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Formation oF normative orders in the islamic World international conFerence maY 7–9, 2010 Goethe UniversitY FranKFUrt/main camPUs Westend, casino 1.801
Formation oF normative orders in the islamic World
international conFerence maY 7–9, 2010Goethe UniversitY FranKFUrt/maincamPUs Westend, casino 1.801
orGanized bY ProF. dr. sUsanne schröter
Formation oF normative orders in the islamic WorldIn his last large collection of poems, which he entitled the “West-Eastern Divan”, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, after whom
our university is named, wrote the following lines:
Wer sich selbst und andere kennt,
Wird auch hier erkennen:
Orient und Okzident
Sind nicht mehr zu trennen.
As researchers who are part of the cluster of excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders”, we regard Goethe’s ap-
proach as an incentive to look into our shared history and present, as well as into the development of normative orders in
the Islamic world, in an interdisciplinary group of scholars – both Muslim and non-Muslim – from various countries of the
Orient and Occident.
We all live in a world that is undergoing profound political, social, and economic changes, in an entangled modernity
characterized by new perils and new conflicts. The persistency of old troubles, violence legitimated by religion, racism,
imperialist wars, the marginalization of minorities, the persecution of political opposition, the oppression of women – all
these make up the ugly side of our young millennium. On the other side, however, there are many encouraging efforts to
get justice, emancipation, and the social participation of marginal groups enshrined in normative systems, and to ban
discrimination and violence. In the course of the conference, we will inquire about how to support positive developments
and how to counteract negative ones. We will discuss the normative foundations prerequisite for peaceful coexistence in
a multicultural and multi-religious society, and possible ways to root these in politics, legislation, and in the awareness
of the population. By using examples of recent developments in Asia, Africa, and Europe, we will discuss the difficulties,
counter-movements, and structural obstacles inherent in such processes. We will address narratives used to legitimize
ethnic, religious, social, or gender-based exclusion, as well as approaches aimed at overcoming discourses of domi-
nance. We will look into problems related to gender justice and to liberal and feminist reinterpretations of the Qur’an and
Sunna, and we will broach family law reforms in various Islamic countries and the European controversy about women’s
and sexual rights versus cultural rights. We will talk about the role played by Islam – and other religions – in state and
society, and discuss the question of whether secularism is indeed a phenomenon unique to Europe, as has been stated by
Habermas.
The conference contributes to a process of mutual academic understanding between the so-called East and the so-called
West, or, in Goethe’s terminology, the Orient and the Occident. It brings together scholars from various countries and
disciplines, in order to encourage interdisciplinary discussion and to deepen the understanding of Islam in Europe, South-
east Asia, and the Middle East. By hosting this conference in Frankfurt, we also wish to take a stand on anti-Islamic and
anti-Muslim prejudices, and work together for the establishment of an interfaith dialogue on global justice, human rights,
and peace.
We hope all participants will have an interesting and engaging conference.
Prof. Dr. Susanne Schröter
and the team of the cluster of excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders”
Those who know themselves and others
Will realize here, too,
That the Orient and the Occident
Have become inseparable.
introdUction
ProGramFriday, may 7, 2010
14.30 Registration
15.30 Welcome addresses
Prof. Dr. Rainer Forst
Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Kohl
Panel 1 entangled histories. From averroes to sayyed Qutb
16.00 Hassan Hanafi (Cairo University)
“Persecution and norm: A comparative analysis between Averroes and Sayyed Qutb”
17.00 Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (Goethe University Frankfurt)
“Reason and religion. The relationship among two competing normative concepts”
18.00 Mehmet Sait Reçber (Ankara University)
“The epistemic virtues of Islam and the ideals of the Enlightenment”
19.00 Welcome Dinner
saturday, may 8, 2010
Panel 2 shaping islam in the West
10.00 Dietrich Reetz (Zentrum Moderner Orient Berlin)
“Adaptation or change: Making home for Muslims and Islam in Western Europe”
11.00 Peter Scholz (Free University of Berlin)
“Characteristics of the legal framework for a European Islam”
12.00 Schirin Amir-Moazamit (Free University of Berlin)
“Gendered Islam under state surveillance”
13.00 Lunch (Room NG 1.741)
saturday, may 8, 2010
Panel 3 Feminist approaches and their legal and political consequences
15.00 Margot Badran (Georgetown University)
“Reformist women in early 20th century Egypt and lessons for the present”
16.00 Susanne Schröter (Goethe University Frankfurt)
“Islamic feminism and transnational Muslim women’s movements”
17.00 Bettina Dennerlein (University of Zürich)
“Islamic family law and international legal norms in the Arab world”
sunday, may 9, 2010
Panel 4 liberal islam, fundamentalism and new orthodoxies
10.00 Farish A. Noor (Nanyang Technological University Singapore)
“On the permanent hajj: Unity in dispersion and the maintenance of ideal norms in the missi-
onary work of the Tablighi Jama‘at across Southeast Asia”
11.00 Farid Esack (University of Johannesburg)
“Gender and fundamentalism in a season of AIDS”
12.00 Siti Musdah Mulia (Islamic University Jakarta)
“Reform Islam in Indonesia: Discourse on intellectualism within the NU community”
13.00 Lunch
ProGrammdetails FreitaG >
Panel ientanGled histories. From averroes to saYYed QUtbFridaY, maY 7, 2010, 16.00–19.00
Friday, may 7, 2010, 16.00
PersecUtion and norm: a comParative analYsis betWeen averroes and saYYed QUtb
Friday, may 7, 2010, 17.00
averroes on the relation amonG reason and reliGion
Prof. dr. hassan hanafi (cairo University)
Hassan Hanafi Hassanien was born in 1935 in Cairo, Egypt.
