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Gender, State & Society article

Defining Feminisms, Upholding Equality


“Western feminism.”  “Islamic feminism.”  “Secular feminism.”  What do they mean?  Paola Bernardini rightly points out that there is no (singular) “Western feminism.”  Many feminisms have been generated in diverse parts of the West at various historical moments.  In short, the term “Western feminism” is empty.

Islamic Feminism

As a historian of feminisms in Muslim societies I have followed the rise and spread of the new feminist paradigm that Muslim secular feminists, when witnessing its appearance in the late 1980s and early 1990s, called “Islamic feminism.”  They gave the name Islamic feminism to the emergent discourse of gender equality and social justice grounded in women’s re-readings of the Qur’an and other religious texts.  Islamic feminism is not an identity; it is not necessary to be a Muslim to be an Islamic feminist but simply a person who uses the discourse of Islamic feminism in her, or his, articulation of and quest for the practice of gender equality as part of human equality.

This usage contrasts with the way the term “Islamic feminism” is now bandied about so loosely. Now it is often taken by observers to mean any gender thinking and practice advocated by Muslim women — who are blithely labeled “Islamic feminists.” But such so-called “Islamic feminism” typically represents a patriarchal version of Islam, albeit mainly a “soft patriarchy” in which complementarity overrides equality.

Islamic feminists or “gender egalitarianists,” like secular feminists today, are wary of the obsessive fore-fronting of complementarity in the mainstream patriarchal discourse and practice of Islam. This is because the notion of complementarity is used to uphold differential and unequal roles — for women and men in the family, which patriarchalists are fond of reiterating, is “the cell of society” — as ordained by God. 

Secular Feminisms: Egypt vs. Tunisia

When we speak of the secular feminisms advocated by many women in Muslim-majority countries today we need to carefully contextualize.  For example, Egypt, of which I shall speak, is not Tunisia.  In Egypt the “feminism” women created early last century was also referred to as “secular feminism” to indicate  a feminism that was not a communally based feminism but inclusive of all Egyptians. “Secular” thus signaled “Egyptian.”

Egyptian or secular feminism had space for and respected religion and religious difference without using religion, or one particular religion, as its overarching framework.  Islamic modernist discourse was part of the secular feminist discursive repertoire.  In other places, notably in North Africa, with its more intrusive colonial experience — far more culturally invasive that that of Egypt — secular feminism was virtually devoid of a religious dimension.

In Egypt today, there is no polarity between secular feminism and Islamic feminism.  Indeed secular feminists in advocating for reform of the Muslim Personal Status Laws — also called family law — have always used and continue to use Islamic feminist argument. And this they must do in order to have any hope of reforming family law, which is the only kind of law in Egypt explicitly based on interpretations of Islamic religious sources.

Complementarity and the Patriarchal Discourse of Unequal Power

There is, however, contention. The contention is between, on one side, secular and Islamic feminists who are protagonists of equality and, on the other side, Muslim patriarchalists who vociferously eschew and undercut equality.  For patriarchalists, equality is cancelled by what they insist is the divinely ordained dictum of complementarity, which places “the man” in charge of protecting “the woman” from whom obedience to “the man” is extracted in return for support.  Secular and Islamic feminists unwaveringly support the practice of equality for all insan, all human beings.  They have deconstructed and exposed the use of an imposed notion of complementarity, which aims at sustaining and shoring up inequality and, in so doing, patriarchal hegemony and power.  Islamic and secular feminists alike focus on the idea of equality from which positive, free interactions between human persons can spring in just and free societies.

The article in the Tunisian draft that offended feminists in Tunisia and elsewhere referred to “her [woman] as a true partner with man in building the nation.”   Why not simply say that all Tunisians are partners with one another in building the nation?  This would echo the spirit of the Qur’an  (9:71): “The believers, male and female, are awliyya (helpers, supporters) of one another.

In the Qur’an, Man and Woman Are Mutual — and Equal — Partners

Furthermore, the Qur’an explicitly teaches that the male and female are zawj or a partner to one another.  In Qur’anic Arabic zawj is the single term for partner.  In modern Arabic there are two words — female zawja and a male zawj — which are used to indicate husband and wife.  Islamic scripture does not declare that “the woman is the true partner of the man” but rather both are partners of each other.  Complementarity in the Qur’an may be seen as embedded in the concept of equal partnership.

Complementarity is not made explicit and gendered such that “the woman” complements “the man” in a pyramid of inequality.  That sort of pyramid is not something that either Islamic feminists or secular feminists want in Egypt.

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Margot Badran
Margot Badran, a historian and specialist in women’s studies focusing on feminism, gender, modernity, Islam, and constructions of the religious and secular, is senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and senior fellow at the Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University. Her most recent book is Feminism in Islam: Secular and Religious Convergences.
Global Migration & the New Cosmopolitanism article

The Theistic Meaning of Morality


An exciting feature of the Contending Modernities project is the way it links the academic with the deeply practical.  In east London, the project has enabled us to develop new resources for Muslim engagement in public life — something I blogged about back in August. And we are currently conducting wider research on the way faiths work together to discern and promote the common good.  It is also helping us to look at some apparently very abstract issues — including the relationship between morality and metaphysics — and show their relevance to the debates around faith in public life.

Moral Realities as a Window to Divine Reality

This month sees the launch of my new book From Morality to Metaphysics: The Theistic Implications of Our Ethical Commitments.  After outlining its argument, I want to explain its relevance to these wider debates.

The book begins with a defence of moral realism — i.e. that there is a “truth of the matter” about morality, which our individual moral convictions are trying to get right. This is a claim strongly supported by many secular philosophers, including “New Atheists” such as Sam Harris — philosophers who, by the way, are very keen to keep religion out of public life.

