1 00:00:05,720 --> 00:00:12,140 So welcome all to the fourth iteration of the Oxford Political Hall seminar, 2 00:00:12,140 --> 00:00:21,680 and we are delighted to welcome today Nasrin Badawi from the American University in Cairo and morality degrees from the University of Michigan, 3 00:00:21,680 --> 00:00:26,990 who will both be addressing the issue of violence in different times and places. 4 00:00:26,990 --> 00:00:32,490 I will invite some. I'll ask me my co-convenor to introduce them properly. 5 00:00:32,490 --> 00:00:42,600 The stream will begin and speak for 20 minutes and then be followed by Murad for another 20 minutes, after which we shall have Q&A. 6 00:00:42,600 --> 00:00:51,560 And if you should have any questions, please put them either in the Q&A box anonymously or under your own name or in the chat box. 7 00:00:51,560 --> 00:00:59,270 And if you're unable absolutely to do that, you can raise your hand and I can or someone can call upon you and you can start 8 00:00:59,270 --> 00:01:06,080 asking you questions during the talks so as not to wait until they finish. 9 00:01:06,080 --> 00:01:12,620 So with that, I'll hand over to you long. Thank you very much and welcome to business Raine and Murad. 10 00:01:12,620 --> 00:01:18,680 It's really wonderful to have you here from across the Atlantic or the Mediterranean, as the case may be, 11 00:01:18,680 --> 00:01:29,180 and I'm just going to introduce the three in your biographical background and then please feel free to sort of launch into your discussion. 12 00:01:29,180 --> 00:01:36,080 So in the Badawi is a an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the American University in Cairo. 13 00:01:36,080 --> 00:01:45,620 He is an associate professor of public and international law, and she received her Ph.D. from the School of Oriental and African Studies. 14 00:01:45,620 --> 00:01:53,810 He holds an Al-Alam in international comparative law and a licence and a B.A. in Political Science. 15 00:01:53,810 --> 00:02:00,110 So badly has experienced working in the United Nations within the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 16 00:02:00,110 --> 00:02:07,820 on Refugee Law and has offered consultancy work to several organisations on humanitarian and Islamic law. 17 00:02:07,820 --> 00:02:15,590 Your relatively recently published book in 2019 is in touch with some key recipients on the regulation of armed conflict with Israel, 18 00:02:15,590 --> 00:02:23,360 and we look forward to your lecture on Islamic conceptions of violence in the modern period. 19 00:02:23,360 --> 00:02:27,560 So without further ado, please go ahead. 20 00:02:27,560 --> 00:02:33,380 Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be with you here today, and I'm looking forward to the discussion we're going to have today. 21 00:02:33,380 --> 00:02:38,180 I'm just going to give a brief introduction of what I intend to talk about today. 22 00:02:38,180 --> 00:02:49,070 And the the focus of my talk today is how different Muslim actors have attempted to reformulate and interpret 23 00:02:49,070 --> 00:02:55,760 Islamic regulations on armed conflict and rules of war and Islamic jurisprudence in the modern context. 24 00:02:55,760 --> 00:02:59,570 And I'm going to look at three main actors. 25 00:02:59,570 --> 00:03:07,700 The first actor that I'm going to look at is Muslim institutions with a focus on Al-Azhar and its approach to Islamic rules of war. 26 00:03:07,700 --> 00:03:19,940 And then I'm going to look at two examples of mainstream scholars who are independent scholars whereby highly the Syrian scholar and useful. 27 00:03:19,940 --> 00:03:25,550 Just to give a sense of mainstream approaches to Islamic law, to Islamic laws of war. 28 00:03:25,550 --> 00:03:31,610 And then I'm going to shift to a discussion of militant groups and their interpretations of 29 00:03:31,610 --> 00:03:40,670 Islamic laws of war with a focus on al-Qaida and the Islamic State to start out this discussion. 30 00:03:40,670 --> 00:03:45,800 I think that one there's an important framing question premise that needs to be taken, 31 00:03:45,800 --> 00:03:52,550 which is understanding the dilemma that many of Muslim states in the Muslim world that we're faced with, 32 00:03:52,550 --> 00:03:59,330 which is the post-colonial moment and them and a move towards independence and understanding how Muslim 33 00:03:59,330 --> 00:04:04,670 institutions and how Muslim scholars interpreted Islamic law cannot be separated from that moment. 34 00:04:04,670 --> 00:04:16,040 With the with the rise in pressure for legal reform and the assertion on the primacy and the supremacy of European inspired laws, 35 00:04:16,040 --> 00:04:26,060 including international law. We see a shift towards an attempt towards an assertion of Islamic law and see with international humanitarian law. 36 00:04:26,060 --> 00:04:33,950 So in the 50s and the 60s, we see a rise in scholarship that addresses the question of Islamic laws of war, 37 00:04:33,950 --> 00:04:39,980 whether within the Muslim world or from Muslim scholars who are in Western academia, 38 00:04:39,980 --> 00:04:46,310 such as having the more magical warrior and from within the Muslim world itself. 39 00:04:46,310 --> 00:04:57,560 I have extensively at Alonzo's conferences, the National Polls Islamia, which is a scholarly community under under the auspices of Al-Azhar, 40 00:04:57,560 --> 00:05:05,270 and it has conducted seven annual conferences to address issues of Islamic rule, and we see a focus on Islamic. 41 00:05:05,270 --> 00:05:10,760 Laws of war and scholarship, understanding Islamic laws of war in that era. 42 00:05:10,760 --> 00:05:18,170 And my argument is that that's I mean that focus is heavily influenced by an attempt 43 00:05:18,170 --> 00:05:27,020 to emulate the principles of international law with regards to come back and see. 44 00:05:27,020 --> 00:05:35,450 For example, a scholar like Mohammed Posada, who has dedicated extensive focus to Islamic laws of war, 45 00:05:35,450 --> 00:05:43,840 offers an interpretation of Islamic law that largely. Aligns with our understanding of Islamic law in order to do that. 46 00:05:43,840 --> 00:05:54,730 My argument is that much of significant features of Islamic law are suppressed in order to in order to arrive at that Congress. 47 00:05:54,730 --> 00:06:03,790 One important feature that is suppressed is the question of diversity and that this is closely connected to an attempt to offer an authoritative, 48 00:06:03,790 --> 00:06:05,650 singular interpretation of Islamic law, 49 00:06:05,650 --> 00:06:16,330 but also closely connected to the idea of singular law and the idea of the sovereign authority establishing one interpretation of law. 50 00:06:16,330 --> 00:06:25,000 So we see diversity suppressed and issues that have been contested and have been heavily negotiated and elaborated 51 00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:30,640 upon by jurists leading to different interpretations are largely treated as a singular interpretation. 52 00:06:30,640 --> 00:06:38,830 For that, I'll use the example of combatants or the example of who may be targeted under the Islamic legal tradition. 53 00:06:38,830 --> 00:06:47,500 Of course, the notion of come back and see in and of itself is a modern notion that is heavily associated with the rise of full-fledged armies, 54 00:06:47,500 --> 00:06:53,950 the under the auspices of a sovereign state, so it cannot be separated from that. 55 00:06:53,950 --> 00:07:01,420 But in order to offer an interpretation that those who do not participate in fighting may not be targeted. 56 00:07:01,420 --> 00:07:05,800 We see a selective reliance on the jurisprudence and suppression of the diverse 57 00:07:05,800 --> 00:07:10,120 views of jurisprudence of different jurists who offer varying interpretations. 58 00:07:10,120 --> 00:07:16,630 For example, if we look at the classic tradition, we see a varying use. 59 00:07:16,630 --> 00:07:22,990 So with on the one hand, you have Hanafi views such as showband you, for example, 60 00:07:22,990 --> 00:07:29,080 who list certain categories which may not be targeted because they're unable to participate in fighting. 61 00:07:29,080 --> 00:07:36,850 And that list is rather expensive, expensive to include the categories that are common to those who are familiar with the samples of war, 62 00:07:36,850 --> 00:07:44,410 such as women, children, older men, the blind, the crippled hard labourers and so on and so forth. 63 00:07:44,410 --> 00:07:48,050 So an explicit list. And we move away from that. 64 00:07:48,050 --> 00:07:51,250 Then we see, for example, to the other end of the spectrum. 65 00:07:51,250 --> 00:08:02,740 We see scholars like al-shughur and hasn't who assert that men who have reached the age of puberty maybe may be targeted. 66 00:08:02,740 --> 00:08:06,550 So a very different interpretation. And within those different interpretations, 67 00:08:06,550 --> 00:08:14,560 there is an extensive examination of the force's extensive examination of prophetic traditions and practises to arrive at that interpretation. 68 00:08:14,560 --> 00:08:21,940 But all of that is suppressed in the modern interpretation in order to arrive at that singular interpretation. 69 00:08:21,940 --> 00:08:27,490 The argument that those who do not participate in fighting may not be targeted. 70 00:08:27,490 --> 00:08:38,020 Another feature that is closely connected to the question of suppression of diversity is selectivity and selectivity that is often incoherent. 71 00:08:38,020 --> 00:08:42,380 So unlike, for example, in earlier approaches to Islamic law, 72 00:08:42,380 --> 00:08:49,420 where we see jurists following a particular school of thought and they espouse that jurisprudential school's positions, 73 00:08:49,420 --> 00:08:56,260 we see an eclectic choice that is largely reminiscent of the process of the future. 74 00:08:56,260 --> 00:09:04,900 But with with but with no coherence, so a shuffling might be relied on in a particular position to advance a certain view. 75 00:09:04,900 --> 00:09:10,570 And his use might be disregarded if they are if they are not seen as befitting of the argument that 76 00:09:10,570 --> 00:09:17,890 the author is making and that approach and that methodology of interpreting Islamic laws of war, 77 00:09:17,890 --> 00:09:21,740 I argue, continues to live on until the present day. 78 00:09:21,740 --> 00:09:31,300 So another significant stage that we see Islamic jurists confronted with is the moment of 9-11 in the post-9 and post-9 79 00:09:31,300 --> 00:09:40,660 11 and the rise in arguments about Islamic militancy and the surge in arguments about how we interpret Islamic laws. 80 00:09:40,660 --> 00:09:45,430 Treatment of 9-11 leads to again, a renewed interest in that, 81 00:09:45,430 --> 00:09:51,550 and we see very similar approaches with with the addition of a new significant 82 00:09:51,550 --> 00:09:59,500 approach which is reliant on older regimes of jurisprudence that may have offered, 83 00:09:59,500 --> 00:10:09,350 may have been developed for a different set of acts to end trying to apply them to the crime of terrorism. 84 00:10:09,350 --> 00:10:16,420 And I used the example of Arabic book, which is a regime that in the classic jurisprudence, 85 00:10:16,420 --> 00:10:21,070 is often seen as reserved for highway robbery and banditry, 86 00:10:21,070 --> 00:10:31,480 explicitly criminal activity that deals with and and a crime that receives the highest, 87 00:10:31,480 --> 00:10:39,420 perhaps the harshest punishment in an Islamic law and taking that and extrapolating it to the crime of terrorism. 88 00:10:39,420 --> 00:10:48,000 And that becomes a very common feature of the approach of mainstream jurisprudence and particularly 89 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:53,640 those who are affiliated with the state in order to deal with the crime of terrorism. 90 00:10:53,640 --> 00:10:59,940 In parallel to that, we see suppression, complete suppression or silence on the regime of Bashar, 91 00:10:59,940 --> 00:11:03,960 which is the regime that deals with which which which has normally been the 92 00:11:03,960 --> 00:11:09,780 regime that deals with political violence under classical Islamic jurisprudence. 93 00:11:09,780 --> 00:11:19,650 The reason Bali is suppressed is not surprising because the regime of Barry is to some extent rather agnostic to whether or not you have the right 94 00:11:19,650 --> 00:11:29,610 to rebel and focuses more extensively on regulating the acts of rebellion and provides extensive protections for the different warring parties, 95 00:11:29,610 --> 00:11:34,180 including extensive protections for the rebelling group. 