Episode 308:
Islam is More Than You Think it Is

Transcript!

PDF transcript. Also available via our Buzzsprout page.

Shownotes
(because citations are political)

Today’s episode is the first of a pair centered on Islam, because in our next episode, Dr. Ali Olomi is coming to school us. This one sets up all the issues: Islam is more than what you see in the movies or read in the headlines. But those Big! Blaring! Stereotypes! are so persistent—and often so racialized, incorrect, and damaging—that we often don’t get to talk about the fun, interesting, messy parts of Islam. Parts like jinn, astrology, and science—things that Dr. Olomi will chat about next time.

The thesis of this episode was three-pronged, like a trident (or a shrimp fork) and all was to prove that Islam is more than you think it is:

1. Islam is what Muslims do (and Muslims don’t just do “what the Qur’an says,” please hear my scare quotes)

2. “Shariah” probably doesn’t mean what you think it means

3. EVEN IF we just talk TEXTS (like legal texts or sacred texts), these texts have some really cool stories you never get to hear because Muslims are constantly having to defend their basic humanity in this dumb country and in most European countries and in many spaces within international fora.
   

As a reminder, this mini-arc looks like this:

The 101:

(where we did the professor-work)

Let’s get into it, shall we?

Islam is a religion practiced by Muslims. A person who practices Islam is not Islamic, they are Muslim. And, yes, I do think we need to start this basic.

1. The holy text of Islam is the Qur’an, which is read and recited in Arabic, and famously remains untranslated in ritual spaces, even though many Muslims do not read or speak Arabic as a primary language.
   
   Unlike Christian or Jewish Bibles, the Qur’an isn’t a story with a beginning (Genesis) or an end (uh, this one depends on who you are). It sort of jumps around, assumes some familiarity with other Abrahamic stories and ideas, and is really poetic.

   Qur’an means “recitation,” and many scholars gloss this in two ways. First, that Muhammad recieved the word of God from the angel Gabriel/Jabreel—so the Qur’an is, literally, Muhammad’s recitation of the word of God. And second, that the Qur’an is meant to be recited—memorizing the whole thing is part of Muslim cultures around the world, and folks who can memorize it (and chant / sing it) are referred to as hafez-e-quran.

   But, to understand the Qur’an, Muslims don’t just rely on reading it, cover-to-cover, and and have a rich history of exegesis, ways to use other sacred and vital sources and traditions to make sense of the Qur’an, to ensure they are living ethically in their everyday lives. For nerds following along, I’m referring to hadith and sunna, sayings and actions of Muhammad.

2.  So many Westerners and Americans (though, you too, Brits and Frenchies) think Islam and hear shariah—which is to say, law. As if it’s one thing (it is not) as if it’s set in stone (LOL nope) and as if all Muslims in all places in all times agree on all things (c’mon). Shariah, which we can call law, and its sibling term, fiqh, which means jurisprudence, rely on the Qur’an, hadith, Sunna, as well as cultural norms, analogy, big picture themes, history and, yes, science. 

   Americans seem VERY concerned about being told they can’t do stuff. So like, lots of people know that Islam forbids alcohol, but it seems like they assume alcohol isn’t allowed because Muslims, like, hate fun and also freedom. Well, actually: the prohibition on alcohol has everything to do with drunkenness being a bit of a stumbling block for focusing on doing what’s right.

   We cared about shariah in this episode because it, too, is nuanced and complicated and wildly interesting—and it’s really not about barring superhappyfuntimes for Muslims, nor is it about Muslims imposing draconian rules on others. Barf to that racist platter of nonsense.

3. Jinn. People always hear about “no alcohol is in the Qur’an” and “jihad is in the Qur’an!” But so are jinn! Jinn are shape-shifting spirits made of fire and air with origins in pre-Islamic Arabia, that are absolutely mentioned in the Qur’an (29 times, to be precise), and are a major presence in legends, stories, fairy tales, daily lives of Muslims around the world. 

   That makes jinn a fun place to think about what could be part of a text-in-Islam conversation but is never precisely because supernatural beings aren’t part of the mainstream line about Islam, Muslims, or their cultural products.

   These Qur’anic mentions of jinn vary, but include things like how they were created (from smoke and fire), how they recant their belief in “false gods” and instead venerate Muhammad for his monotheism, how they are part of Solomon’s relationship to the Divine. Jinn also show up in these other spaces of sacred literature—hadith in particular—and other exegetical works. 
   
   So they are textually and culturally present even if they are fully absent from what often white definitely non-Muslims know about Islam. And they are important even if and when Western cultures—again, often white and definitely non-Muslim—appropriate and fetishize “genies.”
   
   

Jinn also, for Ilyse, link to imperialism—because of course they do. How?

