Pathways to Contemporary Islam: New Trends in Critical Engagement 9462987599, 9789462987593

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RELIGION AND SOCIETY IN ASIA

Edited by Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman

Pathways to Contemporary Islam New Trends in Critical Engagement

Pathways to Contemporary Islam

Religion and Society in Asia The Religion and Society in Asia series presents state-of-the-art cross-disciplinary academic research on colonial, postcolonial and contemporary entanglements between the socio-political and the religious, including the politics of religion, throughout Asian societies. It thus explores how tenets of faith, ritual practices and religious authorities directly and indirectly impact on local moral geographies, identity politics, political parties, civil society organizations, economic interests, and the law. It brings into view how tenets of faith, ritual practices and religious authorities are in turn configured according to socio-political, economic as well as security interests. The series provides brand new comparative material on how notions of self and other as well as justice and the commonweal have been predicated upon ‘the religious’ in Asia since the colonial/imperialist period until today. Series Editors Martin Ramstedt, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle Stefania Travagnin, University of Groningen

Pathways to Contemporary Islam New Trends in Critical Engagement

Edited by Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman

Amsterdam University Press

Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Typesetting: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6298 759 3 e-isbn 978 90 4853 929 1 (pdf) doi 10.5117/9789462987593 nur 717 © The authors / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2020 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.

To Shanya Rauther The Vision to my Eyes The Beat to my Heart The Cradle of my Solace



Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

11

Introduction: Constructing Pathways to Contemporary Islam

13

Mohamad Nawab

Section 1 Historical Trends in Contemporary Perspective 1. Pathways to Modern Islam Ali Allawi

Introduction Defining Modern Islam Islamic State Islamic Society Islamic Consciousness The Downfall of Modern Islam in Three Currents Islamic Parties and Movements The Dead End of Modern Islam Reformation, Enlightenment, and the Romantic Movement in Modern Islam 2. A Theoretical Pathway to Contemporary Islam Iulia Lumina

From Herodotus to Universal History ‘Oriental Ease and Repose’, Despotism and the Theft of History Rethinking World History and Multiple Modernities From Orientalism to Post-Orientalism Defining Islam From Modernity to the Contemporary Conclusion

27 27 29 33 34 36 36 41 42 45 49 49 51 53 59 62 67 71

Section 2 Contesting the Islamic Intellectual Tradition 3. A New Approach to Islamic Intellectual Tradition Ali Unsal

Introduction Terminology A New Approach to the Islamic Intellectual Tradition Conclusion 4. The Best and Most Trying of Times

Islamic Education and the Challenge of Modernity Robert W. Hefner

The Origins and Varieties of Muslim Learning The Relation of Religious to Non-Religious Knowledge Modern Learning and Intellectual Renewal Whither Islamic Intellectualism?

77 77 78 89 93 99 102 105 110 118

5. The Function of Myths in the Justification of Muslim Extremism125 Syed Farid Alatas

Introduction Myths The Battle of the Trench and the Banu Qurayza The Absurdity of the Story of the Banu Qurayza Conclusion

125 126 128 132 137

Section 3 Beyond the Arab Revolutions: Political Islam Revised 6. Building Trust in the Democratic Process

The Role of Islamists in Tunisia’s Post-Arab Spring Transitional Politics Saleena Saleem

Introduction When Islamists are Political Actors The Tunisian Context for Democratization Ennahda in Government: Building National Unity Trust in the Democratic Process Concluding Remarks

145

145 148 152 155 161 162

7. The Failure of Political Islam Revisited Olivier Roy

What is Islamism? Islamism and Jihadism The Decline of Islamism The Future of Islamists 8. Regaining the Islamic Centre?

A Malaysian Chronicle of Moderation and Its Discontents Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid

Introduction Islamic Pluralism in Brief Historical Perspective How Moderation Lost the Battle: The Case of Malaysia The Aftermath: Implications of the Defeat of Moderation Can the Centre Be Regained? Concluding Remarks

167 169 172 174 177 181 181 183 185 196 201 203

Section 4  Contemporary Spaces of Critical Engagement 9. Enhancing Dialogue Between Religious Traditions An Islamic Perspective Osman Bakar

A Historical Perspective The Prospects of Sufism in Informing a Peace-Driven Universal Ethic The Role of Islamic Institutions in Interreligious and InterCivilizational Dialogue 10. The Ethical in Shari’a Practices

Deliberations in Search of an Effective Paradigm Ebrahim Moosa

Methodological Innovation Change in Terms of History and Tradition Shariʿa as Ethical Truth Shariʿa as Ethical Norms Negotiating the Ethical in Contemporary Muslim Ethics Paradoxical Pictures

215 215 226 230 235 238 239 241 244 245 246

Rape and Nullification of Marriage: The Imrana Case Making Sense of Norms Blasphemy How to Think About Tradition in Muslim Moral Contexts Conclusion 11. The New Horizons of Piety

Religiosity and Moral Agency in the Modern World Sahar Amer

Progressive Muslim Movements The Islamic Fashion Industry Islamic Beauty Pageants Development of Veiled (Muslim) Dolls Artistic Voices of Resistance Conclusion

247 249 252 256 259 265 267 270 273 274 276 283

Notes on the Contributors

287

Index

289



Acknowledgements

The papers in this volume were presented in a conference organized by the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University. The idea for the conference was first conceived by Dr. Ali Allawi who saw the importance of bringing together eminent scholars from different fields working on Islam and Muslim societies to present their ideas and perspectives on challenges facing contemporary Muslim societies and ponder on solutions to these issues. This conference received the generous support from the Singaporean Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Samuel Tan, the then Director-General of the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia Directorate assisted tremendously with his suggestions on the format and theme of the conference. The conference would not have come to be if not for the vision of Ambassador Ong Keng Yong, the Executive Deputy Chairman of RSIS, who was personally involved in the organization of the conference. Amb Ong took a keen interest in the project, even proposing the title for the book. I am grateful to him for the support he rendered for this book and in always being supportive of my academic pursuits. My mentor and former dean, Professor Joseph Liow, was always liberal with offering his guidance at various junctures of the project. This book would of course not be possible if not for the contributors who are all esteemed scholars in their own fields. Despite their busy schedules, they attended the conference and wrote chapters that were in many ways new, innovative, and ground breaking. Iulia Lumina played a vital role in organizing the conference and the editorial process of the book. She spent long hours with the preparation for the conference and in corresponding with the authors and editing their chapters. I also acknowledge the support rendered by Prashant Waikar, Usman Mahmood, and Eric Santos Domingo in editing several chapters of the book. Appreciation is also due to Sara Mahmood and Aida Arosoaie who assisted in conceptualizing some of the topics discussed at the conference. I am very grateful to Saskia Gieling, my commissioning editor at Amsterdam University Press, for actively endorsing my request to consider publishing this volume when I first pitched this research project with her. Despite the delays in the submission of the final manuscript, she continued to believe in the viability of the book. I would like to also extend my appreciation to Mike Sanders and Jaap Wagenaar at AUP for providing me with the much needed assistance in seeing the manuscript to its printed

12 

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form. I thank the reviewers for their critical assessment of the chapters in the book. I have strived to incorporate most of their comments when revising this manuscript. I extend my deepest appreciation to Pritiya Kamath, whose enduring support has made it possible for me to attain my goals. She stepped up and played the primary parental role every time I was absent. I shall forever be grateful to her for this. Rahish Rauther, Shahan Rauther, and Shanya Rauther are the pillars of my existence. Their smile, laughter, and mischief soothes my mind and keeps my spirit high. Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman



Introduction: Constructing Pathways to Contemporary Islam Mohamad Nawab

The legacies of late eighteenth-century modernization theory are still present in the contemporary study of culture and religion. Based on the unique experience of Europe, modernization, coupled with ideas of civilization, reason, and progress, came to be understood as the antithesis of culture and religion. Seen as an obstacle to the achievement of modernization, religion was separated from the secular space of politics. Secularization, the hallmark of modernity, described a process of social change which implied that, as modernization advances, religion will wither away. Once a powerful authority in political affairs, religion was singled out, privatized and its influence diminished. The founding fathers of modern sociology, Weber, Durkheim, and Marx saw religion as reducible to more basic factors: for Marx it was of secondary effect to economic causes; Durkheim acknowledged the social origin of religion and its importance in social dynamics; while Weber emphasized the role of the traditional attitudes of Protestantism in capitalist development. In anthropology, Clifford Geertz, the most influential cultural anthropologist at the height of the secularization thesis, did not hold back in predicting the eventual triumph of science over religion. The most fervent supporter of the secularization thesis, Peter Berger, predicted that ‘by the 21st century, religious believers are likely to be found only in small sects, huddled together to resist a world-wide secular culture’.1 He later re-visited his position, realizing that the world is ‘as furiously religious as it ever was’.2 The theoretical advancements of the time created a deep divide in the sociology of religion between the secular and the religious, 1 Berger, Peter L. A Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural. Anchor, 1969, p. 3. 2 Berger, Peter L. ‘The Desecularization of the World: A Global Overview’. The New Sociology of Knowledge. London: Routledge, 2017, p. 2.

Osman, M.N.M. Pathways to Contemporary Islam: New Trends in Critical Engagement. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. doi: 10.5117/9789462987593_intro

14 Mohamad Nawab

as well as the idea of an anomalous resurgence of religion in international politics, whose profound normative authority still affects contemporary research and understanding. However, with the fall of the modernization theory and following the end of the Cold War, academics observed the increased relevance of religion in world affairs ‘as a return to business as usual’.3 Likewise, the separation between religion and politics is deemed as socially constructed. More recent scholarship claims that ‘to define the boundaries of the secular and the religious is itself a political decision’. 4 Also, it sought out to re-examine the uncritical reification of religion as fundamentally distinct from politics.5 The crisis of the modernization theory also opened up new avenues for debating a plurality of modernities and secularisms. Seeking to address the Eurocentric bias in the conceptualization of modernity, the idea of multiple modernities6 was considered a promising concept advancing a comparative sociology of difference.7 The various modernities developing in postcolonial Muslim countries, along with the conceptualization of Islam as a complex civilization force, were taken as vantage points in the criticism of the universal European modernity.8 Given the persistence of a religious dimension in social and political life, as well as the reality of religious diversity, secularism was criticized for its normative grip on modernity and the focus shifted to historical processes of secularization that accommodated religious traditions to various extents.9 The emergence of the public sphere as a scholarly interest subsequently challenged the privatization of religion. Comparative analyses demonstrated that, far from being secular, the public sphere is rooted in religious traditions.10 3 Desch, Michael. ‘The Coming Reformation of Religion in International Affairs? The Demise of the Secularization Thesis and the Rise of New Thinking about Religion’. Religion and International Relations: The Report of the Working Group on International Relations and Religion of the Mellon Initiative on Religion across the Disciplines. (2013), p. 5. 4 Hurd, Elizabeth Shakman. The Politics of Secularism in International Relations. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009, p. 16. 5 Fitzgerald, Timothy. Discourse on Civility and Barbarity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. 6 Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. ‘The Civilizational Dimension of Modernity: Modernity as a Distinct Civilization’. International Sociology 16.3 (2001). 7 Arjomand, Saïd Amir. ‘Multiple Modernities and the Promise of Comparative Sociology’. In: Worlds of Difference. London: Sage, (2013). 8 Hodgson, Marshall G.S. Rethinking World History: Essays on Europe, Islam and World History. Cambridge University Press, 1993. 9 Bhargava, Rajeev. ‘How Should States Deal with Deep Religious Diversity?: Can Anything be Learnt from the Indian Model of Secularism?’ (2012). 10 Salvatore, Armando. The Public Sphere: Liberal Modernity, Catholicism, Islam. London: Springer, 2007.

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While the Orientalist legacy that portrayed Islam as incompatible with modernity persists, new attempts to understand contemporary religious transformations build on a critical wave of scholarship from the late 1970s that radically reframed Islam’s relation to modernity. Specifically, it emphasized the innovative social practices that often predated the encounter with Western colonial modernity.11 Various volumes trace everyday experiences of modernity and the complexity of contingencies of everyday Muslim lives,12 and there is a massive re-thinking of the incompatibility between Islam and modernity. More recent scholarly debates engage the variety of modernities inherited in Muslim thought and developing in Muslim societies, together with the complex politics of Muslim self-fashioning. At the same time, there is a growing literature examining the multiplicity that exist in Islam. As Shahab Ahmed eloquently noted, Islam is not simply just a ‘religion’. For Ahmed, ‘a valid concept of “Islam” must denote and connote all possible “Islams” whether abstract or “real”, mental or social’.13 In line with Ahmed’s assertion, this book seeks to examine the contradictions and contestations that exist within Islam. It is also imperative to understand how the global flows of ideas and people generate fracture as well as interdependence, how people engage religious and secular spaces, and how new social dynamics negotiate and transform religious practice and identity. Pathways to Contemporary Islam complements the debates on the contestation of modernities, by elaborating the modern trajectories of Islam and addressing new trends in critical engagement with intellectual tradition, the intersection of religion and politics, as well as religiosity and moral agency. Following a multidisciplinary approach, the book underlines the historical diversity of Islamic orthodoxies that led to the establishment of various pathways in the practice and role of religion in Muslim societies. Seeking to de-exceptionalize and de-essentialize Islam, the special emphasis on pathways indicates that critical engagement and contestation have always been intrinsic to the history of Islam. There are four sections to the book, each of which addresses aspects of the larger question posed in this book. The first section of the book, titled ‘Historical Trends in Contemporary Perspective’, introduces the idea of ‘pathway’ and traces the historical 11 Masud, Muhammad, ed., Islam and Modernity: Key Issues and Debates. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009. 12 Soares, Benjamin, and Filippo Osella. ‘Islam, Politics, Anthropology’. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15 (2009). 13 Ahmed, Shahab. What Is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015.

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trends that impacted the modern manifestation of Islam or Islams. This section also traces Islam’s multitude of manifestations from its origins to key transformations following modernity and colonial capitalism. This section of the book analyses these historical pathways in order to engage with their legacies in contemporary debates about intellectual tradition, political Islam, and reinterpretations of the social and moral dimensions of religion. In ‘Pathways to Modern Islam’, Ali Allawi distinguishes between premodern Islam and its turbulent modern trajectories, indicating a point of exhaustion in modern Islam manifested by the increased pace of escalation in Shia-Sunni conflict and the increasing influence of the Salafi school of thought. Criticizing the reactive modern reinterpretations of Islam, the chapter calls for a Romantic Movement to challenge new dogmas and their authority which is plaguing the Muslim community. While the Romantic movement itself comes from a particular experience in Europe, the Romantic movement in the Muslim World will continue the tradition of the classical Islamic scholar ibn ‘Arabi which will realize the inner dimensions of Islam. In ‘A Theoretical Pathway to Contemporary Islam’, Iulia Lumina shifts the analytical perspective to the reception and perception of Islam in Western scholarship. She reflects on the epistemic legacies in the Western study of Islam which often depicted the religion as either intrinsically anti-modern or anachronistic to modernity. The chapter elaborates the transition of Islam from a ‘timeless other’ to a distinctive trajectory within multiple modernities. The chapter revisits the debate on Orientalism and proposes new ways to understand the contemporaneity of Islamic phenomena at the intersection with market capitalism. This chapter examines the ways in which modernity was theorized in relation to Islam in order to analyse the historical contingency of knowledge production about Islam in Western scholarship. It critically interrogates concepts such as history, civilization, and modernity, in which Islam transitions from a timeless other to a distinctive trajectory within multiple modernities. The chapter revises the relationship between tradition and modernity. It proposes Paul Rabinow’s framework of the contemporary to open up non-Orientalist and non-binary approaches to the study of Islam. Overall, the chapter stresses three theoretical propositions: a historical approach to epistemology and analytical tools; the need to recognize Muslims as active agents shaping discourses of Islam; and finally, a conceptual openness to emergent phenomena and interrelations between the traditional and the modern. The study of Muslim societies and cultures has mainly followed two different paths, that of anthropologists searching for locally distinctive as opposed

Introduc tion: Construc ting Pathways to Contempor ary Isl am

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to shared characteristics and Islamicists who focused on religious texts and their interpretation at the expense of everyday practice.14 The assumed normative core of the sacred texts was challenged by emphasizing the ‘social life of religious discourse’ and how Muslims negotiate their religious life. Once the academic focus shifted towards Muslims’ objectification of their religion15 and agency is recognized in Muslims’ articulation of their identity, scholarship on Islam innovated beyond the presumed normative authority of texts. Tradition, once considered an impediment to modernization, is met with critical understanding leading to the reinterpretation of Muslim ethics in modern life.16 Similarly, the ulama, perceived as the guardians of religious authority and enemies of reform, are recognized to have historically displayed internal criticism.17 In line with this understanding, the second section of the book, ‘Contesting the Islamic Intellectual Tradition’, discusses the problems posed and prospects offered by Islamic tradition in addressing some of the contemporary challenges in Islamic tradition. Ali Unsal’s ‘A New Approach to Islamic Intellectual Tradition’ highlights the historical role of Islamic intellectualism in pushing the Muslim civilization towards new heights in the realms of societal organization, politics, culture, economics, and theology. Ali Unsal calls for a second Islamic renaissance which he notes is needed to rectify the challenges facing contemporary Muslim societies. The chapter explains the legacies of Islamic theology, jurisprudence, and philosophy as products of a first Islamic Renaissance. He notes that the Islamic intellectual sciences were shaped by the rich exchange of knowledge between the Hellenic, Byzantine, and Persian civilizations. This exchange also gave birth to a robust site for the synthesis of the apocalyptic and rational sciences, as well as religious and secular arts. In contrast to Ali Unsal’s perspective on the primacy of Islamic tradition to address contemporary challenges, Syed Farid Alatas’s ‘The Function of Myths in the Justif ication of Muslim Extremism’ argues against the wholesale acceptance of Islamic historical tradition. The chapter analyses 14 Bowen, John Richard. Muslims through Discourse: Religion and Ritual in Gayo Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. 15 Eickelman, Dale F., James Piscatori, Muslim Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. 16 Moosa, Ebrahim. ‘Muslim Ethics?’ In William Schwieker (ed.) The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics, 2005. 17 Zaman, Muhammad Qasim. Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age: Religious Authority and Internal Criticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

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the function of myths in Islamic historical tradition in society and exposes the dangers of uncritical acceptance of myths in the collective imagination of Muslims. In this sense, historical as well as urban myths may have a common function, that is to justify actions and views that are exclusivist and extremist in nature. Drawing on two popular myths that have been used to justify sectarianism and anti-Semitism, he notes that there is a need for Muslims to approach these traditions with a critical eye. Proposing the methodology of the Ibn Khaldun in studying historical events, Alatas proffers that a re-reading of Islamic tradition is crucial in stemming extremist ideas and orientations. In ‘The Best and Most Trying of Time: Islamic Education and the Challenge of Modernity’, Robert Hefner discusses the provision of religious education and traditional schooling. Arguing that extremist madrasas are the exception, he rejects the idea that traditional education breeds extremism. Instead, the chapter highlights positive developments which adopt the innovative work of contemporary renewalist scholars. From calling for knowledge synthesis to using critical methodologies for the critical assessment of myths and finally adopting renewalist scholars in traditional schooling curriculum, this collection of papers demonstrates the dynamism and intellectual efforts that define new approaches to intellectual traditions. The first two sections of the book follow the Contending Modernities’ focus on contention, plurality, and negotiation through the contextualization of the various pathways to Islam as well as critical engagements and the reinterpretations of tradition and intellectual thought. The third and fourth sections of the book contribute to Contending Modernities’ focus on current political and social transformations, from strategies to maintain political power and legitimacy as well as the commodification of piety and branding Islam. In this regard, one of the most tenuous challenges in drawing contemporary pathways of Islam is that of religion and politics. The debate on the politicization of Islam has become more complex given its centrality in contemporary debates within Muslim societies. In a paramount analytical turn, Muslim politics started to be analysed as ‘the competition and contest over both the interpretation of symbols and control of the institutions, formal and informal, that produce and sustain them’.18 Having identified the failure of political Islam,19 scholars turned their attention to neo-fundamentalist bottom up transformations, 18 Eickelman, Dale F., and James Piscatori. Muslim Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004, p. 5. 19 Roy, Olivier. The Failure of Political Islam. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996.

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the relegation of Islamic discourses to the civil society,20 self-fashioning piety movements,21 and the changing Islamist discourses that presume a post-Islamist turn.22 This led to a divide in the study of Islamist phenomena as happening either on political or cultural grounds which often leads to a limited understanding of the idea. Notably, scholars point out the need to develop new religious orthodoxies23 that cut through such divisions, as well as taking into account assemblages of Islam and capitalism that capture new emergent phenomena.24 Hence, an emphasis on class and consumption and how they influence new political ethos is crucial in the analysis of political discourse. In line with this, the third section of the book, ‘Beyond the Arab Revolutions: Political Islam Revised’, examines the trajectory of Islamist movements against the secular promises of democracy and the particularities of political Islam in the post-Arab Spring context across both the Middle East and Asia. The chapters in this section map out new political strategies to democratic transitions and searches for new forms of legitimacy. In ‘The Failure of Political Islam Revisited’, Olivier Roy revisits his important and ground-breaking theory on the failure of political Islam. Asserting that the concept remains relevant in understanding contemporary Islamic movements, Roy examines the trajectories of Islamist movements and the crisis that led to the development of neo-fundamentalism. Drawing on the examples of Islamist parties in the Middle East, he argues that the Islamist objective of establishing the Islamic state is never likely to take place. He notes that Islamism no longer serves as a form of political protest, and that the attainment of democracy is dependent on the acceptance of religious diversity and new forms of religiosity. In line with Roy’s theorization of the failure of political Islam, Saleena Salaeem asserts in her chapter ‘Building Trust in the Democratic Process: the Role of Islamists in Tunisia’s Post-Arab Spring Transitional Politics’ that the Islamist Ennahda party in Tunisia has renounced its Islamism and 20 Hefner, Robert W. Civil Islam: Muslims and Democratization in Indonesia. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011 21 Mahmood, Saba. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011. 22 Bayat, Asef, ed. Post-Islamism: The Many Faces of Political Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. 23 Cevik, Neslihan. Muslimism in Turkey and Beyond: Religion in the Modern World. London: Springer, 2015. 24 Rudnyckyj, Daromir. ‘Market Islam in Indonesia’. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15 (2009).

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prioritized consensus building with other political partners, remaining steadfast in strengthening democratic norms in the country. She notes that Tunisia can prove to be an excellent model that Islam and democracy can both thrive, and that the way forward does not have to be a zero-sum game. In ‘Regaining the Islamic Centre? A Malaysian Chronicle of Moderation and its Discontents’, Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid chronicles factors contributing to and the implications arising from declining levels of moderation in Muslim-majority societies in the era of global Islamic resurgence by looking at the example of Malaysia, a country more often than not classified by a broad spectrum of observers as a moderate Muslim country. Fauzi postulates moderation here in terms of both the intellectual conception of Islamic doctrine and its practical application as a way of life and of relating to others, both Muslim and non-Muslim. The chapter argues that moderation has taken a beating with the ascendancy of the Wahhabi-Salafi school of thought which has penetrated Malaysian Islamic institutions, a phenomenon made worse by the prevalence of authoritarian structures and paternalistic political cultures in post-colonial Muslim Malaysia. In Malaysia, Middle Eastern-influenced Salafization synergized with ethnocentric aspects of local politics to produce a socio-political environment largely antithetical to the country’s pluralist heritage. As a result, this has impacted the position of minorities, minority Muslim sects, and women in the country. The last section of the book, titled ‘Contemporary Spaces of Critical Engagement’, examines the embodied practice, moral agency and new forms of religiosity, emphasizing a culture of renewal and progressive interpretations of religion. In line with Ahmed’s assertion of the many Islams that exist in contemporary Muslim societies, this section of the book examines ways in which Muslim scholars have both historically and in recent times sought to interpret and re-interpret Islamic jurisprudence in dealing with the challenges of extremism, inter-faith relations, and issues related to women. In ‘Enhancing Dialogue between Religious Traditions: An Islamic Perspective’, Osman Bakar proffered that interreligious dialogue and cooperation is key pillar during the Golden Age of Islam which allows for vibrant pluralistic societies, especially of Islamic civilization. The chapter proffers a historical perspective of the various cultural encounters with other religions in Islamic history over different periods and geographical spaces. Against fundamentalist tendencies, it seeks to recover the practice of dialogue and accommodation and explores the prospects of Sufism in informing a peace-driven universal ethic. This is done through the examination of the three geo-cultural and historical settings, namely that of Muslim ruled Iberia, China under the Ming dynasty, and Islam under Mughal rule.

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In ‘The Ethical in Shari’a Practices: Deliberations in Search of an Effective Paradigm’, Ebrahim Moosa explores the relationship between religion and morality, seeking to create a vibrant ethical paradigm based on reinterpretations of Shari’a as ethical truth. He provides an overview of innovative conceptualizations of the much contended Shari’a by Muslim jurists and intellectuals. Taking the examples of two contemporary scholars of Islam, the Pakistani jurists Muhammad Taqi Usmani and the Qatari based Egyptian scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi in dealing with contemporary challenges such as the issue of enslavement by ISIS, he demonstrates the use of innovative methods in re-thinking the Sharia’a. In the same vein, he acknowledges the dangerous lack of critical engagement with tradition, acknowledging the need to rethink the Islamic system of faith (deen) by drawing inspiration from Muslim thinkers like al-Ghazali, who called for the acceptance of plurality and multiplicity of meaning. Finally, ‘The New Horizons of Piety: Religiosity and Moral Agency in the Modern World’ turns to the new politics of Islamic piety and its most visible symbols: women’s bodies and veiling practices. Sahar Amer investigates progressive understandings of religion which prioritize social justice, especially in relation to minorities and women’s movements, as well as artistic voices of resistance to conservative readings of Islam. This section shows the pervasiveness of Contemporary Spaces of Critical Engagement, from Muslim intelligentsia, to civil society and individual believers who seek to reconcile being modern and religious at the same time. The reflections offered by distinguished scholars in this book are important contributions to the larger questions facing Muslim societies across different contexts. Their discussion on a variety of timely social and political issues in Pathways to Contemporary Islam grounds the relationship of Islam and modernity in a diversity of Islamic orthodoxies and practices, symptomatic of the dynamism and fluidity of Contending Modernities.

Bibliography Ahmed, Shahab. What Is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015. Arjomand, Saïd Amir, and Elisa Rese. Worlds of Difference. London: Sage, 2013. Bayat, Asef, ed. Post-Islamism: The Many Faces of Political Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Berger, Peter L. A Rumour of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural. New York: Anchor, 1969.

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Berger, Peter L. ‘The Desecularization of the World: A Global Overview’. The New Sociology of Knowledge. London: Routledge, 2017. Bhargava, Rajeev. ‘How Should States Deal with Deep Religious Diversity?: Can Anything be Learnt from the Indian Model of Secularism?’ (2012) Bowen, John Richard. Muslims through Discourse: Religion and Ritual in Gayo Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Cevik, Neslihan. Muslimism in Turkey and Beyond: Religion in the Modern World. London: Springer, 2015. Desch, Michael. ‘The Coming Reformation of Religion in International Affairs? The Demise of the Secularization Thesis and the Rise of New Thinking about Religion’. Religion and International Relations: The Report of the Working Group on International Relations and Religion of the Mellon Initiative on Religion across the Disciplines, 2013. Eickelman, Dale F, and James Piscatori. Muslim Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. ‘The Civilizational Dimension of Modernity: Modernity as a Distinct Civilization’. International Sociology 16.3 (2001): 320–340. Fitzgerald, Timothy. Discourse on Civility and Barbarity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Hefner, Robert W. Civil Islam: Muslims and Democratization in Indonesia. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011. Hodgson, Marshall G.S. Rethinking World History: Essays on Europe, Islam and World History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Hurd, Elizabeth Shakman. The Politics of Secularism in International Relations. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. Mahmood, Saba. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011. Marsden, Magnus, and Konstantinos Retsikas, eds. Articulating Islam: Anthropological Approaches to Muslim Worlds. London: Springer, 2012. Masud, Muhammad, ed. Islam and Modernity: Key Issues and Debates. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009. Moosa, Ebrahim. ‘Muslim Ethics?’ in William Schweiker, ed. The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005, 237–243. Roy, Olivier. The Failure of Political Islam. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996. Rudnyckyj, Daromir. ‘Market Islam in Indonesia’. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15 (2009): 183–201. Salvatore, Armando. The Public Sphere: Liberal Modernity, Catholicism, Islam. London: Springer, 2007. Shah, Timothy Samuel, Alfred Stepan, and Monica Duffy Toft. Rethinking Religion and World Affairs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

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Soares, Benjamin, and Filippo Osella. ‘Islam, Politics, Anthropology’. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15 (2009): 1–23. Zaman, Muhammad Qasim. Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age: Religious Authority and Internal Criticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

About the author Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman is Assistant Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He is also an Associate Faculty at the Islamophobia Studies Research and Documentation Project at the University of California-Berkeley. He is the author of Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia and Political Islam: Identity, Ideology and Religio-Political Mobilisation.

Section 1 Historical Trends in Contemporary Perspective

1.

Pathways to Modern Islam Ali Allawi Abstract Modern Islam, in contradistinction to traditionalist or pre-modern Islam, emerged in the mid nineteenth century as a reaction to the overwhelming of Muslim societies by a rapidly expanding Occident. Modern Islam sought to effect the perspectives and consciousness of Muslims by a focus on the political dimension of Muslims’ disempowerment. A number of often conflicting political, doctrinal, and social currents emerged that sought to reposition Islam in its modern context. However, the Modern Islam project has effectively ended and degenerated into an obscurantist exposition of the religion, extreme extenuation of the Shia-Sunni schism, and the growth of a nihilistic and destructive understanding and practice of jihad. Muslims must thus look beyond the false promise of a new Islamic ‘Reformation’ or ‘Enlightenment’. Keywords: Modern Islam; Reform; Consciousness; State Romantic

Introduction The tumult of the past half century has revealed a bewildering and shocking transformation of the understanding and practice of Islam, at the private, social, and state levels. What was widely perceived in the 1950s and 60s as a religion in rapid decline in the face of modernization and secularization,1 and which had been relegated to the margins of power in most Muslim countries, erupted on stage in dramatic fashion. Right from its inception in the seventh century to its march towards becoming a world religion, the evolution of Islam has moved along tracks that crisscrossed, backtracked, 1 Lerner, Daniel. The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East. New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1958.

Osman, M.N.M. Pathways to Contemporary Islam: New Trends in Critical Engagement. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. doi: 10.5117/9789462987593_ch01

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advanced, and retreated, while interacting with, or confronting other world or regional systems, and building the scaffolding of its unique world view. These pathways are well-defined tracks that originate somewhere and purportedly end somewhere else. They could intersect other pathways, creating new ones that are continuous with the old or are in fact new directions. All great civilizations, to which Islam is no exception, exhibit some, or all of these characteristics. An observer examining the unfolding of this centuries old process can discern an order of sorts, one that gives coherence and meaning to the randomness and chaos that often accompanied the events that turned Islam into a world civilization. This is the Islam that most Muslims identify with and seek to recapture its high moments, which will be referred to as pre-modern or traditional Islam. By contrast, the birth of modern Islam can be traced to a set of events and personalities somewhere in the mid-nineteenth century, which collectively mark a decisive break from pre-modern Islam. Modern Islam has generated ideas and precepts that have entered the common culture and have informed the perspectives and consciousness of large numbers of people. Nonetheless, it represented a radical rupture to established and confirmed ways of living, acting, and even thinking. Preoccupied with the troubling issues that emerged with modernity, modern Islam rose in juxtaposition to its prior orthodoxy and its established and authoritative practices. The convulsions of a religion, a world view, and a civilization are either a sign of a welcome renewal or perhaps an ominous sign of something more sinister. Many pathways get lost, end abruptly, or meander in confusion or even backtrack. This chapter argues that an inherent conundrum inside modern Islam doomed the project from the onset. Its reactive nature to the shock of original rupture led to the failure of modern Islam to renew itself in creative action and thought. As a result, modern Islam has been overwhelmingly defined by an obsessive preoccupation with the political, rather than spirituality, theology, culture or societal relations. The first part of the chapter defines modern Islam and explores how the political has been expressed inside three broad categories: at the level of the state, at the level of society, and at the level of individual and collective consciousness. A brief analysis of these aspects of the modern Islam project reveal the short-lived, unfulfilled visions of building a state according to Islamic principles, as well as the failure of the re-Islamization of society and consciousness. If modern Islam is no longer about state, society, or consciousness, what is left of this grand scheme? The answer is simply power and dominion, an ideology for some, a route to power, and a validation of continuity in power for others, which is bringing the seeds of the downfall of a cycle that began

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in the middle of the nineteenth century. This is mainly now defined by three dominant currents: Salafism/Wahhabism, the conflict between Sunni and Shia Islam, and lastly, the emergence of Jihadi Islam, which will be discussed in the second part of the chapter. Modern Islam might have surrendered its creative potential in the face of the increasing pace of Salafization of mainstream Sunni Islam and the accelerating schism between the Shia and Sunni Muslims. Whereas it is possible to argue that the cycle of modern Islam is ending in failure, one cannot overlook the presence of calls for change, rather naively referred to as an Islamic Reformation or Islamic Enlightenment. It is then worth to envisage the enlivenment of a crucial potential within Islam as the route towards the revival of an altogether different expression of the religion. The final part of the chapter will argue for the need of a Romantic movement to re-imagine the faith and challenge the new dogmas and the authority behind them. The next expression of modern Islam could well be defined by the heirs of ibn Taymiyyah, the medieval theologian who is the inspiration to the Salafis and Wahhabis, confronting the as-yet undefined heirs of ibn ‘Arabi; and the battleground will be the course of modern Islam in the next several generations. If the potential of the inner dimensions of Islam are not realized and there is no such grand stand-off, then the world of Islam could well bifurcate into Salafi/Wahhabi domination of the majority Sunni world, and a rump and alienated Shia Islam huddling around a resurgent Iran. The course of Islam will therefore not be the occasion of its revival, but it could well set it on the path to its ruination as a vital civilizing force.

Defining Modern Islam The origins of modern Islam, which encompasses the notions of both modernist and radical Islam, lay in the encounter of the world of Islam with the West: not in the sometimes benign, but mainly adversarial forms before the nineteenth century, but rather in the actual conquest of Muslim lands and the overwhelming of Muslim sovereignty nearly everywhere Muslims had once prevailed. This was a rupture of the first order, marking both an end and a beginning. Modern Islam can thus be framed as an ongoing response to this discontinuity, an attempt to understand it, contain it, come to terms with it, accept or reject it. The form in which modern Islam has expressed itself has therefore been mainly reactive to the shock of the original rupture. The challenge has been continuous and protean and so has the response; but the response has always been reactive, rarely constructive or creative.

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Elements of pre-modern Islam are still evident, sometimes jarringly so, but they do not hide the profound disjunctions that have taken place. Terrorist violence, slavery, abuse of women, and cruel punishments have far more to do with the lamentable course of the modern world than a manifestation of any form of traditional Islam. Are not the most relevant prototypes of today’s jihadis found in the nineteenth-century revolutionary movements of Tsarist Russia?2 There is a peculiar link between the terrorist manifesto of Abu Bakr Naji,3 written in 2006, and Sergei Nechaev’s Catechism of a Revolutionary, written in 1869. Suicide bombing was invented by secular national liberation movements, 4 as were the targeting of innocent civilians by terrorists in the name of higher ideals, from the Irgun’s bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1948 to the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians in the Algerian war of liberation.5 The Assassins of the medieval Islamic world or the Khawarij6 at the onset of Islamic history are certainly not the prototypes of today’s jihadist. Slavery and the systematic abuse and subjugation of women is not entirely alien to the modern experience. Soviet Russia, Maoist China, the bloodlands of wartime Europe, and the tens of thousands of sex slaves maintained to serve armies are brushed over when the same crimes, on a smaller scale even, are associated with modern Islam. Even the most outlandish contemporary manifestation of an apparently uniquely Islamic project, the restoration of the Khilafa7 (Caliphate), has elements of the failed utopian (or dystopian) projects of real or imagined social and religious reformers. We can learn as much about ISIS’s ersatz Caliphate by reading da Cunha’s Rebellion in the Backlands8 about a millenarian quasi-state in nineteenth-century Brazil or Mario Vargas Llosa’s fictional rendering of it in The War of the End of the World, rather than examining 2 Venturi, Franco. Roots of Revolution: A History of the Populist and Socialist Movements in Nineteenth Century Russia. London: Phoenix, 1963. 3 Naji, Abu Bakr. The Management of Savagery: The Most Critical Stage through Which the Umma Will Pass. Harvard: John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, Harvard University, 2004, n.p. 4 Hedges, Matthew, and Theodore Karasik. Evolving Terrorist Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTP) Migration Across South Asia, Caucasus, and the Middle East. Institute of Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, 2010. 5 Evans, Martin. Algeria: France’s Undeclared War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. 6 Crone, Patricia. God’s Rule: Government and Islam. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. 7 Kersten, Carool. The Caliphate and Islamic Statehood-formation, Fragmentation and Modern Interpretations. 3 vols. Berlin: Gerlach Press, 2015; and Osman, Mohamed Nawab Mohamed. Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia and Political Islam: Identity, Ideology and Religio-Political Mobilization. London: Routledge, 2018. 8 Da Cunha, Euclides. Rebellion in the Backlands. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.

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the course of the Abbasid Caliphate.9 Nonetheless, modern Islam cannot be defined by its borrowings or rejections from the West and the end political and socio-cultural forms that emerged in consequence of that. But neither can the profound discontinuity with its past be overlooked. Modern Islam has certainly favoured the political in its attempts to forge a meaningful and sustainable response to the challenges of the modern world. Even the conscious archaism of some apparently apolitical mass Islamic movements are reflections of the political, a commitment to withdraw from serious interaction with an unacceptable outer order unless it is framed within a narrow normative form. In its earliest manifestation, modern Islam evolved from the writings and actions of the whole gamut of reformers of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad Abduh, Rashid Rida,10 were a different breed from those earlier resisters to western encroachments in Muslim lands, from say the Emir Abd el-Qadir in Algeria or the Mahdi of the Sudan. Pan-Islam, a political ideology for Islamic revival and resistance, was just one indicator of the birth of a new kind of Islamic consciousness. It sought to mobilize Muslims around the world around the survival and strengthening of the Ottoman state and its claims of a universal Caliphate. Pan-Islam emerged when both the forms of society and Muslims’ collective consciousness were still framed in an overwhelmingly traditional mode. A functioning Muslim state, even a power, was still intact. However, the process came to a crashing end with the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. Had the Ottoman Empire been able to preserve the idea and reality of an Islamic state that had nevertheless found a way into the contemporary world, it would have certainly treated the ‘nationality’ problem differently, privileging religious identity above ethno-sectarian considerations. In the end, the encroachments of western political modes, in the form of constitutions, Western-influenced legal systems, political parties, and the very idea of the nation state proved decisive to the final forms of government that emerged after the dissolution of the Muslim Empires. Modern Islam was born in a world where the ancient verities were collapsing. It is a reflection of the confusion that gripped the Muslim mind, faced with the crumbling of the old order. In fact, I argue that modern Islam was born with a fundamentally schizophrenic condition. A number of often conflicting currents emerged that sought to reposition Islam in its modern 9 Llosa, Mario Vargas. The War of the End of the World. New York: Macmillan, 2008. 10 Keddie, Nikki R. ‘Sayyid Jamal ad-Din “al-Afghani”: A Political Biography’. Science and Society, 37.3 (1973): 379–382, and Kerr, Malcolm H. Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal Theories of Muḥammad ʻAbduh and Rashīd Riḍā. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966.

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context. The first of these currents, let us call it the current of denial, rejected the idea that Islam was incompatible with modernity, resorting to claims about how Islam in its golden periods had in fact encouraged scientific and rationalist thought. What was needed therefore was a reinterpretation of Islam that would strip away the centuries, returning it to what it had always been, namely the incubator of the highest forms of human material and spiritual ideals and progress. The advocates of such a path naively or crudely believed that Muslims could pick and choose what suited them from the mainly Western menu of values and achievements: science and technology, modern statecraft and administration, new political and legal systems, new educational forms, and so on. They could do so based on a utilitarian calculus of power without affecting their core fealty to Islam. The second current reached a diametrically opposite conclusion: what was needed was not so much bringing Islam ‘up to date’ but rather a reaffirmation of the validity and eternal truth of ‘original’ Islam, as practiced in its narrowest and most precise form by its earliest adherents. Let us call this the Islam of affirmation or the Islam of authenticity. This was the Islam of the salaf as-salah,11 the pious companions of the Prophet and their immediate followers who lived and perfected their religion in the ideal Medina of Islam’s earliest period.12 Modernity was thus either something that one could use and dump as need be, or ignored or shunned if it anyway subverts, supersedes, or side-lines the divinely-sanctioned praxis of the ideal period. The scale for these warriors of a golden age was an invariant Sharia, the accumulation over the centuries of exact rulings and prescriptions on all aspects of the human condition. In between were all kinds of ideational and intellectual trends and currents that rose and fizzled away in the past century and a half. Restricting to currents within modern Islam that impinged on the political, modern Islam basically pivoted between the idea of a flexible and accommodating Islam, constrained only by the most basic of agreed principles. These concerned ritual and devotional practice, followed by an idea of Islam that posited that salvation and worldly success can only come by the strictest adherence to the norms established in the earliest days of Islam, and their subsequent evolution within this narrow criterion. A considerable mental effort was required to reconcile a rationalistmaterialist or literalist idea of Islam with traditional Islam that was rooted in 11 Lauzière, Henri. The Making of Salafism: Islamic Reform in the Twentieth Century. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. 12 For Shia Muslims, the ideal model would not be the companions of the Prophet, but rather the Imams from the Household of the Prophet

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the elemental notion of the sacred. The sacred indicates the subtler realities that are felt and experienced at the supra-rational level by religious believers. The reality of all religious faith is based on experiencing the ineffable, and it can be argued that it is this experience and its acknowledgement that had marked the identity of the Muslim world, more so than the commonality of its institutions, laws, rituals, and culture. Modern Islam in fact ignores, and sometimes denies, the reality of the ineffable in the formation of Muslim consciousness. Traditional Islam existed in a sacralized world; modern Islam exists in a de-sacralized world, despite protestations to the contrary. The flexibility, openness, and subtleness that inflected the best of traditional Islamic thought, a by-product of an experienced sense of the ineffable, is notably absent from modern Islamic thought. While belief had then been instinctive and lived, it now has to be taught and proclaimed. ‘Aql (reason) and Naql (transmission of religious knowledge) are the foundations of Islamic thought; the first is by now heavily overlaid by Western paradigms displacing the traditional understanding of reason as the mind that can discern the divine; the second by a stultifying literalism raised to the level of foundational belief. The latter is based on a fundamental and unprecedented privileging of the law of Islam, the Sharia, above all other considerations in the understanding of the divine purpose. A Muslim’s sole way of understanding the divine purpose is by living out the Law in its most meticulous form. In the process, both ethics and imagination have been marginalized. But the building blocks of ethical action are found in the universe of ideals and virtues; while the vitality of creative thought is anchored on openness and a willingness to engage with subtler realities. When both are banished from systematic political thought, the end result is barren and self-defeating. The vitality of any civilization must be directly related to its ability to renew itself in creative action and thought. Modern Islam has signally failed to do that, in spite of many false starts that fizzled out precisely because they were based on a formulaic, derivative, and quantitative understanding of what constitutes creativity. In this way, the arc of modern Islam has broken decisively with the creative élan of Islam’s best periods, even as it loudly proclaimed that its primary mission was to renew the wellsprings of its civilization.

Islamic State The ideal of the Islamic state has proved elusive, and when established as such has proved to be the handiwork of power-oriented elites and parties, or an eccentric and highly individualistic construct. The short-lived experiment

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of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt collapsed with the Brotherhood denying that they wanted an Islamic state and in fact appropriating the language of democratic political and human rights to demand their reinstatement in power.13 The En-Nahdha party in Tunisia barely hung on to power, diluting to insipidity any notion of what an Islamic state actually meant and why it would be any different from the welfare states of 1950s Europe. The mighty behemoth of the Islamic state in Iran has inevitably surrendered to a pragmatism that might well end in a development-oriented authoritarianism led by the Revolutionary Guards. Sudan, which joined the ranks of Islamic states by a coup d’état, has foundered in corruption, dictatorship, and misgovernment, managing to lose a third of its territory to the newly founded state of South Sudan. The emirate of the Taliban in Afghanistan, another self-described Islamic state, became a byword for obscurantism and extreme violence against minorities, and the cloistering of women. Moreover, the dystopian Islamic State (ISIS) subjects historic and proud cities to its reign of terror, and commits the most heinous crimes against entire peoples and sects. So much for the Islamic state, as far away as one could imagine from the ruminations of its modern theorists such as Rashid Rida, Maulana Mawdudi, Sayyid Qutb, and Baqir al-Sadr.14 A thread joining these diverse thinkers is the assertion that an Islamic state is essential to the preservation of Islam as a religion and that such a state must be based on the Sharia. They believed that through the Sharia, a revitalized Islam will unfold, driving states and societies to ever higher levels of achievement and justice. But reactionary dynasties and princely states have also appropriated for themselves the label of being governed by the Sharia. By now, the confusion as to what constitutes the Sharia is greater than ever, hardly an auspicious environment for constructing an Islamic state based on its principles, when these principles themselves are far from being agreed upon.

Islamic Society The main issue here is of periodization. Certainly, societies across the Muslim world appear to be more pious and observant when compared to 13 Wickham, Carrie Rosefsky. The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist MovementUpdated Edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015. 14 For a discussion of these thinkers, see Enayat, Hamid. Modern Islamic Political Thought. London: I.B. Tauris, 2005.

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the heyday of the secular states in which most Muslims lived, say, from the end of World War II to the 1970s. In this respect, one of the principal drives of modern Islam, to expand the practice of Islam and observance of Islamic norms, appears to have succeeded. But stretch the framework to reach to the turn of the last century, and then the matter looks entirely different. There, society—whether the overwhelmingly rural based population, or the urban dwelling elites—were instinctively respectful of religious authority and observant, having no need to be reminded of their religious obligations. Their customs, habits and thoughts were organically connected to the long and rich past of Islamic life and culture. It was the disjuncture that brought modern Islam into being that reframed the issue to a population, or at least its ruling elites, that appeared to abandon the strictures of religion in droves. So, the re-Islamization of society was in fact an invented form of religious observance, moulded to fit the needs of the Islamization project. Therefore, it is not unfounded to seriously question whether the outer spread of religious norms, shorn of religious experience, is in any way related to the deepening of religious consciousness as such. By no means questioning the sincerity of belief of the hundreds of millions who have found succour and comfort within the practice of Islam, I would like to point out that it has nothing to do with the scheme of re-ordering the outer world to fit with the demands of modern Islam. There is something flimsy about the mass piety movements that arose in the Muslim world over the past century, and which seemed to reach an apotheosis of sorts after the abortive Arab Spring. With one or two important exceptions, they appear structurally different from their equivalent in Victorian Britain or the US. They lack the social mobilization component around which entire segments of the early modern economy had been built, from the co-op movements to the friendly building societies of the Quakers; from the model worker dwellings of Cadbury to the New Town movement. The global Islamic banking movement, supposedly organized to create the foundations of an Islamic economy, has degenerated into an eccentric extension of the conventional banking world. Islamic universities which came into being to infuse Islamic norms into established disciplines are forced to seek their academic legitimacy through global rankings which pay little regard to their exceptional status. It can be argued that the more overt are the signs of Islamization (say in the number of mosques being constructed, the percentage of covered women, or the number of Islamic bank branches) the less are the signs of mutual solidarity and support reflected in institutions and social programmes. Besides, there is less of charitable giving, with perhaps the exception of

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the Gulen movement of Turkey, which nonetheless constitutes a very early prototype of the future pathways into which modern Islam might evolve.15

Islamic Consciousness The issue of raising the wa’iy or consciousness of Muslims is a cardinal element in all the action programmes of proselytizing Islamic groups and parties. But this consciousness is almost entirely understood in political, doctrinal, and behavioural terms, taking for granted that there is little to be done about the forms in which the modern world has evolved. As a consequence, the consciousness of modern-day Muslims, and Islamists in particular, is overwhelmingly utilitarian, reductive and quantitative, in fact diametrically opposed to the consciousness of the past. As the divine cannot be experienced directly, a person’s only duty is to live his or her life according to the Law. This of course heightens the inherent contradiction of living in a manner which effectively banished the sacred from one’s life, while at the same time proclaiming your fealty to a world view whose essential precepts you no longer experience or aspire to experience. The Sharia becomes then a crutch which a person uses to proclaim his or her uniqueness, while at the same time contriving to use it to justify all manner of desires. This cannot continue for much longer without something giving way. We may recall the impact of a series of essays by ex-communists like Koestler, Crossman, and the like, entitled The God that Failed, about their disillusion with communism.16 I notice a deluge of articles and essays in the same vein by former Islamists all around the theme of ‘The Islamism that Failed’.17

The Downfall of Modern Islam in Three Currents Salafism/Wahhabism The first is the world of the Salafi and Wahhabi Muslim, based on a materialist utilitarianism wedded with a rigid literalism. This creates the 15 For an excellent study of the Gulen movement, see Tittensor, David. The House of Service: The Gulen Movement and Islam’s Third Way. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. 16 Crossman, Richard Howard Stafford. The God that Failed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. 17 For instance, see Husain, Ed. The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw inside and Why I Left. London: Penguin UK, 2015.

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juxtaposition of archaic norms of life and conduct, supposedly demanded by an invariant faith, twinned with the most relentless expressions of materialist excess. There are only superficial similarities between the Salafis and Wahhabis and their equivalent in other great religious traditions, say Christianity. The esteem given to those who make money, and the obligation of sharing it by tithing or zakat, are points of similarity. But the tensions between a puritanical literalism and the imperatives of ethical action were not successfully resolved by seeking the source of ethics only in the interpretation of scriptural texts. At present, of course, there seems to be little evidence that Salafism/Wahhabism will bifurcate in this manner; but in time it must. The great issue will not be race, but the treatment of women. There is simply no getting around the fact that Salafism, but especially Wahhabism, is deeply misogynist and cannot accommodate the idea of equality, or even equivalence, of women to men in its doctrine.18 Once enough head of steam is built up—by greater education, by resistance to stereotyping, by the demands of natural justice—then the pressures on the regnant theology and its guardians will be enormous, for it will come from everyday life and not from some grand liberation theory. This great trauma can be foreseeable in a not-so-distant future. Salafism/Wahhabism is reaching the mainstream not only because it is fuelled by the proverbial Saudi money and the horrible euphemism of charitable giving by wealthy Gulf merchants. This peculiar form of religious puritanism appeals to the recently urbanized, consumerist, new middle classes of the Muslim World, seeking certainty and affirmation. It can be argued that it is a matter of time before the unremitting materialism to which these people are prone gives way to a loss of religious enthusiasm. For the moment now, it seems to have the opposite effect, where the worst excesses of triumphant capitalist gigantism seem to coexist happily with the most rigid forms of religious practice. The transformation of Mecca into a giant shopping mall with the sacred precincts ringed by outsize luxury hotels and shopping arcades—supposedly to accommodate the ever-rising number of pilgrims—is ample testimony to this. The irony (and tragedy) of turning the sacred into the tawdry is a by-product of the literalist utilitarian mind set of the Wahhabis and Salafis. If there are no Sharia injunctions against building hulking and ugly skyscrapers next to the Ka’aba, then it is acceptable to do so. The same logic applies to the destruction of historic monuments and other sacred sites. Since they believe 18 See, for example, Valentine, Simon Ross. Force and Fanaticism: Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia and beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

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that the worship God should not be linked to material things, it is therefore acceptable to turn the house of Khadija, the wife of the Prophet, into a parking lot. This may continue well into the future, but only at the expense of the religious sensibility and commitment of the people. Shia Islam A second current into which modern Islam has flowed is the abrupt sideway turn of Shia Islam,19 represented by the strange system of governance that has emerged in Iran. Although it has some basis in the Shiite preoccupation with the nature of the Just Ruler, it has only taken root in Iran. It remains to be seen whether the form of religious government pioneered in Iran will be long lasting and thus vindicate this particular turn in modern Islam. Iran is not a theocracy but an Imamocracy. It is a country run by a privileged substratum of the clerical classes in alliance with the elite security forces, basing their rule on an unconventional interpretation of the role of the jurists in the absence of the Hidden Imam of the Twelver Shias. One can make the prediction that the Iranian system of government will not exist, in its present form, by the end of the next quarter century. The internal conflicts within this system are not to do with the issue of the treatment of half the population. No matter the constraints on women in present day Iran, women’s rights in Iran are significantly better than their counterparts in the Salafi/Wahhabi world, and will very likely improve within the limits of the current system. What will force the fundamental changes in Iran are two matters: the first is to do with the issue of succession to an all-powerful leader; the other issue is the drive to regional power and even supremacy by a development-oriented and authoritarian security force. Ruling clerical groups will never be able or even desire to hand over unlimited power to one of their own, after the demise of the current Supreme Leader, without significantly curtailing and circumscribing his power. In other words, the appropriation of authority from the Hidden Imam will become collegial and thus open to debate, pressure, and change. The tensions here will be between rationalist and pragmatic politics framed within a supra-rationalist doctrine of the actions of the Perfect Man of Shia dogma. Already, there is a clear dichotomy between the two, and this is likely to grow. The second issue of importance is that Iran is one of the few countries in the Islamic world that has the potential to break out as an economic power 19 Khomeini, Ruhollah. Islamic Government: Governance of the Jurist. London: Alhoda UK, 2005.

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house, with its autonomy and independence intact. Partly because of its international isolation, now significantly reduced because of the nuclear deal, Iran has not been dependent on either foreign investments or on foreign powers to maintain its standing. There is a powerful, latent force within Iran that wants to actualize this potential and may now have the opportunity to do so. The security elites of Iran, particularly the Revolutionary Guards Corps, already control large swathes of the economy, but unlike the military in Egypt or Pakistan, they are not primarily designed to keep the top brass in clover and above scrutiny. If you add to this the economic bodies under the control of the Supreme Leader, the so-called bonyads or religious foundations, you have a huge concentration of capital that if managed efficiently and productively could form the basis of Iran’s economic resurgence. Under normalized conditions, Iran will try to modernize its economy at breakneck speed in a path that will combine the Chinese experience and that of Korea under Park Chung Hee. This has led to a growing sense of panic amongst some leaders in the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia. While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss geopolitical rivalries, it suffices to reflect on what these trends imply for the course of modern Islam. The quarantining of the Iranian Revolution by war and sanctions contained its revolutionary consequences; it was then conflated with Shia Islam, thus narrowing its appeal even more where the Shia do not constitute more that fifteen per cent of the Islamic world. We are now in the third cycle of containment, which is linked nearly exclusively to the power drive of the nation state of Iran, and its budding empire in the so-called Shia crescent. The turn towards a development-oriented authoritarianism will further reduce its specifically Islamic content. One may deal with Iran as a power and a state, but still hound one’s Shia population at will, as seems to be happening in Nigeria and Malaysia. This development is not that unusual. The Soviet Union had earlier discovered that its allies abroad could easily imprison and decimate their local communists with no effect on their relationship with the Soviet Union. Jihadi Islam The third direction into which modern Islam has stumbled, quite unexpectedly from a historical point of view, is the nihilism and cult of extreme violence that has gripped all manner of people acting under the rubric of jihadis.20 It is obviously a product of modern times, even contemporary 20 See, for example, Kepel, Gilles. Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. London: I.B. Tauris, 2006.

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times. One is hard put to find any equivalent either in the past or in recent history with which one can find an element of continuity. Perhaps the Wahhabi conquest of the Arabian Peninsula in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, which was accompanied with huge killings, is the nearest such case. The paradox of this jihadi Islam is that it is rejected by most Muslims at all levels but accepted by a significant number at some levels. Most Salafi/Wahhabis approve, and are ambivalent about or are silent about jihadi violence against non-Muslims but especially against Shia Muslims and other heterodox factions of Islam. Only a minority reject it outright. In the former case, the ferocious response of the US after the attacks of 9/11 has made jihadis and their supporters pause to think of the consequences of their actions against a mighty foe. However, this has not stopped them from targeting non-Muslims in Muslim lands, Shias as well as adherents of other heterodox sects of Islam and Sufis. The terrorists and nihilists of nineteenth-century Europe were mainly self-contained revolutionary cells with little or no connection to state power.21 This is emphatically not the case with the jihadis of modern Islam. They are autonomous entities with their own programme of revolutionary action, but they are often connected to states, and when this occurs their actions are made to coincide with achieving state objectives. There is no need to elaborate on the relationship between the mujahidin of Afghanistan and the US, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan; or the connections of al-Qaeda and its various manifestations and franchises with Saudi intelligence or the limitless generosity of Gulf well-wishers—as if these people can act independently of state power in places like Kuwait, the UAE, or Qatar. The Syrian civil war is a case study of the extent to which jihadi groups are intertwined with the intelligence agencies of Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Suicide bombings, decapitations, slaughter of innocents, rape, desecration of holy sites, segregation of communities, shunning and mass killings of minorities are now inextricably linked with the fate of modern Islam. Alliances of this kind, between states and terrorists and criminals, are not uncommon in history to achieve singular objectives. However, the selective appeal to jihadis and jihadi violence goes way beyond such tactical understandings. It is an integral aspect of Wahhabi thinking on power, and an entire theology has evolved to warrant and celebrate such atrocities. Ancient notions of what is legitimate in sanctified warfare are now commonplace justifications for barbarities of all kind. This perverse development has crept into the discourse of modern Islam, with people who are far away from 21 The Serbian Black Hand being an exception; they gave us the pretext for World War I.

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the world of the jihadis eagerly debating the finer points of the theology of, basically, how to diminish, ostracize, and eliminate those who do not share their world view. The demeaning of the spirit of Islam from this turn of events is devastating.

Islamic Parties and Movements In light of the above, the significance of the seemingly most obvious expressions of modern Islam, namely Islamic political parties and movements, and those that are euphemistically called Islamically-rooted, cannot be overlooked. These are perhaps the most important heirs of the early founders of modern Islam. But to what extent can they be considered the living embodiment of modern Islam? As I mentioned before, my argument is that these manifestations of the modern Islam project represent the end of the cycle that began with the reformers of the nineteenth century and continued in the bewilderment after the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. The mass piety movements were all in one way or another concerned with the loss of faith and authenticity; the Islamic political parties were organized for achieving power; the social and educational movements grew as the modern nation state in most Muslim countries proved inadequate to the task of providing a decent standard of public services. The tools that they used to achieve their objectives are all either hopelessly dated, or they have been cornered into accepting the rulebook of democratic processes. It is ironic that the Muslim Brotherhood, stripped of its power in the Egyptian counter-revolution of June/July 2012, does not base its resistance to the army-led government with calls for Islamist solidarity but on democratic legitimacy. There is no Islamist political, social, or economic project beyond being ensconced in power. It is then legitimate to ask: what does Islam mean in the context of parties who carry that label but offer nothing in particular except a pretence to an ability to manage the state in a more effective manner than their competitors, and seem to have a fixation on the state of public and private morality? My own explanation as to why there was an abrupt and massive collapse in the support base of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is not that they bungled the management of the state or were intent on Islamizing it. There is really very little evidence that beyond the meanderings and incoherence of Mohammad Morsi’s presidency, which warrants a military intervention. Rather, it is to do with the recognition of the mass of the electorate that the Islamist project is really nothing more than the assumption of the mantle

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of power, for no other end than because it is what political parties do. The Islamist project of the Islamic political parties is a hollow construct precisely because there is nothing Islamic in it apart from the numbing repetition of the words ‘Islamic’ and ‘Sharia’. Those in the electorate who believed in the rhetoric and were prepared to give the Brotherhood the benefit of the doubt saw the reality when the Brotherhood was in power and uncovered the fraud for what it was. Lincoln Steffens, the American reporter who visited the Soviet Union after the October Revolution, came back with the quote ‘I have seen the future, and it works.’22 The electorate in Egypt who dramatically shifted their support from the Brotherhood to the coup makers could very well have said: ‘We have seen the future, and it doesn’t work.’ But what about the Turkish AK Party? Isn’t it after all the best example of the coexistence of Islam and democracy? The AK Party did remove petty restrictions on the wearing of the hijab and affirmed the rights of the petty-minded to have religious education.23 It is now moving into a decidedly authoritarian phase, but still one can hardly point to an Islamization project, unless it is in fact finding a solution to that old canard, the compatibility of Islam and democracy. The AK tamed the military and the judiciary, but it has always upheld the ultimately secular nature of the Turkish state. It has pursued a neo-Ottoman foreign policy twinned with social conservatism and until recently a very dynamic and successful policy of economic management. From the perspective of modern Islam, its most significant achievement could well be the reformulation of the Sharia, through a revisionist programme that is focusing on reforming the understanding of the Prophetic hadith. But we have to await the results of this effort before one can pass judgement on its efficacy and ultimate appropriateness.

The Dead End of Modern Islam The evidence that the course of modern Islam is reaching a point of exhaustion is thus quite compelling. But the end is coming with a bang and not a whimper. The reason is twofold and lies in the increasing pace of Salafization of mainstream Sunni Islam and the accelerating schism between the Shia and Sunni Muslims. 22 Steffens, Lincoln. Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens. Berkeley: Heyday, 1931, p. 84. 23 For an excellent analysis of the AKP, see Lord, Ceren. Religious Politics in Turkey: From the Birth of the Republic to the AKP. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.

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The discourse of Salafism and Wahhabism has moved from the periphery to the centre of the world of Sunni Islam and with it has gone the nuanced and Sufi-inflected forms of traditional Sunnism. The preoccupations of Wahhabism in particular with literalism and easy declamations of heresy are now quite common. Ordinary folk are now more than likely to worship in Saudi or Kuwaiti financed mosques, preached to by ulema who have attended gratis the Wahhabi academies of Saudi Arabia, and look there for their guidance and direction. This development makes it all the easier to accept Wahhabism’s ahistoricity, its indifference to heritage and tradition, and to act upon the main preoccupations of Wahhabism, mainly the quarantine and elimination of what it sees are unacceptable accretions to the religion. The barrenness of the resulting culture is too sad to contemplate, for it eliminates all the creative vitality of the religion. The impossibility to mention one noteworthy work of literature, art, architecture, or craft that has emerged from the world of the Salafis and Wahhabis over the decades, even centuries, is testimony to this. The counterpart to that is the immersion of the common folk in material accumulation to the exclusion of almost everything else of true value. Some might say that highlighting the Sunni-Shia conflict is overdramatizing what has been in effect a permanent divide in Islamic history, but this entirely misses the mark. Until very recently there had been a consensus amongst Muslims regarding traumatic episodes in early Islamic history, namely the rightness of the cause of Ali versus Mua’wiyya, and the events leading to the martyrdom of Hussein, the son of Ali. These are of course key elements in Shia Islam which differs from Sunni Islam, but one could declare oneself on the side of Ali and Hussein without necessarily accepting Shia doctrine. Nearly all the Sufi tariqas, staunchly Sunni in legal matters, trace their lineage to Ali. In fact, many of the figures of early modern Islam were born Shia, such as the pan Islamic agitator Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Asadabadi al-Afghani, but nearly all his key followers, stalwarts of modern Islam such as Abduh and Ridha, were Sunni. However, a combination of factors has moved what is in essence a doctrinal conflict within the folds of Islam into a lethal animosity. Wahhabism’s hostility to Shia Islam has never abated but it was kept in check by the realpolitik policies of the Wahhabi’s strategic allies, the House of Saud, and the confinement of Wahhabism to the area of central Arabia. Following the Iranian Revolution, the Saudis felt exposed to Iran’s revolutionary fervour and sought to contain it by first encouraging Iraq’s war effort and subsequently by relying on the US’s military presence in the Gulf. This policy was seriously jeopardized by the invasion of Iraq which seemed to

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empower Iran even further by installing a Shia led government in Baghdad. Surreptitious support to al-Qaeda in Iraq did not end with the fall of the new order in Iraq pushing the Saudis into adopting a more indirect strategy of demonizing Iran and Shiism in the broader Islamic world.24 The ramping up of anti-Shia sectarian discourse can be traced to the mid 2000’s with the congruence of Saudi fears of Iranian hegemony with the traditional Wahhabi rejection of Shia Islam. This has now seeped into a number of Islamic countries, some with insignificant Shia populations. It has also neatly coincided with the indiscriminate violence of jihadis against Shia populations in Iraq and Pakistan, and has proved a powerful rallying cry for the tens of thousands of jihadis currently fighting in the Syrian civil war. Wahhabi and jihadi hatred of Shia Islam now easily trumps any antipathy to the West. With the advent of King Salman to the throne, and the transfer of huge power to his son, Saudi Arabia has now abandoned totally its deliberate cautiousness in state-to-state relations. It is all but at war with Iran, and is rapidly mobilizing a global Sunni, (I stress specifically Sunni) alliance, to counter what it sees as an aggressive and expansionist Shiism, led by Iran. This is extraordinary in historical terms. Something like a global Sunni ‘nationalism’ is being invented and deployed as a replacement for Pan Islam and narrow ethnic nationalism, primarily to serve the dynastic interests of the al-Sauds and to conflate Sunnism with militant anti-Shiism. I believe the Wahhabi project aims at nothing less than the expulsion of Shia Muslims from the fold of Islam, in fact treating Shiism as a different and hostile religion to be confronted and vanquished. What the Shia are supposed to do when faced with such an onslaught begs the imagination. Sunni Islam might not totally surrender the understanding of the religion to the fringe interpretations of Wahhabism, but there is little doubt that the centre of gravity of Sunni Islam has shifted dramatically towards acceptance of key Salafi/Wahhabi doctrines and tenets. The consequences of this to the welfare and vitality of Islam are enormous. But still, is this new turn a true disjuncture which decades from now a future historian can look back and say that the events of this period marked a fundamental break in the story of modern Islam? Are we witnessing the beginnings of Islam’s version of the Thirty Years’ War whose outcome, though uncertain, will nevertheless be decisive in defining the forms of the next cycle? Almost by definition, events overlie deeper structures, and dramatic twists and turns might appear less so from the safe perspective and distance 24 For an excellent discussion of the modern rise of Shia Islam, see Nasr, Vali. The Shia Revival. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016.

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of a longer time framework. However, one cannot underestimate the importance of these contemporary pathways, for they are affecting both the mentalities and perspectives of people, and at some level also the way that they organize their daily lives. If communities segregate and avoid or even demonize each other; if intimate matters such as marriage, family, and friendships become hostage to deep sectarianism, then they will create their own realities which in turn become structural.

Reformation, Enlightenment, and the Romantic Movement in Modern Islam The transition of modern Islam from one world to another has been difficult and fraught with problems. The cycle is ending in failure, at least in terms of the three aspects which it sought to change: state, society, and consciousness. Naive calls have been made from time to time for an Islamic Reformation or an Islamic Enlightenment, to somehow track Islam along the trajectory of Christianity and the modern world. In fact, both of these have been experienced but not necessarily with the expected results. If one means by ‘Reformation’ the breakdown of traditional forms of authority and hierarchy, then Wahhabism is a distorted form of such a reformation of Islam. If by ‘Enlightenment’ we mean the enthronement of reason at the heart of human endeavour, then we have also had that ever since Syed Ahmad Khan and the quest for a rationalist and rationalizing Islam. Both Reformation and Enlightenment have ended with completely unexpected results as I have tried to outline. Contemporary Islamic thought is not barren, but it requires great courage to face up to the disasters of the past decades. The late Franco-Algerian thinker, Muhammad Arkoun, saw hope in the potential willingness of Muslims to ponder the ‘unthinkable’ and unthought-of in Muslim intellectual history.25 He did not really produce a corpus of work that led onto this path; rather he skirted around it, declaiming about the necessity of drawing on the social sciences and anthropology to revitalize the tradition. Others have sought the seeds of revival in a new engagement with philosophy, picking up from the medieval rationalist philosopher Ibn Rushd. Still others have revisited the aborted school of the Mu’tazila, seeing in them the possibility of questioning key points of dogma that had underpinned Sunni theology since the ninth century. 25 Arkoun, Mohammed. The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought. London: Saqi Books, 2002.

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Iran has also produced its intellectual religious dissenters. They are unknown to a large extent in the broader Muslim world, apart from academic circles. Mehdi Bazargan, Mohsen Kadivar, Mahmud Shabistari, and above all Abd al-Karim Soroush point to an altogether different path for Islam. Soroush has boldly questioned the foundational pillars of traditional Islamic belief, all the while affirming his own commitment to the faith.26 The sanctity of the Quran as the unmediated word of God; elevating reason to be equal the Word of God; ethics as moral progress through an individual’s self-realization; and that the Muslim ummah has no special claim to be exceptional. Soroushian project might be a step too far in present circumstances, but he is asking the unthinkable and unthought-of. All of these trends might peter out or coalesce into a current that could reinvent the idea and practice of Islam. It could lead to a ‘religious secularity’ not so much an oxymoronic statement, but a genuine attempt to emancipate religion from the strictures of power and politics. What I believe Islam needs is its own version of the ‘Romantic Movement’, which privileges the individual, honours the drive for human perfectibility, an ethic of toleration, a theology of freedom and justice, a cultivation of the sense of the ineffable and its attributes of beauty and creativity. All this within a structure that is built on the notion of the ethical and the acknowledgement and experience of the sacred. The ‘Romantic Movement’ of Islam will elevate ethics to a central position in Islam and see its source in the universe of ideals and archetypes, rooted in the attributes of God; and not exclusively in the meticulous observation of rules and precedents, no matter how august. It will seek inclusiveness and acknowledge diversity and multiplicity. It will celebrate nature and protect the natural order. It will accept the validity of other expressions of religious belief. It will seek to expand the realm of individual freedoms and liberties. It will seek new forms of communal solidarity, transactions, and ownership. It will redefine the nature of legitimate authority and subject it to constraints. It will seek to redress the chasms of inequality and disadvantage. It will rebalance gender relations. The Renaissance in Europe was based on the rediscovery of the classics of antiquity; the Renaissance of Islam might very well emerge from the recovery of the ‘imaginal’, a form of thinking and experiencing which has produced its own edifice of spiritual knowledge, but which has been deliberately belittled or ignored by its castigators. Its greatest exponent is the medieval mystic, Muhy al-Din ibn ‘Arabi, but his legacy has been misappropriated and misdirected. 26 Soroush, Abdolkarim. Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam: Essential Writings of Abdolkarim Soroush. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

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Ibn ‘Arabi hated by the Salafis and Wahhabis, precisely because his rendering of Islam is completely at odds with their literalism and points a course for Islam that is utterly alien, even unthinkable for them. The ulema of the Shia are ambivalent and often hostile to ibn ‘Arabi and to mystical thinking generally because it challenges them at the level of doctrinal authority. One cannot expect to stop the march to self-destruction by simply starting to read the 200-odd works of ibn ‘Arabi or immerse ourselves in the works of Rumi or Ibn al-Faridh and Attar. But it is a fundamental start that may halt the galloping desertification of modern Islamic thought and practice implicit by the emergence of a Salafi/Wahhabi ascendancy. It is also a powerful antidote to the consumerist materialism that has seized the minds of the Muslim middle classes, which has submerged them in a world devoid of colour, beauty, and originality, producing crass urban landscapes and degraded natural environments, as well as mindsets and outlooks that demean the human spirit.

Bibliography Arkoun, Mohammed. The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought. London: Saqi Books, 2002. Berger, Peter L., ed. The Desecularization of the World. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1999. Crone, Patricia. God’s Rule: Government and Islam. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Crossman, Richard Howard Stafford. The God that Failed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. Da Cunha, Euclides. Rebellion in the Backlands. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. Enayat, Hamid. Modern Islamic Political Thought. London: I.B. Tauris, 2005. Evans, Martin. Algeria: France’s Undeclared War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Hedges, Matthew, and Theodore Karasik. Evolving Terrorist Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTP) Migration Across South Asia, Caucasus, and the Middle East. Institute of Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, 2010. Husain, Ed. The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I saw inside and Why I Left. London: Penguin UK, 2015. Keddie, Nikki R. ‘Sayyid Jamal ad-Din ‘al-Afghani’: A Political Biography’. Science and Society, 37.3 (1973): 379–382. Kepel, Gilles. Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. London: I.B. Tauris, 2006. Kerr, Malcolm H. Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal Theories of Muḥammad ʻAbduh and Rashīd Riḍā. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966.

