March 15, 2022 • 37 mins
This episode of ReligionWise features a conversation with Khurram Hussain, Associate Professor of Religion Studies at Lehigh University.
In this far ranging conversation, we discuss the often overlooked humanistic elements present in Islam, reflect on ill-conceived narratives of intercultural interactions, and consider better ways of facilitating understanding across difference.
Show Notes:
- Islam as Critique: Sayyid Ahmad Khan and the Challenge of Modernity
(https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/islam-as-critique-9781350248861/) - The Muslim Speaks
(https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/muslim-speaks-9781786998880/) - The Oxford Handbook of Humanism: Humanism in the Middle East
(https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190921538.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190921538-e-35)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chip Gruen (00:11):
Welcome to ReligionWise. The podcast that
features educators, researchersand other professionals
discussing their work and theplace of religion in the public
conversation. I'm your host ChipGruen, Director of the Institute
for Religious and CulturalUnderstanding at Muhlenberg
College.
I'm really excited to sharetoday's conversation with you a
(00:33):
conversation I had with KhurramHussain, who is a professor of
religion studies at LehighUniversity. I'm also very happy
to say that he is an AdvisoryBoard member for the Institute
for Religious and CulturalUnderstanding. Dr. Hussain has a
wide range of academicinterests, including Islam in
both the Middle East and SouthAsia, religion and modernity,
(00:54):
ethics, comparative religion,and humanism. He's the author of
"Islam as Critique - SayyidAhmad Khan and the Challenge of
Modernity" from Bloomsbury in2019. And "The Muslim Speaks"
from Zed books in 2020, you canfind links to both of those
texts, in the show notes. Sowhen we sat down for this
(01:15):
conversation, Khurram and I hada few things on our mind. One
was he shared with me the draftof an article that's forthcoming
in the Oxford Handbook ofHumanism, entitled "Humanism in
the Middle East", where wetalked about that concept and
the presence of humanism outsideof the West, which is something
(01:35):
you'll hear us talk a little bitabout, the other thing that we
had in mind was just generallythe idea of narratives. The
narratives that we say, bothwithin academics and within
public conversation about thingslike religious diversity. One of
these narratives you might befamiliar with is the idea of
that clash of civilizations, theidea that there are just
(01:56):
civilizations that havedifferent values, and when they
rub up against one another,there is no other option other
than conflict. So we sort ofthink about the cultural work
that that kind of narrative isdoing, what are some
alternatives to it, and whythose narratives are successful
both in the contemporary UnitedStates and elsewhere around the
(02:17):
world. Something else that wetalked about, is just the idea
of humanism and how recognizingoneself as human and, and other
people in the world as humanmight be a way of transcending
some of those differences thatcan be divisive in our society.
The more I talk to Khurram, themore I appreciate and understand
(02:38):
his perspective on what it meansto be human and sort of this
conversation that goes way backabout recognizing the humanity
of others. So listen for that aswell. So without further ado, I
hope you enjoy the conversationI had with Dr. Hussain.
So it seems to me a lot of yourwork is interested in the
(03:01):
conversations that we have notonly the conversations we have
with scholars, but theconversations we have in public
places or in media or inpolitical discourses. And part
of that is how we frame history.
And I think in some of the workthat you've shared with me, it
seems like the argument thatyou're making is that the modern
West tends to neglect the backand forth between Middle East as
(03:24):
a region and Muslim cultureswithin the Middle East. And back
to the West, instead of seeingthis as a one way flow. But you
want to help us see this as moreof a back and forth than we
normally do in public discourse.
Is that a fair assessment?
Khurram Hussain (03:45):
I think there's two different, there's two
different issues here, right?
There's one is sort of anormative issue and one is a
issue of description, right? Soas purely a matter of
description, right, like, youknow, how has, how have, has
intellectual and otherepistemological information,
sort of? How has it circulated?
Historically, right,geographically, ethnically,
(04:07):
culturally, whatever. Right? Soone question has to do with the
fact that as a description ofhow information circulates
historically, between differenthuman societies, the Western
understanding is incorrect,right? It's just factually
incorrect, because informationcirculates in much more complex
ways. Right? Historically, it'salways been that way. And it's
(04:29):
certainly true even today.
Right? So it's not so it'sfactually it's inaccurate to say
that the flow, that the relevantflow of information of
intellectual information ismerely one, unidirection from
the West to the East, or theMiddle East or whatever. So
that's, that's sort of a factualpart in which we can still get
into. There's also like anormative part or ethical part,
right, is that even if it werethe case, right, that
(04:52):
information was only flowingfrom the West to the East, or
knowledge was only beingtransmitted from the West to the
East, right? That is anethically suspect situation.
Like even if it were true, whichI don't think, believe it is,
but even imagining that as amodel itself has ethical issues,
right? Because that's not aconversation, right? That's a
monologue directed at somebodyelse who is unable, or who's
(05:15):
incapacitated, or turned mute bysort of this, this overpowering
monologue that's coming at them,right? So sometimes in the
current environment, you do getthat sense, right? That
Westerners are just basicallyliterally talking down to
Muslims in the Middle East,right, they're saying, Hey, let
us teach you how to do thisstuff, you know, Let us teach
(05:37):
you how to be a human being, Letus teach you how to be free, Let
us teach you how to be equal,Let's, let us teach you right,
in this kind of very Pink Floyd,like, you know, manner of like,
another brick in the wall. Andthat, that relentless monologue
is, is not good for anybody,right? Because in being
relentlessly monologic, the Westalso loses out on learning about
(05:59):
aspects of the human conditionthat have not been paid
attention to, for example, maybeas much, you know, in, in the
development of the Westerncivilization, so to say. So that
both of those things areimportant in my work where I
both sort of factually orhistorically problematize the
Western accounts of history, butthen I also make the case that
it's not good for anybody,ethically speaking, if all we
(06:21):
had were monologic, kind of, youknow, unidirectional
conversations.
Chip Gruen (06:28):
And then this gets cast also as a conversation
about humanism as well, right?
That humanism becomes, withinthis narrative, a Western good
to be exported, you know, toother parts of the world. But
you're saying that that, again,is a part of this discourse, and
doesn't necessarily hold up toscrutiny when we look at the
(06:48):
sources?
Khurram Hussain (06:51):
Well, there are several different ways you can
think about humanism, right? Imean, at the end of the day,
there's again, there's ahumanism in the sense of like
centering the human being,centering human beings or
centering the kinds of aspectsof humanity that are universal,
that have universal dimensionslike all of us are human. What
does that statement mean, right?
It is exploring that statementsaying, hey, I am human as
somebody from Pakistan, you arehuman, Chip, as somebody from
(07:12):
the U.S. Right? I am ethnicallywhatever, you are ethnically
whatever. But we are both human,right? And exploring that aspect
of our humanity is a commonthing. That to me is sort of the
core of humanism, right? It isrecognizing both our differences
as human beings and also whatmakes us both human beings,
right? This is a question thathas been dealt with since
(07:33):
classical antiquity, right? Likewhat makes a human being? How is
a human being different from ananimal, say right? And there are
many different answers to it.
But one answer that keepsrepeating over and over again, I
think certainly in the classicaltradition, is that human beings
sort of talk to each other. Wecommunicate. So politics is
about, you know, debating thenature of the good life, right,
(07:55):
with each other to try and cometo some kind of a mechanism for
enacting that in our lives,right? So humanism, inasmuch as
that is what humanism is, isconcerned about, we've had
humanists since there have beenhumans. I mean, we've had people
who were talking about thesequestions, the problems of
(08:15):
living together, about the goodlife, from time immemorial,
right? So the idea that the Westsuddenly discovered it in the
Italian renaissance, you know,and then suddenly was like, Hey,
we just discovered humanism, andnow we can just tell other
people how to be humanists.