Secondly, it argues that secular worldviews cannot account for our capacity for moral knowledge. If humans have moral knowledge, it means we have a capacity for getting right things that are not matters of scientific experiment and reasoning alone. On a secular worldview, it is impossible to explain why humans have any capacity (however fallible) for moral knowledge.

The third claim of this book is that theism is uniquely able to explain our capacity for moral knowledge. For it is only theism that can explain why human beings are capable of (fallible) moral knowledge. Theism explains why all of us, theist and atheist alike, are capable of making moral assertions with good reason.

Religion’s Crucial Place in Public Moral Debate

The Contending Modernities project has enabled me to make the connections between this apparently abstract argument and current debates about the rightful role of faith in public life.

In an extended essay for Theos, the public theology think tank, to be launched in December, I will identify three main motivations for keeping religion out of public life.  Its critics claim religion is divisive (as not everyone shares the assumptions from which religious arguments proceed), reactionary (religion is supposed to be the last repository of prejudices the wider society has left behind) and irrational (religion is said to involve a ‘leap of faith’ unjustified by reasoned argument).

Other research going on for Contending Modernities in east London suggests that, far from being divisive and reactionary, religious groups are capable of coming together to be a force for social justice.  This evidence of the practical utility of religion is necessary, but not sufficient, in making the case for its place in the public square. It is not enough to show that religious reasons are useful in inspiring social action and engagement with neighbours.

What remains at issue is why people should take them seriously as reasons as well as motivations.

That is where philosophical arguments become important. They are needed if we are move to the debate about religion and public life beyond a simple dispute about whether or not “faith” is useful social glue. My report for Theos draws on the argument presented in From Morality to Metaphysics to make the case that the truth-claims of religion — as well as its social utility — deserve more serious attention than they often receive.

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Angus Ritchie
Canon Dr. Angus Ritchie is an Anglican priest. For over twenty years, he has served in parishes in East London involved in community organizing, playing a leading role in campaigns for the Living Wage, affordable housing, and a cap on interest rates. He is the founding director of the Centre for Theology and Community. His latest book, Inclusive Populism: Creating Citizens in the Global Age was published by the University of Notre Dame Press in 2019, and was recently discussed by Pope Francis at a conference of Catholics involved in community organizing.
Gender, State & Society article

Woman and Her Complementary Relationship to Man


In response to the stirring invitation issued by Paola Bernardini to offer a theological account of the complementarity of women and men “without jeopardizing their equality,” I would like to take a close look at both the complementary relationship and equality of the sexes from a biblical perspective. To do so, I would like to begin at the beginning, as it were, with the Genesis account of the creation of man and woman.

Genesis 1:27 states: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (ESV). The word “man” translates the Hebrew “’adam”, which is not a proper noun (“Mister Adam”), but means “humanity.” “’Adam”, in fact, in verse 26 is followed by a plural verb: “let them have dominion” (ESV). Note the shift from singular (“he created him”) to plural (“he created them”), indicating that both man and woman constitute the icon of God on earth. And they can be that only together.

It is clear, then, that the whole of humanity is the image of God. The Hebrew word for “image” is zelem (eikon in Greek), which designates a statue or a picture. As such, an image is a sign that makes present someone who is otherwise absent. In ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, only the king was the image of the gods, or perhaps god himself.

Humanity — Male and Female — as God’s Icon In the World

The Genesis text extends this concept to all mankind: every human being makes God present in the world. The true icon of God is man, i.e. humanity — masculine and feminine alike. At this point we understand that humanity is both the “image” and “likeness” of God not mainly because of its dominion over creation but because of the communion between femininity and masculinity.

In the evocative symbolism of the creation story, sexual difference is deeply unified. The human being exists in two distinct but complementary ways — the “masculine” and the “feminine.”

As a matter of fact, the words “male” and “female” indicate both distinction and reciprocity.

As translated from the Hebrew zakar, “male” means “the-one-who-has-a-tip” — an allusion to the male member. Zakar, moreover, is related to zikkaron, which translates as “memorial” or “remembrance.” This is not nostalgia for the past but a mentality that considers the past actions of God — especially in terms of creation and salvation — present and immediate realities. Furthermore, this mentality is able to project these realities into the future. In its relation to zikkaron, therefore, masculinity evokes “remembering” through the gift of seed or semen to the womb of femininity. On the other hand, the Hebrew word for “female” is neqebah, which translates as “the-one-who-is-perforated” or “punctured.” The woman thus represents receptivity.

Woman: The “Helper” from God

In the second biblical creation story, God says: “I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18). The word “helper” translates ezer, which indicates a particular kind of help that can be given only by God. It is often wrongly assumed that a helper is someone who is a “servant.” But the biblical meaning does not refer to this kind of help but rather to heavenly aid — the kind of help only God can give — that saves Adam from the death of solitude. Because the term “helper” is so often attributed to God, this provides a powerful sense of the elevated and essential contribution of woman as a divinely ordained “helper.” John Paul II, in his encyclical Mulieris Dignitatem, “On the Dignity and Vocation of Women,” states that only when Adam is placed before the woman, shaped from his own body, can he express his profound and joyful wonder, recognizing “flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bones” (Genesis 2:23). We can easily understand that the “help” one gives to the other is not superficial or instrumental but profound and mutual. To be fully human, then, is to be called into this interpersonal communion.

