S Sayyid | University of Leeds (original) (raw)

Books by S Sayyid

"A Postcolonial People" is a lively, critical survey of contemporary South Asian Britain that fil... more "A Postcolonial People" is a lively, critical survey of contemporary South Asian Britain that fills a conspicuous gap in the literature. This specially commissioned book combines conceptually innovative analysis with empirically rich studies to map out the diversity of the British Asian way of life. The migration and settlement of South Asians in large numbers in Britain is examined in the context of the postcolonial condition, in which boundaries between the West and Rest, centre and periphery, home and abroad are increasingly blurred. The contributors provide both fresh insights and vital information on the Asian British experience in its socio-economic, historical and cultural dimensions. The topics covered include: identity, the transformation of urban space, policing, healthcare, electoral politics, music, British Asian theatre and cinema.

Use of the term Islamophobia is today both inexorable and controversial. Thinking Through Islamop... more Use of the term Islamophobia is today both inexorable and controversial. Thinking Through Islamophobia offers a series of critical engagements with the concept, its history and deployment, and the phenomena that it seeks to marshal. In an original and pioneering collection of essays twenty-eight contributors hailing from diverse disciplinary and geographical backgrounds draw on their expertise to map out the tensions between the concept and the phenomena as they are played out across different contexts and continents. Extending the discussion of Islamophobia beyond its commonplace focus on the West and staking a claim for the continuing relevance and critical purchase of Islamophobia in struggles for justice, Thinking Through Islamophobia locates the polemical debates on Islamophobia within wider cultural and political mobilizations engendered by the 'Muslim question'.

The Muslim question continues to vex the world. The answers to this question come in many forms: ... more The Muslim question continues to vex the world. The answers to this question come in many forms: public policy, academic analysis as well as sensationalist headlines. This book presents a philosophical take on the Muslim question. In doing so, it explores some of the philosophical assumptions that frame the way in which the rise of Muslim political identity throughout the planet presents challenges which are not only cultural and geopolitical but also conceptual. In a series of reflections, Islamism as Philosophy teases out some of the complexities of the emergence of Muslim political identities, complexities which are often covered up by the latest screaming headline. This book argues that a world in which a quarter of the population seems increasingly conscious of its "Musliminess" cannot be peaceful or harmonious or just without careful attention being paid to the Muslim question. Islamism as Philosophy's opening gambit is that increasing consciousness of the Muslim is neither superficial nor transitory and as such requires rigorous and serious consideration.If the Muslim Awakening is a wave of world historical import akin to the emergence of nationalism in the nineteenth and twentieth century, then the choices that present themselves are either to try and roll back the tide or learn to surf.

Articles by S Sayyid

Patterns of Prejudice, 2018

This article explores the relationship between the emergence of Islamophobia and the crisis of E... more This article explores the relationship between the emergence of Islamophobia and the crisis of Europeanness. What is it about Europeanness right now that makes one of its most vocal expressions an insistence on the Muslim question? To answer, or perhaps address, the question of why the Muslim question and why now, Sayyid places the formation of European identity in a postcolonial context. That is, the horizon opened by the decentring of the West not only geopolitically or economically but also culturally and philosophically is explored. East Central Europe in its various permutations—historical and cultural—provides an excellent platform to study the impact of the postcolonial on Europeanness. The East Central European experience of the postcolonial is inﬂected through a history of imperial articulations and peripheralizations that demonstrate not only the contingency of the idea of Europeanness but also its imbrication with the Orient.

A Postcolonial People, 2008

Defence Studies, 2007

... See CA Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914 (Oxford: Blackwell 2004) and Amira El‐... more ... See CA Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914 (Oxford: Blackwell 2004) and Amira El‐Azhary Sonbol, The New Mamluks: Egyptian Society and ... Among Muslims, Mustafa Kemal was the most prominent political figure to embrace the ideology of 'the West is the best'. ...

http://www.jstor.org/journal/reorient

The growing literature on Islamophobia is dominated by empirical studies, the analysis of media r... more The growing literature on Islamophobia is dominated by empirical studies, the analysis of media representations and socio-psychological approaches, while many of these
studies have been valuable in illustrating the range of expressions of Islamophobia; they have been less successful in understanding the phenomena, and mapping its relationship with other forms of discriminatory practices such as racism and anti-Semitism. This article presents a conceptual examination of the category of Islamophobia and the work it is called upon to do in contemporary debates, as prelude to a discussion about what a theorization of this concept could contribute to the field of social analysis and policy.

