lenin in allah_s court

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Farzad Rafi Khan and Basit Bilal Koshulthe postcolonial imagination in critical management studies

Lenin in Allah's court: Iqbal's critique of Western capitalism and the opening up of

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Lenin in Allahs court: Iqbals critique of Western capitalism and the opening up of the postcolonial imagination in critical management studies

Farzad Rafi KhanSuleman Dawood School of Business, Lahore University Management Science (LUMS), Pakistan

Basit Bilal KoshulSchool of Social Sciences, Humanities and Law, Lahore University Management Science (LUMS), Pakistan

AbstractOne manifestation of the Eurocentrism present in postcolonial critical management studies is its failure to engage with Muslim critiques of Western capitalism on their own terms. In this article we seek to address this deficiency by introducing the thought of Muhammad Iqbal (d. 1938)one of the most influential thinkers in the postcolonial Muslim world. We do a close reading of three of Iqbals poems that are considered among his most representative and poignant critical reflections on Western capitalism and its imperialistic presence in the Global South. This close reading generates the major contribution of this article which is an alternative critical narrative on Western capitalism that is characterized by theocentrism and embodied love. We argue that this is a distinct way of critiquing Western capitalism which allows us to better recognize the provincial (i.e. Western) character of postcolonial critical management studies.

Keywordsagency, capitalism, critical management studies, Eurocentrism, imperialism, Islam, Muhammad Iqbal, postcolonial theory, religion, spirituality

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304 Organization 18(3)

The philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend (1995: 143) wrote:

There is not one common sense there are many Nor is there one way of knowing, science; there are many such ways, and before they were ruined by Western civilization they were effective in the sense that they kept people alive and made their existence comprehensible.

This Feyerabendian insight about the worthiness of non-Western1 perspectives seems to be gaining traction in critical management studies (CMS), particularly in its postcolonialism stream. CMS scholarships aim is to uncover and overcome the socially divisive and ecologically destructive broader patterns and structuressuch as capitalism, patriarchy, neo-imperalism and so forththat condition local action and conventional wisdom (Adler et al., 2007: 3). This objective has led CMS scholarship in the last 15 years to the Global South where much of the social and ecological devastation arising from Western capitalism2 is taking place (Klein, 2007).

In theorizing about Western capitalisms processes of domination in Global South societies, some CMS scholars have made use of postcolonial theory. Postcolonial theory seeks to critique and analyze the complex and multifaceted dynamics of modern Western colonialism (Banerjee and Prasad, 2008: 91) and to articulate a deep understanding of the ongoing signicance of the colonial encounter for peoples lives both in the West and the non-West (Prasad, 2003: 5). Postcolonial CMS scholars have examined a vast range of empirical sites in both the First World and the Global South relating to management and organizations from the US military industrial complex to small Pakistani villages stitching soccer balls for international brands such as Nike (Boje and Khan, 2009; Westwood and Jack, 2008). Postcolonial CMS scholarships engagement with the Global South sites has perforce exposed the former to non-Western perspectives situated there. By listening to and including these hitherto marginalized (i.e. subaltern) non-Western voices in their research postcolonial CMS scholars have ended up crafting new critical readings. For example, the presumed neutral and beneficial knowledge and best practices of Western capitalism in the Global South have been shown to be at times displacing more sophisticated and effective local knowledges and techniques as Mir et al. (2008) found out in their investigation of knowledge transfers between a US MNC and its Indian subsidiary.

While postcolonial CMS scholarship has begun the process of including non-Western voices, this movement is small and there are plenty of non-Western perspectives that have yet to be heard. It is thus precisely to help further this movement in postcolonial CMS theory that we are writing this article. We are doing this by taking the first modest steps in starting a conversation in postco-lonial CMS on how Muslims have marshalled the resources of Islam, a hitherto neglected non-Western perspective in postcolonial CMS theorizing, to critique Western capitalism intruding into their lives either in the guise of outright occupation (i.e. colonization) or in the form of indirect political, economic and cultural control (i.e. imperialism).

Given that Islam is a diverse and contested discursive tradition, it is not possible in the confines of a solitary article to give the entire range of Muslim responses to Western capitalism. This would be the journey of future research. Our objective is a more modest one. We wish to inaugurate stud-ies of the response to Western capitalism by looking at the contribution of a particular prominent Muslim poet and philosopher who was situated in what is now a part of the Muslim postcolonial world (i.e. Pakistan). The person in question is Muhammad Iqbal (d.1938).

