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Sometimes classrooms feel like our family living room, with our families around, exposing all kinds of political positions and emotional responses, all of us trying to respond to some events that are going on in the world. We look at each other for help, or to hate, we hope for some understanding and make some sense of wild things. Our schools are in some ways, the extension of our common life and there we try to figure out our lives together. Porous as they are, schools and classrooms breathe and vibrate the world outside of them - subjectively and objectively. We get anxious about what is going to happen to our schools and if we are going to be able to cope and survive. Minorities feel the intensity of worldly events in particular ways. Thus, schools and teachers must be aware of social political events going on around us and respond to them in careful ways. When institutions offer a collective response, with open spaces and written documents, it is easier to deal with the expansive classroom responses. Let me provide two examples of what I have experienced in the US: September 11, 2001, and the election of Donald Trump in 2016. The first event was my first day of class at Union Theological Seminary in New York and the second was my first semester as a teacher at Union Theological Seminary. September 11 was a dramatic anxious day in NYC. We were lost without information and feeling so afraid. Classes were canceled and a gathering in chapel at noon was called. As we gathered, our school “pastor” started with words of assurance, sustenance, and support. We had people leading us in prayer, silence, and sharing words of wisdom for such a time as this. At the corner of the chapel, professor in Late Antique and Byzantine Christian History & Professor of Byzantine Christian Studies, and Orthodox Priest John A. McGuckin stood at a corner of chapel holding a long prayer bead and a cross that was swinging back and forth while his body moved back and forth in prayer for the world. I remember holding hands with now Prof. Jackie Hidalgo and finding solace in her company next to me. At some point, an airplane flew over our heads and we didn’t know what to expect. The whole chapel went into a deep silence as we waited for the airplane sound to disappear. We were together for about two hours and we left with more information about what was going on, how to protect ourselves and to learn how to rely on each other as the day went by. In 2016, one day after the election of Donald Trump, the whole school, surely a very liberal school, went into an emotional and political shock. Classes were not canceled but a call to gather in chapel was issued to occur after the chapel service. The worship service for that day had to be reimagined as well with lots of meditation. After worship, we were to talk about the post-effects of the election that we thought would never happen. Dr. Su Pak and I were called to lead that time and we divided the time into two main blocks: mourning and hope.  We started with an introductory word from our president Serene Jones and started singing the South African song: “the journey, the journey, the journey is long… walk with me for the journey is long.” We then proceeded by opening up the floor for anyone who wanted to express their emotions, their feelings about the results of the elections in their own bodies/souls, their communities and the possible consequences of this election. This time we had Muslim and Buddhist professors and students around, as well as other (non) religious affiliations. After a long time sharing an immense variety of emotions in the warmth of a community, we opened up the space for the possibility of hope and sustained commitment to justice and peace. We left singing “the journey, the journey, the journey is long… walk with me for the journey is long.” While fragile in its approach to the immensity of these times, these collective events served as a sense of communal support that was fundamental for gaining a larger perspective, to voice our own feelings, to know we needed to support each other, especially minority communities at higher risk, and to help us keep going. After these collective events, the work that was to continue in our classrooms was somewhat easier. No classes should go without pausing to attend to events such as these and to give voice to those either agree with us or are opposed to us. For someone to voice their support to Trump at Union was not an easy thing and we teachers have to hold them in their right to speak and honor their place in our midst. In times such as these, we are tempted to demonize the ones we are disgusted with by their practices and cultivate hidden feelings that desire their sheer disappearance. It is easy to feel trapped in these opposed dualisms. However, to live with the contradictions of this seems incredibly absurd. Yet, this reality is what drives us to continue to engage each other, keep safety as a priority, and protect the most vulnerable and fight for what we believe. It is a daunting, even haunting task for the teacher in his/her classroom. If educational institutions can provide open spaces to deal with our fears and doubts and find support, we will be better teachers. At the American Academy of Religion last month, there was a space provided by some groups and led by the Liberation Theology Group that did just that: an open space was provided for conversation, to find out what to do, to learn with each other about the best ways to address political issues ourselves, with our peers and when back to our classrooms. This blog is such a public space as well. Throughout these blogs posts, we will gain a better sense of how to access and engage our realities, of how to listen to one another and make classrooms open spaces that will better prepare our students, and ourselves, to deal with our burning world.

Laughter is an important ingredient in my classroom. I bank on my ability to make students laugh with my often-droll sense of humor, but I also frequently rely on professional comedians through the magic of the Internet. The status of Islam and Muslims in political satire, specifically in the genre of comedy news, provides ample fodder for this need, through projects like The Onion, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Full Frontal (and as much as I cherish Last Week Tonight, John Oliver rarely explores the topic of religion). Indeed, humor also has a long tradition in Islamicate history as well—ranging from the likes of Joha/Nasreddin Hodja to Azhar Usman—but in this blog post, I want to focus on the portrayal of Islam and Muslims in Western satire, sometimes called “fake news.” For better or for worse (often for worse), moreover, the appetite for fake news stories (which at times genuinely fool people!) may also be on the rise. Although this trend can have dire consequences, it renders the genre all the more fertile for generating understanding in the classroom. Lots of learning takes place through the slow, careful, and sometimes tedious (even boring) study of details, but cathartic moments can have a uniquely lasting impact on students. I often seize the moment to employ humor in the classroom not only as a way to keep students interested, but also as a means of transformation. Indeed, things are often funny because they are subversive, because they surprise us—kind of like being tickled. It doesn’t work so well to tickle yourself; because you expect it, there’s no surprise. This element of surprise works particularly well, I find, when combined and contrasted with more traditional modes of pedagogy, such as textual analysis, historical inquiry, and site visits. Accordingly, I select short video clips that I use in class bearing in mind what questions they may generate about a given issue. Some of my favorite examples follow: One of the few Last Week Tonight segments that deals with Islam focuses on a Supreme Court case about the permissibility of inmates growing beards in federal prisons. The clip portrays the Supreme Court Justices as talking animals, as a way to self-consciously heighten interest in the Supreme Court—which not only induces at least a few chuckles, but also offers a meaningful opportunity to discuss First Amendment issues in the context of American religion. Why oh why don’t the “moderate” and “peaceful” Muslims speak up? This clip from Full Frontal with Samantha Bee explores this question as well as myths that Muslims don’t cooperate with law enforcement, or that they hate the United States. The Daily Show’s “Senior Muslim Correspondent,” Hasan Minhaj, has a smart bit about Southwest Airlines’ removal of a Muslim passenger for allegedly speaking Arabic. That Minhaj himself is a brown Muslim