Current Sociology, 2012

In this article we are not concerned with the management of extremists, but with the regulation o... more In this article we are not concerned with the management of extremists, but with the regulation of wider populations stereotyped as extreme based on the conflation of difference with politicality. Attempts to regulate racialized populations by excising the political surplus seen as constituting excessive Muslim difference are viewed in the
context of a Muslim identity politics that places the ontology of the social into crisis by challenging the terms on which modernity’s racial projects subjectify actors. As seemingly non-racial, Muslims are represented as haunting, incorporeal and incomplete subjects. Islamophobia emerges as a corrective, racializing apparently incompletely
racial subjects. Its success is underwritten by the attempts to deny the racist nature of Islamophobia. The shift from managing lawbreakers to stereotyping entire populations
as extremists is central to this.

An engagment with Richard Bulliet's Cotton, Climate and Camels.

Contemporary South Asia, 2002

In recent years, political con ict in Pakistan (along with much of the Muslim world) has increasi... more In recent years, political con ict in Pakistan (along with much of the Muslim world) has increasingly taken the form of an explicit contest between forces that advocate a social order that is centred around Islam, and those that oppose the establishment of such an order. In the context of this struggle, it is often argued that the founder of the country, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, would have opposed any attempt to establish an Islamist state. As such, the debates about the legacy of the Quaid-e-Azam are not of a purely academic interest since they form one of the main currencies through which political discourse in Pakistan is articulated. The various attempts to represent Jinnah are at the same time the means by which the different political tendencies within Pakistan have tried to account for the country's formation and, through that accounting, construct its very identity. The debates about Jinnah are not just attempts to understand what kind of entity Pakistan was intended to be, but also attempts to determine what kind of country Pakistan is and should be.

Papers by S Sayyid

International Affairs, 1993

The decision the storm the coalition and the counter-coalition the propaganda battle the heirs&#3... more The decision the storm the coalition and the counter-coalition the propaganda battle the heirs' expectations the unattractive "bedouin" and the ugly "Arab" an American conspiracy or a new world orders? the future - dialogue or explosion.

Oxford University Press eBooks, Jul 30, 1998

11 POLITICAL ANALYSIS IN A WORLD WITHOUT FOUNDATIONS BOBBY SAYYID AND LILIAN ZAC In the short sto... more 11 POLITICAL ANALYSIS IN A WORLD WITHOUT FOUNDATIONS BOBBY SAYYID AND LILIAN ZAC In the short story Death and the Compass by Jorge Luis Rorges, the'daring perspicacity* of detective Erik Lonnrot is challenged by the murder of Marcell ...

Countering Islamophobia in Europe, 2019

We've been discussing whether Islam belongs to Germany a sixth year in a row, right? And it got w... more We've been discussing whether Islam belongs to Germany a sixth year in a row, right? And it got worse every year, it was so humiliating just watching how people would engage in a debate that will question a religious minority in Germany their right to exist […] it has become so humiliating to be part of these discourses, like why would I engage in a debate where the outcome might be that I don't belong, that my very existence in this country is being questioned, why do even engage in these debates, it is so humiliating. Why would I have a discussion with someone who neglects my humanity, who neglects my very existence, and I just realized that it's become so humiliating, but we just kept a nice face, and smiling and nodding, and you know trying to be reasonable, when it was actually time to say shut the fuck up [laughing] you know, I had enough of this. Interview with a Muslim activist The debate my interviewee referred to is the ongoing dispute over whether Islam belongs to Germany. Legally, this debate is completely redundant

Patterns of Prejudice, 2018

A Postcolonial People, 2008

Defence Studies, 2007

http://www.jstor.org/journal/reorient

Current Sociology, 2012

An engagment with Richard Bulliet's Cotton, Climate and Camels.

