTeU22LoMHumHc2oUgpyd5fVyM64KT0tMGlmWpzm/s200/Abou+El+faDL.png" width="186" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Khaled Abou El Fadl</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Click <a href="https://en.qantara.de/content/islamic-debate-about-human-rights-the-erroneous-cultural-distinction">here</a> to read Ayek's article in full.The article also contains a long clip of a lecture by the Iranian philosopher <a href="http://drsoroush.com/en/">Abdolkarim Soroush</a> on '<b><a href="https://youtu.be/S04GZ7e8ovk">Reason, Freedom and Democracy</a></b>' -- at the same the title of one of his best known <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/reason-freedom-and-democracy-in-islam-9780195128123?cc=nl&lang=en&">books</a>).</div>
Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-81433591399337200972017-07-28T10:16:00.000+01:002017-07-28T19:04:03.321+01:00The safest place for a Muslim is in a secular state<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZchDiW7SlqS3bqT639HyNv4a2DUMOhvKgXkDayPa8b936IcozfCby4mxAhLdT0xecnWCOg2rG9yvD935ViW_Q-UjzNAioe5H8erY0h5BPqTDkn0jqZdBMJLdI3GWnlfzf8BVmoqget69a/s1600/Abdullahi+an-Na%2527im.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZchDiW7SlqS3bqT639HyNv4a2DUMOhvKgXkDayPa8b936IcozfCby4mxAhLdT0xecnWCOg2rG9yvD935ViW_Q-UjzNAioe5H8erY0h5BPqTDkn0jqZdBMJLdI3GWnlfzf8BVmoqget69a/s1600/Abdullahi+an-Na%2527im.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abdullahi Ahmad an-Na'im</td></tr>
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This is just one provocative statement by the Sudanese-born, but US-based, scholar <a href="http://law.emory.edu/faculty-and-scholarship/faculty-profiles/annaim-profile.html"><b>Abdullahi Ahmad an-Na'im</b> </a>(1946). Trained as a jurist, he is also a follower of the late <a href="http://www.alfikra.org/index_e.php">Mahmoud Muhammad Taha</a> (1909-1985), whose controversial interpretation of the Qur'an led to his execution at the hands of one of Sudan's Islamist regimes. Combining his legal learning and induction in the Sufi-inspired thinking of Taha, Abdullahi n-Na'im is considered one of the most prominent voices from the Muslim world advocating adherence to universal human rights standards and an outspoken proponent of a careful distinction between things political and religious.<br />
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In a recent interview with Germany's<i> <a href="http://en.qantara.de/">Qantara </a></i>website, he elaborated on these points once again:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">State and religion should be clearly separated. For me, as a Muslim, I need the state to be secular so that I can practice Islam through conviction and choice. The need of the state to be secular derives from an Islamic point of view; it has nothing to do with the European Enl<span style="font-family: inherit;">ightenment. The state has nothing to do with my being a believer or an atheist.[...] </span></span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The concept of an Islamic state is a post-colonial concept that combines a European idea of the nation state and the idea of Muslim self-determination in terms of Islamic identity. We cannot really claim that everything that is going on around the world is due to the Enlightenment or the European idea of secularism!</i></span>
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As to the role of Islamic law, generally referred to as 'Sharia', an-Na'im explains:<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Sharia consists of the whole normative system of Islam founded in the Koran, the Sunna and the hadith, or tradition of the Prophet. So as such, it is not possible even in a secular state to deny Muslims the right to turn to Sharia to answer questions such as how to pray or how to fast.</i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet, at the same time:</span><br />
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<i font-family:="" inherit="">Sharia cannot be enforced by the state anywhere. There is absolutely no possibility to enact Sharia as a law of the state whether it be in a so-called "Muslim majority country" or a tiny Muslim minority anywhere. The nature of Sharia defies codification. It is about the interpretation that people choose through their own conviction.</i></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Being a jurist trained in 'secular' law and an academic teaching at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, it is tempting to consider an-Na'im's views as having been shaped by western legal thinking. However that is not the case. Much of it is grounded in the influence exercised by an-Na'im's spiritual-intellectual mentor, Mahmoud Muhammad Taha and his contrarian reading of the Qur'an. An-Na'im translated Taha's book on the subject into English, and it is was published under the title </span><i style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Second-Message-Contemporary-Issues-Middle/dp/081562705X"><b>The Second Message of Islam</b></a></i><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Here Taha argues that -- in contrast to conventional Muslim interpretations -- the Meccan chapters form the core of Islam's ethical outlook, while the Medinan chapters with their extensive legal excursions are in fact no more than a pedagogy to prepare the believers for becoming true Muslims.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNnjeQK61LgYqH5UguaaCFplZ8MQDBY5HSR9VCnmBP8clnGAoiabfeC4OjP2015vYpg7Eix0aqY1rOQ4IREQXP-BwYlpRd8GvvOO0FGwVDJn8lBt5vT_iAwDcAI8iteBmJjmS7tQZJwmKJ/s1600/second+message.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="304" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNnjeQK61LgYqH5UguaaCFplZ8MQDBY5HSR9VCnmBP8clnGAoiabfeC4OjP2015vYpg7Eix0aqY1rOQ4IREQXP-BwYlpRd8GvvOO0FGwVDJn8lBt5vT_iAwDcAI8iteBmJjmS7tQZJwmKJ/s320/second+message.jpg" width="204" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">True to Taha's work as an independence fighter and founder of the Republican Brotherhood movement, an-Na'im makes a case for 'indigenous self-liberation from colonisation', an effort that is not just political, but also epistemological:</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> ...the hearts and minds of Muslims continue to be colonised by European epistemology and philosophy, by European ideas of administration of the state despite the fact that nominally, they have been independent for decades. Colonialism is not just simply a military occupation, it is a state of mind of both the coloniser and the colonised.</span></i></blockquote>
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But that does not mean an-Na'im rejects all external intellectual influences 'from any other culture whether European or North American or otherwise'. However, in response to calls for an Islamic 'Reformation' or 'Muslim Luther', an-Na'im cautions against simplistic parallels and essentialist interpretations:
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">The actual history of the European Reformation was much more complex than just a German priest nailing some demands on the door of a church. Transformative movements take a long time and they are often a sort of intergenerational consensus that evolves over many generations in many different parts of the region. </span></i></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">For the whole interview click </span><a href="http://en.qantara.de/content/interview-with-abdullahi-ahmed-an-naim-we-are-in-the-middle-of-a-transformative-process" style="font-family: inherit;">here</a><br />
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Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-36222328092304490572016-12-13T13:26:00.000+00:002016-12-13T13:59:40.189+00:00A leading Syrian exilic intellectual: Sadiq Jalal al-Azm (1934-2016)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Syrian philosopher Sadiq Jalal al-Azm passed away in Berlin
on Sunday, 11 December 2016. Al-Azm had already been living in German exile before
civil war erupted in his homeland in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Although working mainly as an academic philosopher, Sadiq
al-Azm also spoke and wrote about politics. Member of the prominent Damascene
al-Azm family, which has produced generations of scholars and influential
political figures, al-Azm positioned himself on the left and became an
outspoken critic of the Assad government, when it became clear in 2000 that
Hafiz al-Assad’s family and his wider Alawi clan were turning a military regime
into a hereditary dynasty. For that reason, he also became one of the
signatories of the 2005 ‘Damascus Declaration’, and later decided to join the
Committee for the Revival of Civil Society’.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Although mainly regarded as a representative of the
political left, Al-Azm has also written perceptively about religion and engaged
critically with the challenge of Orientalism by peer such as Edward Said. This
also forms the wider context for his decision to throw his intellectual weight
behind opposition to the Assad regime that had its origins in the mosque. In an
<a href="http://caroolkersten.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/sadiq-jalal-al-azm-muslim-secularist.html">interview </a>he gave in 2013, he explained that he did not regard this as giving up
his advocacy of secularisation or his Marxist convictions. He still finds
Marx’s classical analysis convincing, but believes that its interpretation and
implementation along the lines of Franz Fanon are more relevant to a country
like Syria. This is also the reason for his sympathy for the Catholic
Liberation Theologies emerging in Latin America and even for the Iranian
Revolution of 1979, which also included a very significant leftist component
until its hijacking by the Islamists, which turned Iran into a ‘Mollahcracy’.</div>
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Al-Azm has always cautioned against having exaggerated
expectations of what revolutions can accomplish. Structural changes to cultures
are difficult to achieve and are the outcome of slow socially cumulative
historical processes. In this regard, he pointed at argumentations put forward
by other Syrian intellectuals like Jamil Saliba, Anton Makdisi and Tayyib
Tayzini, as well as progressive thinkers from elsewhere, including his fellow
philosopher Muhammad Abid al-Jabri and the historian Abdullah Laroui from
Morocco, and the Egyptians Fouad Zakariyya and Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As to the ideological dimensions for effecting drastic
changes to a culture and society, al-Azm stresses that the key to success lies
in secularisation and the creation of civil society, that is to say creating a
sense of citizenship that overrides religiously-inspired one-dimensional
identities.<o:p></o:p></div>
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A useful overview of the various stages of al-Azm’s
intellectual life can be found <a href="https://en.qantara.de/content/portrait-of-the-syrian-intellectual-sadiq-al-azm-critical-philosopher-and-political-activist">here</a>.<o:p></o:p><br />
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For some of al-Azm's publications, click on the widget below:</div>
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Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-54432989135115663242016-03-25T18:08:00.001+00:002016-05-09T23:56:45.097+01:00Ebrahim Moosa: A critical traditionalist against imperial political theologies<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Over the last two decades, <a href="http://ebrahimmoosa.com/">Ebrahim Moosa</a> has developed into one of the most important Muslim thinkers and proponents of 'progressive Islam'.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJYFjzZ4IXoj9ncVUTSKcdtJDIEmhyphenhyphenf1BWG18Y_k4Brts6m3YCGoJPapIlbnzA-3ub2dCICy6nKJfY4PpDyhyphenhyphen_kvimJoXCzfIo9AvBTwp44OERU9VPEvkvivVDN2qFjDdZIKqIvQeinEZH/s1600/profile_moosa.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJYFjzZ4IXoj9ncVUTSKcdtJDIEmhyphenhyphenf1BWG18Y_k4Brts6m3YCGoJPapIlbnzA-3ub2dCICy6nKJfY4PpDyhyphenhyphen_kvimJoXCzfIo9AvBTwp44OERU9VPEvkvivVDN2qFjDdZIKqIvQeinEZH/s200/profile_moosa.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ebrahim Moosa</td></tr>
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Originally from South-Africa, but since the late 1990s based in the
United States, he forms part of a diaspora of Muslim intellectuals who
are at the forefront of critical and innovative thinking about Islam and its place in the contemporary world. Moosa's intellectual genealogy also betrays a family resemblance with the so-called heritage thinkers from a older generation, such as
<a href="http://caroolkersten.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/mohammed-arkoun-1928-2010-trailblazer.html">Mohammed Arkoun</a>, <a href="http://caroolkersten.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/hasan-hanafi-on-muslim-ambiguity.html">Hasan Hanafi</a>, and <a href="http://caroolkersten.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/death-of-averroist-muhammad-abid-al.html">Muhammad Abid al-Jabiri</a>:
intimate familiarity with the legacy of traditional Islamic learning
and an equally solid acquaintance with the human sciences as they have
evolved in the Western academe.<br />
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Born into South Africa's Muslim community of South Asian extraction,
Ebrahim Moosa was educated at both traditional madrasas in India
(graduating from the famous <i>Darul ʿUlum Nadwatul ʿUlama</i> in
Lucknow) and universities in South Africa and the United Kingdom. After a
career in journalism, Moosa then opted for an academic career which
took him from the University of Cape Town to Stanford, Duke, and then on
to Notre Dame University, where he is now Professor of Islamic Studies
with
appointments in the Department of History and the Kroc Institute for
International Studies in the Keough School of Global Affairs. At Notre
Dame, he also co-directs the <a href="http://kroc.nd.edu/research/religion-conflict-peacebuilding/contending-modernities-catholic-muslim-secular"><i>Contending Modernities</i></a> Project.<br />
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His reputation as an original thinker drawing from great erudition was made with his first major monograph. Published in 2006 under the title, <a href="http://amzn.to/1RrBthz"><i>Ghazali and the Poetics of Imagination</i></a>, it offers a radically new reading of the classical eleventh-century polymath. It also demonstrated Moosa's ability to straddle
