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Culture & Society

Globalization and the Politics of Religious Knowledge: Pluralizing Authority

in the Muslim World
Peter Mandaville
Theory Culture Society 2007 24: 101
DOI: 10.1177/0263276407074998

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Globalization and the Politics of

Religious Knowledge
Pluralizing Authority in the Muslim World

Peter Mandaville

H
AS GLOBALIZATION produced a meaningful shift in the location
and nature of knowledge production in the Muslim world?1 Conven-
tional accounts of traditional structures and figures of Islamic
religious authority have tended to focus on the interaction between text,
discursive method and personified knowledge, with constructions of the
authoritative in Islam seen as combining these ingredients to varying
degrees and in diverse configurations. In the realm of textuality, for
example, one might refer primarily to the two most common scriptural
reference points in the Islamic tradition: the Qur’an (the literal word of
God as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad) and the Sunnah (the collected
reports of Muhammad’s actions and pronouncements). For discursive
method, we might think in terms of the norms of juridical theory and
praxis as developed over 13 centuries within the science of jurisprudence,
or fiqh. In this connection it is crucial also to take into consideration the
fact that formal jurisprudence of this sort has been largely confined to a
particular class of invested interpreters, and to concentrate exclusively on
fiqh would be to ignore important modalities of knowledge seeking that
involve the exercise of autonomous reason or inward emotive practices.
When referring to personified knowledge, we are indicating the notion of
authority as vested within various categories of ‘legitimate’ producers and
transmitters of knowledge such as religious scholars (ulama) or the charis-
matic leaders of mystical brotherhoods (Sufi sheikhs). Furthermore, with
the by now well known insight that Islam lacks formal clerical structures
(at least in its Sunni manifestation) and institutions of ‘church’,2 it is clear
that the history of authoritative knowledge production in Islam has been

■ Theory, Culture & Society 2007 (SAGE, London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi),
Vol. 24(2): 101–115
DOI: 10.1177/0263276407074998

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102 Theory, Culture & Society 24(2)

one of competition between diverse social, epistemological and political

orders.
Over the last 20 years, however, numerous observers have described
a process of fragmentation and breakdown, dating variously from the mid
19th to early 20th centuries, that is seen as gradually eroding the traditional
system of knowledge production and dissemination in the Muslim world
(Eickelman, 1992). This revolution in religious authority – a product of
rising literacy rates and mass education in the Muslim world, the emergence
of new technologies and modes of communication, and a shift from
‘traditional’ to ‘modern’ attitudes – involves a significant transformation in
the constitution of the aforementioned categories (Robinson, 1993). For
example, we might point today to the popularity of personal pious narratives
(new forms of textuality) that weave together elements of philosophy, modern
populism and Qur’anic reference (a hybrid form of discursive method) as
articulated by writers from the modern professional classes trained in engi-
neering sciences with no formal religious qualifications (new forms of
personification). Invoking some of the technological dimensions of globaliz-
ation, a number of authors have recently speculated about the extent to
which new forms of information and communication technology (e.g. the
Internet) might in the 21st century further radicalize and amplify the effects
of these transformations (Eickelman and Anderson, 2003; Mandaville,
2001).
The tacit normative undercurrent within this line of analysis has often
been the idea that such changes represent a positive and progressive
‘democratization’ of knowledge production and reception in Islam, with
Muslims increasingly reshaping religion with their own hands (rather than
relying on ‘crusty’ clerics) and willing to offer these new formulations to
critical consumers within the market of the public sphere. Yet it should be
obvious that the mere fact alone of more people being able to serve up a
wider range of ideas about religion – that is, a widening of the public sphere
– does not in itself produce more pluralistic (in the sense of being more
tolerant or open-ended) knowledge. Rather, we would perhaps do better to
regard this shift not as one that significantly changed the trajectory of
religious discourse in the Muslim world, but as the intensification of a
tendency towards decentralized authority that has always been present in
Islam. Our starting point, then, is the idea that in the realm of knowledge
production in the Muslim world, globalization does not in and of itself
instantiate a pluralization of Islamic authority insofar as there has never
existed a situated, singular source of authentic Muslim knowledge. Rather,
globalization can be seen to represent a further shift in the extent and inten-
sity of debate about the meaning and nature of the authoritative in Islam.
What, though, is the nature of this shift and how has it affected the
embodied construction and contestation of authority in Muslim societies? It
is perhaps useful to begin by making some clarifications as to what exactly
is implied by the notion of pluralization. The term as it is employed here
refers to a situation in which structures of authority become increasingly

