Search Results (70)

This article explores Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī’s political thought in relation to modern debates on secularism and Islamic reform. While often invoked by Islamist thinkers to support their anti-secular stance, al-Afghānī’s reflections on reason, religion, and constitutional politics show that he engaged with modernity in a more nuanced way than is commonly recognized. This article examines al-Afghānī’s writings and their reception. It argues that his thought was not about choosing a side between religion and secularism. Instead, his thought is better understood as a pragmatic anti-colonial strategy aimed at the revival of Muslim civilization. This reframing challenges the widely cited genealogical narrative that links him to later Islamists. His attempt to reconcile religious traditions with the imperative for reform provides valuable insights into the responses of Muslim reformers to modernity—insights that remain highly relevant today. Full article

This article traces the strengthening of Muslim movements in Jordan, emphasizing the period that marked the beginning of the regional upheaval (2011). It aims to examine whether and how this strengthening affected religious, national, and political identities. The article examines the interrelationships between the Hashemite regime and the Salafi movements in Jordan during and after the Arab Spring. This examination shows that there was a deterioration, aggravation, and erosion in these relations, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, also an understanding on the part of the regime that despite this the Salafis are interested in taking part in the Jordanian political game. In this discourse between the Salafi movements and the regime, we will also examine whether the movements sought to change the regime’s nature and, thus, the nature of society in Jordan from a Hashemite national identity to a Salafi identity. The article is based on secondary and primary sources that unfold a fascinating picture of dialectics and dialog between the ideological extremes of democracy and Islam. The main findings are that these processes, during and after the Arab Spring, tend to contain religious groups that will also participate in politics, out of recognition of the supremacy of the law of the state, which is not necessarily religious. Full article

The enduring narrative of Islamist victimhood, particularly for those who call for a just governance system on behalf of devout Muslim society, which they claim has been systematically repressed and forced underground by the Kemalists, has been prominently echoed in both Turkish and Western scholarship from the late 1990s to the early 2010s. Scholars argued that loosening the hegemonic Kemalist grip on state institutions would promote democracy and civil rights; however, when Islamists took control of the state apparatus in the 2010s, it became evident that this support contributed to the rise of an autocratic electoral regime with Islamist overtones, worsening democracy, which became more repressive than ever after the Kemalist threat was removed. Despite the prominence of these victimhood narratives, the origin and credibility of these claims have not been critically and systematically examined. Through a detailed analysis of biographies, official texts, and personal memoirs, this study assesses the validity of the foundational Islamist victimhood narratives. The findings challenge the narrative of widespread repression, demonstrating that many religious figures continued to operate openly under the Kemalist regime, using the closure of Sufi lodges as a tool to construct a narrative of collective victimhood for political leverage. This study is significant because it highlights how academia can fall into similar “victimhood traps” elsewhere in the world by amplifying victimhood narratives without fully understanding their dynamics or verifying their factual basis, ultimately worsening the situation. Full article

The third expansion of the Islamic Caliphate (AD950–1450) produced the need for formalising an ethical framework to create an institutionalised approach to market regulations. During these times significant contribution to the literature was made regarding the modelling of the ethical premise of the duty to subscribe good and prohibit wrongs. It ranged from the formation of vigilante-styled civil duties to the institutionalisation of ethics in the form of the institution of hisbah, which is broadly understood as a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation (quango) designed to establish the ethical mandate within the medieval Muslim world. Our investigation maps the development of thoughts on embedding ethical rules in markets and within society between AD950–1450. This study explores and conceptualises the models for market regulations proposed by Al-Mawardi (d.AD1058), Al-Ghazali (d.AD1111), Ibn Taymiyya (d.AD1328), and Ibn Khaldun (d.AD1406). We formulate and compare the ethical models of these scholars in the context of their political–social positionings. The rationale for choosing these four scholars is the wide articulation and recognition of their logical ideas throughout Islamic history. This research examines the historic–ethical patterns within the corpus of Islamic thoughts that provide a discourse deixis for constructing regulatory models as conceptualised by these scholars for the institutionalised governance of markets and society in general. Full article