different intellectual traditions. In this award-winning book, Ebrahim Moosa introduces the notion of the <i>Dihliz -- </i>the 'in-between'. This liminality is reflective of the position occupied by scholar-intellectuals like Moosa himself; on the interstices of different intellectual traditions. It is from here that he contributes to the articulation of a new Islamic discourse that seeks to 'preserve from the old what is good, and take from the new what is better'.<br />
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In a recent interview, he self-identified as a <a href="http://www.thedailystar.net/star-weekend/star-people/islam-today-conversation-professor-ebrahim-moosa-one-the-most-prominent">'<b>critical traditionalist</b>'</a>; a Muslim scholar with an ability to challenge the way things are done at the centres of traditional Islam:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"the Madrasa used to be, once upon a time, a part of Islamdom's republic
of letters, republic of knowledge, including cosmopolitan knowledge as
well. But over time, in the Indian-subcontinent in particular, Madrasas
have become more like institutions that are interested in identity
formation, and also have become, what I call, a republic of piety. We
have more piety, and less intellectual energy and the kinds of religious
answers that deal with reality.”</i> </blockquote>
The designation 'critical traditionalist' also colours how he interprets the idea of 'progressive Islam'.<i> </i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>progressive Islam doesn't mean changing the Quran or changing Hadith,
but is instead about having alternative methodological approaches that
are going to allow us to find different kinds of answers from tradition,
and answers that will be much more amenable to our experiences and our
way of life, be much more equitable.</i> <i></i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“The key thing about progressive or critical traditionalist approach in
Islam, to me, is that we must see that all knowledge must substantiate
and support the fulfilment of human dignity. Human dignity is at the
core of all Islam's messages. And if knowledge does not deliver on human
dignity, then that knowledge really is questionable. So those kinds of
interpretations of the past that talked about non-Muslims in a
particular way, that talked about women in a particular way, are no
longer dignified. That has to change. You can only change it when you
are prepared to ask questions, and are prepared to challenge the
paradigm of interpretation that has been prevalent thus far.”</i> </blockquote>
In another recent occasion, he noted that this requires a<a href="http://en.qantara.de/content/interview-with-the-islamic-scholar-ebrahim-moosa-the-reinvention-of-islam"> <b>reinvention of Islam</b></a><b> </b>or, what I consider a more accurate suggestion: a need for <i>Muslims</i> <i>to reinvent themselves</i>. According to Moosa this means shedding:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>[the] imprint of what I would term imperial Islamic political theology. As a
throwback to former times, this imperial political theology needs to be
excised from the political and religious imagination through critical
appraisal, questioning, [...]</i> </blockquote>
Ebrahim Moosa breaks ground for a bold and robust engagement with the Islamic
tradition, and his own writings testify of a daring rethinking of
religion in postfoundationalist terms. He also demonstrated that in the <i>Third Ibn Rushd Lecture</i> of the <a href="http://www.musliminstitute.org/home">Muslim Institute</a> in London:<br />
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His ideas for a progressive reinterpretation of thinking about Islam were further unpacked in the discussion:<br />
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Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-50609564484328873152015-11-23T17:08:00.001+00:002015-11-23T18:08:57.762+00:00New Journal launched -- Re-Orient: The Journal of Critical Muslim Studies<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
After a long silence, there is some very welcome news to share in the form of the launch of a new academic journal that seeks to promote and stimulate the same strands of thinking and approaches to the study of Islam and the Muslim world as showcased on this website.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx8rwT5hhBQGJsGURaUPVf_7H-C9senNydJdq_JlfizYuIjFU0rNbIy-Ds1kxVHs2N-MgN2npEfon-NZNCHrLMWJqjVgO04ulkljS7155qYUqG3KCnZQDx4WJKNNLGVD87qVBBku_-Rqc2/s1600/ReOrient-1.1-cover-FRONT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx8rwT5hhBQGJsGURaUPVf_7H-C9senNydJdq_JlfizYuIjFU0rNbIy-Ds1kxVHs2N-MgN2npEfon-NZNCHrLMWJqjVgO04ulkljS7155qYUqG3KCnZQDx4WJKNNLGVD87qVBBku_-Rqc2/s1600/ReOrient-1.1-cover-FRONT.jpg" /></a></div>
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In their inaugural editorial, the board of <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13169/reorient.1.issue-1" style="font-style: italic;"><b>Reorient: The Journal of Critical Muslim Studies</b></a><i> </i>explain the choice of the journal's main title as fellows:<br />
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<i>ReOrient [...] signals a turning away from an Orientalizing gaze, and as such,
it can be seen as belonging to the family of concepts and critiques associated with
decolonial thinking and its call for delinking from the Western episteme.</i></blockquote>
In regards to its subtitle they observe:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Critical Muslim Studies is [...] characterized by a series of epistemological
orientations, rather than by substantive properties, permanent categories, or
persistent methodologies. </i></blockquote>
In term of orientation, the journal seeks to remain committed to objectives that can be 'grouped into
four broad currents within contemporary intellectual developments: The critique of a variety of Eurocentric registers; a suspicion of positivism; the recognised significance of the critique of Orientalism; and finally, the embrace of postcolonial and decolonial thinking.<br />
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The journal's maiden issue contains an article by the doyen of the study of Islamic history at Columbia University, <a href="http://history.columbia.edu/faculty/Bulliet.html"><b>Richard Bulliet</b></a>, followed by a fascinating exchange with his fellow Columbian <a href="http://religion.columbia.edu/people/Gil%20Anidjar"><b>Gil Anidjar</b></a>.<br />
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<br />
<i>Reorient</i> will be introduced at SOAS, on 2 December 2015, at 7pm: B102, Brunei Gallery.</div>
Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-57923653014945833592015-02-25T19:06:00.004+00:002015-02-26T18:21:59.483+00:00A Moroccan Philosopher in Indonesia: The Influence of Muhammad Abid al-Jabiri on Indonesian Islamic Thinking<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcaF6o7VIKiCtawaziC5wAI-ZHX_J_r0LSLlFnebVK5GZ2mHJST45bDd7wBqJush91C93DD_vi7WwPppidsyOL9Gg-WFEbGfVC5jRaQL6ApMeNCYuofWr5w5PhFAPTWGCoiF4tpD08J3OK/s1600/jabiri.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcaF6o7VIKiCtawaziC5wAI-ZHX_J_r0LSLlFnebVK5GZ2mHJST45bDd7wBqJush91C93DD_vi7WwPppidsyOL9Gg-WFEbGfVC5jRaQL6ApMeNCYuofWr5w5PhFAPTWGCoiF4tpD08J3OK/s1600/jabiri.jpg" height="200" width="154" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Muhammad Abid al-Jabiri</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
On 19 February 2015, I gave an invited <a href="http://www.ru.nl/nimar/@983117/pagina/">public lecture</a> about the influence of the Moroccan philosopher <a href="http://caroolkersten.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/death-of-averroist-muhammad-abid-al.html">Muhammad Abid al-Jabiri </a>(1936-2010) on Islamic thinking in Indonesia. The text below is a slightly adapted version of that presentation, which consisted of two parts: First, an introduction to the philosopher al-Jabiri and his ideas, followed by an explanation of the appeal of his thinking for Muslim intellectuals in Indonesia.
<br />
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><u><b>Muhammad Abid al-Jabiri a philosopher and his thought</b></u></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Al-Jabiri’s fame rests on his so-called <i>Critique
of Arab Reason</i> project, laid down in a set of writings published between
1980 and 1990; a decade of intense philosophical labors squeezed in
between periods of more politically engaged activity.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> Personal background</span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Before taking a more detailed look at these
writings of the 1980s, I will highlight a few relevant aspects of Al-Jabiri’s
life. Al-Jabiri comes from Figuig, on the Moroccan-Algerian border – a
disputed area that was later the scene of the so-called ‘War of the Sand’
between the two newly independent countries in the early 1960s. Already during his high school years Al-Jabiri
became politically active in the Istiqlal Party. His political mentor at the time was Mehdi
Ben Barka, who arranged for him to begin writing for the Istiqlal periodical <i>Al-Alam</i>.
Al-Jabiri followed Ben Barka when the latter split from the party to found the
UNFP in 1959. Because of his involvement in leftist politics, Al-Jabiri was
incarcerated for a few months in 1963. He continued his activities in the UNFP
also after the mysterious disappearance of Ben Barka in 1965. In 1975 he joined
the USFP as it split from UNFP and became a member of its politburo.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Alongside his political work, in 1958 Al-Jabiri
had begun studying philosophy at the universities in Damascus and Rabat. In the
mid-sixties, when he was working on his doctorate, while also teaching philosophy at high
schools and helping with the writing of a number of textbooks. These books were quite
influential in shaping the thoughts of students during the late sixties and
early seventies. They emphasized the relationship between culture and society, and
the significance of knowledge and education to effectuate social change. Thus
they prefigure Al-Jabiri’s later scholarly preoccupation with epistemology (the
philosophy of knowledge) and its impact on history and politics.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Al-Jabiri was very much influenced by the
Moroccan-born geographer and historian Yves Lacoste, especially the latter's Marxist
interpretation of <i>Ibn Khaldun: The Birth of History and the Past of the
Third World</i> (1965). He was so impressed by this study that he
decided to make the 14<sup>th</sup>-century courtier and scholar the subject of
his own doctoral research. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">In his findings, al-Jabiri presents
this medieval North African statesman and savant’s theory of the rise and fall
of civilizations as a structural and systemic alternative to the Ash‛ari
projection of history, through which Ibn Khaldun nevertheless managed to keep his
admiration for Ghazali’s Sufism intact</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">In this endeavour he was intellectually mentored by one
of Morocco’s leading philosophers at the time, <a href="http://caroolkersten.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/mohammed-aziz-lahbabi-and.html">M. Aziz Lahbabi</a>: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>who would oversee Al-Jabiri’s first doctoral
thesis on Ibn Khaldun’s philosophy of history, which was submitted in 1967. Another
philosopher, Najib Baladi, directed Al-Jabiri’s further research for the
so-called <i>doctorat d’état</i>; a degree somewhat comparable to the German <i>Habilitation</i>.
This resulted in the publication of Al-Jabiri's first monograph, appearing in 1971
under the title <i>The Thought of Ibn Khaldun: Asabiyya and State: Theoretical
Outlines of Khaldunian Thinking about Islamic History</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Aside from his academic career as a lecturer
and later professor of philosophy at Université Mohammed V in Rabat, throughout
the 1970s, Al-Jabiri remained preoccupied with his political work in the UNFP
and USFP. However, from 1980 onwards he decided to concentrate more on systematically
writing down his ideas regarding the relationship between knowledge and power in the
development of Islamic thinking. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<b><i><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Heritage Thinking</span></i></b></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">With this,</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> <span lang="EN-US">Al-Jabiri
became one of the so-called heritage thinkers or <i>turathiyyun.</i> This
phenomenon of heritage thinking came up in the 1970s, so simultaneous with the
much better known Islamic resurgence that advocates explicitly political agendas.
Initially this was referred to as Islamic fundamentalism, but now we generally
call it Islamism. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">However, the
motivations behind the rise of Islamism and the emergence of heritage thinking are
the same: Disillusionment with other, imported, ideologies, such as Nationalism, Panarabism, Marxism etc. By way of alternative, Muslims returned
to their religious and cultural roots in Islam. Some chose to become puritan
revivalists, focusing either on personal piety or translating their renewed
focus on Islam into political, i.e. Islamist agendas. This manifested itself in
different shapes and forms, ranging from gaining influence and power via the
ballot box to the most extreme forms of violent action. These interpretations
are grounded in literalist readings and understandings of Islamic Scriptures,
Qur'an and Sunna. And because the proponents of this approach claim that they
are thus reviving the legacy of <i>Al-Salaf al-Salih</i>, the pious ancestors, they
are called Salafis.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">By contrast, the
heritage thinkers advocate not only a more comprehensive understanding of Islam
as a civilization, but also a critical and self-reflective examination of the
text corpus of traditional Islamic learning. Intellectually, this places heritage
thinkers on the opposite side of the intellectual spectrum from the Salafis.