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Kersten, Carool. The Caliphate and Islamic Statehood-formation, Fragmentation and Modern Interpretations (3 vols., set). Berlin: Gerlach Press, 2015. Khomeini, Ruhollah. Islamic Government: Governance of the Jurist. London: Alhoda UK, 2005. Lauzière, Henri. The Making of Salafism: Islamic Reform in the Twentieth Century. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. Lerner, Daniel. The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East. New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1958. Llosa, Mario Vargas. The War of the End of the World. New York: Macmillan, 2008. Lord, Ceren. Religious Politics in Turkey: From the Birth of the Republic to the AKP. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Mitchell, Richard P., and Malcolm H. Kerr. Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal Theories of Muḥammad’ Abduh and Rashīd Riḍā. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969. Naji, Abu Bakr. The Management of Savagery: The Most Critical Stage through Which the Umma Will Pass. Harvard: John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, Harvard University, 2004. Nasr, Vali. The Shia Revival. New York: WW Norton & Company, 2016. Osman, Mohamed Nawab Mohamed. Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia and Political Islam: Identity, Ideology and Religio-Political Mobilization. London: Routledge, 2018. Soroush, Abdolkarim. Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam: Essential Writings of Abdolkarim Soroush. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Steffens, Lincoln. Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens. Berkeley: Heyday, 1931. Tittensor, David. The House of Service: The Gulen Movement and Islam’s Third Way. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Valentine, Simon Ross. Force and Fanaticism: Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia and beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Venturi, Franco. Roots of Revolution: A History of the Populist and Socialist Movements in Nineteenth Century Russia. London: Phoenix, 1963. Wickham, Carrie Rosefsky. The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist Movement. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015.

About the author Ali Allawi was Senior Associate Member at the Middle East Centre at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford University, Senior Visiting Fellow at the Carr Centre, Kennedy School at Harvard University, and a Visiting Research Professor at the Middle East Institute (MEI), National University of Singapore.

2.

A Theoretical Pathway to Contemporary Islam Iulia Lumina

Abstract This chapter examines the ways in which modernity was theorized in relation to Islam to analyse the historical contingency of knowledge production on Islam in Western scholarship. It critically interrogates concepts such as history, civilization, and modernity, in which Islam transitions from a timeless other to a distinctive trajectory within multiple modernities. The chapter proposes Paul Rabinow’s framework of the contemporary to open up non-Orientalist and non-binary approaches to the study of Islam. Overall, the chapter stresses three theoretical propositions: a historical approach to epistemology and analytical tools; the need to recognize Muslims as active agents shaping discourses of Islam; and finally, a conceptual openness to emergent phenomena and interrelations between the traditional and the modern. Keywords: Islam and modernity; multiple modernities; post-Orientalism; anthropology of Islam

From Herodotus to Universal History We learn from Collingwood (1946) that before the rise of Greece, time was marked through theocratic history and myths, which were both forms of quasi-history. Herodotus’ humanistic turn in the fifth century BCE established history as a science that followed human actions, moving away from the metaphoric temporality of legends or gods. This differentiation has also been described as the contrast between ‘the achronic time of myth and the chronic time of history’.1 The modern understanding of history took 1 Schelling as cited in Al-Azmeh, Aziz. Times of History: Universal Topics in Islamic Historiography. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2007. Osman, M.N.M. Pathways to Contemporary Islam: New Trends in Critical Engagement. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. doi: 10.5117/9789462987593_ch02

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further turns in the Renaissance and the Enlightenment traditions, which decisively shaped the perception of Islam and Muslim polities in Western imagination and discourse. The humanistic turn established human agency as the driver of history and thus Greco-Roman historiography emphasized that historical events are caused by human agents. By the Dark Ages, Christian thought reclaimed a providential view of history as the unfolding of God’s wisdom. Later on, Renaissance historians returned to the humanist tradition and postulated that the task of history is to recall and record the events of the past. With increased influence from philosophy, history started to be considered a form of knowledge rather than a concrete outline of events. Ibn Khaldun, who studied the formation of dynasties in the Maghreb of the fourteenth century and the transition from nomadic to sedentary societies, developed a critical method for the study of history. His science of society provided a model of history as the cyclical rise and decline of dynasties based on assabiyya, the solidarity feeling of social groups.2 Along with religious and faith-based historiographies, this model envisioned history as the repetition of cycles or enactment of prophecies. The modern understanding of history was developed in the Enlightenment period, when time becomes linear and history progressive. This arrow movement of history was influenced by the evolutionary paradigm: history evolved through progressive stages leading to the highest level of civilization exemplified by Europe. French philosophers predicated reason and progress, theorizing human emancipation from unreason and barbarity, which implied a radically differentiated understanding of humanity. J. G. von Herder proposed that all beliefs and cultures be placed within the holistic framework for one history of mankind.3 This advanced an understanding of history as ‘a single process of development from a beginning in savagery to an end in a perfectly rational and civilised society’. 4 Herder postulated that nations are animated by a vital force, a specific spirit—or volk, which determines their historical trajectories. Connecting the present to an ideal moment of origin, romantic conceptions of history sought to retain cultural continuity over change and progress, a relationship reflected in the opposition of German kultur to the French universalist notion of civilization. The German anti-Enlightenment discourse culminated in a vitalize approach, 2 Alatas, Syed Farid. Ibn Khaldun. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. 3 Hourani, Albert. Islam in European Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 246. 4 Collingwood, Robin George. The Idea of History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 88.

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in which the history of a nation constitutes the unfolding its specific spirit or culture. In this intellectual climate, Hegel provided the most thorough account of thinking about the world as a whole. Against the particularity of Herder, he regarded the spirits as manifestations of a universal Spirit that works towards the development of freedom. History, in this view, becomes ‘the exhibition of the Spirit in the process of working out that which it is potentially’.5 More importantly, against an empirical view that holds history as a natural science, history for Hegel is first and foremost a mental process.6 With Hegel, all history becomes the history of thought,7 and philosophical history, whose aim is the attainment of freedom, is inextricably linked to the coming into existence of the state.

‘Oriental Ease and Repose’, Despotism and the Theft of History Hegel described the historical processes of government through four stages: ‘the Oriental world, the Greek world, the Roman world and f inally the German world, in which freedom was at last embodied in the state’.8 Having consumed their spirit, the Arabs retreated from the grand scheme of history: ‘Islam has long vanished […] and retreated into oriental ease and repose’.9 While history becomes intrinsically linked to freedom and progress, ideas of decadence and stagnation were the common tropes in the Orientalist historiography of the nineteenth century. Stagnation, both cultural and economic, was uniquely attributed to Islam and its despotic political systems. Of Greek origin, the term despotism was popularized in the opposition to the absolute monarchical rule of Louis XIV at the turn of the eighteenth century. However, the term came to be definitive in the way that the West perceived the Other. The distinction that the ancient Greeks made against the barbarian Persians was recast in modern times between civilized Europeans and despotic Muslims. Within a history that was progressing towards the 5 Hegel as cited in Hourani, Albert. Islam in European Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 248. 6 As discussed in Salama, Mohammad. Islam, Orientalism and Intellectual History: Modernity and the Politics of Exclusion since Ibn Khaldun. London: I.B. Tauris, 2011, p. 104. 7 Collingwood, Robin George. The Idea of History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 115. 8 Hegel as cited in Curtis, Michael. Orientalism and Islam: European Thinkers on Oriental Despotism in the Middle East and India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 66. 9 Hegel as cited in Hourani, Albert. Islam in European Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 249.

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development of freedom, Muslim civilizations could only decline due to despotic authority that subjugated servile populations. Islam would either vanish or be regarded as ‘an irrational eruption onto the canvas of history’.10 The writing of history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was infused with ethnocentricity as European colonial powers dominated the world economically. The imperial politics of Europe, the driver of universal history, played a definitive role in the perception and imagination of Islam and Muslim societies. The modern understanding of history through defined stages of progress implied a temporal differentiation from Antiquity leading to the Enlightenment, through Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution. This modern periodization excluded non-European societies from history. Jack Goody called this the theft of history: The theft of history by western Europe began with the notions of Archaic society and Antiquity, proceeding from there in a more or less straight line through feudalism and the Renaissance to capitalism.11

The invention of Antiquity by European historians not only designated previous eras as prehistory, but also constituted the origin of a specific trajectory of European triumphalism. This allowed Europe to lay exclusive claims to capitalism and obscure historical encounters with Muslim thinkers. It was believed that despotic Asian polities ‘were incapable of providing the background necessary for the growth of capitalism’12 because they did not benefit from an era of feudalism. The resulting economic stagnation was attributed to the civilizational spirit of Islam. However, a critical look at the developments in urban polities and largescale manufacturing, adoption of firearms and expansion of trade in the Ottoman Empire reveals more similarities to the West in terms of economic development and render the idea of Asian despotism and exceptionalism inadequate. The exclusion of Islamic thought from European intellectual history is clearly illustrated in what has been called the Aristotelian thesis in Ibn Khaldun,13 which sought to scrutinize the originality of the work against borrowings from Greek thought. At best, Islamic science is acknowledged to have facilitated Hellenism to its real home in medieval European universities.14 10 Al-Azmeh, Aziz. Islams and Modernities. London: Verso, 1993, p. 172. 11 Goody, Jack. The Theft of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, p. 27. 12 Ibid., p. 98. 13 Salama, Mohammad. Islam, Orientalism and Intellectual History: Modernity and the Politics of Exclusion since Ibn Khaldun. London: I.B. Tauris, 2011, p. 86. 14 Turner, Bryan S. Orientalism, Postmodernism and Globalism. London: Routledge, 2002, p. 32.

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The triumphalist account of history in which Europe emerged superior also made exclusive claims to modernity and justified civilizing missions to non-modern peoples in the colonies. In this light, the writing of history under colonial expansion becomes a ‘discourse of conquest’,15 and world history becomes the European account of the conquest of the world. Truth claims in such depictions of history are contested since ‘historical writing must be approached as a constructivist act rather than a simple graphic transcription of facts ostensibly pre-given’.16 Scholars are cautious to the fact that history is susceptible to relations of power and as such can be ‘entirely narrative’.17 In theorizing history, philosophers were searching for a science of human nature, but Collingwood proposes that ‘all history is the history of thought’.18 Following this, the European historiography of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries reveal the European mind writing their imperial experience. This writing of history is a discourse of conquest with profound implications for the perception of Muslims and Islam. In this light, historical scholarship needs to be met with radical scepticism. As scholars seek to restore Islam to ‘a functional code of knowledge’,19 they require a responsible invocation of history which works towards ‘the dissolution of Islam as an orientalist category’20 and its reconstitution as a historical one.

Rethinking World History and Multiple Modernities Against the attribution of a decaying spirit inherent in Islam and its empires, scholars turned to civilizational analysis to rethink Islam’s relation to modernity and to locate the place of Islamic civilizations in world history. This implied the contestation of the Western idea of civilization, along with a reformulation of the notion of tradition, which are discussed below. Taking 15 Salama, Mohammad. Islam, Orientalism and Intellectual History: Modernity and the Politics of Exclusion since Ibn Khaldun. London: I.B. Tauris, 2011, p. 32. 16 Al-Azmeh, Aziz. Times of History: Universal Topics in Islamic Historiography. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2007, p. 5. 17 Salama, Mohammad. Islam, Orientalism and Intellectual History: Modernity and the Politics of Exclusion since Ibn Khaldun. London: I.B. Tauris, 2011, p. 63. 18 Collingwood, Robin George. The Idea of History. Oxford: Oxford University Press on Demand, 1994, p. 215. 19 Salama, Mohammad. Islam, Orientalism and Intellectual History: Modernity and the Politics of Exclusion since Ibn Khaldun. London: I.B. Tauris, 2011, p. 63, p. 9. 20 Al-Azmeh, Aziz. Islams and Modernities. London: Verso, 1993, p. 181.

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Islamic history as ‘a strategic point from which to undertake a critique of the discourse on Western civilization’,21 Marshall Hodgson claimed that in the 16th century of our era, a visitor from Mars might well have supposed that the human world was on the verge of becoming Muslim. He would have based his judgement partly on the strategic and political advantages of the Muslims, but partly also on the vitality of their general culture.22

Hodgson was probably among the first historians to reject accounts that identified a decline inherent in the Islamic civilization. In fact, he argued that Europe has been an insignificant outlier of mainland Asia until what he called the Great Western Transmutation, the general cultural transformations that brought about the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolutions, and subsequently established European world hegemony. His attempt to rethink world history shows that the Western Transmutation would have been impossible without the cumulative history of the AfroAsian region. Therefore, he situates Western modernity in a broader world civilizational framework, where Europe is indeed the origin but not the sole recipient of the changes brought by industrial advancement and modernity. Hodgson believed that the drivers of the Transmutation were not the revolutions of Europe, but rather the new mentality which he called technicalism, ‘a condition of calculative […] technical specialization in which the several specialties are interdependent on a large enough scale to determine patterns of expectation in the key sectors of society’.23 As a result, modern development in non-Western societies could ‘neither be paralleled independently nor borrowed wholesale […] yet it could not, in most cases, be escaped’.24 While the Islamicate culture thrived on Islamic civilizational dialogue and cosmopolitan dynamism, it was the reassertion of communal and regional divisions in the Mughal, Safavid, and Ottoman gunpowder empires that destroyed its unity and dynamism and paved the way towards cultural conservatism. The term civilization is believed to have been conceptualized in the latter half of the eighteenth century to emphasize the idea of civility as a state of 21 Burke, Edmund. ‘Epilogue’ In: Hodgson, Marshall G.S. Rethinking World History: Essays on Europe, Islam and World History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. xvi. 22 Hodgson, Marshall G.S. Rethinking World History: Essays on Europe, Islam and World History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 97. 23 Burke, Edmund. ‘Epilogue’ In: Hodgson, Marshall G.S. Rethinking World History: Essays on Europe, Islam and World History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. xx. 24 Hodgson, Marshall G.S. Rethinking World History: Essays on Europe, Islam and World History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 71.

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social order opposed to savagery or barbarism.25 Politically, it emphasized civil law and public legality, while socially it implied the refinement of manners, through a civilizing process as described by Norbert Elias (1994). Civilization was a process of refinement as well as an achieved condition associated with modernity, human development, and secular thought. One among many concepts seeking to describe social entities, civilization in the nineteenth century was theorized alongside its predecessor, society, which had evolved from feudal to industrial, and finally, to civil society.26 An important dimension of civilization implied a ‘battle of the ancient and the moderns’,27 in which archaeological excavations of Others contributed to Europe’s understanding of its own image. Once civilization came to signify Western scientific and technological superiority, the concept of culture arose as reaction. Against the mechanical and universalizing civilization, culture resisted as the space of spirituality and morality of a nation, as laid out in the German anti-Enlightenment movement,28 whose narrative was underpinned by its geopolitical context of the time. While the narrative of civilization was also adopted by non-Western countries—such as Japan—seeking to modernize, its juxtaposition with an inferior culture defined the threshold of modernity, antagonizing reason and science to tradition and religion. Against the view of civilization as the ‘universal, substantive form of secular perfectibility’,29 Marcel Mauss provided an analytical approach to the study of civilizations in the plural and rejected a hierarchical understanding of civilizations. He believed that specific civilizations can be identified by a bound physical geography and a social form reflective of specific cultural traits. A civilization, then, is ‘a sort of hypersocial system of social systems’,30 incorporating ideas and practices held in common by various societies spanning a certain physical area. Mauss also distinguished styles or epochs within a civilization as ‘the given form taken by a civilisation of a given area within a given period of time’.31 25 Williams, Raymond. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 57–60. 26 Mazlish, Bruce. ‘Civilization in a Historical and Global Perspective’. International Sociology 16.3 (2001), p. 2. 27 Ibid. 28 For a comprehensive exposition of the culture versus civilization debate, see the first part of Francis Mulhern, Culture/Metaculture. London: Routledge, 2002 29 Mazlish, Bruce. ‘Civilization in a Historical and Global Perspective’. International Sociology 16.3 (2001), p. 1. 30 Mauss, Marcel. ‘Civilisational Forms (1930)’. In: Said Arjomand and Edward A. Tiryakian, eds. Rethinking Civilizational Analysis. London: Sage, 2004, p. 2. 31 Ibid.

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Civilization in the singular was criticized for being an ‘evolutionary benchmark of modernity’32 and ‘an ideological projection of the capitalist world system and its expansionist dynamic’.33 While Mauss took a paramount step forward in pluralizing civilizations, his theory was not popular during his lifetime, but later influenced the mainstream understanding of civilizations, where religion, along with geography and culture, played an integral part in defining their social forms. Following the First World War, when the alleged intrinsic cultural and moral superiority of the European civilization was impossible to maintain, historical scholarship was revitalized by a focus on civilization as ‘a dynamic entity, as a process of actualisation or becoming from basic presuppositions or core values rather than as a finished entity suitable to be admired as a museum piece’.34 Civilization was not just a social process and the mark of an orderly society; it became a political and cultural process influenced by both inter-civilizational and intra-civilizational encounters. In the study of non-Western civilizations, a comparative anthropology of civilizations distinguished a ‘temporal hierarchy between a Great Tradition and its Little Traditions’.35 This idea proved quite influential in the study of Islam, for example in the work of Ernest Gellner (1980), who distinguished between the high tradition of urban scripturalism and the lower Sufi traditions of rural areas. Civilizational analysis was pursued alongside the promises of modernization which focused exclusively on secular developments. The idea of resurgence of religion popularized after the fall of the modernization theory came from the inability to account for cultural and civilizational processes underpinned by religious customs and urged a rethinking of tradition and modernity. In contrast to the infamous clash of civilization thesis, which claimed a violent incompatibility between a secular West and the rage of Islamic fundamentalism, S. N. Eisenstadt put forward the most refined account of civilizational analysis. He dismantled the conception in the singular of both civilization and modernity and invalidated the exclusive 32 Tiryakian, Edward A. ‘Civilizational Analysis: Renovating the Sociological Tradition’. In: Said Arjomand and Edward A. Tiryakian, eds. Rethinking Civilizational Analysis. London: Sage, 2004, p. 1. 33 Árnason, Jóhann Páll. Civilizations in Dispute: Historical Questions and Theoretical Traditions. Leiden: Brill, 2003, p. 7. 34 Tiryakian, Edward A. ‘Civilizational Analysis: Renovating the Sociological Tradition’. In: Said Arjomand and Edward A. Tiryakian, eds. Rethinking Civilizational Analysis. London: Sage, 2004, p. 6. 35 Arjomand, Saïd Amir. ‘Multiple Modernities and the Promise of Comparative Sociology’. In: Worlds of Difference. London: Sage, 2013, p. 20.

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claim to civilization by the West or even Protestantism as a privileged avenue to modernity.36 Eisenstadt emphasized that ‘the overall impact of religious heterodoxy mutating into socio-cultural subversion and change is more important than any particular guidelines for conduct’.37 Thus, it is not a specific Protestant ethic, but heterodoxy, dissent, and the internal pluralism of civilizational legacies that lead to modernity. Like Hodgson’s technicalism, Eisenstadt observed that the Great Revolutions of Europe led to the development of new modes of interpretation of the world, ontological visions and institutional formations. The global effects of this development were so fundamental that he considered modernity as a civilization in itself, which manifests all over the world through multiple modernities. Eisenstadt took on Karl Jaspers’ idea of Axial Age, the era between 800 to 200 BCE, when the early world religions and the civilizations centred around them were formed.38 The Axial Age represented the spiritualization of humanity, the appearance of philosophers, reflexivity, and speculative thought which gave humanity the fundamental categories still operational today. In Eisenstadt’s account, Islam, a religion that follows the Abrahamic traditions, appeared as a reinterpretation of monotheism through a secondary breakthrough of the First Axial Age. In a recent book, Irfan Ahmad (2018) points to the Axial Age as the origin of critical thinking other than the secular formula of the Enlightenment. In fact, he refers to the Enlightenment as an ethnic project built to discredit the critical capacity of non-Western subjects. Ahmad builds on Jaspers, whose Axial Age constituted sociological conditions for spiritual creativeness, arguing that the Axial Age provided religions with prophetic critical enterprises and made religion a source of thinking and critique. Nonetheless, Eisenstadt took the idea of axiality as a typological one and considered the revolutionary and creative potentialities brought by the civilization of modernity as the markers of a Second Global Axial Age. Thus, axiality reflects a cluster of dynamic characteristics that leads to the crystallization of different patterns of modernity, or multiple modernities.39 The modern project entailed ‘very distinct shifts in the conception of human agency, its autonomy and of its place in the flow of time’,40 which 36 Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: Routledge, 2013. 37 As discussed in Árnason, Jóhann Páll. Civilizations in Dispute: Historical Questions and Theoretical Traditions. Leiden: Brill, 2003, p. 163. 38 Jaspers, Karl. The Origin and Goal of History. London: Routledge, 2014, p. 2. 39 Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. ‘The Civilizational Dimension of Modernity: Modernity as a Distinct Civilization’. International Sociology 16.3 (2001), p. 6. 40 Ibid., p. 2.

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led to radical transformations of political order and collective identities. Everywhere in Eisenstadt’s outline of the programme of modernity there is sustained emphasis on internal antinomies, contradictions, and the critical tension between totalizing and pluralistic visions. Thus, he proposes that the civilization of modernity is composed by multiple modernities: [T]he history of modernity is best seen as a story of continual development and formation, constitution and reconstitution of a multiplicity of cultural programmes of modernity and of distinctively modern institutional patterns, and of different self-conceptions of societies as modern—of multiple modernities. 41

No longer a hegemonic and homogenous project, modernity brought about a ‘general trend to structural differentiation’, 42 not in terms of capitalist industrialism, political democracy, and pluralizing secularisms, but one in which religious traditions enact different programmes of modernity. Against an end of history or a clash of civilizations, Eisenstadt’s scholarship puts modernity ‘on an endless trial’, 43 through continual reinterpretation and attempts of groups and movements to appropriate and define modernity in their own terms. While civilization in the singular has been criticized for being a ‘bookish memory’44 and a ‘European Enlightenment project to give its rising bourgeoise a universal frame of collective identity’, 45 the civilizational analysis tradition of which Eisenstadt is a central figure is considered to contain the seeds for a more adequate sociology of difference. 46 Serving as a bridge between sociological theory and comparative history, a multi-civilizational approach to world history is an effective antidote to Eurocentrism. Furthermore, the concept of multiple modernities dismantles the opposition between religion and modernity and blurs the boundary between tradition and modernity. Drawing on earlier cultural and religious patterns and 41 Ibid., p. 10. 42 Ibid., p. 7. 43 Kolakowski as cited in Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. ‘The Civilizational Dimension of Modernity: Modernity as a Distinct Civilization’. International Sociology 16.3 (2001), p. 14. 44 Al-Azmeh, Aziz. Times of History: Universal Topics in Islamic Historiography. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2007. 45 Dabashi, Hamid. ‘For the Last Time: Civilizations’. International Sociology 16.3 (2001), pp. 361–368. Arjomand, Said, and Edward A. Tiryakian, eds. Rethinking Civilizational Analysis. London: Sage, 2004, p. 2. 46 Arjomand, Saïd Amir. ‘Multiple Modernities and the Promise of Comparative Sociology’. In: Worlds of Difference, London: Sage, 2013.

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symbols, traditions are reinterpreted as formative frameworks that adapt and impact modern social transformations. 47 The analytical framework of multiple modernities explains the sustained presence of religion in ongoing processes of social and political change as well as religiously mediated discourses of modernity. 48 For the scope of this paper, it takes Islam to be contemporaneous to modernity, in contrast to anachronistic depictions in European conceptions of history.

From Orientalism to Post-Orientalism So far, the paper discussed the narratives of history and civilization in order to show that the production of knowledge and analytical concepts are contingent upon larger geopolitical contexts. The role of the French Revolution, imperial politics, world wars, the Cold War, and their implicit power relations defined the frameworks from which Islam and Muslims have been theorized and depicted in Western scholarship. We learn more about Muslim polities by looking at Persio-Indian statecraft 49 rather than the European idea of Oriental despotism. Instead of hierarchical stages of civilization and the alleged regressive force of religion, we might better understand Islamic negotiations between tradition and modernity through the concept of multiple modernities. Orientalist historiography and its Orientalist episteme reveal more about the Western mind seeking to create structured knowledge about the world rather than the history and customs of Muslim societies. In the second part of this chapter, I will reconsider the debate on Orientalism, question the notion of Islam, and explore the analytical framework of the contemporary developed by Paul Rabinow, which I believe helps open new spaces of analysis and overcome binary approaches. Orientalism, a specif ic form of knowledge production caused by asymmetries of power during the domination of Western empires and later embraced by American imperialism, still has profound effects on the 47 Árnason, Jóhann Páll. Civilizations in Dispute: Historical Questions and Theoretical Traditions. London: Brill, 2003, p. 160. 48 In the case of Iran, see Saffari, ‘Rethinking the Islam/Modernity Binary: Ali Shariati and Religiously Mediated Discourse of Sociopolitical Development’. Middle East Critique 24.3 (2015): 231–250. 49 See Said Amir Arjomand, ‘Perso-Indian Statecraft, Greek Political Science and the Muslim Idea of Government’. In: Arjomand and Edward A. Tiryakian, eds. Rethinking Civilisational Analysis. London: Sage, 2004.

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depiction of Islam in the current War on Terror. The hero of postcolonial critique, Edward Said, showed that the colonized subjects took up the issue of representation upon themselves. The subaltern could indeed speak, showing that ‘the colonised were not mute victims but actively participated in shaping the modern world, through various forms of resistance to colonialism but also by selectively appropriating and recasting elements of European and colonial discourse and deploying them in unexpected ways’.50 Said exposed Orientalism as ‘a Western style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient’51 and perhaps most importantly, ‘a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between ‘the Orient’ and (most of the time) ‘the Occident’.52 Connecting literary studies to Michel Foucault’s (1980) notion of discourse, he analysed the tropes through which European literature depicted the Orient. Foucault argued that knowledge is produced through an economy of discourses that reflect and legitimize power relations. He uncovered the power relations behind such regimes of truth and the productive power that generated them. In this light, Talal Asad criticized the complicity of scholars to the imperial project and their blindness to the reality of colonial domination. He compared the work of anthropologists on African polities to those of Orientalists on the political structures in Muslim societies. While African colonies were deemed to be ruled by consent and reciprocal obligation, by contrast, political dominion in the Islamic world was allegedly characterized by violent repression of corrupt tyrant rulers holding absolute power.53 The distinction comes from the fact that, unlike the European experience in Africa, Christian Europe had a history of confrontation with the Ottoman Empire. Following this, Asad argued that the orientalist image of repressive political dominions reflected ‘the bourgeois European evaluation of “un-progressive” and “fanatical” Islam that required to be directly controlled for reasons of empire’.54 Apart from Orientalist Western scholarship, some reactions from Muslim intelligentsia also contributed to the perpetuation of Orientalist stereotypes and the ontological opposition between Islam and the West. Some scholars denounced an Ontological Orientalism in Reverse which took up 50 Lockman, Zachary. Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 207. 51 Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1979, p. 2. 52 Ibid., p. 3. 53 Asad, Talal. ‘Two European Images of Non-European Rule’. Economy and Society 2.3 (1973): 263–277. P. 107. 54 Asad, Ibid., p. 117

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‘comparative philological and linguistic studies to prove the ontological superiority of the Oriental mind over the Occidental one’,55 emphasizing the superior spirituality of the Arabic language and the commands of the Quran. Aziz al-Azmeh noted that ‘the irony of modern Orientalist discourse is that it is a creation as much of certain Arab and Muslim thinkers as it is of Western ideologues interested in serving the cause of imperialism’.56 Apart from European conceptions of history that locked Islam into a timeless, ahistorical other, essentialist views in Islamic historiography, such as neoromantic tropes of return to an authentic Islam, and revivalist approaches to history equally mystified Islam and the Orient.57 Scholars further engaged with Said’s argument and distinguished between Cultural-Academic Orientalism, an academic tradition devoted to the scientific research of the Orient and Institutional Orientalism, a ‘whole set of progressively expanding institutions, a created and cumulative body of theory and practice, a suitable ideological superstructure with an apparatus of complicated assumptions, beliefs, images, literary productions, and rationalisations (not to mention the underlying foundation of commercial, economic and strategic vital interests)’.58 While Said’s book focused on text and discourse, criticisms that emphasized the marginalization of political economy59 and the elitist approach to culture leading to the neglect of popular culture,60 reveal the scope of Institutional Orientalism. Some scholars point out that ‘it is unreasonable to argue that the Western study of the Orient is little more than a form of power’61 and indeed Said’s limited engagement with Anglo-French literature downplays the contribution of scholars like Louis Massignon,62 Ignaz Goldziher,63 and Marshall Hodgson discussed above, among others. 55 Al-Azm, Sadik Jalal. ‘Orientalism and Orientalism in Reverse’. Khamsin 8.1981 (1981): p. 20. 56 White, Hayden. ‘Beyond Orientalism’. In: Al-Azmeh, Aziz. Times of History: Universal Topics in Islamic Historiography. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2007. 57 Al-Azmeh, Aziz. Times of History: Universal Topics in Islamic Historiography. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2007. P. 33. 58 Al-Azm, Sadik Jalal. ‘Orientalism and Orientalism in Reverse’. Khamsin 8.1981 (1981). 59 See Lockman, Zachary. Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. P. 195. 60 Irwin, Robert. ‘Popular Culture, Orientalism, and Edward Said’. Viewpoints. Orientalism’s Wake: The Ongoing Politics of a Polemic (2009). P. 6. 61 Curtis, Michael. Orientalism and Islam: European Thinkers on Oriental Despotism in the Middle East and India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. P. 9. 62 Hourani, Albert. Islam in European Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. 63 Dabashi, Hamid. Post-Orientalism: Knowledge and Power in a Time of Terror. London: Routledge, 2017. Devotes a whole chapter to Ignaz Goldziher.

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While Orientalism is ‘at once a serious exercise in textual criticism and, most fundamentally, a series of important if tentative epistemological reflections on general styles and procedures of cultural discourse’,64 it ends up reiterating the dichotomy between the Orient and the Occident, Islam and the West. Moreover, while seeking to demolish the idea of the Orient, it equally essentializes a Western totality. The dichotomy taken up by Said and continued in postcolonial studies has deep epistemic significance. Hamid Dabashi criticized the positioning of the postcolonial intellectual in a fixated, peripheral East which serves to further authenticate the West. Against this banal essentialism, Dabashi suggests that ‘the critique of a singular binary is to retrieve and underline the multiplicity of many binaries, their thematic topography and historical choreography, the vicissitudes of their alterations, the performance of their alterity’.65 The vital question that arises is whether one can ultimately escape dichotomizing at all. To that end, Dabashi contends that the limitations of postcolonial critique lies in the inability to ‘escape the expectant gaze of that white male interlocutor’.66 No longer tasked with correcting Hegel, the subaltern intellectual is encouraged to alter her audience: a truly post-Orientalist knowledge production takes place once the West disappears as an interlocutor. Similarly, Bryan Turner signalled the overcoming of outdated Orientalism, as ‘globalisation makes it very difficult to carry on talking about Oriental and Occidental cultures as separate, autonomous or independent cultural regimes’.67

Defining Islam Before further deconstructing unproductive binaries, a detour is necessary to discuss how Islam has been defined as a specific entity and object of study. The relationship between Christians and Muslims has not been only one of war and conflict but also implied extensive trade and exchange of ideas.68 Nonetheless, Western understandings of Islam were not only influenced 64 Clifford, James. ‘On Orientalism’. In: The Predicament of Culture. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1988. P. 21. 65 Dabashi, Hamid. ‘For the Last time: Civilizations’. International Sociology 16.3 (2001): 361–368. In: Arjomand, Said, and Edward A. Tiryakian, eds. Rethinking Civilizational Analysis. London: Sage, 2004. P. 146. 66 Ibid., p. 150. 67 Turner, Bryan S. Orientalism, Postmodernism and Globalism. London: Routledge, 2002. P. 9. 68 Hourani, Albert. Islam in European Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. P. 226.

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by Eurocentric concepts of history, civilization, and modernity, but also by the ways in which religion and Christianity were theorized across time. In addition, Muslim societies and cultures have been studied by anthropologists searching for locally distinctive elements and Islamicists who focused on religious texts and their interpretation at the expense of everyday practice.69 Islamicists assumed ‘a conceptual and normative core to Islam that could stand for the religion as a whole’ and gave excessive attention to scripture and religious law. Analysing the scripturalism of the urban ulama, some scholars conceived of Islam as a blueprint for society.70 Denouncing the gap between decontextualized readings of normative texts and ethnographic practice that did not pay attention to them, anthropologists such as John Bowen turned to the salience of ‘the social life of religious discourse’.71 His social pragmatics approach sought to examine the ways in which written texts and oral traditions were produced and reinterpreted among the Gayo in the Highlands of Sumatra. On the other hand, Clifford Geertz approached religion as a cultural system and analysed the patterns of sacred symbols that synthesize a people’s ethos and world view.72 Geertz observed the development of Islam in Indonesia and Morocco, as they underwent historical moments of social change. He tracked Islamic history from classical religious styles to the scripturalist interlude and finally to the believers’ rationalization of religion in the ‘shift from religiousness to religious-mindedness’.73 He identified the classical styles of Indonesia and Morocco through two representative heroes: the ascetic holding on to the Indic traditions of the Majapahit Empire, who is also a symbol of the syncretic nature of Islam in Indonesia and the warrior-saint, reflective of the military history that Morocco had with Islam, who launched private bids for power. According to Geertz, scripturalism facilitated the ideologization of religion which sought to revive some of the classical symbols of both Indonesia and Morocco: the theatre state by Sukarno and maraboutism (holy man veneration) by Muhammad V in the 20th century. Geertz’s attempt at a general framework of comparative religion treats Islam as the continuity of culturally shared meanings which constitute an Islamic consciousness. 69 Bowen, John Richard. Muslims through Discourse: Religion and Ritual in Gayo Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. P. 5. 70 Gellner, Ernest. Muslim Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. 71 Bowen, John Richard. Muslims through Discourse: Religion and Ritual in Gayo Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. P. 7. 72 Geertz, Clifford, and Michael Banton. ‘Religion as a Cultural System’. (1966) p. 89. 73 Geertz, Clifford. Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971. P. 61.

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While Geertz was criticized for his lack of ethnographic detail, the most potent attack came from Talal Asad, who first and foremost rejects the possibility of a universal, trans-historical definition of religion: ‘there cannot be a universal definition of religion, not only because its constituent elements and relationships are historically specif ic, but because that def inition is itself the historical product of discursive processes’.74 He demonstrated that the meaning of religion in the 20th century was drawn from a specif ic Christian trajectory following the modern norm of the separation between religion and power. He also emphasized that Geertz’s primacy of symbols and meaning disregarded the processes by which meaning is constructed.75 Therefore, analysis should not focus on symbols simply being interpreted and reinterpreted, but on the processes that lead to their reinterpretation. The search for an anthropology of Islam resulted in prolific deliberations over what constituted Islam in the first place. Daniel Varisco did not accept the notion of an abstract, ideal-type Islam. He pointed out that ‘the artif icial category of religion masks the complex negotiation of individual and communal concerns on a day by day basis’.76 Accusing Geertz of obscuring Islam, he indicated that observing Islam is an oxymoron: it is Muslims who can be observed, whereas ‘Islam, in the abstract sense of a religion or civilization, can only be represented’.77 Varisco believed that the unique contribution of anthropologists is to observe Muslims in particular Islams, therefore agreeing with El-Zein’s idea of Islams in the plural. Radically questioning the existence of a single, true Islam, El-Zein criticized several ideas that arose in anthropological works, such as the unity of Islamic consciousness or the view of static tradition at the expense of historical change. He further noticed that even the phenomenological approach of anthropologists studying lived experience in Muslim societies cannot escape essentialization. While accounting for the diversity of experience in different ways, ‘theologians condemn it in order to enforce their view of the eternal meaning of Islam; anthropologists regard the various expressions as diluted forms, distorted by magic and superstitions’.78 Thus, 74 Asad, Talal. ‘The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam.” Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 48 (1996). P. 29. 75 Ibid., p. 43. 76 Varisco, Daniel. Islam Obscured: The Rhetoric of Anthropological Representation. London: Springer, 2005. P. 140. 77 Ibid., p. 20. 78 El-Zein, Abdul Hamid. ‘Beyond Ideology and Theology: The Search for the Anthropology of Islam’. Annual Review of Anthropology 6.1 (1977): p. 243.

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even though both theological and anthropological studies recognize the diversity and fluidity of meaning, they still indirectly assume an essence to Islam, from which the diversity of manifestations depart. In order to avoid the essentialization of ‘a web of frozen points of meaning’79 into a fluid entity, El-Zein asks: But what if each analysis of Islam […] were to begin from the assumption that “Islam”, “economy”, “history”, “religion”, and so on do not exist as things or entities with meaning inherent in them, but rather as articulations of structural relations, and are the outcome of these relations and not simply a set of positive terms from which we start our studies?80

If Islam becomes a context dependent articulation of structural relations, then ‘Islam as analytical category dissolves as well’.81 With el-Zein, we are left with a web of specific Islams. At this point, it is worth asking what value there is in pluralizing analytical concepts. So far, this chapter discussed civilizations, modernities, and Islams. The pluralization of civilization led to comprehensive historical understandings of multiple social superstructures that materialized around religions other than Christianity and regions other than Europe. The pluralization of modernity dismantled Europe’s exclusive claim to it as well as the universal typology modelled on the European experience. The pluralization of Islam emphasizes heterogeneity, anti-essentialism, and the fact that meaning itself is a product of structural articulations and relations of power. As a result, ‘there are as many Islams as situations to sustain it’.82 The theological preoccupation with religious text, as well as differentiations between folk Islam, scriptural Islam, Sufi Islam, and so forth assumed an orthodoxy which was nothing more than a relationship of power.83 In this light, Islam as a signifier does not necessarily have to be dissolved, but understood as a structural product of power itself, or as a discursive tradition that ‘connects variously with the formation of moral selves, the manipulation of populations (or resistance to it), and the production of appropriate knowledges’.84 The emphasis on discourse also means that Islam is no longer abstractly extracted from the authority 79 Ibid., p. 250. 80 Ibid. 81 Ibid., p. 251. 82 Al-Azmeh, Aziz. Islams and Modernities. London: Verso, 1993. P. 1. 83 Asad, Talal. ‘The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam’. Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 48 (1996). P. 7. 84 Ibid., p. 14.

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of religious texts or the academic’s reflection on their subjects’ lived experience, but understood in terms of what Muslims themselves say or think it is: An Islamic discursive tradition is simply a tradition of Muslim discourse that addresses itself to conceptions of the Islamic past and future, with reference to particular Islamic practice in the present.85

With this formulation, Talal Asad makes a long-overdue analytical innovation against essentialist and Orientalist views of Islam. Recently (2014), he re-evaluated his conception of tradition to signify both discursivity and embodiment. Similarly, Ebrahim Moosa notes that tradition is not simply a collection text. Apart from the interpretation of texts which establish various religious orthodoxies, tradition is also ‘a state of mind and a set of embodied practices’.86 Once Muslims are recognized to be religious agents as opposed to simply actors, the enactment of tradition always involves a critique, since it implies ‘an introspection of what one is, a questioning of one’s being’.87 This is a reflection of an evolving trend in Muslim ethics, which Moosa calls critical traditionalism,88 in which tradition is historicized and includes contemporary knowledge and experience. It is clear by now that the key to rendering obsolete the Orientalist episteme, that addressed Islam and Muslims as passive objects of study, is to recognize the agency and vitality of Muslims and their intellectual heritage. Scholars turned to Islam as ‘a powerful counter-model representing a potential of resistance, both in history and the present, to the Western matrix of modernity’.89 Irfan Ahmad disputed the notion of critique as a practice specific to the Enlightenment and the view that Islam is inherently hostile to critical thinking. Against the transcendental critique of European philosophers, he argues that every critique is an immanent critique, or ‘a form of criticism that uses tenets, histories, principles, and vocabularies of a tradition to criticise it in its own terms’.90 Thus, Ahmad 85 Ibid. 86 Moosa, Ebrahim. ‘Transitions in the “Progress” of Civilization: Theorizing History, Practice and Tradition’. Voices of Islam 5 (2007). P. 124. 87 Ibid., p. 126. 88 Moosa, Ebrahim. ‘Muslim Ethics?’ In: William Schweiker, ed. The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005, p. 241. 89 Salvatore, Armando. The Sociology of Islam: Knowledge, Power and Civility. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2016. 90 Ahmad, Irfan. ‘Immanent Critique and Islam: Anthropological Reflections’. Anthropological Theory 11.1 (2011). P. 109.

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shows that critical thinking was integral part of the Islamic intellectual traditions, but was not regarded as such in Western scholarship, in which religion was regarded as an obstacle to secularizing modernization. In a similar vein, Muhammad Qasim Zaman (2016) debunked the myth of consensus within the ulama, showing that internal criticism was very much part of the modernist debates on religious education, the common good, social justice, and the position of women in Islam. In this light, tradition is best understood not as opposed to science or reason, but rather as ‘a moving image of the past, opposed not to modernity but to alienation’.91

From Modernity to the Contemporary The purpose of this chapter was to highlight the urgency to address whether analytical concepts modelled on specific Western historical trajectories can be wholesomely applied to the study of non-Western societies. More specifically, I argue that the need to rethink the relation between tradition and modernity is not simply a matter of academic concern. Their perceived incompatibility sparked various ideological reactions in the Muslim world, such as the rejection of modernity in search for a utopian Islam, the embrace of secular views and restriction of religion in the public sphere, and various forms of Islamism92. Moreover, studies of Islam nowadays almost naturally imply tackling some form of Islamism, since the perceived incompatibility of tradition to modernity gave birth to the creation of new agendas for social order and political projects in Muslim societies. As a result, I believe scholars have an ethical responsibility to revise and interrogate positivist epistemological registers and theoretical frameworks. In this conclusion, I would like to propose Paul Rabinow’s framework of the contemporary as an innovative mode of inquiry into the complex interconnections of the traditional and the modern. In Marking Time, Paul Rabinow urges us to consider the historical contingency of our analytical tools and invites a conscious abandonment of epochal thinking. Thus, the contemporary is not a temporal indication of 91 Rabinow, Paul. Marking Time: On the Anthropology of the Contemporary. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. P. 2. 92 Cevik’s (2016) definition of Islamism as ‘a religious ideology that seeks to retrieve a moralpolitical order either by establishing an Islamic state or by creating an ideological umma’ (p. 15).

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what comes after modernity and it does not dismiss what is not immediate. Once tradition is considered the moving ratio of the past: the contemporary is a moving ratio of modernity, moving through the recent past and near future in a (nonlinear) space that gauges a modernity as an ethos already becoming historical.93

Rabinow’s concern is how knowledge is being produced in the human sciences. This also bears the question of how to engage with past scholarship developed with historically contingent analytical tools. I have discussed in the previous sections not only how concepts evolved and changed their meaning over time, but also how they are products of specific historical and intellectual contexts, in which power relations influence the economy of discourse. Orientalism as a mode of knowledge production is a case in point. In order to overcome binaries and exceptionalisms, and even undertake post-Orientalist knowledge production, we need to re-evaluate our analytical concepts as articulations of structural relations rather than taking them for granted as positivist terms. Rabinow and his colleagues have worked on the outline of an anthropology of the contemporary following Max Weber’s ethos for research John Dewey’s experimental logic. Weber noted that ‘it is not the “actual” interconnection of “things” but the conceptual interconnection of problems that define the scope of the various sciences’,94 while Dewey asserted that ‘the operation of thought affects the constitution of the object’.95 As a result, the contemporary, as a mode site of inquiry, draws attention to idiosyncrasy and the process of analysis, while reflecting the need for new analytical tools to analyse phenomena that are emergent, those ‘which cannot be adequately grasped with yesterday’s concepts and ideas’.96 This way, the contemporary emphasizes emergence and possibility, and launches a provocation to analyse phenomena in the world by addressing different sets of interconnections. If anthropology no longer deals with holistic objects such as culture or Islam, it should then proceed to analyse the emergent ‘combination of new elements, […] 93 Rabinow, Paul. Marking Time: On the Anthropology of the Contemporary. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. P. 2. 94 Weber as cited in Stavrianakis, Anthony. ‘What is an Anthropology of the Contemporary?’ (2009). P. 4. 95 As discussed in Stavrianakis, Anthony. ‘What is an Anthropology of the Contemporary?’ (2009). P. 10. 96 Rabinow, Paul. Marking Time: On the Anthropology of the Contemporary. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. P. 68.

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an assemblage that creates new conjunctures that lead to new or at least different dynamics’.97 Once modernity and tradition are not taken to be dialectical and mutually exclusive, novel structural possibilities can be grasped and their analysis might even point to the creation of new concepts to address them. To illustrate this, I will briefly showcase two studies from Turkey and Indonesia. Analysing the effects of economic liberalization after the 1980s in Turkey, Neslihan Cevik identified a new religious orthodoxy that challenges both liberal and fundamentalist understandings of Islam. Against state and community-centred Islamism, Muslimism emphasizes ‘inner ethics, rights and individual choice over external authority’.98 Its emergence coincided with the formation of a new Muslim bourgeoisie who followed both a pious lifestyle and their economic interests. Hence, this educated, urbanized, and upwardly mobile Muslim group embraced a guilt-free modernity and an unapologetic Islam, at a historical conjuncture when both state secularism and Islamism stopped being attractive social and political models. This dismantles the tension of being both Muslim and modern—rather, Muslimists advocate a pious lifestyle that is commensurate with modernity. However, Muslimism is not merely a cultural expression; Muslimists also articulate a political ethos by ascribing a theological function to the state. For Muslimists, an Islamic state that imposes religious law and conduct contradicts their beliefs in individual freedom and autonomy. Hence, they embrace principles of democracy and liberalism, and a state design that frames Muslimist attitudes about faith and the individual within a liberal polity. It is perhaps the assemblage of Islam and capitalism that best captures instances of emergent phenomena, leading to novel ways in which religious values are reinterpreted in the context of globalization and economic liberalization. In addition to the example of Muslimism, let us consider the emerging spiritual economies in Indonesia, which elucidate ‘the way in which economic reform and neoliberal restructuring are conceived of and enacted as matters of religious piety and spiritual virtue’.99 The 1998 economic crisis and the privatization of state enterprise was transformed into an opportunity to expand Islamic piety beyond religious worship. The 97 Ibid., p. 79. 98 Cevik, Neslihan. Muslimism in Turkey and Beyond: Religion in the Modern World. London: Springer, 2015. P. 15. 99 Rudnyckyj, Daromir. ‘Spiritual Economies: Islam and Neoliberalism in Contemporary Indonesia’. Cultural Anthropology 24.1 (2009). P. 105.

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highly popular ESQ training programme provided for the employees of the Krakatau Steel factory identified business and management principles in Islamic practice and Qur’anic doctrine. It reconfigured work as a form of worship by inculcating individual accountability and self-management through Islamic values. As a result, ‘the combination of Islamic ethics and business management and life-coaching practices has produced new ways of governing selves, families and the nation at large’.100 While the emerging spiritual economies of Indonesia represent ‘an unprecedented assemblage that is as much the Islamisation of neoliberalism as it is the neo-liberalisation of Islam’,101 proponents of ESQ reject the implementation of the sharia law and do not antagonize the West. They fuse personal productivity with national development by placing their work in a competitive global economy. Once again, the modern as an ethos embedded in economic production combines with the traditional in the form of Islamic ethics, illuminating new ways in which they interrelate and create new possibilities of emergence. Muslimist sites of hybridity and spiritual economies cannot be properly grasped through outdated binaries between modernity and tradition nor an ontological opposition between Islam and the West. Methodologically, the emphasis on the emergent has already been articulated in a compelling study in the anthropology of Islam which sought to explore ‘the varying ways in which Islam is deeply yet also diffusely embedded in everyday practice’.102 Radically questioning the extent to which Islam or being Muslim is always at stake in the actions and thoughts of people of Muslim background (note here the anti-essentialist stance against simply saying Muslim), Magnus Marsden and Kostantinos Retsikas underline that being Muslim is ‘an aspect of experience that is produced, reproduced and transformed in particular social and historical contexts’.103 As a result, they highlight that Muslim selves, subjectivities, and modes of personhood are continually emergent, unstable, and contingent, resulting from the interaction with the various fields of social life.104 The important caution here is that, if we are not to essentialize the category of Islam, neither should we superIslamise105 the category of Muslim. 100 Ibid., p. 130. 101 Ibid., p. 131. 102 Marsden, Magnus, and Konstantinos Retsikas, eds. Articulating Islam: Anthropological Approaches to Muslim Worlds. Berlin: Springer Science & Business Media, 2012. P. 1. 103 Ibid., p. 2. 104 Ibid., p. 8. 105 A term borrowed from Al-Azmeh, Aziz. Times of History: Universal Topics in Islamic Historiography. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2007.

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Conclusion This chapter examined the ways in which modernity has been theorized in relation to Islam in order to analyse the historical contingency of knowledge production about Islam in Western scholarship. The proposal to undertake post-Orientalist knowledge production led to a revision of the relationship between tradition and modernity. Moreover, the consideration of the contemporary as a mode of inquiry allows scholars to analyse new dynamics in Muslim societies and conjunctures in which Islam or being Muslim can be situated. I have taken the examples from Indonesia and Turkey as illustrations of studies in the ethos of the contemporary that problematized the emergent in ways that the modern and the traditional coexist without contradiction. Once modernity is understood as an ethos—either as the technicalism of Hodgson or the new ontological vision of Eisenstadt—moreover, as an ethos that, as Paul Rabinow suggests, is already becoming historical, a valuable space of analytical and methodological innovation opens up. This is a space that contains potentialities and discontinuity, rather than totality and linearity. This chapter demonstrated that analytical concepts are both historically contingent and results of specific relations of power and further invites the application of the contemporary in the study of Islam and Muslim societies as a plea to stop rehearsing outdated binaries and instead seek to innovate theoretical frameworks and analytical tools.

Bibliography Ahmad, Irfan. ‘Immanent Critique and Islam: Anthropological Reflections’. Anthropological Theory 11.1 (2011): 107–132. Ahmad, Irfan. Religion as Critique: Islamic Critical Thinking from Mecca to the Marketplace. Chapel Hill: UNC Press Books, 2017. Alatas, Syed Farid. Ibn Khaldun. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, p. 55. Arjomand, Saïd Amir. ‘Perso-Indian Statecraft, Greek Political Science and the Muslim Idea of Government’. International Sociology 16.3 (2001): 455–473. Arjomand, Saïd Amir. ‘Multiple Modernities and the Promise of Comparative Sociology’. In: Worlds of Difference, London: Sage, 2013, 15–39. Arjomand, Said, and Edward A. Tiryakian, eds. Rethinking Civilizational Analysis. London: Sage, 2004. Árnason, Jóhann Páll. Civilizations in Dispute: Historical Questions and Theoretical Traditions. Leiden: Brill, 2003.

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Asad, Talal. ‘The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam’. Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 48 (1996): 381–406. Asad, Talal. ‘Two European Images of Non-European Rule’. Economy and Society 2.3 (1973): 263–277. Al-Azm, Sadik Jalal. ‘Orientalism and Orientalism in Reverse’. Khamsin 8 (1981): 5–26. Al-Azmeh, Aziz. Islams and Modernities. London: Verso, 1993. Al-Azmeh, Aziz. Times of History: Universal Topics in Islamic Historiography. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2007. Bowen, John Richard. Muslims through Discourse: Religion and Ritual in Gayo Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Cevik, Neslihan. Muslimism in Turkey and Beyond: Religion in the Modern World. London: Springer, 2015. Clifford, James. ‘On Orientalism’. In: The Predicament of Culture. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1988. Collingwood, Robin George. The Idea of History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Curtis, Michael. Orientalism and Islam: European Thinkers on Oriental Despotism in the Middle East and India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Dabashi, Hamid. ‘For the Last Time: Civilizations’. International Sociology 16.3 (2001): 361–368. Dabashi, Hamid. Post-Orientalism: Knowledge and Power in a Time of Terror. London: Routledge, 2017. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. ‘The Civilizational Dimension of Modernity: Modernity as a Distinct Civilization’. International Sociology 16.3 (2001): 320–340. El-Zein, Abdul Hamid. ‘Beyond Ideology and Theology: The Search for the Anthropology of Islam’. Annual Review of Anthropology 6.1 (1977): 227–254. Elias, Norbert, and Edmund Jephcott. The Civilizing Process. Oxford: Blackwell, 1978. Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977. New York: Pantheon, 1980. Geertz, Clifford. Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971. Gellner, Ernest. Muslim Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Goody, Jack. The Theft of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Hodgson, Marshall G.S. Rethinking World History: Essays on Europe, Islam and World History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Hourani, Albert. Islam in European Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Irwin, Robert. ‘Popular Culture, Orientalism, and Edward Said’. Viewpoints. Orientalism’s Wake: The Ongoing Politics of a Polemic (2009): 6–9.

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Jaspers, Karl. The Origin and Goal of History. London: Routledge, 2014. Lockman, Zachary. Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Marsden, Magnus, and Konstantinos Retsikas, eds. Articulating Islam: Anthropological Approaches to Muslim Worlds. Berlin: Springer Science & Business Media, 2012. Mauss, Marcel. ‘Civilisational Forms (1930)’. In: Said Arjomand and Edward A. Tiryakian, eds. Rethinking Civilizational Analysis. London: Sage, 2004. Mazlish, Bruce. ‘Civilization in a Historical and Global Perspective’. International Sociology 16.3 (2001): 293–300. Moosa, Ebrahim. ‘Muslim Ethics?’ In: William Schweiker, ed. The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005, 237–243. Moosa, Ebrahim. ‘Transitions in the “Progress” of Civilization: Theorizing History, Practice and Tradition’. Voices of Islam 5 (2007): 115–130. Mulhern, Francis. Culture/Metaculture. London: Routledge, 2002. Rabinow, Paul. Marking Time: On the Anthropology of the Contemporary. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. Rabinow, Paul, et al. Designs for an Anthropology of the Contemporary. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008. Rudnyckyj, Daromir. ‘Spiritual Economies: Islam and Neoliberalism in Contemporary Indonesia’. Cultural Anthropology 24.1 (2009): 104–141. Saffari, Siavash. ‘Rethinking the Islam/Modernity Binary: Ali Shariati and Religiously Mediated Discourse of Sociopolitical Development’. Middle East Critique 24.3 (2015): 231–250. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1979. Salama, Mohammad. Islam, Orientalism and Intellectual History: Modernity and the Politics of Exclusion since Ibn Khaldun. London: I.B. Tauris, 2011. Salvatore, Armando. The Sociology of Islam: Knowledge, Power and Civility. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2016. Tiryakian, Edward A. ‘Civilizational Analysis: Renovating the Sociological Tradition’. In: Said Arjomand and Edward A. Tiryakian, eds. Rethinking Civilizational Analysis. London: Sage, 2004. Turner, Bryan S. Orientalism, Postmodernism and Globalism. London: Routledge, 2002. Varisco, Daniel. Islam Obscured: The Rhetoric of Anthropological Representation. London: Springer, 2005. Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: Routledge, 2013. White, Hayden. ‘Beyond Orientalism’. In: Aziz Al-Azmeh, ed. Times of History: Universal Topics in Islamic Historiography. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2007.

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Williams, Raymond. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Zaman, Muhammad Qasim. Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age: Religious Authority and Internal Criticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

About the author Iulia Lumina is a graduate of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London and is currently based in Singapore where she works in the non-profit sector.

Section 2 Contesting the Islamic Intellectual Tradition

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A New Approach to Islamic Intellectual Tradition Ali Unsal

Abstract This article attempts to explain the state of contemporary Islamic Intellectualism. Additionally, it proposes a set of abilities, attributes, and responsibilities that Muslim scholars should possess to develop Islamic Intellectualism. To achieve this, this article first provides an analysis of the history of Islamic civilization, and the role of traditional Islamic Intellectualism in pushing the civilization towards new heights in the realms of societal organization, politics, culture, economics, and theology. Islam, as such, had experienced its f irst renaissance from the eighth to the sixteenth century. Today, the Muslim world is in need of a second renaissance. This is the context in which this article situates the ‘standards’ to which contemporary Muslim intellectuals must strive towards. Keywords: Islam; Islamic Civilization; Islamic Intellectual Tradition

Introduction Historically, ‘Islamic Thought’ has referred to an intellectual endeavour. Since the origins of Islam in the seventh century, Muslims and non-Muslims alike have demonstrated an intellectual curiosity, albeit with different motivations in its theology, rituals, and normative dimensions. Irrespective of their own cultural or religious predispositions, contemporary academics around the world continue to engage in unearthing and producing discourses on Islam and Islamic civilization. In this article, I provide an analysis of Islamic civilizations that shall discuss how Islamic theology intersected with politics, economics, and culture to construct an Islamic ‘way of living’. I shall proceed by providing a historical overview of the foundation of

Osman, M.N.M. Pathways to Contemporary Islam: New Trends in Critical Engagement. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. doi: 10.5117/9789462987593_ch03

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Islamic civilization, before suggesting a few approaches that may guide how ‘Islamic Thought’ can be understood today.

Terminology Three terms crucial in this chapter are: ‘Islam’, ‘intellectual’, and ‘tradition’. In this section, I will provide an overview of how these terms have been conventionally understood, along with how these conventional definitions have evolved and given rise to new meanings. a. ISLAM Islam can be broken down into two dimensions: (1) Islam as a religion and (2) Islam as a civilization. a.1. Islam as a Religion The Islamic perspective regards Islam as the final religion sent by God, to mankind through the last prophet, Muhammad. Islam follows the trajectory of divine revelations to all prophets, from Adam, the first man and first prophet, to Muhammad, the last prophet.1 Each of these revelations originated from God and served the same purpose. However, these revelations appeared under different names, and bore differences in beliefs and practices. For instance, in the Qur’an, followers of Moses and Jesus are referred to as Jews (Yahûd) and Christians (Nasârâ) respectively.2 Given that the main scriptural source of Islam is the Qur’an, Islamic theology and Islamic civilization are both founded upon it. The Qur’an discusses four core subjects: (1) The oneness of God (Tawhîd), (2) prophethood, (3) life after death, and (4) justice with worship.3 These subjects can be understood through each of the following lenses: God, the Universe, and Man. First, the Qur’an discusses God. It states His names, attributes, and actions. Second, the Qur’an describes the creation, cosmological order, and purpose of the universe, before discussing the laws by which it operates. The Qur’an encourages believers to study the universe to try and understand how it was 1 Qur’an 3:19, 85; al-Jurjānī, Sayyid Sharīf. ‘al-Ta ‘rīfāt’. (2014), p. 32; and Esposito, John L. ‘Islam: An Overview’. Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World (1995), p. 144. 2 Qur’an 2: 62, 111, 113, 120, 135, 140; 5: 14, 18, 69, 82; 9: 30. 3 Nursî, B.S. İşârâtü’l-i’câz fî mezânni’l-îcâz. Trans. Abdulmecid Nursî. Istanbul: Şahdamar Press, 2007. P. 9.

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created and how the system works. In doing so, believers are also encouraged to seek evidence of God in His creation. Third, the Qur’an describes the creation of mankind, its purpose on earth, the rules that mankind should establish to optimally govern life, and mankind’s eventual experience of the afterlife. The Qur’an also discusses the psychological and sociological dimensions of humanity, and describes each individual as a microcosmic reflection of the larger universal order. Some Muslim scholars interpret the human according to the Qur’anic perspective as a small universe.4 Finally, the Qur’an discusses the relationship between God, the Universe, and Man. a.2. Islam as a Civilization The reason why the Qur’an is foundational to Islamic civilization is because of its role as a source of knowledge. Indeed, the very first verse revealed in the Qur’an (iqra)5 emphasizes the significance of the continual gaining of knowledge in Islam. The Qur’an seeks to provide believers with distinctions between truth and falsehood. For situations unaddressed by the Qur’an, Prophet Muhammad would himself issue decrees to guide Muslims. Thus, practicing Islam was particularly simple during the time of the Muhammad since he provided explicit answers to the questions the followers of Islam (ummah) may have had. After Muhammad’s passing, he left two sources of Islamic belief and practice for the ummah: The Qur’an and the Sunnah, which is a collection of the Prophet’s actions and sayings. All Islamic disciplines were primarily born from these two sources. With the growth and acceptance of Islam by individuals from diverse cultural contexts, an array of norms, values, and beliefs (i.e. cultures) seeped into the Islamic tradition. While some aspects if these cultures complemented Islam, other aspects clashed with the Islamic tradition. The emerging tensions within Islam that resulted from its encounter with new cultures catalysed rigorous debates on a range of issues. Some of the themes of these debates were: (1) on the fate of individuals who committed grave sins (murtakib-i kabîre), (2) the cause of human action, (3) the definition and boundaries of free will, (4) and the nature of resurrection. As different interpretations unfolded from these debates, bodies of text were written in defence of the Islamic faith. Thus, the discipline of Islamic scholastic theology (Kalam) was born.6 4 Little, John T. ‘Al-Insan al-Kâmil: The Perfect Man According to Ibn al-‘Arabi’. Muslim World 77.1 (1987). 5 Qur’an 96:1. 6 Taftaznî, S. Sharh al-akâid al-nasafiyyah. E.c. Ahmed Hijazi al-Sakâ, Cairo, Kulliya Azhariyya Press, 1988, p.10–11; Al-Ghusn, S. ‘Mawqif al-mutakallimîn: min al-istidlâl bi nusûs al-kitâb wa al-sunnah “ardan wa naqdan”’. Dr al-‘Asimah, pp. 36–45; Fakhry, Majid. A History of Islamic

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The Qur’an seeks to transcend temporal boundaries. It simultaneously addresses the past, present, and future. While the meanings of some verses are definitive (muhkamaat), others are allegorical (mutashâbihât). As a result, interpretations of the Qur’an need to be spatial-temporally contextualized.7 The continued engagement of Muslim scholars in the tradition of interpreting the Qur’an8 resulted in the emergence of the discipline of Qur’anic exegesis (Tafseer).9 To ensure interpretations of the Qur’an did not veer off the traditions established by Muhammad and his companions, scholars established a methodology to guide the exegesis of the Qur’an, known as the Usool at-Tafseer.10 The second source of Islam, the Sunnah, was particularly important during the time of the Prophet’s companions. While the Prophet’s companions memorized and wrote small collections of the hadith, most were only written after they passed away. Consequently, scholars began to criticize the validity of many of these narrations as the degrees of separation between the Prophet and his companions and individuals proclaiming a hadith as valid became amplified. As such, scholars established a body of scientific methodology (Ulûm al-Hadith) to ascertain the validity of proclaimed hadiths. Sub-disciplines of this include methodology (Usûl), narrators (Ricâl), criticizing and praising (Jarh and Ta’deel), hidden defects (Ilalu’l-Hadith), and unfamiliar expressions in Hadith (Gharîbu’l-Hadith).11 Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004, pp. xvii–xviii; Bennett, Clinton, ed. The Bloomsbury Companion to Islamic Studies. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015, p. 119; Cosman, Madeleine Pelner, and Linda Gale Jones. Handbook to Life in the Medieval World. 3 vols. Vol. 1. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009, p. 391. 7 ‘It is He who sent down to you the Book, in which some verses have clear meaning, they are the substance of the Book, and others are those meanings of which there is doubt. Those in whose hearts is a disease perversely peruse doubtful ones, desiring deviation and searching for their own point of view of it, and its meaning is known only to Allah’. Quran 3:7. 8 In the Islamic discipline, the first interpreter of Qur’an is itself. Meanwhile, it gives some information about a topic very briefly in one chapter. Then it gives more details and explanation in another chapter. The second interpreter is Prophet Muhammad pbuh. He explained some verses which may need interpretation. When the Prophet pbuh passed away he left huge interpretation about Qur’an. Then, his companions continued to interpret verses which are needed. 9 Cerrahoğlu, İsmail. Tefsir usulü. Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, 1997, pp. 289–295; Cerrahoğlu, İsmail. Tefsir tarihi 1. Cilt. Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı Yayınları, 1988, pp. 33–40. 10 The Fundamental Principles of Qur’aanic Interpretation essentially refers to the branches of knowledge which are necessary to provide an accurate interpretation of the Qur’ânic texts, such as Arabic grammar and syntax, Arabic literature, and Qur’aanic sciences (‘Ulûm al-Qur’aan). See: al-Zarkânî, M.A. ‘Manâhil al-irfân fee “ulûm al-qur’ân”’. Dr al-kutub al-ilmiyyah, Vol. 1. Beirut, (1988), pp. 14–41. 11 Koçyiğit, Talat. Hadis Tarihi. Vol. 134. Ankara Üniversitesi, İlâhiyat Fakültesi, 1977, pp. 199–214; Brown, A. C. Jonathan. Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet’s Legacy. London: Oneworld Publications, 2014, p. 18.

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The Islamic faith is not merely a collection of beliefs. Actions are also central to being Muslim. As such, Islamic tenets are actionable and can be practically applied in one’s life. When practiced correctly, Islam becomes foundational to a Muslim’s happiness, peace, and harmony. There are three dimensions of Islamic practice. The f irst is worship. The second, muʿâmalât, refers to the rules which govern matters of commerce (e.g. trade, lending and borrowing, banking) and social interactions (e.g. marriage, inheritance ( faraidh)). The third is criminal law and punishment (uqûbât). Historically, Islamic scholars relied on the Qur’an and Sunnah to resolve issues arising in any of these dimensions. However, with time, the evolution of the complexity of the challenges Muslims came to face meant that the mechanisms to resolve them also had to evolve. As such, scholars began engaging in independent reasoning (ijtihad) to arrive at and make the necessary decisions. The methodology of ijtihad involved applying analogical reasoning (qiyâs) to make decisions based on how the Prophet and his companions may have approached these new situations. From this, the tradition of Islamic jurisprudence ( fiqh), non-binding rulings issued by Islamic authorities ( fatwa), and the methodology of jurisprudence (usûl al-fiqh) emerged as disciplinary cornerstones of Islamic civilization.12 Other disciplines that became foundational to Islamic civilization were gnosis (tasawwuf ), asceticism (zuhd),13 recitation of the Qur’an (qiraah), the science of phonetics and syntax (sarf and nahw),14 rhetoric (balâghat), glossary (lugat), the study of semantics (ma’ân),15 and linguistics (bedâi’).16 This is but a brief overview of the extent and depth of epistemic fields that underpinned Islamic civilization. Through the aforementioned disciplines, Islamic scholars sought to address both metaphysical and existential questions. To do so, scholars attempted to construct the ‘Muslim mind’, or Islamic perspective, as a mechanism to study and analyse the evolving theological, 12 Zeydan, Abdulkerim. ‘Fıkıh Usulü, (çev: Ruhi, Özcan)’. İstanbul: Marmara Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Vakfı Yayınları (1993), pp. 17–34. 13 Beg, M.A. ‘The Origins of Islamic Science’. The Origins of Islamic Science | Muslim Heritage, Kube Publishing Ltd., www.muslimheritage.com/article/origins-islamic-science. 14 The science of ‘Sarf’ in Arabic grammar is defined as the science of the phonetics, how they change changes. This is different from phonetic changes that are caused by declension. This is also distinct from the ‘Sarf’ that refers to the contractual exchange of money. 15 Ma’ân is the branch of Arabic rhetoric which deals with meaning of words and their semantic significance. 16 Eraydın, Selçuk. Tasavvuf ve tarikatlar. Marmara Üniversitesi, İlâhiyat Fakültesi Vakfı Yayınları, 1994, p. 85; Kartal, Abdullah. ‘Tasavvufun Bir İlim Olarak İnşâ Süreci: Şer’î ve Metafizik Bir İlim Olarak Tasavvuf’. Uludağ Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 24.02 (2015), pp. 150–174.

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social, political, economic, and cultural contexts in which Muslims would find themselves in.17 a.3. The Emergence of Islamic Civilization The Islamic civilization f irst began in the Arabian Peninsula before spreading out and mixing with Persian, Turkish, and Berber civilizations. By conquering various cities that were centres of ancient civilizations, the Islamic civilization inherited knowledge with advancements in science, technology, culture, and philosophy. A case in point is how the conquest of Egypt was accompanied by the acquisition of the library of Alexandria which contained a wealth of scientific knowledge. Additionally, under the second Caliph of Islam, Umar, the invasion of the cosmopolitan Persian city of Gundeshapur,18 which under the Sassanid dynasty had become the centre for Hippocratic medicine, higher education, philosophy, mathematics, and science,19 enhanced understanding of these subjects and elevated the growing stature of the Islamic civilization.20 After they built their civilization, the desire to convey it to others grew. Factors such as the promotion of Islam as a means of education and research, valuing and respecting the knowledge of scholars, and the idea of ‘arming the enemy’s weapons’,21 formed the backbone of the Islamic civilization. In the first 500 years of its rise, the Islamic civilization came in contact with other advanced civilizations. These relationships helped the Islamic civilization acquire knowledge that was not simply ‘taken in’ wholesale, but rather was filtered through the lens of Islamic prisms. Orientalists such as M. Watt claim that Arab Muslim scholars, being students of Greek philosophers, merely carried on the intellectual traditions of their teachers.22 Indeed, the orientalist argument is predicated on the belief that Greek philosophy was entirely foundational to Islamic epistemologies. While the influence of Greek 17 Nursî, B.S. İşârâtü’l-i’câz fî mezânni’l-îcâz. Trans. Abdulmecid Nursî. Istanbul: Şahdamar Press, 2007, pp. 9–10. 18 Hill, Donald Routledge. Islamic Science and Engineering. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993, p. 4. 19 Frye, Richard Nelson. The Golden Age of Persia: The Arabs in the East. New York: Sterling Publishing Company, 2000, pp. 395–397. 20 Watt, William Montgomery. The Influence of Islam on Medieval Europe. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1972, pp. 37–39; Gutas, Dimitri. Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early’Abbasaid Society (2nd-4th/5th-10th c.). London: Routledge, 2012, pp. 124–126; Söylemez, M. Mahfuz. Bilimin yitik şehri Cündişapur. Araştırma, 2003. 21 Qur’an 8:60. It mentions that the knowledge is the biggest weapon, power, and richness. 22 Watt, William Montgomery. The Influence of Islam on Medieval Europe. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1972, p. 79.

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thought was no doubt significant, Arab intellectuals drew from, probed, and pushed existing bodies of knowledge towards unchartered directions.23 One of the central institutions of Islamic intellectualism was the House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma). It was constructed during the reign of the Abbasid caliph, al-Ma’mûn. While Bayt al-Hikma contained the works of Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen, Euclid, Plotinus, and Ptolemy, the library within the institution also housed numerous original works.24 An example of which was an ambitious geographical project that, at the time, was meant to produce one of the most detailed world-maps that had ever been drawn.25 The encounter between the Islamic and Spanish civilizations is another example of how the former was influenced by existing bodies of knowledge across various disciplines, as well as how Islamic scholars expanded upon them. In addition, the subsequent diffusion of knowledge from Islamic intellectuals to European ones was crucial to Europe’s development. Indeed, R.V.C. Bodley’s admission, that Europe owes ‘the renaissance to Islam’, aptly sums up the centrality of Islamic scholarship to the growth of European intellectualism.26 Fuat Sezgin, whose 50-year career as a historian of ArabIslamic sciences includes the study of the impact of Islamic civilization on the West, has written extensively in support of Bodley’s conclusion. Sezgin even argues that the West had a history of plagiarizing knowledge produced by the Islamic civilization without proper attribution.27 a.4. Governing Principles of Islamic Civilization The Qur’an, God, and Islamic theology were foundational to every social sphere in Islamic civilization. Whether it was trade, architecture, marriage, 23 For a discussion of this, see Rosenthal, Franz. The Classical Heritage in Islam. London: Routledge, 2003. 24 Wiet, Gaston. Baghdad: Metropolis of the Abbasid Caliphate. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971, p. 69. 25 Hasan, H. I. Târîkh al-Islm al-siysî wa’l-dînî wa’l-thiqfî wa’l-ijtim’î”, 7th ed., v. 2, s. 348 Cairo, Maktabat al-Nahda al Miṣriyya, 1964; al-Wakîl, M. S. al-Aṣr al-dhahabî, Dr. al-Qalam, Damascus, 1998; pp. 50–53; Saîd, Khayr Allah. Warrqu Baghdd fî’l-Asr al-Abbsî, Riyadh, Markaz al-Malik Fayṣal li’l-Buḥûth wa’l-Dirst al-Islmiyya, 2000, pp. 51–53. 26 Lyons, Jonathan. The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2011, pp. 1-6. 27 For example, he says: ‘Raymondus Lullus, a priest who lived in the 13th century opened centers to teach Arabic even though his own mastery of the Arabic language is limited and was famously quoted as saying “let us shoot Muslims with their guns”. He wrote many books and introduced himself as a big scholar. İt was later discovered that nearly all of the 70 books that he wrote were found in Arabic. In essence, his acclaimed works were simply translated books from Arabic’. See Sezgin, Fuat. ‘İslâm’da Bilim ve Teknik, çev’. Abdurrahman Aliy, Türkiye Bilimler Akademisi, Ankara (2007).