He received a Ph.D. in philosophy from Sorbonne Univer-
sity in Paris and later became a professor of philosophy
at Cairo University. Hanafi has served as the Secretary
General of the Egyptian Philosophical Society, and as
Vice-president of the Arab Philosophical Society. He has
also acted as an advisor to the InterAction Council, a coali-
tion of 26 former prime ministers and presidents. He is a
member of the Association for Intercultural Philosophy,
which encourages a dialogue among philosophers from all
over the world. Hanafi is the author of 30 books in French,
English, and Arabic.
selected publications
Contemporary Issues › Volume I On Arabic Thought (1976)
and Volume II On Western Thought (1977),
Cairo (Arabic)
Tradition and Modernism › , Cairo 1980 (Arabic)
Cultures and Civilizations, Conflict or Dialogue? › , Vol. I,
The Meridian Thought, Cairo 2005
From Scripture to Reason › , Cairo 2009
Mohammed Iqbal, Philosopher of Subjectivity › ,
Cairo 2008
Prof. dr. dr. matthias lutz-bachmann
(Goethe University Frankfurt)
Matthias Lutz-Bachmann, born in 1952, is Professor of Phi-
losophy, member of the Board of Directors of the Cluster of
Excellence 243 and Vice President of the Goethe University
Frankfurt. Within the Cluster, he is the director of the
research group on the philosophy of law of the “Salamanca
School” and plays a leading role in the task force on the
development of the theory of “post-secularism”. His main
research interests are mediaeval philosophy, political phi-
losophy, critical theory and the philosophy of religion.
He studied Philosophy, Catholic Theology, Political Science
and History in Frankfurt, Münster and the Graduate School
of Philosophy and Theology, Sankt Georgen. He received
his Ph.D. in 1981 (Dr. Phil.) and in 1984 (Dr. Theol.). 1987
he habilitated at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität
Münster.
selected publications
Geschichte und Subjekt. Zum Begriff der Geschichtsphilos- ›
ophie bei Immanuel Kant und Karl Marx (1981), Verlag
Karl Alber, Freiburg/München 1988, Band 27 der Reihe:
Praktische Philosophie (Dissertation Thesis)
about the lecture
There is no religion or thinking, absolute, universal and
normative outside time and space as its known in Judaism,
Christianity and Islam, in Capitalism, Socialism, Nation-
alism, Liberalism and Anarchism. That does not prevent
from asking the question of “essence” or “substance” since
it changes its forms throughout history according to the
law of balance and middle term.
Religion, culture, ideology, art and even science are
the outcome of socio-political, economic and historical
circumstances. That does not prevent the question of the
structure since structure itself is a historical accumulation.
There is a constant dialectics between norm and reality.
There is no norm outside reality and there is no reality
without norm. Both are two faces of the same coin. Norm
and reality are not eternal. Both are intertwined in time
and space.
There is no normative Islam except through what is per-
manent in human experience as represented by natural
religion, which manifests in consciousness, virtue and
rational evidence.
Qutb and Averroes follow the same rule, norm and perse-
cution in spite of differences of time, Averroes (d. 1198
AD), Qutb (d. 1966 AD), and of space between mediaeval
Spain and modern Egypt.
(et al. Ed.) › Handlung und Wissenschaft. Die Episte-
mologie der praktischen Wissenschaften im 13. und 14.
Jahrhundert. Action and Science. The Epistemology of the
Practical Sciences in the 13th and 14th Centurie, 2008
(et al. Ed.) › Lex und Ius in der Politischen Philosophie und
Rechtstheorie des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, Stuttgart
2009
(et al. Ed.) K › rieg und Frieden im Prozess der Globalis-
ierung, Weilerswist 2009
about the lecture
Ibn-Rushd (or in the Latin version Averroes) was one of
the most discussed Arabic authors in the world of the Latin
speaking universities of the 13th century like the Uni-
versity of Paris. In my paper I will refer to the famous ap-
plication of the Aristotelic epistemology to the questions
of “reason” and “faith” as well as to the problem how to
deal with religious belief in the realm of public intellectual
discussions by Ibn-Rushd and its impact on the debate in
the faculties of the University of Paris of the 13th century.
In doing so I will discuss the positions of Siger of Brabant
as well as of Thomas Aquinas.
Friday, may 7, 2010, 18.00
the ePistemic virtUes oF islam and the ideals oF the enliGhtenment
dr. habil. mehmet sait reçber (ankara University)
Mehmet Sait Reçber, born in 1967, is Associate Professor
of Philosophy of Religion at the Ankara University since
2005. Currently, he is Visiting Associate Professor at the
Goethe University in Frankfurt. He was Assistant Professor
at the Ankara University from 2001–2005 and Visiting
Associate Professor at the Kyoto University (2002–2003).
