Critical geography,Islam,and the possibility of engaging the more-than-critical

Abstract

In this commentary, I pose a question regarding how critical geographers will position themselves toward Islam as a different mode of decolonising (or something beyond it) that is fundamentally different from mainstream critical geography. To build this argument, I first expand on Sidaway's account of how one should understand Islam and its consequences. I then argue that critical geography is an extension of a secularisation project whose presuppositions negate the Islamic worldview. To conclude, I reflect on my engagement with critical geography as a Muslim and lay out some questions to be considered by critical geographers.

I

As a Muslim student of geography, reading Sidaway's (2023) article gave me mixed feelings. On the one hand, it was intriguing as it calls for recognising Islam as a potential source for intervening in colonial legacies in the discipline of geography, placing it beyond ‘merely superficial inclusion’. However, there is a remaining unanswered question. How do critical geographers position Islam with regard to critical geography as a scholarly project?

I recall encountering a similar feeling when reading Oswin's (2020) work. While the struggle of critical geographers to challenge the existing status quo is inspiring, I wondered (and still wonder): do I really belong to critical geography? The question arose not exactly because Islam and Muslims were made invisible or dismissed in the project, but rather from the realisation that I am likely not inside the project and never meant to be inside the project.

Such a statement may seem bold, especially considering that critical geography seeks to become more progressive and reflexive over time. My point of contention is not precisely that. It is, rather, how critical geography and Islam reflect two contrasting worldviews containing different ontologies and epistemologies and, consequently, different telos. There may be overlaps, such as the shared struggle for decolonisation. However, how could one expect to subscribe to two mutually negating worldviews simultaneously? If one claims to hold objectives which are apparently similar to those of critical geography but also hold different values, how would critical geographers engage with them?

Through this commentary, I aim to complicate such questions. This commentary is organised into three sections. Firstly, I clarify how we should understand Islam and the consequence of adopting such a conceptualisation. Secondly, I give a brief account explaining why critical geography is fundamentally different from Islam. Lastly, based on the points brought forward, I once again pose and complicate the question of how critical geographers could engage with Islam.

II

The question of what Islam is is not new, particularly in anthropology and Islamic studies. Clarifying the answer is crucial, especially when some academics suggest defining Islam through Muslims, which I argue is a flawed conception. Without intending to dismiss a longstanding debate, I will not thoroughly review the differing opinions in this commentary. I will instead make my case through the works of a scholar cited by Sidaway when defining Islam as dīn: Syed Naquib Al-Attas (1995).

In Arabic, islām is a verbal noun indicating an act of submission. In this context, it specifically refers to human submission as a slave ¹ to Allah as God. It is a state of being. Islam is a dīn: the natural tendency of human beings to be submissive to God due to their indebtedness, through which God will judge them (Al-Attas, 1995: 42). Since a slave is subordinate to the superior God, it follows that God determines the way of submission. Islam does not only govern the God–slave relationship, but it also regulates how God's slaves should interact with each other. It envisions a place where Islam is truly manifested (madīnah), forming an ideal civilisation (tamaddun) (Al-Attas, 1995: 42). These principles governing such a state of being were not merely discovered through socio-cultural discursive practices but are rather explained through revelation.

Here, I highlight at least three consequential points from such a conceptualisation of Islam. First, anyone who wants to engage further with Islamic scholarship should deal with the Islamic worldview. The Islamic worldview is a ‘vision of reality and truth that appears before our mind's eye revealing what existence is all about; for it is the world of existence in its totality that Islam is projecting’ (Al-Attas, 1995: 2). This definition then refutes the idea that central concepts in Islam like God, Revelation, and human beings are merely cultural. It is not a worldview that undergoes gradual development like other systems of thought (Al-Attas, 1995: 2). How do we prove that these concepts are not cultural products? Muslim theologians have been working over centuries to prove that God actually exists beyond our minds through non-scriptural means. Other Muslim scholars have also worked to demonstrate that Revelation, both of the Quran and Hadith, is true. The Quran was not written by Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and later generations did not fabricate the Hadith corpus. My intention in bringing forth some of the most common objections against Islam is not to give a lengthy account summarising these theological arguments. Rather, it is to show that engaging with Islam entails dealing with a system of ontology and epistemology, whose truth can be proven without being self-referential. Additionally, it should be learned on its own terms rather than be read through another lens, especially the Western experience of Christianity.

Secondly, Islam does not recognise the Western dichotomy between sacred and profane. Everything in this lower world (al-dunyā) is ultimately related to the hereafter (al-ākhirah), where God becomes the primary orientation without completely discarding worldly life (Al-Attas, 1995: 1). Islam thus encompasses everything in the sphere of human life, from ‘ritualistic’ worship to ‘non-ritualistic’ everyday activities, from the smallest scale – such as our body – to larger scales, such as the state. This understanding helps us understand why Muslims attempt to express and regulate Islam in many realms, from private to public life. It deals with both ‘apparently religious’ things and things that do not appear to be ‘religious’. It provides a critique of civilisation. Therefore, when it comes to engagement with critical geography, Islamic critique cannot limit itself to the subdiscipline of critical Muslim geography.