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education, the arts or the sciences, each was underpinned by religious obligations and prohibitions stated in the Qur’an. These obligations and prohibitions, which govern and guide human life, are reflections of God’s attributes. One such attribute that Muslims are expected to embody and enact in their daily lives is Justice (Adl).28 As such, the attribute of justice would mandate that one should be just to his or her servant, a leader should be just to the people, and parents and children should be just to each other. If duly followed, acting in accordance to this attribute would ensure that nobody would experience oppression. Historically, the attribute of justice also manifested itself in the realm of business ethics. An instance that exemplifies this occurred during a Dutch merchant’s visit to Ottoman Istanbul. He travelled to Istanbul intending to purchase fabric in bulk. The Muslim trader he visited removed a spoilt piece of cloth from the pile he intended to sell to the Dutchman. Noticing this, the Dutch merchant attempted to convince the Muslim trader to include it by telling him that he could sell it at a cheaper price because it would go unnoticed alongside the good quality fabrics. However, the Muslim trader refused his proposition. He replied saying, ‘You will take this fabric and try to sell it in the Netherlands. People may unwittingly buy it, but only realize it is tainted after having purchased it. And since only you know that you had deliberately bought it, your customers will believe that Muslims, whom you get your wares from, are trying to deceive them by sending defected products. I do not want this to happen.’29 Similarly, when the first Muslim traders travelled to Macedonia to engage in commerce, they managed to win over the Macedonians because the traders were perceived as trustworthy. Indeed, up till today, Macedonians use the word ‘esnaf adam’, which is Turkish for ‘trader’, to signify ‘trustworthiness’. The fact that the vocabulary is so embedded in contemporary Macedonia suggests that the historical memory Macedonians held of early Muslim traders was largely positive.30 The story of Imam al-Azam, a scholar and merchant, is another notable example of the enactment of justice. After learning that his business partner sold a tainted piece of cloth that al-Azam had previously warned him against, he tracked down the unwitting customer to give him a refund. Subsequently, al-Azam parted ways with his partner over this incident.31 Stories of ethical business practices are common throughout the 28 Qur’an 4: 40; 10:44; 2:256. 29 Refik, I. Tarih şuuruna dogru. 18th ed. Vol. 1, Izmir, Albatros Kitapları, 2012, p. 153. 30 I personally experienced and learned this when I visited and interviewed local people in Macedonia in 2003. 31 Uzunpostalcı, Mustafa. ‘Ebû Hanîfe’. Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi 10 (1994), p. 131.

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history of Islamic civilization. In fact, it has been argued that the honesty of Muslim merchants was one of the core reasons why Islam was accepted and adopted in regions such as the Indonesian island of Jawa.32 Another attribute of God that governed relations in the Islamic civilization was that of being ‘Merciful’ (Ghafûr).33 This can be proffered from the verse that reads, ‘[…] Remember Allah and seek forgiveness for their sins, and who can forgive sins except Allah?’34 In another verse, He asks from the Prophet, ‘[…] so pass over (their/the believers’ faults), and ask (Allah’s) Forgiveness for them; and consult them in the affairs […]’35 The implications of these verses are twofold: (1) God encouraged Prophet Muhammad to be merciful and forgiving to others, and (2) God encourages Muslims to be similarly forgiving in their interactions with other people.36 These dynamics engendered a culture of forgiveness in Islamic civilization. For instance, when the Meccan pagans controlled Mecca politically, they were notorious for killing, torturing, exiling, and seizing properties belonging to Muslims. The persecution of the Muslims at the hands of the polytheists continued for well over 20 years. Yet, when Prophet Muhammad conquered and reclaimed Mecca, he did not retaliate and take revenge against the former oppressors. Instead, he was famously quoted saying to the Meccans, ‘There is no reproach against you today. God will forgive you. Go, you are free today […]’.37 In doing so, the Prophet forgave Wahshî, the man who killed his uncle Hamza, as well as some of the most tyrannical oppressors like Ikrimah, Abu Sufyan, and al-Hind.38 As such, the concept formed the basis for a culture of forgiveness and tolerance in Islamic civilization. Prophet Mohammad, for instance, demonstrated mercy in his relationships with polytheists in Mecca by tolerating their contradictory beliefs. The Ottoman 32 Al-Attas, S. M. N. ‘Endonezya: Tarih’. TDİA 11 (1995), pp. 194–197; Goksoy, I. H. ‘Endonezya: ülkede İslamiyet’. TDİA 11 (1995), pp. 197–203. 33 Qur’an 2:173; 4: 106; 5:74; 24:5. 34 Qur’ân 3:135. 35 Qur’ân 3:159. 36 Bukhârî, Manâqib 23, Adab 80, Hudûd 10; Muslim, Fedâil 77; Abû Dâvûd, Adab 5; Mâlik, Muvatta, Husnu’l-khuluk 1; Ahmed b. Hanbel, Musnad, v. 4, p. 32, 114; Qadi Iyad, Abu’l-Fadl al-Yahsûbî, ‘al-Şifâ bi ta’rîfi hukûki’l-mustafâ’, Beirut, H. 1421, v. 1, p. 86. 37 Ibn Hisham, Abû Muhammad ‘Abd al-Malik b. Hisham. As-Sîrah an-Nabawiyyah, Verification: Tâhâ Abd ar-Raûf Sa’d, H. 1411, Vol. 5, Dâru’l-Cîl, pp. 74; and, Al-Bayhaqi, Abu-Bakr. ‘al-Sunan al-Kubra’. Dar al-kutub al-ilmiyyah, Beyrouth (1994). P. 118. 38 Ibn Hisham, Abû Muhammad ‘Abd al-Malik b. Hisham. As-Sîrah an-Nabawiyyah, Verification: Tâhâ Abd ar-Raûf Sa’d, H. 1411, Vol. 5, Dâru’l-Cîl, pp.76–77; Al-Hâkim, Abû Abdillah Muhammad b. Abdillah an-Nishapuri. Al-Mustadrak alâ al-Sahîhayn, v. 3, Beirut, Dâr al-Kutub al-Ilmiyyah, 1990, pp. 269–272; and, Sa’d, Muhammad Ibn. Al-Tabaqat al-Kubra. Dar al Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 1997, pp. 152–153.

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Empire, at most periods of its rule, demonstrated similar tolerance of the Christians in Istanbul.39 A third significant attribute of God that governed life in the Islamic civilization was that of Generosity (Kerîm). God’s generosity is typified by His willingness to give unconditionally. The Qur’an and Sunnah encourage Muslims to extend this notion of generosity to everyone they encounter, such as feeding the poor and needy or assisting orphans and widows. In short, caring for fellow humans was treated with importance during the period of the Islamic civilization. In this context, interpersonal solidarity was characterized by mutual altruism. Additionally, various philanthropic foundations were established during the Ottoman Empire to provide aid to disadvantaged groups. For instance, the Eytam Sandiklari was an organization that worked to preserve the inheritance rights of orphans. Similarly, Memleket and Menafi Sandiklari provided financial aid to farmers. A host of other charities also provided services ranging from those of religious requirements (e.g. burial), aid for the unemployed (e.g. clothing, food), and in disaster relief assistance (e.g. earthquakes, fires, floods). Furthermore, depending on financial position, one could turn to several foundations either for interest-free loans (karz-ı hasen) that could be paid back in instalments, or gratuitous aid. The Cash Awqaf was a specif ic mechanism established to provide aid, food, and clothing, to students, orphans, widows, and those in debt. The Avarız Awqaf was another platform established to provide financial aid to people, usually villagers, who could not afford to pay taxes. In each village, the Avarız Awqaf also doubled up as its central fund. Two functions it served was to: (1) provide residents, who were unable to work, with money to ensure their subsistence, and (2) maintain the upkeep of the village infrastructure. 40 Other normative characteristics that organized life in the Islamic civilization were altruism (îsâr), skills mastery (itqân),41 peace, and harmony. Finally, the three primary pillars of Islamic civilization were the sciences, 42 art, and institutions. 43 39 İnalcık, Halil. ‘Devlet-i’. Aliyye, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu Üzerine Araştırmalar-I, Klasik Dönem (1302–1606): Siyasal, Kurumsal ve Ekonomik Gelişim, Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları (2009), p. 110. 40 Kurt, İsmail. ‘Vakıf Müessesesi XV ve XVI. Asır Vakıfları’..XV ve XVI. Asırları Türk Asrı Yapan Değerler (1997), p. 535. 41 Itqân means ‘excellence’, ‘mastery’, or ‘proficiency’. This principle encourages the use of science and art to achieve excellence in one’s activities. 42 This includes both the apocalyptic sciences such as Kalam and Fiqih, and the rational sciences such as physics and chemistry. 43 Two types of institutions existed in the Islamic civilization. The first type, state institutions, included the caliphate, vizierate, and the mint. The second type, private institutions, included

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b. Intellectual The second term crucial to this paper is ‘intellectual’. It comes from the Latin word, ‘intellectus’, which means ‘understanding’. As such, to be an intellectual is to engage in the production of ideas. People who construct and disseminate these ideas to the masses are public intellectuals.44 The history of humanity is riddled with examples of various types of leaders: prophets, philosophers, priests, tribal chiefs, scholars, and shamans to name a few. Intellectuals referred to individuals who occupied any of these roles, and deduced solutions to social problems that were devoid of religious, cultural, tribal, or ethnic discrimination.45 Today, social scientists have separated the concept of the intellectual from that of the ‘enlightened’ individual. The latter is fundamentally a product of the Enlightenment. The distinction between an ‘enlightened’ individual and an intellectual is that the former engages with ideas for self-gratification while the latter does so for the betterment of humanity.46 Noam Chomsky sums up the responsibilities of an intellectual in his statement: ‘It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies.’47 Intellectuals deliberate on problems that threaten to cripple humanity and strive to develop solutions regardless of the external pressures they may be facing. An ideal intellectual is, as such, selfless. It goes without saying that every society, culture and religion needs intellectuals. Without their philosophical ideas and scientific advancements, social and moral ills will persist intergenerationally. Indeed, as Albert Einstein famously stated, ‘The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing’. 48 It is not surprising then, that the history of the collapse of civilizations was marked by the disintegration of intellectual integrity. Individuals proclaiming to be public intellectuals either succumbed to greed and geared their production of knowledge towards certain interests, or were simply afraid to speak the truth when it was most needed (or perhaps both). caravanserai, religious schools, and foundations. See Thrupp, Sylvia Lettice. Change in Medieval Society: Europe North of the Alps, 1050–1500. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988. 44 Oxford Dictionary of English 2e, ‘intellectual’, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. 45 Congdon, Lee. Exile and Social Thought: Hungarian Intellectuals in Germany and Austria, 1919–1933. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014. 46 Birkök, Mehmet. ‘Aydınlar ve Bazı Vasıfları’. Sosyoloji Konferansları 26 (2000), pp.100–102. 47 Chomsky, Noam. A Special Supplement: The Responsibility of Intellectuals. Vol. 8. No. 3. NYRB, 1967. 48 Reznek, Lawrie. Delusions and the Madness of the Masses. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2010.

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Only when public intellectuals had courageously defended the need to promote independent thought and the quest for truth would civilizations endure over multiple generations. For instance, Shaikhu’l-Islam Zenbilli Ali Efendi was a public intellectual in the Ottoman Empire who contested the decision of Sultan Selim I to sentence merchants who engaged in the silk trade with Iran (which he had banned) to death on the grounds that it was unlawful. Despite the fact that Sultan Selim I was an aggressive ruler who inspired fear in his subjects, Zenbilli did not cower from challenging his decision; one that Zenbilli believed was a mistake. What is notable here is the fact that the peak of such intellectual bravery coincided with the period in which the Ottoman Empire ‘led the way’ across a multitude of fields, including politics, economics, technology, arts, and societal progress. However, by the eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire began to lag behind European science. Additionally, the Ottoman education system began to decay. In particular, privately-owned religious schools were run by incompetent teachers. Instead of choosing teachers based on skill and merit, they were hired based on nepotism. The endemic practice of hiring teachers who were the children and grandchildren of the schools’ founders, known as the Cradle Ulema (Beşik Uleması), caused the education system to regress, and slowly crushed the empire’s intellectual potential.49 This was one of the key factors that led to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. c. Tradition The third term, ‘tradition’, can be defined as ‘a way of acting, thinking, or behaving in a manner that has been historically commonplace within a particular group or society.’50 Traditions also refer to the elements of culture that, even as societies progress, continue to persist across time and space.51 Rene Guenon suggests that every traditional society relied on the intergenerational transfer of norms, values, and beliefs to ensure that their perception of the ‘Ultimate Reality’ did not wither away.52 The spiritual quality embedded in traditions sets it apart from other customs, conventions, esoteric knowledge, and myths. Traditions are qualitatively more profound in that they persist even as civilizations continue to evolve. 49 Gürbüz, M. Vedat. ‘Ottoman Vakifs: Their Impact on Ottoman Society and Ottoman Land Regime’. Çukurova Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 21.1 (2012), p. 203. 50 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tradition; http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ dictionary/english/tradition. 51 Graburn, Nelson H.H. ‘What is Tradition?’ Museum Anthropology 24.2–3 (2000), p. 6. 52 French, Knight Jedediah. ‘René Guénon and the Primordial Tradition’. Sir Knight Jedediah French, 5 Feb. 2016, skfrench.wordpress.com/2016/02/03/rene-guenon-and-the-primordial-tradition/.

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Having defined the three major terms—Islam, intellectual, and tradition—the next section shall discuss how the contemporary state of the Islamic Intellectual Tradition may evolve in the future.

A New Approach to the Islamic Intellectual Tradition Islam encourages Muslims, acting on the basis of free will, to engage in independent reasoning when confronted by choices they may need to make. While the Qur’an does state that individuals will have to face the consequences of their individually derived decisions, it also points out that if these choices are made on the basis of righteousness (istiqama) (i.e. based on the Qur’an and Sunnah), then individuals will be walking the right path.53 During the height of the Islamic civilization, Muslim scholars made considerable intellectual advancements in the fields of theology (ilâhiyât), mathematics (riyadiyât), and natural sciences (tabî’iyât).54 The speed at which these developments occurred were, of course, contingent upon various societal conditions. These included political stability, frequency and impact of war, levels of poverty, demographic shifts, geography, and crucially, the state of the relationship between government and scholars. Today, however, the intellectual contributions of Muslim countries pale in comparison to the past. Consider the following statistics: Whereas India and Spain have produced 1.66 per cent and 1.48 per cent of global scientific literature, the contribution of 46 Muslim countries in their entirety stands at a mere 1.17 per cent.55 Over the last century, the entire Muslim population [at 1.4 billion] produced only eight Nobel Laureates, while just fourteen million Jews have produced a stunning 167. Similarly, while there are only 300,000 Muslim scientists in the world [230 scientists per one million Muslims], the US and Japan have produced 1.1 million [4099 per million Americans] and 700,000 [5095 per million Japanese] scientists respectively.56 Furthermore, a 2002 United Nations report published in Cairo by Arab intellectuals found that ‘the entire Arab world translates about 330 books annually, one-fifth the numbers that Greece translates’. The report added that in the 1000 years since the reign of the caliph Ma’moun, Arabs have translated as many 53 Özcan, A. ‘Islam: fikir hareketleri’. TDIA 23, (2001), pp. 37–42. 54 Gran, Peter. Islamic Roots of Capitalism: Egypt, 1760–1840. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1998, p. 174. 55 Anwar, Mumtaz Ali, and A.B. Abu Bakar. ‘Current State of Science and Technology in the Muslim World’. Scientometrics 40.1 (1997). 56 Farrukh, S. ‘What Went Wrong?’ The News International. 8 November 2005.

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books as Spain translates in just one year. The implication of these figures is clear. Today’s Muslim countries are lagging far behind in indices measuring education and the production of knowledge.57 In this regard, the views of Muhammad Fethullah Gulen on ‘Islamic Intellectualism’ is perhaps worth exploring. He summarizes the characteristics of a Muslim intellectual in the modern age as follows: ‘Today we are in great need, above all else, of an objective mind which can see yesterday and today together, which can take humanity, life, and the universe into its perspective all at the same time, which can draw comparisons, which is receptive to the dimensions of the causes of and reasons for existence, which is cognizant of the scenarios of the rise, continuance, and fall of nations and communities, which can judge the errors, faults, and merits of sociology and psychology, which is alert to the rise, decline, and death in the cycles of civilizations, which has skill, sound conscience, and integrity to distinguish means and ends, which is respectful of the objectives and familiar with the principles and wisdom of the Divine Law and purposes of the Lawgiver (the Prophet), which is knowledgeable about the essentials which are accepted as basis for religious decrees and which is open to the thoughts and inspirations that emanate from God.’58 According to Gulen, Muslim intellectuals should not blame the West for the Muslim world’s situation in the 21st Century. He or she always finds the real causes of backwardness. Usually they may critique themselves to see their own deficiencies, try to educate themselves and their community, and always seek solutions in a productive way. Gulen also asserts: While we are clearing and releasing the blocked channels of our thought, and realigning our system of reasoning, which has turned away from the sublime and thus become stale, so that it travels in its proper orbit around the Qur’an, we will not neglect the secrets of humanity, life, and the universe. As well as acting minutely upon the religious commands and making them part of life, an act which is one of the most significant bases of a long and uninterrupted continuance, we must smooth the way as the Messenger of God made it easy, with kindness and gentleness, and with tolerance and forbearance, showing it to be a path of encouragement which invites with glad tidings, rather than one which discourages and repels with disgust and aversion. 57 Hoodbhoy, Pervez. ‘Science and the Islamic World—The Quest for Rapprochement’. Physics Today 60.8 (2007). 58 Gulen, Fethullah. Statue of Our Souls. Clifton: Tughra Books, 2010, p. 13.

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We must put the power of knowledge and contemplation at the disposal of Islam and Islamic interpretation and thus bring to an end the barrenness and unproductiveness of recent centuries. We must establish everywhere, in homes, streets, schools and places of worship, observatories from which the truth behind humanity, life, and the universe can be seen. We must reopen the routes to eternity which have been blocked for centuries. We must raise Islam to the first and most important point on the agenda, one that is to be dwelt on in every element of life. We must become sensitive to the issue of cause and effect and so act rationally and shrewdly, according to the principle of the relation and proportion of causes. Such a quality of understanding, perception, comprehension, and maturity will facilitate our renewal and reformation and provide us with the foundation on which to base an eternal life.’59 To make matters worse, the reputation of Islam in the ‘West’ has become largely negative. The political right has either implicitly or actively conflated with the problem of Islamist terrorism. This has also given rise to Islam. Yet, it is the moderate Muslim, or roughly 90 per cent of the ummah who suffer the brunt of discrimination in the ‘West’. As such, many are forced to live in fear of ethno-religious hate crimes. How, then, should Muslim intellectuals react to the dual problem of endemically low education levels in Muslim countries and the ‘othering’ of Islam? How should Muslim intellectuals provide guidance and inspiration to solve problems, and ultimately, to help the ummah achieve progress? The following fourteen points are some suggestions that could guide the coming generations of Muslim intellectuals. 1. Muslims aspiring to become intellectuals must have complete faith (iman kâmil) in God. They must possess an intimate understanding of God, as described in the Qur’an and the universe, and what it means to walk the path of righteousness. 2. One of the most important characteristics a Muslim intellectual must possess is ‘to love’. Only by being loving will an intellectual be able to reach the truth, walk the path of righteousness, and function as a genuine mediator between the ummah, the universe, and God. 3. Muslim intellectuals should approach the quest for knowledge with intellect, logic, and consciousness functioning harmoniously. 4. Muslim intellectuals must be cognizant of the importance of their duties. Only then will they be able to appreciate the conditions that give rise to problems facing the Muslim world today. To solve these 59 Ibid., p. 14.

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5.

6.

7.

8.

problems, Muslim intellectuals must possess a sophisticated imagination. Sophistication refers to the need to be deeply familiar with classical, modern, and postmodern forms of knowledge. Today, intellectuals are divided into two broad camps. The f irst are those who remain f irmly traditional and detached from the conditions of modernity. They unwaveringly attempt to apply traditional thought wholesale to modern challenges. This has had the consequence of producing fanaticism. The second camp, on the other hand, is embroiled with the modern and completely disregards the contributions of traditional knowledge. Indeed, they often chastise these traditions as the cause of the Muslim world’s underdevelopment. I contend that these two camps need not exist in opposition to each other. Rather, Muslim intellectuals should endeavour to develop an approach that simultaneously relies on: (1) retaining the fundamental principles in Islamic thought that stand the test of time, and (2) pushing for the evolution of ‘obsolete’ traditions in order to successfully adapt them to contemporary conditions of society. Indeed, this is precisely what the renowned Turkish poet, Yahya Kemal, meant when he said: ‘I am neither wrecked nor solvent, I am the future that has its roots in the past.’60 If intellectuals are frustrated by what they see, they should strive to improve current conditions of life by developing innovative ideas. Intellectuals should also strive to have their ideas published, popularized, and institutionalized to ensure they are acted upon and executed systemically. Muslim intellectuals should strive to reduce sectarian and interreligious divisions. They should mould and establish schools of thought that encourage multi-disciplinary approaches and dissuade polarization. Additionally, differences that may exist between different parties in terms of methods, ideas, ethnicity, nationality, and religion should not be perceived as obstacles to dialogue, collaboration, and intellectual synthesis. Muslim intellectuals should respect and encourage independent reasoning and embrace the ideal of individual freedom. They must reject fanaticism, remain loyal to the path of defending the truth, and strive to learn more. Muslim intellectuals must not be dissuaded from this path even when confronted by political pressures or greed.

60 Beyatli, Yahya Kemal. ‘Siyasî ve Edebî Portreler’. Đstanbul, Fetih Cemiyeti Y (1968), p. 16.

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9. As advocates of freedom, Muslim intellectuals must be open to pluralistic thought, open dialogue, criticism, and be willing to adopt the ideas proposed by other groups. Only then will they be able to constructively produce knowledge. 10. Muslim intellectuals should appreciate the aesthetic qualities, the cultural significance, and subjective meanings in art. While they need not themselves be artists, they should possess a genuine interest in at least one art form, and push for its appreciation in society. 11. Muslim intellectuals should engage with and translate the classical works on theology, philosophy, and Sufism that were foundational to the intellectual traditions of Islamic civilization. They should strive to openly interpret and critique these works in order to develop effective methods of producing knowledge. 12. Not only should Muslim intellectuals study the history of these disciplines but should also practice them. If an intellectual chooses to study the history of philosophy, he or she should also practice philosophy. Furthermore, they should recognize the signif icance of engaging in multidisciplinary approaches that draw from both mystical and scientific thought. 13. Muslim intellectuals should aim to harmonize and achieve an equilibrium between the apocalyptic and rational sciences when they engage with Qur’anic verses that discuss the legislative (shar’î) and cosmological (kawnî) dimensions of Islamic law. 14. Muslim intellectuals should use the tools of globalization to engage effectively with and educate the ummah.61

Conclusion It is my hope that the Muslim world experiences a second renaissance soon. The Islamic civilization of the past was among the world’s richest and its contributions to mankind have been invaluable. However, the contemporary Muslim world is a far cry from the heights the Islamic civilization achieved. The fact that Muslims are stereotypically viewed as ignorant, povertystricken, violent, terroristic, and immoral is indicative of the Muslim world’s relative decline. Yet, it would be timely to remember that the historic Islamic

61 Kutluer, I. The Structure of the Tradition of Islamic Intellectual and its Meaning Today, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy5pLs7rK6k; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy5pLs7rK6k.

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civilization, as founded upon the Qur’an, lived to uphold the following religious principles: 1. ‘[…] if anyone killed a person, it would be as if he killed the whole of mankind; and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole of mankind […]’.62 2. ‘He/she is not a believer whose stomach is full, while the neighbour to his side goes to bed hungry.’63 3. ‘If anyone pursues a path in search of knowledge, God will thereby make easy for him a path to paradise; and he who is made slow by his actions will not be speeded by his genealogy’,64 to share,65 to help others,66 to produce,67 to work and earn a livelihood instead of begging,68 to respect one’s parents,69 to be merciful to orphans, the elderly, and the needy,70 to be clean (body, mind, words, clothing, home, ecology),71 to be truthful and trustworthy,72 to be honest,73 to be loyal,74 to be sincere,75 to be dedicated and sacrificed for others,76 and to be peaceful.77

62 Qur’an 5:32. 63 Bukhârî, Adab, 12; Tirmidhî, Birr, 17. 64 See Bukhârî, Ilm, 10; Muslim, Zikr (Dhikr), 39; Abû Dâvûd, Ilm, 1; Tirmidhî, Qur’an, 10, Ilm, 9. 65 ‘One is not a true believer until he wishes for others what he wishes for himself’, Bukhârî, Îmân, 7; Muslim, Îmân, 71, 72; Tirmidhî, Kiyâmah, 59; Nasâî, Îmân, 19, 33; Ibn Mâjah, Muqaddima, 9. 66 Qur’an 9:71; 58:22; Bukhârî, Madhâlim, 3; Ikrah, 7; Muslim, Birr, 58; Tirmidhî, Hudûd, 3; see also Muslim, Dhikr, 38; Ibn Mâjah, Sunnah, 17; Tirmidhî, Hudûd, 3; see also Tirmidhî, Birr, 45. 67 Bukhârî, Buyû’, 15; Nasâî, Buyû’, 1; Abû Dâwûd, Buyû’, 6. 68 Bukhârî, Zakâh, 50, Buyû’, 15; see also: Bukhârî, Zakâh, 52, Muslim, Zakâh. 103; Nasâî, Zakâh. 83. 69 Qur’an 2:83; 4:36; 6:151; 17:23–25; 29:8; 31:14; etc. 70 Qur’an 2:83, 177, 215, 220; 4:2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10, 36, 127; 6:152; 8:41; 17:34; 18:82; 59:7; 76:8; 89:17; 90:16; 93:6. 71 Qur’an 9:108; 5:6, 56:79; Bukhârî, Sawm, 27; Bukhârî, Jum’a, 8, Muslim, Tahara, 42; Tirmidhî, At’ima, 29. 72 Qur’an 5:12; Muslim, Îmân, 14; Ibn Mâjah, Tijârâh, 1. 73 Qur’an 40:8; 11: 112; 5:11; Bukhârî, Hîbe, 18; see also Bukhârî, Adab, 69; Muslim, Birr, 105; Abû Dâwûd, Adab, 80. 74 Qur’an 5:119; 19:54; 33:23–24; 47:21; Bukhâri, Adab 69; Muslim, Birr 103–105; see also Tirmidhî, Birr, 46; Ibn Mâjah, Muqaddimah, 7; Du’â 5. 75 Qur’an, 17:65; 2:264; 11:51; 22:37; 98:5; 3:29; Bukhârî, Bad’u’l-wahy, 1, Îmân, 41, Nikâh, 5, Menâqıbu’l-Ansâr 45, ‘Itq, 6, Aymân, 23, Hiyal, 1; Muslim, Imârah, 155; see also Abû Dâwûd, Talâq, 11; Tirmidhî, Fadâilu’l-jihâd, 16; Nasâî, Tahârah, 60; Talâq, 24, Aymân, 19; Ibn Mâjah, Zuhd, 26. 76 Qur’an 59:9. 77 Qur’an 2:208; 3:110; 4:28; 4:30; 4:90; 5:32; 7:199; 8:61-62; 9:6; 26:151; 49:10; 60:8; Muwatta, Jihâd, 12; Abû Dâwûd, Kharâj, 30, 33, etc.

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It is unfortunate that contemporary Muslims do not sufficiently embody these principles. The path to (re)adopting these principles and achieving the second renaissance lies in education. Muslims and aspiring intellectuals in particular, need to be rigorously educated in secular and Islamic disciplines. Only then can they successfully engage in meaningful dialogue, constructive criticism, and most of all, walk the path of righteousness.

Bibliography Akgündüz, Ahmet. Belgeler Gerçekleri Konuşuyor-3. Vol. 3. Istanbul: Osmanlı Araştırmaları Vakfı, 1997. Al-Attas, S. M. N. ‘Endonezya: Tarih’. TDİA 11 (1995): 195–196. Al-Bayhaqi, Abu-Bakr. ‘al-Sunan al-Kubra’. Beirut: Dar al-kutub al-ilmiyyah, (1994). Al-Ghusn, S. Mawqif al-mutakallimîn: min al-istidlâl bi nusûs al-kitâb wa al-sunnah ‘ardan wa naqdan. Beirut: Dar al-‘Asimah, nd., v. I. Al-Hâkim, Abû Abdillah Muhammad b. Abdillah an-Nishapuri. Al-Mustadrak alâ al-Sahîhayn, v. 3, Beirut: Dâr al-Kutub al-Ilmiyyah, 1990. Al-Jurjānī, Sayyid Sharīf. Kitab al-Ta ‘rīfāt. Beirut: Al-Hakawati, 2014. Al-Wakîl, M. S. Al-Aṣr al-dhahabî. Damascus: Dar. al-Qalam, 1998. Al-Zarkânî, M.A. Manâhil al-irfân fee ‘ulûm al-qur’ân. Beirut: Dar-al-kutub alilmiyyah, 1988. Anwar, Mumtaz Ali, and AB Abu Bakar. ‘Current State of Science and Technology in the Muslim World’. Scientometrics 40.1 (1997): 23–44. Bennett, Clinton, ed. The Bloomsbury Companion to Islamic Studies. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015. Beyatli, Yahya Kemal. Siyasî ve Edebî Portreler. Istanbul: Fetih Cemiyeti Y, 1968. Birkök, Mehmet. ‘Aydınlar ve Bazı Vasıfları’. Sosyoloji Konferansları 26 (2000): 97–111. Brockelmann, Carl, Moshe Perlmann, and Joel Carmichael. History of the Islamic Peoples. Vol. 3. New York: Capricorn Books, 1960. Brown, A. C. Jonathan. Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet’s Legacy. London: Oneworld Publications, 2014. Cerrahoğlu, İsmail. Tefsir tarihi 1. cilt. Ankara: Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı Yayınları, 1988. Cerrahoğlu, İsmail. Tefsir Usulü. Ankara: Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, 1997. Chomsky, Noam. ‘A Special Supplement: The Responsibility of Intellectuals’. New York Review of Books 8. 3 (1967).

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Congdon, Lee. Exile and Social Thought: Hungarian Intellectuals in Germany and Austria, 1919–1933. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014. Cosman, Madeleine Pelner, and Linda Gale Jones. Handbook to Life in the Medieval World. 3 vols. Vol. 1. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009. Eraydın, Selçuk. Tasavvuf ve tarikatlar. Istanbul: Marmara Üniversitesi, İlâhiyat Fakültesi Vakfı Yayınları, 1994. Esposito, John L. ‘Islam: An Overview’. Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Modern Islamic World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Fakhry, Majid. A History of Islamic Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Farrukh, S. ‘What Went Wrong?’ The News International, 8 November 2005. French, Knight Jedediah. ‘René Guénon and the Primordial Tradition’. Sir Knight Jedediah French, 5 Feb. 2016. Available at from www.skfrench.wordpress. com/2016/02/03/rene-guenon-and-the-primordial-tradition/ (accessed on 20 May 2016). Frye, Richard Nelson. The Golden Age of Persia: The Arabs in the East. New York: Sterling Publishing Company, 2000. Goksoy, I. H. ‘Endonezya: ülkede İslamiyet’. TDİA 11 (1995): 197–207. Gulen, Fethullah. Statue of Our Souls. Clifton: Tughra Books, 2010. Gurbuz, M. Vedat. ‘Ottoman Vakifs: Their Impact on Ottoman Society and Ottoman Land Regime’. Çukurova Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 21.1 (2012): 201–212. Gutas, Dimitri. Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early’Abbasaid Society (2nd-4th/5th-10th c.). London: Routledge, 2012. Graburn, Nelson H.H. ‘What is Tradition?’ Museum Anthropology 24.2/3 (2000): 6–11. Gran, Peter. Islamic Roots of Capitalism: Egypt, 1760–1840. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1998. Hasan, H. I. Târîkh al-Islm al-siysî wa’l-dînî wa’l-thiqfî wa’l-ijtim’î”. 7th ed., v. 2, s. 348. Cairo: Maktabat al-Nahda al Miṣriyya, 1964. Hill, Donald Routledge. Islamic Science and Engineering. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993. Hoodbhoy, Pervez. ‘Science and the Islamic World—The quest for Rapprochement’. Physics Today 60.8 (2007): 49–55. Ibn Hisham, Abû Muhammad ‘Abd al-Malik. As-Sîrah an-Nabawiyyah. Beirut: Dâru’l-Cîl, 1990. İnalcık, Halil. ‘Devlet-i’. Aliyye, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu Üzerine Araştırmalar-I, Klasik Dönem (1302–1606): Siyasal, Kurumsal ve Ekonomik Gelişim. Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2009.

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İyaz, Kâdî. Eş-Şifâ bi Ta’rifi Hukûki’l-Mustafa, tahk Hüseyin Abdülhamid. Beirut: Dâru Şeriketi’l-Erkam, 1995. Koçyiğit, Talat. Hadis Tarihi. Vol. 134. Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi, İlâhiyat Fakültesi, 1977. Kartal, Abdullah. Tasavvufun Bir İlim Olarak İnşâ Süreci: Şer’î ve Metafizik Bir İlim Olarak Tasavvuf. Bursa: Uludağ Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, 2015. Kurt, İsmail. ‘Vakıf Müessesesi XV ve XVI. Asır Vakıfları’. Asırları Türk Asrı Yapan Değerler 15.6 (1997): 501–535. Kutluer, I. The Structure of the Tradition of Islamic Intellectual and its Meaning Today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy5pLs7rK6k (retrieved on 30 May 2016). Gaston Wiet. Baghdad, Metropolis of the Abbasid Caliphate. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1972. Little, John T. ‘Al-Insan al-Kâmil: The Perfect Man According to Ibn al-‘Arabi’. Muslim World 77.1 (1987): 43–54. Lyons, Jonathan. The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2011. Nursî, B.S. İşârâtü’l-i’câz fî mezânni’l-îcâz. Istanbul: Şahdamar Press, 2007. Özcan, A. ‘Islam: fikir hareketleri’. TDIA 23 (2001): 37–42. Refik, I. Tarih şuuruna dogru. Izmir: Albatros Kitapları, 2012. Reznek, Lawrie. Delusions and the Madness of the Masses. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2010. Rosenthal, Franz. The Classical Heritage in Islam. London: Routledge, 2003. Saa’d, Muhammad Ibn. al-Tabaqat al-Kubra. Beirut: Dar al Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 1997. Saîd, Khayr Allah. Warrqu Baghdd fî’l-Asr al-Abbsî. Riyadh: Markaz al-Malik Fayṣal li’l-Buḥûth wa’l-Dirst al-Islmiyya, 2000. Sezgin, Fuat. İslâm’da Bilim ve Teknik. Abdurrahman Aliy, Ankara: Türkiye Bilimler Akademisi, 2007. Söylemez, Mahfuz. Bilimin yitik şehri Cündişapur. Ankara: Araştırma, 2003. Taftaznî, S. Sharh al-akâid al-nasafiyyah. e.c. Ahmed Hijazi al-Sakâ. Cairo: Kulliya Azhariyya Press, 1988. Thrupp, Sylvia Lettice. Change in Medieval Society: Europe North of the Alps, 1050–1500. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988. Uzunçarşılı, İsmail Hakkı, and Enver Ziya Karal. Osmanlı tarihi. 5. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1988. Uzunpostalcı, Mustafa. ‘Ebû Hanîfe’. TDIA 10 (1994): 141–145. Watt, William Montgomery. The Influence of Islam on Medieval Europe. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1972.

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Watt, William Montgomery. Islamic Philosophy and Theology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1985. Zeydan, Abdulkerim. Fıkıh Usulü, (çev: Ruhi, Özcan). İstanbul: Marmara Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Vakfı Yayınları, 1993.

About the author Ali Ünsal is the current Director of the Fethullah Gulen Chair at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Jakarta.

4. The Best and Most Trying of Times Islamic Education and the Challenge of Modernity Robert W. Hefner Abstract In recent years, scholars and policy analysts have grappled with the question of the relation of Islamic education to politics, public ethics, and modern social change. This chapter examines the origins, social role, and varieties of Islamic education, and their transformation in modern times. The chapter shows that, although Muslim educators in a few parts of the late-modern world have been resistant to efforts at educational reform, the great majority have responded positively and energetically. They have done so in response to both the hopes and aspirations of Muslim parents and youth, and the recognition that moral and intellectual progress in Muslim-majority societies requires a dialogue with and integration of the sciences of the world with the sciences of revelation. Keywords: Islamic schooling; modern social change; ethical renewal; science and revelation

Since the Taliban seizure of Kabul in September 1996, scholars and policy analysts have grappled with the question of the relation of madrasa education to Islamist extremism. The fact that madrasa-based students played a role in the Taliban’s rise to power seemed sufficient proof for many observers that the institution is a platform for anti-democratic and anti-intellectual indoctrination. The Jemaah Islamiyah terrorists who carried out the Indonesian Bali bombings in October 2002 were also found to have ties to madrasa-based networks of militants operating in Malaysia and Indonesia.1 1 International Crisis Group, ‘Pakistan: Madrasas, Extremism and the Military’, Asia Report, no. 36. Islamabad & Brussels: ICG, 2002.

Osman, M.N.M. Pathways to Contemporary Islam: New Trends in Critical Engagement. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. doi: 10.5117/9789462987593_ch04

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More recent studies have confirmed that even in state-sponsored public schools in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, religious portions of the curriculum promote harshly intolerant viewpoints with regard to Shi’a, Sufis, Christians, Jews, and those deemed ‘unbelievers’.2 With their violent attacks on all institutions of modern learning, Daesh in the Middle East and Boko Haram in West Africa have confirmed once again that, for some radical extremists, modern schooling and intellectualism are antithetical to Islam. There is and never was any single type of madrasa or Islamic schooling, and, as this chapter will attempt to explain, the Taliban, Daesh, and Boko Haram are the exception rather than the rule in most of today’s Muslim world. In fact, and to introduce a theme at the centre of this study, over the course of the past century, and especially over the past thirty years, Islamic education has experienced an intellectual renewal as far-reaching as any since the early Abbasid dynasty in the eighth to ten centuries. In that latter period, the Graeco-Arabic ‘translation movement’ gave rise to an unprecedented efflorescence of Muslim scholarship in fields as diverse as philosophy, theology, natural science, medicine, and mathematics. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the remarkable fruits of this labour were transmitted to the Christian West, where they played a key role in the rise of Western universities and, eventually, the European Renaissance.3 Here was an Islamic intellectualism offering a civilizational gift to all humanity. The reorientation and renewal of Islamic learning taking place today has many forms and is occurring in many areas of the world, both in Muslimmajority countries and in Western Europe and the United States. It is not ‘liberal’ in the Western, post-1960s political sense of the term, but it is decidedly liberal in the more important sense of the ‘liberal arts’ and intellectual ecumenism. It is a major force in the global movement for the revivification of Islamic intellectualism today. In Indonesia, Qatar, Egypt, and, yes, Singapore, as well as in Western institutions like the remarkable Zaytuna College (America’s first Muslim ‘liberal arts college’) in Berkeley, California, Muslim educators and scholars are adapting traditions of Islamic learning and ethics to the modern challenge of science, markets, and intellectual pluralism. 4 2 Shea, Nona, and Ali Al-Ahmed. ‘Saudi Arabia’s Curriculum of Intolerance’. Center for Religious Freedom, Freedom House. (2008); and Hussain, Azhar, Aḥmad Salīm, and Arif Naveed. Connecting the Dots: Education and Religious Discrimination in Pakistan: A Study of Public Schools and Madrassas. United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, 2011. 3 Gutas, Dimitri. Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early’Abbasaid Society (2nd-4th/5th-10th c.). London: Routledge, 2012. 4 Kashani, Maryam. Seekers of the Sacred Knowledge: Zaytuna College and the Education of American Muslims. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology. Austin: University of Texas, 2014.

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The scale and force of this global educational transformation are so great that one might be tempted to ignore the small number of extremists who lie at the far fringe of today’s Islamic educational spectrum. However, if Daesh and Boko Haram have shown us one thing, it is that, benefiting as they do from the Internet, social media, and state-of-the-art weaponry, they can defy the new Muslim intellectualism and exercise an influence far greater than their numbers in Muslim society. We must not blame Islamic educators for the apocalyptic adventurism of Daesh and Boko Haram. Nor should we fool ourselves into thinking that reforms to Islamic education will be a panacea for the extremist woe. Good governance, market dynamism, and civic justice are even more crucial for containing this challenge. However, in an age of continuing Islamic revival, the new Islamic education does have a role to play. It can provide guidance on a matter long at the heart of Islamic ethics and intellectualism: how to be faithful to God’s commands while also nurturing an empirical understanding of a social and natural world that bears equal witness to the majesty of God’s creation. Against this background, then, in this chapter I review the historical origins, social role, and varieties of Islamic learning and the impact of modern developments on Islamic learning and knowledge. I devote particular attention to the development and reform of madrasas and Islamic schooling generally, including in the Middle East and Asia as well as in the West. The first half of this chapter is historical—and is so because I believe that the core epistemological challenge facing Islamic intellectualism today was put squarely in place in the first centuries of the Muslim era. My discussion then moves forward to Islamic education in the late modern world. Although madrasas in a few countries have been resistant to calls for change, curricular reforms emphasizing vocational, professional, and, yes, liberal-arts education have become the far more pervasive norm and have proved enormously popular with students and parents. Especially in the more economically dynamic regions of the Muslim world, the demand for marketable skills and lifestyle coaching has been a powerful driver for Islamic intellectual and educational renewal. In the last section of this chapter, f inally, I outline what may be the trajectories of Islamic educational institutions in both Muslim-majority countries and Muslim-minority societies in years to come. Nothing is certain. However, I suggest that, notwithstanding the destructive efforts of an extremist fringe, the Islamic educational renaissance will continue, and will play a central role in the normative work required for intellectual renewal and pluralist co-existence within and beyond the Muslim world.

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The Origins and Varieties of Muslim Learning The transmission of religious knowledge (‘ilm) has always been at the heart of Islamic society and tradition. The Qur’an and Hadith abound with references to the importance of learning and enjoin believers to study and follow the path God has provided. Since earliest times, the transmission of religious knowledge from teacher to student has also played a socio-religious function, creating scholarly networks which, in the absence of a clerical hierarchy or church like that in medieval Christianity, came to provide leadership and cohesion for a globally dispersed Muslim community. Muslim notables also regarded religious education as critical to the formation of the shared ethical sensibilities that underlay the public good. For these and other reasons, religious learning lay at the heart of Muslim societies, and its promotion was incumbent on all who aspired to social or political leadership. Although the transmission of religious knowledge has long been at the heart of Islam, the institutions through which this education takes place have always been varied. During the Muslim world’s Middle Ages (1000–1500 CE), the religious college or madrasa emerged as the dominant institution for intermediate and advanced learning in what came to be known as the Islamic sciences (‘ulum al-din). The madrasa was, and is still today, distinguished from institutions of elementary Islamic learning, like the kuttab or maktab. These latter institutions instruct youths in how to read and recite the Qur’an, but do not delve into even the rudiments of theology or jurisprudence. Kuttab-like institutions emerged in the first century of the Islamic era, not long after scholars working at the instruction of the Caliphs Umar (634–44CE) and Uthman (644–56CE) completed their recensions of the Qur’an. From that early period to today, these institutions for elementary Arabic and Qur’anic study have remained a cherished part of Muslim community life and youth socialization, albeit from an institutional perch situated at the base rather than the summit of Islamic intellectualism. Although elementary Qur’anic schools emerged in the first century of the Muslim era, the first madrasa—defined as a boarding school for intermediate and advanced study of the Islamic sciences—appeared only three centuries later, in the territory of Khurasan in what is, today, eastern Iran and Afghanistan. Prior to the madrasa’s emergence, intermediate and advanced study in the religious sciences was already taking place, but in informal ‘study circles’ (halaqa; pl., halaq) in homes, merchant shops, and, above all, mosques. By the ninth century, however, the Islamic sciences were growing increasingly complex. The driver for this change was clear: the principles and methodologies required to master Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) now required

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in-depth facility in classical Arabic, the Qur’an, hundreds of canonical hadith, and dozens of scholarly commentaries.5 Although intermediate students could still get by in informal learning circles, advanced learning in the Islamic sciences now required prolonged periods of study. This technical need for long-term study was additionally buttressed by the growing importance of mastery of the Islamic sciences as a requirement for social standing in the ever-growing status group of Islamic scholars, the ‘ulama. Faced with the growing complexity of Islamic learning, large mosques in major cities at first took steps to build hostels for resident students in buildings adjacent to the mosque in which their study circles took place. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, several Muslim communities took this innovation further, erecting the first madrasa complexes.6 A typical complex consisted of a mosque, dormitories and classrooms, as well as a residence for the school master and a washing area for ritual ablutions. Many complexes also came to include mausoleums for the institution’s saintly founder, on the assumption that in death as in life he could intercede with God and serve as a channel for divine grace (baraka). Once established, the madrasa institution spread to other Muslim lands, reaching Spain and northern India in the first decades of the thirteenth century. Political patronage aided the institution’s diffusion, as rulers realized that it was in their interest to sponsor madrasas in an effort to curry favour with the local populace, and with the religious notables to whom the community looked for moral guidance. However, the precise pattern of funding for madrasas varied, with some relying on rulers’ largesse while others depended on private waqf, inalienable ‘pious endowments’ provided by donors but, under Islamic law, administered independently of state authority. It is widely recognized that, in most Medieval Middle Eastern societies, madrasas were a pillar of Muslim civil society.7 In addition to developing a conventional architectural layout and funding structure, medieval madrasas also developed a core curriculum, large portions of which are used still today in madrasas emphasizing traditionalist learning. Although smaller madrasas might specialize in the study of only one or several texts, the larger madrasas provided instruction in Qur’an recitation and exegesis, the sciences of tradition (‘ilm al-hadith), the origins 5 Berkey, Jonathan Porter. The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo: A Social History of Islamic Education. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014. 6 Makdisi, George. The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981, p. 27. 7 Hoexter, Miriam, Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt, and Nehemia Levtzion, eds. The Public Sphere in Muslim Societies. Albany: SUNY Press, 2002.

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and principles of jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh), and the principles and sources of religion (usul al-din). Instruction was also provided in sciences ancillary to the transmitted traditions, including Arabic grammar, lexicology, morphology, metrics, rhyme, prosody, and history.8 A pivotal legacy of Islamic learning still today, the rise of the madrasa was accompanied by a far-reaching reorganization of religious knowledge and authority in Muslim societies, a key characteristic of which was the standardization and repositioning of certain Islamic sciences in the madrasa curriculum. By far, the most intellectually consequential feature of this re-centring was that jurisprudence ( fiqh) became the centrepiece of advanced scholarly study. No less important, although interpretive plurality still characterized the broader religious field, mastery of a written canon became imperative for those aspiring to advanced learning. This heightened dependency on a textual canon and study with a recognized master created clearer criteria for identifying who qualified as an authoritative Islamic scholar. The development of a core curriculum and agreed methods for their mastery also brought about a greater uniformity of knowledge in those circles where madrasa-educated scholars exercised influence. Notwithstanding these more-or-less standardized elements of curriculum and administration, classical madrasas differed from their university counterparts in late Medieval Europe in that they were not organized into faculties or departments. Madrasas also did not have boards of directors, college-wide admissions, graded-classes, or degrees granted by a madrasa corporation. Religious learning remained ‘fundamentally and persistently an informal affair’,9 in the sense that it was organized around each student’s disciple-like relation to an individual teacher, and that it was this scholarly master, rather than a college board, who selected the books that were the focus of study and who determined when each student had achieved sufficient mastery in them. In the face of Western colonial challenges of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the disciple-based organization of Islamic learning was to change, as schools developed separate class levels, graded examinations, and more bureaucratized forms of finance, administration, and instruction. The reform of the content of the madrasa curriculum, however, was to prove more contentious. 8 Makdisi, George. The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981, p. 79. 9 Berkey, Jonathan Porter. The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo: A Social History of Islamic Education. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014, p. 17; Makdisi, George. The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981, p. 128.

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The Relation of Religious to Non-Religious Knowledge From early on in the Muslim era, the question of the place of non-religious learning in the madrasa, as well as in Muslim intellectual life generally, was the subject of heated discussion. The question’s practical resolution would determine the fate of the natural and social sciences in Islamic learning; it would remain a point of contention well into the modern period. As Franz Rosenthal, a Western scholar of medieval Islam, has observed, ‘Right from the start, the student of the Qur’an finds himself confronted with the thought presented forcefully and inescapably that all human knowledge that has any real value and truly deserves to be called “knowledge” is religious.’10 The Qur’an and the Prophetic traditions do, of course, acknowledge the importance of worldly or ‘secular’ knowledge, even while emphasizing that the highest knowledge attainable by believers is that given by God in scriptural revelation. However, both in the early centuries of the Muslim era and today, scholars have disagreed on the question of how much emphasis should be placed on sciences of the world as opposed to the revealed sciences in the larger project of Islamic learning. The celebrated school of Arab philosophy that emerged under the guidance of the ‘Philosopher of the Arabs’, Abu Yusu Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi (800–870 CE),11 and which translated and analysed the works of Aristotle, the Neoplatonists, and Greek mathematicians, medical doctors, and natural scientists, consistently affirmed that the Qur’an urges believers to develop their knowledge of the mundane world alongside their understanding of God’s revelation. Arab philosophers in these centuries also refuted the criticisms of their peers who insisted that the study of Greek works on medicine, natural science, and philosophy was illegitimate because its authors were not Muslim. Later Muslim philosophers, like Al-Farabi (d. 951) and Ibn Sina (d. 1037 CE), defended much the same position with regard to Greek scholarship in natural science, mathematics, medicine, and philosophy, and made highly original and lasting contributions to all of these fields.12 Although they may appear remote in time, these issues are still very much at the heart of Muslim intellectual debate today (see below). The great twelfth century Arab philosopher, Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Rushd (d. 1198), known in the West by his Latinized name Averroes, took this argument on the necessary interdependency of knowledge of 10 Rosenthal, Franz. Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam. Leiden: Brill, 2007, p. 30. 11 Jolivet, Jean and R. Rashed. ‘al-Kindī’, Encyclopaedia of Islam. Leiden: Brill, 1994. 12 Fakhry, Majid. A History of Islamic Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.

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the world and revealed knowledge to an even bolder conclusion.13 Affirming with Aristotle that truth does not contradict truth, Ibn Rushd argued that that phenomena in the world unfold as they do because they conform to natural laws created by God, in just the same way that God has revealed ethical laws to govern human behaviour. Notwithstanding differences in elaboration, Ibu Rushd’s position, and the commentaries that he created (which were used in Western universities as the basic reference work for the study of Aristotle until well into the Renaissance), exercised a profound influence on the great medieval Catholic philosopher, Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274). Drawing directly on Ibn Rushd’s framework, Aquinas staked out a broadly similar position with regard to the necessity and compatibility of revealed and worldly knowledge. Over the centuries that followed, Europe’s university-based clerics invoked both Aquinas and Ibn Rushd to justify the deepening integration of the natural sciences and philosophy into the curriculum of the still-emerging Western university. In the Arab Muslim world, in contrast, Ibn Rushd’s ideas remained controversial, and their impact on madrasa education—particularly with regard to the integration of the revealed sciences with sciences of the world—was eventually circumscribed. Ibn Rushd’s Muslim Aristotelianism was the target of brilliant criticism by no less monumental a figure than the medieval jurist, theologian, and mystic, Abu Hamid Muhammad Ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali (d. 1111).14 One of the greatest intellectuals of the Muslim and Christian middle ages, al-Ghazali was well versed in Greek philosophy and the works of its Arab promoters, even as he took exception to what he felt were the latter’s excesses. Some observers of Islamic learning and Muslim natural science have suggested that al-Ghazali’s critique of the Rushdian position paved the way for a disastrous decline in the natural sciences and philosophy in the Arab Muslim world, an intellectually corrosive legacy that is assumed to be influential still today. However, this argument almost certainly overstates the opposition between Ibn Rushd and al-Ghazali and understates the destructive intellectual impact of warfare and socio-political tumult in the Arabo-Persian Middle East, such as that associated with the Mongol sacking of Baghdad in 1248 (see below).15 In fact, one of the more interesting features of Islamic education, and Islamic intellectualism more generally, is that the practice of both has always tended 13 Arnaldez, Roger. ‘Ibn Ru s̲ h̲d’, Encyclopaedia of Islam. Leiden: Brill, 1994. 14 Moosa, Ebrahim. Ghazali and the Poetics of Imagination. Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. 15 Griffel, Frank. Al-Ghazali’s Philosophical Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

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to be more varied and far-ranging than the philosophical, theological, or jurisprudential discourses that scholars of Islam today might regard as authorizing those intellectual activities. It is telling in this regard that, in their first centuries, many madrasas provided instruction in subjects other than the religious sciences. Equally significant, from the eleventh to the fourteenth century—therefore, even in the aftermath of what is regarded as the ‘golden age’ of Graeco-Islamic philosophy—Middle Eastern scholarship in mathematics, astronomy, and medicine remained the most advanced in the world. Although the precise social and intellectual influences on this latter achievement remain a matter of dispute, one contributing circumstance had to do with the fact that for most of the Muslim middle ages, the madrasa was not the only centre for higher intellectual learning. Hospitals and libraries—the latter the largest in the medieval world—hosted study circles too, many of which engaged Greek and Arab-philosophical writings in medicine, natural science, and philosophy. Sufi lodges also served as major centres of esoteric learning, sometimes merging indistinguishably with madrasas. In the Arab-Muslim world’s much celebrated golden age of science and learning, then, the broader educational environment was institutionally plural rather than unitary. Moreover, although the madrasa had emerged as the core educational institution for the Islamic sciences, its subjects were not posed in opposition to the sciences of the world. More generally, and notwithstanding certain polemics that portray al-Ghazali as in incontrovertible opposition to Ibn Rushd, there appeared to be considerable overlap in their own and their followers’ views. The larger sociology of learning in the Medieval Muslim Middle East may also provide clues as to why the so-called Golden Age of Islamic learning did not continue into modern times in so accomplished a form as it did in the period from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries. It is important, however, to preface my comment with a qualification—a strong qualification. We now understand that as we move from the Middle Ages to the early modern period there was great regional variation in the evolution of Islamic education. In the eastern lands stretching from Anatolia and Persia to Central Asia and northern India, madrasas continued to show a more ecumenical attitude toward the worldly sciences. Thirteenth-century Iran developed ‘educational charitable complexes’, each of which included a hospital, Sufi convent, public baths and even astronomical observatories.16 Medicine 16 Arjomand, Said Amir. ‘The Law, Agency, and Policy in Medieval Islamic Society: Development of the Institutions of Learning from the Tenth to the Fifteenth Century’. Comparative Studies in Society and History 41.2 (1999).

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was also a regular part of madrasa curriculum in the eastern lands.17 In sixteenth-century India, madrasas were drawn into the service of training Mughal state officials, and these schools made regular use of books on logic, mathematics, literature, and philosophy.18 The scholars Mir Fatih Allah Shirazi (d. 1588) and Mulla Muhammad Nizam al-Din (d. 1748) played a leading role in institutionalizing the study of the worldly and rational sciences in northern India’s famed centres of learning, notwithstanding opposition from conservative ‘ulama who saw the disciplines as a threat to their own religious authority. Established in the eighteenth century to train judges (qadis), jurisconsults (muftis), and government officials, the celebrated Farangi Mahal school in Lucknow, India, also developed a curriculum dedicated to the rational as well as religious sciences.19 Clearly, when it came to balancing the religious and worldly sciences, much depended on the needs and attitudes of state officials, and their ability to create an intellectually pluralistic educational environment. All this is to say that, after the so-called Golden Age of Islamic learning, significant training and research in mathematics, medicine, and the natural sciences did continue in some parts of the Muslim world, especially in the arc of eastern lands stretching from Anatolia to northern India. However, two facts with regards to the sociology of Islamic science and education explain why the full palate of Islamic learning did not flourish everywhere, and why the worldly sciences did not experience as sustained a period of growth as had earlier been the case in Arab lands, and as was to be the case for religious and worldly learning in Western Europe’s fledgling universities. First, as a status group in the Weberian sense of the term, the social standing and training of ‘ulama in the Muslim Middle East were not as consistently anchored on demonstrating competitive excellence or further progress in the sciences of the world as was the case for university-based scholars in Western Europe. The reason for this seems clear. The great re-centring of madrasa learning that took place in the early centuries of the Muslim Middle Ages placed jurisprudence at the core of the madrasa curriculum and the Islamic sciences (‘ulum al-din); it also identified custodianship of this rich religious tradition as the first duty of the ‘ulama. Rulers and administrators in the Ottoman and Mughal lands pressed some among 17 Mottahedeh, Roy. ‘The Transmission of Learning: The Role of the Islamic Northeast’. Madrasa: la transmission du savoir dans le monde musulman (1997), p. 61. 18 Sikand, Yoginder. Bastions of the Believers: Madrasa and Islamic Education in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press 2005, p. 42. 19 Robinson, Francis. The ‘Ulama of Farangi Mahall and Islamic Culture in South Asia. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 46.

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their madrasa-based allies to promote a curriculum that made space for the sciences of the world in addition to those of revelation. However, it is striking that this was not everywhere the case, and where madrasas spread into newly Islamized territories like West Africa or Southeast Asia, the variety that most consistently took root was the institution associated with training in the Islamic sciences in sensu stricto rather than the more intellectually ecumenical madrasa of the Mughals, the Ottomans, or the Arabo-Persian Golden Age.20 This is to say that the sine qua non of madrasa learning was the Islamic sciences, with jurisprudence at their centre. At least after the late medieval period, the sciences of the world were added to the madrasa menu only where additional social and political inducements prevailed. A second point follows from this. This broader ecology of Islamic learning—and especially the identification of ‘ulama as custodians of a sacred knowledge pivotal to Muslims’ covenant with God—explains why in times of political chaos the ‘ulama concentrated their efforts on preserving and transmitting the Islamic sciences rather than a broader palate of scholarly learning. The civilizational havoc wrought by the Mongols, especially after the conquest of Baghdad in 1258, offers an example of just such a necessary effort at civilizational prioritization. After seizing Baghdad, the Mongol armies destroyed that Abbasid city’s library, one of the intellectual wonders of the medieval world. They also destroyed Baghdad’s House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma), an intellectual centre founded by the Caliph Harun al-Rashid (d. 809) that had played a major role in the translation movement of the ninth to eleventh centuries. The destruction of Baghdad shattered the plural educational environment so critical to Middle East Islam’s Golden age, and also reinforced the ‘default’ centring of Middle Eastern madrasas on the Islamic sciences rather than a broader curricular menu. Much later in history, a not dissimilar process may have narrowed the educational legacies of Mughal India. Faced with the political ravages of European colonialism, northern India too experienced pressures to safeguard and prioritize the Islamic sciences over the sciences of the world. During the first centuries of contact with Europeans, Indian Muslim scholars showed a keen interest in Western philosophy and science. However, in the eighteenth century, with the growing European threat, calls for a return to ‘true’ Islam as distinct from the rational sciences began to be heard and resonated broadly. Here again, however, the process reflected a longstanding prioritization in the madrasa tradition that, where Islamic society and 20 Hefner, Robert W. Making Modern Muslims: The Politics of Islamic Education in Southeast Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2009.

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learning are threatened, the ‘ulama must spare no cost to maintain the religious sciences. Unfortunately for the long-term ecology of Islamic learning, there was no comparably pan-Islamic community of scholars committed to the preservation and defence of the sciences of the world. However complex the larger economy of learning in the pre-modern Muslim world, the outcome was particularly ill-timed in light of the growing threat of Western imperialism. In the Golden Age of Islamic learning, libraries, study circles, and even some madrasas had preserved ancient Greek treatises in philosophy and natural science lost to Western Europeans.21 In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholars in Muslim Spain and Sicily translated many of these books into Latin. The dissemination of these works in Christian Europe sparked a revival of the natural sciences and philosophy; soon these subjects were given pride of place in Europe’s newly-established universities.22 Although studied by generations of Arabs, Persians, Turks, and Indians, works in philosophy and natural science did not enjoy a comparable breadth of institutional support in the madrasa curriculum. In some Muslim territories, rulers, hospitals, and libraries nurtured a rich and plural commitment to the worldly sciences. However, the fact that such learning was not put on institutional par with the religious sciences in the madrasa curriculum meant that in times of social turmoil the safeguarding of the sciences of the world was at a disadvantage relative to the religious sciences. In many parts of the world, then, Muslim educators would have to wait until the upheavals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to bring mathematics, natural science, history, and medicine back to the heart of Islamic learning.

Modern Learning and Intellectual Renewal From the late medieval period to the nineteenth century, Islamic education was not at all unchanging. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, major movements of educational reform arose in Central Asia, Sumatra and, most significantly, northern India. The reformists shared a common emphasis on returning to the pristine authenticity of the Qur’an and Hadith 21 Makdisi, George. The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981, pp. 53, 63, 70. 22 Lindberg, David C. The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992.

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and emphasizing independent religious reasoning (ijtihad) rather than conformity to the achievements of Islam’s classical scholars. It is important to note, however, that these reforms centred on the question of how to conduct the Islamic sciences rather than on the question of whether to draw sciences of the world back into the Islamic school curriculum. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, however, the looming threat of Western colonialism served to re-ignite debate over the place of the sciences of the world in Islamic learning. By the end of the eighteenth century, the Ottoman empire—once the most powerful state in the Mediterranean and European area—had begun to wane relative to its European rivals. In reflecting on the reasons for the European advantage, Ottoman officials concluded that one key was the European emphasis on technical and non-religious education. In a pattern of defensive educational reform seen a few years later in Egypt and Iran, Ottoman officials responded with initiatives intended to narrow the gap with the West.23 The state established naval (1773) and military engineering (1793) academies, recruiting Western Europeans as instructors. In the next century, Ottoman officials established a school of medicine (1827), a military academy (1834) and schools of civil administration (1859) and law (1878). All of these institutions used Western rather than Islamic schools as their model, at times even importing European instructors. The Ottoman Education Regulation of 1869, which provided guidelines for programmes of mass education, was based on a report drafted a few years earlier for Ottoman authorities by the French Ministry of Education. State officials concluded that it was not wise to launch the educational reforms in the empire’s madrasas; instead, they decided to create a separate educational stream based on what they deemed positive science. The state’s dualist disposition on school reform was reinforced by the fact that, in the early decades of the nineteenth century, the ulama had rebuffed proposals for reform made by the Ministry of Education. The relationship between the new Ottoman schools and state-regulated madrasas, however, did not remain entirely dualistic. Tensions between the Ottomans and Western powers reached a new height in the f inal decades of the nineteenth century, and Sultan Abdülhamid II (r. 1876–1909) responded to the development by launching educational programmes 23 Fortna, Benjamin C. Imperial Classroom: Islam, the State, and Education in the Late Ottoman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 12–15; a similar defensive reform occurred in Qajar Iran, see Ringer, Monica M. Education, Religion, and the Discourse of Cultural Reform in Qajar Iran. Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 2001, p. 7.

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that combined European pedagogy with heightened instruction on Islam and Ottoman history. These programmes proved popular with Ottoman ulama.24 In the waning years of the empire, state officials overcame their earlier hesitation and also intervened in the religious school sector. In 1900, the authorities opened a western-style Faculty of Theology in Istanbul. In 1908, they created a teachers college for training madrasa instructors. In 1910, state officials introduced mathematics, history, and literature into madrasa curricula.25 By this time, however, the empire’s academies had also brought a generation of young modernist Ottomans into existence who were impatient with the slow pace of madrasa reform. The Ottoman defeat in World War I, and the subsequent occupation of large parts of Anatolia by Allied forces, strengthened the political elite’s resolve to reform the entire school system, including its Islamic wing. Not long after the declaration of the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923, Mustafa Kemal, the Republic’s founder and first president (1923–1938), abolished all but eight of Turkey’s madrasas, replacing them with a School of Theology and thirty-three schools for training religious imams and preachers. Over the next few years, Kemal’s administration eliminated religious instruction entirely from public education, reversing most of Abdülhamid’s reforms. After Kemal’s death in 1938, the state reintroduced religious education into its schools, and higher religious education under state supervision was also allowed. Aside from elementary instruction in Qur’anic recitation, private religious education remained tightly controlled. Since the 1980s, however, the assertive secularity of the early Kemalist period has given way to state-sponsored religious education, premised on a distinctive ‘Turkish Islamic synthesis’.26 Although unique in some respects, the experience of the Ottoman Empire and Republican Turkey illustrates the breadth of the challenge faced by modern Islamic educators in other lands. No country undertook étatizing reforms as radical as those of Republican Turkey, and none was as secularizing in its ambitions. Nonetheless, across the expanse of the Muslim world, state officials faced a growing Western challenge, and, as with Ottoman rulers, many concluded that a proper response to it required new programmes of technical, scientific, and professional education. 24 Fortna, Benjamin C. Imperial Classroom: Islam, the State, and Education in the Late Ottoman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 241. 25 Jacob, Xavier. ‘L’enseignement religieux en Turquie de la f in de l’Empire Ottoman a nos jours’. Madrasa: La transmission du savoir dans le monde musulman. Pp. 111–113. 26 Kaplan, Sam. The Pedagogical State: Education and the Politics of National Culture in Post-1980 Turkey. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006, pp. 75–78.

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The precise impact of colonial rule varied by country, however, in a manner that sometimes worked to the benef it of Muslim educational reformists. In some countries particularly, colonial rule stimulated new, mass-based movements for Islamic learning and piety. In the absence of a Muslim-controlled state, Muslim educators often concluded that the best way to defend Islam was by going public with religious education, rather than concentrating school resources on the training of a scholarly elite. Muslim intellectuals and educators remained divided, however, on the question of what curriculum was most appropriate for the new religious education. The key point of disagreement pitted educators’ intent on bringing science, mathematics, and history into the curriculum against those who wished to maintain a primary focus on the religious sciences. In Morocco, for example, Muslim educators’ encounter with European schooling at first brought about a small renaissance in Islamic learning.27 Mathematics, engineering, and astronomy were reintroduced into Islamic curricula, and youths from religious families were dispatched to Europe for study. Eventually, however, the Islamic system began to decline. New French restrictions on the charitable endowments that financed school operations accelerated the slide, as did the colonial government’s seizure of control over the heretofore independent mosque universities. However, the populace’s turn from Islamic schooling also reflected a growing perception among elite Moroccans that European-style education offered better prospects for status and economic mobility than did Islamic schooling. Mosque universities eventually became the preferred educational path only for the rural poor and traditionalists.28 In British India, the Muslim elite and middle classes were more ambivalent as to the benefits of European-style education. Some educators called for the incorporation of mathematics, science and history into the madrasa curriculum, but others insisted that, in the absence of a Muslim-led state, madrasas should become the frontline of combat against European assaults on Islamic culture. After the anti-colonial rebellion of 1857, the rivalry among different school movements intensified.29 Although no group ever succeeded at winning all of the public to its side, the varied school networks created the largest movement for mass Islamic education the world had ever seen. 27 Eickelman, Dale F. Knowledge and Power in Morocco: The Education of a Twentieth-century Notable. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992, pp. 3–10, 80–82. 28 Ibid., p. 163. 29 Metcalf, Barbara Daly. Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband 1860–1900. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982, pp. 8–25; Zaman, Muhammad Qasim. The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002, pp. 11–13.

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All of India’s school movements emphasized the importance of implementing Islamic law in personal life. All, too, agreed on the need to develop new forms of instruction and school administration. However, the main school movements differed on their attitude toward Western learning and the sciences of the world. Some educators, like the famous modernist Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–1898), emphasized the need to incorporate European arts, sciences, and even etiquette into Muslim education.30 Others, like the partisans of the Ahl-i Hadith movement, insisted that the only way forward was through study the Qur’an and traditions of the Prophet so as to implement God’s law without any innovation or modernist deviation. Still other educators, like those at the celebrated Farangi Mahal madrasa, opted for a professional mix, training Islamic judges for service in the British-founded ‘Anglo-Mohammadan’ courts.31 It was the famed madrasa at Deoband in the Saharanpur district of the United Provinces, founded in 1867, that eventually became the most influential of the subcontinent’s Islamic school movements. Although their curricula did not highlight subjects other than the Islamic sciences, Deobandi leaders never condemned the study of rational sciences of the world outright.32 The Western innovations about which the Deobandis were most enthusiastic, however, were not curricular but administrative. The first Deobandi school had a library, classrooms, a paid professional staff and a fixed curriculum with regular examinations. Rather than relying on charitable trusts, the school depended for its finances on contributions from the general Muslim population, all of which were carefully recorded and published to allow public scrutiny.33 Deobandi innovations in matters of administration were not matched, however, by an equal openness on curricular matters. Still, today in independent India, the mother school at Deoband restricts instruction in geography, science, history, and English to the first five grades.34 By comparison with their Indian subcontinent counterparts, Southeast Asia’s madrasas and Islamic schools proved far more open to curricular 30 Metcalf, Barbara Daly. Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband 1860–1900. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982, pp. 317–335. 31 Sikand, Yoginder. Bastions of the Believers: Madrasa and Islamic Education in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press 2005, p. 46. 32 Ibid., p. 75. 33 Metcalf, Barbara Daly. Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband 1860–1900. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982, p. 93–97. 34 Sikand, Yoginder. Bastions of the Believers: Madrasa and Islamic Education in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 104–106.

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and organizational reforms. In the final years of the nineteenth century, the Dutch put an end to independent Muslim polities in the Indonesian archipelago. But the colonial pacification had the unintended consequence of facilitating a rapid expansion of residential madrasas (known locally as pesantren or pondok pesantren) into many only lightly Islamized portions of the archipelago’s interiors. These schools led the way in a new wave of Islamization that spread across the archipelago in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.35 Unlike India, with its long history of higher education, prior to the nineteenth century, Indonesia was largely lacking in institutions of higher Islamic learning. Advanced study was possible only intermittently, typically in study circles organized at royal courts. The dearth of higher religious education ended in the late nineteenth century, with the growth of large and well-staffed boarding schools and the incorporation of advanced religious study into their curriculum.36 As in India, the new emphasis on mass religious education in Indonesia did not produce a consensus on how to balance the Islamic sciences with the sciences of the world, but the long-term trend was among the boldest in the Muslim world. The first decades of the twentieth century witnessed growing competition among two groups of rival Muslim educators, known locally as the ‘old group’ (kaum tua) traditionalists and the ‘new group’ (kaum muda) modernists. The two groups disagreed on questions of law, independent religious reasoning, and a host of other matters, but their views were less starkly oppositional on questions of educational reform. Although a few strongholds of traditionalist learning resisted the trend, both the old group and new group scholars began to incorporate general education into their school programmes. By the 1950s, the best among the traditionalist and modernist Muslim schools included mathematics, science, history, and European languages in their school programmes. In these and other Muslim lands, trends in Islamic education in the postcolonial period were also shaped by the rise of state-sponsored general or ‘secular’ education. For nationalist leaders in most of the newly independent Muslim lands, the reform of Islamic education was a low priority. The primary challenge for these officials was to build a modern nation and a shared national culture, and the primary instrument in this effort was the public 35 Dhofier, Zamakhsyari. The Pesantren Tradition: The Role of the Kyai in the Maintenance of Traditional Islam in Java. Monograph Series Press, Program for Southeast Asian Studies, Arizona State University, 1999. 36 Van Bruinessen, Martin. ‘Shari’a Court, Tarekat and Pesantren: Religious Institutions in the Banten Sultanate’. Archipel 50.1 (1995).

