Madrasa Discourses Glossary on Theology, Religion, and Modernity

Allegory: According to Oxford Reference, an allegory is “A story, poem, or picture which can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.” Stories for children, for example, are often meant to educate children’s moral and ethical development, rather than be interpreted as a literal or factual detailing of events. Similarly, scholars of religion also discuss whether certain elements of scripture can be taken as allegorical: instead of relying on the literal meaning of those elements, scholars try to determine their moral and political message.

Authority: Authority refers to the “power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior,” per Merriam-Webster dictionary.  

Big History: Big History brings together scholars from different disciplines to weave together a narrative of history on a cosmic scale, from the beginning of the universe to the current day. Fields such as astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, anthropology, and history contribute to provide a comprehensive understanding of the interconnected processes that have shaped the cosmos, our planet, and human civilization.

Capitalism: Capitalism is an economic system driven by individual self-interest to maximize profit. Property is, for the most part, held privately, and decentralized market forces of supply and demand determine pricing. In this system the government has a more limited economic role to ensure that markets function. It should be noted that this economic model has also had significant implications for the social, political, and religious spheres of life through neoliberalism. Rather than remaining only a way to buy and sell things, principles that support capitalism, such as efficiency, competition, monetization, become part of social and political life.

Circular reasoning: Circular reasoning is a logical error in reasoning where the desired conclusion is used as proof for its own validity. For example, “A is true because A says A is true.” Verification requires we use sources besides A to prove A’s validity. In philosophy, circular reasoning is not a legitimate source of knowledge. Section 1.1.3 provides the argument of the master theologian Maturidi who asserts that to escape circular reasoning in establishing the truth of Islamic faith and tradition, a theologian needs to rely on the independent authority of reason along with the revelation.

Colonialism: As noted in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Colonialism is a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one people to another.” This domination can take the form of direct control over territory, politics, and economic and social life; it can also live on after subjugated peoples have achieved independence. Colonialism can continue as “coloniality,” where the beliefs and practices of the oppressor are continued even after the oppressor (i.e., colonizer) is overthrown. 

Colonial modernity: See Modernity

Contingency: This concept refers to the idea that the way we view “reality” is dependent on broader historically situated intellectual and cultural lenses, rather than an objective perspective. In Contingency and the Limits of History, Liane Carlson defines contingency a follows: “a contingent event or term is one that could have been otherwise, for whatever reason, and by whatever chain of causes or noncauses” (4). In other words, contingency names the idea that our means of understanding the world are subject to change, and that what leads to such change often remains hidden from our own understanding. Until the mid-twentieth century US/European philosophers and scientists mostly assumed that the concepts that we employed to understand ourselves and the world around us had the ability to accurately reflect the underlying and unchanging reality of that world. But as genealogical work has shown, much of what we take to be a reflection of reality in the concepts we employ to make sense of the world are the result of historical, social, and political causes that remain obscure from our limited and time-bound perspective. As a consequence, because of their contingency, these thinkers contend that we should remain humble in our claims about the world, especially when it comes to our suggestions about the naturalness or inevitability of our particular culture’s conceptual framework.

Creation Stories: The phrase “creation stories” refers to the stories that explain the origins of the universe, the Earth, and humanity. These stories are often rooted in religious or cultural beliefs. The Qur’an, for example, provides an explanation for how God created the heavens and earth, and how animals and people came to be. Different communities around the world have different explanations for the origins of the universe. Contemporary science offers one such explanation, with the “big bang.” Section 1.1 highlights several such stories from various cultures around the world. 

Epistemology: Epistemology refers to our theories about what is truth and what is opinion: our theories of knowledge. How can knowledge be achieved? What is the limit of knowledge? The contemporary scientific community, for example, generally believes that only that which can be proven through the scientific method can be considered knowledge; things in the realm of faith are outside of science’s ability to prove or disprove. Meanwhile, many religious traditions such as Islam broadly consider received scripture to be truth, though religious scholars may differ on questions of interpretation. To know what Ghazali and Taftazani propose for an Islamic epistemology, go to sections 1.2.3 and 1.2.4.

