Understanding Islam: Positions of Knowledge 9781474498753

Citation preview

Understanding Islam

Globalised Muslim Societies Series editor: Frédéric Volpi This innovative series considers the boundaries of the contemporary Muslim world: their construction, their artificiality or durability. It sheds a new light on what it means to be part of the Muslim world today, for both those individuals and communities who are inside Muslim-­majority countries and those who reside outside and are part of a globalised ummah. Books in the series will analyse the discourses and practices of individuals, communities, states and transnational actors that create these dynamics, from the micro to the macro level. Overall, the series provides a multidisciplinary perspective on the salient contemporary issues and interactions that shape the internal and external relations of the Muslim world. edinburghuniversitypress.com/series-­globalised-muslim-­societies

Understanding Islam Positions of Knowledge Bryan S. Turner

Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-­edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress​.com © Bryan S. Turner, 2023 Cover design: Bekah Dey and Stuart Dalziel Edinburgh University Press Ltd The ­Tun – ­Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in Bembo by Cheshire Typesetting Ltd, Cuddington, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 9873 9 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 9874 6 (paperback) ISBN 978 1 4744 9875 3 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 9876 0 (epub) The right of Bryan S. Turner to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).

Contents

Acknowledgementsvi Introduction: What is Understanding?

1

1. The Changing World of Islam

15

2.  Insiders and Outsiders

38

3. The Rise of the Sociology of Islam

52

4.  Postmodernism, Globalisation and Religion

76

5.  Orientalism and Islam

92

6. Islamophobia

110

7.  Feminism, Fertility and Piety

132

8. The Problems of Positionality

151

9. The Possibility of Dialogue

172

Index181

Acknowledgements

Various institutions have played an important role in my intellectual development as the basis of my study of Islam, and in the research for this particular volume: the Australian Association of Islamic and Middle East Studies; Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; Asia Research Institute NUS; Centre for the Study of Religion and Society UWS; Committee for the Study of Religion CUNY; Edward Cadbury Centre for the Public Understanding of Religion Birmingham University; Middle East Studies Seminars Hull University; Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences ACU; Institute of Ismaili Studies London. Thanks to the Australian Research Council for grant DP200102013 on The Far Right in Australia and my research colleagues on the grant: Pam Nilan, Mario Peucker and Joshua Roose. Jenny McMullan and Susan Dunsmore read and corrected early drafts of the book. Aneira Edmunds, Naser Ghobadzadeh, Frédéric Volpi, Susan Buck-­Morse, and Stephen K. White read and commented on various draft chapters. Frédéric Volpi played a key role in bringing the book proposal to the Edinburgh University Press and in the evolution of my ideas on the context vi

acknowledgements of contemporary Islam. Daniel Varisco offered extensive advice on the critique of Orientalism. Over a longer period the following people, past and present, have given me generous personal and intellectual support: Mona Abaza, Akbar S. Ahmed, Said Amir Arjomand, Berna Zengin Arslan, Talal Asad, Jocelyn Cesari, Chang Kyung-­ Sup, José Casanova, Mohamed Cherkaoui, Thomas Cushman, Rosario Forlenza, Ernest Gellner, Fred Halliday, Riaz Hassan, Robert W. Hefner, Engin Isin, Dietrich Jung, Habibul Haque Khonderker, John Lacy, Trevor Ling, David Martin, Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir, Juergen Mackert, Roger Owen, Adam Possamai, Anthony Reid, Alfred Sohn-­ Rethel, Chase F. Robinson, Armando Salvatore, Georg Stauth, Simon Susen, John Torpey, Farzin Vahdat,Yuri Contreras-­Vejar, Bryan Wilson. None of the institutes or persons named in this Acknowledgement can be held responsible for the contents of this volume.

vii

Introduction: What is Understanding?

Often, when we are puzzled by a person or situation, we say we do not understand. Our puzzlement eventually brings us to the conclusion that as an outsider, we cannot somehow come to terms with the world of the insider. Perhaps our understanding might be improved metaphorically by trying to stand in the insider’s shoes. Of course, reaching an understanding becomes even more difficult if there is tension or conflict between these two worlds of the inside and the outside. In modern times, understanding is rendered increasingly difficult by the unsettled conditions in which we live. The great German philosopher Hans-­Georg Gadamer (1900–2002) worked on the problem of understanding through much of his life. In a 1970 article titled ‘Language and understanding’ he wrote that the problem of understanding had received increasing attention in modern times. This was ‘not unrelated to our very uneasy social and world-­political situation and the sharp increase in tensions at the present time’ and efforts to reach understanding between nations and generations were failing (Gadamer 2006: 13). Because for Gadamer all understanding must succeed or fail through the medium of language, we must attend carefully to the conversations and texts between insiders and outsiders. These basic notions also direct us to the 1

understanding islam obvious point that translations between the meanings present in different cultures or contexts are always and only approximations. Although Gadamer did not discuss Islam in this context, his hermeneutics are valuable to understanding Islam or any religion. Gadamer can be criticised for failing to pay attention to power relationships in the process of understanding and his focus was more on understanding language and text than a people or a religion. He would respond that paying attention to language is a critical step towards good relationships.

Forms of Understanding At the outset, I need to distinguish between two types of understanding. First there is the understanding that might emerge through a conversation or dialogue between two different agents or parties whose views do not entirely converge. I may call this Dialogue 1. This form of dialogue is the one I imagine taking place between Christians and Muslims with the intention of arriving at some mutual understanding. The larger aim may be to achieve better relationships in the public domain between Muslim and Christian communities. An internal dialogue may also occur when a Christian reads the Qur’an or a Muslim reads the New Testament. Here we are concerned with both textual and interpersonal understanding. In these exercises, emotions, feelings and pre-­conceived ideas all come into play. With Dialogue 1, the aim is not so much to discover the truth, but rather to build better communities and to promote civility. Dialogue became especially important but equally difficult after 9/11 with a ‘war on terror’. Susan Buck-­Morss (2003) called for a dialogue that moved beyond the cycle of terror and anti-­terror 2

introduction in her Thinking Past Terror within the framework of a ‘cosmopolitan republic of letters’.We are still searching for that framework. With Dialogue 2, I am concerned with social science research by anthropologists or sociologists on a group, community or entire society. Where interviews are used, then there is something approximating a dialogue, but here the aim is to assemble facts with the intention of testing a theory, hypothesis or assumption. Where a survey is employed to gather information, then its dialogic qualities are minimised. With activist research, the aim may well be to improve community relationships and to develop social policies.With Dialogue 2, emotions and prejudice also feature, but the researcher attempts to take notice of these features with the aim of mitigating any prejudice or misunderstanding. Social science research is regulated by bureaucratic oversight by ethics committees. The ethics regulations are aimed at protecting participants in the research programme. Research cannot be simply a spontaneous dialogue. Within this regulated environment, sociology seeks to understand in order to provide explanations of human behaviour and social institutions. We might say with some poetic licence that the aim of Dialogue 1 is compassion, while that of Dialogue 2 is truth. The first aims at understanding, while the second seeks understanding in order to arrive at explanation. However, there are circumstances where these two forms of dialogue overlap. There are academic journals that promote research, but with the implicit aim of promoting understanding and facilitating improvements in communal understanding and relationships. Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, starting in 1990, is an example. The distinction I have drawn between religious dialogue, involving values, emotions and ultimately judgement, and secular dialogue, requiring neutrality, objectivity and distance, is highly 3

understanding islam contested (Bourdieu 2004; Harrington 2001). As I will explore in Chapter 5 on postmodernism and pragmatism, the distinction between the two forms of dialogue has been questioned by rejecting conventional notions of objectivity that are associated with positivism. My own position that I develop at various stages in this book is that there is an important distinction between understanding and explanation. To give one example, in this volume I refer to fertility rates in order to explain issues regarding the status of women in society. My argument depends on the accuracy of demographic facts such as the fertility rate as an explanation of the increasing options for female participation in politics and public life. Such an explanation has to rest ultimately on the factual accuracy and objectivity of census data. My aim therefore is to accept the merits of both forms of dialogue while recognising their distinctive aims and methods. While recognising that our knowledge is influenced by our position, in the last analysis doing sociological research is not the same as writing a novel.

Politics and Islamophobia In debating the understanding of Islam, I do not imply that Islam is either a problem or a puzzle. However, I recognise that Islam in the West is often seen as alien, or a mystery or even a threat. There is ample evidence over a long historical period of Islamophobia, which I discuss in Chapter 6.There is considerable misunderstanding of Islam and therefore this study might make a modest contribution to resolve some of the issues concerning Islam as a public presence in the West. There is an additional but related question behind this study. It concerns whether a secular 4

introduction science such as sociology can ever get to grips with religion as such. In answering such questions, one has to take into account the position of observers and observed. As I wrote this book during 2020–2, the world was in a chaotic state and perhaps inevitably Islam is seen to be much involved in the global instability. Many of these international political issues are centred specifically on the Middle ­East – ­the Palestinian crisis, the Iranian nuclear development, the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, the ongoing conflicts with Iran, the breakdown of the Lebanese government, and the collapse of the Afghan government. These political issues inevitably colour any attempt to understand Islam in relation to the history of political conflict. One general question we must attend to in subsequent chapters is to what extent these problems are the effects of the recent history of colonialism or whether they have deeper roots long established in the eleventh century before the rise of European colonial interventions (Kuru 2019). There is perhaps inevitably a general issue around Islamophobia which is thought to be endemic in the West. One basic question, for which there are no neat answers, is whether Islamophobia is basically about racism, ethnicity and the legacy of Western colonialism rather than about Islam as such (Kumar 2021). However, my background assumption is that understanding Islam is in principle no more difficult or different from understanding Buddhism or Confucianism. Perhaps it is rather that Christianity is difficult to comprehend. Indeed, the message of St Paul, in the King James Bible, is that Christian doctrine is inherently difficult to grasp: ‘But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness’ (1 Corinthians 1.23). Later translations have ‘Gentiles’ rather than ‘Greeks’ thereby having a more inclusive category. 5

understanding islam One ‘stumbling block’ for Muslims has been the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. From the Council of Constantinople in 381, the Christian creed embraced a trinitarian theology – ‘Father Almighty, Lord Jesus Christ, his only Son, Begotten of God, and Holy Ghost the Lord and Giver of Life’. These ideas are anathema to Muslims who believe in the absolute unity of God. The message of the Qur’an is that there is one God, and Muhammad is his Prophet, and God can have no Son. Christ crucified is one further stumbling block. At the same time, Islam adopted many existing practices from Christianity in which Ramadan is a version of Lent, Christians used a prayer mat and prostration for prayer, and saints are a basic feature of Sufism (MacCulloch 2009: 258). Before we can consider aspects of the history of Islam and its place in the West, we need to continue to ask our basic question, namely what do we understand by ‘understanding’? Because I am writing from the position of a professor of sociology, my answers to these issues are from the standpoint of sociology. One issue for sociology in its approach to religion is that, insofar as it is the child of the Enlightenment, it does not depart too far from ideas about rationality as the fundamental guideline of human action. While sociology acknowledges the role of values and norms in social interaction, it often follows an implicit means– end scheme in which interest plays a key part. In the sociology of religion, a rational choice ­model – a­lbeit much c­ riticised – ­has been developed in which religions exist within a market of supply and demand, variations in religious behaviour are best explained by variations in supply, and that monopoly religions are inefficient (Stark and Finke 2000). There is one further important caveat that underpins my analysis. In my discussion of religion, I do not start with beliefs, 6

introduction especially the formal beliefs that may be written up as law (the Shari’a) or dogmatic theology. In approaching any religion as a sociologist, I am specifically interested in religion as a ‘life world’. I want to examine how religious practices are cemented into everyday lives thereby influencing daily behaviour, diet, marriage customs, friendship patterns, dress and cultural values. A religion is the historical tradition that is constituted by the ensemble of such practices. By contrast, it is more commonly the case that, when a sociologist or an interested member of the general public, wants to understand a religion, they invariably start by looking at the beliefs that constitute its formal doctrines. The taken for granted assumption is that once we understand what people believe, then we can understand them. Is doctrinal orthodoxy the heart of the matter? The emphasis on religious beliefs is important, but it misses the point that religion is a way of life that is composed by history, location, family life, daily rituals, reading texts, going on pilgrimage, worshipping the saints, a special diet, reproductive practices, management of the body, gender divisions, religious experiences and so forth. I shall call this ensemble of activities ‘the life world of religion’. By this phrase, I refer to a tradition in both philosophy and sociology that engages with the grounded nature of our being in time and space or our Lebenswelt. In this respect I draw on a number of writers such as Georg Simmel (1858–1918), who conceived of the social in terms of the ‘life nexus’ (Lebenszusammenhang). Thus, when I refer to ‘understanding Islam’ I do not refer automatically or exclusively to what we can find in the Qur’an (the Recitation) or to the hadith (the traditions based on the life and work of the Prophet) or to the Shari’a (misleadingly translated as simply the ‘Law’). In this approach I am following my own work on the sociology 7

understanding islam of the body (Turner 1984), but more recently the approach of Mohammed A. Bamyeh (2019) to the hermeneutics of Islam. At this stage, I refer briefly to his definition: the concept of ‘lifeworld’ highlighted the world as an experience rather than a set of doctrines and structures external to consciousness, and in such a way that individuality itself gained meaning out of its immersion in the world of perceptions and practice. (Bamyeh 2019: 4)

Before we enter into the difficult problem of defining religion and religions, let us first inspect the word ‘understanding’ more carefully, taking into account the fact that words have a history. Many students of Islam have observed that it is a world religion founded on an abstract and complex notion of transcendence and the absolute unity of God. However, historically Islam has also existed in contexts where locality played a major role in worship and in the daily lives of Muslims. These locations had often been places for saint worship. Thus the desire to gain the blessing of the sheik, to s­ tand – ­if only for a brief ­moment – ­under his baraka and, in many cases, to gain a sense of the aura of the sheik’s place is as prevalent among modern Muslims as in earlier periods. (Schielke and Stauth 2008: 7)

However, the role of local saints is also widely challenged in modern Islam by various reformist movements that view saint worship as pre-­Islamic and deviant. However, the contest over what counts as ‘authentic’ Islam cannot be avoided when trying to understand Islam (Volpi and Turner 2007). We need to keep in mind throughout this study that the struggle for authenticity is not confined to Islam. We can regard the Reformation and Counter-­Reformation as ongoing religious and political strug8

introduction gles between Catholicism and Protestantism over authentication that continues to this day. In short, conflicts over authority involve conflicts over knowledge positions.

On the Word ‘Understanding’ At first sight, understanding might appear to be a strange noun to describe comprehension. Old English understandan means to grasp an idea and may literally mean ‘to stand in the midst of ’. In this meaning, ‘under’ does not mean ‘beneath’ or ‘underneath’, but rather to be ‘among’ or ‘between’. Another option is to compare it with the Greek epistamai or literally ‘I stand upon’. The German compound meaning ‘stand before’ is verstehen. The German verstehen for understanding is important for this particular study of understanding Islam, because Max Weber (1864–1920), who appears frequently in this discussion, defined sociology as verstehende soziologie that is a science that is especially concerned with the meaning of social action. Social action is not behaviour. Meanings are inscribed to situations and social actors, who have to be able to interpret the meaning of actions in order to exist as social beings. The emphasis on meaning and interpretation was employed to distance Weberian sociology from a positivist epistemology, namely a narrow empiricism. In particular, it is important to recognise that in this approach to sociological theory understanding requires comprehension of the internal meanings of action and not just their external manifestations. This method involves standing among rather than over or under. Because the idea of understanding something sits at the core of this study of Islam, we need to appreciate the debate in Germany over the character of science. Weber’s account of interpretative 9

understanding islam sociology came towards the end of a long debate about what counts as a science and to what extent could disciplines such as history and sociology be called a ‘science’. One aspect of this debate was to recognise two distinct forms of reasoning about social action and society, namely a contrast between explanation (Eklaeren) and understanding (Verstehen). Explanation typically involves the search for objective causes that determine social actions and social institutions. These causes may not be known to the social actors themselves. Weber employs understanding in his study of Protestantism (Weber 1965) and causal explanation in his work on the fall of ancient civilisations (Weber 1976).The contrast between understanding and explanation remains vexed with many philosophers of social science rejecting the distinction and arguing that in many cases understanding is explanation (Outhwaite 1975). This intellectual confrontation came to be known as the Methodenstreit, or the struggle over the appropriate methods for scientific investigation. The natural sciences were seen to be defined by the quest for causal explanation whereas the humanities were distinguished by their quest to grasp the meaning of texts, actions and situations. This distinction was famously described in Germany as the contrast between Naturwissenschaft and Geisteswissenschaft. The ambition of positivism was to develop social science on the methods of the natural sciences.The natural sciences were concerned to study human life in terms of behaviour which could be measured and explained within a causal framework. It was not anticipated that the human subjects of research would themselves fully understand, or even know, the causes of their behaviour. By contrast, the humanities were concerned to interpret the culture or ‘spirit’ (Geist) of a community in historical time. Sociology as a science of society sat somewhat 10

introduction uncomfortably within these epistemological and methodological debates. The idea that there are two different and contrasted forms of science was in itself problematic. The alternative view with special reference to sociology was developed by Auguste Comte (1798–1857), who is often credited with inventing sociology. He promoted the idea of positivism that truth-­claims can only be inferred from accurate and external study of phenomena, and the defence of the idea of a unified science (Robbins 2017).

The Observer and the Observed The explanations of historians and sociologists often contradict or challenge the beliefs and values of believers. One example comes from the so-­called Revisionist School among historians of Islam.The Revisionist School of Islamic Studies had its origins in the work of Ignaz Goldziher (1850–1921) and Joseph Schacht (1902–69) who argued that traditional accounts of the foundations of Islam such as the hadith, which were written some 150 to 200 years after Muhammad, cannot be accepted as historically accurate. The ­Revisionists – i­ncluding John Wansbrough and his students Andrew Rippin, Norman Calder, G. R. Hawting, Patricia Crone and Michael ­Cook – e­xtended the analysis to include Muhammad’s biography (sira), the formation of the Qur’an and the early development of the Umayyad Caliphate. Patricia Crone (1987) offered a revision of our understanding of the legal context involving Roman, provincial and Islamic law out of which the Shari’a eventually developed. For this school of historians, the historical events have to be reconstructed (revised) through the application of the historical-­critical method and 11

understanding islam ­ istorians have to stand outside of the Islamic tradition and h begin anew the work of historical reconstruction. The Revisionist history of Islam finds a parallel in the so-­ called Higher or Biblical Criticism which applied the methods of archaeology, anthropology, sociology and history to re-­examine the sources of the biblical story. In particular, there was much critical analysis of the ‘historical Jesus’. While there is no settled view of the historical Jesus, one common theme has been to emphasise the continuity of Jesus with his Jewish roots and to recognise him as a charismatic leader of a social movement and hence to draw on Weber’s notions about charismatic authority and his distinction between ethical and exemplary prophecy. People may follow a prophet for their ethical teaching or by their personal authority. Weber (1965: 46–59) treated Jesus as an exemplary prophet. Although these historical and sociological investigations of the foundations of religions are often seen to represent a challenge to faith, the research findings may also result in a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of religion. My distinction between understanding and explanation is an important feature of this contribution to understanding Islam, but we need to recognise that this distinction is never absolute. Much biblical criticism undertaken by theologians and philosophers also assumes a sociology perspective and blends understanding and explanation. One example comes from the work of W. Montgomery Watt (1909–2006), who was Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Edinburgh. As an Anglican priest and academic researcher, his various publications on the Prophet Muhammad contain both understanding of the religious significance of the Prophet and the Qur’an and sociological explanations of the external conditions that gave rise to and influenced the development of Islam (Watt 1961). 12

introduction Conclusion: The Ethics of Understanding The title of this conclusion is taken from Julie Ellison’s Delicate Subjects: Romanticism, Gender and the Ethics of Translation (1990). Her study is an account of the impact of gender, especially male gender, or rather masculinity, on the interpretation and appreciation of English texts. This study of positions of knowledge cannot avoid the issue of gender, when writing about religion and the questions concerning feminism are examined in Chapter 7. Gender is a significant ‘position’ in an act of interpretation, but it is not the only influence. Ellison’s approach prompts one to think in a more comprehensive way of what the ethics of understanding Islam would entail. The obvious problem is the influence of prejudice which includes the idea of contempt and signifies any prejudgement resulting in damage or harm. For Gadamer (1984: 238) the ‘important thing is to be aware of one’s own bias, so that the text may present itself in all its newness and thus be able to assert its own truth against one’s own fore-­meanings’. Thus, a prejudice against Muslims is somewhat parallel to reading with a closed mind that is no longer open to alternative perspectives. We need to see through, not with, our prejudices.

References Bamyeh, Mohammed A. (2019), Lifeworlds of Islam: The Pragmatics of a Religion, New York: Oxford University Press. Bourdieu, Pierre (2004), Science of Science and Reflexivity, Cambridge: Polity Press. Buck-­Morss, Susan (2003), Thinking Past Terror: Islamism and Critical Theory on the Left, London:Verso.

13

understanding islam Crone, Patricia (1987), Roman, Provincial and Islamic Law, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ellison, Julie (1990), Delicate Subjects: Romanticism, Gender and the Ethics of Translation, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Gadamer, Hans-­Georg (1984), Truth and Method, New York: Crossroad. Gadamer, Hans-­Georg (2006), ‘Language and understanding’, Theory Culture and Society, 23(1): 13–28. Harrington, Austin (2001), Hermeneutic Dialogue and Social Science, London: Routledge. Kumar, Deepa (2021), Islamophobia and the politics of Empire, London:Verso. Kuru, Ahmet (2019), Islam, Authoritarianism and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacCulloch, D. (2009), A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, London: Allen Lane. Outhwaite, William (1975), Understanding Social Life: The Method Called Verstehen, London: George Allen and Unwin. Robbins, Derek (2017), ‘“Structure” and “Genesis” and Comte’s conception of social science’, in Andrew Wernick (ed.), The Anthem Companion to Auguste Comte, London: Anthem Books, pp. 43–64. Schielke, Samuli and Stauth, Georg (2008), ‘Introduction’, in Dimensions of Locality: Muslim Saints, their Place and Space, Yearbook of the Sociology of Islam 8, University of Bielefeld. Stark, Rodney and Finke, Roger (2000), Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion, Berkeley: University of California Press. Turner, Bryan S. (1984), The Body and Society: Explorations in Social Theory, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Volpi, Frédéric and Turner, Bryan S. (2007), ‘Introduction: making Islamic authority matter’, Theory Culture and Society, 24(2): 1–20. Watt, W. Montgomery (1961), Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman, New York: Oxford University Press. Weber, Max (1965), The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, London: Unwin. Weber, Max (1976), The Agrarian Sociology of Ancient Civilizations, London: New Left Books.

14

1

The Changing World of Islam

Introduction: Afghanistan Understanding Islam today inevitably takes place in a politically charged and fragile world environment. This volume was written as the Taliban swept through Afghanistan with disastrous consequences for its citizens who were caught in the fighting. The Afghan government collapsed, and President Ashraf Ghani fled to a safe haven in the United Arab Emirates. There was a terrible bomb attack by ISIS-­K militants on Kabul airport in August 2021 with a significant loss of life. The new government contained men who were identified by the UN and the United States as terrorists. However, unlike Al Qaeda, the Taliban are basically an Islamist nationalist movement who are at odds with the radical Islamic State Khorasan group. To understand these events, we need, as a minimum condition, to pay attention to history. Alexander the Great (356–323 bc), in his struggle to free the Greeks from Persian control, invaded Asia and fought various disastrous battles in Bactria, now Afghanistan, in 330–327 along the Khyber Pass.The British invaded Afghanistan twice in the nineteenth century with their own version of ‘regime change’. In the first Anglo-­Afghan War 15

understanding islam in 1839–42, designed to block Russian influence, the British lost over 16,000 troops in a retreat from Kabul. The second campaign in 1878–80 was equally problematic (Dupree 1980: 377–413). Russian involvement in Central Asia has a long history especially after the October Revolution in 1917. The Soviet period had devastating consequences for Islam as ‘patterns of the transmission of Islamic knowledge were damaged, if not destroyed; Islam was driven from the public realm; the physical markings of Islam, such as mosques and seminaries, disappeared’(Khalid 2007: 2). Russia invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to support a communist state following a coup in 1978 (Roy 1986: 84–109), to stabilise the internal political situation, and to counter American influence. In response the United States supplied arms to the Mujahideen to undermine the Russian presence. The Russian army prepared to withdraw in 1988 having suffered around 18,000 casualties in ‘a long goodbye’ (Kalinovsky 2011). The United States became involved after 9/11 and twenty years later President Biden decided to withdraw American troops to coincide with the anniversary of 9/11 as the Taliban took over many regional cities with mounting civilian casualties. While the Taliban are currently the main players, Afghan history has been largely determined by international struggles with Quetta in Balochistan, a province of Pakistan, for example offering training and sanctuary for the Afghan fighters throughout this period (Zahab and Roy 2004). However, the military victory of the Taliban may also destabilise Pakistan. President Imran Khan was faced with a difficult balancing act between the Taliban, China, the United States and Russia. As the United States and UN forces depart, Russia is conducting military exercises with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to secure the Tajik border 16

the changing world of islam with Afghanistan. China may also become involved because its Xinjiang region, where the majority of the Uighurs live, is also on the border with Afghanistan. China may seek to bring Afghanistan into its Belt and Brace global strategy, while Pakistan will have to manage its fraught relationship with India and the growth of Pashtun nationalism. The ­Taliban – m ­ eaning ‘students’ who have received their religious knowledge in madrasa or conservative religious ­schools – ­are an Islamic movement, but the conflict is also an ethno-­ nationalist struggle in the context of imperialism and international rivalry stretching over centuries. Authoritarian military elites have often supported the traditional madrasa and opposed their modernisation to legitimise their rule (Bano 2012). The Taliban is in fact a highly diverse collection of competing tribal groups, existing alongside al-­Qaeda, ISIS and numerous ethno-­ nationalist militias. There are also various minorities such as 4 million Hazaras of Turkic and Mongol origin that have long been persecuted in Afghanistan. It remains to be seen whether a coherent government can survive this social and political diversity. The Taliban aims to bring Afghanistan under the control of the Shari’a. This political goal has controversial consequences. Many Muslim scholars argue that Shari’a is the law produced by independent legal scholars and independent judges. In terms of its history, Shari’a is not state law (Hallaq 1995). The notion that Shari’a is a ‘law’ is generally misleading and it can be more accurately regarded as an ethical methodology that defines the good life. One paradox is that to translate Shari’a into state law and impose it through the state apparatus is to undertake its secularisation.The most contentious issue is the implementation of the so-­called hudud rules that address illicit sexual ­relations, 17

understanding islam s­ landerous allegations of uncharity, drinking alcohol, theft, armed robbery and apostasy. The punishment for inappropriate sexual behaviour involves stoning, and for theft, amputation. These are serious punishments and much condemned in the Western liberal press, but the Islamic tradition encourages leniency and forgiveness on the basis of an hadith attributed to the Prophet – ‘If the Imam errs, it is better he errs in favour of innocence (pardon) than in favour of guilt.’ The evidence so far indicates the Taliban at the street level are more in favour of guilt. To better understand these issues in Afghanistan, we can consider Indonesia, the largest but also the most diverse Muslim society. In the late 1950s, after independence, the Supreme Court decided to move towards national legalisation leaving local courts to try to decide what was the correct interpretation of adat, which refers to the social practices and local rules that have evolved at the community level for organising everyday behaviour. When referring to ‘Islamic law’, Indonesian courts have to decide between three terms of Arabic origin: hukum or ‘law’; Shari’a or the pathway appointed by God for all humans; or fiqh or law emerging from the study of texts and norms, but it also includes state law (Bowen 2003: 14–15). Applying ‘the law’ is a complex and necessarily fallible process. Within this context of political conflict, attempts to create inter-­ religious dialogue between Christians and Muslims or intercultural exchange are problematic. In the past there have been many attempts to promote Christian–Muslim dialogue, but satisfactory outcomes are difficult to secure. Abdulaziz Sachedina (2001: 103), a member of the Center for Strategic and International Studies at the University of Virginia, commenting before 9/11 wrote: ‘In contemporary fundamentalist discourse there is barely any room for building intracommunal relation18

the changing world of islam ships between the Sunni and Shi’i Muslims, much less between Muslims and the peoples of the Book.’

Political Islam There is much critical writing about ‘political Islam’, which is a phrase typically employed pejoratively. The allegedly special relationship between Islam and politics was developed by Max Weber in his scattered writing on the history of Islam. Weber (1965: 88) regarded Islam as a ‘martial religion’. He argued that a prophetic religion was typically compatible with the values and self-­conception of the nobility when it included support for the warrior in religious causes. This conception also assumes a universal God and the depravity of adversaries: ‘it was Islam that first produced this conjunction of ideas’ (Weber 1965: 86), namely ethical prophecy, a noble stratum of warriors, and the alleged moral depravity of unbelievers. This attitude towards Islam as a ‘warrior religion’ has remained a persistent theme of Western responses to Islam and Islamic cultures. In this volume as a whole, we should studiously follow the warning issued by François Burgat (2008: 3) in his Islamism in the Shadow of al-Qaeda: ‘Our knowledge and the rational management of our relationship with the “Islamists” are above all adversely affected by the extreme fragility of the categories we have set up to represent them.’ The origin of the expression ‘political Islam’ is uncertain. Arthur Jeffery (1942) claimed in an influential article on ‘The Political Importance of Islam’ that Islam, like Christianity or Buddhism, is a religion. However, Islam is not just a religion. It is a socio-­political structure that can be studied without 19

understanding islam any explicit reference to religion. To some extent, this notion has a long history, being forcefully argued by Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) who complained that Christianity was not suitable as the basis of the state. By contrast, he admired both Moses and Muhammad for their ability to create states (Beiner 2011). The conviction that Islam is peculiar in blending religion and state politics remains an ongoing topic of both public concern and academic analysis. Charles E. Butterworth (1992) provided an early and detailed historical overview of the connections between politics and religion in the history of Islam, from the constitution of Medina to the golden age of Islam.The topic and the characteristics of militant Islam remain central features of much contemporary political sociology (Volpi 2010). One immediate problem with this idea of an integrated global movement that we can call ‘political Islam’ is that there are many forms of Muslim involvement in politics. In writing about Islam, we need constantly to be reminded that Islam, like Christianity or Judaism, is not, and never has been, an integrated or uniform religion. Islam has its own internal debates about correct belief and practice. The criticism of the notion of an integrated Islam existing over centuries has been a major theme of the voluminous and inspirational writing of Aziz Al-­Azmeh (1993). His work alerts us to misleading ideas about ‘The West’ and ‘The Muslim World’. Consequently, we need to be suspicious about the idea of a singular form of ‘political Islam’. As a result, we can begin by recognising that only a minority of Muslims support the view that there could be an integrated global Islamic caliphate (Ayoob 2004). The call to jihad by Osama bin Laden was in fact ignored by the majority of Islamists and ultimately failed to create a global movement. 20

the changing world of islam We are now, according to Olivier Roy (1994), in a period of post-­Islamism. The radical project to create a global ummah failed, because its internationalism evolved into a form of Islamo-­ nationalism within the boundaries of nation states. Secondly, their revolutionary character was transformed into various forms of ‘neo-­fundamentalism’ that were directed primarily at religious reform and revival. Finally, Muslim communities were swept up in the global march of modern consumerism that blunted the message of a revolutionary movement to transform societies. In his more recent work, Roy (2004: 1–6) refers to ‘neo-­ fundamentalism’ to describe the beliefs and lifestyles of young Muslims who were born in the West and have been inevitably influenced by Western consumerism, individualism and liberal values. They are interested in following the Shari’a, but in their new circumstances their form of Islam is de-­territorialised, and their religiosity, as with Western Christianity, is individualised. Roy believes that in all these debates, we need to distinguish between Islam as a religion and Muslim culture. The latter is what I would want to call the way of life of people who regard themselves as Muslims. For Salwa Ismail (2001), the concentration on morality in Islamic movements defines what is permissible in political activism and the attempt to enforce morality in the public domain gives Islamists some leverage over the state. In Iran, having avoided direct confrontation with the state, feminists were able to negotiate interpretations of Shari’a that actually promoted their interests. Charles Hirschind (1997) argues that radical Islamist movements, rather than attempting ‘to capture the state’, involved preaching and missionary activities alongside offering medical and welfare services to the poor and needy. A more sophisticated analysis of political Islam requires us to look 21

understanding islam s­imultaneously at the evolution of Islamic institutions and practices alongside the growth of state influence over civil society. As many post-­colonial national governments failed to deliver on political and social reforms, political Islam emerged as an alternative to post-­colonial secular governments. Under governments that suffered from clientelism and corruption, the process of Islamisation took shape. Organisations such as the Muslim Brethren in Egypt were often forced underground by authoritarian regimes. Nevertheless, secular governments have found it difficult to control mosques from which Friday prayers could be employed to promote political messages. In the absence of functioning welfare institutions and effective governments, the Islamic inalienable charitable associations (wakf) were the only providers of care and the madrasa was the only vehicle of elementary education. The majority of activist Islamic organisations have attempted to work with government regulations and institutions rather than against them. The exceptions to these general guidelines are Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Israeli-­ occupied Palestine and the Taliban in Afghanistan (Ayoob 2004). In all three cases, the instability of borders, their artificial or violent creation, the legacy of colonial interventions, and the ever-­ present threat of military confrontation have served to sustain both ideological and military conflict. The debate around ‘political Islam’ has often descended into an ideological battle rather than sober analysis. Perhaps one of the most balanced observations came in an editorial comment by Jocelyne Cesari for a special issue of Religions in 2021. She observed that, over the last four decades, Islamism has become part of political power from Iran to Tunisia to Morocco. The result has been to erode its political credibility especially in contexts where state power was grasped through force as in Iran, 22

the changing world of islam Sudan and Afghanistan. In general terms, Islamic parties have not performed well inside state power structures. This development contrasts sharply with those cases where Islamists came to power through a legitimate electoral process. However, given the many problems that confront these elected governments, their popularity is often fragile. Cesari claims that political Islam is better defined as a political culture that is the outcome of the dual processes of political nationalisation and religious reformation. If we therefore define political Islam as governmentality, we can understand Islamism as ‘the religiously based form of political mobilization that is one of the many outcomes of this governmentality’ (Cesari 2021: 2).This idea of governmentality is taken from the work of Michel Foucault and refers to the variety of procedures for regulating human behaviour in general and not simply by state practices or policies. In contemporary politics, Islam is often seen not so much as backward but as violent. However, when Islam and Muslim societies have been characterised as violent, undemocratic and uncivilised, Muslims may with justification respond by pointing to the Crusades, the general history of colonialism, Italian colonial control over Cyrenaica from 1911 to 1943, the violent history of the French occupation of Algeria, the ‘collateral damage’ to civilians in Afghanistan, the catastrophe of the Palestinian exodus (Al-Nakba) during the 1948 war, the disastrous division of India and the failures of policies of ‘regime change’ in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan. Another example would be the Zaria massacre in northern Nigeria in December 2015 when the Nigerian military killed 348 civilians according to reports by both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. We might call these examples and counter instances a tit-­for-­tat strategy of argument. However, accusation and counter-­accusation are often fruitless 23

understanding islam in having no foreseeable or valuable outcome apart from moral and political stalemate.

Family Resemblances Many of the arguments about political Islam therefore attempt to construct a sharp division, both historical and contemporary, between Christianity and Islam. We might reverse this rhetorical strategy by taking note of the close resemblance between Christian and Islamic history, theology and practice. We may call these common features ‘family resemblances’. As a minimum we have the emphasis on prophecy, a sacred scripture, a tradition of revelation, belief in life after death, and moral codes about the conduct of the good life. Both Jesus and Mary are present in the Qur’an. Many Muslim women take the name of ‘Maryam’. Muslims and Christians have shared the same rituals and pilgrimage sites in Lebanon (Farra-­Haddad 2016). In a public lecture in 1945 the famous Orientalist Gustave von Grunebaum (1946: 19) described the long exchange between Muslims and Christians in the medieval world that were based on claims of basic differences between the two religions. Nevertheless, he noted that Muslim and Christians alike viewed the history of mankind as leading from Creation to Judgment Day. History culminates in a final revelation of God’s will and God’s truth. On Judgment Day the book of history is to be closed forever.