Contemporary South Asia, 2002

International Affairs, 1993

Oxford University Press eBooks, Jul 30, 1998

Countering Islamophobia in Europe, 2019

Adelaide Festival of Ideas session, Adelaide Town Hall Auditorium, 3.30pm, Sunday 9th October, 20... more Adelaide Festival of Ideas session, Adelaide Town Hall Auditorium, 3.30pm, Sunday 9th October, 2011. Chaired by Sarah Macneil.Paul Collins, Salman Sayyid, Phillip Adams, John Sulan & Sarah Macneilhttp://adelaidefestivalofideas.com.au

The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalization, 2017

Hybridity and its discontents: politics, science, culture, 2000

12 Bad faith: anti-essentialism, universalism and Islamism S. Sayyid In recent years there has be... more 12 Bad faith: anti-essentialism, universalism and Islamism S. Sayyid In recent years there has been a proliferation of political projects that claim to be manifestations of authentic cultural practices, untainted by western inﬂuences. These projects of cultural absolutism have an ...

The appearance of Islam in the contemporary world is marked by its disruptive role. Mainly, this ... more The appearance of Islam in the contemporary world is marked by its disruptive role. Mainly, this disruption is represented through international crisis or social and cultural problems of cohesion and integration; however, there is also an epistemological dimension. This epistemological dimension takes the form of a recurring series of disputes within the US academy over the status of Islamic Studies and related disciplines. If one steps back from the often personalized, and occasionally petty tones of these debates in which academic reputations and careers are ventured, it is possible to see the contours of this epistemological conflict: In one corner are those who believe that their venerable discipline has been invaded by ‘identity politics’ or ‘political correctness’ or anti-Americanism or whatever is the current designation of the latest threat to the civilizing mission as we know it. In the opposite corner are those who seem in the claims on behalf of the discipline to conduct ...

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2013

Eurocentrism, Racism and Knowledge, 2015

Now that the Age of Europe seems to have receded into the past, there is uncertainty as to what h... more Now that the Age of Europe seems to have receded into the past, there is uncertainty as to what has taken its place. Among the various labels used to describe this set of circumstances is post-colonialism. Post-colonialism is rather an ambiguous term. Empirically it is used to designate the post-war regimes that emerged in the wake of the decolonization of European empires. The use of the prefix ‘post’ suggests that colonialism is sous rature (under erasure), that is, there is a recognition that the category of colonialism is no longer adequate to describe the current ordering of the world, but it is clear that the current conjuncture continues to be haunted by coloniality. It is important to understand that post-coloniality does not suggest the end of colonialism. Outside the most dogmatic of unreconstructed dependency theorists, however, most people would accept that in some senses the European empires have been dismantled. At the same time, formal dismantling of the European empires has not simply meant the recovery of a world prior to the Age of Europe. Post-colonial denotes an interregnum; between the end of the Age of Europe and something as yet undefined to come. Conceptually the post-colonial is associated with the field of literary and cultural studies, where it seems to present a Third World analogue to the advanced capitalist countries’ post-modernism.

Countering Islamophobia in Europe, 2019

The ten dominant counter-narratives identified across Europe to Islamophobia and discussed in rel... more The ten dominant counter-narratives identified across Europe to Islamophobia and discussed in relation to national contexts are ranked and synthesised in this chapter. These in descending order of prevalence challenged constructions of Muslim ‘threat’, challenged exclusionary national projects, emphasised cultural compatibility and conviviality, elaborated Muslim plurality, challenged narratives of sexism, sought to build inclusive futures and deracialise the state, argued for Muslim normalisation, humanity and the creation of Muslim space(s) and challenged distorted representations of Muslims in the media and elsewhere.

Politics, Religion & Ideology, 2019

International Journal of Mass Spectrometry and Ion Physics, 1978

Areportisgivenoftheresultsofan~~nsiveseriesofmeasur&en& ofthe quadrupole-spectrometerpe2forlnan c... more Areportisgivenoftheresultsofan~~nsiveseriesofmeasur&en& ofthe quadrupole-spectrometerpe2forlnan ce when operatingintheretardingmode. It is shqwn that this mode has somesignificaxitadvantag~overconventio~~perationforthemassrange 40-500 a-mu. In~particuku,thereisless dependence uporimechani~ imperfections in the quadrupole Iens ksembly, withconsequeixtimprovement'inlongt@rnistabilitg_Also, because tbeanalyser operateswithoutany applied d-c. voItage;thedefocussingactionat its entrance is reduced and therefore 1986s discrimin ation reduced. Satellite peaks have been identified ss arising from third-and fou&h-&der dis&btia?s in the c@adrupok field. Mapping the positidn of these satellites ovtirthe-xirh&e'&bilit region h&pi the understandingoftheeffectoffieldimperfections. _-DJ'I'RODUCITON This paper reports an investigati?n into the chara&eristics of a qtidnipole mass spectrometer in the re@rding mod& of operation [l,Z]i The initiatitie for this work has been-the observation that the ne& diode-'of o@eration, f&t report& by Brinbmann Cl], 'cti have sigGfi&nt opera&ng advantages, particularly., for an in&rum&nt with a-pooi r&chahical

