The Qur’an has been translated into over a hundred languages, as well as 62 different variations of English translations. The change of tongue produces an altered understanding of the Qur’an with indirect translations of words or Western contextualisations of ayahs. Imam Asi’s lecture series in Granada provided an informative take on the colonisation of our holy scriptures and historic events. He challenged the common terms and phrases of the colonial language and explained the historical context from the Islamic perspective. His lecture series was a hard reset on both how we speak and how we view history.

Imam Muhammmad Asi started this lecture series by dissecting our understanding of the Islamicate. He challenged our use of terms like ‘occupation’, ‘west and east’ and ‘Dark Ages’ to instead use terms like ‘Colonialism’, ‘North and South’ and ‘Islamic Ages’. Changing our language is how we reject a power structure that seeks to associate Islam with negative terminology, which he referred to as a hostile psychology. Utilising this understanding, Imam Asi goes on to challenge why we call Islam a religion. Instead, he posed that we call it a theodology (a theology and an ideology).

Imam Asi’s lectures dived into a historical understanding of the Israeli colonisation of Palestine. He noted two key concerns over the use of the term ‘Jewish’. Firstly, it is used to define both a religion and a race; secondly, it is used interchangeably with the term Israeli. The lack of clarity in these terms, as Asi notes, creates chaos. He then went on to discuss

why Muslims have not organised despite having 56 Islamic states. Islamic states are themselves becoming colonised, for example, treating the Kurds in Türkiye the way Israelis treat Palestinians or how Mecca is being physiologically held captive. One of the biggest questions he asks us is why we use the term ‘islamophobia’ as he compared it to the use of ‘antisemitism’ for Jewish people. Islamophobia implies an innocent fear and is a colonial that justifies the hatred of Muslims.

Throughout history, we have allowed ourselves to be colonised by accepting the language of our colonisers. In his lecture series, Imam Asi challenged our colonised tongue by exploring the history and dissecting the common terms and phrases we use. His book, ‘The Ascendant Qur’an’, uses this decolonial view when translating each individual word of the Qur’an. If we want to decolonise our minds, we must first decolonise our language by rejecting the colonial language and power structure for our own languages.

To find out more about the Granada Summer School click here.

To purchase Imam Asi’s translation of the Qur’an click here. To buy any of the volumes of his tafsir click here.