Their challenge of uncritical and eclectic use by Salafis of only certain aspects of the
earliest Islamic tradition makes the heritage thinkers in effect an
intellectual counterforce to Salafi religious puritanism and Islamism.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Critiques of Arab Reason</span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">In 1980 and 1982, Al-Jabiri
published his first two text collections on the Arab-Islamic heritage. <i>We
and our heritage</i> and <i>Contemporary Arab Discourse</i>. In these texts he
challenges the shortcomings of the existing readings of the Islamic tradition, namely:
Fundamentalist, Liberal and Marxist readings. According to Al-Jabiri, all three
fail both methodologically as well as in terms of vision. All three see
themselves as extensions of the Islamic tradition, but with Marxists and Liberals
being hindered by erroneous linear or teleological projections for the future, while
fundamentalists and traditionalists consider themselves the sole custodians of what
they have constructed as being the tradition, while they are in fact locked up
within this constructed tradition. Heritage thinkers, by contrast, embrace the tradition
without being taken over by it. Instead, they subject Islamic regimes of
knowledge to a critical examination.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">In Al-Jabiri’s case he emphatically
moves away from modernity as a linear projection or a fixed historical trajectory
that civilizations must follow. As Muslims grapple with modernity, they
should not imagine that – like Western civilization -- they have to chronologically
pass through consecutive phases of renaissance, enlightenment, modernity and
postmodernity like the West did. The current situation is such that these are
all coexistent and intertwined. This also means that there is no single
modernity only a plurality of modernities. Al-Jabiri also makes point of
stressing that: 'Modernity is not a refutation of or break with the past,<span style="color: red;"> </span>but an upgrade of the way we relate with tradition';
modernization is not an 'end in itself', but tied to the 'rise of the critical
mind',<span style="color: red;"> </span>and an impetus aimed at 'changing
mentalities'.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">In his writings from
the early 1980s, the core argument of his future epistemological thinking about
heritage is also already discernible: Namely that knowledge consists of two
aspects: A cognitive field and an ideological content. The cognitive field, in
turn, consists of the material knowledge or substance<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and of a thinking apparatus. From today’s
perspective, other than its historical value the substance of philosophical and
scientific knowledge from Arab-Islamic past is useless, but the thinking
apparatus, or systemic and methodological aspects of thinking through which
this substance came into being, remains of interest to Al-Jabiri’s project. Therefore
Arab Muslims must rid themselves of ideologically or emotionally informed
conceptions of tradition and its substance as an absolute reality that stands
outside time, and instead come to terms with tradition as relative and
historicized.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The only way to achieve that
is through what Gaston Bachelard called an 'epistemological break', not with the
tradition, but away from an understanding of tradition that is locked up within
itself. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Methodological cues
for his own alternative interpretation of heritage, al-Jabiri found in the work
of structuralists like Ferdinand Saussure, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Jean
Piaget, as well as in the writings of poststructuralist philosophers such as
Jacques Lacan, Louis Althusser, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, and Michel
Foucault. From them he learned that reason can no longer be conceived in
Cartesian terms as a coherent, conscious and transcendent process. Instead,
reason is more accurately described as a collective understanding shaped by
culture and by what Piaget called the ‘cognitive unconsciousness’.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">In the 1980s, Al-Jabiri unpacked all this in
great detail in what he called his <i>Critique of Arab reason</i> project: At
the core of this philosophical project is a trilogy of books, dealing with the
formation, structure and the political dimensions of Arab reason. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span><i><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Takwin
al-Aql al-Arabi</span></i><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">: a
historical study of the formation of Arab-Islamic thinking</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span><i><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Bunya
al-Aql al-Arabi:</span></i><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> a
structural analysis of the epistemological order of Arab culture</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span><i><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Al-Aql
al-Siyasi al-Arabi:</span></i><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">
an ideology critique</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 357.0pt;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The historical analysis focuses on the
so-called or <i>Asr al-Tadwin</i> ‘period of recording or codification’ during
which ‘acceptable’ ways of thinking about Islam, both in terms of content and methodology,
were determined. This heralded a period of decline, because instead of
encouraging the production of new discursive forms, the tradition ended up only
reproducing existing knowledge. In his structural analysis, Al-Jabiri
distinguishes three different thinking apparatus, systems of knowledge or
epistemes. For this he used Arabic descriptor, namely:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><i><b><span dir="LTR"></span></b></i><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><i><b>bayani
</b></i>or discursive reasoning</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><i><b><span dir="LTR"></span></b></i><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><i><b>irfani</b></i> or
gnosticism and intuitive thinking</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><i><b>burhani
</b></i>or reasoning through the use of demonstrative proof.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Bayani thinking is based on explications of
texts drawing on Arabic grammar and rhetoric, and the literary legacy derived from
pre-Islamic times. It is applied in philology and linguistics, Qur’anic exegesis,
legal thinking or fiqh, and theology or kalam. A figure like the legal scholar
Al-Shafi’i looms large over this way of thinking, especially in terms of the
limitations he set on<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>ijtihad</i> or
independent reasoning, by restricting it to reasoning by analogy. Rather than
rationalist methods such as inductive or deductive reasoning language remains the
sole point of reference in bayani thinking. Pointing back to the historical
study, Al-Jabiri contends that bayani thinking has eventually prevailed through
the work of grammarians, jurists and theologians. Eventually, it became the
definitive mode of thinking about religion in traditional Islamic learning thanks
to the work of al-Ghazali,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">As for irfani or gnostic thinking, its origins
too predate Islam, but it then continues to develop in Islamic contexts. It is not
only found in astrology, alchemy, magic, theosophy, illuminationism, and
strands of Shia thinking, but also in aspects of the work of Ibn Sina, who is
generally hailed as a key contributor to philosophical thinking in Islam. Irfan
or gnosticism is based on a dichotomy between manifest (<i>zahir</i>) and hidden
(<i>batin</i>) meanings of realities, including scripture. Al-Jabiri pronounces a
rather harsh judgment, when he insists that due to the combined influences of
Ibn Sina and al-Ghazali, and thus of irfani and bayani thinking, the
’irrational’ (not the same as unreasonable) has dominated thinking in the
Eastern parts of Muslim world. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">While there have been early examples of burhani
or ‘rationalist’ in the East, such as the philosophies of al-Kindi,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Muʽtazila <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and al-Farabi during the Abbasid Caliphate of
Al-Ma’mun, in Al-Jabiri's mind the restoration of rationalism is associated with the 11-13<sup>th</sup>
century thinkers of the Muslim west. Al-Jabiri’s heroes from this classical era
are: Ibn Hazm, Ibn Rushd, Al-Shatibi, and Ibn Khaldun.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">However, things are not always as straightforward with
this preferred list as Al-Jabiri might suggest: For example, Ibn Hazm was a
Zahiri legal scholar. Zahirism was pretty strict in its interpretations of the
scriptural texts, but also intellectually regimented and I think that is what
attracted Al-Jabiri. Moreover what Ibn Hazm also argues is that anything that
is not restricted by text, is left to reason and free choice </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">In regards to Ibn Rushd <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it must be noted that he actually did his work
under the puritan and repressive rule of the Almohads. Although some of its
emirs and viziers had an interest in philosophy, we should not forget that
Almohad comes from the name <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Al-Muwahhidun</i>,
the upholders of the Unity of God (Tawhid), which is – incidentally – the same
name the Wahhabis of Arabia use for themselves. The affinities between the two
extend not only to intellectual outlook but also to the political enforcement
of their interpretations of Islam.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Here, I will only
highlight a few aspects of Ibn Rushd’s thinking that underpin Al-Jabiri’s
appreciation for Ibn Rushd and consider him as the epitome of critical and
realistic rationalism, on grounds of: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>His
commentaries on Aristotle; his persistent upholding of the law of cause and
effect in scientific and philosophical thinking; and -- in relation to religious and
metaphysical questions -- the establishment of a harmony between the bayani
proofs of revelation and the demonstrative proofs of philosophical truth that
do not pose a threat to the teachings of Islam.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Al-Shatibi’s work has been very important for a
reinterpretation of the casuistry into which jurisprudence or <i>fiqh</i> had
descended during and after the period of recording. His advocacy of more
attention for the Higher Purposes of Sharia or <i>Maqasid al-Shari’a</i>
offered an opportunity to rethink what the aims or objectives of Islamic law
are supposed to be. By re-establishing these as the most general points of
departure for<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Islamic legal thinking it
becomes possible to distinguish between the unchangeable and contingent aspects
of Islamic law. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">So Al-Jabiri not only privileges the burhani
epistemological system over the much less rigorous bayani approach and in his view
outright irrational irfani ways of thinking; when it comes to individual
thinkers, he also has a preference for individuals from what are now Spain and
Morocco. In advocating the importance of the Muslim west and the figure of Ibn
Rushd in particular, he has used terms such as ‘Andalusian Resurgence’ and the
statement that ‘the future can only be Averroist’. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<u><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><br /></span></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<b><u><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>impact
of the ideas of Al-Jabiri</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The ideas of the
heritage thinkers are erudite and sophisticated, and their appeal is limited to
those echelons of Muslim societies with that have attained the highest levels
of education in the humanities and social sciences. Salafi thinking by contrast
holds greater appeal for professionals (engineers, doctors, lawyers) and
students and scholars of the natural sciences. Given the still rather limited
numbers of people in the Muslim world who make it into higher education, heritage
thinking only influences a fraction of Muslim societies. However, demographics
also show that most Muslim countries have a ‘youth bulge’ – as middle classes
grow and the numbers of people entering education increase accordingly, I
believe heritage thinking will become more important over the next generation
or so.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">A further and probably more problematic obstruction to the spread of heritage thinking in the
present day is the continuing repression of the freedom of thought and expression
in many Muslim countries, and the concomitant attempts by a religious state
bureaucracy wishing to control what is taught about Islam. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<b><u><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Influence in Indonesia</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">In this respect, the
situation in Indonesia is different from many MENA countries. To find an explanation for the appeal and
purchase heritage thinkers like Al-Jabiri have in Indonesia, it is necessary to have some background knowledge of how Islam operates or is allowed to function in
Indonesia, and in particular what shaped the socio-political and intellectual
climate.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<b><i><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Islam in Indonesia: Historical Background</span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Indonesia is located on the far eastern
periphery of the historical <i>Dar al-Islam</i>, and it forms part of a wider
equatorial Islamic island world that also includes Malaysia and Brunei, as well
as the southern provinces of Thailand and the Philippines, and that is home to a
distinct Malay-Muslim culture. However, Islam only began to make inroads among
the local populations relatively late in the history of the Islamic expansion.<span style="color: red;"> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>In contrast to
many other parts of the Muslim world, Islam did not arrive through conquest,
but through peaceful means: Centuries- or even millennia-old trade routes across
the Indian Ocean were used by missionary figures, often associated with
transnational Sufi orders that held the social fabric of the Muslim
world-at-large together after the collapse of the Abbasid Caliphate in the
mid-13<sup>th</sup> century.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Because of this geographical remoteness of the
so-called “heartlands” of the Muslim world and this late conversion it is
tempting to see Southeast Asians as superficial Muslims, with Islam only a
“thin veneer” over older deposits of Indian religions and indigenous animism. That
view is wrong. A growing body of scholarship on the history of Islam in
Southeast Asia shows that since Islam’s arrival, the religion has firmly
rooted in the region through extensive and intensive networking between
Southeast Asia and centres of Islamic learning in South Asia and the Middle