Patterns of Prejudice, 2017

The advent of a post-racial understanding of racism has changed the way in which Europe sees itse... more The advent of a post-racial understanding of racism has changed the way in which Europe sees itself and its ethnic minorities. The concept of the post-racial emerged in the United States to describe a belief that America was no longer a racist society and the election of Barack Obama to the highest office in the land was a public and highly visible confirmation of that state of affairs. A global post-racial culture has taken hold of western plutocracies in which racism is universally denounced but increasingly difficult to pin down. Sayyid's study, by using a decolonial analytics, examines the different ways in which racism is imagined and how this imagination shapes the way in which the post-racial appears. The paper goes on to sketch out an alternative account of the post-racial as an aspect of the various trends that have been described as being post-political. KEYWORDS anti-racism, critical race theory, decoloniality, political, post-political, postracial, racism J acques Derrida famously-perhaps rather grumpily-rebuked an interviewer: 'Deconstruction the way I understand it doesn't produce any sitcom, and if a sitcom is this and this, and the people who watch this and think that Deconstruction is this, the only advice I have to give them is to just read, stop watching sitcoms, and try and do your own homework and read.' 1 This admonishment was directed at an interviewer who tried to link the popular tagline of Seinfeld-a show about nothing-with deconstruction. 2 Seinfeld, which aired from 1989 to 1998, is often considered to be a seminal television sitcom. The show is centred on a group of four white New Yorkers, living in what now can be described as the interregnum between the end of the Cold War and the launching of the war on terror. The show can be seen as a self-knowing and self-absorbed comedy of manners, in the context of 1 Derrida, dir. Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering (New York: Zeitgeist Films, 2002). For the screenplay, see Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering Kofman, Derrida: Screenplay and Essays on the Film (Manchester: Manchester University Press 2005). 2 To be fair to Derrida, the Australian reporter probably provoked his ire because her question seemed to demonstrate a knowledge neither of deconstruction (that is, deconstruction is not about nothing) or of Seinfeld, which is also not about nothing but highly textured and tightly plotted with series of overlapping arcs.

A Critical Introduction to Khomeini

The Emergence of Combative Clerical Activism Ruhollah Khomeini belonged to a generation of cleric... more The Emergence of Combative Clerical Activism Ruhollah Khomeini belonged to a generation of clerics who had been deeply affected and antagonized by the policies of Reza Shah Pahlavi, which had sought to undermine the sociopolitical influence of the clergy. At the same time, Khomeini was a product of the traditional religious and educational milieu of the seminary ( hawza ) established in the shrine city of Qom by the quietist Ayatollah Abdolkarim Ha’eri-Yazdi, who was permitted to do so by the Shah. The Qom seminary – the Iranian counterpart to the one in Najaf, Iraq – enabled the beleaguered Iranian clerics to retain their residual institutionalized social power and enhance their capacity for self-perpetuation and the reproduction of their cultural capital. The ease of political restrictions in the aftermath of Reza Shah’s abdication in 1941 and the rise of secular and particularly leftist ideologies that provoked the anxieties of the traditional classes provided the clerics with an opportunity to reassert themselves. They attempted unsuccessfully to secure a formal reversal of some of Reza Shah’s policies, particularly the banning of the veil in public. Efforts toward this end by Ayatollahs such as Hossein Qomi – who appeared to enjoy the goodwill of the new Shah, Mohammad Reza – bore insufficient fruit. The emergence of the Tudeh Party, however, despite its professions of respect for religious sensibilities, alerted the traditionalists and other anti-leftists to the utility of religion as an antidote to secular trends. Traditionalists such as Sayyed Zia al-Din Tabataba’i, the Anglophile former prime minister, had a penchant for religious sentiments or at least utilized them for instrumental, utilitarian purposes. Against the background of growing anti-imperialist nationalism, the Tudeh Party was hampered by its affiliation to the Soviet Union; civic-nationalism, increasingly associated with the National Front and particularly the name of Mohammad Mosaddeq, was on the rise. Advocating national intellectual-ideological autonomy and political independence, the Front sought to establish constitutional government and secure Iranian sovereign rights over the country’s oil resources and industry.