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school. State schools also challenged classical styles of Islamic learning and created a new class of Muslim intellectuals apart from religious scholars. State-sponsored education soon initiated an even broader revolution in popular learning and intellectualism. In 1800, literacy rates across most of the Muslim world hovered around 1–2 per cent of the population. By 1960, just a few years into national independence in most countries, state-sponsored education had changed this entirely. The percentage of primary-age youths enrolled in school (for both sexes) had soared to 47% of the population in Bangladesh, 66% in Egypt, 71% in Indonesia, 65% in Iran, 30% in Pakistan, 12% in Saudi Arabia, and 75% in Turkey. By 1990, the proportion of the school age population in elementary school had risen further, to 70% or higher in all countries, with the notable exception of Pakistan (37%). In many countries, the education of young girls still lagged behind that of boys, but here too there was progress. In 1960, the percentage of girls enrolled in primary school was 26% in Bangladesh, 52% in Egypt, 58% in Indonesia, 27% in Iran, 13% in Pakistan, 2% in Saudi Arabia, and 58% in Turkey. By 1990, the rates of female participation in primary school education were 68% in Bangladesh, 90% in Egypt, near-100% in Indonesia, Iran, and Turkey, and 72% in Saudi Arabia. Pakistan was the outlier, with just 26% of its school-age girls enrolled in primary school.37 In the eyes of some Western and secular nationalist observers in these early years, state-sponsored schooling seemed to foretell the inevitable secularization of Muslim schooling and society. In many Muslim-majority countries, enrolments in the private Islamic school sector did decline in the 1950s and 1960s, as parents concluded that state schools offered their children a better path to employment. However, the situation changed in the 1970s and 1980s as most of these same countries experienced a powerful Islamic resurgence. As the revival gained momentum, it helped to catalyse three broader changes in the landscape of Islamic learning, all of which are relevant for understanding Islamic education today. First, governments in most Muslim-majority societies heightened their investment in religious education in a not always successful effort to direct the resurgence’s energies away from Islamist and anti-state politics. Second, a growing number of Islamic schools responded to Muslim parents’ demand that their children receive vocational or general educational skills by incorporating instruction in these subjects into Islamic schools. Parental- and student-demand for vocational as well as religious learning has been one of the hallmarks of 37 Brown, L. Carl. Religion and State: The Muslim Approach to Politics. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001, pp. 127–129.

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educational change in most Muslim lands today. Third, even as the state increased its involvement in religious education, growing numbers of pious youth opted to pursue their religious learning in study circles and social movements apart from established educational institutions. The consequences of these changes in Islamic education have varied in different Muslim-majority countries. In nations like Singapore, Indonesia, and Turkey, among others, the state has partnered with Muslim educators to reshape religious education in a manner responsive to modern economic and political imperatives, including the task of introducing Muslim youth to notions of national citizenship and market participation. In Pakistan, however, numerous studies have shown that a substantial number of Muslim educators are resistant to appeals that their curriculum include professional, technical, and worldly learning. No less significant, the religious education compulsory in state schools since the 1950s actually reinforces discriminatory attitudes toward non-Muslims, India, and women. Indonesian and Singapore educators, by contrast, have worked to promote a citizen education and an Islamic ethics in tune with the modernizing and multicultural nature of these societies. For example, in the years since the overthrow of the authoritarian Suharto regime in May 1998, educators at the Hidayatullah State Islamic University in Jakarta have led the way in the development of a curriculum component in democratic and civic education that is one of the most progressive in the Muslim world.38 During these same years, and especially since the 1990s, the fragmentation of religious authority in Muslim societies has also had serious implications for Islamic learning and intellectualism. The breakdown and pluralization of religious authority has encouraged some Muslim youth to reject established authorities and re-discover and reorient their faith in small, self-selected study circles. Since the late 1990s, these sectarian currents have been reinforced by the rise of the Internet and social media, both of which have allowed small networks of revolutionary non-conformists to coordinate their learning and political activities.39 Inevitably, some among these self-educated revivalists reach conclusions and develop organizations opposed to the religious establishment, as well as new currents of Islamic intellectualism. 38 Jackson, Elisabeth. ‘Crafting a New Democracy: Civic Education in Indonesian Islamic Universities’. Muslim Education in the 21st Century. London: Routledge, 2014, pp. 41–54. Not all educational institutions in Southeast Asia have been so plurality-accommodating. For a rich study of one less propitious example from southern Thailand, see Liow, Joseph Chinyong. Islam, Education and Reform in Southern Thailand: Tradition and Transformation. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009. 39 Mandaville, Peter. Global Political Islam. London: Routledge, 2010.

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Whither Islamic Intellectualism? The changes wrought in Islamic education and intellectualism over the past century show the clear imprint of global forces that have affected all modern peoples: Western colonialism, developmental states, modern science and capitalism, mass education, and the growing aspiration among women for higher education. The reforms made to Islamic education over this same period, however, also show the imprint of path-dependent Muslim concerns. Central among these have been two questions: first, how to be a Muslim in a world significantly structured by other, non-Islamic forces, and, second, how to reconcile Islamic learning and piety with excellence in the sciences of the world. From early on in the modern era, the response Muslim educators devised to the first of these two challenges involved directing education toward, not just the training of scholarly elites, but the creation of a fellowship of believers capable of implementing God’s law in their personal lives and communities. There was no Church or papacy to legislate this process, and the plural nature of Islamic authority guaranteed that there was also no master plan for rebuilding Islamic education. Notwithstanding this fact, a clear and important trend in Islamic learning and intellectualism has emerged, one that answers the second of the above questions. A few radicals and ultra-traditionalists aside, modern Muslim educators and intellectuals have struggled to rediscover and revive the traditions of empirical and rational inquiry for which Islamic civilization was renowned centuries earlier. This does not mean that the religious sciences are being marginalized; on the contrary, scholarship and debate on their varied forms and meanings remain as vigorous as ever. The revival of a Muslim intellectualism instead centres on the effort to build educational institutions that can accommodate the sciences of the world as well as the revealed sciences. This is not merely a curricular reform; it requires a profound adjustment in educational epistemology. From the perspective of the longue durée of Muslim civilization, the effort to build new traditions of learning recalls the remarkable engagement of Muslim scholars with Greek philosophy and natural science a thousand years ago. Science and philosophy in Muslim lands were once the most brilliant in all of Eurasia. By the fifteenth century, however, their lustre in the Arab heartland had faded, although—contrary to the claims of some historians of Islamic learning—it was not by any means exhausted. Rather than being the result of the closure of the doors of independent reasoning (ijtihad) or the ascendant hegemony of Ash’aite theology in madrasa circles,

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as is sometimes claimed, the slackening of Islamic learning had more to do with the declining plurality of the Arab world’s educational landscape, as was most vividly expressed in the disappearance of the great libraries, hospitals, and Houses of Wisdom in which the sciences of the world had once been studied. The declining plurality of the educational landscape had more to do with the political havoc wreaked by the Mongol sacking of Baghdad and other calamities than it did some closure of the madrasa mind. Indirectly, however, the larger educational ecology of which madrasas were part did influence this downward trend. In Arab lands, the falsafa tradition of philosophy and natural science had been marginalized in the madrasa curriculum from the late medieval period on, while jurisprudence was placed at the curricular centre. As long as libraries, hospitals, and Houses of Wisdom continued their exploration of the sciences of the world, this division of intellectual labours did not undercut the Arab world’s remarkable intellectualism. Faced with serious military threats to Islamic authority and knowledge, however, Muslim educators in the Arab lands responded by prioritizing the guardianship and transmission of the Islamic sciences over the sciences of the world. However understandable this prioritization, the long-term intellectual effect of this development was serious: the plural landscape of higher learning once characteristic of the Arab Middle East disappeared, leaving Muslim lands with greatly diminished resources for cultivating the sciences of the world. Although the eastern lands from Anatolia to India retained an impressive measure of educational plurality much longer, this region too eventually declined. An invasive Western imperialism hastened the process, as religious scholars responded to the colonization of their society by prioritizing the custodianship and transmission of divine knowledge over all other. Notwithstanding these developments, and looking back over the past half century, a central trend now seems clear. Muslim learning and intellectualism are today in the midst of a transformation as momentous as that they experienced a thousand years ago, during Muslim civilization’s brilliant encounter with Greek philosophy, medicine, and natural science. One striking index of this new intellectual ecumenism can be seen, not just in Islamic education, but in public debates over the most crucial of the Islamic moral sciences, jurisprudence ( fiqh). To cite one example, in recent years the UK-based intellectual, Tariq Ramadan, has called for a ‘radical reform’ of Islamic law and ethics, arguing that an Islamic ethics capable of meeting the challenges of the modern age will be impossible without the cooperation as equals of ulama an-nusus (‘text scholars’) with ulama al-waqi’ (‘context scholars’). In Ramadan’s model, the ulama al-waqi’ are

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primarily scholars working in the natural and social sciences. They are as important as scholars of the Islamic sciences, Ramadan explains, because ‘the world, its laws, and areas of specialized knowledge not only shed light on scriptural sources but also constitute a source of law on their own’. 40 Ramadan’s views are not unique to him, nor relevant just to matters of Islamic law. His appeal for an integration of knowledge of the law with the sciences of nature and society is echoed by scholars like Muhammad Khalid Masud, Ebrahim Moosa, Kecia Ali, Khaled Abou El Fadl, and many others. Moreover, as I have suggested in this chapter, the appeal is not new: rather, it recalls the efforts of great Islamic philosophers like Ibn Rushd or late nineteenth-century pioneers of educational reform like Muhammad Abduh. 41 All these authors agree that an ethical life consistent with God’s commands is not merely a matter of conformity to a fixed and finished body of legal rules (ahkam). Rather, the struggle for the good requires that believers grasp the higher aims of the law (maqasid al-shari`a) and then go one step further: develop the empirical knowledge of society and nature required to solve ethical problems in an empirically effective manner. 42 As Ramadan so eloquently argues, moral and intellectual progress will not be possible without this integration of the sciences of the world into the sciences of revelation. We cannot say for certain what the long-term outcome of appeals like those of Ramadan, Masud, Moosa, and other renewalists will be. But the array of forces aligning in support of continuing intellectual renewal— women’s education, the growth of an educated middle class, and the powerful demonstration effects of scientif ic and intellectual learning in other parts of the world—suggest that, notwithstanding the damage done by ISIS and other apocalyptic nihilists, the Muslim progress toward intellectual renewal will continue. As it does, Muslim societies will not recapitulate some imagined Western ‘liberal’ modernity; they will strike their own balance between intellectual inquiry, religious authority, and cultural plurality. The balance will also differ as much or even more among 40 Ramadan, Tariq. Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 83. 41 See Freamon, Bernard. ‘The Emergence of a New Qur’anic Hermeneutic: The Role and Impact of Universities in West and East’ In: Bearman, Peri, Bernard G. Weiss, Wolfhart Heinrichs, eds., The Law Applied: Contextualizing the Islamic Shari’a. I.B. Tauris, 2008, p. 344. 42 On this theme, see Auda, Jasser. Maqasid al-Shariah as Philosophy of Islamic Law: A Systems Approach. International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), 2008; and, on the same issue, see Jackson, Sherman A. ‘Literalism, Empiricism, and Induction: Apprehending and Concretizing Islamic Law’s Maqasid al-Shari’ah in the Modern World’. Mich. St. L. Rev. (2006).

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individual Muslim societies as between these and the West. Although the future of the Muslim world will vary by region, then, it will inevitably involve growing numbers of Muslim believers committed to an integrated and plural regimen of learning. That intellectual plurality will be vital if there is to be, as I believe there will be, a new Golden Age of Muslim intellectualism, politics, and civility.

Bibliography Arjomand, Said Amir. ‘The Law, Agency, and Policy in Medieval Islamic Society: Development of the Institutions of Learning from the Tenth to the Fifteenth Century’. Comparative Studies in Society and History 41.2 (1999): 263–293. Auda, Jasser. Maqasid al-Shariah as Philosophy of Islamic Law: A Systems Approach. London: International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), 2008. Bearman, Peri. Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Leiden: Brill, 1994. Bearman, Peri et al. The Law Applied: Contextualizing the Islamic Shari`a. London: I.B. Tauris, 2008. Berkey, Jonathan Porter. The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo: A Social History of Islamic Education. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014. Brown, L. Carl. Religion and State: The Muslim Approach to Politics. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. Dhofier, Zamakhsyari. The Pesantren Tradition: The Role of the Kyai in the Maintenance of Traditional Islam in Java. Phoenix: Monograph Series Press, Program for Southeast Asian Studies, Arizona State University, 1999. Eickelman, Dale F. Knowledge and Power in Morocco: The Education of a Twentiethcentury Notable. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. Fakhry, Majid. A History of Islamic Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Fortna, Benjamin C. Imperial Classroom: Islam, the State, and Education in the Late Ottoman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Gaborieau, Marc, and Nicole Grandin. Madrasa: La transmission du savoir dans le Monde Musulman. Paris: Arguments Publishers, 1997. Griffel, Frank. Al-Ghazali’s Philosophical Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Gutas, Dimitri. Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early’ Abbasaid Society (2nd-4th/5th-10th c.). London: Routledge, 2012. Hefner, Robert W. Making Modern Muslims: The Politics of Islamic Education in Southeast Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2009.

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Hoexter, Miriam, Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt, and Nehemia Levtzion, eds. The Public Sphere in Muslim Societies. Albany: SUNY Press, 2002. Huff, Toby E. The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Hussain, Azhar, Aḥmad Salīm, and Arif Naveed. Connecting the Dots: Education and Religious Discrimination in Pakistan: A Study of Public Schools and Madrassas. Washington DC: United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, 2011. International Crisis Group, ‘Pakistan: Madrasas, Extremism and the Military’, Asia Report, no. 36. Islamabad & Brussels: ICG, 2002. International Crisis Group, ‘Jemaah Islamiyah in South East Asia: Damaged but Still Dangerous’. Jakarta and Brussels: ICG, 2003. Jackson, Elisabeth. ‘Crafting a New Democracy: Civic Education in Indonesian Islamic Universities’. Muslim Education in the 21st Century. London: Routledge, 2014. Jackson, Sherman A. ‘Literalism, Empiricism, and Induction: Apprehending and Concretizing Islamic Law’s Maqasid al-Shari’ah in the Modern World’. Michigan State Law Review (2006): 1469–1482. Jacob, Xavier. ‘L’enseignement religieux en Turquie de la fin de l’Empire Ottoman a nos jours’. Madrasa: La transmission du savoir dans le monde musulman. Paris: Editions Arguments, 1997. Kaplan, Sam. The PedagogicalSstate: Education and the Politics of National Culture in Post-1980 Turkey. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006. Kashani, Maryam. Seekers of the Sacred Knowledge: Zaytuna College and the Education of American Muslims. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology. Austin: University of Texas, 2014. Lindberg, David C. The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992. Liow, Joseph Chinyong. Islam, Education and Reform in Southern Thailand: Tradition and Transformation. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009. Makdisi, George. The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981. Mandaville, Peter. Global Political Islam. New York and London: Routledge, 2010. Metcalf, Barbara Daly. Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband 1860–1900. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982. Moosa, Ebrahim. Ghazali and the Poetics of Imagination. Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. Mottahedeh, Roy. ‘The Transmission of Learning: The Role of the Islamic Northeast’. Madrasa: la transmission du savoir dans le monde musulman (1997).

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Ramadan, Tariq. Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Ringer, Monica M. Education, Religion, and the Discourse of Cultural Reform in Qajar Iran. Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 2001. Robinson, Francis. The ‘Ulama of Farangi Mahall and Islamic Culture in South Asia. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001. Rosenthal, Franz. Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2007. Shea, Nona, and Ali Al-Ahmed. ‘Saudi Arabia’s Curriculum of Intolerence’. Center for Religious Freedom, Freedom House. (2008). Sikand, Yoginder. Bastions of the Believers: Madrasa and Islamic Education in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press 2005. Tan, Charlene. Islamic Education and Indoctrination: The Case in Indonesia. New York and London: Routledge, 2011. Van Bruinessen, Martin. ‘Shari’a Court, Tarekat and Pesantren: Religious Institutions in the Banten Sultanate’. Archipel 50.1 (1995): 165–200. Zaman, Muhammad Qasim. The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of change. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002.

About the author Robert W. Hefner is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs (CURA) at Boston University.

5.

The Function of Myths in the Justification of Muslim Extremism Syed Farid Alatas

Abstract This chapter argues that the prevalence of certain myths in Islamic tradition predispose some Muslims into adopting exclusivist ideas that define their religious orientations in a manner that can be viewed sociologically and even theologically as extremist. By taking the examples of the alleged genocide of the Bani Qurayza Jewish tribe by Prophet Muhammad and the alleged link between a Yemeni Jew to the founding of Shiite Islam, the chapter shows that these myths have led to justification of anti-Semitism, violence against non-Muslims, and sectarianism in the Muslim World. The chapter concludes by calling for a more critical reading of Islamic tradition. Keywords: Muslim extremism; myths in Islam; Islamic tradition

Introduction It is known that the phenomenon of religious extremism has a myriad of causes, among them being psychological and social factors. Psychological factors may include low self-esteem and a sense of humiliation, while social factors may include a lack of social integration or the dominance of exclusivist orientations. Without downplaying the complexity of the phenomenon of religious extremism and the salience of the various psychological and sociological factors that have been cited by researchers in the f ield, this chapter focuses on a specif ic social cause. This has to do with the role of myths in the justification of an extremist orientation among believers. I argue that the prevalence of certain myths in Islamic tradition predispose Muslims into adopting exclusivist ideas that define

Osman, M.N.M. Pathways to Contemporary Islam: New Trends in Critical Engagement. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. doi: 10.5117/9789462987593_ch05

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their religious orientations in a manner that can be viewed sociologically and even theologically as extremist. This chapter proceeds as follows. In the next section I briefly discuss the meaning of myths as used in this study. Myths can be seen as ideas that function within an ideological or utopian orientation to preserve or advance the interests of a particular group. This is followed by an account of one particular myth that has an important place in Islamic tradition. This is the story of the killing of the men of the Medinan Jewish tribe, the Banu Qurayza. I suggest that this story is indeed a myth that functions to maintain a certain attitude of Muslims towards Jews. This attitude can be def ined as extremist to the extent that it is an exclusivist one. I then turn to a critique of the story of the killing of the Banu Qurayza, following in broad terms, the method of Ibn Khaldun. I conclude with some remarks on the dangers that myths pose to contemporary Muslim societies.

Myths Myths are narratives or stories that are often intertwined with historical facts but at the same time lack scientific or rational explanations. A myth may be about a person, group, or event and may also involve demigods or deities and other supernatural beings. There are also many types of myths such as classic, religious, and modern myths. Campbell classifies myths according to their functions. He discusses the mystical, cosmological, sociological, and pedagogical functions of myth. The mystical function draws people’s attention to the mystery and wonder of the creation of the universe. The cosmological myth functions to provide a comprehensive explanation of the universe. The sociological myth functions to cause people to live according to ethics and norms such that social life within a particular social order is maintained. The pedagogical function of myths is to direct people to live according to the aims and ideals of the social group that they belong to.1 Unlike stories such as those contained in parables or fiction, myths are believed to be true by groups that are socialized in the communities in which the myths originated. The function of myths can also be understood in terms of their being ‘narrative and entertaining’, ‘operative, iterative, and validatory’, or ‘speculative and 1 Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. San Francisco: New World Library, 2008.; Campbell, Joseph, and Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth. New York: Anchor, 2011.

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explanatory’.2 Myths that belong to the second type function to glorify or vilify certain individuals or groups. My concern in this study is with the second function of myths; that is, stories that are operative, iterative, and validatory. These are myths because they are widely held beliefs while being at the same time untrue or false. Such myths have the sociological function of charting a certain way of life and define the relations between different groups of people. They are validatory in that they both glorify and denigrate persons or groups. For the purpose of this study, therefore, a myth can be said to be, following Tudor ‘an interpretation of what the myth-maker (rightly or wrongly) takes to be hard fact. It is a device men adopt in order to come to grips with reality; and we can tell that a given account is a myth, not by the amount of truth it contains, but by the fact that it is believed to be true and, above all, by the dramatic form into which it is cast’.3 Furthermore, such myths can be said to be integral to orientations that aim to ‘give a true account of a set of past, present or predicted political events and which is accepted as valid in its essentials by a social group’. 4 It is the claim of this chapter that an example of such a myth is that of the killing of the Banu Qurayza, an event that is said to have taken place in Islamic tradition during the time of the Prophet Muhammad in Medina in the fifth year of the Hijrah. The story has been used by contemporary Muslims especially amongst extremist groups to justify violence. For example, in a video posted on the Internet on 2 November 2014, a Russian fighter for the Islamic State (IS) by the name of Abu Muhammad Ar-Rusi, while calling on Muslims to join ISIS, said: You accuse us of the mass killing of Muslims, saying that we are bloodshedding murderers. Didn’t the Prophet Muhammad and his companions shed blood? The Messenger of Allah killed 700 people in a single battle.5

This is undoubtedly a reference to the killing of the Banu Qurayza. Here it is being used as a justification to make the blood of Jews and other infidels 2 Kirk, Geoffrey Stephen, G. S. Kirk, and G. S. Kirk. Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures. Cambridge: CUP Archive, 1970, p. 253. 3 Tudor, Henry. Political Myth. London: Macmillan International Higher Education, 1972, p. 17. 4 Flood, Christopher. Political Myth. London: Routledge, 2013, p. 44. 5 ‘Russian ISIS Fighter Justifies ISIS Massacres: The Messenger of Allah Killed 700 People in a Single Battle’. The Middle East Media Research Institute, 2019, accessed on 8 May 2019 from https://www.memri.org/tv/russian-isis-fighter-justifies-isis-massacres-messenger-allah-killed700-people-single-battle.

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‘halal’. In other words, that taking guide from Prophet Muhammad, it is permissible within Islamic tradition for Muslims to kill Jews and other non-Muslims.

The Battle of the Trench and the Banu Qurayza Following is the account of the Battle of the Trench and the subsequent extermination of the men of the Banu Qurayza that had been handed down from generation to generation and which is for the most part unquestioningly accepted among Muslim scholars and in Muslim society in general. The Battle of the Trench or ghazwah al-khandaq was less of a battle and more of a siege of Medina that lasted 27 days. The siege was conducted by Arab and Jewish tribes from Mecca against Muslims of Medina and took place during the winter month of Shawwal in AH 5 or AD 627. The Meccans were represented by the tribes of the Quraish and Ghatafans and were said to have numbered around 10,000 men with 600 horses. The people of Medina defended themselves with about 3000 men. The Battle of the Trench was so called because of the trench that the Prophet Muhammad was advised to build to thwart the invading army of the Quraish. The Persian companion of the Prophet, Salman al-Farisi, drawing upon his experience of warfare in Persia, suggested that the Prophet build a trench around Medina in order to protect themselves.6 Indeed, the combination of the trench and the natural terrain was effective in preventing the Meccans from entering Medina. While the Meccans, separated from the Muslims by the trench, laid siege to Medina, the Prophet came to hear of the plan of the Banu Qurayza, a Jewish tribe of Medina, to violate their pact with the Muslims and fight on the side of Meccans. The Prophet sent a team of his companions to the Banu Qurayza to check if these allegations were true. The team ‘found them engaged in the worst of what had been reported about them. They slandered the Messenger of God and said, “There is no treaty between us and Muhammad and no covenant”’. The Prophet’s companions reported that the allegations were indeed true.7 Meanwhile, the siege eventually came to an end with very little fighting having taken place. Abu Sufyan bin Harb, the chief of the Quraish, said: 6 Al-Tabari, History of al-Tabari Vol. 8, The: The Victory of Islam: Muhammad at Medina AD 626–630/AH 5–8. Albany: SUNY Press, 2015, pp. 8–9. 7 Ibid., pp. 15–16.

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People of Quraysh, by God you are not in a place where one can stay. Horses and camels have perished. The Banu Qurayzah have broken their promise to us. Words hateful to us have come to us from them, and you can see what we have suffered from this wind. By God, no pot of ours stays put, no fire of ours keeps burning, and no tent of ours holds together. So, saddle up, for I am leaving!8

Although thousands of men were involved, the tactic of the trench resulted in saving many lives. In all, a total of six Muslims and three non-Muslims were killed in the battle.9 It is noteworthy that none of the six Muslims were killed by any man from the Banu Qurayza. Nevertheless, the standard accounts all carry an account of the treachery of the Banu Qurayza. The Prophet, having heard that the men of Qurayza had been persuaded by the Quraysh to attack the Medinans, started plans to move against them after the Battle of the Trench was concluded. Here is the off-quoted account in Islamic tradition of what happened. […] the Messenger of Allah returned to Al-Madinah in triumph and the people put down their weapons. While the Messenger of Allah was washing off the dust of battle in the house of Umm Salamah, may Allah be pleased with her, Jibril, upon him be peace, came to him wearing a turban of brocade, riding on a mule on which was a cloth of silk brocade. He said, ‘Have you put down your weapons, O Messenger of Allah’. He said, ‘Yes’. He said, ‘But the angels have not put down their weapons. I have just now come back from pursuing the people.’ Then he said: ‘Allah, may He be blessed and exalted, commands you to get up and go to Banu Quraiza. According to another report, ‘What a fighter you are! Have you put down your weapons.’ He said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘But we have not put down our weapons yet, get up and go to these people.’ He said: ‘Where?’ He said, ‘Banu Quraiza, for Allah has commanded me to shake them.’ So the Messenger of Allah got up immediately, and commanded the people to march towards Banu Quraiza, who were a few miles from Al-Madinah. This was after Salat Az-Zuhr. He said, No one among you should pray `Asr except at Banu Quraiza.10 8 Ibid., pp. 26–27. 9 Ibid., p. 18; Ishaq, Ibn. The Life of Muhammad. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, p. 469. 10 Kathir, Ibn. ‘The Campaign Against Banu Qurayzah’. In: Tafsir Ibn Kathir. Vol. VII. Riyadh: Darussalam, 2003, p. 667.

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Upon arriving at the stronghold of the Banu Qurayza, the Prophet besieged them for twenty-five days. During this time the chief of the Banu Qurayza, Ka’b bin Asad, asked them to consider one of three courses of action: ‘O Jews, you can see what has happened to you; I offer you three alternatives. Take which you please. (i) We will follow this man and accept him as true, for by God [Allāh] it has become plain to you that he is a prophet who has been sent and that it is he that you f ind mentioned in your scripture; and then your lives, your property, your women and children will be saved.’ They said, ‘We will never abandon the laws of the Torah and never change it for another.’ He said, ‘Then if you won’t accept this suggestion (ii) let us kill our wives and children and send men with their swords drawn to Muhammad and his companions leaving no encumbrances behind us, until God [Allāh] decides between us and Muhammad. If we perish, we perish, and we shall not leave children behind us to cause us anxiety. If we conquer we can acquire other wives and children.’ They said, ‘Should we kill these poor creatures? What would be the good of life when they are dead?’ ‘He said, ‘Then if you will not accept this suggestion (iii) tonight is the eve of the sabbath and it may well be that Muhammad and his companions will feel secure from us then, so come down, perhaps we can take Muhammad and his companions by surprise.’ They said, ‘Are we to profane our sabbath and do on the sabbath what those before us of whom you well know did and were turned into apes?’11

By the twenty-fifth day of the siege the Banu Qurayza surrendered to Prophet Muhammad unconditionally. There was still the matter of what was to be done to them. It was some members of the Banu al-Aus, an Arab tribe that was allied with the Banu Qurayza, who offered to mediate on behalf of the men of Qurayza. The Prophet asked the Aus if they would accept the pronouncement of a judgement on the Banu Qurayza by a member of the Aus. As they agreed, the Prophet proceeded to appointed Sa`d bin Mu`adh, who was incidentally wounded during the Battle of the Trench and was later to die from his wounds.12 Sa`d bin Mu`adh’s judgement was that the ‘men [of the Banu Qurayza] should be killed, the property divided, and the women and children taken as captives’.13 The general concurrence as far as 11 Ishaq, Ibn. The Life of Muhammad. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, pp. 461–462. 12 Ibid., p. 463. 13 Ibid., p. 464.

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the primary sources are concerned is that the Banu Qurayza themselves had surrendered to this judgement.14 Upon surrendering, the Banu Qurayza were brought to Medina and confined in the home of the daughter of al-Harith, a woman from the Banu al-Najjar, a tribe in Medina.15 The Prophet then had furrows or trenches dug at the market of Medina. After trenches were ready, the men of the Banu Qurayza were brought to the Prophet in batches and killed by beheading at the trenches. The beheading was performed by Ali and Zubayr.16 It is said that there were 600 to 900 men who were killed in this manner.17 After that, the Prophet had the property, wives, and children of the Banu Qurayza divided among the Muslims, he himself taking a fifth. Some of the captive women were taken to Najd and sold for horses and weapons.18 The above account is by no means corroborated by the Qur’an. The verse which is held to make reference to the Banu Qurayza says: And He brought those of the People of the Scripture who supported them down from their strongholds, and cast panic into their hearts. Some ye slew and ye made captive some. And He caused you to inherit their land and their houses and their wealth, and land ye have not trodden. Allah is able to do all things.19

The verse suggests that punishment was meted out to some of the Banu Qurayza but there is no hint of the scale of the punishment. The verse certainly does not indicate that the entire tribe of the Qurayza was annihilated for crimes possibly committed by a few among them. There is also the problem of sources. Walid N. Arafat questions the description of events provided by Ibn Ishaq in his Sirat Rasul Allah (The Life of Muhammad), the only source used by Tabari. It is Arafat’s view that the ‘attitude of scholars and historians to Ibn lshaq’s version of the story has been either one of complacency, sometimes mingled with uncertainty, or at least in two important cases, one of condemnation and outright rejection’. 14 Ahmad, Barakat. Muhammad and the Jews: A Re-examination. New Delhi: Vikas, 1979, pp. 77–78; Ishaq, Ibn. The Life of Muhammad. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 1989, pp. 29–30, 33. 15 Al-Tabari, The History of al-Tabari, p. 35; Ishaq, Ibn. The Life of Muhammad. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 1989, p. 464. 16 Al-Tabari, History of al-Tabari Vol. 8, The: The Victory of Islam: Muhammad at Medina AD 626–630/AH 5–8. Albany: SUNY Press, 2015, p. 41. 17 Ishaq, Ibn. The Life of Muhammad. Oxford, Oxford University Press: 1989, p. 466. 18 Ibid., p. 466. 19 Qur’an 33:26–27.

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Imam Malik ibn Anas had severely criticized Ibn Ishaq of being ‘a liar’ and one ‘who transmits his stories from the Jews’.20 It is also noteworthy that there are no primary Jewish sources that report this event. Barakat Ahmad suggests that it was not normal for the Jews to leave their misfortunes unrecorded. The Jews of Khaybar who were reported to have been expelled by the Caliph Umar had settled in Kufa. They were the descendants of the Banu al-Nadir and the children of the Banu Qurayza. The Gaonate (Talmudic academy) was not far from Kufa, and it would have been possible for Jewish scholars to have gathered information from them.21

The Absurdity of the Story of the Banu Qurayza Quite apart from the problem of sources, there is the larger problem of the absurdity of claims that the story is founded upon. To appreciate the problem of absurdity in historical writing, we refer to Ibn Khaldun. Ibn Khaldun had reproached the historians that came before him for adopting an approach that in fact did not enable them to distinguish truth from false reports. A proper method, he argued, would enable the scholar to distinguish truth from error on the grounds of the possibility (imkan) or absurdity (istihalah) of reports. He says: We must distinguish the conditions that attach themselves to the essence of civilization as required by its very nature; the things that are accidental (to civilization) and cannot be counted on; and the things that cannot possibly attach themselves to it. If we do that, we shall have a normative method for distinguishing right from wrong and truth from falsehood in historical information by means of a logical demonstration that admits of no doubts. Then whenever we hear about certain conditions occurring in civilization, we shall know what to accept and what to declare spurious. We shall have a sound yardstick with the help of which historians may find the path of truth and correctness where their reports are concerned.22 20 Arafat, W. N. ‘New Light on the Story of Banū Qurayẓa and the Jews of Medina.’ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 108.2 (1976). 21 Ahmad, Barakat. Muhammad and the Jews: A Re-examination. New Delhi: Vikas, 1979, p. 24. See also Friedlaender, Israel. ‘The Jews of Arabia and the Gaonate’. The Jewish Quarterly Review 1.2 (1910). 22 Khaldun, Ibn. ‘Muqaddimah’. Trans. Franz Rosenthal. Edited and abridged by NJ. Dawood. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969, 5–9.

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The problem with traditional historians was that they were more preoccupied with questions of the reliability of the transmitters of facts and of the sources rather than being concerned with the inherent possibility or absurdity of reported events. The possibility or absurdity of a reported event can be gauged from logical demonstration (burhan) from what is known about the essence of society. Ibn Khaldun, following the philosophers and others, regarded demonstration as the most reliable method to yield certain knowledge. For Ibn Khaldun, his new science of human society was conceived of as an internally consistent body of generalizations that were demonstrable from certain muqaddimat or premises.23 They include the following: (i) human society is a necessity;24 and (ii) the physical environment influences humans socially, psychologically, and physically.25 Ibn Khaldun furnishes many examples of reported facts that are actually absurd and that are not demonstrable from the premises of a science of society. One is from the history of the kings of Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula, the Tubba‘ rulers of Yemen. They are reported to have conducted raids against the Ifriqiyah and the Berbers. It was further claimed that the Tubba‘s last ruler, As‘ad Abu Karib, and his sons had raided, routed, and slaughtered the Byzantines, Persians and Chinese. Ibn Khaldun firmly believed these claims about the Tubba‘ to be baseless and held the view that the realm of the Tubba‘ was confined to the Arabian Peninsula. His argument was as follows. Because the Tubba‘ were surrounded by the ocean on three sides, only the Suez provided them with access to the Maghrib. It was highly improbable that the army of the Tubba‘ could have made its way to the Mediterranean without controlling the region between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. As there are no reports of wars between the Tubba‘s and those who controlled the region such as Amalekites, Canaan, Copts, and Israelites, the idea that the Tubba‘ passed through the Red Sea and Mediterranean is more of an impossibility or even absurdity. Also absent are reports suggesting that the Tubba‘s ever controlled the land and territory of the Persians and Byzantines.26 23 Hodgson, Marshall G.S. The Venture of Islam, Volume 2: The Expansion of Islam in the Middle Periods. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009, 479–480. The muqaddimat are assertions whose demonstration do not fall within the scope of the new science of human society but taken as self-evident. See Mahdi, Muhsin. Ibn Khaldun’s Philosophy of History: A Study in the Philosophic Foundation of the Science of Culture. London: Routledge, 2015, p. 172. 24 Khaldun, Ibn. ‘Muqaddimah’. Trans. Franz Rosenthal. Edited and abridged by NJ. Dawood. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969, I, 67 [I, 89]. 25 Ibid., I, 71, 132, 138, 140 [I, 94, 167, 174, 177]. 26 Ibid., I, 17–20 [21–24].

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If it is accepted that historical truth can be distinguished from false reports on the grounds of the inherent possibility or impossibility of a reported event, it follows that there is a need for a science of human society (al-ijtima‘ al-bashari), for it is such a science that would establish what is possible or not. The science of society would distinguish between those aspects that form the essence (dhat) of society from those which are its accidents (a‘raz) and those which cannot be attached to society, that is, those properties that are never part of what makes a society. This would then be a method that would allow us to distinguish truth from falsehood, impossibilities and absurdities in historical information by the application of logical demonstration. The science of human society would provide the scholar with a means to assess claims to truth in the writings of historians.27 As such a field had not yet existed, Ibn Khaldun was indeed proposing a radically different way of assessing existing historical works and of writing history. The new f ield was essential for the study of history. Therefore, today, the scholar in this field needs to know the principles of politics, the (true) nature of existent things, and the differences among nations, places, and periods with regard to ways of life, character qualities, customs, sects, schools, and everything else. He further needs a comprehensive knowledge of present conditions in all these respects. He must compare similarities or differences between the present and the past (or distantly located) conditions. He must know the causes of the similarities in certain cases and of the differences in others. He must be aware of the differing origins and beginnings of (different) dynasties and religious groups, as well as of the reasons and incentives that brought them into being and the circumstances and history of the persons who supported them. His goal must be to have complete knowledge of the reasons for every happening, and to be acquainted with the origin of every event. Then, he must check transmitted information with the basic principles he knows. If it fulfills their requirements, it is sound. Otherwise, the historian must consider it as spurious and dispense with it. It was for this reason alone that historiography was highly considered by the ancients, so much so that al-Tabari, al-Bukhari, and, before them, Ibn Ishaq and other Muslim religious scholars, chose to occupy themselves with it. Most scholars, however, forgot this, the (real) secret of historiography, with the result that it became a stupid occupation. Ordinary people as well 27 Ibid., I, 56 [76–77].

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as (scholars) who had no firm foundation of knowledge, considered it a simple matter to study and know history, to delve into it and sponge on it. Strays got into the flock, bits of shell were mixed with the nut, truth was adulterated with lies.28

There are indeed a few problems with the standard account of the killing of the Banu Qurayza that suggest aspects of absurdity and impossibility. These are as follows. According to the standard account, the Banu Qurayza surrendered and agreed to be at the mercy of the judgement of the Prophet. In addition to that, they apparently agreed to Sa`d bin Mu`adh’s appointment as the hakam. This was the same man whom the Prophet had sent to check on the Banu Qurayza during the Battle of the Trench that had just concluded and who reported to the Prophet that they [the Banu Qurayza] had slandered the Prophet of Islam. In fact, it was reported that during the encounter with the Banu Qurayza, ‘Sa`d bin Mu`adh reviled them and they reviled him’.29 As Ahmad says, it is difficult to believe that the Banu Qurayza could have accepted to be their judge a man who had recently reviled them.30 Another absurdity or impossibility concerns the captivity of the Banu Qurayza after they surrendered to the Prophet. According to the standard account, they brought the 600 to 900 men of Banu Qurayza and their families from their forts just outside Medina to Median itself, a walking distance of about six or seven hours. In Medina, they were held at the house of a bint al-Harith, the daughter of al-Harith from the Banu al-Najjar. If we assume with Ahmad that the average family size was six, this would make 3600 to 5400 people held up in bint al-Harith’s home. As noted by Ahmad, it raises questions about the size of bint al-Harith’s house and what detention arrangements were made such that none of the prisoners had escaped.31 Ahmad also questions the decision to bring the Banu Qurayza to Medina from their forts several hours away. Would it not have been far more efficient to have the men executed and buried just outside their forts rather than undertake the difficult journey back to Medina, and deal with the logistics of managing thousands of captives there?32 It is also curious that 28 29 30 31 32

Ibid., I, 40–41 [55–56]. Ishaq, Ibn. The Life of Muhammad. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, p. 453. Ahmad, Barakat. Muhammad and the Jews: A Re-examination. New Delhi: Vikas, 1979, p. 79. Ibid., p. 82–83. Ibid., p. 84.

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the walk back to Medina was uneventful, with the exception of one prisoner escaping.33 Another aspect of the standard account of the killing of the men of Banu Qurayza that throws some doubt on its veracity is the absence of any mention of the event by those directly involved in the killing, including Ali ibn Abu Talib, later to become the fourth Caliph. Ahmad’s attention to this is very instructive. The effects of such a mass execution on the spectators and executioners is not related to moral values—ancient or modern. The human psyche, as is well known to students of psychology, may have nothing to do with a sense of duty, or political and religious obligations. Executioners, gravediggers, and undertakers deal with death in the ordinary course of life as an honest and moral profession; nevertheless, this continuous association with death creates suffering and tenor of blood guilt. No one could come out of such a holocaust—600 to 900 killed in cold blood in one day—without damage to his personality. Ali’s and Zubayr’s holocaust legacy of massive deadness would not have left them in peace. Though Zubayr’s life is not fully known to us, we do know well enough about the life of the fourth Caliph of Islam. His sermons, letters, political discourses, and sayings collected in Nahj al-Balaghah do not reflect an experience of such a mass execution. His scruples in ‘retaliation’ among other aspects of his personality ‘cannot be disregarded for the understanding that it affords of his psychology’. After his victory at ‘the camel’, ‘he tried to relieve the distress of the vanquished by preventing the enslavement of their women and children, in face of the protests of a group of his partisans: when battles ended, he showed his grief, wept for the dead, and even prayed over his enemies’. Ali was a brave soldier, not a hard-hearted executioner. Ali’s partner in the execution, al-Zubayr b. al-Awwam, was also renowned for gallantry and took part in all the great battles and campaigns of the Apostle’s lifetime. The very idea of such a massacre by persons who neither before nor after the killing showed any sign of a dehumanized personality is inadmissible from a psychological point of view.34 He suggests that it is strange that there was no expression of sentiment among any of the Muslims who watched or participated in the execution, although it would have been a shattering experience and unforgettable event, even for those who thought of the execution as fully justified on moral grounds.35 33 Ibid., p. 85. 34 Ibid., p. 87. 35 Ibid., p. 85.

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Conclusion The fact that there is no collective punishment in Islamic law, that a whole tribe should be punished for the misdeeds of the few, should itself be sufficient reason for us to doubt the widely accepted account of the killing of the Banu Qurayza. Nevertheless, the myth is perpetuated and performs a dangerous function of justifying acts of violence against non-Muslims. This suggests an important need for Muslims to be more critical of their tradition. This need is especially crucial given the extent that extremist orientations among Muslims are supported by the weight of tradition. The same IS fighter of Russian descent, Abu Muhammad Ar-Rusi, called on fellow Muslims to join their ‘jihad’. He said: With regard to the Islamic State, the Caliphate and the numerous accusations we have been accused of by those who sit idly by instead of going on Jihad, or those who do nothing for the religion of Allah, except for praying the five prayers, believing that by doing so, they are helping the religion of Allah […] You are not helping yourselves or the religion of Allah. Anyone who sits idly by and does not help the Islamic State today will be held accountable on Judgment Day. I say to all our Muslim brothers and sisters: Join the Islamic State. Join your brothers. Do not wait until death comes to you. Do not wait until the path is blocked. As long as you can, perform hijra. The hijra is a duty. If you read any book on Islamic faith, you will see that it is a duty to perform hijra from Dar Al-Kufr to Dar Al-Islam. Do not procrastinate. Do not delude yourselves. Do not say to yourselves that you will perform the hijra tomorrow or the day after.36

Myths like the killing of the Banu Qurayza have an affinity with contemporary Muslim anti-Semitisms. For example, Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a Shiite scholar and assistant professor at the Lebanese American University argues that Hezbollah is not anti-Zionist, but anti-Jewish.37 She cited Hassan Nasrallah as saying: ‘If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, 36 ‘Russian ISIS Fighter Justif ies ISIS Massacres: The Messenger of Allah Killed 700 People in a Single Battle’. The Middle East Media Research Institute, 2019, https://www.memri.org/tv/ russian-isis-fighter-justifies-isis-massacres-messenger-allah-killed-700-people-single-battle. 37 Saad-Ghorayeb, Amal. Hizbul̉ lah: Politics and Religion (Critical Studies on Islam). London: Pluto Press, 2002, p. 140.

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despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli.’38 Although Hezbollah, ‘tries to mask its anti-Judaism for public-relations reasons […] a study of its language, spoken and written, reveals an underlying truth’. She also argues that Hezbollah ‘believes that Jews, by the nature of Judaism, possess fatal character flaws’ and that its interpretation of the Qur’an regarding Jewish history had led its leaders to believe in the evil of Jewish theology is evil.39 This is not to say that there are no critical works on the supposed massacre of the Banu Qurayza. Walid N. Arafat and Barakat Ahmad had doubted that the Banu Qurayza were killed en masse. One of Arafat’s criticisms had to do with the fact that Ibn Ishaq obtained information from descendants of the Banu Qurayza, who would have fabricated or embellished the details of the event. In fact, Arafat cites Ibn Hajar, who denounced this story as an odd tale and also quoted Malik ibn Anas as having rejected his contemporary, Ibn Ishaq, as a ‘liar’, an ‘impostor’.40 Ahmad argues that only some of the men of the Banu Qurayza were killed, while others were enslaved.41 Other historical critiques of this event have been made by Hans Jansen and Fred Donner. 42 Nevertheless, there is a dearth of critical works on the topic. The standard account as contained in the primary sources has been generally accepted by both Muslim as well as Western scholars. The translator of the account in the The History of al-Tabari, Michael Fishbein, in his Foreword, refers to the event as the extermination of the Jews and adds that the brutality of the punishment was a reflection of ‘ethnic hatred and vengeance’.43 Montgomery Watt, in his classic study, Muhammad at Medina, said of the killing that ‘[t] his may seem incredible to the Europeans, but that is in itself a measure of remoteness of the moral ideals of ancient Arabia from ours’. 44 38 Goldberg, Jeffrey. ‘In the Party of God’. The New Yorker 79.32 (2002). 39 Saad-Ghorayeb, Amal. Hizbul̉ lah: Politics and Religion (Critical Studies on Islam). London: Pluto Press, 2002, p. 140. 40 Arafat, W. N. ‘New Light on the Story of Banū Qurayẓa and the Jews of Medina’. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 108.2 (1976), pp. 100–107. 41 Ahmad, Barakat. Muhammad and the Jews: A Re-examination. New Delhi: Vikas, 1979, pp. 85–94. 42 Jansen, Hans. Mohammed: Eine Biographie. CH Beck, 2008, pp. 311–317; Donner, Fred M. Muhammad and the Believers. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012, p. 73. See also Kister, Meir Jacob. ‘The Massacre of the Banū Qurayẓa: A Re-examination of a Tradition’. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 8 (1986); and, Jebara, Mohamad. ‘Myth of The Medina Massacre’. Times of Israel, 2016, http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/myth-of-the-medina-massacre/. 43 Fishbein, ‘Translator’s Foreword’, pp. xiv–xv. 44 Watt, William Montgomery. Muhammad at Medina. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956, p. 327.

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The danger of myths to contemporary Muslim society, in terms of their function in supporting extremism, can also be illustrated with a different type of myth. Here I refer to false analysis or diagnosis of society’s ills. The example I have in mind is the rape myth. One of the greatest insults to women is to say that rape is a result of their being ‘provocatively’ or ‘sexily’ dressed. In this way, the heinous and deplorable crime of rape is blamed on the victim. In Malaysia, such views are trafficked not just by ignorant lay people but also some Muslim religious leaders who have been known to make incredible claims about the relationship between rape and a woman’s attire. In a frequently held view propagated by religious clerics as well as lay people, social ills of society are blamed on the failure of women to conceal their intimate body parts (aurat). Often, such women are likened to uncovered dishes which attracted flies and became unappetizing to those who were fond of those dishes. It is also often suggested that women’s failure to cover their aurat would lead to the committing of vices. This view is founded on certain rape myths that illustrate how simplistic views about the relationship between a woman’s attire and sexual crimes committed against her demean and insult women. It also highlights the point that the religious leaders, who are said to be ‘ulama’ or people of learning, ought to be learned in fields like sociology and psychology before daring to comment on vice and sexual crimes against women. This is so they make accurate statements about the issue and also refrain from making remarks that are insulting to women. The Southern Arizona Center Against Sexual Assault discusses a number of rape myths. One myth is that most rapes are committed by strangers and social misf its when in fact they are committed by people who are known to and trusted by the victim. It is also assumed that when a man is sexually aroused, he has to have sex. This is not only untrue, but also deflects attention from the fact that rape is not about the need to have sex but rather to control and exert power over another. Another myth is that most rape victims are sexually promiscuous women. The data shows, however, that most sexual violence against women has little to do with sex and everything to do with power and control. It has nothing to do with whether women are promiscuous or chaste. Perhaps the most damaging myth is that women who dress scantily, provocatively, or sexily, are only inviting sexual violence against them and are more likely to be raped. Again, the data suggests that the way a woman dresses has little to do with her being a victim of rape. The reality is that women who are conservatively dressed get raped. Women who are ‘ugly’

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and less good-looking by the standards of society also get raped. Rape is not a crime of desire. Motivated by power and control, rapists rely on forced sexual acts as a means of gaining power rather than sexual relief. According to one theory of rape, the objective of the rapist is to debase, hurt, and humiliate the victim verbally and physically. According to another theory, rape is a means for the perpetrator to compensate for their sense of inferiority and inadequacy. The forced sexual act gives the rapist a sense of dominance and mastery and helps him to develop a feeling of competency. To simply blame rape and other sexual crimes on the victims, their mothers, on the way they dress or carry themselves in public is insulting, unjust, and false. It is insulting because it makes them out to be lewd, promiscuous, and indecent women. It is unjust because it tends to dilute, however slightly, the attribution of pathological and criminal features to the perpetrator of sexual crimes. It is false because it is neither based on logic nor on the facts produced by research. In this sense, historical as well as urban myths may have a common function, that is to justify actions and views that are exclusivist and extremist in nature. This suggests that part of the fight against extremism should involve the study and assessment of ideas and orientations that are part of Islamic tradition, but which need to be approached critically.

Bibliography Al-Tabari, History of al-Tabari Vol. 8, The: The Victory of Islam: Muhammad at Medina AD 626–630/AH 5–8. Albany: SUNY Press, 2015. Ahmad, Barakat. Muhammad and the Jews: A Re-examination. New Delhi: Vikas, 1979. Arafat, W. N. ‘New Light on the Story of Banū Qurayẓa and the Jews of Medina’. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 108.2 (1976): 100–107. Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. San Francisco: New World Library, 2008. Campbell, Joseph, and Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth. New York: Anchor, 2011. Donner, Fred M. Muhammad and the Believers. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012. Flood, Christopher. Political Myth. London: Routledge, 2013. Friedlaender, Israel. ‘The Jews of Arabia and the Gaonate’. The Jewish Quarterly Review 1.2 (1910): 252–257. Goldberg, Jeffrey. ‘In the Party of God’. The New Yorker, 6 October 2002. Available at https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/10/14/in-the-party-of-god (accessed on 30 January 2019)

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Hodgson, Marshall G.S. The Venture of Islam, Volume 2: The Expansion of Islam in the Middle Periods. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. Ishaq, Ibn. The Life of Muhammad. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. Isḥāq, Muḥammad Ibn, and Alfred Guillaume. The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Isḥāq’s Sīrat rasūl Allāh. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Jansen, Hans. Mohammed: Eine Biographie. Munich: CH Beck, 2008. Jebara, Mohamad. ‘Myth of The Medina Massacre’. Times of Israel, 2016, Available at from http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/myth-of-the-medina-massacre/ (accessed 29 January 2019). Kathir, Ibn. Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Vol. VII, Riyadh: Darussalam, 2003. Khaldun, Ibn. ‘Muqaddimah’. Trans. Franz Rosenthal. Edited and abridged by NJ. Dawood. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969. Kirk, Geoffrey Stephen, G. S. Kirk, and G. S. Kirk. Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970. Kister, Meir Jacob. ‘The Massacre of the Banū Qurayẓa: A Re-examination of a Tradition.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 8 (1986): 61–96. Mahdi, Muhsin. Ibn Khaldun’s Philosophy of History: A Study in the Philosophic Foundation of the Science of Culture. London: Routledge, 2015. ‘Russian ISIS Fighter Justifies ISIS Massacres: The Messenger of Allah Killed 700 People in a Single Battle’. The Middle East Media Research Institute, 2019. Available at https://www.memri.org/tv/russian-isis-fighter-justifies-isis-massacresmessenger-allah-killed-700-people-single-battle (accessed on 8 May 2019). Saad-Ghorayeb, Amal. Hizbul̉ lah: Politics and Religion. London: Pluto Press, 2002. Tudor, Henry. Political Myth. London: Macmillan International Higher Education, 1972. Watt, William Montgomery. Muhammad at Medina. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956.

About the author Syed Farid Alatas is Professor of Sociology at the National University of Singapore.

Section 3 Beyond the Arab Revolutions: Political Islam Revised

6. Building Trust in the Democratic Process The Role of Islamists in Tunisia’s Post-Arab Spring Transitional Politics Saleena Saleem

Abstract Post-Arab Spring events indicate that democratic openings can result in power shifts from secular authoritarian regimes to mainstream Islamists, contributing to a heightened secular-religious political polarization. This chapter considers how Tunisia’s Islamists avoided this pitfall where other post-Arab Spring countries failed. It argues that one key factor that helped Tunisia’s democratic transition was the building of a minimum level of trust during pre-Arab Spring interactions between non-regime secularists and Islamists, rooted in the common understanding that democracy in Tunisia was desired by all political participants. The Islamists’ willingness to trust in the democratic process and to engage in consensus building with secular political partners helped mediate the many contentious conflicts that arose at critical junctures of Tunisia’s democratic transition. Keywords: Secular-religious political polarization; democratization processes; post-Arab Spring politics; Ennahda

Introduction The popular revolution in Tunisia, which brought down President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali and his authoritarian regime in January 2011, had a cascading effect in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Ben Ali’s quick flight from Tunisia sparked hopes of political change in the minds of Arabs. The potential to shift power from long-standing repressive and corrupt

Osman, M.N.M. Pathways to Contemporary Islam: New Trends in Critical Engagement. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. doi: 10.5117/9789462987593_ch06

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governments to the hands of the people was no longer a vain fancy; instead, it became a reality in the making. From the civilian-led major uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen, to the street demonstrations in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Algeria, and Morocco, the Arab Spring appeared to signal a region poised for a gradual transition to democracy. Amidst these upheavals and power shifts, new democratic openings enabled the Islamists to emerge as major political actors after decades of being marginalized or even violently suppressed. Islamist-oriented political parties won majorities in parliamentary seats in free and fair elections held in Tunisia, Egypt, and Morocco. Despite deep misgivings about the hidden agendas of Islamists held by certain segments of Arab secularists and the Western world, there was a sense of ‘cautious optimism’ about the development of a unique democracy articulated and led by mainstream Islamists.1 However, eight years forward, this optimism has faded away with much of the MENA region now either deeply mired in bloody conflict with SunniShia sectarian overtones or have returned to the pre-Arab Spring status quo with prevailing authoritarian power structures intact. In some of the Arab Spring countries, the street demonstrations were forcibly quelled by strong authoritarian governments; in others, political reforms were hastily implemented to appease protestors which broke the momentum of the street demonstrations; and in others yet, the uprisings broke out into protracted and bloody civil wars. Only in Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring, do we see what appears to be the development of a nascent democracy. This begets the question of why Tunisia has succeeded so far in maintaining its path toward gradual democratization where other post-Arab Spring countries have failed. Are there exceptional factors that pre-disposed Tunisia toward success once the democratic openings emerged that were perhaps lacking in the other Arab Spring countries? Did strategic decisions on the part of Tunisia’s major political actors help the country to stay the course? And what does the Tunisian experience tell us about Islamists as political actors, who have been long-maligned as being irreconcilably intolerant and anti-democratic? Could Islamists who are now given a real shot at political power with the openings in some Arab countries, be part of the process to fostering democratic transitions in the MENA region? These are important considerations given that Islamists will likely continue to feature as significant actors in electoral politics, particularly in the 1 Yenigün, Halil Ibrahim. ‘The Political and Theological Boundaries of Islamist Moderation after the Arab Spring’. Third World Quarterly 37.12 (2016), p. 2304.

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few Arab countries where democratic openings have allowed for political pluralism. The rapid rise of the Islamist-oriented political parties soon after dictators were overthrown in Tunisia and Egypt is indicative that voters desired a clean break from the secular-oriented authoritarian rule that had failed them; decades-long misdeeds and repression by authoritarian regimes with ruling ideologies that were openly secular has created an aversion to secularism that is associated with the ideology of repression.2 However, the majority of Arab voters did not give weight to conventional Islamist ideological appeals in the elections held after the Arab Spring either, such as appeals to the Islamic Caliphate or Shariah (Islamic law) implementation. Instead, a great many had looked to the Islamist political parties who promised to govern with justice, restore order, and create economic growth while affirming traditional religious values.3 The Islamists who participated in the electoral processes in Tunisia and Egypt were not a monolithic group; they campaigned with platforms that ranged from ultra-conservativism to moderation. Mainstream Islamist parties, which were able to respond with a political discourse that reflected the top-most concerns of a majority of the voters that mostly centred around issues of justice and economic progress, were the ones ultimately rewarded with convincing electoral wins. Although Tunisia’s Islamist party, Ennahda, no longer leads the government today, it is presently the largest party by seats in the parliament and holds significant political clout. 4 Morocco’s mainstream Islamist party, Justice and Development Party, improved its electoral showing in its second consecutive parliamentary election win in 2016, despite a campaign period fraught with negative media coverage including a sex scandal involving two Islamist-linked political leaders, strong criticism over its performance during the first term in office, and an intense contest featuring over 30 political parties with a myriad of agendas and ideological bents. Therefore, more than just a collective aversion to (and rejection of) secular-liberal politicians due to painful past experiences, the fact that a significant segment of the 2 Hashemi, Nader. ‘Why Islam (Properly Understood) is the Solution: Reflections on the Role of Religion in Tunisia’s Democratic Transition’. The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 30.4 (2013), p. 390. 3 Roy, Olivier. ‘The Transformation of the Arab World’. Journal of Democracy 23.3 (2012), p. 14. 4 Recent disputes between Tunisia’s President and its Prime Minister, both from the secular political party, Nidaa Tounes, led to a split that positioned the party to be the second largest in the parliament. The Prime Minister, who formed a new secular party, retained control of the parliament with support from Ennadha. See details in Ghosh, ‘Tunisia Needs to Resist the Strongman Temptation’.

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Arab Muslim electorate do support mainstream Islamist-oriented political parties in free and fair elections is suggestive that mainstream Islamists can and do reflect particular realities that are deeply held within the societies in which they function—be it conceptions of the public role of Islam in life and politics, social mores, Muslim identities, or traditions.5 If there is to be hope for democratization, growth, and stability in the MENA region, then the consideration of how mainstream Islamists function when they are political actors, how they seek to define the role of Islam in public life and politics, and how they mediate contentious politics, will continue to be relevant factors in the foreseeable future. This chapter looks to address some of these larger questions through looking at Islamists from the Ennahda (Renaissance) party during Tunisia’s democratic transition.

When Islamists are Political Actors Prior to the Arab Spring, numerous empirical studies had considered the question of whether the participation of Islamists in political processes could help further democratization in the MENA region and improve regional stability.6 Participation in politics is an important consideration because it is believed to encourage Islamist moderation,7 which is necessary for the internalization of democratic values such as respect for rights, liberties, pluralism, and good governance that would go beyond the acceptance of a 5 Recent scholarship on political Islam argues against the assumption that Muslims would become more secular with the advance of modernity, including during periods of political openings. Rather, political conflicts in the Middle East centre around attempts to define Islam’s relationship to the state and the secular forces that seek to minimize its role in public life. Resolving this conflict will entail developing ways to normalize Islam’s role in the public domain, reinterpret certain religious ideas and to make the secular-religious divide less polarizing. For instance, see such arguments put forth in Hamid, Islamic Exceptionalism and Hashemi, Islam, Secularism and Liberal Democracy. 6 Some examples include Wickham, Carrie Rosefsky. ‘The Path to Moderation: Strategy and Learning in the Formation of Egypt’s Wasat Party’. Comparative Politics (2004); Bayat, Asef. Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 200, p. 320; Browers, Michaelle. Political Ideology in the Arab World: Accommodation and Transformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 210. 7 This understanding is an extension of the theories on moderation that were developed from various comparative studies of Catholic and socialist political parties in Europe, as well as leftist parties in Latin America. Examples of such studies are cited in Yenigün, Halil Ibrahim. ‘The Political and Theological Boundaries of Islamist Moderation after the Arab Spring’. Third World Quarterly 37.12 (2016), p. 2308.

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procedural democracy with free and fair elections. Islamist moderation is often times understood to mean a ‘movement from a relatively closed and rigid worldview to one more open and tolerant of alternative perspectives’,8 or compromises made on previous principles and goals and sticking to the rules of participatory politics.9 The inclusion-moderation hypothesis examined in some of these preArab Spring studies postulates that the inclusion of Islamist groups into political processes would moderate the expressions of Islamist ideology that underpin these groups. The argument is that ideologically-rooted political parties participating in political processes would have to move to the centre of the political spectrum as they attempt to build the broad-based coalitions with non-Islamist political parties that are needed to attain and then retain political clout, as well as to appeal to the median voter at the centre. In this vein, scholars argue that the exclusion of Islamists from political processes is one of the contributory factors that drive dissatisfied Islamists to break away from mainstream Islamist groups and turn to violence and radicalism.10 The converse of the inclusion-moderation hypothesis is the argument that low to moderate levels of repression of Islamists (as opposed to their complete eradication), which leads to their social and political marginalization, would have a moderating effect on Islamist groups over time.11 For example, a recent study of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Jordan found that the more it was repressed, the more it pursued a democratic discourse. This was viewed as threatening to the autocratic regimes, who then increased its repression of the Islamists. However, it was found that increased repression resulted in more Islamist moderation. The argument is that Islamist groups under low to moderate repression have incentives to rethink policy priorities and adjust their discourse so as not to invite complete repression by authoritarian regimes and risk becoming totally irrelevant to the populace, and at the 8 Schwedler, Jillian, and Jillian M. Schwedler. Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 3. 9 Wickham, Carrie Rosefsky. ‘The Path to Moderation: Strategy and Learning in the Formation of Egypt’s Wasat Party’. Comparative Politics (2004), p. 206. 10 Turner, John. /Untangling Islamism from Jihadism: Opportunities for Islam and the West after the Arab Spring’. Arab Studies Quarterly 34.3 (2012), p. 173; Schwedler, Jillian, and Jillian M. Schwedler. Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 16. 11 Hamid, Shadi. Temptations of Power: Islamists and Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, p. 136–137; Cavatorta, Francesco, and Fabio Merone. ‘Moderation through Exclusion? The Journey of the Tunisian Ennahda from Fundamentalist to Conservative Party’. Democratization 20.5 (2013), pp. 857–875.

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same time signal their commitment to democratic principles, vis-à-vis the authoritarian regimes, to the international powers.12 Additionally, it is argued that in certain contexts, political openings may actually drive Islamists away from the centre of the political spectrum. Under political openings that encourage the bourgeoning of political parties, established and mainstream Islamist parties will have to compete for the Islamist vote with the emergence of newer and more conservative Islamists groups (for example, Salafi-oriented Islamist parties). In deeply conservative Muslim societies, mainstream Islamists may feel the need to be responsive to popular sentiments, for example, on the role of Islam in public life and politics. These pressures can drive mainstream Islamists who are at the centre-right to the far-right of the political spectrum, which might increase their temptation to pursue illiberal objectives in the socio-political sphere.13 Another factor that may limit Islamist moderation under political openings is the principle of maslaha (public interest). While the principle of maslaha may allow mainstream Islamists to explain away pragmatic decisions or concessions made, for example over certain Islamic law rulings, maslaha may also allow Islamists to justify illiberal actions, such as limiting certain personal rights as being necessary for the public good, in the name of religion, moral and family values.14 For the most part, these conceptual understandings of how Islamists may or may not moderate when they are political actors are examined against empirics of a pre-Arab Spring period where free and fair electoral processes were not the norm. In fact, Islamist political activity in the Arab world was severely curtailed or prohibited outright by authoritarian leaders. Where Islamists were allowed limited participation in electoral politics, the general perceptions held by Islamists was that elections were neither free nor fair; they would never be given a genuine opportunity to unseat the incumbent government; and in event of a rare victory, the Arab secular-oriented elites in power (and their Western allies) would prevent or hinder them from acting freely on their electoral mandate.15 12 Hamid, Shadi. Temptations of Power: Islamists and Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, p. 136. 13 See arguments put forth by Hamid, Temptations of Power. 14 Yenigün, Halil Ibrahim. ‘The Political and Theological Boundaries of Islamist Moderation after the Arab Spring’. Third World Quarterly 37.12 (2016), p. 2305. 15 This perception was reinforced by several occurrences in contemporary times such as the 1991 military coup against an Islamist electoral victory in Algeria; Egypt’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood after its candidates won an unprecedented number of seats in 2005; and the withdrawal of Palestinian aid, imposition of US sanctions, and widespread arrests of Hamas governmental officials by Israel after Hamas won the 2006 elections over the internationallyfavoured Fatah party; and the prevalence of rigged elections in many MENA countries.

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Due to such constraints, Islamists had little reason to run to win in elections and instead concentrated efforts on building social capital through the creation of networks and services at the grassroots level. When Islamists did participate in elections, they often opted to field fewer candidates, and political power was regarded as a long-term objective. Therefore, the participation of Islamists in elections is not a sufficient enough indicator of their acceptance of democratic ethos, as the decision could very well be adopted for strategic purposes while holding onto a radical political agenda.16 Thus far, mainstream Islamist experiences with genuinely free and fair democratic processes are limited. In the past, even the few occurrences of political openings in some Arab countries that are studied by scholars as test cases of Islamist political participation were always managed by anti-democratic regimes, and Islamist participation could be and often was reversed at will by the regimes. In the post-Arab Spring period, Islamists with electoral wins have had to contend with deeply suspicious and defensive Arab secularists, and the still-strong institutions of anti-democratic regimes that polarize politics, which in Egypt’s case ultimately reversed the potential for a democratic transition, at least in the foreseeable future.17 In other words, the contexts in which Islamists operate in may not necessarily be conducive to the internalization of democratic values, which may explain why some mainstream Islamist groups become less moderate in their discourse when political openings emerge. Simply put, Islamists have less of an incentive to stick to a more inclusive or moderate discourse, and may be more inclined to appeal to their religious conservative base in an attempt to hold onto political power, particularly if they have reasons to believe that the context in which they operate has a high probability to return to the prevailing authoritarian, or at least the exclusionary conditions of the past. This makes the Tunisian experience important for studying Islamist moderation because the post-Arab Spring context in which Tunisian Islamists operate in has several notable differences from Arab countries elsewhere. Here we ask whether mainstream Islamists would be more willing to compromise or make concessions in contexts where there is an understanding from a majority of the political actors to ensure that electoral processes are free and fair, to respect electoral outcomes even when it goes against one’s own position, and to manage and mediate 16 Schwedler, Jillian. ‘Can Islamists Become Moderates? Rethinking the Inclusion-moderation Hypothesis’. World Politics 63.2 (2011), p. 352. 17 For arguments on the missteps by secular-liberals in Egypt, see Fadel, Mohammad. ‘What Killed Egyptian Democracy?’ Boston Review 39.1 (2014).

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contentious issues with dialogue? What context would help promote such democracy-friendly understandings amongst political actors? Does trust in the democratic process make it easier for Islamists (and non-Islamists) to negotiate, compromise, and develop national consensus, in relation to the principle of maslaha, over potentially contentious socio-political issues?

The Tunisian Context for Democratization Tunisia has long been regarded as one of the MENA countries that is most primed for democratization because it meets a number of structural conditions believed to promote democracy. These conditions had already existed in 1987 when Ben Ali ousted Tunisia’s first president Habib Bourgiba in a bloodless coup. However, Ben Ali’s initial steps towards democracy, which had included instituting a two-term limit and an age limit for presidents that were later reversed, gave way quickly to a regime ensconced in nepotism and corruption. It is argued that these existing conditions provided a favourable context for fostering Tunisia’s democratic transition, although in and of itself, the conditions are no guarantee for success.18 These conditions include a well-educated populace as a result of education policies enacted in the 1950s and 1960s under Bourgiba; a relatively large middle and university-educated technical and professional class due to economic growth in the 1990s and 2000s, despite the existence of inequalities between the rural and urban areas; the beginnings of an active civil society represented by trade unions, and professional and cultural associations, which was closely controlled by Ben Ali but functions freely today; a homogeneous society (99 per cent of Tunisians are Sunni Arab Muslim) that lacks the deep ethnic or religious divides such as Sunni-Shia, Muslim-Christian, Arab-Berber that are present in other MENA countries; and the participation of women at all levels of society that was facilitated not only by Bourgiba’s policies that abolished polygamy and gave women voting rights, but also buttressed by early Tunisian interpretations of Islamic law such as the Contract of Kairouan on monogamy 19 and progressive ideas on gender issues by Tunisian Islamic reformer Tahar Haddad that had appealed to both secularists and Islamists.20 18 Bellin, Eva. ‘Drivers of Democracy: Lessons from Tunisia’. Middle East Brief 75 (2013), p. 1. 19 Michalak, Laurence. ‘Tunisia: Igniting Arab Democracy’. In: Kinsman, Jeremy and Kurt Bassuener, eds. A Diplomat’s Handbook for Democracy Development Support. Montreal: McGillQueen’s Press: 2013, p. 104–105. 20 Weideman, Julian. ‘Tahar Haddad after Bourguiba and Bin ʿAli: A Reformist Between Secularists and Islamists’. International Journal of Middle East Studies 48.1 (2016), pp. 47–65.

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Another factor is the apolitical military in Tunisia. Politicized militaries with deep connections to authoritarian regimes have vested interests to step in and reverse democratic transitions. Throughout their regimes, both Bourgiba and Ben Ali ensured that the Tunisian military was kept distant from politics to discourage a military coup. The military was allowed only few responsibilities; was not involved in the regular domestic management of the authoritarian regimes; and received limited funding from the regime.21 As such, the military was not vested in Ben Ali’s survival once it became apparent during the mass protests in 2010–2011 that his position was tenuous. The military refused to use lethal force to supress the protestors, and later expressed support for Tunisia’s democratic transition as a thoroughly civilian-led process.22 One other important factor, which we consider pertinent to creating a favourable context for democratization, was the development of an understanding between the elite political leaders (including the mainstream Islamists represented by Ennahda) on the value of dialogue and inclusiveness, which began in the decade prior to the Tunisian uprising. In 2003, representatives from several non-regime political parties (the secular-oriented parties of Congress for the Republic (CPR) and Progressive Democratic Party (PDP), socialist-oriented Ettakol, and Ennahda) met in France to negotiate a consensus to the ‘Call from Tunis’ document. The agreement, which was signed by the political parties, contained two fundamental principles that were important to both the secularist and Islamist camps. First, any future elected government would base its sole legitimacy on the sovereignty of the people. Second, there would be respect for the people’s identity and its Arab-Muslim values, while the freedom of belief and political neutrality to places of worship is guaranteed. This level of interaction between party leaders from the secularist and Islamist camps continued from 2005 onwards, and it included other smaller political parties too.23 For example, the ‘October 18 Collective for Rights and Freedoms’ was formed in late 2005 to specifically discuss and form consensus on contentious issues such as the civil character of the state, the importance of civil liberties, and women’s rights. In one of the documents issued by the October 18 21 Brooks, Risa. ‘Abandoned at the Palace: Why the Tunisian Military Defected from the Ben Ali Regime in January 2011’. Journal of Strategic Studies 36.2 (2013), pp. 205–220. 22 Bellin, Eva. ‘Drivers of Democracy: Lessons from Tunisia’. Middle East Brief 75 (2013): 1–10, p. 2. 23 Stepan, Alfred. ‘Tunisia’s Transition and the Twin Tolerations’. Journal of Democracy 23.2 (2012), p. 96–97.

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Collective, it was stated the participants aimed to move away from unhelpful approaches adopted by elements within the Ben Ali regime and some in the opposition, who advocated the repression of Islamists due to security concerns, and who considered any concessions made by Islamists as a form of ‘taqia’.24 Instead, the October 18 Collective stated that such approaches prevented progress and its initiatives were instead aimed at ‘provoking a true political debate’ so as to find a common base toward democracy.25 These early interactions served as contemporary social and political learning experiences for the Tunisian political elites, and it had occurred well before the opportunity for a transition from authoritarianism to democracy emerged with Ben Ali’s ouster. Through these discussions and the agreements reached on several core issues, the non-regime secularists and Islamists had not only signalled to each other their commitment to free and fair elections as the basis for governmental legitimacy, but also to adopt consensus building as a rational and legitimate approach for dealing with issues around religion, state, and society. In these early interactions, we see also the development of the ‘twin tolerations’ identified as being useful traits for democratic transitions: (1) the toleration by religious citizens that democratically elected officials have the right and freedom to make laws and to govern, and to not deny elected officials authority based on religious claims, and (2) the toleration by the state to allow religious citizens the right to express their views and values in civil society, and to participate in politics while respecting other citizens’ constitutional rights and the law.26 The adoption of twin tolerations is democracy-friendly because it involves the rejection of theocracy, as well as the rejection of illiberalism that is linked with top-down enforced versions of secularism as with Kemalism in Turkey, and the religion-unfriendly laicite in the French Third Republic.27 The ‘twin tolerations’ understanding allows both religion and democracy to flourish, but with a degree of differentiation in how particular countries institutionalize state-religion relations.28 24 Taqia is the principle of dissimulation of one’s religious beliefs in order to avoid persecution or imminent harm, where no useful purpose would be served by publicly affirming them. See definition in Glasse, Cyril. The Concise Encyclopaedia of Islam. London: Stacey International, 2008, p. 450–451. 25 The 18 October Coalition for Rights and Freedoms in Tunisia, p. 47. 26 Stepan, Alfred. ‘Tunisia’s Transition and the Twin Tolerations’. Journal of Democracy 23.2 (2012), p. 89–90. 27 Ibid., p. 90. 28 Stepan, Alfred, and Juan J. Linz. ‘Democratization Theory and the “Arab Spring”’. Journal of Democracy 24.2 (2013), p. 17.