96 00:11:34,180 --> 00:11:44,110 I mean, so you have scholars who argue that rebel that rebellion groups, if they flee, if they flee the battle, they may not be pursued there. 97 00:11:44,110 --> 00:11:48,030 Their wounded may not be dispatched and other arguments that are largely restrictive, 98 00:11:48,030 --> 00:11:58,650 including extensive restrictions on the confiscation of their books property that is not necessarily a regime 99 00:11:58,650 --> 00:12:06,360 that lends itself to utilisation by a sovereign state in our understanding of the modern sovereign state. 100 00:12:06,360 --> 00:12:14,610 Hence, it's not surprising that it is disregarded and that there is that we see leaning towards a much more permissive 101 00:12:14,610 --> 00:12:23,100 regime in terms of punishment and a regime that is that provides a harsher judgement of the act of violence itself, 102 00:12:23,100 --> 00:12:29,260 which is the regime of of heroin. 103 00:12:29,260 --> 00:12:37,600 Two, to a great extent, that is the moment, I mean, or that is the general discourse that we see until the rise of ISIS, 104 00:12:37,600 --> 00:12:42,690 but the rise of ISIS, and I'm going to come back to that when I talk about militant groups. 105 00:12:42,690 --> 00:12:46,680 Is a perplexing moment for mainstream scholars, 106 00:12:46,680 --> 00:12:55,050 because ISIS collapses old categories just as the category of Arab and Betty is collapsed by mainstream jurists, 107 00:12:55,050 --> 00:13:04,890 ISIS even goes a step further by expanding apostasy extensively beyond any other expansion that we see by other militant 108 00:13:04,890 --> 00:13:14,940 groups in order to resort to the regime of apostasy to to justify their practises with the different warring parties, 109 00:13:14,940 --> 00:13:26,460 including civilians living under the control of the Muslim regimes who are deemed apostates by the Islamic State. 110 00:13:26,460 --> 00:13:37,500 However, the response by official mainstream institutions does not necessarily live up to the premise of fighting against that change. 111 00:13:37,500 --> 00:13:41,550 In some areas, they're successful in other areas. They seem to falter. 112 00:13:41,550 --> 00:13:49,600 So when it comes to food, for example, we see a very solid assertion on. 113 00:13:49,600 --> 00:13:58,420 The classic doctrine, the classic Ashwari doctrine of limiting the purview of the fear and limiting the resort to that fear. 114 00:13:58,420 --> 00:14:04,240 And we see a basis there. But when it comes to other. 115 00:14:04,240 --> 00:14:08,020 Areas that ISIS relies or other claims that ISIS makes. 116 00:14:08,020 --> 00:14:18,580 We see a much weaker and resort to draw to the jurisprudence to push back against ISIS and use here the example of hacking me, 117 00:14:18,580 --> 00:14:25,510 the assertion on the need to uphold Islamic law and order for a regime to govern Muslim 118 00:14:25,510 --> 00:14:30,790 societies and the destruction of that is a benchmark to assess Islamist city of the regime. 119 00:14:30,790 --> 00:14:39,760 With that, we see punchlines. We see general statements that do not necessarily offer a serious and concerted 120 00:14:39,760 --> 00:14:44,200 effort to deal with questions of democracy and how and how we understand democracy, 121 00:14:44,200 --> 00:14:54,550 questions of cost of law and how and what the space for positive law is within a legitimate Muslim regime and in the modern context. 122 00:14:54,550 --> 00:14:59,830 And part of my argument is that this is hardly surprising considering the very 123 00:14:59,830 --> 00:15:05,020 difficult terrain that official Muslim institutions are trying to tread, 124 00:15:05,020 --> 00:15:10,270 because on the one hand, they need to assert their legitimacy, they need to maintain their legitimacy. 125 00:15:10,270 --> 00:15:17,740 But on the other hand, their relationships with the different regimes and their relationships with sovereign 126 00:15:17,740 --> 00:15:24,760 states who rely on positive more extensively are strenuous or difficult to to manage. 127 00:15:24,760 --> 00:15:29,290 That makes it very difficult for them to actually address that issue. 128 00:15:29,290 --> 00:15:31,850 But that doesn't go without attempts to make gains. 129 00:15:31,850 --> 00:15:40,180 So one of the main lines that we see asserted by official Muslim institutions is the line of the assertion of reports. 130 00:15:40,180 --> 00:15:51,990 So what extensively we find, I mean aggressive assertions of authority and progressive assertions that Muslims cannot. 131 00:15:51,990 --> 00:15:59,160 Offer a direct interpretation of Islamic law on their own. They need to go to a qualified scholar in order to do that. 132 00:15:59,160 --> 00:16:05,580 As a matter of fact, I think I've in a personal interview with one prominent Muslim jurists in the past. 133 00:16:05,580 --> 00:16:13,770 He made the claim that none other than Muslim jurists should read the texts and attempt to interpret them on their own. 134 00:16:13,770 --> 00:16:19,110 But they should actually go to the scholars to offer that interpretation. 135 00:16:19,110 --> 00:16:25,590 I mean, I see I'm running a little bit out of time. I'll try to come back to some of those issues to end the questions and answers, 136 00:16:25,590 --> 00:16:33,490 but to to a great extent, if we look at the trajectory we see that with. 137 00:16:33,490 --> 00:16:41,110 Independent mainstream scholars, there's more inclination to deal with and problematic as those issues. 138 00:16:41,110 --> 00:16:50,650 So with Upadhyay, for example, we see a more concerted effort to deal with the question of fear with the question of the place of Muslim 139 00:16:50,650 --> 00:16:56,800 regimes and subjects of Muslim regimes in the Muslim world to arrive at a conclusion very similar to another. 140 00:16:56,800 --> 00:17:02,080 But with perhaps a more rigorous interpretation. 141 00:17:02,080 --> 00:17:05,050 But again, we also see the line of of all sorts. 142 00:17:05,050 --> 00:17:11,150 We also saw, for example, if we I mean, on a separate issue on the question of suicide bombing, today, 143 00:17:11,150 --> 00:17:19,600 we reserves the space for the Muslim scholar, for the Muslim jurists to determine when and where is the resort to suicide bombing legitimate? 144 00:17:19,600 --> 00:17:20,380 By associating, 145 00:17:20,380 --> 00:17:29,620 by utilising the tool of Muslim and the toll of Moslehi becomes a tool to also grant the jurist that kind of authority of of interpretation. 146 00:17:29,620 --> 00:17:34,420 On the other end of the spectrum, we see militants who are not who, 147 00:17:34,420 --> 00:17:39,280 I argue are not again who have not escaped the predicament and the dilemma of the 148 00:17:39,280 --> 00:17:44,260 modern nation state and how to deal with their place in the modern nation state. 149 00:17:44,260 --> 00:17:52,030 With alucarda, we see some expansion, extensive expansion of some of the categories relating to targeting, 150 00:17:52,030 --> 00:17:56,500 for example, and we see the same selectivity. 151 00:17:56,500 --> 00:18:04,990 So for example, when it comes to targeting, we see an expansion of indiscriminate targeting beyond the regime of deterrence 152 00:18:04,990 --> 00:18:10,150 and beyond what what is envisioned by scholars under the regime of Tartarus. 153 00:18:10,150 --> 00:18:14,650 And we also see attempts to connect what is not, not necessarily connected. 154 00:18:14,650 --> 00:18:21,910 For example, Zawahiri argues that weapons of mass destruction are attempting to own or utilise weapons of mass 155 00:18:21,910 --> 00:18:27,160 destruction can be compared to indiscriminate targeting by tools such as hurling machines and so on. 156 00:18:27,160 --> 00:18:32,740 This regarding the fact that classical jurists have actually acknowledged some 157 00:18:32,740 --> 00:18:37,150 level of discrimination and those weapons by giving direction to the Muslim Army, 158 00:18:37,150 --> 00:18:44,470 to Earth to attempt to avoid harm that is likely to be inflicted in those situations is hardly imaginable. 159 00:18:44,470 --> 00:18:49,300 In a situation where used to weapons of mass destruction, who are, by their nature, 160 00:18:49,300 --> 00:18:54,700 indiscriminate and a much more expansive fashion than those weapons. 161 00:18:54,700 --> 00:19:03,730 And the weakest point or the weakest link that we see in a al-Zawahiri's jurisprudence is again, 162 00:19:03,730 --> 00:19:14,470 in no way the utilisation of the logic of the modern nation state to argue for the denial of the regime of women. 163 00:19:14,470 --> 00:19:22,000 So the regime of women is a regime that is arguably a very individualised system under classical Islamic jurisprudence. 164 00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:28,210 Anyone could could grant them not just the state, not just the the caliph would grant them and anyone could. 165 00:19:28,210 --> 00:19:37,210 Of course, the Caliph could revoke that women. But but it's a it's a much more fluid system than we see in the modern nation state. 166 00:19:37,210 --> 00:19:45,460 But he utilises the authority of the modern nation state and the logic of the modern nation state to to deny the possibility of individual amend, 167 00:19:45,460 --> 00:19:52,960 thereby again employing the same methods of selectivity that we see associated with mainstream scholars. 168 00:19:52,960 --> 00:20:00,820 And the other end of the spectrum, we see a new animal, which is the Islamic State and its approach to Islamic jurisprudence. 169 00:20:00,820 --> 00:20:08,650 Arguably, I mean, even the rigour of analysis is as much weaker in comparison to al-Zawahiri's work. 170 00:20:08,650 --> 00:20:20,390 For example, the resort to jurisprudence is much weaker, but we see an expansion and extensive expansion of the notion of apostasy. 171 00:20:20,390 --> 00:20:29,330 To include Muslims who live under so-called apostate regimes by relying on scholars such as Eden Hazard and Tamir, 172 00:20:29,330 --> 00:20:36,890 despite the fact that that those same scholars have in some instances acknowledged that Muslims who 173 00:20:36,890 --> 00:20:44,870 live under regimes was whose adherence to Islamic law may be seen as subjects such as Egyptians. 174 00:20:44,870 --> 00:20:52,490 In the case of or the margin, the very famous Martin fatwa issued by the Premier that led us to a very different conclusion, 175 00:20:52,490 --> 00:21:00,830 thereby collapsing all categories and denying and their opposition of any tool of challenge to Islamic law. 176 00:21:00,830 --> 00:21:11,690 And on the other hand, we also see the same resort to the denial of protections of the Shia by expanding the interpretations of apostasy of the Shia. 177 00:21:11,690 --> 00:21:19,160 But most importantly, by denying the applicability of regimes that are so entrenched in Islamic law and namely the regime of Jesus. 178 00:21:19,160 --> 00:21:30,380 So we see the assertion that Christians in Egypt may be targeted simply because they live under a regime that is not Islamic, 179 00:21:30,380 --> 00:21:35,120 which is very odd because it goes against the rationale of a man, at least not even GZA, 180 00:21:35,120 --> 00:21:42,560 or the mean that just because they have been granted a semblance of a safety pact and more importantly, 181 00:21:42,560 --> 00:21:48,670 because at the end of the day with the classical doctrine, then masterpiece is offered. 182 00:21:48,670 --> 00:21:53,350 And once it's offered, there are regulations for how you it? 183 00:21:53,350 --> 00:22:01,990 And there are regulations for how, how they provide for it, and that is completely silenced in the debate that we see associated with ISIS. 184 00:22:01,990 --> 00:22:12,480 I'm going to come back to that, perhaps. The discussion important to take more time, but the the general gist of that analysis is that this plot, 185 00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:16,410 whether or not we're dealing with groups who deny the existence of the modern nation 186 00:22:16,410 --> 00:22:20,130 state or groups or entities that are entrenched within the modern nation state, 187 00:22:20,130 --> 00:22:27,060 there's no escaping it. There is no escaping its impact on how we understand Islamic laws of war today and 188 00:22:27,060 --> 00:22:35,480 how that understanding is so entrenched in our logic of how to deal with militancy. 189 00:22:35,480 --> 00:22:40,520 Thank you so much for three nights. This is an incredibly impressive piece of 20 minutes. 190 00:22:40,520 --> 00:22:47,720 I mean, this is so much packed into this and you brought so many fascinating voices into the conversation 191 00:22:47,720 --> 00:22:54,440 and so much analytical nuance to reflecting on how the Muslim nation state has an impact on this. 192 00:22:54,440 --> 00:23:02,780 The way in which sort of scholars are ostensibly completely different stripes actually coming to 193 00:23:02,780 --> 00:23:09,470 Islamic law or to the classical tradition in similar ways because of what modernity has wrought. 