Pub Date : 2016-09-01DOI: 10.1080/20566093.2016.1222731
M. Leichtman
Tolerance, Democracy, and Sufis in Senegal is the edited volume resulting from a 2008 conference held at Columbia University to celebrate the reopening of the Institute of African Studies, directed by Mamadou Diouf. The 10 chapters, including an introduction, reinterpret Senegal’s history and politics in terms of the so-called “Senegalese exception” of a stable African democracy among neighbors plagued by military coups, civil wars, and ethnic conflicts. Senegal managed to have a peaceful and democratic transition of power, making the West African country a positive example of good African leadership. First put forward by Donal Cruise O’Brien, the “social contract” theory between marabout (Sufi Islamic leader) and talibe (disciple), as well as between the marabouts and the state, is the foundation of Senegalese stability. The volume revisits this theory with fresh interdisciplinary analysis and an acknowledgement of the agency of talibes (often undermined in the earlier scholarship). The Introduction highlights Sufi Islam as an “antidote to political Islam,” in particular the Senegalese model of pluralism, cooperation, coexistence, and tolerance. This volume offers a “longue durée perspective” that traces the development of what Diouf refers to as Senegal’s “Islamo-Wolof model”, the “political, social, and cultural arrangements (infrastructures and ideologies) that have been supporting the operations of the colonial and the postcolonial states and providing the sources and resources for the legitimacy of their power” (ch. 1, n 27). This began in the French colonial period with the marabouts becoming vital intermediaries, religiously and administratively, between the colonial state and rural masses. Chapters deliver a variety of approaches grounded in different disciplines and methodologies and ranging from Senegal’s past to the present day. Chapter 2 presents Souleymane Bachir Diagne’s philosophical contribution on the assumed challenges presented to Muslim societies by secularization, which emerged as a criticism of Islam by nineteenth-century thinkers such as Ernest Renan who regarded Islam as incompatible with science. Diagne traces the foundations of the “spiritual socialism” of Senegal’s first president Leopold Sedar Senghor and his prime minister Mamadou Dia. Senegal’s founding fathers played a crucial role in defining the Senegalese state’s laïcité (a specific French-inspired brand of secularism), which Catholic Senghor modeled after the intellectual discourse of Muslim elites such as Al-Afghani, Muhammad Abdu, and Muhammad Iqbal. Diagne concludes with a quote from Senegal’s second president, Abdou
《塞内加尔的宽容、民主与苏菲派》是2008年哥伦比亚大学为庆祝非洲研究所重新开放而举行的会议的编辑成果，该会议由Mamadou Diouf主持。包括导言在内的10个章节，从所谓的“塞内加尔例外”的角度，重新解读了塞内加尔的历史和政治。塞内加尔是一个稳定的非洲民主国家，邻国饱受军事政变、内战和种族冲突的困扰。塞内加尔成功地实现了和平民主的权力过渡，使这个西非国家成为非洲优秀领导的积极榜样。由Donal Cruise O 'Brien首先提出的marabout(苏菲派伊斯兰领袖)和talibe(信徒)之间，以及marabout和国家之间的“社会契约”理论，是塞内加尔稳定的基础。卷重新审视这一理论与新的跨学科的分析和承认机构的塔利班(往往在早期的学术破坏)。导言强调苏菲伊斯兰是“政治伊斯兰的解毒剂”，特别是塞内加尔多元主义、合作、共存和宽容的模式。这一卷提供了一个“长期的生存空间”，追溯了迪乌夫所说的塞内加尔“伊斯兰-沃洛夫模式”的发展，即“支持殖民和后殖民国家运作的政治、社会和文化安排(基础设施和意识形态)，并为其权力的合法性提供了来源和资源”(第1章，第27页)。这始于法国殖民时期，马约成为殖民地国家和农村群众之间重要的宗教和行政媒介。章节提供了基于不同学科和方法的各种方法，范围从塞内加尔的过去到现在。第二章介绍了Souleymane Bachir Diagne对世俗化给穆斯林社会带来的挑战的哲学贡献，世俗化是19世纪思想家对伊斯兰教的批评，如Ernest Renan，他认为伊斯兰教与科学不相容。迪亚涅追溯了塞内加尔首任总统利奥波德·塞达尔·桑戈尔及其总理马马杜·迪亚的“精神社会主义”基础。塞内加尔的开国元勋们在定义塞内加尔国家laïcité(一种受法国启发的世俗主义品牌)方面发挥了至关重要的作用，天主教的桑戈尔模仿了阿富汗尼、穆罕默德·阿卜杜和穆罕默德·伊克巴尔等穆斯林精英的思想话语。迪亚涅最后引用了塞内加尔第二任总统阿卜杜的话
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Pub Date : 2016-09-01DOI: 10.1080/20566093.2016.1222736
I. Ahmad
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Pub Date : 2016-09-01DOI: 10.1080/20566093.2016.1222730
Lori G. Beaman
I read Beyond Religious Freedom with great anticipation and high expectations. It did not disappoint. Almost every page of my copy of the book has at least one mark up, star, exclamation point, and notation of a quotable quote. Elizabeth Shakman Hurd’s remarkable book takes on the formidable machine of the project of religious freedom and does so persuasively. The basic argument of her book is that religion is too unstable a category to be the basis for the massive global intervention scheme that is operating under the framework of “religious freedom”. Hurd does not, however, tackle this from the perspective that religion is a non-existent phenomenon or a category of no conceptual or theoretical value. Rather, she draws on examples from around the globe to illustrate the limited value of characterizing complex situations as being “about religion”. Hurd’s work can be contextualized in a broader initiative that seeks to offset the relatively uncritical approach to religion that has dominated the social sciences during the past several decades. She cogently argues that the complexity of many conflicts characterized as being about religion must be deconstructed and understood as being situated in complex historical, economic, social, and cultural processes that cannot and should not be reduced to religion. Hurd further articulates the harm done when this too easy categorization is deployed to frame international action.
