Abstract
This article revisits the controversy over the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek’s sympathetic, yet critical and provocative, views on Islam and fundamentalist terrorism as developed in his ‘A Glance on the Archives of Islam.’ Žižek, I argue, offers an original reading of the universality of Islam and its political potentiality, by reactualizing the originary impulse in Hegel’s dialectical analysis of Islam as endogenous to the series of monotheistic religions, without falling into the trap of either Hegel’s racist Orientalist, Eurocentric, and Islamophobic views about Islam or their antithetical Islamocentric views. First, I show that Žižek rejects Hegel’s emphasis on both Islam’s temporal incongruity and the Islamic unique conception of an abstract and transcendent God. Instead, Žižek reloads Hegel’s dialectical views and manages to resolve the deadlock in Hegel’s approach to Islam that could not account for the universality of Islam. Second, I draw out the political aspect of Žižek’s philosophical analysis of Islam, by examining his claim that Islam is the most politicized religion today. Grounding the emergence of political Islam in the encroachment of modernization project on the Islamicate world, he notes the ambiguity about sacrifice (martyrdom and terrorism) in Islam and attributes the rise of Islamic extremism (violence) to the contradictions and impasses of the global capitalist system.
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Notes
For the most recent iteration of these attacks on Žižek, in general, and his views on Muslims and refugees, in particular, see Moller-Nielsen (2019). One issue that is very hard to ignore about these attacks is the extent to which these critics treat Žižek’s language as if it were a transparent common journalistic language, while in fact, it is grounded in highly theoretical and philosophical Lacanian-Marxist-Hegelian vocabulary. Even in his journalistic writings for the popular press, Žižek still writes like the dialectical materialist philosopher he is. Žižek, for example, grounds his analysis of the specificity of Islamic identity and the differences between Western and Islamic ways of life in the theoretical Lacanian concept of jouissance especially, with regards to sexual mores and systems of authority, at the core of each culture.
For instance, in the backlash against Žižek’s views on Syrian and other refugees in Europe, commentators like Moller-Nielsen (2019) seem to suggest that his views smack of the racist and Orientalist ‘clash of civilizations’ theory. Žižek, however, rejects Samuel Huntington’s theory of ‘the clash of civilizations,’ opting instead to link the troubling events in the Arab and Islamic world, as well as socio-political excesses, to Euro-American imperialism and to the underlying dynamics of global capitalism. Moreover, he shifts the struggle to one within civilizations themselves. Responding to his critics, he thus writes, ‘I do not argue that our European way of life is simply superior, so that we have the right to impose it onto others. Neither do I argue that all we can do is strive for a peaceful coexistence of different ways of life as the only way to avoid their clash. My basic strategy is to shift the accent from the clash between civilizations to the clashes within each civilization: we are fighting conservative-populist revival in our countries, and, as the Arab Spring demonstrated, the Muslim world is far from a homogeneous fundamentalist block.’ See Žižek (2019).
Slavoj Žižek, ‘A Glance on the Archives of Islam,’ Lacan.com, 2006. <https://www.lacan.com/zizarchives.htm>
Sead Zimeri (2015) makes the interesting claim that in the Hegelian series of monotheistic religions, it is not Hegel who excludes Islam from his universal world history, but that it is Islam that excludes itself from the Hegelian schema, by failing to sublate the dialectical relationship between divine universality and human particularity in Christianity. Against those critics such as Ian Almond (2007) and others, who claim that Hegel and Zizek marginalize Islam and deny its ontological existence, Zimeri argues that ‘Islam’s exclusion transpires not because the West wants it but because it is a self-incurred exclusion.’
Sai Bhatawadekar (2014) is partially correct to point out that Žižek manages to propose a more ‘conceptually progressive and chronologically consistent unity’ among the three monotheistic religions (Bhatawadekar 2014, p. 421). The only problem here is that ‘conceptually progressive’ might be misunderstood to mean that Islam would naturally be considered the culmination or peak of human history and civilization. Such an interpretation merely reverses Hegel’s claim that Christianity is the ‘religion to end all religions.’ Clearly, Žižek does not propose such a reading of the theological truth of Islam, which could make it possible to confuse his critique for an Islamocentric bias, the same way he is accused of advocating Christianity, but explores its political vitality and actuality. Indeed, he has recently criticized Rasheed Araeen for suggesting such an Islamocentric interpretation of history in which Islam is elevated to ‘the peak of human history.’ See, for example, Žižek (2017).