194 00:23:09,470 --> 00:23:16,790 I'm sure this will elicit a lot of discussion on the process attendees, and please feel free to type in your questions at this stage. 195 00:23:16,790 --> 00:23:20,990 We're going to take the questions after Miraz session, 196 00:23:20,990 --> 00:23:28,940 but right now I'm going to switch over to one of the trees and Marathi trees is a associate professor of 197 00:23:28,940 --> 00:23:36,020 political science at the University of Michigan with his doctoral degree from the University of Pennsylvania. 198 00:23:36,020 --> 00:23:42,140 And he has a wide range of interests in political theory and the history of political thought, including in war and peace. 199 00:23:42,140 --> 00:23:46,010 Critical theory, conceptual history, anti-colonial and postcolonial thought. 200 00:23:46,010 --> 00:23:53,850 Political theology, internet like you basically are interested in everything pertaining to Islamic politics, 201 00:23:53,850 --> 00:23:59,150 and I think this is reflected, of course, in your writing as well. So your book again, 202 00:23:59,150 --> 00:24:09,350 relatively recent book came out in 2019 was entitled Was War and War for Peace Genealogies of Abundant Ideas in Western and Islamic Thought, 203 00:24:09,350 --> 00:24:13,520 and you have other work that you're working on right now. 204 00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:21,800 I think you have another book planned, which currently is tentatively titled Out of History, Genealogies and Language, Time and Violence. 205 00:24:21,800 --> 00:24:29,750 So I look forward to that as well. But you'll be talking about theorising colonialism, capitalism and violence and an Islamist key. 206 00:24:29,750 --> 00:24:33,410 So let me hand it over to you for the next 20 minutes. Thank you. 207 00:24:33,410 --> 00:24:38,960 Thank you. Faisal, thank you. Summer for the invitation. 208 00:24:38,960 --> 00:24:44,750 I'm excited to be here sharing a mix of recent and new work with you, and I'm excited to be in conversation with you. 209 00:24:44,750 --> 00:24:52,160 Well, I'll be focussing on excavating some unusual themes from say it perturbs writings, 210 00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:57,500 say it is known as the main theorist of 20th century Islamism and is often considered 211 00:24:57,500 --> 00:25:02,600 to have been the intellectual backbone of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s. 212 00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:08,960 Today, he's mostly red for his prison writings, which are considered far more radical. 213 00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:17,990 I'll refer to some lesser known works from the early 1950s, including articles published in the journals Dawa and Reseda, 214 00:25:17,990 --> 00:25:22,400 his neglected peace plan for the formation of an Islamic Federation. 215 00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:31,550 And his diagnoses of capitalism, colonialism, Orientalism and race as interlocking in a formation of violence. 216 00:25:31,550 --> 00:25:34,580 I'll also work in some remarks about the journal Dawa. 217 00:25:34,580 --> 00:25:39,710 I'm currently trying to work through a few thousand pages of the journal, which was published over the course of four years, 218 00:25:39,710 --> 00:25:46,550 and this is all part of a project on theorising of violence, colonialism and capitalism by Islamists in the 1950s. 219 00:25:46,550 --> 00:25:50,450 So I'm promising a lot, so let's jump right in. 220 00:25:50,450 --> 00:25:56,840 I'll frame my comments with four premises at first premise, and this should not be controversial. 221 00:25:56,840 --> 00:26:02,300 Muslims and Islamists are theorists of violence, and I mean this in two ways. 222 00:26:02,300 --> 00:26:06,710 On the one hand, Islamists aren't simply occasional agents of violence. 223 00:26:06,710 --> 00:26:11,540 They theorise their own violence and to treat this as theory rather than, for example, 224 00:26:11,540 --> 00:26:20,660 mere propaganda is to understand is to understand it as an intervention into an ongoing set of debates, ideas and practises. 225 00:26:20,660 --> 00:26:27,080 On the other hand, Islamists also theorise the already pre-existing and prevalent structures of violence, 226 00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:31,720 and certainly in the 1950s, they understood these two to be intimately linked. 227 00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:42,380 Though I'm focussing today on the analysis of the latter, the pre-existing structures of violence there genealogies their idioms and their connexions. 228 00:26:42,380 --> 00:26:50,330 Second, put up theories of violence, have numerous underappreciated resonances and linkages across the history of political thought, 229 00:26:50,330 --> 00:26:56,300 including in the writings of KÖNNTE, the Phenom, Edward Saeed and others. 230 00:26:56,300 --> 00:27:00,110 These linkages are, I believe, entirely incidental, 231 00:27:00,110 --> 00:27:06,860 but drawing attention to them can help us diagnose the politics of contemporary disciplinary formations 232 00:27:06,860 --> 00:27:12,770 or why we read certain thinkers in certain ways alongside some thinkers and not others for some themes, 233 00:27:12,770 --> 00:27:14,300 but not others. 234 00:27:14,300 --> 00:27:23,780 Third, recovering this cross-section of Islamist thought on violence brings into view authorisations of how violence is linked with colonialism, 235 00:27:23,780 --> 00:27:31,940 capitalism and Orientalism. So it moves us away from constructions of Islamic thought in terms of fanaticism and ideology. 236 00:27:31,940 --> 00:27:37,580 And it forces us to reckon with a different radical thread that is palpable in these archives, 237 00:27:37,580 --> 00:27:44,330 one that treats fanaticism actually as a colonial discourse and then diagnoses its inner workings. 238 00:27:44,330 --> 00:27:51,860 It helps us exceptionalism, the thematics that are assigned to particular bodies of knowledge. 239 00:27:51,860 --> 00:27:57,440 So it's against what we might call the contemporary choreography of critique. 240 00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:01,130 Finally, in tension with much of what I've said, 241 00:28:01,130 --> 00:28:09,230 situating put up within a broader sphere of Islamist intellectual production in the 1950s shows an entire discursive structure. 242 00:28:09,230 --> 00:28:14,060 Many writers, many publications that were reflecting precisely on these very terms, 243 00:28:14,060 --> 00:28:23,270 although theorists and historians of Islamism tend to focus on individual thinkers and their books, and I include myself in this. 244 00:28:23,270 --> 00:28:32,690 Looking at the social, political and institutional life of journals was a way towards a different and I think, exciting model of giving theory. 245 00:28:32,690 --> 00:28:39,890 So let me offer a few example, a few examples of these premises juxtapositions and provocations. 246 00:28:39,890 --> 00:28:44,240 First Federation Auto and cut. 247 00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:51,080 And this one will be brief. One of the chapters of my book, which some I mentioned War for peace. 248 00:28:51,080 --> 00:28:58,370 I read in relation to cut specifically how each constructs a federation that begins with domestic legal reform, 249 00:28:58,370 --> 00:29:05,390 then a federation of these states banding together and then how they police the globe against enemies 250 00:29:05,390 --> 00:29:11,990 of peace instead of consider of colonial powers policing each other and their former colonies. 251 00:29:11,990 --> 00:29:18,590 Put up solution is for the colonised Muslims to police the coloniser and the entire globe. 252 00:29:18,590 --> 00:29:23,930 The only thing I'll add here is about how to stop and can't critically diagnose 253 00:29:23,930 --> 00:29:29,960 how appeals to peace have operated as covers for violence and then unironically, 254 00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:37,910 each offers a three part peace plan that, in the name of peace, authorises a particular form of exceptional violence. 255 00:29:37,910 --> 00:29:43,370 So these formations reflect and re entrench hierarchies within humanity. 256 00:29:43,370 --> 00:29:53,060 I'll leave cons here. For now, we can pick them up later if there's interest to war and empire or put up with Dubois. 257 00:29:53,060 --> 00:29:55,100 In his book on Universal Peace, 258 00:29:55,100 --> 00:30:04,130 Otto observes that the American intervention in Korea reveals the violent colonial truths of a self-styled democratic bloc. 259 00:30:04,130 --> 00:30:10,080 Interestingly, although political theorists today don't really say much about the Korean War. 260 00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:19,070 Dubois, too, situated this war as putting on full display an American war industry and in fact both put up and the boys. 261 00:30:19,070 --> 00:30:25,820 They draw attention to the institutions of colonial peace and how they enable particular kinds of war ones that 262 00:30:25,820 --> 00:30:34,280 oftentimes don't go by the name of war for both the prevailing colonial capitalist and racialised peace facilitates war, 263 00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:41,740 violence and subjugation across the globe and both imagined and anti-colonial federation. 264 00:30:41,740 --> 00:30:49,030 Although, bro, the war drums are beating. There it is, a prospect knocking on the ears of the wretched of humanity. 265 00:30:49,030 --> 00:30:53,350 I heard it before in America, even before the onset of the Korean War. 266 00:30:53,350 --> 00:31:00,880 Everyone who's lived in America during the last two years clearly has understood that America will wage war, and he goes on. 267 00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:07,090 Anyone who has followed American journalism and its other media apparatus through radio, cinema, universities, 268 00:31:07,090 --> 00:31:16,750 colleges clearly understood that this is a nation preparing to wage war and it is packing public opinion with this idea and the war is coming, 269 00:31:16,750 --> 00:31:22,030 he says, because the heads of American capital are in dire need of a new war. 270 00:31:22,030 --> 00:31:30,880 They generally have engaged in massacres no matter how much their propaganda waves around the names of ethical principles and humanitarian goals. 271 00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:38,230 And his primary examples are Korea and Palestine, a sort of exemplifying colonial hypocrisy. 272 00:31:38,230 --> 00:31:48,400 His 1953 essay, Principles of the Free World two observes that the name the Free World is a cover for colonialism in Tunis, 273 00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:55,540 Marrakesh, Kenya, Vietnam, the free world. The rips apart the skin freedom and strangles free people everywhere. 274 00:31:55,540 --> 00:32:01,540 So this view of colonial discourse rhetoric and misrepresentation as tactics across the globe. 275 00:32:01,540 --> 00:32:07,150 It produces a geography in which North Africa and the Near East, Eastern Europe and East Asia, 276 00:32:07,150 --> 00:32:13,330 Africa and Southeast Asia are all bound together, sharing the same fates and the same problems. 277 00:32:13,330 --> 00:32:23,800 Whereas attention to his federation would trace a geography that maps onto the Muslim world whereby it polices the globe against injustice. 278 00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:32,350 This diagnostic geography puts Muslims and non-Muslims into the same colonial presence and attention to either, I think, 279 00:32:32,350 --> 00:32:44,680 helps us to unsaleable Islamism to locate authorisations of colonialism and enter colonialism as internal to and as overlapping with Islamist thought. 280 00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:54,100 Three. Capitalism consciousness or fennel with put up put up theorises capitalism, I was surprised to witness. 281 00:32:54,100 --> 00:33:00,790 We already saw him linking capitalism to war. But he also links it to the colonial management of culture and consciousness. 282 00:33:00,790 --> 00:33:06,730 And on top of all that, he uses the language of critical political economy to make a number of his arguments. 283 00:33:06,730 --> 00:33:14,110 So oftentimes these kinds of borrowings are read in terms of the sneaky Islamists trying to co-opt the language of his opponents. 