It's, again, like a sort of avery, sort of a fantastical,
magical thinking, right? And inparticular, I think if you want
(08:35):
to talk about the Muslim MiddleEast, the West's version of
humanism itself is a reflectionof information that circulated
out of the Middle East. TheMiddle Eastern sort of
engagement with the classics,right? The preservation of the
Greek philosophy and sciencesand logic and all that stuff in
Arabic, which was thentranslated into Latin. So a lot
(08:55):
of what we have available to usfrom classical antiquity was
actually translated from Arabicinto European languages and then
instigated the Italianrenaissance. So that, you know,
so even at the basic level oflike how information was
circulating in the Middle Ages,it's inaccurate to say that the
(09:15):
West somehow... the Westdiscovered humanism, just like
the West discovered the newworld, right? Which is to say it
didn't discover it, it was justa particular iteration of
Western history and selfnarrativization, you know, that
turns it into that.
Chip Gruen (09:34):
Within that discourse I think very often you
see humanism sometimes inreligious communities held up as
being the opposite of theism orreligious sentiment, et cetera.
You know, so that those secularhumanists are the problem. But,
(09:56):
you know, casting itdifferently, sort of more
broadly than that, I think yourargument makes sense. But I'm
interested in the way thathumanism gets described as the
West, in the West, as inopposition, you know, to theism.
How do you think that plays outin your read of, of the people
(10:20):
that you read from the Muslimcommunity?
Khurram Hussain (10:22):
Well I mean, I think that there's a reason why
in the West, right, in theChristian West, obviously right,
that humanism developed as asecular philosophical tradition.
In the sense of being sort of,if not antireligious then
separate from religion. Youknow, the reason for that is the
particular anthropology thatChristianity has, right? The
aspects of the original sin, offall from grace, like the idea
(10:46):
that human beings are notperfectible, that human beings
are somehow wretched, or they'resomehow, you know, filled with
sin and they need grace, likeGod's grace for salvation. So
the human being, because thehuman being is set up in
contradistinction to the divinein this strong sense of the idea
(11:07):
of sin, right, when you want tocenter the human being right,
vis a vis humanism, you have to,by definition, kind of take the
human being out of thisChristian anthropology, right,
like pluck the human being outright? It can no longer be
embedded within that theologicalarchitecture, right? Because
within that theologicalarchitecture the human being is
(11:27):
wretched and the human being isnot a viable or relevant entity
to center. This is a function,this is the way in which even
though secular humanism issecular, it is still embedded in
the West and Europe within aChristian sort of, within a
larger Christian understandingof the world, of the human being
(11:48):
right? In the Muslim Middle Eastthis doesn't obtain. I mean,
there's no equivalent in Islam,in any kind of Islam, there's no
equivalent of the fall. I mean,it's described that human beings
were in Eden and then they cameto Earth, but that was always
the plan, right? There is noquestion there's no real
understanding of this idea oforiginal sin. Human beings are
(12:10):
completely capable withinIslamic theology of fashioning
their own salvation, right,through good works and through
engagement with the world,right? So because of that, in
the Muslim Middle East humanismwas never something that was,
you know considered sort of, thehuman being didn't need to be
taken out or plucked out of theIslamic theological
(12:30):
architecture. The human beingcan still exist within that
theological architecture andstill be a viable, you know,
object for centering ones, youknow, aspirations right? So I
think potentially one of thingsthat's interesting within from
the Islamic tradition is that inChristianity, you couldn't, you
(12:53):
couldn't have Jesus be bothperfect and be a man right? The
reason Jesus is deified isbecause he could not be perfect
being if he's a man. Whereas inIslam, Jesus is obviously
accepted as a prophet, andbasically in Islamic theology
you accept everything aboutJesus without making him God
(13:15):
right? So immaculate conception,check. Raising people from the
dead, check. Second coming,check. So everything is fine.
But we're fine, we're like,yeah, he's perfect. He's a
perfect human being, right, justlike a lot of the prophets
Muslim tradition are perfect inthat sense right? So because of
that, if you look at thehistorical tradition within
(13:36):
Islam and especially the earlyperiod of Islam, the first two
or three centuries, you seeincredible fecund sort of
humanistic endeavors in art andarchitecture, science,
philosophy and everything youassociate usually with the
Italian renaissance right?
Logic, mathematics, you know,and just plucking things from
like different cultures, I meanthe Islamic Middle East being
(13:56):
right in the center of theworld, basically right? So
you're, you know, getting paperfrom China, mathematics from
India, you're getting, you know,like a classical philosophy and
science from the Greeks. And sothere's just kind of a synthetic
sort of cacophony, right, withinthe Muslim Middle East of sort
of humanistic endeavors, whichdoes, you know, which ebbed
later on. But the possibility ofit is always latent, you know,
(14:19):
within sort of the Islamicintellectual tradition, so to
say. Which is not to say, by theway, and I'm certainly not
romanticizing, but it is not tosay that there aren't other
streams that are antiintellectual, anti humanist
streams within the tradition aswell. So it's not that this is
the only way you can imagineIslam. But what I'm saying is
that it is a completelyhistorically, intellectually,
(14:40):
philosophically, theologicallyviable way, right, of imagining
Islam in its humanistic sort ofsense, right, that it's not
something that is incompatiblewith Islam, which is what we
hear a lot, right, from a lot ofWesterners and also a lot of
Muslims, who say, hey, Islam isnot like that. Islam is
theocentric. Islam is nothumanistic. We don't focus on
the human being, we focus onGod. We submit to God, right?
I'm trying to problematize thatas being sort of the only way
(15:02):
you could tell the story ofIslam.
Chip Gruen (15:06):
Yeah, I think at one point you say, in the chapter
that you shared with me, thatthere is no necessary opposition
between theocentrism andanthropocentrism, which actually
made me think about some of theanti intellectual roots in early
Christianity that I study. Youknow, that I believe it because
it's absurd, or what has Athensto do with Jerusalem?
Khurram Hussain (15:29):
Kind of famously, yeah.
Chip Gruen (15:30):
Yeah, some of those great Tertullian quotes that I
think will sometimes, you know,rear their heads in the
intellectual tradition ofChristianity as well. But that
phrase of "no necessaryopposition" is interesting to
me, because one of the otherthings, as you're just talking
about this, I was thinkingabout, you know, what you
describe as the Christiananthropology, that what sprung
(15:55):
to my mind was Quaker theologyand inner light theology, which
would, you know, I don't know ifdeny is the right word, but
certainly accentuate this ideaof the inner light within the
individual. So one might alsoargue that there is no necessary
(16:16):
opposition to some of thestrands that you're describing
in Islam and Christianity, if wecan hold up something like that.
Khurram Hussain (16:22):
Oh, absolutely.
I think like not knowingChristianity as well as I do,
I'm able to sort of get awaywith making general statements
like that, right? But no, you'reabsolutely right. There is a way
in which the complexity andmultiplicity to all of these
traditions, especiallytraditions that have lasted for
thousands of years, right, andthat have like had multiple
sectarian sort of moments right?
(16:44):
So the possibilities are likenothing in all of these
different traditions, you know,whether it's Christianity, Islam
or Judaism. Inasmuch asChristianity can be thought of
as a unitary tradition, which itis not, right, we can all accept
that it's not, right. Neither isIslam. Inasmuch as we can
imagine it as such, itsanthropology, inasmuch as we can
(17:06):
imagine that as such, hascertain features that are
distinct from Islam, again, thesame way. So inasmuch as we talk
about like these sort of basic,you know, basic sort of
intellectually theologicalideas, like the idea of trinity,
or the idea of the original sin,or the idea of salvation.
Inasmuch as we can talk about itin a sort of, in a generalizable
(17:29):
way, which we shouldn't,inasmuch as we can talk about
that I think there is a...Butyour point is completely well
taken. I think one of the thingsthat happens when you're talking
about these very large, complextraditions, as if they're
unitary, right, as if they areone thing is that then it's easy
to get into this wholediscussion about clash of
civilizations or clash ofcultures, which is like, hey,
(17:50):
you know, Islam is this way andChristianity is this way. Oh,
they're obviously going toclash, right? When actually,
there is, you know, Islam andChristianity are just
abstractions, right, theseabstractions that we're using to
simplify what are on the ground,always very complex situations.
