Critical Muslim Studies represented at BRISMES
Iqbal Centre and Critical Muslim Studies were well-represented at the 2019 BRISMES Conference, "Joining the Dots: Interdisciplinarity in Middle East Studies", which took place at the University of Leeds.
There were three panels in all representing the state of the art:
Panel 1: Connected Histories and politics of Pan-Islamism and Islamism, organised by Iqbal Centre co-director, Dr Tajul Islam. Papers presented:
"Theological ecumenism in Pan-Islamist movements: A Critical Muslim Studies approach", Dr Tajul Islam
"Caliphate As Transnational Metaphor: A Decolonial Analysis of the Mappila Caliphate (1921)", Sheheen Kattiparambil (PhD candidate, University of Leeds)
"Islamism as the 'Political': Struggle from within the Kemalist Hegemony", Sumeyye Sakarya (PhD candidate, University of Leeds)
"Mobilizing and Conceiving Umma in the (Post-)Colonial Metropole: Decolonial Muslim political activism and thought in Britain before and after decolonisation", Jonathan Birt (PhD candidate, University of Leeds)
"From the Hubris of Hegemony, Toward a Decolonial Horizon: Jihad, Resistance, and Liberation", Junaid Ahmad (PhD candidate, University of Leeds)
Panel 2: Migrating from Islamic Studies to Critical Muslim Studies, organised by Iqbal Centre co-director, Dr Mustapha Sheikh. Papers presented:
"Un-mooring orientalist assumptions about Muslims and their law", Dr Mustapha Sheikh
"Critical Muslim Studies and the possibilities of (re)thinking Riba", Sitara Akram (PhD candidate, University of Leeds)
"The Khatim an-Nabiyyin (The Seal of Prophecy) and its inclusive-Abrahamic perspective. Muslim’s religious identity in dialogue", Dr Marco Demichelis (University of Navarra)
"Training a generation: The Language of Islamophobia in the context of the UK’s Prevent policy", Claudia Radivan (PhD candidate, University of Leeds)
Panel 3: Engendering the Islamicate Modern, organised by Shareefa Fadhel
"The Hadith of ʿĀ’isha, Gender Justice and Critical Muslim Studies", Sofia Rehman (PhD candidate, University of Leeds)
"John Dewey meets Ataturk: Educational reform of New Republic", Ayse Kotan (PhD candidate, University of Leeds)
"The Politics of Compassion: Muslim Middle Eastern Women as Victim", Walaa AlHusban (PhD candidate, University of Leeds)
"Social Policies and Gender: Localising Global Perspective", Shareefa Fadhel (PhD candidate, University of Leeds)
Iqbal Centre co-director, Professor Salman Sayyid, was one of two keynote speakers at the conference. His paper was entitled: “Post-Disciplinarity and the Challenge of Middle Eastern Studies”, abstract below:
The challenge to Middle Eastern Studies is not merely practical. It is not only the conditions in the region that make it difficult to sustain the belief that research and scholarship transcend politics – the suppression of critical intellectual activity in the region seems to strike at the heart of the academic endeavour. Nor is it only about questioning the correct balance between the demands of scholarship and for policy prescriptions. The challenge is also philosophical. The international student-led campaign organised around the slogan “Why is My Curriculum White?” has drawn attention to the way in which the contemporary production of knowledge has been established in university departments and academic disciplines. If asked why the curriculum is white, one answer would be because the curriculum is based on the truth. Another answer would be that the disciplines that we teach were the products of a world that is no longer what it was and that we need to come to terms with that. The relationship between the colonial-racial order and the formulation of concerns and protocols that helped to establish Middle Eastern Studies and its cognates have been the subject of fierce polemics for almost forty years. In one corner are those who see, in the desire to conduct business as usual on behalf of the discipline, the last vestiges of privilege and power. In the opposite corner are those who believe that their venerable discipline has been invaded by “identity politics” or “political correctness” or “postmodernism” or whatever may be the current designation of the latest threat to the civilizing mission as we know it. The critique of Orientalism has been instrumental in generating a postcolonial (and decolonial) analytics primarily outside the field of Middle Eastern Studies. The defence of the discipline and disciplinary boundaries involves a process of an active forgetting of the way in which the production of knowledge is contained in pathways, research clusters and academic departments. In this lecture, I will suggest that a lack of discipline does not imply a lack of rigour, significance or creativity; rather, a recalling of how the discipline came to be is necessary to ensure its future in a world which is increasingly post-Western.
A recording of this talk will be made available on the Iqbal Centre site soon.