“Ibadism and the Study of Islam: A view from the edge”

Date: June 17 – 19, 2019

Venue: Institute of Islamic Studies, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

In his seminal “Islam: The View from the Edge“, historian Richard Bulliet focused on Islam in Persia, suggesting that the study of Islam from the margins or edges, rather than center, offers newfound opportunities for the field. Shahab Ahmed’s posthumous What is Islam? offers a similar critique of Islamic studies, suggesting a geographic and temporal shift from what, he argues, has been central to the formation of Islamic studies as an academic field.

The study of Ibadism offers an opportunity to interrogate the study of Islam, where Ibadism takes shape on the edge or periphery, both intellectually and geographically. Recently Cyrille Aillet in his edition “L’Ibadisme dans les sociétés de l’islam medieval”, re-argues that a detour through the edge (“le detour par le marges,” p. 5) is conducive to the construction of a plural history and the recognition of polycentrism in Islam.

Across Canada and the United States, there is a fundamental divide between different paradigms or methods of knowledge creation: (a) the philology inherited from the 19th century German university tradition; (b) the area studies model of the Cold War; and (c) the more anthropologically inspired approach to Islamic studies that at times collapses Islam and Muslim through the focus on experience and lived realities.

The panels will be organized under five broad disciplinary/methodological categories:

• The Politics of Periodization: A History of Philology, Philosophy and Theology through the Study of Ibadism
• Working on the texts: Manuscript Studies and Historiography
• (Dis)Orienting Legal Studies: A critical assessment of Islamic Law
• Anthropology, Material Culture and Social Representations
• Political Sciences and Religion: Modern and Contemporary Approaches

Source: Ibadi Studies