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What Is Islam?: The Importance of Being Islamic
What is Islam? How do we grasp a human and historical phenomenon characterized by such variety and contradiction? What is "Islamic" about Islamic philosophy or Islamic art? Should we speak of Islam or of islams? Should we distinguish the Islamic (the religious) from the Islamicate (the cultural)? Or should we abandon "Islamic" altogether as an analytical term?
In What Is Islam?, Shahab Ahmed presents a bold new conceptualization of Islam that challenges dominant understandings grounded in the categories of "religion" and "culture" or that privilege law and scripture. He argues that these modes of thinking obstruct us from understanding Islam, distorting it, diminishing it, and rendering it incoherent.
What Is Islam? formulates a new conceptual language for analyzing Islam. It presents a new paradigm of how Muslims have historically understood divine revelation--one that enables us to understand how and why Muslims through history have embraced values such as exploration, ambiguity, aestheticization, polyvalence, and relativism, as well as practices such as figural art, music, and even wine drinking as Islamic. It also puts forward a new understanding of the historical constitution of Islamic law and its relationship to philosophical ethics and political theory.
A book that is certain to provoke debate and significantly alter our understanding of Islam, What Is Islam? reveals how Muslims have historically conceived of and lived with Islam as norms and truths that are, at once, contradictory yet coherent.
In What Is Islam?, Shahab Ahmed presents a bold new conceptualization of Islam that challenges dominant understandings grounded in the categories of "religion" and "culture" or that privilege law and scripture. He argues that these modes of thinking obstruct us from understanding Islam, distorting it, diminishing it, and rendering it incoherent.
What Is Islam? formulates a new conceptual language for analyzing Islam. It presents a new paradigm of how Muslims have historically understood divine revelation--one that enables us to understand how and why Muslims through history have embraced values such as exploration, ambiguity, aestheticization, polyvalence, and relativism, as well as practices such as figural art, music, and even wine drinking as Islamic. It also puts forward a new understanding of the historical constitution of Islamic law and its relationship to philosophical ethics and political theory.
A book that is certain to provoke debate and significantly alter our understanding of Islam, What Is Islam? reveals how Muslims have historically conceived of and lived with Islam as norms and truths that are, at once, contradictory yet coherent.
624 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 2015
156 people are currently reading
1807 people want to read
About the author
Shahab Ahmed
15 books33 followersShahab Ahmed was a Pakistani-American scholar of Islam at Harvard University. Professor Elias Muhanna of Brown University described Ahmed's posthumous work, What Is Islam?, as "a strange and brilliant work, encyclopedic in vision and tautly argued in the manner of logical proof, yet pervaded by the urgency of a political manifesto."
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December 29, 2016
This book starts with a series of observations about the historical practice of Islam that seem incongruous or irreconcilable to modern Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Among these are the positive valorization of wine drinking, figural representation, the single-minded pursuit of "love," and even pantheism - all of which had been variously practiced and endorsed by seminal thinkers as well common Muslims throughout Islamic history. Exemplary among these are an image on the book's cover of the Mughal emperor Jahangir, depicted in figural form, holding a wine goblet in one hand a copy of the Quran in the other. The coin also designates him as the preeminent Muslim leader of his time, an image that he proudly held of himself and which was widely shared, the seeming contradiction embodied by his coinage aside.
Because of our own conceptual deficiencies we've been unable to reconcile such things. Looking back at history, we have tended to just ignore the practices of the Muslims of the past or classify such people as "not really Muslims," even though they have generally been the predominant type of "Muslim" throughout history and in many ways defined Islam's cosmology as it exists today (for a prominent example see Ibn Sina, the man who literally "defined God for Muslims").
In this book, Shahab Ahmed attempts nothing less than to reconcile history on a grand scale. In doing so he effectively decolonizes the failed conceptualization by both modern Muslims and non-Muslims alike of what Islam as a human and historical phenomenon actually is. His approach in doing so is multifaceted and ambitious, spanning across hundreds of years of history and a massive trove of primary sources of Muslim societies from the Balkans to the Bengal.
In our contemporary outlook, framed by law-giving nation states, most of us have developed a legal-supremacist and textual absolutist idea of Islam, an approach that is in fact ahistorical to Islamic practice and belief throughout history. Furthermore, by categorizing Islam as a "religion," we have posited its mutual interchangeability and intelligibility with Christianity. Islam (as are Hinduism and other religions) is an expansive enough phenomenon however to warrant under its own circumstances. The entire binary of religious-secular is itself a European phenomenon that has been transposed onto Islam ineffectively and has been accepted as logical even by Muslims themselves.
As Ahmed argues, however, and with voluminous reference to primary source texts across an impressive range of languages, this is a failed idea of Islam that does not account for its diversity, historical uniqueness as well as the outright contradictions of its practice - contradictions that nonetheless still manage to form a coherent whole. The nature of the Islamic revelation logic necessitates the existence, as he writes, of a Pre-Textual reality, a Text, and an accumulated Con-text of cultural forms pertaining to a phenomenon of "Islam."
Throughout history Muslims have sought to create meaning through all these realities in ways that outwardly contradict. In such a way, it was seen as unproblematic and not necessarily contradictory for Islamic philosophers or Sufis to transgress the laws promulgated by the text, including by the preeminent among those who described themselves as people of the texts (documented evocatively in one quote by the 16th century Ottomah Sheik-ul-Islam Ebus Su'ud contrasting the understanding between "the people of the shore" and those of "the ocean"). The search for truth and meaning leads to hierarchies of truths and meanings for different people according to their understanding. This is not just a human observation though but is a logical outcome of the structural nature of the Islam revelation, and in its delineation into different spheres of Pre-Text and Text. Again, this idea is not one that is based on mere conjecture but on a wide-ranging look at primary sources and history. Furthermore the difference between private practice and public has never been one of "hypocrisy," as we commonly see it today, but another expression of the differentiation within the same truth - or the same truth expressed in different forms as appropriate. This is how people lived and reconciled their beliefs, and made Islam "meaningful" for themselves and their societies throughout history. Wine drinking and figural representation as such were in fact positively valorized even when they fell outside textual law, because it was widely accepted that Pre-Textual forms of truth (which the Text itself mentions) were also valid means of exploration. Wine-drinking, painting, music, forms of dress can and have historically all been made "Islamically meaningful" by Muslims. Unlike in modern conceptualizations (predominated by modes of thought based on Western historical experience), in the Islamic world there have been no clear differentiations between secular activities and "religious" ones - the categories themselves are moot. Instead, the entire world is intended to be suffused with meaning and with a search for "truth" as expressed in the forms of what Muslims called "Islam."
In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions receiving a preponderance of information outside of the agreed consensus should trigger a revolution in conceptualizing a given topic. In the study of Islam, that information outside the consensus of what Islam is (a "religion," a set of laws) has long existed. But instead of accounting for it, the response has been largely to simply ignore it or brush it aside. As such, neither Muslims or non-Muslims, the latter looking from the outside and the former deeply alienated from their past by the violent intrusion of modernity, knows how to make sense of Muslim history nor of the phenomenon of Islam.
This book, a truly masterful piece of scholarship, is the revolution in understanding of Islam that manages to reconcile the diverse past with the seemingly-monolithic present. Through examining history, art, ethics and political philosophy, cosmology, music, fiction and the various means in which Muslims made meaning for themselves throughout their history ("Islam"), Ahmed has managed to evoke the past of Islam and make it coherent for us in modernity. In doing so we are better able to understand who we are, where we came from, why we think the way we do, and what habits of thought have led to our constructions of ourselves and others. As he points out, Islam makes Muslims and Muslims make Islam. As such, Islam is what people make of it today, a discursive tradition with a huge and diverse cultural accumulation to draw upon (the "great old city of Islam," of which most of us today are only familiar with a few neighborhoods), and whose future depends on what we choose to do with it now. Ahmed illustrates this point, meticulously, evocatively, and in language that is academic but appropriate and suited to its task, and does modern people (both Muslim and non-Muslim) a service can't be overstated. (Having said that, and despite what the title may suggest, this is by no means an introductory or beginners book on the subject of Islam.)
Ahmed died shortly before the publishing of this book. As such, reading it today there is an inescapable feeling of tragedy that accompanies its brilliance. Its undoubtedly the work of a great genius, and though the book needed no further ennoblement Ahmed's death at the young age of 48 has provided that nonetheless. But although its deeply sad that he's not around to engage further with the concepts in this book or to write more works, I'm very grateful that he got to publish his magnum opus before he passed. The intellectual discourse on this subject is immeasurably richer for his contribution. I can say without hesitation its one of the bravest and most important books I've ever read.
Because of our own conceptual deficiencies we've been unable to reconcile such things. Looking back at history, we have tended to just ignore the practices of the Muslims of the past or classify such people as "not really Muslims," even though they have generally been the predominant type of "Muslim" throughout history and in many ways defined Islam's cosmology as it exists today (for a prominent example see Ibn Sina, the man who literally "defined God for Muslims").
In this book, Shahab Ahmed attempts nothing less than to reconcile history on a grand scale. In doing so he effectively decolonizes the failed conceptualization by both modern Muslims and non-Muslims alike of what Islam as a human and historical phenomenon actually is. His approach in doing so is multifaceted and ambitious, spanning across hundreds of years of history and a massive trove of primary sources of Muslim societies from the Balkans to the Bengal.
In our contemporary outlook, framed by law-giving nation states, most of us have developed a legal-supremacist and textual absolutist idea of Islam, an approach that is in fact ahistorical to Islamic practice and belief throughout history. Furthermore, by categorizing Islam as a "religion," we have posited its mutual interchangeability and intelligibility with Christianity. Islam (as are Hinduism and other religions) is an expansive enough phenomenon however to warrant under its own circumstances. The entire binary of religious-secular is itself a European phenomenon that has been transposed onto Islam ineffectively and has been accepted as logical even by Muslims themselves.
As Ahmed argues, however, and with voluminous reference to primary source texts across an impressive range of languages, this is a failed idea of Islam that does not account for its diversity, historical uniqueness as well as the outright contradictions of its practice - contradictions that nonetheless still manage to form a coherent whole. The nature of the Islamic revelation logic necessitates the existence, as he writes, of a Pre-Textual reality, a Text, and an accumulated Con-text of cultural forms pertaining to a phenomenon of "Islam."
Throughout history Muslims have sought to create meaning through all these realities in ways that outwardly contradict. In such a way, it was seen as unproblematic and not necessarily contradictory for Islamic philosophers or Sufis to transgress the laws promulgated by the text, including by the preeminent among those who described themselves as people of the texts (documented evocatively in one quote by the 16th century Ottomah Sheik-ul-Islam Ebus Su'ud contrasting the understanding between "the people of the shore" and those of "the ocean"). The search for truth and meaning leads to hierarchies of truths and meanings for different people according to their understanding. This is not just a human observation though but is a logical outcome of the structural nature of the Islam revelation, and in its delineation into different spheres of Pre-Text and Text. Again, this idea is not one that is based on mere conjecture but on a wide-ranging look at primary sources and history. Furthermore the difference between private practice and public has never been one of "hypocrisy," as we commonly see it today, but another expression of the differentiation within the same truth - or the same truth expressed in different forms as appropriate. This is how people lived and reconciled their beliefs, and made Islam "meaningful" for themselves and their societies throughout history. Wine drinking and figural representation as such were in fact positively valorized even when they fell outside textual law, because it was widely accepted that Pre-Textual forms of truth (which the Text itself mentions) were also valid means of exploration. Wine-drinking, painting, music, forms of dress can and have historically all been made "Islamically meaningful" by Muslims. Unlike in modern conceptualizations (predominated by modes of thought based on Western historical experience), in the Islamic world there have been no clear differentiations between secular activities and "religious" ones - the categories themselves are moot. Instead, the entire world is intended to be suffused with meaning and with a search for "truth" as expressed in the forms of what Muslims called "Islam."
