Agency has become a catch word. In a way, this intoxication with ‘agency’ is the product of liberal individualism. The ability of individuals to fashion themselves, to change their live, is given ideological priority over the relation within which they… — Talal Asad Copy Share Image
The propensity to intellectualize is itself both essential and dangerous. I think in our modern world we are much more aware of its essential… — Talal Asad Copy Share Image
Certainly in order to understand the natural world one needs clarity, logic, and the capacity for theory building. But that understanding tends to improve… — Talal Asad Copy Share Image
I think the approach to Islam as a tradition is helpful. Tradition helps us to focus on questions about authority and temporality, and about… — Talal Asad Copy Share Image
Language has multiple uses, and is embedded in different forms of life. It is not necessary to have this grand concept of "humanity" in… — Talal Asad Copy Share Image
Believers are often thought of as people who have some kind of private conviction or repudiation of something, whereas "the faithful" refers to a relationship, which was also incidentally the earlier sense of "faith" in premodern, preliberal Christianity. This is not to say, incidentally, that "faith" refers simply to external behavior as opposed to internal belief but that it refers… — Talal Asad Copy Share
You do not need intellectuality for deep faith. You do not need it for behaving humanely towards people whether fellow Muslims or non-Muslims. You… — Talal Asad Copy Share Image
The Genealogical Science is a wonderful account of how old-fashioned race science has come to be re-defined by resort to the most recent developments… — Talal Asad Copy Share Image
In liberal society we claim that freedom of speech is sacred and therefore has an absolute character. But we know (or should know) that… — Talal Asad Copy Share Image
“The construction of civilizational difference is not exclusive in any simple sense. The de-essentialization of Islam is paradigmatic for all thinking about the assimilation… — Talal Asad Copy Share Image
For the law, the clarity of language and the finality of judgment is crucial, because you have to decide a case one way or… — Talal Asad Copy Share Image
You should never employ your intellect but only that it is not essential to exercise it in order to live a humane life. Language… — Talal Asad Copy Share Image
The notion of "humanity" as a form of transcendence derives, I think, from the conviction that intellectuality possesses an absolute power, from the demand… — Talal Asad Copy Share Image
