Liberal heresy in the contemporary Islamic cosmopolis

A review of Cosmopolitans and Heretics by Sajjad Rizvi, Associate Professor of Islamic Intellectual History at the University of Exeter. Here are a few highlights:

The book under review is [...] an exercise in contemporary intellectual history. [...] Critically, it not only abandons an essentialist reading of religion as a timeless set of doctrines, practices and rituals, but also distances itself from postmodernist approaches to religion by holding onto the category of religion as a meaningful concept and signifier. 

[it] examines the role of three contemporary ‘liberal’ Muslim thinkers who stand outside the mainstream, who have a training in the traditional disciplines of the Islamic space of learning often called the madrasa (or at least have a familiarity with it), and who are not just influenced by but also express the traditions of intellectual fashion current in metropolitan academia and its study of religion. These three voices are Hasan Hanafi, the late Nurcholish Madjid and the late Mohammed Arkoun.

 Kersten’s argument is partly that unlike the earlier generation of colonial, modernists who were simply concerned with making Islam ‘relevant’ to the contemporary world through the adoption of modern ideologies, institutions and practices, this generation of thinkers expresses not only a distrust of the possibilities of modernist commensurability but also of the ‘fundamentalist’ quest for authentic being through an atavistic and ahistorical ‘return’ to the pristine, early generation of Muslims, al-salaf al-ṣāliḥ. 

...the book offers an excellent corrective to the Middle East focused bias of Islamic studies and is a strong advocate for a serious study of South East Asian studies. It is refreshing to see a ‘view from the edge’, especially given the demographic and institutional significance of Indonesia.

Read the full article on Rizvi's MullaSadra blog: Hikmat: Liberal heresy in the contemporary Islamic cosmopolis.

Where are the Arab Intellectuals?

In his news analysis of 29 October 2011 published in the Sunday Review section, New York Times staff writer Robert F. Worth examines the relative silence of intellectuals from the Arab World during this year's 'Arab Spring'. It looks at the disappointment of Syrians due to the absence of any bold challenges by the famous poet Adonis in his open letter to Syrian President Asad.

Syrian-Lebanese poet Adonis

This makes Arab intellectuals look meek in comparison to their European, Asian and American intellectual predecessors like Vaclav Havel, Mao, and Thomas Paine. According to Worth it reflects the climate of repression under which many intellectuals in the Arab world live and work, but it is also symptomatic of the post-ideological era in which we live with much less room for 'unifying doctrines' and 'grandiose figures'. 

Syrian philosopher Sadiq Jalal al-Azm

Worth continues: 'To some extent the intellectual silence of the current uprising is a deliberate response to the revolutionary rhetoric of previous generations... [...] The protesters who led the Arab Spring had grown tired of the stale internationalist rhetoric of their forebears'. There is a perceptible shift from ideological grandstanding to a more realistic and pragmatic concern with human rights and democratization. Thinkers such as the Syrian philosopher Sadik Jalal al-Azm joined other Syrian intellectuals to sign the 'Declaration of the 99'.  But then again:

But in recent years their voices often went unheard, because their secular language had little resonance in societies where political Islamic was becoming a dominant force. nor did Islamic reformers fare much better when they tried to cast their political critique in religious terms. The Egyptian scholar Hassan Hanafi, for instrance, in the 1980s began calling for the creation of an "Islamic Left", a socialist ideology rooted in religion. He was branded a heretic and had to seek police protection after receiving death threats from jihadists. His work gained an audience in Indonesia, but not in his own country, said Carool Kersten, a lecturer at King's College London who has written on Islamic reformers. 

It appears intellectuals throughout the Arab world are struggling to find a way for giving voice to the frustrations, ambitions and expectations of its citizens. To read the full essay click here.


* those who read Arabic click on this link.

FEATURED REVIEW: POSTCOLONIAL PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

Routledge has included my review of Postcolonial Philosophy of Religion in its selection for the American Academic of Religion (AAR) Article Collection, which will be featured at the upcoming Annual Convention of the (AAR) in Atlanta from 30 October to 1 November 2010. The review is freely accessible until 31 December by clicking on the banner below.