Muhammad Iqbal, as Ziauddin Sardar (2002) points out, was one of the most formidable Muslim thinkers and public intellectuals of the 20th Century. Iqbal championed the cause of Indian Muslim nationalism against Western British imperialism urging the Muslims to return to the Quran and to embody it in their lives (Majeed, 2009). His ideas led to the birth of a nation-state (i.e. Pakistan) (Arberry, 1953) and helped inspire a revolution (i.e. the Iranian Revolution) that threw off a


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Western backed comprador regime (Bayat, 1990; Hyder, 2001). Iqbals ideas and thoughts con-tinue to circulate and have a transnational resonance in the Global (particularly Muslim) South today providing key symbolic resources for imagining and legitimating struggles against Western imperialism (Majeed, 2009: xxiv).

Mustansir Mirs (2006: 141) following observation offers a good entry point into Iqbals social and political thought:

In studying society and prescribing a course of action for it, [Iqbal] assigns importance both to socio-economic factors and to religious ideals and ethical norms. He strongly believes, for example, that moral virtues play an important role in economic competitionand the search for moral virtues brings him to Islam as a system of thought and conduct.

Adam Webb (2008) identifies Iqbal, along with Rabindranath Tagore and Liang Shuming, as voices of tradition from the Global South who articulated a critique of modern, Western culture during the first half of the 20th Century. Much of this critique had been voiced earlier by 19th Century European romanticism but in a way less systematically grounded in tradition than that of Iqbal, Tagore and Liang (Webb, 2008: 196). While they differed on a number of important details, each saw the divide between (in Liangs terminology) lizhi (practical rationality) and lixing (ethical rationality) as being the most serious threat to human well being at the individual and socio- cultural levels. This divide forces the individual to choose between emotive, intuitive and ethical matters on the one hand and economic, material and practical matters on the other. This divides primary casualty is human agency because it becomes suspended between the choices of ethical self-cultivation and worldly (mainly economic) obligations. Tagore, Liang and Iqbal used various experiences and metaphors from their respective religious traditions to describe the ways to bridge the divide between inner inspiration and outer mission (Webb, 2008: 194). What sets Iqbal apart from the other two thinkers is that:

[I]n some ways he had the most vigorous understanding of inspired agency, colored by Islamic images of prophethood. Unlike the mystic who withdraws from the world once and for all, a prophet returns to insert himself into the sweep of time with a view to control the forces of history. (Webb, 2008: 194)

We believe that something would be quite amiss in postcolonial CMS if it ignores such an intel-lectual from the Global South whose ideas have been having such a massive impact in shaping responses to Western imperialism there, especially in its Muslim parts. Thus, in this article we focus on Iqbals thoughts. The specific questions of interest to us are two-fold. First, what are Iqbals views on Western capitalism, as Iqbal is interpreted and constructed by us. And second, what do we learn about postcolonial CMS from such views.

In this articles confines, we can do no more than begin and hint at, as opposed to exhaustively describe, Iqbals position on Western capitalism. We feel that this nonetheless will be an important step in the wider effort to document the range of postcolonial Muslim responses to the imperial realities of Western capitalism that are disturbingly absent in current postcolonial CMS. Moreover, we hope that doing so will lead to a less provincial and more open CMS and organization studies that will be willing to engage more fully with Islam. A number of benefits to CMS might emerge by a dialogical engagement with Islam. On an individual level, Quranic teachings articulated in Sufi wisdom can be used to better understand the dynamics of and resisting egoistical self-interest. At a more macroscopic level, these resources can be utilised (as is happening in the Muslim world) to envision non-interest and debt free financial systems as alternatives to the conventional debt based financial model whose systemic failure is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.



Our article is structured as follows. In the first section we offer a close reading of three of Iqbals poems: i.e. Lenin in Allahs3 Court, The Song of the Angels and Allahs Command to the Angels (2001 [originally published in 1935]). These poems are considered representative of his perspec-tive on Western capitalism. This readings goal is to extract certain key themes as suggestive of an Iqbalian critical narrative on Western capitalism. We detail these themes in our discussion section along with the implications the Iqbalian alternative has for postcolonial CMS theorizing. We con-clude the article with a summary of its main contributions.

Iqbals critical narrative on Western capitalism

One place where Iqbals critical narrative on Western capitalism can be found in a systematic and coherent form is in three poems that appear in successive sequence in the collection Baal i Jibreel (Wings of Gabriel; published in 1935) (Iqbal, 2001). While they can be read separately, the clarity and coherence of Iqbals position on Western capitalism emerges when they are read with reference to each other. We have selected these poems because our reading of Iqbals wider corpus tends to confirm the view held by notable intellectuals from the Global South who are familiar with Iqbals works (e.g. Tariq Ali) that these poems encapsulate well the main gist of Iqbals ideas on capitalism (Ali, 2002). The three poems titles and settings can be summarized as follows:

a) Lenin in Allahs Court. In this poem Lenin appears in front of Allah following his resur-rection after death. After offering some critical self-reflections about the ideas he enter-tained while he was alive in the world, Lenin goes on to describe the world that he left behind and asks Allah some pointed questions regarding the worldly state of affairs.

b) The Song of the Angels. After Lenin concludes his address a chorus of angels offers a commentary on what they have just heard from Lenin.

c) Allahs Command to the Angels. Having heard both Lenin and the angels, Allah gives a directive to the angels to set certain events in motion in the world.