He received a Ph.D. from the King’s College, University of
London, in 1998. He published several academic articles in
English and Turkish.
selected publications
Tanrı’yı Bilmenin İmkânı ve Mâhiyeti › [The Possibility and
Nature of Knowing God] , Ankara, 2004: Kitabiyat
İslam, Din ve Çağdaş Durum › [Islam, Religion and
Modern Predicament], İslâmiyât 2004
Hick, the Real and al-Haqq, Islam and Christian-Muslim ›
Relations, 16, 2005
Ibn al Arabi, Hick and Religious Pluralism, Asian and ›
African Area Studies, 7-2, 2008
Dini Çeşitlilik › [Religious Diversity] , Din ve Ahlak
Felsefesi (İlitam) ed. R. Kılıç, Anküzem Yay., Ankara,
2006
about the lecture
Islam and the Enlightenment may seem incommensurable
inasmuch as the former is a religion with a definite set of
beliefs and practices while the latter is a thought or ide-
ology or intellectual attitude concerning different aspects
of a contingent human phenomenon shaped under certain
social and historical circumstances. This consideration
can be justified to some extent, but it is true that both
Islam and the Enlightenment presuppose certain elements
constitutive of a thought-system or world-view. Islam
and the Enlightenment have various aspects and each of
them needs to be analyzed with due consideration. In my
presentation, however, by restricting my interest to the
epistemological perspectives of Islam and the Enlight-
enment I would like to argue that there is or can be a
considerable overlapping between their truth-claims that
are essential to an individual’s self-emancipation from an
unwarranted attitude, particularly, in religious matters.
It thus seems to me that the epistemological ideals of the
Enlightenment as exemplified in the thought of someone
like Kant can reasonably be defended in conjunction with
the epistemic virtues required by Islam. The intellectual
requirements of the Enlightenment and epistemic virtues
of Islam can be defended on the common ground of a
“virtue epistemology” where a considerable openness to
various criticisms and argumentations is maintained for
a responsible attitude with respect to an unconditional
pursue of truth. Although there may be certain difficulties
if one thinks it necessary to exclude the idea of revelation
in our search for truth such an approach will be unjustified
as long as the truth-claims of a revelation are left open to
rational scrutiny. Finally, given that the nature of the En-
lightenment is currently under debate, it seems to me that
the meta-epistemological considerations of Islam can help
one in eliminating the undesired consequences resulting
from certain pretensions of the Enlightenment thought.
Panel 2shaPinG islam in the WorldsatUrdaY, maY 8, 2010, 10.00–13.00
saturday, may 8, 2010, 10.00
adaPtation or chanGe: maKinG home For mUslims and islam in Western eUroPe
dr. dietrich reetz (zentrum moderner orient berlin)
Dietrich Reetz is a senior research fellow at the Zentrum
Moderner Orient in Berlin, where he is directing a col-
laborative research project on Muslims in Europe. He
graduated in International Politics in 1975 in Moscow and
defended his Ph.D. dissertation in modern history of South
Asia at the Humboldt University in Berlin in 1987.
Since 1991 he is a Senior Lecturer of political science at
the Free University Berlin, among others on Islam and
politics, Islamic militancy and radicalism in South Asia
and Muslims in Europe. He is also a Principal Investigator
for Political Science/South Asia at the Graduate School
of Muslim Culture and Societies at the Free University of
Berlin from 2008.
selected publications
(Ed.), › Islam in Europa: Religiöses Leben heute, Münster
2010 (under publication).
Islam in the Public Sphere: Religious Groups in India, ›
1900–1947, Delhi, Oxford 2006
Germany and Islam - Dialogue for the Future › , in: (Ham-
dard Foundation Pakistan), Muslim Ummah in the
Modern World: Challenges and Opportunities, Karachi:
Bait al-Hikmah, 2006, pp. 194–203
(Ed.), › Sendungsbewußtsein oder Eigennutz: Zu Motiva-
tion und Selbstverständnis islamischer Mobilisierung,
Studien / Zentrum Moderner Orient; Nr. 15, Berlin 2001
(Ed.) › Die „Reorientalisierung“ des Orients? Zur Rolle der
Tradition in Gesellschaftskonflikten der achtziger Jahre
(asien, afrika, lateinamerika, Sonderheft 4), Berlin
1991
about the lecture
Muslim movements and institutions in Western Europe op-
erate as translocal actors in close contact with their coun-
tries and societies of origin in Asias, the Middle East or
Africa. Both Islamic critics and western analysts question
the validity of talking about a European Islam. Yet Muslim
actors and institutions in Europe go through a process
of striking roots and adapting to everyday life. They are
making home in Europe. This process is reflected in adjust-
ments to the legal environment, to political, social or
cultural conditions of host societies. While this process is
not absent from Muslim societies elsewhere in the world, it
takes on its own character in Europe. The paper discusses
this process on the basis of findings of a collaborative
research project coordinated at ZMO in 2006–2009.
saturday, may 8, 2010, 11.00
characteristics oF the leGal FrameWorK For a eUroPean islam
Prof. dr. jur dr. phil Peter scholz
(Free University of berlin)
Peter Scholz studied law, Islamic studies and history of art
at the University of Hamburg. In 1995 he finished his PhD
thesis in Islamic studies and in 2006 he received a Doctor
of Laws at the Free University of Berlin. Since 1995 he has
worked as a judge in Berlin; in 2007 he was appointed
judge of the Superior Court of Justice of Berlin. In 2009
he became Vice President of the Magistrates’ Court Tier-
garten in Berlin. After teaching Islamic law for some years
the Free University of Berlin appointed him in 2007 to a
honorary professor of Islamic law and private international
law. He is member of different associations as well as one
of the curators of the German Orient Foundation and of the
Association for Arabic and Islamic law.
selected publications
Malikitisches Verfahrensrecht › , Frankfurt am Main 1997
(PhD Thesis)
Erbrecht der maghrebinischen Staaten und deutscher ›
ordre public, Hamburg 2006 (PhD Thesis)
Legal Practice in the Malikite Law of Procedure › , in: Al-
Qantara, Vol. XX, 1999
Die koranischen Delikte (hudud) im sudanesischen ›
Strafrecht, in: Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswis-
senschaft, 111. Band, 2000
Islamisches Recht im Wandel am Beispiel des Ehe- und ›
Erbrechts islamischer Staaten, Beitrag zur Schrift des
Fachbereichstags des Fachbereichs Rechtswissenschaft
der Freien Universität Berlin, 2002
about the lecture
The European Islam is often referred to the appearance of
Islam in Europe different to the Islam in the Islamic states.
