The Study of Islam and the Arab Spring
A Conversation with Talal Asad
A slightly shortened and edited version titled Talal Asad
Interviewed by Irfan Ahmad published in Public Culture. 2015. 27(2): 259279.
Talal Asad Photo by Irfan Ahmad
Anthropologist Talal Asad,
interviewed by Irfan Ahmad,
talks about his conceptual
engagement with the outcomes
of religion, politics, and the past
and his work to problematize a
seamless web view of
historys unfolding.
This interview consists of two
parts. Part one is devoted to
Asads engagement with the
studies of religion in general and
Islam in particular. In part two
he elaborately dwells on the
why and how of Egypts Arab
Spring (before the coup dtat)
and the West. He also discusses
the unpleasant future world.
Persons discussed in the conversations
include, among others, Muhammad
Abduh, August Comte, Clifford
Geertz, Ibn Battuta, Hans Blumenberg,
Richard Eaton, Monim Abu-l-Fattouh,
Ghannouchi, Ghazali, Wael Hallaq,
Adil Hussain, Marshal Hodgson,
Washington Irving, Immanuel Kant,
Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Bruce Lawrence,
Wahab El-Messiri, Marx, Alasdair
MacIntyre, Mohammed Morsi,
Dayanand Saraswati, Benoy Sarkar,
Carl Schmitt, and more.
Places discussed include, inter alia,
Aligarh, Bahrain, China, Egypt,
Europe, India, Iran, Israel, El Mahalla
El Kubra, Maldives, Morocco, Saudi
Arabia, Tunisia, UAE, USA, and more.
Organizations: Ary Samj, EU,
Ikhwan, IMF, Mohammedan Anglo-
Oriental College, NATO, World Bank,
WTO, and more.
 Part -I

Irfan Ahmad (IA): I intend to discuss your contributions to anthropology of Islam. Let
me begin by asking about your interests in anthropology of religion. It is in the early
1980s that you published a sustained conceptual engagement with religion, especially
its Western, anthropological theorization. Your critique of Clifford Geertzs notion of
religion is widely discussed. How did you get interested in such aspects of religion?

Talal Asad (TA): Well, there is a theoretical as well as a historical answer to this. I
was increasingly dissatisfied with the traditional Marxist view of ideology. It seemed
to me that the whole question of ideology wasnt being sufficiently linked to
developments in linguistics and philosophy. For example, I had found Valentin
Voloshinovs book stimulating. Slowly I shifted away from the traditional Marxist
thought on religion. This, in a nutshell, is what I would call a theoretical answer.

Historically, religion was beginning to be important. Were talking about the

1960s and 1970s. Then I visited Egypt often. I discussed the question of religion with
many friends. It seemed too unsatisfactory to take the attitude they did. First of all, it
seemed to me, for people who wanted to make contact with the masses not to have
any real interest in and respectful curiosity about the basis of their faith was
counterproductive and not sensible. Many I talked to had already come to that
conclusion. One was Adil Hussain, a prominent journalist. He had been a Marxist,
then a Nasserist, and then become interested in the Islamic trend. Then there was
Abdul Wahab El-Messiri, a professor who had also taught in the US. He helped found
(in 2004) the Egyptian movement for change, kefya (enough). He had a large
following of younger people with whom he held seminars in his home.

I was also struck by Geertzs essay. It seemed to me strange because I realised

having been brought up as a Muslim that somehow this didnt connect with what I
experienced: Geertzs conception of what religion as a meaning-giving system, and of
belief as central to it, and so on. I thought I would do critiques of such a view in
anthropology, sociology, and then offer a historical account. I was persuaded that one
needed to understand why Geertz and many others in modernity tended to think of
religion as they did. I began doing a lot of reading, note-taking. This was going to be a
short book, but it never materialised. Instead, I published articles that then appeared in
Genealogies of Religion. So I think thats part of the answer.

IA: In the 1970s the interest in ideology included religion which was mainly viewed
as a false consciousness. You were trying to move away and take into account what
people on the ground thought in terms of religion, not as an illusion or something.

TA: Exactly right. I should perhaps add that many scholars, including Marxists,
willing to examine sympathetically the religion of the masses, thought of it as an
opiate of the poor. It seemed to me unacceptable to think of religion that way. Mind
Irfan Ahmad 2015 The Study of Islam and the Arab Spring: A Conversation with Talal Asad

you that view persists even today. So, half the time I wonder what is the point of |3
writing critiques when people dont really seem to change their view.

IA The key argument in your critique of Geertz was that a universal definition of
religion was destined to fail because, among others, definition itself is enmeshed in a
distinct history and its discursive parameters. More than once you argue that what
appears to anthropologists today to be self-evident, namely that religion is essentially
a matter of symbolic meanings is in fact a view that has a specific Christian
history and that Geertzs treatment of religious belief is a modern, privatized
Christian one. (1993[1983]: 42, 47 italics added). In your 1999 (Asad 1999: 184;
also see 2006:285) essay, you dismiss Carl Schmitts assertion that most salient
concepts of modern political theory are secularized versions of Christian theology.
Some may see a bit of similarity between you and Schmitt, however. So, my question
is two-fold. First, might a reader be right in sensing a sort of disjunction between
these two propositions of 1983/1993 and of 1999? Second, is outcome unhooked from
origin because, discussing Schmitt, you propose that one should direct ones inquiry
into the outcome, not origins, of secularisation? Why privilege outcome over origin?

TA: If I dismiss Schmitt here it is not because I think he has nothing to offer. I think
the suggestion of modern political concepts being entirely Christian in origin seems
insufficient. Especially in understanding the different kind of role that the concepts of
secularism, state, sovereignty and many other associated concepts yet play in modern
life. So, to some extent, I agree with him and must have mentioned this approvingly. I
cant remember because its been long ago. But somewhere I refer to Blumenberg to
say that his critique of Schmitt is okay. What is unsatisfactory about his criticism of
Schmitt is that its still all at the level of history of ideas. There isnt enough about the
historical context or the institutions within which this language operated. Although I
agree with Blumenbergs suggestion vis--vis Schmitt that there are certain
continuities doesnt mean that it is the same thing. The point is that those concepts
play different roles in modern and pre-modern life.