Chip Gruen (18:05):
Yeah, and I wanted to ask you about that, that idea
of the clash of civilizations,and you've alluded to this
already, but I want to sort ofdig at it a little bit more, is
that certainly there are peoplein 21st century United States
who would sign up for the clashof civilizations idea. Yes. This
is, this is the problem. Thatthis is sort of an inevitable
(18:29):
problem that we have to dealwith and that there are lots of
people within 21st century, youknow, Middle Eastern countries
of whichever stripe, whetherwe're talking about Saudi Arabia
or Egypt or Iraq or Syria orwherever, who would agree. That
those two factions, those twosort of opposite groups in two
(18:50):
different places would very muchagree with that model of the
world and the model of thesecultures.
Khurram Hussain (18:56):
And in fact, I would suggest that that's
probably like the majority ofpeople, in both the United
States and in the Middle East.
That they would, you know, sortof support some version of this
idea. I mean, it doesn't alwayshave to be like, the real strong
version is that, hey, thatcivilizations are always going
to clash. There's always goingto be conflict because they're
different. The weaker versionis, hey, civilizations are
(19:17):
different. The multicultural,you know, the weaker is the
multicultural version. Oh, youknow, we're all different, but
we can still kind of get along.
But in either case, the basicpoint is there's some kind of
fundamental, essentialdifference that obtains between
these socalled civilizations,right, and famously, the
(19:37):
political scientist SamHuntington came up with eight, I
think, the West, Islam, China,India, Africa, one, I mean, I
don't know why Africa is onecivilization, then there was the
Latin civilization, I guess,then Japan for some reason had
its own civilization. Butanyways, the point being that
these are just like somehow, youknow, lockbox kind of cultural
(19:58):
entities that have an internallanguage that is coherent, but
when across, you can'tcommunicate coherently. So the
only way to communicate iseither through antagonism,
right, through a will to power,or through a kind of consumption
appreciation. Like, you wouldeat like a foreign food or you
would dress up in foreignclothes. So it's not really
(20:19):
coherent. It's just a kind ofconsumption model of culture at
best. But in reality, I mean,this is, as we've talked about
already, I mean, this is not aparticularly relic account of
the human condition, it hasnever been. What it is is a
simple explanation. That's whatit is. It's a simple explanation
(20:43):
for really complex situations,right? It's a simple explanation
that appeals to people's ownsense of identity at times,
right? And it appeals to theiranxieties and it appeals to
their sense of insecurity or itappeals to their sense of
wanting stability in a worldthat is rapidly changing and
moving and globalization andconsumption and media like just
(21:07):
we're living in a time, I thinkHannah Arendt said, where every
country is the neighbor of everyother country. This was in 1967.
So, I mean, we're even more sonow. So in that kind of
environment where there's somuch jostling and hustle and
commodities flowing back andforth and people and ideas,
right? Sometimes I think humanbeings want some kind of
(21:29):
stability in their sense ofthemselves as well as in the
world around them. And so theylatch onto this idea that you
belong to this kind ofoverarching identity that gives
you a sense of meaning, and italso then allows you to explain
where there is conflict, right,it's much easier to explain the
conflict in the Middle East byappealing to this clash of
(21:51):
civilizations thesis rather thanpaying attention to the complex
political historical roots, youknow, of any particular
conflict. And we can very easilysay, hey, that Israel, Israeli
Jews, are basically Westernersand Palestinians are Muslims. So
they're fighting. They can'thelp but fight. Like what are we
going to do? Like, they're justalways going to fight. Well,
that's not, you know, that's nota very good explanation, right?
(22:14):
If you really want tounderstand, like I think the
historian Mahmood Mamdani, whowrote this book called "Good
Muslims, Bad Muslims," he said,this is what you get when you
don't want to spend the time todo a real political analysis,
right, of our times. When wedon't want to do a real
political analysis, then yougrab onto these abstractions
like culture and civilizations,because then it's easier, you
(22:38):
know. It's easier to explainthat way. It's simpler, you
know, to just be like, Hey, thisis just the way they are. This
is just the way Arabs are goingto be. This is just the way
Americans are, right? So this isalso sort of the environment
within which you get all ofthese really incredibly
complicated conspiracy theories.
So in the Arab world, forexample, I mean, you think
(23:01):
Americans are bad withconspiracy, when you go there, I
mean, every time I go home, Italk to people from my social
class, talking about educatedpeople, just spouting the most
unbelievably ridiculousconspiracy theories about
America and Americans, right?
And how they're just trying toget inside our societies and,
(23:22):
you know, mess with our youthand stuff, it's the same kind of
thing. Like, so, but it's like,I mean, at the end of the day, I
think the problem is that it's,well, one, it's not true that
the civilizations of the kindthat people think about when we
think about the West and stuff,you know, that they don't exist
in the way people think they do.
And even if they did, theycouldn't exist for very long.
Like I mean, with all themovements of people and people
(23:42):
moving up, you know, and allideas, it just seems like a kind
of aspiration that is just, it'sa magical aspiration, right,
which leads nowhere goodanyways.
Chip Gruen (23:59):
So the careful listener will have no problem
understanding why you've beenadded to the Advisory Board for
the Institute for Religious andCultural Understanding, because,
you know, this is a lot of whatwe're interested in, right? The
idea of doing the hard work, ofunderstanding. And while we've
(24:21):
been talking about it, some inpolitical terms, when we're
talking about geopoliticalevents, and some of that has to
do with understanding thecomplexities and nuances of
religious and culturaldifference as well.
Khurram Hussain (24:33):
Oh, absolutely.
Chip Gruen (24:34):
So what do you think...how does this argument
then impact the local? That it'seasy to see it, you know,
impacting policy in the MiddleEast or geopolitical events or
even things like immigration,right like these big policies
(24:55):
that we as individuals may nothave a whole lot to do with,
other than voting. But how does,you know, someone living in the
Lehigh Valley in easternPennsylvania, how does this
larger argument about how weperceive the world, how does
this impact our lives?
Khurram Hussain (25:13):
At the end of the day, I think I go back to
appeal to the classicalantiquity and to some
understanding of what makes ushuman, right? I think in some
sense what makes us human isprecisely the capacity to speak
to other people as human beings,right? Which is to say to speak
to other human beings in amanner that acknowledges and
(25:36):
recognizes their humanity,right? And to recognize our
humanity in our recognition oftheir humanity, right? So this
applies not just at the nationallevel or the international
level, but it applies at thelocal level and at the
individual level. At the end ofthe day, being a humanist, and I
consider myself a humanist, isreally about the basic things
like that. Like when you'reinteracting with another person,
(25:57):
you acknowledge their humanity.
And the acknowledging of thathumanity means that you're
willing to listen to them,right, listen to them explain
their humanity to you. In fact,according to Hannah Arendt, that
is all being human is, it'snothing other than that, right?
It's nothing more than that.
That's all it is. It's all it isthat you confront another human
(26:17):
being and you acknowledge theirhumanity. It seems like a very
abstract thing I'm saying. Butit's actually not. It's a very
basic thing, right? For example,and this will come sort of
counterintuitive at times, I amone of those people who really
has a very hard time with thedialogue industry. The dialogue
(26:39):
industry that has, sort ofreally blossomed, right, since
9/11, which is like, Hey, we canall get in a room and be like,
yeah, you know, it's all good.
We're all peaceful. And I hatethat kind of way of interacting
with people, right? I hate, Ithink that is not acknowledging
people's humanity. When you justsay, Hey, you know, we can all
get along and we can all just belike, listen to each other and
(27:00):
consume each other's, whateverthey're saying, as if there is
no real conflict. As if there isno real engagement or
conversation that needs to behad, right? For Aristotle, the
good life is talking about thegood life in the Agora. You have
to engage with other people inan agonistic way in the Agora,
not in a conflictual way, but inan agonistic way, meaning that
(27:21):
you have to be able to listen toother people saying things or
imagining the good lifedifferently from yourself,
right? And that, to me, is likesort of what we need to have in
local environments, right,whether it is between Muslims,
Christians and Jews, or betweensecular atheists, or whatever,
right? When we're engaging witheach other, acknowledging each
other's humanity and challengingeach other to explain ourselves
(27:42):
to you. Like ourselves, explainourselves to each other, right?