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Mandaville – Globalization and the Politics of Religious Knowledge 103

diffuse, disparate, polyvalent and translocalized, in Arjun Appadurai’s

(1996) sense of the term. This approach is not primarily about saying that
authority has been wholly disembedded from the local and resituated within
transnational spaces or according to global norms – although that may some-
times be part of what is going on. It is therefore not simply about bypass-
ing local authorities who, indeed, are still crucially implicated in dislocating
the authoritative. Also important to note is that pluralization, in the present
context, does not necessarily refer to a notion of greater comfort on the part
of Muslims with multiple and increasingly open interpretations of religion
– though, as will be shown, this may emerge as a by-product in certain
settings. The argument advanced here suggests that the three components
mentioned above (textuality, discursive method and personification) remain
central to constructions of religious authority in contemporary Islam. Where
we can identify distinctive shifts, however, is in looking at what the incep-
tion of ‘globality’ in the sense of consciousness of the world as a social space
(Robertson, 1992) in which individual identities are intersubjectively
constituted, has meant for how individual Muslims understand the meaning
and location of authoritative Islam in the world.
The pluralizations of Islamic authority addressed in this article occur
along three primary axes. It addresses, in turn, the functional pluralization
of Islamic authority (changes in terms of how individual Muslims under-
stand the social purpose and ends of knowledge seeking); the spatial plural-
ization of Islamic authority (changes in terms of how far away and in what
kinds of spaces one seeks authority or authorization); and the increasingly
pluralistic mediatization of Islamic authority (changes in terms of the textual
forms and personified figures through which Muslims seek authority). The
pluralizations dealt with here may indeed also involve changes, as speci-
fied above, in textual bases, discursive forms and personifications of author-
ity. Identifying these reconfigurations in the modalities of Islamic authority,
however, is insufficient for understanding the underlying forces that shape
and animate constructions and contestations of authority in contemporary
Muslim society. An emphasis on processes of pluralization – articulated in
terms of their bearing on the lived experience of Islam – provides more
thorough insight into the questions of why searches for authority are
enjoined and why they matter in the Muslim world today. For this reason,
the present study will endeavor to explain the conceptual dimensions of
pluralized authority with continual reference to Muslim lives and practices.
Global Authority and Pluralized Knowledge3
We would do well to begin, however, with some further elaboration as to just
what is at stake in speaking of the pluralization of authority in the Muslim
world. The multiple forms of pluralization identified above need to be further
unpacked and situated relative to the three dimensions of traditional knowl-
edge production (textuality, discursive mode, personification). As will
become apparent, the position advanced here is one that confirms the
endurance of traditional modalities of authoritative discourse in Islam, but

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104 Theory, Culture & Society 24(2)

which suggests that globalization processes can be seen to disrupt and

destabilize the traditional system of knowledge production in terms of both
the ontological status and the spatial location of authority. Rephrased in
other terms: it is not enough to simply talk about new texts being used in
new ways by new people. We also need insight into how large-scale trans-
formative processes affect understandings of why ‘authority’ matters, how it
spreads itself across space and time in the global age, and the politics of
knowledge that follows from this pluralization. As has been observed by
Anderson (1996) among others, the hype of new media and the celebration
of new classes of knowledge users/consumers can easily produce exagger-
ated and unwarranted celebrations of innovation. While it is certainly the
case that new kinds of texts are being used in new ways by a new corpus of
knowledge producers, such insight provides only a partial account of why
and how the pluralization of authority in the Muslim world becomes relevant
for understanding the dynamics of contemporary knowledge production.
Functional Pluralization
This phenomenon refers to the widespread contestation that exists in the
Muslim world today as to the nature of the relationship between religious
knowledge and social agency. To what end does Muslim subjectivity seek
knowledge? What is the ontological status and social function of religious
knowledge? What can and should a Muslim do with knowledge (’ilm)? The
variety of responses to these questions from within and across numerous
doctrinal orientations in the Muslim world constitutes our first terrain of
pluralization. It is important to note that functional pluralization, as it is
implicated here, refers to something more than just new ways of working
with – and new ‘uses’ for – textually derived knowledge (e.g. discursive
method). Rather, the notion of functional pluralization refers to larger-scale
efforts by various Muslims to redefine the very purpose and normative bases
of religion. The shift in orientation that defines this particular pluralization
can be characterized as a disruption of the immanent relationship between
normative particularism and social behavior. That is, a move away from the
idea that religion is the primary source from which one gains knowledge
about what to do in the world when faced with a given set of circumstances.
To be sure, the idea that religion does and should play this role is still
alive and well in the Muslim world and holds sway in a wide range of societal
locations (see the examples of salafi groups in Europe below). The reflex-
ive dimensions of globalization (Beck et al., 1994), however, have given rise
to a number of contesting perspectives on the function of religious knowl-
edge in Islam. Greater awareness of and contact with diverse modes of
creating, engaging and deploying knowledge make for a wider range of
understandings as to the meaning and purpose of Islamic knowledge
(Starrett, 1998). The critical objectification of religious knowledge, which is
an important dimension of this enhanced reflexivity, allows Islamic knowl-
edge to be understood as one particular form of authoritative discourse
among many. Rather than serving as a ‘trump card’ that supersedes all other