This brings me to your question about origins and outcomes. It was precisely because
of the way in which so many had seen secularism as an outcome of Christian ideas
that I felt what was necessary was to look at the way in which these concepts played a
very different part rather than at what they might have been originally. Ive tried to
say in several places, certainly in Formations of the Secular, that there is both
continuity and rupture. Even in Europe there is continuity in the way in which certain
questions arise and certain concepts are put forward. And there are also ruptures in the
part they play in discourses, politics and religious life. So to talk about a Christian
history is not to say that it is a seamless narrative. When I say that religion has a
Christian history this is not to say that thats all there is to it. As you may remember,
my discussion of monasticism in Genealogies of Religion is about kinds of
Irfan Ahmad 2015 The Study of Islam and the Arab Spring: A Conversation with Talal Asad

embodiment. That is a part of Christianity too because Christian history, like the |4
history of most other so-called religions, is complex. I think the idea of symbolic
meanings has become prominent with the gradual collapse of institutional religion in
Europe. The question is asked: Why are even intelligent people still religious?
Answer: Because religion gives meaning to life. This struck me as strange because I
didnt remember this from my religious childhood.

It was not meaning that was taught first but just a way of life and a way of
inhabiting ones body, of relating to other people, and of learning certain kinds of
rituals. Even when one is taught in words its not really the symbolism of rituals that
matters. I remember as a child being taught by my father: You stand like this when
youre doing your prayer; bow down like this and make ruk and then prostrate
yourself and make a sajd. The words themselves were intended to demonstrate and
assist, together with actual bodily movements. That was a very important part of ones
learning to be what other people would say was religious. This is true at different
times in different ways even in Christian history. The question of what different parts
of ritual mean is not always important. I would say that there isnt a radical difference
between the early statement and the later one.

IA: Which is to say that Schmitts emphasis was more on the structural continuity and
also on the function whereas what you were saying was that under modernity in
Europe religion itself was significantly transformed as a way of life and then it
became to be articulated in symbols and so on.

TA: And experience.

IA: Right, or, the personal belief! So the point is not simply in terms of what function
it might perform or the structured similarity between, for example, religion or the idea
of nation or progress. But the significant transformation you are speaking about and
Schmitt doesnt look at this issue in that framework.

TA: Thats right. I wouldnt say I dismissed Schmitt entirely, but I certainly disagreed
with the assertion that all these concepts of modern political theory are essentially
Christian. History isnt a seamless web. There are all sorts of breaks and
transformations. One confronts a fluid situation when talking about Christian history,
or the history of modern life.

IA: In The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, Blumenberg critiqued Schmitts position,
also Karl Lowiths, to defend the secular modern age whose institutions and
practicesseek recourse only in reason thereby their theological origins being
inconsequential. How does your critique of Schmitt differ from Blumenbergs?

For one thing, I do not agree with his attempt to characterise a totality called the
modern age. He argues that medieval Christianity had questions which it answered
Irfan Ahmad 2015 The Study of Islam and the Arab Spring: A Conversation with Talal Asad

in one way whereas similar questions in modernity were answered differently, that |5
there was a continuity of questions, not of answers. The insistence on reason in the
way he resorts to in his account of modernity I dont find persuasive. There is no
single approach to reason certainly not in all of modern life. If I had to sum up my
disagreement, I would say: its to do with Blumenbergs characterisation of modernity
as a whole, as being based on reason.

I have an article, which just came out. I dont know whether youve seen it.

IA: Which one?

TA: In Critical Inquiry. Did you see that?

IA: Is it in 2013 issue?

TA: Yes! Its about humanitarianism and violence where I also refer again to aspects
of Christianity. I make quite clear that Christian discourse doesnt play the same part
in political life which politicians resort to it as they did in history earlier. In part this is
because the notion of politics itself has changed. In brief, this is one of my main
disagreements with Blumenberg. That is, he thinks, it is a question of legitimation.
The book itself is called The Legitimacy of The Modern Age. And that is in fact what
he attempts to do: to argue what is legitimate about it. This is itself a problematical
undertaking because: a) I dont think there is a single object here to be legitimized;
and b) even in the ways in which he attempts to legitimise it is not entirely persuasive
as its not all based on reason (or at least even if it begins with reason it ends up
somewhere else). Anyway, I mentioned this other article to you because its
concerned also with the way in which there is a temporal line that changes and breaks
in the history of what I call compassionate cruelty. Some of this is echoed in
Christian history, some in secular history, and some come into our own time in
different ways - making it fragmented, inconsistent.

IA: In Religion as an Anthropological Category you discuss the idea of Natural

Religion in Europe from 17th century on. It was central to find a universal definition
of religion as Europe began to dominate the non-West. Central to this search for
definition was the sidelining of scripture with a differentiation between the word of
God (scripture) and the work of God construed in terms of Nature which in turn was
construed through the lens of Natural Sciences. As I read this, Indias Sayyid Ahmad
Khan (d.1898) came to my mind. To render Islam consistent with European
rationalism, he made a similar distinction between word of God and work of God
arguing that the two couldnt contradict each other (Siddiqi 1967: 300). Thus Khans
advocacy to embrace Western sciences! Most Muslims did not approve of Khans
theology and called him nechar, a votary of Nature (Leleyveld 1978: 111). My
question is: have these transformations in the meanings of religion and attempts to
Irfan Ahmad 2015 The Study of Islam and the Arab Spring: A Conversation with Talal Asad

construct the category of religion in Europe influenced Muslims (also, |6

Hindus/Buddhists) self-definition of religion, as in the case of Khan? If so, how?

TA: This is also a very big question and one, which connects with things that I am
less familiar with. Sayyid Ahmad Khan is somebody I have read about in a general
way, but I am ashamed to say he is someone I dont know enough about. I know that
he was also a moderniser who worked for the development of Muslims in India
both intellectually and politically, primarily through education. Hence the formation
of Aligarh College! What was it called originally?

IA: Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College.