speaks to the rhetorical role of his character as well, and he offers a semi-comical but mostly sober reaction to Trump’s election victory. This segment raises an important chicken or the egg question about the nature of political satire: do political motivations inform comedy news or is comedy a way to express political messages? Regarding hysteria over Muslims conspiratorially taking over the United States with their “shari‘a law,” this clip from The Daily Show about mosques and this clip from The Colbert Report about “radical Muslim snacks” (i.e., halal food) have proven successful and provocative in the classroom, by effectively positioning the level of public paranoia in relation to what kinds of practices Muslims actually promote. Clips like these allow me to ask a real but also rhetorical question to my students (who are formally studying Islam): would any of you feel pretty comfortable and informed about defining “shari‘a” on a national news program in front of millions of viewers (who haven’t formally studied Islam)? (Routinely, no one volunteers.) Where do you think the “real news” anchors get their information about this stuff? They probably Google it, I suggest, as food for thought. And people always interpret Google results with wisdom and measure, right? Is Obama a Muslim? No, he’s not. And never was. He even jokes about this, for example, during his remarks at the White House Correspondence Dinner. One of my all-star comedy news clips to use in class comes from the archives of The Colbert Report. It focuses on the aftermath of the 2011 massacre committed by Norwegian Anders Breivik, whom many media outlets quickly identified as a Middle Eastern Muslim, despite coherent evidence. To quote Colbert, “Just because the confessed murderer is a blonde, blue-eyed, Norwegian-born, anti-Muslim Crusader…does not mean he’s not a swarthy ululating Middle Eastern madman.” I find this clip particularly effective as a teaching tool because it not only highlights the absurdity of how sensation-driven journalists reacted to the event, with flamboyantly transparent anti-Muslim bias, but it also pushes the envelope past what the viewer might expect, by presenting a sequence of awkwardly cathartic punch lines. On the unmeasured way in which mainstream media covers religion and violence, this segment on “decoy Muslims” from “The Onion News Network” pushes the envelope by suggesting baby Muslims should be murdered for fear of their possible ties to terrorist attacks. In my experience as a teacher, this kind of humor, which rides the line between grotesque offense and revealing reflection of popular perceptions, can open doors for frank dialogue about complex issues that even engaged students may otherwise find unapproachable because of political sensitivity. Finally, as a spoof on TSA terrorism prevention, this Key & Peele skit offers an ridiculous but lucid critique of airport theater in which a bunch of would-be “Muslim terrorists” in a cave plot to deceive security officials but find themselves stymied by restricting themselves to a 3.4-ounce bottle of toothpaste, as opposed to the 3.5-ounce bottle on which they modeled their attack. Importantly, this flagrantly flippant skit doesn’t downplay the important of national security, but rather invites inquiry: How might the nation achieve this security? Where does one draw the line between personal liberty and public safety? What about non-Muslim terrorists? In conclusion, I have always found humor an effective pedagogical tool in the classroom. And as the onslaught of violently misleading media attention to Islam and Muslims, consumed by our neighbors and students alike, appears to be speeding up, I think the right combination of satire, subversion, and laughing out loud can provide a uniquely powerful classroom presence and learning experience. What are your favorite comedy news clips? Please share them in the comments section below.

Countless hate crimes since Election Day already show the widespread effect of the President-Elect’s unpredictable nature and his death-inducing ideologies: racism, islamophobia, heteropatriarchy, xenophobia, anti-Semitism. What do we as higher educators do when our global context is unstable, the future is uncertain, and the local context is even dangerous for our students? The first matter is safety. We need to make sure that our students are safe. If they are not, we need to point them to resources for protection and help. As teachers in a divided nation, we cannot add to the authoritative calls for unity, which serve only to silence the cries of the oppressed further. Advising victims to be in union with their oppressors is dangerous. What we can do is signal to our students—especially those who are immigrants, people of color, LGBT, Muslim, Jewish—that our classroom is a safe zone. Wearing a safety-pin may offer them a palpable sign, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. A much deeper and more credible sign is committed to work to fixing these systemic injustices, both inside and outside of the classroom. For example, as a white professor, I could claim that I’m not racist, or I could actively engage in anti-racist work. The difference is critical for our students given the current political climate, wherein silence signals complicity. As higher educators, writing and teaching are the areas in which we can give ourselves the most effectively because this is where we are trained and have expertise. Yet perhaps like many of you, I have felt the need lately to re-evaluate everything I’ve ever done. The current context of global oppression demands this. It is urgent that we remove any curriculum and practice that reinforces systems of domination. It is also time, if we have not already done so, to heed bell hooks’ call to “take the risks that engaged pedagogy requires” and make our very “teaching practices a site of resistance.”[1] Practically speaking, in terms of content and curriculum, it should be a given that we include in our reading lists those groups often underrepresented intellectually. What we “progressive” professors are often unaware of, however, is how we use such readings. As Stephen Ray warns, we cannot keep placing the “texts of historically marginalized communities” at the “margins of conversation” (e.g., using Hildegard of Bingen as a “counterfoil” to Anselm's atonement theory or James Cones as a critique of the white American theological tradition). Such usage results in our students experiencing “these thinkers as primarily kibitzers and only vaguely as primary contributors to the tradition.”[2] Given that white nationalists are rising to cabinet level authority in our current political context, it is imperative that we stop centering the work of European male thinkers. This also relates to how we manage the space/time given to marginalized students within our classroom. hooks suggests “an inversion of hierarchal structures,” wherein the professor uses her/his authority to decenter the voices of the privileged.[3] One pedagogical strategy, for instance, would be to begin each class of an entire semester with a reading from the Quran. This not only resists islamophobia but also signifies to the class the privileging of Muslim students’ voices. As hooks reminds us, we professors too often critique domination from an intellectual perspective, emphasizing “an understanding of the politics of difference, of race, class gender, even though classroom dynamics remain conventional, business as usual.”[4] As election exit polls have shown, our white students have a long way to come in understanding intersectionality; maybe this is why. Furthermore, in this post-election aftermath, teachers of religion and theology need to be asking ourselves an obvious and basic question: Do our students have the ability to recognize that their political stances rely on particular theological or philosophical assumptions? In more general terms, no matter which topic we teach, we need to consider the degree to which our pedagogies reinforce the dualistic separation of the public and private spheres and the mind/body split.[5] Do we craft assignments that require students to make connections between their life experiences and course material? As teachers, do we model these connections for our students? I invite discussion in the comment boxes below. What pedagogical strategies of resistance have you used effectively? Please be specific.   [1] bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (New York: Routledge, 1994), 21. [2] Stephen Ray, “E-Racing While Black,” in Being Black, Teaching Black: Politics and Pedagogy in Religious Studies, ed. Nancy Lynne Westfield (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2008), 52. [3] hooks, 188. [4] Ibid., 180. [5] Ibid., 16.

