The long-standing and late Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba, who reigned over Tunisia for almost three decades, represents but one of the encroachments of the modern liberal order in the Muslim world. In the year 1960, as part of an ongoing secularisation effort, Habib Bourguiba declared that fasting in Ramaḍān hampered economic productivity and asked Muhammad b. ʿĀshūr, an esteemed scholar of the time, to issue a fatwa to justify the abandonment of the practice. Ibn ʿĀshūr went on public radio and responded:
“Prescribed for you is fasting” and announced, “God has spoken the truth and Bourguiba has spoken falsehood”.
This incident between Ibn ʿĀshūr and the secular elitist Habib Bourguiba came to represent a lofty illustration of the challenges that fasting – as a praxis – poses to the modern condition. In reminiscing over this incident, I was spurred to ask: how are we to make sense of this practice in an age of liberal hegemony – an act which is seemingly anomalous to the logic of economic productivity and progress? Read More
Leave a Reply