Religion, Orientalism and Modernity

Formerly Associate Professor at the University of Qatar and Research Associate at the School of African and Oriental Studies. He works in the areas of Postcolonial Studies, Travel Writing, Arab Anglophone and Muslim writing. Among the many books he has authored/edited are: Orientalism and Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Marmaduke Pickthall, Islam and the Modern World (Brill, 2017), Writing Muslim Identity (Continuum, 2012), Comte de Gobineau and Orientalism (Routledge, 2009) and From Empire to Orient: Travellers to the Middle East (I.B. Tauris, 2005).

• 1. IntroductionTransmission to and reception in the West Proselytism and PolemicOrientalism and Modernity: key motifs 2. Contexts and Issues Orientalism and Inter-Cultural ExchangeMahdiya movements in the Colonial/Post-colonial Middle East and South AsiaBaha’is and Ahmadis on Government and PoliticsMahdi movements: religious communities in a modern world 3. Race and Religion in Gobineau’s PersiaThe taint of racismGobineau’s Persia: creation of an Orientalist image Gobineau and the Messiah of Shiraz Witnesses for the Baha’i faith: the role and function of Gobineau and other orientalists in Baha’i narrativesInterpolation, rewriting and narrative intent: Shoghi Effendi’s Christianising of Dawn-BreakersConclusion: Gobineau’s Persian master narrative4. Ernest Renan’s search for a Religion of ModernityRace and PhilologyJudaism, Islam and ‘Le sémitisme’Aryanism and a Persian Revelation Revitalising Religion: Arnold’s programme in ‘A Persian Passion Play’ Modern Refractions: Renan, Science, Rationalist method, and the Baha’i faith 5. Edward Granville Browne and the writing of Babi NarrativesA peculiar style of Orientalism Appropriating Orientalism: Browne and Curzon’s place in Baha’i literature Ahmadi schism, western conversions, and anti-Baha’i polemic More Ahmadi positions: Orientalism, modernism, and in-betweennessConclusion: Browne’s Babi-Baha’i legacy and the scope of mahdiya 6. Empire and Orient: Baha’is in Russian Transcaspia and Palestine Russian Orientalism and the Baha’is of Transcaspia and the CaucasusAshkhabad’s Baha’i community: an oasis of modern religion?The Baha’is, Palestine and Great BritainZionism, Israel and the Baha’i faithAhmadi colonial and post-colonial orientations7. Orientalism and Modernity in Baha’i and Ahmadi writingsRevisionist applications of Orientalism in the context of eastern voices Hidden intertextualities: Aqa Khan Kermani’s orientalism and Baha’i pre-Islamic panegyric Orientalism in writings of early western Baha’isBaha’i World and the civilising of PersiaFrom the periphery ‘Returning to the Orient as Orientalist, but not as an Oriental’ Keith Ransom-Kehler and Reza Shah Pahlavi The end of Colonialism and a New World OrderAnother World Order and an Ahmadi ‘gift’ to Edward, Prince of Wales 8. Muslim responses and a future for Mahdi Movements Muhammad Iqbal on Ahmadism and Babi-Baha’ism - and the category of ‘non-Muslim’Muslims, Mahdi movements, and Postcolonial critiqueSome Twentieth Century Shi‘a and Baha’i configurations Conclusion - Baha’i and Ahmadi futures Notes BibliographyIndex

Nash has written an interesting account of the complex entanglement of three very distinct nineteenth-century Islamic reform movements that reflects on Western Orientalist thought in the context of the asymmetric power relations with European imperialism.