Which is very different thanjust purely kind of, you know,
kind of like, the model that Isort of think about in class, I
mention it a lot, it's likethere are people who say, you
know, Islam is a religion ofviolence, right? And they're
(28:03):
wrong. I mean, Islam iscomplicated. But then there are
people who say, Oh, no, trueIslam is a religion of peace.
And that's a problem, too. No,it's not that either. To call
Muslims, say Muslims are allpeaceful is to dehumanize them
as much as if you call them allviolent. To acknowledge
somebody's humanity is toacknowledge their complexity,
right? And to be willing tolisten to that complexity. And
(28:25):
even if, you know, even if youdon't fully understand it, to at
least, what Gadamer said like,the fusion of horizons. Horizons
have to fuse, they can only fuseif they encounter each other. So
that's what I would say. I mean,I know this is a kind of an
overly intellectual way ofthinking about things, but
that's you know, that's mybusiness. But I do think it
(28:45):
applies to folks out there inthe real world, right? Who are
surrounded by people. Like Ihave no problems, when I first
came to this country, I have noproblems asking people about
them. You know, they tell meabout your background, tell me
where you come from, tell mewhat you think of the good life,
(29:06):
right? What is the good life?
Like, how should we talk aboutthis stuff, right? Like all of
those kinds of questions, Ithink that sometimes we just
don't talk enough about. Wedon't do it in America,
especially, we're like don'ttalk religion, don't talk
politics. Well, what is there totalk about then? I mean like,
you know, do you want to justtalk sports? Like sure, but
that's not, you know, Americanslove talking sports and weather,
(29:27):
which was very strange.
Chip Gruen (29:31):
So, you know one of my issues, and I'll be
interested on, this isn'tsomething we've talked about
before, but I'm very interestedin the conversation that people
want to have, that is me talkingto you. But in the end, it is
(29:53):
not about cultivating empathy orunderstanding of you, but it
somehow is wanting theconversation to impact my
identity or who I am or, and Ithink that sometimes that is a
way that that conversation cango wrong as well.
Khurram Hussain (30:10):
Yeah, that's like a consumption model, right?
Like you're consuming me tobetter identify yourself, right?
And I think you're absolutelyright, Chip. That's exactly what
happens sometimes. It's aboutself affirmation. It doesn't,
it's not about recognition. It'snot about communication, it's
not about conversation. It'sabout affirming yourself in some
ways. Affirming yourself eitheryour identity in a positive way
(30:33):
or you're just saying affirmingyourself and saying, I'm the
kind of person who listens toother people. And that happens,
that happens everywhere. Likethat happens, and like I said, I
mean, in my work also, I pointto this, like this is not some
peculiarly Western malady. Youknow, this is, this happens
everywhere. But in fact, andthis is the thing where I think
the classical folks, to beclassical is very useful, right?
(30:57):
Because they're constantlytelling you, listen, being human
is work. Like it's not, you cango, you can devolve back into
your animal state very quickly,right? Like being human, being
constantly intentional aboutyour humanity, right, you know,
developing good habits like, youknow, centering equilibria, like
that chaos, you know? I thinkthe interesting thing is it's
(31:19):
easy to be a man, it's easy tobe a god or a beast. According
to Aristotle, It's easy be agod. It's easy to be a beast. A
man is hard work. Really, humansare hard. So I think that's to
me is like the one that's very,and what you described exactly
right, it's much easier for usto consume other people, you
know, for our own affirmation.
Much harder to engage with them.
Chip Gruen (31:39):
Well, and our work, when we're not thinking all
abstract thoughts, is teaching,you know, 18 to 22 year olds.
And one of the things at least Ifind very rewarding about that
is that when the students comein and sit in my room or I'm
interacting with them over videocall or what have you, they are
(32:01):
not coming in and sitting downas Christians or as Jews or as
Muslims or as, but they'recoming in and sitting down as
humans who want to learnsomething about people who are
not them.
Khurram Hussain (32:12):
Exactly. And you know what you just said,
Chip, is so simple and soprofound. That's exactly what's
going on there, right? In fact,most of my classes, in the very
first class I tell my students,listen, you're going to forget
99 percent of the facts that Iteach you. That's just a
reality. Either you won't wantto remember them or you just
will forget them. That's notwhat it's about. I mean, what
I'm trying to create, I'm tryingto create an educated human
(32:33):
being. That's what I'm trying todo. I'm trying to create a human
being who's educated, right, whowill have the capacity maybe
five percent more than when theycame in to my class to engage in
other people and to be betterhuman beings. Let's just put it
this way, to be better humanbeings. So I tell them that, but
because precisely what you justsaid, like you, that's what, to
(32:55):
me that's what education is,right? And maybe that's old
fashioned, but like education,is you know, I'm all for like
carpe diem, you know, that kindof stuff. You know, Dead Poets
Society, because I feel like,really, I mean, because
otherwise, if we just reduceeducation to learning the
technical stuff or the utilityof getting a job, then I feel
(33:16):
like we just turn ourselves backinto a squirrel or something.
Like we're just like, you know,running around, collecting
acorn. And I mean, just a morecomplicated version of that,
right? I mean, it's you know,you don't want to like
stupid...I think somebody saidthat if you continue going down
this neoliberal route, you know,this augurs the age of super
civilized monkeys, right? Not ofhuman beings. We're just going
(33:38):
to be having really supercivilized monkeys. So what I try
to do with my students, is tonot, to prevent them from going
down that path. I don't want youto be super civilized monkeys, I
want you to be, nothing againstmonkeys, but, you know, but I
want you to be a better humanbeing. And it's hard work.
That's the thing, it's like it'snot easy. This is something that
(33:58):
we as humanists obviouslyunderstand, right? And there are
a lot of people in the otherdisciplines don't take it the
same way, which is that being ahuman being is not like, it's
not just nat...it doesn't justhappen, right? In fact, we are,
I think I mentioned in thechapter I sent you, we are like
a vacillation on top of theevolutionary ladder. We are not
(34:19):
behaving, you know, to behave asa human being is not to behave
according to these, you know,what we call freedom is nothing
other than that, right, thisvacillation, right? And to exist
in this kind of vacillatingstate on top of evolutionary
kind of paradigm requires work,you know? It's very easy to just
(34:40):
sort of settle back into thekind of mediocrity of animality,
so to say, right? Being human ishard work. It's very hard work.
And 99 percent of the time,people don't even think about
that. They just keep going.
Chip Gruen (34:52):
Well, in which, you know, you see described now as
tribalism or nativism orwhatever that is, right, is the
desire to shrink back fromresponsibility of being a
citizen within a global andmulticultural world.
Khurram Hussain (35:08):
That's absolutely right. And in fact,
going back to connecting it backto Islam, this is actually
precisely the language Muhammaduses to critique the Arabs of
his time, right? This isprecisely what he said. He says,
no, you guys are behaving likeanimals in your tribal,
clannish, and family orientedfeuds, right? That is not being
(35:30):
a human being. So according toMuhammad, that's precisely what
he was sent to pull thepre-Islamic Arabs, called the
Jahiliyyah Age, you know, theAge of Ignorance, was precisely
the age ignorance, was not theage of ignorance, it was the age
of ignorance of being human.
It's being ignorant of the realuniversal dimension of your
(35:51):
humanity, right? And like Isaid, See, what do you call it
civilizations or cultures,whether you call it a pack of
wolves, right, it's a certainkind of shrinking into ostensive
mindless security. Right? Andthat's a problem? Right? Because
that, you know, I mean, I likehuman being I like being
(36:14):
surrounded by them, you know,there are so few round, you
know? It's like somebody I thinkat a conference I was at said,
You know, we have 8 billion homosapiens, but you know, very few
human beings around, you know,we just homosapiens are
multiplying, you know, atastounding pace but like, humans
are getting more and more rare.
Chip Gruen (36:36):
On that note, I will thank you very much for spending
some time with us, and I lookforward to working with you in
the future and for thesupporters and friends of the
Institute to get to know you andyour work. Welcome aboard and
thank you very much.
Khurram Hussain (36:52):
I thank you so much Chip this was wonderful,
thank you.