East. Travelers from the other side of the Indian Ocean and native scholars
from Southeast Asia both played an important role in this process. That means
that throughout the centuries, Muslims from what is now Indonesia were well
acquainted and conversant with developments elsewhere. So also <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the ideas of 19<sup>th</sup>-century Islamic
reformism and pan-Islamism advocated and spread by figures such as Jamal al-Din
al-Afghani, Muhammad Abduh, and Rashid Rida caught on with the Muslim
populations of what was then called Dutch East Indies.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">As a result, Southeast Asian Muslim societies
experienced a division between Muslims who continued to adhere to traditional
Sunni Islam, remaining part of the <i>Ahl al-Sunna wa’l-Jama’a</i>. In
Indonesia and elsewhere in the region this tradition consisted of the Shafi’i
Law School, Maturidi <i>kalam</i> or theology, and the sober Sufism of al-Ghazali, all
filtered through localized cultural practices. On the other hand, there were
the proponents of Islamic reformism, both in its puritan and in its modernist
guises. These reformists referred to themselves as <i>kaum muda</i>, or the 'young group' or 'young people', in contrast to the traditionalists, whom they
called <i>kaum tua</i> or ‘old people’. It is a division that has remained
valid until today and – as will be explained later -- that also has a bearing on the
reception of heritage thinkers such as Al-Jabiri.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The Dutch colonial authorities were very wary
of such influences and came down heavily on any politicized manifestations of
Islamic reformism. Although all Islamic activities were closely monitored and
activists were kept under surveillance, the one area that the colonial
authorities allowed to develop for the purpose of the emancipation of the
Indies’ Muslim population was education and da’wa or dakwah in Malay. This
formed part of the <i>Ethische Politiek</i> (1901-1942): a redefinition of
colonial policy designed to give select elements of the colonized population a
modest stake in political administration and equip other segments of society
for making a contribution to the development of the economy and society. This
has resulted in a phenomenon that makes Indonesia rather unique in the Muslim
world, which remains important until now and which will also play a part in
the future reception of the ideas of the likes of Al-Jabiri: the emergence of
Islamic mass organizations.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The Islamic modernists were the first to take
advantage of this opportunity, establishing two organizations: In 1912, Ahmad
Dahlan,, the Imam the main mosque of the Sultanate of Yogyakarta, founded the
Muhammadiyah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Inspired by the thinking of
Muhammad Abduh it is now the most important modernist Muslim mass organization. In
order to meet this challenge and to counter competition for influence over
Indonesia’s Muslims, the traditionalists responded in 1926 with the founding of
the <i>Nahdlatul Ulama</i> (NU). The NU is a much looser organization than the
Muhammadiyah, relying on extensive but informal networks centering around
Islamic boarding schools called <i>pesantren</i>, that bind scholars together through
family connections and highly personalized teacher (called <i>kyai</i>) - pupils
(<i>murid</i>) relations not dissimilar to that of Sufi orders.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Indonesia’s Muslim mass organizations not only
predate Middle Eastern Islamic movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood or South
Asia’s <i>Tablighi Jamaat</i> by a good decade, it also dwarfs them in terms of
the numbers of followers they can mobilize. In present-day Indonesia, both the
Muhammadiyah and NU have constituencies numbering in the tens of millions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Like the Dutch, also Indonesia’s postcolonial
governments have made efforts to keep Islam at arm’s length of the political
process. Since 1945, Indonesian constitutions have never made any reference to
Islam. Attempts to introduce a reference to Islamic law into the constitution
were sabotaged by the secular nationalists led by president Suharto. While
Indonesia recognises that its population is in majority Muslim, it does not identify
as an Islamic state. Instead, the country has
emphasized its ethnic and religious diversity through the <i>Pancasila </i>or doctrine
of five principles – the first one of which states that every Indonesian must
believe in a Supreme Being – but without further specification</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Except for the first decade of independence,
when Indonesia briefly experimented with liberal democracy, Islamic parties
were not able to operate freely. From 1960 until 1998, they were actually
outlawed, except for the United Development Party (<i>Partai Persatuan
Pembangunan, </i>PPP) -- that was tolerated by Suharto’s New Order regime from
the 1970s onwards as a symbolic opposition party in the electoral charades and
rubber stamp parliament that was allowed to function during those years.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">After taking power, New Order regime envisaged
a role for Muslim professionals in its new economic development policies, and a
number of Muslim intellectuals saw this as a window of opportunity to advocate
the expansion of the Islamic education system and proposing a constructive role
for Muslim activists in developing the country. This presented the interesting
spectacle of a vast expansion of a network of State Islamic higher education
institutes (called IAINs in Indonesian), in a country that still refuses to
identify as an Islamic state.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The key figures in this process, were two
senior intellectuals, Abdul Mukti Ali, who served as Minister of Religious
Affairs (1973-1978) and Harun Nasution, the rector of the IAIN in Jakarta, and
the leader of the largest Muslim student union, Nurcholish Madjid. They formed
part of a newly emerging Muslim intelligentsia combining a secular state
education with Islamic learning, often complemented with postgraduate studies
abroad to obtain advanced degrees, in particular in places such McGill
University in Montreal and the University of Chicago.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The IAINs began promoting an interpretation of
Islam that was very different from either the traditionalist form of Islam
prevailing among Indonesia’s rural peasantry or the reformist tendencies found
among pious urban Muslims. Drawing on the historicized interpretation of Islam
by scholars such as the American-Pakistani scholar Fazlur Rahman, who acted as
supervisor and adviser to numerous Indonesian postgraduate students, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in Indonesia this came to be referred to as cultural,
civil, and even cosmopolitan Islam.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">In 1983, promoting this cultural Islam became
government policy through the so-called the <i>Reaktualisasi</i> or Reactualizaition
Agenda. For ten years this policy was coordinated and directed by Religious
Affairs Minister Munawir Sjadzali, a former Muslim diplomat with a political
science degree from Johns Hopkins University. This shift in policy was part of
an important political reorientation on the highest government level. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As part of the Reactualization Agenda, the
Islamic education system was expanded further, and the writings of heritage
thinkers started appearing in the IAIN curricula and reading lists. Also
growing oil revenues ensured the availability of money to send talented young
scholars in larger numbers overseas for postgraduate studies, not only in the
Middle East, but also in North America, Australia and Europe. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The growing appetite for new ideas on religion, and Islam in particular, also led
to the emergence of a large translation and publication industry of works on
Islam, religion and politics. As intellectual omnivores, Indonesia’s Muslims
were not only interested in the writings of Arabic-speaking Muslim
intellectuals, but also in the work of Western scholars on Islam, as well as the
ideas of postmodern philosophers and postcolonial theorists. These respective
literatures reflect the scholarly interests of the heritage thinkers, and the
critiques they have written of both Islamic thinking and Western scholarship
about Islam.</span></div>
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<b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Heritage thinking in Indonesia </span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">I must point out that
Indonesian Muslims are not just interested in al-Jabiri, but also in the other
heritage thinkers from that generation, including Mohammad Arkoun, Hasan
Hanafi, and Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd. Together they form what I call the Arab
quartet that has left a distinct mark on contemporary Islamic thinking in
Indonesia. </span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">In first instance, during the late 1980s and
early 1990s, Hanafi and Arkoun were better known in Indonesia than Al-Jabiri. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, the leader of the NU in 1980s,
Abdurrahman Wahid also known as Gus Dur introduced, Hanafi’s notion of the ‘Islamic
Left’ in Indonesia. Thus we find that the leader of the largest traditionalist
Muslim organization promotes a set of ideas that many modernists in the
Muhammadiyah considered too progressive!</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">For the purpose of today’s
lecture, I will concentrate on the attraction of Al-Jabiri for certain Indonesian
Muslim intellectuals. In fact, given the way Al-Jabiri used to privilege the
ideas of thinkers from the supposedly “rational” West of the Muslim world, it
is somewhat surprising and puzzling what appeal such a Maghribi 'chauvinist'
thinker holds for Muslims from the allegedly 'irrational' East</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Al-Jabiri’s breakthrough coincided with the regime
change of 1998-1999, when President Suharto’s cozying up to the Muslims
provided to be too little and too late to avert the inevitable. The aging president was
forced to step down<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and the two leaders
of the largest Muslim mass organisations in the country rose to the highest
offices in the land, with Abdurrahman Wahid from the traditionalist <i>Nahdlatul
Ulama </i>becoming president and Amien Rais of the modernist Muhammadiyah taking
the position of Speaker of the National Assembly. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is in this vibrant -- and to a degree also
unstable and even polarized -- milieu that the ideas of Muhammad Abid al-Jabiri
found root.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<b><i><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Al-Jabiri, Young NU Cadres and Islamic
Post-Traditionalism</span></i></b><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 117.0pt;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Two
figures from younger generations of NU cadres and intellectuals, called Anak
Muda NU were instrumental to opening up Indonesia Muslim thinking to the ideas
of Al-Jabiri: Said Aqil Siradj, who is now the General Chairman of the NU; and
Ahmad Baso, a young writer who was the first to translate some of Al-Jabiri’s
writings from Arabic into Indonesian. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYPQT4umxTcpxp_oEKYdGZ1pof6s5KXzcAUGMttAcg5-0d0iEPt6QrSozNft8hUU17T_AkmO9C2KolrgV5iF0nAPqs03y2U5kdD90PjQT9KEdgJYPuAaU6WGc4uzlYZkjqSo8UBGJ6jNTA/s1600/siradj.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYPQT4umxTcpxp_oEKYdGZ1pof6s5KXzcAUGMttAcg5-0d0iEPt6QrSozNft8hUU17T_AkmO9C2KolrgV5iF0nAPqs03y2U5kdD90PjQT9KEdgJYPuAaU6WGc4uzlYZkjqSo8UBGJ6jNTA/s1600/siradj.jpg" height="200" width="164" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Said Aqil Siradj</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Said Aqil Siradj used Al-Jabiri’s ideas for a book
in which he reinterpreted the notion of<i> Ahl al-Sunna wa’l-Jama’ah</i> (in
Indonesian abbreviated to <i>Aswaja</i>).</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Instead of understanding it as a historical school
of thought or <i>mazhab</i>, Siradj interpreted it as a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>manhaj</i> or method.<span style="color: red;"> </span>In
his view </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Manhaj Taqlid</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> did not mean blind
imitation. Rather it meant a method of thinking, in other words an </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Manhaj
al-Fikr</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> or epistemology
which in fact accommodated a lot of different approaches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the later he drew inspiration from NU
leader Abdurrahman Wahid, who quoted a saying of the prophet that 'difference
within the Umma is a blessing' – to promote intellectual debate in the NU.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">It was also Said Aqil Siradj who introduced Ahmad
Baso to Al-Jabiri’s writings, and thus motivate Baso into producing the first Indonesian
translation of a number of essays by Al-Jabiri, which were published under the
title </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Post Traditionalisme Islam</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> or Islamic
Post-Traditionalism. From then on Islamic Post-Traditionalism became a new term
of reference for a way of critical thinking about Indonesian Islam among young
NU cadres and intellectuals. In his introduction to the translated essays, Baso
says that al-Jabiri’s return to the tradition is not a matter of picking and
choosing, but a holistic appropriation for the purpose of analyzing
Arab-Islamic thought in its theological, linguistic, juridical as well as
philosophical and mystical aspects. This is an approach that fits with the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>NU’s mission of rethinking <i>Aswaja</i> as defined
by Siradj and Gus Dur</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">In Baso’s interpretation of al-Jabiri</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">
</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">bayani</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> or discursive</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> </span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">thinking is more at
odds with its </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">irfani</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> or gnostic counterpart
than with</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> </span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">burhani</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> or demonstrative
reason. The reason for this affinity between discursive and demonstrative
reason is that the Qur’an, Islam’s core textual point of reference, recognizes
and encourages the use of human reason. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However<i>, I</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">rfan</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">, or Gnosticism, by
contrast calls into question the independent role for the human intellect.