While there are family resemblances, family disputes are often more problematic than arguments between strangers. There are critical stumbling blocks to harmonious relations between the two religions.These are theological rather than social or cultural. 24

the changing world of islam With the baptism of children, in Christianity water symbolically washes away sin. In Islam, the child is welcomed into the community by the Shahadah which is recited into the child’s ears. The Nicene Creed, which is fundamental to Christian belief, refers to ‘God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost’. Muslims can never accept this statement as anything other than polytheism. For Christians to engage with Muslims, they would have to consider the prospect of developing a post-­Nicene creed. Christians may accept Muhammad as a prophet and leader, but they are unlikely to follow Muslims in saying ‘Peace be upon him’ as a mark of deep respect. One fundamental difference is the Eucharist or ‘Last Supper’ in memory of Jesus. For many in the Catholic and Anglican traditions, the rite involves the actual presence of Christ. Muslims celebrate Eid al-Fitr to commemorate the reception of the Qur’an, but it is more historical than supernatural. Another stumbling block has been the Christian commitment to missionary work, especially proselytising in Muslim communities. Protestant Christian mission to Muslims began in earnest in the nineteenth century with the rise of the evangelical movement. In this, the ‘great century’ of missionary outreach, theologians generally denied the hope of salvation to anyone outside of the Christian faith. Missionary treatises dealing with Islam were written mainly for the purposes of helping foster the work of conversion, of proving the superiority of Christianity in comparison with Islam, and of criticizing the oriental churches. A few were forerunners of the more tolerant attitude that would characterise much of the more recent missionary reflection on Islam. The twentieth century has seen a change from early predictions of the imminent demise of Islam to a generally greater appreciation for Islam and even for the role of the Prophet 25

understanding islam Muhammad, although the main theme of evangelical literature is still hope for the ultimate conversion of all Muslims to Christianity. Recent missionary literature on Islam has exhibited a clear tension between the approaches of dialogue and of witness. It is claimed that many Western NGOs (non-­governmental organisations) are in fact missionary movements in disguise, for example in Bangladesh (Islam 2001). There are consequently serious hurdles to dialogue and mutual understanding, despite or because of family resemblance.

Religion as Life World These differences are often seen to be primarily questions of belief. In my approach to religion, however, I do not want to focus exclusively on belief systems. My attention is given to the idea of any religion as a ‘life world’ that involves, alongside a system of belief, a variety of practices and rituals that shape everyday behaviour and relations with the wider society. Above all, religion is an instance of the serious life, and both Islam and Christianity share this characteristic of ethical seriousness that is typically expressed through practices rather than through the written word. Practices within both religions may come under critical analysis. I refer to two examples from Islam both of which fall under the umbrella of Sufism. The first is the tradition of ‘whirling dervishes’ in Turkey, which is the legacy of the Sufi poet Jalaluddin Mohammad Rumi, who was born in the city of Balkh in present day Afghanistan and died in 1273. Rumi is generally regarded as the most famous mystical poet of any religious tradition. He was controversial in regarding Jews, Christians and Muslims as people deserving of equal respect.The 26

the changing world of islam theme of love is a basic aspect of his poetry and the foundation of the whirling performance. These performances in modern day Turkey have become a popular tourist attraction of the city of Konya (Friedlander 1992). The authenticity of these performances on demand is now under question. The second example comes from Malaya where young men gather in remote jungle locations to practice Sufi mysticism and martial arts. The Malay centres are connected to the Haqqani branch of the Naqshbandi Sufi order. The performance, known as Silat, dates back to the fifteenth century and involves training under the guidance of a Sufi master (Farrer 2009). With the urbanisation of the Malay hinterland, these traditions may disappear. However, Silat training centres have spread outside Malaysia to the West including London. In many instances religious practices are regulated, not by the religious authorities, but by the state. The French policy of laïcité is perhaps the most compelling example (Arslan and Acimuz 2021). The state may intervene to determine what is to count as a ‘religion’ (as opposed to a cult) and what aspects of religious ­life – ­wearing turbans, the call to prayer, burial customs, confession or the construction of religious ­premises – a­ re permissible. These interventions raise serious legal questions regarding religious freedom, but I also take them to be palpable examples of secularisation in which a secular authority (the state) intrudes into religious practice and indirectly redefines religious belief.

Religion, state and secularisation The consequences of these developments for religious life have been much disputed. A Pew Research Center report in April 27

understanding islam 2015 found that Christians represented 31.2 per cent of the world population, Muslims 24.1 per cent, while those of ‘no religion’ were 16 per cent. It was argued that Islam would continue to grow, because it had a higher fertility rate than Christians. The growth of Islam will be concentrated in Africa and Asia where the fertility rate at 2.9 is above that required for population replacement. These populations are also relatively young. It is estimated that by 2060 Islam will grow by 70 per cent, while Christianity will grow by 32 per cent (Hackett and Lipka 2018). In addition, new means of communication have created conditions for a vibrant global Islamic community or ummah. One of the most successful is the UK-­based Productive Muslim which offers a global educational service (Han and Kamaludeen 2016). The Internet however also creates difficult problems with the rise of new centres of interpretation which challenge traditional sources of authority, resulting in a ‘politics of interpretation’ (Anderson 2003). In the case of Christianity, there is broad agreement that in the West it has declined in terms of membership, recruitment to the ministry, and social influence. The situation in Africa and parts of Asia presents a different picture of growth. Charismatic Renewal has been widely influential in the growth of Christian churches in Asia including the emergence of Pentecostal mega-­ churches (Chong and Goh 2015). The long-­term consequences of the legal challenges to the Catholic Church regarding allegations of sexual abuse of minors are unknown, but the effects are already evident from Chile to Ireland. There are, however, two significant counter-­ arguments against a general theory of secularisation. Christianity is increasingly post-­institutional or indeed post-­confessional in the sense that many people pursue their religious interests and needs out28

the changing world of islam side the church with the growth of online religion or ‘digital religion’ (Possamai-­Inesedy and Nixon 2019). In more comprehensive terms, there is evidence of a growth in ‘spirituality’. This term embraces all forms of individualised, post-­institutional and eclectic religious activity. Such meetings and similar forms of spirituality cannot be easily captured by standard survey methods. While it is in principle possible to measure adherence to Christian denominations through church attendance, financial contributions and attendance at major festivals, we do not know the exact extent of spirituality in modern society. The second alternative has been to examine the development of ‘public religions’. This alternative was developed by José Casanova (1994) in his Public Religions in the Modern World. Casanova did not reject the secularisation thesis as meaning the differentiation of a social system into separate spheres. At the same time, he pointed to the fact that in many political ­movements – ­liberation theology, the base churches in Latin America, the modernisation of Brazil, the democratisation of post-­Franco Spain, the Iranian Revolution (or Shia Revolution), the Solidarity movement in Poland, and the role of the moral majority and the evangelical Protestant denominations in the United ­States – r­eligion played a crucial role in defending civil society and promoting democratic reforms.These examples refer primarily to the consequences of the reform of the Catholic Church after Vatican II (1962–5) and therefore the public religions were to some extent a consequence of the modernisation of the Church which was in part a response to the growth of the radical base churches of Latin America. Religion has been important in defining the boundaries of European sovereignty against the growth of immigration, and especially following the refugee crisis in the Middle East 29

understanding islam and North Africa. In more precise terms, there is a southern European boundary which is Catholic, a northern border which is Protestant and an eastern boundary which is Orthodox. The eastern border is to some extent reinforced by Russian Orthodoxy which plays an important role as the ideological base of President Putin’s nationalistic Russia. These borders, as we shall see in Chapter 6, have been re-­affirmed in response to what is seen as the threat of Islam to the integrity of the West. These religious boundaries of modern politics draw upon the traditional idea of the West as Das Abendland (Forlenza and Turner 2019). Has Islam played a role as a public religion according to Casanova’s model? More specifically, to what extent is there a contemporary example from Muslim-­majority societies where religion played an obvious role in political transformations that contained the promise of democratisation and hence to improvements in government performance that pointed towards greater equality and freedom? The obvious answer would be that Islam has played a major part in political life in both the Middle East and Asia. However, in answering this question, we need to consider generational differences in involvement in or commitment to religion. Throughout this discussion of Islam and positions of knowledge, I return frequently to demographic issues which unfortunately are often missing in the mainstream literature. One exception is Juan Cole’s The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East (2014). In his study of what became known as ‘The October Revolutions’ in 2011, Cole notes, employing a Pew Charitable Trust poll of the world’s Muslims from 2012, that in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco, while 62 per cent of middle-­aged to older generations go to the mosque once a week, only 46 per cent of young people do. 30

the changing world of islam Lebanese youth are far more secular than similar generations in primarily Muslim societies. The young people who drove the revolutions that challenged the old guard were secular and left wing. In general terms, the millennials are different from previous generations and that partly explains the differences between the Old and the New Left. The uprisings started with the self-­immolation of a Tunisian street trader, Mohamed Bouazizi, on 17 December 2010 in protest against rising prices, police brutality and the lack of political freedoms. President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who had been in power for twenty-­three years, resigned on 14  January 2011 in the face of demands for major constitutional changes and the creation of political freedoms from what became known as the Jasmine Revolution. Beginning with a local protest in Tunisia, perhaps the focal event of these Arab protests was the 25 January Revolution in Egypt in 2011 when youth groups organised against police brutality during the annual Egyptian holiday. Some 846 people were killed during the protests. The uprising resulted in the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, the popular election of Mohamed Morsi, and the emergence of a panel of experts to create a new constitution. However, when Morsi was deposed in July 2013 by General Abdel Fattah El-­Sisi, Egypt once more slipped back into military rule and suppression of opposition. Another popular uprising in Libya, after the controversial creation of a ‘no fly zone’ by Britain and France, resulted in the killing of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi on 20 October 2011 in the Battle of Sirte and the arrest of his son. The fall-­out from this ‘regime change’ has been a history of violence carried out by armed groups and the virtual break-­up of Libya. In Yemen too, the unstable connection between the tribal North and the modernised South began to come apart. In Turkey the Gezi Park 31

understanding islam protests were initially in opposition to urban development of Istanbul’s Taksim Gezi Park. The violent ejection of protesters with 4,900 arrests expanded the range of criticisms and complaints against the authoritarianism of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the creeping erosion of secularism and political corruption. In Syria, protests against Bashar al-­Assad on 26 January 2011 produced a violent crack-­down on dissidents. There were demands for freedom for political parties, equal rights for the Kurds, and for general political freedoms.The protests quickly escalated into a civil war as the Alawite elite around al-­Assad sought to suppress the uprising. In attempting to ‘understand Islam’ we have to take into account the changing fortunes of Islam in the West in political terms, but we need to ask more broadly how Islam is confronting the pressures of secularisation and modernisation within a global framework. In many respects, Islam has been subject to the same popular and commercial forces of consumerism and secularism that confront all forms of religion. According to reports in The Independent newspaper by Jerome Taylor between 2012 and 2014 a commercial transformation of Mecca and Medina is in process that involves the building of high rise hotels and apartments that have covered or destroyed ancient buildings that date from the time of the Prophet (Rico and Lababidi 2017). The development of Mecca is allegedly a response to the growing numbers of Muslims undertaking the hajj (pilgrimage). It is estimated that up to 17 million pilgrims will make the annual hajj to Mecca by 2025. In response the Saudi authorities have cultivated religious tourism with new hotels, apartments and shopping centres. US$80 billion has been injected into the local economy.There are 70,000 square metres of retail space and 343,000 branded hotel rooms. The Saudi government has issued construction licences 32

the changing world of islam for 500 hotels near the Grand Mosque. The centrepiece of the development is the 485-­metre high Makkah Clock Tower. It is a luxury hotel with air-­conditioned prayer rooms offering spectacular views of the Kabaa and twenty-­four-­hour butler service. Dr Irfan Al Alawi, Executive Director of the Islamic Heritage Research Foundation, estimates that 90 per cent of the original buildings have been demolished (Qurashi 2017). However, the growth of religious tourism is also beginning to influence the behaviour of pilgrims, for example with the growth of a ‘selfie-­ culture’ whereby pilgrims turn the hajj into a tourist adventure that is captured on SMART technologies. Mosques have been destroyed in Medina and grave sites, including the grave of the Prophet’s mother, have been levelled. Perhaps the worst example of crass consumerism is the conversion of the home of the Prophet’s wife (the house of Khadija) into a block of public toilets. The development of hotels is justified by the Saudi authorities as a response to the growing demands of pilgrims for accommodation. It is also justified by ­Wahhabism – ­the predominant version of Islam in the Saudi ­kingdom – ­which claims that devotion to the original buildings at Mecca is a form of idolatry. However, the new wave of consumerism may prove to be a more powerful and lasting example of idolatry.

Conclusion: Understanding Social Change The thrust of this chapter has been to make the obvious point that Islam, like all other Abrahamic religions, has been subject to change throughout its history. One might argue that these transformations have been more intense and more fundamental 33

understanding islam in the period between early colonialism and post-­colonialism. One might go further to recognise that these developments have been particularly dramatic and troublesome in the period between the attack on the Twin Towers and the fall of Kabul. At the very least, one has to recognise that Islam has preoccupied the West in this century more so than at any other time. Perhaps what is less obvious has been the major changes going on within the Islamic world. The academic debate about Islam has been concerned not simply with ‘political Islam’, but it has also focused on Islamophobia in order to understand and counter the fear of Islam (Cesari 2013). These public concerns have often overlooked the divisions within Islam as Muslims seek to come to terms with modernity, including efforts to foster a democratic tradition. To conclude this chapter, I quote at some length from Asef Bayat’s excellent account of Making Islam Democratic: Islam is the subject of intense conflict between the diverse segments of the faithful. Women, youths, the middle classes, the poor and the powerful, the ‘modern’ and the ‘traditional’, clerics and laymen are all engaged in redefining the truth of their creed through either ordinary daily practice or deliberate campaigns. In doing so they render religion a plural reality with multiple meanings. (Bayat 2007: 187)

References Anderson, Jon (2003), ‘The Internet and Islam’s new interpreters’, in Dale F. Eikelman and Jon W. Anderson (eds), New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Pubic Sphere, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, pp. 45–60. Al-­Azmeh, Aziz (1993), Islams and Modernities, London:Verso. Arslan, Berna Zengin and Açimuz, Bige (2021), ‘Reforming laïcité or reform-

34

the changing world of islam ing Islam? Secularism, Islam and the regulation of religion’, Journal of Law Religion and State, 9(2/3): 144–77. Ayoob, Mohammad (2004), ‘Political Islam: image and reality’, World Policy Journal, 21(3): 1–14. Bano, Masoda (2012), The Rational Believer: Choice and Decision in the Madrasas of Pakistan, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Barbalet, Jack, Possamai, Adam and Turner, Bryan S. (eds) (2001), Managing Religions: State Responses to Religious Diversity, London: Anthem Press. Bayat, Asef (2007), Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamic Turn, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Beiner, Ronald (2011), Civil Religion: A Dialogue in the History of Political Philosophy, New York: Cambridge University Press. Bowen, John R. (2003), Islam, Law and Equality in Indonesia: An Anthropology of Public Reasoning, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Burgat, François (2008), Islamism in the Shadow of al-Qaeda, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Butterworth, Charles E. (1992), ‘Political Islam: the origins’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 524: 26–37. Casanova, José (1994), Public Religions in the Modern World, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cesari, Jocelyne (2013), Why the West Fears Islam, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Cesari, Jocelyne (2021), ‘Political Islam: more than Islamism’, Religions, 12(5): 299. Chong, Terence and Goh, Daniel P. S. (2015), ‘Asian Pentecostalism: revivals, mega-­churches, and social engagement’, in Bryan S. Turner and Oscar Salemink (eds), Routledge Handbook of Religions in Asia, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 402–17. Cole, Juan (2014), The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation Is Changing the Middle East, New York: Simon and Schuster. Dupree, Louis (1980), Afghanistan, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Farra-­Haddad, Nour (2016), ‘Shared religious rituals and pilgrimage sites: a movement beyond the Christian–Muslim divide’, in Anastasia Panagakos (ed.), Religious Diversity Today: Experiencing Religion in the Contemporary World, Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, pp. 89–110. Farrer, D. S. (2009), Shadows of the Prophet: Martial Arts and Sufi Mysticism, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Forlenza, Rosario and Turner, Bryan S. (2019), ‘Das Abendland: the politics of Europe’s religious borders’, Critical Research on Religion, 7(1): 6–23.

35

understanding islam Friedlander, Shems (1992), The Whirling Dervishes of Konya, New York: State University of New York Press. Grunebaum, Gustave E. von (1946), Medieval Islam, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hackett, Conrad and Lipka, Michael (2018), ‘Demographic factors making Islam the fastest growing major religious group’, Religious and Ethnic Future of Europe, 28: 11–14. Hallaq, Wael. B. (1995), ‘Model Shurut works and the dialectic of doctrine and practice’, Islamic Law and Society, 2(2): 109–34. Han, Sam and Kamaludeen, Mohamed Nasir (2016), Digital Culture and Religion in Asia, London: Routledge. Hirschind, Charles (1997), ‘What is political Islam?’, Middle East Report, 205: 12–14. Islam, Saidul (2001), ‘The role of NGOs in promoting Christianity: the case of Bangladesh’, Intellectual Discourse, 9(2): 183–202. Ismail, Salwa (2001), ‘The paradox of Islamist politics’, Middle East Report, 221: 34–9. Jeffery, Arthur (1942), ‘The political importance of Islam’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 1(4): 383–95. Kalid, Adeeb (2007), Islam after Communism: Religion and Politics in Central Asia, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Kalinovsky, Artemy M. (2011), A Long Goodbye: The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. Pew Report (2015), ‘The Future of World Religions’, (last accessed 12 August 2021). Possamai-­Inesedy, Alphia and Nixon, Alan (2019), The Digital Social: Religion and Social Belief, Berlin: De Gruyter. Qurashi, Jahanzeeb (2017), ‘Commodification of Islamic religious tourism: from spiritual to touristic experience’, International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage, 5(1): 89–104. Rico,Trinidad and Lababidi, Rim (2017),‘Extremism in contemporary cultural heritage debates in the Muslim world’, Future Interior: Journal of Heritage Preservation. History,Theory and Criticism, 14(1): 95–105. Roy, Olivier (1986), Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roy, Olivier (1994), Failure of Political Islam, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Roy, Olivier (2004), Globalized Islam:The Search for the New Ummah. New York: Columbia University Press.

36

the changing world of islam Sachedina, Abdulaziz (2001), The Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Volpi, Frédéric (2010), Political Islam Observed, London: Hurst. Weber, Max (1965), The Sociology of Religion, London: Methuen. Zahab, Mariam Abou and Roy, Olivier (2004), Islamist Networks: The AfghanPakistan Connection, New York: Columbia University Press.

37

2

Insiders and Outsiders

Introduction: Knowledge in a Divided World The topic of this chapter is to raise, yet again, the question of insider and outsider knowledge that has occupied much of the conventional debate in sociology and anthropology about understanding other cultures. Quite simply it concerns the issue as to whether people who are practising members of a religious community (or indeed any community) are more reliable witnesses to the nature of that religion or its communal culture than social scientists who are not members. Insiders are more likely to be knowledgeable about that community and very likely to be more sympathetic witnesses than outsiders. On the other hand, it is reasonable to believe that outsiders might be more objective and conceivably notice aspects of a religion or culture that are ignored or neglected by insiders. This debate also takes us into the status of science itself. In this chapter I start therefore with some elementary ideas about inside and outside witness. In Chapter 4, I raise some postmodern and pragmatist objections to conventional notions of science and objectivity as a neutral mirror held up to the world. In Chapter 8, I explore the far more complex issue of ‘positionality’ in contemporary humani38

insiders and outsiders ties and social science. In Chapter 9, I attempt to bring together some final considerations on a debate that has raged in sociology since its foundation as a separate and distinctive discipline in the social sciences. The debate ultimately centres on the problem of objective knowledge and how that might be secured, for example by outside independent inquiry or by inside familiarity. At each stage of this discussion, the idea of understanding gains in increasing breadth and complexity. In this chapter, I raise issues that have emerged primarily in sociology. However, in many respects, anthropology has stood at the centre of these issues concerning the position of ethnographers in their engagement with aboriginal communities. Let me begin to develop this chapter with a lengthy discussion of a famous article by Robert Merton (1972), ‘Insiders and outsiders: a chapter in the sociology of knowledge’. Merton observed that in societies, where there is extensive social conflict and fragmentation of the social structure, these social and political conflicts are often reflected in basic distrust of objective knowledge. Distrust in society is often reflected in distrust within the academy itself over the status of reliable knowledge. With distrust, there develops the conviction that only insider knowledge can be regarded as valid, reliable and authentic.The modern world, with a global COVID-­19 crisis, the Afghan catastrophe, and fires burning out of control in California, British Columbia, much of the Mediterranean and North Africa, is pre-­eminently a world out of joint. However, for Merton the basic conflict in the United States was, and remains, over the issue of race and racism, which was reflected in the academy with a growing division between insider black knowledge and outsider white knowledge. Outsider knowledge, it is claimed, will, in all likelihood, be prejudicial and unreliable. That which is ‘prejudicial’ is literally 39

understanding islam based on an outsider’s ‘prejudgement’ of the facts without the benefit of an insider’s understanding. It is commonly assumed that insider knowledge is more likely to be trustworthy, because it is thought to be is less tinged with prejudice. In contemporary society, these divisions appear to be multiplying especially around gender issues resulting in women’s studies, lesbian studies, gay studies and so forth reflecting growing public recognition of LGBTQ identities. The sociology of gender is thus fragmented around specialised areas that address increasingly complex and voluminous identities. The multiplication of subject areas (women’s studies, men’s studies, feminist studies, gay studies etc.) would not necessarily be a problem. However, in practice these areas of research often involve insider and outsider confrontations resulting in distrust of outside interpretations and research evidence. The final outcome is often a distrust of claims about objectivity, thereby making dialogue difficult if not impossible. Merton was concerned that, where universities have created specialised research and teaching areas such as black studies or women’s studies, or Hispanic studies, these developments often intensified divisions within the academy as knowledge itself became more fragmented and contested. One outcome in the United States, according to Merton, was that black studies often explicitly rejected the research of white professors. One famous illustration of these dilemmas and contests is the work of the black sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963), the author of many exceptional studies such as his 1903 The Souls of Black Folk (Du Bois 2012). He was long neglected in mainstream American sociology, despite the fact that he had obtained a doctorate from the University of Berlin and organised a research institute in Atlanta New Jersey (Lewis 2009). 40

insiders and outsiders As I have indicated, one development in contemporary sociology is the idea of the positionality of knowledge and this explains the subtitle of this volume – ‘positions of knowledge’. These issues are explored more fully and systematically in later chapters, especially concerning the problems arising around knowledge of Islam. At this stage, however, I introduce two obvious objections to the idea of positionality that are derived from Merton’s critical view of inside and outside knowledge. Merton observed that the idea of position often mistakenly assumes it involves a single status, whereby the researcher may be white and so whiteness is assumed to be the dominant position. This idea concentrates on ascribed status thereby ignoring the many achieved status positions a person can occupy, and the fact that everybody has multiple positions such as Marxist, married, Democrat, atheist and others. Of these, what might be regarded as the dominant position? The claim behind positionality is of course that colonialism is the defining characteristic of positions, but the claim has also to examine the consequences of post-­ colonialism. In thinking about outside witnesses who offered brilliant studies of insider worlds, Merton referred to two examples. The classic illustration is Alexis de Tocqueville, the author of Democracy in America (2000). This study is probably the most cited study of American democracy in contemporary political theory (Wolin 2000).The irony is that the comte de Tocqueville, a French aristocrat, published one of the most influential studies of American democracy of all time. Perhaps the other irony is that he studied the American Revolution in order to gain a better understanding of France, especially the ways in which the Roman Catholic Church had been weakened by secular politics (Hinckley 1990). Tocqueville’s research is a case study of 41

understanding islam how outsider knowledge continues to influence insider understanding. Merton’s second example was Gunnar Myrdal’s An American Dilemma (1944), which was a study of race relations in America, namely the struggle of black Americans to achieve recognition and equality. The study was commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation who appointed Myrdal to exercise overall supervision of the survey. Myrdal, as a Swedish sociologist, was an outsider and had little familiarity with America or its racial problems. His report has remained a major guide to the basic dilemma of the American creed (of equality and inclusiveness) and the brute facts of black–white conflict and division. While Merton’s model was influential in sociology, a parallel debate has occurred in anthropology around the distinction between etic understanding (the view from outside) and emic (the position from inside). The distinction was coined by Pike (1967) as an account of the methods of linguistics and anthropology in order to distinguish the emic meaning that a community ascribes to language and the academic (etic) study of the languages. While the members of a language group are able to judge the validity of an emic description of a language, an etic approach considers to what extent the concepts are meaningful and valid to an external set of scientific researchers. This debate was developed by Marvin Harris (1979, 1999) who defended the claims about objectivity in the social sciences. Harris argued that social scientists look for causes such as the structure of the labour market, economic development or international trade. Such causes may not be fully known understood by a local community and may be of no interest to them. The emic and etic distinction has a similarity to the understanding and explanation contrast.

42

insiders and outsiders Exit, Voice and Loyalty Typologies are either heuristically useful or they are not. The Mertonian typology I have considered so far is obviously too simple. I will add further complications. What about the knowledge position of converts and apostates? The very idea of apostasy has judgemental and negative connotations. The apostate is a person who, in all likelihood, is regarded as somebody who has betrayed a community. He or she has become an outsider. They may even be regarded as a significant threat to the values of the community they are quitting. In fact, the stronger the sense of a bounded and integrated community, the more problematic apostasy becomes. Apostacy in Islam has been little studied and is in any case a controversial issue. One of the few empirical studies was undertaken by Simon Cottee (2015) in a study of apostates in Canada and the United States. Perhaps apostatic memoirs and confessions might be construed as ‘dangerous knowledge’ by the community on the grounds that apostasy challenges the official history of the community. The threat of exposure may explain why apostasy is taken very seriously by an integrated social group such as a traditional Islamic community. However, Cottee’s inquiry revealed that the main difficulty for the Muslim apostate was not with Islam as such, but with their families. Leaving Islam proved less difficult than leaving their families and finding themselves isolated and rejected. In fact, exit from a community is probably never a simple matter of departure. We do not exit; rather we are always exiting (Newfield 2020). A voiceless departure may not be fatal to the group’s integrity. By contrast, those who leave and then voice their grievances in public can be a significant threat. The problems of moving in 43

understanding islam and out of social groups will depend in large measure on the strength of the bonds and the firmness of the boundaries that define a social group or community.

Exile and Positions of Knowledge I suggest that exile turns out to be the most important position in terms of knowledge. For example, in the history of sociology, exile has played a crucial role in the development of the discipline. The Jewish diaspora with the rise of fascism produced an exile culture of intellectuals who were instrumental in the creation of the New School in New York and the Institute of Social Research in Frankfurt (Kettler 2011). Karl Mannheim, a Hungarian exile who became an influential sociologists at the London School of Economics, referred to ‘free floating intellectuals’ as people with a unique insight into how societies function (Mannheim 1936). We might distinguish between borderline intellectuals and exilic intellectuals. The former often work or live for some time outside their own culture or community and adopt elements from both. We might regard them as combining etic and emic orientations. The exile lives outside their homeland and often develops a radical orientation to both the inside and outside world. To some extent they are forced into a cosmopolitan existence. Cosmopolitanism has been proposed and defended as a necessary system of values to promote this global diversity and to sustain a ‘republic of letters’. A cosmopolitan culture is recognised by sociologists as a product of cultural globalisation, but the idea is not specifically modern. It was the Greeks who invented the idea of cosmopolitanism to describe their own cities (Long 2008). I argue at a later stage that cos44

insiders and outsiders mopolitanism is a necessary foundation for understanding other cultures at least when we are considering what I have defined as Dialogue 1. However, there is ample evidence that cosmopolitanism as an ethic is especially difficult to secure in a world in conflict. In the contemporary instability in the world order, the prospects for cosmopolitanism are remote.

Conclusion: Modern Muslim Displacements The Jewish intellectuals who settled in various parts of Europe and North America were part of the diaspora that began with Russian pogroms in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and continued with the Holocaust. It is inappropriate to use the term ‘diaspora’ to describe the complex patterns of migration by which Muslims have settled in the West (Silvestri 2016). In the absence of a satisfactory term, I shall refer to the growth of Muslim communities, especially in recent history, as a series of ‘displacements’, which also describes the displacements of Edward Said (Lal 2005). Of course, Muslims have lived in the West for centuries. However, following colonialism from the Egyptian and Syrian campaigns of Napoleon Bonaparte to the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, Muslim communities have been seriously displaced, creating various communities in exile. At the same time, the Middle East is increasingly global in its cultural exchanges (Bayat and Herrera 2021).The displaced Muslim intellectual has created an extensive literature on the problems and prospects of Islam. It is now possible to recognise the growth of a distinctive form of Islam that is variously described as ‘Euro-­Islam’ (Tibi 2010) and indeed welcomes a tradition of European Muslim reflections on Islamic theology 45

understanding islam and philosophy. This development is perhaps best summarised in the question ‘Does European Islam think? (Hashas 2018). We need to study the independent growth of sociology and political theory within the Islamic world, especially with respect to borderline and exiled intellectuals, who have been creative in rethinking and reshaping Islam. Their world is profoundly influenced by the process of the globalisation of the modern ummah, which they often witness from within the West. Iran has produced many such border and exilic intellectuals. The exile sits uncomfortably between the inside and outside, giving their understanding a unique position on knowledge. Ali Shariati (1933–77) can be considered as a borderline intellectual in that he studied at the Sorbonne where he was influenced by Marxism and the student radicalism of the 1960s. On returning to Iran in 1964, he was briefly imprisoned. He died in suspicious circumstances in London in 1977. His social theories combined Marxism, sociology and Islamic philosophy, for which he received widespread attention among the Iranian student population. His perspective on Islam and the problems confronting Iran depended heavily on Marxism. Working with the idea of alienation from the self and society, a key notion in his philosophy was the ‘loss of self ’ that, for Muslims, was the consequence of becoming modern within a Western framework of modernity. The Muslim self was obliterated by the spread of Western consumerism. The enticement and infatuation with Western goods were a form of alienation and a Western strategy to undermine local traditions and patterns of production and consumption.Western capitalism disrupted the domestic life style and destroyed the local economy resulting in the emptying of the self. While there was personal alienation under colonialism, society also became divided along class lines in relation to 46

insiders and outsiders the ownership of the means of production. While intellectuals had an important role to play in rejecting colonialism, Shariati complained bitterly against the ‘pseudo-­intellectuals’ who had rejected religion, not recognising it as the foundation of Iranian society. Shariati had to find a difficult balance between rejecting what he saw as reactionary and dogmatic beliefs of the past, and forging a new notion of the self as autonomous and subject to God’s will (Vahdat 2002). Edward Said also figures in this debate about the creative role of exiles in his Reflections on Exile and Other Essays (Said 2002). Said recognised his own experience as an exile, as a Palestinian living in the United States, as part of the creative impulse of his literary works. His experience of exile clearly influenced his Orientalism (Said 1978), which I discuss at some length in Chapter 5. His view of the exile is ambiguous in rejecting the traditional romantic image of the exile, but he nevertheless recognised the creative role of intellectual exiles in modern culture, especially in the United States. Said never felt fully ‘at home’ in the United States, but he was no longer entirely at home in the Arab world. Because the exiled intellectual has some distance from both inside and outside worlds, they can have a creative impact on culture and politics. There has of course been a long history of Muslim intellectuals who reflected on both their own societies and on the nature of the West. Here we can think of Sayyid Qutb (1906– 66), an Egyptian radical intellectual who spent two years in the United States. He was the author of numerous books and articles, and was the inspiration behind the Muslim Brotherhood. He condemned the materialism, sexual liberalism and violence of American society. Yet at the same time he adopted Western dress, immersed himself in French literature, and loved classical 47

understanding islam music and Hollywood movies (Calvert 2007). He preached an offensive jihad against Western corruption and influence. On his return to Egypt he was imprisoned and later executed by hanging in 1966. His influence survives in various forms of Islamic radicalism. There are many leading contemporary Muslim intellectuals who live and work in the West and whose relationship to Islam and the Middle East is in many respects that of an independent exile. This multitude of Muslim intellectuals, many living and working in the West, whom one would want to call exiles, have by their work contributed significantly to the rethinking of Islam. They are in Bayat’s terms the new post-­Islamist intellectuals. One might refer to the Iranian political philosopher Abdolkarim Soroush (1945–), who in Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam (2002) developed a range of distinctions between religion and religious knowledge, and faith and belief that has influenced the methodology of Islamic Studies. He has been a strong advocate of religious reform, earning him the title ‘The Luther of Islam’. Other intellectuals include Asef Bayat, who has explored ‘making Islam democratic’ from the perspective of ‘the post-­Islamist turn’ (Bayat 2007). The intellectual source of these movements came typically from students, youth movements and post-­Islamic feminism. These ‘alterative thinkers’ constituted what he calls ‘religious intellectuals’ who in Iran appealed directly to the masses and became highly popular and politically influential.They were highly critical of the traditional clergy but retained a religious understanding of their history and society. In the process they forged an identity that was not secular but nevertheless questioned their own Islamic past. ‘Reason, rights, and religion became fundamental elements in the discourse of these thinkers’ (Bayat 2007: 85). 48

insiders and outsiders I turn finally to the legacy of Mohammad Arkoun (1928– 2010), a Berber who worked between French and Arab cultures. He is in my perspective the classic exilic intellectual occupying a space between Berber, Algerian and French cultures, and working in three languages. Arkoun sought to open up Islamic Studies to a radical reorientation by reflecting on the unknown and unthought in Islamic theology and philosophy (Filali-­Ansari and Esmail 2012). His early study was an inquiry into the work of Miskawayh (932–1030), who was a scholar of Aristotle’s philosophy, especially Aristotle’s analysis of happiness or eudaimonia which was based on what has come to be known as ‘virtue ethics’. Miskawayh’s Reflections on Character was a contribution to the Islamic tradition of adab. In this respect Miskawayh provided a model of the openness of early Islam to other traditions and cultures (Arkoun 1961–2). Arkoun wrote extensively but his most influential work has been Lectures du Coran (Arkoun 2016). Employing ideas from Marxism, postmodernism and French cultural theory, Arkoun developed the idea of the imaginaire to capture the mythical aspect of the Qur’an as the descent of the divine word to humanity through an inspired charismatic messenger. The imaginaire was co-­opted by various social groups and transformed into competing orthodoxies such as Sunni, Shi’a and Khriji with their competing notions of truth. These orthodoxies were not able to respond creatively to the growing social diversity of the world community of Islam.The orthodoxies were eventually taken over by the ‘managers of the sacred’. He calls this growing rigidity a case of ‘dogmatic closure’. What exists within the closure is the ‘thinkable’ and what is outside is the ‘unthinkable’. Arkoun’s quest was to rescue the creative core of the original inspired revelation.With the use of hermeneutics, he sought to reconceptualise the ‘Quranic event’. This is the ­classic 49

understanding islam position of the intellectual in an exilic space. What is not clear is how far their originality lends itself to easy comprehension.

References Arkoun, Mohammed (1961–2), ‘Deux épîtres de Miskawayh (mort en 421/1030)’, Bulletin d’études orientales, 17: 7–74. Arkoun, Mohammad (2016), Lectures du Coran, Montreal: Albin Michel. Bayat, Asef (2007), Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Bayat, Asekf and Herrera, Linda (eds) (2021), Global Middle East into the Twentyfirst Century, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Calvert, John (2007), Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Political Islamism, New York: Oxford University Press. Cottee, Simon (2015), The Apostates:When Muslims leave Islam, London: Hurst. Du Bois, W. E. B. (2012), The Souls of Black Folk, New York: Random House. Filali-­Ansari A. and Esmail, A. (eds) (2012), The Construction of Belief: Reflections on the Thought of Mohammad Arkoun, . Harris, Marvin (1979), Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science Culture, Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Harris, Marvin (1999), Theories of Culture in Postmodern Times, Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Hashas, Mohammed (2018), ‘Does European Islam think?’, in Neils Valdemar, Vindung Egdunas and Jorn Thielmann (eds), Exploring the Multitude of Muslims in Europe, Leiden: Brill, pp. 35–49. Hinckley, Cynthia (1990), ‘Tocqueville on religion, truth and political necessity’, Polity, 23(v1): 39–52. Kettler, David (2011), The Liquidation of Exile: Studies in the Intellectual Emigration in the 1930s, London: Anthem Press. Lal,Vinay (2005), ‘The enigmas of exile: reflections on Edward Said’, Economic and Political Review, 40(1): 1–7. Lewis, David Levering (2009), W. E. B. Du Bois, New York: Henry Holt and Company. Long, A. A. (2008), ‘The concept of the cosmopolitan in Greek and Roman thought’, Daedalus (Summer): 50–8.