In my last two blogs, I have been sharing some thoughts on teaching Sufism and contemporary Sufism, giving special consideration to the importance of helping students actively explore different elements of Sufi tradition and culture in the different Islamic periods. For this blog, I would like to point out opportunities to teach about Islamic arts from Sufi perspectives in order to provide a taste of Sufism’s impact on Islamic cultures and societies. Focusing on the arts allows the student to learn that Sufis frequently sought more artistic means of expression, including poetry, architecture, music, and calligraphy, in order to transcend the conventional language of theology and philosophy which too often fails to prove an adequate means of communicating higher truths. From Sufi perspectives, the arts embody metaphysical principles in visual and auditory forms, communicating these principles with an immediacy difficult if not impossible to achieve within the discursive confines of prose. Additionally, the arts have further functioned as a means to express the simultaneous unity and diversity of Islamic civilizations, as they communicate principles shared by all Muslims, and yet these principles are expressed through diverse cultural themes and motifs, illustrating the confounding array of cultural forms found within Islam. The profound influence of Sufi poetry, whether it be in Persian, Arabic, Somali, Urdu, or Turkish to name a few languages, is essential to discuss with students. For many Sufis (e.g., Rumi, Ibn al-Farid, al-Hallaj) poetry was the peak of eloquence and culture for expressing the vicissitudes of human life. By evoking perennial realities such as death, time, and change, poetry brings us into contact with our own existential limitations. In particular, by exploring the poetic works of different Sufi personalities, the student becomes familiar with a variety of Sufi themes, principles, practices and experiences. Studying Sufi poetry and the many poetic techniques (metaphorical language, rhythmical patterns, etc.) then helps the student to understand Sufi symbolism and the idea that the Sufi poet was endowed with the ability to penetrate the veil of appearances in order to depict the essential character of the image being portrayed. In other words, poetry becomes a vehicle to decipher the signs of the Divine.     Architecture is also another artistic tradition that can help students consider how the sacred principles of Sufism took material form in structure, with the shrines of saints and Sufi lodges as well as mosques. These architectural wonders would define the great Islamic cities, while also leaving imprints on the surrounding, expansive countrysides. Students appreciate exploring how these structures were carefully constructed utilizing sacred geometrical principles, symbolic forms and ornamentation, color theory, and sacred calligraphy. Ultimately, many of these structures were created to communicate higher realities and Sufi cosmologies. These sites within the built environment were also the places where one of Sufism’s most iconic artistic forms took shape, the various sorts of chant and music developed by different Sufi orders. Each order would develop its own liturgy of chant, with particular formulas, breathing techniques, musical accompaniment, and even dance, reflecting the particular lineage and ethos of the order.  By focusing on the significance of architecture, students learn that Sufi shrines and lodges and mosques of Muslim societies were pivotal sites around which Muslim culture revolved and evolved, where dervishes and sultans, devotees and those seeking healing, all came to participate in the presence of the sacred atmosphere they encountered at these sites. In many cases structures built for trade and residence would radiate outward from centrally located sacred spaces, visually representing the concept of the qutb, the Muslim saint who watches over a particular region. Shrines and lodges integrated local cultural architectural forms, making African and Asian as well as Arab and Persian architectural styles (to name just a few) integral parts of Islamic architecture more broadly. Finally, exploring the world of Quranic calligraphy and its influence on Sufism also helps students appreciate some very abstract metaphysical understandings. For many Sufis this practice of writing the sacred word took on added levels of significance, encouraging them to play a very active role in the development of Quranic calligraphy. They experienced calligraphy as an attempt to communicate spiritual truths and realities. In their pursuit of calligraphy, Sufis emulated the broader norm within Islamic culture to give deep respect to the capacity of the written word to convey revealed truths. They regarded Quranic calligraphy as a holy art that offers baraka (blessing) to the recipient of its beauty and wisdom. They contemplated not just the divine words and chapters in themselves, but also the Arabic letters as constituent elements of divine speech. The practice of calligraphy thereby became integrated with other methods of Sufi practice and included reflection on sacred and symbolic qualities of Quranic words. When sharing the significance of Sufism and the arts, it is important to emphasize how this deeply aesthetic orientation of Islamic culture is rooted in the Qur’an itself, which expressed ethical and metaphysical principles with rhythm and rhyme. This divine beautification of the word would be emulated by Muslims, for whom the word was central to artistic expression. The Quranic word then was beautified aurally in recitation, and visually in architecture, calligraphy, and crafts. This beautiful expression of the word further functioned to inspire divine remembrance, as the linguistic signs of God surrounded Muslim daily living. For many Sufis then any artistic expression, like poetry, architecture, and calligraphy, was a contemplative discipline, the practice of which was a form of dhikr, the art of remembering the Divine. 1. ‘I believe in the religion of love’ This calligraphic piece by Hassan Massoudy is a saying by Ibn al-‘Arabi from his book of poetry, Interpreter of Desires:  ‘I believe in the religion of love, wherever its stages may go, love is my religion and faith.’  Hassan Massoudy, a native of Najef, Iraq, is a world-renowned master of contemporary Arabic calligraphy whose works bring light to a variety of classical Sufi personalities and their well-known sayings. To see more of Hassan Massoudy’s artwork visit http://www.massoudy.net.   2. Darou Khoudoss in Touba, Senegal Darou Khoudoss, “the Abode of the Holy,” is a mosque that was built in the place where Ahmadu Bamba, leader of the Muridiya Sufi order, experienced spiritual retreats and received mystical visions.  This photo was taken by Dr. Eric Ross.  For more about Ross’ research see https://ericrossacademic.wordpress.com/. 3. Sema A watercolor painting in the Shirazi style (c. 1582) depicting a sema. This picture is notable in that four women and a child are part of the Sufi circle, suggesting their initiation into the practices of the order. Source credit:  https://the.ismaili/ismaili/fr/london-exhibition-provides-insight-life-and-legacy-prominent-persian-ruler