Thirdly, one should not conflate Islam with interpretations of Islam. Islam precedes its various interpretations and the practices associated with it. In critical realist terms, Islam occupies the intransitive dimension of knowledge (Sayer, 2000). ² With all their strengths and weaknesses, human beings are capable of understanding the principles governing the state of submission. Humans often interpret the principles correctly, but they can also misinterpret them. However, such misinterpretations do not influence the meaning of Islam as God revealed it. It is also essential to recognise that while human interpretations of Islam are fallible, not every interpretation is equally fallible. There is a standard to decide whether something is Islamic, examined through its consistency with the basic Islamic worldview (Al-Attas, 1995: 44–45). This distinction is important to avoid the conflation between Islamicate ideas and practices, which do not necessarily mirror the ideal.

There is more to cover on this topic. However, I hope the above three points will suffice for those unfamiliar with Islam on a more philosophical level. In the following section, I will explain how the consequences mentioned above lead to a conclusion about the deeper incompatibility between Islam and critical geography.

III

How exactly is critical geography incompatible with Islam? Critical geography undoubtedly has a longstanding commitment to challenging Western bias and hegemony in knowledge production, including a call to take Islamic scholarship more seriously, as suggested by Sidaway. I am sympathetic to such efforts. However, without intending to dismiss the diversity of thought in critical geography, I argue that the discipline today is, more or less, still an extension of secularisation. Secularisation is beyond ‘separating between religious and public spheres’. It is a philosophical programme that entails three integral components: the disenchantment of nature, the desacralisation of politics, and the deconsecration of values (Al-Attas, 1978: 17). ³ It was born from an impasse between Christianity and post-Enlightenment European society, but it extends its operation of removing religious sensibilities to any other ‘religions’, including Islam, regardless of the fact that such an incompatibility may be irrelevant in other contexts beyond Christianity or European history. For Muslims, secularisation thus translates to an attempt to uproot human beings from their true inclination – dīn – which necessitates the inclusion of God in every aspect of human life.

Moreover, secularisation implies the privileging of ‘here’ and ‘now’. It only concerns the sensible world of ‘here’ while ignoring the non-sensible, unseen world of ‘there’. It subjects values under historical relativism, in which the ‘past’ is repudiated except when it confirms the everchanging ‘present’ that stands on the notion of the ‘open future’ (Al-Attas, 1978: 27–28). Such presuppositions fundamentally negate the Islamic worldview, which recognises the unseen entities (including God and the hereafter), different attitudes toward the past, and a different ultimate goal that necessitates a different understanding of ‘progress’ (Al-Attas, 1978: 37), which cannot be simply put on the conservative/progressive binaries.

Secularisation later informs modern Western philosophies, including those which have informed critical geography, from Marxism to poststructuralism. Its legacies remain even though attitudes may shift from rendering religions ‘outdated’ to ‘part of celebrated diversity’. What binds these different perspectives together is the historical relativism that renders religions and their values as merely cultural products rather than something preceding culture itself (see Al-Attas, 2001: 26–27). God-centredness is thereby replaced by ‘anthropocentrism’. Even in the recent developments of posthuman and more-than-human geographies, where the ontological status of human is questioned, what follows is only the consideration of worldly non-human beings. This may have value; however, the refusal to subjugate human beings to a being of higher status – God – is still intact. It is the heart of the incompatibility.

This discussion indeed requires a longer exposition. Nevertheless, I hope it is enough as an introduction to underline the tensions between the worldviews of Islam and critical geography.

IV

Such incompatibility is the main reason why I choose to stay outside the project of critical geography. However, I will still remain as an interlocutor. Why? Critical geography and other adjacent disciplines have helped me make sense of socio-ecological crises enabled by colonialism and other forms of exploitation. For example, it helped me realise how Muslims are victims of global socio-environmental crises, either through the outcome of crises (such as Muslims in the Maldives threatened by rising sea levels) or through the making of crises (such as the ‘War on Terror’ in Muslim countries like Syria and Afghanistan) (see Crawford, 2019). This is exacerbated by how elites in Muslim countries contribute to and accelerate these crises, from Tangier to Jakarta. ⁴ Colonialism has metaphysically occupied the minds of these Muslim elites. Decolonisation is therefore imperative in the Muslim world, and critical geography offers valuable insights.

However, as Sidaway rightly points out, Islam goes beyond its commitment to decolonisation. Islam precedes colonialism. Islam is always ‘more-than-critical’ since it strives for something that is not covered by contemporary critical geography or critical theory in general: liberation from everything that deters human beings from their true nature – willing submission to God (Al-Attas, 1978: 52). Islam is indeed committed to the eradication of oppression (ẓulm) between human beings, but it is also concerned with how people oppress themselves or others in relation to God. This is a vision that I want to pursue.

Returning to the commitment of critical geography to learn from different epistemologies while bearing the difference in mind, I now pose some questions to critical geographers: how will critical geographers interact with those who refuse to be inside the project? Will critical geographers be willing to embrace a mode of decolonisation that reclaims notions of the divine and transcendent (Harfouch, 2022)? How will we agree and disagree?