Chip Gruen (36:57):
This has been ReligionWise a podcast produced
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(37:20):
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to seeing you next time.
Welcome to ReligionWise. The podcast that
features educators, researchersand other professionals
discussing their work and theplace of religion in the public
conversation. I'm your host ChipGruen, Director of the Institute
for Religious and CulturalUnderstanding at Muhlenberg
College.
I'm really excited to sharetoday's conversation with you a
(00:33):
conversation I had with KhurramHussain, who is a professor of
religion studies at LehighUniversity. I'm also very happy
to say that he is an AdvisoryBoard member for the Institute
for Religious and CulturalUnderstanding. Dr. Hussain has a
wide range of academicinterests, including Islam in
both the Middle East and SouthAsia, religion and modernity,
(00:54):
ethics, comparative religion,and humanism. He's the author of
"Islam as Critique - SayyidAhmad Khan and the Challenge of
Modernity" from Bloomsbury in2019. And "The Muslim Speaks"
from Zed books in 2020, you canfind links to both of those
texts, in the show notes. Sowhen we sat down for this
(01:15):
conversation, Khurram and I hada few things on our mind. One
was he shared with me the draftof an article that's forthcoming
in the Oxford Handbook ofHumanism, entitled "Humanism in
the Middle East", where wetalked about that concept and
the presence of humanism outsideof the West, which is something
(01:35):
you'll hear us talk a little bitabout, the other thing that we
had in mind was just generallythe idea of narratives. The
narratives that we say, bothwithin academics and within
public conversation about thingslike religious diversity. One of
these narratives you might befamiliar with is the idea of
that clash of civilizations, theidea that there are just
(01:56):
civilizations that havedifferent values, and when they
rub up against one another,there is no other option other
than conflict. So we sort ofthink about the cultural work
that that kind of narrative isdoing, what are some
alternatives to it, and whythose narratives are successful
both in the contemporary UnitedStates and elsewhere around the
(02:17):
world. Something else that wetalked about, is just the idea
of humanism and how recognizingoneself as human and, and other
people in the world as humanmight be a way of transcending
some of those differences thatcan be divisive in our society.
The more I talk to Khurram, themore I appreciate and understand
(02:38):
his perspective on what it meansto be human and sort of this
conversation that goes way backabout recognizing the humanity
of others. So listen for that aswell. So without further ado, I
hope you enjoy the conversationI had with Dr. Hussain.
So it seems to me a lot of yourwork is interested in the
(03:01):
conversations that we have notonly the conversations we have
with scholars, but theconversations we have in public
places or in media or inpolitical discourses. And part
of that is how we frame history.
And I think in some of the workthat you've shared with me, it
seems like the argument thatyou're making is that the modern
West tends to neglect the backand forth between Middle East as
(03:24):
a region and Muslim cultureswithin the Middle East. And back
to the West, instead of seeingthis as a one way flow. But you
want to help us see this as moreof a back and forth than we
normally do in public discourse.
Is that a fair assessment?
Khurram Hussain (03:45):
I think there's two different, there's two
different issues here, right?
There's one is sort of anormative issue and one is a
issue of description, right? Soas purely a matter of
description, right, like, youknow, how has, how have, has
intellectual and otherepistemological information,
sort of? How has it circulated?
Historically, right,geographically, ethnically,
(04:07):
culturally, whatever. Right? Soone question has to do with the
fact that as a description ofhow information circulates
historically, between differenthuman societies, the Western
understanding is incorrect,right? It's just factually
incorrect, because informationcirculates in much more complex
ways. Right? Historically, it'salways been that way. And it's
(04:29):
certainly true even today.
Right? So it's not so it'sfactually it's inaccurate to say
that the flow, that the relevantflow of information of
intellectual information ismerely one, unidirection from
the West to the East, or theMiddle East or whatever. So
that's, that's sort of a factualpart in which we can still get
into. There's also like anormative part or ethical part,
right, is that even if it werethe case, right, that
(04:52):
information was only flowingfrom the West to the East, or
knowledge was only beingtransmitted from the West to the
East, right? That is anethically suspect situation.
Like even if it were true, whichI don't think, believe it is,
but even imagining that as amodel itself has ethical issues,
right? Because that's not aconversation, right? That's a
monologue directed at somebodyelse who is unable, or who's
(05:15):
incapacitated, or turned mute bysort of this, this overpowering
monologue that's coming at them,right? So sometimes in the
current environment, you do getthat sense, right? That
Westerners are just basicallyliterally talking down to
Muslims in the Middle East,right, they're saying, Hey, let
us teach you how to do thisstuff, you know, Let us teach
(05:37):
you how to be a human being, Letus teach you how to be free, Let
us teach you how to be equal,Let's, let us teach you right,
in this kind of very Pink Floyd,like, you know, manner of like,
another brick in the wall. Andthat, that relentless monologue
is, is not good for anybody,right? Because in being
relentlessly monologic, the Westalso loses out on learning about
(05:59):
aspects of the human conditionthat have not been paid
attention to, for example, maybeas much, you know, in, in the
development of the Westerncivilization, so to say. So that
both of those things areimportant in my work where I
both sort of factually orhistorically problematize the
Western accounts of history, butthen I also make the case that
it's not good for anybody,ethically speaking, if all we
(06:21):
had were monologic, kind of, youknow, unidirectional
conversations.
Chip Gruen (06:28):
And then this gets cast also as a conversation
about humanism as well, right?
That humanism becomes, withinthis narrative, a Western good
to be exported, you know, toother parts of the world. But
you're saying that that, again,is a part of this discourse, and
doesn't necessarily hold up toscrutiny when we look at the
(06:48):
sources?
Khurram Hussain (06:51):
Well, there are several different ways you can
think about humanism, right? Imean, at the end of the day,
there's again, there's ahumanism in the sense of like
centering the human being,centering human beings or
centering the kinds of aspectsof humanity that are universal,
that have universal dimensionslike all of us are human. What
does that statement mean, right?
It is exploring that statementsaying, hey, I am human as
somebody from Pakistan, you arehuman, Chip, as somebody from
(07:12):
the U.S. Right? I am ethnicallywhatever, you are ethnically
whatever. But we are both human,right? And exploring that aspect
of our humanity is a commonthing. That to me is sort of the
core of humanism, right? It isrecognizing both our differences
as human beings and also whatmakes us both human beings,
right? This is a question thathas been dealt with since
(07:33):
classical antiquity, right? Likewhat makes a human being? How is
a human being different from ananimal, say right? And there are
many different answers to it.
But one answer that keepsrepeating over and over again, I
think certainly in the classicaltradition, is that human beings
sort of talk to each other. Wecommunicate. So politics is
about, you know, debating thenature of the good life, right,
(07:55):
with each other to try and cometo some kind of a mechanism for
enacting that in our lives,right? So humanism, inasmuch as
that is what humanism is, isconcerned about, we've had
humanists since there have beenhumans. I mean, we've had people
who were talking about thesequestions, the problems of
(08:15):
living together, about the goodlife, from time immemorial,
right? So the idea that the Westsuddenly discovered it in the
Italian renaissance, you know,and then suddenly was like, Hey,
we just discovered humanism, andnow we can just tell other
people how to be humanists.
It's, again, like a sort of avery, sort of a fantastical,
magical thinking, right? And inparticular, I think if you want
(08:35):
to talk about the Muslim MiddleEast, the West's version of
humanism itself is a reflectionof information that circulated
out of the Middle East. TheMiddle Eastern sort of
engagement with the classics,right? The preservation of the
Greek philosophy and sciencesand logic and all that stuff in
Arabic, which was thentranslated into Latin. So a lot
(08:55):
of what we have available to usfrom classical antiquity was
actually translated from Arabicinto European languages and then
instigated the Italianrenaissance. So that, you know,
so even at the basic level oflike how information was
circulating in the Middle Ages,it's inaccurate to say that the
(09:15):
West somehow... the Westdiscovered humanism, just like
the West discovered the newworld, right? Which is to say it
didn't discover it, it was justa particular iteration of
Western history and selfnarrativization, you know, that
turns it into that.
