I Want to Become an Orientalist Not a Colonizer or a “De-Colonizer”

Abstract

Writing Studying the Qurʾan in the Muslim Academy emerged out of my personal and academic concerns, which have not been relieved since its publication. Now, my trepidations have become more serious and I am becoming more disappointed about the future of religious and Islamic studies. Such concerns have not disappeared, and all we can do is remind the next generation that their field of study as well as their worldview was shaped in accordance with the proclivity of seniors, superiors, job-givers and policy-makers. The current symposium dedicated to my book, to which this is a response, includes essays by well-versed scholars with Muslim backgrounds. They all draw my attention to the diversity, complexity and importance of the notions we use regularly in the study of Islam. Each of the essays suggests how the discourse on method and theory in the study of Islam has changed within the last decade.

The Qurʾān and Science, Part I: The Premodern Era

“…Al-Nīsābūrī adopts the same approach, holding that certain astronomical and astrological discoveries are helpful in comprehending God's presence and power (see Morrison 2005). Elaborating on al-Ghazālī's argument about God's authority and power over the universe, al-Rāzī and al-Nīsābūrī explain nature as an aspect of scientific knowledge (see Daneshgar 2018).…”

“…For them, Bucaille's work is not a simple project about the relationship between religion and science but granted a fresh voice to anti‐Westerners and anti‐Orientalists. The work of these scholars soon became a vehicle for Muslim decolonizers who aimed to exclude Judeo‐Christian believers from two disciplines of Islamic studies and Islam and science (see Daneshgar 2020).…”

Tafsir Studies and the Conundrum of Normativity

“…In the fields of Qur'anic studies and Hadith studies, the clash of faith-based epistemologies of trust with historical-critical epistemologies of suspicion is arguably still rampant today, combined with a mutual perception that the subject is politicised (Daneshgar, 2020;Rizvi, 2020;Hernandez Aguilar and Ahmad, 2020: 101-02;Daneshgar, 2021). The question now is whether this clash of epistemologies and values is equally rampant in the field of tafsir studies, which is less occupied with questions of the origins of foundational texts, and more with the reception of these foundational texts in the later tradition.…”