For more information on Postcolonial Philosophy of Religion edited by Purushottama Bilimoria and Andrew B. Irvine click on the image below.

 

Scholars of Religion Discuss Alternative Islamic Discourses

The recently held conference of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) featured a panel on 'Alternative Islamic Discourses and the Question of Authority'. Hosted by the University of Toronto, the IAHR's 20th world congress was dedicated to religion as a human phenomenon. As part of the academic programme, Dr. Susanne Olsson of Södertörn University and current chair of the Swedish Association for the History of Religions and Dr Carool Kersten, lecturer in Islamic Studies at King's College London, convened a panel that brought together seven scholars from universities in Sweden, Britain, and the United States, to introduce and discuss innovative ways of engaging with Islam as a religious and cultural tradition which are currently developed in different parts of the Muslim world.

Conveners Susanne Olsson and Carool Kersten

Co-convener Susanne Olsson examined the influence of the Egyptian TV preacher Amr Khaled. Her presentation focused on the careful trajectory he must navigate in the tense political-religious climate of Egypt and the wider contemporary Muslim world . His interpretation of Islam could be described as promoting a personal piety and an individualistic understanding of responsibilities and duties. This has made him a potential threat to both the Egyptian regime as well as representatives of the so-called Establishment Islam. He also faces the challenge of having to negotiate between the demands of Islamic tradition and a globalizing world confronted with the complexities of modernity and secularisation. This forces Amr Khaled to accommodate his reinterpretation of Islam in a way that can be regarded as authentically Islamic while avoiding accusations of innovation and Westernisation.

Nida Kirmani

Nida Kirmani from the University of Birmingham has expanded her fieldwork in India to other parts of the Muslim world in order to assess the extent in which Islam can play a role in the advocacy of women's rights.  Although the promotion of women's rights tends to be regarded as a 'secular enterprise', Kirmani argues that various forms of 'Islamic feminism' have been emerging in the last two decades: A variety of non-governmental organisations and members of women's movements have drawn on these ideas and have, either by necessity or choice, begun to engage with Islamic discourses and actors in their efforts to promote women's rights on a variety of issues, especially in relation to reproductive rights and family laws.

Ann Kull

The phenomenon of 'Islamic feminism' was further explored by Ann Kull of Lund University, in a paper on gender-sensitive interpretations of Islam in Indonesia. Part of the discursive framework of Islamisation processes emerging in the 1980s, the Indonesian variant is firmly rooted in the country's 'cultural Islamisation' as opposed to the explicitly politicized versions developing elsewhere. Moreover, its liberal characteristics are informed by the emphasis on context in the interpretation of religious texts, while the level of penetration in society is also aided by the particularities of Indonesia's system of higher Islamic education and the relatively high levels of participation by women.

Carool Kersten

Remaining in Indonesia, Carool Kersten's introduction of  the country's Islamic Post-Traditionalists builds on his earlier research into new Muslim intellectualism emerging in the final decades of the 20th century. At the start of the new millennium, an upcoming generation of intellectuals with a dual secular-religious education began presenting an alternative to existing indigenous Indonesian Islamic traditionalism, transnational currents of revivalism in both its moderate and radical manifestations, and classical Islamic reformism and modernism represented by the heirs of figures like Muhammad Abduh. Born in the late 1960s and early 1970s, this new generation even challenges the synthesis of Islamic modernism and traditionalism developed by their immediate predecessors, such as Nurcholish Madjid (1939-2005)  and Abdurrahman Wahid (1940-2009). Steeped in poststructuralism and postcolonial studies, these upcoming intellectuals use the ideas of the French-Algerian historian of Islamic thought Mohammed Arkoun (cf. the blog entry of 11 October 2009), the Moroccan philosopher Muhammad Abid al-Jabiri (blog entry 16 May 2010), and the Egyptian text critic and semiotician Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (blog entry 6 July 2010), as well as Western thinkers such as Foucault and Derrida to subject all forms of Islamic thought to a rigorous discourse critique reflecting the primacy they accord to epistemological concerns, as opposed to the political considerations dominating other strands of contemporary Islamic discourses.