Israel’s war on Gaza following 7 October 2023 has given birth to several political and social changes in European nations. According to the United Nations Report of the Special Rapporteur, Israel has used this moment to “distort” international humanitarian law principles “in an attempt to legitimize genocidal violence against the Palestinian people.” In the European context, this has led to European Muslims and non-Muslims, including organizations, institutions, as well as individual academics, politicians, and activists mobilizing and voicing their condemnation and demand their governments to do more towards peaceful and equitable solutions. However, this has been met with a strong reaction from European governing bodies. This paper situates this reaction within wider discourses on the European Muslim crisis. It begins with a systematic literature review on the so-called European Muslim crisis, followed by case studies on the United Kingdom and Germany on their respective changes to policies impacting Muslims in the post-October 7 contexa Regarding the literature review, this paper illustrates how this concept has three distinct, yet intersecting meanings: the crisis of European identity; the crisis of foundational ideologies of Europe; and an internal Muslim crisis that often leads to radicalization. Through the British and German case studies, this paper illustrates that October 7 has reinforced and strengthened the shift towards values-based citizenship and integration. This paper argues that through branding pro-Palestine protesters and organizations as extremists in the British context, and adding questions related to antisemitism and Israel in the citizenship tests in the German context, the Israel/Palestine issue has now become yet another yardstick to demarcate the European, civilized “us” vs. the Muslim “other.” In doing so, October 7 has escalated elements already present within the wider discourses of the European Muslim crisis. Full article

This study aims to explore the issues of Islamophobia and Christian ideology prevalent in Spanish society in the 16th and early 17th centuries by examining the slave trade conducted by Barbary corsairs and the hard lives of Christian captives depicted in the literary works of Miguel de Cervantes, and to highlight his efforts to overcome the clash of civilizations between Christianity and Islam. To achieve this goal, first, the study delves into the historical context of the clash between Spain and Islam in the Mediterranean during the 16th century. Cervantes, who took part in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, was captured by Barbary corsairs on his return from military service and spent five years as a captive in the Bagnio of Algiers. The painful experience left indelible marks on his works. This study focuses on the dual meaning of Orientalism in his works. One prevalent form of Orientalism in Spain and Europe during that period portrayed Muslims as barbaric and anti-Christian. However, Cervantes presented an alternative Orientalism to propose a pathway to co-existence, rather than conflict, between civilizations and religions. Therefore, this study explores how Cervantes, even though he himself was a victim of the clash of civilizations, sought to overcome the confrontations and conflicts in his works, rather than perpetuating the prevalent Islamophobia of his time. Full article

This paper focuses on the discourse on Muslim women’s rights in India, aiming to trace how policies concerning Muslim women affect their constitutional rights to equality and non-discrimination. In doing so, this paper explores a colonial continuity of policies in the post-independence era and the subsequent governments. The purpose of this paper is to provide an extensive and nuanced discussion on Muslim women’s rights in light of their historical evolution, the existence of personal laws, and the ongoing debates on a Uniform Civil Code. This article concludes that Muslim women continue to struggle for their rights to equal citizenship at the intersection of gender, religion, colonialism, and secularism. Full article

Functioning as “precedent” and “templates” for future transfers, the Greco-Turkish population exchange and the Lausanne Treaty) are undoubtedly events of world-historical significance. But they are also crucial in the genesis of the subfield of historical research we now call “World History”: they provided the backdrop against which Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889–1975) began sketching his magnum opus, A Study of History and developed the foundations of this subfield of history writing. This article revisits the so-called “Toynbee Affair” and places it in its intellectual and political contexts. First, it revisits the British classicist scholarship that provided the backdrop and initial inspiration for Toynbee as it shifted its gaze from ancient Rome to Greece, which was put forward as a better model for foreign and imperial policy. Next, it examines Toynbee’s wartime activities and shows that his attitudes towards the new states of Central Europe were based on principles that often stood in tension with his activities and views connected to the Middle East. During these years, Toynbee was an active participant in a discourse concerning the need to manage “mixed populations,” which moved to the forefront of a new form of internationalism, while also exposed to the writings of authors such as Oswald Spengler and Frederick J. Teggart, who pushed him to advance a new type of historiography. Third, the article looks at the uneven reception of Toynbee’s ideas after 1945, including his views on the US, the “Muslim civilization,” and his controversial views on Jews and the politics of the Middle East. The article concludes by arguing that his views, which rested on a deep suspicion of liminal hybridity or cultural mestizos, failed to transcend the basic logic of separation developed in Lausanne. Entirely on the contrary: Toynbee’s story offers us a case in which we can recognize the making of the interwar “cultural imaginaire” and “reinvention of differences,” which continues shaping our view of “the West’s” supposed borders to this day. Full article