In this blog, I want to continue with the theme that animated my last post “Genealogically Attuned teaching in an Introductory Course on Islam.” To remind, the question I had engaged had to do with the problem of presenting in an undergraduate amenable fashion theoretical insights from the study of religion and the broader humanities. My investment in this question derives from the problem of how one might make in an introductory course on Islam theoretical arguments commonly advanced in humanistic scholarship through strategies that bypass the density of scholarly theoretical discourse. In other words, how to do theory in an introductory course without subjecting students to theory pressure? The last blog dealt with some challenges and prospects for the first day of an Introduction to Islam class by way of some reflections on interrogating the category of religion. Here I wish to briefly think about this problem in relation to more specific thematic units of such a course. First a brief description of the conceptual problem I want to think through here. One recurrent tendency I have observed among students is to regard phenomena such as colonialism and orientalism as historical events consigned to a safely distant past, as belonging to the 19th century neatly separated from their own present. How could this problem of assumed shelter from the violence of colonial pasts and their attached knowledge legacies be addressed in an Introduction to Islam course? How could the persistence of the shadows of colonial power be impressed upon students? The first day of a unit on Sufism presents a potentially profitable moment for such a task. The unit on Sufism (for thematically organized introductory courses) represents a highly rewarding yet challenging stop on the pedagogical itinerary. While providing excellent possibilities of close primary source reading, use of narrative, textual and audio-visual analysis, the danger that students will fall prey to the temptation of viewing Sufism as the stereotypical exotic or eccentric variety of Islam is always all too ripe. The first day of the unit on Sufism can also do some important conceptual work on the interaction of colonialism, orientalism, and Islam precisely by tackling major commonplace stereotypes about the Sufi tradition. As an illustration, let me share some highlights from a lesson plan for this day that I have frequently employed in my intro course. The goal of this class session is to make students think critically about the legacy of colonial knowledge production and Orientalism in the study of Sufism and Islam more broadly. This we try doing by focusing on 19th century Orientalist stereotypes about Sufism and their continuation in contemporary popular discourses on the subject. In a nutshell, some of these stereotypes include: 1) that Sufism is foreign to Islam with Greek, Indic, or Persian origins, 2) that Sufism is opposed to Islamic law and that Sufis don’t care about normative legal obligations, and concomitantly 3) that while Sufism is the exotic, soft, and liberal brand of Islam, Islamic law or the Shari‘a is its harsh, puritan, illiberal other. One can fruitfully show the effects of these Orientalist stereotypes in the present by juxtaposing film with text. More specifically, for this day, I combine discussion on the first chapter of Carl Ernst’s Shambala Guide to Sufism (which they read before class) with the in-class viewing of the first twenty minutes or so of the 1994 documentary I am a Sufi, I am a Muslim. The more recent documentary Sufi Soul by popular writer William Dalrymple is also a good alternative that serves the purpose.  In small group discussions, I have students identify and make a list of stereotypes about Sufism in the works of various 18th and 19th-century European Orientalists and colonial officials (such as Tholuck, Elphinstone, Graham) as presented in the Ernst text. As student discussions are winding down, I pop in the documentary. I then ask them to make a note and a running list of any overlap between the Orientalist stereotypes they just discussed and ways in which the narrator of the documentary describes Sufism. The overlap is astonishing. Almost all Orientalist depictions (Sufism has non-Arab origins, it is opposed to ‘orthodox’ Islam, Sufis don’t prioritize ritual practices etc.) are repeated almost verbatim in the documentary. This conglomeration of textual and visual evidence invites students to reflect on traces of powerful 19th century discursive regimes on a popular and seemingly sympathetic documentary a century later. Film and text complement each other, the former amplifying the argument of the latter about the Orientalist reformulation of Sufism. But this much is not enough. In addition to uncovering the problems and persistence of Orientalist narratives about Islam and Sufism, it is also important to have students address the question of how Sufis themselves understand their tradition, especially in regards to Sufism’s relationship with Islamic law. For this, we again turn to the Ernst chapter, especially page 26 that details Sufis’ self-imagination of their tradition in clear, concise, and singularly productive ways. By reading relevant passages aloud in class, we establish the point that in contrast to 19th century Orientalist and contemporary popular stereotypes, the relationship between Sufism and law within the tradition is hardly understood in the form of an oppositional binary. Rather, this relationship is imagined as a hierarchy whereby abiding by the law and its limits represents a prerequisite to progress on the path to divine reality. This hierarchical arrangement is reflected in the rhyming progressive (in a literal sense) formula Shari‘a (divine normative order)-Tariqa (the Sufi path)-Haqiqa (divine reality). Put simply, Sufis do not reject the law and its imperatives. They instead consider it a first step towards higher spiritual refinement. A hierarchy is not the same as a binary. Through this class session, some highlights of which I have outlined above, students in an introductory course can be equipped to interrogate the afterlives of colonial power and Orientalist discourse in the present without being burdened with the weight of prohibitive theory talk. It can also attune them to ways in which a more careful consideration of the logics and textual resources within a tradition can disrupt popular stereotypes and representations about it. Genealogical skepticism is thus usefully complemented with discursive analysis.

