Muslim Reconstructions of Knowledge and the Re-enchantment of Modernity

Abstract

Experiences of Modernity, Colonial and Postcolonial 'NA AMRIKA, na Rusia, superpower hai Khuda.' 1 Even if one part of this slogan has come true, is there not more to it than simply its anti-imperialist sentiment? Does not the invocation of God as the only superpower reveal a more generalized desire for the re-enchantment of the modern world? Similarly, is there not more to the attacks of 9/11 than political grievances, despite Osama Bin Laden's reference to the 80 years since the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate? Ironically, like so much else, lost amidst the debris of 9/11 is the deadly combination of rational scientific calculation with a martyr's heavenly reward. Whatever else 9/11 represents, surely it stands as a pre-eminent sign of the appropriation and deployment of modern scientific knowledge, technology and skill against the very heart of economic and institutional modernity in the name of religion. It is the deployment of modernity against itself. Two generations earlier, the Nazis had turned the technological fruits of modernity against the Jews, many of whom were the leading lights of modernity. 9/11 reminds us of the distinction that the Frankfurt School made between formal and substantive rationality and alerts us that 'others' have appropriated the scientific, rational calculations of large-scale death and destruction -the dark underbelly of modernity -just as cultural modernity becomes globalized.Yet the obsession of the jihadists and of other neo-revivalist and revolutionary movements with re-enchanting the political obscures more holistic treatments of modernity from a Muslim perspective. Of course, the economic and political weakness of Muslim societies constitutes a very important element in the lived reality of Muslims. The failure of postcolonial Muslim societies to actualize the fruits promised by modernization schemes and development programmes, while exposing those societies to the values inherent in such programmes, highlights the entrenchment not only of

A Very Modern Ghost: Postcolonialism and the Politics of Enchantment

“…Enchantment is both ambiguous and ambivalent and rarely is it defined with any great precision, one reason being that it is a complex and inherently vague term, the meaning and discursive use of which has changed over time. Despite this, "re-enchantment" has recently become a political end in itself, not simply within celebrations of non-rationalism, but in terms of a more profound dialogue between Western social theory and "Other" knowledges (Zaidi, 2006), in fostering an ethical engagement with the world (Bennett, 2001) and as a means of building a new politics of solidarity (Amin, 2006). Characterizing modernity as disenchanted is seen as both discouraging affective attachment to the world and restricting how the world is understood and imagined.…”

Producing the Conjugal Patriarchal Family in Maulana Thanvi’s Heavenly Ornaments: Biopolotics, ‘Shariatic Modernity’ and Managing Women

“…He discusses how modernization has been disassociated from its European origins so as to seem natural. He thus criticizes this because one cannot dissociate "rational structures" working in Europe from its particularities (in Zaidi 2006). These particular rational structures produced a public space in Europe made up of subjects engaging in rational debate (Habermas 1989, 43).…”

“…In order to justify my use of this concept, I will outline how Thanvi's reformist ideas are not inherently oppositional to the logics of Bourgeois modernist production of the conjugal family and the scientific management of the private sphere (Abu-Lughod, 1998). Though I am not claiming that a European Victorian mode of modernity was synonymous with Thanvi's reformist sentiments, I will reveal that the Bahishti Zewar can be thought of as a modern text, though one articulating an alternative modernity (Göle 2002;Zaidi 2006;Gaonkar 2001) organized around Thanvi's selective interpretation of shariatic principles. This will reveal the ability to rethink modernity's relationship with reformist Islamic sentiment and challenge the denial of coavelesence (Fabian 1983) between modernity's temporality and Islam, as well as challenging the idea that Thanvi refuted modernity (Naeem 2003, 2).…”

Islamic Studies within Islam: definition, approaches and challenges of modernity

“…The plan suggested includes three steps: 1) the mastery of Islamic legacy; 2) the mastery of modern disciplines; 3) a critique of both and a recommendation for ī Islamic Studies within Islam 265 the rewriting of modern disciplines along Islamic lines. The project, despite the objections raised against it by a number of critics, has turned into a movement in which different scholars and institutions collaborate in a variety of fields (Bugaje, 1996;Zaidi, 2006). Among the most significant achievements is the birth of the new disciplines of Islamic economics and Islamic education.…”