Which is to say that the fullness of being human or the fullness of being the image of God lies not only in the male or only in the female but in the communion of male and female. The fact that humanity as created both male and female is made in God’s image suggests that women and men as individuals are like God, being both rational and free. It also means that man and woman, created as a “unity of the two” in their common humanity, are called to live in a communion of love and in this way to mirror in the world the communion of love that is in God (cf. 1 John 4:16).

It is of more than passing interest that Adam was asleep during the creation of Eve. Man does not “manufacture” woman; she is created by God. Man does not see God at work as God creates woman; he has no awareness of, or active involvement in, her creation. Therefore, man will never be able to “possess” the woman; she will always remain something of an ineffable mystery to him. The interpretive key of the human being, therefore, is the call to accept and build a communion between the sexes that is based on mutuality and recognition of their irreducible uniqueness and complementarity.

Difference, complementarity, equality of value, and uniqueness. These, then, are the coordinates that guide us into the mystery of the man and the woman and the majesty of their communion as the icon of God in the world.

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Mauro Meruzzi
Mauro Meruzzi is Professor of New Testament at Pontifical Urbaniana University in Rome as well as Adjunct Lecturer at the Flinders University of Australia College of Divinity. He recieved his Ph.D in Missiology from Pontifical Urbaniana University, Rome.
Gender, State & Society article

Debating the Status of Women in Tunisia


As noted in a previous post on the Contending Modernities blog by Michael Driessen, post-authoritarian Tunisia has become the site of fascinating debate between contending modernities — one being self-consciously Islamist and democratic and the other being assertively secular and liberal.  One battlefield where the conflict is currently fiercest is the status of women.

News agencies recently reported a major victory on the part of Tunisian women who had fought to amend Article 27.1 of the new draft Constitution. The article they opposed originally read:

The state shall guarantee the protection of women’s rights and support for their gains, in considering her a true partner with man in building the nation; the role of these two is complementary within the family. The state shall guarantee the parity (takāfuʾ) of opportunity between the woman and the man while accepting different responsibilities. The state shall guarantee prosecution of every form of violence against women.

Local analysts argue that the amended article 27 is a manifestation of a larger movement in Tunisia, which is attempting to drive a wedge between “Islamic feminism” and what is generally considered the “Western” model of thought about women.

“Western” Feminism vs. the New “Islamic” Feminism

Representatives of what is often defined as the “western” secular model of feminism worried that the approval of Article 27.1 would have compromised the equality between women and men as established in the Tunisian personal status code of 1956. They were concerned that women would have been accorded rights not as individuals but only in reference to men. Note that the proposed language of Article 27.1 guaranteed the protection of the rights of the woman context of “considering her a true partner with man in building the nation.”

It is interesting to note that although this form of feminism is called “Western,” so-called Western feminism has been questioned in the West.  Even some Western feminists have opposed the “feminism of identity” model. Consider feminists such as Iris Marion Young, for example, whose theory of affirmative action emphasizes gender difference rather than the equality of men and women’s rights.

On the other hand, according to the “Islamic” feminists who supported Article 27.1, it would not have jeopardized women’s rights. These rights, they say, are securely recognized not only in the 1956 personal status code but also in Article 1.22 of the draft Constitution.  Rather, according to the new Islamic feminism, Article 27.1 would simply have treated men and women’s rights as reciprocal and complementary.

Common Ground?

The new Islamic feminism of the post-Ben Ali regime resembles more than one aspect of the post-Vatican II model of Roman Catholic feminism. To begin with, they both emphasize the complementarities of men and women, which in the Judeo-Christian tradition are rooted in the Book of Genesis. What further common ground might there be between Catholic feminism and the Islamic feminism that has become increasingly influential in Tunisia?

On the other hand, religious and secular models of feminist discourse seem to be harder to reconcile. Their dichotomy is based on the presupposition that complementarity is the opposite of equality. But is this really so? As Michael Driessen and Alfred Stepan have noted, secular and Islamist modernities in Tunisia have found common ground on several important issues. Why not also on the issue of the status and rights of women?

On what theological grounds can the new Islamic and Catholic feminisms account for the complementarity of women and men without jeopardizing their equality?  Conversely, to what extent can secular feminisms that emphasize the equality of women and men come to appreciate their complementarity?

We invite discussion on these and related questions.

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Paula Bernardini
Paola Bernardini is Adjunct Professor of Philosophy and Global Perspectives at the Holy Cross College in South Bend, Indiana. She was previously the Associate Director for Research for Contending Modernities. Paola received a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome, Italy, where she was a Russell Berrie Fellow in Interreligious Studies. Her past publications include Natural or Political Man? The Foundation of Human Rights in Martha C. Nussbaum (2009), and Multiculturalism and Adult Dialogue Education (2003). Paola received an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, with a concentration in human rights and conflict resolution education.
Global Currents article

Beyond the Myth of Western-Muslim Clash


Since the rise of so-called “Western civilization” and “modernity,” the relationship between “the West” and the “Muslim world” is highly dynamic and unpredictable, marked by a constant ebb and flow. The encounter between the two has been marked by suspicions, tensions, clashes, and violent conflicts, as well as by cooperation and dialogue across these deep plural societies and overlapping cultures. During the Cold War, for instance, the U.S. forged alliances with some Muslim-majority countries to destroy communist regimes and weaken their influences from the Middle East to Southeast Asia. Throughout the Afghan War from 1979 to 1989, the U.S. also worked hand in hand with some state and non-state Muslim allies, including the Mujahidin, to oppose — successfully — the “Red Army.”