Chip Gruen (09:34):
Within that discourse I think very often you
see humanism sometimes inreligious communities held up as
being the opposite of theism orreligious sentiment, et cetera.
You know, so that those secularhumanists are the problem. But,
(09:56):
you know, casting itdifferently, sort of more
broadly than that, I think yourargument makes sense. But I'm
interested in the way thathumanism gets described as the
West, in the West, as inopposition, you know, to theism.
How do you think that plays outin your read of, of the people
(10:20):
that you read from the Muslimcommunity?
Khurram Hussain (10:22):
Well I mean, I think that there's a reason why
in the West, right, in theChristian West, obviously right,
that humanism developed as asecular philosophical tradition.
In the sense of being sort of,if not antireligious then
separate from religion. Youknow, the reason for that is the
particular anthropology thatChristianity has, right? The
aspects of the original sin, offall from grace, like the idea
(10:46):
that human beings are notperfectible, that human beings
are somehow wretched, or they'resomehow, you know, filled with
sin and they need grace, likeGod's grace for salvation. So
the human being, because thehuman being is set up in
contradistinction to the divinein this strong sense of the idea
(11:07):
of sin, right, when you want tocenter the human being right,
vis a vis humanism, you have to,by definition, kind of take the
human being out of thisChristian anthropology, right,
like pluck the human being outright? It can no longer be
embedded within that theologicalarchitecture, right? Because
within that theologicalarchitecture the human being is
(11:27):
wretched and the human being isnot a viable or relevant entity
to center. This is a function,this is the way in which even
though secular humanism issecular, it is still embedded in
the West and Europe within aChristian sort of, within a
larger Christian understandingof the world, of the human being
(11:48):
right? In the Muslim Middle Eastthis doesn't obtain. I mean,
there's no equivalent in Islam,in any kind of Islam, there's no
equivalent of the fall. I mean,it's described that human beings
were in Eden and then they cameto Earth, but that was always
the plan, right? There is noquestion there's no real
understanding of this idea oforiginal sin. Human beings are
(12:10):
completely capable withinIslamic theology of fashioning
their own salvation, right,through good works and through
engagement with the world,right? So because of that, in
the Muslim Middle East humanismwas never something that was,
you know considered sort of, thehuman being didn't need to be
taken out or plucked out of theIslamic theological
(12:30):
architecture. The human beingcan still exist within that
theological architecture andstill be a viable, you know,
object for centering ones, youknow, aspirations right? So I
think potentially one of thingsthat's interesting within from
the Islamic tradition is that inChristianity, you couldn't, you
(12:53):
couldn't have Jesus be bothperfect and be a man right? The
reason Jesus is deified isbecause he could not be perfect
being if he's a man. Whereas inIslam, Jesus is obviously
accepted as a prophet, andbasically in Islamic theology
you accept everything aboutJesus without making him God
(13:15):
right? So immaculate conception,check. Raising people from the
dead, check. Second coming,check. So everything is fine.
But we're fine, we're like,yeah, he's perfect. He's a
perfect human being, right, justlike a lot of the prophets
Muslim tradition are perfect inthat sense right? So because of
that, if you look at thehistorical tradition within
(13:36):
Islam and especially the earlyperiod of Islam, the first two
or three centuries, you seeincredible fecund sort of
humanistic endeavors in art andarchitecture, science,
philosophy and everything youassociate usually with the
Italian renaissance right?
Logic, mathematics, you know,and just plucking things from
like different cultures, I meanthe Islamic Middle East being
(13:56):
right in the center of theworld, basically right? So
you're, you know, getting paperfrom China, mathematics from
India, you're getting, you know,like a classical philosophy and
science from the Greeks. And sothere's just kind of a synthetic
sort of cacophony, right, withinthe Muslim Middle East of sort
of humanistic endeavors, whichdoes, you know, which ebbed
later on. But the possibility ofit is always latent, you know,
(14:19):
within sort of the Islamicintellectual tradition, so to
say. Which is not to say, by theway, and I'm certainly not
romanticizing, but it is not tosay that there aren't other
streams that are antiintellectual, anti humanist
streams within the tradition aswell. So it's not that this is
the only way you can imagineIslam. But what I'm saying is
that it is a completelyhistorically, intellectually,
(14:40):
philosophically, theologicallyviable way, right, of imagining
Islam in its humanistic sort ofsense, right, that it's not
something that is incompatiblewith Islam, which is what we
hear a lot, right, from a lot ofWesterners and also a lot of
Muslims, who say, hey, Islam isnot like that. Islam is
theocentric. Islam is nothumanistic. We don't focus on
the human being, we focus onGod. We submit to God, right?
I'm trying to problematize thatas being sort of the only way
(15:02):
you could tell the story ofIslam.
Chip Gruen (15:06):
Yeah, I think at one point you say, in the chapter
that you shared with me, thatthere is no necessary opposition
between theocentrism andanthropocentrism, which actually
made me think about some of theanti intellectual roots in early
Christianity that I study. Youknow, that I believe it because
it's absurd, or what has Athensto do with Jerusalem?
Khurram Hussain (15:29):
Kind of famously, yeah.
Chip Gruen (15:30):
Yeah, some of those great Tertullian quotes that I
think will sometimes, you know,rear their heads in the
intellectual tradition ofChristianity as well. But that
phrase of "no necessaryopposition" is interesting to
me, because one of the otherthings, as you're just talking
about this, I was thinkingabout, you know, what you
describe as the Christiananthropology, that what sprung
(15:55):
to my mind was Quaker theologyand inner light theology, which
would, you know, I don't know ifdeny is the right word, but
certainly accentuate this ideaof the inner light within the
individual. So one might alsoargue that there is no necessary
(16:16):
opposition to some of thestrands that you're describing
in Islam and Christianity, if wecan hold up something like that.
Khurram Hussain (16:22):
Oh, absolutely.
I think like not knowingChristianity as well as I do,
I'm able to sort of get awaywith making general statements
like that, right? But no, you'reabsolutely right. There is a way
in which the complexity andmultiplicity to all of these
traditions, especiallytraditions that have lasted for
thousands of years, right, andthat have like had multiple
sectarian sort of moments right?
(16:44):
So the possibilities are likenothing in all of these
different traditions, you know,whether it's Christianity, Islam
or Judaism. Inasmuch asChristianity can be thought of
as a unitary tradition, which itis not, right, we can all accept
that it's not, right. Neither isIslam. Inasmuch as we can
imagine it as such, itsanthropology, inasmuch as we can
(17:06):
imagine that as such, hascertain features that are
distinct from Islam, again, thesame way. So inasmuch as we talk
about like these sort of basic,you know, basic sort of
intellectually theologicalideas, like the idea of trinity,
or the idea of the original sin,or the idea of salvation.
Inasmuch as we can talk about itin a sort of, in a generalizable
(17:29):
way, which we shouldn't,inasmuch as we can talk about
that I think there is a...Butyour point is completely well
taken. I think one of the thingsthat happens when you're talking
about these very large, complextraditions, as if they're
unitary, right, as if they areone thing is that then it's easy
to get into this wholediscussion about clash of
civilizations or clash ofcultures, which is like, hey,
(17:50):
you know, Islam is this way andChristianity is this way. Oh,
they're obviously going toclash, right? When actually,
there is, you know, Islam andChristianity are just
abstractions, right, theseabstractions that we're using to
simplify what are on the ground,always very complex situations.
Chip Gruen (18:05):
Yeah, and I wanted to ask you about that, that idea
of the clash of civilizations,and you've alluded to this
already, but I want to sort ofdig at it a little bit more, is
that certainly there are peoplein 21st century United States
who would sign up for the clashof civilizations idea. Yes. This
is, this is the problem. Thatthis is sort of an inevitable
(18:29):
problem that we have to dealwith and that there are lots of
people within 21st century, youknow, Middle Eastern countries
of whichever stripe, whetherwe're talking about Saudi Arabia
or Egypt or Iraq or Syria orwherever, who would agree. That
those two factions, those twosort of opposite groups in two
(18:50):
different places would very muchagree with that model of the
world and the model of thesecultures.