According to Baso, this is why Al-Jabiri calls irfani thinking 'irrational'. It
is understandable that as an NU intellectual subscribing to the <i>Shafi’i Mazhab</i>,
Maturidi theology and Ghazalian Sufism, Baso has reservations against Al-Jabiri’s
outright dismissal of the spiritual legacy of the Muslim East.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqpTZrwgA2KP-tAHs6NdLHZaNem6IZ-5qFUN8fS1lyf3KUn2GzPmy22oR4KEEvHv5iLF5z6nL0Wl9-WtNVMoDQ_Y_Tzip81gQ9gtRGOJyhso_647UclQj7mW_QMPo_N8gRbkr2qfSv8EtR/s1600/baso.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqpTZrwgA2KP-tAHs6NdLHZaNem6IZ-5qFUN8fS1lyf3KUn2GzPmy22oR4KEEvHv5iLF5z6nL0Wl9-WtNVMoDQ_Y_Tzip81gQ9gtRGOJyhso_647UclQj7mW_QMPo_N8gRbkr2qfSv8EtR/s1600/baso.jpg" height="200" width="130" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ahmad Baso</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">But what Baso finds valuable is Al-Jabiri’s use of French
poststructuralism and postmodernism because it can help Indonesian Muslim
intellectuals in developing critiques of their own <i>turath</i> or heritage. Baso
also draws attention to Al-Jabiri calibration of different types of reason on
the basis of their </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">shurut as-sihha</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">, or ‘preconditions
of validity’ (</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">syarat-syarat keabsahan</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> in Indonesian<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">). In Baso’s view that procedure that is comparable to Kant’s Critique
of Pure Reason or the structural anthropology of Lévi-Strauss, who also
investigated the conditions that make human rational activity possible. </span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-vertical-align-alt: auto; text-autospace: ideograph-numeric ideograph-other;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">By bringing
the philosophy of al-Jabiri into the discourse of Islamic Post-Traditionalism, Baso
claims that he is continuing Abdurrahman Wahid’s pioneering efforts of
introducing Indonesian audiences to Arab-Islamic heritage thinking about political
action, such as nationalism, indigenization (<i>pribumisasi</i>), secularization, and feminism. Al-Jabiri’s
concern with text criticism and discourse analyse will make thinking about
heritage and tradition in the NU intellectually more rigorous. It shows an
awareness that ‘language is not just a world-disclosing, but also a
world-constituting exercise, producing a discourse and a new reality in terms
of politics, religion, and imagination. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Baso also sees Islamic Post-Traditionalism
as a‘new cultural strategy’ modelled after the articulation of the voices of
marginal people by intellectuals from South Asia who are involved in subaltern
studies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Al-Jabiri helps the new NU
intelligentsia to become organic intellectuals centered on NGOs engaged in
emancipating rural and newly urbanized Muslims through grassroots level
initiatives. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNecfZykwWYK7BBAZ97jXj1yUlocH5Z5fm-5LDM-Ow_pjabZ53lX4BpIdCTuAjIdgHm0kqKSj6Pr3Qe8MO0gFNuXN3FGK9JTOn4sUo-w6nr0yv6L6SB3-Bv5sTCqgAATfnNeKqX2jVjMTU/s1600/Post_Tradisional_4ce1fc0e361d3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNecfZykwWYK7BBAZ97jXj1yUlocH5Z5fm-5LDM-Ow_pjabZ53lX4BpIdCTuAjIdgHm0kqKSj6Pr3Qe8MO0gFNuXN3FGK9JTOn4sUo-w6nr0yv6L6SB3-Bv5sTCqgAATfnNeKqX2jVjMTU/s1600/Post_Tradisional_4ce1fc0e361d3.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">As a
translator of Al-Jabiri’s writings, Ahmad Baso observes that Al-Jabiri provides
a strategy, an “epistemological rupture” and paradigmatic revolution that will
overturn current Western-inspired modernist-liberal ideologies and replace them
with Indonesian Islamic alternatives. Through the ideas derived from Al-Jabiri,
Ahmad Baso and other Anak Muda NU see
themselves as continuing the anti-essentialist and non-reductive social ethics
of their mentor Abdurrahman Wahid, which was grounded in <i>Pribumisasi Islam</i>
– that is the ‘indigenization Islam’ into culturally specific contexts of
Indonesia.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-vertical-align-alt: auto; text-autospace: ideograph-numeric ideograph-other;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">At the
same time, however, Baso is acutely aware that the NU’s holistic framework with
it strong Sufi dimensions, stands in tense relationship to al-Jabiri’s unambiguous
privileging of rational (burhani)
thinking. </span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">This shows also that</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> Baso is no
uncritical admirer of al-Jabiri, but – on the contrary – very acutely aware of
‘nationalistic’ tendencies that seem to infuse al-Jabiri’s interest in the
philosophies of the Muslim West, or Maghreb. As a Moroccan, al-Jabiri’s
preference for the intellectual heritage of the Maghreb may indeed lay him open
to the charge of chauvinism.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">All
this attention for heritage thinking among NU intellectuals strengthens the
impression that traditionalist Indonesian Muslims are more progressive than
their modernist counterparts. This may be the case to some degree, but also in
the Muhammadiyah one finds an interest in the ideas of Al-Jabiri. It forms part
of a re-appreciation for the cultural context of religions by certain Islamic
modernists in Indonesia.</span></div>
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<b><i><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Al-Jabiri and Indonesia’s
Muslim Modernists</span></i></b></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">One such figure is M. Amin
Abdullah, a leading figure in the Muhammadiyah and philosopher trained in
Turkey, who eventually became rector the State Islamic University in Yogyakarta.
Building on his research from the early 1990s, in <i>The Study of Religion;
Normativity or Historicity?</i> In which he argues that contemporary Islamic
philosophy has to come to terms with its Western counterpart, but at the same
retain the normativity of Islam’s doctrine. Too often this is interpreted as an
‘intellectual invasion', or <i>al-ghazwu al-fikry,</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and this makes it difficult to change the
resulting ‘reactive-defensive-emotional’ response into a
‘proactive-conceptual-argumentative’ one which was pioneered by heritage
thinkers such as al-Jabiri. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcYhDVh5MzE2cXuftub8ZWnj5iM0kuIIQgqXQR0iTvxrOU1iXMTVVcGk_25DTsi2c5QEMu-exv7A162IMyGn0ph1uXFJSJx6F07przJ-5yFeUZI5Y0D75NPdY2LfPrOuuQRmSHQB5F3A9i/s1600/36amin+abdullah.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcYhDVh5MzE2cXuftub8ZWnj5iM0kuIIQgqXQR0iTvxrOU1iXMTVVcGk_25DTsi2c5QEMu-exv7A162IMyGn0ph1uXFJSJx6F07przJ-5yFeUZI5Y0D75NPdY2LfPrOuuQRmSHQB5F3A9i/s1600/36amin+abdullah.jpg" height="200" width="144" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">M. Amin Abdullah</td></tr>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">It forms the starting point
for a new philosophy of education and a new curriculum for the study of Islam which
Amin Abdullah explored in another book called <i>Islamic Studies in Higher
Education, An Integrative-Interconnective Approach</i>. Here Abdullah proposes comprehensive
approach to the study of religions as an open and interdisciplinary field,
which looks at Islam as a living religion. It seeks to examine Islam through a
civilizational lens by using both traditional religious and modern secular
disciplines in combination with an ethical-philosophical approach that does not
pretend to be value-free</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Amin Abdullah draws
predominantly from the triptych of the bayani, burhani, and irfani
epistemes which Muhammad Abid al-Jabiri had developed in his Critique of Arab
Reason. He says that Al-Jabiri’s critical approach covers a domain that is very
similar to that of Western philosophy of science, and it is for that reason
that Amin Abdullah proposes something that has not been tried before in Islamic
Studies.: Applying the findings of leading philosophers of science, such as
Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, and Imre Lakatos, to the study of Islam. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-vertical-align-alt: auto; text-autospace: ideograph-numeric ideograph-other;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Amin Abdullah considers the
dialectical historiographical meta-method of Lakatos particularly relevant
because it formulates an alternative that navigates between the falsification
process outlined by Popper and Kuhn’s paradigm shift. The distinctive aspect of
Lakatos’s research programme is that it consists of a ‘hard core', corresponding
to Kuhn’s paradigm, and a ‘protective belt’ of auxiliary hypotheses meant to
defend the core from being challenged and undermined – or from being falsified,
as Popper would call it. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-vertical-align-alt: auto; text-autospace: ideograph-numeric ideograph-other;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Transposing these concepts
of these concepts of the philosophy of science to Islamic studies, the field’s
core is ‘normative Islam’ transmitted through traditional Islamic learning, while
‘historical Islam’ forms the ‘protective belt’. It is the conflation of the
two that prevents a critical study of Islam. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-vertical-align-alt: auto; text-autospace: ideograph-numeric ideograph-other;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">This is Amin Abdullah’s
plan as far as methodology and research agenda for a philosophy of Islamic sciences
goes, but – as mentioned earlier – the aim of this new way of studying
Islam is not just epistemological but also axiological: Namely To help find the
<i>fundamental value </i>lying behind the Islamic doctrine. The new way of
doing Islamic studies on the basis of the findings of the philosophy of science
and the sociology of knowledge requires a new research programme combining
linguistic-historical, philosophical-theological, and sociological-anthropological
approaches, offered by the historical, structural, and ideological analyses found in Al-Jabiri’s
Critique of Islamic Reason.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The main challenge of this
comprehensive research programme is how to reconcile the absolute truth claims
of the disciplines of traditional Islamic learning representing religious
knowledge with relativized truths claims and the scepticism of the modern
humanities and social sciences, which produce knowledge <i>about </i>religion(s)
by taking them as social phenomena. Navigating between extreme absolutes and
relativities, the outcome of Abdullah’s negotiation between religious sciences,
on the one hand, and the human sciences on the other is the ‘relatively
absolute’ approach. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Amin Abdullah also explains
that transcending the bipolarity of religion and science as two separate
entities with their own formal-material concerns, research methodologies,
criteria for truth or validity, and functionality means<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that a new foundation needs to be found for
the epistemological unity of religious and positivist-secular knowledge of, what
Abdullah calls, <i>Etika Tauhidik</i> -- an ‘Ethics grounded in Transcendent
Unity’. This clearly resonates with Ibn Rushd’s conclusion that revealed and
demonstrative scientific and philosophical truths are not incompatible.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">For Amin Abdullah, Al-Jabiri’s
bayani, irfani and burhani systems of thought provide the structure for
transforming contemporary multidisciplinary Islamic studies into a twenty
first-century version of al-Ghazali’s equally comprehensive approach to
conventional eleventh-century religious sciences. It creates a dialogue between
the two in order to ‘humanize’ Islamic learning rather than ‘Islamize’
knowledge. The triangulation of Al-Jabiri’s critique of discursive, gnostic,
and demonstrative reason connects the domains of textual-normative and contextual-historical-empirical
analyses and offers the circularity which defines the desired dynamical
hermeneutics of Abdullah’s integrative-interconnective approach.</span></div>
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<b><u><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Conclusion</span></u></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-vertical-align-alt: auto; text-autospace: ideograph-numeric ideograph-other;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Here we have then a few
examples of the use of al-Jabiri’s philosophy by Indonesian Muslim
intellectuals from NU and Muhammadiyah backgrounds for their own respective
agendas.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-vertical-align-alt: auto; text-autospace: ideograph-numeric ideograph-other;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">However, the fact that a
Moroccan rationalist philosopher appeals to both of them, seems to show that
Al-Jabiri’s thinking has brought about a kind of meeting of the minds between Islamic
traditionalism and modernism that transcends a almost two-centuries old divide.</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"> </span></div>
</div>
Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-59394335120716446962015-01-23T17:51:00.001+00:002015-01-23T17:52:07.905+00:00 Is there a right not to feel insulted? Or freedom to offend? A critical Muslim's view <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo_shooting">Paris shootings</a> of 7 January 2015, at the offices of the satirical magazine <a href="http://charliehebdo.fr/"><i>Charlie Hebdo</i></a> and in a kosher supermarket, have rekindled the debates on how contemporary multi-cultural societies can reconcile the freedom of speech and expression with respect for other people's beliefs and convictions.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuBYDHRdMhRpSx1W7s7IgSkfKH36tnmvi8uJ7Vp_y9mmPvKOZpdxBp4g-w74zwHaMw6a_9YTKHzOtKR3qsZIHqoOmuKhlXN0P85Xfz1JYz4Rqq-7gk9tSy2XDYF1TvMA9c4aEOsyuWnrXA/s1600/farouk+peru.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuBYDHRdMhRpSx1W7s7IgSkfKH36tnmvi8uJ7Vp_y9mmPvKOZpdxBp4g-w74zwHaMw6a_9YTKHzOtKR3qsZIHqoOmuKhlXN0P85Xfz1JYz4Rqq-7gk9tSy2XDYF1TvMA9c4aEOsyuWnrXA/s1600/farouk+peru.jpeg" height="200" width="196" /></a></div>
The Malaysian-born British activist and academic <b>Farouk Peru</b>, who divides his time between the <a href="http://www.musliminstitute.org/">Muslim Institute</a> in London, pursuing postgraduate studies at King's College London, and maintaining the <i><a href="https://quranology.wordpress.com/author/faroukaperu/">Quranology Blog</a>, </i>responded with a provocatively titled and thought-provoking essay, published under the title "Why I support the freedom to offend me". Originally published on <i><a href="http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/">The Malaysian Insider</a> </i>website, it deserves to be posted her in full:<br />
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culture of ultra-reverence. As Malay Muslims who grew up in Malaysia, we had
more than just a healthy respect for our religious elders. In retrospect, I
would even say that we idolised them. Even polite criticism towards these men
(never women) of God was frowned upon.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The Charlie Hebdo
massacre was blamed on irreverence. I say “blamed” rather than “caused” because
that’s just an excuse. What really caused the massacre were firing guns. These
people could not handle the irreverence towards their faith shown by Charlie
Hebdo.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">In 2011, Charlie
Hebdo published cartoons of Prophet Muhammad and was firebombed as a result.
