Between September 22-23, the Göttingen project "Conceptions of World Order and Their Social Carrier Groups" hosted a workshop entitled “Islamic Pasts and Futures in East Asia’s Worldmaking.” The workshop was co-organized by Dominic Sachsenmaier, Janice Hyeju Jeong, and Mohammed Alsudairi (former visiting fellow). The co-organizers were motivated by the pressing problems of the present: state-led securitization and localization campaigns across China, which has found expression in the most extreme form in the ongoing crisis in Xinjiang, and less pervasive yet parallel phenomenon observable elsewhere in Asia. The workshop brought together an interdisciplinary group of scholars from international locations – including Germany, France, Turkey, Switzerland, Singapore, Korea, Japan, and the United States – to reflect on the current moment, pasts, and futures of Islam(s) and Muslims across East Asia. The workshop featured two keynote speeches by renowned scholars, Selcuk Esenbel (Bogazici University) and Engseng Ho (Duke University). Participants discussed themes such as historical visions and instrumentalizations of Islam in Asia, community and crisis in Xinjiang/East Turkestan, minoritization and racialization of Muslims, the aesthetics of “acceptable” Islam, and tensions and opportunities between nationalized Islam(s) and global Islamic landscapes. The co-organizers plan to publish papers resulting from the workshop.

Read more about the workshop program