A Reflexive Islamic Modernity: Academic Knowledge and Religious Subjectivity in the Global Ismaili Community (Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2020)

By Mohammad Magout

This is a unique publication about the contemporary period of Nizari Ismailis, in which Mohammad Magout presents his research on the Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS) and the Aga Khan University’s Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (ISMC). The book critically examines the intersection of academia, religious subjectivity, and transnationality among present-day Nizaris by studying these two London-based institutions, to which the community’s leadership has dedicated extensive resources for academic education and knowledge production. Magout probes the intellectual bases of the IIS and the ISMC and their engagement with public debates about religious diversity and the role of Islam in contemporary societies. It empirically investigates the religious / post secular subjectivities of their graduate students, analyzing the strategies they draw on to reconcile religious beliefs with the academic knowledge about Ismailis and other Muslims to which they are exposed. This is the first book-length publication to examine ideas that underlie two scholarly institutions that occupy a central node in contemporary Ismaili transnationalism and to scrutinize some of the social-intellectual interactions that take place there.

The author offers a thought-provoking discussion of the intellectual currents at the IIS and the ISMC. He examines the transnational community’s endeavour to orient and locate itself in relation to “Islam, Ismailism, and secular modernity.” The book advocates critical self-reflection on the part of the institutes and the community. Whereas the findings of interviews are at times quite revealing of the cognitive struggles that young Ismailis from various parts of the world face in dealing with the London-based institutes’ intellectual discourses, the empirical part of the book does not match the promise of the theoretical discussion. A contextualization within the prevailing currents at other Islamic Studies departments would have also strengthened the publication. That notwithstanding, Magout’s courageous book is an important contribution to the debates on the current status of Ismaili intellectual engagement, academic institutions, and the future of the community’s scholarship. Its approach offers a potential model for students and scholars to engage critically in examining contemporary Ismailis, their discourses, and their institutions.