Why and how has Sufism become such a contested topic in the 20th and 21st centuries, and what does “authentic” Sufism look like today? Why are historical Sufi shrines in Pakistan, Mali, and Iraq being destroyed by Muslims?  Why do some Muslim governments ban Sufi literature and persecute Sufis, at a time when Sufism has become increasingly popular in the West?  Is contemporary Sufism a singular phenomenon, or is it shaped by a multiplicity of interpretive frameworks?  Exploring answers to these questions requires a great deal of contextual knowledge of history and religious thought as well as identity politics, and many students feel daunted by the complex terrain of contemporary Sufism.  Given the temptation to settle for simple answers, students need encouragement to engage the dynamics surrounding Sufism, and to critically examine diverse Muslim as well as non-Muslim reactions to this deeply rooted and yet creatively adaptive current arising from within Islamic spirituality and mysticism.    When teaching on contemporary Sufism, I have started to explore three significant themes with my students: Sufism’s relationship to Islam and the development of anti-Sufi interpretive movements Students need to understand the contestation over Islamic authenticity among pro- and anti-Sufi Muslims, which is arguably one of the most prominent conflicts currently playing out in Muslim societies.  To this end, it is essential to help the student explore Sufism’s historical shifts, by becoming familiar with unfinished debates over metaphysics, epistemology, and politics.  One way to do this is to organize discussions about longstanding debates within Islamic thought, to promote familiarity with decisive historical moments for the formation of Sufi tradition as it evolved through engagement with theology and jurisprudence, in pursuit of answers to key questions: What is the nature of God? How can we gain knowledge of God? What is the nature and purpose of being human? Who inherits the founder’s authority? How does one define being Muslim? While Sufis were often careful to avoid standing outside the circle of orthodoxy, their distinctive ways of answering these questions aroused debate, particularly in relation to such controversy-inducing Quranic concepts as kashf and‘ilm ladunni, both of which relate to the attainment of unmediated spiritual knowledge and insight. By affording opportunities to examine contrasting orthodox views of Sufism or even constructing role plays or debates involving Sufi and anti-Sufi views, the teacher can create opportunities for penetrating insight into opposing interpretations grounded in divergent Islamic worldviews. By coming to understand classical debates on such topics, students will begin to grasp the backstory behind the many contradictory opinions about contemporary Sufism’s relationship to Islamic tradition and communal life. Also, by unpacking the historical antecedents for current debates, students get to understand the rise of Islam’s most sustained contemporary anti-Sufi movement, Wahhabism. Relationship Between Sufism and the West When teaching about contemporary Sufism, it is also essential to explore the historical European encounter with Sufism during the colonial period, especially as European “Orientalist” scholars were attracted to Persian poetic traditions of Shamsuddin Hafez and Sadi of Shiraz, as well as to more elaborate Sufi ritualized practices such as those of the whirling dervishes.  For this theme it is important for the student to understand that Sufi tradition was not engaged solely through textual means or through translation, but also through a felt affinity among some Western thinkers for Sufi ideals and worldviews, particularly as expressed through poetry.  Encounters with Sufism’s poetic spirit inspired European and American intellectuals and poets in new and fascinating ways. To illustrate, the teacher can explore with the students the lives and thought of two key literary Western figures: 1) the German author Johann Wolfgang Goethe (d. 1832), and 2) the American poet and lecturer Ralph Waldo Emerson (d. 1882). These two individuals’ engagements with Sufi poetry and personalities are exemplary illustrations of how the Sufi tradition was encountered and understood through translation, also in ways that played a formative role in European spiritual and literary movements. Through examining such impacts of Sufism on early modern European intellectual culture, the student can gain insight into contemporary understandings of Sufism in the West, and especially its presence in contemporary popular culture as reflected in the phenomenon of “Rumimania.” Gender Dynamics of Authority in Sufi Communities When teaching about contemporary Sufism, it also is very useful to explore the growing prominence of women in authoritative roles.  In doing so it is important to help the student understand the “hidden” history of Sufism, in which Sufi female personalities were influential not only in current times but also in the development of the various aspects of the Sufi tradition, from developing its principles and practices to transmitting knowledge, and receiving recognition as saints, spiritual teachers, and authorities.  Although the present era has offered additional opportunities for women to take on roles that were once reserved primarily for men, the contemporary period also shows great continuity with a history that includes women saints, teachers, and practitioners of Sufism.  In North America, women carry forward this tradition by continuing to play important roles in Sufism’s development and in some cases even extending their roles beyond traditional boundaries. In a day and age of Islamophobia and clichéd thinking about Islam (sometimes promulgated by Muslim as well as by non-Muslim thinkers) teaching about contemporary Sufism can help to complexify and diversify students’ imaginations of Islam, particularly when such teaching actively seeks to make connections between past and present.  By moving beyond more static debates about whether Sufism is or is not the heart of orthodox Islam (and either is or is not “authentic” in any given contemporary expression), teachers can show how Sufism has for centuries been central to debates over what is essential in Islam, and indeed over what Islam is.  In the process, students can attain to a much richer and more dynamic understanding of Islamic tradition as well as of the encounter of Islamic and the Western polities and cultures.   

