Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin: Social Justice and Contemporary Muslim Ethics

Workshop 2016/2017

Social Justice and Contemporary Muslim Ethics

16.–17. März 2017

"If past experiences became the social laboratory for the making of tradition, why cannot our current experiences as Muslims become the threads to manufacture the garment of tradition? While there is no intelligent way to know how a revitalized tradition will unfold, the search for emergent knowledge and ethics has to continue energetically. Intellectuals and activists all have a responsibility to recast the knowledge of tradition and thus tradition in light of their experiences." Ebrahim Moosa 2007

Approaching Islamic tradition with keen attention to the ways that socio-historical norms condition human subjectivities and perspectives, the workshop will enable conversations aimed at distilling some of the enduring existential and ethical imperatives of the tradition that might nourish visions of Muslim “becoming” within contemporary contexts. Such a project is intended to explore an imaginative and lively dialogue between core ethical discourses of the past with those of the present in ways that contribute to a revitalized understanding of an inclusive, egalitarian and justice-based Islam. In particular, this workshop is focussed on conceptual, theoretical and hermeneutical resources for developing an emergent Muslim ethical framework responsive to the contemporary challenges of social justice that include amongst others sexism, racism, heteronormativity, and xenophobia.