50

insiders and outsiders Mannheim, Karl (1936), Ideology and Utopia, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Merton, Robert (1972), ‘Insiders and o ­ utsiders – ­a chapter in the sociology of knowledge’, American Journal of Sociology, 78(1): 9–47. Myrdal, Gunner (1944), An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, New York: Harper and Brothers. Newfield, Schneur Zalman (2020), Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation while Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism, Philadelphia:, PA: Temple University Press. Pike, Kenneth Lee (1967), Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of Structure of Human Behaviour, The Hague: Mouton. Said, Edward (1978), Orientalism, London: Routledge. Said, Edward (2002), Reflections on Exile and Other Essays, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Silvestri, Sara (2016), ‘Misperceptions of the “Muslim diaspora”’, Current History, 115(784): 319–21. Soroush, Abdolkarim (2002), Reason, Freedom and Democracy in Islam: Essential Writings of Abdolkarim Soroush, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tibi, Bassam (2010), ‘Euro-­Islam: an alternative to Islamization and ethnicity of fear’, in Zeyno Baran (ed.), The Other Muslims, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 157–74. Tocqueville, Alexis de (2000), Democracy in America, New York: Perennial Classics. Vahdat, Farzin (2002), God and the Juggernaut: Iran’s Intellectual Encounter with Modernity, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Wolin, Sheldon (2000), Tocqueville between Two Worlds, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

51

3

The Rise of the Sociology of Islam

Introduction: In the Beginning There are good reasons for recognising Abd al-­Rahman Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) as the founding father of sociology. The Muqaddimah (Prolegomenon) of 1377 is the famous introduction to the history of the known world. The work, which can be read as a theory of the state and religious change, was, among other things, a study of the contrasted forms of social cohesion (asabiyyah) in the city and the desert. The Muqaddimah is the Introduction, but it also means the first premise of an argument. In this respect it indicates the rational basis of his historical analysis and the continuity of his work with Aristotle (Dale 2015; Mahdi 1957). His work anticipated Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), the great French sociologist who, probably adopting Ibn Khaldun, developed a contrast between organic and mechanical solidarity to grasp, in particular, the transformation of France in the nineteenth century from a predominantly rural to an urban society (Durkheim 1984). Whereas solidarity in traditional societies rested on sameness, locality and common practices, the solidarity of an industrial urban society depended on the division of labour in which there is functional interdependence between members 52

the rise of the sociology of islam of the society. Ibn Khaldun’s study of urban and tribal solidarity was also adopted by Ernest Gellner (1969) in his study of the Atlas Mountains. He recognised the obvious parallel between Ibn Khaldun and Durkheim (Gellner 1975, 1981, 1985). Gellner is probably more famous for his publications on nationalism than his work on Islam, although the two issues are closely related. For Gellner, the social solidarity of modern societies will depend more on an integrated national system of education (and thereby a common language) and nationalism as the dominant political idea. The relationship between nationalism and Islam has played an important role in political sociology as a framework for understanding state formation. While recognising Ibn Khaldun as a legitimate sociologist avant la lettre, I am more concerned with Western rather than Muslim attitudes and approaches to understanding Islam. More specifically in approaching this topic as a sociologist, I am concerned to understand how (primarily Western) sociologists have approached Islam in the recent history of sociology. However, in writing this chapter I take, for reasons that will be evident, an interdisciplinary perspective to include contributions from history, anthropology and, to a lesser extent, religious studies. Although these disciplines have separate histories and methodologies, they have, at least in research on Islam, often converged with sociology. Although disciplinary research has been the common practice, interdisciplinarity can add breadth and depth to understanding. Ibn Khaldun’s work illustrates the point that, while there is much misunderstanding between the West and Islam, there have also been many areas of academic interest, co-­operation and exchange.The case of Claude Henri de Saint-­Simon (1760– 1825) and Auguste Comte (1798–1857) offers an additional, 53

understanding islam if complex, example. Sociology emerged out of Comte’s ideas about positivism in the early decades of the nineteenth century when sociology was, so to speak, itself a child of modernity. While my attention is given to Comte, it is difficult to disentangle the careers and sociological perspectives of the two thinkers. Comte’s six-­volume Course in Positive Philosophy between 1830 and 1942 was the manifesto of the Positive Society of 1848 (Comte 1975). To replace theological and metaphysical thinking, he proposed a religion of humanity which would be based on science including sociology and ethics. As with many of his generation, Comte was profoundly struck by the speed of social change. He clearly saw the transformation that was occurring or had to occur with religion. Saint-­Simon and Comte are credited with founding both socialism and sociology. Through the application of sociology, Comte saw history passing through three stages, ending in positivism and industrialism. With the positivist framework, he claimed it is possible to discover the laws of change driving Western society from feudalism to industrialism. Sociologists would take over from the priesthood in managing and directing the new institutions of an industrial society. Comte and Saint-­ Simon were conscious that they were living in the ‘age of transition’ starting with what Comte called la grande crise finale, beginning with the French Revolution and unfolding through the many attempts at political rule in France to the Second Empire of Louis Napoleon. The crisis exposed the dynamism of the new social order in which there was no stability and where traditional religion was out of joint (Wernick 2001, 2017). However, if modern society is to achieve a new pattern of coherence and solidarity, or ‘organic solidarity’, it cannot be built on the old system of a sacred realm. Organic solidarity was based on the increasingly complex division of labour in 54

the rise of the sociology of islam which we are all interdependent, because our specialised and limited skills are not adequate in supplying the goods and services we need to survive. In short, sociology emerged as a discipline that grasped a contradiction: the coherence of society requires a religion that is capable of binding together a society that is inherently diverse and unstable, but no religion appears to have the capacity to fulfil that function of social integration. Durkheim inherited from Rousseau the idea that a civil religion could be constructed to fill the gap left by the decline of traditional religions. Durkheim did think new gods could emerge. However, one candidate was nationalism, which came in 1914 to overwhelm much of Europe. Comte saw an opportunity to promote his ideas in Turkey. In 1853 Comte wrote to Mustafa Reshid Pasha (1800–58), the Prime Minister of Turkey, who was leading a general reform of Turkey that is known as the Tanzimat. Mustafa Reshid had been the ambassador to France in 1834 and 1843. He had also been involved in negotiations relating to France’s occupation of Algeria. It is unclear whether he accepted Comte’s notion of a new religion, whereby a positive religion could replace Islam as a basis for social solidarity and modernization. The historical irony here is that sociology did eventually have a direct impact on the secular modernisation of Turkey. One might speculate that Comte’s attempts at religious reform came to fruition in the policies of Mustafa Kamal Ataturk (1881– 1938), widely regarded as the founding father of Turkey after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. He developed Turkey as a secular state with a Turkish nationalist ideology, introduced sweeping reforms to dress codes, education and the military, and brought in a new constitution that followed French law. His policies were in turn deeply influenced by Mehmet Ziya Gökalp 55

understanding islam (1876–1924), a sociologist who followed Durkheim’s ideas about education and social solidarity. Following Durkheim’s idea about ‘collective representations’, Gökalp, through his educational policies, wanted to create a secular nationalist Turkey that suppressed ethnic and linguistic diversity. In this regard he was also influenced by Comte’s idea of ‘Turkism’ to create a new secular Turkey out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. As an influential member of the Committee of Union and Progress, his ideas had a direct impact on the agenda of the Young Turks (Nefes 2013). Gökalp also played an important role in supporting creative writers such as Refik Halid Karay (1888–1965), who established the idea of muhalefet – opposition or dissent – as the dividing line between the Ottoman constitutional era and the Republic of Turkey. In modern day Turkey, it is still a key notion in debates about the failures and possibilities for Turkish nationalism (Philliou 2021). Comte and Saint-­Simon may have invented both sociology and socialism, but debates about Islam have also depended on the sociological and historical theories of Karl Marx (1818–83). Although there was little in Marx and early Marxism on Islam, the Marxist theory of the ‘Asiatic mode of production’ (AMP) had a lasting impact on academic analysis of the foundations of bureaucratic states, especially the absolutist state. The argument was that large-­scale water regulation through state-­managed irrigation became the basis of state power. The long-­term effect of such bureaucratic management was to block any political or social change. Marx and Engels stressed the idea that, in the absence of private property, there was no basis for class formation and in societies such as Egypt. Consequently, there was no class struggle as the mechanism of political change. Marx shared with the Victorian utilitarian philosophers the idea that 56

the rise of the sociology of islam the Orient was characterised by ‘social stationariness’ (Turner 1974). Paradoxically British colonialism, by introducing private property, a railway system and newspapers, had established the conditions for future capitalist development, which would act as a force for social change. While the AMP eventually dropped from the Marxist vocabulary, it continued to be revisited, for example in Karl A. Wittfogel’s Oriental Despotism (1957) which argued that ‘hydraulic society’ could be discovered outside the Middle East in pre-­Mongol Russia, Rome and Mexico. This debate in Marxist sociology was in fact a common theme of Western interpretations of the Orient, namely that it had no history in the sense that it lacked any internal dynamism and was locked into a rigid tradition. Islam was simply a manifestation of this deeper issue of a timeless existence. In the West the period from the French and American Revolutions to the Great Exhibition of 1851 was seen to be a time of radical transformations of culture, society and economy, while the Orient was understood to be in deep slumber. This theme was especially evident in the work of Georg Hegel (1770–1831). In The Philosophy of History (Hegel 1956), he argued that history was the unfolding of human self-­consciousness, of which the principal condition was liberty. The Orient was unable to achieve self-­consciousness, because its social structures facilitated despotic rule. Hegel did not discuss I­ slam – ­which he referred to as ‘Mohametanism’ – at any length. While at its inception Islam represented a dynamic and creative religious force, it quickly lost this exuberance. For Hegel, Islam ‘has long vanished from the stage of history at large, and has retreated into Oriental ease and repose’ (Hegel 1956: 360). Hegel can be regarded as a representative of European Orientalism, but his philosophy is open to more sophisticated 57

understanding islam treatment. Islam presented Hegel’s historical narrative with a problem. Islam came after Christianity and therefore was potentially more modern, dynamic and open to change. The conception of Allah in Islam was recognised by Hegel as the One or absolute divine universality, but the One as absolute Spirit cannot become manifest in human form and hence Hegel preserved his view of Christianity as the fulfilment of a progressive historical project (Bhatawadekar 2014). Although Marxism was influential in the social sciences in Europe in the 1960s, Marxist contributions to the sociology of Islam are modest, possibly because religion was no longer taken seriously by secular Marxists. Religion of any variety was thought to be of declining importance or simply unimportant with the global growth of capitalism. The main exception was Maxime Rodinson (1915–2004), a French Marxist, who wrote extensively on Islam and the Middle East. In Islam and Capitalism, Rodinson (1974) rejected the typical a­ rgument – o ­ ften referred to as ‘essentialism’ – that Islam as a religion and system of law had blocked the development of capitalism, because it rejected interest from economic activity. Rodinson argued that Muslim legal scholars had found numerous legal interpretations to avoid the injunction.

Muhammad as Prophet We might argue plausibly that the sociology of Islam has prospered and established itself as a bona fide addition to the range of subjects addressed by modern-­day sociology. There are, however, some areas of research where sociology as a secular subject has difficulty in understanding religious experience. One example is 58

the rise of the sociology of islam the status of prophets and the revelations they receive. Can they be adequately understood through the concepts of charisma and charismatic breakthrough? What can sociologists make of the claims of prophets to be divinely inspired? In particular, what can sociology say about the status of the Prophet Muhammad and Jesus Christ? In Muhammad (2002), Rodinson carefully documents the wider political context of the Prophet’s revelation in which Persia and Byzantium were the dominant political and intellectual influences over Arabia at the time of the Prophet’s birth. Sociological studies of prophecy and prophets typically turn to Max Weber for general guidance on the idea of charisma and charismatic authority. While charisma is a term widely used in sociology to describe various forms of power, the idea was first developed by the legal historian Rudolf Sohm. Sohm was critical of tradition in the history of Christianity and saw charisma as an important challenge to the dead hand of church authority (Haley 1980). The idea of charisma, which is associated with Weber’s study of ancient Judaism, did not preoccupy Weber until relatively late in his academic career in 1910. He became interested in Stefan Georg (1868–1933) and the circle of young men who gathered around him. Georg, a charismatic critic of decadent Germany, promoted the idea of a spiritual hierarchy in opposition to the rising commercial culture of industrial Germany. Weber worked on the idea of charisma as part of a more general theory of forms of rulership that was eventually included in the posthumous Economy and Society (Weber 1968). The true charismatics were religious prophets who created religions and religious communities by the force of their personality.A prophet is ‘a purely individual bearer of charisma, who by virtue of his mission proclaims a religious doctrine or divine commandment’ 59

understanding islam (Weber 1965: 46). The prophet’s authority depended on ‘charismatic authentication, which in practice meant magic’ (Weber 1965: 47). Weber distinguished between exemplary prophets whose authority is based on a charismatic personality. By contrast ethical prophecy is primarily based on teaching. For Weber, Muhammad, Zarathustra and Jesus were exemplary prophets, while Buddha is presented as an ethical prophet. Weber’s discussion of Muhammad as a prophet is based on his overall assessment of Islam as a warrior religion. Although Islam during the Meccan period ‘developed in pietistic urban conventicles, which displayed a tendency to withdraw from the world’, during the Medina period ‘the religion was transformed from its pristine form into the national Arabic warrior religion’ (Weber 1965: 262).Weber became even more explicit when considering the relationship between religion and politics. In Islam, religion makes obligatory the violent propagandising of a true prophecy which consciously eschews the universal conversion and enjoins the subjugation of unbelievers under the dominion of a ruling class dedicated as one of the basic postulates of its faith to the religious war. (Weber 1965: 227)

As an exemplary prophet, Muhammad nevertheless became a successful military leader in the years following the migration to Medina. We can draw two immediate conclusions from this short introduction to Weber’s discussion of prophecy. Any discussion in sociology of revelation, prophecy and charisma brings into clear view the sharp divisions between insiders and outsiders. At a personal level, Weber was more inclined to identify with the Old Testament prophets in the wilderness in opposition to the corruption of the city. They had a political role as much as a 60

the rise of the sociology of islam religious one. In describing Muhammad’s programme for social action,Weber claimed that it ‘was oriented almost entirely to the goal of the psychological preparation of the faithful for battle in order to maintain a maximum number of warriors for the faith’ (Weber 1965: 51). While Weber’s views are one-­sided, there is a general agreement that the Prophet’s message changed between the early period in Mecca and the period after the al-Hijra or migration to Medina. The Jewish community in Medina was attacked, many Jews were driven out of the city and Mecca was taken by force. While Weber’s views may be exaggerated and based on limited information about the early stages of the expansion of the Muslim community, his approach was shared by scholars who are in fact sympathetic observers of Islam. I will once more take Marshall G. S. Hodgson as an example. As a Quaker, Hodgson was particularly sensitive to issues about war. In the first volume of The Venture of Islam, Hodgson (1974 vol. 1: 186) recognised ‘Muhammad’s military measures as a central problem of his prophethood’. He went on to write: Muhammad’s prophethood, in fulfilling the monotheistic tendency towards a total religious community, at the same time left his community confronted with that temptation to a spirit of exclusivity that went with any vision of a total community and that received appropriate expression in warfare. The resulting problems came to form a persistent theme of Muslim history.

The Comparative Sociology of Religion We might reasonably date the early emergence of the sociology of religion with Max Weber’s extensive research in the ­comparative 61

understanding islam sociology of world religions. Weber undertook a study of the religions of India (primarily Hinduism and Buddhism) and the religions of China (primarily Confucianism) as part of a broad project on comparative religious ethics. He warned his readers that his prime objective was ‘not to ascertain the “true” and “valid” meaning of such ethical teaching’ (Weber 1968 vol. 1: 4). The investigation was rather to establish the basis of a general sociology of rationalism (Kalberg 1980) than to understand how far religion had contributed to the emergence of the rationalism that underpinned modern capitalism. In short, Weber was concerned with explanation rather than understanding. While Islam was always regarded as one of the ‘missing’ volumes in Weber’s sociology of religion, his work has been widely influential in contemporary Islamic studies. However, by comparison with his research into the religions of China and India, his commentary on Islam was limited. Weber can be said, as can many early sociologists, to have been concerned to explore the origins and character of modernity and hence his sociology of religion was a contribution to that larger topic. As it turned out, the linchpin of the investigation was The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Weber 1930). Here the irony is that modern capitalism, as the driving force behind modernity, was the unintended consequence of Protestant asceticism. However, if we want to understand asceticism as a challenge to the world of politics we have to delve further back into human history. Hence another clue regarding Weber’s goal is to examine his Ancient Judaism (1952), where the three major prophets who were deeply critical of their societies were Amos, Jeremiah and Isaiah. These prophets played a central role in Weber’s research into religion in the period 1917 to 1919 when he was preoccupied with the evolving post-­war crisis in Germany. 62

the rise of the sociology of islam For Weber, what counts for religion as a dynamic force in society is its attitude towards ‘the world’. Weber was attracted to religious leaders such as the prophets by their uncompromising attitude towards the world as a corrupt and potentially meaningless reality. The problem of ‘the world’ also lay behind the basic distinction between asceticism (or direct engagement with the secular world) and mysticism (withdrawal or escape from worldly reality). It also helps us to understand his discussion of theodicy as any attempt at a justification of God’s role in history in the context of human suffering.

The Axial Age Religions This issue about theodicy perhaps raises a more interesting question of how, and when, ‘the world’ became problematic. The answer that has intrigued much of contemporary historical sociology concerns the debate about the so-­called Axial Age. In his research into ancient Judaism, Weber had briefly referred to this axial period as ‘the prophetic age’, but this idea was never elaborated as an axial breaking point in human history. Karl Jaspers (1883–1969), in The Origin and Goal of History (Jaspers 1953), claimed that the period 800–200 bc constituted a fundamental turning point (Achsenzeit) in human history. Jaspers wanted to reach out to other civilisations to offset the disaster that had arisen from fascism and was a major figure in the debate about German war guilt. His study of history was therefore part of his personal quest for a deeper understanding of other cultures. The Axial Age saw the emergence of Confucianism, Buddhism, prophetic Judaism and the world of classical Greek philosophy. These developments, which were the context for 63

understanding islam the emergence of theoria or thinking about thinking, were ‘the age of criticism’ (Momigliano 1975: 8). In religious terms, it was the origin of ideas about transcendence and another world beyond and outside the empirical world of human mortality and ­suffering. The implication is that Christianity and Islam are in many respects modern religions, and of the two Islam is the most contemporary if we date it from Muhammad’s Meccan revelation. The other implication is that both are simply variations on well-­ established themes that had been developed centuries before the emergence of these two religions. Both religions were, so to speak, variations on themes from the Axial Age and the cultural legacy of ancient Judaic monotheism and Hellenic philosophy. One justification for this interpretation is that Muhammad saw himself as fulfilling the unfilled promise of Abrahamic religion. Despite their Axial Age heritage and the many parallel theological themes, the differences between Christianity and Islam are not insignificant. The differences remain important in terms of the long history of conflict between Christianity and Islam.

Islam and World History Hodgson was, throughout his life, critical of the legacy of classical Orientalism and yet in many respects he was the last of the great Orientalists of his generation. His work is characterised by a deep engagement with the legacy of Western Orientalism in terms of his command of relevant languages and his obvious knowledge of the work of historians. Hodgson, for example, was critical of what he called ‘Arabism’ – that is, the tendency of scholars to treat pre-­Islamic Arabic culture as basically native 64

the rise of the sociology of islam to Islam itself so that Bedouin culture might be regarded as somehow lost in the history of Islam. In order to counter these assumptions, Hodgson sought to give greater weight to the more central Islamicate regions and cultures. In addition to Arabism, he was critical of the philological bias in classical Orientalism which gave an exaggerated emphasis to high culture, often to the neglect of more local, class-­based social conditions and at the same time within high culture to be more preoccupied with religious literary and political themes to the exclusion of a broader engagement, for example with civility. In The Venture of Islam (1974), Hodgson sought to overcome these traditional approaches to Islam by giving much greater consideration to the great variety of ways in which Islam had been conditioned and influenced by sociological, economic and geographical conditions. We may classify Hodgson as an Orientalist insofar as he worked within and depended upon the tradition of textual analysis. However, Hodgson was the Chair of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago where he met many of the leading economists and sociologists of his generation, such as Edward Shils, John Ulric Nef and Mircea Eliade. One can clearly see the influence of the social sciences throughout his great work on Islamic history. It was during this period that Hodgson also came into contact with various Marxist writers on the world history of capitalism such as Immanuel Wallerstein, Eric Hobsbawm and Andre Gunder Frank. I draw attention to this Marxist stream of thought in order to demonstrate the relevance of Marxist history to Hodgson’s project of world history that would demonstrate the interconnections of civilisations and societies over a long historical period. Hodgson was thus making a major contribution to the growing field of 65

understanding islam world history within which Islam was not treated as an isolated or localised religious movement, but rather as a civilisation that had extensive effects on global history. Hodgson’s guiding principle throughout was to recognise the cosmopolitan character of Islam as it broke out of the Arabian Peninsula. The intention was to avoid the idea of European exceptionalism, whereby the West was somehow itself disconnected from this global geographical and historical framework. Within this approach the West could never be regarded as the centre of world historical development. Hodgson saw Islam within the context of an interconnected group of agrarian societies with their city cultures which extended across the entire African Eurasian landmass from China to the Western edge of European civilisation. This complex was the Oikoumene, which was a predominantly Asian. It was within this Oikoumene that many of the technical inventions occurred that laid the early foundations of what was to become the industrial age. Both Muhammad al-­ Farabi (870–950) and Ibn-­ Sina (980–1037) (Avicenna) were born in the ancient city of Bukhara, but their scholarship and influence were international. Ibn-­Sina’s medical treatise The Canon of Medicine was widely taught in Europe as a basic text. Both men adapted and developed the philosophy of Aristotle. It was through this refocusing of the historical imagination that Hodgson began to construct an alternative view of modernity and modernisation which was no longer dominated by a concentration on the Enlightenment or the later European scientific revolution. One further consequence of this historical and geographical revision has been to give far greater weight to Chinese inventions and their applications. I have given Hodgson a central place, not simply in this chapter, but in my general argument about insider and outsider posi66

the rise of the sociology of islam tions and perspectives. Hodgson as a Quaker is an outsider, but he sought to write and think from the perspective of an insider. His attempts to dislodge European exceptionalism would be one illustration. Edmund Burke III, who has played a major role in collecting and interpreting Hodgson, has perfectly captured Hodgson’s orientation: The striking feature of The Venture of Islam is the tone of empathy and respect which it adopts towards Islam. This characteristic serves to distinguish the book from the majority of more ‘objective’ ­studies . . . ­he encourages his reader to enter fully the spirit of the civilization. (Burke III 2009: 304)

Hodgson’s implicit methodology is to encourage us to become, as far as possible, insiders in our dialogue with Islam as a civilisation. Burke III goes on to note that Hodgson adopts the strategy of verstehen from Wilhelm Dilthey to allow us to grasp the meaning of Islamic action in the world and thus also to tie Hodgson’s global approach to the legacy of Weber’s comparative sociology of religion as an exercise in verstehen (Burke III 1979). Hodgson’s work continues to influence the development of the sociology of Islam. A major elaboration of Hodgson’s work has been undertaken by Armando Salvatore in The Sociology of Islam (Salvatore 2016). Salvatore explains his own task as undermining the Orientalist propensity not to recognise the social and civil dynamism of religion outside the West. To that end, he believes it is important to distinguish between two notions of religion.The first is institutional with its authoritative creeds and bureaucratic structures and their officialdom.The second understands religion as a more creative force that is meta-­institutional and illustrates the universal and cosmopolitan thrust of early Islam that cannot be easily classified in terms of modern notions 67

understanding islam of sovereign nationalism. Working with the idea of knowledge, power and civility, he argues that civility is crucial in understanding how any complex society can function and hold together. After the creative eruption of charisma at the beginning of religious formation, civility acts to consolidate the public sphere as an expression of deeper values.

French and British Developments Despite these early approaches to understanding Islam in the nineteenth century, there was very little available on the sociology of Islam in English until the middle of the twentieth century. There was a well-­established tradition of Oriental Studies that concentrated mainly on literature, language and history. It was not well equipped to analyse social, political and economic developments in the Middle East. In France, anthropology and sociology had connections with literature and philosophy. Michel Leiris (1901–90), who became one of the most famous ethnographers of his generation, began his literary career with the surrealists, but then joined with George Bataille and Roger Caillois to create the Collège de Sociologie. Leiris, with a team of ethnographers and explorers, undertook a journey from Marseilles to Dakar-­Djibouti from May 1931 to February 1933. Their expedition ended in Gondar Ethiopia where they studied Christian churches and possession cults. The group c­ ollected – ­or rather ­plundered – ­3,700 cultural artefacts for the Musée de l’Homme. Leiris’s Phantom of Africa (Leiris 2019), published in 1934, became a classic of modern French literature. There was also in Britain a tradition of anthropological work on the African colonies, for example E. E. Evans-­Pritchard on 68

the rise of the sociology of islam the Sanusi of Cyrenaica (1949) and Mary Douglas (1963) in The Lele of Kasai. Evans-­Pritchard supervised both Mary Douglas and Talal Asad at Oxford University. Asad played an important role in the creation of what was unofficially called ‘the Hull School’ in the 1970s, which was based on the development studies tradition at the University of Hull. The original group consisted of Talal Asad, Roger Owen and Peter and Marion Slugglet, and was driven by a sense of the need to develop a social science programme to replace the existing Orientalist tradition. Their efforts to promote social science resulted in the creation of the Review of Middle East Studies. Asad was critical of much of the existing anthropology of Islam as represented by Ernest Gellner and Clifford Gertz and developed his own approach to ‘what is Islam?’ and ‘what can an anthropology of Islam look like?’ He developed the idea of Islam as a ‘discursive tradition’ that is always evolving and changing. It is also constituted by practices that function in localities. ‘The idea of an anthropology of Islam’ (Asad 2009) was a statement of how anthropological research (and we might add sociological research) was to be conducted in which Islam is understood as a ‘discursive tradition’ that, in connecting past, present and future, is an evolving framework. It consists of ‘instituted practices’ within which ‘Muslims are inducted as Muslims’ (Asad 2009: 21).

The Politics of Academic Research Although there was an anthropology of Islam that was associated with British colonialism in Africa, academic attention to Islam has been driven by global crises. One key argument for understanding Islam is that the sociology of Islam as we know it came 69

understanding islam into existence in response to major political changes in the late twentieth century. I propose therefore that Islam did not get serious scholarly and public attention until the Iranian Revolution in 1979. The Iranian Revolution dragged the United States into a confrontation with Iran through what became known as ‘Irangate’ (or the Iran–Contra affair) regarding a shipment of arms to Iran in exchange for hostages in Lebanon (Hicks 1996). At the time there was little in-­depth understanding of the history of the Shia or the religious causes of the revolution. Was it the Iranian Revolution or the Shia Revolution? To quote at some length from Vali Nasr’s The Shia Revival (2006: 135 and 137), Khomeini’s Republic was all about law, and had little interest in the values associated with Karbala, and even less in the rituals associated with Husayn’s martyrdom. He defined his revolution not as a Shia one but an Islamic one, and saw the Islamic Republic of Iran as the base for a global Islamic movement in much the same way that Lenin and Trotsky had seen Russia as the springboard of what was meant to be a global communist revolution.

This reference to communist global ambitions is justified given the influence of Ali Shariati (1933–77), the Iranian sociologist whose combination of Marxism and Islam had a powerful effect on the development of the Iranian Revolution (Shariati 1979). The Revolution had three important architects: Ali Shariati, Ayatollah Khomeini and Aytollah Motahhari. Ironically their target was to develop a thorough critique of Western modernity from the perspective of Iranian thought, but they were also deeply influenced by the idea of ‘modernity’. Shariati, who had been trained in France, saw Western modernity as a strategy to destroy Iran and other subordinated societies. Western cultural 70

the rise of the sociology of islam imperialism involved the ‘emptying’ of the self. He employed Marxist ideas on alienation to capture this destructive process. His work was popular among the intellectuals but his analysis of the ‘disempowered’ also attracted the downtrodden masses (Vahdat 2002). It became evident that the Revolution caused an immediate split in academic understanding between those who saw the Revolution as a secular versus a religious movement (Nasr 2006). The Left in the academy was not prepared for a mass movement against an authoritarian regime that was deeply influenced by Shia theology. The other surprise for the West was the role of pious women in traditional Islamic headcovers or full burqa defying police and military. Equally dramatic were the celebrations of the holy month of Muharram. The day of Ashoura is a time of atonement that is marked by collective lamentation with public self-­flagellation. At the time I recall journalists and politicians in the Foreign Office seeking answers to such questions as: who or what is an Ayatollah? Who are the Twelver Shia? A similar confusion over the causes and character of Middle East politics was to occur with the Arab Spring of 2010–11 when women and young people took to the streets against inept and authoritarian governments from Tunisia to Syria. The Shia Revolution disrupted the common assumption in the West that the politics of the Middle East is invariably the struggle of secular progressive movements against entrenched and reactionary political forces. The state of confusion and uncertainty in the West as to how to interpret and respond to the Shia Revolution is well illustrated by the curious intervention of Michel Foucault into Iranian politics. Foucault was in Iran from September 1978 to May 1979 (Stauth 1991). He was struck by the large crowds of people on the streets who were 71

understanding islam motivated by religious convictions in defiance of the state and army. Foucault believed that he was witnessing a turning point in the history of revolutions and, recognising the centrality of Islam to the new politics of unarmed masses against a repressive state, he described the opposition movement as ‘political spirituality’ (Turner 2018). He was condemned as neglecting the fascist core of the Islamic movement (Afary and Anderson 2005) and his politics were described as ‘infantile leftism’ by Michael Walzer (1983). Western feminists, who saw the Iranian women in the revolutionary movement as failing to rise to the opportunity of overthrowing Islamic patriarchy, only confirmed the gap between outsiders and insiders (Ghamari-­Tabrizi 2016).

Conclusion: Understanding in a Time of Crisis The fact that the sociology of Islam is itself shaped by contemporary political conflicts, both domestic and international, has important consequences for the character of that sociology. I have claimed that the Iranian Revolution was a political event that exposed the limitations of existing political science and sociology as reliable guides to understanding Islam. Perhaps of greater significance was the attack on the Twin Towers that we know simply as 9/11. It was a major turning point in relations with Islam and resulted in the American invasion of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. Conflicts between Christianity and Islam or between West and East continue to influence the focus and topics of the sociology of Islam (Turner 2013). What then is the status of the sociology of religion? We might conclude on an optimistic note by quoting Arnaldo Momigliano in referring to the preference for sociological interpretations: 72

the rise of the sociology of islam This preference is due to the realization that many subjects (e.g., the position of women in religion, the function of holy men in different societies, the behavior of sectarians within the ‘great societies’, and even apocalyptic and messianic movements) have been studied without sufficient consideration of their social context. This preference for the social aspects of religion may well be a transitory fashion. (Momigliano 1987: 29)

Fortunately, it has not been transitory and much of the best research has been in this century rather than the last.

References Afary, Janet and Anderson, Kevin (2005), Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Arjomand, Said Amir (2016), Sociology of Shi’ite Islam, Leiden: Brill Asad, Talal (2009), ‘The idea of an anthropology of Islam’, Qui Parle, 17(2): 1–30. Bhatawadekar, Sai (2014), ‘Islam in Hegel’s triadic philosophy of religion’, Journal of World History, 25(2/3): 397–424. Burke III, Edmund (1979),‘Islamic history as world history: Marshall Hodgson’s The Venture of Islam, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 10(2): 241–61. Burke III, Edmund (2009), Rethinking World History: Essays on Europe, Islam and World History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Comte, Auguste (1975), Auguste Comte and Positivism: The Essential Writing, New York: Harper. Dale, Stephen Frederic (2015), The Orange Trees of Marrakesh: Ibn Khaldun and the Science of Man, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Douglas, Mary (1963), The Lele of Kasai, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Durkheim, Émile (1984), The Division of Labour in Society, London: Macmillan. Evans-­Pritchard, E. E. (1949), The Sanusi of Cyrenaica, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Gellner, Ernest (1969), Saints of the Atlas, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Gellner, Ernest (1975), ‘Cohesion and identity: the Mahgreb from Ibn Khaldun to Émile Durkheim’, Government and Opposition, 10(2): 203–18. Gellner, Ernest (1981), Muslim Society, New York: Cambridge University Press. Gellner, Ernest (1985), ‘The roots of cohesion’, Man, 20(1): 142–55.

73

understanding islam Ghamari-­Tabrizi, Behrooz (2016), Foucault in Iran: Islamic Revolution after the Enlightenment, Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press. Haley, Peter (1980), ‘Rudolph Sohm on charisma’, Journal of Religion, 60(2): 185–97. Hegel, Georg F. W. (1956), The Philosophy of History, New York: Dover. Hicks, D. Bruce (1996), ‘Presidential foreign policy after the Iran-­Contra affair’, Presidential Studies Quarterly, 26(4): 962–77. Hodgson, Marshall G. S. (1974), The Venture of Islam, 3 vols, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jaspers, Karl (1953), The Origin and Goal of History, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Kalberg, Steven (1980), ‘Max Weber’s types of rationality: cornerstones for the analysis of rationalization processes in history’, American Journal of Sociology, 85(5): 1145–79. Leiris, Michel (2019), Phantom of Africa, Kolkata: Seagull Books. Mahdi, Muhsin (1957), In Khaldun’s Philosophy of History, London: George Allen and Unwin. Momigliano, Arnoldo (1975), Alien Wisdom: The Limits of Helenization, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Momigliano, Arnaldo (1987), On Pagans, Jews, and Christians, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Nasr,Vali (2006), The Shia Revival, New York and London: W. W. Norton. Nefes, Turkay Salim (2013), ‘Ziya Gökalp’s adaptation of Émile Durkheim’s sociology in his formulation of the modern Turkish nation’, International Sociology, 28(3): 335–50. Philliou, Christine M. (2021), A Past against History: Turkey, Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Rodinson, Maxime (1974), Islam and Capitalism, London: Allen Lane. Rodinson, Maxime (2002), Muhammad, New York: The New Press. Salvatore, Armando (2016), The Sociology of Islam: Knowledge, Power and Civility, Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell. Shariati, Ali (1979), On the Sociology of Islam, Jakarta: Mizan Press. Stauth, Georg (1991), ‘Revolution in spiritless times: an essay on Michel Foucault’s enquiries into the Iranian Revolution’, International Sociology, 6(3): 259–80. Turner, Bryan S. (1974), ‘The concept of social “stationariness”: utilitarianism and Marxism’, Science and Society, xxxviii(1): 3–18. Turner, Bryan S. (2013), ‘Sociology of Islam: the Desiderata’, Sociology of Islam, 1: 14–16.

74

the rise of the sociology of islam Turner, Bryan S. (2018), ‘French secular thought: Foucault and political spirituality’, Iran Namag, 3(2): xxx–xlv. Vahdat, Farzin (2002), God and the Juggernaut: Iran’s Intellectual Encounter with Modernity, New York: Syracuse University Press. Walzer, Michael (1983), ‘The politics of Michel Foucault’, Dissent (Fall). Weber, Max (1930), The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, London: George Allen and Unwin. Weber, Max (1952), Ancient Judaism, Glencoe, IL: The Free Press. Weber, Max (1965), The Sociology of Religion, London: Methuen. Weber, Max (1968), Economy and Society: Outline of Interpretative Sociology, New York: Bedminster Press. Wernick, Andrew (2001), Auguste Comte and the Religion of Humanity:The PostTheistic Program of French Social Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wernick, Andrew (2017), ‘The “great crisis”: Comte, Nietzsche, and the religion question’, in Andrew Wernick (ed.), The Anthem Companion to August Comte, New York: Anthem Press, pp. 117–42. Wittfogel, Karl A. (1957), Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power, New Haven, CT:Yale University Press. Wheatcroft, Andrew (2003), Infidels: The Conflict between Christendom and Islam 633–2002, New York: Penguin.