284 00:33:14,110 --> 00:33:26,410 And maybe I think they can also be read generative fully as reflecting the success of Marxism and educating its potential opponents. 285 00:33:26,410 --> 00:33:30,550 And although I'm not going to make much reference to it today, 286 00:33:30,550 --> 00:33:39,910 there's an entire issue in a dogma that is an analysis of capitalism, class and property, and it draws heavily on Marxist idioms. 287 00:33:39,910 --> 00:33:44,380 So there are both phenomena, finale and Marxist resonances here. 288 00:33:44,380 --> 00:33:53,890 In his book The Battle of Islam and Capitalism, he explains that the English always knew that their armies would have to leave Egypt someday, 289 00:33:53,890 --> 00:33:57,850 and so they ensured Egypt's dependence on them. 290 00:33:57,850 --> 00:34:00,850 He offers a version of dependency theory, 291 00:34:00,850 --> 00:34:08,600 asserting that one of the central pillars of colonial control is to make the colony economically dependent on the metropole. 292 00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:17,200 So says the English established colonialism, institutional supports and the economic field by occupying Egyptian markets and 293 00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:22,690 by attempting to close off other international markets to Egyptian products. 294 00:34:22,690 --> 00:34:33,160 And all this. He says, however, would not be enough for colonialism to persist if not for the colonisation of consciousness and intellect, 295 00:34:33,160 --> 00:34:36,910 which colonialism has attended to over the last century. 296 00:34:36,910 --> 00:34:43,420 The white English have vacated governmental offices in order for the dark English to take their place, 297 00:34:43,420 --> 00:34:49,600 whose consciousness and intellect are colonised, assembled according to colonialism and its objectives. 298 00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:59,020 So having shaped the Ministry of Education, he says the white English can now be confident that the dark English will continue their mission. 299 00:34:59,020 --> 00:35:08,920 Colonialism, in other words, conscripts those who exalt freedom and culture and those who oversee education in its battles against Islam. 300 00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:18,820 Whether they realise it or not, they produce curricula on Islamic studies that simply catalogue military assaults, wars, incidents, events. 301 00:35:18,820 --> 00:35:25,240 And he says that the upshot is that Islam was a large military battle and that it had never been an intellectual, 302 00:35:25,240 --> 00:35:28,810 social or humanitarian battle as well. 303 00:35:28,810 --> 00:35:38,620 The narration of Islam as a sequence of violence and events is one strand of Orientalism, which is something I'll speak to in a few minutes. 304 00:35:38,620 --> 00:35:43,090 Iotop does not name it, and he doesn't connect it with the rest of his observations. 305 00:35:43,090 --> 00:35:49,360 But he does claim that colonial education culminates in colonialism without colonists. 306 00:35:49,360 --> 00:35:57,040 So for the colonisation of consciousness and intellect to reach its high point even after the departure of the occupation. 307 00:35:57,040 --> 00:36:04,300 So all non-white peoples, he says, are taught to measure themselves in relation to the white man and his history. 308 00:36:04,300 --> 00:36:12,850 To denigrate their own histories, people in America talk about the white man as though they are talking about a half God and people of colour, 309 00:36:12,850 --> 00:36:18,640 like Egyptians and Arabs generally, as though they are describing a half human totems. 310 00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:24,280 Framing of historical narratives and world politics in terms of race consciousness 311 00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:29,800 and a racial war took place immediately after his visit to the United States. 312 00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:37,420 And the key point here is that Potter was interested in colonial consciousness, especially cultural and educational institutions, 313 00:36:37,420 --> 00:36:48,130 newspapers, books, histories, all of which narrated the glories of France, Britain and America and degraded and humiliated others, he said. 314 00:36:48,130 --> 00:36:57,970 So this includes American Empire, which he mocked as trying to create an Americanised Islam, its own brand of Islam, 315 00:36:57,970 --> 00:37:04,630 one that was de politicised and that marked all other forms of Islam as dangerous and illegitimate. 316 00:37:04,630 --> 00:37:12,010 And this is why I put up calls for destroying the colonialism in our consciousness towards a new pedagogy. 317 00:37:12,010 --> 00:37:15,910 With this pedagogy, all people, particularly new generations, 318 00:37:15,910 --> 00:37:22,720 should be educated about colonialism, injustices and the injustices committed by the white man. 319 00:37:22,720 --> 00:37:30,430 Whereas Potter gives much of the Senate, much of this account in an article titled Our Number One Enemy, The White Man. 320 00:37:30,430 --> 00:37:37,570 Interestingly, this is the lesson that the front page of Dawar gave on March 30th, 1951, 321 00:37:37,570 --> 00:37:44,210 in an article by the editor titled Colonialism is our number one enemy and that article said the Colonial. 322 00:37:44,210 --> 00:37:53,420 Azam operates in the same exact way as disbelief that no matter who is colonised and who, it divides people and it divides their consciousness. 323 00:37:53,420 --> 00:37:55,940 If Muslims wish for freedom, the article said, 324 00:37:55,940 --> 00:38:02,990 then they have to resist colonialism and they can do this by revealing all of its actions and all of its misdeeds. 325 00:38:02,990 --> 00:38:09,770 Then it ends optimistically. After that, we shall went back to club and capitalism. 326 00:38:09,770 --> 00:38:17,750 In addition to dependency, auto refers to the alliance between a dictatorship and the despotism or autocracy of capital. 327 00:38:17,750 --> 00:38:24,980 So, he says, colonialism is always concerned that the masses should not rule themselves because it then becomes difficult to subdue them. 328 00:38:24,980 --> 00:38:32,210 Thus, there must be a governing dictatorial class that possesses autocratic authority and great wealth. 329 00:38:32,210 --> 00:38:38,780 This class is the one with which colonialism can have dealings. This is because first, its numbers are few. 330 00:38:38,780 --> 00:38:46,250 And second, it depends on colonialism to persist and needs its support in the face of the masses. 331 00:38:46,250 --> 00:38:50,180 This class is in charge of subduing the masses and governing them. 332 00:38:50,180 --> 00:38:54,290 Colonialism disappears from view behind it. 333 00:38:54,290 --> 00:39:02,240 Put up the terminology and his class analysis have their provenance and the writings of Marx and Lenin. 334 00:39:02,240 --> 00:39:06,710 The terms appear with neither citation nor explanation, but at the very least, 335 00:39:06,710 --> 00:39:12,810 they show us the adaptation of the critique of capitalism into an Islamist state. 336 00:39:12,810 --> 00:39:22,920 For Orientalism or before said, the two penultimate chapters of the Battle of Islam and Capitalism form an ark. 337 00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:29,880 Now the first one is doubts about the rule of Islam and enumerates various caricatures of Islam, 338 00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:37,380 whereas the second is enmities towards the rule of Islam, and it describes different enemies, different antagonisms. 339 00:39:37,380 --> 00:39:43,920 The six doubts are Islam's primitivism the authority of chef's tyranny. 340 00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:48,780 The vagueness of scripture. Haram and the oppression of minorities. 341 00:39:48,780 --> 00:39:56,850 But the selection is important today because these six reflect the definition of Islam as the antithesis of modernity, 342 00:39:56,850 --> 00:40:07,920 liberalism, freedom and civilisation. So the idea that Islam tries to return to the 7th century to tents in the desert casts it not simply as lagging, 343 00:40:07,920 --> 00:40:13,140 not simply as obsolete, but as a destructive refusal of modernity. 344 00:40:13,140 --> 00:40:21,330 And he says, you know, people imagine Islamic governance to mean tents in the desert, Bedouins on camels, Arabs in caves in which there would be. 345 00:40:21,330 --> 00:40:24,300 And here he really seems to be channelling Thomas Hunt. 346 00:40:24,300 --> 00:40:33,780 So I'm pretty sure he not never read that there would be no building, no civilisation, no sciences and no arts and no poetry. 347 00:40:33,780 --> 00:40:39,630 He criticises these doubts as generalisations, misrepresentations, projections, 348 00:40:39,630 --> 00:40:47,580 ones that limit Islam's temporal resolution and merely reflect the kinds of negative models that the capitalist 349 00:40:47,580 --> 00:40:57,060 and communist blocs have permitted to appear in the world in order to repel people from a more critical view. 350 00:40:57,060 --> 00:41:08,040 The repertoire of doubts is also important because it inserts put up through his responses into the lineage of critiques of Orientalism. 351 00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:18,330 The repertoire of tropes, after all, has an Orientalist pedigree and as he says, they serve the Orientalist discourses and interests. 352 00:41:18,330 --> 00:41:23,310 So his critique here is about how representations and stereotypes masquerade as knowledge. 353 00:41:23,310 --> 00:41:35,280 And he then describes six enemies of Islam. These are the crusaders, colonists, exploiters, professional men of religion, the immoral and communists. 354 00:41:35,280 --> 00:41:41,640 Some of these enemies rely on Orientalism. So as it turns out, the crusaders supply the spirit of the colonisers, 355 00:41:41,640 --> 00:41:47,250 and the exploiters and men of religion rely on the colonisers understanding of Islam. 356 00:41:47,250 --> 00:41:50,070 So the coloniser and the Orientalist are tightly linked. 357 00:41:50,070 --> 00:41:57,270 So much so that Potter says the notion of Orientalist objectivity or neutrality functions as a mask. 358 00:41:57,270 --> 00:42:03,690 It justifies colonialism and aims to transform the colonised population's consciousness so that they internalise. 359 00:42:03,690 --> 00:42:10,560 It sends its comprehensive studies, he says, aimed to neutralise the seeds of resistance. 360 00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:11,730 So, he writes, 361 00:42:11,730 --> 00:42:20,190 Orientalism was established in order to aid colonialism from a scientific point of view in order to extend its roots into the intellectual soil. 362 00:42:20,190 --> 00:42:27,990 But we hear we worship Orientalist simple mindedly. If it occurs to you to adopt the innocence of these saints, then your uncultured. 363 00:42:27,990 --> 00:42:32,130 You're a fanatic who brings in religion at every opportunity. 364 00:42:32,130 --> 00:42:38,340 Also recall my earlier point about which histories are narrated and how self-important 365 00:42:38,340 --> 00:42:43,230 this is all ideologically bound up with Orientalist and racial colonial structures. 366 00:42:43,230 --> 00:42:47,230 Let me end by highlighting a couple of things. 367 00:42:47,230 --> 00:42:55,030 First, about discussions of education curricula, doubts and consciousness, referred to the production of knowledge about Islam. 368 00:42:55,030 --> 00:43:04,540 So in an untimely moment put of 30 years before Said's Orientalism, 12 years before Anwar Abdel Malik's, 369 00:43:04,540 --> 00:43:09,400 Orientalism and crisis would be theorising Orientalism its complicity, 370 00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:17,470 its complicity in the colonial project and the fantasies that it sets into motion and rationalises for European authors and policymakers, 371 00:43:17,470 --> 00:43:25,570 as well as for colonised Muslim intellectuals. This is not to simply say that the anti-colonial critique of Orientalism predates Sayed 372 00:43:25,570 --> 00:43:31,060 and that various Arab and non-Arab intellectuals should be inserted into its history, 373 00:43:31,060 --> 00:43:35,390 which is, of course, true. It is, however, and may be somewhat irreverent. 374 00:43:35,390 --> 00:43:45,310 Tree, a reference to the to put autumn's writings on knowledge production as internal to the genealogy of theorising Orientalism. 