چکیده:
t
This paper examines a South African debate on legislating Muslim
mf anthropologist Talal Asad’s critique de-
veloped in his Formations of the Secular (2003). It probes aspects
of the debate under four Asadian themes: (1) the historicity of the
secular, secularism, and secularization; (2) the place of power and
the new articulations of discourses it creates; (3) the state as the
arm of that power; and (4) the interconnections (or dislocations)
among law, ethics, and the organic environment (habitus). | argue
that Asad illumines the debate in the following ways: (1) by pro-
viding a deeper historical and philosophical appreciation of its
terms of reference, given that the proposed legislation will be sub-
ject to South Africa’s secular Bill of Rights and constitution; (2)
by requiring us to examine and interrogate the genealogies of such
particular hegemonic discourses as human rights, which some par-
ticipants appear to present as ahistorical and privileged; and (3) by
showing, through the concept of habitus, why this debate needs to
go beyond its present piecemeal legal nature and develop an ap-
preciation of the organic linkages among the Shari‘ah, morality,
community, and self. Yet inevitable nuances are produced when
applying Asad’s ideas to the South African context.
خلاصه ماشینی:
I argue that Asad illumines the debate in the following ways: (1) by pro- viding a deeper historical and philosophical appreciation of its terms of reference, given that the proposed legislation will be sub- ject to South Africa’s secular Bill of Rights and constitution; (2) by requiring us to examine and interrogate the genealogies of such particular hegemonic discourses as human rights, which some par- ticipants appear to present as ahistorical and privileged; and (3) by showing, through the concept of habitus, why this debate needs to go beyond its present piecemeal legal nature and develop an ap- preciation of the organic linkages among the Shari‘ah, morality, community, and self.
In fact, this particular case further ar- gues that his understanding of power, as well as the historical contestation in- volved when new moral landscapes are defined and imposed, leads us to problematize claims by such discourses as human rights (which features prominently in the MMB debate) to be innate and privileged.
The Darul Uloom simply speaks about the Shari‘ah; it does not mention the MMB debate in terms of fiqh, defined as the process of human reasoning based upon that law that may arrive at a variety of different, but fundamentally valid, out- comes, nuances, and opinions.