75

4

Postmodernism, Globalisation and Religion

Introduction: Globalisation and Knowledge In this chapter I treat both pragmatism and postmodernism as movements that challenge the authority of traditional religious institutions and their claims to knowledge. They are intellectual movements that are therefore intimately connected to questions about ‘positions of knowledge’. Indeed, they raise fundamental issues about science and objectivity. While these intellectual movements were often constructed to question the secular idea of rationality as the legacy of the Enlightenment and the development of positivism in the social sciences, they inevitably challenge the universal knowledge claims of all authorities, including religious authorities. These movements had their origin in the West, but they have global implications for religious life in general. We need therefore to situate these cultural developments within the broader context of globalisation. While I have described these movements as intellectual developments, postmodernism can also be regarded as a social and cultural movement that had widespread effects on architecture, film, literature, fashion and design. In cultural terms, postmodernism was expressed in conceptual art, pop art, happenings, 76

postmodernism, globalisation and religion and Theatre of the Absurd. However, the impact of postmodernism was most amply seen in architecture with the publication of Learning from Las Vegas (Venturi and Brown 1972). This publication was an attack on modernism in architecture in which Las Vegas was seen to be a ‘non-­city’ that had been created out of a ‘strip’. Postmodernism has influenced all forms of communication. Television, film and popular music have transformed youth cultures including Muslim youth cultures (Rakmani 2016). Postmodernism has been a disruptive movement with respect to religion. It has been analysed by Akbar Ahmed (1992) in Postmodernism and Islam and by Ernest Gellner (1992) in Postmodernism, Reason and Religion. Gellner claimed that we face three ideological ­options – ­religion, postmodernism and reason. He regarded postmodernism as simply a repeat of relativism. In contemporary anthropology, postmodernism was a conflation of subjectivism and liberal guilt over the legacy of imperialism. In criticising white Western anthropologists as outsiders, as either direct or indirect representatives of Western colonialism, these critiques overlooked the experience of many anthropologists who defended aboriginal cultures and rights against predatory colonial settlement. Gellner feared that the obsession with the position of the ethnographer would make fieldwork impossible, leaving anthropology as the study of texts. Other anthropologists have welcomed the postmodern epistemology. For example, Pnina Werbner (2003: 302), in her study of a ‘global Sufi cult’, claims ‘Postmodern anthropology advocates an interactive account of the research in order to overcome the anthropologist’s stance of omniscient ethnographic authority. Deconstructing culture, it advocates the representation of plural voices.’ The early sociology of globalisation was associated with Roland Robertson whose Globalization (1992) established the 77

understanding islam main contours for a sociology of the globe. Robertson (1994), as a leading sociologist of religion, was sensitive to the intimate relationships between religion and the origins of globalisation. He was critical of the legacy of classical sociology which had taken the nation state as the principal ‘container’ of the social world. His work on Japan, for example, was an attempt to get sociologists to take ‘the global field’ seriously. Only with modern communication systems is there a genuine global c­ onsciousness – a­ n awareness of what Robertson has called ‘globality’. We might regard the World Parliament of Religion that met in Chicago in 1893 as a significant date in the emergence of globality in the mutual recognition of religions on a global stage. Participants included representatives of Christianity, Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Zen. It is significant that the representative of Islam was Mohammed Alexander Russell Webb (1846–1916), an American who had converted to Islam in 1888 through the influence of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908), the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement. The presence of British Muslims and Ahmadiyya in a religious parliament in Chicago were indicative of an emerging global religious diversity. Many of these issues around globalisation and religion have been addressed more recently by Olivier Roy (2010) in his book Holy Ignorance. He argues that globalisation has torn religions out of their local communal roots, and as a result religions become ‘ignorant’ of their heritage and their traditional connections with local cultures. The paradox is that in response to this dislocation, there are various forms of revivalism including fundamentalism that attempt to reconstruct religions outside of their pristine foundations. In Roy’s terms, Islamisation by its very globality is a rootless religiosity. We might think of the contemporary growth of interest in ‘spirituality’ as an individualised form of religiosity 78

postmodernism, globalisation and religion as a consequence of this global mobility. These developments explain the plethora of ideas and concepts by which sociologists have sought to capture these ­developments – ­implicit religion, à la carte religion, DIY religion and religion en miettes (religion in bits and pieces). The main question is: to what extent will Islam follow in the global postmodern tracks? More and more people of diverse cultures and religions seek spiritual advice online where they can mix and match different traditions to suit their own needs.This development also includes online ‘fatwa shopping’ where Muslims can visit various religious websites on which alleged legal specialists can offer legal rulings that favour their clients. In fact, imposing uniformity in legal decision making is challenged by the fact that the administrative apparatus for consistent enforcement is missing. This practice is regarded as a special problem on matters concerning banking and finance. With Internet question and answer services, the result is ‘thousands of legal determinations for Muslims seeking fatwas over private questions of divorce, marriage and dispute resolution. Some degree of “informalization” of religious orthodoxy and practice (for all religions) is probably inevitable’ (Turner and Richardson 2015: 312). Can we understand the online religious scene with its floating populations, no parishes or churches, heterodox beliefs and practices as an aspect of postmodernism?

Origins of Pragmatism and Postmodernism The cultural movements that adopted his idea of the postmodern have given the impression that postmodernism was Western and contemporary, and that postmodernism flourished in the 1970s and 1980s. However, as Perry Anderson (1998) has demonstrated 79

understanding islam in his The Origins of Postmodernity, the roots of postmodern theory lay on the periphery of capitalism, namely in Hispanic America where a Nicaraguan poet, writing in a Guatemalan journal of a literary encounter in Peru, defined the characteristics of Modernismo.The aim was to declare cultural independence from Spain in the 1890s. I introduce this comment on Hispanic American criticism in order to take notice of subaltern criticisms of privileged sources of knowledge, because it is relevant to subsequent discussion of positions of knowledge. One precursor to postmodernism can be identified in American pragmatism. The anti-­ foundationalist character of pragmatism has critical implications for understanding religious knowledge. American pragmatism was a movement associated with Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914),William James (1842– 1910) and John Dewey (1859–1952). Although there are different strands in pragmatism, its basic proposition was that things are true if they are useful. Things are useful if they contribute to our well-­being. Our well-­being is reflected in whether we are happy or not. There is some degree of overlap between pragmatism and consequentialism, which says that the worth of any idea, practice or institution is to be judged only in terms of their beneficial consequences. This apparently simple understanding of truth was based on James’s psychological views that we are complex beings whose responses to our environment are functional if they support our survival and well-­being. James played an important role not only in pragmatism, but also in the origins of the sociology of religion. His influential Varieties of Religious Experience (1922) was originally given as the Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh in 1901–2.These lectures asserted the ability of science to understand religious phenomena such as conversion experiences. James was not unsympathetic to reli80

postmodernism, globalisation and religion gion and as a pragmatist he asked whether religious ­belief – ­indeed religious e­ xperience – w ­ as good for the well-­being of ordinary people. His analysis of conversion experiences was also influential. James (1922: 237) proposed that the value and importance of any experience or event must be evaluated ‘on empirical grounds exclusively’. James went on to assert: If the fruits for life of the state of conversion are good, we ought to idealize and venerate it, even though it be a piece of natural psychology; if not, we ought to make short work with it, no matter what supernatural being may have infused it. (James 1922: 237)

He argued that in terms of conversion the once-­born are predisposed to happiness, while the twice-­born are prone to psychological crisis. However, if they survive the crisis, then the twice-­born rise to a new level of happiness. Ultimately James, in believing that theism promoted hope and confidence, anticipated Richard Rorty’s version of pragmatism as a philosophy concerned with the ‘health’ of democracy and the well-­being of its citizens.

The death of grand narratives Postmodernism is often associated with and defined by Jean-­ François Lyotard (1924–98) as the end of ‘grand narratives’ or simply as ‘incredulity toward meta-­narratives’ in The Postmodern Condition (Lyotard 1984). He identified two forms of knowledge in ‘science’ and ‘narratives’. Meta-­narratives give an account of the purpose and meaning of our existence. With the death 81

understanding islam of meta-­narratives, we have instead to rely on local and more modest accounts of reality, because the postmodern age is one of fragmentation and diversity. The 1970s and 1980s were subsequently seen as the foundational decades of postmodernism. With the alleged death of all ‘grand narratives’, there were transformations in society that were reflected in challenges to the credibility of traditional forms of knowledge. These underlying social transformations for Lyotard were connected to technology especially computerisation and the rise of digital culture. Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition was a report to the government of Quebec, which had a special relevance to academic culture and the authority of universities in the new age where the computer would eventually transform traditional forms of teaching and scholarship. All Abrahamic ­ religions – ­ Judaism, Christianity and I­slam – a­re unambiguously ‘grand narratives’ and they are challenged as meta-­ narratives. In particular, he claimed that the Holocaust or Shoah had brought many to the conclusion that no grand narratives were credible.

Richard Rorty on postmodernism, hope and religion A leading exponent of pragmatism and postmodernism in modern philosophy was Richard Rorty (1931–2007). He is important for understanding the relationship between pragmatism and secularism. He argued in Consequences of Pragmatism (Rorty 1982) that pragmatism emerged at the end of an historical process of de-­divination via metaphysical idealism and romanticism. I am mainly concerned with Rorty’s views on religion, which changed over time, and their implications for the study 82

postmodernism, globalisation and religion of Islam. Given Rorty’s self-­description as a ‘postmodern bourgeois liberal’, we might expect Rorty to be overtly hostile to religion in general and Christianity in particular. His philosophy with respect to religion fell into two separate periods. In his early work, he adopted the position of a hostile secular atheist. Following what he regards as the Jeffersonian compromise between Enlightenment and religion, Rorty argued in Philosophy and Hope that all religions need to be privatised to keep them out of the public domain, because the intrusion of religion into the public sphere has the effect of breaking up any democratic discussion. Rorty hopes that we may reach a point in the near future when we no longer worship anything. In The Future of Religion (Zabal 2005), Rorty rejects any authority of the Church over modern society and regards Christian teaching about gender and marriage as hopelessly dated. If these traditional commitments of the Christian churches could be abandoned, then they might better serve modern society. He believes that religion can be ‘unobjectionable’ but under strict conditions of liberal secularism: religion is unobjectionable as long as it is ­privatized – ­as long as ecclesiastical institutions do not attempt to rally the faithful behind political proposals and as long as believers and unbelievers agree to follow a policy of live and let live. (Rorty 2005)

Despite this critical response, Rorty accepts the idea that faith, hope and c­harity – t­he social message of New Testament ­Christianity – c­ an positively shape the values of secular modernity. Rorty’s anti-­foundationalism clearly has a strong bearing on questions about positionality. For Rorty, notions about truth or justice are context dependent, or at least determined by the 83

understanding islam l­anguage we have to describe the world. For advocates of positionality, our world view simply depends on what social group or society we belong to. The implication is that fruitful conversation is largely confined to the primary group to which we belong. In his ‘Pragmatism as romantic polytheism’, Rorty (1998: 28–33) adopts James’s view of beliefs that are merely habits of action that are either useful or not. By treating belief as habit, we can avoid the idea that they constitute a single world view. Thus, if Christianity was simply a social gospel it would promote respect for individuals and their well-­being in a democratic society. However, Rorty recommends we regard ourselves as ironists who have lasting doubts about our own ‘final vocabulary’ (Rorty 1989). Rorty’s view of irony is clearly important for understanding cultures that may be strange to us in allowing us to see our own culture or religion as always open to questions. In any open dialogue, we need to practise distance from our own beliefs. Rorty supports liberalism as our best hope for sustaining successful societies, because liberalism aims at expanding the scope of inter-­subjective understanding. His liberal agenda allows him to support such virtues as honesty and respecting the views of social groups to which we do not belong. This modified position allows for some degree of inter-­subjective understanding between communities. This position was clarified in his ‘Religion in the public sphere’ (Rorty 2003) where he argued that he was opposed to all forms of religious authorities such as the bureaucracy of the Roman Catholic Church, but he was sympathetic to the pastors who cared for their local communities. Although his views changed over time, in the end Rorty appeared to accept the idea of ‘civil religion’ in a democracy committed to promoting 84

postmodernism, globalisation and religion hope and civility or what he also called ‘pragmatism as romantic ­polytheism’ (Rorty 1998). Rorty’s pragmatist philosophy was well received in Iran by university students. He was a visitor to the Centre for Cultural Studies in Tehran in 2004. Rorty’s warm reception in Iran was a consequence of the simple fact that his philosophy was widely studied in Iran (Taghavi 2021) and hence the exposure to his philosophy in Iran preceded his visit. Perhaps the irony of this reception in Iran was not lost on Rorty as the philosopher of irony. The issue for Iranian philosophers was how to combine tradition and modernity without losing the authenticity of the past with the uncertain future of modernity. Many of these issues gained urgency with the deepening impact of theocracy over the democratic ambitions of the movement against the Shah whose state had collapsed in 1979 under the impact of a popular demand for democracy. In that context, there was considerable interest in his 1984 lecture ‘The priority of democracy to philosophy’ (Rorty 1992) from students who had studied his work.

The Future of Religion In considering the issue of ‘public religions’, we need to refer to José Casanova’s influential analysis of religions in the public domain (Casanova 1994). It was primarily a study of the role of the Roman Catholic Church in politics after Vatican II (1962–5). Its impact was felt in the Solidarity movement in Poland, radical movements in Latin America, and many democratic movements throughout Europe. At the same time, the 1960s was a period of crisis in the Church with declining recruitment to 85

understanding islam the priesthood, the virtual collapse of recruitment of women to religious orders, the decline in church membership and lay participation, and after a publication in the Boston Globe in 2002, with revelations about sexual abuse, the Church was engulfed by systemic problems. The result has been a widespread crisis of confidence that is connected to the rise of postmodernity (Helmick 2014: 7). While these problems have been obvious issues in Catholicism for decades, the Protestant Churches have also experienced declining numbers in recruitment to the ministry and in membership. Islam has not suffered the same theological problems as Catholicism which has, for example, struggled over the doctrine of infallibility. In addition, Islam has never had to struggle with the unintended consequences of celibacy. Perhaps the crises of Islam are of a different order. These include the global conflicts between Sunni and Shia in the struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran. In various parts of the world, Islam has been involved in conflict, for example in Yemen.Various Islamic societies from Turkey to Pakistan have struggled to assert a conservative interpretation of Islam against Western influence, but political instabilities are widespread, especially in North Africa where in 2021 Tunisia once more went through a period of popular protest against the mismanagement of the COVID-­19 pandemic, the economy and political corruption. One issue for Islam that became prominent in 2021 is the question of the survival of the Uighurs in China. While the Chinese ‘management’ of Uighurs has been widely condemned in the West, no government of a Muslim majority has commented on the situation. The problem of Uighurs in China is in fact long-­standing, but without necessarily overtly religious issues. The conflict has been between Uighurs and Han with 86

postmodernism, globalisation and religion a changing balance of populations. In the nineteenth century the Uighurs converted to Islam but in 1884 East Turkistan became a province of China. In 1991, as the Soviet Republics of Central Asia became independent states, Uighurs became associated with separatism. There has been a major migration of Han people into the region occupied by the Uighurs and by early in this century the Han represented 50 per cent of the population. The demographic change has led inevitably to Sinicisation. The conflict between the Chinese authorities and the Uighur dates in modern times to a bomb attack in Kashgar in 1993; perhaps ironically the United States response to 9/11 encouraged the Chinese state to begin a more active campaign to block any growth in Islamic political activism (Berlie 2004).

Conclusion: Death and Secularisation Many religious practices have addressed human finitude. One such practice is that humans, unlike other animals, bury their dead, indicating that death is a profound problem for human beings. We can argue, following Lyotard, that beliefs about birth and death, or our beginning and our end, have been the building blocks of all civilisational meta-­narratives. The classic meta-­ narratives of human civilisations, not least the Bible and the Qur’an, have pondered the tragic meaning of death. Any attempt to modify or intervene in the lifespan, such as abortion or euthanasia, occasion widespread apprehension. Islam strongly identifies with the sanctity of life and early Islam condemned the pre-­Islamic practice of female infanticide. Various verses in the Qur’an (17/31 and 6/151) established the tradition that Allah sends an angel to breathe a soul into the foetus after forty days. 87

understanding islam This idea has allowed some Muslim societies such as Turkey to permit abortion under certain specific circumstances (Whaley 2007). Islam also permits coitus interruptus (azl). This practice was discussed and approved by Al-­Ghazali in the eleventh century if the parents were faced with hardship. The theme of death and the tragic nature of human life was central to the legacy of Omar Khayyam (1048–1131), the Persian Sufi astronomer whose Rubaiyat became popular in Victorian England with the translation undertaken by Edward Fitzgerald in 1859. Although the Fitzgerald translation is now critically evaluated from the perspective of postcolonialism, it should not obscure the message behind the translation, which addressed the generation and corruption of all human existence as a fundamental metanarrative. Death has also been a critical issue in twentieth-­century philosophy. Hans-­Georg Gadamer, who suffered as a young man from poliomyelitis, has written on human suffering and the limitations of medical science (Gadamer 1996). The basis of his version of hermeneutics was an inquiry into our temporality. In conversation with Jacques Derrida and Gianni Vattimo, Gadamer (Derrida and Vattimo 1998: 2) asked ‘Can there be such a thing as acceptance of death? Does this not go beyond our human powers?’ Any discussion of the future of religion should take these two questions seriously when confronted by modern medical technology that promises humanity indefinite life especially through ‘rejuvenative medicine’ (Turner and Dumas 2016). Gerontologists predict that life expectancy for girls, who live longer than boys, born around 2050 will be over a 100 years. However, organisations such as SENS (Strategies for Engineering Negligible Senescence), founded in 2009 by Aubrey de Gray, are 88

postmodernism, globalisation and religion developing rejuvenative solutions for the disabilities and diseases of ageing. De Gray argues in fact that he is not interested in the issue of living forever, but merely wants to find solutions to human suffering. He does argue, however, that with rejuvenative medicine the only cause of death would be a fatal accident such as being run over by a truck. Perhaps less credible developments have occurred with cryonics that are used to deep freeze people in order to return them to life in some distant future once medical science has solved the mystery of indefinite life. If these technical innovations are successful, the majority of people in the most advanced societies would in effect live, perhaps not forever, but at least very long lives. These radical developments would bring into question what we understand by ‘religion’ as a meta-­narrative of life and death. Despite political and military conflict, a World Bank report shows that life expectancy in the Middle East and North Africa climbed from 46.4 years in 1960 to 74 years in 2018. COVID-­19 and new variants will have a depressing effect on these figures from 2019 onwards. References Akbar,Ahmed (1992), Postmodernism and Islam: Predicament and Promise, London: Routledge. Anderson, Perry (1998), The Origins of Postmodernity, London:Verso. Berle, Jean A. (2004), Islam in China: Hui and Uighurs between Modernization and Sinicization, Bangkok: White Lotus Press. Casanova, José (1994), Public Religions in the Modern World, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Derrida, Jacques and Vattimo, Gianni (1998), Religion, Cambridge: Polity Press. Dickstein, Morris (ed.) (2020), The Revival of Pragmatism: New Essays on Social Thought, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Gadamer, Hans-­Georg (1996), The Enigma of Health: The Art of Healing in a Scientific Age, Cambridge: Polity Press.

89

understanding islam Gadamer, Hans-­Georg (1998), ‘Dialogues in Capri’, in Jacques Derrida and Gianni Vattimo (eds), Religion, Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 200–11. Gellner, Ernest (1992), Postmodernism, Reason and Religion, London: Routledge. Helmick, Raymond G. (2014), The Crisis of Confidence in the Catholic Church, London: Bloomsbury. James, William (1922), Varieties of Religious Experience, New York; Longman, Green and Company. Lyotard, Jean-­François (1984), The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Rakmani, Inaya (2016), Mainstreaming Islam in Indonesia: Television Identity and the Middle Class, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Robertson, Roland (1992), Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture, London: Sage. Robertson, Roland (1994), ‘Religion and the global field’, Social Compass, 41(1): 121–35. Rorty, Richard (1982), Consequences of Pragmatism, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Rorty, Richard (1989), Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rorty, Richard (1992), ‘The priority of democracy to philosophy’, in John P. Reeder and Gene Outka (eds), Prospects for a Common Morality, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 257–82. Rorty, Richard (1998), ‘Pragmatism as romantic polytheism’, in Morris Dickstein (ed.), The Revival of Pragmaticism: New Essays on Social Thought, Law and Culture, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 21–36. Rory, Richard (2003), ‘Religion in the public sphere’, Journal of Religious Ethics, 31(1): 141–9. Rorty, Richard (2005), ‘Anticlericalism and atheism’, in Santiago Zabala (ed.), The Future of Religion, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 29–41. Roy, Olivier (2004) Globalised Islam: The Search for a New Ummah, London: Hurst. Roy, Olivier (2010), Holy Ignorance: When Religion and Culture Part Ways, New York: Columbia University Press. Taghavi, Seyed Mohammad Ali (2021), ‘Reception of Rorty’s thought in Iran: how his anti-­foundationalism has contributed to Iran’s tradition-­modernity debate’, Middle East Critique, 30(2): 169–84. Turner, Bryan S. and Dumas, Alex (2016), L’antivieillissement: Vieillir à l’ère des Nouvelles biotechnologies, Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval. Turner, Bryan S. and Richardson, James (2015), ‘The future of legal plural-

90

postmodernism, globalisation and religion ism’, in Adam Possamai, James T. Richardson and Bryan S Turner (eds), The Sociology of Shari’a: Case Studies from Around the World, New York: Springer, pp. 305–13. Venturi, Robert and Brown, Denise Scott (1972), Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Werbner, Pnina (2003), Pilgrims of Love: The Anthropology of a Global Sufi Cult, London: Hurst. Whaley, Zoe (2007), ‘Birth control and abortion in the practice and tradition of Islam’, Macalester Islam Journal, 2(3): 29–33. Zabal, Santiago (ed.) (2005), The Future of Religion: Richard Rorty and Gianni Vattimo, New York: Columbia University Press.

Reports Helliwell, John F., Layard, Richard, Sachs, Jeffrey and De Neve, Jan-­Emmanuel (eds) (2021), World Happiness Report 2021, New York: Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

91

5

Orientalism and Islam

Introduction: Imperalism and Edward Said’s Orientalism Unlike the study of other ‘world religions’, the understanding of Islam has been controversial insofar as it has been continuosly and heavily influenced by political events in both the West and the Middle East, such as 9/11, the invasion of Afghanistan and the enduring conflicts between Palestine and Israel. In 2021 attacks by ISIS, Al-­Qaeda and their affiliates opened up a new front as they spread through the Sahel in Mali, Chad, Niger and Burkina Faso. The underlying causes include drought, poverty, unemployment and ineffectual governments. As with Afganistan, international military action often results in high civilian casualties through ‘collateral damage’, thereby widening the gap between Western forces and local populations. Understanding Islam has also to be concerned with ancient divisions and contemporary political struggles within the Islamic world itself. As with other world religions, Islam has significant theological and political divisions, primarily between Sunni and Shia traditions. However, so-­called Islamic ‘sects’ include Ahmadiyya, Ibadiyya, Ismailis and Kharijites. Sufi mysticism is widespread across the Muslim world, but is not routinely regarded 92

orientalism and islam as a sect. The Sunni tradition has been historically dominant and shaped by the idea of Ash’­arism – t­he conservative branch of Sunni Islam that has been promoted by Saudi Arabia. Its original doctrines were the work of al-­Ash’ari (873–936).Over time this tradition became the basis of authoritarian rule in Sunni Islam in emphasising the importance of scriptural and clerical authority. While the unintended consequence of these uprisings, in which young people dominated opposition to ruling elites, was to re-­ inforce authoritarian rule especially in Egypt and Turkey, the protests and the sense of alienation with the legacy of powerful elites and their political dominance continue. Hence these regimes continue to be challenged by younger generations who want greater personal freedom and more democratic (or at least competent) rule. In Turkey, the new mood of reform is expressed by writers such as Mustafa Akyol who made the case for greater personal liberty in his Islam without Extremes (2011). Following a lecture he gave in Malaysia, the book was banned on the grounds that it would result in civil unrest. In attempting to develop credible interpretations of Islam, we need to keep in mind both the historical divisions within Islam and modern political turbulence. Such divisions have not always been seen as problematic for Islam. The famous Sufi scholar Ibn al-‘Arabi (1165–1240) did not see the divisions within Islam or the existence of many religions as a problem, but rather as evidence of the richness and complexity of the world in which we live (Chittick 1989). On the contrary he believed in what was referred to as ‘the unity of religions’, namely that the diversity of religions in the world were all understood to be pathways to God. The diversity of views within Islam was taken to be evidence of God’s mercy over his wrath.We might even see in Ibn Al-‘Arabi’s philosophy an early version of the positionality of 93

understanding islam knowledge. He argued that each seeker after God existed within a ‘station’ that was composed of a host of factors. To understand a station, a person must stand fully within it. It is claimed by many researchers working on Islam that there is an additional difficulty to understanding, which is that Islam has been understood through the lens of Orientalism. This term was originally used to describe a particular branch of scholarship that was broadly concerned with the Orient. It was later identified with painting and literature, especially from the nineteenth century, that depicted the East in often romantic and exotic settings. These works had the effect of treating Islam in particular as a strange ‘Other’. Paintings, especially from the French school, often had a salacious aspect. Scenes of harems were popular. However, within history, philosophy and sociology, Orientalism came to mean a perspective on the Orient that treated societies outside Europe as static and underdeveloped. It is argued that Orientalism became a justification for the colonial management of societies that were claimed to be unable to manage their own affairs. Although Orientalism has a long history, much of the modern debate about Orientalism has been dominated by the work of Edward Said (1935–2003). In his highly influential Orientalism (1978), Said defined ‘Orientalism’ in a variety of different ways including the academic institutions for the study of the Orient, a style of thought that contrasts the ‘Occident’ and ‘Orient’, a corporate institution that from the late eighteenth century existed to deal with the Orient, and finally it is a ‘discourse’ by which the ‘Orient’ is produced as a topic for inspection and analysis. This notion of the discursive production of the Orient is a fundamental ambiguity in Said’s account and one much challenged by his critics. By treating the Orient as a fiction created by lit94

orientalism and islam erary works on the Orient, there is no avenue by which actual societies in the Middle East or Asia could become subjects for serious empirical study by historians and social scientists. They could only be studied as discourses or texts. The idea of Orientalism had been explored long before the publication of Said’s Orientalism. Fred Halliday (1993: 148), whose response to Said’s work occupies much of the background to this chapter, observed that criticism of Orientalism long pre-­dates the publication of Said’s work in 1978. Indeed, given the kinds of work that were being produced by academics and others in the previous two decades, Said’s work can be seen as coming at the end of, and to a considerable degree negating, an earlier body of work, much of it stimulated by the war in Vietnam and the broader upheavals of the Third World at the time.

One important figure in this early work on Orientalism was Raymond Schwab, whose La Renaissance orientale in 1950 defined much of the field before Said’s intervetion. The title of Schwab’s volume indicates his view that, whereas the classical Renaissance looked to the West within the confines of the Greco-­Roman world, the later Renaissance had opened up the world, for example through growing trade with India and beyond. As with Said’s own approach to literary analysis, Schwab was uninterested in ‘the economic, social and political forces that work during the periods he studies’ (Said 1984: 263). Schwab’s interest, however, was not in the great figures of Western literature, but in what he called ‘le secondaire’ or lesser ­figures – ­the translators and ­compilers – ­who made possible the work of great scholars. He examined the works of amateurs and writers who operated through the salons. Unlike the later works of Orientalism, Schwab saw the Orient as a rich contribution 95

understanding islam to the culture (poetry in p­articular) of the West. If Schwab came before Said, there were subsequently important accounts of Western views on Islam that were somewhat overshadowed by Said’s work. For example, Albert Hourani’s Islam in European Thought (1991) painted a more complex picture of changing attitudes towards Islam over a longer period of time: ‘Looking at Islam with a mixture of fear, bewilderment and uneasy recognition of spirtual kinship, Christians could see it in more than one light. Occasonally the spiritual kinship was acknowledged’ (Hourani 1991: 9). From Said’s perspective, the West came to understand the Orient through the texts that produced it. I shall return to this ­issue – ­the relation between text and ­reality – ­when I consider Said’s impact on the sociology of Islam. For now we can note that his approach to textual analysis versus the empirical study of actually existing societies depends to some extent on how far his research was influenced by Michel Foucault and post-­structuralism. Said (1978: 23) comments briefly that he ‘is greatly indebted to Foucault’. The other influence on Said was Raymond Williams’s The Long Revolution (1961). Williams was an important figure in the growth of cultural studies in English departments and more broadly in the humanities in Britain. Williams’s own ‘position’ offers some tangential perpective on Said’s ‘position’. As a Welshman from the borders and a socialist, Williams never felt accepted at Oxford University (Williams 1989). Despite fame and success, he saw himself as a permanent outsider. Williams’s ambiguous ‘positionality’ found a parallel in Said’s own ambiguities with respect to Columbia University in New York and the ‘Edward’ in his name. I consider these issues in more depth in Chapter 8.While Said refers to Williams and Foucault, sociology had no obvious impact on his research. The 96

orientalism and islam only exception was Antonio Gramsci, whose concept of hegemony in Prison Note Books (2011) receives one reference, but with no serious analysis. However, Said declared that hegemony is ‘an indispensible concept for any understanding of cultural life in the industrial West’ (Said 1978: 7). Said explored the tradition of writing about Islam and the Middle East from explorers, travellers, writers and academics. These art works, novels and academic publications promoted a ‘broadly imperialist view of the world’ (Said 1978: 15). The underlying assumption behind this body of work was that the Orient could not represent itself. It had to be understood by and through the superior intellectual apparatus of the Occident. Said began his volume with a quotation from Karl Marx in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (Marx 1962) – ‘They cannot represent themselves; they must be represented’, which for Said suitably summarised the basic Orientalist presupposition. Said was, however, critical of Marx’s notion of the Asiatic mode of production which emphasised the despotic and changeless character of Asia. In his journalism Marx argued that Britain, by introducting private property, a railway system and newspapers, had revolutionised the base of Indian society, thereby driving India out of its stationary existence (Said 1978: 153–5).The unintended consequences of British rule were beneficial for Indian development. Similar views about ‘social stationariness’were held by the British utiliarians such as James Mill and J. S. Mill, both of whom had served as examiners at East India House (Turner 1974). Although Said’s work offered an important critique of Western understanding of the Orient, his focus was primarily on the humanities rather than social science. Marx was classified by Said under romantic Orientalism in believing that Western intervention could ultimately have positive ­consequences. 97

understanding islam Orientalism is primarily concerned with literary and academic works from the beginning of the nineteenth century in the high-­water mark of imperialism. Said examined an eclectic collection of works from Mark Twain, French Orientalists and the romantic reminiscences of travellers of the ilk of Freya Stark. Western contact with Islam obviously occurred over a much longer period. In 1579 Queen Elizabeth I of England received a letter from the Ottoman Sultan Murad III recommending enhanced trade relations between his sultanate and her kingdom. In 1600 the Moroccan Sultan Ahmad al-­Mansur sent a delegation led by his ambassador Muhammad al-­Annuri to form a political alliance with Protestant England against Catholic Spain (Brotton 2016). Turkish traders were regular features in London during Elizabeth’s reign, when fear of the ‘Turk’ was as prevalent as fear of Catholic Spain. The so-­called ‘War of Cyprus’ in 1570–3 between the republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire was the background to Shakespeare’s Othello in 1603. Othello the Moor is a general in the Venetian army during an invasion of the island of Rhodes by ‘the Ottomites’. Given the extent of trade in the Mediterranean basin, the capture and conversion of British sailors to Islam was a common occurrence in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Matar 1998). One important feature of this period needs to be kept in mind. Insofar as the English crown was focused on conquest, it was directed towards the new colonies in what became North America rather than eastwards to the Middle East. Francis Drake’s ‘Raiding Expedition’ (1577–80) took him across the Atlantic and eventually along the Pacific coast of South America and California, where he was able to raid many Spanish treasure ships. His global voyage was the opening episode of the Anglo-­Spanish War and the beginning of English colonialism 98

orientalism and islam in North America. Throughout this period, the struggle against Catholicism occupied the English court far more than their fear of Turkish threats in the Mediterranean. Evidence of this excitement about the American colonies, especially Virginia, is reinforced by the popularity of Shakespeare’s play The Tempest which explored ‘the New World’. It was first performed in 1611 and was based on reports of a famous shipwreck off the Bermudas in 1609. There is a plausible argument to be made that North America and India were the enduring themes of the British colonial imagination, not the Middle East. In criticising Said’s account of Orientalism, one cannot ignore the history of French and British imperialism. Said (1978: 79–94) considered at some length the implications of the invasion of Egypt by Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) and the work on the Suez Canal at some length. Napoleon’s campaign from 1798 to 1801 was designed to block the British trade route to India and also to remove Napoleon from French politics where he was seen to be too powerful. Despite the initial success of his campaign, for example at the Battle of the Pyramids in 1798, the conduct of the campaigns was often incompetent and accompanied by a significant loss of troops and equipment. The British Navy was also successful in containing the French, for instance at the Battle of the Nile where Lord Nelson destroyed much of the French fleet. Although the invasion in the long run secured Napoleon’s political and military authority in France, the campaign in Egypt was important in the developent of Orientalism, because of its remarkable scientific ambition. Along with his army, Napoleon took a large number of scientists with the aim of establishing the Institut d’Égypte and the larger ambition of bringing the Enlightenment and principles of the French Revolution not 99

understanding islam only to Egypt but to the Ottoman lands (Dykstra 2008). One significant outcome was the discovery of the Rosetta Stone which dated from 196 bc. The decoding of the stone became the basis of a new area of study, namely Egyptology.The invasion was also the occasion of the development of the Code Napoléon which is credited with the foundation of the revolutionary principles of equality, private property and liberalism. Napoleon was not indifferent to Islam, claiming that the new regime would be based on the principles of the Qur’an and would become a society worthy of the Prophet. The invasion laid the basis for the emergence of an independent Egypt under Muhammad Ali Pasha. Napoleon’s campaign had long term consequences for Egypt,when he explored Suez with a view to creating a canal for international shipping. Ferdinand de Leseps secured an agreement with the Ottoman governor to build a canal 100 miles from Cairo across the Isthmus of Suez. It was begun in 1859 and opened in 1869. In 1875 Britain became the major shareholder in the Suez Canal Company.The canal, which connected the manufacturing industries of Birmingham to India, was financed by French and British banks.The costs of construction rose steeply and the Egyptian government was confronted by rising debt, which became unmanageable, forcing Sa’id Pasha to sell the Egyptian shares in the canal to the British in 1875. As the Egyptian government was foreced into debt, the pound sterling was rising in value, making any repayments increasingly expensive.Through these capital controls, the British could also begin to control Egyptian politics, for example by removing Ismai’il Pasha and replacing him with Khedive Tewfik Ismai’il Pasha. During this whole period, it was the Egyptian peasantry (the fellahin) that suffered most from increasing rent and labour extraction for cotton production. The plight of the people was 100

orientalism and islam further intensified by an outbreak of cholera in 1883 (Berque 1972: 124–5).