This study sheds light on the identity negotiation processes inside the African American Muslim communities and the post-1960s immigrant Muslim communities both before and after 9/11, and the various hurdles that have impeded the development of a pluralistic American Muslim identity. It locates the American Muslim experience within the omnibus context of religious pluralism and draws on Barbara McGraw’s “the American Sacred Ground” theoretical framework (2003) to gauge advances and setbacks in such identity negotiation processes. While gleaning insights from the works of scholars of Islam and religious pluralism in America, this study is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the USA between 2002 and 2006. After 9/11, both communities came to realize that it is vital to engage in a process of self-critique and confront the challenges of reinventing themselves on the American pluralistic tapestry. While the African American Sunni communities tried to reinvent themselves as ‘new Muslims’, the immigrant communities found themselves compelled to reinvent themselves as “new Americans”. In studying some facets of such an inter- and intracommunity identity (re)negotiation process, this article argues that perennial internal factionalism and the promotion of changing US foreign policy agendas in the Muslim world still represent a major stumbling block towards developing an American Muslim identity that draws on its many streams. Full article

Philosophies in the East and West have favored wisdom in their search for truths. The Chinese civilization has sought holistic wisdom in its long history of absorbing the Abrahamic faiths since the seventh century. This paper aims to investigate how the Abrahamic faiths have interacted with ancient Chinese culture. In particular, this paper will examine the earliest written records in Chinese of the Luminous Religion (or Jingjiao), the earliest Jews in Kaifeng, and the earliest Muslims in China. By analyzing their theology of creation with reference to the Holy Spirit and qi (wind/breath/pneuma), this paper attempts a constructive Chinese natural theology based on a sympathetic and critical assessment of Alister McGrath’s natural theology but makes up for his spirit deficit. This paper argues that the holistic wisdom achieved in the early integration process of the Abrahamic faiths with the Chinese culture is closely intertwined with the Spirit and qi, which provides a fruitful ground to construct a Chinese natural theology. The contribution of this paper lies in its original research into the earliest written records of the three Abrahamic faiths in China from the perspective of the doctrine of creation and its relationship with the Spirit and qi. Full article

Civil religion encompasses the implicit religious values of a nation manifested through public rituals, symbols, and ceremonies at significant locations and on special occasions. The emergence of new religious symbolisms reflects the evolving structure of religious authority. The Islamic Foundation Netherlands (Islamitische Stichting Nederland (ISN)), the largest mosque umbrella organization in the Netherlands, holds significant influence in shaping the religious beliefs and ethical standards of the Turkish–Dutch Muslim community. Furthermore, the ISN possesses the ability to construct and authenticate discourses that redefine the conceptualization of the ‘self’ and the ‘other.’ In early 2017, following increased criticism of sermons written by the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs (PRA/Diyanet) in the Netherlands, the ISN, as the Dutch branch of Diyanet, started composing its own Friday sermons in both Turkish and Dutch. This article aims to examine the discursive features of the Friday sermons delivered between 1 January 2017 and 1 January 2023 and explore their connection to civil religion. The study employs Fairclough’s three-dimensional critical discourse analysis (CDA) framework and Wodak’s discourse–historical approach (DHA) to analyze the Friday sermons. The findings reveal that the civil religious discourses advanced by the ISN possess both unifying and divisive potential. However, the collected empirical evidence suggests that state-sponsored civil religion, emphasizing Turkish nationalism and Islamism, dominates the liberal and pluralistic form of civil religion. Full article

This paper is about a particular construction of nationalism at the hands of Romesh Chunder Dutt (1848–1909), the well-known exponent of ‘economic nationalism’, in colonial Bengal from 1870 onwards till his death in 1909. In this construction of nationalism, which today scholars would best describe as ‘cultural nationalism’, the categories ‘Hindu’ and ‘national’ converged and became conflated. Through a discussion of Dutt’s ‘literary patriotism’, the paper seeks to answer why it was so in the case of someone like R C Dutt, and what implications we can draw from this regarding our understanding of colonial Indian nationalism and its origins. With reference to Dutt, Sudhir Chandra pointed out that the neat distinction that we draw between ‘economic nationalism’ and ‘cultural nationalism’ is fallacious. The paper reiterates and reinforces this argument by showing how cultural and political nationalisms were enmeshed together in the case of R C Dutt. Furthermore, the glorious past that Dutt reconstructed through his literary patriotism could not but be a Hindu past; he was not a vilifier of Muslims, but somehow he shelved the question of the place of Muslims in his construction of Indian nationhood. Full article