TA: Well, it was famous, of course. Certainly many reformers in India, the Arab
world and Turkey tried to think about religion through categories derived from
Europe. This was not an intellectual exercise only, because it was connected to the
formation of a nation, a state (or the determination to form a state) and so on.
Muammad Abduh, for example, had ideas that were not totally dissimilar in that he
wanted reform which would also make sense to Europeans. I dont mean that Khan
and Abduh had the ideas they did simply to pander to European taste. But that is how
gradually the thought of what was possible, progressive, even the idea of progress,
had come into Muslim thought. And thats what I mean when I talk about origins and
outcomes. When dealing with ideas of progress or political Islam or whatever, it is not
useful to assess them in terms of their origins but of what they do to life now and in
the probable future. I would say this of many Muslim ideas, such as the idea of the
state. Although, as you know, Im not in favour of the idea of an Islamic state for
reasons which are not connected with Western definitions of religion but with my
understanding of what the Islamic tradition is. The danger of a modern state seems to
be something that is underestimated among all sorts of people (Muslims or non-
Muslims). There has been without doubt a transformation in the way in which
Muslims and other people have been thinking. There are studies, for example, about
protestantisation of Buddhism and I cant remember now by whom of the Ary
Samj. Who was the founder of the Arya Samaj?

IA: Dayanand Saraswati (18241883)?

TA: This is not an area I know too much about. But the way in which even certain
ideas about Hinduism were developed in the 19th century (if not earlier), for example,
was very much influenced by European ideas.

IA: In the case of Abduh there is a lot more engagement with the ideas of the French
sociologist, Auguste Comte.

TA: Oh, yes. The fellow who is said to be the father of sociology?
Irfan Ahmad 2015 The Study of Islam and the Arab Spring: A Conversation with Talal Asad

IA: Yes. And this is interesting because in India the idea of Hindu Sociology gained |7
momentum in the 19th century and later (Sarkar 1937). It looks like, among others,
Comte was an important figure who people in Egypt as well as in India were engaged
with. In Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age (1983: 138141), Hourani wrote about
Abduh and Comte. Analysing what Comte said about positive religion (the ultimate
stage of the development of science), Abduh held that Islam could fulfil that stage.

TA: Yes, I think that the whole idea of lower and higher stages in the development of
religion as well as of society is very much a 19 th century idea taken over by all sorts
of people in the Muslim world. The things moderns know are: religion is and
essentially should be private, and a matter of ethics. People like Immanuel Kant have
argued since the 18th century: the essence of religion is ethics, morality, good
behaviour and so on. So that idea reverberates in the Muslim and Arab world. Even in
the post Christian world you have a sense among many people of outrage that
religious people can behave in a violent way. They say: They are religious; and this
is what they do in their lives and in their politics? Clearly, this is not only a Western
idea of what religion should be, its reduction to ethics a particular conception of
ethics as something that individuals do out of their own belief and conscience.
Conscience is the centre, and once it is attached to religion it becomes the basis of
moral choice. So in these ways, I think, youre beginning to find transformations in
the thinking of many people. Many of my friends in Cairo keep saying: My God! All
this Islamic sawa (awakening); religion is a matter of faith in ones heart. Even
people who dont attack religion say: Why should they behave in this way in public?
Religion in public is a danger to politics. So that way of thinking which is becoming
common among educated people (especially, Western educated), is certainly one of
the consequences of the influence were talking about.

IA: On a related note, Western scholars, not just orientalists, often write about Islam
as sharia quickly translated as religious law. In Mohammad, Washington Irving
(2007[1850]: 221222; also see Heller-Roazen: 2006) described the Quran as
written law and Sunna as oral law. Some Muslims also tend to echo this view.
How would you translate it into English?

TA: Well, you may remember I tried to deal with that in Formations of the Secular
where I argued that the reform in Egypt in the late 19th and early 20th century was
based on the premise that you should look at the sharia as law which is separable from
ethics. Ethics is a matter of personal behaviour; law is more general and has
external authority (divine or political). I would not try and translate it. When I talk
about or mention sharia in my writings, I use the term sharia. Because it seems to
me that even to talk about it as a combination of law and ethics is a particular way of
thinking, a 19th century way of thinking. Where people wanted to make a separation
between law and morality and had a particular conception of law as imperative in
Irfan Ahmad 2015 The Study of Islam and the Arab Spring: A Conversation with Talal Asad

some sense. So, sharia is thought of as being positive and as law, issued by God. But |8
one obvious point about the sharia is that most of it is, in fact, not contained in the
Quran or even in the Sunnah. Various intellectual techniques have been developed to
answer practical questions that have arisen over time, techniques that are not easily
classifiable either as law or as religion. But what happens with the incorporation
of sharia and the courts into the state, not just in Egypt, is that you get sharia defined
as law albeit infused with moral edicts and principles. If youre not favourably
inclined towards sharia and Muslims, you say: Law and morality are confused in the
sharia. If you are favourably inclined, you say: Its a more primitive stage of the
development of law; a stage when law was still infused with moral principles. But
the idea that the sharia is the same as law as understood in the modern liberal state
seems to be problematic. Its only when you get the modern state that you begin to get
the need for a modern category, law; and then the need for determining where its
authority comes from. Sharia, in brief, is not just concerned with law or morality; it
has to do with a whole cultivation and education of the self, and a way of relating to
others. Ghazali talks about some aspects of it using the term riydat al-nafs which is
often translated as discipline of the self. I think its not really discipline; it is
exercise. Riyd means exercise of various kinds.

IA: Correct. In India when musicians practice every day that is called riy.

TA: Oh, is it? I see. And this is also true for Hindu musicians?

IA: Yes, yes.

TA: It means exercise. Wael Hallaq refers to it as discipline of the self. But I think
exercise of the self is better. Exercise of the soul. So, you dont have to translate
sharia into English. You have to explain that it is strictly speaking neither one nor the
other. It has to do with the way in which individuals relate to one another, to family
and non-family members, to themselves and their souls in the light of Gods
expectation of the faithful. The idea that the law requires a certain kind of faith of
people sounds very strange when talking about liberal democratic society. You have a
duty, an obligation to follow the law and rulers too. In liberal society following the
law is not a matter of what kind of person you are. Morality and law are separated.
Anyway, I would not translate sharia by a single term or word.

