ABSTRACT
Authenticity has a high ranking in postmodern theory.1 Of course, to be authentic always indicates something positive, as applies also to enjoying an identity. There is a connection between authenticity and identity. However, when politics is involved in these issues the result is often something negative, as is the case with identity politics or with the politics of authenticity. In both cases, fault lines are established between the self and the other. Those who are committed to this kind of politics will view the approach of cultural modernity (Weber, Habermas) as problematic, or even reject it altogether. Other postmodernists may go further, and severely attack scholars, such as me, and flatly accuse them of what they discredit as “self-Orientalization.” I cannot be accused of Orientalism because this verdict does not apply to a Muslim, which is what I am in all cultural and religious meanings. Therefore, by definition, I cannot be an “Orientalist” in the Saidian sense. To escape this impasse, some apply the term “self-Orientalization” as a derogatory means of downplaying my critique of postmodern “authenticity.” However, there are serious scholars who have written major books on
authenticity, and therefore one has to deal with their work with all seriousness. The problem, however, is that most of the pundits in question are unable to read the relevant literature in its original language. In other words, they do not know what the claimants of authenticity mean by this term. In the case of Islam it means “purification,” as is made clear by one of the leading Islamists and most prolific authors on authenticity, the Egyptian Anwar al-Jundi. Had Charles Taylor and other scholars who theorize seriously about authenticity ever read alJundi’s work, they would have certainly shrugged their shoulders and reconsidered some of their thinking. Al-Jundi is of the view that modernity and the Enlightenment are projects underpinned by a “Jewish idea.” In his search for “asalah/authenticity” he calls for a politics of purification.2 He describes “taba’iyya/dependency” as the result of exposure to non-Muslims and therefore seeks a liberation that is understood as a purification of Islam from the “impact of the intellectual invasion,” which is believed to be based on a “Jewish conspiracy against Islam.”3 Being a Muslim myself, I prefer to follow Max Weber and Jürgen Habermas rather than to subscribe to the politics of authenticity and
its purification agenda, which can be qualified as pure antisemitism. Further, I argue that Islam has a rich heritage of learning from others. On these, for me, really authentic grounds I dismiss the purification agenda. In this chapter I want to turn the table and argue for another kind of authenticity, one that allows learning from others and denies the Islamist agenda of Islamic authenticity. This is the core idea and the substance of the present chapter, and it underpins its assumptions.
