Abstract
The “post” in postcolonial signifies a hope more than a reality. It is, in the words of Anne McClintock, a move that is “prematurely celebratory.”1 For example, the term “postcolonial” is often used to describe the southern regions of the Americas, despite the fact that the United States has invaded Latin America more than one hundred times over the last hundred years.2 Anyone living in Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other places occupied or invaded by military forces would contest the notion that colonialism is a relic of the past. So, why use “postcolonial” at all?
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Notes
Anne McClintock, “The Angel of Progress: Pitfalls of the Term ‘Post-Colonialism,’” Social Text 31/32: Third World and Post-Colonial Issues (1992): 87.
Leszek Kolakowski, “Slumbering Islam,” New Perspectives Quarterly 19.1 (2002): 93.
David Scott, Conscripts of Modernity: The Tragedy of Colonial Enlightenment (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 19.
Talal Asad, “Conscripts of Western Civilization,” in Dialectical Anthropology: Essays in Honor of Stanley Diamond, vol. 1, ed. Christine Gailey (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1992), 333, quoted in Scott, 8.
The foundational study of this binary in contemporary political discourse is Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, The Cold War, and the Roots of Terror (New York: Pantheon Books, 2004).
Michael N. Jagessar and Stephen Burns, Christian Worship: Postcolonial Perspectives (Oakville, CT: Equinox, 2011), 11.
Tariq Ramadan, In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 16. Rabb refers to Allah and is often translated as Master or Sustainer.
Omid Safi, Memories of Muhammad: Why the Prophet Matters (New York: HarperOne, 2009), 36.
Reza Shah-Kazemi, The Spirit of Tolerance in Islam (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2012), 111. Asma al-Husna is often translated as “the most beautiful names.”
See Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1978).
Daniel Dubuisson, The Western Construction of Religion: Myths, Knowledge, and Ideology, trans. William Sayers (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), 94.
Saba Mahmood, “Secularism, Hermeneutics, and Empire: The Politics of Islamic Reformation,” Public Culture 18.2 (2006): 328–329.
For Amina Wadud, the relationship of tawhid (the “unicity” of God) with khalifah (agency) constitutes the ethical understanding of human worth. Amina Wadud, Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam (Oxford: Oneworld, 2007), 15.
William C. Chittick, In Search of the Lost Heart: Explorations in Islamic Thought, ed. Mohammed Rustom, Atif Khalil, and Kazuyo Murata (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012), 321.
Nevin Reda, “Women in the Mosque: Historical Perspectives on Segregation,” American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21.2 (2004): 81–82.
Mahdi Tourage, “Performing Belief and Reviving Islam,” Performing Islam 1.2 (2012): 211.
Wadud’s position is that the Qur’an is inerrant and supreme, in contrast to the ambiguous and often contradictory ways in which the Sunna describes females. The Qur’an is quite clear on the equal status of man and woman. See Amina Wadud, Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Text from a Woman’s Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), xvii.
Juliane Hammer, “Performing Gender Justice: The 2005 Woman-Led Prayer in New York,” Contemporary Islam 4 (2010): 92.
Ahmed Elewa and Laury Silvers, “‘I Am One of the People’: A Survey and Analysis of Legal Arguments on Woman-Led Prayer in Islam,” Journal of Law and Religion 26.1 (2010–11): 163–164.
Sabine Schmidtke, “Homoeroticism and Homosexuality in Islam: A Review Article.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 62.2 (1999): 260.
For a discussion of the treatment of lesbianism in Islam, see Sahar Amer, “Medieval Arab Lesbians and Lesbian-like Women,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 18 (2009): 215–236.
Everett K. Rowson, “The Effeminates of Early Medina,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 111.4 (1991): 674.
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© 2015 Cláudio Carvalhaes
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Arjana, S.R. (2015). Returning to the One: Postcolonial Muslim Liturgy. In: Carvalhaes, C. (eds) Liturgy in Postcolonial Perspectives. Postcolonialism and Religions. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137508270_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137508270_2
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