Description

The challenge of deep differences within the umma has emerged and evolved throughout Islamic history, leading to moments of rupture and instability. Despite these diverse and complex differences, these challenges were almost always remedied through an ummatic political framework drawn from the Islamic tradition. With the limitations dictated by the world order on our ability to address these challenges, how can the umma facilitate a nuanced evaluation and negotiation of the varying interests, commitments, and solidarities in the Muslim world? How can we envision successful political models that recognize and skillfully manage the emergence of discursive differentiations in a modern political context? In other words, knowing that the differences among Muslims, including diversity of views, beliefs, and customs, cannot be eliminated, how can we manage them in the interest of Muslim unity and the flourishing of Islam?

Dr. Ovamir Anjum (presenter) is the founder and Chief Research Officer at the Ummatics Institute. He is Professor and endowed chair of Islamic studies in the department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Toledo and co-editor of the American Journal of Islam and Society. Dr. Anjum’s areas of research include Islamic history, theology, political thought, and history broadly.

Dr. Yasmeen Daifallah (discussant) is an Assistant Professor of Politics at UCSC, specializing in Arab and Islamic political thought, postcolonial theory, and Middle East politics. She earned her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and has taught at UMass-Amherst and USC.

The discussion and subsequent Q&A session will be moderated by Dr. Mairaj U. Syed, Associate Professor of religious studies, director of the medieval and early modern program, the University of California, Davis.

Date: Saturday Sept 14, 2024 at 11AM ET

 

Summary

 

Moderator’s Introduction (Dr. Mairaj Syed)

The Ummatics colloquium series examines the question of achieving Ummatic unity through identity, people, and social movements at state, regional, and global levels. While prior sessions explored tensions between the nation-state and Muslim civil society, this colloquium addresses deep differences within the Umma, seen as significant obstacles to unity.

 

Presentation (Dr. Ovamir Anjum)

Context

Framing Issues of Difference

• Deep differences within the Umma often center on sectarian divides such as Sunni-Shia, Sufi-Salafi, and legal madhhab
• These differences have been weaponized historically by secular intellectuals to argue for secular governance, claiming it ensures rational neutrality in the public sphere, avoiding religious intolerance and sectarian discord.

 

Secularism and Religious Governance

• The standard narrative of the rise of secularism in the West highlights the protracted history of Protestant-Catholic religious civil wars in Europe, concluding in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.
• This narrative is challenged by the fact that these conflicts immediately transitioned to secular nation-state warfare, culminating in colonialism and world wars.
• Religious violence is disproportionately used to delegitimize religious government, while secular government is not held to the same scrutiny because of persistent secular violence.

 

A Tradition of Coexistence

• Muslim societies historically managed intra-Muslim and interfaith differences effectively, fostering systematic tolerance, coexistence, and flourishing.
• Contemporary intra-Muslim sectarian differences range from minor (Sufi-Salafi debates over Mawlid) to more serious (cold war between Sunni and Shia political blocs, each allied with competing non-Muslim powers).
• Modern weaponized sectarianism is a product of colonialism, post-colonialism, and the modern nation-state. Returning to Islamic traditions offers resources to manage these differences peacefully and prevent their weaponization.

 

Managing Deep Differences: Five Principles

1. Managing Deep Differences is a Religious and Existential Necessity

• Managing differences, rather than eliminating them, is vital for Muslim unity and the flourishing of Islam. Deep differences, which are historically constructed and changeable, can ignite group discord if mismanaged.

 

2. Prioritizing Fundamental Islamic Norms

• Shared Islamic norms—monotheism, salvation, prophethood, sacred sites, and the five pillars—should take precedence over parochial commitments. This consensus fosters intellectual agreement, shared culture, and unity while accommodating diversity.

 

3. Islam as a Supra-Solidarity

• Islam trumps and regulates, but does not erase, ethnic, tribal, sectarian, and national solidarities. Political coexistence is facilitated by an overarching Islamic identity while prohibiting alliances hostile to Muslim interests.

 

4. Facilitating Truth-Seeking and -Commitment

• Reciprocity in theological discourse is essential. Muslims may arrive at very different conclusions on the basis of shared motivations and near-identical theoretical foundations.
• Respectful debate and critique foster intellectual flourishing and mutual understanding, with freedom of expression guaranteed within shared Islamic norms.

