Islamic Liberation Theology

By this provocative work – to say the least – Dabashi makes a quite timelyintervention in the direction that the new discourse on Islam has recentlytaken, especially among progressive-liberal Muslim scholars. Unlike manyothers who are attracted to liberalism of various sorts, Dabashi remains closer to the socialist lineage to formulate a fervent anti-imperialist critiqueand struggle for justice in the line of liberation theologies of Gustavo Gutierrezand Joseph H. Cone. There have also been a few other Muslims pursuinga similar endeavor, such as Shabbir Akhtar and Farid Esack. Yet Dabashi,while retaining the basic sense of liberation theology, “articulation of themeaning of faith based on commitment to abolish injustice” (p. 254), is ratherafter a theodicy for our post-civilizational times. In his words, the aim is “toinvestigate the specifically Islamic manners of opposing the imperial upsurgein the aftermath of the ‘Islam and West binary opposition’” (p. 2) ...