Defence Studies, 2013

In 1948, George Orwell, a journalist, broadcaster and sometime police informer, wrote a book port... more In 1948, George Orwell, a journalist, broadcaster and sometime police informer, wrote a book portraying the future of the world as the triumph of totalitarianism. The grey new world which was portrayed in Nineteen Eighty-Four was one in which the state absorbed all social relations, in which ideology consumed ethics, language, literature, art, and in fact everything that good liberals believe make human existence special. Orwell’s vision of the future, like all good fiction, made sense of a world that seemed too complex, too frightening and too contradictory to be easily comprehended. The genius of his invention was such that Nineteen Eighty-Four became a book that seeped into the general consciousness of at least the Anglophonic plutocracies. This can be seen in the way in which the language of Nineteen Eighty-Four was used by people who not did even read the book. It became a meta-book: a book that was known through its commentary and its appearance in other narratives. Orwell’s portrait of a possible future could be read as both a prediction and a warning. With the collapse of the Soviet empire it would seem that Nineteen Eighty-Four is no longer useful as a rough guide to the world. The threat of totalitarianism seems to have passed, leaving in its wake a fundamental bewilderment. This sense of confusion has become even more perplexing as we move from a vision of a world in which history had come to an end to a world racked by a never-ending war. There are three problems that confront any attempt to comprehend the current world order. The first is an empirical problem. Given the heterogeneity and complexity of the world, it is argued that it is difficult to draw a picture that includes all its divergent trajectories and

Islamophobia’s occurrence in any particular country has little do with the presence of Muslim; it... more Islamophobia’s occurrence in any particular country has little do with the presence of Muslim; it is possible to be Islamophobic when there are virtually no Muslim around. This because the lack of Muslims is filled by the surplus of Islamophobic representations. This surplus of representations is now increasingly reliant on the internet. There are many studies reporting on Islamophobia on the internet, classifying the negative representations, the targeted acts of aggressive online behaviour (trolling) against Muslims. These studies are basically taxonomies, and they share this feature with general literature on Islamophobia, which is concerned with reporting instances of Islamophobia empirically with little time spent on its theorisation. Such an understanding of Islamophobia implies that it is simply dismissed as being a matter of prejudice, bias, and closed views. A Critical Muslim Studies understanding of Islamophobia developed initially in the collected volume Thinking Through ...

To mark the fth anniversary of the journal ReOrient, the Centre for Ethnic and Racism Studies (CE... more To mark the fth anniversary of the journal ReOrient, the Centre for Ethnic and Racism Studies (CERS) at the University of Leeds will be hosting the rst international conference on Critical Muslim Studies. The current proliferation of the 'critical' as a pre x in an ever-increasing range of elds and sites addressing and engaging Islam, Muslims and the Islamicate raises the questions: why and why now? The ability to identify Eurocentrism as an epistemological and methodological problem has long presented a challenge and opportunity to advance approaches that engage in a serious and sustained manner with Orientalism and White Supremacism and its legacies in shaping our understanding of the world. A disparity of e orts, however, is discernible among scholars grappling in di erent elds against the impasses of positivism, presentism and the entrenchment of disciplines in epistemic cages forged as part of Europe's worldmaking. The key touchstones of Critical Muslim Studies, emphasise scholarship that is non-positivist, and conceptually rigorous. It is an approach that includes being attentive to racial formations and processes of racialisation; engaging with comparative and transnational context and processes on a global scale, and mapping out non-linear histories, discontinuities, and genealogies. This international and interdisciplinary conference aims to bring into conversation researchers who may not necessarily identify themselves as doing Critical Muslim Studies but share some of the same concerns and interests and recognize the need for epistemic decolonisation. We invite individual and panel proposals from any relevant disciplinary eld. Contributions can be historical or contemporary, theoretical or substantive. Proposals of individual papers or panels should include the title, an abstract of around 300 words, and the name(s) and a short biographical note (of approximately 50 words) about the speaker(s). All submissions should be sent to: Sarah McLaughlin | S.McLaughlin1@leeds.ac.uk

http://www.jstor.org/journal/reorient

2nd of December 2015, Brunei Gallery, SOAS-University of London. Panel with S. Sayyid, Samia Bano... more 2nd of December 2015, Brunei Gallery, SOAS-University of London. Panel with S. Sayyid, Samia Bano, Rob Gleave, Ruth Mas and Brian Klug.
ReOrient is a new peer reviewed, international and interdisciplinary journal. It is a platform for a sustained collective thought experiment that seeks to explore the consequences of producing knowledge that is no longer organised around the axis of West and non-West.