Evolution: Evolution is a scientific theory that explains how living organisms change over time. Change is driven by mechanisms such as natural selection (which organisms reproduce and pass on their genes and which don’t), genetic drift, and mutation, leading to the adaptation of species to their environments. The theory of evolution, first articulated by Charles Darwin, posits that all living organisms share a common ancestry and have diversified over time. The evidence supporting evolution includes fossil records, comparative anatomy, embryology, and molecular biology. (Also read about Creationism, an opposing theory of how organisms came to be and how they change. Creationism emerged in Protestant communities and strongly affected how some Islamic communities view evolution, see section 4.2.8.)

Human Nature: Human nature refers to the philosophical idea that humans have certain moral and social instincts. Different political and economic theories may have different perspectives on what moral and social instincts are innate. For example, neoliberalism and capitalism assume that humans are individual rational actors who generally will do what is best for themselves when engaging with people they do not know, instead of behaving altruistically. Meanwhile, some religious communities believe humans are born good but fallible–they can fall into error. These beliefs about human nature influence ideas about how social, economic, and political activities should be pursued. Students are encouraged to compare the idea of fitrah in Islamic tradition with other contemporary concepts of human nature.

Individualism: Per Britannica, Individualism is a “political and social philosophy that emphasizes the moral worth of the individual.” Emerging in the French Revolution (1789-99), the term now refers to the idea that an individual’s right to freedom of belief and action must be protected from state and communal control. Individualism prizes a person’s self-reliance and independence in pursuing their actions.

Liberal Democracy: A liberal democracy pairs representative democracy, where citizens are represented by democratically elected decision-makers, with liberal political norms such as the rule of law (everyone is equal under the law), checks and balances between different branches of government, and protections for the freedoms and rights of individuals (often in the form of a constitution or bill of rights).

Norm/Normative: “Normal” or “standard” beliefs and values (“norms”) are different in each community and culture. These standard beliefs and values are deemed desirable or permissible, and not following them can result in social punishments in some cases. Using the correct mode of address for people, or dressing in a certain way for professional meetings, is one example. Norms govern the ways that people from different groups–men, women, children, people from different social groups, interact with one another. This is much like the term sunnah in Arabic, for social customs, which in the Islamic tradition is understood to mean the sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH).

Modernity (also, colonial modernity): While many people may use the word “modern” interchangeably with “contemporary,” that is not how the term is used here. Instead, by modernity we refer to a period in time from 1492 to the present day that is characterized by certain philosophical ideas about the world exported from Europe. European modernity established certain social, political, and economic norms. The “nation-state” emerged as the standard political unit created around an imaginary ideal citizen, turning those who were outside this ideal into minorities who were at risk of expulsion or death. Capitalism became the dominant form of economic exchange. A modern idea of religion and secularism emerged, based on Christian (Protestant) norms. This definition of “religion” helped justify the colonization of people around the world who had a supposedly inferior religion, or, according to this European lens, no religion. The idea of “race” was created. All of these norms were presented as helping humanity improve; the passage of time was now a search for “progress.” For a more detailed and scholarly analysis of modernity, we invite you to review the CM Glossary entry for coloniality/modernity.

Pluralism: Pluralism refers to the acceptance and coexistence of diverse beliefs, values, cultures, and perspectives within a society. While the term has become an object of focus more recently in the context of diversity and political and social rights within states, examples of (mostly) peaceful coexistence and encounter are common throughout Islamic history, with Mughal emperor Akbar’s reign (1556 to 1605) often cited as an example. The degree of pluralism in a society became particularly important with the creation of the nation-state system (initially in Western Europe in the late 1400s) and the idea of “minority” populations, who were at renewed risk of ethnic cleansing and expulsion to maintain the “purity” of the state and demographic superiority of the group in power. The partition of the subcontinent is an example. Advocating for pluralism that transcends disinterested tolerance, scholars Christopher Stewart, Chris Seiple, and Dennis R. Hoover call for a system of legal equality for different groups and a culture of cross-cultural engagement and mutual protection across deep differences.