Seema Golestaneh

The afternoon session of the panel was opened by Seema Golestaneh,  a PhD candidate at Columbia University in New York, who discussed the role of Sufism in the development of modernist Islamic discourse in Iran. The focus of her research is on poetry reading groups associated with the Nimatullahi Order, the leading Sufi order in the Shi'ite parts of the Muslim world. In her talk she signaled the paradox of a move towards the esoteric, stressing the the inward -- some would even call it the a-social and a-political -- which in the context of the Iranian Islamic republic has nevertheless important socio-political consequences. Based on her fieldwork in Tehran, Isfahan and Kerman, she argues that the collected data provide valuable insights in the significance of personal interpretations of texts, which stand in contrast to more standardized orthodox practices of Usuli Shi'ism. The experience of intuitive knowledge or erfan offers not a neutral form of mystical or otherwise passive disengagement from the world, but a type of critical practice that simultaneously engages with the personal, social and metaphysical realms. Sufi poetry groups can thus be said to act as points of convergence between religion, literature and identity, offering an unique entry point into current manifestations of modernity in Iran.

Anne Ross Solberg

Moving from Iran to Turkey, the contribution of Anne Ross Solberg, who is completing a doctorate at Södertörn University, looks into the somewhat eccentric author and preacher Adnan Oktar, who uses the pen name Harun Yahya for his publications. Under this alias he has developed into one of the most visible Muslim proponents of creationism. Helped by a staff of researchers he has built up a prodigious internet presence in which he seeks to debunk Darwin's evolution theory, arguing it is an ideological tool for the spread of philosophical materialism and atheism.  He calls for Muslim unity under Turkish leadership to counter the continued propagation of what he insists is a defunct scientific theory only upheld through Masonic manipulations. Yahya's creationism is combined with an alternative Islamic eschatology placing himself and Turkey at the centre of a pre-millenarian narrative. In her presentation Anne Solberg posits Yahya/Oktar as an exponent of a new Muslim intelligentsia challenging the authority of 'establishment Islam'. His success is not based on academic credentials but rests on a combination of personal charisma, the effective use of new media and sophisticated marketing techniques. Orthodox and traditional authority figures find themselves struggling in how to counter such alternative discourses.

Zeki Saritoprak, incumbent of the Nursi Chair in Islamic Studies at Cleveland's John Carroll University, closed this series of presentations with an assessment of Muslim reactions to Fethullah Gülen and the eponymous movement (cf. also the blog entries of 12 June 2010 and  8 May 2010). The objective of his paper was to shed some light on the nature of the movement and the environment in which it arose in order to understand the perspectives of those who consider the movement and its purported leader as a threat. Special attention was paid to recent claims that Turkey, or rather Turkish secularism, is in a state of crisis and the role of the Gülen movement in that alleged crisis situation. Assessments of the movements objectives and influence vary greatly; where Le Monde presented it as the largest Islamic movement in the world, Zaman Today -- a leading English-language newspaper in Turkey with links to the movement -- hailed it as a great contributor to the strengthening of the country's democratic process, while others -- such as Newsweek, Foreign Policy and the Middle East Forum expressed concerns of its threat to secularism. In reviewing these various aspects, Saritoprak endeavoured to come to a more balanced understanding of what is undeniably a very influential movement in a country that is positioning itself increasingly as a key player in the Muslim world, strategically located between the Middle East, Europe, and Central Asia.

Zeki Saritoprak

  It is envisaged that the various contributions to this panel will be published in an edited volume dedicated to the development of new ways of critical engagement with Islam's religious and cultural legacy emerging in various parts of the contemporary Muslim world.

Muslims in the Netherlands: What is the effect of the 'Geert Wilders' Factor?

In his programme 'Islam and Life' on PressTV, Tariq Ramadan discusses the present situation of Muslims in The Netherlands in light of the rise of Geert Wilders and his PVV (Party for Freedom) on the country's political scene:

Who is Geert Wilders (Tariq Ramadan & Carool Kersten) from Carool Kersten on Vimeo.