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Mandaville – Globalization and the Politics of Religious Knowledge 105

forms of authoritative discourse (e.g. appeal to universal human rights),

Islamic knowledge becomes resettled as one component of a pluralistic
system of heterogeneous authorities which coexist comfortable and often
quite profitably. Insofar as the lived experience of globalization represents
the fragmentation of cohesive identities (Hall and Du Gay, 1996), the func-
tional differentiation and pluralization of authoritative knowledge provides
a way to suture disjunct and multiple selves into an epistemic ‘toolkit’
eminently suited for global life – ‘resources’, in the words of James Clifford
(1997: 277), ‘for a fraught coexistence’.
By way of a concrete example of functional pluralization in the Muslim
world, we might look to the social movement founded by Turkish ‘entrepre-
neur-reformer’ Fethullah Gülen. The network of schools affiliated with the
movement represents an interesting example of religious knowledge and
authority being articulated and deployed in terms of an ‘Islamic ethic of
education’ (Agai, 2002). Curricula in the Gülen schools, which now number
in the hundreds and are concentrated in south-eastern Europe, the Caucuses
and Central Asia, are secular in nature. The emphasis is primarily on
‘modern’ subjects such as science, liberal studies and foreign languages.
Religious education per se is not taught in these schools. The teachers at
the Gülen schools, are, however, almost always members of the Gülen
movement, which is inspired by a modernist – and one would almost be
tempted to say ‘protestant’ – reading of Sufi-inspired reformist thought and
social activism from the turn of the 20th century. While the movement does
have its more conservative and literalist/‘immanentist’ adherents (for whom
the veiling of women, for example, is seen as a religio-social obligation), the
emphasis is primarily on personal piety and spiritual self-purification.
For Gülen members, the proper Islamic society is an aggregate entity
composed of pious individuals for whom Islam constitutes a moral foun-
dation. The idea then is not that one needs to derive ‘Islamic’ institutions
from the Qur’an, Sunnah and religious law (shariah) in order to make space
for religion in public life. Rather, a state composed of administrators and
officials who are themselves good Muslims will itself be an Islamic state –
regardless of what formal system of government is in place. The emphasis,
then, is placed on what are understood to be the broad values of Islam
(education, public service, accountability), rather than a direct and literal-
ist derivation of social norms from the standard corpus of authoritative texts.
Islam, in this model, inspires rather than dictates the good life and comes
to be something closer to the tradition of ‘civil religion’ (Bellah, 1967). In
this sense, Islam becomes a constituent element of the body politic and the
formation of national identity rather than an external structural determinant.
It is perhaps not surprising that a number of observers have seen in the
Gülen project a form of public or politicized Islam that is wholly compati-
ble with modern secular politics (Fuller, 2003). It possible to think about
the political role for Islam as envisaged by the currently ruling AK Party in
Turkey and many of Indonesia’s ‘Islamic’ political parties in much the same
way – that is, as advocates of something more like ‘Muslim democracy’

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106 Theory, Culture & Society 24(2)