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Importantly, these understandings were developed over a significant period of time and were crucial in building a minimum level of trust amongst all the participants that democracy in Tunisia was desired and valued, and that all would be willing to work to achieve it. This trust in the democratic process, while admittedly untested and thus tenuous, was required to manage the many contentious conflicts that inevitably arose later at critical junctures of Tunisia’s democratic transition. After all, the very essence of democracy means that different voices should have equal liberty to be heard, a democratic requirement that can result in factionalism, friction, and even violence, particularly if contentions are not mediated through negotiated compromises or institutional structures.

Ennahda in Government: Building National Unity Ennahda has its roots in the societal responses to the exclusion of religious citizens from the public sphere that began soon after Tunisia’s independence. The state-driven exclusionary measures had provoked those who were concerned about the control and limitations of their religion into civil society activism and then later to political action. Bourgiba’s ruling regime adopted a top-down approach to modernization, which effectively allowed him to control the public sphere of religion. Many of his controversial policies related to religion were justified and legitimized under the name of reformation, modernization, and anti-terrorism.29 For example, Bourgiba’s reforms not only abolished Quranic schools, but also ended the thousand years tradition of religious teaching in public schools and disallowed the public call to prayer. He dismantled religious institutions such as the AlZaytouna regarded as one of the leading centres of Islamic learning.30 Bourgiba later reorganized the religious sciences education at Zaytouna as a faculty at the Tunis University. Religious-cultural Muslim groups that burgeoned as an initial response to Bourgiba’s excessive secularism took on a more political orientation with the establishment of the Mouvement de la Tendance Islamique (MTI) in 1981. The MTI renamed itself to Ennahda during Ben Ali’s rule, partly to qualify for registration as a political party by removing the reference to Islam, an 29 Willis, Michael. Politics and Power in the Maghreb: Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco from Independence to the Arab Spring. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 157. 30 The Al-Zaytouna was founded in 738 and is recognized as the first university in the Muslim world, with luminary graduates such as ibn Khaldun.

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attempt which was unsuccessful. Nevertheless, Ennahda members were allowed to run in the 1989 general elections as independents. Although Ben Ali’s ruling party, the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD) won all seats, Ennahda won 14.6 per cent of the vote nationwide, and almost 30 per cent in the capital, Tunis; this was in stark contrast to the secular opposition party, Movement of Democratic Socialists (MDS), which hardly won any votes.31 Open accusations of electoral fraud by Ennahda levelled at Ben Ali’s regime eventually resulted in mass arrests of its members, including its senior leaders, who suffered torture in prison.32 The repression escalated in the 1990s after the regime accused Ennahda of plotting to overthrow the government. The bloody civil war in neighbouring Algeria also enabled the government to play up fears of Islamist violence. During this period, human rights organizations estimated that 20,000 Ennahda members were tried for subversion and jailed, and 10,000 went into exile.33 Through this high level of repression, Ennahda was forcibly removed from the political scene within Tunisia until Ben Ali’s ouster in 2011. Despite Ennahda’s ban in Tunisia for over two decades, and the fact it played no role in the mass uprisings against Ben Ali, Ennahda was still able to garner support at the grassroots level fairly quickly. This resulted in Ennahda winning 89 out of 217 seats (37% per cent of the popular vote) in the country’s first free and fair elections for the transitional Constituent Assembly. Part of the reason has to do with Ennahda’s reputation as a staunch opponent to Ben Ali’s regime, as well as its Islamic roots that appealed to a segment of middle-class Tunisians weary of corrupt and secular-oriented political leaders. Ennahda’s win sparked fears amongst the secular-liberal elites within the country, as well as Western investors, that an Ennahda-led Islamist government would be focused on sharia (Islamic law) implementation. Given that the Ennahda-led government would be tasked with drafting the new constitution, such fears had the potential to stall the democratic transition. At the outset, Ennahda made efforts to allay these fears by promising not to ban alcohol, prevent tourists from wearing revealing clothes on beaches, or impose Islamic banking, particular concerns for a country that was heavily dependent on Western tourists, European trade, and foreign investment. 31 Dunn, Michael Collins. ‘The al-Nahda Movement in Tunisia: From Renaissance to Revolution’. Islamism and Secularism in North Africa. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996, p. 151–157. 32 Willis, Michael. Politics and Power in the Maghreb: Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco from Independence to the Arab Spring. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 134. 33 Stepan, Alfred. ‘Tunisia’s Transition and the Twin Tolerations’. Journal of Democracy 23.2 (2012), p. 101.

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Rachid Ghannouchi, the Ennahda co-founder and key leader, promised soon after the elections that the rights of ‘Muslims and non-Muslims’ alike would be protected.34 Ennahda entered into a ‘troika’ governing coalition with two secular parties (CPR and Ettakol), which was considered an unprecedented move in contemporary Arab politics, but one that was already envisioned by Ghannouchi prior to the elections.35 In this power-sharing arrangement, Ennahda’s Secretary General Hamadi Jebali was the interim prime minister, the head of CPR, Moncef Marzouki, was the interim president, and Ettakatol leader Mustapha Ben Jaafar was the constituent assembly’s speaker. All three parties in the coalition government had prior interactions through the October 18 Collective initiative. The constituent assembly elected to draft a new constitution from scratch rather than use language from the 1959 constitution as a base, and also to serve as a legislative body to draft, debate, and pass legislation to govern the country during the interim period. This arrangement was not welcomed by all—the CPR and Ettakol members, who did not support their parties’ cooperation with Ennahda, defected to other parties, and various opposition groups formed new political alliances. Just months after the election, opponents of the troika government had organized sit-ins at the constituent assembly headquarters to protest Ennahda’s dominance in the assembly, which they claimed was not representative of all Tunisians.36 Along with having to handle such legitimacy challenges from the beginning, the Ennahda-led government also had to ‘address pressing legislative issues, including the annual state budget, a transitional justice law, the legal framework for the formation of a permanent election management body, and subsequent legislative and presidential elections, while drafting the new constitution’, all of which had an impact on the pace of the constitution-drafting process.37 To compound the situation, the transition period coincided with an economic slowdown in Europe, which was Tunisia’s largest trade partner, and it negatively affected Tunisia’s economy. Regional security issues from Libya and Algeria also heightened tensions, as did the visible emergence 34 BBC, ‘Tunisia’s Islamist Ennahda Party Wins Historic Poll’. 35 Ghannouchi had pledged that Ennahda would govern in a coalition, even if it was elected with an outright majority because he reasoned that no single party would be able to handle the transitional challenges alone. Comments cited in Marks, Monica. ‘Tunisia’s Ennahda: Rethinking Islamism in the Context of ISIS and the Egyptian Coup’. Rethinking Political Islam Series (2015), p. 3. 36 El Sharnoubi, ‘Tunisia Opposition Fear Ennahda Power Grab’. 37 The Carter Center, The Constitution-making Process in Tunisia: 2011–2014. Atlanta: The Carter Center, 2014, p. 25.

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of Salafi-oriented Tunisians in society who ‘preached loudly and publicly, frequently harassed women they regarded as inappropriately dressed, and sometimes attacked Sufi shrines’.38 The Ennahda-led government’s responses to these developments were heavily criticized for the perceived lenient stance toward the Salafis, which had included the legalization of four Salafi-oriented parties (Jabhat al-Islah, Hizb Al Tahrir, Hizb Al-Asala, and Hizb Al-Rahma) in 2012. Ennadha’s initial responses to concerns over Salafi vigilantism were based on the belief that the Salafi appeal in Tunisia had much to do with the religious repression caused by Bourgiba and Ben Ali’s policies, which had weakened the quality of religious education in the country. This had made an entire generation of Tunisians vulnerable to the kinds of Salafi literalism preached by fundamentalists that were easily obtained via videos on the Internet. Ennahda’s two-pronged approach to dealing with the rise of Salafi appeal in Tunisia was first to reactivate local religious education by re-opening Zaytouna so that the young ‘wayward’ Salafis could be reeducated in Tunisian Islam, and then to encourage political participation so that Salafis would integrate and adopt more moderate views.39 Increasingly, Ennhada found itself placed in a position to adopt a mediating role by entering into dialogue with key Salafi groups, particularly after protests by Salafis groups once Ennahda publicly announced that it was opposed to referencing Sharia law in the new constitution. 40 Therefore, early into the transition period, the Ennahda-led government had the difficult job of mediating conflicts from both sides of the political spectrum—the secular left and the conservative far-right. Through it all, Ennahda prioritized compromise and reconciliation as approaches to mediate conflict rather than exclusion or revenge. 41 Ennahda used these very approaches to handle several points of contention such as the role of religion in the state and gender equality during the constitution-drafting process. Some of these issues were already discussed in the October 18 Collective, so from the outset and before the release of the first draft, Ennahda had agreed to exclude references to Sharia as a source of legislation. An addition to Article 1 in a second draft that included ‘Islam as a state religion’ was 38 Marks, Monica. ‘Tunisia’s Ennahda: Rethinking Islamism in the Context of ISIS and the Egyptian Coup’. Rethinking Political Islam Series (2015), p. 5. 39 The Carter Center, The Constitution-making Process in Tunisia: 2011–2014. Atlanta: The Carter Center, 2014, p. 5–6. 40 Reuters, ‘Tunisia’s Ennahda Party in Talks with Salafi Islamists’. 41 Ghannouchi, Rached. ‘From Political Islam to Muslim Democracy: The Ennahda Party and the Future of Tunisia’. Foreign Affairs. 95 (2016).

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removed in subsequent iterations after a vigorous debate, and the initial wording of ‘Tunisia is a free, independent, and sovereign state. Its religion is Islam’ was retained instead. Ennahda also agreed to Article 2, which defines the nature of the state as ‘civil’ ending all possibility of a theocraticbased state, which was a major concern for secular-liberals.42 Discussions on freedom of religion and conscience in Article 6 provoked controversy between those who did not want any state role in issues of religion, and those who believed the state should protect religion. This too was finally settled through consensus, and so while the final wording of Article 6 includes the state as ‘guardian of religion’, it also guarantees freedom of conscience and belief, and prohibits and fights against calls for ‘takfir’. 43 The constitution-drafting process was long and arduous, hampered by a politically volatile climate, with periodic street protests and strikes, and in-fighting amongst the constituent assembly deputies. By 2013, some of the secular opposition parties were able to tap into a dissatisfied populace, which had seen no political progress in the form of a completed constitution, no improvement in their living conditions, and a heightened sense of fear about extremist violence, to dismiss the troika government as ‘illegitimate’.44 Such calls, which were led by Nidaa Tounes, who was at that time an unelected opposition coalition of leftists, business elites, and officials from the Bourguiba and Ben Ali regimes, intensified after a February 2013 assassination of a leftist politician. The crime was committed by a Salafi-linked extremist, but Ennahda faced the brunt of the criticism for its ‘soft-touch, inclusion-driven approach’ to the Salafi problem. 45 Ennadha declared the largest Salafi jihadi-oriented group in Tunisia, Ansar al Sharia, a terrorist organization in April that year. During this period, Ennahda’s secular allies in government, CPR and Ettakol, and many within its own ranks, pushed for a lustration legislation that would prevent those with links to the old authoritarian regimes from electoral participation. If such a law was passed, it would have disqualified key leaders in Nidaa Tounes from running in future elections. The debate over lustration took a new turn after a second assassination of a secular-oriented politician in July 2013, which heightened fears and polarized the political scene. A political impasse ensued with a walk-out of almost 70 deputies from the constituent assembly. Protests were staged 42 The Carter Center, The Constitution-making Process in Tunisia: 2011–2014. Atlanta: The Carter Center, 2014, p. 80–81. 43 Takfir is the act of accusing another Muslim of being a non-believer. 44 Marks, Monica. ‘Tunisia’s Ennahda: Rethinking Islamism in the Context of ISIS and the Egyptian Coup’. Rethinking Political Islam Series (2015), p. 8. 45 Ibid., p. 7.

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at the assembly headquarters by Nidaa Tounes, other small parties, and civil society groups. 46 The protestors demanded that the dissolution of the constituent assembly while Ennahda and CPR defended the legitimacy of the assembly as the country’s solely elected institution. In August 2013, Ghannouchi took the step of signalling to secularists via a television appearance that a lustration legislation would not be passed in an attempt to encourage Nidaa Tounes to negotiate a settlement to the political impasse.47 Key leaders in Ennahda had determined that a prolonged political polarization would be detrimental to the ‘health and stability’ of the transitional process.48 Ghannouchi’s public statements on lustration resulted in a meeting with Nidaa Tounes’ leader Beji Caid Ebbesi a week later. This development paved the way for a national dialogue held in September 2013 between the political actors mediated by the Quartet—four civil society organizations made up of the Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT), the Tunisian Union for Industry, Trade, and Handicraft (UTICA), the Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH), and the Bar Association. Ennahda recognized that the political impasse could result in the dissolution of the constituent assembly, which not only could have excluded the party from the constitution-drafting process that was yet to be completed, but could also have derailed the entire democratic process.49 Ennahda’s interest in preserving the legitimacy of the democratic process motivated it to compromise where it needed to, so as to retain the political actors it needed. As Ghannouchi himself noted: ‘our priority was not to remain in control but to ensure that the National Constituent Assembly, the supreme representative body, could complete the work of drafting a constitution that would establish the political foundations of a democratic Tunisia’.50 Once that job was done (the constitution was eventually adopted by the constituent assembly with an overwhelming support—200 votes out of 216), Ennahda willingly handed power to a temporary technocratic government in January 2014. Following the October 2014 election results, Ennahda conceded defeat, and for a time, it participated as a partner in a coalition government led by the secular-oriented Nidaa Tounes. 46 The Carter Center, The Constitution-making Process in Tunisia: 2011–2014. Atlanta: The Carter Center, 2014, p. 28. 47 Marks, Monica. “Tunisia’s Ennahda: Rethinking Islamism in the Context of ISIS and the Egyptian Coup’. Rethinking Political Islam Series (2015), p. 10. 48 Ounissi, Sayida. ‘Ennahda from within: Islamists or “Muslim democrats”?’ Islamists on Islamism Today, February 2016. 49 Ibid. 50 Ghannouchi, Rached. ‘From Political Islam to Muslim Democracy: The Ennahda Party and the Future of Tunisia’. Foreign Affairs. 95 (2016).

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Trust in the Democratic Process As can be seen, there were several critical points during 2012 and 2013 when the democratic transition process in Tunisia could have been easily overturned, but for the minimum level of trust that the goal of a democratic Tunisia was indeed truly desired and valued by the majority of the elite political actors. This recognition was established through the negotiations and official declarations made during the early interactions between the non-regime political parties. It was this minimum level of trust, in both the democratic process and in potential partners, which made it possible for Ennahda and the two secular-oriented parties CPR and Ettakol to agree to the power-sharing arrangement of the coalition transition government. However, despite such positive moves that were driven by the political elites of the respective parties, the subsequent defections of members from CPR and Ettakol showed that there was still a high level of mistrust of Ennahda within the secularist-oriented parties. Therefore, Ennahda had to continuously signal to the other political actors that it was interested in making the democratic transition process as politically inclusive as possible. Ennahda’s subsequent compromises and concessions were geared toward developing the minimum level of trust with as many of the political actors as possible and to limit defections from its non-Islamist political allies, so as to build on the common goal of a democratic Tunisia. Once it became clear that the primary concerns that led to the birth of the Ennahda Islamist social movement, which were related to the lack of freedoms under the authoritarian regimes, and in particular the many restrictions imposed on religion and religious citizens, could be addressed in a democratic political system, the goal then was to ensure a successful democratic transition where a new constitution would enshrine these fundamental rights.51 With this understanding, Ennahda did not have any imperative to drive a conventional Islamist agenda to secure those very rights that had been denied under authoritarianism. So Ennahda had little reason to act in dogmatic ways by pursuing illiberal objectives to appeal only to religious conservatives, which could have derailed the transition 51 Ghannouchi states that Ennahda’s evolution was the ‘result of 35 years of constant selfevaluation and more than two years of intense introspection and discussion at the grass-roots level’. See Ghannouchi, Rached. ‘From Political Islam to Muslim Democracy: The Ennahda Party and the Future of Tunisia’. Foreign Affairs. 95 (2016). Also instrumental was the exposure to new thoughts and ideas during the decades that Ennahda’s senior leaders spent in exile in the West. See Shadid, Anthony. ‘Islamists’ Ideas on Democracy and Faith Face Test in Tunisia’, The New York Times, 17 Feburary 2012.

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process. Instead, the common goal of a democratic Tunisia enabled Ennahda to adopt reconciliation and consensus building as approaches in handling political conflicts. As such, even though Ennahda’s secular-oriented allies, CPR and Ettakol, were in favour of passing a lustration legislation to exclude politicians linked to the former regime, Ennahda’s political elites acted to find a compromise with Nidaa Tounes and the other secular forces during the highly volatile period in 2013. It did so even at risk of alienating its own base of supporters, who were for the lustration legislation. If at all the secular forces had succeeded in forcing out the democratically-elected transition government before the constitution was drafted, the democratic transition process would have been forever tainted, and this would have further polarized the country. By negotiating a compromise, Ennahda ensured that it would continue to be involved in the constitution-drafting process, and the legitimacy of the democratic transition process was preserved. Now that ‘the rights of Tunisians to worship freely, express their convictions and beliefs, and embrace an Arab Muslim identity are guaranteed’ under the new constitution, Ennahda has formally separated from its Islamist social movement origins, and is focused on only politics as a party of Muslim democrats.52

Concluding Remarks Although Tunisia is culturally and religiously homogenous, the past eight years have revealed the deep ideological differences that are present in society. When political power shifted from Ennahda to Nidaa Tounes in the 2014 elections, protests by conservatives, who believed they would be marginalized by the secular-oriented party, erupted in the southern parts of Tunisia. Such triggers still exist in the socio-political sphere, and they could lead to the kinds of political crises seen during the democratic transition period, if not properly managed. The policy of consensus adopted by Ennahda entailed not only agreeing to compromises during the constitution-drafting process, but more importantly, it entailed positioning itself as a mediator between the secularoriented and the religious-oriented (this is particularly important given the emergence of newer ultra-conservative religious groups) camps. This role played by mainstream Islamists (now self-defined as Muslim democrats) will likely continue to be necessary as Tunisia moves toward democratic consolidation. 52 Ghannouchi, Rached. ‘From Political Islam to Muslim Democracy: The Ennahda Party and the Future of Tunisia’. Foreign Affairs. 95 (2016).

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The choice of Ennahda to be willing to trust in the democratic process, and to engage in consensus building with available political partners to further the process, can be viewed as the umbrella factors that helped Tunisia to stay the course, especially during the particularly tense periods. When Ennahda lost the 2014 elections, it accepted the results and stepped down from government in a display of peaceful transfer of political power. In doing so, Ennahda had not only sealed its commitment to democracy, it also established a precedent for future peaceful transfers of political power that would be very difficult for any old regime elements to reverse without being charged with double-standards by the citizenry. From an ethical point of view, the inclusion of Islamists, who represent a significant segment of the electorate in society, in political processes will always be a good and necessary approach for democratization. As the post-Arab Spring events have shown, any attempt at democratization in the MENA countries will result in a political power shift from the secularoriented elites of the old regimes to the religious-oriented parties supported by a growing middle-class. This will undoubtedly trigger anxieties, or even in extreme cases, Islamophobic responses, that would be limiting to democratic progress. However, the ensuing secular-religious ideological polarization can be managed by fostering early interactions between the two camps to already build on a minimum level of trust in the democratic process, as was the case in Tunisia. While any understanding formed may be tenuous and open to re-negotiations, it nevertheless serves as a critical base from which political actors can work on, which would be helpful in overcoming a reversion to authoritarian conditions. As Tunisia gradually consolidates its nascent democracy, its successes will allow Arabs in the MENA region to be more confident in recognizing that Islam and democracy can both thrive, and that the way forward does not have to be a zero-sum game.

Bibliography Bayat, Asef. Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007. BBC, ‘Tunisia’s Islamist Ennahda Party Wins Historic Poll’. 27 October 2011. BBC. Available at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-15487647 (accessed on 17 November 2016). Bellin, Eva. ‘Drivers of Democracy: Lessons from Tunisia’. Middle East Brief 75 (2013): 1–10.

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Brooks, Risa. ‘Abandoned at the Palace: Why the Tunisian Military Defected from the Ben Ali Regime in January 2011’. Journal of Strategic Studies 36.2 (2013): 205–220. Browers, Michaelle. Political Ideology in the Arab World: Accommodation and Transformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Cavatorta, Francesco, and Fabio Merone. ‘Moderation through Exclusion? The Journey of the Tunisian Ennahda from Fundamentalist to Conservative Party’. Democratization 20.5 (2013): 857–875. Dunn, Michael Collins. ‘The al-Nahda Movement in Tunisia: From Renaissance to Revolution’. Islamism and Secularism in North Africa. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996. El Sharnoubi, Osman. ‘Tunisia Opposition Fear Ennahda Power Grab’. Ahram Online. 17 January 2012. Available at http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/31906/ World/Region/Tunisia-opposition-fear-Ennahda-power-grab-.aspx (accessed 17 November 2016). Fadel, Mohammad. ‘What Killed Egyptian Democracy?’ Boston Review 39.1 (2014). Gerges, Fawaz A. ‘The Islamist Moment: From Islamic State to Civil Islam?’ Political Science Quarterly 128.3 (2013). Ghannouchi, Rached. ‘From Political Islam to Muslim Democracy: The Ennahda Party and the Future of Tunisia’. Foreign Affairs. 95 (2016). Ghosh, Bobby. ‘Tunisia Needs to Resist the Strongman Temptation’. Bloomberg. 14 Februrary 2019. Available at https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-02-14/tunisia-needs-to-resist-the-strongman-temptation (accessed 21 February 2019). Glasse, Cyril. The Concise Encyclopaedia of Islam. London: Stacey International, 2008. Hamid, Shadi. Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle over Islam is Reshaping the World. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016. Hamid, Shadi. Temptations of Power: Islamists and Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Hashemi, Nader. ‘Why Islam (Properly Understood) is the Solution: Reflections on the Role of Religion in Tunisia’s Democratic Transition’. The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 30.4 (2013): 137–145. Hashemi, Nader. Islam,Ssecularism, and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Marks, Monica. ‘Tunisia’s Ennahda: Rethinking Islamism in the Context of ISIS and the Egyptian Coup’. Rethinking Political Islam Series. Washington DC: Brookings, 2015, 1–14. Michalak, Laurence. ‘Tunisia: Igniting Arab Democracy’. In: Kinsman, Jeremy, and Kurt Bassuener, eds. A Diplomat’s Handbook for Democracy Development Support. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press, 2016, 101–139.

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Ounissi, Sayida. ‘Ennahda from within: Islamists or “Muslim democrats”?’ Islamists on Islamism Today, February 2016. Available at https://www.brookings.edu/ wpcontent/uploads/2016/07/Ounissi-RPI-Response-FINAL_v2.pdf (accessed 17 November 2016). Reuters, ‘Tunisia’s Ennahda Party in Talks with Salafi Islamists’. Reuters. 3 April 2011. Available at http://www.reuters.com/article/ozatp-tunisia-ennahda-salafisidAFJOE83201W20120403 (accessed 17 November 2016). Roy, Olivier. ‘The Transformation of the Arab World’. Journal of Democracy 23.3 (2012): 5–18. Schwedler, Jillian. ‘Can Islamists Become Moderates? Rethinking the Inclusionmoderation Hypothesis’. World Politics 63.2 (2011): 347–376. Schwedler, Jillian, and Jillian M. Schwedler. Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Shadid, Anthony. ‘Islamists’ Ideas on Democracy and Faith Face Test in Tunisia’. The New York Times, 17 February 2012. Stepan, Alfred, and Juan J. Linz. ‘Democratization Theory and the “Arab Spring”’. Journal of Democracy 24.2 (2013): 15–30. Stepan, Alfred. ‘Tunisia’s Transition and the Twin Tolerations’. Journal of Democracy 23.2 (2012): 89–103. The 18 October Coalition for Rights and Freedoms in Tunisia, Our Path to Democracy, 15 June 2010. Available at https://goo.gl/nPTn8s (accessed 14 November 2016). The Carter Center, The Constitution-making Process in Tunisia: 2011–2014. Atlanta: The Carter Center, 2014. Turner, John. ‘Untangling Islamism from Jihadism: Opportunities for Islam and the West after the Arab Spring’. Arab Studies Quarterly 34.3 (2012): 173–188. Weideman, Julian. ‘Tahar Haddad after Bourguiba and Bin ʿAli: A Reformist Between Secularists and Islamists’. International Journal of Middle East Studies 48.1 (2016): 47–65. Wickham, Carrie Rosefsky. ‘The Path to Moderation: Strategy and Learning in the Formation of Egypt’s Wasat Party’. Comparative Politics (2004): 205–228. Willis, Michael. Politics and Power in the Maghreb: Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco from Independence to the Arab Spring. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Yenigün, Halil Ibrahim. ‘The Political and Theological Boundaries of Islamist Moderation after the Arab Spring’. Third World Quarterly 37.12 (2016): 2304–2321.

About the author Saleena Saleem is a PHD candidate at the University of Liverpool.

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The Failure of Political Islam Revisited Olivier Roy Abstract In this chapter, Olivier Roy re-examines the failure of political Islam in the light of the Arab Spring revolutions. Noting that the notion of political Islam is itself problematic, he stresses that it is politics that defines the space for religion within a state. The chapter argues that Islamists are not doomed to failure, given their success in mobilizing support from the population and winning elections. However, it underlines that Islamists are likely to drop their Islamists objectives in favour of fostering democratic values. The failure of political Islam as such has also resulted in the rise of neo-fundamentalism reflected in Wahhabi-Salafism. Keywords: Islamism; Salafism; Muslim Brotherhood

When I wrote The Failure of Political Islam in 1992,1 the title, more than the content (which obviously has not always been read by its commentators), has been the subject of much criticism. These criticisms can be divided into two main categories. The first, coming mainly from non-academic circles, focuses on the prediction reached by the analysis: how can one speak of failure while the Islamists regularly achieved electoral victories2 (Turkey in 2002, Tunisia in 2011, and Egypt in 2012) and especially while jihadism appears on the rise since September 11, 2001? Isn’t the rise of ISIS in the Middle East in 2013 and its continued influence proof that ‘political Islam’ still has a future? The second criticism, more often drawn from the ranks of

1 Roy, Olivier. L’échec de l’islam politique. Paris: Le Seuil, 1992. The English version appeared in 1994 with Harvard University Press. 2 Pipes, Daniel. ‘Hot Spot: Turkey, Iraq, and Mosul’. Middle East Quarterly (1995); and Nafi, Basheer. ‘The Failure of Political Islam?’ Middle East Eye (2015).

Osman, M.N.M. Pathways to Contemporary Islam: New Trends in Critical Engagement. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. doi: 10.5117/9789462987593_ch07

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my academic colleagues, concerns the relevance of the concept of Islamism:3 would it not be an artificial construction, even tinged with orientalism and postcolonialism, which arbitrarily isolates a political object, constructed according to the categories of Western political science ( political ideology, centrality of the State, insulation of ‘religion’ as a specific category), whereas in the Muslim world, the reference to Islam, fluid and omnipresent, would lie in a continuum in which religion is intrinsically linked to the issue of identity, political legitimacy, and, above all, protest against all forms of neo-imperialism and cultural domination? In short, sometimes I would be too complacent in dealing with the ‘Islamic threat’ and would only be a cog in the endeavour to silence the voice of the oppressed by denying their purely political dimension. In both cases, I maintain my positions: I consider that the book was premonitory and that the concept of political Islam, or Islamism, makes sense provided of course that one gives it an operative definition in relation to a context: Islamism is not a timeless category (constructed from what the Koran says about politics and power) or a catch-all term for any political violence perpetrated in the name of Islam, from revolution to Jihad. Unfortunately, such has become today the use of the term Islamism, both by the media and the politicians, which ends up by no longer designating anything specific to the term. Consequently, the term ceases to explain anything. However, think that even when the terminology of social sciences departs from the language of the media, we should stick to a strict definition of ‘Islamism’. ‘The Failure of Political Islam’ has never been a treatise on ‘Islam and politics’, although its conclusions shed light on the debate that is usually summarized by this formula. It describes a precise trajectory: that of the Islamist movements, which have a history and are therefore in a definite temporality and context—the second half of the twentieth century. The thesis did not postulate that Islamist movements cannot take power. In fact, Islamists came to power in Iran, Turkey, and Tunisia. However, it argued that Islamists will fail to promulgate its key objectives. The concept of an Islamic state self-destructs itself because of the contradictions of the Islamist project. Iran is the only Islamic state that has held power continuously, but the ‘mullahs’ regime’ has produced the most secularized society in the Middle East;4 its true legitimacy rests on a virulent nationalism that 3 Gilles, Kepel. ‘Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam’. London: I.B. Tauris (2002); and Bayat, Asef, ed. Post-Islamism: The Many Faces of Political Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. 4 Moazami, Behrooz. State, Religion, and Revolution in Iran, 1796 to the Present. London: Springer, 2013.

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has pitted Iran against the Sunni Islamists (whom it is now fighting on all fronts), thus undermining any claim by the Islamic revolution to represent the ummah. The rise to power of Nahda in Tunisia5 and the AKP in Turkey6 has emptied their ideological programme, turning them into conservative (and authoritarian for the AKP) but legalistic parties.

What is Islamism? First we should define what we mean by ‘Islamists’ in a strict sense, that is to say a movement that began in the 1930s in Egypt (the association of the Muslim Brotherhood founded by Hassan al-Banna),7 in India (the matrix of Jama’at-i Islami created by Abul Ala Maududi),8 later in the Shi’ite duodecimal world (around Mohammed Baqer al-Sadr in Iraq9 and Ruhollah Khomeini in Iran10) and finally in Turkey with Necmettin Erbakan. With the exception of the Shi’ites, its founders do not come from the traditional fundamentalist religious circles (the ulema). Many of the Islamists are sociologically modern (teachers, engineers, journalists) and see in Islam a political ideology capable of understanding a modern state society and of providing an alternative viable model to the different ideologies promoted by the West (fascism, communism, liberal democracy). They have grasped the social complexity of such societies (they address specific categories: youth, students, women, intellectuals). They express their modernity by using a number of neologisms (ideolozhi in Persian, mafkura or ‘conception of the world’ and hakimiyya or ‘sovereignty’ in Arabic).11 They consider sharia as one element among others to qualify the Islamic state and, while dreaming of a Caliphate, they register their action within the framework of the modern nation-state. 5 Wolf, Anne. Political Islam in Tunisia: The History of Ennahda. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. 6 Hale, William, and Ergun Ozbudun. Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey: The Case of the AKP. London: Routledge, 2011. 7 Zollner, Barbara. ‘The Muslim Brotherhood’. Routledge Handbook of Political Islam. Routledge, 2012. 67–77. 8 Bahadur, Kalim. The Jama’at-I-Islami of Pakistan. Mumbai: Chetana Publications, 1977; and Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza. The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jama’at-i Islami of Pakistan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. 9 As-Sadr, Mohammed Baqir. The Emergence of Shiism and Shiites. London: Imam Ali Foundation, 2015. 10 Khomeini, Ruhollah Musawi. Islam and Revolution. Jakarta: Mizan Press, 1981. 11 For an excellent discussion of these terms, see Enayat, Hamid. Modern Islamic Political Thought. Kuala Lumpur: Islamic Book Trust, 2001.

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It is therefore wrong to assume that they are characterized by categories of Western political science that do not correspond to their political imaginary. Islamists invent or borrow forms of organization or social mobilization which are all equally modern (political party, centralism, militancy). They are perfectly aware of their modernity. Most Islamists affirm that prior to their project there was never a true Islamic state, except in the time of the Prophet.12 It must be qualified that they are also part of an old tradition of preaching (da’wa) and of the more recent phenomena of the ‘return to the sacred’ (not to speak of the ‘born-again’); the Muslim Brothers developed a personal asceticism within the framework of an institutionalized piety (like some sort of lay religious order). If these movements cannot be isolated from the context of the religious revivalism during the second half of the twentieth century, they nevertheless have a mode of intervention in the politics of their own that constitute their originality. The term ‘Islamist’ is not an invention of Western scholars: the proof is that, after being very reluctant to use the term Islamism in the 1980s, many claim its use today at least to qualify themselves (this is the case of Nahda for example). If the concept can make debate in political science, there is no doubt that it refers to a very specific and identifiable phenomenon in politics. The dual nature of these movements (both politically modern and anchored into a religious tradition even if a reconstructed one) has of course important consequences. They all associate political practice (siasah) and religious preaching (da’wa), requiring personal piety and asceticism from their members, at least for the Muslim Brothers and members of the Jamaat. Other parties such as the AKP do not require its members to be pious Muslims and in fact in the case of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) allows non-Muslims to be members. Their reference to the Qur’an and the sharia led them to seek to transcribe these two elements in a modern grammar of political life. ‘The Koran is our Constitution’, ‘One Law: Sharia’, ‘Islamic State’, ‘Democracy is shura’ (council) are recurrent slogans, which entail a whole series of tensions when these parties are in charge.13 The reference to Islam is not simply an issue of identity, that is only a way of speaking or formulating entirely secular demands (anticolonialism, social justice, dignity): it supposes an endeavour to Islamicize society and politics beyond a formal lip-service. The articulation between ‘politics’ and ‘preaching’ is central to Islamist movements, and it is this contradiction that makes Islamism collapse as a viable political alternative. 12 Sayyid Maududi, Abu’l-A’la. The Message of Jam’at-i-Islami, n.p, 1955: 46. 13 Mitchell, Richard Paul. The Society of the Muslim Brothers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

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In a sense, it is precisely because the Islamists won that they subsequently lost. Nowhere have they been able to build a transnational solidarity except when based on religious sectarianism (Sunnis versus Shiites) which is precisely the negation of the reference to the universal ummah. There has not been any case where Islamists have been able to bypass the traditional cleavages of the society (sectarian, ethnic, and tribal tensions). Afghanistan has fallen into a multi-layered civil war after the fall of the communist regime in 1992.14 The Lebanese Hezbollah, after its intervention in Syria in 2012, is nothing more than the armed wing of Arab Shiism in the Middle East, after dreaming of being the new vanguard of Arab nationalism.15 Despite early successes (cease-fire with the PKK) the AKP has been unable to build a new relationship with the Kurds and reverted to the traditional Turkish nationalism after 2015.16 No Islamist party has been able to set up a true ‘Islamic’ economy, sometimes replaced by the window dressing Islamic finance which put other names on traditional capitalist financial practices. Even groups such as the Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT) which seeks to re-establish the historical Caliphate, has not only failed in its pursuit but have been divided along ethnic and racial lines within its own membership.17 And, as I had foreseen in my book, the crisis of Islamism leads to the development of movements that I have called ‘neo-fundamentalists’, now called ‘Salafists’. Salafists prefer to renounce politics instead of renouncing sharia.18 The great majority accepts the existing governments as long as they can follow a pious life of their own. Their quietism might even lead to an alliance with secular forces to thwart the victory of the Muslim Brothers, as it happened in Egypt during the military take-over of 3 July 2013. A fringe element amongst the Salafis, on the contrary, might choose to fight for an ‘Islamic emirate’ or even ‘caliphate’, like ISIS in 2013, but by refusing to abide with the recognized international norms of statehood, diplomacy, and borders (as did the Muslim Brothers, and also the Taliban), they fail in setting up a stable and viable Islamic state. 14 Roy, Olivier. Afghanistan: From Holy War to Civil War. Princeton: Darwin Press, Incorporated, 1995. 15 Alagha, Joseph Elie. The Shifts in Hizbullah’s Ideology: Religious Ideology, Political Ideology, and Political Program. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006. 16 For a discussion on the AKP and Turkish nationalism, see White, Jenny Barbara. Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. 17 For an in-depth ethnographic research on these cleavages within HT, see Osman, Mohamed Nawab Mohamed. Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia and Political Islam: Identity, Ideology and ReligioPolitical Mobilization. London: Routledge, 2018. 18 Lauzière, Henri. The Making of Salafism: Islamic Reform in the Twentieth Century. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015.

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Islamism and Jihadism The twenty-f ive years following the publication of the book show how events confirmed this central thesis. I summarize it as such: the Islamist movements, taking part in the political game, became ‘nationalized’ in the sense that they struggle in the framework of a given country and claim to achieve national goals (this is what I called Islamo-nationalism). Hamas and AKP (not to speak of the Iranian revolution) are the best examples of the prevalence of the national and patriotic model on any claim in favour of supra-nationalism: the most drastic turn was the decision of Hamas to send troops in support of Bashar el Asad in Qusseyr (June 2013), thus turning its back to pan-Arab and pan-Islamic militancy. All the Muslim Brothers national branches developed a purely national agenda, with little solidarity between themselves. Their politics became more and more secular, both in terms of recruitment and reference to religion (this is particularly the case of En-Nahda and the AKP); religion was more defined as an identity issue than as an issue of sharia. While Iran turned immediately into an autocratic state, the Sunni Islamist movements endorsed democratization, when such a path was possible. In Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, and Tunisia, they won general elections and accepted the results of the ballot box. This double move towards nationalism and secularization did open the space for new forms of religious radicalization that were detached from the national political game, either advocating a withdrawal into a way of life and not a political regime (Salafis and neo-fundamentalists), or calling for a global Jihad, beyond the scope of real societies and nation-states. The jihadist movement has now become the most spectacular form of political violence in the name of Islam. But it is not an avatar of Islamism, even if the media continues to use this term for both. Al-Qaeda and Daesh are not the descendants of the Muslim Brotherhood (the only exception being the small group of Egyptians, under Ayman al Zawahiri, who joined Bin Laden in Afghanistan in the late 1980s after breaking with the Brotherhood). Whether in Algeria (the Islamic Salvation Front—FIS), in Morocco (the Justice and Development Party—PJD), in France (the Union of Islamic Organizations of France—UOIF), in Egypt, in Syria, Jordan, Tunisia (En-Nahda), or Pakistan (Jama’at-i Islami), Islamist movements have never been the matrix of jihadist radicalization. In Afghanistan the former Muslim Brother Abdallah Azzam, initiator of the jihadist movement against the Soviets, was assassinated in 1989, precisely because he opposed the terrorist and anti-Western drift advocated by Osama bin Laden, who was going to take his place and who

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had never been a Muslim Brother. As I showed in Globalized Islam,19 jihadism today is a consequence of the globalization and deculturation of Islam and not the drift of Islamist parties towards radicalization. It remains to be seen whether the repression against the Egyptian Muslim Brothers after 2013 would push the youngest members to join global jihad. An informal scan of the developments in the Greater Middle East and South Asia confirms the mutations of the Islamist movements. In Iran, the regime is held by the body of the pasdaran (‘guardians of the revolution’), under the ‘Guide’. The clergy as such no longer plays a role because it has been put under the control of the State, although we can see a new trend among young mullahs to take some distance from the state influence, in an endeavour to regain some influence among civil society. Iranian society became the most secular in the Middle East; atheism and religious eclecticism flourished, with a wave of conversions to evangelical Protestantism that seriously worried the regime. In Pakistan and the Indian subcontinent, parties that have taken the name ‘Jama’at-i Islami’ are losing ground. Pakistan is collapsing as a nationstate and is becoming a f ield of struggle between the army and a neofundamentalist nebula which has become extremely violent, and prospers precisely on the ruins of the state, refocusing on local ‘Islamic emirates’ of variable geometry. There, activists content themselves with imposing the sharia by force. These Islamic emirates, such as the ‘Islamic state’ of Daesh in Syria and Iraq, do not correspond to the Islamic state dreamed of by the Islamists, for there are no real state structures. Curiously, they are almost always located in tribal areas where there is an obvious link between the decomposition / re-composition of tribal systems and the establishment of Islamic emirates (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Africa). These Islamic emirates are in fact an avatar of the globalization of Islam, as they allow dissenting areas and groups, in opposition to the central state, to connect directly to the global world, in parallel to an economic globalization, based on smuggling and migration. To reinforce their status of autonomy, they connect also with militant global jihadist movements, Al Qaeda and then ISIS. In short, their sociological and anthropological foundations, as well as their inclusion into the geostrategic space, are fundamentally different from Islamo-nationalisms. In Turkey, the AKP has renounced all Islamic references and is rethinking itself as a conservative party, defender of the family and cultural traditions, 19 Roy, Olivier. Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.

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liberal in economics and nationalist in the regional environment, despite the short-lived endorsement of the Arab Muslim brothers in the wake of the Arab spring. The support did not resist to the civil war in Syria: Erdogan very rapidly reverted to the strongly anti-Kurdish policy of the Kemalist regime20 and allied with the two archenemies of the Arab Muslim brothers, Iran and Russia. The authoritarian drift of Recep Tayyip Erdogan from 2011 onwards does not really correspond to a smooth Islamization. Above all, Erdogan’s conceptions of values h ​​ ave little to do with Islamism or Salafism; rather it takes up all the elements of the American religious right: rejection of abortion (a non-subject for the Islamists) and defence of family values​​ that are not Islamic per se. In 2004, when he tried in vain to pass a law penalizing adultery, the latter was defined on the model of the Western Christian family (a monogamous couple where each one swears fidelity to the other); such a law would have first penalized the practice of customary polygamy among some traditional religious notables (the husband then being guilty of adultery if he maintains a second wife) and would have created a man / woman equality absent from the sharia. Such a law exists in ten US states but has nothing to do with zina (‘fornication’) as defined by the sharia in Saudi Arabia. Erdogan is here rather in the wake of Vladimir Putin or Viktor Orban, as well as the American Tea Party. It should be noted that, in the aftermath of the repression of the Arab Spring, it was the so-called ‘pro-Western’ regimes that launched a campaign against homosexuality, atheism, and blasphemy (Egypt of General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Tunisia after the victory of the ‘secular’ Nida Tunes party). The moral order is not always where it is expected.

The Decline of Islamism The last point addresses the Arab Spring. The latter has shown that Islamism no longer the ideology that underpins political protest. It is no longer the language par excellence of the revolt of the ‘Arab masses’. It is the demand for democracy that is the new language of protest. The Islamists were surprised by the Arab Spring.21 Many of the Islamist movement felt that they lost 20 Gunter, Michael M. The Kurds in Turkey: A Political Dilemma. Boulder: Westview Press, 1990; and Yeğen, Mesut. ‘Turkish Nationalism and the Kurdish Question’. Ethnic and Racial Studies 30.1 (2007): 119–151. 21 Hashemi, Nader. ‘The Arab Spring Two Years on: Reflections on Dignity, Democracy, and Devotion’. Ethics & International Affairs 27.2 (2013): 207–221.

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the monopoly of the structural opposition they have so far held (which legitimized Western support for dictatorships as the best defence against the ‘Islamic threat’ from Zine Ben Ali to Hosni Mubarak). Nonetheless, the Islamists, through their organizational skills and grassroots network, won the elections that followed the Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia. They then believed their hour of glory had arrived because they also thought they were the authentic voice of the people, and yet their power imploded soon after. In these cases they came to power through the ballot boxes not by engaging in coup attempts, as their lay opponents often claimed to justify their demand for permanent ostracism of the Islamists. Not only did they not demonstrate their ability to govern, but they also lost the monopoly of the political opposition, especially that of Islam in politics. The Salafists have in fact entered politics, above all, against the Muslim Brothers, attacking them on both sides and blaming them for their moderation (Tunisia) or for their contrarian dogmatism (Egypt).22 And this is where my last thesis comes in: democratization is made possible not by the previous secularization of Muslim societies but by the diversification of the religious field and the appearance of new forms of religiosity (individualization of belief and practices, reshuffling of the institutional religious field, deculturation—which I study in Globalized Islam and Holy Ignorance23), which are going against the Islamists’ advocacy of authenticity and identity. If the religious field is diversified, then it is compatible with democracy, even if the believers are not liberal for all that. It is also because religious practices are complex that the Islamists will fail. In this sense, I do not underestimate religious anthropology in favour of political sociology, on the contrary; it is because there is a growing autonomy and diversity of the religious field that the Islamists have failed to build an Islamic state. The failure of political Islam is not a purely political phenomenon; it is also a consequence of changes in the religious field. Islamism can only thrive in a precise historical context: the return of religion as a basis of identity in context of a crisis of Arab nationalism. 22 For a historical example of the competition between the Salafis and Muslim Brotherhood, see Wiktorowicz, Quintan. The Management of Islamic Activism: Salafis, the Muslim Brotherhood, and State Power in Jordan. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. For the conflict between Salafis and Muslim Brothers after the Arab Spring, see Lacroix, Stéphane. Egypt’s Pragmatic Salafis: The Politics of Hizb al-Nour. Vol. 1. New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2016. 23 Roy, Olivier. Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.

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It disappears when pan-Arabism, in its pan-Islamic version, is confronted with a revival of national consciousness and sectarian feuds, and when the religious reference no longer expresses a collective identity claim but an individual quest for salvation which can be translated into the best (a more spiritual Islam) or the worst (jihadism). It is this diversification of the religious field that I called, long before the Arab Spring, ‘post-Islamism’. 24 Post-Islamism allows the political secularization of a society that can remain deeply religious. In this regard, I consider that those who see Islam as an identity rather than a religion have a logical culturalist conception of the Middle East, a concept that is reflected in their call for more ‘multiculturalism’ in the West to manage the Muslim populations, as if they were still only an extension of the Middle East. This vision was propagated by many people on opposite sides after September 11, 2001. Terrorism and jihadism would be part of a long-term confrontation between the Muslim world and the West. Some Muslims see themselves as the victims of neo-colonialism; many non-Muslims on the contrary see in Islam a conquering religion unable to adapt to the modern world. These two ‘great stories’ in fact ignore that the major crisis emanates from the globalization of Islam and therefore its deculturation and uprooting. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has been the central point of the Arab sense of humiliation since 1967, is no longer the main issue for the born-again or converted young Muslims from the West. When young jihadists bemoan the sufferings of the ummah, they mingle Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Iraq, or Palestine as if they represent the same thing. Yet, few cite the 1967 war. The Palestinian keffiyeh disappeared from demonstrations in favour of Salafist outfits such as the white tunic (thawb) worn above the ankles with a large white skullcap (with military trellis). The Israeli military intervention against Gaza in July 2014 no longer mobilized the Arab street as was the case in 2006 during the intervention in southern Lebanon. The support given by the Lebanese Hezbollah to the regime of Bashar Al Assad certainly contributed to confuse the issue. The concrete geo-strategy of the Middle East has become illegible for the new radicals, who instead choose to identify with a virtual global ummah that is found everywhere and nowhere. The Islamic State (ISIS) which raised from the sands in the spring of 2014 does not carry an Islamic nation-state project but takes up the fantasy of a global caliphate that begins in the desert, but could persist only by its permanent expansion, an expansion rapidly challenged by the nature of the 24 Ibid.

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populations concerned. Sunni Arabs dispossessed of the political power in five of the six entities born from the fall of the Ottoman Empire (Lebanon, from its foundation, Palestine in 1948, Syria in 1962, Kurdistan from 1991, Iraq in 2003) have seen in ISIS, for a time, the instrument of their return to the forefront, but on the military and ideological level, the real strength of ISIS is based on the international brigade of jihadist volunteers from all over the world. In fact, despite the slow progress of the anti-ISIS forces (although antagonistic between themselves), the tensions between these brigades and the local Sunni Arab populations, and the attrition air-war waged by the West, has caused the death of ISIS.

The Future of Islamists If Islamism fails, it does not mean that the Islamists are doomed. They may either jump in the democratization boat (an obvious fact in Tunisia and Morocco) or be tempted to find their own path as ‘moderate jihadists’ in a war-torn Middle East; that is, jihadists eager to f ind a negotiated political outcome, in an environment which is more and more hostile to them with the emergence of the Donald Trump administration in the United States. While it is hard to fully predict the future trajectory of Islamism, it is clear that it is not likely that an Islamic state will be established. This stems from a profound contradiction in the concept of a religious state: God says nothing; it is men who say what they hear of God. It is men who define what a religion is. A religious state does not implement a religion that exists outside of it: on the contrary it defines what religion is before ‘implementing’ it. An Islamic state does not allow the religious authorities to apply the sharia: it defines first what is the sharia and then the modalities of appointment of the judges. Even in Saudi Arabia, power defines the place of the religious;25 the state is therefore always above the religious. The Saudi political elites always make religion one of their instruments for power, even if they pretend to put themselves at the service of religion. Every state is secular and, by instrumentalizing religion, every state secularizes religion. The failure of political Islam is only a consequence of the impossibility of a theocracy. Politics is primarily power, and power follows its own laws which is not governed by religion. 25 Al-Rasheed, Madawi. Muted Modernists: The Struggle over Divine Politics in Saudi Arabia. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.

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Bibliography Alagha, Joseph Elie. The Shifts in Hizbullah’s Ideology: Religious Ideology, Political Ideology, and Political Program. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006. Al-Rasheed, Madawi. Muted Modernists: The Struggle over Divine Politics in Saudi Arabia. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. As-Sadr, Mohammed Baqir. The Emergence of Shiism and Shiites. London: Imam Ali Foundation, 2015. Bahadur, Kalim. The Jama’at-I-Islami of Pakistan. Mumbai: Chetana Publications,1977. Bayat, Asef, ed. Post-Islamism: The Many Faces of Political Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Enayat, Hamid. Modern Islamic Political Thought. Kuala Lumpur: Islamic Book Trust, 2001. Gilles, Kepel. Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. London: I.B. Tauris, 2002. Gunter, Michael M. The Kurds in Turkey: A Political Dilemma. Boulder: Westview Press, 1990. Hale, William, and Ergun Ozbudun. Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey: The Case of the AKP. London: Routledge, 2011. Hashemi, Nader. ‘The Arab Spring Two Years on: Reflections on Dignity, Democracy, and Devotion’. Ethics & International Affairs 27.2 (2013): 207–221. Khomeini, Ruhollah Musawi. Islam and Revolution. Jakarta: Mizan Press, 1981. Lacroix, Stéphane. Egypt’s Pragmatic Salafis: The Politics of Hizb al-Nour. Vol. 1. New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2016. Lauzière, Henri. The Making of Salafism: Islamic Reform in the Twentieth Century. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. Mitchell, Richard Paul. The Society of the Muslim Brothers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. Moazami, Behrooz. State, Religion, and Revolution in Iran, 1796 to the Present. London: Springer, 2013. Nafi, Basheer. ‘The Failure of Political Islam?’ Middle East Eye, 31 July 2015. Available at https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/failure-political-islam (accessed on 30 January 2019) Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza. The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jama’at-i Islami of Pakistan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Osman, Mohamed Nawab Mohamed. Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia and Political Islam: Identity, Ideology and Religio-Political Mobilization. London: Routledge, 2018. Pipes, Daniel. ‘Hot Spot: Turkey, Iraq, and Mosul’. Middle East Quarterly (September 1995). Available at https://www.meforum.org/265/hot-spot-turkey-iraq-andmosul (accessed on 30 January 2019)

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Roy, Olivier. Afghanistan: From Holy War to Civil War. Princeton: Darwin Press Incorporated, 1995. Roy, Olivier. Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Roy, Olivier. Holy Ignorance: When Religion and Culture Part Ways. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. Roy, Olivier. L’échec de l’islam politique. Paris: Le Seuil, 1992. Sayyid Maududi, Abu’l-A’la. The Message of Jam’at-i-Islami, n.p, 1955. White, Jenny Barbara. Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. Wiktorowicz, Quintan. The Management of Islamic Activism: Salafis, the Muslim Brotherhood, and State Power in Jordan. Albany: SUNY Press, 2001. Wolf, Anne. Political Islam in Tunisia: The History of Ennahda. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Yeğen, Mesut. ‘Turkish Nationalism and the Kurdish Question’. Ethnic and Racial Studies 30.1 (2007): 119–151. Zollner, Barbara. ‘The Muslim Brotherhood’. Routledge Handbook of Political Islam. Routledge, 2012. 67–77.

About the author Olivier Roy is presently Professor at the European University Institute (Florence) where he heads the Mediterranean programme at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies and the ReligioWest research project (funded by the European Research Council).

8. Regaining the Islamic Centre? A Malaysian Chronicle of Moderation and Its Discontents Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid Abstract This chapter chronicles factors contributing to and implications arising from declining levels of moderation in Muslim-majority societies in the era of global Islamic resurgence by looking at the example of Malaysia, a country that has been classified as a moderate Muslim country. Moderation here is understood in terms of both the intellectual conception of Islamic doctrine and its practical application as a way of life and of relating to others, both Muslim and non-Muslim. It is argued that moderation has taken a beating with the ascendancy of the Wahhabi-Salafi school of thought by especially penetrating Islamic institutions with organic linkages to the state, a phenomenon made worse by the prevalence of authoritarian structures and paternalistic political cultures in post-colonial Muslim societies. In Malaysia, Middle Eastern-influenced Salafization synergized with ethnocentric aspects of local politics to produce a socio-political environment largely antithetical to the country’s pluralist heritage. Keywords: Islamism; Moderation; Malaysia; Wahhabi-Salafi

Introduction The past two decades has been a sad period for the ummah (global Muslim community). The sense of triumph at the Soviet Union’s defeat in Afghanistan was quickly overtaken by the senseless violence that ensued among rival factions of the Afghan war. As if the travails endured in Bosnia Herzegovina were not enough, sectarian warfare was crippling Muslim-majority countries such as Sudan, Algeria, and Pakistan. By the late 1990s, violence had spread to the previously calm Southeast Asia, whose societies were well-known

Osman, M.N.M. Pathways to Contemporary Islam: New Trends in Critical Engagement. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. doi: 10.5117/9789462987593_ch08

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for their softer culture and greater religious accommodation with local customs vis-à-vis their Middle Eastern counterparts. The rapid spread of news through advancements in information and communication technology (ICT), particularly with the arrival of the Internet, meant that worldwide Muslim empathy with their suffering religious brethren was more swiftly and easily triggered. When Muslim terrorists were held liable for the airborne attacks on New York’s World Trade Centre (WTC) and the Pentagon, United States of America (USA) on 11 September 2001, the stage was seemingly set for a battle between Islamic and Western civilizations as originally propounded by the Harvard academic Samuel Huntington. Among reasons cited by Huntington in his prognosis of a future ‘clash of civilizations’ were the shrinking of the world to become ‘a smaller place’ and the weakening of the nation state ‘as a source of identity’, the gap consequently filled mostly by religion, especially in its ‘fundamentalist’ forms. Such a polarizing discourse between ‘Islam and the rest’ was creating immense difficulties for Muslim communities residing in non-Muslim majority countries. As a ramification of past colonial encounters in which Muslims were subjugated by non-Muslim imperial powers, many young Muslims, upon national independence, reversed the flow by moving to lands of their former colonizers in search of better lives. Changing lifestyles from a majority to a minority community was not smooth sailing, however. Their personal lives hitherto guided by a jurisprudence conceptualized within a ‘theology of empire’,1 religious pluralism encountered in their daily lives was a new experience for Muslim migrants to the non-Muslim majority polities. New terms such as fiqh al-waqi’ (jurisprudence of reality), fiqh al-taghayyur (jurisprudence of change), fiqh al-awlawiyyat (jurisprudence of priorities), fiqh al-aqalliyat (jurisprudence of minorities) and fiqh alwasatiyyah (jurisprudence of the middle way) entered into the vocabulary of Muslim scholars or ulama grappling with real world problems of adjusting the operationalization of religious faith and practice for the lay Muslims. Wasatiyyah, deriving from the Arabic wasat or a state of being intermediate or in the middle, connotes the idea of moderation, without lapsing into negligence (Arabic: tafrit) or trangressing beyond acceptable borders into excess (Arabic: ifrat). Both negligence and excess are manifestations of extremities at one or the other end. However, the contemporary phenomenon 1 A term introduced by USA-based South African scholar Ebrahim Moosa to refer to traditional Islamic thought couched in Muslim-dominant terms and paradigms whereby interaction with the religious ‘Other’ is invariably viewed on dialectical grounds, even to the point of caricaturing them as potential foes. See his interview in Farish, pp. 23–28.

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of Muslim extremism is traced to exaggeration (Arabic: ghuluw) in doctrinal understanding and religious practices that essentializes Islam in such a manner that its institutions and categories lose their attribute of being just (Arabic: ‘adl). To be moderate is therefore also to be fair or just. As God proclaims in the Quran (2: 143): ‘Thus have We made of you an ummah justly balanced (Arabic: ummatan wasatan), that ye might be witnesses over the nations […]’2 Failure to adhere to wasatiyyah would lead to the malaise of fanaticism (Arabic: ta’asub), which breeds bigotry, intolerance and ultimately violence. In Muslim-majority countries, there has been a tendency among Islamist3 and Muslim-led parties and groups to base their political programmes around the concept of justice. Hence the appearance of party names such as the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) in Turkey, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP: Ḥizb al-Ḥurriya wa al-’Adala) in Egypt, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS: Partai Keadilan Sejahtera) in Indonesia, and the People’s Justice Party (PKR: Parti Keadilan Rakyat) in Malaysia. In applying their understandings of justice, however, their standards might differ in accordance with peculiarities associated with a particular nation state’s societal make up.

Islamic Pluralism in Brief Historical Perspective The pluralistic nature of Islam is testified by its historic tolerance and even encouragement of multiple interpretations of its many religious texts and scriptural sources which trace their origins to the Quran and the Sunna (trodden path of the Prophet Muhammad), both of which are believed by Muslims to be of divine quality. Since the Prophet’s demise, the Islamic intellectual tradition has seen the emergence and passing of various schools of thought in different branches of religious knowledge such as tawhid (unitarian theology), fiqh (jurisprudence), tasawwuf (spirituality or Sufism), tafsir (Quranic exegesis) and hadith (words and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad).4 2 The Holy Qur’an, p. 57. 3 ‘Islamist’ here is as pertains to believers and practitioners of ‘political Islam’ i.e. the institutional expression of Islamism—an ideology whose ultimate goal is the establishment of a juridical Islamic state. As for matters pertaining to Islam as a religious faith per se, the adjective ‘Islamic’ shall be employed. See Liow, p. 6. 4 These fundaments of religious knowledge, but especially tawhid, fiqh and tasawwuf are collectively recognized as fard ‘ain (individual obligation) disciplines, meaning doctrinal and ritual obligations which must be acknowledged and practised by every adult male and female Muslim.

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The ulama, who in the medieval world constituted those who mastered both religious and worldly sciences which came to assume importance as fard kifayah5 disciplines, held the major responsibility of maintaining the integrity of the ummah through their scholarly activities, which have been continually developed, debated, deconstructed, and reconstructed in myriad educational institutions throughout Islamic history. Tension between ulama and the state, which in ancient times was represented by the caliphate whose seat moved from Medina to Damascus to Baghdad and finally to Istanbul until 1924, occasionally erupted whenever their interests clashed. Some caliphs and governors were obsessed with co-opting the ulama under their political structures, leading to persecutions and even executions whenever the more conscientious among the scholars resisted. But many supposedly righteous ulama also succumbed to temporal authority. Generally, wherever and whenever Muslim leaders were pluralistic enough to adopt ‘a flexible and differentiated approach in matters of governance, culture and society’, dominions under their rule blossomed.6 The epitome of such dispensation of justice regardless of ethno-religious affiliations is the Prophet Muhammad’s governance of Medina (622–632 CE).7 His Medina Charter conferred political, cultural, and religious rights on non-Muslims, proclaiming them to be of one nation (Arabic: ummah wahidah) with the Muslims despite their different religious beliefs.8 From early on in Islamic history, whether or not and to what extent the intellectual scene flourished or stagnated, had partly been a function of politics. Under a thriving polity, in full recognition of the Quranic vision of a pluralist world,9 the meting out of justice to non-Muslim minorities, as a matter of principle, was never compromised, to the extent that classical Muslim rulers not unusually accorded them better treatment over Muslim

5 Fard kifayah refers to collective obligations i.e. duties that must be observed by at least one unit of a group of believers so as to exempt the others. Examples of classical subjects are al-hisab (mathematics), al-handasah (geometry), mantiq (logic), al-tib (medicine), al-jighrafia (geography), al-badi’ (metaphor) and al-bayan (rhetoric). 6 Hefner, p. 23. 7 Abdul Hamid, Ahmad Fauzi, and Shaik Abdullah Hassan Mydin. ‘The Prophet (peace be on him) as a Model for Universal Peace and Justice’. Insights 2.2/3 (2009). pp. 159–171. 8 Morrison, Scott. ‘The Genealogy and Contemporary Significance of the Islamic Ummah’. Islamic Culture 75.3 (2001). pp. 2–3. 9 Filali-Ansary, Abdou. ‘Introduction: Theoretical Approaches to Cultural Diversity’, in Filali-Ansary, Abdou, ed. Challenge of Pluralism: Paradigms from Muslim Contexts. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009, pp. 1–6.

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dissidents.10 Indeed, implementation of the ideals of peaceful coexistence between peoples of diverse religions has been hailed as one of the most glittering achievements of Islamic civilization, as exemplif ied by the convivencia of medieval Spain—a concept which has been integral to the Islamic-oriented pluralist worldview of Malaysia’s former Deputy Prime Minister and later opposition icon and Prime Minister-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahim (1947– ),11 its allegedly mythologized character notwithstanding.12 By contrast, large scale violence as perpetrated by terrorist outfits such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), known also as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State (IS), or Daesh, after its Arabic acronym, quintessentially represents the loss of the moderation agenda in contemporary Islam.

How Moderation Lost the Battle: The Case of Malaysia13 In pre-colonial Malaya, the ulama developed a symbiotic relationship with the various Malay sultanates, serving as the rulers’ advisors and trusted confidants. The advent of European colonialism, however, brought about new challenges, with differential responses. Some ulama provided inspiration to early Malay nationalists who rebelled against the British following its increasing interference in local administrative matters after the Pangkor 10 Al-Azmeh, Aziz, ‘Pluralism in Muslim Societies’, in Filali-Ansary, Abdou, ed. Challenge of Pluralism: Paradigms from Muslim Contexts. Edinburgh University Press, 2009. pp. 11–12. 11 Allers, Charles. The Evolution of a Muslim Democrat: The Life of Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim. New York: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers, 2014. pp. 106, 200, 234. Dismissed as Deputy Prime Minister and Deputy President of the ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party by Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad in September 1998, Anwar went on to serve two jail terms: from 1999 to 2004, and from 2014 to 2018, on what were widely believed to be trumped-up charges of corruption and sodomy. He was released in May 2018 upon being granted a royal pardon following the Pakatan Harapan (PH: Pact of Hope) opposition coalition’s shocking victory over the incumbent Barisan Nasional (BN: National Front) government in Malaysia’s fourteenth general elections (GE14). He now serves as Member of Parliament for Port Dickson, and is tipped to replace Dr. Mahathir, who is on his second premiership term as chair of PH which trounced BN in May 2018, as Prime Minister in mid-2020. Dr. Mahathir had earlier stepped down in 2003 and reconciled with Anwar in 2016. 12 For a more critical view of convivencia, see Fernández-Morera, Darío, ‘The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise’, The Intercollegiate Review (Fall 2006). pp. 23–31. 13 ‘Malaysia’ here refers to the nation state which came about as a result of the merger in 1963 between then Malaya i.e. the area which encompasses present day Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak and Sabah (both on Borneo island), and Singapore, which subsequently left the federation in 1965.

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Treaty of 1874. Some retreated to a quiet village life, immersing themselves with educational concerns as teachers and heads of independent Islamic boarding schools known as pondoks (singular: pondok). Yet others chose to work within the British-monitored system of state religious councils, limited application of sharia (Islamic law) and a growing Islamic officialdom based in mosques and sharia courts.14 In many ways, it was the colonial encounter that brought out nonterritorial intra-Malay conflict into the open. At grassroots level, leadership of Malay society was provided by the ulama, who acted as intermediaries between Malay commoners and the feudal elites, aristocrats, and royalty. Sentiments of the overwhelmingly rural Malay masses would sway in the direction of the ulama they followed. When the ulama differed over how to react to increasing colonial intrusions into their socio-economic and religious lives, disruption of societal cohesion was inevitable. As the domains of religion and Malay customs were ostensibly out of bounds for colonial officials, the ulama saw themselves as serving the sultans rather than collaborating with colonial bureaucracy. Sometimes their different approaches to the political authorities led to conflict amongst them, as was the case in early twentieth century Kedah between the independent-minded Tuan Hussein Al-Banjari (1863–1937) and de facto mufti15 Syeikhul Islam Haji Wan Sulaiman Wan Sidek (1874–1935). The former was temporarily exiled until recalled back to Kedah by Sultan Abdul Hamid’s younger brother Tengku Mahmud, who was also President of the State Executive Council. Both Tuan Hussein and Haji Wan Sulaiman were traditionalist ulama whose differences were more methodological than doctrinal. Since the 1930s, two dichotomous strands, viz. the Kaum Tua (Old Faction) and Kaum Muda (Young Faction) have come about, becoming an enduring feature of Malaysian Islam,16 albeit with change of actors. The Kaum Tua – Kaum Muda split swept across villages throughout Malaya, practically dividing the community into two schools of Islamic thought and practice.17 14 Mohamed Osman, Mohamed Nawab. ‘Salaf i Ulama in UMNO: Political Convergence or Expediency?’ Contemporary Southeast Asia (2014). pp. 122–127. 15 A mufti is an officially appointed scholar entrusted with the task of delivering a fatwa (legal ruling). In early twentieth-century Kedah, there was no mufti as such; the holder of such an equivalent post was called Syeikhul Islam. 16 ‘Malaysian Islam’ is defined here as the normative understanding and practice of Islam as has prevailed in Malaysia as an independent nation state, from 31 August 1957 until 15 September 1963 as the Federation of Malaya, and since 16 September 1963 as Malaysia. 17 Roff, William R. ‘Whence Cometh the Law? Dog Saliva in Kelantan, 1937’. Comparative Studies in Society and History 25.2 (1983). pp. 56–90.

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On the one hand, the Kaum Tua was depicted as traditionalist and even retrogressive in religious orientation to the extent of advocating taqlid (blind imitation of established religious authority) of established schools of fiqh, politically conservative, and more tolerant of extraneous influences in religious practice as long as they were not in clear contradiction of the sharia. This accommodation has been personified in the flourishing of sufi brotherhoods in the Malay world.18 On the other hand, the Kaum Muda was viewed as more modern, progressive, reformist, and scriptural, epitomized by their perennial insistence on the need to return to the Quran and Sunna while at the same time strenuously rejecting taqlid in favour of opening the gates of ijtihad (independent reasoning based on informed interpretation of textual sources).19 While the ulama clashed among themselves over doctrinal matters, the greater concern for Malay-Muslim laymen was over practical rituals. Hence, although there were the occasional discourses pitting both sides of the ideological divide such as the public debate on the purity of a dog’s saliva in 1937 in Kelantan,20 the impact of such events on the Malay village folk was minimal, besides being inconclusive. Such public discourse, however, served the Kaum Muda well by showcasing their arguments against the immutability of the Shafie (Arabic: Shafi’i) mazhab21 or school of fiqh dominant among the Malays.22 It has been commonplace to view the Kaum Muda as reformists influenced by the wave of a resurgent Salafiyyah23 tradition expounded by 18 The term sufi pertains to practices or practitioners tasawwuf i.e. the science of Islamic spirituality also known as ‘Sufism’ but commonly rendered as ‘mysticism’ in Western parlance. The spiritual exercises take place within the confines of institutionalized sufi brotherhoods called tariqahs (singular: tariqah, Malay: tarikat) led by spiritual mentors called syeikhs. For a background introduction to Sufism in Malaysia, see Al-Attas, Syed Naguib. ‘Some Aspects of Sufism as Understood and Practised among the Malays’ (Singapore: Malayan Sociological Research Institute, 1963), and Syed Naguib Al-Attas. A Commentary on the Hujjat Al-Sadiq of Nur Al-Din Al-Raniri; and Bakar, Osman. ‘Sufism in the Malay-Indonesian World’. Islamic Spirituality: Manifestations (1991). pp. 259–289. 19 Rahim, Rahimin Affandi Abd. ‘Traditionalism and Reformism Polemic in Malay–Muslim Religious Literature’. Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 17.1 (2006). pp. 93–104. 20 Roff, William R. The Origins of Malay Nationalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. pp. 323–338. 21 Dominant in Southeast Asia since the coming of Islam to the region, the Shaf ie school of thought is based on legal principles developed by the leading jurist Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafie (767–820) who lived in Mecca, Medina, Baghdad, and Egypt. It was later expanded into a systematic jurisprudential school by successive generations of scholars. 22 Othman, Mohd. Radzi and O. K. Rahmat. Gerakan pembaharuan Islam: Satu kajian di Negeri Perlis dan hubung kaitnya dengan Malaysia. Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia bagi pihak Pusat Pengajian Ilmu Kemanusiaan, 1996. p. 227. 23 Deriving from the word salaf, whose literal meaning is ‘those who precede’ i.e. predecessors. Salaf is commonly paired with the word ‘salih’ or ‘soleh’, meaning ‘pious’ or ‘righteous’, to form

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the Cairo-based Al-Manar school associated with Jamaluddin Al-Afghani (1838–1897), Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905) and Rashid Rida (1865–1935). The Kaum Muda, despite vigorous dissemination of their reformist thoughts via modern Islamic schools called madrasahs and periodicals such as Al-Imam, modelled on the journal Al-Manar edited by Rashid Rida, was outflanked by their traditional ulama competitors who were in control of Islamic officialdom as muftis and appointed members of state religious councils.24 In states with a strong Shafie tradition such as Johore, guided by its long-time mufti Sayyid Alawi Tahir al-Haddad (1884–1962), the Kaum Muda were denounced as outright deviants, and even equated with heretical sects such as the Qadiyani25 and the Khawarij—a rebellious group notorious for takfir (excommunication of fellow Muslims) and assassinating Ali ibn Ali Talib, the Prophet’s cousincum-son-in-law who was then the fourth Rightly Guided Caliph.26 Questions of aqidah (belief) did not figure prominently in the Kaum Tua – Kaum Muda polemic of pre-independent Malaya. Although issues arising from their contrasting approaches to tawhid did surface once in a while, it was not the central fault line causing friction amongst MalayMuslims. Theological differences did not surface in Malay religio-legal documents, although the Kaum Tua were known to be ardent proponents of the Ashaarite theology, based on the canons developed by the medieval scholar Abu Hassan al-Ashaari (874–936) of Iraq.27 In the Malay world, the Ashaarite school of tawhid is popularly known as Tawhid Sifat 20, referring to the twenty attributes of God. In orthodox Sunni theology, the only other acceptable school considered to be legitimate is the one founded by Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (853–944) of Samarkand in present-day Uzbekistan. Their methods of theological reasoning were distinguished by heavy doses the term salaf al-salih i.e. pious predecessors, who, based on a hadith, are taken to refer to the faithful Muslims who lived in the first 300 years since the demise of the Prophet Muhammad. See for example, Hilole, Hersi Mohamad. Wahabi Sesatkah Mereka [Are Wahhabis Deviant?] Batu Caves: PTS Millenia (2012) and Mohd. Radzi and Rahmat, pp. 75–78. 24 Azra, Azyumardi. ‘The Transmission of al-Manar’s Reformism to the Malay-Indonesian World: The Cases of al-Imam and al-Munir’. Studia Islamika 6.3 (1999). pp. 75–100. 25 Deriving from the village of Qadian in Punjab, India, the birthplace of its pioneer, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908). Better known in the larger Muslim world as Ahmadis, Qadiyanis are by and large considered to be out of the fold of mainstream Islam for disputing the finality of the Prophet Muhammad’s prophethood. 26 Rahim, Rahimin Affandi Abd. ‘Traditionalism and Reformism Polemic in Malay–Muslim Religious Literature’. Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 17.1 (2006). pp. 101–102; and Shiozaki, Yuki. ‘The Historical Origins of Control over Deviant Groups in Malaysia: Official Fatwa and Regulation of Interpretation’. Studia Islamika 22.2 (2015). p. 222. 27 Malik, Maszlee. ‘Theology in Malaysia: Between Mainstream and the Priphery’. HIKMA: Journal of Islamic Theology and Religious Education 6 (2013). p. 53.

