Discourse and Ethics in Religious Traditions

It has been become an established tradition in our research project Islam, African Publics and Religious Values to read a number of books and articles in a weekly reading group. This semester (first half of 2020), we read the following: 

• An-Naʿim, Abdullahi Ahmed. Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shariʿa. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008.
• Mittermaier, Amira. Giving to God: Islamic Charity in Revolutionary Times. Oakland, California: Univ of California Press, 2019.
• Ware III, Rudolph T. The Walking Qur’an: Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014.
• Schielke, Samuli. “Hegemonic Encounters: Criticism of Saints-Day Festivals and the Formation of Modern Islam in Late 19th and Early 20th-Century Egypt.” Die Welt des Islams 47, no. 3 (2007): 319–55.

And we also dedicated some weeks to presentations from our group: 

Yasmin Ismail (PhD candidate) - Re-conceptualizing Madrasa education; notes from Cape Town

Dr Nadeem Mahomed  - The Elusive Ummah: Between the Political, Orthodoxy and Heresy

Dr Amy Stambach - Pragmatic faith and bulldozer ethics in the study of religious populism

Dr Anrea Cassatella - Beyond the Secular: Islam, Religion, and Democracy 

As is clear, this has been a very busy semester. Considering that the meetings were held during COVID, it was particularly remarkable.

We concluded our meeting with a review of these papers. And this is my general sense of the general questions that were raised during the semester:

1. What are the political projects in which religious discourses are located or articulated? I am aware that I am forcing a distinction between religion and politics here. Nevertheless,  we reflected on the Mittermaier's study of giving in the context of the modern Egyptian state, Stambach on Tanzania from ujamaa socialism to neo-liberalism, Rudolph Ware on the politics of slave raiding in 18th Century Africa, An-Na’im on a secular state for Muslims, and Derrida on the modern secular state in Cassatella. So, it seems important to identify the nature of the state and more importantly of politics. Sometimes the state may remain implicit by choice. But as we learn from Derrida, we are all located in a particular political space.
2. Then, when we were able to escape or suspend the impact of politics, we identified religious discourse in these states. This might or might not be a quest to escape from politics. In our readings, some of the studies focussed more on the state than others. But there was a religious discourse noticeable. I mean by this a language and practice associated with religion. Thus, Mittermaier’s Giving for God, Kweka’s development projects for the Church in Tanzania, Amin on Islamic education, Ware on the embodiment of the Quran, Nadeem’s on the quest for authenticity. Some have been more clear than others in identifying these as religious discourse, but I think we can ask more detailed questions on how these discourse work, what they expect from participants (practices). And how then are they related to (1). 
3. Thirdly, we interrogated values in these religious discourses. So for Mittermaier, it was giving and sharing, Kweka in Stambach on critical engagement with state policy, and development for the Church, Yasmin on the imposition of a model of education or resistance, Ware on embodiment, but also resistance to modernization or accommodation with it, An-Naim and Nadeem on freedom and authenticity, and Derrida also freedom. Freedom and resistance seem central in some religious discourses, but we tried to look beyond this modernist shadow.

All in all, an extremely productive and thoughtful semester. Thanks to all the participants. 

I will be sharing more on this group, but particularly how I think we can use a discursive approach to a complex language game with a long history. 

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