However, since the U.S. declared “War on Terror,” followed by the deployment of military forces to Afghanistan and Iraq, following the terrorist attacks of the Pentagon and World Trade Center on 9/11, the relations between the two deteriorated. The phrase “War on Terror” was popularized in particular by former US president George W. Bush to denote a global military, political, legal, and ideological campaign against Islamist terrorist networks and militant Muslim organizations that were perceived as posing a threat to the U.S. and Western interests.

The U.S. government repeatedly said that the global war on terror and the political interventions in the “Muslim world” were aimed at establishing democracy or assisting Muslim regimes to secure democratic governance. However, many Muslims, unfortunately, responded to this rhetoric with pessimism. As shown by the Gallup Poll, Muslims around the world strongly doubt the United States is trying to build democracy in the Middle East and other parts of the Muslim-majority world. The Gallup poll (www.gallup.com), conducted in 10 Muslim countries that comprise 80 per cent of the world’s Muslim population, found that an “average of only 31 per cent of respondents per nation believed US objectives were centered on building democracy and peace.”

The Innocence of Muslims and “Clash of Civilization” Thesis

Western-Muslim tension continues nowadays following the appearance of the American-made anti-Islam film, Innocence of Muslims. This movie provoked a firestorm of mass demonstrations against the U.S. from Libya and Egypt to Pakistan and Indonesia resulting in deaths, injuries, and destructions of public buildings and facilities. Many Muslim protesters, exploited by Islamist radical groups and America haters, condemned the US and accused Americans of behind the making of the movie. Even worse, anti-American Islamist leaders suggested that Muslim-majority countries discontinue their diplomatic relations with the US, despite the fact that the Obama administration strongly denounced the film and its offensive message as well as requested Google to remove the movie from You Tube.

Furthermore, an unlikely coalition of anti-American and anti-Islamic groups and commentators claimed in a rush to judgment that the violent protests against the movie are a sign of a “clash of civilizations” — to borrow the title of Samuel Huntington’s popular thesis (though the term was originally applied to Western-Muslim relations by Bernard Lewis). The same groups and commentators saw the movie and its aftermath as evidence of a fundamental incompatibility between Islam and Western ideas of freedom and liberal democracy. For both pro-Islamist and pro-Western essentialists, Islam and democracy are considered two distinct and radically incompatible values and worldviews.

Islam and Democratic Civility 

Contrary to essentialist claims, however, recent studies on Muslim politics and civic culture show that major portions of the Muslim-majority world from North Africa to Southeast Asia have made significant progress with regard to democracy, civil liberties, religious freedom, civic pluralism, citizenship, and feminism The question of whether there is a fundamental compatibility between Islam and democracy is thus no longer interesting or useful. As anthropologist Jenny White has argued, the question should not be whether democracy is compatible with Islam, but rather “to what extent particular state ideologies nourish civic culture.”

Prominent scholars of Islam such as sociologist Asef Bayat and anthropologist Robert Hefner further argue that the question of the compatibility or incompatibility between Islam and democracy is ultimately misguided since democratic ideals per se have little to do with the essence of any religion. In their fine works (e.g. Making Islam Democratic and Civil Islam), both Bayat and Hefner have reminded us that social and political movements across the Muslim-majority world from the Middle East to Indonesia — pioneered by progressive Islamic leaders, human right activists, intellectuals, students, youth and women groups, and civil society institutions — have been successful in constructing “an inclusive faith that embraces democratic civility.” Some Muslim countries practice limited or “illiberal democracy,” while others, like Indonesia, adopt more liberal forms of democracy.

The Internal Diversity of “the Muslim World” and “the West”

Accordingly, essentialist constructions of an absolute opposition between the “Muslim world” and “Western democracy” are theoretically and empirically problematic.

This is true for the reasons noted above, but also because such a constructed opposition clearly does not account for the diversity and dynamism of culture and agency both in the “Muslim world” and the “Western world.” Even in America, as the champion of liberal democracy and civil rights, there have been growing numbers of religious people and conservative groups, so that dubbing the U.S. a “liberal nation” is clumsy at best. America is also the home to Muslims, not only Christians or Jews, who shape, or are reshaped by, American values, cultures, and politics. In other words, Islam is also part of American beliefs and practices, and Muslims are an integral part of American societies.

One must also emphasize that many non-Muslim groups — Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and many others — are a demographically and culturally significant part of many so-called “Muslim countries.” Many of the world’s largest and most important Muslim-majority countries have large non-Muslim minorities, such as Egypt with its Coptic community, Syria with its diverse Christian churches, Iraq with its Chaldean Christians and Sabean Mandeans, and Indonesia with its Balinese Hindus, Buddhists, Confucianists, and millions of Christians.

Ironically, while the essentialist scholars and followers of their views see “a one-note caricature of Islam,” to quote John Esposito, most Muslims “are gravitating toward a position that does not see the West as monolithic.” Indeed, the Muslim opposition to the West is more about policy than principles. In other words, most anti-American Muslim hardliners and Islamist conservative groupings are primarily motivated by US foreign policy toward Muslim countries, not by religion or culture. In fact, as the Gallup survey results indicate, many Muslims around the globe admire and praise American achievements of science, technology, as well as academic and political freedom.

It may be more accurate to conclude, then, that the real “clash” is not between the “Muslim world” and “the West” but between the extremist essentialists on both sides.

Recent protests and civilian uprisings in some parts of some Muslim countries against the American-made anti-Islamic and anti-Prophet Muhammad movie, The Innocence of Muslims, do not necessarily reflect Muslim hatred toward Western or American culture. In fact, the original Muslim protests against the film have been exploited and manipulated by some anti-American Islamist radical groups to advance their political agendas. Hence, in some Muslim countries, such as Libya and Indonesia, there has been a wave of counter-protests and strong criticism against the Islamist protesters and America haters for manipulating the initial demonstrations against the movie and for using violent means to promote their objectives.