IA: You alluded to Ghazali; your point was that under modernity law became very
central to the construction of the modern state and its requirements. Accordingly,
religion was cast into a legal mould, so to speak. The other way to put this question
would be: how would have Muslims in pre-modern times explained (not translated)
sharia to a non-Muslim or to a Muslim adult who wants to learn what religion is?
Irfan Ahmad 2015 The Study of Islam and the Arab Spring: A Conversation with Talal Asad

TA: Well, first of all, I wouldnt say religion. In some contexts the term religion |9
works, in others it doesnt. At Arafat the Prophet in his last sermon said: Al-yaum
akmaltu lakum dnakum [Today I have completed for you your religion]. Thats what
my father used to translate it as. But Im not sure thats entirely how I would translate
it. My point is that whatever was completed is clearly not sharia. Sharia is the attempt
of successive generations of Muslims to understand, on the basis of Quran and
Sunnah, what Gods law might be (again I dont want to use that term because it
begs so many questions), or, what God would like one to arrive at. Sharia is built up
out of this constant attempt at reasoning with ijm, qiys and ijtihd, and these
different intellectual techniques aim to determine what God would like one to do.
That is what fuqah have attempted to do. So, in a sense the entire structure of sharia
is the result of people trying to understand through human reasoning. After all, that is
what fiqh actually means. Its usually translated as jurisprudence, but tafaqquh
means trying to exert ones understanding through reason. The idea that sharia doesnt
change has been shown again and again to be incorrect. Things have been changing
new situations and problems arise, and people respond on the basis of their tradition.
Sharia is an ongoing set of deductions of rules, which may be modified, and under
certain circumstances even changed. Muslims believe that the Quran cant be
changed, but not that sharia cant be changed because it is a human effort.

IA: Lets shift to a related but different theme. Among others, your 1986 proposal to
see Islam as a discursive tradition has been one of the most debated contributions. If
you were to revisit it, can you give us a sense of its possible outline? Do you feel the
need to revisit it?

TA: Well no, if to revisit means reconsidering my position substantially on the

subject. But I have friends who have found my work on tradition useful, and they
have been urging me to write more about it. Particularly because I have also invoked
the Foucauldian idea of genealogy, they want to know how I reconcile it with the idea
of a discursive tradition. Ill do that soon, at a lecture in Georgetown University where
I gave my lecture in 1985 on The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam.

IA: This year?

TA: Yes, this year. I havent really thought through what I want to say yet because
Ive many urgent things to do. But I am glad I will have this opportunity as I was
asked specifically to revisit that lecture. I dont want to go into the details of various
criticisms people have made of it because most of them are based on misreadings of
what I actually said. But I will try to think about matters many have been concerned
with and which, I think, I should elaborate. That includes the very concept of
discursive tradition, which I didnt spell out adequately. I was basically thinking of
tradition as including sustained argument among ulema as well as modern
intellectuals who draw on Islam as a tradition. Certainly the concept needs more
Irfan Ahmad 2015 The Study of Islam and the Arab Spring: A Conversation with Talal Asad

elaboration than I gave it. But there is also the problem of understanding the way | 10
language enters into various kinds of practice. These vary from what one might call
regimes of practice to ritual practices such as prayer (alt ), and it raises the question
of embodiment, including and especially habit, which in modern times we wrongly
devalue. Because I have treated embodiment differently in different places, there is a
need to bring some of what Ive said together in this revisiting. In brief, tradition is
the frame for the expression of both intellectual debates (and popular opinion), as well
as for the teaching of beliefs and practices that goes on in a more quotidian way. I
mentioned in my 1985 lecture that discursive tradition is to be found when an lim
debates another or writes a commentary on his work (sharah), or when a hat b
delivers his sermon, or a Sufi sheikh instructs his murds and a father teaches his
children how to pray. There are different ways in which discourse enters into and
constitute practice and I want to deal with that question too.

IA: In a sense, what was already there you want to expand by including domains not
explicitly stated in the 1985 formulation.

TA: Right, exactly.

IA: That makes me ask a related question. Culture is the favourite term for
anthropologists. In your writings on Islam one doesnt see this term appear often.

TA: I have used it very occasionally, but very casually.

IA: But it is not something prominent. It is the idea of tradition you emphasise. Others
speak of Islam as a civilisation (e.g., Bruce Lawrence) and a world system (e.g.,
Richard Eaton). My question is: why this stress on tradition? How your focus on
tradition makes a difference from viewing Islam in terms of culture, or, civilization?

TA: First of all, Id say that even for anthropologists the notion of culture is not
totally agreed upon. There are different conceptions of culture whether its to be
seen as a system of symbols, a system of customs and so on. In that sense cultural is
simply everything that isnt natural. Interestingly, anthropology started off with the
notion of culture as something close to the notion of cultivation, and close,
therefore, to the idea of tradition as I would like to see it developed. But that notion
of culture has tended to get sidelined. What we have now is simply anthropologists
referring to customs distinctive of the identity of a particular group or society, and so
to the meanings held by the members of that society, socially inherited meanings. But
there is very little problematisation of the inheritance of meanings. How are meanings
conveyed from one generation to the next? How are meanings translated, interpreted
in different contexts? How, in different societies, are distinctions made between
meaningful actions and what actions mean?
Irfan Ahmad 2015 The Study of Islam and the Arab Spring: A Conversation with Talal Asad

Thats why partly I havent talked explicitly about culture, not because I think | 11
culture doesnt matter but because I think we need to get at inherited practices and
processes from a different point of view that allows one to ask how and why culture
is contrasted with religion, how people think of what is essential to the continuity of
beliefs and practices. A sophisticated notion of tradition enables one to raise questions
about the connection between certain kinds of continuity as well as rupture.

IA: Which culture as a term doesnt allow you to

TA: The notion of culture on the whole doesnt allow one to address these questions,
especially if you see it as a sort of static pattern. Where culture is seen in this way
anthropologists (and sociologists) have tended to see tradition as mere repetition, as
something passed on from one generation to another unchanged or at least to see it
as the claim that it is unchanged.

My use of tradition derives mainly from the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre

for whom tradition is a space in which things like continuity (and what is essential to
it) and change (that becomes necessary) can be argued over and implemented. What
the idea of tradition proposes as a question is the idea of a past, how people arrive at
what they consider to be the past, why they think that something is essential in the
present even if its from the past, and why some things are regarded as peripheral to
what must be preserved. How do arguments within and about tradition take place? For
example, for some people change in the way one lives and thinks has to be radical if
the community is to prosper in modern conditions, for others the necessary changes
are minor, and so one shouldnt be making a big fuss about it. There are important
questions about continuity and change in collective life and the idea of tradition helps
one to think about them.