Irreverence was something they peddled and did so with pride.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The irreverence
people show to our respective religions act as a test of faith. To me, the
people who meted out these violent reactions towards Charlie Hebdo failed their
tests.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Of all the human
endeavours in life, religion is the one towards which we should expect the most
irreverence. Why? Because its very fundamental manoeuvre is to sell something
intangible. It promises salvation if you believe and practise. Yet this
salvation isn’t visible. So how can religionists expect submission and docility
from those who disagree with them?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Judging from the
past cartoons Charlie Hebdo published about Prophet Muhammad, they aimed to
offend the Muslims. Of course they did. But who really determines if they
succeed or otherwise? We do.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The Muslim
themselves. We have a choice of whether to take offence or not. I choose not
to. Those cartoons do not represent Prophet Muhammad to me so why on earth
would I be offended?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Instead, Muslims
should take these cartoons and any other form of criticism towards Islam, the
Quran and Prophet Muhammad as a challenge to their faith. Why should we have
the privilege of being shielded from criticism? What gives us the special right
to be exempt when we ourselves criticise other faiths and ideologies?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">If we would be truly
just, we would have to censor the Quran itself because it denigrates the status
of Jesus – thought to be God and/or son of God by Christians – to a mere
Prophet. Why is it all right for us to criticise a major religious figure yet
we expect sanctity from the rest of the world towards our founder?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">We should take any
form of criticism, even mockery and satire to be a test of our faith. Ask
ourselves, why would these critics and satirists publish their work? Is there
any truth to what they say?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Oftentimes, their
mockery has some loose relations with elements in our tradition. We should also
ask, why did they interpret Islam in that way?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Has it something to do with us
and the way we ourselves practise the faith? If we practised Islam in the right
way, should any person have the moral right to insult us? These are all
pertinent questions to ask.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br />
Let's not pretend as if they are impossible to fathom.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">This is why I support the freedom
to offend me. It is a freedom, not a necessity. The people who seek that
freedom may have legitimate grievances with my beliefs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">If so, I should investigate these
grievances to see whether or not they have a point and if so, is it perhaps my
interpretation which is at fault. If not, then they are not forcing me to
swallow their fruits of expression. I have every right and prerogative to
simply not buy their newspaper, open the webpage or listen to them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">We human beings – as the
"earth as spaceship” analogy goes – have to live in a shared space. As
such, we cannot afford to be hypersensitive but must rather instead by
magnanimous and show good will towards people. It may be that the criticism
masks deeper resentments with which we must engage with love, kindness and
compassion."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">This opinion article appeared
first on the website of the <i>Malaysian Insider </i>– January 9, 2015.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
grew up in a culture of ultra-reverence. As Malay Muslims who grew up
in Malaysia, we had more than just a healthy respect for our religious
elders. In retrospect, I would even say that we idolised them. Even
polite criticism towards these men (never women) of God was frowned
upon.<br />
They were self-proclaimed inheritors of the Prophet and so going
against them was tantamount to betraying the Prophet himself. This is
why the irreverence on the level displayed by the Charlie Hebdo
cartoonists would have been a massive culture shock to my adolescent
self.<br />
The Charlie Hebdo massacre was blamed on irreverence. I say “blamed”
rather than “caused” because that’s just an excuse. What really caused
the massacre were <a href="http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/world/article/suspect-in-charlie-hebdo-killings-trained-with-al-qaeda-in-yemen">people firing guns</a>. These people could not handle the irreverence towards their faith shown by Charlie Hebdo.<br />
<span class="awsm">
<span id="div-gpt-ad-1400601790726-3">
</span></span><br />
In 2011, Charlie Hebdo published cartoons of Prophet Muhammad and was
firebombed as a result. Irreverence was something they peddled and did
so with pride.
The irreverence people show to our respective religions act as a test
of faith. To me, the people who meted out these violent reactions
towards Charlie Hebdo failed their tests.<br />
Of all the human endeavours in life, religion is the one towards which
we should expect the most irreverence. Why? Because its very fundamental
manoeuvre is to sell something intangible. It promises salvation if you
believe and practise. Yet this salvation isn’t visible. So how can
religionists expect submission and docility from those who disagree with
them?<br />
Judging from the past cartoons Charlie Hebdo published about Prophet
Muhammad, they aimed to offend the Muslims. Of course they did. But who
really determines if they succeed or otherwise? We do.<br />
The Muslims themselves. We have a choice of whether to take offence or
not. I choose not to. Those cartoons do not represent Prophet Muhammad
to me so why on earth would I be offended?<br />
Instead, Muslims should take these cartoons and any other form of
criticism towards Islam, the Quran and Prophet Muhammad as a challenge
to their faith. Why should we have the privilege of being shielded from
criticism? What gives us the special right to be exempt when we
ourselves criticise other faiths and ideologies?<br />
If we would be truly just, we would have to censor the Quran itself
because it denigrates the status of Jesus – thought to be God and/or son
of God by Christians – to a mere Prophet. Why is it all right for us to
criticise a major religious figure yet we expect sanctity from the rest
of the world towards our founder?<br />
We should take any form of criticism, even mockery and satire to be a
test of our faith. Ask ourselves, why would these critics and satirists
publish their work? Is there any truth to what they say?<br />
Oftentimes, their mockery has some loose relations with elements in our
tradition. We should also ask, why did they interpret Islam in that
way?<br />
Has it something to do with us and the way we ourselves practise the
faith? If we practised Islam in the right way, should any person have
the moral right to insult us? These are all pertinent questions to ask.<br />
Let's not pretend as if they are impossible to fathom.<br />
This is why I support the freedom to offend me. It is a freedom, not a
necessity. The people who seek that freedom may have legitimate
grievances with my beliefs.<br />
If so, I should investigate these grievances to see whether or not they
have a point and if so, is it perhaps my interpretation which is at
fault. If not, then they are not forcing me to swallow their fruits of
expression. I have every right and prerogative to simply not buy their
newspaper, open the webpage or listen to them.<br />
We human beings – as the "earth as spaceship” analogy goes – have to
live in a shared space. As such, we cannot afford to be hypersensitive
but must rather instead by magnanimous and show good will towards
people. It may be that the criticism masks deeper resentments with which
we must engage with love, kindness and compassion. – January 9, 2015.<br />
- See more at:
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/why-i-support-the-freedom-to-offend-me-farouk-a.-peru#sthash.Fr9TMmUk.dpuf</div>
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
grew up in a culture of ultra-reverence. As Malay Muslims who grew up
in Malaysia, we had more than just a healthy respect for our religious
elders. In retrospect, I would even say that we idolised them. Even
polite criticism towards these men (never women) of God was frowned
upon.<br />
They were self-proclaimed inheritors of the Prophet and so going
against them was tantamount to betraying the Prophet himself. This is
why the irreverence on the level displayed by the Charlie Hebdo
cartoonists would have been a massive culture shock to my adolescent
self.<br />
The Charlie Hebdo massacre was blamed on irreverence. I say “blamed”
rather than “caused” because that’s just an excuse. What really caused
the massacre were <a href="http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/world/article/suspect-in-charlie-hebdo-killings-trained-with-al-qaeda-in-yemen">people firing guns</a>. These people could not handle the irreverence towards their faith shown by Charlie Hebdo.<br />
<span class="awsm">
<span id="div-gpt-ad-1400601790726-3">
</span></span><br />
In 2011, Charlie Hebdo published cartoons of Prophet Muhammad and was
firebombed as a result. Irreverence was something they peddled and did
so with pride.
The irreverence people show to our respective religions act as a test
of faith. To me, the people who meted out these violent reactions
towards Charlie Hebdo failed their tests.<br />
Of all the human endeavours in life, religion is the one towards which
we should expect the most irreverence. Why? Because its very fundamental
manoeuvre is to sell something intangible. It promises salvation if you
believe and practise. Yet this salvation isn’t visible. So how can
religionists expect submission and docility from those who disagree with
them?<br />
Judging from the past cartoons Charlie Hebdo published about Prophet
Muhammad, they aimed to offend the Muslims. Of course they did. But who
really determines if they succeed or otherwise? We do.<br />
The Muslims themselves. We have a choice of whether to take offence or
not. I choose not to. Those cartoons do not represent Prophet Muhammad
to me so why on earth would I be offended?<br />
Instead, Muslims should take these cartoons and any other form of
criticism towards Islam, the Quran and Prophet Muhammad as a challenge
to their faith. Why should we have the privilege of being shielded from
criticism? What gives us the special right to be exempt when we
ourselves criticise other faiths and ideologies?<br />
If we would be truly just, we would have to censor the Quran itself
because it denigrates the status of Jesus – thought to be God and/or son
of God by Christians – to a mere Prophet. Why is it all right for us to
criticise a major religious figure yet we expect sanctity from the rest
of the world towards our founder?<br />
We should take any form of criticism, even mockery and satire to be a
test of our faith. Ask ourselves, why would these critics and satirists
publish their work? Is there any truth to what they say?<br />
Oftentimes, their mockery has some loose relations with elements in our
tradition. We should also ask, why did they interpret Islam in that
way?<br />
Has it something to do with us and the way we ourselves practise the
faith? If we practised Islam in the right way, should any person have
the moral right to insult us? These are all pertinent questions to ask.<br />
Let's not pretend as if they are impossible to fathom.<br />
This is why I support the freedom to offend me. It is a freedom, not a
necessity. The people who seek that freedom may have legitimate
grievances with my beliefs.<br />
If so, I should investigate these grievances to see whether or not they
have a point and if so, is it perhaps my interpretation which is at
fault. If not, then they are not forcing me to swallow their fruits of
expression. I have every right and prerogative to simply not buy their
newspaper, open the webpage or listen to them.<br />
We human beings – as the "earth as spaceship” analogy goes – have to
live in a shared space. As such, we cannot afford to be hypersensitive
but must rather instead by magnanimous and show good will towards
people. It may be that the criticism masks deeper resentments with which
we must engage with love, kindness and compassion. – January 9, 2015.<br />
- See more at:
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/why-i-support-the-freedom-to-offend-me-farouk-a.-peru#sthash.Fr9TMmUk.dpuf</div>
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
grew up in a culture of ultra-reverence. As Malay Muslims who grew up
in Malaysia, we had more than just a healthy respect for our religious
elders. In retrospect, I would even say that we idolised them. Even
polite criticism towards these men (never women) of God was frowned
upon.<br />
They were self-proclaimed inheritors of the Prophet and so going
against them was tantamount to betraying the Prophet himself. This is
why the irreverence on the level displayed by the Charlie Hebdo
cartoonists would have been a massive culture shock to my adolescent
self.<br />
The Charlie Hebdo massacre was blamed on irreverence. I say “blamed”
rather than “caused” because that’s just an excuse. What really caused
the massacre were <a href="http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/world/article/suspect-in-charlie-hebdo-killings-trained-with-al-qaeda-in-yemen">people firing guns</a>. These people could not handle the irreverence towards their faith shown by Charlie Hebdo.<br />
<span class="awsm">
<span id="div-gpt-ad-1400601790726-3">
</span></span><br />
In 2011, Charlie Hebdo published cartoons of Prophet Muhammad and was
firebombed as a result. Irreverence was something they peddled and did
so with pride.