One of the aspects of a European Islam is the legal frame-
work for being an active Muslim in Europe shaped by the
relevant legal norms and judicial decisions. This framework
is characterized by the principles and essentials of these
norms and judgements concerning the relation of state
and religious communities, the freedom of religion, the
legal status of religious associations and the adaptation of
national to Islamic law. The presentation will focus on the
European Union with regard to the European Convention
of Human Rights and the European Functioning Treaty and
on the European states Germany, France and the United
Kingdom as examples. Conclusions will be drawn for the
character of a European Islam, for its opportunities and its
expected future development in European societies.
saturday, may 8, 2010, 12.00
Gendered islam Under state sUrveillance
Prof. dr. schirin amir-moazami
(Free University of berlin)
Schirin Amir-Moazami is Professor of Islam in Europe at the
Institute of Islamic Studies at the Free University of Berlin.
She studied in Frankfurt/Main, Marseille, Berlin and Paris
sociology and political science. In 2004 she received her
Ph.D. from the Department of Social and Political Sciences
at the European University Institute in Florence. After that
she has taught at the Europe University Viadrina and the
Humboldt University in Berlin. Her research focuses on
the ways in which Islam is governed in European public
spheres with a particular gender perspective.
selected publications
Politisierte Religion: Der Kopftuchstreit in Deutschland ›
und Frankreich, Bielefeld 2007
Dialogue as a governmental practice. Managing gendered ›
Islam in Germany, in: Feminist Review, Special Issue
Feminism and Islam, 2009
L’islam en mal de reconnaissance › , in: Alternatives Inter-
nationales, März, No. 38, 2008
Production discursive et fabrication juridique: Le foulard ›
de l’enseignante en Allemagne, in: Droit & Société, 68,
109–126, 2008
Reaffirming and Shifting Boundaries: Muslim Perspectives ›
on Gender and Citizenship , in: Yearbook of Sociology
of Islam, 6, New Brunswick und London: Transaction
Publishers, Bielefeld 2006
about the lecture
Current developments in state approaches towards
Muslims in Germany reveal significant shifts from a
“laissez-faire” attitude towards an active involvement in
regulating the institutionalization of Islam and Muslim’s
religious practice. Parallel to enhanced security measures
increasing efforts have been taken to “integrate” Muslims
into society – both socially and culturally. In this latter
domain the enactment and regulation of norms generally,
and of liberal gender norms have gained a crucial role.
Engaging Foucault’s notion of governmentality, I will look
at the technologies of power at stake in these current in-
terventions, and analyze how the goal to “integrate” Mus-
lims is articulated, framed and circulated, and what kinds
of Muslim (female and male) subjectivities are required
and produced in this process. I will discuss examples like
co-educative sports and swimming classes in state schools,
headscarf bans or measures against forced and arranged
marriages, and look in particular at ways in which freedom
functions as a normative ideal, which not only generates
coercive techniques, but which is also and foremost con-
cerned with the production of liberal subjects.
Panel 3Feminist aPProaches and their leGal and Political conseQUencessatUrdaY, maY 8, 2010, 15.00–18.00
saturday, may 8, 2010,, 15.00
reFormist Women in earlY 20th centUrY eGYPt and lessons For the Present
dr. margot badran (Georgetown University)
Margot Badran presently holds the Reza Khatib and
Georgeanna Clifford Khatib Visiting Chair in Comparative
Religion at St. Joseph’s College, Brooklyn. A historian
of the Middle East and Islamic societies and a specialist
in gender studies, she is a Senior Fellow at the Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars and at the Center
for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown Uni-
versity. She was previously Edith Kreeger Wolf Distin-
guished Visiting Professor in the Department of Religion
and Preceptor at the Institute for the Study of Islamic
Thought in Africa at Northwestern University. She has lec-
tured widely in academic and popular forums in the United
States, as well as in Europe, the Middle East, and South
Asia. Along with her scholarly publications she also writes
on feminism and gender for the Al Ahram Weekly in Cairo.