375 00:43:45,310 --> 00:43:52,900 So it's to trace a question around which thinkers and texts have permission to speak about which topics, 376 00:43:52,900 --> 00:43:55,900 or to borrow a different phrase of Edwards seeds, 377 00:43:55,900 --> 00:44:06,280 which have the permission to narrate a critique of Orientalism capitalism and their structures, or to even be in a genealogy of critique. 378 00:44:06,280 --> 00:44:14,350 It's to ask who's authorised to theorise about what kinds of topics or what I earlier referred to as the choreography of critique. 379 00:44:14,350 --> 00:44:23,650 Second, bottoms discussions contain a composite of analytics from colonialism, misrepresentations and denials of violence across the globe. 380 00:44:23,650 --> 00:44:31,090 It's the structures of dispossession and a class analysis derived from Marxism to the political theology that underlies secularised. 381 00:44:31,090 --> 00:44:37,030 anti-Islamic colonialism and knowledge is all in these overlapping frames. 382 00:44:37,030 --> 00:44:44,440 The composite analytics draw in multiple regions across the colonised world into the same fate, 383 00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:48,880 one enabled by complementary structures of dispossession. 384 00:44:48,880 --> 00:44:58,690 Third, although I've only gestured to them situated in relation to various journals like Adama, can help us shift where relocate theory, 385 00:44:58,690 --> 00:45:04,750 where we locate authorisations of violence and how we locate Islamist thought in relation to it. 386 00:45:04,750 --> 00:45:10,600 It is to De Exceptionalist, the Muslim thinker, twice in terms of which scripts, 387 00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:20,530 themes and connexions can come into view and in terms of the intellectuals embeddedness and a broader network of discourse. 388 00:45:20,530 --> 00:45:24,880 Since I believe I have another two minutes or so. 389 00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:34,030 Let me give you one last example dowa in 1951, put up calls French barbarism the greatest threat to the Muslim world and this, 390 00:45:34,030 --> 00:45:40,940 he says, is the same France that buckled its knees when Hitler sneezed. 391 00:45:40,940 --> 00:45:46,220 The juxtaposition interrupts the European discourses of the barbarism of Nazi ism and 392 00:45:46,220 --> 00:45:50,990 the barbarism of the colonised to draw out the barbarism of the European colonisers. 393 00:45:50,990 --> 00:45:58,820 So he says that France continues to send its tanks, artillery and its fighter jets against Marrakesh. 394 00:45:58,820 --> 00:46:04,040 He then offers an inventory of French atrocities with dates and places 1789, 395 00:46:04,040 --> 00:46:12,090 Egypt 1925 and nineteen forty one Damascus 1812 1941 1944 in 1951, Marrakesh 1830. 396 00:46:12,090 --> 00:46:23,150 In 1945, Algeria 41 villages decimated and he lists other massacres across North Africa with the same dynamics, 397 00:46:23,150 --> 00:46:31,040 saying that the same dynamics also described British attacks on Egypt and Italian attacks on present day Libya. 398 00:46:31,040 --> 00:46:39,500 He contrasts these atrocities with love for France, which he calls using religious terminology. 399 00:46:39,500 --> 00:46:45,170 Worship, murder and its admirers are friends of slaves, added. 400 00:46:45,170 --> 00:46:53,750 And what they do is glorifying yourself beyond the institutional mechanisms that enable this worship are French institutes and Egypt. 401 00:46:53,750 --> 00:47:00,050 These are sites of indoctrination or re-education ones that mask barbarism and instil awe. 402 00:47:00,050 --> 00:47:04,970 And this is why France, he says, opposes having an Egyptian institute in Tangier. 403 00:47:04,970 --> 00:47:13,970 This would foster an anti-colonial orientation one facilitated by the feeling of a shared Muslim heritage, which in turn facilitates Muslim unity. 404 00:47:13,970 --> 00:47:16,070 So this mixing of theological, 405 00:47:16,070 --> 00:47:26,180 geopolitical and institutional registers marks a violence that works through the production of a cultural institutional apparatus. 406 00:47:26,180 --> 00:47:35,600 Its stages, the problem of anti-colonial consciousness and colonial violence into a direct confrontation of pedagogy. 407 00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:40,730 Thank you, and I look forward to our conversation. Thank you very much, Mara. 408 00:47:40,730 --> 00:47:52,250 I'm really I think these papers work wonderfully with each other, and both of them are in their own ways, you know, wonderfully evocative. 409 00:47:52,250 --> 00:47:59,810 While we're waiting for people in the audience to write in their questions or raise their hands, I know some also has some. 410 00:47:59,810 --> 00:48:09,000 Let me begin with a couple of my own, if I may, Mr. Green, as he was speaking, I just thought how? 411 00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:14,440 How well the responses. 412 00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:26,770 Of Muslim authorities that you describe parallel the responses of many Western governments facing the same, if you will, threat. 413 00:48:26,770 --> 00:48:35,550 And what struck me in particular is the focus initially when you're speaking about Al Qaida on the. 414 00:48:35,550 --> 00:48:41,400 The law dealing with Highwomen and banditry as opposed to rebellion. 415 00:48:41,400 --> 00:48:49,590 And of course, this is it reminded me so much of the resort to piracy in the European legal order and therefore the 416 00:48:49,590 --> 00:48:57,450 exceptional ization of the militant outside everything that is regular and outside rights altogether. 417 00:48:57,450 --> 00:49:03,930 That's one thing. And the other thing, of course, has to do with the anxiety of authority or the reassertion of the authority, 418 00:49:03,930 --> 00:49:13,230 which you also find perhaps not so much vis-a-vis AL or ISIS's form of militancy, 419 00:49:13,230 --> 00:49:22,530 but more generally in contemporary discussions of law and legality in North America and Western Europe, 420 00:49:22,530 --> 00:49:32,460 where it's precisely the nature of a legitimate authority and where it is to be located, but is in question. 421 00:49:32,460 --> 00:49:39,550 So these are not the same things or one of them might be the same and not the other, but I just wondered if you might have any. 422 00:49:39,550 --> 00:49:50,500 Words on how you think the two go together structurally beyond the specific political and intellectual context that that your talk addressed. 423 00:49:50,500 --> 00:49:56,320 Thank you. So those are very interesting questions on the first point. 424 00:49:56,320 --> 00:50:01,600 Of course, exceptionalism is is the name of the game. 425 00:50:01,600 --> 00:50:07,390 When it comes to law, it's always easier to argue for an exception than it is to reformulate the rule. 426 00:50:07,390 --> 00:50:17,650 And as a matter of fact, the dealing with al-Qaida is as prominent in the assertion of a very well known exception in international humanitarian law, 427 00:50:17,650 --> 00:50:25,750 which is the category of the unlawful combatant and the claims about unlawful combatants, i.e. the terror advocated by the United States, 428 00:50:25,750 --> 00:50:36,190 arguing that al-Qaida fighters are neither combatants who deserve prisoners of war status nor there, nor are they civilians, 429 00:50:36,190 --> 00:50:43,550 and therefore they belong to a category that enjoys enjoys neither of the privileges that we see associated with either. 430 00:50:43,550 --> 00:50:49,570 So that is in no way unique to legal argumentation. 431 00:50:49,570 --> 00:50:56,050 And as a matter of fact, also, I mean, one interesting thing that you mentioned when it comes to police, 432 00:50:56,050 --> 00:51:01,000 I mean, going in tandem with Western governments arguments is that to some extent, 433 00:51:01,000 --> 00:51:07,360 as a matter of fact, going in tandem with those arguments and I mean, ironically, so there's I mean, 434 00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:13,300 there's a fixation on proving that Islamic law is as humane as international humanitarian law is. 435 00:51:13,300 --> 00:51:15,400 This is this is very clear. 436 00:51:15,400 --> 00:51:25,690 But in doing that, there's very little disregard to how international humanitarian law challenges and legitimate violence and its own ways. 437 00:51:25,690 --> 00:51:30,520 And as we've seen in critical scholarship examining international humanitarian law extensively. 438 00:51:30,520 --> 00:51:38,980 But you also suppress areas. Even if we if we take that assumption that there is a possibility that you limit violence and you regulate violence, 439 00:51:38,980 --> 00:51:45,100 it suppresses your claim to an even more protective regime that exists within the Islamic legal tradition, 440 00:51:45,100 --> 00:51:51,790 which is the regime of birth, which offers protections that definitely surpass international humanitarian laws. 441 00:51:51,790 --> 00:51:56,710 Protections of non-international armed conflicts. Of course, there are so many. 442 00:51:56,710 --> 00:52:03,700 I mean, I don't want to be reproducing the are the functional comparison between international humanitarian law and Islamic law, 443 00:52:03,700 --> 00:52:12,340 because it's a function of this comparison that I critique and that I believe is has an assumption of a set of values embedded in it. 444 00:52:12,340 --> 00:52:21,220 But you have here a regime that allows you to offer more protections, but that it's completely suppressed, 445 00:52:21,220 --> 00:52:26,350 partly because it does not fit within the current order of governance and partly 446 00:52:26,350 --> 00:52:30,970 because it doesn't really have a resonance in an international military and law. 447 00:52:30,970 --> 00:52:37,090 And this is related to another argument that I make some else about how to compare the disciplines. 448 00:52:37,090 --> 00:52:44,950 So generally speaking, the comparison of the disciplines now is done through a function of silence and the assumption 449 00:52:44,950 --> 00:52:50,310 of values is taken and borrowed from the international humanitarian law tradition. 450 00:52:50,310 --> 00:52:54,850 Whereas there is potentially an alternative way of looking at the disciplines 451 00:52:54,850 --> 00:52:59,620 whereby they actually guide us towards the blind spots that we see in each system. 452 00:52:59,620 --> 00:53:06,400 So rather than espousing an understanding of what law, how law should deal with violence. 453 00:53:06,400 --> 00:53:10,510 You look at how those two disciplines regulate differently. It's a matter of fact. 454 00:53:10,510 --> 00:53:12,280 In this particular instance, 455 00:53:12,280 --> 00:53:20,920 using the regime of rebellion can guide us to the what Berman refers to as the status and the governmental bias in international humanitarian law, 456 00:53:20,920 --> 00:53:26,380 and provide the space for an alternative understanding of how we deal with violence. 457 00:53:26,380 --> 00:53:31,210 Of course, there are some issues that you can see also and in looking at Islamic law, 458 00:53:31,210 --> 00:53:38,320 but that's but there's no side to that end of the analysis of international humanitarian law. 459 00:53:38,320 --> 00:53:43,730 But at the end of the day, coming back to your point, yes, exceptionalism is. 460 00:53:43,730 --> 00:53:49,700 Is, I mean, that's the that's the bread and butter of lawyers to. 461 00:53:49,700 --> 00:53:56,870 To a great extent and has been offered, but argued by many the pretty good works, 462 00:53:56,870 --> 00:54:02,710 it's actually what tells us about much more than what the what the rule tells us about about law. 463 00:54:02,710 --> 00:54:04,910 So can you remind me of the second point? 464 00:54:04,910 --> 00:54:12,170 Second, that to do with the you know what you say about the anxiety authority and reasserting authority in as it were, 465 00:54:12,170 --> 00:54:14,420 if you will, anti-democratic way. So you know, 466 00:54:14,420 --> 00:54:22,610 they are forced on the back foot the words that you're talking about because they have to reclaim authority from its fragmentation and dispersal. 467 00:54:22,610 --> 00:54:28,790 And that also, of course, seems to be a common trope in contemporary Western European and North American 468 00:54:28,790 --> 00:54:34,580 understandings of the vulnerability of of expert expertise and authority. 469 00:54:34,580 --> 00:54:40,910 Yes, I mean, of course, we see that everywhere and we see it with, I mean, we see it in different contexts. 470 00:54:40,910 --> 00:54:49,280 But I do believe that there are particular features that that makes that makes the situation difficult for Muslim jurists. 471 00:54:49,280 --> 00:54:55,370 First of all, this is a tradition that has thrived on diversity, 472 00:54:55,370 --> 00:55:02,960 that has thrived on multiplicity and because it has thrived on diversity and multiplicity. 