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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The Ethics and Aesthetics of Belief and Disbelief

In the last two years, I have had the privilege of sharing some reflections on the Qur'an in a mosque near our home. This weekend (16 July 2017), I decided to share some ideas from a paper that I presented in Morocco recently. I started with trepidation since I know of the gulf that separates an academic talk and a discussion in a mosque. And I remembered Ibn Rushd's (Averroes) apt warning!

Anyway, this is the verse:

Abuse not those to whom they pray, apart from God, or they will abuse God in revenge without knowledge. So We have decked out fair to every nation their deeds; then to their Lord they shall return, and He will tell them what they have been doing (Q 6:108; translation from Arberry)

I asked if anybody in the mosque had heard the first part of the verse. I had the impression that this was a popular verse since it is often quoted by some Muslim scholars when asked about how Muslims should respond to insults heaped upon God or the Prophet Muhammad. None of 15-odd men in the mosque had heard of it. And my audience included a few who were not unaware of the public atmosphere of Islamophobia in recent times in some countries.

So even though I had decided to speak on the second phrase, I had to briefly elaborate on the first part as well. It was a call to set aside the gods from acrimonious human exchange. Insults and abuse should not be directed at the special or sacred (to use the Christian theologian Paul Tillich's definition of religion).  An alert reader or listener might detect a selfish motive behind this advice.

Alternatively, we might think of this as the Golden rule of Jesus' sermon on the mount - but now applied to the sacred that is cherished by those who abuse. But there is still a lingering expectation of mutuality in this rule - which might not take away the tinge or the aroma of selfishness.

Of course, if one thinks that the sacred is an absolute abomination, or alienation (Feuerbach), or neurosis (Freud) or opiate (Marx), then there might be no need to desist from abusing it. This is an idea of the sacred that exists in many circles in the modern world today. The sacred that some people believe in is rejected in its totality. In this case, the golden rule, if applied, would be to the human person but excluding what he or she may treasure and cherish.

Let me return to the second part of the verse which I wanted to focus on in my talk; and which I think sheds sheds some light on the first part.

So We have decked out fair to every nation their deeds.

This part of the verse has not been as extensively cited or discussed in recent dialogical exchanges over religion and mutual abuse. I have not heard anybody who cites the first part of the verse elaborate on the second part. And I did not expect anybody in the mosque to have heard of it. And this time, I was correct in my assumption.

There is a long history of commentary on this phrase. I submit that the the phrase points to the close relation between truth and beauty. It reminds listeners and readers that the sacred, truth and values,  including the ultimate decision of  believing or disbelieving, is founded on appearance. More than mere appearance, truth is rooted and founded on an aesthetic (a judgment of beauty and form). And that aesthetic is the basis on which beliefs, judgments and values are held. Beauty and truth are held in a tight embrace.

But there is a sting in the tail. An aesthetic judgement might be misleading or open the road to felicity. Beauty comes with truth, but does not guarantee it.

And more interestingly, for this reading that I am suggesting, the verse asks believers to recognize this adornment in the belief held by those who insult God. That might be a tall order which will be difficult for most. Recognizing the difficulty of fully appreciating that another person sees beauty where one only sees error and falsehood, I think that the verse takes on a 2-stage ethical reflection.

I would suggest that in the first part of the verse, we are asked to stop the cycle of insults. Someone has to stop - and it would be good to be that person.

Then, the second part of the verse ventures a more difficult ethical stance. Here, we are told that the foundation of a person's belief who insults your God lies in an aesthetic judgment made by the person who holds that belief. The aesthetic and moral judgment is not merely rooted in arrogance, stupidity or laziness, but on what the other truly thinks is beautiful.

The delicacy of belief and aesthetic is captured by the Adalusian exegete al-Qurtubi's reference to a rhetorical of prayer of Umar (the second caliph of Islam) in his reflection of another verse in the Qur'an that repeats this theme of aesthetics and truth. Reportedly, Umar turned to God and asked: “What will you make beautiful for us?” This question, I propose, exposes the precariousness of moral judgment. It locates moral judgment on aesthetics, which is necessary and inevitable. But that judgment is possibly misleading. So Umar (ra) asks God what He will make beautiful for him (hoping and trusting that it will be the good). 

I submit that this verse might be a good foundation for thinking about unbelief in a deeply respectful way.