The Islamic Studies Network
&
The Department of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies,
School of Modern Languages and Cultures
University of Leeds
28 January 2012
Teaching Islamic Studies:
Methodological Concerns, Practical Solutions
09.00-9.30 am: Arrival and Registration
9.30-10.00 am: Welcome and Opening of Symposium
Dr Zahia Smail Salhi & Dr Mustapha Sheikh
10.00- 11.00am: Key note Address, Dr Jon Hoover, University of Nottingham
A Vision for Teaching Islamic Studies in the University
11.00- 11.30: Coffee break and networking opportunity
11.30- 11.50: Dr Alison Scott-Baumann, University of Gloucester,
Faith, Culture and the Secular Mind: How Do We Engage All Three?
11.50- 12.10: Dr Mehmet Asutay, University of Durham,
Between Neo-classical Methodology and Fiqh: The Methodological (Mis)Construction of
Islamic Economics and Finance
12.10- 12.30: Discussion
12.30- 14.00: Lunch break
14.00- 14.20: Dr Sean McLaughlin, University of Leeds,
25 Years of Learning and Teaching about Islam and Muslim Societies in the UK: multidisciplinary locations, changing contexts and new objects/relations of study.
14.20-14.40: Dr Masoumeh Velayati, Al-Maktoum Institute
Teaching Women in Islam
14.40- 15.00: Discussion
15.00-15.30: Coffee break
15.30-15.50: Dr Shuruq Naguib, University of Lancaster
Teaching Islam beyond Orientalism: The double gaze of the Cross-cultural
15.50-16.10: Dr Saeko Yazaki, University of Cambridge
Teaching and Studying Islam: Consciousness and Engagement.
16.10-17.00: Discussion and Closing Remarks
ABSTRACTS
A Vision for Teaching Islamic Studies in the University
Dr Jon Hoover, University of Nottingham
My address will commend 'critical humanism' as an ethical foundation for teaching Islamic
Studies in the university. Critical humanism seeks knowledge for the sake of making space in
the heart for others and participating in wider experiences of human community rather than
for domination and control. This humanism will be elaborated in dialogue with Edward
Said's critique of Orientalism, Said's secular humanism and call for a return to philology,
and my own Christian humanism. I will also provide a defense of objectivity understood not
as neutrality but as fairness and intellectual rigor in advocating one's own views and
representing the views of others.
Faith, Culture and the Secular Mind: How Do We Engage All Three?
Dr Alison Scott-Baumann, University of Gloucester,
Within Britain there are demands for better, more inclusive understanding of Islam and the
West. Internationally there are major changes afoot in the Arab world and it is likely that
these changes will have a significant impact on British Muslims: there is already considerable
debate about secularism and Islam within pluralist societies like Britain, and such debate
often polarises the secular and the Islamic as mutually exclusive and antithetical to each other
as in Huntingdon’s theory of the clash of civilisations. Aggression towards Islam is
encouraged from within the establishment, and increases the need for clarity and exposure
within the university sector. I believe that UK universities and Muslim institutions can
benefit from collaborative work and linkages which can potentially lead to cross-fertilisations
of pedagogy and intellectual context. Gender equality is also an issue that can be addressed
through development of new pedagogies. Such progress is attainable, yet requires that the
artificial polarization of Islam and the West is addressed directly and openly by all parties.
This requires a brutally honest analysis of capitalisms, secularisms and the supposed ‘Other’.
In my judgement as a philosopher this requires a new political will and a new pedagogy, and
I will propose a way forward with the use of several indicative case studies from
collaborative partnership work and gender studies. These are flawed yet perhaps more
feasible than a new political will.
Between Neo-classical Methodology and Fiqh: The Methodological (Mis)Construction
of Islamic Economics and Finance
Dr Mehmet Asutay, University of Durham,
Islamic moral economy (IME) emerged in the post-colonial period as a response to the
underdevelopment of Muslim societies with the objective of constructing an authentic
development strategy through essentialising the ontological and epistemological sources of
Islam. While identity politics shaped the initial debate and conceptualisation of IME, since
1990s Islamic finance (IF) diverged from the aspirational and moral economy worldview of
Islam by articulating itself within the methodology of neo-classical economics and
‘declaring’ its tacit ‘independence’.
This paper aims to explore the observed dichotomous methodological development of IME
and IF, as two different methodological paths. In doing so, it aims to draw attention to the
importance of teaching these subjects through their peculiar methodological frameworks
rather than a pragmatist approach in mixing and matching resulting in ‘no methodological’
approach base, which is the prevailing case in the teaching of these subjects in the academia
and beyond. Therefore, this paper suggests that in aiming to overcome taqlid (mimicking)
and contributing to knowledge through tahqiq (essentialisation of peculiar Islamic
knowledge), an essential methodological approach must be developed, so that new IF
products can be engineered within the IME framework rather than ‘Islamising’ whatever the
conventional finance offers.
The methodological incontinency of rational-legalistic position of ‘fiqhi’ process within the
‘Islamising’ process is also examined in this paper; as usul al-fiqh has developed within the
particular axiomatic and foundational base of a particular madhab. However, the fiqh process
in IF in engineering conventional products into Islamic domain use different madhab
positions in halallising the various stages of a particular product. Thus, an IF product is not
produced within the framework of one madhab as usul al-fiqh suggests but a number of
madhab injunctions is utilised to make a product Shari’ah compliant. This suggests a mixand-match approach rather than an internally consistent and externally coherent approach in
developing knowledge, which suggests the pragmatism of IF and the fiqhi process.