selected publications
Gender and Islam in Africa: Women’s Discourses, Prac- ›
tices, and Empowerment, The Woodrow Wilson Press,
forthcoming 2011
Où en est le féminisme islamique? › , Critique interna-
tionale (Institute of Political Science of Paris), special
issue Le féminisme islamique edited by Stéphanie Latte
Abdallah, Feb. 2010
Reformist Women as Feminists in Pursuit of Equality in ›
the Islamic World, in Middle East Program Occasional
Paper Series, The Woodrow Wilson International Center
for Scholars, Washington, DC, Spring 2009
Feminism in Islam: Secular and Religious Convergences › ,
Oneworld Press, Oxford 2009
Opening the Gates: An Arab Feminist Anthology › , Indiana
University Press 2004 (selections from 1st edition in
German and Dutch)
F › eminism, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of
Modern Egypt, Princeton University Press 1995 (also in
Arabic)
about the lecture
In this paper I revisit Egyptian women reformers in the
early 20th century who generated a feminism of their
own referred to as secular feminism connoting a national
feminism. The creators of this feminism were Egyptian
citizens, both Muslim and Christian, and their intended
beneficiaries were to be all Egyptians of whatever class,
creed, and gender, during a time of ongoing moderniza-
tion and at a moment of transition from colonialism to
semi-postcolonialism. In the more immediate sense, it was
generally women of the middle strata, both Muslim and
Christian, who would benefit most from new opportuni-
ties in education and work. The sought-after reform of the
Muslim Personal Status Code campaign from within the
secular feminist movement that drew upon the discourses
of secular nationalism, Islamic reform, and humanitari-
anism (later human rights). Pioneering Egyptian feminists
at the same time engaged in regional and international
(as it was then called) reform and activism with women of
various nationalities and religions. In my paper I argue
that the inclusivity across religious lines that Egyptian
women reformers as feminists practiced in the early 20th
century offers a model of collaborative feminist work for
contemporary activists as they endeavor to reform the
Egyptian Muslim Personal Status Code mobilizing Islamic
feminist discourse in Egypt and transnational contexts,
in tandem with other discourses. Collaborative reformist
activism would better reflect the waq’a, contemporary
reality, and mu’amalat or social relations at a time when
there are increased religiously-mixed marriages in Egypt
and among Egyptians and others abroad could stand to
reduce the communalism creeping into public life bifur-
cating the nation and transnational feminist work.
saturday, may 8, 2010, 16.00
islamic Feminism and transnational mUslim Women’s movements
Prof. dr. susanne schröter
(Goethe University Frankfurt)
Susanne Schröter is professor for Anthropology of Colonial
and Postcolonial Orders at the Goethe-University Frankfurt
and adjunct professor at the University of Indonesia Ja-
karta. She is principal investigator of the Cluster of Excel-
lence “Formation of Normative Orders”, board member of
the German Orient-Institute and the European Association
of Southeast Asian Studies, member of the scientific exec-
utive committee of the German Science Foundation (Deut-
sche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG), member of the board
of trustees of the Museum der Weltkulturen (Museum of
world cultures) and member of the Cornelia Goethe Center
for Women’s and Gender Studies. Previously, she held the
position of the chair of Southeast Asian Studies at Passau
University.
Susanne Schröter’s research interests focus on four main
issues: gender and power; anthropology of religion; con-
cepts of nonwestern modernities; dynamics of state and
nation building. She has been conducting anthropological
fieldwork in Indonesia since the early 1990s. Currently she
is directing a Ph.D. group on formation of normative or-
ders in the Islamic world and two research projects on po-
litical and cultural transformations in post-tsunami Aceh
and on redefining gender in contemporary Indonesia.
selected publications
Ed.: › Aceh. Culture, History, Politics, Singapur: ISEAS
2010 (together with Arndt Graf and Edwin Wieringa)
Ed.: › Christianity in Indonesia and Beyond, Berlin, Lit
2010 (forthcoming)
Islamismus als postkolonialer Diskus › , in: Reuter,
Julia/Paula-Irene Villa, Ed.: Postkoloniale Soziologie.
Empirische Befunde, theoretische Anschlüsse, wissen-
schaftliche Reflexionen, Bielefeld 2009: Transcript, S.
137–158
Feministische Re-Interpretationen des Qur’an und der ›
Sunna, in: Lanwerd, Susanne/Márcia Moser, Ed.: Frau
– Gender – Queer. Gendertheoretische Ansätze in der
Religionswissenschaft, Würzburg: Königshausen und
Neumann 2009, S. 46–54
Female leadership in Islamic societies, past and present, ›
in: Hellmann-Rajanayagam, Dagmar/Andrea Fleschen-
berg, Ed.: Godesses, heroes, sacrifices. Female power in
Asian politics, Southeast Asian Modernities. Berlin: Lit
2008, S. 52–73
Sex Talks oder der Untergang des Abendlandes › ,in:
Gottowik, Volker/Holger Jebens/Editha Platte, Ed.:
Zwischen Aneignung und Verfremdung. Ethnologische
Gratwanderungen, Frankfurt: Campus 2008, S.159–180
Re-Islamisierungsprozesse in Südostasien, › in: Orient 4
2007, S. 17–30
about the lecture
The paper focuses on contemporary Muslim women’s rights
movements and analyses their transnational dimensions.
It aims to contribute to feminist theory, anthropology of
globalization and the study of Islamic social movements
and tries to understand the dynamics of Islamic feminism
from a postcolonial perspective. It will be argued that
Muslim women activists reject both Western feminism
and Islamic orthodoxy and strive for gender justice within
an Islamic framework. They advocate a re-reading of the
Qur’an, a re-interpretation of Islamic history and a contex-
tualisation of Islamic traditions. With the examples of two
transnational networks, “Musawah” and “Women Living
under Muslim Law” it will be discussed whether and how
the transnationality of Muslim women activists influence
national or local politics and change patriarchal gender
orders.
saturday, may 8, 2010, 17.00
islamic FamilY laW and international leGal norms in the arab World
Prof. dr. bettina dennerlein (University of zürich)
Bettina Dennerlein is Professor on Gender Studies and
Islamic Studies at the Department of Orientalism at the
University of Zurich. She received her Ph.D. in 1997 from
the Free University in Berlin and researched at the Van
Leer-Jerusalem-Institute and at the Maison des Sciences
de l’Homme (MSH) in Paris. Since April 2000 she was
Research Fellow at the Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin
and at the Humboldt University in Berlin. From April 2007
until February 2009 she was Professor at the Asia-Africa-
Institute at the University of Hamburg.
selected publications
South-South Linkages in Islam › , in: Comparative Studies
of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 27, 1, Durham:
Duke University Press 2007 (with Dietrich Reetz, Guest
Editors)
Islamisches Recht und sozialer Wandel in Algerien. Zur ›
Entwicklung des Personalstatuts seit 1962, Berlin: Klaus
Schwarz Verlag, 1998
Religiöse Tradition und Staatsbildung in Marokko › , in: M.
