A study of epistemological transformations of Islamic knowledge production in the western diasporic context during the interwar period 1918–1939

This research aims at exploring the various epistemological changes within Islamic conceptual knowledge production in the field of siyāsa sharʿīyya and Islamic Political Thought and its transformation in the interwar period by Islamicate diasporic intellectual figures that lived in the West. Besides the already identified figures, Muḥammad ʿAbdullāh Drāz (d.1958) and Mālik Binnabī (d.1973) further research shall be conducted to determine a set of Islamicate diasporic figures that fit the criteria mentioned in my proposal. The focus will be on their articulation and reorganization of the concept of umma (community) in contrast to the understanding of umma in the pre-modern period. In doing so it will explore the tacit epistemological change that occurred during various historical moments, such as the colonial period and the spread of Orientalism, the counter-genre where Muslim/Arab responses to Orientalists emerged, and the period of anti-colonial resistance movements which lead to the period of post-colonialism and the rise of the option of decolonial thought. The focus will be on the different socio-political factors that shaped this diasporic discourse of Muslim intellectuals and are significant for understanding the postcolonial world and the emergence of decolonialism and its struggle for justice in the Muslim World.  

Erstbetreuung: Prof. Dr. Mohammad Gharaibeh 

Zweitbetreuung: Prof. Dr. Ulrike Freitag