Book Review
What is Islam? (by Shahab Ahmed)
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- Many scholars of Islam have presented resolutions to this tension. Some argue that the behavior in question was the cultural norm at the time. Since Islam may have been perceived as only regarding an individual’s private life, publicly acceptable activities like wine consumption were not considered un-Islamic. Others think the matter is more simple: The figures in Islamic history were simply being poor Muslims.
- But Ahmed rejects these resolutions. The first is uncompelling because Islam expressly concerns itself with both the public and private spheres of society. The second, meanwhile, is too simplistic. Ahmed argues that what is needed is a revision of the concept of "Islam." The reason we consider activities like wine-drinking un-Islamic is that we are tied to a very specific conception of Islam, that of Islam as law which prescribes and proscribes certain behaviors. Islam should instead be conceived in a way that “makes space” for the activities of the medievals, or makes space for "contradiction" in all its sense. Once Islam is thought of in an inclusive way, the tension melts away. Activities once considered un-Islamic are no longer so.
- The way Ahmed defends this thesis is to propose that Islam can be conceived in multiple ways — as Textual Revelation, as Pre-Textual analysis and as the Context of the revelation — and that activities which are prohibited on one conception might be perfectly legitimate on another. Wine-drinking, for instance, is explicitly prohibited by Quranic Text. But it may be permitted for Muslims who engage with the Pre-Textual meaning of Revelation, like the Sufis of South Asia who aim to access the deepest spirituality and transcendence. So even though wine-drinking might seem un-Islamic because it is forbidden along one register of Islam (the strictly Textual one), in reality, it is permissible because it is acceptable on another register (the Pre-Textual one). Other activities like idolatry, philosophy, and poetry can be similarly reconciled with Pre-Textual or Contextual engagement. To come full circle, it is a mistake to think the early Muslims were engaging in un-Islamic activities. That view is based on an unjustified fixation on Textual Revelation (synonymous with the legalistic conception of Islam). In reality, those Muslims were engaging with other conceptions of Islam, so their activities were perfectly Islamic.
- What Shahab Ahmed is doing is ambitious, but it leads us down a slippery slope. Is there any limit then to what activity can be considered Islamic? For instance, if a new sect of Muslims (call them the "Kufis") engages with Pre-Textual revelation in such an unreasonable way that they begin killing kittens in the name of Islam, does that activity automatically become Islamic? Some kind of “reasonableness criteria” is needed here to exclude obviously wrong behavior from the fold of Islam, but Ahmed doesn’t provide one. So I think his "inclusionary" view of Islam is just too inclusionary to avoid unintended implications.
- There are other things I found fascinating about his work too, like the thought that "Islam is a process of engagement," "one does Islam as opposed to follows Islam," "Islam is meaning-making as opposed to meaning-prescribing" and so on; these are fascinating ideas that I don’t have space to treat here.
- I did find Ahmed’s writing style rather annoying though. He uses a lot of jargon and ropy, complex sentences that are not pleasing to read. The topic was engaging, which was good, but crisp writing would have made it even more gripping.