In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions receiving a preponderance of information outside of the agreed consensus should trigger a revolution in conceptualizing a given topic. In the study of Islam, that information outside the consensus of what Islam is (a "religion," a set of laws) has long existed. But instead of accounting for it, the response has been largely to simply ignore it or brush it aside. As such, neither Muslims or non-Muslims, the latter looking from the outside and the former deeply alienated from their past by the violent intrusion of modernity, knows how to make sense of Muslim history nor of the phenomenon of Islam.
This book, a truly masterful piece of scholarship, is the revolution in understanding of Islam that manages to reconcile the diverse past with the seemingly-monolithic present. Through examining history, art, ethics and political philosophy, cosmology, music, fiction and the various means in which Muslims made meaning for themselves throughout their history ("Islam"), Ahmed has managed to evoke the past of Islam and make it coherent for us in modernity. In doing so we are better able to understand who we are, where we came from, why we think the way we do, and what habits of thought have led to our constructions of ourselves and others. As he points out, Islam makes Muslims and Muslims make Islam. As such, Islam is what people make of it today, a discursive tradition with a huge and diverse cultural accumulation to draw upon (the "great old city of Islam," of which most of us today are only familiar with a few neighborhoods), and whose future depends on what we choose to do with it now. Ahmed illustrates this point, meticulously, evocatively, and in language that is academic but appropriate and suited to its task, and does modern people (both Muslim and non-Muslim) a service can't be overstated. (Having said that, and despite what the title may suggest, this is by no means an introductory or beginners book on the subject of Islam.)
Ahmed died shortly before the publishing of this book. As such, reading it today there is an inescapable feeling of tragedy that accompanies its brilliance. Its undoubtedly the work of a great genius, and though the book needed no further ennoblement Ahmed's death at the young age of 48 has provided that nonetheless. But although its deeply sad that he's not around to engage further with the concepts in this book or to write more works, I'm very grateful that he got to publish his magnum opus before he passed. The intellectual discourse on this subject is immeasurably richer for his contribution. I can say without hesitation its one of the bravest and most important books I've ever read.
February 25, 2022
Ahmed sets out to paint an inclusive picture, where the vast diversity of Muslim traditions are viewed like interacting, creatively conflicting parts of a greater whole. In surveying the various philosophical, mystical, legal, or poetic versions of Muslim experience, he speaks mainly as a philosopher, patiently comparing priorities, modes of perception, and realms of context. He does this for over 500 pages, showing absolutely no concern that those who are less interested might lose interest. At some points his intellectuality seems almost impenetrable. But through it all he makes a number of helpful, important points. For just one example, he challenges the common notion that Islam was a pristine, ideal community in the beginning, that things have gone slowly downhill ever since, and the answer is a return to an original state. Instead, Ahmed proposes an “exploratory” view of the faith’s history, where people have explored the implications of Islamic values through art, literature, philosophy, spiritual practices, or legal reforms (such as the Saudi Arabian abolishments of slavery or spousal abuse). He suggests that Islam has been a work in progress, like we see in the evolving history of Christianity.
February 9, 2017
Shahab Ahmed tells us up front that he is not going to answer the question "what is Islam?". And of course, he does not really do so, but the title (misleadingly) suggests that he will, and in the course of the book, he comes perilously close to trying (and failing) to do so without outright saying he is going to do it.
In short, Shahab himself seems confused about what he is trying to achieve here. The book is a description of some (but certainly not all) aspects of Islamic culture as it developed and expanded, especially AFTER the initial Arab phase of empire building. And it is a long argument with various seen and unseen opponents who want to define Islam as some ONE thing. In the course of this argument, Shahab wants to show that Islam was very varied, but he also wants to show that it is not infinitely varied. In the course of his overly long book, he manages to show that Islamicate societies (a term he does not really approve of) had a very wide variety of beliefs and practices, though they also remained anchored within a certain tradition and in continuous argument with particular foundational texts. All of this may be a surprise to extreme puritanical Islamists AND to more or less ignorant anti-Islamists, but should be no surprise at all to anyone else. Why wouldn't there be a lot of variety? Anyway, if you happen to spend your life arguing with people who have a very monochromatic view of Islam, then you can keep this book handy in order to prove otherwise. It is good for that.
Beyond that, it is a rich compendium of anecdotes (he has read VERY widely and quotes extensively from hundreds of sources) and you will learn a lot about the "Balkans to Bengal complex", a cultural zone that Shahab Ahmed is particularly fond of and regards as archetypically Islamic. Incidentally, you will also be able to prove to your friends that Islamic history is characterized by an official/theocratic prohibition of alcohol AND a simultaneous cultural fascination and widespread use and even praise of alcohol, complete with social practices that incorporate regular use of alcohol (e.g. in poetry recitals and courtesan dance performances... though this also being a work of apologetics, the "courtesan" part is not highlighted). What you will NOT find is any mention of how the Islamic empire was created in the first place. Military force and politics are almost completely absent from this cultural history of Islamdom. Make of that what you will. But it is worth keeping in mind that the geographic region extending from the Balkans to Bengal did not just magically happen to switch religions, it was conquered...Still, the the book is worth reading if you want to know more about the cultural history of the core-Islamicate region. It is more or less useless as a book of history. And it is somewhere in between when it comes to theology and philosophy.
Overall, this is high class and erudite apologetics, and the anecdotes collected herein will stand the test of time; but I suspect that the postmodern arguments and apologetics will not age well. When the current phase of history has passed, readers will wonder why Shahab Ahmed is wasting their time with convoluted and wordy arguments about how legitimate or illegitimate this or that simple-minded view of Islam actually is. Then again, maybe postmodernism will not fade away as completely as I imagine (or wish for) and future generations will continue to be fascinated by arguments that just seem like waste of time to me.
Time will tell.
Post Script: A friend commented that "you cannot expect him to say more than that.." and I am adding my answer to this review:
I certainly expect a good historian (even a "cultural historian" ) to say much more than that! or rather, much less than that; with a better ratio of facts to verbiage, and a better ratio of evidence-based historical theorizing to windbaggery. I happen to be reading Tomb's "The English and their history" at the same time and the difference is night and day. With Tomb's book you actually get an attempt at describing the English and their history and culture and so on, with systematic, rational and evidence-based theorizing and refutation of theories. Whether you agree with his particular view or not, you get what he is saying and you get what he is arguing against. Much of the time, you get something close to a "full picture". With Shahab Ahmed, you get nothing of the sort. Now, granted Tombs is a serious historian working within a great tradition and Shahab was more or less an amateur working from within the postmodern end of modern academia, but still...there should be standards
In short, Shahab himself seems confused about what he is trying to achieve here. The book is a description of some (but certainly not all) aspects of Islamic culture as it developed and expanded, especially AFTER the initial Arab phase of empire building. And it is a long argument with various seen and unseen opponents who want to define Islam as some ONE thing. In the course of this argument, Shahab wants to show that Islam was very varied, but he also wants to show that it is not infinitely varied. In the course of his overly long book, he manages to show that Islamicate societies (a term he does not really approve of) had a very wide variety of beliefs and practices, though they also remained anchored within a certain tradition and in continuous argument with particular foundational texts. All of this may be a surprise to extreme puritanical Islamists AND to more or less ignorant anti-Islamists, but should be no surprise at all to anyone else. Why wouldn't there be a lot of variety? Anyway, if you happen to spend your life arguing with people who have a very monochromatic view of Islam, then you can keep this book handy in order to prove otherwise. It is good for that.
Beyond that, it is a rich compendium of anecdotes (he has read VERY widely and quotes extensively from hundreds of sources) and you will learn a lot about the "Balkans to Bengal complex", a cultural zone that Shahab Ahmed is particularly fond of and regards as archetypically Islamic. Incidentally, you will also be able to prove to your friends that Islamic history is characterized by an official/theocratic prohibition of alcohol AND a simultaneous cultural fascination and widespread use and even praise of alcohol, complete with social practices that incorporate regular use of alcohol (e.g. in poetry recitals and courtesan dance performances... though this also being a work of apologetics, the "courtesan" part is not highlighted). What you will NOT find is any mention of how the Islamic empire was created in the first place. Military force and politics are almost completely absent from this cultural history of Islamdom. Make of that what you will. But it is worth keeping in mind that the geographic region extending from the Balkans to Bengal did not just magically happen to switch religions, it was conquered...Still, the the book is worth reading if you want to know more about the cultural history of the core-Islamicate region. It is more or less useless as a book of history. And it is somewhere in between when it comes to theology and philosophy.
Overall, this is high class and erudite apologetics, and the anecdotes collected herein will stand the test of time; but I suspect that the postmodern arguments and apologetics will not age well. When the current phase of history has passed, readers will wonder why Shahab Ahmed is wasting their time with convoluted and wordy arguments about how legitimate or illegitimate this or that simple-minded view of Islam actually is. Then again, maybe postmodernism will not fade away as completely as I imagine (or wish for) and future generations will continue to be fascinated by arguments that just seem like waste of time to me.
Time will tell.
Post Script: A friend commented that "you cannot expect him to say more than that.." and I am adding my answer to this review:
I certainly expect a good historian (even a "cultural historian" ) to say much more than that! or rather, much less than that; with a better ratio of facts to verbiage, and a better ratio of evidence-based historical theorizing to windbaggery. I happen to be reading Tomb's "The English and their history" at the same time and the difference is night and day. With Tomb's book you actually get an attempt at describing the English and their history and culture and so on, with systematic, rational and evidence-based theorizing and refutation of theories. Whether you agree with his particular view or not, you get what he is saying and you get what he is arguing against. Much of the time, you get something close to a "full picture". With Shahab Ahmed, you get nothing of the sort. Now, granted Tombs is a serious historian working within a great tradition and Shahab was more or less an amateur working from within the postmodern end of modern academia, but still...there should be standards
unfinished
February 17, 2016OK, I started this behemoth and quickly realized that the auth0r is something of a self-indulgent windbag who writes very unclearly. I'm sure he is very erudite and that there is tons to learn in this book - but I am not wading through 600+ pages of this, with all the attendant fury I would experience.
i-want-money
December 24, 2015 "How Has Islamic Orthodoxy Changed Over Time?: A new book by the late scholar Shahab Ahmed reveals the capaciousness, complexity, and contradictions of Islam."
reviewed by Elias Muhanna in The Nation ;;
http://www.thenation.com/article/cont...
' When discussing the modern discipline of Islamic studies, Ahmed liked to complain that it was possible to earn a doctorate in this field from an Ivy League university without ever reading the Divan of Hafiz, the great 14th-century Persian poet. He describes that work in What Is Islam? as “the most widely-copied, widely-circulated, widely-read, widely-memorized, widely-recited, widely-invoked, and widely-proverbialized book of poetry in Islamic history.” This was not merely a work of belles lettres, but a book that exemplified “ideals of self-conception…in the largest part of the Islamic world for half-a-millennium.” How could a modern student of Islamic civilization formulate an understanding of this subject without taking stock of such a work, and especially its treatment of wine drinking, erotic love, and the hypocrisies of self-righteous moralists? If Hafiz’s work is not Islamic, then what is? '
reviewed by Elias Muhanna in The Nation ;;
http://www.thenation.com/article/cont...