Bridging the Gap

Rather than exaggerate the myth of Western-Muslim conflict, it is urgent that Muslims, non-Muslims, and Westerners revise their essentialist views of the other.  This means improving their relations with other societies, identifying common misunderstandings, recognizing the internal diversity and pluralism on both sides, and most importantly, respecting each other’s cultures and traditions. Such peacebuilding efforts are imperative.

They are imperative not least because many Americans, especially in the post-9/11 climate, conflate the mainstream Muslim majority with the beliefs and actions of an extremist minority. Equally, Muslims sometimes confuse American society as a whole with the rude and disrespectful actions of anti-Islamic individuals — such as the makers of the Innocence of Muslims or Terry Jones, the pastor of Dove World Outreach Center, who planned to burn the Qur’an in 2010, some religious conservative groups, and some policy makers in Washington, D.C.

Modernities will continue to be diverse and they will certainly continue to contend with each other. But their ongoing mutual contention and competition will be far less violent and far more fruitful if we can dispense with the destructive essentialisms recently in evidence in both Western and Muslim-majority societies.

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Sumanto Al Qurtuby
Sumanto Al Qurtuby is cultural anthropologist, author, interfaith activist, and columnist. An Indonesian-born scholar of Islam, he is now a Professor of Cultural Anthropology at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals. He was previously a visiting research fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at Notre Dame. A graduate of Boston University, Sumanto is co-founder and vice chairman of the American branch of Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s largest moderate Islamic organization whose membership is more than 50 million in the country. Sumanto has authored, co-authored, and edited 18 books, and written dozens of journal articles and hundreds of popular essays. 
Global Currents article

A Case of Imperial Aggression, Not Contending Modernities


There may be examples of a “clash between modernities,” but the recent wave of protests in several Muslim majority countries against the so-called “innocence of Muslims” film was not one of them. Indeed, protests by Muslims should be expected and accepted as part of the process of “negotiating” the appropriate limits of two varieties of free speech. If the movie maker in this case is exercising his right to free speech, so are Muslims who are protesting the excessively crude and vulgar ways in which he expressed his views.

Free Speech Includes the Right to Protest — but Never Violently

It is equally clear to me that while protest is a legitimate part of the process of defining free speech, violence is never justified. On those two sides of the equation I see no doubt or qualification. The question I wish to raise here is where is the violence happening, and what other factors may be contributing to it in those particular places.

There are about 1.8 billion Muslims around the world, who constitute the majority of the population in more than forty countries today. Out of a fifth of humanity and a quarter of the membership of the United Nations, violence in some protests (not violent protests) is happening among a few thousand protestors in five or six countries out of forty. This is hardly a case of Muslims as a whole doing this or that. When we consider each of those countries, we find that they are either lawless places in the grip of civil war, such as Libya and Syria, or controlled by violent despotic regimes that have terrorized their own populations for decade, such as Sudan, or countries where local populations hold strong grievances against the aggressively violent foreign policy of the United States, such Pakistan and Yemen.

To be very specific, the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the United States and its allies was a horrendous crime against humanity that is still unaccounted for. When a crime of this magnitude happens, it cannot be undone by simply withdrawing the troops and privately acknowledging that it was “a mistake.” If the powerful are getting away with murder — literally in this case — the apparently powerless victims of aggression will try to retaliate in any way they can.

Not a Clash of Modernities

In my view, the current film episode is is not a case of clash of modernities because countries like Canada, the United Kingdom and France, which presumably share with the United State the same conception of modernity, do not agree with its extreme view of free speech.

I also find that the impulse of American opinion leaders to immediately blame Islam and Muslims is a case of irrational and offensive over-generalization. This is more unjustified in view of the fact that there is no corresponding willingness to consider the responsibility of the United States for a war of aggression in Iraq, and countless unaccountable assassinations and drone attacks on civilian populations on the pretext of a global war on terror.

The Innocence of Americans?

It is also remarkable to me that we hear loud condemnations of Muslims for failing to respect “our values” without ever asking ourselves whether we respect their values. I find that such unbalanced and unfair protestation of “the innocence of Americans” is a case of imperial aggression not only for the recent and current situations note above, but also because it reflects the imperial impulse to dehumanize and degrade the subjects of empire in order to justify continued aggression and domination. It is as if to say to the Muslims of the world: “You must either submit to our values without protest or you are uncivilized and aggressive lot that deserves to be punished.”

Let me conclude by stating my own position as clearly as I can. I support the right to peacefully protest the abuse of free speech, and categorically condemn violence, whoever the perpetrator or whatever the alleged “cause.”

What Should We Do Now?

I also wish to close by responding to the legitimate and urgent question: What should we do now? 

First, we must all truly and consistently uphold the rule of law and democratic accountability in our foreign and domestic practice. We cannot expect others to abide by the law when we repeatedly violate its most basic precepts with apparent impunity.

Second, we must abide by the rule of law all the time and in every situation, instead of doing so only when it serves our purposes and disregarding it whenever we find the law “inconvenient.”

Third, we must maintain a sense of perspective and fairness in our analysis and prescriptions for specific episodes like the current film fiasco. When we over-generalize and demonize “the other,” we evade our own responsibility and undermine the credibility of moderate voices in their own communities.