Without even making the pretense of translating these poems, we will paraphrase them as best we canall the while keeping in mind that the originals polysemic breadth and semantic depth have been significantly compromised when rendered into English. We hope our reading will show that Iqbal is not simply reiterating Leninist-Marxist socialism but rather inflecting it through Islamic monotheism in deft strategic ways. This allows him to agree with some important points in the socialist critique of capitalism but (more importantly) expand that critique in new directions and offer a distinctly different narrative on capitalism in the end.

Poem 1: Lenin in Allahs Court

Following the literary clues in the text itself, the first poem can be divided into four sections. In the first section Lenin acknowledges the fact that he made a mistake while he was alive in the world, describes the mistake and then goes on to give a self-critical reflection on the reasons behind the mistake:

All the heavens and souls under it are Your signsThe truth is that alive and sustaining is Your being.How could I decide whether or not You exist?The ideas of reason were constantly shifting. The astronomers peering at the star, the biologist studying the plants,


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both remain forever clueless about the reality of primordial nature.Now that I have beheld it, the reality of that realm is proven,which I had considered to be fabricated myths of religion.We humans alas are trapped in the cycle of day and night,You are the Creator of time and the Overseer of all individuals. (Iqbal, 2001: 532)

The fundamental mistake that Lenin made while he was in the world was the failure to recog-nize the reality of Allah. Now he finds this failure to be all the more stunning because the heavens and every being under the heavens point towards Allahs realitythey are the ayaat (signs) of Allah. Even though it is not stated anywhere in the poem in explicit terms, the other equally impor-tant reality that Lenin did not recognize while he was in the world but which he is personally experiencing now is the reality of life-after-death.

We can already begin to discern that Iqbal is charting a radically and fundamentally different course from Lenin. Lenins philosophy was atheistic to the core beholden as it was to Marxs mate-rialist atheism where God is seen as a projection of human needs and ideals onto a mythical subject (Bell, 2008). By making Lenins affirmation of the reality of God the poems first poetically rhe-torical move, Iqbal is criticizing Lenins socialism of having a confused view on reality due to its atheistic predicates that lead it to reject the truth that alive and sustaining is Your being. It is not religion that has the world order inverted wherein man creates God as a reflection of his confused and alienated situation (Bell, 2008: 296). Rather it is Lenins socialism, according to Iqbal, that is guilty of such a charge by making purchase with atheism that alienates man from God, the Ultimate Reality, a charge to which Lenin pleads guilty in the poem.

After acknowledging his mistake, in the most chivalrous manner, Lenin seeks Allahs permis-sion in the poems second section to ask a most pressing question:

With Your permission, I would like to ask a question,a question which all philosophers failed to answer.For as long as I lived under the sky,I was constantly haunted by this question. One loses sight of the etiquette of conversation,when certain ideas rise to stir the spirit.Where does one find the mortals who worships you? Are they among the human mortals living on earth?The deity worshipped in the East is the white European,the deity worshipped in the West is shining metal. (Iqbal, 2001: 532533)

The question is as daring as it is simple. While he was living in the world Lenin heard many people talking about the existence of a God. Even though he heard much talk about this God, he did not see any human beings actually worshipping Him. The human beings living in the East had taken the white Europeans as the highest ideal and were enthusiastically abandoning their own cultures and traditions in favor of Western culture. The human beings in the West, for their part, had taken to worshipping shining metals. The rest of the poem (as well Iqbals other poems) leave it to the reader to decide if shining metals refers to gold/silver coins or metal machinery. The fact that the deities being actu-ally worshipped in the world were very different from the One Deity that Lenin had heard so much about remained a source of great confusion and distress for him as long as he lived in the world.

Since the deities being actually worshipped in the world cannot be separated from the modern West, Lenin goes on to offer in the poems third section a description of different aspects of Western culture that he left behind:



There is much glitter, learning and refinement in the West.The truth is that this darkness cannot nurture life.In terms of architectural grandeur, prestige, and attendance,the banks leave the churches far, far behind.What appears as economic activity is actually a game of dice.The interest charged by one is sudden death for many.This science, this philosophy, this research, this politicssucking human blood, while preaching human equality.Unemployment and debauchery and drunkenness and wasteare these the mean accomplishments of Western civilization?The nation that is cut off from heavenly inspiration,the limits of its greatness is steam and electricity.The dominion of the machine means the death of the heart,manufactured tools suffocate all feelings of human kindness.(Iqbal, 2001: 533534)