IA: Am I right in assuming that culture the way it is spoken in the mainstream way
does not offer much space to think of styles of thoughts, practices and ways of actions
diachronically and, therefore, you want to use tradition, not culture?

TA: In part. Something that is equally important is that whats happened in recent
ways of thinking about culture, is that its increasingly used in relation to identity
individual and collective. That itself is a modern development, not sufficiently
problematized. I want to stress that its not just a question of synchrony opposed to
diachrony, but the questions it raises or the uses to which its put has to do with
questions of identity: Who am I really? Who are you? You say you are a Muslim,
why? Because you have certain practices, which you regard as essential and others
you dont regard as essential, and so on. I think of traditions as asking questions about
conceptions of the past, change, and what is essential to the tradition, about what
kinds of question people can ask when thinking of their traditions and that of others.
MacIntyre has answers to these questions, but Im not always happy with them.
Irfan Ahmad 2015 The Study of Islam and the Arab Spring: A Conversation with Talal Asad

IA: But you drew on his work in 1986? | 12

TA: Oh, yes! His book After Virtue inspired me to rethink the whole question of
tradition, away from the dominant notion of tradition in anthropology at the time.

IA: You draw on McIntyre but now you feel that his work doesnt allow you to
sufficiently raise more productive kind of questions.

TA: Yes. The questions Im interested in have to do with embodiment. I would like to
think more about the notion of practice than MacIntyre does. Id like to think more
about the relation between traditions and what makes people move from one to the
other and how they justify such a move. For MacIntyre this is essentially a matter of
producing better arguments, of showing that your tradition has greater resources for
answering his problems than his own tradition has. But I dont think thats satisfactory.
In Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (1991) everything MacIntyre writes is
enormously stimulating this is roughly speaking the position he takes. Im not
persuaded by its major argument.

IA: One final question about terms. If you choose the term tradition, not culture, what
would be the word in Arabic for that?

TA: Well, there are a whole variety of terms. Im writing in English and thinking of it
as an analytical term. Certainly from a religious point of view, there is sunnah or
hadith, urf and taqld. Ada meaning custom is also relevant. Interestingly da is
related to awda meaning to return one comes back again and again to something
essential. So there are many terms in Arabic used in different contexts. Im more
interested in the questions enabled by a particular term or set of words than in the
answer. So one needs to ask: What are people trying to do when they use da rather
than taqlid? It is the grammar of different terms in use that interests me.

IA: When you use the term tradition it is also Islamic tradition. Marshal Hodgson uses
the term Islamicate. This is probably his way of addressing the issue that everything
Muslims do is not necessarily connected to Islam as a theology or religion. Thus he
uses Islamicate civilisation, which includes the religious as well as the non-
religious. Im thinking if there was a conversation between you and him, what would
be the form of that conversation?

TA: I must confess its been a long time since I read The Venture of Islam. But Im
not sure that its easy to say which is the more inclusive term because one doesnt
want to take for granted that religion has an essential meaning. Religion, after all, is
not just theology, its not just the discourse of the ulema. One of the questions I would
have to ask Hodgsons wonderful book is whether it rethinks the question of religion
itself, how it explains why some things are recognized as religion and others as
civilizational. Is civilization at once essentially connected to religion and yet
Irfan Ahmad 2015 The Study of Islam and the Arab Spring: A Conversation with Talal Asad

something more? Is this entirely an abstract question or must it always be present in | 13

situations where something valuable is at stake, where people are making claims
about the power and fertility of some ways of conceiving formations as against others?
So to say that Islam as a religion consists of such and such and beyond that there is
an Islamic culture is to make a problematic statement.

IA: This in itself needs to be explored rather than assumed?

TA: Yes, yes.

IA: Let me mention Ibn Battuta (b.1304). He travelled so widely, interacted with
different traditions from Morocco to Iran, India, China, and Maldives. His interaction
with ulema in all these diverse places was probably conducted in Arabic. Right?
When we think of Islam as a civilisation it also gives one this idea of place, of travel,
the forces of economy, political connections that were so important for Ibn Battutas
travel. Does the notion of tradition allow us to capture this dynamic of social,
economic, political and other vectors? To account for a figure like him is complex. In
India most people followed anaf school whereas he himself was not a anaf, right?

TA: He was mlik, probably.

IA: It seems to me that these diverse aspects are not very much highlighted when one
employs the concept of tradition.

TA: As I was saying, even in my old lecture (1985) I do say explicitly that there are
certain conditions, including precisely those circumstances that enable or disable
possibilities of a given tradition. If you look again at the lecture you will see that I do
talk about that explicitly. I dont go into details; its not easy to go into details in a
short paper. Let me just say something because it seems to me that often there is a
misunderstanding: I have never claimed that tradition is a key to understanding
everything Muslims do, think, and experience. Ive said that the idea of tradition is
more useful than the way theorists like Max Weber have defined it, as opposed to
reason and change. We should try to think of tradition in the ways I mentioned earlier.
There is nothing startlingly new in what I said, only something more explicit than
usual. Thus we talk about the Marxist tradition, or the tradition of modern political
thought. To talk about tradition in that way doesnt exclude politics and economics.

Its important to talk about tradition in the context of religion because

Westerners have a strong prejudice against Islam and they are sceptical of the
possibility of Muslims thinking new things so long as they are attached to Islamic
tradition. The person who first led me to think about tradition in a sophisticated way
was Maclntyre, who was a Catholic convert.

IA: A catholic convert from?

Irfan Ahmad 2015 The Study of Islam and the Arab Spring: A Conversation with Talal Asad

TA: Protestantism. He was a Trotskyite at one time, and a Protestant originally. He | 14

moved away from religion first and then converted to Catholicism. Anyway, my point
is simply that Im not worried that insight comes from different traditions and places.
After all, the Prophet Muhammad says: Seek knowledge even if you go to China.
So it is not because in China you will find real Islam, but because knowledge is
valuable wherever it is found.

IA: Sometime I hear some scholars say that since they wish to focus on political,
economic and other issues, they dont find the idea of tradition pertinent and suitable.
Can the idea of tradition be rethought in a way that it also includes those questions,
and, if so, how?