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of logical argumentation and counter-argumentation, associated previously with the Mu’tazilite school of medieval rationalists, but interrogated within the framework of the Quran and the Sunna.28 The Kaum Tua had the tendency of generalizing the Kaum Muda as heterodox on account of their la mazhabi (not professing any particular standard fiqh of the four orthodox schools i.e. Shafie, Maliki, Hanafi, and Hanbali) posture. The Kaum Muda were excoriated as Wahhabis, referring to the puritanical stream pioneered by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792) of Nejd in the Arab Peninsula.29 Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab had famously collaborated with a tribal leader, Muhammad ibn Saud (1710–1765), whose expansionist jihad (holy war) resulted in the erection of three Saudi states from 1744 until 1818, from 1824 until 1891, and since 1902, culminating in the proclamation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932 by Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud (1875–1953), whose sons have ruled the country till today. The emergence of the Saudi states in succession effectively diverted the flow of Malay-Muslim students from Mecca, their traditional destination, to Cairo, from the 1920s onwards.30 To the Malay-Muslims, what was particularly repulsive about the Wahhabi occupation of Mecca and Medina was their wholesale levelling of tombstones of the Prophet’s family and companions. Malay-Muslims feared that they would be forbidden from visiting the Prophet’s grave in Medina in conjunction with their pilgrimage to Mecca. But Malay-Muslim sentiments were not overwhelmingly against the evolving Wahhabi hegemony; they bordered more on uncertainty and ambivalence. Kaum Muda publications such as Seruan Azhar (Call of Azhar), Idaran Zaman (Passing of an Era) and Al-Ikhwan (Brothers), and even the purportedly Kaum Tua-linked Pengasuh (The Educator) were on record for having defended Ibn Saud’s expansionist campaign at some point in time.31 In contrast to its stereotypical image of a Kaum Tua organ antipathetic to Kaum Muda views,32 Pengasuh’s reformist 28 Sirajuddin Abbas, K. H. I’itiqad Ahlussunnah Wal-jamaah [The Sunni Creed]. (1991). pp. 16–17, 36–79. 29 Shiozaki, Yuki. ‘The Historical Origins of Control over Deviant Groups in Malaysia: Official Fatwa and Regulation of Interpretation’. Studia Islamika 22.2 (2015). p. 223. 30 Othman, Mohammad Redzuan. ‘The Role of Makka-educated Malays in the Development of Early Islamic Scholarship and Education in Malaya’. Journal of Islamic Studies 9.2 (1998): 146–157. p. 147; and Shiozaki, Yuki. ‘The Historical Origins of Control over Deviant Groups in Malaysia: Official Fatwa and Regulation of Interpretation’. Studia Islamika 22.2 (2015). pp. 217–218. 31 Othman, Mohammad Redzuan. ‘In Search of an Islamic Leader: Malay Perceptions of Ibn Sa’ūd Triumph and the Domination of the Waḥḥābīs in Saudi Arabia’. Studia Islamika 11.2 (2004). pp. 261–268. 32 See for example, Roff, William R. ‘Whence Cometh the Law? Dog Saliva in Kelantan, 1937’. Comparative Studies in Society and History 25.2 (1983). pp. 79–80; Rahim, Rahimin Affandi Abd.

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orientation, as exemplified in its advocacy of modern educational methods as an alternative to traditional pondok-style learning, resonated even among the Kaum Muda.33 Its long-time chief editor, Muhammad Yusof bin Ahmad aka Tok Kenali, was said to have been also been inspired by Muhammad Abduh during his sojourn in Egypt. The same effect could be seen in the reformist slant of another Kaum Tua champion, Singaporean-based Fadhlullah Suhaimi (1886–1964), who, however, was selective in endorsing whatever knowledge he received from the Al-Manar school.34 Fadhlullah’s Kaum Tua credentials were underscored by his representing the traditionalist ulama in a discussion on the permissibility of taqlid with Kaum Muda scholars led by Ahmad Hassan Bandung (1887–1958) in Penang in 1953.35 As for the Kaum Muda ulama, being lumped together with all Salafi orientations including the aggressive Wahhabis permanently stigmatized them, eventuating in Kaum Muda’s untimely passing as a reformist movement, and losing its religious significance.36 Being unilaterally depicted as threats to societal unity and potential usurpers of royal power, the Kaum Muda lost the propaganda war against the Kaum Tua, who were in control of religious bureaucracies of all states except Perlis.37 The long-term impact of such stigmatization is evident from a sympathetic biography of Syeikh Tahir Jalaluddin (1869–1956), who is generally accepted as the chief protagonist of Kaum Muda in Malaysia.38 The biographer, a son of ‘Traditionalism and Reformism Polemic in Malay–Muslim Religious Literature’. Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 17.1 (2006). p. 95. 33 Mohd. Radzi Othman, and O. K. Rahmat. Gerakan pembaharuan Islam: Satu kajian di Negeri Perlis dan hubung kaitnya dengan Malaysia. Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia bagi pihak Pusat Pengajian Ilmu Kemanusiaan, 1996. p. 30; and Kushimoto, Hiroko. ‘Islam and Modern School Education in Journal Pengasuh: Review of the Kaum Muda-Kaum Tua Dichotomy’. Studia Islamika 19.2 (2012). pp. 207–249. 34 Ni’mah bt Hj Ismail Umar. Fadhlullah Suhaimi. Ulu Kelang: Progressive Publishing House (1998). pp. 11–12. 35 Mohd. Radzi Othman, and O. K. Rahmat. Gerakan pembaharuan Islam: Satu kajian di Negeri Perlis dan hubung kaitnya dengan Malaysia. Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia bagi pihak Pusat Pengajian Ilmu Kemanusiaan, 1996. pp. 162–163. 36 Roff, William R. ‘Whence Cometh the Law? Dog Saliva in Kelantan, 1937’. Comparative Studies in Society and History 25.2 (1983). p. 90. 37 Mohd. Radzi Othman, and O. K. Rahmat. Gerakan pembaharuan Islam: Satu kajian di Negeri Perlis dan hubung kaitnya dengan Malaysia. Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia bagi pihak Pusat Pengajian Ilmu Kemanusiaan, 1996. pp. 81–82. 38 Mohd. Radzi Othman, and O. K. Rahmat. Gerakan pembaharuan Islam: Satu kajian di Negeri Perlis dan hubung kaitnya dengan Malaysia. Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia bagi pihak Pusat Pengajian Ilmu Kemanusiaan, 1996. pp. 29, 162, 239; Zakariya, Hafiz. ‘From Cairo to the Straits Settlements: Modern Salafiyyah Reformist Ideas in Malay Peninsula’. Intellectual Discourse 15.2 (2007). pp. 131–133.

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Syeikh Tahir’s contemporary from Minangkabau Syeikh Muhammad Jamil Jaho (1875–1945), was at pains to deny that Syeikh Tahir was a Wahhabi, notwithstanding a lineage linking Syeikh Tahir to the Padri warriors whose rigid implementation of the sharia and violent outbursts against Dutch colonialists in West Sumatra (1803–1837) were said to have been inspired by the Wahhabis of Arabia through three returning pilgrims.39 Out-manoeuvred by their Kaum Tua rivals, Kaum Muda activists retreated into educational enterprises, founding reformist madrasahs which also became bastions of anti-establishment political activism. For example, in Perak, Madrasah Yahyawiyah led by Syeikh Juned Tola (1897–1948) in Padang Rengas and Ma’ahad al-Ehya al-Syarif founded by Syeikh Abu Bakar al-Baqir (1907–1974) in Gunung Semanggol were both instrumental in producing Malay nationalist cadres who would later form Hizb al-Muslimin (HM: Party of Muslims) and Parti Islam Se-Tanah Melayu (PMIP: Pan-Malayan Islamic Party), precursor of Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS: Islamic Party of Malaysia). 40 Through its transnational educational networks, PAS maintained its Salafi orientation. Its future leaders such as Zulkifli Muhammad (1927–1964) and Yusuf Rawa (1922–2000), for example, built connections with the Ikhwan al-Muslimun (MB: Muslim Brotherhood) in Cairo, and were very much influenced by the revolutionary thoughts of Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966). Qutb’s ideals were formulated based on his unique understanding of tawhid to include the concept of hakimiyyah (sovereignty), elevating the sharia as part of aqidah. 41 This was an additional component to the three dimensions of tawhid expounded by Ibn Taimiyyah (1263–1328), the intellectual forefather of virtually all who profess to be Salafis. Ibn Taimiyyah’s formulae were in turn emulated by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. They basically conceptualized tawhid as being divided into tawhid rububiyyah (Lordship), tawhid ‘uluhiyyah (Oneness), and tawhid asma’ wa sifat (ownership of His names and attributes)—hereafter called Tawhid 3. According to their 39 Djamily, Haji Bachtiar. Riwayat Hidup & Perjuangan Syekh Tahir Jalaluddin al-Falaqi al-Azhari [The Life and Struggle of Syeikh Tahir Jalaluddin al-Falaqi al-Azhari] Kuala Lumpur: Asmah Publisher (1994). pp. 15, 81, 93. 40 Mohd. Radzi Othman, and O. K. Rahmat. Gerakan pembaharuan Islam: Satu kajian di Negeri Perlis dan hubung kaitnya dengan Malaysia. Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia bagi pihak Pusat Pengajian Ilmu Kemanusiaan, 1996. pp. 189–199; and Abdul Hamid, Ahmad Fauzi. Islam and Violence in Malaysia. (2007). pp. 388–389. Syeikh Juned was the father-in-law of former PAS President Mohamad Asri Muda (1923–1992). 41 Zakaria, Mohamad Fauzi, and Riduan Mohamad Nor. Pengaruh Pemikiran Sayyid Qutb Terhadap Gerakan Islam di Malaysia. Jundi Resources, 2007. pp. 123–127, 130–131, 136–137.

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exclusive theological scheme, it was adherence to tawhid ‘uluhiyyah which determined one’s Islamicity, but which most Muslims purportedly fail to pass its extremely stringent conditions, hence nullifying their faith. 42 But while Ibn Taimiyyah propagated his doctrine only through oral and written communication, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, in alliance with Ibn Saud, institutionalized the coercive power of the state in accomplishing his aims of cleansing Islam from so-called accretions. This scheme of understanding God rendered the Ashaarite-centric Tawhid Sifat 20, which had coloured the Malay-Muslim religious worldview for centuries, superfluous. It also laid open the door for takfir, which was a fundamental characteristic of the jihad launched by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab against his co-religionists accused of committing shirk (idolatry) and bid’ah (reprehensible innovations). 43 Violence as a corollary of the culture of takfir has indeed been a bane in the history of Salafism as a whole and its Wahhabi variant in particular. Today, both Sayyid Qutb and the Pakistani Abul A’la Maududi (1903–1979), to whom Qutb was intellectually indebted, are looked up to by many Salafi-jihadists as their godfathers, 44 and have together perhaps exerted the greatest influence on generations of Malay-Muslim Islamists who have furthered their education not only in the Middle East but also the West. 45 Some accounts, however, mention 42 For a comprehensive discussion of Tawhid 3 and related concepts, see Algar, Hamid. Wahhabism: A Critical Essay. New York: BookBaby, 2015. pp. 31–34; and Hilole, Hersi Mohamad. Wahabi Sesatkah Mereka [Are Wahhabis Deviant?] Batu Caves: PTS Millenia (2012). Tawhid ‘uluhiyyah is also rendered as tawhid ‘ibadah (worship). 43 Research into Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s own writings, plus testimonies from his contemporaries among both friends and foes, confirms his sanctioning and even encouraging militant jihad against Muslims deemed to have crossed the line of apostasy by way of polytheistic behaviour. See for example Zin, Engku Ibrahim Engku Wok, Abdul Rahman Mahmod, and Syed Hadzrullathfi Bin Syed Omar. ‘Syaikh Muhammad bin Abd Al-Wahhab dan Kaitannya dengan Isu Takfir’. Jurnal Islam dan Masyarakat Kontemporari 4 (2014). 61–72; and Hilole, Hersi Mohamad. Wahabi Sesatkah Mereka [Are Wahhabis Deviant?] Batu Caves: PTS Millenia (2012). 44 See for example, Zimmerman, pp. 222–52; Wiktorowicz, 2005, pp. 77–81; and El Fadl, Khaled Abou. ‘The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists’. New York (2005): 26–44. On salafi-jihadism, see the following section. 45 See transcripts of Sophie Lemiere’s interviews with Malaysian Islamists from Jama’ah Islah Malaysia (JIM: Society of Islamic Reform), many of whose members once made up the professional group in PAS and some of whom are now cabinet ministers in Malaysia’s post-GE14 PH government, in Lemiere, Sophie. ‘Genesis and Development of a “Nonpartisan” Political Actor: The Formation of the Jama’ah Islah Malaysia (JIM) and its Roots in Western Europe’. Al-Jami’ah: Journal of Islamic Studies 47.1 (2009). pp. 65–66, 78, 80, 83; and Hassan, M. Kamal. ‘The Influence of Mawdudi’s Thought on Muslims in Southeast Asia: A Brief Survey’. The Muslim World 93.3/4 (2003): 429. pp. 430–440.

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direct Wahhabi influence on Malay-Muslim overseas students. 46 In the 1980s, the anti-government takfiri climate was fuelled by the issuance of an Amanat i.e. published excerpts of a speech, by then PAS State Commissioner for Terengganu and present President Haji Abdul Hadi Awang (hereafter ‘Haji Hadi’), a Saudi-educated firebrand. The so-called Amanat Haji Hadi effectively apostasized members of the ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party for retaining an infidel constitution and separating religion and politics. The Amanat was blamed for instigating rebellion against the authorities in Memali, Kedah, in November 1985, when a showdown between security forces and PAS villagers resisting the arrest of their leader, Ibrahim Libya, ended in eighteen deaths. 47 But the outreach of the Salafi-based Tawhid 3 was not limited to PAS and radical Islamist non-governmental organizations (NGOs). During the height of Islamic resurgence in the 1980s, when Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s administration embarked on a series of Islamization programmes, Tawhid 3 found its way into Islamic education syllabi when Anwar Ibrahim (1947– ), whose transnational links with the Saudi-based Rabitah al-‘Alam Islami (MWL: Muslim World League) and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) were sowed during his leadership of the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (ABIM: Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia) (1974–1982),48 held the post of Minister of Education (1987–1991). 49 From 1988 until his sacking as Deputy Prime Minister in 1998, Anwar was also President of the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM), which had immensely benefited from Saudi donations and on whose governing board sits the Saudi 46 See for example the transcript of Sophie Lemiere’s interview with Saari Sungip, former JIM President and now state assemblyman for Hulu Kelang in Selangor for the PAS splinter party Parti Amanah Negara (AMANAH: National Trust Party)—a component party of the ruling PH coalition, in Lemiere, Sophie. ‘Genesis and Development of a “Nonpartisan” Political Actor: The Formation of the Jama’ah Islah Malaysia (JIM) and its Roots in Western Europe’. Al-Jami’ah: Journal of Islamic Studies 47.1 (2009). p. 71; and Stark, Jan. ‘Beyond “Terrorism” and “State Hegemony”: Assessing the Islamist Mainstream in Egypt and Malaysia’. Third World Quarterly 26.2 (2005): 307–327. p. 310. 47 Ahmad Fauzi, 2007b, pp. 10–16; Badlihisham Nasir, Mohd. ‘Dinamisme gerakan Islam dan cabaran semasa [The Dynamism of Islamist Movements and Present Challenges]’. Shah Alam: Karisma Publications (2009). pp. 67–73. 48 Allers, Charles. The Evolution of a Muslim Democrat: The Life of Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim. New York: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers, 2014. pp. 51, 58. On ABIM’s transnational linkages, see Ahmad Fauzi, 2009, pp. 145–147. 49 Malik, Maszlee. ‘Theology in Malaysia: Between Mainstream and the Periphery’. HIKMA: Journal of Islamic Theology and Religious Education 6 (2013). p. 58. Both MWL and WAMY have fallen into controversy for allegedly being conduits for the exportation of Saudi-style Wahhabism. See Pew Research Center, 15 September 2010.

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ambassador in Malaysia as a permanent member. This period coincided with IIUM’s Rectorship being held by a Saudi citizen-cum-MB activist Dr. Abdul Hameed Abu Sulayman.50 According to IIUM Professor Abdul Rashid Moten, the establishment of IIUM as a model university for the Muslim world was the realization of the educational visions of two thinkers in particular, viz. Maududi and Ismail Raji Al-Faruqi (1921–1986), long-time Palestinian-American professor of religion at Temple University, Philadelphia.51 Al-Faruqi was a cardinal protagonist of Wahhabi-Salafi thought, as shown by his enthusiasm in translating three of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s treatises and his exclusion of Sufism from his Islamization of knowledge scheme.52 In 1981, Al-Faruqi had founded the USA-based International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), of which IIUM’s Abdul Hameed Abu Sulayman also served as President, out of a USD25 million grant from the Saudi-based Islamic Development Bank (IDB). Al-Faruqi is said to have exerted enormous influence on Anwar Ibrahim’s political career in UMNO and the government,53 besides cultivating a working relationship with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.54 Together, Mahathir and Anwar charted the course of Malaysia’s Islamization agenda from 1982 until their dramatic fallout in 1998. IIUM has played a pivotal role in this process, churning out new cohorts of shariabased lawyers, consultants, economists, judges, and religious functionaries intent on Islamizing Malaysia’s legal, political, social, economic, and cultural landscape without perhaps even realizing that they had imbibed a Salafi mindset, partially even if not fully, during their university education. A recent survey of the teaching of comparative religion at IIUM reveals its unidirectional orientation that inevitably essentializes the religious ‘Other’, with emphasis more on reinforcing conviction in the moral inferiority 50 Idris, Asmady. Malaysia’s Relations with Saudi Arabia, 1957–2003. Kota Kinabalu: Penerbit Universiti Malaysia Sabah, 2015. pp. 195–199. 51 Moten, Abdul Rashid. ‘Islamic Thought in Contemporary Pakistan: The Legacy of ‘Allama Mawdudi’, in The Blackwell Companion to Contemporary Islamic Thought. Hoboken: WileyBlackwell, 2006. pp. 190–191. 52 Algar, Hamid. Wahhabism: A Critical Essay. BookBaby, 2015. pp. 14–15, 50–52; and Hashim, Rosnani, and Imron Rossidy. ‘Islamization of Knowledge: A Comparative Analysis of the Conceptions of AI-Attas and AI-Fārūqī’. Intellectual Discourse 8.1 (2000). pp. 35–36. 53 Badlihisham Nasir, Mohd. ‘Dinamisme gerakan Islam dan cabaran semasa [The Dynamism of Islamist Movements and Present Challenges]’. Shah Alam: Karisma Publications (2009). p. 50; Allers, Charles. The Evolution of a Muslim Democrat: The Life of Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim. New York: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers, 2014. p. 72. 54 Schottmann, Sven Alexander. ‘God Helps Those Who Help Themselves: Islam According to Mahathir Mohamad’. Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 24.1 (2013). p. 61.

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of non-Muslim religious traditions than appreciatively exploring them, worsened by the uncritical pedagogy employed by course instructors.55 While Saudi Arabia is not known to have pressured Malaysia into officially adopting Salafi-centric doctrines, its government was allotting more scholarships and places for Malaysians to pursue religious education in the Kingdom.56 It also gave out donations to Islamic missionary programmes and bodies such as the Muslim Welfare Organization of Malaysia (PERKIM: Pertubuhan Kebajikan Islam Malaysia).57 The ulama created by these Saudi-connected initiatives would have almost certainly embraced the Salafi religious worldview, a major component of which was Tawhid 3. In 2010, such like-minded ulama mobilized under the Association of Malaysian Scholars (ILMU: Pertubuhan Ilmuan Malaysia), which has interlocking membership with UMNO.58 The Saudi embassy in Malaysia, meanwhile, had been sending representatives to meetings and conventions organized by the small but growing Ahl asSunnah congregations, as the inheritors of the Kaum Muda tradition termed themselves.59 In Malaysia’s northernmost state of Perlis, where Salafi influence traces back its origins to the influence of Hassan Bandung in the 1950s, the Ahl as-Sunnah, which in Perlis’ local context is defined in line with Salafi tenets, controlled the Islamic establishment by virtue of organic linkages with the state UMNO and patronage of the royal family.60 Malay-Muslim graduates from local Islamic studies faculties and Islamist ulama and activists returning from such countries as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the United Kingdom have spread Tawhid 3 through formal and informal education in schools, discussion groups called usra (literally meaning ‘family’ in Arabic) modelled on the MB cell network and online forums.61 Curriculum 55 Kenney, Jeffrey T. ‘Teaching Religious Studies at the International Islamic University Malaysia’. Teaching Theology & Religion 18.3 (2015). pp. 282–285. 56 The disbursement of scholarships on generous terms has continued to the present day, see for example, Rashid, Farezza Hanum. ‘Saudi Arabia Offers Full Scholarships for 100 Malaysian Male Students for 2017 Intake’, Yahoo! News, 26 July 2016. 57 Idris, Asmady. Malaysia’s Relations with Saudi Arabia, 1957–2003. Kota Kinabalu: Penerbit Universiti Malaysia Sabah, 2015. pp. 192–195, 207–208. 58 Mohamed Osman, Mohamed Nawab. ‘Salaf i Ulama in UMNO: Political Convergence or Expediency?’ Contemporary Southeast Asia (2014). p. 212. 59 Mohd. Radzi Othman, and O. K. Rahmat. Gerakan pembaharuan Islam: Satu kajian di Negeri Perlis dan hubung kaitnya dengan Malaysia. Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia bagi pihak Pusat Pengajian Ilmu Kemanusiaan, 1996. pp. 174, 187, 230. 60 Mohd. Radzi Othman, and O. K. Rahmat. Gerakan pembaharuan Islam: Satu kajian di Negeri Perlis dan hubung kaitnya dengan Malaysia. Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia bagi pihak Pusat Pengajian Ilmu Kemanusiaan, 1996. pp. 113, 123–124, 150. 61 Malik, Maszlee. ‘Theology in Malaysia: Between Mainstream and the Periphery’. HIKMA: Journal of Islamic Theology and Religious Education 6 (2013): 51–65. pp. 61–62.

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changes have seen Salafi-oriented Tawhid 3 gradually being placed at par with the Ashaarite Tawhid Sifat 20 as mainstream theology in the religious imagination of modern Malay-Muslims, whose worldview were becoming globalized via internet-driven technology. In the field of Quranic exegesis, the Salafi-oriented Tafsir al-Maraghi, written by Muhammad Mustafa alMaraghi (1881–1945), Rasyid Rida’s fellow student of Muhammad Abduh and a former Syeikh al-Azhar, has been accepted as standard text in both private and public religious schools.62 Dr. Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin, present Mufti of Perlis who enjoys a large cyberspace following, is known to have dismissed Ashaarite theology as being antiquated by virtue of having been unnecessarily polluted with Greek-derived theosophy.63 According to preacher Engku Ahmad Fadzil Engku Ali,64 who regularly speaks against Tawhid 3 in the media, Tawhid 3 has today eclipsed Tawhid Sifat 20 as the definitive theology of Malay-Muslims, at least as officially taught in state-sponsored institutions, events, and mosques.65

The Aftermath: Implications of the Defeat of Moderation At the global level, what has effectively taken place is the Wahhabi cooptation of Salaf ism, marshalled by such Saudi-connected scholars as Nasiruddin al-Albani (1914–1999), Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz (1910–1999), Muhammad ibn Salih al-Uthaymeen (1925–2001), Saleh al-Fawzan (1933– ), and Safar al-Hawali (1950– ). The earlier Salafiyyah trend associated with Al-Manar school of the Afghani-Abduh-Rida triumvirate has largely been displaced and even shunned by contemporary Salafis.66 Powered by petrodollars under 62 Uzunpostalcı, Mustafa. ‘Ebû Hanîfe’. Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi 10 (1994). p. 198. 63 Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin, ‘Dr. Asri – Aqidah itu Jelas – Antara 13 & 20 Maturiddi & Asyairah’ [Dr. Asri – Aqidah is Clear – Between 13 & 20 Maturidiyyah & Asya’riyyah], 11 January 2012. pp. 33–34; and Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin, Dr., Fanatik Mazhab: Kesan Kepada Pemikiran Umat [Fanaticism Towards Mazhabs: Effects on the Thinking of the Ummah]. Shah Alam: Karya Bestari, 2007. 64 Formerly Senior Fellow at the BN government-sponsored Institute of Strategic Islamic Studies of Malaysia (IKSIM: Institut Kajian Strategik Islam Malaysia), as of today or since IKSIM’s neutering by the PH government, Engku Ahmad Fadzil has served as an independent preacher whose advice is still sought as a member of the Home Ministry’s panel of experts to counsel the government on cases investigated under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012. 65 Interview with Engku Ahmad Engku Ali, Kuala Lumpur, 7 February 2016. 66 Wiktorowicz, Quintan. ‘Anatomy of the Salafi Movement’. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 29.3 (2006). pp. 212–13, 222–225, 231–232; and Haron, Zulkarnain, and Nordin Hussin. ‘A Study of the Salaf i Jihadist Doctrine and the Interpretation of Jihad by Al Jama’ah Al Islamiyah’. KEMANUSIAAN: The Asian Journal of Humanities 20.2 (2013). pp. 15–37. pp. 139–142.

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the global patronage of Saudi Arabia, Salafization became the dominant trend of worldwide Islamist movements such that the term Salafi as now ummatically employed refers almost exclusively to the Wahhabi-Salafi trend.67 In its desire to assert its leadership of the Muslim world, in the face of challenges from Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970) in Egypt and later post-revolutionary Iran, Saudi Arabia accepted many MB exiles who had internalized Sayyid Qutb’s Manichean ideas. The ensuing ideological merger between Qutbism and Wahhabism brought about the violence-legitimating strand of Salafi-jihadism, as represented par excellence in the person of Abdullah Azzam (1941–1989) of Al-Qaeda and the Afghan war fame and epitomized in Southeast Asia by the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI).68 In its most extreme version we have seen to date i.e. ISIS, whose aim is to re-enact the first Saudi state (1744–1818) lock, stock, and barrel,69 such grisly feats as bloody military conquest, enslavement of the vanquished, and decimation of heretics and recalcitrant populations are no longer tolerated as collateral damage but rather triumphantly celebrated as proof of religious veracity. They find religious justifications for their murderous activities in prophetic traditions which, however, many mainstream ulama have judged to be apocryphal.70 In Malaysia, the impact of Salafization has been deadly to the type of tolerant Islamic discourse that has that distinguished it from other versions of Islam that we encounter in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. The tenor of both inter-religious and intra-Islamic relations have been marred as a result of policy-making with respect to Islam becoming hardened in sync with the increasing penetration of the ever-expanding Islamic bureaucracy by religious officials who have been Salafized. A more extreme face of Malaysian Islam seems to be asserting itself as indicated by the release of recent statistics compiled by the USA-based Pew Research Center. For example, a relatively high eleven pe rcent of Malaysian Muslims surveyed 67 El Fadl, Khaled Abou. ‘The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists’. New York (2005): 26–44. 68 Lynch, Marc. ‘Islam Divided between Salaf i-jihad and the Ikhwan’. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 33.6 (2010). pp. 467–487; and Haron, Zulkarnain, and Nordin Hussin. ‘A Study of the Salaf i Jihadist Doctrine and the Interpretation of Jihad by Al Jama’ah Al Islamiyah’. KEMANUSIAAN: The Asian Journal of Humanities 20.2 (2013). pp. 15–37. 69 Bunzel, Cole. ‘The Kingdom and the Caliphate’. Duel of the Islamic States, Washington, Carnegie (2016). pp. 4–7. 70 For example, on the practice of burning alive of prisoners of war, such as which ISIS perpetrated on Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kassasbeh in January 2015, see Shoebat, 3 February 2015, and the discussion in El Fadl, Khaled Abou. ‘The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists’. New York (2005): 26–44.

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in 2015 express a favourable view of ISIS.71 An earlier 2013 sample puts Malaysian Muslim support for suicide bombing as justifiable at a surprisingly high eighteen per cent, while only eight per cent express any worry about Muslim extremist groups; ironically, they worry more, at 31 percent, about Christian extremists.72 While it would be an exaggeration to view such figures as indicating Malaysian Muslims’ general disavowal of moderation in favour of more radical postures, they do point to a worrying long term trend of rising extremism. In the surveys quoted above, Malaysian Muslims are found to display more intolerant attitudes than their Indonesian counterparts, notwithstanding the general impression that one has of a more violent-prone Indonesian Islam than Malaysian Islam, taking into account the greater number of terrorists and terrorist-related incidents in Indonesia. With such a disturbing trajectory, it is less than surprising that observers such as Shad Saleem Faruqi, holder of the Tunku Abdul Chair as Emeritus Professor of Constitutional Law at Universiti Malaya, laments about Malaysia’s apparent decline from ‘an admirable rainbow-hued nation [….] going down the path of Zia-ul-Haque’s Pakistan’.73 Along the same lines, during a visit to Malaysia, Nader Hashemi, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver, USA, bemoaned the loss of Malaysia’s stature as the ummah’s once ‘beacon of hope’ due to its failure to offer a counter-narrative against radical and extremist Islam.74 Malaysia’s sliding down in the scale of moderation, as indicated by decreasing levels of inter-religious and intra-religious tolerance is palpable from the myriad cases that have wrecked societal cohesiveness during the past decade (2006–2016). A series of judicial verdicts and administrative decisions put Malaysia’s Christian and Hindu communities on the defensive by denying them the rights to use certain words of Arabic origin in a religious sense,75 by tightening bureaucratic procedures in the construction of non-Muslim places of worship, and by claiming burial rights to dead bodies of purported Muslim converts whose bereaved families insist had not practised Islam.76 71 Poushter, Jacob. ‘In Nations with Significant Muslim Populations, Much Disdain for ISIS’. Pew Research Center Factank, 17 November 2015. 72 Pew Research Center, The World’s Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society, ‘Chapter 2: Religion and Politics’, Pew Research Center Religion & Public Life, 30 April 2013. 73 Personal email from Shad Saleem Faruqi to author, 25 July 2016. 74 Sheith Khidhir bin Abu Bakar, ‘Malaysia No Longer a Torch for Islam’, Free Malaysia Today, 29 July 2016. 75 Mas’od, Mohd Aizam bin. ‘Hujah Menolak Penggunaan Kalimah “Allah” Oleh Kristian’ [Arguments for Rejecting Christians’ Use of the Term ‘Allah’], 2008. 76 Guan, Yeoh Seng. ‘In Defence of the Secular? Islamisation, Christians and (New) Politics in Urbane Malaysia’. Asian Studies Review 35.1 (2011). pp. 83–103; Camilleri, Rita. ‘Religious Pluralism

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The Islamist conservatives, referring to the alliance of state-connected groups and Malay-Muslim NGOs that have become vocal defenders of ethnocentric demands in the name of ‘Malay supremacy’ (Ketuanan Melayu) repackaged as ‘Islamic supremacy’ (Ketuanan Islam),77 are counterpoised by an assortment of non-Muslim and moderate Muslim activists who have come to the defence of religious freedom as guaranteed under Article 11 of the Federal Constitution.78 It was for its apparent support of religious pluralism that Islam Hadhari (civilizational Islam)—the scheme propounded by Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Prime Minister from 2003 to 2009—met with resistance from UMNO and conservative Malay-Muslims generally, and ultimately faded into oblivion.79 Abdullah’s successor and Prime Minister from 2009 to 2018, Najib Razak, decidedly steered UMNO and BN, in the wake of its successive loss of its two-thirds parliamentary majority in the general elections of 2008 and 2013, to the right of the political spectrum in an effort to placate the ethnoreligious sentiments of the mainly rural Malay-Muslim masses. The meaning of pluralism itself has been distorted in the contemporary Malay-Muslim imagination as tantamount to acceptance of other religions as being on the same plane with Islam, hence allegedly compromising their faith.80 As Islam becomes more narrowly interpreted in a legalistic manner by the religious bureaucrats serving UMNO-led administrations, Malay-Muslims who refuse in Malaysia: The Journey of Three Prime Ministers’. Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 24.2 (2013). pp. 225–240; and Hoffstaedter, Gerhard. ‘Secular State, Religious Lives: Islam and the State in Malaysia’. Asian Ethnicity 14.4 (2013). pp. 475–489. 77 Hassan, Muhammad Haniff Bin. ‘Explaining Islam’s Special Position and the Politic of Islam in Malaysia’. The Muslim World 97.2 (2007): 287–316; and Chin, James. ‘Pseudo-democracy and the Making of a Malay-Islamic State’. Routledge Handbook of Southeast Asian Democratization (2014). p. 404–405. Based on the present author’s definitions (see fn. 5 above), the term ‘Islamist supremacy’ i.e. Ketuanan Islamis, would be more accurate to describe the phenomenon. 78 Article 11 confers on every individual the right to profess, practise, and propagate his or her religion, but the propagation of any religious doctrine or belief among Muslims may be controlled or restricted by state law, or in respect of the Federal Territory, by federal law. In addition, all religious groups are authorized to manage their own religious affairs; to establish and maintain institutions for religious or charitable purposes; and to acquire, possess, hold, and administer property in accordance with the law. See Malaysia, Federal Constitution with Index (Kuala Lumpur: MDC Publishers Printers, 1998). 79 Abdul Hamid, Ahmad Fauzi, and Muhamad Takiyuddin Ismail. ‘Islamist Conservatism and the Demise of Islam Hadhari in Malaysia’. Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 25.2 (2014). pp. 159–180. 80 Abdul Hamid, Ahmad Fauzi. ‘The Challenge of Religious Pluralism in Malaysia with Special Reference to the Sufi Thought of Ustaz Ashaari Muhammad’. Comparative Islamic Studies 9.1 (2013): 9–39. pp. 13–19.

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to toe the line of official Islam as defined through the government’s ethniccentred lenses, such as the Shi’ites and former members of the outlawed Darul Arqam Sufi congregation, continue to undergo repression.81 As regards inter-religious relations on the ground, there has been a manifest decline in interfaith initiatives such as popular-level dialogue. Lukewarm response of Malay-Muslims towards calls for more social engagement with non-Muslims stems from a state-orchestrated division between Muslims and non-Muslims as far as public discussion of Islam is concerned; non-Muslims being systematically excluded from the Islamization narrative even as equal citizens of Malaysia.82 Non-Muslims have also voiced their concern at the subtle Islamization of public education, as manifested for instance in curriculum changes that serve to downplay the contributions of non-Muslim religions and ethnic groups in nation-building.83 UMNO and PAS, meanwhile, have gravitated more closely towards each other under the respective leaderships of Najib Razak and Haji Hadi, as exemplified in the latter’s tabling in May 2016 of the Sharia Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Bill 355 (RUU355: Rang Undangundang 355) that seeks to amend Section 2 of the Sharia Courts Act (Criminal Jurisdiction) 1965 [Act 355]. By empowering the sharia courts to sentence Muslim offenders to heavier punishments than imposed at present under Schedule Nine of the Federal Constitution, it was feared that the passing of the Bill would pave the way for Malaysia to become a full-fledged Islamic state in which the sharia reigns supreme even over the Federal Constitution. This understandably caused disquiet among non-Muslims, whose representatives in Parliament protested against the underhand tactic used by Najib and Hadi to push forward the tabling of a Private Member’s Bill ahead of even government matters on the final day of the parliamentary session.84 In line with their discursive exclusion from Islamic matters, non-Muslim cabinet members, 81 Musa, Mohd Faizal. ‘The Malaysian Shi’a: A Preliminary Study of Their History, Oppression, and Denied Rights’. Journal of Shi’a Islamic Studies 6.4 (2013): 411–463. pp. 434–449; and Abdul Hamid, Ahmad Fauzi. ‘The Challenge of Religious Pluralism in Malaysia with Special Reference to the Sufi Thought of Ustaz Ashaari Muhammad’. Comparative Islamic Studies 9.1 (2013): 9–39. pp. 45–48, 56–62. 82 Hunt, Robert. ‘Can Muslims Engage in Interreligious Dialogue? A Study of Malay Muslim Identity in Contemporary Malaysia’. The Muslim World 99.4 (2009). p. 588. 83 Barr, Michael D., and Anantha Raman Govindasamy. ‘The Islamisation of Malaysia: Religious Nationalism in the Service of Ethnonationalism’. Australian Journal of International Affairs 64.3 (2010): 293–311; and Singh Malhi, Dr. Ranjit. ‘Glaring Bias in History Book’, The Star Online, 13 March 2015, 84 Chan, Adrian and Mazwin Nik Anis. ‘MCA: Keep the Spirit of Consensus Alive’, The Star Online, 9 June 2016; and Sen, Tan Ta. Cheng Ho and Islam in Southeast Asia. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009.

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let alone back-benchers from the previous UMNO-led ruling coalition, were not consulted prior to the tabling of the Bill. The increasing marginalization of non-Muslims have led the more vociferous of them to question what has become of Malaysia’s pretensions all this while of being a moderate Muslim country, when Muslim politicians have of late been openly advocating Islamist positions that are downright intolerant, ethnocentric, and even racist.85

Can the Centre Be Regained? The defeat of Malaysia’s moderation agenda was triggered by transnational factors, but once the process gained ground locally, they merged with local political dynamics with debilitating consequences to the socio-religious harmony that had characterized Malaysian polity of many generations. Paradoxically, the defeat was effected with the full realization of MalayMuslim stakeholders among the ruling elites, most of whom were prepared to overlook the whole deterioration of ethno-religious tolerance so long as they were able to derive political benefit from it. Worse still, leading Malay-Muslim politicians insist that Malaysia has continued uninterruptedly along its purported path of moderation, even as evidence abounds by the day that more and more Malay-Muslim youths are becoming dangerously vulnerable to the utopian attractions of imagined Islamist promises. An example of international and local ingredients of extremism mutually reinforcing one another in Malaysia is the synergy between the WahhabiSalafi doctrine of al-wala’ wa al-bara’ (loyalty and disavowal) and Malay ethnocentrism under the banner of ‘Malay supremacy’. In the Islamicized surroundings of the 1980s and 1990s, both dogmas combined to implant in the Malay-Muslim psyche a siege mentality which married Malay fears of being overwhelmed by particularly non-Muslim Chinese economic prowess, with the Islamist notions of black-and-white clear-cut distinctions between the abode of Islam and the state of ignorance (Arabic: jahiliyyah). Ignorance, reminiscent of the credo of pagan adversaries of the Prophet Muhammad in seventh-century Arabia, is feared would lead Muslims to infidelity by virtue of its compromising the sharia. Influenced by sharia-centric Islamism, Muslims are therefore exhorted to undergo totally demarcated lives from the affairs of non-Muslims, whose un-Islamic mores are shunned, if not 85 Lim Teck Ghee, ‘Rise of Malaysia’s “Racist” Strain of Islam’, Lim Kit Siang for Malaysia, 9 June 2016; and Wong, June H.L. ‘Getting the Chills under the Malaysian Sun’, The Star Online, 29 June 2016.

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fought altogether as though in a state of perpetual war.86 Such ideological insecurities feed into existing Malay-Muslim demographic insecurities to produce a discourse which legitimizes racialist stereotypical thinking that visualizes the religious ‘Other’ as an enemy to be subjugated at all costs. Wahhabi-Salafism in its nascent phase had a deeply anti-colonial historical thrust directed primarily against the Ottoman Turks, and its modern variants have continued to blame non-Arab cultures for introducing bid’ah that have supposedly contaminated the purity of Islamic faith.87 Dominant in Malaysia since the turn of the new millennium, the Wahhabi-Salafi strand of Islamism has spawned a slew of ethnocentric movements in the Arab world that claims ostensibly to base their agenda on Islam.88 In the era of Najib Razak as Prime Minister (2009–2018), Wahhabi-Salafism prevailed over other Islamic trends as the guiding feature of Malaysia’s Islamic policies.89 This phase of Malaysia’s Islamization effectively marked the eclipse of Malaysia’s moderation agenda, even as Najib continued to stress to the outside world Malaysia’s credentials as a moderate Muslim nation state that renounced all forms and manifestations of extremism. This global anti-extremist agenda was showcased for example in Malaysia’s patronage of the Kuala Lumpur-based Global Movement of Moderates (GMM), the idea of which centred around the concept of wasatiyyah as bandied about by Najib in international meetings and events.90 Najib’s claims of speaking for an agenda of moderation ring hollow, however, when some of his blatant statements contradicting moderate stances are taken into account. In May 2014, for instance, when officiating the National Quranic Recital Competition in his home state of Pahang, Najib launched a blistering attack on the ideologies of ‘human rights-ism’, ‘liberalism’, ‘secularism’, ‘humanism’, and ‘pluralism’ as growing threats to Islam, without offering a nuanced elaboration of such concepts.91 A month later, even more outrageously, Najib praised the 86 El Fadl, Khaled Abou. The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists. New York: HarperOne, 2007, 26–44. 87 Ibid. 88 Hilole, Hersi Mohamad. Wahabi Sesatkah Mereka [Are Wahhabis Deviant?] Batu Caves: PTS Millenia, 2012. 89 Abdul Hamid, Ahmad Fauzi, and Che Hamdan Che Mohd Razali. ‘The Changing Face of Political Islam in Malaysia in the Era of Najib Razak, 2009–2013’. Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia (2015): 301–337. 90 See for example Najib’s speeches at the United Nations and the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies available on GMM’s website at http://www.gmomf.org/media/speeches/ prime-minister-speeches/. 91 Abdul Hamid, Ahmad Fauzi. ‘Syariahization of Intra-Muslim Religious Freedom and Human Rights Practice in Malaysia: The Case of Darul Arqam’. Contemporary Southeast Asia (2016): 28–54.

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courage of ISIS fighters during an UMNO branch dinner function,92 following which the Prime Minister’s Office’s was quick to vindicate Najib as having been unfairly quoted out of context, mentioning his continuous advocacy of moderation and rejection of extremism as indicated by his call to rally behind GMM.93 By 2016, amidst the increasing frequency of ISIS-inspired terrorist attacks around the world, Najib was still speaking of wasatiyyah as the main plank in the global fight against militancy.94 In spite of claiming the mantle of moderate Islam, envisioned by Najib as ‘an authentic Islam’ which was ‘not extreme and not too liberal’,95 his rising inclination towards authoritarianism was demonstrated in the June 2016 passing of the National Security Council (NSC) Act without heeding the Council of Rulers’ recommendations for amendments in view of the vast powers it granted to the Prime Minister.96 The yawning gap between Najib’s words and action was too obvious for all to see, to add to the divergent understandings of moderation he applied when pontificating at home and speaking abroad. Regaining the centre under Najib’s administration was close to impossible considering the state’s succumbing to Salafi-influenced values that border upon extremism.

Concluding Remarks The path trodden by Malaysia outlined above is one of transformation from a rainbow nation to a Salafi-driven polity that bases a huge chunk of policy-making to Islamism, referring to the institutional expression of Islam as political ideology rather than religious faith in all its manifestations. As a constitutional element, the meaning of ‘Islam’ has undergone significant change in the course of Islamization, which during the socio-political engineering process assumed the character of Salafization.97 Establishment of a juridical Islamic state slowly crept into the agenda of stakeholders until 92 Chi, Melissa. ‘Be Brave Like ISIL Fighters, Najib Tells Umno’, Malay Mail Online, 24 June 2014. 93 Malay Mail Online. ‘Najib in No Way Supports Militant gGroup ISIL, Says Prime Minister’s Office’, 26 June 2014. 94 Kaos Jr, Joseph. ‘Najib: Practise Moderation, Reject Extremism’, The Star Online, 6 July 2016. 95 Ong Han Sean. ‘Najib Calls on Muslims to Uphold Religion’, The Star Online, 26 June 2016. 96 Koshy, Shaila. ‘Controversial NSC Act is Now Law’, The Star Online, 9 June 2016; and Koh Tong Ngee, Philip. ‘Act Gives Vast Powers to NSC’, The Star Online, 13 June 2016. 97 Abdul Hamid, Ahmad Fauzi. ‘Syariahization of Intra-Muslim Religious Freedom and Human Rights Practice in Malaysia: The Case of Darul Arqam’. Contemporary Southeast Asia (2016): 28–54.

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it became one of the political priorities, if not the most important one, of Malay-Muslim dominant parties and an array of Malay-Muslim NGOs. Neglecting the Islamic state agenda risks political punishment in the form of an erosion of support from Malay-Muslim masses, many of whom have come to equate the vitality of erecting an Islamic state with the dignity of Islam itself. Relegating the sharia to the private realm is seen as compromising the Islamic faith, and worse, in the eyes of some puritanical Islamists, may even be considered tantamount to apostasy. Yet, it is doubtful whether this reductionist view was how ‘Islam’ was conceived by the constitutional negotiators when they agreed to install it as ‘religion of the Federation’ in Article 3(1) of the Federal Constitution.98 The long-term analysis undertaken in this chapter adopts the view that theology has been pivotal to the dilution of the moderation agenda and the concomitant rise in extremism. The present author is well aware of the existence of other discourses that foreground other sociological, political, and economic factors in seeking to explain the phenomenon of contemporary Islamist radicalism.99 It is also recognized that the Salafization process is not restricted to Malaysia. On a global scale, the USA-based scholar Khaled Abou El Fadl distinguishes puritan aka extremist from moderate theology as follows: Rather than thinking of God as merciful, forgiving, and compassionate, he imagines God to be angry, enraged, and vengeful […] differences between the two focus on their very different understandings of the meaning of submission to God. Their different conceptions of submission revolve around their variant and competing conceptions of Divine Will or, put differently, what does God want from human beings. In contrast to the puritans, moderates do not believe that the law is a sufficient or complete expression of the Divine Will. God is too grand and majestic to be fully expressed and manifested in a code of law. For moderates, to truly submit means to understand and to love.100

Puritans, by contrast, are wont to subscribe to an ideology of violence on account of their belief in the indispensability of living under God’s law, 98 Malaysia, Federal Constitution with Index (Kuala Lumpur: MDC Publishers Printers, 1998). 99 See for example, analyses from mainly political economy perspectives, in Teik, K., Vedi Hadiz, and Yoshihiro Nakanishi, eds. Between Dissent andPpower: The Transformation of Islamic Politics in the Middle East and Asia. London: Springer, 2014. 100 El Fadl, Khaled Abou. The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists. New York: HarperOne, 2007, 26–44.

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regardless of prevailing circumstances that warrant a more elaborate discussion of the ways and means of realizing an Islamic state under which the sharia is supposed to reign supreme.101 Nevertheless, with the high hopes that the ummah placed all these years on Malaysia as a nation state that successfully integrated Islam with modernity, Malaysia’s decline was hardly anticipated, and when stakeholders came to realize that ominous aspects of Islamization were rearing their heads, they were largely overlooked in order to safeguard vested political and economic interests. Malaysia’s multi-culturalism became the inevitable victim, with non-Muslims and unorthodox Muslims being systemically marginalized in the emerging Islamist body politic that is inclined to reject political and religious non-conformists as irrelevant societal actors. Commenting on Malaysia’s predicament in struggling to stem the tide of Malay-Muslim youths gravitating towards ISIS, which is but a violent manifestation of Islamist extremism in the Wahhabi-Salafi mould, a Western observer has noted the centrality of the theological question: ‘There needs to be a national vision for a virtuous society based upon Tawhidic principles—the oneness of God—something inclusive for all.’102

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101 Ibid. 102 Hunter, Murray. ‘Islamic State’s Appeal in Malaysia’, Asia Sentinel, 21 January 2016.

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Interviews and personal communications Engku Ahmad Fadzil Engku Ali, Kuala Lumpur, 7 February 2016. Shad Saleem Faruqi, Emeritus Professor, email, 25 July 2016.

About the author Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid is Professor of Political Science at the School of Distance Education, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang, Malaysia.

Section 4 Contemporary Spaces of Critical Engagement

9. Enhancing Dialogue Between Religious Traditions An Islamic Perspective1 Osman Bakar

Abstract This chapter provides an overview of Islam’s historical experiences in interreligious dialogue through highlights of its ‘golden ages’ in this particular domain of multicultural societal living within its civilization. It examines these golden ages in interreligious dialogue in three notable geo-cultural and historical settings—Muslim-ruled Spain, Chinese Islam in Ming-ruled China, and Indian Islam under Mughal rule—following an introductory discussion of Muslim exemplary treatment of non-Muslims during the rule of the first four Caliphs succeeding the Prophet Muhammad. On the basis of this discussion the author concludes that it is generally the case that interreligious dialogue and cooperation presents itself as a necessary contributory factor of the Golden Age of all religiously pluralistic societies, especially of Islamic civilization. Keywords: Sufism; Islamic philosophy; Sharia; comparative religion

A Historical Perspective Historically, the now more than fourteen-centuries-year-old Islamic civilization founded in Medina2 in the first half of the seventh century CE 1 This chapter is an expanded version of the author’s oral presentation made at the RSIS Conference on ‘Islam in the Contemporary World’ on 28 April 2016 organized by S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. 2 From the perspective of Islam’s relations with other religions, the city-state of Medina founded by the Prophet Muhammad is both of great historic and symbolic significance. Historically,

Osman, M.N.M. Pathways to Contemporary Islam: New Trends in Critical Engagement. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. doi: 10.5117/9789462987593_ch09

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stands on good ground to be considered as the first human civilization to have encountered and integrated into its socio-political order practically every major living religious tradition in the world that survives to this day. Moreover, classical Muslim historiography even added a good number of the minor or smaller religious traditions then in existence to this long list of Islam’s cultural encounters with other religions and belief systems. These cultural encounters are made possible thanks to Islam’s rapid physical and cultural expansion to the four continents of the world largely through military conquests but by no means confined to them.3 Islam’s evolving historical presence in the world that extended beyond the birthplace of its first socio-political order in the Arabian Peninsula to reach Medina of the Prophet (Madinat al-Nabiy) may be seen as the first cosmopolitan city-state in the world to have concluded a national pact that outlined in clear terms the rights and duties of the various ethnic and religious groups living in its polity. This national pact grouping together Muslims, Jews, and Pagans that materialized out of a prior dialogue and consultation between them was embodied in a written document popularly known as ‘the Medinan Constitution’. This historic document, which has been widely hailed as the first written state constitution in the world, clearly shows that interfaith dialogue has been integral to the Islamic polity since the Prophetic era. For its historic significance as a piece of document on interfaith and interreligious understanding and cooperation in pursuit of the common good, see Bakar, Osman. The Qur’an on Interfaith and Inter-civilization Dialogue: Interpreting a Divine Message for Twenty-first Century Humanity. International Institute of Islamic Thought Malaysia and Institute for Study of the Ummah and Global Understanding, 2006; and Azzam, Abdel Rahman. The Eternal Message of Muhammad. Devin-Adair Company, 1964. Symbolically, the universal significance of the City of the Prophet was to cast its light in human history in a good number of respects. The Prophet’s renaming of the city as simply ‘the City’ (al-madina) to replace its old name, Yathrib, was to all intents and purposes to serve as an enhancement of its multi-dimensional universal significance. In particular, al-Madina was to serve as a perfect model for all future cities irrespective of geographical locations and times in three main respects, all of which were pertinent to the issue of interreligious and interfaith dialogue and cooperation. First, al-Madina symbolizes the fundamental role of the city as one of the three pillars of civilizational building, the other two being religion (al-din) and community (umma). Second, al-Madina symbolizes modern cosmopolitanism and inclusivity in citizenship and social responsibility. And third, al-Madina symbolizes a polity in which interfaith and intercultural dialogue and cooperation is a key to the attainment of the common good. Bakar, Osman. Islamic Civilisation and the Modern World: Thematic essays. Bandar Seri Begawan: Universiti of Brunei Darussalam Press, 2015. 3 The Malay-Indonesian world and the sub-Sahara African region are two good examples of the world’s regions in which Islamic presence was established not through military conquests but rather through trade and missionary works, especially of the Sufi orientation. For a comparative treatment of the modality of the establishment of Islamic presence in these two important geocultural regions of the Islamic world: Bakar, Osman. ‘Islam and the Three Waves of Globalisation: The Southeast Asian Experience’. Islam and Civilisational Renewal (ICR) 1.4 (2010); and Bakar, Osman. Islamic Civilisation and the Modern World: Thematic Essays. Bandar Seri Begawan: Universiti of Brunei Darussalam Press, 2015.

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various continents was either physical or cultural and in some cases both. 4 By physical presence I mean a noticeable existence of Muslim settlements or communities that exhibits their distinctive religious identity, particularly in the way they organize their collective or communal life. Underlying this communal life are beliefs and precepts which they all agree originated from the Quran and the Prophetic tradition (Sunna). And by cultural presence I understand it to mean a presence that is visible at two different levels, one tangible and the other intangible. At the tangible level there is the presence of objects such as agricultural products, artistic and technological goods, and social institutions that Muslims had either originated or innovated out of the things they had acquired from past and contemporaneous civilizations. At the intangible level there is the presence of ideas and thoughts, also either of Islamic origin or that Muslims have further developed out of the intellectual legacy they have inherited from past civilizations. In other words, we are referring to an intellectual presence that is related to particular aspects of Islam’s knowledge culture. It is in this latter sense of cultural presence that Islam is viewed as having made a lasting impact on Western civilization. Undoubtedly, it was primarily in this sense also that the twentieth-century Italian orientalist, Alessandro Bausani (1921–1988) understood the meaning of Islamic cultural presence in the world when he spoke of Islam as being ‘an essential part of Western culture’.5 Islam’s presence in the various parts of the globe in its history, be it physical or cultural in the intellectual sense as just explained, has tended in the past to generate or induce dialogues of some sort between itself and the religious other(s) that it encountered. This tendency towards dialogue with other religions and faiths appeared to be natural to the religion of Islam. This is not to say that throughout Islamic history the pursuit of interreligious dialogues has always been enthusiastically embraced by all Muslims. However, it is important to note that while it is true that voices critical of interreligious dialogue could be heard every now and then from certain groups in the community it is equally true that there is always a sizeable segment of the community that looked upon interreligious dialogue in both doctrines and practices as a logical outcome of the very nature and vocation of Islam as a religion. By and large there has been little open opposition to the pursuit of interreligious dialogue from within the 4 Ibid. and Bakar, Osman. ‘Islamic Civilisation as a Global Presence with Special Reference to Its Knowledge Culture’. Islam and Civilisational Renewal 274.1707 (2013): 1–17. 5 Bausani, Alessandro. Islam is an Essential Part of Western Culture. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing, 1974.

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community. As is true in every other religious community, the majority of people in the Muslim community are either indifferent to the issue of interreligious dialogue or they choose to remain silent even though they might have their own personal stand on the issue. It is the opinions of this indifferent or silent majority that advocates and opponents and critics of interreligious dialogue seek to sway in their respective favours. Intellectually, however, regardless of their numerical strength, advocates of interreligious dialogue in the Muslim community are no real match for its opponents and critics. The former appear to have all the powerful arguments on their side, especially arguments drawn from the Quran and the Prophetic traditions as well as from the illustrious life and leadership of the first four caliphs succeeding the Prophet traditionally collectively referred to as the rightly-guided (al-rashidun).6 These so-called rightly-guided Caliphs, a descriptive term that seems appropriate enough from the Islamic points of view to be applicable to them, were exemplary in their conduct of relationships with non-Muslims living under their rule and in their treatment of non-Muslim citizens of their rapidly expanding states. On the basis of the universal criteria set forth in the Qur’an itself 7 their combined rule of almost three decades long may be viewed as the golden age of Islam with respect to societal life taken as a complete whole and with respect to spirituality and public ethics in particular, although admittedly it could 6 The four Caliphs—Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (d. 634 CE), ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab (d. 644 CE), ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan (d. 656 CE), and ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661 CE)—who were generally considered by Muslims in every age as the closest and the most distinguished companions of the Prophet thus belonged to the f irst generation of Muslims that the Quran itself describes as ‘the best community to have ever been raised for humankind’. See The Quran, Chapter (sura) 3, Verse 110. Their combined rule spanned almost three decades thus bef itting them to be regarded as the cream of the second generation, which the Prophet prophesied would be the best of all generations that were to live after him. 7 The Quran, Chapter 3, Verse 110. According to this verse, there are three fundamental universal criteria of identifying the best or the most excellent community or society. These criteria are: (1) providing and pursuing all the things that are known to be good to human life; (2) prohibiting things deemed unhealthy to human life; and (3) faith in God. It is from the universal perspectives that Islam understands and interprets these criteria. But in many of its verses, particularly those beginning with the call ‘O humankind!’ that are more than two dozen in number, the Quran invites the whole human family to a dialogue on issues directly pertaining to these three criteria, since their fulfilment in society could only be realized if there were to be interreligious cooperation among the different religious communities. For a discussion of the significance of this category of verses to interreligious dialogue: Bakar, Osman. The Qur’an on Interfaith and Inter-civilization Dialogue: Interpreting a Divine Message for Twenty-first Century Humanity. International Institute of Islamic Thought Malaysia and Institute for Study of the Ummah and Global Understanding, 2006.

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very well be possible and indeed meaningful to apply the epithet ‘golden age’ for a particular sector of societal life to a later period of Islamic history.8 Many historians of Islamic thought and civilization have identified the tenth and eleventh centuries CE as the golden age of Islamic science. But it is an interesting question to pose if it would also be possible in the domain of interreligious relations and dialogue to pinpoint its golden age(s) with a fair degree of certainty. In our view, however, the state of our current knowledge on the issue is not yet sufficient to enable us to do so. This issue actually needs further investigation. Nonetheless, on the basis of the numerous works on the subject of Muslim-Christian and Muslim-Jewish relations in early Islam authored by both Muslim and non-Muslim historians, we are able to infer that the rightly-guided Caliphs were widely regarded as enlightened and just rulers who showed the rare kind of tolerance towards their non-Muslim subjects. In this respect the name of the second caliph, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab is the most frequently mentioned. At least among Muslims and some nonMuslims there is universal acclaim of their just rule and religious tolerance that tends to serve as a source of inspiration to many. These considerations may lead one to advance the claim that the rightly-guided Caliphate deserves more than any other period of Islamic history to be regarded as a golden age of interreligious relations and dialogue in Islam. However, there are contending historical periods and geographical regions for the epithet golden age. We may refer in particular to the Islamic presence in three major geographical regions of the world, namely the Iberian Peninsula in Europe, China, and the Indian subcontinent. The Islamic presence in these geographical regions helped to generate intense interreligious dialogue activities between Islam and the other religions. In the Iberian Peninsula that covers modern-day Spain and Portugal, which for more than seven centuries under Islamic rule (711 CE–1491 CE) came to be known as Andalusia (al-Andalus), interreligious dialogue and cooperation of civilizational proportion and significance between Muslims and Jews and Christians were continuously and creatively going on during the greater part of this remarkable period in both Islamic and European history, thereby becoming a characteristic feature of Andalusian society. According to Max Isaac Dimont (1912 CE–1992 CE), a noted modern historian of Jewish thought and civilization, this continuous flow of interreligious dialogue and cooperation among the Abrahamic religions in Iberia lasted five centuries. He described this phenomenal intercultural cooperation 8 Bakar, Osman. Islamic Civilisation and the Modern World: Thematic Essays. Bandar Seri Begawan: University of Brunei Darussalam, 2015.

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and partnership in Iberia that may easily be counted as one of the most significant achievements in world religious history in the following words: ‘Under their [i.e. Muslim] five-hundred year rule there emerged what has been called the Spain of three religions and one bedroom’—a Spain where Muslims, Christians and Jews shared a brilliant civilizsation that blended their cultures, bloodlines, and religions. Under Muslim rule, Spain became the most civilised country in the Western world.’9 There are many other Western scholars who testify to the remarkable cultural and civilizational achievement in Andalusia that was productive of interreligious dialogue and cooperation among Muslims, Jews, and Christians.10 In Dimont’s view, the golden age of interreligious dialogue and cooperation in Islam may be identified with the five-hundred-year Muslim rule in Spain. He also maintained that the Jewish Golden Age in the medieval period coincided with the Golden Age of Islam.11 He was thus implying that the Jewish Golden Age was achieved under Islamic rule. We concur with the view such as expressed by Dimont and others that Muslim-ruled Spain produced a golden age, particularly in the domain of interreligious dialogue and cooperation. We would argue that we could even be more precise in our description of this golden age to the point of identifying its peak. In our work Islamic Civilisation and the Modern World previously cited we argue that the golden age of Andalusian science ought to be identified with the eleventh and twelfth centuries CE. But bearing in mind that the scientific enterprise in Andalusia was accomplished as a result of collaborative efforts by Muslim, Jewish, and Christian scholars and scientists we would only hasten to conclude that these two centuries marked the peak of the golden age of interreligious cooperation in this westernmost wing of classical Islam. More than a century prior to the end of Islamic rule in Andalusia in 1492 CE Islam had grown and developed in China under the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty (1279 CE–1368 CE) to become an increasingly visible religion.12 9 Dimont, Max. The Jews in America. Open Road Media, 2014. 10 Menocal, Maria Rosa. The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain. New York: Back Bay Books, 2009. 11 Dimont, Max. The Jews in America. Open Road Media, 2014. 12 During the Yuan period Muslim demographic strength in China was boosted and their presence in its administrative system increased, including at the highest official level. For a discussion of the Muslim participation in the Yuan administrative bureaucracy: Leslie, Donald. Islam in Traditional China: A Short History to 1800. Canberra: Canberra College of Advanced Education, 1986; and Cheng, Gek Nai. Islam and Confucianism: A Civilizational Dialogue. Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1997.

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Ever since the establishment of its first community in probably as early as the second half of the seventh century CE Islam in China has experienced many ups and downs in its cultural life and national fortunes.13 However, it was during the Ming period (1368 CE–1644 CE) and the early part of the Qing dynastic rule (1644 CE–1912 CE) that Islam in China attained its Golden Age.14 On the basis of available historical evidence on Muslim role in national life and their contribution to traditional Chinese society and civilization, including in public administration and governance, we could argue that the Golden Age in question was most probably temporally located during the three-century period from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries CE (1400 CE–1700 CE). Some scholars of Islam in China have given a slightly different span of its Golden Age, or Renaissance if we were to use their terminology, namely from late Ming to mid-Qing.15 This latter span, if accepted as more justified, would push the beginning of the Golden Age to a later period by at least a century. In other words, the fifteenth century CE would have to be excluded from the span of this Golden Age. This is not the place to go into a detailed discussion of the issue of what constitutes the full span of the Golden Age of Islam in China. Suffice it to say that regardless of whether or not the sixteenth century CE is to be viewed as a better era for Islam in China than the fifteenth century CE, an issue that actually requires further investigation, the inclusion of the fifteenth century CE as part of the Golden Age period would not pose any problematic issue either to the epistemology of golden age and its conceptualization with respect to cultural progress and achievements or to the historiography of Islam in the fifteenth and sixteenth-century CE China. Such an issue is unlikely to arise, since it is an established fact that no century preceding 13 Regarding the introduction of Islam to China, it is a well-known fact in Islamic history that from the time of the third rightly-guided Caliph, ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan Islam had established diplomatic and trade missions with China under the Tang dynasty (618 CE–907 CE). These missions served as the nucleus of the first Muslim community in China. For an introduction to the early Muslim presence in China; Leslie, Donald. Islam in Traditional China: A Short History to 1800. Canberra: Canberra College of Advanced Education, 1986. 14 Some scholars use the terminology ‘renaissance periods’ for Islam in China rather than the term ‘golden age’. We prefer the latter term, since in our view, insofar as the history of Islam in China is concerned, the term ‘renaissance’ is inappropriate. There was no period in Islamic history in China prior to the Ming dynastic rule that was prominent enough to be treated as a historical precedent and as an exemplary era of which the later ‘golden age’ in question may be viewed as its renaissance. However, regardless of the terminology used, both terms are intended to emphasize the fact that the period indicated is the best of times for Islam in China. 15 Leslie, Donald. Islamic Literature in China. Canberra: Canberra College of Advanced Education, 1981.

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the Ming period could be counted as a better era for Muslims in China than the latter period. Moreover, in fifteenth-century CE China lived some of the greatest Chinese Muslims in history, including Cheng Ho (Zheng He) (1371 CE–1433 CE) and Ma Huan (c. 1380 CE–1460 CE). Cheng Ho16 is generally regarded as the greatest Chinese admiral and adventurer of all time, who in 1421 CE, according to some historians, even went to as far as America, seventy years before Columbus did.17 As for Ma Huan18 he was Cheng Ho’s younger companion who served as an official interpreter in several of his naval expeditions and diplomatic missions on account of his Arabic proficiency. Ma Huan was also a writer on Islam and the Islamic world as well as Cheng Ho’s biographer. In arguing for the consideration of the fifteenth century CE as the beginning part of the Golden Age of Chinese Islam we are guided by two main factors. First, Cheng Ho and his fellow Chinese Muslims played an instrumental role in helping fifteenth-century CE China become a world naval power and well respected in international diplomacy, especially in the Islamic world,19 and thus giving the new Ming dynasty a big initial boost to its prestige when it had only just begun to consolidate its political rule. Second, the dynasty’s Sinicization policy proved in the long run to be highly consequential in the positive sense for Chinese Islam. It is true, however, that in terms of intellectual achievements the peak of this Golden Age ought to be identified with the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries CE.20 During the Ming dynastic rule, Islam in China underwent a thorough indigenization and assimilation into the Chinese cultural milieu to become at once a truly national religion and a distinctive branch of the global Muslim ummah. In the light of this indigenization and cultural transformation, it became truly meaningful to speak of a Chinese Islam that possessed 16 There are many writings available on specific aspects of Cheng Ho’s life, especially his world famed achievements as a military leader, a navigator, an explorer, and a seasoned diplomat. However, we are yet to see his biography written that is of book-length. The oldest surviving biography of him is the one made available in the Chinese official history of the Ming dynasty. An English translation of this short biography is included in Groeneveldt, Willem Pieter. Historical Notes on Indonesia and Malaya. Jakaarta: CV Bhratara, 1960; and Groeneveldt, Willem Pieter. Notes on the Malay Archipelago and Malacca Compiled from Chinese Sources. Bruining, 1887. 17 Menzies, Gavin. 1421: The Year China Discovered the World. New York: William Morrow Paperbacks, 2008. 18 Forbes, Andrew. ‘Ma Huan’. The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Leiden: Brill, 1983, 849–850. 19 Cheng Ho played an active diplomatic role in the Malay-speaking world in Southeast Asia. Groeneveldt, Willem Pieter. Historical Notes on Indonesia and Malaya. Jakaarta: CV Bhratara, 1960; and Sen, Tan Ta. Cheng Ho and Islam in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009. 20 Lee, Cheuk Yin. ‘Islamic Values in Confucian Terms: Wang Daiyu and His Zhengjiao Zhenquan’. Islam and Confucianism: A Civilizational Dialogue. (1997): 75–94.

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a distinctive identity and characteristics while sharing many universal values with China’s other traditional religions. Thanks to the relative freedom that Muslims enjoyed during the Ming period and the dynasty’s Sinicization policy, Chinese Islam was able to find new societal expressions in all sectors of human life within the Chinese cultural milieu, including artistically and intellectually. From the perspective of interreligious dialogue and cooperation between Islam and other religious traditions in China, we may advance the claim that its Golden Age coincides with the entire span of the Golden Age of Chinese Islam itself. This claim strengthens the argument that, as seen in the case of Chinese Islam in the Far East and of Iberian Islam in the West, it is generally the case that interreligious dialogue and cooperation presents itself as a necessary contributory factor of the Golden Age for religiously pluralistic societies. Without a culture of interreligious dialogue and cooperation, no society or nation could attain a golden age for its cultural development and progress. In the early Ming period, Sinicization policy and the role of Chinese Muslims in court politics, public administration, and international diplomacy were important factors that helped generate a conducive cultural environment for interreligious dialogue, especially between Islam and Confucianism. The ensuing dialogue during the three-century period brought to the fore the issue of similarities and differences between Islam and the other Chinese religious traditions, particularly with reference to their philosophical and ethical dimensions. The universal values and the universal perspectives on life and thought that Islam shared with the other religious traditions became more emphasized. Contemporaneous to the sixteenth-century Golden Age of Chinese Islam was the Golden Age of Indian Islam21 under Mughal rule. The Muslim Mughal dynasty founded in 1526 CE by Babur (reigned 1526 CE–1530 CE), a descendent of Timur (Tamerlane) and Genghis Khan on the paternal and maternal sides respectively, lasted seven generations (1526 CE–1707 CE). Barely half a century after its foundation the dynasty was already poised to produce a golden age for Indian Islam through the brilliant rule of its third and greatest Emperor, Abu al-Fath Jalal al-Din Muhammad Akbar (1542–1605 CE) who is popularly referred to as Akbar the Great.22 Akbar’s rule that spanned half a century (1556–1605 CE) was characterized by religious tolerance of a rare 21 By Indian Islam is meant Islam that has a physical and cultural presence in the pre-partitioned Indian subcontinent. 22 In the words of the late Kenneth A. Ballhatchet, Professor of South Asian History at the University of London, Akbar’s rule has been portrayed as ‘strong, benevolent, tolerant, and enlightened’.

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kind in human religious history. With a keen interest in other religions, Akbar patronized and promoted interreligious dialogue and cooperation throughout his reign. His court became a frequent venue for interreligious dialogue and intercultural discourses among scholars of various religions whom he invited. As in China, Islam has a long presence in India that dates back to as early as the seventh century CE. However, the first significant Islamic presence in the subcontinent was in the province of Sind in present-day Pakistan that was added through conquest to the Ummayad Caliphate in the eighth century CE. Following the expansion of the Islamic presence in the subcontinent in the subsequent centuries, we were to witness the rise of a series of sultanates and dynasties culminating in the establishment of the Mughal Empire. Among the earliest of these Muslim ruled territories were parts of the Northwest Indian region, including Punjab that were annexed to the Ghaznavid Empire (977–1186 CE) based in Ghazna in presentday Afghanistan beginning in the tenth century CE. The Delhi Sultanate (1206–1526 CE), a successor in Indian Islam to the Ghaznavid dynasty that itself comprises several dynasties and the immediate predecessor of the Mughals, added new territories in the Deccan Plateau in central India and Bengal region in the east, beginning in the early thirteenth century CE. Although during these few centuries prior to the Mughal dynasty there were cultural, scientific, and architectural achievements and cultural flowerings at the courts of rulers, particularly at the Court of Mahmud of Ghazna (reigned 998–1030 CE),23 these achievements were hardly comparable to the Mughal cultural grandeur. The Ghaznavids must have been very proud to have such a distinguished scholar as al-Biruni living under their rule. After Mahmud died, Mas’ud, his son who succeeded him, continued to patronize him. Although al-Biruni was deeply interested in comparative religion and culture, especially in the comparison between Islam and Hinduism,24 the 23 The reign of Mahmud and his conquest of India coincided with a peak of the Golden Age of Islamic science and intellectual thought as a whole. The most distinguished and the most famous Muslim scholar and scientist associated with Mahmud’s rule was Abu Raihan al-Biruni (973–1051 CE). He was employed by Mahmud as a court astronomer and astrologer whom he accompanied during his invasion of India. He is regarded by many historians of science as the greatest Muslim scientist of all times. On the life and thought of al-Biruni: Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines. Albany: SUNY Press, 1993. 24 Al-Biruni is known to have encountered a number of Hindu and Christian scholars with whom he was very likely to have carried out conversations on religious issues. He also wrote works on comparative religion and culture, the most famous of which were India and Chronology of Ancient Nations. Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines. Albany: SUNY Press, 1993. Both works have been translated into English. Sachau, Edward. Alberuni’s

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Ghaznavids did not produce an enlightened era of interreligious dialogue and cooperation that is comparable to Akbar’s achievement. Quite appropriately, Akbar may be said to be a modern pioneer of interreligious dialogue. Notwithstanding this remarkable feature of Akbar’s rule, al-Biruni’s interest in other religions and his universal perspectives as displayed in his works on comparative religion and culture are of great significance to the contemporary Muslim pursuit of interreligious dialogue. This rather lengthy overview of historical Islam in the domain of interreligious dialogue and cooperation is largely meant to show that history is on the side of the proponents and advocates of interreligious and intercultural dialogue. It is practically in every case that is being discussed that we find a common correlation between cosmopolitan cultures and their golden age. Interreligious dialogue and cooperation appear to be a necessary condition for and an integral component of the golden age that any living religiously pluralistic society aspires to have. Islam is a religion that places great emphasis on historical precedents in conformity with the very nature of its Divine Law (Sharia) that has its own distinctive perspectives on the issue of permanence and change in societal life. Prophetic precedents and precedents among the Prophet’s companions, particularly of the four rightly guided Caliphs, are especially important, including in the domain of interreligious dialogue. Our foregoing discussion clearly shows that the Muslim conduct of interreligious dialogue and cooperation in the various later periods of Islamic history has precedents in the exemplary lives and rules of the Prophet and the first four Caliphs who succeeded him. It further shows that thanks to a sustained interreligious dialogue and cooperation the three great geo-cultural branches of classical Islam and its global umma—Iberian, Chinese, and Indian—were able to create brilliant chapters of Islamic civilization. Conversely, neglect of and opposition to interreligious dialogue and cooperation may be seen to have contributed to their decline. It is pertinent to pose the question—and to answer it—why in many places in the contemporary Islamic world opponents and critics of interreligious dialogue and cooperation appear to have the upper hand in their ‘ideological’ confrontation with its advocates and proponents when it is quite clear that the Quran, the Prophet, and his rightly-guided Caliphs as well as the most enlightened periods in Islamic history are clearly on their India: An Account of the Religion, Philosophy, Literature, Geography, Chronology, Astronomy, Customs, Laws and Astrology of India: Volume I. London: Routledge, 2013; and Sachau, Edward. ‘Albīrūnī’s Chronology of Ancient Nations or Vestiges of the Past’. Lahore: Hijra International Publishers (1983).