473 00:55:02,960 --> 00:55:06,410 It has always appreciated distance from the political sorts. 474 00:55:06,410 --> 00:55:14,570 It has always perceived of the distance from the particular authority as a litmus test for legitimacy. 475 00:55:14,570 --> 00:55:20,660 So for Muslim jurists in the present, where I mean political order, 476 00:55:20,660 --> 00:55:27,350 it's very difficult to navigate that terrain because on the one hand, you want to assert your legitimacy you want. 477 00:55:27,350 --> 00:55:31,280 But that that is difficult to do considering if, for example, 478 00:55:31,280 --> 00:55:41,090 we look at the case of Egypt legal measures that have developed over the years to bring institutions under the authority of of the modern state. 479 00:55:41,090 --> 00:55:44,330 So the more they're associated with the state, 480 00:55:44,330 --> 00:55:52,940 the more that erodes their legitimacy and the more that opens up the space for other voices that come and undercut them. 481 00:55:52,940 --> 00:56:01,370 I don't want to argue that there's no place for authority in Islamic law, because that would be a very erroneous reading of Islamic law. 482 00:56:01,370 --> 00:56:11,840 Yes, it's a diverse tradition, but it's a tradition that has also had its ways of vetting and offering respect and wait for authority. 483 00:56:11,840 --> 00:56:21,830 So in a way that concern that we see voiced by many Azeri scholars and perhaps also independent scholars is a legitimate concern. 484 00:56:21,830 --> 00:56:28,790 But it's a concern that is very difficult for them to achieve considering the space that they're trying to carve out. 485 00:56:28,790 --> 00:56:36,280 For example, Ahmed A-type had extent had continued to assert that he cannot. 486 00:56:36,280 --> 00:56:41,680 Offer a position that deems ICIS apostates. 487 00:56:41,680 --> 00:56:48,960 For a very legitimate and sound reason, whether in terms of expedience or in terms of jurisprudence, 488 00:56:48,960 --> 00:56:56,820 because at the very basic level in terms of experience, I cannot criticise them for engaging in fear and then I engage myself. 489 00:56:56,820 --> 00:57:01,140 I'm disarming myself of a of that very important to it. 490 00:57:01,140 --> 00:57:11,400 But he'd come under very heavy criticism from media that is associated with political actors for failing to do that. 491 00:57:11,400 --> 00:57:18,090 So there's always a press, there's always a pressure to pull you back in again. 492 00:57:18,090 --> 00:57:24,000 And in a way that is that is probably part of the legitimacy crisis. 493 00:57:24,000 --> 00:57:31,770 When you see, I mean, as Harry scholars writing on socialism as the way of Islam and then moving away towards writing 494 00:57:31,770 --> 00:57:38,790 towards and how free market is the spirit of Islam and then writings on political and I mean, 495 00:57:38,790 --> 00:57:42,360 on the taboo issues, I mean, political rebellions and so on and so forth. 496 00:57:42,360 --> 00:57:49,190 And the particular line that extensively creates the space for you to lose. 497 00:57:49,190 --> 00:57:52,620 That's I mean that navigating power. Well, thanks. 498 00:57:52,620 --> 00:57:59,910 That's really absolutely fascinating. And you know, I'm sure we could speak about it at length and I'm sure we'll return to this. 499 00:57:59,910 --> 00:58:08,760 I have one question for Murad, and then I will turn to you, Osama, and ask those in our audience to raise their hands or write in their questions. 500 00:58:08,760 --> 00:58:15,420 So, Murad, you know, as you were speaking, I thought, you have in a way two trajectories. 501 00:58:15,420 --> 00:58:24,330 And one, of course, is the one that has to do with colonialism and Orientalism, in which you could arguably put Sokoto in a genealogy ending. 502 00:58:24,330 --> 00:58:31,950 And today's the colonial colonial movement, let's say. And I completely understand that. 503 00:58:31,950 --> 00:58:42,640 But the other one I'm more interested in, which is the figure of Sokoto and perhaps other Islamists as. 504 00:58:42,640 --> 00:58:48,070 Standing for expressing a critique of the post-colonial state itself. 505 00:58:48,070 --> 00:58:58,720 So now, obviously, he puts that within a context in which colonialism or neo colonial colonialism is crucial. 506 00:58:58,720 --> 00:59:04,930 And he was also operating in a Cold War context where the ideological state as some kind of. 507 00:59:04,930 --> 00:59:14,140 Given, let's say or necessity to think about, but if we were to set those factors aside for the moment, 508 00:59:14,140 --> 00:59:17,270 you know what strikes me as being wonderfully original, 509 00:59:17,270 --> 00:59:24,590 not only about him but about other Islamists in this period model, the of course, comes to mind immediately. 510 00:59:24,590 --> 00:59:34,310 Is that they represent. Well, before just as the case, you were making the case with, you know, Orientalism of our letter, you know, 511 00:59:34,310 --> 00:59:45,380 here you have the, you know, if you will, the the move against the post-colonial state before its time almost. 512 00:59:45,380 --> 00:59:50,120 And if we strip it off its its various kind of shootings, 513 00:59:50,120 --> 01:00:03,300 you see that being as being so extraordinarily productive moment because it escapes the usual conventional genealogies in which we set Islamism. 514 01:00:03,300 --> 01:00:09,440 And I wonder if you might have something to say on that particular trajectory of your talk. 515 01:00:09,440 --> 01:00:16,550 Yes, that actually illuminates it in a really generative and helpful way. 516 01:00:16,550 --> 01:00:21,290 So thank you. Yes, I think that I too. 517 01:00:21,290 --> 01:00:28,850 I think I'm much more interested in that second trajectory. The first is sort of a ha kind of a replacement or displacement, 518 01:00:28,850 --> 01:00:38,840 whereas the second really is about shifting the stakes of how we read these thinkers and why we read them. 519 01:00:38,840 --> 01:00:44,810 And you're entirely, I think, right? The G would be another person to read precisely in this fashion. 520 01:00:44,810 --> 01:00:53,900 And the the thing that I find really fascinating about how lot of these articles rather than in the books or that rather than in the later books, 521 01:00:53,900 --> 01:01:04,100 in these articles and in these shorter books that say what I find really fascinating about his analysis is how it really hones in on particular 522 01:01:04,100 --> 01:01:17,000 institutions and in the process of honing in on like this ministry or these cultural centres or this particular way of understanding the Treasury. 523 01:01:17,000 --> 01:01:25,190 There's there's almost a no unmasking, perhaps of the state. 524 01:01:25,190 --> 01:01:34,490 There's almost so I'm thinking here of this brilliant article by Timothy Mitchell and what was it, 1991 or 1990? 525 01:01:34,490 --> 01:01:44,000 The state effect that basically asks us to look at the institutions at the overall configuration of civil society, 526 01:01:44,000 --> 01:01:47,870 rather than to take the state as something that is given or something that is pre-existing. 527 01:01:47,870 --> 01:01:54,110 And that's the discourse that up and all of these other Islamists are operating with from the get go. 528 01:01:54,110 --> 01:02:04,190 There's something really fascinating about how what, what he what he does in, on the one hand, 529 01:02:04,190 --> 01:02:12,200 naming particular institutions rather than the state and on the other hand, 530 01:02:12,200 --> 01:02:21,560 always locating those institutions as sites of the both domestic but also global battles. 531 01:02:21,560 --> 01:02:28,970 That is, help us think about the most nodes or perhaps as vectors within a larger kind of view. 532 01:02:28,970 --> 01:02:36,830 So what I find quite fascinating is how he seems to maybe inadvertently, I don't really know zoom in, zoom out, 533 01:02:36,830 --> 01:02:45,590 zoom in, zoom out and give us these other views that make clear that what is at stake are institutions, 534 01:02:45,590 --> 01:02:51,860 that the state itself is always composed of questions of institutions, of pedagogy, 535 01:02:51,860 --> 01:03:04,310 of relations within the state and of relations between what these institutions enable regionally, locally, globally. 536 01:03:04,310 --> 01:03:13,670 And I think thinking about it as a historical institutionalist is perhaps now that perhaps the way to go really. 537 01:03:13,670 --> 01:03:19,220 Thanks very much. I mean, obviously, the critique of nationalism becomes part of that and critique, 538 01:03:19,220 --> 01:03:23,690 that's neither a liberal critique of the post-colonial state, Cold War, liberal critique nor, of course, 539 01:03:23,690 --> 01:03:33,170 a Marxist critique of the nations of the post-colonial state as a kind of further step in the constitution of a colonial bourgeoisie. 540 01:03:33,170 --> 01:03:37,760 So, yeah, it opens up all kinds of questions. But Oussama, can I turn to you? 541 01:03:37,760 --> 01:03:41,390 I mean, I've just been fascinated by the preceding discussion for both of you. 542 01:03:41,390 --> 01:03:46,440 And I mean, I've had conversations with Helmut after the intro. 543 01:03:46,440 --> 01:03:55,340 You've been sort of part of this vessel as well. I mean, the idea of looking at some like do the as this opportunity to reassess Western 544 01:03:55,340 --> 01:04:00,020 political theory and what you're doing is precisely the same thing as West Virginia, 545 01:04:00,020 --> 01:04:02,630 which is also very interesting. 546 01:04:02,630 --> 01:04:13,310 And that's something I've personally been interested in, but I'm not trained quite so systematically within the western saturations theory literature, 547 01:04:13,310 --> 01:04:19,040 but I think that these people represent an interesting coalescing of ideas. 548 01:04:19,040 --> 01:04:22,310 I mean, when you're talking about Islamism more generally as well, 549 01:04:22,310 --> 01:04:30,710 not just looking at up to a type of international relations theory that needs to be more thickly described, more thoroughly articulated. 550 01:04:30,710 --> 01:04:41,870 And I look forward to reading your work more closely as I also hope to read the original ideas in the in the Arabic or in the case of the North, 551 01:04:41,870 --> 01:04:46,340 in some instances, to be able to explore that in greater detail. 552 01:04:46,340 --> 01:04:55,150 I actually had a question that would take me back to the screen a bit and it sort of perhaps is framed. 553 01:04:55,150 --> 01:05:03,740 You know, you spoke about the way in which Muslim scholars were trying to sort of ameliorate 554 01:05:03,740 --> 01:05:10,890 the impression that the Shariah somehow maybe has certain harmful effects. 555 01:05:10,890 --> 01:05:18,140 And the comparator, of course, is sort of international law as a normative standard against which we measure. 556 01:05:18,140 --> 01:05:25,940 And I think you're doing something similar in, in a sense to what we were just discussing with what you're trying to potentially displace 557 01:05:25,940 --> 01:05:30,500 that authority that is granted to the standard narrative of international law and say, 558 01:05:30,500 --> 01:05:34,640 Well, why does that need to be the sort of reference point? 559 01:05:34,640 --> 01:05:41,600 And for me, what's really striking is some of the story that you said is this was the same time that these scholars are trying to highlight. 560 01:05:41,600 --> 01:05:46,730 Well, you know, Islamic law is as humane as international relations, 561 01:05:46,730 --> 01:05:52,250 the international sort of humanitarian law or whatever is the major reference point. 562 01:05:52,250 --> 01:06:00,260 That is the time when enemy combatants or sort of non-whites get unlawful combatants, they coined. 563 01:06:00,260 --> 01:06:01,820 That idea is being generated. 564 01:06:01,820 --> 01:06:09,200 That is at the same time, you know, I forget the name John Yoo, perhaps is writing the torture memos for the Bush administration. 565 01:06:09,200 --> 01:06:17,660 And I wonder how those two sort of visions of the role of law. 566 01:06:17,660 --> 01:06:21,680 Why are they heading in such divergent pathways? 567 01:06:21,680 --> 01:06:27,080 You know, some of that answer might be somewhat obvious, but I'd love to hear your insights specifically. 568 01:06:27,080 --> 01:06:35,540 Why is it that Muslim scholars are, you know, in this on the back foot trying to say, actually, this tradition isn't as bad as you think? 