Dabag (Hrsg.) Islam und moderner Nationalstaat, Pader-
born: Wilhelm Fink Verlag (forthcoming)
South-South Linkages and Social Change. Moroccan ›
Perspectives on Army Reform in the Muslim Mediterranean
(Nineteenth Century), in: Comparative Studies of South
Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 2007, 27.1, 52–61
Legalizing the Family. Disputes about Marriage, Paternity ›
and Divorce in Algerian Courts (1963–1990), in: Conti-
nuity and Change, 2001, 16, 1, pp. 243–261
about the lecture
Historically speaking, Islamic family law as it is understood
and applied today is a relatively recent phenomenon. Its
origins in the Arab world go back to the colonial era. While
during a first period, changes in this realm of law were
rather indirect and most of the time limited to procedural
matters, its conceptualization and its broader social
meaning started to change significantly. Since the end of
the nineteenth century, marriage and the nuclear family
started to be considered the basic unit of the umma and
successively became the site of public discourse and par-
ticular state policies. This conceptual shift partly enhanced
the role of women as wives and mothers. At the same time,
in the course of the political and legal reconfiguration
of marriage and the family, the hierarchical relationship
between the sexes sanctioned by traditional Islamic juris-
prudence was tuned in to modern notions of biologically
based sexual difference and, at the same time, to notions
of the nation and of moral as well as of social progress. It
was the reformist nationalist paradigm that informed the
first wave of post-independence codifications of Muslim
family law in the Arab world and the political discourses
that accompanied it. Yet, since the 1980ws, questions
of family law reform are increasingly formulated in the
language of human rights and linked to the broader inter-
national debate about women’s rights as human rights.
Taking Morocco as an example, the paper will analyze the
dynamics of changing normative paradigms with respect to
Islamic family law and discuss some of its consequences.
Panel 4liberal islam, FUndamentalismand neW orthodoxiessUndaY, maY 9, 2010, 10.00–13.00
sunday, may 9, 2010, 10.00
in the Path oF the PerFect mUslim: normalisinG the Pro-Phetic ideal tYPe in the discoUrse oF the tabliGhi Jama‘at in soUtheast asia
dr. Farish ahmad-noor
(nanyang technological University singapore)
Dr. Farish A. Noor (born 1967 in Georgetown, Penang,
Malaysia) is presently Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam
School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological
University; where he is part of the research cluster “Tran-
snational Religion in Southeast Asia”. He is also Affiliated
Professor at Muhamadiyah University, Surakarta and
Sunan Kalijaga Islamic University, Jogjakarta. He received
his Ph.D. from the University of Essex in 1997 in the field
of governance and politics. His weekly columns appear in
several regional newspapers in Southeast and South Asia.
In 2005 he was voted as one of the top forty Malaysians
who have shaped the development of post-colonial Ma-
laysia.
selected publications
Islam Embedded: The Historical Development of the Pan- ›
Malaysian Islamic Party PAS 1951–2003, MSRI, Kuala
Lumpur 2003
The Madrasah in Asia: Political Activism and Transna- ›
tional Linkages, University of Amsterdam press 2008
Writings on the War on Terror › , Global Media, Delhi 2006
The Other Malaysia, › Silverfish, Kuala Lumpur 2002
about the lecture
The Tablighi Jama‘at is arguably the single biggest Muslim
missionary movement in the world today, with members
from almost every country in the world. Yet the movement
is unique in the sense that it seeks to convert Muslims to
becoming even better Muslims according to its own inter-
pretation and standard of Muslim normative behaviour.
As a movement that has attracted the interest of more
and more scholars of contemporary Islam, one aspect of
the Tabligh that is under-researched is the dimension of
discourse and normativity in the conversion process of the
Tablighis themselves. Central to this project of conversion
is the foregrounding of what we will call the “Prophetic
ideal type”; a model of perfect Muslim normativity em-
bodied in the discursively reconstructed accounts of the
life and behavior of the Prophet, that has been central to
the discourse of the Tablighi Jama’at movement and which
serves as the benchmark for all modes of religious and
social life for their members and converts.
This paper brings together a myriad of conversion narra-
tives that were collected during the course of two years’
fieldwork across Southeast Asia, from Southern Thailand
across Malaysia to Indonesia; and attempts an analysis of
the discourse of the converts themselves, as well as the
religious normative discourse of the movement they have
converted to. It will argue that in the conversion narra-
tives of the Tablighis we can see that the factors that mo-
tivate their conversion range from the search for identity
to a rejection of worldliness; a desire for an Islamic Utopia
(centred on South Asia, rather than the Arab heartland)
to the quest for a mode of Islamic “authenticity” hitherto
neglected in many of the studies of the movement.
sunday, may 9, 2010, 11.00
Gender and FUndamentalism in a season oF aids
Prof. dr. Farid esack (University of Johannesburg)
Farid Esack, born in 1959, is Professor in the Study of
Islam at the University of Johannesburg. He studied in Pa-
kistan, the United Kingdom and Germany and received his
Ph.D. 1996 on Qur’anic Hermeneutics from the University
of Birmingham. He served as a Commissioner for Gender
Equality in South Africa and has taught at the Universities
of Western Cape, and Hamburg, the College of William &
Mary and Union Theological Seminary (NY) and at Xavier
University in Cincinnati. He has recently returned to South
Africa after serving as the Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal
Professor of Contemporary Islam at Harvard University.