Attacking Embassies and Ambassadors Is Always a Crime against Sharia

Fourth, regarding the current situation in particular, attacking embassies and harming foreign emissaries or ambassadors have always been condemned as unlawful and punishable crimes by Sharia from the very beginning of Islam. For detailed documentation of this principle see, for example, Muhammad Hamidullah, Muslim Conduct of State, 1941. When we see Muslims violating a fundamental norm of Sharia, we should not ascribe their conduct to Islam or to their being Muslims. Their conduct, rather, is utterly contrary to Islam.

Finally, we must be willing to reconsider our own position — in this case, our extreme view of free speech. We must also show respect for the positions of people of different religious and cultural traditions before we rush to condemn them for failing to “honor our values.”

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Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im
Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law at Emory Law, Associate Professor in the Emory College of Arts and Sciences, and Senior Fellow of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion of Emory University. His areas of expertise include Human Rights, Islamic Law, Comparative Law, Comparative Constitutional Law, International Law, International Human Rights Law, Law and Religion and his research focuses on  constitutionalism in Islamic and African countries, secularism, and Islam and politics.
Global Currents article

An Honest Conversation about Benghazi and Beyond


“[T]he events of the last two weeks…speak to the need for all of us to honestly address the tensions between the West and the Arab World…”

Those words were spoken by President Obama in his speech to the UN General Assembly on September 25, 2012. The “events: he was referring to, of course, included the spreading news about a crude video insulting the Prophet Muhammad; the killing of American Ambassador Chris Stevens and three of his colleagues in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012; violent protests decrying the defamation of the Prophet throughout the Muslim world, which have killed some fifty people as of this writing; and intensifying debate about the appropriate lessons to be drawn from the video and the ensuing global firestorm. This intensifying debate includes, it must be said, profound controversy about the basic facts and precise causal connections linking this chain of events. For example, are the violent protests that spread across the Muslim world best understood as a spontaneous reaction? Or were there other agendas at work?

Just as President Obama said, all of these events and all the ensuing controversy demand an honest conversation about the tensions between the West and the predominantly Muslim cultures of the Arab World — not to mention Muslim cultures beyond the Arab World, which are in fact home to many more Muslims than the Arab societies of the Middle East and North Africa. A logical forum for such a conversation is Contending Modernities, which is devoted to generating new knowledge and greater understanding of the ways in which religious and secular forces interact in the modern world, with a focus on Catholic, Muslim, and secular interaction.

And the ideal host for such a conversation is Dr. Paola Bernardini, the new Associate Director for Research for Contending Modernities. Paola received a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome, Italy, where she was a Russell Berrie Fellow in Interreligious Studies. Dr. Bernardini’s doctoral thesis was a comparative study of Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im’s human rights theory and Jacques Maritain’s natural law theory. With the post below, Dr. Bernardini launches what we hope will become a broad and vigorous dialogue about Benghazi and beyond.

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Timothy Samuel Shah
Timothy Samuel Shah is Editor of the Contending Modernities Blog. He is Associate Director and Scholar in Residence of the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs and Adjunct Research Professor with Notre Dame's Kroc Institute. With Monica Duffy Toft and Daniel Philpott, he is co-author of God's Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics.
Governance, Citizenship, Rights & Obligations article

Contending Conceptions of Democracy


The recent wave of violent reactions in Africa, Asia and the Middle East to the online video mocking the Prophet Muhammad may be taken as the most recent example of a clash between “contending modernities.”

The US-based moviemaker is sometimes taken to represent the values of “Western democracy” and “free speech,” while the protesters in places such as Libya and Pakistan are taken to represent “extremism” and “illiberalism.” Of course, neither the US-based moviemaker nor the Muslim protesters are necessarily paradigmatic of their wider societies or cultures.  Furthermore, they arguably represent not a clash of “democracy” vs. “extremism” but a clash between rival — and plausible — conceptions of modern democracy.

Contending Liberties

On one side, the defenders of largely unrestricted free speech and freedom of expression champion a democratic model that generally refuses to grant special privilege to religion or religious sensibilities. On the other, the religiously offended prefer a democratic model that includes the right of a community to be free from grave insults to its identity and values. Indeed, such a view is in keeping with a robust norm of popular sovereignty — “Vox populi, vox Dei”!

The moviemaker and the rioter thus embrace stereotypical and exaggerated versions of “secular” and “religious” conceptions of democracy. We know that secular approaches, which emphasize free expression, need not be hostile to religious sensibilities, beliefs or practices; just as we know that religions can and do preserve the dignity of sacred figures and sites without recourse to violence or even to censorship.

Beyond Clashing Civilizations

As some analysts have pointed out, this clash is not simply between Muslims and Christians. The terrain is more complicated.  For example, Coptic Christians in the region compared the release of the movie on Muhammad to that of The “Da Vinci Code,” the 2006 movie that they not only found offensive but which they succeeded in restricting in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East. And in the wake of the recent protests a number of Christian leaders — including Maronite Catholic Patriarch Bechara Rai and four Anglican bishops — have expressed support for international bans on religious defamation and blasphemy. At the same time, of course, dozens of Muslim thinkers have condemned the violent riots as obscurantist and inconsistent with Islam.

Both models of democracy presuppose a different conception of the relationship between religion and the State. But, one may ask, is there something each can learn from the other? Is there a middle ground in which both freedoms of expression, and from sacrilege, can be respected and guaranteed?

We invite responses to these and related questions!

