The Alchemy of Domination, 2.0?1 A Response to Professor Kecia Ali

Abstract

In her critical essay, “The Omnipresent Male Scholar,”2 Professor Kecia Ali
sets out to call attention to what she sees as the hegemonic privileging of
the male scholarly perspective and the need to replace this with an academic
landscape more reflective and accommodating of the experiences and
scholarly vantage points of women. To this end, she profiles the works of
several (Muslim) men in Islamic Studies (myself included) and highlights
the various ways in which they omit, overlook, undervalue, or dismiss the
topic of women or the scholarly views and interventions of female scholars.
Her arguments are reiterated and expanded (this time without naming her
targets) in her Ismail R. al-Faruqi Memorial Lecture delivered at the 2017
annual conference of the American Academy of Religion.3 The present essay
aims to respond to Professor Ali’s assessment of my work, most specifically
Islam and the Blackamerican (and to a lesser extent, Islam and the
Problem of Black Suffering) alongside some of the broader issues she raises
as part of her general critique. I will leave it to the other male scholars she
profiles to respond to what she has to say about their work ...