(Nasr, 2005) rather than the standard category of Islamism that assumes the
need to restructure legal codes and political institutions according to
Qur’anic precepts. Islam is deployed instead as a discourse of anti-
corruption and as a moral force that describes the principles of good govern-
ance and the proper comport of public servants even under a wholly secular
governmental system.
Another recent and relevant example here would be the diverse range
of movements and networks dedicated to the formulation and discussion of
‘Progressive Islam’ that have emerged in recent years. A polysemic notion
that has found purchase in a variety of socially engaged projects, the notion
of progressive Islam represents a further renegotiation of the relationship
between and the various roles to be played by religion, the individual and
public life. Its multiple meanings – each of which derives, as we will see,
from the specific sociopolitical contexts that provide its connotations – merit
further unpacking. For figures such as Farid Esack (1997) in South Africa,
the emphasis in Islam on social justice provides the basis for a liberation
theology that cares more about issues of development and socio-economic
equity than about strict adherence to shariah norms of personal status and
social propriety. For a group of mostly European and North American-based
scholars (Safi, 2003), progressive Islam opens up an intellectual space for
critical inquiry about how interactions of culture, power and history have
created forms of hegemonic knowledge in Islam whose authority tends to be
viewed as ‘natural’ and unquestionable. For like-minded scholars and
activists in South-East Asia the progressive Islam, or ‘Liberal Islam’
movement is about exposing local Muslims to ideas being formulated else-
where in the ummah that can be adapted and used towards democratization
and liberalization efforts closer to home (and in this sense also implicating
elements of the spatial pluralization detailed below). Among young Muslim
communities in North America, the notion of progressive Islam becomes a
space of experimentation in which fundamental questions about faith and
normativity can be examined in the light of local popular culture, the
complexities of diasporic life and alternative lifestyles (Yacoob, 2004).4 It
is worth pointing out that what constitutes the ‘progress’ of progressive Islam
– an inherently normative concept – varies quite considerably from context
to context. Common to all of these idioms of progressive Islam is a desire
to hold on to Islam as a powerful and valuable resource, but a rejection of
the idea that social normativity in Islam is either totalizing or fixed in its
meaning.
We can also, however, identify situations in which the functional
pluralization of Islamic authority leads to something very different from the
widening of hermeneutic horizons, tending instead towards a closing down
of Islam’s discursive parameters. Within a narrow segment of the British
Muslim community, for example, and particularly among second- and third-
generation immigrant families, a conservative and politically extreme rendi-
tion of Islam sometimes comes to constitute the adhesive through which
diverse components of identity are ordered into some form of cohesive

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Mandaville – Globalization and the Politics of Religious Knowledge 107

existence. This is an Islam that bases its claims to authority on its ability
to provide semi-diasporic identities-in-limbo with some sense of order and
a place in the world through a rigorous, yet also simplified and accessible,
matrix of normative guidelines.
Groups such as al-Muhajiroun, which claim a salafi doctrinal orien-
tation that seeks to emulate the exact methods and model of the Prophet’s
early companions (the salaf as-salih, hence salafi), teach Islam as a set of
moral categories whose disposition determines the boundaries of allowable
behavior (Mandaville, 2005). When confronted with a given situation, this
Islam provides a set of analytical tools that permit the adherent to diagnose
the prevailing circumstances and behave accordingly, secure in the knowl-
edge that their actions fit the requirements of an authoritative model based
on the example of the earliest companions of the Prophet Muhammad. It is
no coincidence, however, that those attracted to the movement are often
highly educated twenty-somethings with backgrounds in science, tech-
nology and engineering. They are accustomed to problem-solving method-
ologies that permit dilemmas and predicaments to be resolved by working
through a preset sequence of ordered steps with an unambiguous answer or
solution always to be found on the other side. Interpretation, subjective
knowledge and critique of the foundations are viewed as wholly unnecess-
ary since the paradigm itself (‘modern science/salafi Islam’) has already
been internalized. In this model, Islam exists first and foremost to provide
certainty and order in a turbulent world where individual identities – and
particularly those with multiple affiliations viewed as (potentially) mutually
exclusive – are apt to get lost in the maelstrom of competing cultural and
political discourses vying for allegiance and consumption.
None of these cases of the functional pluralization of authority in
general, we should note, represents the straightforward social differentia-
tion or functional segmentation of knowledge implied by notions of secular-
ism or desacralization (Asad, 2003). This is not an example of religion being
confined exclusively to the private or spiritual realm. Rather, Islam here
cuts across and infuses a number of disparate orientations towards knowl-
edge without necessarily becoming the organizing principle of authoritative
discourse. The functional pluralization of Islamic authority, then, lies in the
pluralization of coexisting discourses that authorize or normatively orient
social behavior.
Spatial and Media Pluralization
Where the previous category of pluralization might be seen as most closely
related to the question of how texts are used (discursive method), the spatial
pluralization of authority has more to do with textuality and personification.
It is not, however, exclusively about expanding the range of authoritative
texts and authorized voices. The idea here is that we are also facing today
an increased ‘translocalization’ of authority in Arjun Appadurai’s (1996)
sense of the term. That is, the idea that the production of knowledge and
authoritative discourse ‘here’ is often constructed in relation to – or at least

