Has the Muslim Mind Been Colonised by the West? | Dr Nazir Khan

The Thinking Muslim - Muhammad Jalal

In this episode of The Thinking Muslim, Dr. Nazir Khan explores whether the Muslim mind has been colonized by Western ideologies, arguing that colonialism extends

Key takeaways

• Colonialism is not only physical but also epistemological—Western thought has colonized Muslim minds through the replacement of Islamic frameworks with liberal, secular, and postmodern ideologies.
• Surah Al-Fatiha serves as a comprehensive theological and ethical guide that can counter modern ideological pathologies by recentering divine guidance in intellectual discourse.

Main topics

• Coloniality of knowledge
• Critique of liberalism, postmodernism, secularism, and materialism

Notable quotes

It's no good if we're trying to resist the physical manifestations of colonialism if our minds are colonized.

Genocides are but symptoms of psychoepistemic disorder—directly connected to the rise of hedonism within capitalist societies.

Conclusion

Dr. Nazir Khan concludes that reclaiming Islamic intellectual sovereignty requires a deep engagement with

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) It's no good if we're trying to resist the physical manifestations of colonialism if our minds are colonized. Colonialism also has another manifestation, the coloniality of knowledge. Our thoughts, beliefs, are replaced by the colonizer. Muslims have self-secularized, reducing Islam to a ritual exterior shell. Liberalism has stripped the human being of all the systems of stability, faith, family, and left them entirely alone. Genocides are but symptoms of psychoepistemic disorder. That is directly connected to the rise of hedonism within capitalist societies. Talk shows will say we're being neutral. We're going to invite one guest that's against the genocide, one guest that's for the genocide. The death of children is collateral damage. If we try to resist without any commitment to the truth, ultimately we're going to be unsuccessful. Speaker 3 (0:48) Liberalism, secularism, postmodernism. Dr. Nazir Khan asks, have our minds been colonized by the West? Speaker 3 (0:59) I'm here with Dr. Nazir Khan, who published last year a fascinating book looking at Surah Al-Fatiha and how it addresses modern ideologies. Subhanallah, it's a great book and I'm really grateful for you to come in today to our studio here in Toronto. Dr. Nazir Khan, As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah and welcome to The Thinking Muslim. Speaker 2 (1:19) Wa alaykum as-salam wa rahmatullah. Thank you so much for having me. Speaker 3 (1:22) Now Nazir, I'm really fascinated by what you've done here because you're... critiquing on the one side a series of ideologies, and we'll go into the ideologies. I think there are 10 in total. So you're critiquing 10 isms, but you're doing it through utilizing this fundamental surah that we use as Muslims every day in every salah, multiple rakah. We are... Speaker 3 (1:49) Every Muslim, even the most, you know, one who knows very little about Islam or a new revert to Islam would know Surah Al-Fatihah. So I want to start from why. Like, why did you feel that the connection should be made between critique of modernisms and Surah Al-Fatihah? Speaker 2 (2:08) Right. So the journey begins, as the book does, with the genocide in Gaza. And this is something we have all witnessed. We've witnessed, you know, children, babies. starved, burned alive, massacred, maimed, while the international community watches and really does nothing. And people have asked, you know, how did this moral apathy come about? And what do we do when we see ourselves in such a profoundly damaging moral condition as humanity? What is the way forward? So, you know, in reflecting on this moral crisis and going back to the Qur'anic guidance, to address what are the thought structures that contributed to this condition, one of the interesting reflections I had was actually stimulated by something that was mentioned by Professor Wa'al-Halaq in his work Restating Orientalism, where he mentions that genocides and colonialisms are but symptoms of an underlying psychoepistemic disorder. He uses the term psychoepistemic disorder to refer to a dysfunctional worldview, a system of thought, a thought structure that disrupts the natural connection between human beings and their moral and ethical duties in life. He talks about things like secular humanism, liberalism, capitalism, all of these different things as psychoepistemic disorders. So now that raises an interesting question of how do we address these different isms. And I wanted to ensure that in addressing it, we provide a Quranic reference point. So there's a few points that I'll... mention here to explain the rationale behind this. The first is, you know, the importance of taking the Qur'an, the centrality of the Qur'an within our intellectual discourse. So, There are a lot of responses out there, even amongst Muslims, to some of these isms. They tend to be sporadic, responding to different aspects of it, but often they take, as their reference point, other trends within popular culture. Speaker 2 (4:25) may or may not even agree with some of our basic Islamic values. They may adapt ideas from perennialism to respond to modernism. They may adapt conservative Christian commentary to respond to some of the trends in postmodernism. So what we've done is we've neglected the Quranic framework in our... So having the centrality of the Quranic guidance in our intellectual discourse is something that we need to revive. And, you know, why Surah Al-Fatihah? There's many reasons for this. Of course, the Prophet Muhammad... Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Mentioned that it is the greatest chapter of the Quran And there's a beautiful tradition From Imam al-Hasn al-Basri That mentions that The guidance of all the scriptures That Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala revealed Are summarized within the Quran And within the Quran That guidance is summarized in the short surahs And that guidance is further summarized Within surah al-Fatiha And you see this even in the names of surah al-Fatiha Right? Umm al-Quran Umm al-Kitab, right? The mother, the foundation of the Quran, the foundation of the book. Some of the derived names that scholars have mentioned for this surah. Surah al-Assas, right? The foundations. So Surah al-Fatiha has that significance for us as Muslims. Speaker 2 (5:49) You know, it has that importance as an intellectual reference point within our discourse. Now, for me personally, coming at this from my own educational background and my vantage point, I'm a medical doctor and I have a second doctorate in Islamic theology. And I see a parallel between these two ways of looking at things. So as a medical doctor, we examine pathologies of the body to understand why a person is sick. sick, why they're diseased, right? But what do we do when our society has become so deeply diseased that massacres of children happen in front of our eyes and nobody is doing anything? What are the pathologies of the mind? What are the dysfunctional thought structures that are actually, you know, contributing to this? And that is where Islamic theology is a reference point for us as Muslims. Speaker 2 (6:44) That's really the understanding behind this work. And I think also when people talk about theology, they forget that there is this profound connection between theology and ethics from the Islamic worldview. So theology is not just a list of theoretical abstract beliefs that have no impact on our life. It is profoundly wrapped up in... developing within the human being the capacity to pursue righteous deeds and moral virtue. That tazkirat al-nafs, the spiritual purification, iqamat al-adl, establishing justice, all of these are intimately tied to our theology, and that's something we can elaborate on further. Speaker 3 (7:26) Jazakallah khair. There may be some who say, well, wait a minute, we're mixing Qur'an with a critique of these isms. And in the process, we're marginalizing the Muslim community. You know, we're looking at liberalism. We're looking at postmodernism. And of course, these isms are... highly attached to the West. So in effect, these are Muslims who are once again pointing fingers at the West as being the font of all evil, the place from which we need to safeguard our children from. How would you respond to that criticism that it leads to a marginalizing narrative within the Muslim community when you head on tackle these ideologies? Speaker 2 (8:10) Yeah, so the first thing I would say about that is even this notion that to contest these isms, will contribute to our marginalization. That itself is a notion borrowed from the hegemonic nature of these isms that want us to completely assimilate to their thought structure. And so that's something that we do need to challenge. And it doesn't mean that we reject everything, right? The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, taught us, الحكمة ضالة المؤمنين, right? That wisdom is the lost property of the believer. Wherever he finds it, he has the right to take it and benefit from it. Importantly, when it comes to tackling this issue, we have to look at it from the perspective of knowledge decolonization. So when people talk about colonialism, they recognize the harmful physical phenomenon of colonialism. When one nation subjugates another, massacres the indigenous population, extracts resources, takes the land, that's the physical manifestation of colonialism. But colonialism also has another manifestation, which is the coloniality of knowledge, where our thoughts, beliefs, values, and systems of knowledge are replaced by those of the colonizer. And it's no good if we're trying to resist the physical manifestations of colonialism if our minds are colonized. And that's why we have to engage in this process of knowledge decolonization, come back to our ultimate reference point, which is the guidance of the Qur'an. Speaker 3 (9:37) And in your book, you tackle a number of ideologies. As I said, 10 ideologies. You look at atheism and materialism and deism and secularism, polytheism, naturalism, relativism, liberalism, postmodernism, a number of ideas that you tackle. And we're not going to do justice to all of these ideas today and your thoughts about them. But let's start with some of these ideas. Let's start with postmodernism. Speaker 3 (10:05) choose postmodernism as an ism that requires critique within context of Surah Al-Fatihah. And many would argue that postmodernism has helped us. It's a tool to expose power structures and hypocrisies that we see that accompany modernity. Where does Islam's postmodernist... Where does Islam agree or disagree, I suppose, with postmodernism? Where's the critique here? Speaker 2 (10:35) Yeah, excellent question. So to answer that, first let me say something about the type of analysis that I've done in the book. Because, you know, somebody will say, well, obviously Surah Al-Fatiha is not mentioning these isms. Where are you getting this from? Which tafsir are you pulling this from? So there's multiple levels of analysis in the book. So at one level of analysis, we are looking at the verses of the Qur'an and the tafsir of those verses. verses, the exegesis, the commentary of those verses in order to extract and understand what are the theological foundations that these verses are building within us. Speaker 3 (11:09) And Speaker 2 (11:09) then what are the ethical implications of those theological foundations? Right? To give you an example. The Quran mentions and Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la mentions in Surah Al-Hadid, the 57th chapter of the Quran, Verily we have sent our messengers with clear signs and revealed to them the scriptures and the scales of justice so that people would uphold justice amongst themselves. Imam Ibn Al-Qayyim, one of the classic Muslim theologians, he says, this verse demonstrates that the reason for which God sent his messengers and revealed his guidance is so that people would establish justice. Speaker 1 (11:58) So Speaker 2 (11:58) now this is the connection between theology and ethics that we alluded to earlier. That the overarching goal that comes about from the religious law, from the revealed truth, is the establishment of justice. So this is the connection. And then we see, well, when we examine and interrogate these modern ideologies, do they actually secure justice? for people in the manner that the Qur'an wants us to achieve. So for example, let's talk about post-modernism now. The concluding verse of Surah Al-Fatiha, it tells us, we're making du'a to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, we're making a supplication that we want to follow the path of those whom you have bestowed your favor upon, right? The path of the righteous, not the path of those who have earned your anger, nor the path of those who have gone astray. The scholars of Tafsir,