Studying Religion and Religions
1. Religion in modern Islamic thought and practice, by
Abdulkader Tayob
As
I was telling the foxy lady in the kitchen, I already had a book by
Ricky on my shelf - I bought it at a Public Library sell-off in
London, back when I had this stupid idea I was going to teach teens
Religious Studies. Can you believe that? Anyway, paragraph number
four in Ricky's preface starts, "This book presents an
interpretation of Islam as religion." (Martin, 1982, p.xi). Now,
until I started reading the essay by Tayob (2007), I had no idea how
radical that idea was at the time - you know, inviting specialists
in the study of Islam to jive about Islam as a "religion". Indeed,
an essay collection published three years later edited by Ricky,
called Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies (Martin,
1985), produced some thought provoking analyses, apparently. Yet
even today, the veracity of Religious Studies' tools for studying
Islam remains in question. I mean, what has an RS concept like
"myth" got to do with Islam, right?
Now, some RS eggheads think Islam differs too much in its relationship to politics, for example, to be considered as a "religion" in the same way as Christianity. Hold it right there! My man Tayob has other ideas. "Ritual, myth and secularization are not inherently problematic terms for understanding Islam" he opines, although he cautions they "cannot be applied uncritically..." (p.178). Right on, bro'!
Thing is, folks are increasingly savvy to the notion that "religion" aint no neutral category. At this point, if your still digging me, I suggest revisiting our good friend Timothy's introductory essay (Fitzgerald, 2007) to remind ourselves of some assumptions underlying Tayob's hip-slapping shit.
1. We need to be cool to
general and specific uses of the term "religion";
2. The concepts of religion have a genealogy/history, and
neither term nor meanings can be exported to analyse events outside
of modern times (and Euro-America) without extreme vigilance;
3. Religion aint no only or lonely child - it's brother to
secularisation and political economy for sure;
4. Religion is an ideological concept with a postcolonial history;
5. Religion might have emerged in Empire, but other people have
co-opted it to kick/kiss ars.
Tayob aims to "raise critical questions about the way in which the terms [religion and religious] have significantly shaped modern Islam" (p.178).
Tayob explores the concept of religion as it is encapsulated in the term din/adyan and dini in reference to Sayyid Ahmed Khan, Jamal al-Din Afghani and sections of the ulema.
"With Khan and Afghani, we basically have a situation where Islam is no longer the dominant regime. And they give din an essentialist and social meaning respectively, and give up the previously self-evident hegemonic role of Islam ... It created an opportunity for Khan to posit a new foundation for Islam and, for Afghani, a justification for revolt and independence." (p.184)
In respect of the ulema, the "discursive formation of the Islamic/religious has been an important dimension of their re-emergence in late modernity." (p.185)
The ulema "...have been forced by political rulers to adapt and change to the formation of the modern state. And within these changes and adaptations, the emergence of a 'religious' sphere has been shaped. The Azhar reinvented itself as a moral body in relation to the secular sectors in which it has refused to participate or, more correctly, in which it has been unable to lead effectively. While the 'secular' domains were expanding, the religious domain was shaped as a moral watchdog over all areas, or a specialist organization teaching a body of knowledge called religion." (p.188)
Contemporary statements about Islam being "a way of life" invariable reflect an acknowledgement of the very fragmentation of life that is central to modernity, and it is in this fragmentary context that the ulema often represent Islam as a "moral-religious cement or glue" (p.189).
Tayob contrasts reform/progressive and conservative contemporary formulations of Islam as religion, where reformers are "...prepared to accommodate change in the interest of social goals, or the priority of an essence..." whereas the al-Azhar ulema and its allies argue for a "specifically islamic position" with an accompanying "specifically islamic invocation..." In Egypt, this manifests itself in invocations of Islam as unique, exclusive and "not amenable to deliberation." (p.190).
And as I was saying to the foxy lady in the kitchen, this leaves me in need of a re-conceptualised islam that is utterly humble, wholly reflexive and democratically civilizational.
References and Future Reading
Fitzgerald, T. (2007) Introduction, in T. Fitzgerald [Ed.] (2007)
Religion and the
Secular: Historical & Colonial Formations (London: Equinox)
Martin, R. (1982) Islam: A Cultural Perspective (NJ: Prentice
Hall)
Martin, R. (1985) Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies
(Tucson: University of Arizona Press)
Tayob, A. I. (2007) Religion in Modern Islamic thought and practice,
in T. Fitzgerald [Ed.] (2007) Religion and the
Secular: Historical & Colonial Formations (London: Equinox)
Tayob, A. I. (2009) Religion in Modern Islamic Discourse
(London: C Hurst) -- insha Allah