TA: I would say that the onus is on people who want to study the economy or politics
to decide whether and if so, then, in what way the idea of tradition is relevant to their
inquiries. I want to stress this as a matter of principle. Tradition is not a magic key for
every kind of problem. I want people to rethink and modify it to see what kinds of
question become possible when thinking in terms of tradition. For example: How do
people, when discussing economic or political matters, think about the past? What do
they mean by a democratic tradition? When we use the term democratic or liberal
tradition, how should we account for it historically and which specific aspects of its
past? There is a famous paradox about the liberal tradition: the concept of the subject
as detached, cool, rational, unemotional and so on was developed as a result of
particular historical conditions. The paradox is: how do you make a society out of a
collection of such subjects? Is it possible?

Part-II

IA: Let me change the subject to the Arab Spring in general and the toppling of the
Mubarak regime in particular. What does the Arab Spring signify? 1

TA: Well, it signifies a number of things. Most immediately it signifies a sense of

terrible betrayal by the Mubarak regime, as well as a sense of desperation about where
Egypt was going and not going that is, its internal and external policies. I think that
there were a number of factors that coalesced. Sometimes people have oversimplified
it and talked about the Arab spring as simply the result of economic crises. There
were events that occurred earlier on, which radicalized public opinion. There were
protests by workers in maall al-kubra, a town with a public sector textile factory.

There were also a number of other strikes during the upheavals in 2011. But
thats not the whole story because strikes had been going on for some time. It is
difficult to be certain about what causes a popular, revolutionary outburst. There was
1
This segment of the conversation took place on 25 April 2013, before the coup dtat in July
that year.
Irfan Ahmad 2015 The Study of Islam and the Arab Spring: A Conversation with Talal Asad

a series of events, which, then, became more definite with people making larger | 15
demands. Of course, there was great resentment at the Mubarak regime, at the security
forces, the mohabbart, known for their brutal treatment of opposition figures.
Things sort of snowballed into a situation where nothing short of Mubaraks departure
would do and people were determined that the regime must fall, even to the point of
risking their lives. And the rebels or revolutionaries included all sorts of people, and
that was really impressive, so it seemed to me at the time. People belonged to various
parts of the spectrum, including secularists, religious, Christians, Muslims, liberals,
socialists, rich, poor, men, women, and so on. On many occasions the opposition
showed dramatic unity. What happened in early 2011 wasnt simple. No revolution of
that kind can be straightforwardly predicted or explained. Many discrete events
appeared to have crystallized into a single powerful event which is still evolving.

IA: You mentioned that one streak of explanation described it in terms of economic
factors, right? And you were saying there was more to it than simply economics.

TA: Absolutely, yes. Many people rushed forward, especially from the left in Europe
and America, and produced an economic explanation. I think they were mistaken or
rather, they were oversimplifying matters.

IA: In your view, to what extent Islam was a factor? Of course, it is difficult to
pinpoint, but analytically, to what extent Islam played a role in the Arab uprising?

TA: I dont know that one can claim simply either that Islam was directly concerned
with it or that it wasnt. Clearly, various Islamic currents were very prominent. The
Ihwn al-muslimin, the Muslim Brotherhood, began to join the protests very early on.
Theres no doubt among people who are not prejudiced against Muslim movements
(and many in Egypt are) that the Ihwn played a key part. At certain critical points,
its younger members physically defended the protesters in Tarr square. Of course,
the Ihwn had experienced repression ever since the beginning of the Nasser regime
and like many others they wanted radical change. Although, I fear that they are not
always as clear and imaginative as they need to be in new situation. I dont say the
Islamic movements caused the uprising or led it, but they were a very important
element in it; any attempt to deny this is mistaken and politically irresponsible.

IA: Does the Arab Spring inaugurate a shift in thinking about the Middle East and its
relation with the West? For long the West has spoken about the Arab Mind (e.g.,
Raphael Patais 1973 book, reissued in 2002 and used by the US military in the
Middle East as Emran Qureshi noted). What is it? Has the reading of the Arab Mind
changed in the wake of this momentous event in Egypt and elsewhere?

TA: In Egypt or in the West? If you are asking about the Wests thinking about the
Middle East, then, Im not so sure that the shift represented by the Arab Spring has
been that significant. There has been some change, and there are many well-wishers
Irfan Ahmad 2015 The Study of Islam and the Arab Spring: A Conversation with Talal Asad

in America and Europe, people who would like to see the Arab Spring proceed in a | 16
democratic direction. But as far as governments and foreign policy makers are
concerned, I dont think there has been much of a shift. The people who consider
Arabs as being not yet ready for democracy are beginning to talk loudly again,
especially now that there are serious political and economic problems emerging since
the formation of the Ihwn government and the election of Mohammad Morsi as
president and the emergence of an opposition. Many say: You see, we told you they
werent ready and, of course, they arent ready. But, as I say, the Arab Spring is
not a single event; it is a continuing series of events (Im not sure I like the term
Arab Spring, its borrowed from the specific experience of Eastern Europe). The
uprisings and political changes in the Arab world are bound to be uncertain and fluid,
with a population that has not experienced any democratic politics for over 50 years,
so it will take time for them to find their feet. Both sides, the new government and the
opposition, have been irresponsible in the many things they have done and left undone.
I dont think that the majority in the West are saying, The Arab mind has now
dissolved into a collection of mature democrats.

IA: A long-standing perception in the West has been that Islam and democracy are
incompatible (Ahmad 2009). But what we see in the form of the Arab Spring is that
Muslims protested and asked for democracy. One of the elements of the so-called
Arab mind was perhaps that democracy and Islam are polar opposites. Now that these
democratic regimes in Tunisia and Egypt are in place, do you think that the arguments
of incompatibility, integral to the Western thinking, have significantly weakened?

TA: I dont know how significantly they have been weakened. Attention has now
shifted to the fact that we now have an Islamic government of the Brotherhood that
wants to introduce religion into politics. There has, of course, been quite an outcry
from many secularists in Egypt itself. So, to some extent, people in the West who hear
this say: We told you so, what has happened is that the majority of the Egyptians
have elected a Brotherhood government which shows that democracy is once again
imperilled. Or there are claims that these election results are not representative
because they were interfered with. Nevertheless, those in the opposition who agree
that it was a reasonably fair election say: But the mass of people in Egypt are
themselves so steeped in religion that they are unable to produce a truly democratic
government. And therefore the Brotherhood government is not likely to last, or at
least it should be vigorously opposed.

IA: Because, the people who have been elected have attachment to religion?