Secularism: Secularism is a philosophical, civic, and political project inaugurated in modern Europe that sought to diminish the role of religion in the public sphere. Famously, Max Weber points to the Protestant Reformation as laying the foundation for the seeds of secularism. (Led by Martin Luther (d.1546), the Protestant Reformation was a religious movement started in the 1500s. It resulted in the creation of a separate Christian sect, Protestantism.) This is because the Protestant Reformation reframed religious practice as focused primarily on the inner expression of piety rather than the outward expression of faith, thus limiting the need to express one’s faith through public and/or political action (CM Blog, Glossary). However, even in supposedly secular states such as India and the United States, religious beliefs and approaches are embedded in political systems and dominant social norms. Secularism has also historically been used to persecute certain expressions of religious piety–the use of head scarves or turbans has historically been prohibited in certain public spaces or by public servants in states such as France and Turkey, for example, while other forms of religious piety are tolerated. Muslim scholars have been discussing the religious status of secularism. Many Indian ulama, as well as other Muslim scholars like Saeed Ahmad Akbarabadi, Mushir Ul Haq, Muhammad Mujeeb, and even the current Amir (President) of the Jamat-i Islami in India, Syed Sadatullah Hussaini (2019 to present), view that secularism in some contexts is compatible with Islam.

Social Change: “Sociologists define social change as [changes in how humans interact and changes in the values of a community] that transform cultural and social institutions.  These changes occur over time and often have profound and long-term consequences for society. Well-known examples of such change have resulted from social movements in workers’ rights, civil rights, women’s rights and LGBTQIA+ rights, to name just a few” (Southern New Hampshire University). Professor Fazlur Rahman is among the Muslim scholars who tried to investigate how social changes in the early history of Islam encouraged the early generations of authority to interpret the sunnah practices differently. 

Tradition: Tradition refers to a body of faith, values and beliefs transmitted from generation to generation. The Islamic tradition, for example, is not only composed of Revelation, the Quran, and the sunnah and hadith but also the work of generations of scholars who interpreted and applied Revelation and subsequent teachings in fields such as theology, law, ethics, philosophy, and science. For example, the subfield of classical Islamic ethical thought was undertaken by scholars such as Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali, Nasir-ad Din Tusi, and Jalal ad-Din Davani who focused on morals and ethics and were major contributors to the development of the field of akhlāq (morality/ethics/virtue) in Islamic thought (see CM Blog, Glossary). Ebrahim Moosa, scholar of Islamic thought and Muslim society at the University of Notre Dame, and many other scholars of Islam argue that tradition should be living, dynamic, and thoughtful, rather than a process of unthinking adherence. Over time a tradition can grow or shift, incorporating interpretations seen to conform to Islamic scripture subjected to rigorous debate.

Traditionalism: Broadly speaking, this term refers to continuing to think and do things the way they were done before. Max Weber, for example, references traditionalist farmers seeking to work only enough to meet their needs, rather than exemplifying a “capitalist ethos” and working to maximize their money. With respects to religion, traditionalism here refers to an ideology that seeks to preserve a specific, often anti-modern, understanding of the past. However, while “Muslim traditionalist actors present their intellectual labor as a work of seamless inheritance from authorities of the past, they often rework and reorient the tradition according to their own context, contingencies, and temperament.” (Perilous Intimacies, 8). Traditionalism can block consideration of whether certain beliefs and practices are still appropriate for the community of believers today. As an example, historical legal understandings of marriage as a sale of women’s reproductive capacity are surprising and uncomfortable for many Muslims today (for more on this topic, see Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam). Traditionalism may advocate for the continued application of such legal precedents, regardless of whether contemporary Muslims find such teachings on marriage and slavery to be contradictions of their understanding of Islamic dignity and justice. It should be reiterated that traditionalism is very different from being traditional: a critical traditionalist, for example, engages with the past but makes room for revisions and debate. 

Worldview: A person’s worldview refers to a set of beliefs about reality that influence everything that person thinks and does. These are often unconsciously held beliefs that “influence[] such things as how we see ourselves as individuals, how we interpret our role in society, how we deal with social issues, and what we regard as truth” (Oxford Reference). Culture is a core component of a person’s worldview, and often affects whether someone has a more collectivist or individualistic orientation, what they consider to be the role of the divine, and their theories about how knowledge is obtained and transmitted.