My teacher training focused on goals and assessment. When I conduct workshops on teaching and whenever I am asked for advice on teaching, I tell instructors to clarify goals and work backward. Two years ago I gave a presentation on technology in the classroom. I included a laundry list of gadgets and apps—absolutely. “Check this out!” “Look at what this website can do.” “Flip your classroom.” But behind all of the gee-whiz fascination of tech, we still had to start with goals. I believe in this approach and I believe in measuring student outcomes. But even when I was starting out as a teacher, I focused on more ambiguous questions as well. How can I build a stronger classroom community? How can I help students develop a deeper appreciation for mystical literature like The Conference of the Birds? Barbara Walvoord reports that half of public and over two-thirds of private university students identify “spiritual and religious development” as an essential goal in the religion classroom. Do I have a responsibility in this regard? How can any of this be assessed? For this blog, I want to touch on a question implied at the end of my last post: How can we teach tolerance while teaching about Islam? Such a question might fall under the broader rubric of anti-bias education. There are many resources on these topics and even though it focuses on K-12, I highly recommend the Teaching Tolerance Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center to all educators. Searching for “Islam” on their website will bring up dozens of resources and activities that can be modified for the college environment. My newest approach for cultivating compassion in the classroom comes out of the contemplative pedagogy movement. I have been recently introduced to contemplative teaching through a program sponsored by the Teaching and Learning Center at Wake Forest University. Contemplative pedagogy is contemplation in action aimed at educating the whole person with much of the same spirit as the Jesuit education I have benefitted from. It seems to me that there is often a disconnect between the abiding mission of a university and the more narrow goals alluded to above. Contemplative pedagogy aims to help educators reflect more deeply on the purposes of their teaching and it aims to help students become similarly self-aware through a range of practices including meditation, reflective journaling, deeper reading, and attentive listening. To some extent, I have always used these practices in my teaching. Respecting silence in the classroom and becoming comfortable with long pauses or “wait time” after asking a question has always been important to me. Developing an awareness of purpose in connection with goals that is transparent to students is a fundamental practice. There is no radical separation between contemplative pedagogy and what is being taught in all education programs. I do, however, believe that my new focus on contemplative pedagogy is helping me to think more holistically about such practices. I am better able to draw a connection between my approach to teaching and the moral and perceptive qualities I want to cultivate in my students. In Contemplative Practices in Higher Education Daniel Barbezat and Mirabai Bush explain, “What distinguishes the experience and integration discussed in this book is that the experience is focused on students’ introspection and their cultivation of awareness of themselves and relationship to others.” There are many ways to teach compassion through Islam. It is a central theme to Islam itself; God is compassionate and merciful. The Qur’an tells us, “What will explain to you what the steep path is? It is to free a slave, to feed at a time of hunger an orphaned relative or a poor person in distress, and to be one of those who believes and urges one another to steadfastness and compassion. Those who do this will be on the right-hand side. (Qur’an 90:12-18).” Our teaching can help students to better appreciate the vision of Islam and how it operates as a way of life for adherents. We can improve student awareness of false media representations of Muslims, help them to understand everyday prejudice faced by American Muslims, and encourage them to look at Islam from a nuanced rather than essentializing perspective. To all of this, we can add meditative exercises of care and concern meant to awaken students to their own compassion and the relationship between their learning and social responsibility. Such exercises encourage students to quiet their minds and envision the shared desire for love and kindness among human beings. The spirit of practices like this can be built into the architecture of a class. In Meditation and the Classroom, Bridget Blomfield describes how she encourages students to develop their own sense of adab in the learning environment. Translated in a variety of ways, she is using adab as “virtuous behavior” or “good manners” meant to develop the practitioner “spiritually, emotionally, physically, and intellectually.” She writes, “The practice of adab is used in the learning environment to initiate the students into a new understanding of themselves and a way to relate to others with attentive compassion.” It is an attitude of graciousness and humility that appears conspicuously absent from much of our public discourse, especially in an election year. But who bears the responsibility for answering this deficit? A share of that burden must fall on the shoulders of university educators. Returning us to the reflection on measurable goals I used to start this entry, Blomfield offers, “Educational environments often value the putting forth of more information, not the personal meaning underneath that information. I believe that intellect and spirituality are complementary, permitting students to write in a scholarly fashion while maintaining a personal and heartfelt understanding.” If we can understand ourselves, we will better understand others. If we can better understand others, we can be compassionate toward them as well. The achievement of such a goal cannot be measured out on a sheet of paper but neither can its value.

This blog builds on Caleb Elfenbein’s excellent post in this series “Scaffolding Theory at the Introductory Level.” I want to think about two interconnected issues in relation to engaging theoretical discussions in the study of Religion and the Humanities in an introductory course on Islam: 1) cultivating a practice of thinking critically about key categories like tradition, modernity, secularism etc. and 2) disrupting conventional binaries (like tradition/modernity, religion/secular) through which such categories are popularly approached. Perhaps the most difficult pedagogical task awaiting courses on religion and Islam is that of unsettling certain ingrained assumptions and attitudes that students bring to particular concepts. While dismantling common stereotypes about Islam to do with violence, patriarchy, and political repression is still reasonably doable, much harder is the task of disturbing entrenched assumptions about the presumed goodness of say modernity, secularism, pluralism and liberal democracy. This is a problem I struggle with in all my classes, not least the introductory course on Islam; in this and the next few blogs I hope to reflect on this struggle in hopefully productive ways. So what could be some effective ways to share with students in an introductory course on Islam conceptual arguments that by now are taken as established positions in Religion Studies: for instance, tradition is not the opposite of modernity, religion is not the inverse of the secular etc. Put differently, how to do theory (or conceptual interrogation) without necessarily mentioning the theorists or having undergrads suffer through theory talk? Let me share some experiences/strategies on this front from my Islam course with corresponding commentary on potential benefits and persistent obstacles. In this post, I want to focus on the first day of the semester in which an assigned reading is discussed. The task I set for this day is the interrogation of the concept of religion.  I begin all my courses with chapter two of Carl Ernst’s Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World “Approaching Islam in Terms of Religion.” This chapter charts in an eminently lucid manner major conceptual and political transformations in the category of religion over time. By comparing the understanding of religion espoused by pre-modern thinkers like Cicero (d. 43 BC) and St. Augustine (d. 430) with that of the 17th-century Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius (d. 1645), Ernst highlights profound ruptures in the early modern and modern career of religion. An earlier notion of religion, as for instance articulated by Augustine in his text Of True Religion centered as the cultivation of virtue through repetitive practice. In contrast, the modern concept of religion was marked by intensified competition over the question of authenticity (as found in Grotius’s text On the Truth of the Christian Religion). Moreover, Ernst shows that this modern competitive notion of religion was shaped in large measure by the power and politics of colonialism coupled with the activities of European missionaries who in fact used Grotius’s text as a debating manual. What I find remarkable about this text is the way it presents in simple language the key features of the world religions argument that has occupied so much of the often-dense theoretical landscape of Religious Studies. I ask students (in small group discussions) to identify and