Editorial
Editorial Note
Basit Karim Iqbal
Articles
Agents of Grace: Ethical Agency between Ghazālī and the Anthropology of Islam
Ali Altaf Mian
Abstract
This article contributes to theorizations of ethical agency in the anthropology of Islam by turning to the medieval moral theologian Abū āmid al-Ghazālī (1058-1111). Building on Talal Asad’s engagement with Ghazālī, this article closely reads the latter’s writing on intentionality, which amply illuminates his theory of ethical agency. Ghazālī neither elaborates an idealist theory of ethical agency nor posits an ethical subject whose practices are “directed at making certain kinds of behaviors unconscious or nondeliberative” (Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 139). Rather, he articulates ethical agency as a site of contingency and ambivalence, as action involves not only knowledge, resolution/will, and bodily capacity but also divine grace. Grace, this article argues, is a cipher for the non-sovereignty of the ethical subject, since for Ghazālī agency is split between the subject’s discursive and material capacities (knowledge, resolution, and bodily strength) and a certain metamorphic spontaneity/enablement that is experienced as a gift of the Other (grace). By turning to Ghazālī, then, this article encourages serious engagement with the concept of grace for understanding ethical agency in the anthropology of Islam.
No Scholars in the West: Salafi Networks of Knowledge from Saudi Arabia to Philadelphia
Emily Goshey
Abstract
Seeking knowledge from scholars is an imperative for Salafis. But what does that mean for Salafis in the West who deny that there are any scholars among them? Since the 1960s, Western Muslims have been taking advantage of the scholarships available for Islamic studies programs in Saudi Arabia. A steady stream of students has gone, studied with leading Salafi scholars in the heart of the Muslim world, and returned home to promulgate Salafi teachings and lead their communities. Why do none of these former students count as scholars? If they are not scholars, then what is the nature of their role as local leaders? To answer these questions, this study looks closely at the predominantly African American Salafi affiliate community in Philadelphia. The arguments here contribute to a growing body of literature on global Salafism and specifically studies of so-called Madkhalī communities tied to the Islamic University of Medina. Primary fieldwork from 2010 to 2013 and interviews as recent as 2021 inform the conclusion that this community’s pattern of knowledge transmission perpetuates and even celebrates the continual reliance of Philadelphia’s Salafis on scholars abroad.
Maqāṣidī Models for an “Islamic” Medical Ethics: Problem-Solving or Confusing at the Bedside?
Aasim Padela
Abstract
The maqāṣid al-shari‘ah are championed as tools to address contemporary societal issues. Indeed, it is argued that maqāṣidbased solutions to present-day economic, political, and cultural challenges authentically bridge the moral vision of Islam with modernity. Advocates also stress that maqāṣidī models overcome shortcomings within fiqh-based strategies by bypassing their over-reliance on scriptural and legal hermeneutics, their dated views on social life, and their analytic focus on individual action. Herein I critically analyze efforts to bring maqāṣidī thinking to the clinical bedside. Specifically, I describe how leading thinkers such as Profs. Gamal Eldin Attia, Tariq Ramadan, Omar Hasan Kasule, and others build maqāṣid frameworks for medical ethics by expanding upon Imam Abū Ishāq al-Shāṭibī’s maqāṣid al-sharīʿah theory. I categorize these varied approaches into three types (field-based redefinition, conceptual extension, and text-based postulation) and detail how each sets up a specific method of medical ethics deliberation. Moving from the theoretical to the practical, I use a test case, a 19-weeks pregnant “brain dead” Muslim woman, to ascertain the goals of care and the respective moral responsibilities of her husband and the treating Muslim clinician using the three models. Next, I discuss the merits and pitfalls of each proposed solution and comment on how these match up with extant fiqh. To close the paper, I comment on the place of maqāṣidī thinking in Muslim engagement with contemporary biomedicine, contending that such frameworks are presently too underdeveloped for medical ethics deliberation at the bedside. Indeed, without further elaboration from theorists, appeal to the maqāṣid in medical ethics deliberation may provide clinicians, patients, and other stakeholders with ambiguous, incomplete, impractical, or otherwise problematic answers.
Developing an Ethic of Justice: Maqāṣid Approaches in Maududi and Solidarity Youth Movement
Thahir Jamal Kiliyamannil
Abstract
New Muslim movements in South India, such as the Solidarity Youth movement, re-formulated Muslim priorities towards human rights, democracy, development, environmental activism, and minorities. I read Solidarity Youth Movement as proposing an ethic of Islam’s conception of justice, while also drawing inspiration from the influential Islamist Abul A’la Maududi. Focusing on jurisprudential debates, I look at the ways in which Maududi’s intervention informs the praxis of Solidarity Youth Movement. This paper seeks the possibility of examining their activism as an instance of juristic deliberation, linked to the revival of maqāṣid al-sharī’ah in the latter part of the twentieth century. I suggest a reading of their maqāṣid approach, born out of praxis in a Muslim minority context, as potentially informing the development of fiqh al-aqalliyah.
Review Essays
Salafīsm and Traditionalism: Scholarly Authority in Modern Islam (by Emad Hamdeh)
Suheil Laher
Islamic Thought in Africa: The Collected Works of Afa Ajura (1910-2004) and the Impact of Ajuraism on Northern Ghana (by Alhaji Yusuf Salihu Ajura, translated by Zakyi Ibrahim)
Ismail Hashim Abubakar
Book Reviews
Representing Islam: Hip-Hop of the September 11 Generation (by Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir)
Martin Jiajun He
Arabic Conquests and Early Islamic Historiography: The Futuh al-Buldan of al-Baladhuri (by Ryan Lynch)
Ali Cebeci
Miracles and Material Life: Rice, Ore, Traps and Guns in Islamic Malaya (by Teren Sevea)
Max Dugan
Obituary
The Contributions and Impact of Malik Badri: Father of Modern Islamic Psychology
Abdallah Rothman, Alisha Ahmed, Rania Awaad