Ideology, utopia and Islam on campus: how to free speech a little from its own terrors

A dominant narrative on many British campuses is ‘Prevent’, which is part of the government’s counter-terror policy, an ideology based on fear. Muslims, in particular, are considered to be at risk of radicalisation on campus, and being under suspicion makes them self-censor. Additionally, the no-platforming student lobby creates a utopian, idealised atmosphere that seeks to reduce dissent. Self-censorship and no-platforming are reducing the diversity of opinions expressed at universities, yet there is no evidence of illegality on campus. Spinoza, JS Mill and Hannah Arendt demanded various forms of free speech for a healthy society, and the free speech issue is the key to ‘Prevent’ which suppresses opinions that are different from the dominant government narratives. The challenge now, in the tide of BREXIT and Trump, is how to free speech, even a little, from the pincer grip of establishment ideology and student utopia. Between the extremes of ideology and utopia is a vacuum that must be filled; if we do not fill it with free speech and discussion, others can colonise it with stories that inspire fear and suspicion. Similarly, a vacuum exists naturally between laws (that set norms) and state guidance on laws (application). If we do not use debate to negotiate the contents of this vacuum, it will be filled with the bureaucracy of fear and even a state of exception. A vacuum demands to be filled. In both cases, we need to actively reclaim each ‘vacuum’ for discussion, debate and questioning in order to try and understand our current cultural imagination and develop a better one

Unveiling Orientalism in reverse

This volume is centred around the theme of veiling in Islam and provides multifarious aspects of the discussion regarding veiling of Muslim women, especially in the West. The issue of veiling has been intensively debated in Western society and has implications for religious liberty, inter-communal relationships and cultural interaction. Islam and the Veil seeks to generate open and objective discussion of this highly important, though controversial, subject, with contributions from distinguished scholars and academics, including female practitioners of Islam. This subject has inflamed passions and generated heated debate in the media in recent years, particularly in the West. This book aims to look at the historical background, theological and social factors underlying the veiling of women in Islam. Such discussion will provide the reader with a well-balanced and unbiased analysis of this important aspect of Islamic practice

Ricoeur on Plotinus: Negation and Forms of Populism

Plotinus developed a metaphorical approach to language that allowed him to offer a transcendent vision of God, a paradox that made clear how ineffably and incontrovertibly unclear God is – as is our relationship with Him. Ricoeur bridged the centuries by working intensively upon Plotinus in the 1950s-70s. He was seeking a philosophy of negation to help him understand the ways in which modern humans define themselves by lack, loss and longing and asked himself: ‘what is not-ness?’ Eventually Ricoeur abandoned his search for a philosophy of negation that would explain the negative turn in modern life, and developed a model of language and of dialectic within which the negative was embedded. By fully integrating negation into various language forms (metaphor, dialectic) he was implementing the conviction that we have to accept that the negative (that which we want to reject) is an integral part of each of us: blame cannot be attributed to others. Through his negation project Ricoeur applied existential thinking to negative theology and gave its structural strangeness a new application. Using Plotinus he ensured that opposing existential concerns can in fact be brought into discussion, when we accept the impossibility of the unity for which we long. I propose that he even created a strange kind of analogue between negative theologies and existentialist problems, adapting the powerful provisionality of Plotinus’ dialectical and metaphorical devices, to help him address modern crises. Laclau believed that these crises can be solved, and Butler and Lorey concur, all three arguing for close attention to language, rhetoric and the people’s potential. In this context we can instructively apply Ricoeur’s adaptation of Plotinus to consider the emerging patterns around the Mediterranean, which we wish to negate and really must act upon: a mounting refugee crisis, the instability created by wars and an increasingly insecure workforce. The first step for a nation to take is to be able to talk about such matters and research on university campuses suggest that this is being inhibited by government regulatory practices. Attempts to reverse this trend render the extraordinary worlds of Plotinus and Ricoeur immensely useful. Using Plotinus he ensured that opposing existential concerns can in fact be brought into discussion, when we accept the impossibility of the unity for which we long. If we contrast this with the non-dialogic, argumentative and polarised discourse of populist political parties across Europe and round Plotinus’ Mediterranean, we can see how potent it could be to re-introduce Ricoeur’s response to Plotinus into modern discourse

The training and development of Muslim faith leaders: current practice and future possibilities

"There were three broad aims [of the review]: 1. To research and evaluate the current training provisions for imams and scholars provided by seminaries and other imam-training institutions in the UK; to explore the strengths and weaknesses of current provision; and, in particular, to identify any gaps in the training of faith leaders that need to be addressed. 2. To explore the different models and methods employed for training faith leaders and to identify elements of best practice for wider dissemination. 3. To explore the possibilities of collaborative initiatives between the providers of Muslim faith leadership training and mainstream further education and higher education institutions and the possibility of attaining additional knowledge and skills leading to higher education qualifications and better employment prospects." - Page 8