' When discussing the modern discipline of Islamic studies, Ahmed liked to complain that it was possible to earn a doctorate in this field from an Ivy League university without ever reading the Divan of Hafiz, the great 14th-century Persian poet. He describes that work in What Is Islam? as “the most widely-copied, widely-circulated, widely-read, widely-memorized, widely-recited, widely-invoked, and widely-proverbialized book of poetry in Islamic history.” This was not merely a work of belles lettres, but a book that exemplified “ideals of self-conception…in the largest part of the Islamic world for half-a-millennium.” How could a modern student of Islamic civilization formulate an understanding of this subject without taking stock of such a work, and especially its treatment of wine drinking, erotic love, and the hypocrisies of self-righteous moralists? If Hafiz’s work is not Islamic, then what is? '
August 9, 2020
Usually, when I dislike a book, I don't need to think twice before putting it away. Especially when Shahab Ahmed declared in his preface that he will only be engaging with Sunni Islam in a book that has been so ambitiously titled, I was hesitant to read ahead.
But I felt the need to follow it through - so many academics and good students had recommended the text so highly that I wanted to fully understand what "game-changer" quality Shahab Ahmed was offering for Islamic studies.
No book has made me feel so bitter. The premise of Shahab Ahmed's argument is that practices like wine-drinking and homoerotocism in Muslim cultures should be identified as "Islamic", because the literature validating these "secular" practices were allegedly circulated through the same structures that taught Muslims about legalistic Islam.
Shahab Ahmed is an anthropologist, and my conception of anthropology is that of any social science that premises such claims on empirical, historical evidence. However, readers of Shahab Ahmed are constantly fed words like "Balkans-to-Bengal complex" of shared literatures and educational systems that were proliferating these "secular" practices all across the Muslim world. Shahab Ahmed uses the framework of Voll to suggest some kind of "Islamic world-system", except he carries that forward by categorically stating tropes that otherwise have been considered un-Islamic were constantly being reproduced for critical engagement all across the Muslim world. This is very misleading, as it seems to imply, much like Karen Armstrong, that every madrassah in every part of the Muslim world was equally equipped to teach advanced subjects like philology and mathematics and whatever subject would accommodate the teaching of homoerotic poetry. Even if limited madrassahs in some large cities were designing this kind of curriculum, there's still much to doubt about Shahab Ahmed's largely spurious conclusion about the intrinsic "multi-pluralism" and other nonsensical words he uses for arguing how different historical Islam was from how it has been conceived by authors like Marshall Hodgson.
What ultimately really irked me was how Shahab Ahmed used the quotations of figures like Imam Ghazzali to show that popular figures in historical Islam were cognizant and accepting of diversity within Islamic tradition. Shahab Ahmed, in his wide-ranging reading that he claims to have done to write this book, surely must have read Ghazzali was a great polemicist against the Ismaili Muslims, and advocated for their pogroms in much of his work. It is convenient for Shahab Ahmed to be sect-blind in this case, as it allows for him to gloss over just how much of Islamic thought has been dedicated to "othering" and excommunicating Muslims who approach Islam differently from Sunni Islam. And of course this is just about the way Ghazzali has been used in this book. Almost every Muslim empire has been deeply sectarian, and deeply involved in attempts to cleanse their subject populations (and beyond) of other sects. There is no mention of this in this book.
Even within Sunni Islamic tradition, Shahab Ahmed does not once mention the kind of mob violence religious students of different madhabs would commit against one another, or even of the mihna, the time rationalist Mutazilites literally attempted to execute every cleric in Baghdad that did not adopt their rationalist approaches. I am no PhD student or even a particularly dedicated reader of Islamic Studies or cultures, but these are things that come up in the most gateway texts there are in the study of Muslim history. These are certainly not one-off incidents, so why have they been excluded when the entire book is about how open, inclusive, and benevolent towards different streams of thought historical Islam was? Is there any way one can read Shahab Ahmed and believe that this book is an academically honest piece of writing?
It is very difficult to see this text as anything but an appeal, to not just Western audiences, but also Muslims who seek to identify with Islam that have been dissatisfied with even the most mildly negative implications this religion's role in history that others have written about. I have not even written about the assertion that Islam is altogether a completely and totally a unique religion that represents a "total institution" like Mauss saw in societies premised on gift exchange. I have not read much into the sociology of religion enough to engage with this, but there were so many other aspects to this book that undermined my interest in unpacking such a claim.
I said earlier that no text has made me feel so bitter. I think it would be more correct to say that no text has ever made me feel so angry.
But I felt the need to follow it through - so many academics and good students had recommended the text so highly that I wanted to fully understand what "game-changer" quality Shahab Ahmed was offering for Islamic studies.
No book has made me feel so bitter. The premise of Shahab Ahmed's argument is that practices like wine-drinking and homoerotocism in Muslim cultures should be identified as "Islamic", because the literature validating these "secular" practices were allegedly circulated through the same structures that taught Muslims about legalistic Islam.
Shahab Ahmed is an anthropologist, and my conception of anthropology is that of any social science that premises such claims on empirical, historical evidence. However, readers of Shahab Ahmed are constantly fed words like "Balkans-to-Bengal complex" of shared literatures and educational systems that were proliferating these "secular" practices all across the Muslim world. Shahab Ahmed uses the framework of Voll to suggest some kind of "Islamic world-system", except he carries that forward by categorically stating tropes that otherwise have been considered un-Islamic were constantly being reproduced for critical engagement all across the Muslim world. This is very misleading, as it seems to imply, much like Karen Armstrong, that every madrassah in every part of the Muslim world was equally equipped to teach advanced subjects like philology and mathematics and whatever subject would accommodate the teaching of homoerotic poetry. Even if limited madrassahs in some large cities were designing this kind of curriculum, there's still much to doubt about Shahab Ahmed's largely spurious conclusion about the intrinsic "multi-pluralism" and other nonsensical words he uses for arguing how different historical Islam was from how it has been conceived by authors like Marshall Hodgson.
What ultimately really irked me was how Shahab Ahmed used the quotations of figures like Imam Ghazzali to show that popular figures in historical Islam were cognizant and accepting of diversity within Islamic tradition. Shahab Ahmed, in his wide-ranging reading that he claims to have done to write this book, surely must have read Ghazzali was a great polemicist against the Ismaili Muslims, and advocated for their pogroms in much of his work. It is convenient for Shahab Ahmed to be sect-blind in this case, as it allows for him to gloss over just how much of Islamic thought has been dedicated to "othering" and excommunicating Muslims who approach Islam differently from Sunni Islam. And of course this is just about the way Ghazzali has been used in this book. Almost every Muslim empire has been deeply sectarian, and deeply involved in attempts to cleanse their subject populations (and beyond) of other sects. There is no mention of this in this book.
Even within Sunni Islamic tradition, Shahab Ahmed does not once mention the kind of mob violence religious students of different madhabs would commit against one another, or even of the mihna, the time rationalist Mutazilites literally attempted to execute every cleric in Baghdad that did not adopt their rationalist approaches. I am no PhD student or even a particularly dedicated reader of Islamic Studies or cultures, but these are things that come up in the most gateway texts there are in the study of Muslim history. These are certainly not one-off incidents, so why have they been excluded when the entire book is about how open, inclusive, and benevolent towards different streams of thought historical Islam was? Is there any way one can read Shahab Ahmed and believe that this book is an academically honest piece of writing?
It is very difficult to see this text as anything but an appeal, to not just Western audiences, but also Muslims who seek to identify with Islam that have been dissatisfied with even the most mildly negative implications this religion's role in history that others have written about. I have not even written about the assertion that Islam is altogether a completely and totally a unique religion that represents a "total institution" like Mauss saw in societies premised on gift exchange. I have not read much into the sociology of religion enough to engage with this, but there were so many other aspects to this book that undermined my interest in unpacking such a claim.
I said earlier that no text has made me feel so bitter. I think it would be more correct to say that no text has ever made me feel so angry.
September 11, 2021
This book badly need an editor who can easily make it a 400 page book. Ok this was academic work but who on earth quote pages long excerpts twice , once in blockquote then copied again in next paragraph explaining the above passage. Same was his obsession with 1-2 lines long terminology repeated after every few lines. Second problem seems to be the topic he selected to address. On hearing this topic one get the impression that it may include some introduction to basic Islamic teachings but it is not the case. His discussion started with probing the question "what is Islam?" what is the criteria to consider someone Islamic . This discussion in itself is futile. As destined late Shahab Ahmed discussed everything except answering the question , "What is Islam?". The most boring part is his analysis of texts where academia tried to define Islam. This portion make the reader give up on this book altogether
Whenever the problem of defining Islam and hence Muslim arise , one has to be in one of the two camps either the approach of puritans whose Islam is exclusivist, or the approach of Sufis, philosophers and other groups based on philosophical theology , who doesn’t commit takfir. Here, Mr. Shahab based all his arguments on "hierarchical levels of knowledge" , famous doctrine of Sufism, according to this doctrine exegesis of Quran depends on level of previous knowledge of the reader, about the topic being discussed. He used the phrase "pre-text text and con-text" . Pre-text is the existing knowledge , text is Quran , and con-text are the specific condition in which the Text was approached. This viewpoint allow for hermeneutics ranging from literalists to esoteric exegesis of Sufism depending on level of knowledge. They don’t consider the literalists/legalists, kafir ,rather they insist that down the hierarchy of knowledge, common people find literal meanings of Quran. They don’t have the capacity to look beyond the words and can't comprehend reality even if the real truths are revealed to them. These truths can only be propagated through metaphors in literature and arts.
Persian being lingua franca of Balkan-to-Bengal-Complex ( area containing subcontinent, Afghanistan Iran central Asia and turkey .this current study is mostly based in this area from latter half of 2nd millennia ) was rich in these metaphors, and the social consciousness of its residence was at a level where they could easily understand the hidden meanings of Hafiz's divan, which he claimed to be nothing but exegesis of Quran (same claim was made by Shah Bhittai about "shah jo risalu" and M. Iqbal who said that he has two books which guide him one being Quran and the other Masnavi). Other arts like painting and music were also appreciated without the need to consider it Islamic or otherwise. This view claim that if someone say they are Muslims then we should consider them Muslims.
Second camp of puritans or the literalists consider the early period of Islam (that of Islaaf) the most authentic and following them is the only legitimate Islam. Anything that doesn’t trace back to islaaf is bidaat or shirk. Even the more moderate non-salafi legalist consider establishment of khilafat and life under sharia the way to redemption. Literalist are numerically superior to those who advocate for pluralism and coexistence. A scholar like Ghamidi who has to take asylum in some other country for his moderate views , consider Sufism a parallel religion to His version of Islam. This second camp being in majority throughout Islamic history has the main role in shaping of Islam and reducing it to today's form . This needed more discussion than just blaming colonialism for the fall of Balkan-to-Bengal-complex and hence of a culture on higher level of hermeneutical engagement. Puritan or reformers like Sirhindi were present before colonialism in reaction to Akbar. These arguments doesn’t answer the basic question "what is Islam" rather it reaffirm the fact that you can't have a consensus on a single legal definition of Islam acceptable to all sects.
disclaimer . Don’t use these arguments in a live discussion with puritans, can result in serious health problems.
otherwise have a load of apologetic stuff to convince people that "see this is not what real Islamic teachings says………" this books doesn’t serve its purpose but still contain reference to a lot of literature presenting alternative exegesis of Quran. So if interested , One can still get a lot from chapter 5 and 6 and even 4 is better but first 3 are boring and people give up reading , missing the better augmented part
Whenever the problem of defining Islam and hence Muslim arise , one has to be in one of the two camps either the approach of puritans whose Islam is exclusivist, or the approach of Sufis, philosophers and other groups based on philosophical theology , who doesn’t commit takfir. Here, Mr. Shahab based all his arguments on "hierarchical levels of knowledge" , famous doctrine of Sufism, according to this doctrine exegesis of Quran depends on level of previous knowledge of the reader, about the topic being discussed. He used the phrase "pre-text text and con-text" . Pre-text is the existing knowledge , text is Quran , and con-text are the specific condition in which the Text was approached. This viewpoint allow for hermeneutics ranging from literalists to esoteric exegesis of Sufism depending on level of knowledge. They don’t consider the literalists/legalists, kafir ,rather they insist that down the hierarchy of knowledge, common people find literal meanings of Quran. They don’t have the capacity to look beyond the words and can't comprehend reality even if the real truths are revealed to them. These truths can only be propagated through metaphors in literature and arts.