He has published on Islam, Gender, Liberation Theology,
Interfaith Relations, and Qur’anic Hermeneutics.
selected publications
W › hose Qur’an? A Concises Guide to Progressive Islam
(forthcoming).
Islam and AIDS – Between Scorn, Pity, and Justice › (co-
edited with Sarah Chiddy), Oxford: Oneworld 2009
HIV, AIDS, and Islam: Reflections on Compassion, Justice ›
and Responsibility (2005), Cape Town: Positive Muslims,
translated into Urdu, (Islamabad: Unicef) and Swahili
(Daressalaam, IFH, 2008)
An Introduction to the Qur’an › , Oxford: Oneworld 2002,
2003, 2004, translated into French (Paris: Albin Michel)
and Bahasa Indonesia (Jakarta: Mizan). Republished as
The Qur’an – a User’s Guide, by Oneworld 2004, 2005,
2006, 2007, and 2008
Qur’an Liberation and Pluralism: An Islamic Perspective ›
of Interreligious Solidarity against Oppression, Oxford:
Oneworld 1997, 1999, 2002, translated into Bahasa
Indonesia, Jakarta: Mizan
about the lecture
The discourse on Islam and women is often presented as
one located in the contestation between modernity and
traditionalism or one largely shaped by the urgencies
arising from the encounter of Muslims with “the West”.
This paper seeks to consider the question of gender justice
and Islam within the context of the AIDS pandemic that
continues to spread around the world at an alarming pace.
This is a pandemic and utilizes pre-existing pathways of
economic inequality and poor women have been particu-
larly affected as AIDS has become a gendered pandemic.
This paper begins with an exploration of some of the
fundamentalisms operative in the world today – Islamic,
market, and gender and then examines these fundamen-
talisms and the pandemic itself from the opposing per-
spectives of the ongoing theological debate between lib-
eral and traditional expressions of Islam. After reflections
on the limitations of these approaches the paper espouses
an alternative vision which begins to seriously address the
demands of the marginalized Muslim woman today in the
context of not only patriarchy but also of globalization and
poverty that underlie the spread of the pandemic.
sunday, may 9, 2010, 12.00
reForm islam in indonesia: discoUrse on intellectUalism Within the nU commUnitY
Prof. dr. siti musdah mulia
(islamic University, Jakarta)
Siti Musdah Mulia has been a Research Professor of the
Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) since 2003. She is
also a lecturer on Islamic Political Thought of the School of
Graduate Studies of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic Uni-
versity, Jakarta, Indonesia. Since 2007 she has been the
Chairperson of the Indonesian Conference on Religion for
Peace, a NGO which actively promotes interfaith dialogues,
pluralism and democracy for peace. She was a Senior
Advisor of Minister of Religious Affairs (1999–2007), and
through that institution, in her capacity as the coordinator
of the Team for Gender Mainstreaming she launched in
2004 The Counter Legal Draft of the Compilation of Islamic
Law. She was also the head of the Research Division of
The Council of Indonesian Ulema (MUI) (2000–2005).
She is very active in the academic field; she has been an
international visiting fellow in a number of universities all
over the world.
selected publications
Islam and The Inspiration of Gender Equity › , Kibar, Yogya,
2005
Reformist Muslimah › , Mizan, Bandung, 2004.
Islam Criticizes Polygamy › , Gramedia, Jakarta, 2004
Promoting gender equity through interreligious marriage. ›
Empowering Indonesian women, in: Jones, W. Gavin/
Leng, Chee Heng/ Mohamad, Maznah: Muslim-Non-
Muslim Marriage. Political and Cultural Contestations
in Southeast Asia, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
2009, pp. 255–281
about the lecture
The face of Islam’s reforms in Indonesia that I will refer to
here shall be confined to efforts and discourse on intellec-
tualism within the NU community. Contemporary progress
on the philosophy of Islam within the NU community
shows an interesting phenomenon, especially thoughts
advanced by NU’s young intellectuals. They adopt a pro-
gressive Islamic point of view in response to modernity
while still upholding traditional knowledge as their foun-
dation. They are not only concerned with modernity which
is continuously being criticized and responded to in a very
cautious manner, but also in revitalizing traditions.
In revitalizing traditions, they do not hold sacrosanct
those traditions, but also criticize them, both in regards to
behaviors and ideas. They are generally more responsive
to behavior and ideas compared to their seniors when ad-
dressing issues on modernization.
The emergence of NU’s young intellectuals and their
daring progressive religious interpretations stemmed from
the NU’s decision in a symposium in 1984 to renounce
politics and return to the NU Khittah (NU’s Basic Doctrine)
1926. This important decision reinstated NU’s position as a
religious organization (jam’iyyah or fellowship) and was a
call to the NU community and elites to leave political prac-
tices behind and turn back to social activities (ijtima’iyyah
or social justice), particularly the development of intel-
lectualism. The appointment of KH Achmad Shiddiq and KH
Abdurrahman Wahid as the Head of NU’s Syuriah (Advisory
Board) and Head of the Tanfidziyyah (Executive Board)
helped pave the way for critical and progressive thinking
among the young intellectuals of the NU.