ReOrient is published by Pluto Journals and distributed internationally by JSTOR. For more information please go to
http://www.jstor.org/journal/reorient

SEKÜLERİZM I Seküleristler, şeytanlar, melekler ya da Tanrı hakkındaki bir konuşmanın kamusal ala... more SEKÜLERİZM I Seküleristler, şeytanlar, melekler ya da Tanrı hakkındaki bir konuşmanın kamusal alanda yapılmamasını tercih ederler, zira çoğu zaman seküler ile dini olan arasında kati bir ayrımın korunmamasının bugün büyük bir şiddetin nedeni olduğunu düşünürler; Akeel Bilgrami'nin sekülerizm ve relativizm üzerine yazdığı bir makalede belirttiği gibi: Kişinin sekülerist olduğunu ilan etmesinin (ve ben burada bunu yapıyorum) her zamankinden daha acil göründüğü bir zamanda yaşıyoruz; Hıristiyan sağ düşüncesinin hâkim olduğu bir hükümet tarafından savaşların yürütüldüğü; İslam adına teröre başvurulduğu; sürekli yerinden edilmiş nüfusun topraklarının işgalinin, açıkça Yahudiliğe gönderme yapan bir devlet tarafından sürdürüldüğü; kuşatılmış bir azınlığın, hayali bir Hindu görkemini yeniden canlandırmak isteyen çoğunluğun planlı kalkışmalarında öldürüldüğü bir zamandan bahsediyoruz (2004: 174). Buna karşılık, Saba Mahmood gerekli olanın şu olduğunu savunur: sekülerizmin yeniden ileri sürülmesi için çok katı ve sofuca çağrılar değil, ama sekülerizmin hakikati olduğu varsayılan herşeyin, onun normatif iddialarının ve bu dünyada 'insani olanı' neyin oluşturduğuna dair varsayımlarının eleştirel bir analizine ihtiyaç vardır. Bu tür bir çalışma, basitçe zihinsel olarak değil, ama bizim seküler vizyonun ahlaki üstünlüğü olarak kabul ettiğimiz her şeyin acilen yeniden düşünülmesini gerektirdiğinden dolayı zor ve çetindir. Bu seküler vizyonun aslında günümüz dünyasında büyük bir bağlılık uyandırmadığı gerçeği dışında, ne yazık ki bir şiddet eğilimi kabulüne dayandığı nadiren sorgulanmaktadır (2006: 347). Mahmood, Teröre karşı Savaş'ın bir parçası olarak ABD destekli teolojik reform kampanyası ile Kur'an'ın daha çok atomize okumaları vasıtasıyla İslam'ın sekülerist bir yorumunu savunur gibi görünen bir grup 'ılımlı Müslüman' düşünürün eserleri arasındaki örtüşmeyi inceleyerek devam eder1. Bilgrami, muhtemelen böyle bir örtüşmenin tesadüfî öneme sahip olduğunu düşünecektir; sekülerizmin çeşitli düşmanları (Hıristiyan Sağ, İslamcılar, Hindutva savunucuları ve ultra-Siyonistler) arasında denklik kurma çabasının, genel kucaklayıcılığını gösterdiğini, bu şekilde sekülerizmin Müslümanları dövmek için kullanılan bir başka sopa olduğuna dair endişeleri giderebileceğini düşünecektir. Planlı küresel anti-sekülerist güçlerin günümüz dünyasında aktif çalıştığı düşüncesi bir dizi ihmalin ve tutarsızlığın dolaşıma sokulmasını gerektirir. Örneğin, İsrail'in işgali ve Filistinlilerin baskılanmasında dini bir meşrulaştırma görmek isteyen birinin, Siyonist devletin ağırlıklı olarak [millet olarak] Yahudi (Jewish) olmaya değil [din olarak] Yahudiliğe (Judaic) gönderme yaparak meşrulaştırılmasını 1 Başka bir bölümde Kur'ân'ın atomistik okumalarının zorluklarını tartışacağım.