Persian being lingua franca of Balkan-to-Bengal-Complex ( area containing subcontinent, Afghanistan Iran central Asia and turkey .this current study is mostly based in this area from latter half of 2nd millennia ) was rich in these metaphors, and the social consciousness of its residence was at a level where they could easily understand the hidden meanings of Hafiz's divan, which he claimed to be nothing but exegesis of Quran (same claim was made by Shah Bhittai about "shah jo risalu" and M. Iqbal who said that he has two books which guide him one being Quran and the other Masnavi). Other arts like painting and music were also appreciated without the need to consider it Islamic or otherwise. This view claim that if someone say they are Muslims then we should consider them Muslims.
Second camp of puritans or the literalists consider the early period of Islam (that of Islaaf) the most authentic and following them is the only legitimate Islam. Anything that doesn’t trace back to islaaf is bidaat or shirk. Even the more moderate non-salafi legalist consider establishment of khilafat and life under sharia the way to redemption. Literalist are numerically superior to those who advocate for pluralism and coexistence. A scholar like Ghamidi who has to take asylum in some other country for his moderate views , consider Sufism a parallel religion to His version of Islam. This second camp being in majority throughout Islamic history has the main role in shaping of Islam and reducing it to today's form . This needed more discussion than just blaming colonialism for the fall of Balkan-to-Bengal-complex and hence of a culture on higher level of hermeneutical engagement. Puritan or reformers like Sirhindi were present before colonialism in reaction to Akbar. These arguments doesn’t answer the basic question "what is Islam" rather it reaffirm the fact that you can't have a consensus on a single legal definition of Islam acceptable to all sects.
disclaimer . Don’t use these arguments in a live discussion with puritans, can result in serious health problems.
otherwise have a load of apologetic stuff to convince people that "see this is not what real Islamic teachings says………" this books doesn’t serve its purpose but still contain reference to a lot of literature presenting alternative exegesis of Quran. So if interested , One can still get a lot from chapter 5 and 6 and even 4 is better but first 3 are boring and people give up reading , missing the better augmented part
April 19, 2020
Shahab Ahmed, led by a seemingly simple question, produces a brilliant exposition of Islam in its richest possible contexts. In thoroughly beautiful - but sometimes also rather dense and difficult - academic prose, Ahmed lays bare the faults in common conceptions of Islam and guides the reader to a much more satisfying and historically, culturally and philosophically conscious definition of Islam.
Truly: a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand and engage with Islam.
Truly: a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand and engage with Islam.
November 26, 2016
Sebagai Muslim, kita tentunya sedang hidup di dalam suatu fasa sejarah yang menarik di mana kontradiksi ditemui di setiap bucu identiti kita apabila diselangkan dengan apa yang umum difahami tentang Islam.
Muslimah yang menyanyi di khalayak ramai, imam yang mengaku gay, protes umum terhadap konsert dari artis Barat - walaupun ramai daripada demonstran tersebut menyimpan audio muzik dendangan artis tersebut di dalam peranti masing. Berita terbaru Pokemon Go telah difatwakan sebagai haram.
Setiap aktor yang terlibat di atas mengartikulasikan motif yang mendasari tindakan mereka atas nama Islam atau citra-citranya (eg: adat budaya yang lahir dari faham akhlak Islami atau, nilai-nilai manusiawi yang diakui malah disuguh oleh junjungan mulia Nabi).
Justeru bagaimanakah mana-mana contoh tadi boleh dikatakan sebagai Islamik?
Percubaan Shahab Ahmed di dalam menawarkan jawapan kepada persoalan-persoalan ini tidak lebih dan tidak kurang adalah sebuah percubaan berambisi tinggi yang telah lama menunggu untuk diselidiki demi dikonseptualisasikan.
Contoh-contoh tadi datang daripada berita-berita terkini yang aku sempat terfikirkan. Adapun contoh Shahab Ahmed –yang dijenamakan beliau sebagai ‘kes-kes diagnostik’- adalah lebih radikal: kecenderungan panteisme (menyamakan Tuhan dengan Alam) di dalam mazhab Sufisme Ibn Arabi; kezindikan falsafah Ibn Sina; motif-motif homoseksualiti di dalam sastera Islami; pengamalan minum arak dalam kalangan borjuis dan golongan kelas atasan seterusnya simbolisme peminuman arak yang hadir di dalam sastera-sastera Arab/Islam; penghasilan karya-karya lukisan dan artifak figuratif - paling terserlah kenampakan di Balkans-To-Bengal Complex (secara kasarnya kawasan geografikal daripada Turki sehingga ke Benua Hindi).
Sekarang, soal Shahab, bagaimanakah semua ini mampu dikatakan sebagai Islam-ik?
p/s: Adakah fasa sejarah yang kita hidup ini masih boleh dikira sebagai istimewa?
Kerna kita tahu hal-hal tersebut sama sekali bertentangan dengan zahir hadis Nabi. Dan sepertimana contoh di awal perenggan tadi, aktor-aktor di sebalik fenomena tadi juga mengisytiharkan ikrar mereka terhadap Islam, malah melihat tindakan mereka itu terbit daripada jiwa yang sudah dibentuk dengan acuan Islam. Apa yang lebih penting, menurut Shahab Ahmed, adalah hakikat bahawa tiada cara lain untuk niat aktor-aktor tadi ditafsir - sebarang kayu ukur lain untuk menafsirkan tindakan mereka sebagai selain-daripada-Islam bakal mendangkalkan makna dan malah menjauhkan kita daripada berhadapan dengan suatu masalah konseptualisasi yang terlalu lama mendambakan penyelesaian.
Hal ini telah menimbulkan permasalahan lanjut kepada sarjanawan (budayawan, sejarahwan, sosiologis) moden yang berkaitan: dalam terma apa tindak-tanduk aktor-aktor itu tadi mampu disebut sebagai Islam atau Islam-ik?
Keseluruhan 546 ms buku ini adalah percubaan penulis mengusulkan jawapan beliau.
Perlu untuk ditekankan bahawa projek Shahab Ahmed adalah suatu projek pendefinisian ‘Islam’ yang ingin menemukan apa yang selama ini dikategorikan sebagai ‘budaya’ atau fenomena sosial, dengan apa yang selama ini dikategorikan sebaga agama, dan menghimpunkan keduanya pada penyebut sepunya terkecil (lowest common denominator).
*Sekurang-kurangnya begitulah cara aku menilai niat beliau.
Dan iya sekali, ia merupakan satu projek mustahil persis menghimpunkan kaca dan permata menamakan semua itu sebagai permata (atau semua itu sebagai kaca?).
Aku harap komentar aku setakat ini tidak memberikan gambaran bahawa aktiviti pembacaan buku ini adalah sukar.
Buku ini tentu sekali tidak menyajikan suatu pembacaan yang mudah dan senang tetapi aku keberatan untuk menyifatkannya sebagai sukar atau payah. Buku ini jelas ditulis dengan begitu baik bersama nota kaki yang lengkap beserta komentar yang membantu. Adapun istilah-istilah yang digunakan penulis, walaupun akademik, adalah sangat jitu. Begitu juga susunan argumennya kemas, tiada kelompongan yang kelihatan (samada aku setuju atau tidak adalah isu yang lain sama sekali). Hatta dari segi struktur hujah-vs-hujah-balas banyak daripada bangkangan yang mungkin ditimbulkan pembaca sudahpun berada dalam perkiraan penulis – dan Shahab Ahmed sendiri seringkali mengutarakan bangkangan yang pembaca belum sempat terfikir hanya untuk kemudian mengemukakan respon tajam dari beliau. Penulis turut berbesar hati untuk mengulang tesisnya terutamanya menginjak bahagian terakhir buku ini dengan memberikan kes-kes studi yang konkrit. Sesetengah pembaca mengadu yang isi buku ini repetitif. Tetapi mereka yang arif dan mengenal signifikasi di sebalik penulisan buku ini tentu sedar betapa pentingnya tindakan penulis tersebut.
Untuk pembaca yang ingin menginginkan sebuah karya yang meninjau Islam melalui sumber ortodoks beserta tafsiran-tafsiran normatif tentunya kecewa kerana pada pendapat aku persoalan ‘What Is Islam’ yang diutarakan oleh penulis adalah pernyataan masalah yang hanya layak untuk wacana sains sosial milik Barat.
Dalam kata lain aku membaca judul buku ini sebagai ‘What Is Islam (sociologically speaking)’.
Kerana itu aku tidak menemui cara untuk mendakyahkan isi buku ini kepada khalayak yang bukan-pembaca. Mana-mana percubaan akan terheret kepada wacana formalistik dan legalistik. Mod pemikiran homo islamicus abad ke-21, sepertimana yang ditegaskan Shahab Ahmed, adalah terlalu miskin di dalam mencerap kontradiksi-kontradiksi yang wujud ini. Syahadan, umat Islam tiada lagi punya kosa kata dan perbendaharaan bahasa, mahupun perlambangan warisan nenek-moyang, yang mampu menampung segala kontradiksi ini di bawah lembayung ‘Islam’. Segala-galanya kini adalah fiqhy, legalistik (syar'ie), dan siyasi. Cara fikir sebegini sebenarnya lebih mendedahkan hakikat modeniti berbanding rupa-wajah Islam sepertimana yang dirasai oleh penganut-penganutnya sepanjang sejarah.
Aku perlu menitipkan beberapa dilema yang aku hadapi dengan tesis Shahab Ahmed ini.
Menurut Ahmed, sesuatu perkara itu (falsafah, kepercayaan umum, adat masyarakat, artifak seni etc) menjadi Islam-ik apabila ia hadir lewat aksi hermeneutika antara sang pelaku dengan agama Islam - yang dibingkaikan oleh beliau kepada Pre-Teks, Teks, dan Kon-Teks.
Masalahnya, lewat konseptualisasi ini, kita terpaksa menerima aksi-aksi keganasan oleh pengganas-pengganas yang mengatasnamakan agama Islam sebagai ‘Islam-ik’. Ini kerana pengganas-pengganas tersebut telah menemui makna di sebalik perlakuan mereka lewat tafsiran mereka terhadap sumber-sumber yang wujud di dalam Islam – walau betapa serong dan jahatnya niat mereka tersebut. Oleh kerana itu jenama ‘Islamic Terrorism’ seperti yang dijaja oleh media antarabangsa dewasa ini adalah absah.
Shahab Ahmed menyentuh dilema ini dalam beberapa perenggan yang ringkas sahaja menyebabkan di mata pembaca, beliau lakukannya lebih kerana memperakui nihayah mantik beliau (logical conclusion).
Tetapi jika begitu gamaknya, maka ia juga bermakna kita perlu mengisytiharkan sebagai ‘Islam-ik’ perlakuan oleh penganut-penganut ajaran sesat yang lahir daripada tafsiran terhadap Islam seperti Sikhisme, Bahai, mahupun Ayah Pin. Di sebalik kekaguman dan hormat aku kepada tesis Shahab Ahmed, terlalu berat untuk aku menerima konklusi-konklusi sebegini.
