Theorizing Islam: Disciplinary Deconstruction and Reconstruction

Research output

Complete citation

Poljarevic, Emin. Review of Theorizing Islam: Disciplinary Deconstruction and Reconstruction, by Aaron W. Hughes. Comparative Islamic Studies 8, nos. 1–2 (2012): 214–219. https://doi.org/10.1558/cis.v8i1-2.214.

Status

Published (2012)

Publication type

Scholarly book review

Overview

This review evaluates Aaron W. Hughes’s critique of how the academic study of Islam constructs its object through inherited disciplinary assumptions. Hughes challenges appeals to authenticity, insider authority, and exceptionalism, arguing that Islam should be studied through the same critical methods applied to other religious traditions. The review examines the book’s attempt to expose the institutional and conceptual boundaries that organise Islamic studies, including tensions between theological self-description and critical scholarly analysis. It recognises the value of methodological reflexivity while asking whether the book’s polemical contrasts sometimes flatten the diversity of existing scholarship. The review contributes to debates on method by clarifying that the study of Islam requires neither disciplinary exceptionalism nor the dismissal of Muslim intellectual traditions, but a transparent account of categories, evidence, comparison, and scholarly location.

Research question or central concern

How persuasively does Hughes expose disciplinary assumptions in Islamic studies while offering a constructive basis for studying Islam critically?

Main argument, approach, and contribution

The review assesses Hughes’s disciplinary critique and his call for comparative, theoretically explicit scholarship. It supports methodological reflexivity while cautioning against replacing one simplified account of Islamic studies with another.

Keywords

Islamic studies; method; disciplinary critique; authenticity; comparison; religious studies; reflexivity; representation