{"title":"Thinking critically about (non-)religion: moving beyond religious freedom","authors":"Lori G. Beaman","doi":"10.1080/20566093.2016.1222730","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20566093.2016.1222730","url":null,"abstract":"I read Beyond Religious Freedom with great anticipation and high expectations. It did not disappoint. Almost every page of my copy of the book has at least one mark up, star, exclamation point, and notation of a quotable quote. Elizabeth Shakman Hurd’s remarkable book takes on the formidable machine of the project of religious freedom and does so persuasively. The basic argument of her book is that religion is too unstable a category to be the basis for the massive global intervention scheme that is operating under the framework of “religious freedom”. Hurd does not, however, tackle this from the perspective that religion is a non-existent phenomenon or a category of no conceptual or theoretical value. Rather, she draws on examples from around the globe to illustrate the limited value of characterizing complex situations as being “about religion”. Hurd’s work can be contextualized in a broader initiative that seeks to offset the relatively uncritical approach to religion that has dominated the social sciences during the past several decades. She cogently argues that the complexity of many conflicts characterized as being about religion must be deconstructed and understood as being situated in complex historical, economic, social, and cultural processes that cannot and should not be reduced to religion. Hurd further articulates the harm done when this too easy categorization is deployed to frame international action.","PeriodicalId":252085,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religious and Political Practice","volume":"65 6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131950908","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-09-01DOI: 10.1080/20566093.2016.1222729
I. Ahmad
Arguably one of the leading anti-doxa thinkers of political violence and peace of our times, Richard Jackson converses with Irfan Ahmad on a series of key issues that define contemporary politics a...
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Pub Date : 2016-09-01DOI: 10.1080/20566093.2016.1222737
I. Ahmad
Notwithstanding the differentiation Gary Morson (2003) makes amongst aphorism, dictum, maxim, hypothesis, witticism, parable, thought, Stray Reflections, a title chosen by the author himself, is probably a synthesis of all. Written as a diary, it began on 27 April 1910 and continued only for a few months. Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938), poet-philosopher of India, returned from Europe (with the degree of doctorate) in 1908 to undergo an acute existential unrest, as evident in his letters to Atiya Begum. A year later this unrest flowered into the most known of his poems: “The Complaint and Response to It” (shikva, javab-e-shikva). Given its genre, as well as temporal specificity, Stray Reflections certainly doesn’t constitute Iqbal’s final thoughts. To many readers, some of its entries are already outdated – for instance, his views on women’s education (p. 124). Most, however, invite readers to think and imagine in realms as diverse as art, poetry, philosophy, politics, religion and more. The first entry is: “Art is a sacred lie”. The third one reads: “Human intellect is nature’s attempts at self-criticism”. To the question of whether he believed in the existence of God, Iqbal mused that neither he himself nor the questioner knew what “believe”, “existence” and “God” meant. Iqbal saw Hegel’s philosophy as “an epic poem in prose”. On the continued relevance of metaphysics, he held that “the practical in all its shapes drives me back to the speculative”. In the current climate, the following is probably apt: “Fanaticism is patriotism for religion; patriotism, fanaticism for country”. Moving to poetry, Iqbal remarked: “Matthew Arnold defines poetry as criticism of life. That life is criticism of poetry is equally true”. Let me mention a few more. “The Jewish race has produced only two great men – Christ and Spinoza”; “The French orientalist [Ernest] Renan reveals the essentially religious character of his mind in spite of his References
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Pub Date : 2016-09-01DOI: 10.1080/20566093.2016.1222734
I. Ahmad
Abstract In reviewing this autobiographical book by Saeed Naqvi, an internationally known Indian journalist, this essay first discusses the relationship amongst journalism, autobiography and anthropology, the discipline this reviewer broadly works in. Arguing for a crossover amongst them, it documents the evolving relationships Naqvi describes between religion and politics in modern India, including the moment of India’s Partition in 1947. It discusses such figures as Azad, Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Rao, Vajpayee and issues such as ethnic/communal violence, the role of the state in genocide, demolition of Babri Masjid, the US-led “Global War On Terror (GWOT)” and more. This essay notes the salience of Naqvi’s thesis that the much-valorized Indian secularism was and is at best a mask for majoritarian religious impulse. However, it critiques Naqvi’s solution as a return to India’s founding fathers and the imagined era of so-called composite culture. Central to this critique is the point that Naqvi’s own personal and professional account of colonial and postcolonial India defies his proposed solution. This paradox appears precisely because Naqvi, this essay suggests, mourns a past which he is unable to identify, let alone enunciate. His account thus approximates, following Freud, melancholia more than mourning.