Begitu juga dengan kata kunci tiga serangkai beliau -Pra-Teks, Teks dan Kon-Teks- dimana aku temui kesukaran untuk memahami apa yang dimaksudkan oleh Shahab Ahmed mengenainya. Terdapat medan makna yang spesifik untuk setiap istilah tersebut - jauh berlainan dengan praduga aku sebelum pernah membaca buku ini. Antara contoh yang terkemuka adalah Pra-Teks.
Berdasarkan kepilan namanya, ‘pra’ bersama ‘teks’, pembaca mungkin mengagak Shahab Ahmed sedang mencadangkan suatu kebenaran yang datang sebelum teks, atau dalam kata lain Kebenaran yang menerbitkan Teks. Pendekatan yang sering diambil oleh golongan liberal. Tetapi tampaknya itu tidak betul. Malah Pra-Teks tidaklah berdiri di 'belakang' Teks secara zamani.
Pra-Teks sebagai "an Unseen Reality or Truth that lies beyond and behind the Text of the Revelation-in-the-Seen and upon which the act, Text and truth of Revelation are contingent" adalah:
"...as that which is ontologically and alethically prior to Text, Pre-Text should not be misconstrued as that which is chronologically prior to Text; rather, the Pre-Text, as the world of the Unseen is continuously present-or, strictly speaking, continously absent-at all times and places as the domain of Prior and higher Truth."
Aku lantas keliru dengan motif di sebalik tindakan Shahab Ahmed menamakan Pra-Teks (signifikasi tempelan 'pra') dengan nama sedemikian, lebih-lebih lagi apabila hubungan antara Pra-Teks dan Teks kemudiannya disifatkan Ahmed sebagai:
“...there is no essential difference and no semantic disconnect between the truths of Pre-Text and Text: rather, they are connected in a hierarchical communicative continuum of (God’s) Reason; they are both part-and-parcel of the logic and structure and reality of the meaning(s) of Revelation. Thus, they are all part-and-parcel of Islam – they are all Islamic.”
Designatori Pra-Teks di tangan penulis, ibarat ular yang licik menyusur di dalam belukar: pembaca boleh nampak arah mana yang penulis mahu tujui lewat semak-semak daun yang diganggunya, tetapi fizikal ‘ular’ (baca: Pra-Teks) itu sendiri berada di luar tinjauan pembaca.
Mungkin aku perlu baca sekali lagi.
Aku tidak mahu mengakhirkan ulasan aku terhadap sebuah buku yang cemerlang sebegini dengan nada yang negatif. Maka aku menangguhkan komentar-komentar terbaik aku pada bahagian akhir:
‘What Is Islam’ adalah pada awal dan pada akhirnya sebuah buku sejarah – lebih tepat: sebuah buku tentang metodologi penulisan sejarah (historiografi).
Sudah tentu pembaca bakal dapati yang penulis banyak menghabiskan dakwatnya berbahas tentang topik-topik bukan-sejarah; sepertimana saat beliau berbincang tentang erti budaya dan agama, tentang nilai etika di dalam estetika, atau saat beliau menitipkan syair-syair kuno dari Tanah Yang Telah Dilupakan Kewujudannya di samping kisah-kisah lucu (dan adakalanya lucah) yang diperolehinya daripada kajian-kajian antropologi di sepanjang tanah Belkan-ke-Bengal.
Namun, hal itu adalah kerana Shahab Ahmed merupakan seorang sejarahwan par-excellence yang perlu -seperti saran Collingwood- mempunyai kemahiran berfalsafah demi mencerap makna disebalik fenomena sejarahwi dan manusiawi (historical and human phenomenon) – satu baka sarjanawan yang kian pupus di dalam era pengkhususan melampau mutakhir ini.
‘What Is Islam’ ditulis dengan gaya penulisan yang tersusun ibarat kitab mantik di samping pilihan bahasa yang spesifik - seakan-akan penulis ingin mengajuk kejituan bahasa para ahli matematik. Demi mendirikan konseptualisasi terhadap definisi Islam yang baru, penulis telah meruntuhkan sedemikian banyak kata-kata kunci dan konsep binari yang setelah diselidik, sebenarnya adalah tidak layak dipakai terhadap fenomena Islam. Hal tersebut memberikan buku ini suatu semangat atau gelora jiwa yang selalunya hanya mampu didapati daripada sebuah penulisan manifesto.
Dalam pada yang sama buku ini berasa begitu akrab dengan batang tubuh sang penulis – kisah-kisah hidup Shahab Ahmed menyulami helaian demi helaian buku ini; mendengar kaset bapanya di dalam kereta, memori beliau tentang atuknya yang mampu bertutur di dalam empat bahasa, jenaka tentang Ibn Arabi yang dikongsikan oleh kawannya, kekecewaan beliau dengan penjarahan kota suci Makkah dan Madinah.
Melaluinya pembaca berasa seolah-olah mereka pernah mengenali penulis secara peribadi. Sayang sekali dengan pemergian beliau pada 17 September 2015 peluang tersebut takkan tiba secara hakiki – sekurang-kurangnya di dunia yang fana ini.
Al-fatihah.
Muslimah yang menyanyi di khalayak ramai, imam yang mengaku gay, protes umum terhadap konsert dari artis Barat - walaupun ramai daripada demonstran tersebut menyimpan audio muzik dendangan artis tersebut di dalam peranti masing. Berita terbaru Pokemon Go telah difatwakan sebagai haram.
Setiap aktor yang terlibat di atas mengartikulasikan motif yang mendasari tindakan mereka atas nama Islam atau citra-citranya (eg: adat budaya yang lahir dari faham akhlak Islami atau, nilai-nilai manusiawi yang diakui malah disuguh oleh junjungan mulia Nabi).
Justeru bagaimanakah mana-mana contoh tadi boleh dikatakan sebagai Islamik?
Percubaan Shahab Ahmed di dalam menawarkan jawapan kepada persoalan-persoalan ini tidak lebih dan tidak kurang adalah sebuah percubaan berambisi tinggi yang telah lama menunggu untuk diselidiki demi dikonseptualisasikan.
Contoh-contoh tadi datang daripada berita-berita terkini yang aku sempat terfikirkan. Adapun contoh Shahab Ahmed –yang dijenamakan beliau sebagai ‘kes-kes diagnostik’- adalah lebih radikal: kecenderungan panteisme (menyamakan Tuhan dengan Alam) di dalam mazhab Sufisme Ibn Arabi; kezindikan falsafah Ibn Sina; motif-motif homoseksualiti di dalam sastera Islami; pengamalan minum arak dalam kalangan borjuis dan golongan kelas atasan seterusnya simbolisme peminuman arak yang hadir di dalam sastera-sastera Arab/Islam; penghasilan karya-karya lukisan dan artifak figuratif - paling terserlah kenampakan di Balkans-To-Bengal Complex (secara kasarnya kawasan geografikal daripada Turki sehingga ke Benua Hindi).
Sekarang, soal Shahab, bagaimanakah semua ini mampu dikatakan sebagai Islam-ik?
p/s: Adakah fasa sejarah yang kita hidup ini masih boleh dikira sebagai istimewa?
Kerna kita tahu hal-hal tersebut sama sekali bertentangan dengan zahir hadis Nabi. Dan sepertimana contoh di awal perenggan tadi, aktor-aktor di sebalik fenomena tadi juga mengisytiharkan ikrar mereka terhadap Islam, malah melihat tindakan mereka itu terbit daripada jiwa yang sudah dibentuk dengan acuan Islam. Apa yang lebih penting, menurut Shahab Ahmed, adalah hakikat bahawa tiada cara lain untuk niat aktor-aktor tadi ditafsir - sebarang kayu ukur lain untuk menafsirkan tindakan mereka sebagai selain-daripada-Islam bakal mendangkalkan makna dan malah menjauhkan kita daripada berhadapan dengan suatu masalah konseptualisasi yang terlalu lama mendambakan penyelesaian.
Hal ini telah menimbulkan permasalahan lanjut kepada sarjanawan (budayawan, sejarahwan, sosiologis) moden yang berkaitan: dalam terma apa tindak-tanduk aktor-aktor itu tadi mampu disebut sebagai Islam atau Islam-ik?
Keseluruhan 546 ms buku ini adalah percubaan penulis mengusulkan jawapan beliau.
Perlu untuk ditekankan bahawa projek Shahab Ahmed adalah suatu projek pendefinisian ‘Islam’ yang ingin menemukan apa yang selama ini dikategorikan sebagai ‘budaya’ atau fenomena sosial, dengan apa yang selama ini dikategorikan sebaga agama, dan menghimpunkan keduanya pada penyebut sepunya terkecil (lowest common denominator).
*Sekurang-kurangnya begitulah cara aku menilai niat beliau.
Dan iya sekali, ia merupakan satu projek mustahil persis menghimpunkan kaca dan permata menamakan semua itu sebagai permata (atau semua itu sebagai kaca?).
Aku harap komentar aku setakat ini tidak memberikan gambaran bahawa aktiviti pembacaan buku ini adalah sukar.
Buku ini tentu sekali tidak menyajikan suatu pembacaan yang mudah dan senang tetapi aku keberatan untuk menyifatkannya sebagai sukar atau payah. Buku ini jelas ditulis dengan begitu baik bersama nota kaki yang lengkap beserta komentar yang membantu. Adapun istilah-istilah yang digunakan penulis, walaupun akademik, adalah sangat jitu. Begitu juga susunan argumennya kemas, tiada kelompongan yang kelihatan (samada aku setuju atau tidak adalah isu yang lain sama sekali). Hatta dari segi struktur hujah-vs-hujah-balas banyak daripada bangkangan yang mungkin ditimbulkan pembaca sudahpun berada dalam perkiraan penulis – dan Shahab Ahmed sendiri seringkali mengutarakan bangkangan yang pembaca belum sempat terfikir hanya untuk kemudian mengemukakan respon tajam dari beliau. Penulis turut berbesar hati untuk mengulang tesisnya terutamanya menginjak bahagian terakhir buku ini dengan memberikan kes-kes studi yang konkrit. Sesetengah pembaca mengadu yang isi buku ini repetitif. Tetapi mereka yang arif dan mengenal signifikasi di sebalik penulisan buku ini tentu sedar betapa pentingnya tindakan penulis tersebut.
Untuk pembaca yang ingin menginginkan sebuah karya yang meninjau Islam melalui sumber ortodoks beserta tafsiran-tafsiran normatif tentunya kecewa kerana pada pendapat aku persoalan ‘What Is Islam’ yang diutarakan oleh penulis adalah pernyataan masalah yang hanya layak untuk wacana sains sosial milik Barat.
Dalam kata lain aku membaca judul buku ini sebagai ‘What Is Islam (sociologically speaking)’.
Kerana itu aku tidak menemui cara untuk mendakyahkan isi buku ini kepada khalayak yang bukan-pembaca. Mana-mana percubaan akan terheret kepada wacana formalistik dan legalistik. Mod pemikiran homo islamicus abad ke-21, sepertimana yang ditegaskan Shahab Ahmed, adalah terlalu miskin di dalam mencerap kontradiksi-kontradiksi yang wujud ini. Syahadan, umat Islam tiada lagi punya kosa kata dan perbendaharaan bahasa, mahupun perlambangan warisan nenek-moyang, yang mampu menampung segala kontradiksi ini di bawah lembayung ‘Islam’. Segala-galanya kini adalah fiqhy, legalistik (syar'ie), dan siyasi. Cara fikir sebegini sebenarnya lebih mendedahkan hakikat modeniti berbanding rupa-wajah Islam sepertimana yang dirasai oleh penganut-penganutnya sepanjang sejarah.
