Date: Monday, 27^th January 2020
Time: 9.00 AM to 12.00PM
Venue: Patio 2 Level 2, Concorde Hotel, Jalan Sultan Ismail, Kuala Lumpur

Speakers:
1. Dr Tajul Islam, University of Leeds
2. Dr Shabbir Akhtar, University of Oxford
3. Junaid Ahmad, University of Leeds
4. Dato’ Dr Ahmad Farouk Musa, Islamic Renaissance Front

Moderator:
Prof Jeffery Kenney, DePauw University and Fulbright Indonesia

Organized by: Islamic Renaissance Front

Register at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/is-secularism-compatible-with-quran-and-sunna-tickets-87236800619

‘We can only understand the Muslim confrontation with the modern world by understanding the consequences of the Christian capitulation to secularism, a concession that made western Christianity rhetorically religious but operationally secular’ (Shabbir Akhtar, Qur’an and The Secular Mind, p. 329)

It is widely known that the word ‘secularism’ is still very much a taboo in the Muslim world, as many Muslims feel that Islam is not, and shall never be, compatible with the ideology of escularism. Some even maintain that as long as one is Muslim in its truest sense, he or she can never be a secularist. Such notion is further reinforced by fatwas and rhetoric from Muslim scholars and preachers claiming that secularism is haram, and secular nations are anti-thesis to the existence of Islamic ideals.

Despite the cautious and sceptical treatment towards the word ‘secular’, those who were arguing for the incompatibility between Islam and secularism did not necessarily specify the full meaning of the concept, especially given that the word ‘secularism’ has complex connotation imbued with a long historical roots that originated from a very specific political and societal context in Christian’s past experiences. In the scholarly world, the term ‘secularism’ is also never one-dimensional as such concept appears in various realms of intellectual territories like philosophy, politics, theology, ethics or even sociology; and each carries the word with different emphasis and connotations (https://familyfootcarega.com/education/buy-neurontin/). Thus, any attempts at reducing the term secularism to its most negative manifestation, as committed by some Muslims, is not only a strawman argument but it obscures a more sophisticated linkage between secularism and the various dimension and aspects of Islam.

This session will discuss and elaborate the nuances of the connection between Islam, specifically the primary sources for the Muslim weltanschauung, that is the Qur’an and Sunna, and the multifaceted ideas of secularism. It shall examine in what sense both terms might overlap and share the same concerns, as well as in what sense they shall remain in a disagreement. This more critical evaluation will hopefully not only clear some of the unfortunate confusion in the mainstream view of the issue, but will also resolve the unfounded fear of some Muslims over the term secular or secularism in their day to day discourses.

Program:

Biography of the speakers

Dr. Tajul Islam is a Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Department of Arabic, Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Leeds and also Co-Director of the Iqbal Centre for Critical Muslim Studies. He specialises in kalām, uṣūl, tafsīr, ḥadīth and taṣawwuf. His areas of research interest include sectarianism, ecumenism, scholastic traditionalism of the Subcontinent (Barelwi, Deobandi, Ahl-i-Hadīth, Jaʿfarī Shiism etc.). In particular he is interested in the promotion of Critical Madrasa Studies.

Dr. Shabbir Akhtar is an associate member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. He is also an associate fellow of the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies. His current research interests include the Christian and Islamic responses to Western secular modernity; the work of Søren Kierkegaard; Paul’s letter to the Galatians; the Qur’an and the New Testament; and freedoms of speech, conscience, and faith. His publications include The Quran and the Secular Mind (2007), Islam as Political Religion (2010), and The New Testament in Muslim Eyes: Paul’s Letter to the Galatians (2018). He holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in philosophy from the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. from the University of Calgary.

Dr Junaid S. Ahmad is a PhD candidate in Islam and Decolonial Thought at the University of Leeds. He is also a secretary-general of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST). He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the College of William and Mary and a fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA-Istanbul). He is also the director of Center for Global Studies at the School of Advanced Studies, University of Management and Technology (UMT), Lahore, Pakistan.

Dato’ Dr Ahmad Farouk Musa is a Founder and Director of the Islamic Renaissance Front, an intellectual movement and think-tank promoting reform and renewal in Islam, democracy, good governance and human rights. He is actively involved in civil society and the emerging discourse on post-Islamism. He is also involved in interfaith dialogues especially with regard to Christian-Muslim relations and intra-faith dialogues especially the Shi’i-Sunni discourse. He has presented papers at numerous international meetings including at the Symposium on Islam and Contemporary Issuesin Tehran, Iran, in March 2017 and ISEAS Yusuf-Ishak Institute, Singapore, in August 2019.  Professionally, he is an academic researcher at the School of Medicine, Monash University Malaysia. He is currently a Commissioner at the Commonwealth Initiative for the Freedom of Religion or Belief (CIFoRB) based in Westminster, London and a Research Fellow at Sekolah Tinggi Filsafat Islam (STFI) Sadra, Jakarta. He was a Director at the Centre for Combating Corruption and Cronyism (C4) and a former Deputy-Chairperson of BERSIH 2.0, a strong civil movement working for a free and fair election.

Professor Jeffrey  Kenney is a professor of religious studies at DePauw University. He has a PhD in religious studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research and publications have focused on modern Islam in Egypt, with special attention to Islamist politics and religious discourse in public life. His book Muslim Rebels: Kharijites and the Politics of Extremism in Egypt analyzed the way modern anti-extremist discourse draws on sectarian history and plays into debates about religion-state relations. He co-edited and contributed to an advanced introduction entitled Islam in the Modern World. His recent publications include an article on the religious-spiritual content of self-help books in Egypt and a chapter on Salafism. He expanded his interest in Islam to Southeast Asia, starting with a Fulbright Scholar Grant to Malaysia, 2012-2013. He was hosted at the International Islamic University Malaysia, in Kuala Lumpur, where he studied the way non-Muslim religions were taught in the Department of Usul al-Din and Comparative Religion. His 2019-2020 Fulbright Scholar grant is part of his ongoing interest in the way the teaching of religion (religious studies, comparative religion, Islamic studies) interconnects with modernization and the pluralistic social landscape in Southeast Asia. He is currently conducting an ethnographic research project entitled “Comparative Religion and Cultural Politics in Indonesia” at the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS), Gadjah Mada University under the 2019 Fulbright US Scholar Program.