TA: Because they have a strong attachment to religion which they want to politicise
and which they want to use in writing a reactionary constitution, and things like that.
I think there is this feeling of distrust, and certainly not only in the West, in Euro-
Irfan Ahmad 2015 The Study of Islam and the Arab Spring: A Conversation with Talal Asad

America, but also within Egypt itself, among people who are aggressively secular in | 17
their opposition to the government.

IA: Like Mohamed Mustafa El-Baradei?

TA: Yes, Baradie and lots of other people who are more to the left than Baradie. Even
on the right people like Amr Mousa who collaborated with the Mubarak regime make
irresponsible remarks about the government because they think that joining with the
militant opposition will give them some political credit.

IA: Is it not the case that religion in American contributed to the growth of democracy
as Alex Tocqueville wrote? Here religion becomes a positive force in democracys
development. Is it the case that the same thing is being denied to Muslims in terms of
employing their religious resources to fashion a kind of democracy?

TA: That is a very good question. Most people now forget what Tocqueville wrote.
Today they think about the religious right when they think about religion and politics.
For liberals, the fundamentalists in the US are seen as a great threat because they
believe that the US was built on the separation of religion from the state. This is not
entirely true. The US situation is complicated because the state is required to define
what religion is through its courts. But critics of the political situation in Egypt often
simply see an illegitimate intrusion of religion into politics. Their assumption is
simply that Islam and democracy are incompatible. Perhaps there are more people
now in the US who are willing to say: Maybe there will be a democratic
development of some kind.

Very few who uphold this alleged incompatibility look carefully at various
distorting pressures in this world, not only within the country but internationally. Both
in terms of politics, foreign policy of the US, NATO, the European Union, and Israel
on the one hand, and of globalisation and the various forces at work in the worlds
financial system including IMF, World Bank, WTO, etc. on the other. And there
are the Gulf countries (that claim to be Islamic), which are close allies of the US but
have their own reasons for intervening in other Middle Eastern countries. And none of
these countries is moving in a democratic direction. You have Bahrain in which there
is lot of protest and upheaval, but because its an ally of Saudi Arabia and the US it
easily represses protest movements. Nobody is making a big deal of it in the West.
The US inaction in Bahrain is an important act. The prospects of democratic
development in Egypt as well as in the Middle East as a whole are very complicated;
they are not related in any simple fashion to religion.

IA: The next thing I want to ask concerns a major change Islamists have undergone.
Suppressed and disallowed to participate in political processes, now they are no
longer in opposition (in Egypt not fully in power either). I recall your remark in an
interview in Stanford Electronic Humanities Review (1996). You had mentioned
Irfan Ahmad 2015 The Study of Islam and the Arab Spring: A Conversation with Talal Asad

Rashid Ghannouchi. You seemed to be appreciative of his way of relating to politics. | 18

Then Ghannouchi was in opposition, now he is in power. The same with the Ihwn!
So my question is: do you now notice some change in Islamists conception of politics
and the ways in which they had thought about a series of issues for example, the
issue of the Coptic minority and the woman question?

TA: There has been a beginning of some kind of a change, there hasnt been enough
and it hasnt always been achieved through legislation. You may remember that Morsi
promised before he was elected as President that he would appoint several vice
presidents one of whom would be a Copt, another a women and so on. But he never
kept that promise. This may not be due to him only, but to the leadership structure of
the Ikhwan. The problem is that the organization has been thrust into a position for
which they are not prepared. To make matters worse, they are faced by an opposition
that is hostile to any form of political Islam and unwilling to give them any benefit of
doubt but willing to blame them for all that goes wrong with the economy.

And, then, there are opportunistic remnants of the old regime who, not
surprisingly, engage in conspiracies. I imagine the situation must be similar in Tunisia,
although I dont know it as well as I do Egypt. But the Brotherhood has retained their
old authoritative structure because that allowed them to survive. This is unfortunate
for the emergence of creative political thinking from the Brotherhood. Abdul Monim
Abu-l-Fattouh, a prominent Ihwn member wanted to be a candidate because he
thought it was important to build bridges with Copts and people on the left and so on.
We know what happened he was expelled, or rather, made to withdraw. He was told
that the Ihwn should not have a candidate. The Ihwn later produced a candidate.
How sincere their motives were in making this change I dont know. The point is that
they are at sixes and sevens. There are elements within the organization, especially
the youth, who would like to rethink both strategies and the substance of policies.
They have sometimes disobeyed orders of the organisation, and some have left it.

But it seems to me that the attitudes of the Ihwn government have also been
formed partly in response to an enormous amount of prejudice on the part of many in
the opposition. There is another complication, dont forget, which hasnt been
highlighted in the West: the whole question of Israel and the Palestinians. The Ihwn
are more sympathetic to Palestinians, even to Hamas, than the previous regime was.
This has led to anxiety on the part of Israel and its allies in the US and Europe. Given
all the economic and political problems that Egypt already has, the government has to
tread carefully on this matter. And there is also the Egyptian military which may not
be directly involved in leading the government but it remains a powerful factor in the
national landscape; it has its own interests, developed under the Mubarak regime, and
because of them it would certainly not like to antagonize an already suspicious US.
Irfan Ahmad 2015 The Study of Islam and the Arab Spring: A Conversation with Talal Asad

Then there are the Gulf countries which dont like the Ihwn because they | 19
fear the spread of radical politics. At the same time they hold out the promise of much
needed cash to Egypt. Altogether, I think that for these and other reasons the Ihwn
organisation is not encouraged to think independently or creatively.

IA: So you think there are both external and internal factors. Internally it is the
structure of the organisation and externally it is the imperial power.

TA: Yes, but I would stress the nature of the middle class opposition inside Egypt
which is strongly anti-religious, encouraged, of course, by elements from outside. The
imperial factor is very important; but it tends not to be talked about much.

IA: In an essay (2012) after the Arab spring you pointed toward rethinking the issue
of religion and the state, pluralism, loyalty, citizenship and so on. Can you shed more
light on this rethinking you have done?