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108 Theory, Culture & Society 24(2)

strongly inflected by – themes, sources and debates located at considerable

geographic distance (‘there’). New media and communicative technologies
combined with vastly enlarged infrastructures of informational distribution
make it possible for knowledges (and contestations of knowledge) to mingle
with a historically unprecedented intensity. This phenomenon is crucially
implicated in the aforementioned notion of reflexivity, in which the ‘face to
face’ interaction of knowledge systems reveals their particular natures and
works to undermine – or at least strongly contest – claims to universality.
What this means in the context of Islamic authority is far more than
just a widening of the personified dimensions of the public sphere. Beyond
the emergence of ‘new Islamist intellectuals’ (Roy, 1994) and ‘lay’ Muslims
without formal religious education as authorized articulators of Islam, we
also see a concomitant widening in the spatial dimensions of the public
sphere. Religious leaders, imams and muftis in local contexts and their
constituencies all have increased awareness of, and, indeed, actively engage
with discourses and personalities in other countries – often today via satel-
lite broadcasts and Internet discussion forums. Through increased travel
and transnational educational programs, local idioms of Islam find them-
selves juxtaposed with, and at times challenged by, material from the wider
ummah (Muslim world community). This is not always about new ideas and
new forms of knowledge, but often about the migration of traditional modes
(e.g. orthodox juridical discourse) into new spaces. In some cases, we have
seen the emergence of truly global Islamic authorities in the form of figure-
head personalities – such as Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi – whose voice is
ubiquitous, although almost always encountered in mediated form (e.g.
translated texts, websites, CD speeches). Such figures, while they might not
always serve as the most direct source of authority in a given site, often play
a significant role in framing issues and animating the agendas engaged by
local leaderships. There is a sense in which figures such as Qaradawi –
savvy to the reach and influence of global mass media, particularly among
the younger generation – might also be understood in part as a reaction to
the alienating and heterogenizing effects of globalization. Through the
construction of something like a global infrastructure for the dissemination
of knowledge (regional research centers, multilingual portal websites,
networks of local ‘surrogate’ imams), Qaradawi might be seen as seeking to
‘recenter’ Islamic knowledge in Jonathan Berkey’s (2003) sense of the term.
Berkey refers to attempts by religious scholars during the medieval period
to establish and patrol the parameters of a wide swath of centrist and
avowedly orthodox terrain in the face of intense theological factionalism and
religious practices widely divergent from textual norms. Likewise, perhaps,
Qaradawi’s efforts today. In his case the impulse would be to reassert an
idiom of orthodoxy and tradition, but one that is fine-tuned to the needs of
young Muslims in a variety of settings. As Muhammad Qasim Zaman argues:

Qaradawi’s conception of what this requires centers on the use of new media
to reach new, global audiences, and . . . his . . . discussion of the challenges

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Mandaville – Globalization and the Politics of Religious Knowledge 109

of globalization suggests [that] it involves an engagement with contemporary

problems and an ability to articulate an ‘Islamic’ response to them in some-
thing of a conversation with other Arab and Western scholars who have written
on these issues. (Zaman, 2005: 100)