The Limitations of Said’s Orientalism Said’s work has been of major importance, but there are problems with his approach that have been noted by many critics. One limitation to Said’s analysis, which on the surface is perfectly reasonable, was to concentrate on the discourses that emerged from Britain, France and America. Of these three powers, it was Britain and France that dominated the world of the Eastern Mediterranean. American economic and political dominance came later. Said admits that the focus on Britain and France does not do justice to the Orientalist writing that emerged from Italy and Germany. In contrast to France and Britain, Germany had no colonial penetration of the Middle East or Asia. Because Said was focused, given the nature of his enterprise, on the Orient, European colonialism in Africa was not part of his critique. However, Britain and France had considerable colonial possessions in Africa, where they often integrated Muslims into their colonial administration on the basis of indirect rule. British management of Northern Nigeria gave considerable administrative and legal autonomy to Islamic communities. Germany did not enter into the race for African possessions until the 1880s (Motadel 2012). In 1885,under Otto von Bismarck’s oversight, Kaiser Wilhelm I signed an imperial charter to bring the colonies in East Africa under a protectorate. In 1898,Wilhelm II visited Contantinople and Damascus and declared, as a new phase in his Weltpolitik, that Germany was a friend of Islam and protector of the Sultan Abdulhamid II 101

understanding islam against the Russians and the British. In terms of their racial hierarchy, which followed social Darwinism, Germans regarded their Muslim subjects as superior to the general native population (Weiss 2000). These positive attitudes changed following resistance primarily from the Sufi brotherhoods. In 1904–8, German forces carried out a genocide of Herero, Nama and Sam comunities in South West Africa. Those that were not killed in the fighting died in concentration camps. It is now regarded as the first genocide of the twentieth century. These methods are also regarded as the precursor of the subsequent treatment of Jews in concentration camps (Langbehn and Salama 2011). German control over its colonies in both West and East Africa were finally dissolved in the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.This aspect of Western colonialism does not come into Said’s purview, because his focus was on the Orient. However, his neglect of German Orientalism is a serious limitation (Wokoeck 2009) and in reality European colonial encounters in relation to Islam in Africa cannot be separated from colonialism in Asia. Of equal interest is the response to Islam of the German Lutheran theologians (Karabela 2021) who do not feature in Said’s account.After the Reformation, the divisions within Christianity became deeper and more troublesome. Christendom was divided between Roman Catholism, Calvinism and Lutheranism. Over time there were further divisions within the Protestant churches for example with the rise of Pietism and eventually with the emergence of Methodism. For example Adam Nenser (d.1576), a Lutheran pastor converted to Islam, lived in Istanbul. He wrote extensively on Islam in order to explain Islamic teaching about theology, philosophy and ethics. Lutheran theologians in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries developed an extensive and sophisticated study of Islam virtually creating Quranic Studies. 102

orientalism and islam They were especialy interested in the divisions within Islam such as the Sunni and Shi’ite split which became a mirror within which to examine the divisions of Christianity. Lutherans saw Islam as a parallel to Catholicism which had departed from the sole authority of the Scriptures and had introduced beliefs and practices that had no basis in the biblical record. Islam was also seen to have departed from the pristine message of Muhammad at Mecca and the principles of the Qur’an. America does not occupy a significant position in Orientalism. The first treaty of the newly independent America was with the Bey of Barbary in 1796 which indictes that the Islam was not at that time seen as a threat. Significant American interest and involvement in the Middle East date from the end of the Second World War, after Britain and France were no longer dominant players. At that point, new experts including social scientists entered the field, but Said noted that there was a ‘singular avoidance of literature’ and he complained that what was important for these new experts was ‘“facts” of which a literary text is perhaps a disturber’ (Said 1978: 291). It is not surprising that, if you want to rule a country, you might want ‘the facts’ rather than the novels of Melville and Mark Twain. Indeed ‘the very fact of trying to subjugate a country would to some degree involve producing an accurate picture of it’ (Halliday 1993: 160). However, America is important in the West’s encounter with Islam for a variety of reasons. Muslims entered America through the African slave trade and thus Islam has had a continuous presence in American history. Thomas Jefferson’s ownership of George Sale’s translation of the Qur’an (Spellberg 2008) indicates that Islam was no stranger to the colonial elite. Sale translated the Latin version of the Qur’an by Louis Maracci in 1734 103

understanding islam with the title Alcoran of Mohammad. Sale treated Muhammad as a military leader who had imposed order and a legal framework over the land. Jefferson’s response to the Qur’an and to Muslims in the post-­revolutionary society illustrates the complexity of Western approaches to Islam. Said (1978: 63–4) was obviously aware of Sale’s translation. In a reference to Goethe, Said (1978: 168) commented that Sale’s Qur’an ‘translated barbarous splendor into usable information for the sublimely talented poet’. With the growing attention to texts by authors who sought to imitate Said’s achievements as a scholar of comparative literature, the publication of Orientalism paradoxically hindered the development of the sociology of Islam. Students who followed Said’s critique could turn away from conventional ethnographic fieldwork and sociological surveys to cross-­ examine texts in order to detect the prevalence of the assumptions of Orientalism, and the field of academic critique quickly became overly repetitive and conventional. The investigation of texts came to replace the analysis of empirical data (Varisco 2005, 2007). Empirical research, to see how societies actually function, gave way to cultural analysis of society as a discourse that could be decoded and criticised as the facade of colonialism. Fred Halliday also criticised the legacy of Said’s Orientalism in a lecture to the British Society for Middle East Studies (Halliday 1993). At the beginning of his lecture, Halliday explained that his own study of the Middle East had been shaped by revolution and resistance in Iran, the Egyptian revolution of 1952, the Palestinian movement, the revolutions in South America and the post-­revolutionary regimes of Yemen. On the basis of these concerns, Halliday offered a general criticism in that ‘Said has focussed on discourses about the region, not on the societies or politics themselves’ (Halliday 1993: 150). 104

orientalism and islam The substance of his critical response came under four headings. First, the idea of ‘Orientalism’ is used in a manner that is too promiscuous with the result that in Said’s account Orientalism ‘acquires an almost metaphysical power to pervade very different epochs and genres of expression; in so doing it loses its analytic or explanatory purchase’(Halliday 1993: 158). Second, focusing on the claim regarding a special animosity towards the inhabitants of the Middle East or against Islam ‘does not bear historical comparison’ (Halliday 1993: 158). The genocide against the native inhabitants of North America and Canada was conducted as a crusade that was far more devastating that anything against Islam. The third ­difficulty – ­and in my view the most ­serious – ­concerns Said’s epistemological assumptions. Halliday offers an argument that seriously questions the assumptions of ‘positionality’. He claims that ‘the fact that a particular discovery or idea was produced by a particular interest group, or by a context-­bound individual tells us nothing about its validity’(Halliday 1993: 159). The fourth criticism concerns Said’s assumption that there is no significant difference between travel tales, fiction, journalism and social science. Said often appears to follow the ‘conceit of postmodernism’ that ‘literature and its methods can serve as a means, even a privileged one, of social analysis’ (Halliday 1993: 155). Despite the many criticism of Orientalism, its publication has been credited with two major intellectual ­ developments – ­postcolonial studies and p­ ositionality – b­ oth of which have influenced the writing of this book. While these are credited to Said, his influence over their developments has been disputed (Brennan 2000). Positionality is the subject matter of Chapter 8. In anticipation of that discussion, let us quote Said’s discussion of the ‘upper hand’: ‘Orientalism depends for its strategy on the flexible positional superiority, which puts the Westerner in a 105

understanding islam whole series of possible relationships with the Orient w ­ ithout ever losing him the relative upper hand’ (Said 1978: 7). The scholar, trader or the imperial governor could contemplate and understand the Orient simply because they ‘could be there’. In concluding these critical observations, I turn finally to anthropology. In many respects, anthropology has been the primary target of criticism connecting anthropological fieldwork to the practical needs of colonial authorities to administer and control subordinated populations. In response to Said, George E. Marcus and Michael M. J. Fischer (1986: 2), in Anthropology as Cultural Critique, complained that Said poses in his book no alternative form for the adequate representation of other voices or points of view cross cultural boundaries nor does he instill any hope that this might be possible. He in fact practices the same sort of rhetorical totalitarianism against his chosen enemies as he condemns.

They go on to point out that much of the criticism of Western anthropology was developed as self-­critique within anthroplogy in the 1960s.

Conclusion: Post-Orientalism Said was mainly focused on what we can regard as the high-­ water mark of Orientalism during the colonial supremacy that operated in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but we can trace the origins of Orientalism and the West’s response to Islam over a much longer period. Western attitudes to Islam have changed radically over time. Early responses to Islam in what we can call the classical age of Islam were curious and 106

orientalism and islam superficial rather than condescending and critical. In the period 950–1270 during the great expansion of Islam, the West feared Islam. During the Elizabethan period, the Turk was feared in the shipping routes of the Mediterranean. Between 1600 and 1750, the military and political power of Europe expanded and Islam declined as a threat to European shipping, trade and governance. Said’s Orientalism covered the late stages of the West’s encounter with Islam and the Middle East. Said’s work implies that the Orientalism of the 1800s was the same Orientalism that operated at the time of his death in 2003. Daniel Varisco (2007), in Reading Orientalism, claims that it is time to move beyond the ‘us-­versus-­them’ polemics that have engulfed Said’s Orientalism. In summarising the debate, Nikki Keddie (2007: 342), in Women in the Middle East, also observed that there is a tendency in the field of Middle East studies to embrace the word Orientalism as a ‘generalized swear-­word’ to attack people who embraced the ‘wrong’ position on the Arab–Israeli conflict or to academics who are regarded as too conservative.

We need to move intellectually into a post-­Orientalism phase if we are to progress with a more sophisticated and open understanding of Islam and beyond the Occident versus the Orient (Turner 2021).

References Akyol, Mustafa (2011), Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty, New York and London: W. W. Norton & Co. Berque, Jacques (1972), Egypt: Imperialism and Revolution, London: Faber and Faber.

107

understanding islam Brennan, Timothy (2000), ‘The illusion of a future: “Orientalism” as travelling theory’, Critical Inquiry, 26(3): 558–83. Brotton, Jerry (2016), The Sultan and the Queen: The Untold Story of Elizabeth and Islam, New York:Viking. Cesari, Jocelyne (2006), Securitization and Religious Divides in Europe after 9/11 – why the term Islamophobia is more a predicament than an explanation, Paris: Challenge. Chittick,William C. (1989), The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-Arabi’s Metaphysics of Imagination, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Dykstra, Darrell (2008), ‘The French occupation of Egypt 1798–1801’, in M. W. Daly (ed.), The Cambridge History of Egypt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 113–38. Gramsci, Antonio (2011), Prison Note Books, New York: Columbia University Press. Halliday, Fred (1993), ‘“Orientalism” and its critics’, British Journal of Middle East Studies, 20(2): 145–63. Halliday, Fred (1996), Islam and the Myth of Confrontation, London: I. B. Tauris. Hourani, Albert (1991), Islam in European Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Karabela, Memet (2021), Islamic Thought through Protestant Eyes, New York and London: Routledge. Keddie, Nikki (2007), Women in the Middle East: Past and Present, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kumar, Deepa (2012), Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, London: Haymarket Books. Langbehn, Volker and Salama, Mohammad (ed.) (2011), German Colonialism: Race, the Holocaust and Postwar Germany, New York: Columbia University Press. Marcus, George L. and Fischer, Michael M. J. (1986), Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Marx, Karl (1962), The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, New York: International Publishers. Matar, Nabil (1998), Islam in Britain 1558–1685, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Motadel, David (2012), ‘Islam and the European empires’, Historical Journal, 55(3): 831–56. Said, Edward W. (1978), Orientalism, London: Routledge. Said, Edward W. (1984), The World, the Text and the Critic, London: Faber.

108

orientalism and islam Schwab, Raymond (1950), La Renaissance orientale, Paris: Payot. Spellberg, Denise A. (2008), Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an: Islam and the Founders, New York:Vintage Books. Turner, Bryan S. (1974), ‘The concept of “social stationariness”: Utilitarianism and Marxism’, Science and Society, xxxviii(1): 3–18. Turner, Bryan S. (2021), ‘Islam and post-­ Orientalism: debates concerning comparative and historical sociology’, in Gartner, Christel and Winkler, Heidemarie (eds), Exploring Islam beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism: Sociological Approaches, Wiesbaden: Springer: 21–42. Varisco, Daniel Martin (2005), Islam Obscured: The Rhetoric of Anthropological Representation, New York: Palgrave. Varisco, Daniel Martin (2007), Reading Orientalism, Seattle, WA: and London: University of Washington Press. Varisco, Daniel Martin (2013), ‘Orientalism and bibliolatry: framing the Holy Land in nineteenth-­century Protestant Bible customs texts’, in Ian Netton (ed.), Orientalism Revisited: Art, Land and Voyage, London: Routledge, pp. 187–204. Weiss, Holger (2000), ‘German images of Islam in West Africa’, Sudanic Africa, 11: 53–93. Williams, Raymond (1961), The Long Revolution, London: Chatto and Windus. Williams, Raymond (1989), What I Came to Say, London: Hutchinson. Wokoeck, Ursula (2009), German Orientalism: The Study of the Middle East amd Islam 1800–1945, New York: Routledge.

109

6

Islamophobia

Introduction: The Origins of Islamophobia One central topic in the growth of the sociology of Islam has been the ubiquitous critical research agenda on Islamophobia. The value and meaning of the concept has generated an extensive academic and public debate (Cesari 2006). Academic responses to this public fear have been defined as an ‘industry’ (Lean 2012). Apart from its domestic manifestations, it has also been seen as fundamental to American foreign policy (Jacobs 2006). Islam is viewed as a crucial component in the ‘clash of civilizations’ that was first announced by Samuel Huntington in Foreign Affairs in 1993.Violence against the Muslim world is also a global problem from the attack against a mosque in New Zealand to random attacks on Muslims in the United States and to constitutional attempts to change the legal status of Muslims in India (Kumar 2012). The attack on the Twin Towers and its aftermath were defining moments in the spread of Islamophobia (Cesari 2010). While not denying violence against Islam, much discussion in the media and the academy often exaggerates the extent and level of confrontation with Islam (Halliday 1996). Despite US military conflicts in the Middle East and Asia, Muslims are a 110

islamophobia long-­standing and relatively successful community in the United Sates with a substantial and influential middle class in such cities as New York, Detroit and Newark (Alba and Nee 2003; Bilici 2012; Bleich 2011). One cannot deny the widespread presence of Islamophobia in Europe and North American. In Why the West fears Islam, Jocelyne Cesari (2013) assembled an exhaustive list of reports from sociological surveys conducted between 1990 and 2012 showing, among other issues, that respondents believed that Islam was incompatible with Western societies. Respondents typically expressed fear of Muslims in their midst. Sociology can usefully undermine false and damaging claims about Islam such as the idea that radical Islam had infiltrated British schools (Holmwood and O’Toole 2017). For political movements in defence of Islam, the concept of Islamophobia functions legitimately and effectively, but it often obscures the complexity of the issues and the historical transformations of Muslim relationships with the West. Muslims do not constitute an ethnic group and their communities are diverse, geographically dispersed and often internally fragmented along religious lines. It is difficult to accept the assumption that Muslims can be the common global target of a single undifferentiated and irrational prejudice. As we have seen in previous chapters, attitudes towards Islam have ranged from curiosity to fear or to a sense of colonial superiority. However, those attitudes, values and official policies were typically directed towards what was at the time seen to be a distant Islamic culture in the Middle East, North Africa or parts of Asia that were connected to Europe by fragile trade routes or by the adventures of explorers and travellers. The contemporary response to Islam is no longer towards distant, strange and exotic cultures, but to Muslims long resident in the West 111

understanding islam as well as Muslim communities that are well connected to the West through trade, employment and family relationships. After many generations of settlement, Muslims in the West are fellow citizens and part of the social and cultural fabric of the West. Furthermore, it is important to distinguish different responses to Muslims in Western democracies, because the experience of Western connections to Islam is not uniform (Abdelkader 2017). France’s colonial conflict with and occupation of Algeria is very different from British imperial rule over India or its administrative control of Egypt (Fetzer and Soper 2005). The French legal and political system of state secularisation of society or laïcité has no exact replica in the rest of Europe. Unsurprisingly, laïcité is much contested (Adrian 2016). While the British government has exercised some degree of tolerance towards religious dress codes, the French government’s ban on headscarves in 2004 appeared needlessly to infringe individual liberties (Bowen 2010). Germany had no significant colonial involvement in the Middle East or Asia during the imperial age and there were times when Muslims were accepted as part of German society (Ozyurek 2015). Although in this volume I concentrate either on Muslim majority countries in the Middle East or on Muslim minorities in the West, we must not ignore the fact that, some 62 per cent of the world’s Muslims live in the Asia-­Pacific area. Indonesia is the largest Muslim-­majority society, where 87.2 per cent are Muslim. By contrast, from the same region, Singapore offers an important case study of the state’s management of religious diversity. Surrounded by two Muslim ­societies – ­Malaysia and ­Indonesia – ­Singapore’s Chinese population has felt vulnerable. The state has responded by exercising close control and surveillance of religion. In the 1980s, Lee Kuan Yew ran a campaign 112

islamophobia against communists including Roman Catholic activists in a social justice programme (Barr 2010). Pious Muslims also feel vulnerable, while surrounded by a secular Chinese population whose dietary p­ ractices – s­uch as the consumption of p­ ork – ­threaten Muslim piety with daily contamination (Kamaludeen et al. 2010). After the attack on the mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, K. Shanmugan, minister for home affairs in Singapore, said that Singaporeans had to ‘face squarely the reality of Islamophobia’.

Islamofascism In the academic literature on Islamophobia, there is a curious absence of any extensive discussion of a far more critical and potentially dangerous notion, namely ‘Islamofascism’, which purports to detect a parallel between German fascism and authoritarian movements in Islam such as Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia. In fact, the concept has a relatively long history beginning in the 1930s, when it was referred to as ‘Islamicfascism’ with a direct reference to authoritarian National Socialism.The idea emerged again in the context of the Cold War when Manfred Halpern (1963), in The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa, compared the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to fascism. The idea surfaced once more with the Iranian Revolution, when many commentators saw the growing dominance of a religious elite as undermining the popular revolt against the authoritarianism of the Shah. Said Amir Arjomand (1988) argued that Khomeini had replaced the Shi’ite tradition of separating state and religion by creating a ‘hierocracy’. In his discussion of the Iranian Revolution, the Marxist scholar Maxime Rodinson in 113

understanding islam an article in Le Monde in December 1978 argued that poverty, the rapid urbanisation of Iran and inequality were driving forces behind authoritarianism (Afray and Anderson 2005). Perhaps unsurprisingly, the concept enjoyed a new lease of life after the attack on the Twin Towers. The divisive character of the term was on full display with the publication of Norman Podhoretz’s World War IV: The Long Struggle against Islamofascism (2007), in which he supported George Bush’s foreign policy and defended military action against a global Islamic threat. Attitudes towards Islam became part of the political struggle between Democrats and Republicans as America became, and remains, a deeply divided society. In light of these political contests, it is important to take these different historical encounters with Islam and their different histories with various Western states into account in order to avoid vague generalisations about a uniform Western response to Islam that is often the basic assumption behind the idea of both ‘Orientalism’ and ‘Islamophobia’. One further issue that we need to keep in mind is whether these communities in the West are seen in ethnic and nationalist terms, for example as Pakistani immigrants or Arab immigrants, or whether they are regarded as Muslims within a common religious tradition. France’s colonial history in Algeria is a defining issue in modern day French politics and the policy of public secularism as the long-­lasting cultural consequences of the French Revolution has no equivalent elsewhere in Europe.The Charlie Hebdo affair has been one event defining French attitudes towards Muslims, but public attitudes towards Muslims have not always been hostile (Mandel 2014). With laïcité as the foundation of official attitudes, French policy towards both Muslim communities and what are regarded as ‘cults’ is distinctive. By contrast, political gradualism 114

islamophobia has been seen as the hallmark of British political history that partly explains the absence of secular socialism (Anderson 1964). In the British case, the absence of a written constitution has resulted in pragmatic, ad hoc and unstable responses and policies to migration, religious diversity and multiculturalism. In the German case, the obvious but important point is that, well beyond the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Germany remains culturally, and increasingly politically, a divided society. The former East Germany, along with other communist countries, notably Russia and China, was especially hostile to religion and even today around half the population of what was previously East Germany have no belief in God and only 25 per cent are registered as belonging to a church whereas in what was West Germany around 80 per cent are registered. Much of the modern-­day opposition to Muslim immigrants and Middle East refugees more generally is prevalent in the eastern states such as Saxony, where 57 per cent of the population fear Muslim migrants.These eastern states have also witnessed the rise of violent political movements such as the National Socialist Underground (NSU) which has carried out attacks on politicians. The right-­wing movement Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) draws most of its basic support from these eastern states. Eleven members of Gruppe S, an extreme right-­ wing organisation which planned attacks on Muslims and politicians, were arrested in April 2021. Their aim was to promote a civil war in Germany.

British Responses to Migration In the post-­war reconstruction of Britain, there were labour shortages which migrants filled. Large numbers arrived from 115

understanding islam Bangladesh and Pakistan to work in the construction industries and low-­paid service sector jobs. Britain’s responses to immigration, despite its position in the Commonwealth, have been typically negative and often hostile. In the second half of the last century, responses were primarily focused on migrants from the Caribbean. The Brighton Riots in April 1981 were a turning point in relationships with new immigrants, when young black men battled with the British police. The riot lasted two days during which there were many injuries to both rioters and police, and vehicles were burnt and buildings damaged. The Scarman Report in 1981 attributed the riot to racism, unemployment, urban decay and the ‘pathology’ of the Caribbean family. The main emphasis of the report was on community development, but the findings were rejected by Mrs Thatcher’s government which had come to power in 1979 with a mandate to cut public spending. Thatcher dismissed the idea that racism and unemployment could be causes of the unrest. The most dramatic incident that inflamed emotions about migration in general and divided the nation occurred when Enoch Powell (1912–98), a Conservative member of parliament, gave his famous ‘rivers of blood speech’ to the Conservative Political Centre in Birmingham on 20  April 1968 (Heffer 1998: 449–508). Powell, who had been a Professor of ancient Greek at the University of Sydney before taking up his political career, alluded to an episode in Virgil’s Aeneid when the river Tiber foamed with blood. Powell had said that mass immigration would lead to serious social unrest in B ­ ritain – a­ metaphorical blood bath. As a result of the speech, he was dismissed from the Conservative Party’s shadow cabinet and in response to his dismissal there were mass demonstrations in favour of Powell’s anti-­ immigration agenda. The Conservative Party won the 116

islamophobia next general election in 1970 and many analysts concluded the Conservative election success was on the back of Powell’s speech. Fifty years later Powell’s speech reverberates through British politics in the shape of various right-­wing populist organisations such as the English Defence League, and the United Kingdom Independence Party, that were influential in the vote to leave the European Union. While conservative thought in Britain had, with Powell‘s influence, moved further to the right of British politics, there was also evidence of Islamic radicalisation in the figure of Omar Bakri Muhammad and his organisation al-­Muhajiroun, which promoted the idea of jihad to foment the radicalisation of young British Muslims (Baxter 2007). Omar was born in Syria in 1958 and became a target of journalists’ interest especially after 9/11. The message of Al-­ Muhajiroun consistently warned against assimilation and integration, rejecting all attempts at friendship and dialogue through the inter-­faith movement. As jihad came to be understood as an exclusively militaristic concept, Omar’s movement contributed to the polarisation of British public opinion in which he was regarded as Osama bin Laden’s key representative. Turning now to specific instances of conflict with Muslim communities, British attitudes towards Muslims were shaped by the Salman Rushdie affair after the publication of The Satanic Verses (Rushdie 1988). The plot of Rushdie’s novel is based on the claim that there is a controversial episode in the life of the Prophet involving Satan. In response to Rushdie’s novel, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa for the death of the author.The novel was seen to start a culture war against Islam and resulted in mass protests in many northern English cities, such as Bolton and Bradford, which had large Muslim populations. 117

understanding islam These Muslims were mainly connected to the Deobandi school with strong connections to Pakistan, but, generally speaking, the British public or at least the British press has never shown much knowledge of or interest in differences within Muslim communities and their specific religious traditions. One Muslim community is taken to be representative of all. While Muslims saw it as an explicit attack on their faith, liberals defended the right to free speech regardless of the offence it might cause either to minorities or to the public at large. Despite Rushdie’s subsequent apology, the fatwa remains in place and opinion about the limits to free speech remains divided. The episode raised a problematic question for which there is no definitive answer: ­what – ­if ­any – a­ re the limits to tolerance in a liberal democracy? ‘Islamophobia’ became part of an accepted vocabulary concerning Muslims in British society and beyond with the publication of the Runnymede Trust Commission’s Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All in 1997 (Conway and Runnymede Trust 1997). The report defined ‘Islamophobia’ as the ‘dread or hatred of Islam and therefore, [the] fear and dislike of all Muslims’, including the practice of discriminating against Muslims by excluding them from the economic, social, and public life of the nation. Islamophobia clings to the view that Islam has no values in common with other cultures and is significantly inferior to Western democracies. In addition, Islam is interpreted as a violent political ideology rather than a religion. After the publication, its definition and appreciation of the wider significance of Islamophobia came to be accepted as authoritative. A second Runnymede report, The New Muslims (Alexander et al. 2013), noted significant developments in terms of Muslim participation in public life in education, the professions and the armed forces. However, it also recognised ongoing hostility to Muslims. 118

islamophobia The first report also identified problems with the British development of multiculturalism, which was increasingly subject to criticism. Unlike many Commonwealth societies such as Australia and Canada, the United Kingdom was slow to embrace multiculturalism as a government policy. Although multiculturalism has never been an official policy, various laws that made their way through parliament supported racial equality.The Race Relations Act in 1976 permitted exemptions to the dress code and an amendment in 2000 promoted racial equality through the work of the Arts Councils. However, as an alternative to multiculturalism the government introduced the Improving Opportunity and Strengthening Society strategy with the aim of increasing racial equality and building community cohesion. Despite the growing presence of cultural diversity in Britain, especially through the BBC and other media outlets, there is a widespread view that these policies for equality and cohesion have failed. Following widespread rioting in many northern cities, Ted Cantle, chairman of the Community Cohesion report in 2001, concluded that Britain consisted of ‘parallel communities’ rather than an integrated society. Racial inequality was manifest in the labour market, education and housing (Cantle 2008; Weller et al. 2013). Although the divisions between ethnic minorities and the host society are often described in cultural terms, the basic problems are often economic and are manifest, for example, in limited access to mortgages resulting in housing inequality.

The United States and Islam After the Second World War, the US emerged as the hegemonic global power, but unlike European imperialism, it saw itself 119

understanding islam as a ‘benign superpower’ (Catley 1997). The idea of ‘benevolent supremacy’ was explored in Melani McAlister’s Epic Encounters (2005). In part a critique of Said’s Orientalism by emphasising the internal diversity of the United States and the complexity of its response to Islam and the Middle East, McAllister’s primary objective was to show how America’s domestic politics and culture cannot be grasped in isolation from its perpetual foreign engagements. She argues that in both ­realms – ­domestic and ­foreign – c­ulture is central to understanding American political and military interests. Contra Said, she argues that, given America’s leadership of the ‘free world’, it had to take a different approach from that of the European colonial powers and, in that sense, it was ‘post-­Oriental’. McAlister discovered important connections between America’s benign engagement with the Middle East and the biblical epics portrayed in film such as The Ten Commandments, Quo Vadis? and Ben-Hur rather than in the high-­culture products of Said’s analysis. McAlister explains how the two ­axes – ­foreign policy and epic ­films – ­converge on the everlasting issue of Israel, which has, on the back of unshakable US support, underscored Palestinian despair and wrath. In any attempt at ‘understanding Islam’, conflicts between Israel and Palestine remain an unmoveable stumbling block. For Americans, especially evangelical Protestants, Israel is the ‘Holy Land’, where the biblical promises will eventually be enacted. Foreign policy options towards the Middle East were inevitably connected to the failures of American intervention in Vietnam, the open wound of relations between black and white citizens, the perception of a global challenge from communism, fears regarding Iranian nuclear policy and anxieties about the decline of American power. President Bush’s foreign policy was coloured by a Christian view of the ‘dispensation’, 120

islamophobia that is a turning point in history where Israel would play a central part. Each age has its own dispensation, but they all appear to involve Israel. Although McAlister provides a valuable analysis of the cultural dimensions of American politics, critics will rightly argue that she fails to recognise America’s covert foreign policy from the National Security Act of 1947 onwards. While maintaining democratic institutions at home, America’s undercover activities abroad included Vietnam prior to the official start of hostilities, the bombing of Cambodia, operations in Nicaragua, the (alleged) overthrow of the government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 in Iran, and the shipment of arms to Iran in exchange for hostages in Lebanon that became known as ‘Irangate’ (Sharpe 1987). The attack on the Twin Towers transformed not just official attitudes towards Islam, but America’s relationship to the outside world, resulting in invasions of Iraq, the war in Afghanistan and the long-­term destabilisation of the Middle East. President Bush’s foreign policy objectives changed radically as he committed his administration to fight the ‘evil’ forces that were behind the attack (Wallis 2004). The new foreign policy gave rise to what became known as the ‘never-­ending wars’. The political decision to attack Iraq in 2003 was another long-­term blunder. According to the ‘Manning memo’ – a secret memorandum attributed to David ­Manning – ­Bush and Blair had agreed to invade Iraq without any evidence that Sadam Hussein possessed ‘weapons of mass destruction’. For Tony Blair, the British prime minister, it was also a blunder that undermined his long-­term legacy. In conducting the ‘global war on terror’ the United States adopted a variety of measures – ‘waterboarding’ to obtain confessions, the use of ‘black sites’ to hold alleged terrorists and ‘indefinite detention’. These developments 121

understanding islam gave rise to the notion among Western democracies of ‘plausible legality’ to secure face-­saving legitimacy in defending practices which were regarded by the United Nations as inconsistent with commitment to human rights protection.The most controversial measure was the use of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in which up to 779 prisoners were held without adequate or any legal safeguards. The detention and treatment of Muslim prisoners came to be seen as the most dramatic example of Islamophobia in public attitudes and government policies in the ‘global war on terror’ (Hagopian 2004). When faced with the alien values of Islam, the war on terror could only be achieved by the suspension of liberal values. Although 9/11 fundamentally changed both governmental and public approaches to Islam, the history of America’s relationship to Islam does not replicate the history of Europe in relation to the Middle East. Unlike the European states, America was not a colonial power in the Middle East, and its interest and involvement in the region were late to develop primarily as a consequence of the Cold War, when in the 1950s it was recognised that Islam might play a valuable role in the struggle against communism. American military support from July 1979 for the Mujahideen in Operation Cyclone against Russian involvement in Afghanistan and the creation of a communist state is the most obvious example. Relationships with the Mujahideen continued into the Reagan era when they met the president in the Oval Office in 1983. Reagan’s foreign policy was aimed at containing global communism, but the cost of military build-­up during his presidency was massive. It included the MX missile system ($15 billion), which was never deployed. Although there has been considerable fear of Islam, public criticism and policy responses come from particular states such 122

islamophobia as Oklahoma,Wyoming and Arizona, where there are in fact relatively few Muslim inhabitants. Criticism of Islam often comes from high-­profile politicians such as Newt Gingrich, or from public figures such as Pam Geller. Right-­wing criticism and attacks on groups that are seen to be outside the mainstream WASP (white, Anglo-­ Saxon Protestants of primarily British descent) culture have historically included Roman Catholics and Jews. Although WASP politics are thought to have declined, the legacy has influenced neo-­conservative attitudes to immigration and are related to Donald Trump’s political appeal. Such attitudes and political values were on display at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville South Carolina in August 2017 when white supremacists chanted ‘Jews will not replace us’. In other words, on the American right of politics, antisemitism includes both Jews and Muslims, neither of which are seen as ‘white’ populations.

The United States and the Shari’a Although there has been widespread opposition to veiling, a more fundamental problem concerns the Shari’a and the assumption that the ‘creeping Shari’a’ is extending its influence in the West. One can describe this issue as ‘more fundamental’, because it raises problems regarding legal pluralism and the potential challenge to sovereignty (Turner and Arslan 2011; Turner and Richardson 2012). Prominent features of the American legal system are the status of the Supreme Court, the doctrine of ‘originalism’ and opposition to legal pluralism (Griffith 1986). These factors explain official anxieties about the Shari’a, which is seen to be incompatible with the democratic foundations of 123

understanding islam liberal society. Popular perceptions of the criminal law components in the Shari’a have concentrated on those provisions that appeared to re-­enforce gender inequality and to involve brutal treatment of offenders. The hudud laws have often been seen, under assumptions about the dignity of the person, as oppressive and cruel. Islamic tradition distinguishes between acts that offend God and those that concern humans. Hudud law describe a wide range of offences to God that include fornication and alcohol consumption. Because of the severity of the punishments such as lashing and stoning to death, these laws were not routinely enforced in the past, but they have been revived through the politics of Islamic reform from the 1970s. Pakistan is one state that has restored the hudud laws. The nature and history of the Shari’a have become contentious matters in socio-­legal studies. Wael B. Hallaq (2009) has argued that in the modern world the Shari’a is no longer tenable. He claims that Shari’a was essentially the law produced by independent jurists and was not state law.With colonialism, the Shari’a was dismantled and replaced by state laws that reflected Western ideas about law, state and society. In short, the dismemberment of the traditions of the Sharia was a form of legal Orientalism. Hallaq also argues that the 9/11 attack on the United States had legal ­origins – ­namely the dismantling of the Shari’a by ­colonialism – ­which have been overlooked by secular attempts to explain the causes of ‘Muslim Rage’ (Hallaq 2003). This interpretation is supported by Talal Asad (2009: 19), who argues that regarding the literal scope of the Shari’a that matters here, but the degree to which it informs and regulates social practices and it is clear that there has been no such society in which the religious law of Islam has governed more than a fragment of social life.

124

islamophobia Although there are significant fears about the Shari’a in the United States, the scholarly evidence suggests that in general liberal governments in the West have gone a long way to offer legal accommodation to Muslim minorities through partial recognition of the role of the Shari’a in arbitration cases (Joppke and Torpey 2013). There is considerable evidence that judges in Western legal systems are beginning to refer to the Shari’a on a regular basis in their deliberations regarding domestic issues (Possamai et al. 2015). These cases typically occur when a Muslim couple who were married overseas according to Islamic norms attempt to arrive at a divorce settlement in the West. In these cases, Western legal experts have to refer to the Shari’a in determining the appropriate legal outcome. As a result, the Shari’a is being reformed indirectly by the impact of Western legal principles and at the same time undergoing internal reform in response to modernisation more generally. This reform is especially evident in the case of family law (Layish 2014).

Conclusion: Islam – A Warrior Religion? Conflict between Islam and Christianity is longstanding. One dramatic example was the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The Hellenist chronicler Chalconcondylas wrote ‘This was surely the most grievous catastrophe known to history, and the complete destruction of the Greeks matches the Fall of Troy’(Fleming 2003: 69).The poems of Michel Beheim (1416–79), who fought in various campaigns against the Turks, complained bitterly about the ‘heathen tyrant, dreadful Turk’ and equally about the divisions among Christians that had allowed the catastrophe to 125

understanding islam take place (McDonald 2017). Although this historical turning point was dramatic and violent, contemporary historical research suggests that Christian worship continued in the city without interference from the new Islamic authorities. There has been a significant revision in historical accounts of Christianity and Islam in late antiquity with the emergence of new archaeological evidence of Christian churches in Jordan with mosaic decoration (Bowerstock 1996). Given the events of this century, there would appear to be ample grounds for concern regarding ‘political Islam’. These events might validate the assumption of Max Weber’s sociology that Islam was a warrior religion which in turn explains its rapid expansion into the Middle East, North Africa and Asia after the death of the Prophet. The list of these modern confrontations with Islam is almost e­ndless – 9­ /11, Afghanistan, the rise of ISIS, the Hebdo affair in France, the fatwa against Rushdie in Britain and the growing crisis in many African states from North Africa, Sudan and Nigeria. In fact, the growth of Islamic movements in Africa has a long history and is associated with the concept of jihad (Curtin 1971; El-­ Khawas 1996). It can be understood as a spiritual struggle on the part of an individual to attain better understanding of Islam and to develop a life of piety. It can also mean a struggle against apostasy and a call to arms to protect the community. In the Western mind, it is associated with violence against Western democracies. The Muslim response to these critical accusations might be to point to the long history of Western colonialism, military confrontations and violence against Muslim communities from Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt to the Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1915 that divided up the remnants of the Ottoman Empire 126

islamophobia between France and Britain. French colonialism in Algeria and attempts to supress the attacks orchestrated by the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) are causes of the problems that continue to beset French domestic and foreign policy (Volpi 2003). Muslims might also point to the long history of Western intervention in Afghanistan, including Britain’s invasions of Afghanistan in the nineteenth century as part of the ‘Great Game’, namely the struggle between the British and Russian empires for influence over India, Persia and border regions of Afghanistan. Critics of Western imperial violence might also include the violent suppression of nationalism and Muslim agitation in Chechnya by the Russian state. Stalin had removed the entire Chechen population to Siberia. They were re-­established in their homeland in 1957, but conflict broke out again with Russia in the 1990s. The Chechen conflict involves Islam, but it is better characterised as an ethno-­nationalist confrontation. Finally, while Western powers are not involved, there is a general agreement in the UN and beyond that the Chinese attempt to ‘re-­educate’ the Uyghurs constitutes genocide in both cultural and physical terms. Genocidal attacks on Rohingya people, who are primarily Muslim, have to be blamed on the military junta that rules over modern-­day Myanmar, but the historical cause of the civil conflict also involve British colonial rule over Burma. The general problem in Western policies is the failure to distinguish consistently between national struggles against repressive states in the name of greater freedoms from repression and international forms of violence (Mann 2003). Hatred and violence against social groups that are classified as outsiders are common attributes of the social structure. Given the history of mutual violence between the Occident and the Orient, one might conclude either that the organisation 127

understanding islam of sovereign states is one condition of conflict in defence of national interests or that human beings are ontologically prone to ­violence. The propensity to violence is shared equally across the human species, more or less, in equal measure. If this is a correct interpretation, then allocations of blame are a difficult and fruitless exercise. References Abdelkader, Engy (2017), ‘A comparative analysis of European Islamophobia: France, Germany, Netherlands and Sweden’, UCLA Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law, 16(1): 30–63. Adrian, Melanie (2016), Religious Freedoms at Risk: The EU, French Schools, and Why the Veil was Banned, London: Springer. Afray, Janet and Anderson, Kevin B. (2005), Foucault and the Iranian Revolution, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Alba, Richard and Nee, Victor (2003), Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Alexander, C., Redclift, V. and Hussain, A. (2013), The New Muslims, London: Runnymede Trust. Anderson, Perry (1964), ‘The origins of the present crisis’, New Left Review, 23(January–February). Arjomand, Said Amir (1988), The Turban and the Crown:The Islamic Revolution in Iran, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Asad, Talal (2009), ‘The idea of an anthropology of Islam’, Qui Parle, 17(2): 1–30. Barr, Michael D. (2010), ‘Marxists in Singapore?’, Critical Asian Studies, 42(3): 335–62. Baxter Kylie (2007), British Muslims and the call to Jihad, Clayton: Monash University Press. Bilici, Muhacit (2012), Finding Mecca in America: How Islam is Becoming an American Religion, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Bleich, E. (2011), ‘What is Islamophobia and how much is there? Theorising and measuring an emerging comparative concept’, American Behavioural Scientist, 55(12): 1581–600.