The irreverence people show to our respective religions act as a test
of faith. To me, the people who meted out these violent reactions
towards Charlie Hebdo failed their tests.<br />
Of all the human endeavours in life, religion is the one towards which
we should expect the most irreverence. Why? Because its very fundamental
manoeuvre is to sell something intangible. It promises salvation if you
believe and practise. Yet this salvation isn’t visible. So how can
religionists expect submission and docility from those who disagree with
them?<br />
Judging from the past cartoons Charlie Hebdo published about Prophet
Muhammad, they aimed to offend the Muslims. Of course they did. But who
really determines if they succeed or otherwise? We do.<br />
The Muslims themselves. We have a choice of whether to take offence or
not. I choose not to. Those cartoons do not represent Prophet Muhammad
to me so why on earth would I be offended?<br />
Instead, Muslims should take these cartoons and any other form of
criticism towards Islam, the Quran and Prophet Muhammad as a challenge
to their faith. Why should we have the privilege of being shielded from
criticism? What gives us the special right to be exempt when we
ourselves criticise other faiths and ideologies?<br />
If we would be truly just, we would have to censor the Quran itself
because it denigrates the status of Jesus – thought to be God and/or son
of God by Christians – to a mere Prophet. Why is it all right for us to
criticise a major religious figure yet we expect sanctity from the rest
of the world towards our founder?<br />
We should take any form of criticism, even mockery and satire to be a
test of our faith. Ask ourselves, why would these critics and satirists
publish their work? Is there any truth to what they say?<br />
Oftentimes, their mockery has some loose relations with elements in our
tradition. We should also ask, why did they interpret Islam in that
way?<br />
Has it something to do with us and the way we ourselves practise the
faith? If we practised Islam in the right way, should any person have
the moral right to insult us? These are all pertinent questions to ask.<br />
Let's not pretend as if they are impossible to fathom.<br />
This is why I support the freedom to offend me. It is a freedom, not a
necessity. The people who seek that freedom may have legitimate
grievances with my beliefs.<br />
If so, I should investigate these grievances to see whether or not they
have a point and if so, is it perhaps my interpretation which is at
fault. If not, then they are not forcing me to swallow their fruits of
expression. I have every right and prerogative to simply not buy their
newspaper, open the webpage or listen to them.<br />
We human beings – as the "earth as spaceship” analogy goes – have to
live in a shared space. As such, we cannot afford to be hypersensitive
but must rather instead by magnanimous and show good will towards
people. It may be that the criticism masks deeper resentments with which
we must engage with love, kindness and compassion. – January 9, 2015.<br />
- See more at:
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/why-i-support-the-freedom-to-offend-me-farouk-a.-peru#sthash.Fr9TMmUk.dpuf</div>
</div>
Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-63735376631921306512015-01-12T18:45:00.001+00:002015-01-13T15:42:20.990+00:00Has Sunni Islam as a 'Community of the Middle' died?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Herunder are some excerpts from an article that appeared in <i><a href="http://www.theislamicmonthly.com/the-magazine/">The Islamic Monthly.</a></i> It is from the hand of <b><a href="http://www.law.utoronto.ca/faculty-staff/full-time-faculty/mohammad-fadel">Mohammad Fadel</a>. </b>An established scholar, currently associated with the University of Toronto, Fadel is also a prolific author and critical debater on things Islamic.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXp5H0BusWKm_39kqUR3rHhZlGDBP_Eb1btizh_SW_OiF-2Nd4_s_tZGomvx4UN7TjvdFsqHthViIDDMC6OFkCGDGw9hM1NyoeqVRIOUWmLO77TkJ7XWQpOz72ZA9Cx_f6rF6Jt5vMoEMI/s1600/fadel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXp5H0BusWKm_39kqUR3rHhZlGDBP_Eb1btizh_SW_OiF-2Nd4_s_tZGomvx4UN7TjvdFsqHthViIDDMC6OFkCGDGw9hM1NyoeqVRIOUWmLO77TkJ7XWQpOz72ZA9Cx_f6rF6Jt5vMoEMI/s1600/fadel.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mohammad Fadel</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the intriguingly entitled 'ISIS, Islamophobia, and the End of Sunnism', he criticizes both media-savvy Islam (or religion in general) bashers such as Bill Maher and Sam Harris, but also presents an introspection into the shortcomings of the Muslim intelligentsia</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><line-height: 28.7999992370605px="">Saying that their description of Islamic doctrines is reductionist is not responsive to the legitimate concern that certainly some</line-height:></span><span 28.7999992370605px="" line-height:=""> Muslims hold to the doctrines that Harris and Maher criticize, nor does it provide an answer to the question that many people genuinely wish to know, namely, what is</span><spanline-height: 28.7999992370605px=""> the content of authoritative Islamic teaching </spanline-height:>regarding a familiar range of contentious issues that are held to be important by mainstream liberals?</i></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In a lucid and boldly argued piece, Fadel not only takes 'new atheists' to task for the misconceived views of Islam, but puts the blame also on Muslim intellectuals. He criticizes the latter for failing to come up with convincing counter arguments as a result of their own uncritical rehashing of outdated texts and over-reliance on authority figures from the past.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The profound weakness, or even the non-existence, of a credible </i></span><i>institutional expression of Islamic teachings in the modern world means there is no source from which an outsider (or even Muslims) can know what authoritative Islamic teaching is. In the absence of such an expression, one can hardly blame non-Muslims — who wish to “know” what Muslims believe — for turning to the same sources that Muslims themselves do, such as pre-modern treatises of Islamic law that continue to be taught in seminaries in the Muslim world and are also used by Muslims in the West.</i></blockquote>
While appreciative of the argument that there is no such thing as 'Islam', and that it makes more sense to talk of 'Muslims', it is methodologically impossible to give exhaustive representative accounts that accurately reflect the full diversity of opinion among the believers:</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Such an empirical investigation, at its extreme, would require surveying of millions of Muslim individuals all over the world before conclusions about Islam could be reached. Not only would such a study be practically impossible, we generally don’t demand such precision in empirical studies before we accept the results of social scientific studies</i></blockquote>
Pointing at the cheap shots taken by new atheists such as Sam Harris, Fadel observes:</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>It is a trivial exercise to pick up standard works of Islamic law and find ideas that are repugnant to the modern world. But, it is also a trivial exercise to pick up classics of Western philosophy and law and find the same thing. Even Thomas Jefferson the most egalitarian of America’s founders, expressed views on gender equality that would disqualify him today from entering public office, or might even get him dismissed from a public office were he to express them openly. </i></blockquote>
It is not just a matter of 'tit-for-tat' in debating the likes of Harris and Maher, the lack of critical engagement with the Islamic heritage on the part of Muslims themselves is preventing any real tangible change in the generally deplorable political condition of the Muslim world. For example, in relation to the contentious issue of the application of Islamic law, Fadel observes:</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>..if Sunni Muslims are too indifferent to their law that they fail to articulate a meaningful expression of its content in the modern world, then the best that Sunnis can plead in their own defense is that historical Islamic law is irrelevant to their beliefs and actions. But it is this very nihilism that produces the ethical and political vacuum that authoritarian political regimes, corrupt oligarchies and religious millenarians have filled and created the political circumstances justifying Islamophobia.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Why, after more than a century of theological and legal reform that has generally moved toward greater recognition of rights of women and non-Muslims, for example, has a brutally atavistic movement like ISIS found a home (even if one hopes it is only temporary) in the Nile-to-Oxus region, which was once called the heartland of the Islamic world by the great American historian of Islam, Marshall Hodgson? In my opinion, this is not because a reified Islam is teaching Muslims to reject liberal values as such, but is a simple and predictable reflection of the fact that political orders prevailing in the Islamic heartland have no interest in promoting liberalizing political values. </i></blockquote>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
Cutting to the heart of the matter, according to Fadel's diagnosis, Sunni Islam has failed to live up to its claim as representing the <i>umma-alwasat</i> -- the 'community of the middle':</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Sunnism was historically a centrist tradition that rejected the messianism of Shiʿism and the unforgiving puritanism of the Khawārij. Its centrism, however, was not born of a kind of ad hoc reasoning that called on Muslims simply to take middle positions between extremes. It was a centrism based on firm adherence to certain moral principles, including rejection of armed rebellion with a refusal to recognize as valid the illegal conduct of rulers; a readiness to overlook moral shortcomings of individuals constituting the community, whether rulers or ruled, combined with an insistence on holding each person accountable before the law for their conduct
</i></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The consequences are dire, because in his conclusion Mohammad Fadel minces no words:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>In short, the political theology of Sunnism was centered on the sovereignty of law and respect for authority (not power as such). The historical tradition of Sunnism, however, assumed a certain kind of relationship between political leaders, religious leaders and the public that no longer exists and will not return. Until a new political theology is established that adapts the historical principles of Sunnism to the realities of a democratic age, we can continue to expect the persistence of groups like ISIS and the Islamophobic New Atheists. </i></blockquote>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">For the full article, click</span><a href="http://www.theislamicmonthly.com/isis-islamophobia-and-the-end-of-sunnism/" style="font-family: inherit;"> here</a></div>
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Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-24987678531651836262014-11-21T18:54:00.000+00:002014-11-23T15:08:45.504+00:00Abdelwahab Meddeb (1946-2014): The disloyal loyalty of a critical Muslim<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The French-Tunisian literary writer and essayist Abdelwahab Meddeb passed away on 6 November. Born into a North-African family of religious scholars, he moved to France in his youth to pursue a literary career. In the course of his life he became increasingly fascinated with his Muslim roots, but re-interpreted these in his own original manner. His re-readings of the Islamic heritage were often considered controversial by Muslim traditionalists and certainly outrageous and unacceptable to narrow-minded literalists on the reactionary side of the Muslim spectrum. Earlier posts about Meddeb and his work on this blog can be found <a href="http://caroolkersten.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/islam-and-other-abdelwahab-meddeb.html">here</a> and <a href="http://caroolkersten.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/french-tunisian-intellectual-abdelwahab.html">here</a> and <a href="http://caroolkersten.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/going-to-extremes.html">here.</a> The following excerpts are taken from an obituary that appeared on the<i> Qantara</i> website.<i> </i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Meddeb's act of crossing boundaries did not extinguish or deny the
traces of his roots, which remained for him a powerful reference point
and source of creative interplay. Again and again, Meddeb made reference
to his dual ancestry in the East and the West, especially in the light
of his origins in the Maghreb, which from an Arab perspective is the
"West".
He saw himself as a decidedly secular, Arab-European cosmopolitan
individual whose chief concern was a revival of the intellectual
convergence of the Islamic, Jewish and Christian history of thought that
had been lost for centuries.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>He set himself the long-term task of carving out an image of Islam
that does not accentuate dogma and norm, but divergence, and of issuing
insistent reminders of the critical, bold and even blasphemous thought
that has also existed within Islam and among Muslim thinkers.