569 01:06:35,540 --> 01:06:40,400 And these types of the here are trying to say, OK, what can we do this? 570 01:06:40,400 --> 01:06:49,430 This tradition needs to be instrumentalized to allow for the most what in the popular imagination is really heinous behaviour. 571 01:06:49,430 --> 01:06:54,010 So what can we do about that and what motivates those very different trajectories? 572 01:06:54,010 --> 01:06:58,640 And just thinking about your comments on that? Thank you. Thank you, Sam. 573 01:06:58,640 --> 01:07:09,230 That said, that's a very interesting question. I'd like just to direct you to a recent article written by Dina Sollima on that issue, 574 01:07:09,230 --> 01:07:20,300 and she argues that Bush's arguments about the unlawful combatants category can be very much compared to a tired arguments about who may be targeted. 575 01:07:20,300 --> 01:07:29,750 So I mean, I do think I mean, there are some legal nuances that I might agree or disagree with here and there, 576 01:07:29,750 --> 01:07:34,310 but the idea is that we we do not we cannot necessarily read. 577 01:07:34,310 --> 01:07:41,810 The Bush administration is reflective of the international legal tradition as a whole. 578 01:07:41,810 --> 01:07:49,790 At the end of the day, the Bush administration's position was heavily criticised by different you and human rights organisations, 579 01:07:49,790 --> 01:07:57,890 different groups and by the entity that is often seen as the guardian of international humanitarian law, the International Committee of the Red Cross. 580 01:07:57,890 --> 01:08:05,570 So it in a way what was the Bush administration's position might be argued to be an aberration. 581 01:08:05,570 --> 01:08:13,300 I don't think I don't personally think it's an aberration because there is this space in the system that allows for. 582 01:08:13,300 --> 01:08:25,900 Such arguments to be made and the benchmark that is being used here is the benchmark of the the modern modern international humanitarian, 583 01:08:25,900 --> 01:08:32,410 as exemplified by international institutions and international humanitarian organisations. 584 01:08:32,410 --> 01:08:37,030 And sometimes that is a coincidence by an attempt to appeal to that. 585 01:08:37,030 --> 01:08:40,840 I mean, arguably clearly in the very early works, 586 01:08:40,840 --> 01:08:49,090 it's an appeal to the prominence of international law and the idea of the prominence of international law that comes after the Second World War. 587 01:08:49,090 --> 01:08:53,920 So it's an attempt to appeal to that discourse. 588 01:08:53,920 --> 01:08:59,080 But also, there are more deliberate attempts to reconcile the two that we see in the present. 589 01:08:59,080 --> 01:09:03,400 The International Committee of the Red Cross contacts and gets in touch with Muslim 590 01:09:03,400 --> 01:09:12,880 scholars to write articles that portray that that emulate introduction to law. 591 01:09:12,880 --> 01:09:17,650 For example, one scholar that I've mentioned that I've looked at extensively was right. 592 01:09:17,650 --> 01:09:27,090 He has written an article for the international review of the Red Cross on Islamic Laws of War, so that's not a coincidence. 593 01:09:27,090 --> 01:09:30,790 The Red Cross has an Islamic law expert. 594 01:09:30,790 --> 01:09:38,260 Now, I doubt that they have other experts from other legal traditions, and they conduct trainings on Islamic rules of war. 595 01:09:38,260 --> 01:09:46,300 So there is a deliberate agenda, whether one agrees with it or not, to offer to offer that reconciliation. 596 01:09:46,300 --> 01:09:54,580 It's not always just an attempt to appease to an assumption of a superior set of ideals. 597 01:09:54,580 --> 01:09:58,720 There's also a concerted effort that is going to there. 598 01:09:58,720 --> 01:10:02,380 Just a commentary on the Bush administration is, however, 599 01:10:02,380 --> 01:10:11,260 utilised by Muslim scholars to make to make an argument that's very similar to the argument that Salima it makes. 600 01:10:11,260 --> 01:10:19,390 So I remember in an interview, in an interview with the Typekit that I was conducting for my for my fieldwork, 601 01:10:19,390 --> 01:10:28,120 he when asked about the practises of Okada, he explicitly said not every action in the name of a particular legal order is reflective of that order. 602 01:10:28,120 --> 01:10:32,030 Look at how the United States has justified. But if I the invasion of Iraq. 603 01:10:32,030 --> 01:10:34,270 So he didn't choose the unlawful combatants argument, 604 01:10:34,270 --> 01:10:41,230 but he used the use of force arguments and how the US is subverting international law and that this is not indicative of international law. 605 01:10:41,230 --> 01:10:45,760 So it actually creates the space for critique somehow. 606 01:10:45,760 --> 01:10:55,060 But it's the ideals have become so entrenched that when you argue for a different understanding of targeting, 607 01:10:55,060 --> 01:11:03,290 this is not just a different legal interpretation. This takes you into the terrain of barbarism and brutality. 608 01:11:03,290 --> 01:11:11,140 And right, and I think I mean, if I may, I'm just going to link that to a broader question, which I have for yourself, 609 01:11:11,140 --> 01:11:21,520 which was, I mean, the the discursive power that things like the colonial and post-colonial theorists are concerned about. 610 01:11:21,520 --> 01:11:33,040 They're trying to sort of overturn these hegemonic Eurocentric ideals that presuppose the the supremacy or 611 01:11:33,040 --> 01:11:39,810 the normative issue of a particular sort of tradition of thinking and have in some respects underwritten, 612 01:11:39,810 --> 01:11:47,440 you know, the colonial traditions of the last few centuries. Just let me just give you a and all that these sorts of things now. 613 01:11:47,440 --> 01:11:57,530 I mean, in a sense, what you're arguing is that it is a a post-colonial colonial theorist ahead of the post-colonial decline terrorists that we have. 614 01:11:57,530 --> 01:12:06,640 And I mean, which is a fascinating claim to advertise and to say because I'm sure the latter, 615 01:12:06,640 --> 01:12:14,830 the former, neither of them would particularly like that. But but yeah, I mean, I just wanted to sort of. 616 01:12:14,830 --> 01:12:22,150 Ask in what ways does this disrupt the self-image of everyone involved, 617 01:12:22,150 --> 01:12:27,580 whether it's the Islamists or the decolonial theorists of this colonial theorists, so to speak? 618 01:12:27,580 --> 01:12:37,600 Yeah, no, that's I think that that's in a way. Part of what's at stake in that first move. 619 01:12:37,600 --> 01:12:43,940 And the way the Faisal very helpfully said there are sort of two trajectories. 620 01:12:43,940 --> 01:12:51,670 So that's that's I think what the the first trajectory thinking with it, that's that's sort of where it would take us. 621 01:12:51,670 --> 01:13:03,250 And it's there's a way the. I don't know, sort of paint with too grunt of a brush that I've misplaced on my finer brushes. 622 01:13:03,250 --> 01:13:13,120 There's there's a way, the postcolonial theory broadly simultaneously. 623 01:13:13,120 --> 01:13:17,140 Its practitioners, and I guess I would include myself in that to some extent, 624 01:13:17,140 --> 01:13:28,330 its practitioners are certainly not outside of a certain kind of post enlightenment mode of critique. 625 01:13:28,330 --> 01:13:36,910 And yet at the same time that there is there, there are quite a few distancing manoeuvres that are fundamental to how post colonialism, 626 01:13:36,910 --> 01:13:46,240 anti-colonialism, the colonial theory operate with respect to movements that would be considered unsavoury in some way. 627 01:13:46,240 --> 01:13:50,590 And yet the shared discursive space, the shared techniques, 628 01:13:50,590 --> 01:14:00,610 the shared insights and in some ways of the shared implications are something that we can't just sweep under a rug. 629 01:14:00,610 --> 01:14:14,110 So from my perspective, what's precisely interesting about it is it takes this notion of critique and it takes this worship of critique and that says, 630 01:14:14,110 --> 01:14:20,140 maybe we should be critical about this as the ideal that has come to dominate how we have this choreography. 631 01:14:20,140 --> 01:14:31,450 Because at the end of the day, I really do believe that one of the problems of this choreography is that it reproduces the very same kinds of silos, 632 01:14:31,450 --> 01:14:43,390 the very same kinds of geographies, the very same kinds of disciplines that our own disciplines have inherited, oftentimes quite unthinkingly. 633 01:14:43,390 --> 01:14:47,440 And what's interesting about someone like, 634 01:14:47,440 --> 01:14:57,190 I'm guessing he probably wouldn't like being put in the company of various postcolonial and decolonial thinkers. 635 01:14:57,190 --> 01:15:02,980 You probably see them as symptomatic and in many ways. 636 01:15:02,980 --> 01:15:10,180 But I think what's important about reading and recovering his modes of critique is 637 01:15:10,180 --> 01:15:14,920 then the the alternatives the that opens up the alternative modes of thinking. 638 01:15:14,920 --> 01:15:24,400 You mentioned Hamada, the work on duty, and she has this one article in particular in the Journal of Politics. 639 01:15:24,400 --> 01:15:33,040 It came out either last year or the year before. That is absolutely brilliant on this front and really does try to push us to think in those terms. 640 01:15:33,040 --> 01:15:47,110 And maybe one thing that links what I'm trying to do with Perturb and what Nasreen is also doing that is poking the remainder right, 641 01:15:47,110 --> 01:15:54,850 poking these analytics through these categories that or even these choreographies, 642 01:15:54,850 --> 01:16:08,060 the contemporary disciplines and the contemporary state pushes against or pushes to the margins because on the one hand, they're not useful. 643 01:16:08,060 --> 01:16:20,570 Right. And on the other hand, they raised a certain kind of question about the legitimacy of the categories and discourses that define. 644 01:16:20,570 --> 01:16:29,690 What is saleable by who and and what kinds of ways to put it in the most general terms? 645 01:16:29,690 --> 01:16:36,830 But but in that way, it would tell us that at the same time as we're using these categories of postcolonial and decolonial, 646 01:16:36,830 --> 01:16:48,770 we need to be really quite critical of the cultural ized work that already goes into who they give centerstage to and who they silence and why. 647 01:16:48,770 --> 01:16:51,780 That's the case. Thank you very much. 648 01:16:51,780 --> 01:17:01,320 I have, as always, sort of plenty of questions to put to our esteemed panellists, but I don't want to up the discussion either. 649 01:17:01,320 --> 01:17:06,120 I have one for. And then maybe we can go back to you at this time. 650 01:17:06,120 --> 01:17:14,900 So the three, you know, when you were talking about love from the very beginning of your talk, actually, when you mentioned so interestingly, the. 651 01:17:14,900 --> 01:17:27,790 If you will. Cherry picked or perhaps let us even take opportunistic, or at least on systematise mode of addressing some of these questions. 652 01:17:27,790 --> 01:17:38,830 I was put in mind of the sort of idea of this form of theoretical knowledge by one of my early teachers, 653 01:17:38,830 --> 01:17:42,970 Fazlur Rahman, who approached it from a completely modernist. 654 01:17:42,970 --> 01:17:48,340 He was a modernist of modernist viewpoint and sort of railed against it was a wonderful man, by the way. 655 01:17:48,340 --> 01:17:55,900 I don't mean to criticise him, but you know, he railed against the UN systematised and cherry picked, 656 01:17:55,900 --> 01:18:02,260 you know, mode by which jurists had approached the textual corpus. 657 01:18:02,260 --> 01:18:10,120 Not that they were not following up argumentative lines, but they refused. 658 01:18:10,120 --> 01:18:16,240 For instance, in his view, to take the text of the Koran or that systematically. 659 01:18:16,240 --> 01:18:23,470 And of course, he understood that one reason they might have refused to do so was precisely to 660 01:18:23,470 --> 01:18:28,030 allow for the pluralism that you in the street then came back to in your response. 661 01:18:28,030 --> 01:18:35,170 I think Osama and to make it impossible to head summarisation of this textual corpus. 662 01:18:35,170 --> 01:18:43,220 But actually speaking, it struck me. Yes, I completely get that. On the other hand, do you think that? 663 01:18:43,220 --> 01:18:51,560 That form of legal or juridical pluralism, the availability of different kinds of arguments, not entirely congruent with each other. 