Aku perlu menitipkan beberapa dilema yang aku hadapi dengan tesis Shahab Ahmed ini.
Menurut Ahmed, sesuatu perkara itu (falsafah, kepercayaan umum, adat masyarakat, artifak seni etc) menjadi Islam-ik apabila ia hadir lewat aksi hermeneutika antara sang pelaku dengan agama Islam - yang dibingkaikan oleh beliau kepada Pre-Teks, Teks, dan Kon-Teks.
Masalahnya, lewat konseptualisasi ini, kita terpaksa menerima aksi-aksi keganasan oleh pengganas-pengganas yang mengatasnamakan agama Islam sebagai ‘Islam-ik’. Ini kerana pengganas-pengganas tersebut telah menemui makna di sebalik perlakuan mereka lewat tafsiran mereka terhadap sumber-sumber yang wujud di dalam Islam – walau betapa serong dan jahatnya niat mereka tersebut. Oleh kerana itu jenama ‘Islamic Terrorism’ seperti yang dijaja oleh media antarabangsa dewasa ini adalah absah.
Shahab Ahmed menyentuh dilema ini dalam beberapa perenggan yang ringkas sahaja menyebabkan di mata pembaca, beliau lakukannya lebih kerana memperakui nihayah mantik beliau (logical conclusion).
Tetapi jika begitu gamaknya, maka ia juga bermakna kita perlu mengisytiharkan sebagai ‘Islam-ik’ perlakuan oleh penganut-penganut ajaran sesat yang lahir daripada tafsiran terhadap Islam seperti Sikhisme, Bahai, mahupun Ayah Pin. Di sebalik kekaguman dan hormat aku kepada tesis Shahab Ahmed, terlalu berat untuk aku menerima konklusi-konklusi sebegini.
Begitu juga dengan kata kunci tiga serangkai beliau -Pra-Teks, Teks dan Kon-Teks- dimana aku temui kesukaran untuk memahami apa yang dimaksudkan oleh Shahab Ahmed mengenainya. Terdapat medan makna yang spesifik untuk setiap istilah tersebut - jauh berlainan dengan praduga aku sebelum pernah membaca buku ini. Antara contoh yang terkemuka adalah Pra-Teks.
Berdasarkan kepilan namanya, ‘pra’ bersama ‘teks’, pembaca mungkin mengagak Shahab Ahmed sedang mencadangkan suatu kebenaran yang datang sebelum teks, atau dalam kata lain Kebenaran yang menerbitkan Teks. Pendekatan yang sering diambil oleh golongan liberal. Tetapi tampaknya itu tidak betul. Malah Pra-Teks tidaklah berdiri di 'belakang' Teks secara zamani.
Pra-Teks sebagai "an Unseen Reality or Truth that lies beyond and behind the Text of the Revelation-in-the-Seen and upon which the act, Text and truth of Revelation are contingent" adalah:
"...as that which is ontologically and alethically prior to Text, Pre-Text should not be misconstrued as that which is chronologically prior to Text; rather, the Pre-Text, as the world of the Unseen is continuously present-or, strictly speaking, continously absent-at all times and places as the domain of Prior and higher Truth."
Aku lantas keliru dengan motif di sebalik tindakan Shahab Ahmed menamakan Pra-Teks (signifikasi tempelan 'pra') dengan nama sedemikian, lebih-lebih lagi apabila hubungan antara Pra-Teks dan Teks kemudiannya disifatkan Ahmed sebagai:
“...there is no essential difference and no semantic disconnect between the truths of Pre-Text and Text: rather, they are connected in a hierarchical communicative continuum of (God’s) Reason; they are both part-and-parcel of the logic and structure and reality of the meaning(s) of Revelation. Thus, they are all part-and-parcel of Islam – they are all Islamic.”
Designatori Pra-Teks di tangan penulis, ibarat ular yang licik menyusur di dalam belukar: pembaca boleh nampak arah mana yang penulis mahu tujui lewat semak-semak daun yang diganggunya, tetapi fizikal ‘ular’ (baca: Pra-Teks) itu sendiri berada di luar tinjauan pembaca.
Mungkin aku perlu baca sekali lagi.
Aku tidak mahu mengakhirkan ulasan aku terhadap sebuah buku yang cemerlang sebegini dengan nada yang negatif. Maka aku menangguhkan komentar-komentar terbaik aku pada bahagian akhir:
‘What Is Islam’ adalah pada awal dan pada akhirnya sebuah buku sejarah – lebih tepat: sebuah buku tentang metodologi penulisan sejarah (historiografi).
Sudah tentu pembaca bakal dapati yang penulis banyak menghabiskan dakwatnya berbahas tentang topik-topik bukan-sejarah; sepertimana saat beliau berbincang tentang erti budaya dan agama, tentang nilai etika di dalam estetika, atau saat beliau menitipkan syair-syair kuno dari Tanah Yang Telah Dilupakan Kewujudannya di samping kisah-kisah lucu (dan adakalanya lucah) yang diperolehinya daripada kajian-kajian antropologi di sepanjang tanah Belkan-ke-Bengal.
Namun, hal itu adalah kerana Shahab Ahmed merupakan seorang sejarahwan par-excellence yang perlu -seperti saran Collingwood- mempunyai kemahiran berfalsafah demi mencerap makna disebalik fenomena sejarahwi dan manusiawi (historical and human phenomenon) – satu baka sarjanawan yang kian pupus di dalam era pengkhususan melampau mutakhir ini.
‘What Is Islam’ ditulis dengan gaya penulisan yang tersusun ibarat kitab mantik di samping pilihan bahasa yang spesifik - seakan-akan penulis ingin mengajuk kejituan bahasa para ahli matematik. Demi mendirikan konseptualisasi terhadap definisi Islam yang baru, penulis telah meruntuhkan sedemikian banyak kata-kata kunci dan konsep binari yang setelah diselidik, sebenarnya adalah tidak layak dipakai terhadap fenomena Islam. Hal tersebut memberikan buku ini suatu semangat atau gelora jiwa yang selalunya hanya mampu didapati daripada sebuah penulisan manifesto.
Dalam pada yang sama buku ini berasa begitu akrab dengan batang tubuh sang penulis – kisah-kisah hidup Shahab Ahmed menyulami helaian demi helaian buku ini; mendengar kaset bapanya di dalam kereta, memori beliau tentang atuknya yang mampu bertutur di dalam empat bahasa, jenaka tentang Ibn Arabi yang dikongsikan oleh kawannya, kekecewaan beliau dengan penjarahan kota suci Makkah dan Madinah.
Melaluinya pembaca berasa seolah-olah mereka pernah mengenali penulis secara peribadi. Sayang sekali dengan pemergian beliau pada 17 September 2015 peluang tersebut takkan tiba secara hakiki – sekurang-kurangnya di dunia yang fana ini.
Al-fatihah.
January 13, 2021
It was staggering to find that a lot of the conversations I, and various young Muslims like myself have had with each other in private, at coffee shops, at various gatherings and online not just find their way in this book but given serious academic attention deeply rooted in history and critical study by Shahab Ahmed. This most ambitious book seeks to not just explore Islamic history but also various facets of the Islamic legacy including philosophy and Sufism to re conceptualize Islam as a human document of the Muslim attempt to make meaning.
In doing so, Shahab Ahmed questions and dismantles previously held tenets of Islamic Orthodoxy or what we traditionally regard as Islamic Orthodoxy.
"In this book, Shahab Ahmed attempts nothing less than to reconcile history on a grand scale. In doing so he effectively decolonizes the failed conceptualization by both modern Muslims and non-Muslims alike of what Islam as a human and historical phenomenon actually is. His approach in doing so is multifaceted and ambitious, spanning across hundreds of years of history and a massive trove of primary sources of Muslim societies from the Balkans to the Bengal. " - Murtaza Hussain
Ahmed manages to demonstrate that the mainstream legal-supremacist and textual absolutist idea of conceptualizing Islam is not just limiting and flawed but completely ahistorical without taking into account how majority of Muslim societies have engaged and defined Islam for centuries. This is more than just a wishful dismantling of orthodoxy because it is based so strongly in primary sources and history. Ahmed defines this period and region as 'Balkans to Bengal'. Grounded in primary sources of history, philosophy and literature across a vast array of languages of this region, Ahmed exposes modern Islamic orthodoxy as purely a modernist reinvention that erases the lived experience of vast societies of Muslims for hundreds of years.
The biggest gift that Ahmed provides to readers like myself is not an alternative conceptualization of Islam that is explorative but grounds our explorative tendencies in sound academic and historical base.
Ahmed's language is difficult, academic and not easy on the eye. This I suspect might limit its access and readership. I struggled myself and it took me a little less than a year to finish the book. I can attest confidently that the fruits of the struggle are indeed great.
This is quite possibly the most compelling and ambitious undertaking of Islamic literature in the last three to four decades, a work of pure genius.
In doing so, Shahab Ahmed questions and dismantles previously held tenets of Islamic Orthodoxy or what we traditionally regard as Islamic Orthodoxy.
"In this book, Shahab Ahmed attempts nothing less than to reconcile history on a grand scale. In doing so he effectively decolonizes the failed conceptualization by both modern Muslims and non-Muslims alike of what Islam as a human and historical phenomenon actually is. His approach in doing so is multifaceted and ambitious, spanning across hundreds of years of history and a massive trove of primary sources of Muslim societies from the Balkans to the Bengal. " - Murtaza Hussain
Ahmed manages to demonstrate that the mainstream legal-supremacist and textual absolutist idea of conceptualizing Islam is not just limiting and flawed but completely ahistorical without taking into account how majority of Muslim societies have engaged and defined Islam for centuries. This is more than just a wishful dismantling of orthodoxy because it is based so strongly in primary sources and history. Ahmed defines this period and region as 'Balkans to Bengal'. Grounded in primary sources of history, philosophy and literature across a vast array of languages of this region, Ahmed exposes modern Islamic orthodoxy as purely a modernist reinvention that erases the lived experience of vast societies of Muslims for hundreds of years.
The biggest gift that Ahmed provides to readers like myself is not an alternative conceptualization of Islam that is explorative but grounds our explorative tendencies in sound academic and historical base.
Ahmed's language is difficult, academic and not easy on the eye. This I suspect might limit its access and readership. I struggled myself and it took me a little less than a year to finish the book. I can attest confidently that the fruits of the struggle are indeed great.
This is quite possibly the most compelling and ambitious undertaking of Islamic literature in the last three to four decades, a work of pure genius.
September 3, 2017
Extremely interesting content demonstrating the actual, living Islam with all its diversity and paradoxes. But the writing style is terrible. If ten-line sentences in abstruse academese is your thing you'll love it though.
September 3, 2021
I think the book might be better titled as What was Islam? because the conceptual phenomena that this book explores is of a decidedly pre-modern era that the advent of modernity, colonialism and nationalism has completely transformed particularly the way Muslims engage with Islam with a larger focus on the revelation than the context of revelation and particularly the pre-text of revelation which is barely even salient for most of us in this day and age.
As a historical study, unearthing our collective past no matter how unreachable it may seem is useful in highlighting all that has been lost to us. To the extent that it is revivable is a question left unanswered in this book and I'm generally pessimistic about the notion of a turn to the good old days. But it is a worthy endeavor for us all to re-know this at the very least.
This is a scholarly work and I will leave it to those who are engaged in the study of Islam to debate the merits or demerits of the author's approach and argument and speak on the viability of an expansionist notion of Islam beyond the overemphasis on jurisprudence and the Texts of revelation (be they the Quran or the inclusion of Hadith). What I will say is that to me the notion of the Pre-Text to revelation is particularly interesting and poignant particularly the tension in the translation of the Infinite and Unseen to the roughly ~600 pages of the Seen.