The pluralizing impulse here is hence best understood not necessarily in

terms of a normative desire to widen the boundaries of hermeneutic practice,
but rather as a pragmatic response to and a recognition of the need to appeal
to diverse audience and to engage with other authority figures in an ever
widening public sphere of religious discourse. Given that most of the other
examples of pluralized Islamic knowledge offered in this article focus on
settings such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Europe and the
United States – none of them traditionally part of the Islamic ‘heartland’ –
it might also be interesting to speculate about the extent to which the plural-
ization of Islamic knowledge today has also entailed a reconfiguration of the
geography of authority in the Muslim world. Might the activites of Yusuf
al-Qaradawi also be read as an attempt to recenter not only orthodox method,
but also the Arab Middle East?
Despite the continued importance of traditional ulama figures such as
Qaradawi, we can also say that there is a sense in which the spatial plural-
ization of authority has resulted in a shift away from the traditional model
of charismatic, personified religious leadership. Transnational advocacy
networks, organized around themes, issues and shared predicaments rather
than local authority figures, provide a mechanism for ‘outsourcing’ concerns
and inquiries beyond the confines of local knowledge and/or norms. It is in
this aspect of spatial pluralization that some observers see the greatest
critical capacity. Authors such as Fatema Mernissi (2004) emphasize the
role played by satellite television and the Internet in connecting the
gendered space of the harem to distant civil societies, providing spaces
where women are able to operate as market stakeholders and autonomous
consumers. We might also point to the role played by global civil society
movements such as Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) – an
umbrella organization that combines and leverages the capacities and
knowledges of individual national-level women’s rights groups in over 70
countries.5 WLUML’s advocacy network has been closely involved in
promoting awareness of shariah cases in which women are, for example,
charged with violating aspects of family and personal status law, but with
very flimsy or sometimes none of the required evidence presented against
her in court. WLUML local affiliates also run resource centers that permit
women to access informed advice and counsel as to their rights under both
Islamic law and the various international human rights protocols to which
their countries are party. In Malaysia, the NGO Sisters in Islam seeks to
raise awareness among well-educated women of the ideas and writings of
women scholars in other countries – such as the well known American
Muslim scholar Amina Wadud – whose work focuses on gender norms and
women’s empowerment in Islam.

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110 Theory, Culture & Society 24(2)

This theme of cross-fertilization between local experiences and intel-

lectual resources developed in other global settings can also be explored
through the spatial pluralization of Islamic authority to be found within
many of the state institutions of higher Islamic education in Indonesia.
Formerly a set of distributed teaching and research institutes (the IAIN
system), a National Islamic University (NIU) in Jakarta has recently been
established. The pluralistic ethos within Indonesian Islam is largely repli-
cated within the traditions of inquiry and study that characterize the work
of faculty and graduate students within the various research centers of
IAIN/NIU. With a high percentage of graduates from universities in Europe,
North America and the Middle East, the faculty in these institutions tend
to be familiar with a diverse range of trends in both Islamic thought and
Western social theory. Some of the doctoral projects and research work in
support of progressive non-governmental organizations are illustrative. One
student, for example, is writing about Critical Theory and Islam, exploring
parallels between Habermasian discourse ethics and traditions of norma-
tive inquiry in various phases of Islamic history. A research center devoted
to the applied uses of social science in Muslim societies is undertaking a
study of the role played by traditional Islamic boarding schools (pesantren)
as civil society actors and bridge-builders between rural communities and
urban centers. The IAIN/NIU system, by combining within the same insti-
tution departments of traditional Islamic science (teaching e.g. the Qur’an,
Hadith, fiqh), and departments based around secular humanities and social
sciences in the Western tradition of critical inquiry, represents a new form
of hybrid space for the formulation of religious knowledge. Its pluralizing
impulse lies in the embedding of authoritative discourse in an institutional
setting not so much multi-disciplinary as multi-epistemic.
As we have seen from the above examples, it is important not to equate
the spatial pluralization of authority with resistance to traditional authority
per se. While the spatial boundaries of authoritative discourse may, to some
extent, find themselves disrupted by the technologies of globalization, such
re-spatialized normativities do not in and of themselves always constitute a
critical orientation towards knowledge. Rather, they simply render more
complex and diffuse the relationship between proximity and authority –
providing opportunities and openings for intervention by a diverse and
geographically disparate range of interlocutors (some pursuing ‘progressive’
agendas, others seeking to re-establish a conservative, literal normativity).
In this sense, the spatial and media pluralization of authoritative discourse
in Islam involves shifts and slippage in terms of both place and space.
Worlding Pluralized Knowledge: Toward a Global Muslim
Politics
Now that we have explored and unpacked various dimensions of authorita-
tive pluralization in contemporary Islam, the question arises as to how these
processes interact with local perceptions and experiences of global events
in order to produce knowledges ‘worlded’ as socio-political agendas – or, in

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Mandaville – Globalization and the Politics of Religious Knowledge 111

other words, how do we get from pluralized knowledge to Muslim politics?