list by thinker key differences between pre-modern and modern conceptions of religion, best encapsulated in the shift from “religion” as embodied practice to “religions” as exclusive clubs reducible to distinct scriptures and competing truth claims. We also spend considerable time discussing the intimacy of a modern competitive understanding of religion and the emergence of the modern state. Particularly effective in this regard is to complement this chapter with a sample of the British census survey in late 19th century India. It is through this visually charged primary source that students really get the tectonic implications of being compelled to box one’s religious identity into one among several competing options. Also invaluable is the narrative in this chapter involving a student at the American University of Beirut who when asked to identify his religious identity in university registration forms, responds in puzzlement “But I am an atheist?” To which the registrar responds, “but are you a Christian atheist, a Jewish atheist, or a Muslim atheist.” (p. 58). This story (that we read aloud in class) brings home for students the point about a modern countable and competitive notion of religion with particularly clarity. But while students generally get the idea that meanings attached to categories like religion shift over time, they struggle to dismantle a celebratory attitude towards modernity and modern pluralism. In the Religion to Religions argument, while recognizing the problem of religions as competitive clubs, students tend to persist with the idea that having multiple religions is an achievement of pluralism in modernity. That the discourse of pluralism is itself stained with the violence of colonialism and modern state power is a point they are not quite ready to entertain. Particularly instructive in this regard is the critical attitude students often adopt towards Augustine on why his text was titled “of True Religion.” They often protest: why did Augustine not recognize (read respect) religions other than Christianity (the True Religion). The tenor of this discomfort says much about the deep internalization of liberal gestures of recognition and respect among undergrads. But despite all this, what Ernst’s chapter and starting a course with this chapter does achieve is the attunement of students to the labor of taking seriously the histories and ideological arguments invested in crucial categories of life like religion. But how can one sustain such a genealogically oriented pedagogy in discussions on more specific topics in Islam? That is what I hope to discuss in my next post on November 9th.

For those of us who teach on the semester system, we face the daunting task of presenting our course in about 15 weeks (and for those of us on quarter systems, about 10!). Among the greatest challenges given this context is to, therefore, decide what can and cannot be left out of a course. If one teaches “Introduction to Islam,” perhaps one aims for a semi-comprehensive historical survey where students learn a bit about hadith, law, Qur’an, theology, dynasties, mysticism—and maybe science, Islamism, and art depending on some variables. Indeed, many textbooks on Islam (books devoted to introducing college students to Islam) treat their topic like this. A fundamental question, therefore: What is the goal for a short undergraduate course on Islam? It’s perhaps a blessing and curse that any given instructor will answer this differently—based on training, institutional context, and personal taste—but I think mostly a blessing because the menagerie of reasonable answers reflects a freedom to make up our minds about approach and content. In this post, I’ll discuss a few outside-the-box approaches that reflect my ongoing struggle with making the best of a short semester. Education as freedom In his article “Liberal Education: Its Conditions and Ends,” David Corey argues that the goal of liberal education is to set us free, to achieve “intellectual freedom or, in a certain quaint sense of the word, ‘spiritual’ freedom” (2014: 195). I can jive with this, and taking a cue from JZ Smith, “there is nothing that must be taught, there is nothing that cannot be left out” of a religious studies course (2012: 13)—which seems to point to freedom as a pedagogical strategy as well. What I interpret from Smith’s prescription is that courses are short, so comprehensive surveys are false gods, in a sense. In an intro to Islam course, why, for example, would attention to a scholarly monograph on the Qur’an, prove more valuable than focusing on episodes from “Little Mosque on the Prairie”? In terms of textbooks, at least, I’m not aware, unfortunately, of any that give attention to “Little Mosque on the Prairie,” so an overreliance on textbooks could also limit the freedom of the instructor to substantively explore outside-the-box sorts of topics. Carl Ernst even notes in Following Muhammad that he hates textbooks for similar reasons; I wouldn’t go that far, in part given my distaste for the H-word, but I strongly sympathize with the sentiment. So if instructors wish freedom for their students, and hope to enjoy a comparable freedom through course design, are we talking about nothing more than a whimsical selection of material? No. It’s not whimsical because I presume, for the sake of argument, that most Islamic studies professors have reasonable training in their respective subfields. On top of that, Islamic studies is not a compartmental, marketable skill, generally speaking—which is why I’ve become increasingly persuaded by Smith’s emphasis on the nothing that cannot be left out. I actually don’t think that’s entirely true: if my course, entitled “Islam,” focused on, say, the question of whether Obama is Muslim (a totally reasonable thing to focus on in said course) to the exclusion of studying Qur’an or hadith, then I should expect to run into some legitimate problems of credibility—from students, colleagues, and my institution. But one should also note that drawing attention to Obama’s religion in light of political realities could uniquely intrigue and teach students. Freedom to surprise students Although I do spend more time in my courses focusing on the Qur’an than on Obama’s public commitment to Christianity, I can’t be sure what will impress students more, years after the class is over—that the story of Khidr is super interesting and weird, that Thomas Jefferson may have read it in Arabic, or that 30% of Americans actually think Obama is a Muslim. Questions of Obama’s religion (or attention to “Little Mosque on the Prairie”), moreover, address critical contemporary questions of Islamophobia, racism, and immigration—topics that could take a bit more creativity to excavate from Moses and Khidr. But can we have it both ways, focusing on Muslim sitcoms as well as the Qur’an? Absolutely, but we still have to prioritize, and if we include one thing we’ll probably have to exclude something else. It’s a balancing act at the end of the day and each of us will rightly navigate things differently. As much as students may find reason to take interest in Obama’s religion—and the story of Khidr—the topic of drugs usually catches their attention as well. And the histories of coffee, alcohol, and qat all squarely tie into broad global discourses such as the consequences of intoxication, state law and sharia, and capitalism. Because I spent a summer in Yemen, and because college students already have a stake in coffee and alcohol, these three substances make regular appearances in a weeklong unit on drugs in Islam. After reading an entire book about the subject—Tripping with Allah, by Michael Muhammad Knight—I ran into a compelling erotic scene involving a vision of Ali and Fatima during Knight’s experience with ayahuasca-DMT (one of the most powerful psychedelics known to science). So I included the excerpt in my “Islamic Mysticism” course last semester. One student memorably lamented her foreseen absence on the day we would discuss Knight’s chapter, writing, “I am disappointed I will be missing today’s discussion of our very weird reading.” Beyond the edutainment factor, the chapter with the erotic scene, like much of Knight’s writing, points clearly to other big questions about Islam, such as Sunni-Shi‘i divides and the boundaries of orthodoxy. So as much fun as it would be to assign the excerpt to students for shock value alone, my pedagogical justification lurks steadily under the surface. Conclusions In my own context, I teach religious studies courses at a college with very few RS majors (currently two, to be precise). As part of the core curriculum, however, students must take at least two courses in my department. Although I always welcomed the challenge of teaching students who are there “because they have to be,” and similarly always valued a liberal arts education, it was not always clear to me how to implement my vision of the liberal arts into my courses. I’ve felt stuck in the ostensibly impossible expectation to teach a survey. What I have increasingly come to ask, though, is what kind of impression my course will leave on students years down the road. And as I continue to ask this question, I become increasingly convinced there’s precious little that cannot be left out of curricula in my courses on Islam. If the goal of learning in my courses is to cultivate intellectual freedom, then is it not only appropriate but even desirable to reflect my own engagement with intellectual freedom, synthesis, and experimentation (cue the DMT jokes) in the syllabus and curriculum itself?