Exploratory Workshop on The Islamic Caliphate in the Contemporary Muslim World

Three scholars from King's College London have been awarded a grant by the European Science Foundation for an exploratory workshop entitled Demystifying the Islamic Caliphate: Advocates, Opponents and Implications for Europe. This conference will be hosted by the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, bringing together scholars from various European countries to discuss the contemporary relevance of the historical caliphate as well as new interpretations across the Muslim world.

In their proposal, workshop conveners Madawi al-Rasheed, Carool Kersten and Marat Shterin noted that from London to Moscow, Sarajevo to Jakarta, Istanbul, and Baghdad, the concept of the Islamic Caliphate is theorised by religious scholars, invigorated by political activists, and condemned by some Muslim and non-Muslim politicians. While few Muslims insist on its centrality to Islam, many Muslims have not only rejected it but also contributed to its historical downfall. With globalization and the re-imagining of the Muslim umma as a multi-ethnic diverse community, the ‘Caliphate’ is today a contested concept among many actors in the Muslim world, Europe and beyond. As the Muslim world has known the rise and fall of several caliphates until the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924 by the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the reinvention of the Caliphate in the twenty first century may appear puzzling. However by exploring the idea of the Caliphate, its contemporary genealogy as a ‘modern’ Islamic political-religious concept, the debates between advocates and opponents, the modern contexts in which Muslims imagine it, and the virtual forums in which it is invoked justifies an engagement with the phenomenon that moves beyond historical perspectives.

Muslims, both in the ex-European territories of the Ottoman Empire and in the Muslim world at large, have had to rethink Islamic governance in the contemporary world. The majority sought the model of the nation-state and aspired towards independent and sovereign entities that more or less corresponded to newly drawn territorial boundaries. Some Muslim scholars, for example Egyptian Azharite Ali Abd al-Raziq wrote a religious treatise that de-emphasized the centrality of the Islamic Caliphate and justified the shift towards national states, by definition smaller entities configured on the basis of a homogenous national culture rather than faith. Other Islamic scholars and activists, however, lamented the fall of the Islamic Caliphate and wrote counter treatise calling for its revival. One such obvious advocate was Taqi al-Din al-Nabahani, a Palestinian activist who founded Hizb al-Tahrir. In India, the Khilafat movement developed in the shadow of the British Empire and became active in the 1920s. Similar movements emerged in South East Asia, among Muslims in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Even though none of these movements gathered momentum or achieved their objectives throughout the twentieth century, in the new historical conditions prevaling today calls for the return of the Caliphate are revived among some sections of the Muslim population. It is this revival that constitutes the main focus of this workshop which will try to address issues that can contribute to a clarification and explanation of the contemporary revival of Muslim thought about the Caliphate.

By opting for an interdisciplinary project that brings social scientists and humanities experts together to discuss the revival of the concept of the Caliphate among diverse Muslim groups, the conference organisers anticipate to show the interconnections between text and context among increasingly literate and connected Muslims from Indonesia to London. Special attention will be drawn to how old theorisations of Islamic governance are redefined and reformulated by contemporary Muslims and for what purposes.

Through case studies drawn from different parts of the Muslim world and the European context, this exploratory workshop will first of all highlight the interconnection and continuity of Islamic discourses. At the same time it will take care to situate the object of study in the transnational realm rather than the confined locality of individual countries. Secondly, it will emphasise that increased mobility in the age of globalisation and migration enables Muslims and the ideas they hold to travel beyond traditional boundaries of nation and state. Third, it will underscore the role of highly mobile non-state actors in the Muslim world and the diaspora in defining the public sphere and setting agendas that may or may not correspond to the agenda of all Muslims. A focus on both material and intellectual conditions in diaspora situations and the access to both old and new media that are perhaps still more available to Muslims in Europe and North America than those in the Muslim world will yield a better understanding of the revival of the concept of the Caliphate among young Muslims in the West. It is no longer possible to examine political mobilisation among Muslims without taking into account these important developments that contribute to increased connections, mutations in thought and activism, and the movement of ideas and people.

Scheduled to take place at King's College London in November 2010, the conveners intend to release an edited volume of the various contributions by keynote speakers and panelists.