Browsing by Author "Mohomed, Carimo"
- ‘Adl e Shari’a: justiça no IslãoPublication . Mohomed, Carimo
- Ali Shariati, or the intellectual in pursuit of justicePublication . Mohomed, CarimoThis essay, drawing on ‘Ali Shari’ati’s most important works on what is an Intellectual and what is Justice, will try to address how he conceived the role of the intellect and of the intellectual in the pursuit of justice. For Imam ʿAli, the ‘true intellectual’ (al-aqil) is one who not only thinks correctly but also acts ethically, and, at the deepest level, one who seeks to realize the ultimate Reality. The intellectual is defined as one who ‘puts all things in their proper place’, which is the very definition of justice also. Only the true intellectual can, therefore, be fully ‘just’, for only one who sees things as they truly are is able to put them in their right place. Thought, action and realization are all the concern of the true intellectual, the aqil. With this text, I hope to show how ‘Ali Shari’ati emphasised both the harmony between intellect and revelation, and the distinction (though not conflict) between intellect and reason, and how his intellectual endeavours were, ultimately, a pursuit for Justice. Shari’ati, in particular, criticised the Western project of positivism for falsely proclaiming the ability to separate knowledge from its human context. He also argued that all science should actively affirm its human interests, rather than pretending to rise above them. Human knowledge should thus always be recognised as having been produced through human social relations.
- Formation of muslim elites in british India: Sayyid Ahmad Khan and the Muhammadan Anglo‑Oriental CollegePublication . Mohomed, CarimoAfter the Indian Mutiny of 1857‑1858, also known as the Sepoy Revolt or Uprising, and the end of the Mughal Dynasty, India became under the direct rule of the British Government, and there were a considerable number of Muslim political intellectuals who sought to reform and revitalize Islam in India and as a whole. The responses were various and the debates would surpass geographical boundaries, anticipating questions which are relevant even nowadays, like gender relations, new forms of religious institutionalization and the role of religion in politics. The aim of this paper is to analyze the thought of Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817‑1898) and the educational impacts of his Muhammadan Anglo‑Oriental College, also known as the Aligarh Movement.
- A historiographical approach to the Qur' an and Shari' a in late 19th century India: the case of Chiragh 'AliPublication . Mohomed, CarimoAnalysing the book The Proposed Political, Legal, and Social Reforms in the Ottoman Empire and Other Mohammadan States (1883) and undertaking a historical contextualization, this paper problematizes the epistemis and epistemological framework underlying the articulation of Chiragh 'Ali's discourse, focusing on how he viewed the Qur'an and Shari'a according to the intellectual debates in the 19th century. Often refuting, in his writings, missionary and Orientalist criticisms of Islam as being hostile to reason and incapable of reform, Chiragh 'Ali rather argued that the Islamic legal system and schools were human institutions capable of modification. While defending that the Qur'an taught religious doctrine and rules for morality, Chiragh 'Ali held the opinion that it did not support a detailed code of immutable civil law or dictate a specific political system, drawing on an examination of the traditional sources of the Islamic law and methods to overcome the rigidity of traditional theologians.
- Intellectual (neo-) imperialism: the examples of “islam[ism(s)]” and “jihad[ism(s)]”Publication . Mohomed, CarimoIn any scientific endeavour, or considered as such, methodology and epistemology are paramount, not to mention ontology: what is the nature of the reality that we are studying? What is the nature of the knowledge that is being produced and its rationality? What are the methods applied to the field of study? However, when it to comes to “Islam”, the “Middle East”, or the “Orient”, the starting points are assumptions and truisms, particularly in “scientific” fields such as Political Science or International Relations, especially when the subject is the relation between politics and religion. In the last few decades, Islam has become a central point of reference for a wide range of political activities, arguments and opposition movements. The term “political Islam”, or “Islamism”, has been adopted by many scholars in order to identify this seemingly unprecedented irruption of Islamic religion into the secular domain of politics and thus to distinguish these practices from the forms of personal piety, belief, and ritual conventionally subsumed in Western scholarship under the unmarked category “Islam”. There have been tremendous, innumerable websites, voluminous publications and many projects on “Islamism(s)” and “Post-Islamism(s)”, the idea that political Islam had failed. However, when reality did not confirm that prediction, a new term was coined: “neo-Islamism”. This paper aims to explore the thesis that, as in other fields, these labels are nothing more than an attempt by Area Studies within Western academia to mould reality according to preconceived ideas and according to policy-oriented circles and funded by governmental organizations, and that, when dealing with “Islam” and “politics”, we are urgently in need of a different epistemology.
- Religion as nation: the muslims of India and the debates on qaum, millat, and umma in the 1930sPublication . Mohomed, CarimoThis paper aims to contribute to the current debates about the role of religion in the political process, and its importance for the creation and cohesion of different national communities’ identities. It will analyse the discussions occurred around the concepts, and conceptions, of Nation, National Community (qaum), Religious Community (millat), and the Community of Believers (umma), exploring the different, and sometimes opposing, ideas and political doctrines in the 1930s in the context of India’s struggle for the independence and creation of a new (Nation-)State. The focus will be on Muslim Indian thinkers and politicians such as Muhammad ‘Ali Jinnah (1876-1948), Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938), Hussain Ahmad Madani (1879-1957), Abu al-Kalam Azad (1888-1958) and Sayyid Abu’l ‘Ala Mawdudi (1903-1979), as well as political and religious organizations such as the All-India Muslim League, the All-India National Congress, the Jamia’at-i ‘Ulama-i Islam and the Jamia’at-i ‘Ulama-i Hind.
- The concept of freedom in Judaism, Christianity and IslamPublication . Mohomed, CarimoI have to confess that, when I first came across this book, I was somewhat wary of what I would find between the covers of this slim volume. For the past couple of centuries, a particular conception of freedom became the universal benchmark against which all other conceptions had to be measured, and if they were not the same as the only one admissible, well, they were not really conceptions of freedom.
- “The days of god”- Muhammad Iqbal’s conception of time and historyPublication . Mohomed, CarimoMuhammad Iqbal (1877-1938) was a prolific writer who authored many works covering various fields and genres such as poetry, philosophy, and mysticism. He expressed his ideas in many forms and this paper, using his works, especially The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, deals with the question of time and history in his thought, particularly how he distinguished ‘the past’ from ‘the present’ and ‘the future,’ and how he constructed their interrelationships.