</i><br />
<i>In this regard he saw points for launching a fruitful dialogue
between the freedoms of the Western modern age and the polyphonic,
multicultural legacy of Islamic societies.</i><br />
<br />
<i>Meddeb never tired of bemoaning the cultural amnesia fostered by
westernisation and fundamentalism, a condition that affects both Western
and Islamic societies in equal measure. What remains is the fatal
polarisation of totally entrenched identities perpetuated by phantasms
of supposed purity and clarity that are blind to history.</i><br />
<i>
</i>
<i>Like few others, Abdelwahab Meddeb made a convincing case for the
argument that creativity, development and vitality are only possible
through free thought, the crossing of boundaries and "disloyal loyalty" –
and not through rigid morals, the pressure to conform, or the other
extreme of denial and contemptuous rejection of tradition.</i> </blockquote>
The full obituary can be read <a href="http://en.qantara.de/content/the-death-of-abdelwahab-meddeb-a-proponent-of-disloyal-loyalty">here</a>. <br />
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For those who read French, here are a few excerpts from the 'In Memoriam' that appeared in <i>Le Monde</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i> </i><i>« Je porte en moi la maladie de l’islam », disait-il encore [...]Une position singulière, qui lui valut d’avoir des adversaires dans
chaque camp. Mais aussi de nombreux amis et soutiens, tels l’islamologue
Christian Jambet, le philosophe Jean-Luc Nancy, l’historien d’art Jean-Hubert Martin, l’essayiste Olivier Mongin, ancien directeur d’Esprit, qui lui proposa d’entrer dans le comité de rédaction de la revue. Ou encore le musicien Michel Portal, qui vint jouer Mozart et Schubert et improviser à la clarinette dans sa chambre d’hôpital, afin d’apaiser les souffrances de cet irréductible amoureux des arts. </i></blockquote>
The rest can be read <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/article/2014/11/06/mort-de-l-essayiste-et-romancier-abdelwahab-meddeb-1946-2014_4519799_3382.html">here</a>.<br />
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French philosopher and friend Jean-Luc Nancy wrote an <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/article/2014/11/07/voyages-de-meddeb-un-hommage-de-jean-luc-nancy_4520440_3382.html">hommage</a>, in which he noted that:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tu es parti pour ton dernier <a class="lien_interne rub" href="http://www.lemonde.fr/m-voyage/" title="Toute l’actualité voyage">voyage</a>, Abdelwahab. Comme tous tes voyages il a déjà son retour en lui [...] </span>De tous tes voyages tu reviens, à <a class="lien_interne rub" href="http://www.lemonde.fr/paris/" title="Toute l’actualité Paris">Paris</a>, Tunis ou Tanger, à Rome, Le <a class="lien_interne bourse" href="http://www.lemonde.fr/bourse/nyse-euronext-paris-equities/caire/">Caire</a>,
Berlin ou Résafé (souviens toi) parce que dans tous tu rencontres le
retour éternel du même, de ce même qui n’est jamais identique, chaque
fois nouveauté d’une même présence, chaque fois inscription d’un trait
de la même présence. Dans la suite de tes poèmes son nom est Aya, une
femme, quelqu’une, toutes, nous tous. « Tu es parti avec le poème /
et tu resteras avec nous à jamais » - c’est toujours toi qui le dis et
nous le récitons avec toi.» </i></blockquote>
Just three weeks before his death, Abdelwahab Meddeb recorded his last radio contribution for Medi Radio, where he had a series on Islamic civilization, broadcasted every Saturday evening. His last meditation can be heard <a href="http://www.medi1.com/player/player.php?i=6106810">here</a>. <br />
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Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-54104398264868881752014-11-15T14:42:00.002+00:002014-11-15T14:44:14.250+00:00Hasan Hanafi on the Arab Spring and Muslim ambiguities towards Secularism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In a brief interview with Moncef Slimi on the aftermath of the Arab Spring posted on the <i><a href="http://en.qantara.de/">Qantara</a></i> Website, the Egyptian philosopher Hasan Hanafi made some interesting observations on Muslim attitudes towards secularism.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Egyptian philosopher Hasan Hanafi</td></tr>
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In response to the question whether it is possible at all to establish a secular order in Muslim countries without religious reforms, he noted that 'in the Arab world that's partically impossible. The concept of secularism is generally rejected by the majority of the population'. The reasons for that are the long-time effects of the defeat of the 1882 uprising of Egyptian officers led by Ahmad Urabi (1841-1911) against British tutelage; the impact of Ataturk's hardcore laicism and abolition of the caliphate in 1924; as well as the continuous and continuing repression of progressive Muslim intellectuals by successive autocratic Arab nationalist regimes.<br />
<br />
In effect, Hanafi thinks that Muslims -- and Arabs in particular -- need to start from scratch, returning to the ideas of the nineteenth-century Islamic reformers Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838-1897) and Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905).<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span 14px="" 19px="" line-height:=""><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>We should remember the reformist legacy of this movement, and realise that back then, the rejection of worldly thought was a reflexive reaction by influential progressive thinkers to the failure of efforts by the Islamic peoples to achieve liberation from European colonialism. </i></span></span></blockquote>
This also corresponds to the points of departure of Hanafi's own lifelong mission for defining and establishing an Islamic way of progressive thinking. Known as the <i>Heritage and Renewal </i>Project, the evolution of this project is discussed in great detail in my book <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1849041296/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1849041296&linkCode=as2&tag=caroolkersten&linkId=GEWEXCEE7HCRF52P" style="font-style: italic;">Cosmopolitans and Heretics</a>. Where al-Afghani and Abduh represent the first and second phases of trailblazing and breaking ground for the development of an Islamic philosophical method, Hanafi sees himself as following in the footsteps of Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938), taking up and implementing the final and third phase of this reform process which the poet and philosopher from British India had laid out in <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0804781478/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0804781478&linkCode=as2&tag=caroolkersten&linkId=XZN52ENISHS3GOTK"><i>The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam</i></a>.</div>
<br />
Throughout his career, Hanafi has oscillated between this philosophical project and more engaged writings on current affairs in the Arab world. In the interview, he brings up the hostility of many Arab regimes against religious activism, even if it is strictly intellectual. These state interventions are not helpful in moving the Arab world forward:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span 14px="" 19px="" line-height:=""><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The aggressive banning of religion from the public sphere by the state, and the introduction of a kind of "State Islam", is not going to lead us out of this dilemma. The tension between religion and politics would remain even then</i></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">. </span></blockquote>
Religious reforms in the Muslim world will need to take place within their appropriate context and its own terms, because as Hanafi observes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span 14px="" 19px="" line-height:=""><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Islam actually has no structures like the Church. Neither the Sunni Al-Azhar University nor the International Union of Muslim Scholars functions as an authority for the whole of Islam. In my view, the only Islamic authority comes from open, unbiased, scholarly discourse. And this is why is it quite simply structurally impossible for Islam to undergo the same kind of reforms as other faiths</i></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">. </span></blockquote>
To read the full interview click<a href="http://en.qantara.de/content/interview-with-egyptian-philosopher-hassan-hanafi-from-velvet-spring-to-military-despotism"> here</a><br />
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For some earlier critical observations on the role of Muslim intellectuals such as Hanafi in the Arab uprisings, read the post of<a href="http://caroolkersten.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/arab-spring-intellectual-underpinnings.html"> 31 July 2011</a>.<br />
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Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-35615710747442643662014-10-17T17:46:00.003+01:002014-10-17T18:06:08.812+01:00Ethnicity and Religion: Navid Kermani's visit to Iraq<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The German-Iranian academic, writer and intellectual <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navid_Kermani">Navid Kermani</a> spent a week traveling in war-torn Iraq. Here are some excerpts from his interview with the Muslim world news website <a href="http://en.qantara.de/"><i>Qantara </i></a>about his findings. It paints a depressing picture of what once was a cosmopolitan country.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Relations [among Iraqis] are increasingly characterised by ethnicity. The old
multicultural Baghdad – up until the 1940s, the Jews represented the
largest and leading intellectual population group in the city – this
multicultural Baghdad no longer exists. Now, people rely on the other
members of their denominational group. Solidarity prevails within the
group; people help each other. On the other hand, people are less likely
to help members of other denominations. The sense of togetherness has
dwindled to almost nothing.</i></blockquote>
Regarding the role of religion, in this instance Islam, Kermani stresses the prominent role played by people from 'secular' backgrounds (by which he means scientists and professionals), including members of the former Baathist regime, who use and manipulate religion for their own political objectives<i> </i>and who are willing to associate with organisations such as ISIS for these purposes.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>One should take the religious façade seriously. Many European jihadis,
many jihadis active on the ground and Wahhabism, which has contributed
to the fact that this ideology was able to spread: all of that is
religious; it should be taken seriously. It's a religious thought
process. However, this process is turning against its own tradition. It
is – and this is the protestant element involved – doing away with
tradition in order to return to the basic scripture. It is, therefore,
an anti-traditional movement.</i></blockquote>
To read the whole interview, click <a href="http://en.qantara.de/content/interview-with-navid-kermani-one-should-take-the-religious-facade-seriously"><b>here</b></a>.<br />
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For more on Navid Kermani and his work, visit <a href="http://www.navidkermani.de/view.php?nid=183"> <b>his website</b></a><b>.</b><br />
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Links to some of his publications can be found by clicking on the widget below.<b> </b><br />
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Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3719049676166063439.post-26547453665738904832014-10-01T16:45:00.001+01:002014-10-07T13:26:31.346+01:00Critical Muslims of the Past: A History of Philosophy in the Islamic World without Gaps<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSXediX-hkdaQtgaWI_TTltNbVi_guozKDYgKZCP8VAWGyimlJlCvaiIh9Ndo4meAXJYMoFFtV1EiX6H5A3C-mOSQ-XTJX1XPvdP-8AxSGdL68OWlRyH30Pe8bpgTm6SLTfxBc6U-BMMEs/s1600/adamson4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSXediX-hkdaQtgaWI_TTltNbVi_guozKDYgKZCP8VAWGyimlJlCvaiIh9Ndo4meAXJYMoFFtV1EiX6H5A3C-mOSQ-XTJX1XPvdP-8AxSGdL68OWlRyH30Pe8bpgTm6SLTfxBc6U-BMMEs/s1600/adamson4.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a></div>
Although this blog is primarily geared towards contemporary Muslim thinking and present-day critical Muslims, I want to draw attention to a mega project of a former colleague at King's College London, historian of philosophy <a href="http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/philosophy/people/staff/associates/visit/adamson/index.aspx" target="_blank">Peter Adamson</a>, who remains a visiting professor at the College, but is now based at the Ludwig Maximilian University <a href="http://www.philosophie.uni-muenchen.de/lehreinheiten/philosophie_6_/personen/adamson/index.html" target="_blank">(LMU</a>) in Munich.<br />
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Over the past few years, he has built up a collection of podcasts, which have now been put online as part of his <i>History of Philosophy without any gaps. </i>Although focusing on classical Greek and Roman philosophy, because of Adamson's personal interest in early Arab philosophy, it also includes an extensive section on the history of philosophy in the Islamic World, which can be accessed <a href="http://www.historyofphilosophy.net/islamic-world">here</a><br />
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The material is now being developed into a book series, the first volume of which has recently appeared under the title <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199674531/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0199674531&linkCode=as2&tag=wwwcaroolkers-20&linkId=O3HG3YPGZJEMLI4K"><i>Classical Philosophy: A history of philosophy without any gaps</i></a>. In an earlier instance, he has also edited a volume on Arab philosophy. For further details click on the image below:<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/052152069X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=052152069X&linkCode=as2&tag=wwwcaroolkers-20&linkId=6VJSPC64OGGRGFBV"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=052152069X&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=wwwcaroolkers-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=wwwcaroolkers-20&l=as2&o=1&a=052152069X" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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<img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=wwwcaroolkers-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0199674531" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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<span style="text-align: left;">Hereunder is an impression of his audiovisual presentation of philosophy on youtube.</span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="280" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/O_OuAR8p4tY?list=PL44393CFE83CAE3C3" width="450"></iframe></div>
Carool Kerstenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750431494539468070noreply@blogger.com1