Hasib Nasiri: Religionskritik i islamisk tænkning: Korruption, krise og kritik

Abstract

This dissertation is motivated by two overall aims: Firstly, to rethink the critique of religion as a theological-philosophical phenomenon by investigating the origins of the concept of religion as a tradition-transcending universal category in the modern Western theological-philosophical tradition, which is the object of critique of religion (ch. 2). Secondly, based on this previous investigation which destabilizes the notion of critique of religion, to pursue an investigation of the Muslim critique of religion in the revivalist tradition (ch. 3, 4 and 5). Investigating the latter demands a novel methodological approach that can help us reread the revivalist tradition in a new way, and this approach is presented through the introduction of my theory of ”fasadology” (ch. 6). 

This study will focus on the revivalist tradition in Muslim theological-philosophical tradition by paying close attention to three representatives of this tradition: the Sunni reformist Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali (ch. 3), the Sunni reformist of South Asian Islamic tradition Shah Wali Allah Dehlawi (ch. 4), and the Iranian imamiyyah-Shia reformist Ali Shariati (ch. 5). The study will look at their intellectual oeuvre by paying close attention to their theological anthropology, i.e. how they define the human condition, and thereby looks at the specific critique of the Islam of their age that they find to be discordant with the ideal notion of primordial Islam of the prophetic age.

My approach will show how a distinct notion of human subjectivity, based on previous Qur'anic anthropology, is the foundation of these revivalist thinkers' definition of the human condition that necessitates an intervention. Based on their reading of the human condition which entails moral corruption of historical Islam, they muster a potent critique of the Islam of their day. The investigation of the three abovementioned revivalist thinkers exemplifies the three moods of critique in Islamic thought: the anti-orthodoxy of Al-Ghazali, the anti-sectarianism of Shah Wali Allah and the anticlericalism of Shariati, whereby I put forward an argument for the capability of these critiques to be viewed as critique of religion because of the object of critique: Islam in its historical unfolding.