Although in his later book on German idealism and Islam (2010), Almond presents a somewhat more complex assessment of Hegel’s writings on Islam; in his earlier discussion (2007) of Hegel’s influence on Žižek, Almond contends that Žižek simply followed Hegel’s a priori perceptions of Islam to the letter. Almond thus claims that Žižek does not only marginalize Islam and Muslims in his work, but also demonises Islam as a fanatical and irrational religion, and posits Islam as a transitional phase towards a utopian socialist future (replicating Hegel’s parallel idea about the status of Christianity as the epitome of all religious thought). See Almond (2010, 2007, pp. 176–193). Although Coombs (2009) correctly criticizes Almond’s thesis for its ideological multicultural underpinnings, Coombs on his part faults both Žižek and Badiou for their ‘Christian essentialism’ which he considers as ‘a deviation from the tenets of their own systems, not just as an expression of their hopelessly Eurocentric gaze on the world.’ Just like other critics, Coombs accuses Žižek of Eurocentrism on account of his alleged bias towards the Christian legacy as the ‘religion that will end all religions.’ For more on this, see Depoortere (2008), Habib (2017, pp. 133–134), Norton (2013), and Zimeri (2015, pp. 256–268). What these critics miss is that Žižek’s exposition of the egalitarian core of Christianity does not glorify Christianity as it is currently practiced. Rather, Žižek points out the aspects of Christianity as it could potentially be—hence, the reclamation and re-actualization of the Christian legacy by radical leftist groups will end not with the return to Jesus, but with the return to Lenin. See, for example, Žižek (2001).
In the vigorous critical debate about Hegel’s alleged Orientalist, Eurocentric, and Islamophobic views on Islam, Hegel’s thoughts have been described in different ways, i.e., ‘complex’ (Almond 2010), ‘selective’ and shifting (Bhatawadekar 2014), outright racist Orientalist and Eurocentric (Habib 2017), and ‘multifaceted’ (Ventura 2018). Nonetheless, as Ventura notes, Hegel’s views on Islam cannot be understood outside of his overall philosophical systems, so that critics must take into consideration his views on history, religion, esthetics, and philosophy to better decode these views (Ventura 2018, p. 27). Moreover, there are no definitive editions of Hegel’s Berlin lectures on Islam which are considered the main textual source for any serious critique of Hegel’s views on the topic (Ventura 2018, p. 28).
Habib’s gross misreading of Žižek’s ‘new Hegelian triad’ (Habib 2017, p. 134) overlooks how this ‘abstract negation of polytheism’ in Judaism returns with a vengeance in Islamic ‘truly universal monotheism.’ Habib suggests that because the Qu’ran repudiates the Trinity, ‘Žižek’s triad would represent not a “progression” but an outright return to the monotheism of Judaism—and this is exactly how the Qu’ran sees itself, as a confirmation and repetition of earlier scriptures.’ Habib misses Žižek’s whole point about the return of abstract monotheism in Islam without a trace of Jewish particularity—Islam, in Žižek’s analysis, is not identical and does not completely repeat the same gesture in Judaism. Moreover, he decries Žižek for his ‘orientalistic’ endeavor, because Žižek allegedly fails to avail ‘himself of any “internal” perspective as might be furnished by scholars working within the relevant traditions’ (Habib 2017, p. 134). It is astonishing that Habib could miss one of the main sources of Žižek’s arguments in this text, namely, Fathi Benslama’s work. Incidentally, in his comment on Hegel’s notion of the antithetical relationship between Islam and Christianity, Habib glosses the term to mean oppositional and antagonistic, whereas Ventura explains it in terms of complementarity.
For a more general description of the demise of the ‘ideal father’ in Arabo-Islamic culture, see Safouan and Hub Allah (Safouan and Allah 2008, pp. 57–74). It is also interesting to contrast Žižek’s reading of God in relation to the demise of the paternal function with Zimeri’s contention that Islam ‘shifts the accent of emancipation from the question of the existence of the big Other to the question of the modality of its inexistence’ (Zimeri 2015, pp. 262–263). As such, he states that the big Other in Islam ‘has to be presupposed’ and that it functions as some type of ‘nonmessianic Hope,’ adding that ‘there is guarantee for the outcome of the struggle’ which explains the emphasis on jihad (or rather al-jihad al-akbar or greater jihad or struggle) in Islam (Zimeri 2015, 263). Zimeri clearly grounds his alternative theory of non-messianic hope in the same Žižekian ideas he criticizes and even echoes Žižek’s claim that there ‘never was’ a ‘predestined revolutionary subject,’ not even the working class (Žižek 2008, p. 289). Ironically, Zimeri seems to develop a putatively anti-Žižekian theory of Islam that is nonetheless grounded in the same Žižekian terminology that he uses to explicate the egalitarian core of the Christianity in the absence of the support of the big Other that radical leftist groups could reclaim (Zimeri 2015, p. 262).