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side. If we examine the issue carefully, then we would be able to see that the seemingly louder voice that they have in the community, when compared with the advocates of dialogue, is not due to the superiority of their religious arguments but rather to contingent and transient factors that have to do with political issues currently confronting the Muslim community. The media for various reasons has helped magnify the voice of the opponents and critics of interreligious dialogue and cooperation that is disproportionate to their real strength and influence. In light of these circumstances, it is necessary that Islamic doctrines on interreligious dialogue and cooperation as ordained in the Quran, and Islamic practical conduct in this particular area of societal life as exemplarily displayed by the Prophet and the rightly-guided Caliphs and as could be seen in the golden ages of Islam, be brought to the attention of the silent Muslim majority and of the global community at large.

The Prospects of Sufism in Informing a Peace-Driven Universal Ethic Islam claims to be a religion that speaks for universal perspectives in human life and thought. It makes this claim in line with its destined vocation as the last divinely revealed religion for humanity.25 By virtue of this vocation Islam has to be necessarily universal, inclusive, and synthetic in nature and character, all of which are features that are duly emphasized in the Quran. Without being universal and inclusive, the religion of Islam in its final form could hardly be able to meaningfully relate itself to the first revealed 25 On Islam’s claim to be the last divinely revealed religion for humanity, see The Quran, Chapter 5, Verse 3 and Chapter 33, Verse 40. Lest the Quran’s claim is contested on the ground that there are several religions that appeared in different parts of the world at different times after Islam, we would argue that Islam possesses a precise definition of the idea of the last divinely revealed religion. According to this definition, the ‘last’ is to be understood in the context of a long series of divine revelations (sing: wahy) and their corresponding recipients known as prophets (sing: nabiy) that began with Adam, who is also believed to be the first man on earth, and terminated with Muhammad. These divine revelations each has a monotheistic spirituality (al-tawhid) and a divine law (sharia) as its core content. In Quranic terminology this necessary pair of components of each divine revelation is respectively referred to as minhaj and shir’ah. See The Quran, Chapter 5, Verse 48. It is in the light of its understanding of this idea of divine revelation and the resulting prophetic series in human history that the Quran stipulates criteria for the finality of the series, which it claims it itself fulfils but is nonetheless open to their scrutiny and verification. In the light of this standpoint of the Quran Muslims should be prepared to enter into an intelligent dialogue with others even on the issue of the finality of the Quranic revelation and the status of Muhammad as the ‘Seal of the Prophets’ (khatam al-nabiyyin).

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religion in human history26 and to all the revealed religions that appeared in-between.27 Without being synthetic, Islam would not be able to recollect, reaffirm, and assemble all the revealed truths in previous religions, albeit in a summary fashion, reorganize them in a new form and then to miraculously present itself simultaneously as an old and as a new religion. According to The Quran, it has been sent to humankind to serve and function as a muhaymin, which in Arabic conveys a wide range of meanings.28 Included in these meanings are the ideas of safeguarding, watching over, standing as witness, preserving, and upholding. These ideas point to the different but interrelated functional relations that the Quran claims it has with other sacred scriptures.29 In safeguarding and preserving within it the teachings of all the preceding scriptures and yet at the same time maintaining its coherent whole the Quran as a muhaymin also plays the role of a synthesizer, thereby enabling it to portray itself as at once an old and a new scripture. By virtue of being the last divinely revealed book, it falls upon the Quran to undertake the task of synthesizing all previous revealed scriptures within a tawhidic theological framework. The role of such scriptural synthesis is unique to the Quran. It is in this sense that synthesis has been spoken of as the very raison d’etre of the Quran and, by extension, Islam. Viewed as 26 The Quran maintains that the first religion in human history is the religion of Adam and his family, which was divinely revealed. The essence of the Adamic religion is monotheism, belief in the Unity of God. See The Quran, Chapter 2, Verses 31–33. In verse 2:31 we are told that God taught Adam ‘the names of all things’. According to many Sufi interpreters of the Quran, the names of all things refer first and foremost to the Divine Names and Qualities. The great Sufi Master, Ibn al-‘Arabi (1165–1240 CE) categorically asserted that the names taught to Adam were ‘the divine names from which all things in engendered existence come into being’. Chittick, William C. The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-Arabi’s Metaphysics of Imagination. Albany: SUNY Press, 2010. Traditional Islamic anthropology maintains that the first human beings were monotheists and not polytheists or pagans as claimed by a good number of modern anthropologists. It was only later on that for some reasons not yet fully understood monotheistic gave way to polytheistic beliefs in the minds of some of Adam’s descendants. The historical origin of religion is thus another signif icant issue on which Muslim scholars in the relevant f ields such as history of religions, theology, and cultural anthropology can enter into a fruitful interreligious dialogue with their non-Muslim counterparts. 27 The Quran’s ingenious way of relating itself to all the divine revelations that preceded it is to identify Islam, which means submission [i.e. to God] as a generic term for all divinely revealed religions. Thus, The Quran, Chapter 3, verse 19 asserts that ‘Verily the religion before God is Islam’. Since Muslims are required to believe in all divine revelations (The Quran, Chapter 2, Verse 4) it follows that the idea of Islam as a generic term for all of them opens up another important venue to interreligious dialogue. 28 The Quran, Chapter 5, Verse 48. 29 Ali, Abdullah Yusuf. The Meaning of the Holy Qu’rān: Text, Translation and Commentary (in Modern English). Kuala Lumpur: Islamic Book Trust, 2005.

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a whole, the various functions of the Quran insofar as it is considered as a muhaymin in relation to all other scriptures mean that it is duty bound to initiate and take a lead in interreligious dialogue, including of the interscriptural type. Islamic perspectives on civilizational building in general and on interreligious dialogue and cooperation in particular are logical consequences of the religion’s universal, inclusive, and synthetic nature. Accordingly, believers in the Quran are duty bound to ensure that its teachings on universality, inclusivity, and synthesis are realized and displayed throughout its historical unfolding. In accordance with its above ‘universalist’ claim, Islam seeks to present its universal perspectives in three main sectors of human life and thought, namely spirituality, intellectuality, and public ethics and morality. As systematically formulated and as practiced over the centuries in Islamic history, these three sectors of human life and thought in which Islam’s universal perspectives are embodied came to be respectively represented and permanently symbolized by Sufism (tasawwuf), Philosophy ( falsafah and hikma), and Sharia. In other words, if today we are looking for Islam’s universal dimensions and perspectives pertaining to human life and thought generally, then it is to all the three fields together and not to just one of them that we should turn our attention. Moreover, properly understood, Sufism, Philosophy as understood in its Socratic sense, and Sharia are all necessary to the pursuit of a healthy and balanced society. The Golden Ages of Islam that have been earlier discussed in their different geo-cultural and temporal settings are attributable to the conducive cultural environment for interreligious dialogue that have been generated and sustained by Sufism, Philosophy, and the Sharia by virtue of their respective inherent capacities to deliver universal perspectives in both domains of knowledge and action to which followers of other religions could easily relate themselves. The universal character of both Sufism and Philosophy as well as their close epistemological relationship in Islamic history is rather well-known. During the Golden Ages when interreligious dialogue was a cultural norm, the relationship between the two was even more special. So closely intertwined was the relationship that the two became wedded to each other, thereby resulting in the birth of what scholars of classical Islamic intellectual thought have called philosophical or intellectual Sufism and mystical philosophy. There is considerable overlapping between Sufism and Islamic philosophy in their coverage of the universal dimension of Islam. A significant portion of this common universal domain pertains to ethics.30 30 The rest of the common universal domain is related to metaphysics, cosmology, psychology, natural theology, and natural philosophy.

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The universal ethics of Sufism and Islamic philosophy have served well not only Islam per se, but also the common intellectual life and the common civilization that Muslims have created together with various religious traditions in the world, such as with Jews and Christians in Andalusia, with Confucians and Taoists in Ming China, and with Hindus in Moghul India during their respective golden ages. Philosophical ethics in classical Islam is known to have played a universal role in both life and thought. The universal nature and role of Islamic philosophical ethics, certainly one that is no less universally peace-driven than Sufi ethics, is evident from traditional Muslim classifications of the sciences in which the definition, characteristics, and epistemological role of the science of ethics are described.31 The Sharia is yet another major source of universal ethics in Islam. In its comprehensive sense, the Sharia possesses both a universal and a particular dimension. In practice, however, especially in our contemporary times, the universal dimension tends to be eclipsed due to the prevailing overemphasis on the literal meaning or the letter of the Law. But, of late, there is a growing number of Muslim scholars and thinkers who are seeking to reclaim the legitimate place and role of Maqasid al-shari’a (‘higher purposes of the Sharia’), which is traditionally understood as the Sharia’s most universal dimension. It is the maqasid al-shari’a that provides Islam with its most universal framework, principles, and perspectives in its treatment of human civilization and societal issues. In maqasid al-shari’a, scholars of the Sharia or Islamic revealed law in the religious tradition of the transmitted sciences (al-‘ulum al-naqliyah) find a common theme of universal scholarly discourse with Muslim philosophers of human society and civilization in the intellectual-rational sciences (al-‘ulum al-‘aqliyah) tradition on a wide range of societal issues.32 Ethics stands out clearly as a core element of this universal societal theme. We thus find that past scholars associated with 31 For a universal treatment of the place and scope of philosophical ethics in classical Muslim classifications of the sciences: Bakar, Osman. Classification of Knowledge in Islam: A Study in Islamic Philosophies of Science. Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1998. 32 Auda, Jasser. Maqasid al-Shariah as Philosophy of Islamic Law: A Systems Approach. International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), 2008. Jasser Auda, a leading contemporary scholar of maqasid al-shari’a, wrote an influential book with the title Maqasid al-Shariah and Philosophy of Islamic Law: A Systems Approach. Epistemologically, this title is justif ied, since both in its subject matter and methodology maqasid al-shari’a deserves to be treated as a domain of philosophical inquiry as understood in the Aristotelian and Farabian sense. The traditional treatment of maqasid al-shari’a within the discipline of usul al-fiqh (‘principles of jurisprudence’) does not in any way undermine its epistemological standing as a philosophy of law. Moreover, usul al-fiqh itself is epistemologically qualified to be considered as a branch of philosophy.

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the latter intellectual tradition such as al-Farabi (870–950 CE) and Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406 CE) were dealing more or less with the same body of principles as embodied in the idea of the maqasid al-shariah as were religious scholars in the Sharia tradition such as Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali (1058–1111 CE) and Ibn Khaldun’s contemporary, Abu Ishaq al-Shatibi (1320–1388 CE) of Andalusia. Although theoretically maqasid al-shari’a promises to be a credible enhancing factor of interreligious dialogue, in practice its role and contribution in modern times is yet to be seen. However, given the widespread opposition to, and in many places even hatred of the Sharia, maqasid al-shari’a could yet prove to be the key to the resolution of the conflict surrounding the issues of Muslim understanding and acceptance of the Sharia. However, of the three dimensions of Islam—Sufism, Philosophy, and Sharia—it is Sufism that promises the greatest impact on interreligious dialogue and understanding in the coming years ahead. Already, Sufi universalism is increasingly perceived in the contemporary world, particularly in the West, as the most attractive dimension of Islam. Traditionally, Sufism is seen as the inner dimension of Islam that finds concrete expressions at every level of its epistemological concern right to its deepest core and that traverses through all domains of human knowledge. In examining the popularity of Sufism by the contemporary output of writings on the subject, then Sufi metaphysics, cosmology, psychology, and ethics would have to be counted as the most popular of them all. With respect to interreligious dialogue at the intellectual level, this rapidly growing body of literature on the Sufi dimension of Islam is likely to find many useful applications in contemporary human societies. At the more practical and popular level, however, more than any other dimension of Sufism, it is its ethics that is likely to have the best prospect of exercising the greatest influence on the 21st-century humanity. There is a good basis for this optimism. Traditionally, Sufi ethics has been generally viewed as the main shaping force of moderation (wasatiyyah) and tolerance (tasamuh) in Islam of which the contemporary world generally and the Muslim world, in particular, is very much in need.

The Role of Islamic Institutions in Interreligious and InterCivilizational Dialogue In our global overview of Muslim intercultural relations and dialogue initiatives from within Muslim communities that appeared in UNESCO’s quite

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recent publication,33 we made the observation that while the increase in volume of such activities since the end of the colonial era seems encouraging, progress in Muslim engagement in interreligious dialogue with other religious traditions is still much to be desired. Considering the fact that interreligious dialogue finds strong scriptural support in the Quran, both explicit and implied, and the fact that the most brilliant eras in civilizational achievements in Islamic history coincided with periods of intense intercultural and interreligious dialogue activities, as earlier demonstrated, quite obviously we are expecting to see a more robust culture of dialogue in contemporary Muslim societies than what we have right now. We further observe that most of the interreligious dialogue that is going on now in the Muslim world is not the work of state or governmental Islamic institutions but rather that of civil society groups or non-governmental organizations. Even then, it is civil society groups in minority Muslim communities, particularly in the West, that have proved to be more open and dynamic in their approach to interreligious dialogue compared to their counterparts in majority Muslim countries, thanks to the fact that in the absence of a state Islamic religious establishment in their midst that could impose unnecessary constraints on them, they are able to operate within a freer cultural environment. In the contemporary Muslim World there is only a small number of governmental institutions or government sponsored outfits that have been established with the expressed purpose of promoting interreligious dialogue and understanding either at the national or international level. With rather few exceptions,34 these governmental institutions or government-linked organizations are perceived as having many shortcomings in terms of their competence to effectively play the role of a true promoter of interreligious 33 Bakar, Osman, et al. ‘An Intercultural Dialogue from within Muslim Communities: A Global Overview’. Agree to Differ, UNESCO Publishing and Tudor Rose, (2015): 91–96. Our survey covers four main geo-cultural branches of the global Muslim umma, namely Southeast Asia, the Arab world, the Indian subcontinent, and the Turkic-speaking world, including Turkey. 34 We may mention in particular two of these exceptional organizations. One is Jordan’s Royal Institute for Interfaith Studies created in 1994 by its parent body, The Royal Aal al-Bayt for Islamic Thought based in Amman. The other organization is The Doha International Centre for Interfaith Dialogue in Qatar established in 2008. In the first decade of the 21st century, under its Director, Prince Ghazi, the former organization attracted global attention through its 2007 high profile ‘Common Word between Us and You’ initiative that declares the common ground between Christianity and Islam and calls for peace between their respective followers. As for the latter organization, it was officially inaugurated in 2007, although the ongoing series of conferences for interfaith dialogue which this year is held for the twelfth time had commenced four years earlier (2003). Both organizations have succeeded in creating a major impact on interfaith relations, particularly in the Middle East, involving the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

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dialogues. The nature and scope of interreligious dialogue conducted by them is generally too limited to be of any real consequence to the future of interreligious dialogue, conditioned as it were by its core concern with defending the state ideology such as the Sunni-Wahabi interpretation of Islam in the case of Saudi Arabia,35 its Shiite-Ja’fari interpretation in Iran, and its Sunni-Shafi’i interpretation in Brunei Darussalam. In Malaysia, when Mahathir Mohamad was Prime Minister, he established in 1992 the Malaysian Institute of Islamic Understanding (IKIM) as a government-linked Islamic think-tank with the objective of enhancing the understanding of Islam among the Malaysian public, both Muslims and non-Muslims. Although IKIM frequently organized and conducted interreligious dialogues mainly in the context of explaining the government’s Islam Policy to the public, especially the non-Muslim religious communities, the organization itself does not merit to be treated as a promoter of interreligious dialogue in the real sense of the word. In Malaysia, an important interreligious dialogue outfit would be University of Malaysia’s Centre for Civilizational Dialogue established in 1996. This Centre deserves to be regarded as one of the best interreligious dialogue organizations in the Muslim world. In speaking of the role of Islamic institutions in interreligious and intercivilizational dialogue at the global level, it is important to refer to two main initiatives collectively taken in the name of the global Muslim community (umma) as represented by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). In 1998 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution proposed by President Mohammad Khatami of the Islamic Republic of Iran to proclaim 2001 as the United Nations Year of Dialogue of Civilisations. As a speedy follow-up to the resolution, the OIC convened a meeting in Tehran in May 1999 to discuss the proclamation agenda, and it succeeded in issuing a common communique formally known as the 1999 Tehran Declaration of Dialogue among Civilisations. With this united stand and strong support of the OIC, the United Nations adopted the proclamation of 2001 as its Year of Dialogue of Civilisations during its General Assembly on 8–9 November 2001. The other breakthrough happened in 2005 when the Prime Ministers of Turkey and Spain took the initiative to launch the Alliance of Civilisations project, which, again strongly supported by the OIC, was subsequently adopted by the United Nations as its own agenda. The main objective of the Alliance of Civilisations initiative is to garner ‘a broad coalition to foster 35 An interesting initiative from Saudi Arabia in interfaith relations is the establishment of King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (2011), which rather significantly is based in Vienna.

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greater cross-cultural tolerance and understanding’.36 Muslims generally welcome the United Nations initiative, with many governmental and non-governmental organizations devising programmes and establishing educational centres and outfits to pursue its aims and objectives.

Bibliography Ali, Abdullah Yusuf. The Meaning of the Holy Qu’rān: Text, Translation and Commentary (in Modern English). Kuala Lumpur: Islamic Book Trust, 2005. Auda, Jasser. Maqasid al-Shariah as Philosophy of Islamic Law: A Systems Approach. London: International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), 2008. Azzam, Abdel Rahman. The Eternal Message of Muhammad. Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1993. Bakar, Osman. Classification ofKknowledge in Islam: A Study in Islamic Philosophies of Science. Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1998. Bakar, Osman. ‘Islam and the Three Waves of Globalisation: The Southeast Asian Experience’. Islam and Civilisational Renewal (ICR) 1.4 (2010): 666–684. Bakar, Osman. Islamic Civilisation and the Modern World: Thematic Essays. Bandar Seri Begawan: Universiti of Brunei Darussalam Press, 2015. Bakar, Osman. ‘Islamic Civilisation as a Global Presence with Special Reference to Its Knowledge Culture’. Islam and Civilisational Renewal 274.1707 (2013): 1–17. Bakar, Osman. The Qur’an on Interfaith and Inter-civilization Dialogue: Interpreting a Divine Message for Twenty-first Century Humanity. International Institute of Islamic Thought Malaysia and Institute for Study of the Ummah and Global Understanding, 2006. Bakar, Osman, and Cheng, Gek Nai. Islam and Confucianism: A Civilizational Dialogue. Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1997. Bakar, Osman, et al. ‘An Intercultural Dialogue from within Muslim Communities: A Global Overview’. Agree to Differ, UNESCO Publishing and Tudor Rose, (2015): 91–96. Bausani, Alessandro. Islam is an Essential Part of Western Culture. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing, 1974. Cheng, Gek Nai. Islam and Confucianism: A Civilizational Dialogue. Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1997. Chittick, William C. The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-Arabi’s Metaphysics of Imagination. Albany: SUNY Press, 2010. 36 Bakar, Osman, et al. ‘An Intercultural Dialogue from within Muslim Communities: A Global Overview’. Agree to Differ, UNESCO Publishing and Tudor Rose, (2015): 91–96.

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Dimont, Max I. The Jews In America, The Roots, History, and Destiny of American Jews. New York: Open Road Media, 2014. Forbes, Andrew. ‘Ma Huan’. The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Leiden: Brill, 1983, 849–850. Groneveldt, W. Historical Notes on Indonesia & Malaya, Compiled from Chinese Source. Jakaarta: CV Bhatara, 1960. Israeli, Raphael. Islam in China: A Critical Bibliography. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1994. Lee, Cheuk Yin. ‘Islamic Values in Confucian Terms: Wang Daiyu and His Zhengjiao Zhenquan’. Islam and Confucianism: A Civilizational Dialogue. (1997): 75–94. Leslie, Donald. Islam in Traditional China: A Short History to 1800. Canberra: Canberra College of Advanced Education, 1986. Leslie, Donald. Islamic Literature in Chinese, Late Ming and Early Chʻing: Books, Authors, and Associates. Canberra: Canberra College of Advanced Education, 1981. Menocal, Maria Rosa. The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain. New York: Back Bay Books, 2002. Menzies, Gavin. 1421: The Year China Discovered the World. New York: Random House, 2003. Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines. Albany: SUNY Press, 1993. Sachau, Edward C. Alberuni’s India: An Account of the Religion, Philosophy, Literature, Geography, Chronology, Astronomy, Customs, Laws and Astrology of India: Volume I. London: Routledge, 2013. Sachau, Edward Carl, ed. Alberuni’s India: An Account of the Religion, Philosophy, Literature, Geography, Chronology, Astronomy, Customs, Laws, and Astrology of India about AD 1030. Vol. 2. New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1993. Sachau, Eduard, ed. The Chronology of Ancient Nations: An English Version of the Arabic Text of the Athâr-ul-Bâkiya of Albîrûnî, Or ‘Vestiges of the Past’. Vol. 73. London: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain & Ireland, 1879. Sen, Tan Ta. Cheng Ho and Islam in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009.

About the author Osman Bakar is Distinguished Professor and the Second Occupant of Al-Ghazali Chair of Islamic Thought at the International Institute of Islamic Civilisation & Malay World (ISTAC), International Islamic University, Malaysia.

10. The Ethical in Shari’a Practices Deliberations in Search of an Effective Paradigm Ebrahim Moosa Abstract The article examines the culture of renewal and critical engagement through the practice of critical traditionalism as a way of balancing tradition and innovation. In this sense, individual reasoning (ijtihad) implies the use of history and knowledge of the past to provide an account of the present by accepting the contemporary knowledge of modernity. This chapter exemplifies the practice of critical traditionalism in the reflections of Muhammad Taqi Usmani and Yusuf al-Qaradawi on issues such as slavery. Nonetheless, it acknowledges the dangerous lack of critical engagement with tradition, acknowledging the need to rethink the Islamic system of faith (deen) by drawing inspiration from Muslim thinkers like al-Ghazali, who called for intellectual humility and the acceptance of plurality and multiplicity of meaning. Keywords: Islamic ethics; ijtihad; Shariah; Plurality

Contemporary Muslim ethics is in a dire need to foster a vibrant ethical paradigm derived in part from the methodology of the shariʿa but also has to go beyond the limitations of its historical methodology. The gap between the religious and the ethical must be narrowed by insisting on creative approaches to problems facing the global community of Muslims. In this chapter, I explore the relationship between religion and morality. Acknowledging that the idea of shariʿa is fundamental to Muslim tradition, and that this tradition is a guiding factor in Muslim life, I provide a brief overview of how different Muslim intellectuals have conceptualized the shariʿa in innovative ways. I use a contemporary case study to demonstrate how interpreting the shariʿa through a juridical lens can often bely the

Osman, M.N.M. Pathways to Contemporary Islam: New Trends in Critical Engagement. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. doi: 10.5117/9789462987593_ch10

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Qurʾanic mandate to respect human dignity. I insist that today the shariʿa must be properly understood as an ethical paradigm, as it once was. Muslim jurists in the past were aware of at least two aspects in the pursuit of the ethical. First, they coupled religion to morals. Second, they voiced the need to pursue intellectual creativity and innovation. Contemporary Muslim scholarship in ethics could profit from a deepened conversation around each aspect. Granted, ethics and morals are closely associated with the idea of religion (din) in the history of Muslim thought. But in contemporary times this debate requires a better distillation, elaboration, and application. Explorations in ethical debates would profit from embracing an interdisciplinary field of knowledge with a fondness for experimentation. Both aspects are evident in the work of Abu al-Hasan al-Mawardi (d. 1058), an understudied Basra-born jurist, judge (qadi). Mawardi was a leading exemplar of the Shafiʿi school and also a part-time diplomat for the Buyid dynasty. Contemporary experts in Islamic ethics, especially those who draw on the juristic tradition ( fiqh), have been inattentive to subtle elements of the medieval canon, and thus also negligent of methodological innovation. In his treatise Ethics of the World and Religion (Adab al-dunya wa al-din), Mawardi demonstrates how morals are tied to the concept of salvation practices, known as din.1 Yet, din is often rendered as religion in the modern sense with its bearing toward beliefs that operate in the private sphere. However, in the pre-modern Muslim lexicon the term din referred to a normative order, the desire to conform to the norms of the community. Norms that inhabited the framework of din were derived from existing customs and conventions. Adherence to such norms signalled belonging to a norm-based community, and consistently performing these norms signalled commitment to that order. Din in its primary sense included those devotional and moral practices that were required for salvation. Similarly, din signified a public discourse of moral behaviour. Invoking the term din in eighth-century Arabia signified a broad spectrum of meanings. It captured both the transcendent and immanent aspects of human existence in a single semantic move. So the term ‘religion’ here means to perform * I want to thank Nicholas Roberts for his excellent research support and for his editorial feedback. All errors remain mine alone. Elements of this chapter were published in Moosa, Ebrahim. ‘Recovering the Ethical: Practices, Politics, Tradition’. The Shari’a: History, Ethics and Law. London: I.B. Tauris, 2018, pp. 39–57. 1 Brockelmann, Carl. ‘al-Māwardī’. Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. Brill Online, 2016. Reference. University of Notre Dame. 05 May 2016

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moral practices that serve the ends of salvation as well as to perform acts of good in this world. Apart from the ideas of Mawardi, one cannot fail to observe how multiple Muslim authors who wrote mystical treatises and piety manuals often ended in a discourse on ethics. They frequently found a conceptual bridge from mysticism to the category of din. So the ethical and religious dimensions are viewed as almost inseparable. Multiple authors who had studied Qurʾanic and prophetic traditions reached the conclusion that acting on an ethical and a moral imperative is equal to meeting the requirements of religion itself. Many scholars wrote of how the possession of character and moral habits known as khuluq pl. akhlaq meant being fully engaged in performing the acts of religion. In other words, ethical dimensions participate in the very idea of religion, and religion sees its primary role as a host to ethical proclamations. A statement attributed to the Prophet Muhammad states: ‘One cannot claim to perform acts of salvation (din) if one does not possess ethics.’ The renowned Hanbali authority Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyah (d. 1350)2 concluded: ‘All of din (salvation practices/religion) was about morals’.3 Debates on the link between religion and morals in medieval Islam are similar in some ways to the equally spirited debate that took place in modern times. Michael Oakeshott, a twentieth-century British political theorist, thinks the ‘connection between religion and the moral life’ is an obvious one provided ‘we could discover it’. 4 Drawing on the work of John Wood Oman, an early twentieth-century philosopher and theologian, Oakeshott sketches three scenarios to illustrate the relationship between religion and morals. Religion can be viewed to be identical with morality itself, or it can serve as a sanction for morality. Oakeshott criticizes both views as inadequate because they impede the development of moral personality in the ethical subject. Oakeshott approves of an approach where religion is viewed as the completion of morality.5 I agree with Oakeshott and other theorists who argue that moral responsibility requires a relatively high degree of independence, and hence autonomy is crucial. Furthermore, moral responsibility is acquired through the cultivation of personal insight or moral personality. I submit that Mawardi also 2 Laoust, Henri. ‘Ibn Kayyim al-D̲ j̲awziyya’. Encyclopaedia of Islam 3. Leiden: Brill, 2012. 3 Al-Jawziyyah, Ibn Qayiim, and Muhammad bin Abi Bakr. ‘Madarij al-Salikin Bayna Manazil Iyyaka Nacbudu wa Iyyaka Nastacin’. Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-cArabiyy, 1973. 4 Oakeshott, Michael. ‘Religion, Politics, and the Moral Life’. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993, p. 39. 5 Ibid., p. 42.

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thought that religion served the role of completing morals. All of the preceding conversation can be summed up in the words of the famous prophetic tradition where the Prophet Muhammad described his mission thus: ‘I was dispatched to advance [literally ‘to complete’- li utammima] excellence in morals’.6

Methodological Innovation Mawardi’s foray into methodological innovation and interpretive sophistication contains wisdom that is desperately needed today. Long ago, he called for an interdisciplinary and discursive approach to Muslim ethics. In a bold insight, Mawardi described his method as one that will ‘weld the verities of the jurists to the subtleties of the litterateurs’.7 Certainly, Mawardi drew inspiration from the Qur’an and the Sunna, but he did not restrict his inquiry to these sources. He also drew on the parables found in the writings of philosophers and the literary insights found in the work of the rhetoricians and poets. Why does this eleventh-century scholar adopt such a flamboyant approach? He felt confident addressing ethical concerns that affected salvation both in the present and in the afterlife. But why and how did Mawardi forge such a unique, interdisciplinary approach to knowledge, avant la lettre? Perhaps he felt that the existing methods and sources used by the jurists were limiting. And, in order to move beyond what he deemed to be unsatisfactory outcomes, he needed risk proposing a change in the method of how one did ethics. Risk, it is said, is the price paid for progress. Restriction to limited sources of learning was unproductive. In Mawardi’s words: ‘The hearts take comfort in multiple disciplines ( funun), and becomes bored with a single discipline’.8 Literally, funun means art forms, but Mawardi used it to mean ‘multiple disciplines [of art]’. Mawardi extolled the benefits of finding solutions by drawing on multiple intellectual and disciplinary traditions. While others might have viewed the multiplicity of methods and insights as a stain on scholarship, Mawardi insisted that it was actually a blessing. 6 Anas, Ibn. ‘Al-Muwatta of Imam Malik Ibn Anas: The First Formulation of Islamic Law’. Translated by Aisha Abdurrahman Bewley. London: Kegan Paul International. London: Kegan Paul International, 1989, p 382. 7 ʻAlī ibn Muḥammad Māwardī, and ʻAbd Allāh Aḥmad Abū Zaynah. Adab al-dunyā wa-al-dīn. Mu’assasat Dār al-Shaʻb lil-Ṣaḥafah wa-al-Ṭibāʻah wa-al-Nashr, 1978, p. 3. 8 ʻAlī ibn Muḥammad Māwardī, and ʻAbd Allāh Aḥmad Abū Zaynah. Adab al-dunyā wa-al-dīn. Mu’assasat Dār al-Shaʻb lil-Ṣaḥafah wa-al-Ṭibāʻah wa-al-Nashr, 1978.

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After all, words and their meanings (philology), shape and reveal our understanding of reality. In their multiplicity, words expose a complex pattern of existence. The thirteenth-century polymath Ibn Arabi (d. 1240) wrote that spoken words and all other things that exist (‘existents’, or mawjudat) ‘are the words of God (kalimat Allah)’.9 How do existents come to be the words of God? In Ibn Arabi’s view, existents become words as a result of ‘aural signification’ (al-dalala al-samʿiyya). Commonly known words, Ibn Arabi explains, are composed as a result of a coherent organization of letters. An external being, God, or Providence inspires the coherence of letters that in turn are articulated by a living being. These utterances denote and connote a range of meanings, in the form of what we call words. In asserting the importance of interdisciplinary methodology, Mawardi cited the Prophet’s cousin, Ali bin Abi Talib, who declared: ‘One’s feelings [lit. hearts] become wearied, just as bodies become tired. Therefore, enliven the hearts with the most exquisite of wisdom’.10 Ali’s advice encouraged Mawardi to adopt a nomadic approach in pursuit of knowledge to satisfy his goals. To bolster his approach, Mawardi recalled the habit of the Abbasid caliph Maʾmun (d. 833) who apparently paced incessantly in his home when thinking about a problem. When asked why he paced, Maʾmun was fond of reciting the noted poet Abu al-Atahiya (d. 828): ‘One cannot make progress in planning, unless one constantly moves from one position to another’.11

Change in Terms of History and Tradition One of the greatest challenges to Muslim ethics is not simply the need to find new methods for arriving at complex ethical and moral judgments. Rather, the greatest challenge is that the very idea of change is often viewed as anathema to those who adhere to the pre-modern tradition of ethics. Given the authority of the canonical tradition in shaping the going currency of fiqh, commonly translated as Islamic law or Shariʿa, it is indeed a challenge to propose changes. This is especially true given the power invested in Muslim clerics as guardians of the tradition. However, Muslim canonical tradition also provides sources in favour of change. For example, the famous 9 Abū Bakr Muḥī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī and Aḥmad Shams al-Dīn (ed.), al-Futūḥāt al-makkīya, 1st ed., 9 Vols. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīya, 1420/1999. 4:30.Bab 198. 10 ʻAlī ibn Muḥammad Māwardī, and ʻAbd Allāh Aḥmad Abū Zaynah. Adab al-dunyā wa-al-dīn. Mu’assasat Dār al-Shaʻb lil-Ṣaḥafah wa-al-Ṭibāʻah wa-al-Nashr, 1978, pp. 3–4. 11 ʻAlī ibn Muḥammad Māwardī, and ʻAbd Allāh Aḥmad Abū Zaynah. Adab al-dunyā wa-al-dīn. Mu’assasat Dār al-Shaʻb lil-Ṣaḥafah wa-al-Ṭibāʻah wa-al-Nashr, 1978.

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Muslim intellectual Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) observed that change is inherent to all societies. ‘The condition of the world and of nations, their customs and sects, does not persist in the same form or in a constant manner’, he declared. ‘There are differences […] and changes from one condition to another. “This is the custom of God already in effect among His servants or among mortals” [Q. 40:85].’12 Here, Ibn Khaldun fortified his observations on human history with scripture. Aware of the need for change, Ibn Khaldun nevertheless lamented that ‘rarely do more than a few individuals become aware of it [change]’.13 Ibn Khaldun’s argument can be contrasted with piety-minded Muslim scholars who viewed change negatively. These scholars argued that change would impede upon the ascetic and simplistic ideals of the origins of Islam. Piety-minded scholars often associated change with the end times, where good and bad become inverted. The renowned polymath Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111) frequently employed these tropes to show how degraded society in his time had become by moving away from the Islamic ideal. He cited comments made by the Prophet’s companions to support his claims. For example, Hudhayfa bin al-Yaman acknowledged change in customs, practices, and social tastes. However, as with Ghazali, he viewed this as a negative development. As Ghazali wrote: ‘Hudhayfa said: “More incredulously you could f ind your good practices (maʿrufat) of today might become the wrong (munkarat) as time goes by; and your wrong today could become the good of a time yet to come. You will continue to prosper as long as you know the truth and your learned persons do not conceal it”. He [Hudhayfa] surely spoke the truth. Indeed, most of the good practices these [his] times were wrong (munkarat) in the time of the Companions.’14 On the face of it, Ibn Khaldun or any other sociologist would agree that change could result in an alteration of conventions and practices that were once deemed unfavorable to become transmuted and thus become approved. Both Hudhayfa and Ghazali thought ethical change from the approved to becoming disapproved and vice versa were signs of the end times. 12 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldūn, ed. Darwīsh al-Juwaydī. Ṣayda/ Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣrīya, 1460/2000, p. 35. ; Ibn Khaldūn, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, trans. Franz Rosenthal, 3 vols. New York & Princeton, NJ: Bollingen Series XLIII Princeton University Press, 1980. 1:56–57. 13 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldūn, ed. Darwīsh al-Juwaydī. Ṣayda/ Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣrīya, 1460/2000. 14 Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Ghazālī, Iḥyā ͑ulūm al-dīn, 5 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al- ͑Ilmīya, 1421/2001. 1:79.

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However, a different hermeneutic can be applied to Hudhayfa’s statement. In Hudhayfa’s statement there was a qualifying clause, regulating change. The litmus test for the requisite or even legitimate change in his time rested on the vigilance of the learned people in every era. As long as the learned were attentive to the truth (haqq) and the big picture of what was right, then clearly changes to ethical norms would not prove to be catastrophic. The examples Ghazali provided make it clear that these were highly subjective matters, and his choices reflected his later ascetic orientation. He objected to mosques being constructed of stone and marble, which he said were different from the construction of more modest mosques built during the Prophet’s lifetime. But he could also have mentioned that, although in the early Muslim community taking a salary for teaching the Qurʾan was frowned upon, Muslim jurists nevertheless settled the practice as permissible. Although Ghazali guarded against introducing heretical beliefs and practices (bidʿa), he allowed for new and constructive practices. He explained that one perpetrated ‘heresy (bidʿa) only in defiance of a transmitted prophetic tradition’.15 Ghazali argued for understanding the totality of the Shariʿa in a formula demarcated by the preservation of five things: religion, life, intellect, property, and family.16 This formulaic presentation was new at the time. Today it is widely accepted as articulating the ethical aims of Islam.

Shariʿa as Ethical Truth Since Ghazali, many other scholars have provided ethical definitions of the essentials of Shariʿa. ‘Shariʿa is designed in order to internalize the most exemplary character’, wrote Jamal al-Din al-Qasimi, the influential early twentieth century orthodox Muslim thinker.17 Qasimi’s claim resonates with Raghib al-Isfahani (d. 1108), a leading medieval scholar, who wrote: ‘The attractions of the Shariʿa is wisdom, upholding justice among people, self-control, beauty, virtue and to adopt these excellences until you reach paradise in proximity to God the powerful and high.’18 15 Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Ghazālī, Iḥyā ͑ulūm al-dīn, 5 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al- ͑Ilmīya, 1421/2001. 2:272. 16 Al-Ghazālī, Muḥammad bin Muḥammad. Al-Mustaṣfā min “Ilm al-Uṣūl, ed. Muḥammad Sulaymān al-Ashqar.” (1997). 17 Qasimi, Jamal al-Din. Tafsir Al-Qasimi, Al-Musammá, Ma‫ح‬asin Al-Ta’wil. MaHasin Al-Ta’wil. 20 vols, 2011. 18 Abū al-Qāsim al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī and Abū al-Yazīd Abū Zayd al-ʿAjamī (ed.), Kitāb al-dharīʿa ilá makārim al-Sharīʿa Cairo: Dār al-Salām, 2007/1428. p. 83.

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In the fourteenth century, scholars in Baghdad debated the place of policy or politics in Shariʿa governance. In Paths of Governance, the Hanbali scholar Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, (d. 751/1350) responded to this debate with a nod toward earlier scholars. He wrote: The foundation of the Shariʿa is wisdom and the safeguarding of people’s interests in this world and the next. In its entirety it is justice, mercy and wisdom. Every rule that transcends from justice to tyranny, mercy to its opposite, the good to evil, and wisdom to triviality does not belong to the Shariʿa, although it might have been introduced into it by implication. The Shariʿa is God’s justice and mercy amongst His people. Life, nutrition, medicine, light, recuperation and virtue are made possible by it. Every good that exists is derived from it [Shariʿa], and every deficiency in being results from its loss and dissipation. For the Shariʿa, which God entrusted His prophet to transmit, is the pillar of the world and the key to success and happiness in this world and the next.19

Similarly, Ibn Qayyim wrote in Iʿlam: God sent His Prophets and revealed His books so that people could establish justice […] When the indices of truth are established, when the proofs of reason are decided and become clear by whatever means, then surely that is the Law of God, His religion, His consent and His command. And God the sublime has not restricted the path [methods and sources] of justice and its indices, its signposts in one genus [of methods] to one thing, only to invalidate it in other methods, which are more clear, more explicit and self-evident. In fact, God clarified in terms of the paths that he had ordained that His purpose was to establish truth and justice and to ground people in equity. So by whatever means truth is established and justice is discovered then governance has to follow it obligation and demands. And paths [methods] are causes and means that are not intended on their own, rather the goal are the ends, namely the purposes […]20

In this statement Ibn Qayyim demonstrated his solidarity with a fellow Hanbali scholar Abul Wafa Ibn Aqil (d. 1119) while being aware that it could 19 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, al-Turuq al-hukmiyya. Beirut: Al-Maktabba Al Asriyyah, 1415/1995. 20 Ibn Qayyim al-Jazwiyya, Iʿlam al-muwaqqiʿin an rabb al-alamin Beirut, 1418/1998, 4:349.

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be a treacherous path full of risks. Ibn Aqil equated Shariʿa governance with justice and equity in matters of public policy and politics. Ibn Aqil was interested in what made a government’s authority legitimate. He questioned whether political authority must always be grounded in the Qurʾan and Sunna. Ibn Aqil was a cosmopolitan Hanbali and a deeply learned man. In making his case, he had to rebut an opinion attributed to some jurists, and others say it was directed at the famous al-Shafiʿi (d. 820).21 The claim was made: ‘There are no rules of governance (siyasa) except that which correspond or comply to the revelation (sharʿ).’22 Ibn Aqil’s response to this was: ‘Look, governance are those actions people do in order to bring them closer to the good/to interests (salah) and to put themselves at a distance from corruption and harm ( fasad). Even if it means those ways [of governance] are ones that the Prophet did not prescribe nor did revelation provide directives.’23 Then, speaking rhetorically he said to his detractors: ‘If you mean by “there is no governance except that which corresponds to the revelation”, namely that governance is that which does not oppose what the revelation had uttered, then you are indeed right. But if you mean governance has to comply with what the revelation had uttered, then you are wrong.’24 In other words, Ibn Aqil said that he agreed with those jurists who concurred that there was broad agreement between the purposes of revelation and the practice of governance. However, he disagreed with their claim if they meant that every action of governance had to line up with a specific instruction from revelation. Ibn Aqil did not believe that revelation gave tutorials in advance of every future human contingency. In his view, it certainly did not apply in the realm of governance. By pushing against what sounded like rhetorical excess on part of some jurists, Ibn Aqil provided an interpretative resolution. As with Mawardi, Ibn Aqil thought in terms of the big picture view of Shariʿa. He did not allow specific practices developed in the cultural milieus of seventh-century Arabia, strikingly different from his own Iraq in the eleventh century, to undo the big picture. Jurists like Ibn Aqil or Ibn Qayyim were attentive to what scholars today call the anthropology and sociology of Islamic law or the social construction of Shariʿa practices. They paid attention to the logic of values and purposes behind the rules rather than 21 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, al-Turuq al-hukmiyya, (Beirut), 1415/1995, pp. 10–11. 22 Ibn Qayyim al-Jazwiyya, Iʿlam al-muwaqqiʿin an rabb al-alamin Beirut, 1418/1998, 4:348–349. 23 Ibid., 4:349. 24 Ibid.

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being bogged down by the specifics of the law. Hence, they did not support a divine command theory of the law.

Shariʿa as Ethical Norms There is a conundrum in framing Muslim norms in the language of law, and in describing Shariʿa as a legal system. While classical jurists (fuqahaʾ) adjudicated a range of practices from prayers and fasting to war and trade, it is uncertain whether they were engaged in law-making the way we understand law today. It would be more accurate to say that they were engaged in identifying norms derived from teachings inspired by revelation as well as the experiences of the early Muslim communities, and in describing how these practices translated into the realities of their own societies. What is called Islamic law could effectively be described as a vibrant tradition of translating norms into lived societies. Classical jurists linked revelation with lived reality. It is the absence of this sensibility that results in deeply troubling interpretations and applications of norms today. One way forward in Muslim norm-making today is to think of ‘Islamic law’ as an enterprise in ethics. In ethical thinking there are values that can be harnessed from the legal tradition which are often framed in a utilitarian idiom of interests (masalih). However, the legal, moral, and ethical—as well as spiritual and philosophical traditions of Islam—also deliberate about the ethical in terms of more fundamental imperatives that undergird the good life. These involve the good in human flourishing and living a virtuous life. The jurist and philosopher Ibn Rushd (d. 1198), also known as Averroes, wrote a well-known book called The Jurist’s Primer. Here, Ibn Rushd explained that his writing on the Shariʿa might sound like duties and rules (ahkam), though in reality they were ethical and moral values. Ibn Rushd’s announcement might surprise those who think that the Shariʿa or Islamic law is a compendium of rigorous and uncompromising rules. Ibn Rushd asserted that the purpose of the Shariʿa, especially those tenets that are non-enforceable via judicial authority, is to cultivate the virtues of the soul (al-fadaʾil al-nafsaniyya). Rituals and devotions (ʿibadat), as well as the virtues that arise from observing these rituals, stem from what Ibn Rushd called ‘the norms of dignity-al-sunan al-karamiyya’.25 25 Abū al-Walīd Ibn Rushd, Bidāyat al-mujtahid wa nihāyat al-muqtaṣid. Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1419/1998, p. 389.

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Ibn Rushd also explains how the Shariʿa reinforces virtues such as decency, justice, courage, and generosity. Practices regulating marriage and food cultivate decency, while those regulating war, criminal offences, torts, and personal dignity all seek to cultivate justice. Similarly, practices regulating wealth and charity seek to cultivate generosity while practices regulating governance and leadership enforce social equity. Ibn Rushd pushes us to contemplate what he calls the norms of dignity and brings the conversation about Islamic law back to ethics and morality.

Negotiating the Ethical in Contemporary Muslim Ethics What are contemporary Muslims to do with elements of the tradition that reflect cultural, legal, and political norms that do not fit into the world today? What do Muslims say about the prescription of amputating hands for theft, or stoning for adultery, or the death penalty for apostasy and blasphemy? These issues pose a central dilemma for believers, just as they arouse the curiosity and revulsion of non-Muslims. Living in accordance with norms derived from scripture, the example of the Prophet, and the Muslim canonical tradition is integral to living an observant Muslim life. Compliance to the rules is directly proportional to demonstrating obedience to God’s will. The pressing question is: Are Muslims today required to show obedience to the rules as stated by the historical interpreters of the Shariʿa, or are they required to ascertain the ethical reasons behind Shariʿa practices and live according to moral norms applicable today? The rule-based application of Shariʿa has a long history and has been consecrated as the epitome of tradition invested with enormous authority. Furthermore, the entire tradition transcending the various Muslim sects is rooted in the rule-based Shariʿa edifice. It is also fenced in by theological landmines of scriptural support. In other words, questioning the knowledge paradigm, interpreting the rules differently, or providing a different explanation for the rules can land one in theological hot water. Those who do so often face imprecations of heresy or worse for daring to violate established strictures. However, one can also argue that complex issues addressed through the rules-based method of the Shariʿa ought to be approached to fulfil the promise of human dignity. Human dignity and compassion are central themes in the Qurʾan (Q. 17:70; 21:26). In short, Muslims today must work to make the ethical apparatus the lens through which one evaluates practices.

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Inspiration can be taken from the purpose-based approach to the Shariʿa, known as al-maqasid al-Sharʿiyya. This approach has the merit of bringing ethical goals into play in Shariʿa debates.

Paradoxical Pictures Critics of Islam today focus on countering the perceived spread of Shariʿa in Europe and North America. This criticism is often directed at content that even most practicing Muslims admit no longer has ethical merit. Advocates of antiquated norms or rules adhere to these practices without fully examining their ethical implications. These involve questions of family law, the status of women, or blasphemy. Meanwhile, in Muslim majority countries throughout the world, community groups, legislators, and governments fervently seek to adopt Shariʿa or ‘Islamic laws’. Often, these are attempts to burnish the credentials of politicians and legislators as being Shariʿacompliant, pious Muslims. Although many Muslims do not fully agree with the application of harsh Shariʿa rules, they succumb to orthodox theological pressures admonishing them to abide by ‘God’s laws’ or face social rebuke. An absence of literacy in matters of religion only complicates matters for ordinary people. So what is the Shariʿa? Why is Shariʿa such a polarizing factor among Muslims? Why does its mere mention cause anxiety among non-Muslims? Both Muslims and non-Muslims today often hear about Shariʿa, but they rarely hear about dignity or justice in a Muslim register. Violent passages of the Qurʾan are often discussed, but rarely are the far greater number of passages dealing with justice and compassion. Morals are the ability to judge between what is right and wrong. Ethics are rules we follow to determine what is right. But how do we know what is right? This question has engaged humanity for millennia. While we have found reasonable answers to what is moral and ethical, we are challenged on a daily basis to improve our ethical thinking and practice. So how do we know the right from the wrong? Some say it is an acquired sensibility derived from philosophy, religion, or some other authority. Others claim we have an intuitive sense of right and wrong. Knowledge of right and wrong is something we know as a matter of course, and we make an absolute distinction between the two. Distinctions such as heavy and light or sweet and bitter are easy to make because they are relative to each other. But to make an absolute distinction between right and wrong is much more challenging. Is it conceivable or even desirable to make an absolute

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distinction between what is right and wrong? If we are unable to do so, some would counter, then we lose all sight of the ethical. Often we do not have the tools to make distinctions, except on a very few issues. Let me discuss two cases and their adjudication by traditional or orthodox jurists as a way to undertake an analysis of tradition and ethics.

Rape and Nullification of Marriage: The Imrana Case This story involves Imrana, a mother of five, living near the city of Muzaffarnagar, in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. Imrana claimed to have been raped. The rapist, she alleged, was her father-in-law. The father-in-law was prosecuted for the crime of rape in terms of India’s criminal, secular law. However, the way the ulama talked about this tragedy caused great controversy. A mufti (jurist consult) affiliated with the famed Darul ʿUloom Deoband, a leading Islamic seminary near Delhi, issued a fatwa (juridical opinion). Imrana, declared the mufti, was no longer married to her lawful husband. Why? In terms of the Hanafi school of fiqh or Hanafi version of shariʿa-reasoning, intercourse with relatives automatically created certain permanent prohibitions. In short, a son cannot marry a woman with whom his biological father had intercourse. The same would apply to a daughter; she cannot marry a man with whom her biological mother had sexual relations. In the view of three of the four Sunni schools, a licit marriage created such a permanent boundary. Sex outside wedlock or casual sex cannot create such barriers. However, the Hanafi law school holds that such boundaries are also created by sex out of wedlock, including rape. Therefore, by raping Imrana, her father-in-law rendered her permanently forbidden to her husband, the rapist’s son.26 The reasoning behind this Hanafi position stems from a verse in the Qurʾan, which states: ‘Do not marry (tankihu) those whom your fathers [by implication parents] have married (ma nakaha) (Q 4:22).’ Most commentators believe this verse was intended to stop the repugnant marriages (ziwaj al-maqt) of the pre-Islamic period where a son would marry his father’s previous wives, except his biological mother. But the more general rendering of the verse could also mean: ‘Do not contract marriages with those whom your parents have married by acts of consummation.’ 26 Azam, Hina. Sexual Violation in Islamic Law: Substance, Evidence, and Procedure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

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The disagreement turns on the explicit or implied meaning of the verb nakaha. Nakaha can mean ‘contracting a marriage’ or ‘consummating a marriage’. While most schools of interpretation understand that contracting valid marriages constructs the barriers of consanguinity, the Hanafi school takes the implied meaning to say that any sexual act, even those conducted outside of wedlock, serves as a trigger for this commandment. And rape would be viewed as adultery by coercion.27 This debate generated a counter argument from the strict scripturalist Ahl-i Hadith school, an Indian incarnation of salafism. This school holds that the commandment applied only to sex within a marriage. Barriers of consanguinity, they argued, were not created by an unlawful act such as rape or adultery.28 Much to the chagrin of the Deoband school, in the view of the Ahl-i Hadith school, Imrana was perfectly lawful to her husband and the marriage was not voided. Deobandi ulama fiercely defended their position. They drew upon classical authorities to demonstrate that their argument was supported by tradition and backed by authorities of the Hanafi school.29 However, many Muslims thought that both sides of the debate over Imrana omitted a crucial fact. Imrana’s claim to have been raped did not even figure in the moral calculus of their rulings. Rape, in the view of the traditional authorities at Deoband, was just another form of adultery by coercion. If ever there was a moral oxymoron, this would top the list. The Deobandis upbraided the critics of their ruling, dismissing them as faux reformers, unqualified to opine on religious matters. They also lambasted critics for possessing the temerity to challenge the authority of the ulama. Muslim critics who challenged their ruling, they claim, were driven by malice and ignorance, with a goal to earn cheap publicity.30 However, a small minority of Deobandis conceded that some classical Hanafi authorities had, in fact, questioned whether unlawful sex could 27 Ibid., p. 177. 28 ‘Personal communication’, Abū ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq ʿAbd al-Salām bin Abī Aslam al-Madanī, 2006. All the scholarly authorities engage in extensive debates over the meaning of the word nakaha in Arabic. The Qur’an was explicit in stating that ‘whomsoever your fathers married’. The key interpretative difference was whether nakaha meant the marriage contract or the sex-act arising out of marriage. 29 Ḥabīb al-Raḥmān Aʿzamī, Taḥqīq-i masʾala-i ḥurmat-i muṣāharat. Deoband: Markaz-i Daʿwat va Taḥqīq, 1426/2005; Muftī Muḥammad Yūsuf Tāʾaulvi, Ḥurmat-i muṣāharat Qurʾān o ḥadīth kīroshnī main. Deoband: Maktaba Faqīh al-Ummat, 1426/2005. 30 Ḥabīb al-Raḥmān Aʿzamī, Taḥqīq-i masʾala-i ḥurmat-i muṣāharat. Deoband: Markaz-i Daʿwat va Taḥqīq, 1426/2005; Muftī Muḥammad Yūsuf Tāʾaulvi, Ḥurmat-i muṣāharat Qurʾān o ḥadīth kīroshnī main. Deoband: Maktaba Faqīh al-Ummat, 1426/2005, pp. 52–56.

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create the barriers of consanguinity as a moral offense. But in public the majority dutifully skulked behind the façade of centuries-old legal prose and interpretations, with a solemnity that their critics alleged bordered on idolatry.

Making Sense of Norms To dissent from the rules on blasphemy, or to ignore the complicated rules of sexual violation involving relatives, means to go against the established religious tradition. Scholars who question the ulama are interpreted as also challenging the consecrated paradigm of Muslim knowledge. Those who dissent from a legal school, such as Hanafi, risk their reputations and livelihoods. One could even be accused of disrespecting the Prophet if he did not demonstrate zeal for the retention of Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws. The power to interpret is part of a complicated network of authorization adopted by the ulama that runs deep into knowledge and power configurations of Muslim orthodoxy’s political-theological DNA. It appears from the Imrana case that the ethical and legal paradigms used by each contender attempted to secure specific interests that are not neutral and value-free. The Deobandis felt accountable to a moral tradition that viewed sexual relations with ascending affine to be morally offensive; their loyalty was to their moral tradition. For the Deobandis, their perceived moral responsibility to revoke Imrana’s legal marriage was more important than reporting the rape as a crime to public authorities. The Ahl-i Hadith critics, in turn, valorized the authority of scripture and a plain reading of it. But their dispute with the Deobandis was also part of a centuries-long theological dispute. The Hanafis, as protagonists of a canonical law school, view their authority to be that of an uninterrupted hierarchy of tradition that requires mandatory adherence. Their Ahl-i Hadith rivals view such loyalty to human authority to be a mortal sin. For the secular critics of the Deoband fatwa, the violation of Imrana as a crime enjoyed priority and they petitioned for the writ of the secular state to be enforced. They were outraged by the double jeopardy Imrana suffered: a violation of her dignity, and the end of her marriage. There is another aspect of this controversy that has received little attention. The various understandings of the Shariʿa also represent different moral anthropologies of the self, especially in relation to sexual mores. This might well be what Bernard Williams called ‘cultural relativism at a distance’. Williams also cautions against projecting an ethical fantasy

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on societies we do not understand.31 So it is not surprising that these notions of self are highly contested categories in modern times. A modern, secular ethos valorizes an autonomous self; however, the Hanafi Deobandis advocate a notion of the self that is in some instances interdependent, not independent. Certain acts committed by the self, or acts committed to the self, have consequences on both the person and others. So the violation to Imrana means that her relationship with her husband is also impacted. The son of the rapist, husband of Imrana, cannot disown his biological affinity to his father. Even though Imrana was violated against her will, the facts or realities independent of her own volition as a result of rape have altered her social and marital status. One can imagine the shame she suffered from the rape by her fatherin-law disrupted her relationship with her husband. Furthermore, if she remained married to her spouse, she would likely be forced to interact with her father-in-law after he served his prison sentence. Such subsequent interactions could have negative consequences to Imrana’s well-being and could trigger memories of her trauma. Against this backdrop, the HanafiDeobandi ruling of separation, when contextually considered among a certain class of families in India, is possibly a more humane solution. Of course, if Imrana has no social support outside her marriage, her separation could have dire physical and material consequences for her. While allowing her to remain in her marriage could turn out to be a form of psychological cruelty, a divorce without an adequate social welfare net could destine her to a life of poverty. Perhaps the better option would be to give Imrana the requisite psychological and social counselling in order to enable and empower her to make an informed decision. After all, she is the victim of the criminal event and was most impacted by the nullification of her marriage. If she received counselling, she might be better positioned to evaluate whether life after marriage is economically feasible or whether the marriage is indispensable to her dignity and the wellbeing of her five children. The Deobandi mufti activated the Hanafi law ruling in a mechanical manner without considering the dignity of the persons involved. Nor was the Hanafi mufti courageous enough to apply the rules of say the Shafiʿi school that would not result in Imrana be deemed divorced as a result of the rape. Selecting the most convenient answers to a problem from different schools of Islamic law amounts to a patchwork process of reasoning known as talfiq, or eclecticism. Overlooked is how lay people practice their faith 31 Williams, Bernard. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. London: Routledge, 2011, p. 162.

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and pursue morality. Unfamiliar with the consequences of rape by her father-in-law, Imrana or her surrogates must have sought the religious opinion on this matter. It would clearly be a moral burden for Imrana and her spouse to remain married when the religious authorities informed her that her marriage was voided by the coerced sex act. It would be untenable for her to live in a community where everyone knew religious authorities deemed her marriage illicit. Nor could she and her spouse, for the purposes of convenience, claim to follow the Ahl-i Hadith, which did not void her marriage. So the question Imrana and her spouse might pose to themselves is also the question Veena Das asked about herself in her study of Muslim practices in India: ‘How do I cultivate morality as a dimension of everyday life, when certain forms of knowing […] contradict my feelings that there are forms of being together that I can come to experience as part of my ordinary mode of life, that I wish to acknowledge but for which I should not be required to give justifications?’32 These questions are important, but Imrana and her spouse are not the sole arbiters of their moral destiny. Marriage is not only a practice deliberated in the domestic sphere. In India Muslim marriages are linked to the state via the Muslim personal law statutes. Furthermore, multiple informal moral authorities (the ulama) also shape the couple’s moral sphere, as do secular discourses over crimes such as rape and folk perceptions of morality. While the juridical discourse of the ulama looms large, there are also alternate narratives of ethics. In India, freedom is conceived different from how it is in the West. Notions of respect, dignity, and honor do not have a singular narrative, nor can they be sustained without proper consideration. Amyn Sajoo is rightfully critical in his observation, that in secular democracies ‘civic life cannot accommodate a deep regard for the sacred amid such legal/political separation’.33 Cultures are much more complex than Sajoo seems to suggest. Cultures are where values are embedded in traditions. At the same time, Sajoo believes ‘cultures, subcultures, [and] fragments of cultures, constantly meet one another and exchange and modify practices and attitudes’.34 I affirm the view of culture in a way that it finds synergies with cosmopolitanism, ‘as an ethos of macro-interdependencies, with an acute consciousness (often forced upon people) of the inescapability and particularities of 32 Das, Veena. ‘Moral and Spiritual Striving in the Everyday: To be a Muslim in Contemporary India’. Ethical Life in South Asia (2010): 232–252, p. 233. 33 Sajoo, Amyn B. Muslim Ethics: Emerging Vistas. London: I.B. Tauris, 2008, p. 34. 34 Williams, Bernard. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. London: Routledge, 2011, p. 158.

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places, characters, historical trajectories, and fates’.35 The ways one thinks about tradition in changing moral contexts should acknowledge the power of tradition for Muslims, as well as the tradition’s cultural and political contexts.

Blasphemy The debates surrounding blasphemy provide more evidence for the imperative of rethinking shariʿa as an ethical paradigm. In 2012, a Saudi journalist, Hamza Kashgari, wrote six 160-character tweets railing against the Prophet Muhammad. He posted these tweets during the annual birthday celebrations of Islam’s prophet. His tweets were met with immediate refutation, and violent criticism. A cyber lynch-mob forced him flee to Malaysia. Eventually, Malaysian authorities extradited him back to Saudi Arabia, where he languishes in a prison, without trial. Also, in 2012 Salman Rushdie was disinvited from the Jaipur Literary Festival in India because some Muslim leaders found his presence offensive. For many Muslims, Rushdie’s reputation as a blasphemer of Islam was sealed with the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses. A combination of colonial and postcolonial blasphemy laws in Pakistan has created a proverbial hornet’s nest with deadly consequences. The governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, was assassinated by a member of his own security team who turned out to be religious zealot, one who believed his boss was a religious outlaw because he publicly vented against Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and urged for their repeal and reform. More people attended the funeral of the zealous murderer Mumtaz Qadri than the funeral of Pakistan’s founding father, Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Shabaz Bhati, Pakistan’s a Christian cabinet minister, was assassinated in 2011. Bhati had frequently critiqued Pakistan’s blasphemy laws for providing legitimacy to discrimination toward Christians. Media reports frequently mention accusations of blasphemy levelled against Christians and Muslims. In these cases, vigilante justice often took the lives of both the alleged offenders and innocents. Amid this hysteria, intellectuals have been silenced and governments have cowered to out-of-control religious militants. It is both surprising and admirable that there is any room for a public debate on the nature of the penalty for blasphemy in Pakistan. And yet, this debate takes place in the Urdu newspapers, on the blogosphere, and especially on a website and print publication, called al-Shariʿa. Muhammad Ammar Khan Nasir, 35 Rabinow, Paul. ‘Studies in the Anthropology of Reason’. Anthropology Today 8.5 (1992), p. 56.

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a young cleric belonging to a distinguished pedigree of scholars affiliated to the Deoband school, has courageously addressed this risky topic. His arguments might not be transformative, but even making an argument in this debate is a potentially life-threatening action. Nasir’s courage to intervene is admirable.36 As with apostasy, the penalty for blasphemy, especially insult or defamation of the Prophet Muhammad, is death. This penalty is a product of a theology of empire that gave rise to an imperial Islamic law in successive Muslim empires. I emphasize the element of empire, since the legitimacy of the empire was contingent on the readiness of the caliph, or the representative of the imam, to not only uphold the revealed law the shariʿa, but also to proclaim a holy war, jihad. There were other ways of expressing the grandeur of empire, such as architecture.37 But for a Muslim subject of the empire, one’s religious and political identity were undifferentiated. To understand this, think in terms of kinship and tribal identity in the medieval world. The Prophet Muhammad took individuals from various tribal and ethnic identities and joined them under an emerging universal sign of Islam. But, on several occasions, this nascent Islamic community also inflected tribal bonds and privileges, such as the requirement that leadership must come from the Quraysh. As an emerging faith, Islam was intertwined by the ethnic and tribal politics of its founding and subsequent growth. Admission to the religious community was based on your faith, just as your tribal affiliation entitled you to membership of the tribe. It foreswore your loyalty to the tribe. Converting to another religion meant leaving the political community the faith represented. In the pre-modern Islamic world you did not enjoy the luxury of separating your religious identity from your tribal and political identity. Hence, apostasy indicated sedition and a betrayal of the faith community, since the faith community was also your political community. Therefore, a significant portion of Islamic law was also about the consecration of customary Arabian law.38 Apostasy was thus seen as an act of political disloyalty. In fact, some Muslim jurists argue that there was hardly any retribution if an individual committed apostasy. Apostasy was only deemed sinful when a group converted or renounced their faith, which in 36 See his Muḥammad ʻAmmār K̲ h̲ān Nāṣir, Ḥudūd va taʻzīrāt: cand aham mubāhis̲ , ed. Mavrid al. Lāhaur: al-Mavrid, 2008. 37 Sizgorich, Thomas. ‘Narrative and Community in Islamic late Antiquity’. Past & Present 185 (2004), p. 20. 38 Khalīl ʻAbd al-Karīm, al-Judhūr al-tārīkhīya lil-sharīʻa al-Islāmīya. Cairo: Dār Miṣir alMaḥrūsa, 2004.

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turn resulted in undermining the interests of the community. Such acts by large groups were treated as threats to the security of the political realm. Death was reserved as a punishment, in order to deter such acts in the future. Normally in apostasy cases, the individual is given an opportunity to recant in mitigation and avoid the death penalty. Women were exempt from the death penalty for apostasy. Why? Because it was understood in tribal Arabia and in later periods of Muslim history that women did not pose threats to the security of the empire. The lack of apostasy rules surrounding women provides more evidence for my claim that apostasy was largely a political offence, not religious. Given the overlap between religion and politics in medieval Islam, however, differences between political laws and theological laws are often overlooked, even though they were mutually intertwined. However, some scholars see the separation of the political and religious laws as invalid. There is one exception to this. Insulting the Prophet and desecrating his name or honour carried an automatic death penalty for both male and female offenders. Those found guilty did not receive an opportunity to recant, except for a lesser known view in the Hanafi school of law. The young Pakistani cleric Ammar Khan Nasir made a moderate intervention in the apostasy debate. As with many other contemporary Muslim scholars, he recognized that under altered global norms favouring human rights and freedom of speech, ancient blasphemy laws devised for a modern political order might require revisiting. He argued that the current blasphemy legislation in Pakistan had ignored a well-circulated, albeit minority, Hanafi opinion which provides apostates and blasphemers an opportunity to recant and avoid prosecution. Many might object that any blasphemy law inhibits freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is viewed as an inherent right in liberal societies. In other societies, however, freedom of speech does not provide one with the right to denigrate, critique, or satirize religious figures, ideas, or sacred objects. Pakistan, for example, does not legally enshrine ‘the liberty in principle to express oneself (albeit in ways that others may perceive as idolatrous, blasphemous, or offensive in nature)’.39 In places like Pakistan, there is growing social momentum favouring values measured by notions of duty and deference to orthodox Sunni norms. Value is not placed on the liberty to dissent from these orthodox moral and ethical strictures without punitive 39 De Vries, Hent. Introduction: Before, around, and beyond the Theologico-political. In: De Vries Hent and Lawrence E. Sullivan, eds. Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular World. New York: Fordham University Press, 2006, p. 1.

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consequences both legally and socially. While Pakistan is a constitutional democracy (a fragile one at that), it derives its identity from Islam. Since its inception Pakistan has strived to import many aspects of pre-modern Muslim political theology into its constitutional system. Over time, this has marginalized liberal constitutional and legal trends. Given this context, even Ammar Khan Nasir’s modest proposal for a review of blasphemy rules is significant. Indeed, he has come under fire from various quarters with threats made to his life. In his essay ‘No Compulsion in Matters of Faith’, the US-based scholar Taha Jabir al-Alwani meticulously worked through the primary sources of Islamic teachings regarding blasphemy and apostasy. 40 Alwani derived his title from Qurʾanic verse 2:256. He pointed out that there was no compelling evidence for penalizing people who decide to leave Islam. He tells of an event in 1959 when, after graduating from al-Azhar in Cairo, he returned to his native Iraq. The ruling Baath party had decided to execute a number of persons allied with the Communist Party on the grounds of apostasy. All the major Sunni and Shia religious figures agreed with the state’s decision to execute these individuals. The officer in charge of the execution frequented Alwani’s mosque, and the officer asked him what he thought of executing someone for apostasy. When Alwani shared his demurral on the rule of apostasy with the officer in charge, the man refused to go forward with the executions. The practice of blasphemy—including cartoon representations of religious figures, satire, as well as the right to turn one’s back on religion and exit a religious community or religious commitment through apostasy—bring together what anthropologist Saba Mahmood called a certain form of ‘affect’ and ‘religious reason’. 41 In other words, certain forms of religious practices were designed within a very different political order. Violating those practices came with specific sanctions and penalties. Can one still apply such sanctions in political orders that no longer resemble earlier forms of theocratic empires in which they were originated? Clearly, secular political orders designate such sanctions and penalties to be incommensurable and a challenge to the liberty that liberal orders cherish. Many Muslim majority countries have adopted these sanctions within their nation-state legal orders without redefining their relationship to the sacred and the secular. Often 40 Ṭāhā Jābir Alwānī. Lā ikrāh fī al-dīn: ishkāliyat al-ridda wa-al-murtaddīn min ṣadr al-Islām ḥattá al-yawm. al-Qāhira: Maktabat al-Shurūq al-Dawlīya, 2003. 41 Mahmood, Saba. ‘Religious Reason and Secular Affect: An Incommensurable Divide?’ Critical Inquiry 35.4 (2009).

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the claim is that say a country like Pakistan is a secular but the juridical and political-theological reality suggests that its form of governance is something other than merely secular. The altered political theologies of many Muslim majority nations play a vital role in how liberal and secular values are negotiated in such political spheres.

How to Think About Tradition in Muslim Moral Contexts Imrana’s story, coupled with the hysteria over apostasy and blasphemy, provides a glimpse of the centre of the debate on Muslim ethics today. Male Muslim religious authorities are committed to implementing the canonical tradition of fiqh, claiming to do so with integrity and as acts of piety and religiosity. However, many Muslims question whether the ulama can remain faithful to tradition without violating contemporary moral norms. If the ulama claims a ruling to be authoritative, can a Muslim challenge it as antithetical to contemporary norms? Most importantly, how can Muslims reshape tradition to contemporary ethics? Surely, most Muslims would respond ‘yes’. But a simple yes/no answer does not suffice. All cultures vacillate between a ‘language of universality’ while engaging in repeated ‘“translation” of incommensurable levels of living and meaning’. 42 In this in-between space, what I have called the dihliz elsewhere, this gap between universality and translation does come with risks. It requires that one fosters a certain future and goal, or what Bernard Williams calls a ‘teleologically significant world’. 43 For if such a world is out of reach it could also bring about an epistemology of despair that the truth is out of reach. Humans have sought to avoid this despair by placing faith in a God who embodies truth (tawhid). But in a tawhid-centred truth world, the goal should not be certainties of right versus wrong. Ethics is the realm of the undecided where we find ourselves between the contending norms and multiple realities of life. The ethical space is an aesthetic space. 44 It is a space where beauty manifests itself in life and all its forms, including the violent and the tragic. So the obligation is to cultivate an ethos, a space, a dwelling, or an environment for habitation. Equality, compassion, justice, freedom, and other moral virtues take place 42 Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 2012, p. 124. 43 Williams, Bernard. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. London: Routledge, 2011, p. 128. 44 The idea of the indistinction and gap between norms and facts, law and fact is derived from the work of Rancière, Jacques. Aesthetics and its Discontents. Cambridge: Polity, 2009, pp. 110–132.