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Paula Bernardini
Paola Bernardini is Adjunct Professor of Philosophy and Global Perspectives at the Holy Cross College in South Bend, Indiana. She was previously the Associate Director for Research for Contending Modernities. Paola received a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome, Italy, where she was a Russell Berrie Fellow in Interreligious Studies. Her past publications include Natural or Political Man? The Foundation of Human Rights in Martha C. Nussbaum (2009), and Multiculturalism and Adult Dialogue Education (2003). Paola received an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, with a concentration in human rights and conflict resolution education.
Authority, Community & Identity article

The Tyranny of Practice


It is characteristic of Western modernity that in discussions of schooling and business and politics there is a common truism: “theory into practice.” At the very least, the underlying assumption of this truism can readily be found there. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in schools of education, teacher education programs, and the institutional teaching and learning efforts of higher education. This saying yields a soft hammer, a gentle reminder that the theory must always be “grounded in practice” in order to be worthwhile — and profitable.

It seems harmless enough.

But if you work in an academic setting (as I do), then you probably know that this is more than a harmless attitude. It has teeth. I will not try and argue that the saying is harmful. I want to take issue with what the slogan ultimately shows: the way “theory into practice” has evolved into a powerful modern ideology, with devastating and widespread consequences in and out of the academy.

Common Sense Makes No Sense

The common sense of “theory into practice” is a powerful and dogmatic position that distorts both theory and practice. On the one hand, theory is elevated above the practical and becomes an inflated, empty routine of intellectual self-aggrandizement. Conversely, practice becomes the endpoint for all thinking, the anchor grounding the human imagination, on the other. This is not only metaphysically amiss; it is also a disastrous mistake.

In short, the ideology of “theory into practice” draws and quarters life into a binary of thinking and doing. There is certainly something to be said for understanding the difference between the vita activa and the vita contemplativa, but even these rich, religious notions have their limits.

Thinking Practically, Practicing Thoughtfully

THINKING, thought, contemplation, creative imagination — all of these words that describe the same reality — are wildly active. That is what having an “active mind” is all about. Thinking is dynamic and deeply practical (if by ‘practical’ we mean the usual sense of the term, related to action).

PRACTICE, praxis, action, and practicality are not thoughtless. Nor are they final. Practice is surely not an end in itself. (Since when did something practical become detached from thinking and anything more than instrumental?) In many ways, practice is a tool for theorizing. Action sometimes stimulates thought just as thought occasionally informs action. Or, to put it normatively: action ought to stimulate thought just as thought ought to inform action. Perhaps more.

At the very least, we should also be asking how practice meets the standards of imagination, vision, dreams, and other beautifully creative ways of thinking. How does practice conform to and ground itself in theory? Are theory and practice real things that we can point to here and over there as we would to bananas and oranges in a fruit bowl? Do they exist in the world as things?

Losing More Than Our Head

The tyranny of practice has infected the groupthink of many places that directly affect our lives in and out of academia. The effects are not just mental or psychological. They are also emotional, cultural, and spiritual.

The ideological commitment to subordinate thinking to practice not only devalues thought; it also affects our valuation of feeling, becoming, and transcendence. In misplacing the head under the authority of the hand, we are also forgetting the heart, the public square, and the soul.

For example, the quiet, ongoing loss of the fine arts is a cultural torture that is not unrelated to the tyranny of practice in our lives. Tell me: how do music, dance, painting, and sculpture submit themselves to practice? When will they buy us groceries, create more miserable jobs, or increase standardized test scores or performance measures? Not anytime soon. At least not in a way that would satisfy the “practitioners.”

But everyone knows — even if they don’t know that they know it — that life without pure art, art for the sake of art, beauty for beauty’s sake, isn’t life at all. Thinking might get us into trouble and dreamers have not all been saints, but that is no reason to put them under the service of that (false) god, Practice. It would be like preventing forest fires by cutting down all the trees.

Oddly enough, the tyranny of practice has inflicted violence upon itself by devaluing practices like work and labor. The only practices to be respected, according to the “theory into practice” paradigm, are the ones that have been infused with high-minded theory. (A sort of theory that is entirely different from the thoughtful and imaginative species we find in the arts and elsewhere.) Without poppycockery and psychobabble, without another groundbreakingly new (and expensive) study, practice has no art of its own. The simple craft of sweeping has no place in this regime; the ordinary thought found in the rigors of laying brick and sanding wood and making a bed have no value in the world of “theory into practice.”

On a Personal Note

The most intimate reality for me, a philosopher of education, is that the tyranny of practice is a major occupational hazard. Philosophical and other humanistic approaches to education are being rapidly displaced.  In the ascendancy are social-scientific approaches more suited to feeding the “theory into practice” machine. In colleges and universities, we see more and more business students while enrollment in the arts and humanities dwindles.

We surely need theory that is practical and practice that is theoretical. The (not so) funny thing is, when you look at them closely, they already are. The hand, heart, head, and soul are a powerful community, with no need for petty tyrannies of practice.

My personal intuition on the matter is that this whole thing is purely semantic. I suspect that theory and practice are just two words that describe differing aspects of the exact same thing: life.

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Sam Rocha
Sam Rocha is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Education University of British Colombia as well as president of the Society for the Philisophical Study of Education. He is also the author of Things and Stuff, an edited collection of blog posts, and an unprofessional musician. For more information, see his website: www.samrocha.com. 
 
Authority, Community & Identity article

An Interfaith Encounter with America (Part 3)


Believers in a religion such as Islam can scarcely hope to speak for all Muslims, let alone for all humanity. They must accept the authority of a public sphere in which people are free to make their case to their fellow women and men on the basis of culturally normative modes of discourse. This sounds exactly like the manner in which prophets used to operate back in the day. Moses defeated the magicians in pharaoh’s court, and Muhammad outdid the Arab poets on their home turf.