This paper, as a consequence, locates the current methodological failures of IF in the
‘Islamisation of knowledge movement’ attempted since 1970s. New methodological
developments, however, have to go beyond such a complacent and defeatist attitude towards
knowledge by adapting an ‘authenticating’ approach aimed at by IME beyond endogenising
‘modernity’ and ‘multiple modernities’.
25 Years of Learning and Teaching about Islam and Muslim Societies in the UK: multidisciplinary locations, changing contexts and new objects/relations of study.
Dr Sean McLaughlin, University of Leeds,
In the last 25 years, a changing social contexts and intellectual frames have gradually
challenged and transformed the location of the study of Islam and Muslims in British
universities, both in terms of a classroom and staff that is more religiously and ethnically
diverse but also theories of knowledge, objectivity and authority that are shaped by
postcolonial and postmodern thinking. In this presentation I provide some brief reflexive
snapshots of my experience as a non-Muslim, white but non-English, male, student and
teacher of Islam and Muslim societies in UK higher education since the late 1980s. However,
while personal identity has often positioned me in teaching as in research, a location towards
the periphery of ‘Islamic Studies’ in terms of Religious Studies, South Asian Studies has
been at least as important.
Reflecting on how all these issues have played out practically in the content and approach of
my teaching on Islam, contemporary Muslim societies and the UK diaspora, as well as in
relation to different constituencies of students – secular, Christian and Muslim- I will sketch
some contrasting examples of how issues of ‘objectivity’ and ‘authority’ have been
confronted and negotiated more or less successfully in interactions with undergraduate and
postgraduate students.
Teaching Women in Islam
Dr Masoumeh Velayati, Al-Maktoum Institute
The teaching of Islamic Studies in British Universities has a long history of over one hundred
years. However, Muslim women have received little attention in academic courses and hardly
any specific course has been allocated to their issues. This is despite the fact there is a large
body of literature from both secular and Islamic perspectives about Muslim women and their
issues mostly within Muslim countries and to some extent in the West. Moreover, Muslim
women as a group, face many negative stereotypes which need to be challenged in a more
constructive manner.
Therefore, this course is important as it gives a fair amount of attention to Muslim women
and their issues. The course examines the debate on women in Islam within a feminist
framework to discuss gender relations and dynamics in Muslim societies and highlight the
historical aspect of these dynamics and the contemporary challenges facing Muslim women
both in Muslim countries and the West. It evaluates the relationship between Islamic
feminism and secular feminism. It examines and analyses historical roots and development of
Islamic discourses on woman and gender. It also covers some legal and political issues with
regard to women’s rights such as marriage, divorce, dress code, and political participation in
different national contexts.
Teaching Islam beyond Orientalism: The double gaze of the Cross-cultural
Dr Shuruq Naguib, University of Lancaster
The compelling argument of Said (1978) in Orientalism transformed our view of Islamic
studies and its history by deconstructing the embeddness of knowledge produced on the
‘orient’ in colonial relations of power. This has had a significant impact on the study of
Islam and on the interrogation of the various categories through which an academic discourse
on Islam has essentialised it as the ‘other’. In the Islamic studies classroom, however, the
intellectual and ideological problematics of Orientalism are very often eschewed, or briefly
introduced as an instance of theoretical reflection at a later stage of a study programme. In
this paper, I suggest that, for a critical pedagogy, the study of Islam should be situated within
a framework of a double critique, one that interrogates constructions of both the ‘orient’ and
‘occident’ , not only to go beyond the limitations of Said’s one-sided analysis but also to
resist the resilient epistemological subjection of ‘Islam’ as an object of western fascination. I
propose that a cross-cultural framework, that is conscious of the double and reciprocal gaze it
invites, is a powerful way of achieving a double critique that allows those teaching and
studying Islam to also reflect upon the epistemological agency within Islamic discourses in
constructing the ‘occident’. This, on the basis of my teaching experience, has been a powerful
way to unsettle patterns of reproducing critical or apologetic discourses which objectify and
essentialise Islam and to bring the students of Islam to recognise and consciously question
their own positionality and their agency in knowledge production.
Teaching and Studying Islam: Consciousness and Engagement.
Dr Saeko Yazaki, University of Cambridge
How do we teach Islam, and monotheistic faiths in general? If religious truth is provided
through revelation, how can we discuss it logically when faith makes sense only to its
believers? Modern western academia is in general expected to demonstrate
intellectuality, rather than divine truth, using impartial scholarly accounts and
conceptual tools. Towards religion and ideology, secular universities are dominated by
a neutralist and rationalist atmosphere. The aim of Islamic studies, therefore, does not
concern the authenticity or falsity of the belief and practice of Muslims.
Nevertheless, the issue of authority and credentials often creeps into class, because of
the very presence of a teacher and the dialogical nature of classroom education. Some
believers may feel that their religion can be understood, and by extension taught, only
by its followers. Non-Muslim students may suspect that Muslim teachers are trying to
promote a positive image of Islam. One of the learning outcomes of secular universities,
critical analytical skills, complicates the matter further by asking believers to divorce
themselves from their belief emotionally. In front of non-Muslims and fellow believers,
Muslim students (and possibly teachers) may feel uncomfortable in demonstrating
intellectual scepticism about their belief, even though they remain firm religiously.
This paper seeks to emphasise the importance of consciousness and engagement in
teaching and studying Islam. Drawing on two different patterns of my experience in
teaching about Islam as a researcher, and Japanese religious traditions as someone from
Japan, I argue that it is unavoidable to take account of the difference in knowledge of
religion through participation and observation. In this pluralistic society, it seems more
important and realistic to learn constructive ways to cope with disagreements, not only
to seek for agreement. Challenging and being challenged through discussion should
equip us with an understanding both experientially and intellectually that particular
views of the world should not be given privilege.