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AKU-ISMC Organises International Conference - Cosmopolitanisms in Muslim Contexts
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| The conference explored cosmopolitanism within Muslim contexts using a comparative and interdisciplinary framework. |
On 21st June an international conference, Cosmopolitanisms in Muslim Contexts – Models from the Past, Questions for the Future, cosponsored by AKU-ISMC and the Centre for the Comparative Study of Muslim Societies and Cultures, Simon Fraser University (CCSMSC-SFU) was held in Vancouver, Canada. The conference was part of numerous academic events organised to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of His Highness the Aga Khan, Chancellor of AKU and the 25th anniversary of the University.
The conference explored cosmopolitanism within Muslim contexts using a comparative and interdisciplinary framework. It presented an opportunity to focus on moments in world history where cosmopolitan ideas and actions pervaded specific Muslim societies and cultures.
In particular, the conference explored the typologies and contexts of Muslim cosmopolitanisms and possible tensions or conjunctions with regional cultures, enclaves, or modern nation-states. Cosmopolitanism has become a key concept in recent times for the reconsideration of a variety of social and political issues.
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| Speakers at the conference included AKU-ISMC Director (middle) Abdou Filali-Ansary and Khalid Mas'ud (left). |
As a political idea, cosmopolitanism stands in opposition to closed human group ideologies. As a socially active practice, it stands in the context of civilisations, where citizenship within a community carries movement across borders and openness to other ideas and cultures.
The conference was organised into three panels. The first panel, Myth and Memory, included papers by Iftikhar Dadi, Assistant Professor in the Department of the History of Art and Visual Studies at Cornell University, and Ariel Salzman, Associate Professor in the Department of History at Queen’s University, Canada .
Dadi’s paper, Chugtai’s Revival of Mughal Cosmopolitanism, analysed the miniature painting of the South Asian artist Abdurrahman Chugtaih in the context of Muhgal, Persian, Central Asian and generally, ‘Oriental’ literature. Salzman’s paper, Cosmopolis or Islampolis? Ottoman Urbanity between Myth, Memory and Post Modernity, explored the questions that inform historical methodologies reconstructing the intersecting, shared and divergent communal realities of Ottoman urbanity over time and space.
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| Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi’s paper, Persian Cosmopolitanism and Europology, examined the observation of Europe from the perspective of eighteenth and nineteenth centre Persian travelers. |
The second panel, Authenticity and the Other, included papers by Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, University of Toronto and Muhammad Khalid Masud, Council of Islamic Ideology, Pakistan. Tavakoli-Targhi’s paper, Persian Cosmopolitanism and Europology, examined the observation of Europe from the perspective of eighteenth and nineteenth centre Persian travelers. Masud’s presentation, The doctrine of tashabbulbi’l-kuffar (‘Imitating the Infadel’) Revisited: Modern South Asian Fatawa Cultural Authenticity, explored fatawa literature in the modern period, and ongoing debates about the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims.
The third panel, Locality and Cosmopolitanisms, included presentations by Nile Green from the University of California at Los Angeles and Kai Kresse, from the University of St Andrews, UK. Green presented a paper entitled Cosmopolitan Pressures and Tumbling Tower Blocks: Supernatural Catastrophe in Colonial Bombay, drawing attention to the neglected importance of colonial Bombay as the prime location of the early Muslim experience of globalizing modernity. Kresse’s paper, How Cosmopolitan is Mombasa and the Swahili Coast: Reflections and Discussions, discussed whether it is possible to justifiably argue that Mombasa and the Swahili coast are cosmopolitan societies, a case that is often made in regional literature.
In his concluding remarks, AKU-ISMC Director Abdou Filali-Ansary referred to the prevailing idea that Muslims entered into an intellectual, social and economic ‘slumber’ 300-400 years after the formation of Islam. This concept is rooted in the idea that modernity was imposed on Muslim societies from the outside through European globalisation and colonialism. A number of papers presented at the conference, however, show that this notion of ‘received wisdom’ is rather one interpretation.
“In this period, rather than the existence of one empire with a central court, there was a flowering of multiple centres between which learning, trade and population moved freely across boundaries, which led to the creation of ‘cosmopolitan’ centres where diverse communities were able to live and work together.”
Filali-Ansary noted that during the conference, a number of solid stereotypes were crushed through anthropological, linguistic and religious historical approaches. The conference explored moments in Muslim history when frameworks were instituted which cherished and protected interactions within and between diverse populations.
“In the case of Mumbai, for example, it can be seen that systems were set up, where step by step, people from various parts of the world were able to move there and engage within society. In this regard, more than interaction between individuals, cosmopolitanism was about the frameworks which were put in place in order to facilitate the participation of diverse groups of people to live, work and interact in the same urban environment.”
Rather than focusing on the ‘founding moments’ of Islam, the conference looked at selected examples from history. Importantly, the emphasis of the conference was not on the ‘centre’ or ‘centres’ but on what was occurring in ‘peripheries’ at this point in time. Referring to Salzman’s paper, Cosmopolis or Islampolis? Ottoman Urbanity between Myth, Memory and Post Modernity, Filali-Ansary noted that nationalism emerged in both Muslim contexts and Europe at the same time. Thus, ‘modernity’ was already affecting various societies at the same time, however in a variety of different ways.
The conference was attended by over 100 delegates from a diverse array of backgrounds, including academics, students, government officials, the media and other professionals.
Online Resources
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