128

islamophobia Bowen, John R. (2010), Can Islam be French? Pluralism and Pragmatism in a Secularist State, Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Bowerstock, Glen W. (1996), ‘The vanishing paradigm of the fall of Rome’, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 49(8): 29–43. Cantle, Ted (2008), Community Cohesion: A New Framework for Racial Diversity, Palgrave Macmillan. Catley, Bob (1997), ‘Hegemonic ­ America – t­he benign superpower’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 18(4): 377–99. Cesari, Jocelyne (ed.) (2010), Muslims in the West after 9/11, London: Routledge. Cesari, Jocelyne (2013), Why the West fears Islam. An Exploration of Muslims in Liberal Democracies, New Year: Palgrave Macmillan. Conway, Gordon R. and Runnymede Trust (1997), Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All, London: Runnymede Trust. Curtin, Philip D. (1971), ‘Jihad in West Africa’, Journal of African History, 12(1): 11–24. El-­Khawas, M. A. (1996), ‘Revolutionary Islam in North Africa: challenges and perspectives’, Africa Today, 43(4): 385–404. Fetzer, Joel S. and Soper, J. Christopher (2005), Muslims and the State in Britain, France and Germany, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 32. Fleming, K. E. (2003), ‘­Constantinople – f­rom Christianity to Islam’, The Classical World, 97(1): 69–78. Griffith, John (1986), ‘What is legal pluralism?’, Journal of Legal Pluralism, 24: 1–55. Hagopian, Elaine C. (ed.) (2004), Civil Rights in Peril: The Targeting of Arabs and Muslims, London and Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press. Hallaq, Wael B. (2003), ‘“Muslim rage” and Islamic law’, Hastings Law Journal, 54: 1705–19. Hallaq, Wael B. (2009), Shari’a: Theory, Practice and Transformations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Halliday, Fred (2003), Islam and the Myth of Confrontation: Religion and Politics in the Middle East, London: I. B. Tauris. Heffer, Simon (1998), Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Holmwood, John and O’Toole, Theresa (2017), Countering Extremism in British Schools: The Truth about the Birmingham Trojan Horse Affair, Bristol: Policy Press. Huntington, Samuel P. (1993), ‘The clash of civilizations?’, Foreign Affairs, 72(3): 22–49.

129

understanding islam Halpern, Manfred (1963), The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Jacobs, Matthew F. (2006), ‘The perils and promise of Islam: The United States and the Muslim Middle East in the early Cold War’, Diplomatic History, 30(4): 705–39. Joppke, Christian and Torpey, John (2013), The Legal Integration of Islam: A Transatlantic Comparison, Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. Kamaludeen, Mohamed Nasir, Pereira, Alexius A. and Turner, Bryan S. (2010), Muslims in Singapore, London: Routledge. Layish, Aharon (2014), ‘Islamic law in the modern world’, Islamic Law and Society, 21: 276–307. Lean, Nathan (2012), The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims, New York: Pluto Press. McAlister, Melani (2005), Epic Encounters: Culture, Media and US Interests in the Middle East since 1945, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. McDonald, William C. (2017), ‘Miche Beheim’s Von den Turken und dem Adel Sagt Dis’, Acta Orientalia Scientiarum Hung, 70(3): 371–84. Mandel, Maud S. (2014), Muslims and Jews in France: History of a Conflict, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Books. Mann, Michael (2003), Incoherent Empire, London:Verso. Ozyurek, Esra (2015), Being German Becoming Muslim: Race, Religion and Conversion in the New Europe, Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Podhoretz, Norman (2007), World War IV:The Long Struggle against Islamofascism, New York: Doubleday. Possamai, A., Richardson, J. and Turner, B. S. (eds) (2015), The Sociology of Shari’a: Case Studies from around the World, New York: Springer. Rodinson, Maxime (2010), ‘The awakening of Islamic fundamentalism’, in Afary, Janet and Anderson, Kevin B., Foucault and the Iranian Revolution, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rushdie, Salman (1958), The Satanic Verses, London:Viking Penguin. Sharpe, Kenneth E. (1987), ‘The real cause of Irangate’, Foreign Policy, 68(Autumn): 19–41. Turner, Bryan S. and Arslan, Berna (2011), ‘Shari’a and legal pluralism in the West’, European Journal of Social Theory, 14(2): 139–59. Turner, Bryan S. and Richardson, James T. (2012), ‘Islam and the problems of liberal democracy’, in Maurits S. Berger (ed.), Applying Shari’a in the West, Leiden: Leiden University Press, pp. 47–64. Volpi, Frédéric (2003), Islam and Democracy: The Failure of Dialogue in Algeria, London: Pluto Press.

130

islamophobia Wallis, P. (2004), Blunder: Britain’s War in Iraq, New York: Oxford University Press. Weller, Paul, Purdam, Kingsley, Ghanea, Nazila and Cheruvallil-­Contractor, Sariya (2013), Religion or Belief, Discrimination and Equality: Britain in Global Context, London and New York: Bloomsbury.

131

7

Feminism, Fertility and Piety

Introduction: Unsettled Controversies Despite decades of research and debate regarding the status of women in Islam generally and the specific position of Muslim women in Western liberal democracies, there is no settled or commanding interpretation about these issues. Given the development of feminism in the West over the last century or more, there is a clear feminist view that Islam is patriarchal and that Muslim women are subordinated and imprisoned in religious traditions. Then there is a liberal argument that the practice of compulsory veiling offends Western notions of freedom of choice. There is yet another argument regarding the behaviour of citizens who must not have their faces covered in the public domain. The face of the citizen should be visible to all citizens in public places. Furthermore, there are religious and constitutional arguments that the state and religion should remain separate, and hence there must be no legislation to control religious buildings, attire or practices. In this argument, we can include state interference in such matters as circumcision where many liberals are critical of both Jewish and Islamic practice.The return of the hijab with the return of the Taliban to Kabul may only confirm the worst fears 132

feminism, fertility and piety of liberal feminists in the West. But Afghanistan is not Indonesia, where Sufism has been a dominant factor in the spread of Islam. Indonesia is the largest Muslim community in the world and its diverse character is perhaps best represented by the progressive Nahdlatu Ulama with a membership of between 60 and 90 million followers, providing religious services, health care, poverty relief and education. Founded in 1926, it preaches inclusion and recognises the religious and cultural diversity of Indonesia. The Indonesian educational system from the 1920s has promoted the inclusion and promotion of girls who often outnumber boys in schools (Hefner 2009). However, there is evidence that modern-­ day Indonesia is becoming more conservative. Despite decades of research, the actual relationships between gender, patriarchy, religion and level of economic development remain under-­researched and theoretically unclear (Lussier and Fish 2016). Many of these dilemmas have been perfectly captured in Martha Nussbaum’s ‘capabilities approach’. Although much of her research was based on issues relating to Hinduism in modern-­day India, her work is equally relevant to debates about the status of women in Islam. She describes the central dilemma of Western feminism in these terms. Liberal democracies are committed to the principle that religious liberty is a major value and that its protection is a basic responsibility of government. However, it is often the case that conservative religious traditions do not support these liberties in terms of ‘irrelevant characteristics, such as race or caste or sex’ (Nussbaum 2000: 168). There are two characteristic responses to this debate. The first she calls ‘secular humanist feminism’ which asserts that the equality and dignity of women outweigh all religious claims. For this position, religion is seen as a basic foundation of women’s oppression and inequality. The second position is ­‘traditionalist feminism’ which 133

understanding islam holds that an attack on religious beliefs is an attack on communities and traditions that are an important source of human values. Nussbaum’s own position is complex, but ultimately sympathetic to religious traditions. She recognises that religion is an important source of human values, communal membership and emotional support. It has been important in conveying ethical norms through education. Religion is an aspect of human capabilities in terms of ‘artistic, ethical and intellectual expression’ (Nussbaum 2000: 179). To adopt a blanket rejection of religion is to ignore the enormous diversity of religious beliefs and practices. There are also pragmatic reasons for secular feminists to seek political alliances with traditional religious groups. We might reasonably conclude that Nussbaum supports dialogue among divergent positions as an alternative to the secular condemnation of all religious traditions. Despite Nussbaum’s important contributions to women and development, the various arguments in support for or against legislating on religious matters, especially relating to the status of women, remain unsettled and largely inconclusive. Within this volume, it would be impossible to consider the extent of these arguments in a single chapter. I will concentrate on two topics to simplify the many complicated issues concerning Islam and gender. The first is to consider various publications that significantly shaped the academic debate about Muslim women in Islam. The second is to examine the social conditions that support or hinder women’s social and political participation by concentrating on age at marriage and fertility rates with special reference to Iran. The Western debate about Muslim women has typically focused on the issue of veiling. A number of important pub134

feminism, fertility and piety lications have corrected Western misunderstanding about the veil. Leila Ahmed’s historical research in Women and Gender in Islam (1992) and A Quiet Revolution (2011) established the basis for the modern consensus that veiling was not uniform or widespread in many traditional Muslim societies. Veiling in the majority of Muslim societies is a contemporary development as a consequence of the reform movement that is conventionally described as ‘Islamisation’. However, views about veiling are inevitably divergent. For example, there is a dramatic contrast between the assumptions of Leila Ahmed’s work on the revival of pious veiling and the intervention of Marnia Lazreg (2009) in Questioning the Veil, who in her ‘letters’ to young Muslim women is highly critical of the spread of veiling as an act of female piety. The modern practice of veiling is part of a global movement to reform Islamic practice. Reformist movements in Islam are characteristic of religious change on a global scale from the United States to Norway to Malaysia (Tong and Turner 2008). I compare these approaches to gender, which have been primarily concerned with veiling, with a study of pious women by Saba Mahmood in Politics of Piety (2012). Her research on pious women in Cairo has been influential and widely applauded. Her theoretical reflections have established an important argument that religious piety among women is not inimical to activism and that we must respect their capacity for agency as personal development. Her notion of ‘activism’ was not directed specifically at the traditional idea of ‘political activism’. Rather her concern was to uncover activism as an ethical exercise in self-­ development. Mahmood’s research challenged the views of Western liberal feminists that Islam inculcated submissive passivity in female subjects in religious traditions that were essentially patriarchal. 135

understanding islam Her work confronted the legacy of Western views of agency and subjectivity by exploring how women involved in pious practices were engaged in activities of self-­cultivation. Her aim was to understand the women she encountered in piety movements rather than denouncing them. In all of these debates about gender and women’s agency, we cannot afford to ignore particular contexts and specific struggles. The involvement of women in Egyptian politics and public life was an important element in the struggle against the last days of British colonialism and the rise of Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918– 70), who, with Mohamed Naguib, was the leading figure in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. Under the 1956 Constitution women were granted the right to vote and to run for public office.The Charter for National Action in 1962 endorsed gender equality. Women were actively involved in these historical struggles.These movements were described by Ellen McLarney (2015) as an exercise in ‘soft power’. In later protests in Tahrir Square in 2011 female protestors were often sexually abused by soldiers, but sexual harassment did not quell the women who came to regard their public role as female struggle or jihad. Perhaps more subtle but at the same time more confronting and effective was the graffiti that appeared between Mohammed Mahmud Street and Tahrir Square as a criticism of the role of SCAF (Supreme Council of Armed Forces). The sardonic graffiti depicted more specifically an incident in which soldiers abused a woman whose clothing had been pulled off in a struggle revealing her blue brassiere. It became known as the ‘blue bra girl’.The woman depicted had, against her will, challenged orthodox assumptions about the importance of covering the female body in public spaces. The result was a ‘banalization of violence’ (Abaza 2013). Although the soldiers appeared before the courts, they were never punished. 136

feminism, fertility and piety Muslim women who are deeply involved in the global feminist debate are often in conflict with the negative attitudes of Western secular feminists towards Islam and women’s piety. The UN Decade for Women opened up a controversial exchange between women from the ‘Third World’ and Western feminists. The exchange pointed to the fact that women from Africa, Asia and Latin America had their own vibrant feminist traditions. Western liberals who had supported the invasion of Afghanistan with little understanding of the history of the country and the history of imperial invasions were criticised by their ‘Sisters in the Mirror’ (Shehabudd 2021). Although much of the discussion in this chapter is concerned with the Middle East, we need once more to keep in mind the significant variation within the Islamic world. The status of women in South East Asia is not, from an historical perspective, at all parallel to women in the Middle East. In a famous article, Anthony Reid (1988) argued that from pre-­colonial times women, at least in South East Asia, were not locked into subordinate roles to men and that this pattern of gender equality had not been affected by colonial or post-­colonial changes to South East Asia. If we also examine marriage and divorce rates in the region since the 1950s, then we discover that polygamy has declined, age at marriage has been rising for women and there has been increasing freedom for women to choose their marriage partners (Jones 1994). More recent research has indicated continuity in these trends in marriage patterns, including low fertility rates (Yeung et al. 2018). The key driving force in changing marriage and fertility patterns for women has been improvements in their educational opportunities. My argument in this chapter is that we can only understand the status of women in modern society by considering such issues 137

understanding islam as age at marriage, fertility r­ ates – ­specifically the ‘total fertility rate’ (TFR) – and life expectancy. The TFR is not the actual birth rate. It measures the probable number of live births to a woman if she completes her reproductive years without interruption, for example by premature death. Early marriage and high fertility rates have an obvious impact on women’s health, but also on their capacity for educational achievement, personal autonomy and general capacity to engage in society. In short, demography has major consequences for individual agency, self-­development and political activism. The demography of a society is critical in understanding basic social structures, if we are to arrive at a satisfactory sociological explanation. In this chapter, I attempt to combine an understanding of women’s ethical activism through Saba Mahmood’s research with demographic data on declining fertility rates.

Piety as an ethical technology One continuous theme in this volume has been the relationship between understanding the meaning of social action and the explanation of action. This discussion, while often complex and technical, cannot be avoided in any attempt to understand Islam. This issue arises once more in this chapter. I argue that, while Mahmood does not in Politics of Piety address the contrast directly, her approach involves developing a new understanding of the meaning of piety for Egyptian women. Understanding the ethical character of pious practice gives us a new and valuable insight into Islamic piety, but her work does not explicitly offer an explanation in terms of the conditions under which pious activity becomes possible. One might here need to consider the political environment in which women live. 138

feminism, fertility and piety The empirical research in 1995–7 that informed the theoretical framework of Mahmood’s book involved a study of women in piety movements in Cairo. She examined the practices of piety among women involved in various spiritual movements that are known under the umbrella term of da’wa. It is a Quranic term that is associated with God’s call to the prophets for humanity to live the true religion of Islam. In contemporary Islam, it includes the mosque movement in Egypt, which is responding to the duty of the pious to call fellow Muslims to a deeper and more comprehensive piety.The traditional idea of da’wa is a call for the renewal of religious life. It includes a number of practical activities in support of piety in the community as a whole (Mahmood 2012: 57). The pious woman of the da’wa movement is the one who practises piety and calls on the community to enter the true path of Islam.This development involves the individualisation of religious responsibility which is characteristic of modern Islam. The other development, associated with the leadership of Hasan al-­Banna (1906–1949), has evolved into a critique of the traditional forms of education that had transformed religion into a specialized body of knowledge that primarily served the interests of the elite. (Mahmood 2012: 64)

Mahmood’s work also defended the importance of religious practice as an ethical technique over religious belief in her criticism of secular understanding of religious life. The idea of ‘technologies of the self ’ is taken from the work of Michel Foucault (1988) to consider how the individual is constructed. Research on piety has to take liturgies and rituals seriously as formative technologies. Thus, adherence of ordinary Muslims to Islamic rituals, liturgies and observances is regarded as evidence of a distorted relationship to

139

understanding islam religious truth (universal and abstract), turning them into pawns in the hands of those who seek to manipulate them for worldly reasons. (Mahmood 2015: 342)

Pious practice requires an intelligent response if it is to be at all meaningful. The pious women of Cairo were aware that Islam has retained many accretions from folklore that are far removed from pure Islam and that its pristine character has been corrupted by the secularism of governing elites. Its true nature had to be restored through daily pious activity. Pious activities that are necessary to guard the pious against departures from the authentic Islamic tradition. This activity is the true jihad as a struggle to produce an ethical self. From her analysis of piety, Mahmood proposed that one must allow the historically and culturally specific ethnographic material ‘to speak back to the normative liberal assumptions about freedom and agency’ (Mahmood 2001: 203). In the course of her criticisms of secular liberal feminism, she developed an alternative approach to agency, not so much as political activity, but as an ethical endeavour. Her aim was to depart from these frameworks insomuch as I question the overwhelming tendency within poststructuralist feminist scholarship to conceptualize agency in terms of subversion or resignification of social norms, to locate agency within those operations that resist the dominating and subjectivating modes of power. (Mahmood 2012: 14)

Mahmood can, however, be criticised for failing to situate the piety movement within the larger context of Egyptian politics, and the state was marginal to her ethnographic analysis (van der Veer 2008: 812). It was under President Anwar Sadat (1970–81) that an alliance was formed between the da’wa, state officials 140

feminism, fertility and piety and the middle classes against the socialist legacy of Nasserism. Mahmood’s fieldwork started twenty-­one years after Sadat had been assassinated, but the political struggles continued over growing authoritarianism under Hosni Mubarak who was president from 1981 to 2011 (Kienle 1998). Despite these social and political conflicts, we learn little about the social status and class position of these pious women (Bangstad 2011: 32; Botman 1999). Another criticism of her research is that we never hear the voices of the women she encountered in Cairo. Ethnographic work is traditionally reported on the basis of field notes through long engagement with the subjects in which we discover how the researcher engaged with the people she was studying. For example, Mahmood’s philosophical discussion of agency contrasts sharply with Lila Abu-­Lughod’s famous account of Bedouins in Veiled Sentiments (2016). Abu-­Lughod gives a clear account of how she first engaged with the Bedouin community through a family connection. As a researcher she was both inside and outside the Bedouin community, describing herself as a ‘halfie’. Her book is illustrated by photographs of the women who were the subject of her study.Their voices are illustrated by the poems they composed and recited as part of their everyday resistance to patriarchy. The women often quietly or privately challenged their husband’s wishes and authority over, for example, suitable marriage partners for their daughters.

The Third Demographic Transition Early demographic research on Muslim populations found that many had high fertility rates, especially in Africa and Asia, that indicated a long-­term increase in the global Islamic community 141

understanding islam or ummah. Between 1950 and 2000 the Middle East population increased from 92 million to 349 million.This development was caused by a decline in infant mortality, improvements in maternal care, increasing education of women and urbanization. More recent demographic studies, however, indicate that fertility rates in the Muslim world have been falling. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life’s The Future of the Global Muslim Population: Projections for 2010–2030 (2011) reported a global decline in fertility rates for many Muslim majority societies. In Iran in 1980 there were 2,259,000 births recorded but by 2004–5 the number of births had fallen to 962,000. The Middle East now has a large population of young people without a growth in available jobs and a rapidly ageing population over 65 years (Clawson 2009). The decline in fertility rates is also associated with other important changes in women’s status and social rights such as age at marriage. In broad terms, teenage marriage is an important indicator of a patriarchal marriage system.The mean age at marriage for women according to the United Nations World Fertility Report in 2010 for Germany was 30.3 years, in Australia 27.9, in Afghanistan 18 years, and in Bangladesh 16 years. Tunisia, which has a history of women’s activism and political involvement, has a mean age at marriage of 27 years (Moghadam 2017). Late marriage is obviously associated with a shorter reproductive history, since women marrying late have fewer years in which they can reproduce. The majority of women will have concluded their reproductive life at age 49 years. A German woman who marries at over 30 years has under 20 reproductive years available, while an Afghan girl who marries at 18 years has 31 years to complete her reproductive history (United Nations World Fertility Report 2012). The legal suppression of child marriage is con142

feminism, fertility and piety sequently a major target of reform as a foundation for women’s social advancement and social status. The Egyptian TFR has fluctuated for a century without any continuous decline. These fluctuations appear to have been influenced by major political upheavals. Population is in any case affected by the availability of cheap contraception, the attitude of the state towards population growth or decline, the age at marriage and in particular by infant mortality rates. Nevertheless, the result is that the population is not being replaced as the fertility rate falls below 2.2. The TFR in Egypt in 1910 was 6.02 and by 1940 it was 5.91. In 2010 it was down to 3.02 but then recovered to 3.55 in 2013. In 2018 it was 3.1. The legal age at marriage in Egypt is 18 years, but there is some abuse of the regulation with an estimated 45 per cent of Egyptian girls getting married before they are 18 years of age. These demographic developments are important as the framework for understanding the conditions of participation of women in the public domain. I focus on the case of Iran where the decline in the total fertility rate has been dramatic. The Iraq–Iran War had devasting consequences for the Iranian population leaving many widowed women with young families and little state support.As population growth was restored, the government wanted to make important changes to reduce fertility rates and improved the health of mothers. By the late 1980s, a national birth control policy was instituted. Political and religious leaders worked together to build a consensus around controlled fertility.The policy was promoted on the idea that Islam permits contraception and regards sexual pleasure as fulfilling a basic human need. With some safeguards, both medical and ethical, tubal ligation and vasectomy were acceptable. The policy was aimed at ­supporting the health 143

understanding islam of both mothers and children on the basis of fewer pregnancies (Hoodfar 1997). The rapid transformation of Iranian fertility rates may have been assisted by the traditional teaching on azl or coitus interruptus (Mehryar 2005). There are traditional hadith in which the male followers of the Prophet were concerned about the traditional practice of withdrawal for limiting the fertility of their wives. Later Shi’ite theologians supported the practice provided the wife gave her consent. This traditional method of birth control provided the background tradition that made the adoption of modern methods readily acceptable. In more general terms, where women already have some degree of decision-­making power, there can be a more rapid transition from high to low fertility rates. The fall in the Iranian TFR is one of the fastest ever recorded. The Iranian TFR fell from around 6.9 in the 1960s to 1.8 by 2005 with 74 per cent of women employing some contraception (Vahidnia 2007). Iran thereby joined societies such as Japan and South Korea that are also below population replacement. These demographic developments are worldwide and have been described by demographers as the ‘third demographic transition’. The first transition was a decline in infant mortality resulting in population growth. In the second transition, while fertility rates decline, life expectancy increases. In the third transition, there is a rapidly declining fertility rate, an ageing population and population decline. It is argued that when the TFR falls below 2.0, then there is a ‘free fall’ in the replacement of the population. With replacement failure, there are problems with the decline of the working population with growing dependency of ageing citizens. The third transition also involves major changes in marriage, family life, growing gender diversity and social isolation. 144

feminism, fertility and piety Falling fertility rates in Iran should not obscure significant variations in family formation inside Iran. Many Iranian women see an important connection between family life, reproduction, piety and nationalism. Their pious activism in terms of a recent publication by Rose Wellman (2021) takes the form of ‘Feeding Iran’. In short, a low fertility rate is not the only condition of activism. Men may still attempt to block women’s inheritance rights, they may surreptitiously take additional wives and neglect their children. Nevertheless, legal and religious change in Iran has worked in favour of improving the lives of women and their children. We also need to keep in mind the very real differences between Egypt, Iran and Pakistan. In her Secularizing Islamists? (2011), Humeira Iqtidar undertook an ethnography among the militant Jama’at-­e-Islami and the Jama’ud-­Da’wa in urban Pakistan. While modern-­day Pakistan is often perceived as the most conservative Islamic state, Iqtidar’s fieldwork demonstrates much of its internal complexity. For example, it is often held that women practice parda (veiling and covering the voice) because of pressure from men in public spaces. She found that in the domestic space fathers-­ in-­ law and brothers-­ in-­ law regarded parda as unnecessary and indeed indicated that they were not to be trusted. Thus ‘agency in this context includes an aspect of subordination, of their will to God, as well as of resistance, in this case to the men in their family’ (Iqtidar 2011: 142). Finally, this demographic perspective has one additional role in my general argument about the relationship between explanation (Enklarung) and understanding (Verstehen). On the one hand we need to pay attention to the meaning of piety in Muslim communities. On the other hand, sociologists, as with other social scientists, seek to offer explanations of human ­societies and 145

understanding islam social action. To grasp the meaning of religious piety we need to be attentive to internal accounts of its complex meaning. To search for explanations of changes in religious ­piety – ­such as the growth of a­ ctivism – w ­ e need to look at the social conditions (in this case the demographic circumstances) that may bring us to a more adequate explanation of social change.

Conclusion: Activism and Demography One strange issue emerging from this study of Islam, gender and activism is the absence in the mainstream literature of any sustained analysis of fertility patterns in Muslim communities. Homa Hoodfar’s research on Iran is a welcome exception (Hoodfar 1997). If we examine many of the most influential and important publications in recent years that have influenced my own understanding of gender and Islam, there is a strange neglect of demography, especially age at marriage, reproductive history and fertility rate. I would include here works of undeniable importance such as Robert Hefner’s Making Modern Muslims (2009) and Cesari and Casanova’s (2017) Islam, Gender, and Democracy in Comparative Perspective in which there is no consideration of the demographic factors in social change. To refer to an obvious issue, patriarchy is widely seen as a brake on women’s social participation and in turn patriarchal authority is upheld by the fertility of their women. Involuntary infertility can reflect negatively on the virility of men. Is this demographic change from high to low fertility the main factor in the modern evolution of women’s agency? I do not suggest a simple proposition that low fertility spells the end of patriarchy. One objection to my argument about traditional 146

feminism, fertility and piety levels of fertility as a barrier to women’s participation in the public domain is that childcare is often shared within the wider kinship ­group – ­especially aunties and grandmothers. The brute fact remains that with a TFR of around 6.0 much of a woman’s life is spent getting pregnant, being pregnant, lactating and childcare. In bringing attention to fertility rates, we can also assume that these traditional patterns of reproduction have compromised the mother’s general heath as a consequence of long periods of being pregnant. I conclude that, even with community and kinship support, a woman’s life and health would have been seriously constrained by long periods of pregnancy and childcare. What more evidence of patriarchy would one want other than evidence relating to polygamy, inheritance, early marriage, abortion, preference for male offspring and high fertility rates? Ahmet T. Kuru (2021) identifies patriarchy as a potential explanation of authoritarianism in the Middle East, but none of the approaches to gender inequalities connect fertility to patriarchy. Looking at this wealth of literature, why is fertility absent from analysis? It appears much sociological and anthropological research makes the dubious assumption that high fertility rates have no consequences for women’s activism. A more generous explanation might be that demography, which for my generation was a basic unit in any sociology degree, is no longer available in the sociological curriculum, and as a result it has dropped out of the research agenda of modern sociologists. In the history of economics and sociology, population played a major role in the analysis of social change. In conclusion, I propose in contrast to the modern neglect of demography that the dramatic decline in fertility rates in Muslim societies is a major factor in any explanation of women’s agency.

147

understanding islam References Abaza, Mona (2013), ‘Walls, segregating downtown Cairo and Mohammed Mahmud Street graffiti’, Theory Culture and Society, 30(1): 122–39. Abu-­Lughod, Lila (2016), Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Ahmed, Leila (1992), Women and Gender in Islam:The Historical Roots of a Modern Debate, New Haven, CT:Yale University Press. Ahmed, Leila (2011), A Quiet Revolution: The Veil’s Resurgence from the Middle East to America, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Bangstad, Sindre (2011), ‘Saba Mahmood and anthropological feminism after virtue’, Theory Culture and Society, 28(3): 28–54. Benard, Cheryl (2003), Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies, Santa Monica, CA: Rand National Security Division. Botman, Selma (1999), Engendering Citizenship in Egypt, New York: Columbia University Press. Cesari, Jocelyne and Casanova, José (eds) (2017), Islam, Gender, and Democracy in Comparative Perspective, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Clawson, Patrick (2009), ‘Demography in the Middle East: population slowing, women’s situation unresolved’, Middle East Review of International Affairs, March 2009, Washington Institute. Foucault, Michel (1988), ‘Technologies of the self ’, in L. H. Martin, H. Gutan and P. H. Hutton (eds), Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, London: Tavistock, pp. 16–49. Hefner, Robert W. (2009), ‘Islamic schools, social movements and democracy in Indonesia’, in Making Modern Muslims. The Politics of Islamic Education in Southeast Asia, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, pp. 55–105. Hoodfar, Homa (1997), ‘Devices and desires: population policy and gender roles in the Islamic Republic’, in Joel Beinen and Joe Stark (eds), Political Islam: Essays from Middle East Report, London: I. B. Tauris, pp. 220–33. Iqtidar, Humeira (2011), Secularizing Islamists? Jama’at-e-Islami and the Jama’udDa’wa in urban Pakistan, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jones, Gavin W. (1994), Marriage and Divorce in Islamic South-East Asia, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kienle, Eberhard (1998), ‘More than a response to Islamism: the political deliberalization of Egypt in the 1990s, Middle East Journal, 52(2): 219–35. Kuru, Ahmet T. (2021), Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global

148

feminism, fertility and piety and Historical Comparative Companion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lazreg, Marnia (2009), Questioning the Veil: Open Letters to Muslim Women, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Luisser, Danielle and Fish, M. Steven (2016), ‘Men, Muslims and attitudes towards gender inequality’, Politics and Religion, 9: 29–60. Mclarney, Ellen (2015), Soft Power: Women in Egypt’s Islamic Awakening, Princeton, NJ; Princeton University Press. Mahmood, Saba (2001), ‘Feminist theory, embodiment and the docile subject: some reflections on the Egyptian Islamic Revolution’, Cultural Anthropology, 16(2): 202–36. Mahmood, Saba (2012), Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject, 2nd edn, Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Mahmood, Saba (2015), ‘Secularism, hermeneutics and empire: the politics of Islamic reformation’, Public Culture, 18(2): 323–47. Mehryar, Amir H. (2005), ‘Islamic teachings on reproductive health’, in Gavin W. Jones and Mehtab S. Karim (eds), Islam, State and Population, London: Hurst, pp. 40–55. Moghadam, Valentine M. (2017), ‘Women’s rights and democratization in Morocco and Tunisia’, in Jocelyne Cesari and José Casanova (eds), Islam, Gender, and Democracy in Comparative Perspective, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, ch. 10. Nussbaum, Martha C. (2000), Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reid, Anthony (1988), ‘Female roles in pre-­colonial Southeast Asia’, Modern Asian Studies, 22(3): 629–45. Shehabudd, Elora (2021), Sisters in the Mirror. A History of Muslim Women in the Global Politics of Feminism, Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Tong, Joy and Turner, Bryan S. (2008), ‘Women, piety and practice: a study of women, and religious practice in Malaysia’, Contemporary Islam, 2(1): 41–59. Vahidnia, Farnaz (2007), ‘Case study: fertility decline in Iran’, Population and Environment, 28: 259–66. Van der Veer, Peter (2008), ‘Embodiment, materiality and power’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 50(3): 809–18. Wellman, Rose (2021), Feeding Iran: Shi‘i families and the making of the Islamic Republic, Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Yeung, Wei-­Jun Jean and Desai, Sonalde (2018), ‘Families in Southeast Asia’, Annual Review of Sociology, 44: 469–95.

149

understanding islam Reports Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (2011), The Future of the Global Muslim Population: Projections for 2010–2030. United Nations World Fertility Report 2012.

150

8

The Problems of Positionality

Introduction: Who Has Authority to Speak? Many of the issues about positionality were explored in Chapter 2 through Robert Merton’s discussion of the insider– outsider problem in American sociology with special reference to research on black American communities. However, the arguments in this volume about the history of Western responses to Islam are now rehearsed in contemporary debates, not under the insider–outsider distinction, but under the notion of ‘positionality’. The driving issues behind this notion include gender and race, namely that scientific knowledge has been dominated historically by privileged white males. It is argued that sociologists have overlooked the consequences of colonialism on social theory (Bhambra and Holmwood 2021). This idea about positions of knowledge has gained currency especially in ethnographic and qualitative research, where the researcher’s own position is seen to be crucial in his response to the world in which he is positioned. For now, I shall continue to refer to ‘he’ rather than ‘she’, because most of the criticism has been focused on male researchers and to some extent more so for anthropologists than for sociologists for reasons that will become obvious shortly. 151

understanding islam The whole issue of positionality, and indeed the various arguments presented in this volume, ask the ultimate question: who has authority to speak? Has this obvious fact ever been seriously disputed in the social sciences? The unfinished debate about verstehen can be seen as the entrée into questions about positionality. However, we might date the contemporary approaches to the subject with the emergence of subaltern studies that was specifically connected with the article by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1988) titled ‘Can the subaltern speak?’ in which she examined the subordination of voices at the periphery. The whole issue of positionality, and indeed the various arguments presented in this volume, hinges on power and authority.While accepting the challenges presented by positionality, I argue that sociology has to defend the search for objectivity in its research, and ‘objectivity’ implies also ‘universality’. The notion of positionality in anthropology first emerged as a critique of research on aboriginal cultures, where the ‘subjects’ were either objects of research without a voice of their own or they were research assistants to anthropologists whose role was to translate and explain. The political problems with research on aboriginal cultures are related to the consequences of colonialism in which anthropologists have often been seen to be working on behalf of colonial governments with the aim of managing native communities or at least being complicit with colonialism. Anthropologists who are ‘native’ to the communities they are studying have raised a different range of issues under the headings: indigenous anthropology, insider anthropology and native anthropology (Kubica 2016). In anthropology the debate over emic (inside) and etic (outside) research has to a large extent been parallel to Merton’s insider–outsider account in sociology. The distinction first 152

the problems of positionality emerged in linguistics and anthropology with the work of Kenneth Pike (1967) to distinguish between the meaning that a culture ascribes to language (emic) and the study of those languages (etic). The members of a linguistic community can judge the validity of an emic description. By contrast, an etic approach explores the concepts that are meaningful and valid to external scientific researchers. An emic approach examines how cultural practices take place and the meaning they have for native actors, while etic research typically undertakes cross-­cultural research. In anthropology it is possible to trace this argument to the work of Bronislaw Malinowski (1922) whose work in the Trobriand Islands was undertaken from the perspective of the inhabitants. His legacy became highly controversial with the publication of his diary in 1967 with its sexually explicit record. His fieldwork is defended for its interpretative sensitivity in anticipating postmodernism (Young 2004). The modern debate was further developed by Marvin Harris (1979, 1999) in a variety of publications in which he defended the claims about science and objectivity in the social sciences against postmodern criticisms. Harris employed a Marxist approach to argue that a scientist looks for causes such as environmental conditions, the labour market or international trade which may not be known or fully understood by the subjects of research. In other words, the emic approach is concerned to understand the meaning of social action while the etic approach wants to find explanations of behaviour. In contemporary anthropology, the consensus is that both approaches can in fact be combined.

153

understanding islam The West versus the Rest There is an additional a­ rgument – ­or at least another version of ­it – ­that is closely related to the debate about Orientalism which has come to be known as ‘Western versus Resturn’, namely the idea that the world of ideas has been divided between ‘The West’ and ‘The Rest’.This debate has to be distinguished from Chapter 8 (‘The West and the Rest’) in Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations (1993, 1997). In this chapter I examine debates about knowledge rather than alleged civilisational conflicts. The epistemological argument is that understanding of the Rest will be filtered through the lens of power thereby rendering their analysis one-­sided and prejudicial. The contrast between West and Rest seeks to take account of the power differences resulting from colonialism in which ideas from Western institutions have dominated and replaced alternative forms of knowledge from subordinated communities and their own academic institutions and traditions. There is the view, as we have seen in previous chapters, that many key figures in the history of sociology, who sit outside the dominant Western institutions of knowledge, such as Ibn Khaldun, have been neglected. Ali Shariati (1933–77) was a key figure in the social movements that eventually toppled the Shah of Iran, but his work has only recently received serious attention. He is outside the Western sociological canon despite the fact that his work included systematic investigations of the legacies of Ibn Khaldun, Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim and Franz Fanon. Recent interpretations of his work have, however, moved beyond treating him as merely or only the philosopher of the Iranian Revolution (Miri 2021;Vahdat 2002). If we go deeper into the idea of a West–East hiatus, we need to ask whether the West versus the Rest offers an accurate pic154

the problems of positionality ture of the development and current state of disciplines such as sociology and anthropology. Was there a coherent and dominant sociological paradigm that unified the social science of the West? One might argue that for a brief period from the 1920s until the late 1950s American sociology was the dominant tradition. American functionalism, especially in Talcott Parsons (1951) The Social System, might be regarded as the seminal publication within that American tradition. Despite his broad interests in fascism and communism, it is reasonable to conclude that his primary focus was always the United States as we can see in his American Society (2007) as the summation of Parsons’s academic work. Because Parsons was, in the 1950s and 1960s, one of the most influential sociologists in the United States, his concentration on America had a widespread impact on the American Sociological Association. Modernisation was a dominant theme in American sociology in this period, but this issue was primarily about the modernisation of the West. However, David Lerner in The Passing of Traditional Society (1958) might be taken as an exception. He proposed, through a study of six Middle Eastern societies, to undertake an empirical study of three stages towards modernity: urbanisation, literacy and participation in the media. There are two striking features of his study. The first is that in the index there are only twenty page references to Islam in a volume running to 466 pages. Lerner observed that Islam was too deeply divided by ‘sects’ to function as a global political force and the major role of Islam was one of social conservatism.The conservative role of Islam was most obvious in its control of women. The principal challenge to ‘traditional society’ came from the mass media: ‘The male vanity culture which underlay traditional institutions has proved relatively defenceless against the inroads 155

understanding islam of the mass media, particularly the movies’ (Lerner 1958: 399). Although many of Lerner’s observations were valid, he did not anticipate the roles of women in the Arab Spring, the fall of the Shah, or the political transformations of Egypt that were discussed in Chapter 7, but neither did the majority of sociologists. In contrast with American sociology, European sociology was more influenced by the legacy of Marxism through Karl Marx and Antonio Gramsci, and with its sequel such as the conflict sociology of John Rex. European sociology was more obviously critical of industrial capitalism, and the consequences such as inequality and poverty. Sociologists also paid attention to such mitigating factors as the rise of social citizenship and welfare provisions. In this left-­leaning sociology, there was ample recognition of the impact of colonialism on Africa and Asia. Many sociologists working in Britain in the post-­war period were themselves exiles from South Africa or Nazi Germany or from authoritarian regimes in Portugal and Spain. From a long list of exiles, we can include Zygmunt Bauman, Norbert Elias, Salvador Giner, Herminio Martins, John Rex and Alfred Sohn-­Rethel.