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within this space. But action is always framed by ethos, which prevents action from becoming oppressive. When action and ethos combine, new possibilities of the ethical emerge. Hence, tradition, truth-seeking, and optimism are critical parts of ensuring that the truth is discoverable. But for this to be possible, an ethos must be situated in a space in between ‘what is’ and ‘what ought to be’, the dihliz. In Islam, truth-seeking in ethics begins with discernment. The term fiqh, often used to describe the body of knowledge consisting of the applied rules of the Shariʿa, actually signifies knowledge and discernment.45 Over time this tradition of discernment ceased to be a process of active thinking about ethical knowledge, and became an exercise in learning the ethical opinions of one’s predecessors. 46 Over time the need to follow tradition under the imprimatur of obeying canonical authority (taqlid) became a priority. Following tradition became as a sign of fealty to a law school. Gradually, the act of discerning ( fiqh) discourse of the revelation, Shariʿa, and its intentions lost its dynamism. In its stead rose an impressive tradition of scholarship. This scholarship canonized the authority of the ulama, but became less creative. Most importantly, fiqh became displaced from an ethical centre. Already in the eleventh century it took someone like al-Ghazali to castigate jurists ( fuqaha) for being obsessed with mechanics of rules rather than the ethics of rules. The applied rules governed the worldly needs of the moral subject or public life ( fiqh al-zahir). But Ghazali agonized and struggled to make meaning of how such formal rules of law might govern and deepen the discernment of one’s soul ( fiqh al-batin). Ghazali reoriented the fiqh tradition—whether social conduct (muʿamalat) or devotional and ritual conduct (ibadat)—in narratives about the ethics of each practice. He did so by finding concordance between the external practice of rules applicable to the body and social conduct, and the governance of the self by repairing the soul. His magnum opus, The Revivification of the Sciences of Religion, demonstrates his efforts at making this point. Among the ways believers expressed their love for God, according to Ghazali, was showing deference to God’s commandments and abstaining from libertinism. 47 45 Abū al-Baqāʾ Ayyūb b. Mūsā al-Ḥusaynī al-Kafawī, edited and annoted by ʿAdnān Darwīsh, and Muḥammad al-Maṣrī, al-Kulliyāt: Muʿjam fī al-Muṣṭalaḥāt wa al-Furūq al-Lughawīya, 2nd ed. Beirut: Muʾassasa al-Risāla, 1419/1998. pp. 690–691. 46 Rahman, Fazlur. Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979, p. 101. 47 al-Ghazālī, Iḥyā ͑ulūm al-dīn. 4:288. Whether God loves his Law is not an idea I found in Ghazali. But Brague citing Henri Laoust, claims this. What Ghazali does admit is that obedience to God is a sign of a servant’s love for God. See Brague, Rémi. The Law of God: The Philosophical History of an Idea. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007, p. 184 & fn 41.

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The norms and commandments Ghazali cherished were rooted in Muslim tradition. These norms included elements of both continuity and change with the norms, practices, and values of the first generations of Muslims. Ghazali’s predecessors repeatedly re-narrated the tradition to give it coherence. The norms that influenced Ghazali made sense in his medieval society, but they did pose challenges. Ghazali pushed back against some of the cosmologies of his predecessors. He also re-narrated certain aspects of Ashʿari theology and provided space for rival interpretations of that theology. In the sphere of the moral and ethical, Ghazali took pains to re-narrate the tradition and provide a new account of how the ethical tradition in his time related to its past. While his interpretations garnered much appeal, he also encountered opposition. As Alasdair MacIntyre observed, epistemological arguments are a feature of conflicts within traditions across different societies and religions. 48 We now live in a world shaped by the Enlightenment, which altered cosmologies of science, politics, and religion. At best, our life-worlds are a mix of pre-modern and modern traditions, hybrids that produce contradictions and paradoxes. Because of this, important aspects of the narratives of tradition that once made sense to Ghazali and other intellectuals no longer really make sense to a modern sensibility. Today, re-narration of tradition is not happening fast enough, nor is it generating meaningful moral consensus among Muslims. The epistemological rupture from the pre-modern to the modern has caused deep fissures in the Muslim self, and in Muslim political orders. As a result, apologetics have become more dominant, giving a superficial account of tradition in a bid to displace the facts of the world in which we are living. But modern Muslims are not struggling simply with an epistemological crisis. 49 They are suffering from a chronic condition. This crisis exists today for several historical reasons. The builders of Muslim orthodoxy do not realize that such a crisis even exists. Nor do they realize that solving this crisis requires the re-narration of tradition. Even if the Muslim community recognized this crisis, another fear would immediately present itself. Many Muslims fear that any way out of this crisis will rely upon sources derived from the non-Muslim West, which a 48 MacIntyre, Alisdair. ‘Epistemological Crises, Dramatic Narrative and the Philosophy of Science’. The Monist 60.4 (1977), p. 461. 49 An epistemological crisis is when a subject knows that the ‘schema of interpretation which he has trusted so far has broken down irremediably in certain highly specific ways’. MacIntyre, Alisdair. ‘Epistemological Crises, Dramatic Narrative and the Philosophy of Science’. The Monist 60.4 (1977), p. 458.

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significant number of Muslims view as hostile to Islam. Thus, in many ways the epistemological crisis foreshadows a clash of civilizations narrative. It is not surprising that many Muslims today do not realize the crisis that has befallen Islam. One of the greatest challenges for contemporary Muslim intelligentsia is taking the liberty to question tradition. But the absence of a space, an ethos, to undertake such questioning, and to hold a conversation without fear of reprisal, is an even greater problem. Erecting intellectual barriers to guard against the West, and the dismissal of scholars in the Western academy, are standard defensive tropes used by Muslim orthodoxy. MacIntyre was almost unintentionally prescient when he wrote: ‘It is yet another mark of a degenerate tradition that it has contrived a set of epistemological defences which enable it to avoid being put in question or at least to avoid recognizing that it is being put in question by rival traditions.’50

Conclusion Islamic thought uses different vocabularies to reflect the tradition in which it is based.51 Only a greater sense of today’s shared human web of interaction can counter the-clash-of-civilizations-narrative and reduce violence. This will require a much greater effort at fostering global peace based on mutual respect.52 While this is a long process, Muslim scholars must begin to immediately address the issues undergirding the crises afflicting Muslim religious thought. Failing to do so will result in moral bankruptcy. For more than a century, those Muslim religious scholars aware of this crisis attempted to address it by invoking ijtihad (independent, new thinking) and abandoning taqlid (imitation of the past), a term that also means the transmission of tradition, carefully understood. However, not enough work has been done to re-establish conceptions of the sharia as a set of ethical and moral norms, rather than a set of rigid laws. Some years ago, in a private exchange with the spiritual leader of Tunisia’s Renaissance Party (Ennahda) Rashid Ghannouchi, we debated the need for 50 MacIntyre, Alisdair. ‘Epistemological Crises, Dramatic Narrative and the Philosophy of Science’. The Monist 60.4 (1977), p. 461. 51 I discuss this in a forthcoming work on Muslim ethics. 52 See my essay Moosa, Ebrahim. ‘Muslim Ethics in an Era of Globalism: Reconciliation in an Age of Empire’. In Janusz Salamon, ed, Solidarity Beyond Borders: Ethics in a Globalising World, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015, 97–113.

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radical rethinking (ijtihad) in a time of Western hegemony.53 Ghannouchi asserted that ijtihad during a time of the political and cultural decline of Muslims could result in the colonization of Muslim religious thought. I fervently argued the opposite, stating that such rethinking was especially needed to pull Muslim culture and religious thought out of its intellectual and moral quagmire. We did not manage to persuade each other 22 years ago. When his party won elections in 2011, Ghannouchi demonstrated visionary leadership in moving Tunisia toward democracy. In 2016, Ennahda abandoned political Islam as an ideology, resolving to function strictly as a political party. Ennahda remains guided by Islamic ethics in the same way Christian Democrats in Europe or the Republican Party in the USA remain guided by Christian ethics. Ghannouchi’s party intellectuals provided a fresh interpretation of Muslim politics using ijtihad to abandon one version of politics and embrace another. Ennahda paid credence to Muslim tradition while enlivening it with the context of new realities. The crucial lesson here is the imperative for thinking anew. Thinking and knowledge must once again assume its place as a moral imperative for Muslims. A powerful reminder for this comes from the work of the émigré German Jewish political philosopher Hannah Arendt. Arendt is famous for illuminating the ‘banality of evil’. Arendt used this phrase to capture the facile, superficial defence of the Nazis and their sympathizers: ‘We were just performing our patriotic duty.’ As she struggled to make sense of the evil committed by her compatriots that resulted in the near extermination of European Jews, Arendt made an even more insightful remark. What startled her most, she recalled, was the ‘total absence of thinking’ in the accounts of such prominent Nazis as Adolf Eichmann, whom she observed on trial in Jerusalem. Arendt’s introspection after the trial is both haunting and edifying. Arendt wrestled with the question of whether ‘thinking as such, the habit of examining and reflecting’ could alone prevent evil. Yes, thinking can disrupt our existing habits of thought, she conceded. And, it can lead us to discover new ways of questioning. But the ‘wind of thought’, Arendt’s way of describing the harvest of thinking, was not knowledge per se. Thinking should result in moral reasoning that equips us with the ‘ability to tell right from wrong, beautiful from ugly’. The conviction to declare ‘This is wrong’, or 53 Rachid Ghannuchi, during an extended visit to South Africa in March–April 1994, had several exchanges with me during which we discussed many of these ideas. He has also over time rethought some of his previous positions.

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‘This is beautiful’, involves a certain way of thinking. Today most of us need to wear this piece of wisdom as a talisman around our necks. Contemporary Muslim traditions are hurtling into incoherence. As MacIntyre said, incoherence can only be recovered by ‘a revolutionary reconstitution’.54 A revolutionary reconstitution begins with thinking, and with the freedom to state unequivocally that some things are right and others are wrong. It must be acknowledged that the mufti of Deoband and the many self-appointed executioners of blasphemers behaved with their eyes and emotions only directed at antiquated tradition instead of examining their ethical selves and a consideration of human dignity. Imrana deserved compassion, but she was twice victimized: once for rape, and again as a victim of stale thinking. Imrana’s story should stand as testimony that violating human dignity and ignoring the ethical is a moral and theological offense. Just as how one deals with offenders of virtues formed in a different notion of self that takes blasphemy seriously requires that one think through the meaning and values of Islam today.

Bibliography Abū al-Baqāʾ Ayyūb b. Mūsā al-Ḥusaynī al-Kafawī, edited and annoted by ʿAdnān Darwīsh, and Muḥammad al-Maṣrī. al-Kulliyāt: Muʿjam fī al-Muṣṭalaḥāt wa al-Furūq al-Lughawīya. 2nd ed. Beirut: Muʾassasa al-Risāla, 1998. Abū al-Walīd Ibn Rushd. Bidāyat al-mujtahid wa nihāyat al-muqtaṣid. Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1998. Abū Bakr Muḥī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī and Aḥmad Shams al-Dīn (ed.), al-Futūḥāt almakkīya. 1st ed., 9 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīya, 11999. Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Ghazālī. Iḥyā ͑ulūm al-dīn. 5 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al- ͑Ilmīya, 2001. Al-Ghazālī, Muḥammad bin Muḥammad. ‘Al-Mustaṣfā min ‘Ilm al-Uṣūl, ed. Muḥammad Sulaymān al-Ashqar’. (1997). Al-Jawziyyah, Ibn Qayiim, and Muhammad bin Abi Bakr. ‘Madarij al-Salikin Bayna Manazil Iyyaka Nacbudu wa Iyyaka Nastacin’. Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-Arabiyya, 1973. ʻAlī ibn Muḥammad Māwardī, and ʻAbd Allāh Aḥmad Abū Zaynah. Adab al-dunyā wa-al-dīn. Mu’assasat Dār al-Shaʻb lil-Ṣaḥafah wa-al-Ṭibāʻah wa-al-Nashr. 1978.

54 MacIntyre, Alisdair. ‘Epistemological Crises, Dramatic Narrative and the Philosophy of Science’. The Monist 60.4 (1977), p. 461.

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Anas, Ibn. ‘Al-Muwatta of Imam Malik Ibn Anas: The First Formulation of Islamic Law’. Translated by Aisha Abdurrahman Bewley. London: Kegan Paul International,1989. Azam, Hina. Sexual Violation in Islamic Law: Substance, Evidence, and Procedure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 2012. Brague, Rémi. The Law of God: The Philosophical History of an Idea. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Brockelmann, Carl. ‘al-Māwardī’. In: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, eds. Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Leiden: W.P. Heinrichs. Brill Online, 2016. Das, Veena. ‘Moral and Spiritual Striving in the Everyday: To be a Muslim in Contemporary India’. In: Pandian, Anand and Daud Ali, eds. Ethical Life in South Asia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010, 232–252. De Vries, Hent. Introduction: Before, around, and beyond the Theologico-political. In: De Vries Hent and Lawrence E. Sullivan, eds. Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular World. New York: Fordham University Press, 2006. Aʿzamī, Ḥabīb al-Raḥmān. Taḥqīq-i masʾala-i ḥurmat-i muṣāharat. Deoband: Markaz-i Daʿwat va Taḥqīq, 2005 Tāʾaulvi, Muftī Muḥammad Yūsuf. Ḥurmat-i muṣāharat Qurʾān o ḥadīth kīroshnī main. Deoband: Maktaba Faqīh al-Ummat, 2005. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya. al-Turuq al-hukmiyya. Beirut: Al-Maktabba Al Asriyyah, 1995 Ibn Qayyim al-Jazwiyya. Iʿlam al-muwaqqiʿin an rabb al-alamin. Beirut: Al-Maktabba Al Asriyyah, 1998. Khaldun, Ibn. ‘Muqaddimah’. Trans. Franz Rosenthal. Edited and abridged by NJ. Dawood. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969. Laoust, Henri. ‘Ibn Kayyim al- D̲ j̲awziyya’. In: Bearman, P, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs, eds. Encyclopaedia of Islam 3. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Mahmood, Saba. ‘Religious Reason and Secular Affect: An Incommensurable Divide?’ Critical Inquiry 35.4 (2009): 836–862 MacIntyre, Alisdair. ‘Epistemological Crises, Dramatic Narrative and the Philosophy of Science’. The Monist 60.4 (1977): 453–472. Moosa, Ebrahim. ‘Muslim Ethics in an Era of Globalism: Reconciliation in an Age of Empire’. In: Janusz Salamon, ed. Solidarity Beyond Borders: Ethics in a Globalising World. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015, 97–113. Moosa, Ebrahim. ‘Recovering the Ethical: Practices, Politics, Tradition’. In: Amyn B Sajoo, ed. The Shari’a: History, Ethics and Law. London: I.B. Tauris, 2018. Oakeshott, Michael. Religion, Politics, and the Moral Life. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.

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‘Personal communication’. Abū ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq ʿAbd al-Salām bin Abī Aslam alMadanī, 2006. Qasimi, Jamal al-Din. Tafsir Al-Qasimi, Al-Musammá, Majasin Al-Ta’wil. MaHasin Al-Ta’wil. Cairo: Dar Ihya Turath al-Arabi, 2011. Rabinow, Paul. ‘Studies in the Anthropology of Reason’. Anthropology Today 8.5 (1992): 7–10. Rahman, Fazlur. Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979. Rancière, Jacques. Aesthetics and its Discontents. Cambridge: Polity, 2009. Sajoo, Amyn B. Muslim Ethics: Emerging Vistas. London: I.B. Tauris, 2008. Sizgorich, Thomas. ‘Narrative and Community in Islamic Late Antiquity’. Past & Present 185 (2004): 9–42. Ṭāhā Jābir Alwānī, Lā ikrāh fī al-dīn: ishkāliyat al-ridda wa-al-murtaddīn min ṣadr al-Islām ḥattá al-yawm. Cairo: Maktabat al-Shurūq al-Dawlīya, 2003. Williams, Bernard. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. London: Routledge, 2011.

About the author Ebrahim Moosa is Professor of Islamic Studies in Keough School of Global Affairs and the Department of History at the University of Notre Dame.

11. The New Horizons of Piety Religiosity and Moral Agency in the Modern World Sahar Amer Abstract This article focuses on the development of new forms of Muslim piety that challenge both Euro-American stereotypes of Muslim women veiling and conservative interpretations of the meaning of hijab in Islam. It shows how recent progressive readings of Islamic sacred texts, highlighting the spiritual equality of the sexes, are questioning persistent assumptions that Muslim women are required to veil. These progressive intellectual and theological voices are accompanied by the development of more popular and far reaching industries that are facilitating the emergence of new practices of piety: the Islamic fashion industry, Islamic beauty pageants, veiled dolls, and artistic voices. Taken together, these new modes of Islamic piety show the imbrication of religious expressions, faith, and global market forces. Keywords: Islamophobia; resistance; secularism; human rights; female oppression; visual arts

One of the biggest misunderstandings of contemporary Muslim practice is undoubtedly that of Muslim women’s dress. Politicians in Muslim-minority societies, like a large number of feminists and liberals around the world, berate the increased adoption of conservative Muslim women attire. Laws have been passed in France, Belgium, Germany, and across Europe over the past ten years legislating what Muslim women can wear and where. Behind these laws often loom the fear of Islamism, the threat of ISIS, and the alarm over the radicalization of Muslim youth, all camouflaged in a feminist rhetoric of women’s and human rights.

Osman, M.N.M. Pathways to Contemporary Islam: New Trends in Critical Engagement. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. doi: 10.5117/9789462987593_ch11

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In Europe, the anxiety over Muslim women’s dress, and the resulting desire to legislate hijab appears systematically in the wake of bombings and terrorist attacks. It had resurfaced following the March 2016 Brussels attacks, the November 2015 Paris killings, and of course the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacres. Manuel Valls, France’s prime minister at the time, did not hesitate to raise once more the question of veiling in France, calling this time for a ban of the hijab in universities.1 Ten years after banning hijab in public schools, and five years after banning the burqa in public spaces, Muslim women’s dress continues to occupy political platforms in France, to fuel heated debates in the media and to divide citizens. The political desire to regulate Muslim women’s dress in Europe has often been expressed not only through laws and policies, but also through public denunciation of western designers who cater to Muslim women’s dress. Ms. Laurence Rossignol (France’s minister for Women’s Rights) has vocally condemned such designers, calling them ‘irresponsible’ for encouraging ‘the imprisonment of women’s bodies’.2 Similarly, Elizabeth Badinter, the well-known French feminist, has come out in support of Rossignol and called for women to boycott any designer who supported the Islamic fashion industry.3 Her universalist feminism, denunciation of cultural relativism, and staunch support of French style laïcité (secularism), evident in her repeated calls to tighten French legislation of veiling, have been expressed at the expense of Muslim women’s own voices, piety, religiosity, and moral agency. These debates over Muslim women’s dress, the assumption that Muslim conservative dress is necessarily a sign of extremism, of radicalization, or an example of female subordination and oppression are misguided. They fail to take into account the new modes of Islamic piety and religious expressions in contemporary Muslim societies. They encourage a clash of 1 Joffrin, Laurent. ‘Manuel Valls: “Depuis Plus De Trente Ans, On Me Demande Si Je Suis De Gauche”’. Libération.Fr, 2016, https://www.liberation.fr/france/2016/04/12/manuel-valls-depuisplus-de-trente-ans-on-me-demande-si-je-suis-de-gauche_1445774 (accessed on 1 June 2016). 2 Willsher, Kim. ‘French Women’s Rights Minister Accused of Racism over Term “Negro”’. The Guardian, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/30/french-womens-rightsminister-laurence-rossignol-accused-racism-negro (accessed on 1 June 2016). 3 Truong, Nicolas. ‘Elisabeth Badinter Appelle Au Boycott Des Marques Qui Se Lancent Dans La Mode Islamique’. Le Monde.Fr, 2016, https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2016/04/02/elisabethbadinter-une-partie-de-la-gauche-a-baisse-la-garde-devant-le-communautarisme_4894360_3232. html (accessed on 1 June 2016).

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civilization worldview that pits Euro-American women’s liberation against Muslim women’s submission, Euro-American democracies against Muslim authoritarian regimes, civilizational advances against backwardness and religious dogmas, secularism against fanaticism, East vs. West. Ultimately, they lead to a proliferation of Islamophobic voices and human rights abuses, in which, tragically, veiled Muslim women are prime victims. 4 The misunderstanding and anxiety towards all visible symbols of Islam and over Muslim women’s dress in particular overlook entirely the new politics of piety in Muslim societies worldwide, as well the moral agency of Muslim women. They obscure the development and rising visibility of new ways of being Muslim, of reclaiming, and of proclaiming one’s piety. In this essay, I focus on five key elements that are central, I believe, to the new politics of Islamic piety in the 21st century. These five elements challenge also Euro-American stereotypes and escalating Islamophobia, and they dispute the restrictive interpretations of Islam that are promulgated by conservative Islamic authorities. The f irst of these elements is the development of progressive Muslim movements around the world.

Progressive Muslim Movements ‘Progressive’ Muslims are male and female Muslim academics, activists, theologians, lawyers, intellectuals, and artists from around the world who, at least since the 1990s, have been challenging received notions about Islam, and questioning the assumption that Islam is incompatible with progressive ideals or human rights values.5 The central goal of progressive Muslims is to recover Islam’s basic teachings and reconnect Muslims with the egalitarian spirit of the faith that is clearly expressed in a Quranic passage that describes 4 Recent statistics conducted in the United States (Pew Research Center, 2014) and France (2012) have shown that veiled Muslim women are prime victims of Islamophobia. In France, the 2012 study on Islamophobia has shown that 84.73 per cent of all Islamophobic incidents in France were made against women who veiled. See ‘Collectif Contre l’Islamophobie en France’, available at http://www.islamophobie.net/ (accessed on 1 June 2016). 5 I am qualifying ‘progressive’ because the term has given rise recently to a great deal of debate and criticism. Even some scholars who were part of the original core group of ‘progressive’ Muslims have now distanced themselves from the term and group. For the purposes of this essay, the controversy over the appropriateness of the term and the divergence in thought among the various ‘progressive’ groups will not be addressed. My goal here is to emphasize the common goals of the various sides of the progressive continuum.

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explicitly the absolute equality of male and female Muslims as believers in front of God:6 For men and women who are devoted to God—believing men and women, obedient men and women, truthful men and women, steadfast men and women, fasting men and women, chaste men and women, men and women who remember God often—God has prepared forgiveness and a rich reward. (Q 33:35)

For progressive Muslims, the equality of the sexes, their rights and responsibilities as individuals endowed with free will, and the elevation of women as persons in their own right represent Islam’s core teaching and the foundation of the new community that the Prophet Muhammad sought to establish in the seventh century. Progressive Muslims’ careful analysis and thorough engagement with Islamic texts have led them to conclusions that vastly differ from those inherited from medieval exegesis which continues to dictate contemporary beliefs and practices. In particular, progressive Muslims have pointed out that Quranic verses on veiling (for instance) are open to multiple interpretations, and they have questioned the persistent assumption that Muslim women are clearly or specifically required to veil in the Quran. For progressive Muslims, hijab in Islam is much less about clothing, much less about an injunction to wear a specific attire than it is about adopting a modest demeanour, remaining humble, and avoiding pride and conceit. This injunction, they remind us, is intended for both Muslim men and women. Moreover, they have discovered through their linguistic research that in seventh-century Arabic, the verb ‘to take the veil’ did not mean the adoption of a particular type of clothing. It was used rather as an equivalent to ‘to become the Prophet Muhammad’s wife’.7 This linguistic and cultural information marks veiling clearly as a practice specific to the privilege of being one of the Prophet’s wives. On this basis, some progressive Muslims have concluded that veiling was primarily a mark of social and spiritual 6 Saf i, Omid. Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism. London: Oneworld Publications, 2003. The bibliography on progressive Muslims is extensive. One may consult the Muslim for Progressive Values website, http://www.mpvusa.org/ (accessed 1 June 2016). 7 Goto, Emi. ‘Qurᵓan and the Veil: Contexts and Interpretations of the Revelation’. International Journal of Asian Studies. Vol. 1.2 2004, pp. 277–295; and Clarke, Linda. ‘Hijab According to Hadith: Text and Interpretation’. In: Sajida Sultana Alvi, Homa Hoodfar, and Sheila McDonough, eds. The Muslim Veil in North America: Issues and Debates. Toronto: Women’s Press, 2003. This interpretation has been repeated by these Islamic Studies scholars.

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status (being married to Muhammad) and was never supposed to become a sartorial obligation for all Muslim women. Progressive Muslims have also focused their attention on the question of leadership in both ritual prayers and mosque administration.8 If Amina Wadud was the first Muslim woman to lead publicly a Friday prayer to a mixed congregation of Muslim men and women standing side by side in New York City in 2005, she was soon followed by other progressive Muslim women. In Europe, for instance, Raheel Raza, a Canadian Muslim, was the first woman to lead prayers in the United Kingdom (Oxford) and to deliver the Friday khutba (sermon) on 10 June 2010. In 2016, the Mariam mosque, the first female-led mosque in the Netherlands, opened its doors in Copenhagen aiming ‘to challenge patriarchal structures’ and to inspire women. The adhan (call to prayer), khutba (sermon), and prayers are shared by two female imams: Sherin Khankan and Saliha Marie Fetteh. This female-led mosque, like others that have spread around the world and especially in Muslim-minority societies, aim to promote progressive values and confront growing Islamophobia. They are similar in some ways to the women’s only mosques in Chinese Hui communities (the Hennan Province of Zhengzhou) that have functioned since at least the nineteenth century,9 and the Women Mosque of America that opened in 2014 in Los Angeles. Among the other important work of progressive Muslims, we must mention the work of the new generation of Muslim imams who have come out publicly as gays, who are actively engaged in the creation of more inclusive spaces for peoples of faith (Muslims and non-Muslims), who are speaking against homophobia in the Muslim community, providing much-needed support to Muslim gays and lesbians, and performing a variety of tasks including same-sex Muslim nikah (marriages). Soon after Muhsin Hendricks from South Africa came out publicly in the moving 2007 documentary film A Jihad for Love (dir. Sharvez Parma), a number of other gay imams have come forward. African-American Imam Daayie Abdulla is today leading mixed congregations of Muslims in Washington, D.C. and welcoming groups who continue to be regularly shunned from orthodox Islamic groups, including queer Muslims. Similarly, 8 Hammer, Juliane. American Muslim Women, Religious Authority, and Activism: More Than a Prayer. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012. 9 Jaschok, Maria, and Shui Jingjun Shui. The History of Women’s Mosques in Chinese Islam. London: Routledge, 2013; and Jaschok, Maria, and Jingjun Shui. Women, Religion, and Space in China: Islamic Mosques & Daoist Temples, Catholic Convents & Chinese Virgins. London: Routledge, 2012.

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Franco-Algerian Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed has founded in 2012 a gay friendly mosque inside an unnamed Buddhist centre in the suburbs of Paris. His 2013 book Queer Muslim Marriage and documentary ‘Meet Each Other’ both offer an ethical reassessment of gay and lesbian marriage within an Islamic framework. Australia’s first and only-gay Imam, Imam Nur Warsame is the most recent one to come out publicly in an SBS interview on 3 May 2016. Originally from Somalia, and living now in Melbourne (Australia), he has created a covert Muslim LGBTQI association which has more than 500 members nationally, and which strives to open up the discussion on alternative sexualities within the conservative and homophobic circles of Australian Muslim communities.10 Evidently, since the early 2000, there is a global proliferation of progressive Muslim movements that are offering Muslims and Muslim youth in particular a more inclusive and expansive space to voice their individuality, agency, and piety. But the future of Islam and the new horizons of Islamic piety are not limited to these progressive intellectual and theological voices. They manifest themselves also in more popular forms, in more personal expressions that highlight in some cases the intricate imbrication of some well-known Islamic practices with today’s global market economies. I am referring here to the rapid expansion of an Islamic high and main street fashion industry.

The Islamic Fashion Industry Since the 1990s, a whole new industry has developed, first in Turkey, soon thereafter in Indonesia, Iran, North Africa, and around the globe catering to Muslim women’s appetite for vibrant colours, detailed embroidery, multi-coloured pins, and shining stones to decorate the fabrics of overcoats (abayas), jackets, and headscarves. Muslim women have become savvy about the perfect colour-coordination between clothes, headscarves, makeup, and accessories, including handbag and shoes. They are reclaiming their right to interpret hijab on their own terms and choose how they want to wear it. Because the Muslim clothing consumer market is only second to the largest global market—the United States11—Euro-American luxury designers, 10 Kassisieh, Ghassan. ‘We’re Family Too’: The Effects of Homophobia in Arabic-speaking Communities in New South Wales. Sydney: ACON, 2011. 11 A k yol, Riada. ‘Muslim Conser vatives Unveil Anger at Turkey’s Modest Fashion Week’.  Al-Monitor, 2016, https://w w w.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/05/

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like more main street ones, have been actively vying to attract this wealthy Muslim clientele. They have been developing new collections to suit the taste and size of discerning Middle Eastern women with vast revenues. While these were secret events at first, there is today a number of open events marketed specifically to Muslim communities around the world. Many well-known Western designers now offer special Ramadan collections, and claim that Islamic fashion actually helps Muslim women break down stereotypical representations of faith and gender. France especially, recognizing the privileged place it occupies in the imagination of many Middle Eastern women, has become a business leader in catering to affluent Muslim women. Savvy French luxury fashion designers (Dior and Chanel among others) have been especially entrepreneurial in ensuring that they maintain and augment the 30 per cent of luxury business they already make in the Gulf. This is of course ironic since France is also the country that banned both the hijab and the niqab in public schools and public spaces on its own soil. The hijab and niqab may be challenges to French secularism, as French policy makers like to repeat, but they certainly also represent an economic boon that they are keen to preserve. Today, there is an increasing number of blogs, twitter accounts, Instagrams, Facebook pages, electronic sites, and YouTube channels dedicated specifically to Islamic fashion. The growth of this industry is perhaps most clearly marked by the formal establishment of the Dubai-based Islamic Fashion and Design Council (IFDC), the ‘leading advocate for Islamic fashion’, with offices in New York and London, and close ties with fashion and designs schools in Paris. It is also marked by the proliferation of Islamic Fashion Festivals, which began in 2006 in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and that have since been held some seventeen times from New York to Jakarta.12 These Islamic fashion festivals continue to be spaces not only of discovery and exhibition of new modest Islamic fashion clothing, but they are also events that occasion much debate and tension between Muslim hijabistas turkey-istanbul-islamic-fashion-week-splits-conservatives.html#ixzz49KG4us3m (accessed on 3 May 2017). 12 Jones, Carla. ‘Fashion and Faith in Urban Indonesia’. Fashion Theory 11.2–3 (2007): 211–231; and Jones, Carla. ‘Images of Desire: Creating Virtue and Value in an Indonesian Islamic Lifestyle Magazine’. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 6.3 (2010): 91–117; and Gökarıksel, Banu, and Anna Secor. ‘Between Fashion and Tesettür: Marketing and Consuming Women’s Islamic Dress’. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 6.3 (2010): 118–148; and Lewis, Reina. ‘Marketing Muslim Lifestyle: A New Media Genre’. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 6.3 (2010): 58–90. Islamic Fashion festivals have also taken place in Dubai, Singapore, and most recently in Europe, in London, Paris, Monte Carlo, Turin, and Cordoba.

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(or hijababes) and conservative Muslim critics. In the May 2016 Modest Fashion Week held in Istanbul (Turkey) for instance, the cultural wars between secularists and religious conservatives played itself out again, revealing once more that the Islamic fashion industry, despite its growth and financial promise, remains a hotly contested topic. For conservatives, making hijab fashionable betrays the faith and is incompatible with true piety and modesty. Such tendency is further considered a capitalist venture reminiscent of the jahiliyya (pre-Islamic period) and characteristic of a fake religiosity by the bourgeoisie. For those who design, promote, or adopt modest Islamic fashionable wear, on the other hand, ‘the hijab’s aesthetic has changed over time, place and cultures’.13 It is a means of expressing one’s worldliness, cosmopolitanism, and moral agency. Therefore, it is completely possible to be both pious and fashionable. The growing appeal of the Islamic fashion industry may be partly due to the fact that such clothes ultimately challenge conservative Islamist views of appropriate Muslim women’s dress, and the strict governmental regulations imposed on women’s attire in some Muslim-majority countries. For some, Islamic fashion—what some have called ‘bad hijab’—is a revolutionary type of fashion, one that claims to endorse women’s individuality and protect their human right to choose.14 Contrary to what many may believe, therefore, some Muslim women resort to Islamic fashion as a strategy to own what is considered in many societies a religious or political mandate to veil. By adopting fashionable veiling, some Muslim women are staging their own revolution, at once following and subverting the sartorial rules of their community. Islamic fashion, and despite its commercial implications, is also and at times a voice of resistance to univocal, essentialist, and conservative interpretations of hijab. To conservative Muslims, websites, and critics who decry the growing vogue of Islamic fashion, trendy Muslim women often invoke the modesty of the soul, rather than secular modesty. Many cite a well-known hadith that states: ‘God is beautiful and He loves beauty.’ For fashionable and devout 13 Akyol, Riada. ‘Muslim Conservatives Unveil Anger at Turkey’s Modest Fashion Week’. AlMonitor, 2016, https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/05/turkey-istanbul-islamicfashion-week-splits-conservatives.html#ixzz49KG4us3m (accessed on 3 May 2017) 14 The notion of ‘bad hijab’ refers to the seemingly incongruous way some Muslim women (in Iran particularly, but in other places as well) dress in an effort to both abide by governmental restrictions over appropriate Islamic dress and affirm their own individuality. They may for instance adopt conservative dress but let some highlighted hair show from underneath their scarf; or wear jeans and boots that cover literally their legs but that are tight so as to also challenge notions of modesty.

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Muslim women alike, veiling is intended to radiate God’s magnificence through attention to one’s own human beauty. In other words, for some, hijab fashion is adopted as an outward expression of a Muslim woman’s spiritual beauty, and by extension as a symbol of God’s glory. The focus on spiritual beauty is today an intrinsic aspect of the new horizons of Islamic piety. It has become the main alternative discourse that the Islamic fashion industry has deployed to deflect criticism. This argument is compelling since it allows virtue to coexist with the active quest for beauty. It validates women (and designers) who are working hard to align inner and outer beauty. And by referencing a well-known hadith, they are able to challenge their critics on their own terms. Ironically, it is precisely this interest in spiritual beauty that has led to the recent development of another contemporary Islamic practice, one that also sits squarely at the crossroads of religion, piety, and global market forces, namely Islamic beauty pageants.

Islamic Beauty Pageants Islamic beauty pageants remain little known by most Muslims and nonMuslims. Their most important difference from Euro-American pageants is the fact that their focus is not to identify the most physically beautiful girl, but to recognize the most spiritually striking one, the girl with the most praiseworthy Islamic morals. In an interview reported in the Huffington Post, Khadra al-Mubarak, founder of the first Islamic beauty pageant in Saudi Arabia (ironically, a country with some of the highest human rights abuse cases, and with the most conservative attitudes toward women), explains that the primary goal of the pageant is ‘to measure the contestants’ commitment to Islamic morals. It’s an alternative to the calls for decadence in the other beauty contests that only take into account a woman’s body and looks’.15 The Saudi beauty pageant claims therefore not to be interested in outer beauty, but to reward instead Muslim women’s inner beauty. This inner beauty is defined specifically in this pageant as the devotion and respect that a contestant shows her mother. No men are involved in the contest, and the judges’ role is to select the girl who will be crowned ‘Miss Beautiful 15 Farooqi, Sadaf. ‘“Miss Beautiful Morals” – Will You Please Step Up?’ Muslimmatters.Org, 2009, Available at https://muslimmatters.org/2009/05/14/miss-beautiful-morals-will-you-please-step-up (accessed on 4 May 2017).

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Morals’. The contest has been so well received that participation has more than doubled since the pageant was created in 2008: From 75 to more than 200 girls between the ages of 15-25. Despite the vast differences between Euro-American and Islamic beauty contests, the very existence of Islamic beauty competitions is worth noting as it reveals the efforts made by some Muslims to participate in established Euro-American traditions. In Muslim-majority societies, these beauty pageants are as controversial as they are in Euro-American societies.16 They are at times heralded as a positive sign of Islamic feminism, of modernity, and progress. At other times, however, such pageants are derided for being a facile imitation of and surrender to Euro-American popular culture, a capitulation to materialism, and a self-imposed disengagement from Islamic core values. Regardless of these contradictory views, it is undeniable that Muslim beauty pageants, like the Islamic fashion industry, are an integral aspect of the new horizons of Islamic piety in the contemporary world. They are another essential means of expressing religiosity and moral agency in the contemporary world. The development of Islamic pageants and of the Islamic fashion industry more generally is not just a grown-up affair. Similar developments can be observed catering to Muslim children. Just like adult Muslim women consumers of Islamic fashion, Muslim children are learning early on that they too can, and should, dress and act fashionably, all the while embracing modesty as def ined by their family and community. As all savvy business entrepreneurs know, children are prime potential clients, ones to be enticed and educated today so that they may become the avid consumers of tomorrow.

Development of Veiled (Muslim) Dolls The introduction of Muslim children to contemporary practices of piety begins with play, role-play with Muslim dolls. In fact, Muslim dolls have 16 Beauty pageants have come under intense scrutiny among American feminists at least as early as 1968 when a dozen of them protested the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City. At that time, they had dumped some high-heeled shoes and make-up into a ‘freedom trash can’. Similarly, in 2012, Femen’s ‘sextremists’ demonstrated against Milan’s fashion week to contest the use of stick-thin models who implicitly promote anorexia. ‘Breast-Beating’. The Economist, 2013. Available at https://www.economist.com/international/2013/05/25/breast-beating (accessed on 3 May 2017).

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become a multi-million-dollar industry whose designers claim to have an educational objective, namely to teach children what it means to be good Muslims, how to preserve their culture and religion, all the while being fully integrated within their community. The development of the Muslim doll industry started in the United States in the 1990s, after the Saudi ban of Barbie.17 There has been since then a proliferation of veiled Muslim dolls, some widely available on a global scale, others in much more local markets.18 However, the growth of a fashionable line of clothing for each of the various Muslim dolls is a much more recent phenomenon. When the first Muslim doll, Razanne, was created in the United States in 1996 for example, she came with two outfits only: a set of indoor apparel which was fashionable and in line with what any non-Muslim girl would have been wearing at the time, and an outdoor attire consisting of a long overcoat and a headscarf. Today, Razanne has been given not only a series of identities including a Muslim girl scout, a teacher Razanne, a student Razanne, and a pious Razanne, but also three ethnic variations for each identity: Caucasian, Pakistani-Indian, and black. Moreover, each ethnic variation comes with its own set of fashionable and colourful clothing.19 Similarly, the most successful Muslim doll, the Syrian Fulla, has witnessed an even bigger boom in her line of fashionable clothing, accessories, and lifestyle items since she was introduced in 2003.20 Like other Muslim dolls, Fulla had at first only two sets of distinct clothing, one for the outdoors and the other for the indoors. For the outdoors, Fulla wears an all-encompassing overcoat or abaya, and a scarf. While these were both black in the first edition of the doll, newer collections soon emerged offering different colour abayas and matching scarves and accessories. Moreover, Fulla, as a budding consumer of Islamic fashion, has been given a growing line of fashionable indoor clothing which is updated with the seasons and fashion cycles. She has clothes that are appropriate for various activities including prayer, sports, or role play as a teacher or doctor. Any attire that reveals some skin is clearly labelled on the box as ‘indoor 17 Barbie continues to be under scrutiny by Euro-American feminists who contest the doll’s appropriateness as a role model for women. 18 Even though it took the world by surprise, the marketing of Hijarbie (February 2016), Barbie’s hijab-wearing Muslim cousin, by 24-year old Nigerian medical student Haneefa Adam, is only one in a series of other veiled Muslim dolls. 19 See the Razanne website, Razanne The Muslim Doll. Available at http://www.alomani.com/ razanne/ (accessed on 4 June 2016). 20 See the Fulla website. Available at http://fulla.com/ (accessed on 4 June 2016).

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fashion’, clarifying the manufacturer’s allegiance to Islamic sartorial rules and in an effort to placate any conservative parent’s concerns about the morality of the doll. A whole range of accessories are now available for Fulla, reminiscent of the Barbie, or Disney lines of products, and coveted by young Muslim girls around the world. They extend beyond indoor and outdoor clothing, matching handbag and jewellery (which were the original focus of the company), to religiously non-specific accessories such as Fulla cell phone cases, CD players, pink bicycles, sewing machines, furniture, beach toys, and tennis rackets. Interesting, there is no Fulla bikini, although there is a Fulla swimming mask and snorkel set. Evidently, anything that displays the Fulla logo is deemed fashionable and sells. In fact, it is guaranteed to become an instant success. And perhaps because it is associated with the brand name Fulla, it is also assumed to somehow inculcate appropriate Islamic values and be suitable for Muslim girls. The growing list of Fulla’s fashionable clothing and accessories has not deterred many conservative Muslim mothers, those wearing the hijab or niqab. A vast majority remains loyal consumers of the doll for their daughters, confirming through their purchases the words of Mohammed al-Sabbagh, a manager at Space Toon, Damascus’s leading toy store: ‘Fulla is one of us but Barbie is still a stranger’, and also ‘Fulla is my sister, my wife, my mother. She comes from the same culture. The other thing for me, as a parent, is about what I want for my child. Barbie has a boyfriend and a bikini and so on, which is not our style in the Middle East’.21 The last example that I will give of the new horizons of piety among contemporary Muslims is the voices of artists from around the world who are increasingly participating in debates about Muslim women and their sartorial practices. Their voice reminds us that whether veiled or not, Muslim women are, more loudly than ever, asserting their subjectivity and their right to define what it means to be a Muslim today.

Artistic Voices of Resistance Through stand-up comedy, storytelling, and visual arts among other artistic expressions, contemporary Muslim artists are actively challenging conservative readings of Islam and the homogenization of Muslim women. They 21 ‘Barbie Who?’ The Age, 2005. Available at https://www.theage.com.au/world/barbie-who20051224-ge1h34.html (accessed on 3 May 2017).

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are offering us insight into some of the new forms of Islamic religiosity by refusing to have their experiences dictated by others, their stories told by someone who does not know what it is like to be a Muslim, a woman, or a veiled woman in the world. They are contesting the prevalent view held by some that veiled women are oppressed, silent, and that they lack subjectivity or moral agency. Instead, they are asserting their right to be known and recognized as complex human beings, and invite us to consider veiled Muslim women from new (artistic) perspectives. a. Comedy Since 9/11, some Muslim Americans have turned to stand-up comedy to broach social, cultural, and political issues such as the status of Islam in America, racial profiling, terrorism, and cultural stereotypes. The subject of Islamic comedy and humour is especially important because it challenges the false, yet widespread notion that Muslims don’t understand or lack humour. This has been claimed directly and indirectly at least since the 2005 Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, and more recently during the violence following the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris (January 2015). Yet, humour, laughing with (not at), including others in laughter (vs. excluding them) can open up opportunities to discuss together sensitive topics. Humour is thus an integral part of the new horizons of Islamic piety and an expression of the new voices of religiosity and moral agency of contemporary Muslim youth. It has become today a prime strategy used by Muslims around the world to humanize themselves in the eyes of others and offer new perspectives. The earliest example of stand-up comedy that questions stereotypes surrounding Muslims, especially those living in the diasporas, is the group known as ‘The Axis of Evil’. This group formed in the aftermath of 9/11, when George W. Bush declared the ‘War on Terror’ and pointed to Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as the ‘Axis of Evil’. The comedy group ‘The Axis of Evil’ has since its inception performed widely in the United States, the Middle East, and Asia, and its performers continue to speak of their experiences of racism as Arab-Americans in the aftermath of 9/11. Their goal is to spread awareness of the dangers of prejudice, and to build bridges of understanding and solidarity with diverse groups through laughter. Some female stand-up comedians have chosen to address the topic of veiling specifically and have deliberately chosen to dress in visually conservative clothing while performing comedy in order to challenge common stereotypes and unfounded claims about Muslim women. Through their

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appearance, they aim to shock their audiences and create dissonance in their minds between the clothes they see and the jokes they hear. In one of her ‘halal comedy’ performances, Shazia Mirza, a British Pakistani comedian who was recently recognized as ‘the new face of Islam’, tells her audience: ‘People ask me: why does my mother walk five steps behind my father? I say, well, he looks better from behind […] But actually these days, the women are walking five steps in front of the husbands. That’s because of the landmines’.22 Though this joke does not address the question of veiling directly, it comments on one of its associated stereotypes, namely, that Muslim women are oppressed and held in subordinate positions, forced to walk behind their husbands. Mirza turns this assumption on its head. Walking behind their husbands no longer confers a position of inequality or inferiority, but rather it highlights Muslim women’s complexity and sexuality. If they walk behind their husbands, it may be to better flirt with them. The second part of Mirza’s joke about women walking in front of their husbands because of landmines reminds us that if Muslim women do suffer some prejudices in their societies, these have nothing to do with veiling, but everything to do with politics and warfare. Later in the same comedy act, Mirza speaks directly about hijab, saying: ‘I am very lucky because in England, the women in my family, they are all Muslims and they all wear the burqa and it is great because they all use the same passport. In fact, we saved a lot of money and my brothers have started to use my mother’s passport now’. Mirza here associates positive terms such as ‘lucky’ and ‘great’ with the one item of clothing that evokes so much fear and anxiety in the minds of many non-Muslims (and Muslims)—the burqa. In contrast to what one may think, wearing a burqa need not be scary or oppressive; it can be associated with happiness and family union. In fact, in this case, the burqa brings about unexpected benef its for her family. They can, she claims, all use the same passport. In this way, Mirza forces us thus to reconsider the rapid and facile invocation of security concerns that have been used to justify regulating the rights of Muslims and of veiled women in particular. Perhaps some Muslims do indeed use the burqa to hide their identity, she says, but they do not do so because they are terrorists, but perhaps—tongue in cheek—for more pragmatic reasons such as saving money on passport applications. 22 Shazia Mirza has performed this joke in a number of performances. See for instance her August 2009 performance in Stockholm, Sweden. See Shazia Mirza’s Youtube page. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGEY8cZuGF4 (accessed on 30 May 2016). See also Shazia Mirza’s official website. Available at http://www.shazia-mirza.com/ (accessed on 30 May 2016).

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b. Storytelling Other Muslim artists express their agency and individuality through storytelling. Such is the case of The Hijabi Monologues, created in 2007 in the United States. Sahar Ullah, one of the original architects of this theatre performance, explains thus the goal of the project: ‘With The Hijabi Monologues, we are trying to move people’s focus away from the headscarf and on to the personal stories of Muslim women. The characters of each monologue wear the hijab, but the hijab is not actually the focus of any story. Although many of these stories resonate with Muslims and women in general, they do not claim to tell every story or speak for everyone.’23 The series of vignettes that make up The Hijabi Monologues give voice to Muslim women’s daily lives, from their joys and challenges to their sexuality. The wide range of subject matters that make up each performance encourages viewers to recognize the fact that Muslim women cannot be defined by their clothes only. Rather, they are complex individuals with a variety of experiences and backgrounds. In a 2011 vignette titled ‘I’m tired’, performer Linda Sarsour speaks of her frustration with the misunderstandings and assumptions held by many non-Muslims.24 She says it is ‘exhausting’ and ‘heavy’ for Muslim women to represent more than 1 billion people, to be perceived as an embodiment of a ‘whole world religion’, instead of being simply seen for themselves, as individuals like others around them. Sarsour gives the example of the following double standard to which Muslim women are held in Muslimminority societies: ‘I am tired of not going to class because I did not do my assignment. And if I do not say something incredibly brilliant, my silence will be attributed to being inherently oppressed by my religion, men, clothing, rather than the fact I didn’t do my homework because I was screwing around on Facebook the previous night, like 90% of my class’. Sarsour here points to the tremendous pressure that Muslim women feel because any one of their personal failings tends to be automatically attributed to a deficiency in the entire Muslim community. Sarsour asks her imagined non-Muslim audience: ‘Do you not see me? Do you not happen to see that I am standing here, right in front of you and that I am not wielding 23 Ullah, Sahar. ‘The Hijabi Monologues Resonates Through the Power of Storytelling’. Common Ground News, 2009. Available at http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=24615& (accessed on 3 May 2017) 24 Linda Sarsour’s performance can be viewed on the following YouTube video, Linda Sarsour, ‘Hijabi Monologues: “I’m Tired”’. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I2_kP523SM (accessed on 30 May 2016)

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a sword?’ In an assertive voice, she ends her performance by demanding her right to be seen as just another human being: ‘I’m not another angry Muslim. I’m not a bad example; hell, I am not a good example. I’m just not representation. I’m a human being; and my name is Linda’. The story Sarsour tells here resonates with many Muslim women living in Muslim-minority societies. But her story resonates also with other women (or men) whose individuality at times gets trumped because they belong, allegedly, to the ‘wrong’ group, be it religious, political, or any other. Sarsour invites us thus to consider that Muslim women, despite the heterogeneity of their lives, are more similar to other women than different from them. She creates a communal space in which spectators are directly involved and where they feel a sense of shared humanity, a deeper understanding of, and a greater connection to Muslim women. c.

Visual Arts

Since the early 1980s, visual artists from around the world have added their voices to global debates about Islam and Muslim veiling, thus diversifying contemporary expressions of Islamic spirituality and moral agency. In a performance video entitled ‘Les illuminés’ (‘The Visionaries’, 2007), Halida Boughriet (b. 1980), a contemporary artist of Algerian descent who lives and works in Paris, takes us literally inside the burqa.25 She films what a woman’s eyes see from behind the face veil that masks her eyes. The video begins with an image of a busy Paris subway station, over which are superimposed what appear to be crossbars. It soon becomes clear, however, that these are not bars at all, but rather the crocheted eyeholes of a burqa. The viewer suddenly realizes that this is how women wearing the burqa must see the world. They look out as though from inside a prison cell. They can only see it as an incomplete space, discontinuous, and fragmented. Not only does the woman in Boughriet’s video see the world as a disjointed place broken up into squares, but she also experiences it as a hostile environment. Throughout the video, the woman in burqa from whose perspective the entire video is shot endures the looks of shock, terror, worry, and even voyeurism of passers-by. The video documents how people in the subway station turn back to stare at the burqa-clad woman, unaware that she is holding a camera inside her veil and that she films their reactions. 25 Halida Boughriet’s video and other works can be seen on her official artist website. Personal Website of Halida Boughriet. Available at http://www.halidaboughriet.com/ (accessed on 1 May 2016).

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From Boughriet’s performance video, not only do we see a woman isolated from the world, but we are also invited to witness, if only briefly, the hostile stares of misunderstanding she endures daily. As viewers, we cannot help but feel uncomfortable. Have we, too, been guilty of a similarly unfriendly gaze toward women in hijab or burqa? Have we, too, turned back to stare at those who look different from us? Boughriet denounces here the oppression of complete veiling as a practice that isolates women from their social environment, and simultaneously she decries the unsympathetic attitude of outsiders toward veiled women. At the same time, it becomes evident that for the brief time of the video, the tables are also turned, the power dynamics reversed: the viewers become the viewed, the objects of our gaze. The allegedly powerless, faceless, silenced, and fully veiled Muslim woman is the subject, the director of this uncanny scene. The oppression of the veil is here temporarily transformed into a veil that empowers. Other artists are challenging conventional artistic representations of veiled Muslim women by confronting and disrupting viewers’ presuppositions about veiling and automatic associations of veiling with Islam. This is precisely what Zineb Sedira (b. 1963), a contemporary Muslim BritishAlgerian artist, achieves with her photographic triptych titled Self-Portrait or the Virgin Mary (2000).26 The viewer cannot help but wonder who the figure in these photographs is: is it the artist cloaked in a white hijab, or is it the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus? The flowing, white cloth, ethereal lighting, and the very design of the work as a triptych—a traditional Christian art form—all suggest the purity of the Virgin Mary. At the same time, and to those acquainted with North African sartorial traditions especially, the white cloth reminds us of veiled Algerian women circulating in public. Which one is it? By photographing herself with a white background devoid of any detail, Sedira offers the viewer a blank canvas that highlights the commonalities in sartorial practices of Muslim and Christian women. The sisterhood established in this triptych unites Muslim women with others who wear the veil and invites us to question the notion that the veil represents an exclusively Islamic practice. In this way, Sedira’s work transforms conventional views of veiling and asks us to possibly begin writing a new history of veiled (Muslim) women. Another artwork that seeks to transform traditional representations of veiling is the 1997 sculpture Borka [sic] by Egyptian American artist Ghada 26 Zineb Sedira’s works can be seen on the artist website. Personal Website of Zineb Sedira. Available at http://www.zinebsedira.com/ (accessed on 2 May 2016).

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Amer (b. 1963).27 At first glance, Amer’s Borka seems to simply represent the most conservative form of Islamic dress, the face veil that some women wear by choice, others by tradition, and many others still by force (e.g., in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan). It is all black, austere, and, in fact, ghostlike with its wide gaping eyeholes. On closer inspection, however, we begin to notice some differences between this Borka and other burqas and niqabs we may have seen on television or in magazines. Amer’s garment has a piece of lace at the level of the mouth, not at that of the eyes like traditional Afghani burqas. In various interviews, Amer has explained that the lace in her Borka lays out the definition of the word ‘fear’ in Arabic calligraphy. It thus becomes evident that Amer’s Borka does not just represent a burqa, but comments on it. Amer’s transformation of the traditional burqa, which does not have a mouthpiece, reflects the artist’s anxiety in the late 1990s at witnessing the mounting social and religious conservatism in her country of birth, Egypt. It reflects her fear of being, one day, forced to wear a burqa or a niqab. Originally, Amer had intended her Borka to be the one she would don if she were ever forced to wear one. The word ‘fear’ reproduced in the lace makes us wonder: Who is afraid of whom? Is it the artist who fears government and religious authorities imposing the veil on her? Or is it the authorities who ought to be afraid of women like Amer who refuse to be silenced and who will always find ways to have their voices heard? In this sense, and even as it portrays the burqa as a symbol of female oppression and of ideological governmental control, Amer’s Borka also represents her own voice, a voice of rebellion that asserts agency and subjectivity. Amer may be forced to wear a face veil one day, but that attire can never silence her entirely, as she will continue to speak literally through its cloth. The lace in Amer’s sculpture is interesting also because it uses centuryold techniques of handmade French lace production characteristic of the city of Bayeux in Normandy. In this sense, Amer’s Borka, with its Arabic calligraphy and traditional French lace-making methods, stands as a symbol of the multiple cross-cultural exchanges between Muslim and non-Muslim societies. Amer knows both societies intimately, having lived in France since she was eleven years old and prior to moving to the United States as an adult. The association of an Islamic sartorial object with traditional French lace further transforms the burqa. The addition of lace, a detail reminiscent of lingerie, recalls the sensuality of the veil as portrayed in some 27 Ghada Amer’s works can be viewed on her website. Personal Website of Ghada Amer. Available from http://www.ghadaamer.com/ (accessed on 15 April 2016).

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nineteenth-century Euro-American painting traditions. It is also a reminder of the decorations and embellishments typical of face veils in the Ottoman Empire, including Egypt, that continue to be in style among some Bedouin women today. At that time and in these societies, face veils were ornate and thoroughly adorned with gold and silver coins and jewels. Face veils symbolized high social status and were worn indiscriminately by Muslim, Christian, and Jewish women. Amer’s Borka points us to this time period when face veils did not mark religious differences but served as fashion and economic statements. It reminds us that face veils are above all a cultural practice, much more than a religious injunction. Not least, Amer’s Borka reminds us that Muslim dress does not have to be austere. It can also be a sexy accessory akin to lingerie worn by some pious Muslim women. In this way, Amer’s Borka recalls the luxury designer scarves that some women wear as fashionable hijab. By combining concepts of Islamic modesty with French chic, Amer’s representation of the traditional Muslim veil challenges common stereotypes about the conservativeness of veiled Muslim women. Finally, the association of lace and the burqa in Amer’s sculpture hints at the irony of the fact that despite recent French legislation banning Muslim veils, French lace production profits economically from the preservation and persistence of conservative Muslim sartorial practices.

Conclusion I hope to have shown the extent to which the new horizons of piety in contemporary Islam cannot be limited to those radical voices that we hear so much about in the media or to the Islamophobia that has become pervasive in Muslim-minority societies. They cannot be reduced to the extremist statements made by radical groups such as ISIS, Jama’a Islamiyya, or Boko Haram among others, nor are they solely expressed in the horrific punishments carried out in Syria, Africa, Iran, and Saudi Arabia in the name of Sharia law. Rather, the new horizons of piety in contemporary Islam are constituted also and especially of the growing worldwide movement of progressive Muslims who are committed to shaping the future of Islam in an egalitarian and inclusive way. As they prioritize social justice in religious interpretations, progressive Muslims are systematically peeling away the layers of exegesis that have been imposed on religious texts over the centuries and which have effectively silenced women and other religious, ethnic, or sexual minorities.

284 Sahar Amer

The new horizons of piety in contemporary Islam are also made up of the success of the Islamic fashion industry, the launching of Muslim beauty pageants to crown ‘Miss Beautiful Morals’, the growth of a whole line of Muslim dolls and accessories, and the proliferation of artistic voices that highlight new modes of religiosity and individuality. Through these diverse new means of expression, Muslim women are far from being passive victims of religious radicalism, of Islamophobic discourses, or of global market forces and worldwide economies. Rather, they are becoming active in reclaiming and asserting their piety and moral agency in new ways and on their own terms. As the new expressions of Islamic piety multiply and become implanted in different communities worldwide, they are getting recognized and respected as legitimate voices that must be reckoned with, and that will forever be an integral part of the future of Islam.

Bibliography Amer, Sahar. What is Veiling? Chapel Hill: UNC Press Books, 2014. Brett, Donna West, and Martine Natat Antle. ‘Contemporary Artists of the Arab Diaspora: Introduction’. Mashriq & Mahjar 6.1 (2019): 1–2. Gökarıksel, Banu, and Anna Secor. ‘Between Fashion and Tesettür: Marketing and Consuming Women’s Islamic Dress’. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 6.3 (2010): 118–148. Hammer, Juliane. American Muslim Women, Religious Authority, and Activism: More Than a Prayer. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012. Jones, Carla. ‘Fashion and Faith in Urban Indonesia’. Fashion Theory 11.2-3 (2007): 211–231. Jones, Carla. ‘Images of Desire: Creating Virtue and Value in an Indonesian Islamic Lifestyle Magazine’. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 6.3 (2010): 91–117. Kassisieh, Ghassan. ‘We’re Family Too’: The Effects of Homophobia in Arabic-speaking Communities in New South Wales. Sydney: ACON, 2011. Kim, Willsher, ‘French Women’s Rights Minister Accused of Racism over Term “Negro”’. The Guardian, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/30/ french-womens-rights-minister-laurence-rossignol-accused-racism-negro. Laurent, Joffrin, ‘Manuel Valls: “Depuis Plus De Trente Ans, On Me Demande Si Je Suis De Gauche”’. Libération.Fr, 2016, https://www.liberation.fr/france/2016/04/12/ manuel-valls-depuis-plus-de-trente-ans-on-me-demande-si-je-suis-degauche_1445774. N.A. ‘Collectif Contre l’Islamophobie en France’. Retrieved 1 June 2016, at http:// www.islamophobie.net/.

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Saf i, Omid. Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism. London: Oneworld Publications, 2003. Truong, Nicolas. ‘Elisabeth Badinter Appelle Au Boycott Des Marques Qui Se Lancent Dans La Mode Islamique’. Le Monde.Fr, 2016. https://www.lemonde.fr/ idees/article/2016/04/02/elisabeth-badinter-une-partie-de-la-gauche-a-baissela-garde-devant-le-communautarisme_4894360_3232.html.

About the author Sahar Amer is Professor and Chair of the Department of Arabic Language and Cultures at the University of Sydney.



Notes on the Contributors

Editor Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman is Assistant Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He is also an Associate Faculty at the Islamophobia Studies Research and Documentation Project at the University of California-Berkeley. He is the author of Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia and Political Islam: Identity, Ideology and Religio-Political Mobilisation.

Contributors Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid is Professor of Political Science at the School of Distance Education, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang, Malaysia. Ali Allawi was Senior Associate Member at the Middle East Centre at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford University, Senior Visiting Fellow at the Carr Centre, Kennedy School at Harvard University, and a Visiting Research Professor at the Middle East Institute (MEI), National University of Singapore. Syed Farid Alatas is Professor of Sociology at the National University of Singapore. Sahar Amer is Professor and Chair of the Department of Arabic Language and Cultures at the University of Sydney. Osman Bakar is Distinguished Professor and the Second Occupant of AlGhazali Chair of Islamic Thought at the International Institute of Islamic Civilisation & Malay World (ISTAC), International Islamic University, Malaysia. Robert W. Hefner is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs (CURA) at Boston University. Ebrahim Moosa is Professor of Islamic Studies in Keough School of Global Affairs and the Department of History at the University of Notre Dame.

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Olivier Roy is presently Professor at the European University Institute (Florence) where he heads the Mediterranean programme at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies and the ReligioWest research project (funded by the European Research Council). Saleena Saleem is a PHD candidate at the University of Liverpool. Ali Ünsal is the current Director of the Fethullah Gulen Chair at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Jakarta. Iulia Lumina is a graduate of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London and is currently based in Singapore where she works in the non-profit sector.

Index Abduh, Muhammad 31, 43, 120, 188, 190, 196 al-Afghani, Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Asadabadi 31, 43, 188 Afghanistan 40, 102, 171-173, 176, 181, 224, 282 Ahmed, Shahab 15 AK Party (AKP) 42, 169-173 Anthropology 13, 68 and Islam 45, 49, 56, 64, 70, 227n26, 243 Anwar Ibrahim 185, 193-194 Aqil, Abul Wafa Ibn 242-243 Arab Spring 19, 35, 145-151, 163, 167, 174-176 post-Arab Spring 19, 145-146, 151, 163 Arabi, Muhy al-Din Ibn 16, 29, 46-47, 227n26 Authoritarianism 20, 34, 38-39, 42, 117, 145-147, 149-151, 153-154, 159, 161, 163, 169, 174, 181, 203, 267 Banu Qurayza 126-132, 135-138 Battle of the Trench 128-130, 135 Ben Ali, Zine el Abidine 145, 152-156, 158-159, 175 Berger, Peter 13 Blasphemy 174, 245-246, 249, 252-256, 261 Capitalism 13, 16, 19, 37, 52, 56, 58, 69, 118, 171, 272 China, Maoist China 20, 30, 215, 219-224, 229 Ming Dynasty 20, 221n14, 222 Christianity, Christian 37, 45, 50, 60, 62-65, 78, 86, 100, 102, 106, 110, 152, 174, 198, 219-220, 224n24, 229, 231n34, 252, 260, 281, 283 Civilization 28, 33, 54-56, 58-59, 65, 87-88, 90, 100, 109, 182, 215-216, 221, 259 civilization of modernity 58 civilizational analysis 53, 56 civilizing missions, process 53, 55-56, 58 Islam Hadhari 199 Islamic civilization 14, 16-17, 20, 28, 49, 52-54, 64, 77-79, 82-83, 85-86, 89, 93-94, 118-119, 132, 185, 215, 216n2, 217, 219, 225, 228-229, 231, 267 Inter- and intra-civilizational encounters and dialogue 56, 232 multi-civilizational approach 58 University of Malaysia’s Centre for Civilizational Dialogue 232 Western and European civilization 13, 50, 53-57, 63, 217, 219-220 Colonialism 16, 52, 60, 104 and India 109 and inter-religious dialogue 231 and Islamic education and intellectualism 111, 113, 115, 118

and Malaysia 20, 185-186, 191, 202 neo-colonialism 176 postcolonial critique 53, 60, 62 postcolonial Muslim countries 14, 181-182 pre- and post-colonial blasphemy laws 252 western colonial modernity 15 Consumerism 37, 47, 270, 274-276 Durkheim, Emile 13 Egypt 21, 34, 39, 41-42, 82, 100, 111, 116, 146-147, 149, 150n15, 151, 167, 169, 171-175, 183, 190, 197, 281-283 Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. 56-58, 71 Ennahda party 19, 145, 147-148, 153, 155-163, 259-260 France, French 50, 54, 59, 61, 111, 113, 153-154, 172, 265-266, 267n4, 271-272, 282-283 Geertz, Clifford 13, 63-64 al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad Ibn Muhammad 21, 106-107, 235, 240-241, 257-258 Gulen movement 36, 90 Gulen, Muhammad Fethullah 90 Iberia Peninsula 20, 219-220, 223, 225 Ijtihad 81, 111, 118, 187, 235, 259-260 Imamocracy 38 Indonesia 63, 69-71, 85, 99-100, 115-117, 183, 198, 216n3, 270 Interreligious dialogue 20, 215, 217-220, 223-226, 227nn26-27, 228, 230-232 Iran 29, 34, 38-39, 43-44, 46, 88, 102, 107, 111, 116, 168-169, 172-174, 197, 232, 270, 272n14, 277, 283 Iraq 43-44, 169, 173, 176-177, 188, 243, 255, 277 Baghdad 44, 106, 109, 119, 184, 242 ISIS, ISIL, IS, Daesh 21, 30, 34, 100-101, 120, 127, 137, 167, 171-173, 176-177, 185, 197-198, 203, 205, 265, 283 Islamism 19, 36, 67, 69, 167-172, 174-177, 181, 183n3, 201-203, 265 Islamic beauty pageant 265, 273-274, 284 comedy and humour 277-278 consciousness 36, 45, 63-64, 67, 91 education 99-101, 106-107, 110, 112-113, 115-119, 193 fashion industry 265-266, 270-276, 283-284

290  intellectualism, Islamic intellectuals 17, 67, 77, 83, 89-90, 100-102, 106, 117-118, 183, 228 jurisprudence, Fiqh 17, 20, 81, 102, 104, 107-109, 119, 182-183, 229n32 Reformation, Islamic Enlightenment 27, 29, 45 European Enlightenment 50, 52, 57-58, 66, 87, 258 state 19, 31, 33-34, 69, 137, 168-171, 173, 175, 177, 183n3, 200, 203-205 storytelling 279 Thought 33, 45, 47, 52, 77-78, 92, 182n1, 186, 219, 231n34, 259 International Institute of Islamic Thought 194 visual arts 280-282 Islamization of society 28, 35, 42, 115, 175, 193-194, 200, 202-203, 205 Islamophobia, Islamophobic 163, 265, 267, 269, 283-284 Jihadists, Jihadi Islam 29-30, 39-41, 44, 159, 167, 172-173, 176-177, 192, 197 Kaum Tua, Kaum Muda 115, 186-191, 195 Khaldun, Ibn 18, 50, 52, 126, 132-134, 230, 240 Khan, Syed Ahmad 45, 114 Khawarij 30, 188 Kuwait 40, 43 Literalism 32, 36-37, 43, 47, 158 Madrasa 102-115, 118-119, 191 and Islamist extremism 99-100 Mahathir Mohamad 185n11, 193-194, 232 Mahdi of Sudan 31 Malaya 185-186, 188 Malaysia 20, 39, 99, 139, 170, 181, 183, 185-186, 187n18, 190-191, 192n45, 193-195, 196n63, 197-205, 232, 252, 271 Marx, Karl 13 Maqasid al-Shari`a Sharia, Shariah, Shari’a 21, 32-34, 36-37, 42, 70, 147, 158, 169-170, 171-174, 177, 186-187, 191, 194, 200-201, 204-205, 216, 225-226, 228-230, 235, 259, 283 Materialism 36-38, 43, 47, 274 Maududi, Abul Ala Sayyid 34, 169, 192, 194 Mauss, Marcel 55-56 al-Mawardi, Abu al-Hassan 236-239, 243 Medina, Medinans 32, 126-129, 131, 135-136, 138, 184, 187n21, 189, 215-216 Middle class 37, 47, 113, 120, 156, 163 Middle East and North Africa (MENA) 145146, 148, 150n15, 152, 163 Moderation Global Movement of Moderates 202 inclusion-moderation hypothesis 149

Pathways to Contempor ary Isl am

in Muslim-majority societies 20, 91, 147-151, 158, 175, 181-183, 185, 196, 198-199, 201-204, 230, 254 moderate jihadists 177 Modern Islam 16, 27-33, 35-36, 38-45, 205 Modernity 13-16, 18, 21, 28, 32, 49, 53, 63, 65-71, 99, 114, 120, 148n5, 235, 274 civilization of modernity 55-59 and Islamists 169-170 modernist muslims 115 modernist Ottomans 112 multiple modernities 53, 58-59 western modernity 54 Modernization 13-14, 17, 27, 56, 67, 155 Mughal Empire 20, 54, 108-109, 215, 223-224 Muslim Brotherhood 34, 41, 137, 149, 150n15, 167, 169-175, 191 dolls 265, 274-275, 284 women’s dress and piety 265-267, 272 Muslimism 69-70 Najib Razak 199-200, 202-203 Nationalism 172 Arab 171, 175 ethnic 44 Iranian 168 Islamo- 172-173 Sunni 44 supra- 172 Turkish 171 Orientalism 15-16, 49, 51, 53, 59-62, 66, 68, 71, 82, 168, 217 Cultural-Academic 61 Institutional 61 Ontological Orientalism in Reverse 60 Ottoman Empire 31, 41-42, 52, 54, 60, 84-86, 88, 108-109, 111-112, 177, 202, 283 Pakistan 39, 40, 44, 100, 116-117, 172-173, 181, 224, 249, 252, 254-256 Pan-Islamism 31, 43-44, 110, 172, 176 Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) 170, 191, 192n45, 193, 200 Piety movement 19, 35, 41 Political Islam 16, 18-19, 167-168, 175, 177, 260 Progressive Muslims 267-270, 283 Prophet Muhammad 78-79, 80n8, 85, 125, 127-128, 130, 183-184, 188, 201, 215, 237-238, 252-253, 268, 277 el-Qadir, Emir Abd 31 al-Qaeda 40, 44, 172, 197 al-Qaradawi, Yusuf 21, 235 Qatar 40, 100, 231n34 Qayyim, Ibn al-Jawziyya 237, 242-243 Qutb, Sayyid 34, 191-192, 197

291

Index

Rabinow, Paul 16, 49, 59, 67, 71 Ramadan, Tariq 119-120 Renaissance in Europe 46, 50, 52, 100, 106 Islamic Renaissance 17, 46, 77, 83, 93, 95, 101, 113, 221, 221n14 Revolution Arab and Islamic revolutions 19, 169 Egyptian counter-revolution 41 French revolution 54, 57, 59 Industrial revolution 52, 54, 57 and Islamic fashion 272 Iranian revolution 39, 43, 172, 197 October revolution 42 revolutionary reconstitution 261 Russian revolution 30 Tunisian revolution 145 Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran 34, 39 Rida, Rashid 31, 34, 188, 196 Romantic Movement 16, 27, 29, 45-46, 50, 61 Rushd, Ahmad Ibn 45, 105-107, 120, 244-245 Russia, Tsarist Russia, Soviet Russia, Soviet Union 30, 39, 42, 127, 137, 172, 174, 181 al-Sadr, Mohammed Baqir 34, 169 Salafization 20, 29, 42, 181, 197, 203-204 Saudi Arabia 39-40, 43-44, 100, 116, 146, 174, 177, 189, 195, 197, 232, 252, 273, 282-283 Secularism, Secularization 13-14, 27, 46, 58, 67, 69, 112, 116, 145-147, 151-155, 160-161, 168, 172, 175-177, 202, 266-267, 271-272 Secular-religious political polarization 145 Shia, Shiite 16, 38-40, 47, 125, 171, 232, 255

Shia-Sunni conflict, Shia-Sunni schism 27, 29, 42, 44, 146, 152 Soroush, Abd al-Karim 46 Spain 89-90, 103, 110, 185, 215, 219-220, 232 Sudan 34, 181 Sunnism 43-45, 42, 152, 169, 171-172, 177, 188, 232, 247, 254-255 Syria 40, 44, 146, 171-174, 177, 275, 283 Taliban 34, 99-100, 171 Terrorism, Terrorist 30, 40, 91, 93, 99, 155, 159, 172, 176, 182, 185, 198, 203, 266, 277-278 War on Terror 60, 277 Tunisia 19-20, 34, 145-148, 151-163, 167-169, 172, 174-175, 177, 259-260 Turkey 36, 40, 69, 71, 112, 116-117, 154, 167-169, 172-173, 183, 231n33, 232, 270, 272 United Arab Emirates (UAE) 40 United Malays National Organization (UMNO) 185n11, 193-195, 199-201, 203 Urbanism 37, 47, 52, 69, 152 urban scripturalism 56 urban ulama 63 Usami, Muhammad Taqi 21, 235 Utilitarianism 32, 36-37, 244 Wahhabi, Wahhabi-Salafi 20, 29, 36-38, 40, 43-45, 47, 167, 181, 189-194, 196-197, 201-202, 205 Weber, Max 13, 57n36, 68, 108 Women’s rights 38, 153, 266