America and the Prophetic Voice

It also sounds a lot like America, a place in which the prophets of old would have loved to operate as God’s messengers, freely able to propagate their visions to the rest of the world, enduring any persecution that might come their way. But in assessing the legitimacy of present-day prophet-citizens in America, there is good news and bad news.

Here is the good news: As I see it, America already has ideals — life, the pursuit of happiness, justice for all — that are not in tension with my Islamic faith. The notion of political liberty is more complex, but these ideals may be affirmed, negotiated, and reconciled in light of a particular understanding of the human condition that is rooted in revelation. The opportunity exists for fruitful learning on both sides. Whereas Muslims may certainly learn to appreciate notions of liberty in light of Western experience, they may also teach the West to balance it with appeals to responsibility and restraint, sensibilities that are deeply entrenched in the Islamic tradition.

But there is also bad news: America fights too many wars. We disregard our delicate balance with nature and poison our children with images of sex and violence. The gap between rich and poor continues to grow. And we have sometimes built our greatness on genocide, slavery, and imperialism.

Common Dilemmas

What should a Muslim in America, who finds himself loyal to Islam while appreciative of a tremendous privilege as an American, do in light of this complex set of historical circumstances? My solution is to embrace the privilege and use it to strive for good in the world. It is a dilemma, but not one that is unique to American Muslims. Many Christians, for example, see little or no tension between their Christian identities and American citizenship. They feel comfortable with bringing perspectives from their churches into the public sphere.

Some unabashedly advocate for the shaping of laws based on religious ethics and values, some offer “prophetic voices” of dissent, and some even go to battle on the frontlines in the name of Jesus. Some object to the use of tax dollars for initiatives that contradict religious values. Mike Huckabee, a former Republican candidate for president, famously said: “[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that’s what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards.”

Perhaps someday a Muslim presidential candidate will have the courage to say the exact same thing with respect to the Qur’an and Sunna — only to wind up with a lucrative talk show on a major news network when the campaign folds!

What I have said so far makes sense largely for a political understanding of Islam. There are, of course, many more Muslims who believe in Islam as a private religion. For them, the questions being posed are irrelevant, in the same manner as the faith-based concerns of people like Huckabee are irrelevant to many Christians. Muslim citizens of America are free to define their faith how they please, form associations, preach, enter into alliances with other organizations, advocate to end war, reform the entertainment industry, or simply live out their lives without thinking deeply about any of these things in private devotion to a personal conception of the Divine. America, therefore, is the perfect soil for humanity — and Islam — to flourish, perhaps just as it was intended by God.

Oddly, I find myself to be somewhat in alignment with the words of President George W. Bush: “The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world; it is God’s gift to humanity.” Unfortunately, I do not agree with the belligerent manner with which President Bush wished to preach his Gospel to the rest of the world. The Arab Spring has shown that oppressed peoples are capable of negotiating their own liberties, inviting or spurning outside assistance on their own terms.  But an aversion to Bush’s policies is far from being un-American. It is something I share with many “antiwar” Americans of many faiths and no faith. One particular voice that appeals to me is that of the Jewish American Rabbi Michael Lerner, who has advocated the total transformation of the tenor of American foreign policy from one of militarism to one of generosity.

This is the greatness of America, where the voice of a Jew can appeal to the Muslim who drafted this essay while he was teaching Islam at a Catholic institution, and who then went on to help start a Muslim liberal arts college in Berkeley!

Reconciliation

The notions that this essay entertains of a deep affinity between what lies at the heart of the religion of Islam and also of Western civilization are not new. Muhammad Abduh, for example, after returning from France to his native Egypt, famously noted, “I went to the West and saw Islam, but no Muslims; I got back to the East and saw Muslims, but not Islam.” The Turkish revivalist Said Nursi, after a study of European philosophy and culture, offered this assessment: “The Ottoman government is pregnant with Europe. It will give birth to a government like Europe. And Europe is pregnant with Islam; and it will give birth to an Islamic state.” The Indian poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal argued that the inner core of modern Western civilization is in line with the spirit of the Qur’an. It will take entirely different essays to elaborate on these sentiments, each of which flow from unique experiences and points of departure. But the pattern is consistent.

My interfaith encounter has driven me into tension with the reality of American consumerism and militarism. At the same time, it has enabled me to embrace the ideals of America. Ironically, it is my engagement with Islamic revivalist thought that has provided my most valuable insights into America, understood as both a religious “other” and a project full of promise and possibility.

Some may say that I have converted from Islamic fundamentalism to Americanism. I would say, however, that I have only come to better understand my own faith.

Isn’t this what interfaith encounters are supposed to be about?

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Mahan Mirza
Mahan Mirza was appointed teaching professor and executive director for the Keough School's Rafat and Zoreen Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion on July 1, 2019.

An Islamic studies scholar and expert on religious literacy, Mirza brings extensive pedagogical and administrative experience to his roles at Notre Dame, including serving as dean of faculty at Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California, America’s first accredited Muslim liberal arts college. Prior to his appointment as Executive Director of the Ansari Institute, Mirza served as the lead faculty member for Notre Dame's  Madrasa Discourses project, which equips Islamic religious leaders in India and Pakistan with the tools to confidently engage with pluralism, modern science, and new philosophies. 

Mirza holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, an M.A. from Hartford Seminary, and a Ph.D. in religious studies from Yale University. He has taught courses and lectured on Arabic-Islamic studies, western religions, and the history of science, along with foundational subjects in the liberal arts, including logic, rhetoric, astronomy, ethics, and politics. He has edited two special issues of 
The Muslim World and served as assistant editor for the Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought (2018).

He is a fellow with the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies at the Keough School and continues to serve as an advisor for Madrasa Discourses.