Now progressive thinking among young intellectuals of the
NU has made such progress thanks to NGOs as well as to
universities. It has crystallized even more with its unique
characteristics that they call Post-Traditionalism Islam.
the clUster in brieFThe Frankfurt Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of
Normative Orders” explores the development of normative
orders with a focus on contemporary conflicts concerning
the establishment of a “new world order”. The network is
funded by the national “Excellence Initiative” and com-
bines a series of research initiatives in Frankfurt and the
surrounding area. The Cluster is based at Goethe University
in Frankfurt/Main.
the research ProGrammeThe Cluster of Excellence examines past and current proc-
esses of the formation of normative orders, to be under-
stood as “orders of justification”. In contrast to function-
alist approaches which refer to factors external to norms,
the Cluster deals with internal normative perspectives of
participants on the procedures and conflicts involved in
the formation of legal or political orders. Starting from
the combined perspectives of the humanities and various
social science disciplines, the research programme is or-
ganised in four research areas.
research area 1:conceptions of normativityDifferent types of normativity, different varieties of
normative orders and different forms of their develop-
ment will be investigated within the Cluster’s research
programme. The task of the integrative research area 1 is
to relate these analyses to one another beyond the indi-
vidual fields and to establish interconnections between
them. At the same time it is the place for philosophical
analyses of each of the three concepts named in the title
of the Cluster: normativity, normative order, and, finally,
formation.
activitiesResearch projects in the defined research areas ›
Doctoral research groups ›
Interdisciplinary workshops and working groups ›
Symposia ›
Guest professorships ›
Public lecture series and discussion events ›
Publications in cooperation with renowned publishers ›
Open Access publication strategy ›
contactcluster of excellence
“the Formation of normative orders”
Goethe University Frankfurt/main
Postal address
Senckenberganlage 31
60325 Frankfurt am Main
office
Georg-Voigt-Straße 4
60325 Frankfurt am Main
http://www.normativeorders.net/en
PeoPlespeakers of the cluster
Professor dr. rainer Forst
(Institute of Political Science and Institute of Philosophy)
Professor dr. Klaus Günther
(Institute of Criminology and Philosophy of Law)
General contact
Peter siller
(Scientific Manager)
research area 2:
the historicity of normative orders
The fact that normative orders evolve over time makes
their historical analysis an indispensable element of the
research programme. It helps to develop a differentiated
concept of normativity and to grasp the complexity of
current problem constellations, while at the same time
promoting sensitivity to the plurality of past and present
normative orders. Here systematic and historical
analyses complement one another; a guiding idea in that
respect is that there are certain “narratives of justifica-
tion” at the basis of normative orders which are a key to
their understanding.
research area 3:
transnational Justice, democracy and Peace
Research area 3 explores the formation of normative
orders under conditions of globalization. The key ques-
tion addressed here is whether and how these develop-
ments can be described in terms of three central concepts:
justice, democracy and peace, and the tensions between
them. The research area tackles this general question by
focusing on currently evolving normative orders. Other
thematic compounds connected to this question concern
concepts of governance, security, development, violence
and – last, but not least – human rights.
research area 4:
the Formation of legal norms between nations
New normative orders are emerging beyond the nation-
state: first, on an “international” level, between states
as the result of international politics, and, second, on a
“transnational” level between private persons or between
private persons and states as the result of social processes.
Third, there is an evolving structure of “supranational”
norms and institutions. The guiding topic of research
area 4 is the mutual permeation of (and conflicts between)
these normative orders, also in connection to the national
level.
Principal investigators
Dr. Nicole Deitelhoff • Prof. Dr. Nikita Dhawan
Prof. Dr. Mamadou Diawara • Prof. Dr. Moritz Epple
Prof. Dr. Andreas Fahrmeir • Prof. Dr. Rainer Forst
Prof. Dr. Johannes Fried
Prof. Dr. Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln
Prof. Dr. Klaus Günther • Prof. Dr. Gunther Hellmann
Prof. Dr. Axel Honneth • Prof. Dr. Bernhard Jussen
Prof. Dr. Stefan Kadelbach • Prof. Dr. Rainer Klump
Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Kohl • Prof. Dr. Hartmut Leppin
Prof. Dr. Dr. Matthias Lutz-Bachmann
Prof. Dr. Christoph Menke • Prof. Dr. Harald Müller
Prof. Dr. Heribert Müller • Prof. Dr. Peter Niesen
Prof. Dr. Alexander Peukert • Prof. Dr. Thomas Schmidt
Prof. Dr. Luise Schorn-Schütte
Prof. Dr. Susanne Schröter• Prof. Dr. Martin Seel
Prof. Dr. Michael Stolleis • Prof. Dr. Gunther Teubner
Prof. Dr. Marcus Willaschek • Prof. Dr. Klaus Dieter Wolf
Prof. Dr. Annette Warner • Prof. Dr. Stefan Gosepath
advisory board
Prof. Seyla Benhabib (Yale University)
Prof. Timothy Blanning (Cambridge University)
Prof. Armin von Bogdandy (Max-Planck-Institute for Com-
parative Public Law and International Law Heidelberg)
Prof. Olivier Jouanjan (Straßburg University)
Prof. Charles Larmore (Brown University)
Prof. Dr. Katharina Michaelowa (Zürich University)
Prof. Thomas Pogge (Yale University)
rof. Dr. Hartmut Zinser (Free University Berlin)
Prof. Dr. Michael Zürn (Hertie School of Governance
Berlin)
contact
Prof. dr. susanne schröter
dr. susanne rodemeier
anthropology of colonial and postcolonial orders
cluster of excellence
“Formation of normative orders”
institute of anthropology
Goethe-University Frankfurt
Senckenberganlage 31
PO Box 3
60325 Frankfurt
Germany