Khurram Hussain (18:56):
And in fact, I would suggest that that's
probably like the majority ofpeople, in both the United
States and in the Middle East.
That they would, you know, sortof support some version of this
idea. I mean, it doesn't alwayshave to be like, the real strong
version is that, hey, thatcivilizations are always going
to clash. There's always goingto be conflict because they're
different. The weaker versionis, hey, civilizations are
(19:17):
different. The multicultural,you know, the weaker is the
multicultural version. Oh, youknow, we're all different, but
we can still kind of get along.
But in either case, the basicpoint is there's some kind of
fundamental, essentialdifference that obtains between
these socalled civilizations,right, and famously, the
(19:37):
political scientist SamHuntington came up with eight, I
think, the West, Islam, China,India, Africa, one, I mean, I
don't know why Africa is onecivilization, then there was the
Latin civilization, I guess,then Japan for some reason had
its own civilization. Butanyways, the point being that
these are just like somehow, youknow, lockbox kind of cultural
(19:58):
entities that have an internallanguage that is coherent, but
when across, you can'tcommunicate coherently. So the
only way to communicate iseither through antagonism,
right, through a will to power,or through a kind of consumption
appreciation. Like, you wouldeat like a foreign food or you
would dress up in foreignclothes. So it's not really
(20:19):
coherent. It's just a kind ofconsumption model of culture at
best. But in reality, I mean,this is, as we've talked about
already, I mean, this is not aparticularly relic account of
the human condition, it hasnever been. What it is is a
simple explanation. That's whatit is. It's a simple explanation
(20:43):
for really complex situations,right? It's a simple explanation
that appeals to people's ownsense of identity at times,
right? And it appeals to theiranxieties and it appeals to
their sense of insecurity or itappeals to their sense of
wanting stability in a worldthat is rapidly changing and
moving and globalization andconsumption and media like just
(21:07):
we're living in a time, I thinkHannah Arendt said, where every
country is the neighbor of everyother country. This was in 1967.
So, I mean, we're even more sonow. So in that kind of
environment where there's somuch jostling and hustle and
commodities flowing back andforth and people and ideas,
right? Sometimes I think humanbeings want some kind of
(21:29):
stability in their sense ofthemselves as well as in the
world around them. And so theylatch onto this idea that you
belong to this kind ofoverarching identity that gives
you a sense of meaning, and italso then allows you to explain
where there is conflict, right,it's much easier to explain the
conflict in the Middle East byappealing to this clash of
(21:51):
civilizations thesis rather thanpaying attention to the complex
political historical roots, youknow, of any particular
conflict. And we can very easilysay, hey, that Israel, Israeli
Jews, are basically Westernersand Palestinians are Muslims. So
they're fighting. They can'thelp but fight. Like what are we
going to do? Like, they're justalways going to fight. Well,
that's not, you know, that's nota very good explanation, right?
(22:14):
If you really want tounderstand, like I think the
historian Mahmood Mamdani, whowrote this book called "Good
Muslims, Bad Muslims," he said,this is what you get when you
don't want to spend the time todo a real political analysis,
right, of our times. When wedon't want to do a real
political analysis, then yougrab onto these abstractions
like culture and civilizations,because then it's easier, you
(22:38):
know. It's easier to explainthat way. It's simpler, you
know, to just be like, Hey, thisis just the way they are. This
is just the way Arabs are goingto be. This is just the way
Americans are, right? So this isalso sort of the environment
within which you get all ofthese really incredibly
complicated conspiracy theories.
So in the Arab world, forexample, I mean, you think
(23:01):
Americans are bad withconspiracy, when you go there, I
mean, every time I go home, Italk to people from my social
class, talking about educatedpeople, just spouting the most
unbelievably ridiculousconspiracy theories about
America and Americans, right?
And how they're just trying toget inside our societies and,
(23:22):
you know, mess with our youthand stuff, it's the same kind of
thing. Like, so, but it's like,I mean, at the end of the day, I
think the problem is that it's,well, one, it's not true that
the civilizations of the kindthat people think about when we
think about the West and stuff,you know, that they don't exist
in the way people think they do.
And even if they did, theycouldn't exist for very long.
Like I mean, with all themovements of people and people
(23:42):
moving up, you know, and allideas, it just seems like a kind
of aspiration that is just, it'sa magical aspiration, right,
which leads nowhere goodanyways.
Chip Gruen (23:59):
So the careful listener will have no problem
understanding why you've beenadded to the Advisory Board for
the Institute for Religious andCultural Understanding, because,
you know, this is a lot of whatwe're interested in, right? The
idea of doing the hard work, ofunderstanding. And while we've
(24:21):
been talking about it, some inpolitical terms, when we're
talking about geopoliticalevents, and some of that has to
do with understanding thecomplexities and nuances of
religious and culturaldifference as well.
Khurram Hussain (24:33):
Oh, absolutely.
Chip Gruen (24:34):
So what do you think...how does this argument
then impact the local? That it'seasy to see it, you know,
impacting policy in the MiddleEast or geopolitical events or
even things like immigration,right like these big policies
(24:55):
that we as individuals may nothave a whole lot to do with,
other than voting. But how does,you know, someone living in the
Lehigh Valley in easternPennsylvania, how does this
larger argument about how weperceive the world, how does
this impact our lives?
Khurram Hussain (25:13):
At the end of the day, I think I go back to
appeal to the classicalantiquity and to some
understanding of what makes ushuman, right? I think in some
sense what makes us human isprecisely the capacity to speak
to other people as human beings,right? Which is to say to speak
to other human beings in amanner that acknowledges and
(25:36):
recognizes their humanity,right? And to recognize our
humanity in our recognition oftheir humanity, right? So this
applies not just at the nationallevel or the international
level, but it applies at thelocal level and at the
individual level. At the end ofthe day, being a humanist, and I
consider myself a humanist, isreally about the basic things
like that. Like when you'reinteracting with another person,
(25:57):
you acknowledge their humanity.
And the acknowledging of thathumanity means that you're
willing to listen to them,right, listen to them explain
their humanity to you. In fact,according to Hannah Arendt, that
is all being human is, it'snothing other than that, right?
It's nothing more than that.
That's all it is. It's all it isthat you confront another human
(26:17):
being and you acknowledge theirhumanity. It seems like a very
abstract thing I'm saying. Butit's actually not. It's a very
basic thing, right? For example,and this will come sort of
counterintuitive at times, I amone of those people who really
has a very hard time with thedialogue industry. The dialogue
(26:39):
industry that has, sort ofreally blossomed, right, since
9/11, which is like, Hey, we canall get in a room and be like,
yeah, you know, it's all good.
We're all peaceful. And I hatethat kind of way of interacting
with people, right? I hate, Ithink that is not acknowledging
people's humanity. When you justsay, Hey, you know, we can all
get along and we can all just belike, listen to each other and
(27:00):
consume each other's, whateverthey're saying, as if there is
no real conflict. As if there isno real engagement or
conversation that needs to behad, right? For Aristotle, the
good life is talking about thegood life in the Agora. You have
to engage with other people inan agonistic way in the Agora,
not in a conflictual way, but inan agonistic way, meaning that
(27:21):
you have to be able to listen toother people saying things or
imagining the good lifedifferently from yourself,
right? And that, to me, is likesort of what we need to have in
local environments, right,whether it is between Muslims,
Christians and Jews, or betweensecular atheists, or whatever,
right? When we're engaging witheach other, acknowledging each
other's humanity and challengingeach other to explain ourselves
(27:42):
to you. Like ourselves, explainourselves to each other, right?
Which is very different thanjust purely kind of, you know,
kind of like, the model that Isort of think about in class, I
mention it a lot, it's likethere are people who say, you
know, Islam is a religion ofviolence, right? And they're
(28:03):
wrong. I mean, Islam iscomplicated. But then there are
people who say, Oh, no, trueIslam is a religion of peace.