Well: one of the reasons jinn remains a ubiquitous feature of Islamic lore and religious text but absent from Western understanding is precisely because of imperialism. When Islam comes to be defined by white Christian imperialists, it is in the vein of “unmodern,” “backward,” “rebellious,” “insurgent.” Belief in or suggestion of things like “evil eye” “jinn” “ghosts” all sounds…superstitious, right? And if your whole community is racialized as backward, unscientific, premodern, unmodern, anti-modern, well, these kinds of beliefs, texts, and practices either ought to be hidden away or rigorously reformed or simply don’t fit the narrative—so they aren’t repeated.

What does any of this have to do with our next guest, Dr. Ali Olomi?

Dr. Ali Olomi is a historian of the Middle East and Islam who researches about how Muslims imagined the “Islamic world” through at the intersection of religion, science, and empire.He also writes about the Muslim imagination of the monstrous through the djinn, the early history of astronomy and its role in empire-building, and Islamic apocalypticism and cosmology. All of this awesome he ties to nationalism, the histories of science and rationality, Islamism, gender and sexuality, and the tension between global religious community and local identity.

Basically, he’s coming on to talk jinn, astrology, and why imperialism means we’ve dropped talking about jinn and astrology.

Story Time!

(the segment where we cite major works, scholars, & ideas in the study of religion)

In this episode’s story time, Ilyse suggested we check out the “dizzying” book, What Is Islam? by Shahab Ahmed.

In it, the late historian of Islam and author of the verbose, 609-page tome, talked about, in part, the stuff we’ve been talking about—how Islam is central and unknown all at once. He wrote:

“A meaningful conceptualization of “Islam” as theoretical object and analytical category must come to terms with–indeed be coherent with–the capaciousness, complexity, and, often, outright contraction that obtains within the historical phenomenon that has proceeded from the human engagement with the idea and reality of Divine Communication to Muhammad, the Messenger of God. It is precisely this correspondence and coherence between Islam as theoretical object or analytical category and Islam as real historical phenomenon that is considerably and crucially lacking in the prevalent conceptualizations of the term “Islam/Islamic.” (6; emphases in original)

For more on this book, check out Ilyse and Kristian Petersen’s Marginalia Review of Books forum on it.

Megan and Ilyse unpacked this, saying that Islam is complicated, and changes over time, and is what Muslims do. ALL of what Muslims do, not just the parts that fit into our assumptions about who Muslims are or what Islam is. We also talked about how the dizzying prose actually captures what is, itself, dizzying: the amount of work “Islam” or “Islamic” are meant to do—capturing 1500 years of history around the globe in many languages and with a multitude of internal contradictions—means it will take a lot to even approach a working definition. And that should tell us something about what we think we know about Islam.

Primary Sources!

(the segment where we talk about how the episode’s themes affect us, as humans, because the “I” matters)

Homework!

(that’s right, nerds, there’s always more to learn)

IRMF did an almost-end-of-term violence and suggested SO much AND has snuck in extras here. She isn’t even sorry, y’all: 

• Kecia Ali, The Lives of Muhammad (2016)

• Sahar Amer, What is Veiling? (2014)

• Carl W. Ernst, Following Muhammad (2003) 

• Amira El-Zein, Islam, Arabs, and the Intelligent World of the Jinn (2009).

• Celia E. Rothenberg, “Islam on the Internet: The Jinn and the Objectification of Islam.” Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, vol. 23, no. 3, 2011: 358-371.

• Anand Vivek Taneja, Jinnealogy: Everyday life and Islamic theology in post-Partition Delhi (2017).

  • A digital piece on this book is here.

• Vice jinn explainer, here.

• Follow Dr. Olomi if you aren’t already—and here are some epic threads!

  • On Jinn.

  • On the jinn Aicha Kandicha.

  • On good jinn.

• Still need more? IRMF maintains a list of books she hands out for public talks on Islam. The only criteria for being on the list? Books need(ed) to be available at public libraries. YMMV, but you’re welcome to this many-paged bibliography.
  

Megan was slightly more contained, and assigned:

• Lila Abu-Lughod’s Do Muslim Women Need Saving? (2013)

• amina wadud’s Inside the Gender Jihad (2013)

• Saba Mahmood’s Politics of Piety (2011)

• Tina Howe, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Islam and Gender (2020)

What to get into Dr. Ali Olomi’s work beyond Twitter?

• Head on History podcast!

• “Jinn in the Qur'an,” in George Archer, Maria Massi Dakake, and Daniel A. Madigan, eds. Routledge Companion to the Qur'an (2021)

• “Women, Education, and Islam.” Women in World Religions: Faith and Culture Across History, Edited by Susan De Gaia. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio, 2018.

• “The Roots of Homophobia and Anti-Gay Sentiment in the Muslim World.” Duke University’s IslamiCommentary, 2016 

• “Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Beginnings of Salafism.” Great Events in Religion, Edited by Florin Curta & Andrew Holt. Santa Barbara: ABC CLIO, 2016.

if you don’t know [Islam], now you know