Sekülerizm, dini olan ile siyasi olan arasındaki sınırı denetleyerek, aynı zamanda modern öncesi ... more Sekülerizm, dini olan ile siyasi olan arasındaki sınırı denetleyerek, aynı zamanda modern öncesi ile modern ve Batılı ile Batılı olmayan arasındaki sınırları denetlemenin başka bir aracı haline gelir. Talal Asad’ın belirttiği gibi, seküler ile dini arasındaki ayrımlar sabit değildir; farklı zamanlarda, farklı amaçlar için yeniden şekillendirilir (Asad, 2003: 25-6). Sekülerizm ve din kavramlarının anlamı; Batı ve Batı-dışı arasındaki ayrımın hâkim olduğu bir dünya tarihine dahil edilmek suretiyle bulunmalıdır. Genellikle dini olanın, sadece seküler bir kategori değil, aynı zamanda –sadece ontik değil, aynı zamanda ontolojik olarak- Batılı bir kategori olduğu savunulur. Dini olanı neyin oluşturduğunun sekülerist belirlenimi; Asad’ın yönelttiği sekülerizmin antropolojisinin neden olmadığı sorusunun belki de cevabıdır (age.: 21-2). Varsayılan durumun seküler olmak olarak kabulü, açıklanması gerekenin din olduğu anlamına gelir. Varsayılan seküler olmak konumu, Batılı olmanın insan olmak ve bu nedenle açıklanması gerekenin Batılı olmama durumu olduğu Batıca’da varsayılan kabulün kendisinden kaynaklanır 15. Şimdilerde Batılı ve Batı-dışı kimlik arasındaki sınır sert çatışmalar, Müslüman uyanışına dair olanlardır. Sekülerizm kategorisi ve ilişkili tropların (mecazların) konuşlandırılması, Müslüman otonomi ve failliğinin olumlanmasına direnç ifade etmenin en önemli araçlarından biridir. Dolayısıyla Mahmood
(2006) sekülerizmin ABD (ve diğer Batılı plütokrasiler) tarafından konuşlandırılmasının çeşitli biçimlerine işaret ederken; söz konusu olan Batılı olanın Batılı olmayan üzerindeki üstünlüğüdür. Bu üstünlük; hem felsefi ve jeopolitik olarak eklemlenir ve ekonomik, kültürel ve elbette askeri olarak savunulur.

Tezkire Dergisi, sayı 52

Özet 1998'de İran'ın o zamanki Cumhurbaşkanı olan Muhammed Hatemi CNN'e bir mülakat verdi. Bu mül... more Özet 1998'de İran'ın o zamanki Cumhurbaşkanı olan Muhammed Hatemi CNN'e bir mülakat verdi. Bu mülakatta Hatemi İran'ı çevreleme politikasını atlatmanın bir yolu olarak Amerikan halkına hitap etme girişiminde bulundu. Hatemi Tocqueville'in eserlerini kullanarak hem Birleşik Devletler hem de İran İslam Cumhuriyeti'nin temellerini destekleyen prensipler arasındaki türdeşliği göstermeye çalıştı. Daha genelde medeniyetler diyaloğunun "medeniyetler çatışması" fikrinin yerini alacağını umdu. Bu makalede Hatemi'nin müdahalesini bir örnek olarak kullanarak medeniyetler çatışmasına bir panzehir olarak medeniyetler görüşmesinin imkanını inceliyorum.

Jorge Luis Borges'in Ölüm ve Pusula adlı kısa hikayesinde dedektif Erik Lonnrot'un gözüpek idrak ... more Jorge Luis Borges'in Ölüm ve Pusula adlı kısa hikayesinde dedektif Erik Lonnrot'un gözüpek idrak yeteneğine, ünlü bir Talmud alimi olan Marcell Yarmolinsky cinayetiyle meydan okunur. Cinayet mahallinde üzerinde "Adın ilk harfi söylendi" yazılı bir kâğıt bulunur. Lonnrot gizemi çözüp katili yakalamak ve hahamın katlinin sebebini ortaya çıkarmak amacıyla Yarmolinsky'nin yapıtlarını yoğun bir şekilde incelemeye başlar. Lonnrot, Yarmolinsky'nin dünyasının mantığını anlayarak aynı zamanda katilin dünyasını da anlamaya başlayacağını ve böylece katilin kimliğini keşfedeceğini düşünür.