664 01:18:51,560 --> 01:19:04,100 Sometimes even not with themselves has reached its limits because after all, Al Qaeda and to a large extent ISIS also use similar forms of. 665 01:19:04,100 --> 01:19:09,110 Whatever you want to call it and systematised, or cherry-picked or whatever legal reasoning, 666 01:19:09,110 --> 01:19:15,170 however weak it might be in comparison with that of the sort of aseries. 667 01:19:15,170 --> 01:19:23,870 So, you know, one wonders what a fate lies before this otherwise admirable tradition of legal pluralism. 668 01:19:23,870 --> 01:19:31,730 Thank you. So this is this is something that I keep going back and forth on and extensively reflect, reflect on, 669 01:19:31,730 --> 01:19:43,820 I do think that on the one hand, there's there's an issue with system of taxation, regardless of it being singular or plural. 670 01:19:43,820 --> 01:19:53,970 We don't really see a systemised theory that is advocated by a particular institution or jurist and saying This is the theory that I promote, 671 01:19:53,970 --> 01:20:02,900 I'm trying to espouse and those are the domains of it we see with all the examples that have looked at, we see direct interpretation of the text. 672 01:20:02,900 --> 01:20:09,920 Sometimes we see reliance on jurisprudence sometimes and we see contextual assertions of muscle 673 01:20:09,920 --> 01:20:18,290 and other times with no clarification of when to use what and what you can actually rely on. 674 01:20:18,290 --> 01:20:23,660 This is not a question of intellectual impoverishment. 675 01:20:23,660 --> 01:20:29,990 I do think if one looks at the situation that Al-Azhar is placed in, for example, it's one way to focus on another. 676 01:20:29,990 --> 01:20:37,970 It's not a coincidence. So many scholars have argued that Al-Azhar has managed to carve out a space for itself as the authority on 677 01:20:37,970 --> 01:20:47,120 social issues and the way it carves out that authority is by claiming a connexion with the classical tradition, 678 01:20:47,120 --> 01:20:53,030 by relying on classical jurisprudence when it comes to matters such as Christian status and issues that 679 01:20:53,030 --> 01:21:01,490 or of that are social rather than political taboo issues that they cannot really keep a distance on. 680 01:21:01,490 --> 01:21:09,670 So from that perspective? The connexion with the tradition is the assertion of their of their legitimacy, 681 01:21:09,670 --> 01:21:18,520 the reliance on the jurisprudence is not just an intellectual commitment to the jurisprudence, but it's also part of the reason that. 682 01:21:18,520 --> 01:21:26,980 But when it comes to other political issues where they have less of a freedom to carve out their own space, they have to. 683 01:21:26,980 --> 01:21:34,450 The whole theory starts to falter and and and the position becomes untenable. 684 01:21:34,450 --> 01:21:37,350 But it's. 685 01:21:37,350 --> 01:21:48,060 In a way, it's very difficult for them to imagine or carve out an alternative space considering the role that they play in domestic politics now, 686 01:21:48,060 --> 01:21:54,690 where they are cornered into a way to assert legitimacy by connecting themselves with that tradition. 687 01:21:54,690 --> 01:22:01,540 And I don't want to dispel the importance of the tradition. I mean it, as has been argued by many, 688 01:22:01,540 --> 01:22:08,190 the the claim of direct reliance on the text has also been used as a pretext for justifying 689 01:22:08,190 --> 01:22:16,050 militant thought and for eroding a millennia old tradition of learning in favour of again, 690 01:22:16,050 --> 01:22:17,700 singular interpretations. 691 01:22:17,700 --> 01:22:28,530 So I'm not I'm not sure if there is a way out for them, but they are left in a situation where they're in a dilemma whereby they have. 692 01:22:28,530 --> 01:22:36,090 We have two opposing parties, both using the same ammunition in very similar techniques to to fight against each other, 693 01:22:36,090 --> 01:22:44,350 and there's no winning that game. Thanks. It's really an extraordinary situation, isn't it? 694 01:22:44,350 --> 01:22:49,220 That and people who tend to look at the content rather than the form of these debates. 695 01:22:49,220 --> 01:22:55,340 They don't do a tweak to these strange problems. Osama, thank you. 696 01:22:55,340 --> 01:23:00,890 I mean, I actually did. I'm going to be a bit selfish and try and ask questions to both of you, actually. 697 01:23:00,890 --> 01:23:04,450 But you know, I'm sure we won't really have a great deal of time. 698 01:23:04,450 --> 01:23:06,710 I mean, just picking up on the this point. 699 01:23:06,710 --> 01:23:17,300 I don't mind who who goes first here, but I mean, some of what you were saying was reminiscent of Hulk's earlier claim. 700 01:23:17,300 --> 01:23:18,970 I mean, he doesn't make it in the same way about the death. 701 01:23:18,970 --> 01:23:28,040 The idea that this sort of multiplicity basically being flattened in the modern period reflects a death, the death of the city. 702 01:23:28,040 --> 01:23:37,670 And I think, you know, I've suggested in a review of some of his work that this is maybe a bit overdramatic that we 703 01:23:37,670 --> 01:23:42,630 don't know the way in which the Shariah existed over the past millennium and its variations. 704 01:23:42,630 --> 01:23:49,300 I mean, we're still, I think, trying to grapple with the extent to which there was variation in its in its practise. 705 01:23:49,300 --> 01:23:54,620 It allows for much latitude, including the latitude of modernity. 706 01:23:54,620 --> 01:23:59,990 But I think this flattening of the diversity question, 707 01:23:59,990 --> 01:24:09,700 I wanted you to perhaps reflect a little on what luck is claiming and whether this means somehow, 708 01:24:09,700 --> 01:24:17,390 you know, modern Muslims can't really be adherents to a tradition that is consonant with the past. 709 01:24:17,390 --> 01:24:24,080 Or, you know, as modern Muslims are engaging with these sort of global historical transformations, particularly, I think most importantly, 710 01:24:24,080 --> 01:24:33,200 the states and the fact that the state flattens its legal uniformity, I think, is part and parcel of the way in which we understand states. 711 01:24:33,200 --> 01:24:41,870 Is there any prospect in a sense, do you think that for that to return that sort of diversity given? 712 01:24:41,870 --> 01:24:50,060 So that's kind of bunching two questions, one about one about the state. And very briefly, if it's possible because I know we're going to have to end, 713 01:24:50,060 --> 01:24:56,630 but three minutes actually the Thomas Babington Macaulay minute on education. 714 01:24:56,630 --> 01:25:03,830 I don't know if you're familiar with this 1835 sort of speech he gave in sort of parliament, 715 01:25:03,830 --> 01:25:10,070 but I just I'm reminded of a certain line and it just in 1835, he was saying, we must do. 716 01:25:10,070 --> 01:25:16,880 We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreted as between us and the millions who wake up India, 717 01:25:16,880 --> 01:25:23,420 the class of persons, Indian and blood and colour, but English and tastes and opinions and morals and an intellect. 718 01:25:23,420 --> 01:25:24,050 And you know, 719 01:25:24,050 --> 01:25:33,800 it just made me think that's what came to mind when you mentioned Gottlieb's comments about the sort of white black Englishman with a document. 720 01:25:33,800 --> 01:25:40,550 So anyway, I don't know who wants to take this first, but unfortunately, I have not let you go ahead. 721 01:25:40,550 --> 01:25:47,690 Thanks. And sit in, and I'll be very quick. There's a super interesting genealogy. 722 01:25:47,690 --> 01:26:00,860 I think of that set of tropes with regards to at colonial governance and the like 723 01:26:00,860 --> 01:26:12,200 pretty blatant notion of a divided self that is thoroughly racialized in these terms. 724 01:26:12,200 --> 01:26:19,670 And I shouldn't link it very quickly to another thing that I think is at stake in many of these conversations. 725 01:26:19,670 --> 01:26:26,270 And I think this applies to both presentations today in terms of some of the implications. 726 01:26:26,270 --> 01:26:30,770 And it's that in a lot of the discourses surrounding, you know, think what you want, 727 01:26:30,770 --> 01:26:36,350 whether it's critique or modernity or the Enlightenment or whatever it is, 728 01:26:36,350 --> 01:26:39,140 the production of race, the development of Empire, 729 01:26:39,140 --> 01:26:49,250 the Connexions across different anti-colonial movements that with a couple of rare exceptions, the the Muslim drops out. 730 01:26:49,250 --> 01:26:54,530 Sometimes the Muslim fears that his or her head and then, you know, recedes from view. 731 01:26:54,530 --> 01:27:00,530 And that is symptomatic of something much broader about how we understand many of these categories. 732 01:27:00,530 --> 01:27:11,960 And I think that that's one of the things that the kinds of genealogy that you just pointed to, Osama that help us rethink, help us rewrite. 733 01:27:11,960 --> 01:27:16,100 Help us perhaps even undo. 734 01:27:16,100 --> 01:27:21,410 OK, I'll stop there. And sorry to City and I left you with one or two minutes later. 735 01:27:21,410 --> 01:27:23,780 Now that's perfectly fine. 736 01:27:23,780 --> 01:27:34,160 So I do think that there are compelling aspects to this argument with regards to the dynamics of how Shariah shifted in the modern world. 737 01:27:34,160 --> 01:27:38,780 But I also do agree with the critiques of Hamlet's argument. 738 01:27:38,780 --> 01:27:44,630 That assert that it disregards earlier presence of the political authority in the 739 01:27:44,630 --> 01:27:51,110 making of law and how the political authority has how you had administrative error. 740 01:27:51,110 --> 01:27:56,210 Yes, positions of law, even in the very classical assertions of Islamic law. 741 01:27:56,210 --> 01:27:58,730 I mean, I mean, a case in point is, for example, 742 01:27:58,730 --> 01:28:07,880 if you look at how this chapter on criminal law in his textbook Shariah theory and practise you find in the past section is rather brief and very, 743 01:28:07,880 --> 01:28:14,810 very slim. I mean, despite the fact that most of the time, most of the punishments were actually worth Assiri punishments. 744 01:28:14,810 --> 01:28:20,120 So I mean, so on that account, I do find there are some issues there. 745 01:28:20,120 --> 01:28:28,220 And I do have issues with the claims that Shariah is one model and and it has 746 01:28:28,220 --> 01:28:33,350 to fit that particular model and it cannot be reformulated or reinterpreted. 747 01:28:33,350 --> 01:28:40,310 But that doesn't necessarily mean that the. So the question is not whether or not it can be reformulated differently. 748 01:28:40,310 --> 01:28:43,550 The question is whether or not I mean, in that particular context, 749 01:28:43,550 --> 01:28:56,240 there is a space in the current political context to offer alternative formulations that may very well be very different from earlier interpretations. 750 01:28:56,240 --> 01:29:01,970 It varies over time. But in the current context, there's a very slim chance for that. 751 01:29:01,970 --> 01:29:04,550 Thank you so much. Thank you, both. 752 01:29:04,550 --> 01:29:12,950 This has really been sort of a fantastic sort of kaleidoscope of thinking about a topic which is not seen with favour, 753 01:29:12,950 --> 01:29:18,980 of course, violence, so to speak, and for good reason in general. 754 01:29:18,980 --> 01:29:28,580 But I cannot thank you both enough for really giving us a wonderful sort of insight into some 755 01:29:28,580 --> 01:29:34,610 of these sort of cutting edge work that you are both involved in the theoretical reflections, 756 01:29:34,610 --> 01:29:45,950 the granular legal detail which you brought in as well. And I'm I can sort of only wish that we had much more time to be able to discuss these things, 757 01:29:45,950 --> 01:29:49,740 and I'm sure we will have plenty of options to reconnect. 758 01:29:49,740 --> 01:29:57,800 So if it's all right, I'm just going to briefly mention what's coming up next in our next session in a fortnight's time. 759 01:29:57,800 --> 01:30:07,790 So thank you both to industry and by the way, and at risk for really spectacular, interesting and engaging session in a couple more weeks time. 760 01:30:07,790 --> 01:30:17,900 We'll also be having a couple of scholars coming in, including in Selma, who's now based at Oxford and for the next couple of years. 761 01:30:17,900 --> 01:30:22,760 And Mohammed Fadel, who have both been naturally going to be talking about law. 762 01:30:22,760 --> 01:30:31,400 So I look forward to sort of guests joining us then and if you have the time to join as well. 763 01:30:31,400 --> 01:30:54,420 But until then, we look forward to seeing everyone in a couple of weeks time.