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Pub Date : 2016-09-01DOI: 10.1080/20566093.2016.1222735
Manfred Sing
Abstract When Muslim individuals or groups perpetrate acts of violence, Muslim scholars are routinely required to condemn the ‘misuse’ of Quranic verses, and scholars of Islamic studies have to ‘explain’ the distant relation between classical jihad and modern terrorism. Most critics of an organization like the ‘Islamic State’ (ISIS) refute a direct link between its violence and Islam. However, they paradoxically take this link seriously enough to discuss it in detail or discard it entirely, by attributing it to an ‘Islamophobic’ perception of Islam. As misuse is still a kind of use and distance a kind of closeness, these experts risk reconstructing the connection that most of them wish to undermine because their criticism, by aiming at ISIS or ‘Islamophobia,’ still conjures up an Islamic imaginary. The article draws attention to the pitfalls in talking about so-called ‘Islamic terrorism’ and sheds a light on the under-researched politics of condemnation, in which Muslims are routinely called upon to engage. A case in point is the ‘Open Letter to al-Baghdadi,’ published by 126 religious scholars in 2014, which condemned ISIS on religious grounds. The author argues that such a condemnation contributes to an asymmetrical perception of Islam and an ideological understanding of terrorism. It reiterates truncated understandings about the root causes of political violence, while failing to address the thorny issue surrounding legitimate forms of violence. The main problem bedeviling the critics of Islamically justified terrorism is the ambiguous nature of a terror organization like ISIS, whose communication strategy forcefully targets Muslim as well as non-Muslim audiences and their attempts to vindicate or blame Islam.
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Pub Date : 2016-05-03DOI: 10.1080/20566093.2016.1181378
J. Fox
Abstract While secularization theory—the prediction that religion is in decline—is itself in decline, many argue that it is still applicable to the West. I argue that rather than causing religion’s decline, modernity has caused the rise of secularism as an ideology that competes with religion. I test this proposition—which I call the secular–religious competition perspective—by measuring change over time in 117 distinct government religion policies in 27 Western democracies between 1990 and 2014 using the Religion and State round 3 (RAS3) dataset. I find that while, overall, governments have added new policies, especially those limiting the religious institutions and practices of religious minorities, overall 96 policies were added and 31 dropped. Also, all but two Western democracies changed their religion policy in some manner during this period. This better reflects a religious economy where secular and religious political forces compete to influence government religion policy than one where religion is in decline.
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Pub Date : 2016-05-03DOI: 10.1080/20566093.2016.1181363
David T. Buckley
Abstract What strategies do religious elites pursue during potential regime transitions, and what explains this variation? A range of scholarship argues that religious groups, particularly Islamist movements, are prone to maximalist demands during potential transitions, particularly in moments of institutional indeterminacy like constitution drafting. In contrast, I distinguish two strategies open to religious elites in such periods: religious integralism and pious secularism. While religious integralists do attempt to merge state and religious institutions, pious secularists consent to some differentiation of these spheres while protecting a role for religion in post-transition public life. I argue that the choices of religious elites in these periods are heavily influenced by the status of relations with minority religions and secular portions of civil society, which are themselves structured by the prior authoritarian approach to the regulation of religion. I illustrate the framework with case studies drawn from the Arab Awakening (Tunisia and Egypt) and from two distinct periods within the Catholic-majority Philippines.
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Pub Date : 2016-05-03DOI: 10.1080/20566093.2016.1181386
Sultan Tepe
Abstract Turkey’s secularism is often depicted as a system of control par excellence, pitting the secularist state against religion and ignoring the multiplicity of actors within the state as well as within religious sectors. A review of Turkey’s main state institution, the Directorate of Religious Affairs (DRA) explains why models which reduce state–religious relations to a one-dimensional interaction of control or contestation are insufficient. Such models ignore the perplexing support of the DRA by religious groups due to their inability to identify the institution’s dual role in maintaining the presence of Islam in the state structure and lending legitimacy to various religious groups. A pluralistic account of Turkey’s secularism exposes its contradictions, such as DRA decisions that denounced state key secularist policies and the inadvertent outcomes of some state policies limiting Islamic groups. Exposing the paradoxical role of the state vis-à-vis religion the increasing number of woman employees in the DRA unleashed many unexpected changes in the institution, making it more open to once-marginalized women’s groups and their critical theologies, and highlighting the limits of a dichotomous modeling of state–religion relations in Turkey and beyond.
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