Greece is a unique example of a country member of the Council of Europe that allows for the application of Sharia law by the Mufti on a select part of its citizenry: the members of the Muslim minority in Western Thrace (situated in NE Greece). However, to produce their effects, Mufti decisions need to undergo review and to be declared enforceable by the civil court. The aim of this article is to explore the relevant legal framework arranged in law 4964/2022 and presidential decree 52/2019, whereby the details of such a judicial review are set out. In particular, this article considers the prerequisite of the exequatur to religious adjudication, and then, it goes through all of the levels over which the said review extends, bringing progressively into focus the review of the scope of jurisdiction, the review of compatibility with the Constitution and the European Convention of Human Rights, and the review of some additional issues raised specifically by presidential decree 52/2019 over and above the points just mentioned. A final remark follows in connection with possible errors committed in religious adjudication—errors of law or fact—which remain beyond the reach of the review. Full article

The Treaty of Ḥudaybiyya is a brilliant chapter in Islamic history. It can be called umm muʿāhadāt al-salām (the mother of peace treaties) in Islamic history. Just as migration to Medina is a dividing line between the periods of religious oppression and political independence for Muslims, Ḥudaybiyya is a boundary between the phases of struggle and domination. The role of this treaty in the spread of Islam was evident from the beginning, and much has been written about it. However, nothing has been produced about the role of ʿAbd Allah b. ʿUmar, inspired by the Ḥudaybiyya treaty, in peacemaking. This paper argues that due to his circumstances, Ibn ʿUmar became the first person to discover the spirit of the Ḥudaybiyya treaty for procuring peace during the fitan (civil wars). His efforts were not limited to intellectual achievements, but amid the worst wars of the fitan, he tried to practically implement the soul of the Ḥudaybiyya agreement that impacted later generations. He believed that Islam could flourish in a peaceful society, as had happened after the Ḥudaybiyya treaty. The role he played in a tribal society without holding any official position makes Ibn ʿUmar’s leadership highly relevant to today’s world, where intellectual and spiritual leaders can play a role more pivotal than ever. Full article

Renewal and Reform have been the most discussed and dominant themes of Muslim intelligentsia, as they lived through the subjection of the greater part of the Muslim world by the Western colonial powers during the 18th and 19th centuries. The intellectual discourse on reform by the early Muslim reformers pivoted to the adoption of Western science and values and to the struggle of developing a new ilm al kalām (theology) complementary to modern science and western ideologies. The subsequent reformers, however, were more critical of Western ideas of civilization. Fazlur Rahman and Mohammed Arkoun belonged to the later wave of Muslim reformist movement of the 20th century and are the most well-known trail blazers of this reformist discourse, which centered on the Qur’ān. This article provides insight into the reform strategies of Dr. Fazlur Rahman and Mohammed Arkoun by mapping out key concepts in their discourses and their influence on later generations of reformers. Fazlur Rahman identified the stagnant intellectual legacy as the sole cause of the downfall of Muslim Civilization, caused by the absence of Ijtihād (independent legal reasoning). In his opinion, blind imitation based on precedence and consensus has only created a new hierarchy of traditional ulama (religious scholar) whose retrogressive mindset monopolized the interpretation of the Qur’ān. Making the Qur’ān as the center point for reform, he advocated its rereading based on the comprehension of the élan (spirit) of the Qur’ān. Similarly, Mohammed Arkoun, being trained in postmodern literary theory, adopted post structural methods for re-reading the Qur’ānic text. Arkoun’s critique and approach is interwoven with complex terminologies. He advocated desacralizing the text and the radical rethinking of Islam as a cultural and religious system. This appraisal promotes a philosophical perspective in combination with an anthropological and historical approach. Both these reformers have their own set of advocates and detractors. Undeniably, however, as this paper argues, Arkoun’s approach of understanding the Qur’ān can disturb the conventional prevalent belief system. Full article