And that's a problem, too. No,it's not that either. To call
Muslims, say Muslims are allpeaceful is to dehumanize them
as much as if you call them allviolent. To acknowledge
somebody's humanity is toacknowledge their complexity,
right? And to be willing tolisten to that complexity. And
(28:25):
even if, you know, even if youdon't fully understand it, to at
least, what Gadamer said like,the fusion of horizons. Horizons
have to fuse, they can only fuseif they encounter each other. So
that's what I would say. I mean,I know this is a kind of an
overly intellectual way ofthinking about things, but
that's you know, that's mybusiness. But I do think it
(28:45):
applies to folks out there inthe real world, right? Who are
surrounded by people. Like Ihave no problems, when I first
came to this country, I have noproblems asking people about
them. You know, they tell meabout your background, tell me
where you come from, tell mewhat you think of the good life,
(29:06):
right? What is the good life?
Like, how should we talk aboutthis stuff, right? Like all of
those kinds of questions, Ithink that sometimes we just
don't talk enough about. Wedon't do it in America,
especially, we're like don'ttalk religion, don't talk
politics. Well, what is there totalk about then? I mean like,
you know, do you want to justtalk sports? Like sure, but
that's not, you know, Americanslove talking sports and weather,
(29:27):
which was very strange.
Chip Gruen (29:31):
So, you know one of my issues, and I'll be
interested on, this isn'tsomething we've talked about
before, but I'm very interestedin the conversation that people
want to have, that is me talkingto you. But in the end, it is
(29:53):
not about cultivating empathy orunderstanding of you, but it
somehow is wanting theconversation to impact my
identity or who I am or, and Ithink that sometimes that is a
way that that conversation cango wrong as well.
Khurram Hussain (30:10):
Yeah, that's like a consumption model, right?
Like you're consuming me tobetter identify yourself, right?
And I think you're absolutelyright, Chip. That's exactly what
happens sometimes. It's aboutself affirmation. It doesn't,
it's not about recognition. It'snot about communication, it's
not about conversation. It'sabout affirming yourself in some
ways. Affirming yourself eitheryour identity in a positive way
(30:33):
or you're just saying affirmingyourself and saying, I'm the
kind of person who listens toother people. And that happens,
that happens everywhere. Likethat happens, and like I said, I
mean, in my work also, I pointto this, like this is not some
peculiarly Western malady. Youknow, this is, this happens
everywhere. But in fact, andthis is the thing where I think
the classical folks, to beclassical is very useful, right?
(30:57):
Because they're constantlytelling you, listen, being human
is work. Like it's not, you cango, you can devolve back into
your animal state very quickly,right? Like being human, being
constantly intentional aboutyour humanity, right, you know,
developing good habits like, youknow, centering equilibria, like
that chaos, you know? I thinkthe interesting thing is it's
(31:19):
easy to be a man, it's easy tobe a god or a beast. According
to Aristotle, It's easy be agod. It's easy to be a beast. A
man is hard work. Really, humansare hard. So I think that's to
me is like the one that's very,and what you described exactly
right, it's much easier for usto consume other people, you
know, for our own affirmation.
Much harder to engage with them.
Chip Gruen (31:39):
Well, and our work, when we're not thinking all
abstract thoughts, is teaching,you know, 18 to 22 year olds.
And one of the things at least Ifind very rewarding about that
is that when the students comein and sit in my room or I'm
interacting with them over videocall or what have you, they are
(32:01):
not coming in and sitting downas Christians or as Jews or as
Muslims or as, but they'recoming in and sitting down as
humans who want to learnsomething about people who are
not them.
Khurram Hussain (32:12):
Exactly. And you know what you just said,
Chip, is so simple and soprofound. That's exactly what's
going on there, right? In fact,most of my classes, in the very
first class I tell my students,listen, you're going to forget
99 percent of the facts that Iteach you. That's just a
reality. Either you won't wantto remember them or you just
will forget them. That's notwhat it's about. I mean, what
I'm trying to create, I'm tryingto create an educated human
(32:33):
being. That's what I'm trying todo. I'm trying to create a human
being who's educated, right, whowill have the capacity maybe
five percent more than when theycame in to my class to engage in
other people and to be betterhuman beings. Let's just put it
this way, to be better humanbeings. So I tell them that, but
because precisely what you justsaid, like you, that's what, to
(32:55):
me that's what education is,right? And maybe that's old
fashioned, but like education,is you know, I'm all for like
carpe diem, you know, that kindof stuff. You know, Dead Poets
Society, because I feel like,really, I mean, because
otherwise, if we just reduceeducation to learning the
technical stuff or the utilityof getting a job, then I feel
(33:16):
like we just turn ourselves backinto a squirrel or something.
Like we're just like, you know,running around, collecting
acorn. And I mean, just a morecomplicated version of that,
right? I mean, it's you know,you don't want to like
stupid...I think somebody saidthat if you continue going down
this neoliberal route, you know,this augurs the age of super
civilized monkeys, right? Not ofhuman beings. We're just going
(33:38):
to be having really supercivilized monkeys. So what I try
to do with my students, is tonot, to prevent them from going
down that path. I don't want youto be super civilized monkeys, I
want you to be, nothing againstmonkeys, but, you know, but I
want you to be a better humanbeing. And it's hard work.
That's the thing, it's like it'snot easy. This is something that
(33:58):
we as humanists obviouslyunderstand, right? And there are
a lot of people in the otherdisciplines don't take it the
same way, which is that being ahuman being is not like, it's
not just nat...it doesn't justhappen, right? In fact, we are,
I think I mentioned in thechapter I sent you, we are like
a vacillation on top of theevolutionary ladder. We are not
(34:19):
behaving, you know, to behave asa human being is not to behave
according to these, you know,what we call freedom is nothing
other than that, right, thisvacillation, right? And to exist
in this kind of vacillatingstate on top of evolutionary
kind of paradigm requires work,you know? It's very easy to just
(34:40):
sort of settle back into thekind of mediocrity of animality,
so to say, right? Being human ishard work. It's very hard work.
And 99 percent of the time,people don't even think about
that. They just keep going.
Chip Gruen (34:52):
Well, in which, you know, you see described now as
tribalism or nativism orwhatever that is, right, is the
desire to shrink back fromresponsibility of being a
citizen within a global andmulticultural world.
Khurram Hussain (35:08):
That's absolutely right. And in fact,
going back to connecting it backto Islam, this is actually
precisely the language Muhammaduses to critique the Arabs of
his time, right? This isprecisely what he said. He says,
no, you guys are behaving likeanimals in your tribal,
clannish, and family orientedfeuds, right? That is not being
(35:30):
a human being. So according toMuhammad, that's precisely what
he was sent to pull thepre-Islamic Arabs, called the
Jahiliyyah Age, you know, theAge of Ignorance, was precisely
the age ignorance, was not theage of ignorance, it was the age
of ignorance of being human.
It's being ignorant of the realuniversal dimension of your
(35:51):
humanity, right? And like Isaid, See, what do you call it
civilizations or cultures,whether you call it a pack of
wolves, right, it's a certainkind of shrinking into ostensive
mindless security. Right? Andthat's a problem? Right? Because
that, you know, I mean, I likehuman being I like being
(36:14):
surrounded by them, you know,there are so few round, you
know? It's like somebody I thinkat a conference I was at said,
You know, we have 8 billion homosapiens, but you know, very few
human beings around, you know,we just homosapiens are
multiplying, you know, atastounding pace but like, humans
are getting more and more rare.
Chip Gruen (36:36):
On that note, I will thank you very much for spending
some time with us, and I lookforward to working with you in
the future and for thesupporters and friends of the
Institute to get to know you andyour work. Welcome aboard and
thank you very much.
Khurram Hussain (36:52):
I thank you so much Chip this was wonderful,
thank you.
Chip Gruen (36:57):
This has been ReligionWise a podcast produced
by the Institute for Religiousand Cultural Understanding of
Muhlenberg College. For moreinformation and additional
programming, please visit ourwebsite at
religionandculture.com. There,you'll find our contact
information, links to otherprogramming and have the
opportunity to support the workof the Institute. ReligionWise
(37:20):
is produced by the staff of theInstitute for Religious and
Cultural Understanding ofMuhlenberg College, including
Christine Flicker and CarrieDuncan. Please subscribe to
ReligionWise wherever you getyour podcasts. We look forward
to seeing you next time.
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