 

5. Creating a Muslim Public Sphere

• It is necessary to establish a conceptual space for Muslims to pursue shared interests as Muslims rather than their narrower affiliations.
• Ummatic institutions and political frameworks embodying broadly accepted Islamic norms would facilitate this space, enabling coexistence without imposing specific theological commitments.

 

Ummatic Politics

• The primary role of politics is managing differences. Islamic politics requires rooting this management in Islam. This requires investment in institutional frameworks ensuring equality and fairness rooted in broadly agreed upon norms of the Sharia, including protecting Islamic lands, sacred sites, and oppressed populations.

 

Discussion (Dr. Yasmeen Daifallah)

Definitions

 Deep difference

• Are deep differences and conflicts distinct?
• Are deep differences the necessary condition for potential conflict?
• Some differences, framed as innocuous, have historically led to conflict.
• A robust Ummatic political theory must address human nature and contextual sensitivities for effective institution-building.

 

Politics

• Anjum’s conception appears to presuppose a minimalist theory of state, centering basic need-fulfillment, non-coercive oversight. This overlooks everyday practices and institutions shaping political and social dynamics.
• A broader understanding includes community-building, cultural norms, and everyday practices.

 

How to conceptualize deep differences

• Differences—whether essential or constructed—become deep due to power dynamics, resource inequality, and social stratification. Historical injustices and traumas further entrench these differences. Addressing power imbalances requires material redress ill-addressed by rational and intellectual argumentation.

 

Response (Dr. Ovamir Anjum)

• Admission of liberal constitutional bias in defining politics, while acknowledging consideration of realpolitik and injustices.
• Defining inequality, injustice, and power requires preexisting basis for equality and shared values. Redress can take place once a political community agrees on those bases.

 

QA

Audience and Applicability

 Dr. Anjum

• Politics presupposes the existence of a political community. This entails moving beyond individual self-interest to concern for this larger political community.
• Ummatic politics requires a broad conception of political community beyond narrow affiliations. This conception privileges differences among learned Muslims on interpreting revelation, even when other differences (e.g. ethnic, class, tribal, etc.) are more central, sublimated in religious language.

 

Dr. Daifallah

• Beginning with existing conflicts and differences is more pragmatic than imposing preconceived notions of political community. Those with on-the-ground experience of conflict management are best placed to inform this approach.

 

Dr. Anjum

• Agreement on starting with on-the-ground experiences: telling the average person that the reasons for Iranian-Saudi difference is political, social, and historical is unintelligible.
• People are invested in sectarian narratives. Addressing differences at that level offers more opportunities for resolution of differences and conflicts.

 

Dr. Daifallah

• Framing roots of differences as political, social, historical might be too intellectually indulgent for average Muslim audiences attuned to theology, jurisprudence, sect, etc. While framing them as theological, jurisprudential, sectarian, might be too intellectually indulgent for politicians and leaders attuned to sociopolitical and historical dynamics.

 

Positive Examples of Resolving Deep Difference and Power Imbalances

Dr. Anjum

• Escalation of difference to conflict is a choice, not something essential. Best highlighted by pointing to long resolved past conflicts (Ḥanafī-Shāfiʿī violence in Nishapur) and historic instances of accord (Twelver Shi‘a resistance to Byzantines and Crusaders).
• Muslims in the U.S., Canada, and UK frequently put aside sectarian differences for common causes. Empowerment fosters unity, as in Tahrir Square.

 

Dr. Daifallah

• Efforts such as South Africa’s truth and reconciliation commission and civil society initiatives addressing racial injustice in the U.S. offer lessons for redressing past injustices.

 

Are Theological Differences More Intractable than Legal Differences?

 Dr. Anjum

• Theological differences, often historically constructed, can be managed by acknowledging shared beliefs and lived experiences. Sectarian divides often stem from historical narratives rather than essential theological distinctions.
• For Muslims, problems cannot only be reduced to their material manifestations; theology and law must be acknowledged. Lived experience of intra-Muslim differences can offer grounds for shared beliefs and dispel exaggerations of difference.

 

The Impact of the Genocide in Gaza

Dr. Daifallah

• Gaza has united people globally in ways unseen in recent memory.

 

Dr. Anjum

• The bravery of Gazans inspires resilience and unity. The crisis highlights the consequences of Muslim disunity and the need for collective action.