Gottfried Leibniz: A Precocious Ethic of Understanding? Understanding other cultures has been transformed by modern globalisation as a result of which we live in a highly interconnected world. A water-­tight division between the West and the Rest no longer exists in a global environment in which technology has made the rapid communication of ideas a routine feature of modern research. There are obviously differences of power in which, for example, American universities are the dominant players, but there is also competition, especially from China. The 156

the problems of positionality Al-­Azhar University in Cairo, which has been modernised to include a wider range of disciplines, is the oldest and most prestigious in the region. Al-­Azhar has often been the conduit by which knowledge from the Arab world has travelled to East Asia and beyond (Von der Mehden 1993). In global terms, a critical factor is obviously the dominance of English as an international language of communication. The power structure of knowledge in terms of language, resources and location will continue to evolve, with winners and losers, but it will never disappear. One’s position in the field of academic endeavour will play a large part in the degree to which one’s ideas are accepted and have effects.The critical issue about positionality is that positions only become an issue in a complex and diverse world. In a hypothetical monocultural society there would only be one position shared by all. Diversity forces us to consider from what position or positions does a person speak. Hence the issue of power structures determines what points and persons are influential in a global system, but the critical questions for positionality are the extent to which we live in a cosmopolitan world. At what point did a cosmopolitan ethic develop as a platform for an exchange between multiple positions? One candidate, although often disputed, was the Enlightenment notion of a ‘republic of letters’ (Casanova 2004) that flourished in the eighteenth century. From an historical point of view, we need to start the story about positionality in the seventeenth century, if not earlier. The idea of a world of diverse positions of knowledge is not a modern development. Many European cities have enjoyed global connectivity over many centuries. In many respects, the idea of hermeneutical knowledge played an important role in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries especially in religious diverse societies such as Amsterdam which was the context of Spinoza’s ideas about 157

understanding islam religion in public space. While sociologists argue that diversity is a key feature of the modern city, Andrew Marvell’s poem on The Character of Holland 1653 is a useful reminder that port cities have always been diverse: Hence Amsterdam, Turk, Christian, Pagan, Jew, Staple of Sects and mint of schism grew That bank of conscience where no one so strange Opinion but finds credit and exchange (Grosart 1966)

While Amsterdam had a reputation for tolerance, Spinoza was excommunicated from the Jewish community in 1656 for his heresy. On becoming an outsider, he changed his name from Baruch Spinoza to Benedict de Spinoza. In many respects, however, the key figure in the development of a cosmopolitan framework for intercultural knowledge was Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) in his New Essays on Human Understanding (1996) that was written in 1704 but not published until 1765. Much can be learnt from the attitude of Leibniz in his hermeneutics of respect for other cultures.While Leibniz was very familiar with the Egypt of his day, he had little to say about Islam. Although he wrote explicitly from a European-­centred position, Leibniz, taking note of the exchange between trading nations with China, argued that we need an exchange of light to match the exchange of goods (Perkins 2004). As a German philosopher from Leipzig, who never had the opportunity to visit China, we can appreciate his position as one of extreme difference from his Chinese subjects, despite the two volumes he wrote about China. As an outsider, he sought to understand Chinese culture in a period when China was still distant and exotic despite Marco Polo’s arrival in China in 1275 and the 158

the problems of positionality many centuries of trade. Leibniz’s hermeneutics remains relevant to our world, including understanding Islam (Turner 2005). Leibniz’s first hermeneutic principle was an assumption that all human beings have a common rationality that is based on avoidance of contradiction. Where there are differences of comprehension, he attributed these to differences of experience rather than to differences in rationality.The second hermeneutic principle is simply one of generosity or giving everybody we want to understand the ‘benefit of the doubt’ when it comes to an apparent inconsistency or basic contradiction in belief. We should always interpret texts in a favourable light. The third principle is a technical issue concerning his preference for the ancient over modern Chinese texts. Contemporary texts had led Europeans to interpret Confucianism as a form of virtuous atheism, which was a conclusion he wanted to avoid. A key feature of Leibniz’s search for a cosmological position was his theory concerning the original language of Adam and Eve. If the original language of h ­ umanity – t­he Ur-­language – ­could be discovered, the problems of understanding would be greatly resolved. We would live once more in a community based on a shared language. Leibniz therefore worked for the creation of philosophia perennis – a universal philosophical language that could be shared by all nations and thus promote international understanding (Clarke 1997: 48).The age of imperialism brought these ethical goals to an end, but cosmopolitanism continues to surface as an alternative to nationalism (Turner 2020). Although many commentaries have seen COVID-­19 as an opportunity to revive cosmopolitanism, the constant evolution of the virus and mounting fatalities throw a large question mark over ‘cosmopolitan virtue’.

159

understanding islam Understanding Religion in Post-secular Society Throughout my reflections on ‘Understanding Islam’ I have drawn attention to the particular difficulties that are involved when a secular science such as sociology attempts to make sense of any religion that is based on revelation. Unsurprisingly then, when we turn to understanding a religion, it is evident that the problems of interpretation are considerable, because the clash between a secular rationalist perspective and religious belief and practice is acute. To explore the idea of the position of the observer, we need to examine questions regarding the position of rationality in relation to revelation. One example is the difficulty experienced by a philosopher such as Juergen Habermas who has sought to come to terms with religious belief from a rationalist perspective. He has to his credit made significant attempts to clear the pathway to encourage dialogue between secularists and religious believers by arguing that secularists should respect the seriousness of religion and recognise the contributions Christianity has made to Western civilisation and civility, including liberalism itself. Habermas’s interest in religion in the public sphere came relatively late in his career. However, we can see that his position on religion follows from his basic understanding of communicative actions. In an interaction between various parties, there is a principle of accountability (Habermas 2006, 2008). The problem faced by both John Rawls and Juergen Habermas is that the ideas and beliefs of C ­ hristians – i­ndeed any religious ­group – ­in a liberal democracy have to be taken into account and treated with equal respect and consideration, even when religious beliefs appear to be counter-­intuitive and difficult to defend on rational grounds. Both Rawls and Habermas 160

the problems of positionality adhere, in the last analysis, to the ­principle – ­the so-­called ‘proviso’ – that religious beliefs must be expressed in terms that are intelligible to a secular audience. Religious citizens are obliged to express their beliefs in terms that are comprehensible to a secular discussant (Areshidze 2017). However, the proviso means in practice that religious and secular citizens are not on equal grounds when it comes to expressing their beliefs and values. The key text behind these contemporary debates about religious beliefs in the public domain is Immanuel Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (Kant 1998), which was published in 1793. A product of the European Enlightenment, Kant argued that religious dogmatism, intolerance and superstition were the cause of much human suffering and social conflict. If reason could replace revelation, humans could lead more satisfying moral lives. Religion can be accepted into the public domain provided it operates within the boundaries of reason. A modern religion would then be operating according to right reason. While he was critical of organised religion, he believed that the teaching of Jesus was an invaluable guide to moral behaviour. In this respect, Kant’s rationalism was still influenced by his upbringing in a pious household. Although Kant is regarded as a major influence on the growth of secularism as an intellectual movement, much of the critique of traditional Christian belief came from Christian theologians. In particular, German theologians such as David Friedrich Strauss (1808–74) began to develop new interpretations of the life of Jesus that would strip the New Testament of its mythical components and question the historical accuracy of the Bible as a whole. For example, Strauss attributed traditional Christian ideas regarding the Messiah and resurrection to Persian mysticism. The Life of Jesus (Strauss 2010) was first published in 1835 161

understanding islam and caused a storm of protest as a result of which Strauss was excluded from teaching in a university. It was translated into English in 1846 by George Eliot (1819–80) and contributed to her eventual rejection of Christianity. Although Strauss’s study produced a storm of protest, many of his ideas had already been rehearsed in the 1790s by theologians who had concluded that the miracles and angels in the Bible were fictions. Strauss’s study had been disruptive because it reached an audience beyond the confines of academic theology (Linstrum 2010). This movement in theology, often described as ‘Form Criticism’, came to maturity with Rudolf Bultmann (1884– 1976) who further developed the movement to demythologise Christianity. This move involved separating the historical ­Jesus – ­an obscure Galilean ­preacher – f­rom the Christ of Faith or the kerygma. With the growth of historical evaluation of the New Testament, this viewpoint had become a common assumption of theological teaching in German universities and colleges by the 1940s (Hoffmann 2005), although it remains controversial outside academic circles. Why have I dwelt at some length on what may appear to be arcane problems in Christian theology that may be only intelligible to a minority? The answer is that I want to take seriously the point that religions change over time and therefore understanding always takes place in a changing environment. Such changes are often radical, for example the Protestant Reformation. We can regard these developments as constituting a ‘modernisation’ of the Christian churches in the context of increasing secularism. There have been equally profound changes in Islam. There has been much discussion of the modernisation of religions including the reform of Islam. We are familiar with notions about ‘reform Islam’, ‘political Islam’, ‘Islamisation’ and 162

the problems of positionality so forth. Reformed religions appear to be more engaged with public issues and at the same time they are evangelical, not only in attempting actively to convert people, but also in the concern to draw the laity into leadership roles in religious institutions. They are also engaged in the internal reform of beliefs and institutions. They involve a reform of individual religious behaviour which we can broadly refer to as an increase in attention to individual piety. In the case of Islam, this reform has involved a long and occasionally violent attack on folk religion which in this case is often mistakenly aimed at Sufism. We can think about Islamic reform as starting in the nineteenth century with famous debates about reason, revelation and revival by religious intellectuals such as Rashid Ridda, Jamal al-­ Din Al-­Afghani, Muhammad Iqbal and Sayyid Maududi. These intellectuals, being convinced of the decline of Islam in the face of Western colonialism, sought to revitalise Islamic belief and practices, ridding them of what they saw as merely customary elements and folk religion. These early reformist movements became more intense in the twentieth century, especially in the aftermath of the First World War, the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, the liquidation of the caliphate and the establishment of British and French mandates. As a result, large swathes of Muslim territory came under Western control both politically and culturally. This political and spiritual crisis was influential in the political theology of Sayyid Qutb (1906–60), whose philosophy influenced the Muslim Brotherhood, the redefinition of jihad, the movement to decolonise the Arab world, the rejection of Russian socialism and atheism, and the attempts to restore pristine Islam. He spent several years in the United States, concluding that, while America was technologically advanced, it was morally corrupt. He claimed that most so-­called Muslim 163

understanding islam s­ ocieties were in fact anti-­Islamic. He spent many years in prison and under house arrest. These experiences contributed to his radical message about religious and political reform. The result of these developments was what has broadly been called ‘Islamisation’ or the reform of Islam.There are three obvious religious manifestations of these changes: the veiling of women, the popularity of the hajj or pilgrimage, and the attachment to the Shari’a as the defining element of an Islamic society. The basis of these developments has been the large-­scale urbanisation of Muslim lands in the late twentieth century, the widespread increase in literacy, and the growth in women’s involvement in higher education. Similar educational changes have changed the status of women throughout East Asia. Turning to the United States, there has also been an evolution of Islam involving its reorientation and reformation as something approaching an American denomination in contrast to its more confrontational earlier incarnation as the Nation of Islam. According to Mucahit Bilici (2012) in Finding Mecca in America, Muslims in modern-­ day America are finding their way into the cultural mainstream with, for example, the development of Muslim comedians and comic shows.

Religious Tolerance Whether or not dialogue can take place will depend on more than cosmopolitanism. It will hinge on religious freedom and whether Muslims and Christians can tolerate their religious differences and recognise their family resemblances. I have noted that Vatican II moved the Roman Catholic Church towards an historic recognition of other religions. By contrast evangelical 164

the problems of positionality Christians in the United States are not inclined towards ecumenical dialogue with other Christians and they are decidedly opposed to the ‘creeping Shari’a’ and propose to develop an equivalent Christian Shari’a. In a valuable discussion of the question ‘Are Muslims tolerant?’, Daniel Philpott (2020), working with Pew Research Center data from 2009 on government restrictions on religious freedom and the extent of social hostilities, began by observing that public opinion was neatly divided between ‘Islamoskeptics’, for whom Islam is inherently intolerant and opposed to liberal democracy, and ‘Islamopluralists’, who argue that Islamic traditions vary by history, place and cultures, and conclude that the West should engage in dialogue with Muslims. The data in fact support both positions. Some 78 per cent of Muslim countries are not supportive of religious freedom and 78 per cent of Muslim countries display moderate to high levels of persecution. However, around 25 per cent were classified as religiously free and of the thirty-­six unfree countries, 42 per cent had secular governments. Of the eleven free countries, seven were from West Africa. These societies were religiously diverse with considerable inter-­religious harmony and high levels of inter-­marriage. Perhaps one crucial feature of these societies was their Sufi tradition and its commitment to the injunction ‘there is no compulsion in religion’.

Bourdieu, Reflexivity and the Strong Programme of Science Although positionality is often presented as an important critical breakthrough, the idea of reflexivity and the position of the 165

understanding islam researcher has been much rehearsed many times in the social sciences, for example in the work of Pierre Bourdieu (2004), especially in his Science of Science and Reflexivity. Bourdieu was highly sensitive to the ambiguities of his own position. He argues that in any discussion of these issues concerning reflexivity we should distinguish between ‘field’ and ‘individual status’. The field here refers to the structure of the academy and the location of anthropology and sociology within in the academic field, and finally the particular characteristics of the researcher. When Bourdieu began to enter the French academic field in the late 1950s, philosophy was the dominant discipline to such an extent that sociology was regarded as a ‘pariah discipline’ (Bourdieu 2004: 99). Any philosopher who moved to sociology went through a process of ‘degradation’. In passing, one thinks here of Edward Said’s derogatory references to the inferiority of sociology against comparative literary studies. With his research in Algeria as the background, Bourdieu was neither anthropologist nor sociologist. He also worked on multiple topics without any specialisation. He also used multiple methodologies: photography, statistical analysis, ethnography and textual analysis. In short, Bourdieu did not fit within the field. His personal characteristics also contributed to the ambiguity. His father was the son of a peasant tenant farmer who eventually became a minor state employee. Bourdieu felt comfortable with the children in his school whose parents were smallholders, shopkeepers and artisans. Bourdieu’s academic success took him out of this humble world to the prestigious École normale supérieure, but throughout his career he felt a deep association with the rural environment of the remote village in Béarn where he was born. He described himself as occupying a ‘cleft habitus’ (Bourdieu 2004: 111). Despite his sense of being mar166

the problems of positionality ginal to the high bourgeois world of the French academy, he replaced Raymond Aron as the director of the Centre de sociologie européenne in 1964. These social ambiguities were translated into his attitude towards politics where his commitment to Algerian liberation and the rights of migrants cast him in a radical role, and yet he is highly critical of what he calls ‘campus radicalism’ and ‘postmodernism’ (Bourdieu 2004: 105–6). In the 1960s, when it was fashionable to be Marxist, he vacillated between Durkheim and Weber. Although Bourdieu contributes to a sophisticated version of ‘positionality’, he also defends sociology as a science via what is known as ‘the strong programme’. Engaging in self-­analysis in terms of field and social identity does not preclude a scientific framework for sociology. Bourdieu (2004: 18–21) draws on the work of David Bloor (1976) in Knowledge and Social Imagery to establish four methodological principles to construct a sociological theory of scientific knowledge. These principles are: (1) explanations must be causal; (2) sociology remains impartial to the ‘truth’ or ‘falsity’ of the assertions made by actors; (3) at the same time, the same symmetrical principles apply in that the same type of causes must be applied to statements judged by the actors to be either ‘true’ or ‘false’; and (4) finally reflexivity means that the sociology of the sciences must be subject to the same requirements it applies to other sciences. We should note that Bourdieu gives ‘causality’ a broad definition in that he regards ‘understanding’ as offering causal explanations. Despite the many ambiguities of his career within the field of the social sciences, Bourdieu promotes a robust defence of sociology as a science, but admits that sociology faces difficulties not encountered by other sciences in that ‘everyone feels entitled to have their say about sociology and to enter into to the struggle 167

understanding islam over the legitimate view of the social world, in which the sociologist also intervenes, but with a quite special ambition, which is granted unproblematically to other scientists, but which in his or her case tends to be even more monstrous: to utter the truth or, worse, to define the conditions in which one can utter the truth’ (Bourdieu 2004: 87).

Conclusion: Edward Said Out of Place As in previous chapters, the challenge of Edward Said’s Orientalism cannot be avoided. And Bourdieu’s reflection of reflexivity provides the obvious entrance into this conclusion. Edward Said had lived with leukaemia for a decade, eventually dying from it in New York in 2003, at the age of sixty-­seven. His personal reflections on his career had appeared earlier in his Out of Place (1999). I complement this text with the official biography of Said by Timothy Brennan in Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said (2021). The upshot of these two intimate accounts of Said is that his own position over time was a good deal more complicated than first emerged in Orientalism. This autobiographical complexity and uncertainty confirm the general proposal of this chapter which is that the majority of the standard accounts of positionality fail to unpick the ambiguities of the concept and the complexity of field and position. Said’s position had many dimensions and, in many respects, it was ‘out of place’ combining a Christian and a Palestinian identity as indicated by ‘Edward’ and ‘Said’. He never felt quite comfortable as a graduate from Harvard and a full professor at Columbia University as one of the most prestigious universities in the United States, while advocating the cause of Palestine. As with Raymond Williams 168

the problems of positionality and Pierre Bourdieu, Said’s radical philosophy came from his sense that he also sat on the margins. His reflections on exile and creativity are an important component of my conclusion in Chapter 9 (Said 2002).

References Areshidze, Giorgi (2017), ‘Taking religion seriously? Habermas on religious translation and cooperative learning in post-­ secular society’, American Political Science Review, 111(4): 724–37. Bhambra, Gurminder and Holmwood, John H. (2021), Colonialism and Modern Social Theory, Cambridge: Polity Press. Bilici, Mucahit (2012), Finding Mecca in America, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bloor, David (1976), Knowledge and Social Imagery, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bourdieu, Pierre (2004), Science of Science and Reflexivity, Cambridge: Polity Press. Brennan, Timothy (2021), Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Casanova, Pascale (2004), The World Republic of Letters, Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. Clarke, J. J. (1997), Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter between Asian and Western Thought, London and New York: Routledge. Grosart, A. B. (ed.) (1966), The Complete Poems of Andrew Marvell, New York: AMS Press. Habermas, Jürgen (2006), ‘Religion in the public sphere’, European Journal of Philosophy, 14(1): 1–25. Habermas, Jürgen (2008), ‘Notes on a post-­secular society’, New Perspectives Quarterly, 25(4): 17–29. Harris, Marvin (1979), Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture, New York:Vintage Books. Harris, Marvin (1999), Theories of Culture in Postmodern Times, Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Hoffmann, R. Joseph (2005),‘Introduction’, in Myth and Christianity: An Inquiry into the Possibility of Religion without Myth, New York: Prometheus Books.

169

understanding islam Huntington, Samuel P. (1993), ‘The clash of civilizations?’, Foreign Affairs, 72(3): 22–49. Huntington, Samuel P. (1997), The Clash of Civilizations: And the Remaking of World Order, London: Simon and Schuster, pp. 183–206. Kant, Immanuel (1998), Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kubica, Grazyna (2016), ‘How “native” is my “native anthropology”? Positionality and the reception of the anthropologist’s work in her own ­community – ­a reflexive account’, Cargo, 14(1–2): 81–99. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1996), New Essays on Human Understanding, New York: Cambridge University Press. Lerner, Daniel (1958), The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East, New York: The Free Press. Linstrum, Erik (2010), ‘Strauss’s “Life of Jesus”: publication and the German public sphere’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 71(4): 593–616. Malinowski, Bronislaw (1922), Argonauts of the Western Pacific, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Miri, Seyed Javad (2021), Ali Shariati: Expanding the Sociological Canon, Ekpyrosis Press. Parsons, Talcott (1951), The Social System, New York: The Free Press. Parsons, Talcott (2007), American Society: Toward a Theory of the Societal Community, London: Routledge. Perkins, Franklin (2004), Leibniz and China: A Commerce of Light, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Philpott, Daniel (2020), ‘Religious liberty and the Muslim question’, in Vycheslav Karpov and Manfred Svensson (eds), Secularization, Desecularization and Toleration, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 215–32. Pike, Kenneth (1967), Languages in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior, The Hague: Mouton. Said, Edward W. (1999), Out of Place, New York:Vintage Books. Said Edward W. (2002), Reflections on Exile and Other Essays, Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (1988), In Other Worlds: Essays in Colonial Politics, New York and London: Routledge. Strauss, David (2010), Life of Jesus: Critically Examined, Cambridge Library Collection, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Turner, Bryan S. (2005), ‘Leibniz, Islam and cosmopolitan virtue’, Theory Culture and Society, 22(6): 139–47. Turner, Bryan S. (2020), ‘Cosmopolitanism and religion’, in V. Cicchelli and

170

the problems of positionality S.  Mesure (eds), Cosmopolitanism in Hard Times, Leiden: Brill, pp.  328– 338. Vahdat, Farzin (2002), God and the Juggernaut: Iran’s Intellectual Encounter with Modernity, New York: Syracuse University Press. Von der Mehden, Fred R. (1993), The Worlds of Islam: Interaction between Southeast Asia and the Middle East, Gainsville, FL: University Press of Florida. Young, Michael W. (2004), Malinowski: Odyssey of an Anthropologist 1884–1920, New Haven, CT and London:Yale University Press.

171

9

The Possibility of Dialogue

Introduction: Dilemmas of Diversity The underlying theme of this discussion of positions of knowledge and the capacity to understand other cultures and other religions is that conflicts of positions can only emerge in a world that is in a context of what we might called ‘contested diversity’. The question of a person’s position would not hypothetically emerge in a stale monocultural environment. If issues of position did emerge, they could in all probability be easily resolved. That modern societies are diverse is a pointless truism, but the consequences are real. The position of classical sociology, from Comte to Simmel, is now challenged from the perspective of post-­ colonialism (Bhambra and Holmwood 2021) and postmodernism (Susen 2015). Because of an expanding social and cultural diversity that is related to globalisation, positionality has become a political issue, and not just in the academy but among the wider public. We are also living in an environment of ‘fake news’ and cyber attacks. Liberal secular societies in the West officially celebrate diversity and multiculturalism, including religious difference, but typically encounter a limit when confronted by the veil, female genital mutilation or underage brides. 172

the possibility of dialogue How can we resolve these conflicts in the public domain? In the absence of shared values, finding agreement over basic ethical issues is deeply problematic (MacIntyre 2007). The liberal quest for ‘an overlapping consensus’ (Rawls 1987) in the civil sphere appears to be remote. Ironically, the overlapping beliefs between Muslims and ­Christians – t­heir family ­resemblances – ­may render achieving a broad basis for a productive harmony more, rather than less, difficult. Susan Buck-­Morss (2006), whose politics are no doubt very different from Hans-­Georg Gadamer’s political outlook, writing soon after 9/11 in Thinking Past Terror, pleaded with the American public to go beyond the futile conflict of terror and counter-­terror. She believed that a conversation could take place in a public sphere in what she called the ‘cosmopolitanism of the world of letters’. In the preface to the paperback edition, she argued that her central proposal is that we consider Islamism as a political discourse along with critical theory as critiques of modernity. Her work contains the hope for a productive conversation and presupposes a cosmopolitan context, namely a cosmopolitan world of letters. This volume has followed her vision and aspiration. This problem of shared knowledge and trust has become more acute in the context of writing this book with conflict and uncertainty about the future of the world order in terms of climate change, drought, pandemics and terrorism. The international background to this volume has involved major political disasters and global ­crises – ­Israel and Palestine, the Iran nuclear debate, the fall of the Afghan government, political crises in Tunisia, Lebanon and Libya, and growing political instability in much of Africa. Many of these political confrontations have involved Islam in one way or another. The fall of Afghanistan to 173

understanding islam the Taliban, the growing uncertainty of the future of Afghanistan and surrounding societies, will inevitably fuel Islamophobia throughout many Western societies. Disasters of this magnitude defy the conditions for successful intercultural dialogue and understanding while at the same time making such dialogue more important and necessary. The word ‘disaster’ may seriously underestimate the problems facing the world, and especially the difficulties confronting the liberal democracies.The combination of the COVID-­19 pandemic, climate change, volcanic eruptions and political extremism deserves to be called a c­atastrophe – ­meaning the final act or denouement. Ulrich Beck, writing about the ‘risk society’, argued that we can hope for the emergence of a shared ‘community of risk’ and indeed an ‘emancipatory catastrophism’ in response to shared risk (Beck 2015). After one of the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history, the Tohoku earthquake, which killed over 20,000 Japanese inhabitants, the Japanese spoke about seise (regeneration) and kizuna (bonds of community) (Morris-­Suzuki 2017). In response to a global pandemic, we have yet to see much evidence of an emerging global ‘community of risk’, but there may yet be hope for a shared post-­COVID-­19 community. Gadamer, writing in the context of the German catastrophe, also argued that pessimism was a moral failing. Where there is dialogue there is the possibility for mutual understanding. However, the principal obstacles are not simply external political events. They are also religious and cultural. No conclusion can therefore offer some bland optimism about mutual respect and social harmony. In this regard I share the same doubts about dialogue and consensus under liberal assumptions that have been articulated by Steven Lukes (2003) in Liberals and Cannibals: The Implications of Diversity. A satisfactory and reward174

the possibility of dialogue ing dialogue between vegetarians and meat eaters is not a good prospect. The principal problem for all faith communities is to ‘accept the idea that other religions have intrinsic spiritual value’ (Sachedin 2001: 35). Given there are ample overlapping principles between Muslims and Christians, the prospects of acceptance are worth pursuing. The secondary organising principle behind this volume has been the distinction between understanding and explanation. Understanding typically takes place as a ­dialogue – ­explicit or ­implicit – ­between individuals who are puzzled and look for some basis of agreement. Explanation can also start from puzzlement, but it has a different methodology for coming to conclusions. In this volume I have followed both forms of inquiry, noting the difference between what we may call everyday understanding and a scientific interest in explanation and description. I have maintained this distinction, because mutual and meaningful understanding also requires some level of objectivity. Any outsider seeking to understand Islam needs some reliable facts about its origins, its history, its internal differences and so forth. Islamophobia thrives on misinformation and bad information. There are certain norms of understanding that emerge in trying to understand Islam or indeed any culture or way of life. These include some simple norms or ­procedures – ­avoid prejudice, be attentive and accept responsibility for ­care – ­that may form the basic elements of an ethics of understanding, but they do not take us far enough. Understanding others should start with the more difficult task of understanding ourselves. Here again Gadamer (2006: 13) points the way: ‘the general process of reaching an understanding between persons and the process of understanding per se are both language-­events that resemble the inner conversation of the soul with itself ’. Gadamer regarded 175

understanding islam hermeneutics as always a detour through the unfamiliar with a view to allowing us to speak to the other. The ethical aim, against the constraints of power and history, is a community of understanding. Gadamer’s hermeneutical philosophy had two possible responses to the idea that understanding would always be compromised by political necessities. In a conversation with Jacques Derrida in 1981 (Grondin 2003: 324–9), Gadamer came to discuss the constraints regarding the possibilities of dialogic understanding. First, he rejected a sharp division between the parties to any dialogue, failed or otherwise, because in his view we (insiders and outsiders) are bound together as historical subjects. Where a dialogue brings about the prospect of mutual understanding there is a ‘fusion of horizons’ (Gadamer 1984: 273). A good hermeneutic principle for any understanding, whether as a sociologist or as an interested observer, is simply that of attentiveness (Stones and Turner 2020). This requires, apart from maintaining a sympathetic attention to detail, that understanding another should not result in damage, intended or otherwise, to their well-­being. Second, Gadamer believed that understanding can often fail. His guidelines, implicit and explicit, offer no guarantee that dialogue would lead to successful mutual understanding. In any case, Gadamer was no stranger to violence and political catastrophe. He was a professor at the University of Leipzig throughout the Second World War. Many friends and colleagues were rounded up and executed after the failed assassination attempt on Hitler on 20 July 1944. As the war ended, Leipzig was at the forefront of conflict between the Soviets and the retreating German army. For Gadamer, observer and observed are bound together by their common historicity in which both are connected in time in the 176

the possibility of dialogue route to finitude. To repeat, he rejected pessimism as insincere, claiming that humans cannot exist without hope. One standard objection to the early anthropology of indigenous societies is that the research, as part of a colonial audit of subjugated peoples, was not undertaken with the aim of promoting their well-­being. However, anthropologists have generally been only too aware of these issues. Richard T. Antoun (1923–2009), whom I knew through a scholarly exchange, undertook extensive fieldwork in Lebanon and Jordan, and published Understanding Fundamentalism: Christian, Islamic and Jewish Movements (Antoun 2001). He had this to say in what I would call an ethic of dialogue that neither suppresses the outsider’s beliefs nor belittles the insider’s world: ‘The anthropologist aims for empathy rather than sympathy’ (Antoun 2001: vii). Antoun (2010) emphasised the common social and religious features of what we may call ‘Abrahamic fundamentalism’. Sadly, Antoun was stabbed to death in his Binghampton University office by student who was deemed unable to understand the nature of his crime. He was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Empathy can come at a price.

Conclusion: Understanding Islam While this problem of subjective inside and objective outside knowledge is a general issue in epistemology, there are particular difficulties associated with the dichotomy when it comes to understanding religion. There are at least two basic problems. First, the truth-­claims of theology appear to confound Enlightenment rationalism which has, prior to pragmatism and post-­modernism, been the almost unchallenged framework for 177

understanding islam producing scientific knowledge and verifying its truth-­claims. Rationalism has specific problems with miracles, revelation, and prophecy. Miracles were important in the ministry of Jesus and they were treated by Max Weber as evidence of his charismatic authority. Western philosophy has, however, been fundamentally sceptical. David Hume (1711–76) wrote on miracles in his Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding in 1748 (Hume 1975). It has remained the definitive text in Western philosophy from the perspective of empirical rationalism in which such singular and unusual events were dismissed as simply contrary to the laws of nature. He argued that any claim about the violation of a law of nature would be met with equally valid counterclaims. The evidence for miracles was never sufficient to justify the passion and bigotry of religion. Miracles have played an important role in Islam; for example, there are many references to miracles associated with the Prophet. One such is the so-­called Mairaj when the Prophet travelled with the Angel Gabriel from Mecca to Jerusalem (Qur’an 3:49). However, the traditional Muslim view is that miracles happen when God creates them, not against the laws of nature, but as examples of his mercy and engagement with humanity. Because of this difference, there was a tradition of Islamic polemic against the validity of miracles in the Christian tradition (Thomas 1994). The Islamic tradition has also come up against the spread of Western scientific ideas as a consequence of colonial administration (Terzic 2009). The second problem is the ineffable character of religious speech. There is a certain arrogance involved in any claim to understand religion given that the religious experience is in that last analysis ineffable (Hicks 2000; Turner 2008). As a consequence, religious language is metaphorical and poetic rather 178

the possibility of dialogue than merely descriptive. It is therefore with considerable trepidation that I undertook to write this volume given the many famous scholars that have gone before me. Indeed there are many books with the title Understanding Islam, not least by Frithjof Schuon(1907–98). Schuon lived between and among several forms of spirituality and in many c­ ountries – G ­ ermany, Austria, France, and the United States. He worshiped at the shrine at Mary’s House (Meryemana Evi) near Ephesus, which is a site of pilgrimage for Christians and Muslims. His Understanding Islam (Schuon 2011) was published in France in 1961 and translated into English in 1963, going into many editions. I conclude this volume with a quotation from Annemarie Schimmel (1922– 2003), a famous scholar of Sufism who wrote a brief introduction to Schuon’s study of Islam on the ineffable nature of the Divine: People often ask me: ‘Why do you like Islam?’ and my regular answer is: ‘Because the Muslims take God seriously; they are aware that God the One is near us here and now, and yet cannot be described, either by intellectual or by supra intellectual means.’ (Schimmel 2011)

References Antoun, Richard T. (2001), Understanding Fundamentalism: Christian, Islamic and Jewish Movements, Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Antoun, Richard T. (2010), ‘Fundamentalism’, in Bryan S. Turner (ed.), The New Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion, Chichester: Wiley-­ Blackwell, pp. 519–43. Beck, Ulrich (2015), ‘Emancipatory catastrophism: what does it mean to climate change and risk society?’, Current Sociology, 63(1): 75–88. Bhambra, Gurminder and Holmwood, John H. (2021), Colonialism and Modern Social Theory, Cambridge: Polity Press.

179

understanding islam Buck-­Morss, Susan (2006), Thinking Past Terror: Islamism and Critical Theory on the Left, London:Verso. Gadamer, Hans-­Georg (1984), Truth and Method, New York: Crossroads. Gadamer, Hans-­Georg (2006), ‘Language and understanding’, Theory Culture and Society, 23(1): 13–27. Grondin, Jean (2003), Hans-Georg Gadamer, New Haven, CT and London:Yale University Press. Hicks, John (2000), ‘Ineffability’, Religious Studies, 36(1): 35–46. Hume, David (1975), Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lukes, Steven (2003), Liberals and Cannibals: The Implications of Diversity, New York:Verso. MacIntyre, Alasdair (2007), After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press. Morris-­ Suzuki, Tessa (2017), ‘Disaster and utopia: looking back at 3/11’, Japanese Studies, 37(2): 171–90. Rawls, John (1987), ‘The idea of an overlapping consensus’, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 7(1): 1–25. Sachedin, Abdulaziz (2001), The Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schimmel, Annemarie (2011) ‘Foreword’, in Frithjof Schoun, Understanding Islam: A New Translation with Selected Letters, Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, pp. v–vii. Schuon, Frithjof (2011), Understanding Islam: A New Translation with Selected Letters, Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom. Stones, Rob and Turner, Bryan S. (2020), ‘Successful societies and the quality of attentiveness’, British Journal of Sociology, 71(1): 183–99. Susen, Simon (2015), The ‘Postmodern Turn’ in the Social Sciences, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Terzic, Faruk (2009), ‘The problematic of Prophethood and miracles: Muṣṭafā Ṣabrī’s response’, Islamic Studies, 48(1): 5–33. Thomas, David (1994), ‘The miracles of Jesus in early Islamic polemic’, Journal of Semitic Studies, 39(2): 221–43. Turner, Bryan S. (2008), ‘Religious ­speech – t­he ineffable nature of religious communication in the information age’, Theory Culture and Society (7–8): 219–35.