As a historical study, unearthing our collective past no matter how unreachable it may seem is useful in highlighting all that has been lost to us. To the extent that it is revivable is a question left unanswered in this book and I'm generally pessimistic about the notion of a turn to the good old days. But it is a worthy endeavor for us all to re-know this at the very least.
This is a scholarly work and I will leave it to those who are engaged in the study of Islam to debate the merits or demerits of the author's approach and argument and speak on the viability of an expansionist notion of Islam beyond the overemphasis on jurisprudence and the Texts of revelation (be they the Quran or the inclusion of Hadith). What I will say is that to me the notion of the Pre-Text to revelation is particularly interesting and poignant particularly the tension in the translation of the Infinite and Unseen to the roughly ~600 pages of the Seen.
April 7, 2020
A brilliant presentation and critique of conceptions of Islam in both premodern and modern times. The alternative offered feels comprehensive, inclusive, and open enough to allow the ambiguity and contradictions we find in Islam.
January 19, 2018
It has been just over 40 years since Marshall G.S. Hodgson's The Venture of Islam, but these have been the most eventful 40 years in Islamic history for a very long time. Islam is now world-historical: Islamic theology is now bound up in the order of world affairs and infects the grand narratives of Marxists, Fukuyamaists, Spenglerians, Toynbeeites, and even doomsayers on the streets. Yet nearly all of these visionaries of the future seem sorely misinformed about Islam; something in the work of brilliant religious scholars and historians failed to live up to the mark when Islam went political. Where is our new account of the role of Islam in world history? What did it mean when the world became partly Muslim?
In an eerie coincidence, like Hodgson, Shahab Ahmed passed away mere months before his magnum opus was published. But like Hodgson, Ahmed must have recognized that a good work like this takes time, and must have died happy in the knowledge that the final draft of a very important book was at the printer's. This is a work with all the intellectual honesty of an academic paper, but that avoids the familiar uselessness of so many academic monographs about "language games" and "unity in diversity." Here you can have a definition of Islam buttressed by the realities of history and human existence. It is definitely a very dense book and is not for the faint-hearted, but for those who can read and enjoy it, it's a call to arms. Can this message be brought to the general public in the West? Not only is that a possibility, but it must happen: world history is demanding it.
The first half of the book masterfully pries into the flaws of sympathetic academic sources like Hodgson and even of some Muslims:
"[F]or Hodgson, literature and art are 'Islamic' only when they clearly treat 'religious' themes 'in the same sense as we refer to "Christian" art or literature' -- otherwise, they are Islamicate. But does it, in fact, make sense to assume that 'Islam' and 'Christianity' are mutually intelligible phenomena that are explicable or meaningful in parallel terms of -- that is, in the same sense as/by analogy with -- each other?" (166)
"[I]t is not merely Western analysts who, by their adoption of the secular-religious binary, have rendered themselves unable to conceptualize Islam in a coherent and meaningful manner: many modern Muslim actors and subjects have done the same ... any successful concepturalization of Islam must account for all these contrary claims as Islam, in spite of the degree to which modern Muslims are unable to do [so]." (243, 245)
By the second half I already had a feeling of what needs to be included in any possible definition of Islam, and why it is so elusive to predefined Western categories. But it was only when Ahmed began his argument in the second half that I finally started to realized why he was including the complete original text of every Islamic poetry quotation in his footnotes.
In an eerie coincidence, like Hodgson, Shahab Ahmed passed away mere months before his magnum opus was published. But like Hodgson, Ahmed must have recognized that a good work like this takes time, and must have died happy in the knowledge that the final draft of a very important book was at the printer's. This is a work with all the intellectual honesty of an academic paper, but that avoids the familiar uselessness of so many academic monographs about "language games" and "unity in diversity." Here you can have a definition of Islam buttressed by the realities of history and human existence. It is definitely a very dense book and is not for the faint-hearted, but for those who can read and enjoy it, it's a call to arms. Can this message be brought to the general public in the West? Not only is that a possibility, but it must happen: world history is demanding it.
The first half of the book masterfully pries into the flaws of sympathetic academic sources like Hodgson and even of some Muslims:
"[F]or Hodgson, literature and art are 'Islamic' only when they clearly treat 'religious' themes 'in the same sense as we refer to "Christian" art or literature' -- otherwise, they are Islamicate. But does it, in fact, make sense to assume that 'Islam' and 'Christianity' are mutually intelligible phenomena that are explicable or meaningful in parallel terms of -- that is, in the same sense as/by analogy with -- each other?" (166)
"[I]t is not merely Western analysts who, by their adoption of the secular-religious binary, have rendered themselves unable to conceptualize Islam in a coherent and meaningful manner: many modern Muslim actors and subjects have done the same ... any successful concepturalization of Islam must account for all these contrary claims as Islam, in spite of the degree to which modern Muslims are unable to do [so]." (243, 245)
By the second half I already had a feeling of what needs to be included in any possible definition of Islam, and why it is so elusive to predefined Western categories. But it was only when Ahmed began his argument in the second half that I finally started to realized why he was including the complete original text of every Islamic poetry quotation in his footnotes.
March 22, 2016
If you can get through the obtuse academic language of this book (in a couple chapters anyway) this work is a fascinating tour of what it means and has meant to be "islamic" at least in one of the worlds great cultural spheres - The area influenced by Persian in the classical and early modern period. Hint: all that talk about wine by the Sufi poets wasn't just allegorical. According to Dr. Ahmed's thesis I'm acting in terms of Islam just by writing this review; may more people read this book, and open their eyes.
June 4, 2019
This is a book to be read multiple times, but you know a piece of good scholarship when u encounter one, and this is a ONE
September 15, 2017
A great example of what passion and knowledge can accomplish, even when hindered by the horrors of contemporary academic-theory prose: What is Islam? should be read by everyone who cares about world affairs. It won't, because that contemporary academic-theory prose stuff is more than a little off-putting (random example, certainly not the worst case: "I would suggest that the creative energy that is invested and worked into the decoration and ornamentation of these implements of everyday lives of Muslims is precisely expressive of the diffusion of Islamic meaning through society in and as Con-Text--and as such is symptomatic of a particular valorization of everyday life as meaningful"). Ahmed's early death is grievous in and of itself; the fact that he might have written a shorter, clearer version of this book that, e.g., policy wonks and army generals could read makes it damaging to our world.
In short, this book is a reminder that 'Islam' need not be limited to the legalistic, fundamentalist, textualist 'religion' that many people understand by the name. Since Muhammad, Ahmed argues, Islam has mostly, and most often, been a project of interpretation--of Islam, of one's self, of one's fellow Muslims, and of the world at large. It interpreted all these things through the Koran, yes, but also through the cosmic order, and through the histories of Islamic societies. This means that the great Sufi poets, the great rulers, and the great philosophers are just as important and just as 'Islamic' as the great legal scholars and Koran commentaries and collections of Hadith. If everyone knew more about the 'Balkans-to-Bengal complex,' as Ahmed calls it, we would know this. Muslims would know more about Avicenna. Non-Muslims would be less bigoted. Both would be good things.
Now, the more purely academic stuff: we also gt a pretty good explanation of why you don't want to stress just structure or just agency when discussing social forms, because individuals and social structures create each other, and neither are analytically or ontologically primary. And a good explanation of why you can understand something by understanding the tensions and contradictions that make up that thing, rather than thinking that if a thing is contradictory it must be more than one thing.
The structure of the book is clear enough: introductory section, asking "is x Islamic?"; long middle section attacking other scholars' conceptions of Islam; concluding section explaining Ahmed's view at length and using it to interpret some Islamic artifacts and states of affairs. I heartily recommend everyone borrow this from the library and read the introductory section, and chapter five, where Ahmed lays out his own theory.
In short, this book is a reminder that 'Islam' need not be limited to the legalistic, fundamentalist, textualist 'religion' that many people understand by the name. Since Muhammad, Ahmed argues, Islam has mostly, and most often, been a project of interpretation--of Islam, of one's self, of one's fellow Muslims, and of the world at large. It interpreted all these things through the Koran, yes, but also through the cosmic order, and through the histories of Islamic societies. This means that the great Sufi poets, the great rulers, and the great philosophers are just as important and just as 'Islamic' as the great legal scholars and Koran commentaries and collections of Hadith. If everyone knew more about the 'Balkans-to-Bengal complex,' as Ahmed calls it, we would know this. Muslims would know more about Avicenna. Non-Muslims would be less bigoted. Both would be good things.
Now, the more purely academic stuff: we also gt a pretty good explanation of why you don't want to stress just structure or just agency when discussing social forms, because individuals and social structures create each other, and neither are analytically or ontologically primary. And a good explanation of why you can understand something by understanding the tensions and contradictions that make up that thing, rather than thinking that if a thing is contradictory it must be more than one thing.
The structure of the book is clear enough: introductory section, asking "is x Islamic?"; long middle section attacking other scholars' conceptions of Islam; concluding section explaining Ahmed's view at length and using it to interpret some Islamic artifacts and states of affairs. I heartily recommend everyone borrow this from the library and read the introductory section, and chapter five, where Ahmed lays out his own theory.
April 7, 2017
In this monumental book, Shahab Ahmed attempts to answer the question «what is Islam», through providing a conceptualization that comprises the whole historical spectrum of Islamic thought, actions, artifacts, etc. In short, to find coherence in seeming incoherence. The book is divided into three parts: 1 – Questions, an overly long introduction where he lays out six essential questions and some historical background, 2 – Conceptualizations, where he essentially shreds to pieces any previous conceptualizations by scholars and academics on Islam, and 3 – Re-Conceptualizations, where the author provides his own conceptualization and applies it to previous and contemporary Muslim societies.
His main issues with contemporary conceptualizations of Islam are their inability (or perhaps unwillingness) to embrace the ambivalence, difference and outright contradiction that he compellingly shows is a part of historical Islam, the Western concept of the secular-religious binary, and the common obsession with Text as the only legitimate way of attaining religious truth. Shahab Ahmed no doubt delivers a stinging critique of all the «inadequacies» mentioned above, and for someone like me, with only little to moderate knowledge of Islam and studies of religion in general, it is all very enlightening to read.
When it comes to his own conceptualization I'm not so sure I can bring myself to agree. At least I find it very wide, potentially rendering it redundant. I will not go into this in detail as I don't want to spoil the book's conclusion for any potential readers, but I will point out that our disagreements probably stem from Ahmeds philosophic idealism, leaving practically no room for material forces and power-politics to shape the course of history.
Some might label the language in this book as «academic», I'd rather call it tedious, vague and inaccessible. On the plus side, he rephrases his points approximately ten times each time he introduces something new, so in the end you pretty much get where he's going. I still think this book could have been 200-300 pages thinner if he'd just written in a more straightforward way, and avoided going on and on about Jahangir's wine-drinking for 100+ pages (we got it the first time). As it is now, the bar of entry is set high for the uninitiated (of which I would count myself) to delve into this book. And I think that is a shame, cause this work is in many ways downright brilliant, and I'd wish everyone read it, Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
His main issues with contemporary conceptualizations of Islam are their inability (or perhaps unwillingness) to embrace the ambivalence, difference and outright contradiction that he compellingly shows is a part of historical Islam, the Western concept of the secular-religious binary, and the common obsession with Text as the only legitimate way of attaining religious truth. Shahab Ahmed no doubt delivers a stinging critique of all the «inadequacies» mentioned above, and for someone like me, with only little to moderate knowledge of Islam and studies of religion in general, it is all very enlightening to read.