One must be careful here about the implications of Žižek’s reading of Islam’s disavowed femininity. Zimeri, for example, proposes that Islamic reformist and feminist movements need Žižek’s critique of capitalism and his theory of radical revolutionary politics to articulate its urgent anti-capitalist and anti-clerical (especially the fight against theological obscurantism) struggles. Žižek, he concludes, clears a space for the political recuperation of Islam’s emancipatory legacy from different forms of salafi and takfiri movements, without falling into the trap of politicizing Islam in the name of sharia law (Zimeri, ‘Islam,’ p. 265). Žižek, however, is not suggesting here that there are suppressed feminist origins in Islam or that there is a good Islam that must be distinguished from bad Islam in their treatment of women. Rather, his point is that these repressed origins of Islam are ‘simultaneously the very origins of oppression of women.’ Needless to mention, Žižek’s critical psychoanalytic reinterpretations of Islam depart from the traditional theological interpretations of the Qur’anic verses on women and read them against the grain. Žižek, and his sources, pushes against these traditional readings and attempts to uncover a more radical legacy in Islam’s position on women that has been suppressed by hegemonic patriarchal readings of the Qur’an. For seminal critical engagement with patriarchal readings of the Qur’an, see Barlas (2002).
It is interesting that Žižek does not mention that this other woman was, according to Ibn Sa’d’s (n. d.) The Greater Tabaqat (Classes or Biographies), referred to as Qatilah bint (daughter of) Nawfal, the sister of the Warqa ibn Nawfal, and the paternal first cousin of Khadija herself. According to other accounts, Qatilah, a merchant, was the one who tried to tempt and seduce Abdullah, but he rebuffed her on account of his virtuous character and went to his wife Amina instead. After having intercourse with Amina, Abdullah went back to Qatilah to reconsider whatever ‘business transaction’ she offered him, but she rebuffed him this time because he lost the light between his eyes. Either way, Qatilah still had mystical knowledge of the coming of the prophet that his father did not have.
Žižek tends to carry the unknown X in Malcolm’s radical reinvention of identity and self during his Nation of Islam years over into his Sunni Islamic phase, when Malcolm X adopted a definitive Muslim Arabic name, El-hajj Malik El-Shabbaz, during his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964. Shabbaz was not an accidental or random choice for a surname, because Malcolm X used to preach a version of the Asiatic origins of Black people, especially the myth that they originated from a noble Saudi Arabian tribe, called Shabbaz, which moved from Mecca to Africa 50,000 years ago. For more on this myth and the role of the founder of the Nation of Islam W. D. Fard in propagating it, see Mazucci (2008). To this extent, I agree with Edward Curtis IV that Malcolm X’s assassination prevented him from fully exploring the dialectical tension between black particularity and Islamic universality, failing to turn Islam into a political vehicle for the articulation of pan-African liberation, to which he was committed in his last years. Curtis writes that for Malcolm X, ‘Islam was no more relevant to “black” people than it was to “white” people; it was a “human” tradition that applied equally to all human beings. At the same time, however, Malcolm did not look to this universalistic Islam as any sort of strategy in his fight for black liberation; instead, he espoused a pan-African struggle led exclusively by and for blacks’ (Curtis and Edward 2002, p. 85). It also should be noted that the ‘X’ did not only stand for the unknown origins of the former slaves, which is Žižek’s preferred interpretation, but also for the mathematical genius of, and pride in, (Asiatic) black civilization that Fard used to preach. For more on this, see Mazucci (2008), ‘Going back to ur own.’ As I point out, the radical core of Malcolm’s interpretation of Islamic universality as a vision of racial harmony can be actualized only through Žižek’s theory of ‘concrete universality.’
Žižek misses here again another opportunity to bring this theme of sacrifice home to the pre-Islamic history of the Prophet Muhammad and tie it in with Hagar’s story. According to Ibn Sa’d’s The Greater Tabaqat, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandfather Abd Al-Muttaleb vowed to sacrifice one of his sons, if God were to bestow upon him ten sons who would help him dig the Zamzam well. When the ten sons were born, Abd Al-Muttaleb confided in them his secret vow and they all urged him to keep his promise to God. However, the divination arrows fell upon his most favorite son Abdullah, Muhammad’s father. Just like the other stories Žižek discusses, however, the sacrifice was aborted and Abd Al-Muttaleb sacrificed 100 camels at the Ka’ba instead.
The problem with radical Muslim fundamentalists like the Takfirists is that, as Mustapha Safouan writes, they try to make God’s will transparent to them, disavowing the impossibility of ‘identification with the very being of God.’ The Takfirists, Safouan adds, managed to accomplish the impossible: They have simultaneously ‘identified with the most venerated symbol of all, while at the same time they exploit this identification to claim for themselves a real power which is God’s alone: that of being the final judge of the purity or sincerity of faith’ (Safouan 2008, p. 14).
For more on this debate about Islam, modernity, and terrorism, please see Masud et al. (2009).
Zimeri repeats almost the same logic of Almond’s argument but substitutes socialism for Christianity, claiming that in Žižek’s work ‘Islam is not part of that emancipatory story that Christianity is’ (Zimeri 2015, p. 262).
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Khader, J. Reactualizing Hegel: Žižek, the Universality of Islam, and Its Political Potentiality (Revisiting “the Archives of Islam”). SOPHIA 59, 793–808 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-020-00799-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-020-00799-0