Introduction – On the Challenge of Migration: Critical Hermeneutical Perspectives

At first glance, it could seem slightly out of place to dedicate an issue of a newly founded journal dedicated to hermeneutics – albeit to a critical strand of hermeneutics – to a topic such as migration, forced displacements or refugees. Indeed, for the lay reader, is not hermeneutics, at least methodologically, primarily concerned with the interpretation of texts? Let us concede, still at this first, naïve level, that such an approach might indeed look strange. But allow us to wager that it might contribute to grasp what is at stake and perhaps even change the terms of this fundamental debate. Indeed, when applied to an analysis of societies as such, including their political and ethical problems, it provides a perspective that is lacking in other approaches

Arabic language and Islamic Studies: who studies Arabic and how can these skills be used at university and beyond?

This work was undertaken in 2011-12 as the result of successful competitive bidding for research funds from the subject centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies (LLAS). Learning a modern foreign language in UK has declined, yet the learning of Arabic is rising. Furthermore HEFCE designates Arabic as a Strategically Important and Vulnerable Subject (SIVS). This is important as it implies greater resources and support for Arabic courses. Although Classical Arabic previously had a code, the SIVS status of Arabic has increased its visibility and has led to four new codes for Arabic Language Studies, Modern Standard Arabic and related subjects in HESA’s latest JACS 3 listing (September 2011). We hypothesised that there is more Arabic language interest and competence among Islamic Studies students than is currently apparent in the university sector and in the independent Muslim institution sector, and found persuasive evidence for our hypothesis: moreover, we found that if the Arabic experience is neither assessed nor accredited this may represent missed career opportunities for such students. We explored possible relationships between students’ prior Arabic competence and Arabic language courses at Islamic Studies and other departments within UK universities. This study recognises the significance of Arabic language studies that students undertake in Muslim institutions such as Darul Ulooms, Madaris (singular madrassa), Muslim schools and Muslim HE colleges. It suggests that collaborations between Muslim institutions and universities could lead to cross fertilisation of curricula and pedagogy and staff exchanges. Furthermore, recognising students’ prior learning of Arabic could be beneficial to students, who would have options to enhance their skills and career opportunities, and also to universities who would have access to an increased cohort of potential students.Higher Education Academy (HEA) Subject Centre for Languages Linguistics and Area Studies (LLAS

An Islamic perspective: What does Islam offer to the contemporary debate?

Islam has a long and rich intellectual tradition that is embedded in its religious texts and in its history as a world religion, and which together with confessional approaches to the study of religion encompasses a diverse range of what we today understand as modern academic disciplines, including poetry and literature studies, sociology and lived religion, philosophy and liberal critiques of dogmatic theology and indeed, the physical sciences. As we shall discuss later in this chapter, Islam has made undeniable contributions in the shaping of Western academic thought, the preservation and transmission of Greek and Roman philosophy and has played a foundational role in the development of university campuses as we know them today. Yet, and despite the enduring signifi cance of its historical intellectual tradition, contemporary debates about the role of Islam in academia are mired in two antagonistic but also interconnected debates. Firstly, there is a gradual devaluing of ‘secular’ traditions from within Islamic education and an overemphasis on confessional approaches that has emanated from within diverse Muslim communities, which started around the 18 th century. Secondly, there is, the much more recent agenda of ‘preventing violent extremism’, an anti-terror ‘lens’ through which much policy discourse seeks to examine Islam in the West. In Britain, this entire discussion is further problematized by rapidly changing understandings of what the function of universities should be – are they institutions of learning that produce scholars, thinkers, conscientious citizens and loyal dissenters, or are these institutions that produce effi cient but unquestioning employees to staff global conglomerates that satisfy our collective capitalist, materialist demands

The modulus of elasticity: Islam, art and populism in postcolonial securitized Europe

Current public and political interactions are becoming increasingly populist, illustrating the great success of an approach that creates the belief that majority populations in Europe and USA are in fact beleaguered, as if they are a minority threatened by those considered allochthonous. People’s democratic agency is thereby silenced and weakened. The Institut des cultures d’Islam (ICI) deflates populism’s boast by bringing individuals, ideas and artefacts together in a local setting to deconstruct these generalities by being together. The methodology of this paper is to use philosophy, literary analysis, social theory and physics to analyse the ICI as the same breathed space in which many interpersonal ruptures can be made possible, recognized as such and then averted. There are ambiguities of difference and of the positive tensions that can be created by bring ‘culte’ (worship) and ‘culture’ (art) together. This article proposes that the modulus, the measure of (human) rigidity (and flexibility), can be used to analyse what happens at the ICI and to consider how outsider ‘experts’ can both approach this space and accept that their grasp of what is at stake within it will remain partial