When it comes to his own conceptualization I'm not so sure I can bring myself to agree. At least I find it very wide, potentially rendering it redundant. I will not go into this in detail as I don't want to spoil the book's conclusion for any potential readers, but I will point out that our disagreements probably stem from Ahmeds philosophic idealism, leaving practically no room for material forces and power-politics to shape the course of history.
Some might label the language in this book as «academic», I'd rather call it tedious, vague and inaccessible. On the plus side, he rephrases his points approximately ten times each time he introduces something new, so in the end you pretty much get where he's going. I still think this book could have been 200-300 pages thinner if he'd just written in a more straightforward way, and avoided going on and on about Jahangir's wine-drinking for 100+ pages (we got it the first time). As it is now, the bar of entry is set high for the uninitiated (of which I would count myself) to delve into this book. And I think that is a shame, cause this work is in many ways downright brilliant, and I'd wish everyone read it, Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
January 26, 2022
Found it extremely difficult to read. The ideas are definitely interesting but it's for someone who's trying to understand the debates around the philosophical meaning of Islam which makes the title a little misleading.
September 5, 2017
Ahmed starts out irritated by how previous scholars have defined (or not defined) Islam as a human and historical phenomenon. He ends up providing in response a brilliant, wide-ranging argument for the historical breadth and subtlety of Islamic hermeneutics and theological sources, capped by a furious critique of Islamic modernity as legalistic and intellectually shallow. Chs. 4 and 5, to a Christian theologian, read as a robust constructive theology of revelation and account of theological method—and sure enough, Ricouer is all over the relevant footnotes.
I had the personal good fortune to study with Ahmed, whose seminar on comparative orthodoxies was perhaps the best single course of my master's study. His ambition, breadth of knowledge, and clarity of thought were inspirational, while still mirrored by his obvious frustration with anyone who couldn't keep up. Much of the persuasiveness of his writing will depend on the reader's attraction, or not, to his character. I love this sort of thing, but it will not be to everyone's taste. One early review faulted him for a lack of feminist sources and sensibility, which is entirely fair (and in keeping, I must say, with the old-school neo-orthodox theological sensibility I find he invokes). Worse and probably related, to get to the really good stuff, you have to slog through long passages where he rather joylessly demolishes previous scholarship for its conceptual incoherencies and evidential weaknesses.
All that said: I learned a tremendous amount, and I suspect almost anyone would. Ahmed's early death leaves a tremendous intellectual project unfinished. I am grateful we have this record of a substantial piece of it.
I had the personal good fortune to study with Ahmed, whose seminar on comparative orthodoxies was perhaps the best single course of my master's study. His ambition, breadth of knowledge, and clarity of thought were inspirational, while still mirrored by his obvious frustration with anyone who couldn't keep up. Much of the persuasiveness of his writing will depend on the reader's attraction, or not, to his character. I love this sort of thing, but it will not be to everyone's taste. One early review faulted him for a lack of feminist sources and sensibility, which is entirely fair (and in keeping, I must say, with the old-school neo-orthodox theological sensibility I find he invokes). Worse and probably related, to get to the really good stuff, you have to slog through long passages where he rather joylessly demolishes previous scholarship for its conceptual incoherencies and evidential weaknesses.
All that said: I learned a tremendous amount, and I suspect almost anyone would. Ahmed's early death leaves a tremendous intellectual project unfinished. I am grateful we have this record of a substantial piece of it.
August 19, 2019
Shahab Ahmed succeeds in promoting a method for studying Islam and Islamic civilizations that strikes a middle ground between near-nihilistic postmodern critiques of Islamic Studies and the relatively non-reflexive and perhaps orientalist approaches to Islamic Studies. His thesis posits a solution to how we might determine if cultural idioms - whether they be art, architecture, literature, law, or government apparatuses – are Islamic or not. In doing so, he also opens the field to a broader and more contextually sensitive view of those idioms that are indeed Islamic.
To pare down and over-simplify the main thrust of Ahmed’s argument, something is Islamic if it deals in some way with either Allah’s Revelation of Divine Truth to man or if it integrates/shares lineage with other cultural elements that are concerned with that same Revelation. Ahmed explores this statement through his heuristics of Pre-Text, Text, and Con-Text. Text refers to the revealed text of the Qur’an and the Hadith. Pre-Text is the Divine Truth (haqiqa) of the universe, of which the Qur’an is but one expression, albeit a central one. Lastly, Con-Text is any additional commentary, work of art, literature, philosophy, religious experience, etc. that deals with either the Text or the Pre-Text. Con-Text opens up a vast lexicon of cultural idioms and vocabulary that one may not consider Islamic at first glance. A few of these, according to Ahmed, include wine-drinking, philosophy that seems to contradict commonly held suppositions of Islam, and so-called “antinomian” Sufism. Ahmed delves into each of the aforementioned topics in far greater detail and scholarly aplomb.
As a side note, I find the author’s critiques of how many academics currently study Islam to perhaps be the best of what this book has to offer. For example, some scholars are guilty of either equating Islam with Law or of centering their conception of Islam on the Law. A second and related example: some academics see the Text of Islam as Islam, rather than seeing Pre-Text and Con-Text as equally definitive. As a result, those in Islamic Studies choose textual genres (i.e. the Quran, the Hadith, tafseer) as the basis of their research. For Ahmed, this would be equivalent to voluntarily putting on blinders and deluding oneself into thinking that their limited field of vision is the extent of what exists.
As a student who researches medieval and early-modern Islamic civilizations, I consider this book a must-read for anyone entering into graduate-level Islamic studies, whether or not one agrees with his heuristic of Pre-Text, Text, and Con-Text as a means to answering “What is Islam?”. 5/5
To pare down and over-simplify the main thrust of Ahmed’s argument, something is Islamic if it deals in some way with either Allah’s Revelation of Divine Truth to man or if it integrates/shares lineage with other cultural elements that are concerned with that same Revelation. Ahmed explores this statement through his heuristics of Pre-Text, Text, and Con-Text. Text refers to the revealed text of the Qur’an and the Hadith. Pre-Text is the Divine Truth (haqiqa) of the universe, of which the Qur’an is but one expression, albeit a central one. Lastly, Con-Text is any additional commentary, work of art, literature, philosophy, religious experience, etc. that deals with either the Text or the Pre-Text. Con-Text opens up a vast lexicon of cultural idioms and vocabulary that one may not consider Islamic at first glance. A few of these, according to Ahmed, include wine-drinking, philosophy that seems to contradict commonly held suppositions of Islam, and so-called “antinomian” Sufism. Ahmed delves into each of the aforementioned topics in far greater detail and scholarly aplomb.
As a side note, I find the author’s critiques of how many academics currently study Islam to perhaps be the best of what this book has to offer. For example, some scholars are guilty of either equating Islam with Law or of centering their conception of Islam on the Law. A second and related example: some academics see the Text of Islam as Islam, rather than seeing Pre-Text and Con-Text as equally definitive. As a result, those in Islamic Studies choose textual genres (i.e. the Quran, the Hadith, tafseer) as the basis of their research. For Ahmed, this would be equivalent to voluntarily putting on blinders and deluding oneself into thinking that their limited field of vision is the extent of what exists.
As a student who researches medieval and early-modern Islamic civilizations, I consider this book a must-read for anyone entering into graduate-level Islamic studies, whether or not one agrees with his heuristic of Pre-Text, Text, and Con-Text as a means to answering “What is Islam?”. 5/5
March 16, 2016
Setting out to define what is Islam, and what it means to be Islamic, is an act of interpretation. It is the history of meaning, of revelation, of text, pretext, and context. Ahmed does a great (albeit scholarly) job of describing this process. How do muslims parse the paradox of seeking Truth and following Law? How can Islam contradict itself while remaining cohesive?
He uses Islamic wine-drinking to illustrate these points and trace distinctions between the many aspects of Islam. Is it Islamic to drink wine? I'm not sure now. I would ask: Is it Vegetarian to eat fish? There is both a law (or at least literal definition) as well as ethos and culture associated with both. Is civil disobedience American? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Can you be an Atheist and truly appreciate Sufi poetry? The aesthetics and revelation are intertwined yet distinct.
As with all cultures and systems of thinking it is a swirling interplay of upholding perceived values, literalism, tradition, and identity. He claims to not fall into the tautology of "Islam is what muslims do/Muslims do what is Islamic" but I'm not so sure at times. It's hard to exhaustively delineate all of this contradiction without some amount of self-reference.
And of course almost all of this hangs on the hook of supernaturalism. I would argue after reading this tome that Islam is not philosophically materialist. A common thread that runs through the religion of Islam, the culture of Islam, the Law of Islam, and views of Islam is a recognition of transcendence. Ali A. Rizvi, author of 'Atheist Muslim' might disagree, but 'What Is Islam' seems to make a strong case.
He uses Islamic wine-drinking to illustrate these points and trace distinctions between the many aspects of Islam. Is it Islamic to drink wine? I'm not sure now. I would ask: Is it Vegetarian to eat fish? There is both a law (or at least literal definition) as well as ethos and culture associated with both. Is civil disobedience American? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Can you be an Atheist and truly appreciate Sufi poetry? The aesthetics and revelation are intertwined yet distinct.
As with all cultures and systems of thinking it is a swirling interplay of upholding perceived values, literalism, tradition, and identity. He claims to not fall into the tautology of "Islam is what muslims do/Muslims do what is Islamic" but I'm not so sure at times. It's hard to exhaustively delineate all of this contradiction without some amount of self-reference.
And of course almost all of this hangs on the hook of supernaturalism. I would argue after reading this tome that Islam is not philosophically materialist. A common thread that runs through the religion of Islam, the culture of Islam, the Law of Islam, and views of Islam is a recognition of transcendence. Ali A. Rizvi, author of 'Atheist Muslim' might disagree, but 'What Is Islam' seems to make a strong case.
August 14, 2016
An incredible achievement. Ahmed's breadth of knowledge and grasp of the Islamic tradition is evident on every page. We have been robbed of a mind to my knowledge unequaled in our time. One star deducted because this book is totally inadequate stylistically - while not insurmountable, the author's hyper-academic prose is an obstacle. Bad writing can be overcome if the author's thoughts are compelling enough. This book offers proof enough that, in the case of Shahab Ahmed, the thought more than justifies the writing.
July 6, 2020
Fascinating insight into Islam buried beneath too much philosophy for me. For somebody steeped in the culture and history of Islam, it would probably be a much easier read. I struggled through the first 100 pages before giving up, and I did learn a ton about how Islam (the culture and the practice of the religion) was much different centuries ago than what we think if now... no alcohol, no images, etc.
May 26, 2016
Mind-expanding, altering, sometimes blowing, if at times excessively verbose and a tad smug. That said, utterly worth a read by anyone, Islamic (!) or not, with interest in religion, non-Western history, and Islam
February 9, 2020
A must-read book that attempts to counter dominant, salafist versions of islamic history that project the juridical aspects of islam. Shahab Ahmed's move to place Sufism as a counternarrative to such versions is a much-needed intervention.
March 16, 2021
Brilliant
Clearly assumes a strong grounding in Islam, as well as a familiarity with social theory including epistemology, ontology and hermeneutics. But if you can cope with those, this is a brilliant text, thought provoking and researched, original and refreshing
Clearly assumes a strong grounding in Islam, as well as a familiarity with social theory including epistemology, ontology and hermeneutics. But if you can cope with those, this is a brilliant text, thought provoking and researched, original and refreshing
November 4, 2016
Challenging read but really helped me understand Islam in a new way.
December 3, 2016
One of the brilliant works on Islam I have ever came across. I am one among who still grieve on the loss of such an extraordinary scholar - Shahab - may peace be with his soul.
November 8, 2017
Intro is interesting, but the scholarly debates are essentially impenetrable to an outsider.
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