TA: Yes, I think one of the unfortunate things about Islamic political movements (Im
not thinking of the violent ones but of those who participate in electoral process) is
that they are focused on obtaining state power. There is a need to rethink the nature of
politics: not to be simply concerned about persuading people that Islam and
democracy are compatible. At any rate, one must challenge the idea that you have a
choice between two things only: a state dominated by an Islamic party and
government (because majority of the people are Muslims) and some variant of what is
called a secular state. People are beginning to think a little more about secularism
critically even in Europe, perhaps more so than in America. I think that the Islamic
tradition could be, hopefully, expected to try to rethink the matter of politics, away
from the aim of obtaining state power in one way or the other.

We need to rethink the whole business of why we always connect politics to

the state, to think of it as party politics that is central to electoral systems, to liberal
democratic government. Muslims might think more about what democracy or a just
political order can mean if it is not tied to the state. If it is tied, for example, to
grass-roots organizations; to movements not simply concerned with dissent, or
making moral criticisms of the state. In doing that one should not draw exclusively on
the Islamic discursive tradition but also on the experience of non-Muslim societies
and traditions. Muslims who refuse to encounter non-Muslim traditions deny
themselves a crucial source for understanding the modern world. One imperative,
therefore, would be to help create new spaces for political action that transcend
constitutional space. I would expect exchanges to be made with other movements not
necessarily Muslim. The problems humanity is beginning to face cant be adequately
dealt with from within a single state. I mean a state can do quite a lot. I dont agree
with people who say that the sovereign state is now outmoded. I think that states do
have power, some far more than others, of course power for good and for evil.
Irfan Ahmad 2015 The Study of Islam and the Arab Spring: A Conversation with Talal Asad

IA: Give us some examples of what you were saying the space in which this kind of | 20
rethinking could take place.

TA: Well, I was thinking of the need to define more precisely the problems we have
at a global level that are not simply economic but moral ones too. There are questions
about the kind of life that we should all be living, and that is in part a spiritual as well
as an ethical question. What kind of subjectivity should we be encouraging? We dont
have to accept all the assumptions on which liberal subjectivity is based ideas about
the autonomous will, the desire for unlimited freedom, and so on. How adequate are
inherited categories politics, economics, religion, education, etc. as
though they were fixed separate spaces for action just as there are supposed to be
fixed independent actors. Many of our problems are quite new, in kind and in scope.

IA: Something like global environment issues?

TA: Global issues of environment include questions of climate change and water
shortage, of nuclear waste from nuclear energy plants waste that is often shifted
around from rich countries to poorer ones, of massive pollution of the seas and
destruction of forests. Of course, there are catastrophic effects of the financial system
in different parts of the world, the growing gap between the very rich and the very
poor. Problems like these are not treatable adequately in terms of the autonomous
state if they are treatable at all. I think there should be openness to other traditions
of thinking and acting both within our nation-state and beyond.

IA: You also mean to suggest some kind of interfaith alliance?

TA: Yes, that is important. Such a move should be made more carefully than it
sometimes is. One has to learn to identify what can enrich the lives of everybody,
Muslims and non-Muslims, because its urgent to think in the broader term even for
Muslim-majority countries. One has to think carefully about the kind of organisations,
connections, and involvement in various projects that other people are involved in.
Not interfaith with just, you know, talking about your faith and my faith, how we
should be tolerant and so on. We can disagree, we can persuade each other to abandon
our differences, but in the end we have to learn to act in ways we believe are crucial.

IA: You were probably hinting at more issue-based alliances and dialogues which are
not simply limited to theological discussion.

TA: What Im saying is that its really necessary for us to think about the predicament
we are all in. We are all in an interlocking predicament, whether in the East or the
West, for which there are few answers and for which state politics is not enough
(sometimes even an obstacle). We can all imagine utopia, yes? How wonderful it
would be if everybody was equal, able to live comfortably and healthily, and be
Irfan Ahmad 2015 The Study of Islam and the Arab Spring: A Conversation with Talal Asad

looked after when they are children and when they are old, and so on. But there is also | 21
the question: How does one get there from here? This is a matter of practice.

IA: A different question now.

TA: Yes, go ahead.

IA: What is the project or research you plan to do, post-retirement?

TA: Well, the immediate concern is a couple of public lectures. In general I am very
concerned about what is happening in the Arab world (especially Egypt), the Muslim
world, also more widely: how one can think responsibly about it. I also have a more
academic concern. Ive been making notes on but have not written enough about the
story of human rights, both in Europe and in the Arab world. I want to look at that
history critically I think too many things are being assumed in the stories we are told
about human rights, international law, and the kind of future we can look forward to.

Let me say finally that, I am by temperament a pessimist. I have come to the

conclusion that we may not be able to create a really just life for everybody in a
sustainable natural environment that I once hoped we could. I think we have pushed
ourselves gradually into a situation where there maybe no solutions any longer, and, I
take as an example the problem of climate change. We know what the right thing to
do would be but I cant see how it can be practically, politically, economically, even
ideologically, possible to do it. So, massive human disasters seem to me a much more
likely outcome. Lets not forget nuclear weapons as well as nuclear power that create
all that nuclear waste. We are all too immersed in a greedy consumerist culture and
we seem to be content in our short-sightedness. I think that the disasters may well lead
us into a very unpleasant world, despite many of us wanting something different, an
unpleasant world in which again the rich and powerful will be more openly brutal in
maintaining their own privileges. But I hope Im wrong. At any rate my work is of
little value in the light of this kind of expectation. But there we are.

IA: It seems pessimistic. On that note we conclude. Thank you so much for your time.

TA: You are welcome.

Note: I thank Haybatullah Abouzeid, Doctoral candidate and Sunniya Wajahat (both at
Monash University) for transcribing the interview
Irfan Ahmad 2015 The Study of Islam and the Arab Spring: A Conversation with Talal Asad

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Talal Asad is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New

York. His publications include Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of
Power in Christianity and Islam (1993), Formations of the Secular: Christianity,
Islam, Modernity (2003), and over fifty articles.

Irfan Ahmad is Associate Professor of Political Anthropology at the Institute for

Religion and Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic University (ACU), Melbourne.
Earlier he taught politics and anthropology at Amsterdam University and Monash
University. He is the author of Islamism and Democracy in India: The
Transformation of Jamaat-e-Islami (Princeton University Press, 2009) which was
short-listed for the 2011 International Convention of Asian Scholars Book Prize for
the best study in the field of Social Sciences. Currently he is finishing a book
manuscript on the notions and practices of critique in Western and Islamic traditions.
For more, visit irfanahmad.org