Answering this question requires us to pay attention to the ways in which
increased global consciousness (‘globality’) becomes a crucial mediator of
authoritative knowledge. Where spatial pluralization focuses on the disper-
sion of sites of authoritative discourse across greater and greater expanses
of space-time, the worlding of this pluralized Islamic authority refers to ways
in which an increased awareness of – and a sense of situatedness within –
geopolitical space-time (i.e. the idea that world events occur here and now
in spaces I inhabit, and that I am somehow implicated in them) plays a large
role in determining the normative and political valences of authoritative
discourse in the Muslim world.
The analysis of ‘global Muslim politics’, which can be understood as
the interaction of geopolitics with the pluralizing process described above,
begins from the observation that the vast majority of the world’s 1.25 billion
Muslims are not strongly tied to any one or another social movement, doctri-
nal tendency or sharply defined ideological position. ‘Extremist’ and ‘liberal’
Islam represent the minority extremes of a vast spectrum of Muslim opinion
(not to mention two highly unsatisfactory and problematic terms of analysis),
with most Muslims drifting between these poles without firm ties. To focus
on the politicization of pluralized authority, then, is to examine how it is
that disparate political tendencies seek to define their agendas and prescrip-
tions as authoritative in light of (often distant) geopolitical events. Such an
approach looks at the battle for hearts and minds within the Muslim world,
and the discursive politics through which various movements try to mobilize
sympathies and politicize constituencies by articulating Muslim identity in
relation to world affairs. In this regard we can also say that some measure
of functionally pluralized authority is also involved here, insofar as this
category is also about the way geopolitics affects how the purpose and ends
of religious knowledge production are understood by Muslims.
Among radical movements in Europe such as al-Muhajiroun or Hizb
ut-Tahrir, geopolitics becomes the framing device through which identities
and loyalties are structured. Common to the discourse of both groups is the
sense of a ‘higher’ Islamic calling beyond the confines of local communities
or nation-states. Assimilation into, for example, British society, or partici-
pation in mainstream politics is discouraged in favor of a vision of political
identity in alliance with a global community of Muslim brethren – an
‘embattled ummah’. Impressionable young European Muslims, many of
whom have little knowledge or experience of their religion beyond a recently
discovered desire to find some sense of moral certainty and a place in the
world, are given an identity compass whose discourse of ‘global Islam’
allows them to understand themselves as part of a larger struggle against
hegemony, imperialism and godless capital. In this vision, the only ‘real’
Islamic political imperative is the (re)establishment of a global Muslim
polity in the form of a resurrected Caliphate – the (nominally) centralized
religio-political authority in the Muslim world from the death of the Prophet
Muhammad (632 CE) through to its abolition by Mustapha Kemal Ataturk

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112 Theory, Culture & Society 24(2)

in 1924. Part of this discourse is also an account of authenticity, in which

those Muslims who affiliate with mainstream groups advocating the forma-
tion of local or national Muslim organizations based on notions of civic
engagement within, for example, Britain or the Netherlands, become identi-
fied as collaborators with the agents of global hegemony. This approach to
authority is hence about internal and external differentiation (Mandaville,
2005).
Lest it be assumed, though, that global Muslim politics centers exclus-
ively around pressure to embrace politically extreme idioms of Islamism in
order to prove one’s credentials and authenticity, we can also point to situ-
ations in which geopolitics drives a more progressive agenda. The expan-
sion of the European Union and the deepening of political and economic
integration in that region has, for example, prompted a number of national-
level youth organizations in European countries to form an umbrella organiz-
ation – the Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organizations
(FEMYSO), based in Brussels – with the express purpose of advocating civic
engagement and Muslim involvement in mainstream European politics in
lieu of establishing parallel ‘Islamic’ institutions or global polities. In this
approach, the institutional project of Europe – multicultural, ‘postnational’
and, one might go so far as to suggest, rather Ottoman in nature – is seen
to resonate closely with a number of Islamic injunctions against national-
ism, racism and artificial political boundaries between people. Regional
integration and European expansion are represented as a religious
imperative.
But beyond these examples, there is an important wider point to be
made about how the penetration of geopolitics into religious discourse
impacts the politics of knowledge production in the Muslim world. Since
the events of 11 September 2001 (hereafter 9/11), a recurring injunction
within the American commentary on Islam has been for Muslims to condemn
any and all acts of violence committed in the name of their religion. The
demand for ‘moderate Muslims’ to please come forward and reclaim their
religion has also featured heavily. Common to both of these approaches and
often underpinning them is the question of who speaks for Islam – an issue
that, of course, goes right to heart of the matter at hand. The position taken
here is that the perpetual backdrop of geopolitics in a globalized world
serves to instantly politicize any articulation of an Islamic position on such
matters. With discourses about ‘authentic Islam’ or ‘true Muslims’ increas-
ingly framed in terms of how one responds and positions oneself in relation
to various geopolitical agents (e.g. the United States, al-Qaeda) and events
(e.g. American military action in Afghanistan and Iraq), the articulation of
‘Islamic’ positions and viewpoints is easily ensnared within a discursive
field defined in geopolitical terms. That is to say that claims and pronounce-
ments as to what Islam is and is not tend to function today simultaneously
as statements of geopolitical and geocultural affiliation. In this sense, then,
the request for ‘moderate Muslims’ to stand up and reclaim their religion
in a context where moderateness is being defined by an actor of major