After teaching an introductory course on Islam for over ten years I still am fascinated that most students are unaware of what Sufism is and how Sufism has influenced Islamic metaphysics, societies, cultures, histories, arts, sciences, and trade. In addition to asking myself “Why is there such a lack of knowledge about Islam and Muslim societies?” I have also often asked myself, “Why is there such a disconnect in the minds of students when it comes to Sufism and Islam?”  For this current blog and the two that will follow in the Autumn months, I will share some thoughts about teaching Sufism and contemporary Sufism.  As readers of the Teaching Islam blog can attest, teaching and writing are interconnected.  Many of us write books and articles to use as tools for our classes.  Just this past summer, I completed with my co-author, Dr. William Rory Dickson, an introductory textbook on Sufism entitled Unveiling Sufism: From Manhattan to Mecca (available next year through Equinox Publishers).  I also am currently writing with my co-authors Dr. William Rory Dickson and Dr. Merin Shobhana Xavier a manuscript entitled Contemporary Sufism: Piety, Politics, and Popular Culture (available next year through Routledge Publishers).  The structure, approach and content of these books have influenced my teaching on Sufism, and my experiences in the classroom have influenced my writing.   When teaching on Sufism, I find it helpful to “meet students where they are” with Islam, which means starting with the here and now.  One way of doing this is to utilize a genealogical framework, in which the student begins to learn not with the historical past, but with the contemporary present:  with the diversity of living Sufism in North America today, and ways in which Sufis feel pressure from “both sides” – from non-Muslims and Muslims alike, albeit for different reasons.  Taking this approach enables the teacher to explore the growing anti-Muslim, post-9/11 sentiment among North Americans, as well as the intensification of anti-Sufi sentiments among some Muslims (explaining, for example, why Muslim extremists are destroying Sufi shrines).  Students then can also examine the different interpretive tendencies emerging among Sufi communities in North America, including universalist tendencies that understand Sufism as something not limited to Islam, as well as more traditionalist perspectives that assert Sufism’s necessary connection to Islamic practices and laws.  In addition, the students can learn Sufism’s remarkable influence on North American art and culture, notably through the 13th century Sufi personality, Jalal al-Din Rumi, whose poetry has inspired a variety of different tributes and interpretive expressions, in visual art, yoga, social activism, dance, music, and even in the restaurant and café business. By beginning with issues and themes found in the 21st and 20th centuries, students are then offered the complexities of Sufism as we collectively move deeper through time and space, journeying through a variety of historical, religious, political, and cultural contexts, further delving into the past, and closer to the “origin” of Sufism. This genealogical framework enables the student to understand the patterns of connection between contemporary manifestations of Sufism and past realities from, the bustling metropolis of 21st century Manhattan, to colonial Algeria, through medieval Delhi and Istanbul, back to Baghdad and ultimately Mecca – the birthplace of Islam and its mystical tradition.   In addition to using a genealogical framework, it is important to help students explore Sufism as a multidimensional phenomenon.  Sufism has influenced Muslim philosophy and metaphysics, but also politics, art, and culture in each historical period.  Utilizing particular Sufi figures, movements, places, artistic expressions, or philosophical views, the student develops a richly contextualized appreciation of Sufism.  For example, one teaching exercise that I have used is to compare the tradition of wandering mendicants or dervishes of Islam to the leaders of the medieval imperial courts.  In such a comparison, I like to share with students the symbolic significance of specific items from material culture.  For example, I like to bring to class a very elaborate kashkul from Lahore, Pakistan, as well as miniature paintings of medieval dervishes from Turkey and Iran. Another consideration when teaching on Sufism is to consciously integrate the contributions of women to Sufism, as well as the diversity of Sufism in different regions of the world.  In order to avoid reducing the role of women to a subject for one class session, it is important to use women as examples in each historical era, drawing out numerous examples of Sufi women who have been engaged in politics, philosophy, arts, etc.  Additionally, it is easy to use illustrations and case studies from the Middle East and South Asia, but it also is essential to help students explore Sufism in all regions of the world, especially Africa and Southeast Asia.    There are many different ways to enliven the teaching of Sufism and to make the subject speak to contemporary students who enter the classroom with diverse interests and preconceptions.  By engaging current concerns as well as pop culture manifestations of Sufism and then working backward in time toward the point of origin, it is possible to enable new ways of connecting with the subject matter.  Such an approach also facilitates the introduction of perennial debates about Islam and Sufism in relation to current controversies, demonstrating continuity as well as change and diversity in Sufism throughout the centuries and opening student’s minds to Islam’s rich and varied cultural, intellectual, and spiritual heritage.