180

Index

Abdulhamid II, 101–2 aboriginal peoples, 39, 77, 105, 152, 177 abortion, 87–8, 147 Abu-Lughod, Lila, 141 activism, 21–2, 87, 135, 138, 142, 145, 146, 147 adat, 18 al-Afghani, Jamal al-Din, 163 Afghanistan, 5, 15–18, 22–3, 34, 39, 45, 72, 92, 121, 122, 126, 127, 132–3, 137, 142, 173–4 agency, 135–6, 138, 140, 141, 145, 147 Ahmad, Mirza Ghulam, 78 Ahmadiyya, 78, 92 Ahmed, Akbar, 77 Ahmed, Leila, 135 Akyol, Mustafa, 93 al-Alawi, Irfan, 33 alcohol, 18, 124 Alexander the Great, 15 Algeria, 23, 49, 55, 112, 114, 127, 166, 167 alienation, 46–7, 71, 93 Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), 115

America see United States American Dilemma, An (Myrdal), 42 American Revolution, 41, 57 American Society (Parsons), 155 American sociology, 40, 151, 155–6 Amos, 62 Amsterdam, 157–8 Ancient Judaism (Weber), 62 Anderson, Perry, 79–80 Anglicanism, 12, 25 Anglo-Afghan War, 15–16 Anglo-Spanish War, 98 al-Annuri, Muhammad, 98 anthropology, 3, 12, 39, 42, 53, 68–9, 77, 106, 151–3, 177 anti-Semitism, 123 Antoun, Richard T., 177 apostasy, 18, 43, 126 Arab Spring, 30–2, 71, 156 Arabism, 64–5 architecture, 77 Aristotle, 52, 66 Arjomand, Said Amir, 113 Arkoun, Mohammad, 49–50 Armed Islamic Group (GIA), 127 arms, 16, 70, 121

181

understanding islam Aron, Raymond, 167 art, 76, 94 Asad, Talal, 69, 124 asceticism, 62–3 al-Ash’ari, 93 Ash’arism, 93 Ashoura, 71 Asiatic mode of production (AMP), 56–7, 97 al-Assad, Bashar, 32 Ataturk, Mustafa Kamal, 55–6 atheism, 83, 159, 163 attentiveness, 146, 175, 176 Australia, 119, 142 authenticity, 8–9, 27, 39, 85, 140 authoritarianism, 17, 22, 32, 71, 93, 113–14, 141, 147, 156 authority, 9, 12, 28, 59–60, 76, 83, 93, 141, 146, 152, 178 Axial Age, 63–4 al-Azhar University, 157 al-Azmeh, Aziz, 20 Balochistan, 16 Bamyeh, Mohammed A., 8 Bangladesh, 26, 116, 142 banking, 79, 100 baptism, 25 Bataille, Georges, 68 Battle of the Nile, 99 Battle of the Pyramids, 99 Bauman, Zygmunt, 156 Bayat, Asef, 34, 48 Beck, Ulrich, 174 Bedouin, 65, 141 Beheim, Michel, 125 beliefs, 6–7, 26, 81, 84, 134, 160–1, 163, 173, 177 Belt and Brace strategy, 17

Ben Ali, Zine El Abidine, 31 benevolent supremacy, 120 Berbers, 49 Berlin Wall, 115 Bible, 2, 5, 83, 87, 161–2 Biden, Joe, 16 Bilici, Mucahit, 164 bin Laden, Osama, 20, 117 Birmingham, 100, 116 Bismarck, Otto von, 101 Blair, Tony, 121–2 Bloor, David, 167 Bolton, 117 Boston Globe, 86 Bouazizi, Mohamed, 31 Bourdieu, Pierre, 166–8, 169 Bradford, 117 Brazil, 29 Brennan, Timothy, 168 Brexit, 117 Brighton Riots, 116 Britain anthropology, 68–9 Brexit, 117 colonialism, 57, 68–9, 97–101, 112, 126–7, 136, 163 immigration, 115–16 intellectual exiles, 44, 46, 156 intervention in Libya, 31 invasions of Afghanistan, 15–16, 127 Islamophobia, 111, 112, 115, 117–19 occupation of Egypt, 100–1, 112, 136 online religion, 28 Orientalism, 96, 97–102 popularity of Omar Khayyam, 88 Protestantism, 97, 98

182

index racism, 116–17, 119 radicalisation, 117 ‘rivers of blood’ speech, 116–17 Rushdie affair, 117–18, 126 trade, 98, 99 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 119 British Commonwealth, 116, 119 Buck-Morss, Susan, 2–3, 173 Buddha, 60 Buddhism, 5, 62, 63, 78 Bukhara, 66 Bultmann, Rudolf, 162 Burgat, François, 19 burial, 87 Burke, Edmund, III, 67 Burkina Faso, 92 Bush, George, 114, 120–2 Butterworth, Charles E., 20 Byzantium, 59 Caillois, Roger, 68 Cairo, 100, 135–6, 138–41, 157 Calder, Norman, 11 Calvinism, 102 Cambodia, 121 ‘Can the subaltern speak?’ (Spivak), 152 Canada, 39, 43, 105, 119 Canon of Medicine,The (Ibn-Sina), 66 Cantle, Ted, 119 capabilities approach, 133–4 capitalism, 36, 46–7, 57, 58, 62, 65, 80, 156 Carnegie Corporation, 42 Casanova, José, 29–30, 85, 146 Catholic Church, 28, 29, 41, 84, 85–6, 164

Catholicism, 8–9, 25, 28, 29, 30, 85–6, 98, 99, 102, 103, 113, 123, 164 celibacy, 86 Cesari, Jocelyne, 22–3, 111, 146 Chad, 92 Chalconcondylas, 125 Character of Holland,The (Marvell), 158 charisma, 12, 49, 59–60, 68, 178 charismatic authority, 12, 59–60, 178 Charismatic Renewal, 28 charitable associations, 22 Charlie Hebdo attacks, 114, 126 Charlottesville rally, 123 Charter for National Action, 136 Chechnya, 127 child marriage, 142–3, 172 childcare, 147 Chile, 28 China, 16–17, 62, 66, 86–7, 115, 127, 156, 158–9 Christianity anthropological study of, 68 and the Axial Age, 64 conflict with Islam, 64, 72, 125–6 demographics, 28–9 dialogue with Islam, 2, 5–6, 18, 164–5 differences from Islam, 5–6, 24–5, 64 family resemblances with Islam, 6, 24–6, 164, 173 Form Criticism, 12, 162 as grand narrative, 82 Habermas on, 160–1 Hegel on, 58 internal divisions, 8–9, 102–3 Kant on, 161

183

understanding islam Christianity (cont.) miracles, 178 missionary work, 25–6 Rorty on, 82–4 Strauss on, 161–2 and the World Parliament of Religion, 78 see also Bible; Calvinism; Catholicism; Lutheranism; Protestantism; Orthodox Christianity circumcision, 132 civil religion, 55, 84–5 civil society, 22, 29 civilian casualties, 92 civility, 68 ‘clash of civilizations’, 110, 154 class, 46–7, 56, 111, 141 climate change, 173, 174 Code Napoléon, 100 coitus interruptus, 88, 144 Cold War, 113, 122 Cole, Juan, 30–1 collateral damage, 92 Collège de Sociologie, 68 colonialism and anthropology, 68–9, 77, 106, 152, 177 British, 57, 68–9, 97–101, 112, 126–7, 136, 163 and capitalism, 46–7, 57 and exile, 45, 46–7 French, 45, 99–100, 101, 112, 114, 126–7 German, 101–3, 112 and Islamophobia, 5, 112, 114 Italian, 23 legacy effects of, 5, 22 and Orientalism, 94, 97–106

and political instability, 5, 22 and positionality, 41, 151, 152, 154, 156, 163 and Shari’a, 124 and the status of women, 136, 137 violence of, 23, 126–7 see also post-colonialism comedy, 164 commercialism, 32–3, 59 Committee of Union and Progress, 56 communication technologies, 28, 77, 78, 79, 82, 156 communism, 16, 70, 113, 115, 120, 122, 155 comparative sociology, 61–3, 67 Community Cohesion report, 119 Comte, Auguste, 11, 53–6 concentration camps, 102 Confucianism, 5, 62, 63, 159 Consequences of Pragmatism (Rorty), 82 consequentialism, 80 Constantinople, 125–6; see also Istanbul consumerism, 21, 32–3, 46 contraception, 143–4 conversion, 43, 80–1, 87, 98, 163 Cook, Michael, 11 corruption, 22, 32, 48, 96 cosmopolitanism, 44–5, 66, 67, 157–9, 173 Cottee, Simon, 43 Council of Constantinople, 6 Counter-Reformation, 8–9 Course in Positive Philosophy (Comte), 54 covert operations, 121

184

index COVID-19 pandemic, 39, 86, 89, 159, 174 crisis events, 5, 39, 54, 69–72, 85–7, 125–6, 163, 173–4 Crone, Patricia, 11 crucifixion, 6 Crusades, 23 cryonics, 89 Cyrenaica, 23, 69 Dakar–Djibouti mission, 68 da’wa, 139–41 de Gray, Aubrey, 88–9 death, 87–9 Delicate Subjects (Ellison), 13 democracy, 29, 30, 34, 41, 81, 83, 84–5, 93, 160, 165 Democracy in America (Tocqueville), 41 demography, 4, 30, 138, 141–7 Deobandi school, 118 departure (from a group), 43–4 Derrida, Jacques, 88, 176 Dewey, John, 80 dialogue, 2–4, 18–19, 26, 40, 45, 84, 134, 160, 165, 174–7 diet, 7, 113 digital religion, 28, 29, 79 Dilthey, Wilhelm, 67 displacement, 45–50 distrust, 39–40 division of labour, 52–3, 54–5 divorce, 79, 125, 137 Douglas, Mary, 69 Drake, Francis, 98 dress codes, 7, 47, 55, 71, 112, 119, 123, 132–3, 134–5, 145, 164, 172 Du Bois, W. E. B., 40

Durkheim, Émile, 52–3, 55, 56, 154, 167 earthquakes, 174 economic development, 42, 57, 58, 97, 133 Economy and Society (Weber), 59 education, 17, 22, 28, 53, 55–6, 82, 118, 119, 133, 134, 137–9, 142, 164 Egypt, 22, 30–1, 45, 47–8, 55, 93, 99–101, 104, 112, 113, 126, 135–41, 143, 145, 156–8 Egyptian Revolution, 104, 136 Egyptology, 100 Eid al-Fitr, 25 Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, The (Marx), 97 Eiliade, Mircea, 65 Elias, Norbert, 156 Eliot, George, 162 Elizabeth I, 98 Ellison, Julie, 13 emic understanding, 42, 44, 152–3 empirical research, 43, 96, 104, 139–41 empiricism, 9, 81, 178 England see Britain English Defence League, 117 English language, 157 Enlightenment, 6, 66, 76, 83, 99, 157, 161, 177–8 Epic Encounters (McAlister), 120–1 equality, 30, 42, 100, 119, 133, 136, 137 Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip, 32 essentialism, 58 ethical prophecy, 12, 19, 60 ethics, 3, 13, 54, 62, 138–41, 175–7

185

understanding islam Ethiopia, 68 ethnography, 39, 68, 77, 104, 140–1, 145, 151, 166 etic understanding, 42, 44, 152–3 Eucharist, 25 eudaimonia, 49 European exceptionalism, 66–7 European sociology, 156 euthanasia, 87 evangelical movement, 25–6, 29 Evans-Pritchard, E. E., 68–9 exemplary prophecy, 12, 60 exile, 44–50, 156, 168–9 explanation, 3–4, 10–11, 12, 42, 62, 145–6, 153, 167, 175 family, 43, 144–5, 147 Fanon, Franz, 154 far right groups, 115, 117, 123 al-Farabi, Muhammad, 6 fascism, 44, 63, 72, 113–15, 155 fatwa shopping, 79 fatwas, 79, 117–18, 126 female genital mutilation, 172 feminism, 13, 21, 48, 72, 132–8, 140 fertility rates, 4, 28, 134, 137–8, 141–7 feudalism, 54 film, 76, 77, 120, 156 Finding Mecca in America (Bilici), 164 fiqh, 18 Fischer, Michael M. J., 106 Fitzgerald, Edward, 88 folk religion, 163 Foreign Affairs, 110 Form Criticism, 12, 162 Foucault, Michel, 23, 71–2, 96, 139 France, 23, 27, 31, 41, 46, 49, 52, 54–5, 68, 70, 94, 99–101, 112,

114, 126–7, 163, 166–7, 179 Frank, Andre Gunder, 65 Frankfurt, 44 freedom, 31, 32, 93, 127, 132, 140 freedom of religion, 27, 133, 164–5 freedom of speech, 118 French Revolution, 54, 57, 99, 114 fundamentalism, 18–19, 21, 78, 177 Future of Religion,The (Zabal), 83 Future of the Global Muslim Population report (Pew), 142 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 1–2, 13, 88, 173, 174, 175–7 Gaddafi, Muammar, 31 Geertz, Clifford, 69 Geller, Pam, 123 Gellner, Ernest, 53, 69, 77 gender, 4, 13, 40, 83, 124, 132–47, 151, 155–6; see also women genocide, 102, 105, 127 Georg, Stefan, 59 Germany, 44, 59, 62, 101–2, 112, 113, 115, 142, 156, 161–2, 176, 179 Gezi Park protests, 31–2 Ghani, Ashraf, 15 al-Ghazali, 88 Giner, Salvador, 156 Gingrich, Newt, 123 globalisation, 44, 46, 76, 77–9, 156–7, 172 Globalization (Robertson), 77–8 Gökalp, Mehmet Ziya, 55–6 Goldziher, Ignaz, 11 Gondar, 68 governmentality, 23 Gramsci, Antonio, 97, 156 grand narratives, 81–2

186

index Great Exhibition, 57 Great Game, 127 Grunebaum, Gustave von, 24 Gruppe S, 115 Guantanamo Bay, 122 Habermas, Juergen, 160–1 hadith, 7, 11, 18, 144 hajj, 32–3, 164 Hallaq, Wael B., 124 Halliday, Fred, 95, 104–5 Halpern, Manfred, 113 Hamas, 22 Han, 86–7 happiness, 49, 80–1 Haqqani order, 27 harems, 94 Harris, Marvin, 42, 153 Hawting, G. R., 11 Hazaras, 17 health care, 21, 133; see also medicine Hefner, Robert, 146 Hegel, Georg, 57–8 hegemony, 97, 119–20 hermeneutics, 2, 8, 49–50, 88, 157–9, 176 Herero community, 102 Hezbollah, 22 al-Hijra, 61 Hinduism, 62, 78, 133 Hirschind, Charles, 21 Hobbes, Thomas, 20 Hobsbawm, Eric, 65 Hodgson, Marshall G. S., 61, 64–7 Holocaust, 45, 82 Holy Ignorance (Roy), 78–9 Hoodfar, Homa, 146 hostages, 70, 121 hotels, 32–3

Hourani, Albert, 96 House of Khadija, 33 housing, 119 hudud laws, 17–18, 124 hukum, 18 Hull School, 69 human rights, 121–2 human suffering, 63–4, 88–9, 161 humanities, 10–11, 38–9, 96, 97 Hume, David, 178 Huntington, Samuel, 110, 154 hydraulic societies, 56–7 Ibadiyya, 92 Ibn al-‘Arabi, 93–4 Ibn Khaldun, Abd al-Rahman, 52–3, 154 Ibn-Sina, 66 identity, 46–7, 48, 71 imaginaire, 49 immigration, 29–30, 115–19, 123; see also migration Improving Opportunity and Strengthening Society strategy, 119 Independent, 32 India, 17, 23, 62, 95, 97, 99, 100, 110, 112, 127, 133 indigenous anthropology, 152 Indonesia, 18, 112, 133 industrialism, 54, 66, 156 ineffability, 178–9 inequality, 114, 119, 124, 156 infallibility, 86 infant mortality, 142, 143, 144 infanticide, 87 inheritance, 145, 147 Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Hume), 178

187

understanding islam insider knowledge, 1, 38–50, 66–7, 72, 152–3, 177 ‘Insiders and Outsiders’ (Merton), 39–43 Institute of Social Research, 44 intellectual exiles, 44–50, 156, 168–9 interdisciplinarity, 53 Internet, 28, 29, 79 Iqbal, Muhammad, 163 Iqtidar, Humeira, 145 Iran, 5, 21–3, 29, 46, 48, 70–2, 85, 86, 105, 113–14, 120, 121, 134, 142–6, 154, 156, 173 Irangate, 70, 121 Iranian Revolution, 29, 70–2, 113–14, 154, 156 Iraq, 23, 45, 72, 121–2 Iraq–Iran War, 143 Ireland, 28 irony, 84, 85 Isaiah, 62 ISIS, 15, 17, 92, 126 Islam and Capitalism (Rodinson), 58 Islam, Gender, and Democracy (Cesari and Casanova), 146 Islam in European Thought (Hourani), 96 Islam without Extremes (Akyol), 93 Islamic Heritage Research Foundation, 32 Islamisation, 22, 78, 135, 162, 164 Islamism in the Shadow of al-Qaeda (Burgat), 19 Islamofascism, 113–15 Islamophobia, 4–5, 34, 110–28, 174, 175 Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All (Runnymede Trust), 118–19 Ismai’il Pasha, 100

Ismail, Salwa, 21 Ismailis, 92 Israel, 92, 120–1, 173 Istanbul, 31–2, 102; see also Constantinople Italy, 23, 101 Jainism, 78 Jama’at-e-Islami, 145 Jama’ud-Da’wa, 145 James, William, 80–1, 84 Japan, 78, 144, 174 Jasmine Revolution, 31 Jaspers, Karl, 63 Jefferson, Thomas, 103–4 Jeffery, Arthur, 19 Jeremiah, 62 Jerusalem, 178 Jesus, 6, 12, 24, 25, 59, 60, 161–2, 178 jihad, 20, 48, 117, 126, 136, 140, 163 Jordan, 126, 177 Judaism, 12, 20, 26, 44, 45, 59, 61, 62–4, 82, 102, 123, 132, 158 Kabaa, 33 Kabul, 15, 16, 34, 132–3 Kant, Immanuel, 161 Karay, Refik Halid, 56 Kashgar, 87 Keddie, Nikki, 107 Khan, Imran, 16 Kharijites, 49, 92 Khayyam, Omar, 88 Khedive Tewfik Ismai’il Pasha, 100 Khomeini, Ayatollah, 70, 113, 117 Knowledge and Social Imagery (Bloor), 167 Konya, 27

188

index Kurds, 32 Kuru, Ahmet T., 147 labour, 52–3, 54–5, 100, 115–16, 119 laïcité, 27, 112, 114 language, 1–2, 42, 84, 100, 153, 157, 159, 175–6, 178–9 Las Vegas, 77 law, 7, 11, 17–18, 55, 70, 79, 123–5, 165 Lazreg, Marnia, 135 Learning from Las Vegas (Venturi and Brown), 77 Lebanon, 5, 22, 24, 31, 70, 121, 173, 177 Lectures du Coran (Arkoun), 49 Lee Kuan Yew, 112–13 left-wing politics, 31, 71, 156 legal pluralism, 123 Leibniz, Gottfried, 158–9 Leipzig, 176 Leiris, Michel, 68 Lele of Kasai,The (Douglas), 69 Lent, 6 Lerner, David, 155–6 Leseps, Ferdinand de, 100 LGBTQ identities, 40 liberalism, 21, 83, 84, 100, 118, 123–4, 132–3, 137, 160, 172, 174–5 Liberals and Cannibals (Lukes), 174–5 liberation theology, 29 Libya, 23, 31, 173 life expectancy, 89, 138, 144 Life of Jesus (Strauss), 161–2 life worlds, 7–8, 26–33 linguistics, 42, 153 literacy, 155, 164

literature, 47, 68, 76, 94, 95–9, 103–4, 105 locality, 8, 52 London, 27, 46 Long Revolution,The (Williams), 96 Louis Napoleon, 54 Lukes, Steven, 174–5 Lutheranism, 102–3 Lyotard, Jean-François, 81–2, 87 McAlister, Melani, 120–1 McLarney, Ellen, 136 madrasas, 17, 22 Mahmood, Saba, 135–6, 138–41 Mairaj, 178 Making Islam Democratic (Bayat), 34 Making Modern Muslims (Hefner), 146 Malaysia, 27, 93, 112 Mali, 92 Malinowski, Bronislaw, 153 Mannheim, Karl, 44 Manning, David, 121 al-Mansur, Ahmad, 98 Maracci, Louis, 103 Marco Polo, 158 Marcus, George E., 106 marriage, 7, 79, 83, 125, 134, 137–8, 142–7, 165, 172 marriage age, 134, 137–8, 142–3, 146, 147 martial arts, 27 Martins, Herminio, 156 Marvell, Andrew, 158 Marx, Karl, 56–7, 97, 154, 156 Marxism, 46–7, 49, 56–7, 58, 65, 70–1, 153, 156, 167 Maududi, Sayyid, 163 Mecca, 32–3, 60–1, 64, 103, 178

189

understanding islam media, 57, 77, 97, 110, 118, 119, 155–6 medicine, 21, 66, 88–9; see also health care Medina, 20, 32, 33, 60–1 Merton, Robert, 39–43, 151, 152 meta-narratives, 81–2, 87–9 Methodism, 102 Mexico, 57 migration, 29–30, 45–6, 61, 87, 112, 115–19, 123, 167 Mill, J. S., 97 Mill, James, 97 millennial generation, 31 miracles, 162, 178 Miskawayh, 49 missionary work, 25–6 modernisation, 17, 29, 32–3, 55, 66, 125, 155, 162–3 modernism, 77 modernity, 34, 46, 54, 62, 66, 70–1, 85, 155 Momigliano, Arnaldo, 72–3 Monde, 114 morality, 21, 24, 161, 163 Morocco, 22, 30, 98 Morsi, Mohamed, 31 mortality, 87–9 Mosaddegh, Mohammad, 121 mosque movement, 139 mosques, 16, 22, 33, 110, 113 Motahhari, Ayatollah, 70 Mubarak, Hosni, 31, 141 al-Muhajiroun, 117 muhalefet, 56 Muhammad, 6, 11, 12, 25, 58–61, 64, 103, 104, 178 Muhammad (Rodinson), 59 Muhammad, Omar Bakri, 117

Muhammad Ali Pasha, 100 Muharram, 71 Mujahideen, 16, 122 multiculturalism, 115, 119, 172 Muqaddimah (Ibn Khaldun), 52 Murad III, 98 Muslim Brotherhood, 22, 47, 113, 163 Mustafa Reshid Pasha, 55 Myanmar, 127 Myrdal, Gunnar, 42 mysticism, 26–7, 63, 92–3, 161 Naguib, Mohamed, 136 Nahdlatu Ulama, 133 al-Nakba, 23 Nama community, 102 Napoleon Bonaparte, 45, 99–100, 126 Naqshbandi order, 27 Nasr,Vali, 70 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 136, 141 National Socialist Underground (NSU), 115 nationalism, 15, 17, 30, 53, 55–6, 68, 127, 145 Native Americans, 105 natural sciences, 10–11; see also science Nef, John Ulric, 65 Nelson, Horatio, 99 Nenser, Adam, 102 neo-fundamentalism, 21 Netherlands, 157–8 New Arabs,The (Cole), 30–1 New Essays on Human Understanding (Leibniz), 158–9 New Muslims,The (Runnymede Trust), 118

190

index Out of Place (Said), 168 outsider knowledge, 1, 38–50, 66–7, 72, 152–3, 158–9, 177 Owen, Roger, 69

New School, 44 New Testament, 2, 83, 161–2 New York, 44, 96, 111, 168 New Zealand, 110, 113 newspapers see media Nicaragua, 121 Nicene Creed, 25 Niger, 92 Nigeria, 23, 101, 126 9/11, 2, 16, 34, 72, 87, 92, 110, 114, 117, 121–2, 124, 126, 173 norms, 6, 18, 125, 134, 140, 175 North America, 98–9, 105; see also Canada; Mexico; United States nuclear weapons, 5, 120, 173 Nussbaum, Martha, 133–4 objectivity, 3–4, 10, 38–9, 42, 76, 152, 153, 175, 177 October Revolution (1917), 16 October Revolutions (2011), 30–2 Oikoumene, 66 online religion, 28, 29, 79 Operation Cyclone, 122 organic solidarity, 54–5 Oriental Despotism (Wittfogel), 57 Orientalism, 24, 57–8, 64–5, 67, 94–107, 114, 124, 154 Orientalism (Said), 47, 94–107, 120, 168 Origin and Goal of History,The (Jaspers), 63 Origins of Postmodernity (Anderson), 80 Orthodox Christianity, 30 Othello (Shakespeare), 98 Ottoman Empire, 55–6, 98, 100, 126–7, 163

Pakistan, 16–17, 86, 114, 116, 118, 124, 145 Palestine, 5, 22, 23, 92, 105, 120, 168, 173 parda, 145 Parsons, Talcott, 155 Pashtun nationalism, 17 Passing of Traditional Society,The (Lerner), 155–6 patriarchy, 72, 132, 133, 135–6, 141, 142, 146–7 Peirce, Charles Sanders, 80 Pentecostal churches, 28 Persia, 59, 127 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 142 Pew Research Center, 27–8, 30–1, 165 Phantom of Africa (Leiris), 68 philosophia perennis, 159 Philosophy and Hope (Rorty), 83 Philosophy of History,The (Hegel), 57–8 Philpott, Daniel, 165 Pietism, 102 piety, 135–6, 138–41, 145–6, 163 Pike, Kenneth, 42, 153 pilgrimage, 24, 32–3, 164 Places of Mind (Brennan), 168 Podhoretz, Norman, 114 Poland, 29, 85 police, 31, 71, 116 ‘Political Importance of Islam, The’ (Jeffery), 19–20

191

understanding islam political instability, 5, 15–17, 22, 86–7, 92–3, 143, 173–4 political Islam, 19–24, 34, 126, 162 Politics of Piety (Mahmood), 135–6, 138–41 Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa (Halpern), 113 polygamy, 137, 145, 147 population ageing, 142, 144 population size, 142, 143, 144 Portugal, 156 positionality, 4, 38–9, 41, 83–4, 93–4, 96, 105–6, 151–69, 172 Positive Society, 54 positivism, 4, 10–11, 54, 76 possession cults, 68 post-colonialism, 22, 34, 41, 88, 105, 137, 172 post-Islamism, 21, 48 Postmodern Condition,The (Lyotard), 81–2 postmodernism, 4, 38, 49, 76–7, 79–85, 105, 153, 167, 172 Postmodernism and Islam (Ahmed), 77 Postmodernism, Reason and Religion (Gellner), 77 post-Orientalism, 107, 120 post-structuralism, 96, 140 poverty, 92, 114, 133, 156 Powell, Enoch, 116–17 power, 2, 22–3, 56, 59, 107, 119–20, 140, 152, 154, 156–7 pragmatism, 4, 38, 76, 79–85 ‘Pragmatism as romantic polytheism’ (Rorty), 84 prejudice, 3, 13, 39–40, 111, 154, 175 ‘Priority of democracy to philosophy, The’ (Rorty), 85

Prison Note Books (Gramsci), 97 private property, 56–7, 97, 100 Productive Muslim, 28 prophecy, 12, 19, 24, 58–61, 62–3, 178 proselytism, 25 Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,The (Weber), 62 Protestantism, 8–9, 10, 25–6, 29, 30, 62, 86, 98, 102, 120, 162 public participation, 4, 71, 72, 118, 134, 136, 143, 147 public religions, 29–30, 83, 85, 160–1 Public Religions in the Modern World (Casanova), 29–30, 85 punishment, 18, 124 Putin,Vladimir, 30 al-Qaeda, 15, 17, 92 Quakers, 61, 67 Questioning the Veil (Lazreg), 135 Quetta, 16 Quiet Revolution, A (Ahmed), 135 Qur’an, 2, 6, 7, 11, 12, 24, 25, 49, 87–8, 100, 102–4 Qutb, Sayyid, 47–8, 163–4 race, 5, 39–40, 42, 102, 116, 119, 120, 123, 151 Race Relations Act, 119 racism, 5, 39–40, 116, 123 radicalism, 15, 21, 44, 46, 47–8, 117, 167 railways, 57, 97 Ramadan, 6 rationalism, 6, 62, 76, 159, 160–1, 177–8 Rawls, John, 160–1 Reading Orientalism (Varisco), 107

192

index Reagan, Ronald, 122 Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam (Soroush), 48 Reflections on Character (Miskawayh), 49 Reflections on Exile and Other Essays (Said), 47 reflexivity, 165–7 Reformation, 8–9, 102, 162 refugees, 29–30, 115 Reid, Anthony, 137 rejuvenative medicine, 88–9 relativism, 77 ‘Religion in the public sphere’ (Rorty), 84 Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (Kant), 161 Religions, 22 religious freedom, 27, 133, 164–5 religious reform, 8, 21, 23, 29, 48, 55, 135, 162–4 religious tourism, 32–3 Renaissance, 95 Renaissance orientale, La (Schwab), 95–6 representation, 97 republic of letters, 157 revelation, 24, 49, 59–60, 160, 161, 163, 178 Review of Middle East Studies, 69 Revisionist School, 11–12 Rex, John, 156 Ridda, Rashid, 163 right-wing politics, 115, 117, 123 Rippin, Andrew, 11 rituals, 7, 24, 26, 139–40 ‘rivers of blood’ speech, 116–17 Robertson, Roland, 77–8 Rodinson, Maxime, 58, 59, 113–14

Rohingya, 127 Rome, 57 Rorty, Richard, 81, 82–5 Rosetta Stone, 100 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 55 Roy, Olivier, 21, 78–9 Rubaiyat (Khayyam), 88 Rumi, Jalaluddin Mohammad, 26–7 Runnymede Trust Commission, 118–19 Rushdie, Salman, 117–18, 126 Russia, 16–17, 30, 45, 57, 70, 102, 115, 122, 127 Russian Orthodox Church, 30 Sachedina, Abdulaziz, 18–19 Sadat, Anwar, 140–1 Said, Edward, 45, 47, 94–107, 120, 166, 168–9 Sa’id Pasha, 100 Saint-Simon, Claude Henri de, 53–4, 56 saints, 6, 8 Sale, George, 103–4 Salvatore, Armando, 67–8 Sam community, 102 Sanusi of Cyrenaica (Evans-Pritchard), 69 Satanic Verses,The (Rushdie), 117–18 Saudi Arabia, 32–3, 86, 93, 113 Scarman Report, 116 Schacht, Joseph, 11 Schimmel, Annemarie, 179 Schuon, Frithjof, 179 Schwab, Raymond, 95–6 science, 10–11, 38–9, 54, 66, 76, 99–100, 153, 167, 178 Science of Science and Reflexivity (Bourdieu), 166

193

understanding islam Second World War, 176 secular humanist feminism, 133–4, 137, 140 secularisation, 17, 27, 28–9, 32 Secularising Islamists (Iqtidar), 145 secularism, 22, 31, 32, 41, 55–6, 82–3, 112, 114, 140, 160–2 self-flagellation, 71 selfhood, 46–7, 71, 139–40 selfie-culture, 33 sexual abuse, 28, 86, 136 sexuality, 17–18, 39, 47, 124, 143, 153 Shahadah, 25 Shakespeare, William, 98, 99 Shanmugan, K., 113 Shari’a, 7, 11, 17–18, 21, 123–5, 164, 165 Shariati, Ali, 46–7, 70–1, 154 Shia Islam, 19, 49, 70–2, 86, 92, 103, 144 Shia Revival,The (Nasr), 70 Shils, Edward, 65 Silat, 27 Simmel, Georg, 7 Singapore, 112–13 El-Sisi, Abdel Fattah, 31 slavery, 103 Slugglet, Marion, 69 Slugglet, Peter, 69 social action, 9–10, 138, 146, 153 social change, 33–4, 54–8, 82, 146, 147 social cohesion, 52, 119 social Darwinism, 102 social stationariness, 57, 97 social status, 4, 132–8, 141, 142–3, 155–6, 164 Social System,The (Parsons), 155

social welfare, 156 socialism, 54, 56, 115, 141, 163 Sociology of Islam,The (Salvatore), 67–8 soft power, 136 Sohm, Rudolf, 59 Sohn-Rethel, Alfred, 156 solidarity, 52–3, 54–6 Solidarity movement, 29, 85 Soroush, Abdolkarim, 48 Souls of Black Folk,The (Du Bois), 40 South Africa, 156 South Korea, 144 sovereignty, 29, 68, 123 Spain, 29, 80, 98, 156 Spinoza, Baruch, 157–8 spirituality, 29, 78–9 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, 152 Stalin, Joseph, 127 Stark, Freya, 98 state, the, 17, 20, 21–3, 27, 53, 55–7, 111, 113, 124, 132, 140–1, 143 stoning, 18, 124 Strategies for Engineering Negligible Senescence (SENS), 88–9 Strauss, David Friedrich, 161–2 subalternity, 80, 152 Sudan, 23, 126 Suez Canal, 99, 100 Sufism, 6, 26–7, 77, 92–3, 102, 133, 163, 165, 179 Sunni Islam, 19, 49, 86, 92–3, 103 Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), 136 Sykes–Picot Agreement, 126–7 Syria, 32, 45, 71, 117

194

index Tahrir Square protests, 136 Tajikistan, 16 Taliban, 15–18, 22, 132–3, 174 Tanzimat, 55 Taylor, Jerome, 32 technology, 28, 77, 78, 79, 82, 88–9, 156 technologies of the self, 139–40 Tempest,The (Shakespeare), 99 textual analysis, 1–2, 13, 65, 77, 95–6, 103–4, 166 Thatcher, Margaret, 116 Thinking Past Terror (Buck-Morss), 2–3, 173 third demographic transition, 144 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 41–2 Tohoku earthquake, 174 tourism, 32–3 trade, 95, 98, 99, 100, 107, 112, 158 traditionalist feminism, 133–4 transcendence, 8, 64 translation, 2, 88, 103–4, 162 Treaty of Versailles, 102 trinitarianism, 6, 25 Trobriand Islands, 153 Trump, Donald, 123 truth, 3, 11, 49, 80, 83–4, 167, 168, 177–8 Tunisia, 22, 30–1, 71, 86, 142, 173 Turkey, 26–7, 31–2, 55–6, 86, 88, 93, 98 Turkism, 56 Twain, Mark, 98, 103 Uighurs, 17, 86–7, 127 Umayyad Caliphate, 11 ummah, 21, 28, 46, 142 understanding distinction from explanation, 3–4,

10–11, 12, 42, 62, 145–6, 167, 175 emic understanding, 42, 44, 152–3 ethics of, 13, 175–7 etic understanding, 42, 44, 152–3 failures of, 176–7 and language, 1–2, 159, 175–6 nature of word, 9–10 types of, 2–4 verstehen, 9–10, 67, 145, 152 Western versus non-Western, 154–6 Understanding Fundamentalism (Antoun), 177 Understanding Islam (Frithjof), 179 unemployment, 92, 116, 142 United Kingdom see Britain United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), 117 United Nations, 15, 122, 127, 137, 142 United Nations Decade for Women, 137 United States American Revolution, 41, 57 American sociology, 40, 151, 155–6 apostasy, 43 architecture, 77 covert operations, 121 evangelical churches, 29, 120 imperialism, 119–20 intellectual exiles, 44–5, 47–8, 163 invasion of Iraq, 72, 121–2 involvement in Afghanistan, 15, 16, 121, 122 Irangate, 70, 121 Islamophobia, 110–11, 114, 119–25, 165

195

understanding islam United States (cont.) neo-conservatism, 123 9/11, 2, 16, 34, 72, 87, 92, 110, 114, 117, 121–2, 124, 126, 173 Orientalism, 101, 103–4 outsider studies of, 41–2 race, 39–42 relations with Israel, 120–1 and Shari’a, 123–5, 165 Vietnam War, 95, 120, 121 war on terror, 2, 121–2 World Parliament of Religion, 78 unity of God, 6, 8, 58 universality, 76, 152 urbanisation, 27, 114, 142, 155, 164 utilitarianism, 56–7, 97 Uzbekistan, 16 values, 6, 43, 68, 118, 122, 134, 161, 173 Varieties of Religious Experience (James), 80–1 Varisco, Daniel, 107 Vatican II, 29, 85, 164 Vattimo, Gianni, 88 Veiled Sentiments (Abu-Lughod), 141 veiling, 71, 112, 123, 132–3, 134–5, 145, 164, 172 Venice, 98 Venture of Islam,The (Hodgson), 61, 65–7 verstehen, 9–10, 67, 145, 152 Vietnam War, 95, 120, 121 violence, 23–4, 47, 110, 115, 118, 126–8, 136, 176 voice, 43–4, 141, 152 voting rights, 136

Wahhabism, 33, 113 Wallerstein, Immanuel, 65 Walzer, Michael, 72 Wansbrough, John, 11 War of Cyprus, 98 war on terror, 2, 121–2 warrior religion, 19, 60–1, 126 water management, 56–7 Watt, W. Montgomery, 12 Webb, Mohammed Alexander Russell, 78 Weber, Max, 9–10, 12, 19, 59–63, 67, 126, 167, 178 well-being, 80–1, 176, 177 Wellman, Rose, 145 Werbner, Pnina, 77 West versus the Rest, 154–6 whirling dervishes, 26–7 white supremacy, 123 Why the West fears Islam (Cesari), 111 Wilhelm I, 101 Wilhelm II, 101 Williams, Raymond, 96, 168 Wittfogel, Karl A., 57 women activism, 135, 138, 142, 145, 146, 147 agency, 135–6, 138, 140, 141, 145, 147 education, 137–8, 142, 164 fertility rates, 4, 28, 134, 137–8, 141–7 inheritance rights, 145, 147 life expectancy, 138, 144 marriage age, 134, 137–8, 142–3, 146, 147 piety, 135–6, 138–41, 145–6 public participation, 4, 71, 72, 134, 136, 143, 147

196

index in religious orders, 86 role in protest and revolution, 71, 72, 136, 156 social status, 4, 132–8, 141, 142–3, 155–6, 164 veiling, 71, 112, 123, 132–3, 134–5, 145, 164, 172 voting rights, 136 see also feminism; gender Women and Gender (Ahmed), 135 Women in the Middle East (Keddie), 107

World Bank, 89 World Fertility Report, 142 world history, 64–8 World Parliament of Religion, 78 World War IV (Podhoretz), 114 Yemen, 5, 31, 86, 104 Young Turks, 56 Zarathustra, 60 Zaria massacre, 23 Zen, 78

197