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Mandaville – Globalization and the Politics of Religious Knowledge 113

geopolitical significance (in this case the United States), means that any
responses by Muslims to such a call become declarations of geopolitical
allegiance. An appreciation of how geopolitics mediates the intense politi-
cization of almost any public claim to Islamic normativity is hence central
to understanding the complex plurality of authority in the Muslim world
today.
Conclusion
Those familiar with the history of Islam will quickly realize that the various
forms of pluralization identified above have been present in the past, and
that not much of this is wholly new in kind. There has never been a single,
monolithic source of authority in Islam. The argument presented here,
however, has been one primarily about new extents and new intensity.
Globalization – particularly in its reflexive and communicative dimensions
– makes it possible for an unprecedented range of social actors in diverse
locations to have experience of, and become involved in, the pluralization
of authority in the Muslim world. Collectively, then, the intensification of
these pluralizing shifts does indeed come to constitute innovative forms of
authoritative discourse. The construction of global authority in Islam is
hence a set of uneven and polyvalent processes. Attention to the nuances
of such contestations helps us to understand why it is difficult, and perhaps
even dangerous, to try to identify any single dominant trend within the
Muslim world – be it ‘liberal reformism’ or ‘literal extremism’. Both are
present, as are countless other hybrid orientations.
Our attention is more appropriately drawn towards questions of how
and why the articulation of Islam becomes politicized in a variety of social
locations. Discussions and debates about (and within) Islam have become
far more than just attempts to establish the nature and certainty of religious
norms. Rather, contemporary Islam is the discursive terrain upon which any
number of primarily geopolitical questions are contested. There is the possi-
bility today that distant interlocutors in these conversations can have signifi-
cant impact in far removed and varied localities – sites in which the very
meaning and purpose of Islam remains essentially contested. Viewed in this
perspective, we come to understand why, in the time of the global, it makes
far more sense to think in terms of disparate Muslim voices negotiating the
pluralization of Islamic knowledge rather than merely heeding or contest-
ing enduring orthodoxies.

Notes
1. The term ‘Muslim world’ here refers to a discursive entity rather than to a
geographic region. In this sense, the Muslim world is defined by communicative
action framed in terms of or in relation to the Islamic discursive tradition. Simi-
larly, therefore, ‘Muslim society’ is constituted in social relations between actors
sharing normative boundaries defined by the same discursive tradition.
2. See Talal Asad (1993) for a useful discussion about the dangers of transposing
the analytical categories of ‘religion’ and ‘church’ onto Islamic discourse.

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114 Theory, Culture & Society 24(2)

3. Research for the empirical material contained in this section was undertaken in
Indonesia, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United
States over the past five years with the generous support of the Pew Charitable
Trusts, the Office of the Provost at George Mason University and the Faculty of
Social Science at the University of Kent.
4. On the latter point, see for example the website of the Washington DC-based
Al-Fatiha Foundation, a resource for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender
Muslims (http://www.alfatiha.net/).
5. See http://www.wluml.org/
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Peter Mandaville is Director of the Center for Global Studies and Associate
Professor of Government & Politics at George Mason University outside
Washington DC. He is the author of the books Transnational Muslim Politics
(2001) and Islam and Politics in a Global World (2007), along with several
co-edited volumes. Current research interests include post-Western cosmo-
politanism and global development.

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