Here Lenin is describing the material conditions of the world that he left behind. It is not at all surprising that the earthly conditions that he would consider most problematic are the economic conditions. However, it is an Iqbalian Lenin that is speaking and the inflections are worth noting. For example, Iqbal has Lenin condemn finance capitalism first and foremost. Here an argument can be made that Iqbal is doing a straightforward reading of Lenins (1999 [1917]) Imperialism: The highest stage of capitalism. In that text, Lenin viewed Western capitalism as changing its character by the turn of the 20th Century. It had gone from exporting manufactured goods to exporting capital and then committing massive resources (military and administrative) to protect its investments abroad (imperialism) (Harding, 1998). Competition was replaced by monopoly structures with big banks assuming a defining role in dominating the state. The banks pressed the state onwards for colonial exploitation in order to realize profits by securing cheap resources and markets for finished goods in the Global South (Fuchs, 2010). Thus, it would not be surprising if Iqbal has Lenin condemning financial capitalism and some may be saying that Iqbal is offering nothing different from Lenin in these verses. We would beg to differ.

Iqbal does indeed take Lenins condemnation of financial capitalism on board but inflects it in ways that flow from his commitments to Islam. Iqbal singles out for particular attention the giving and taking of financial interest that result in the deaths of millions. This institution of the financial system is not given much weight by Lenin who focuses instead on consolidation of monopoly capi-tal and its shaping of public policy. We believe that Iqbal is able to focus on this aspect of financial capitalism because of the strong prohibition of interest in the Quran. Traditional scholars of Islam point out that the offense that is condemned in the harshest terms in the Quran after disbelief in God is the taking of interest. This offense is an invitation for a declaration of war from God and His messenger (peace be upon him) by those who indulge in this practice (El Diwany, 2003). Thus, it is clear that Iqbals critique of capitalism goes beyond the merely economic and materialistic Marxist-Leninist critiqueIqbals critique has a religious and moral dimension rooted in the monotheistic tradition.

The significance of the religious and moral dimension of Iqbals critique is highlighted in this sections last two lines. These lines condemn the progressive industrialization and mechanization of human culture. This is a clear break from Lenins materialistic views which were quite positive regarding the role of technology in providing the output necessary to construct the communist utopia. As Scott (1998) points out, Lenin had no major problems with the mechanized factories


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operating on Tayloristic principles and in fact was a strong advocate of Taylorism. This, at least from the verses cited above, seems to be at odds with Iqbals take on technologically and machine intensive industrialization. For Iqbal then it is not just monopoly capitalism but rather a broader complex of capitalism including its industrial technology that is being condemned.

As Adas (1990) points out, the demonstrable pragmatic results of Western technologies that appeared to do magical things (e.g. making goods and people move at hitherto unheard of speeds) were used by Western imperial authorities to help prove the superiority of the Western episteme and the backwardness of local knowledge traditions in the Global South as well as shift the understandings of progress and civilization to mean the ability to make such machines. Since the West excelled in such abilities it was then excelling in civilization and progress as well. Adas uses the phrase machines as the measure of men to encapsulate this mechanistic-materialistic Western ideology.

By denouncing machines and industrial technology, Iqbal is offering resistance to this particular imperial ideology. Juxtaposing the machines with the death of the heart, he is reminding his audi-ence (primarily colonized Muslims in the Indian subcontinent but also beyond) of the Quranic teachings that it is the heart not machines that matters (Yusuf, 2004). The thrust of the verses is a modern expression of the key teachings of traditional Islam, best embodied in the Sufi tradition. Traditional Islamic teachings see the heart as not merely a material/physical organ but also as the centre of ethical consciousness and spiritual awareness (Al-Ghazali, 2005). For the Sufis, the hearts death does not primarily mean its physical demise but rather its spiritual death. Consequently, the central focus of Sufi teachings is to keep the heart alive by purging it of ethical and spiritual impurities (e.g. greed) (Yusuf, 2004). It is this supra-physical/material heart that sets the standards for measuring men, a teaching long held in the Islamic traditions. According to the latter, what separates human beings from one another is not gender, race, or class but a ethical/spiritual condi-tion of the heart, Taqwa, (roughly translated as piety and God consciousness) (Al-Ghazali, 2005).

In the poems last section, Lenin notes that when he departed from the world he had begun to feel the winds of change:

At last one sees hints of the winds of change approaching,Divine decree will checkmate their cunning planning.The foundations of the tavern have begun to shake,and the elites in the West are brooding worriedly. The brightness that you see glowing on their faces, it is either makeup or the result of imbibing wine.You are Lord and You are Just but in your domain,the hours of the laborer are crushingly difficult.When will the regime of capital be sunk?The world awaits the coming of Your judgment. (Iqbal, 2001: 534)

The poem ends with a questiona question that is no less pressing than the one that Lenin had asked earlier. Lenin describes a fundamental contradiction between Reality and certain facts on the ground. The Reality is that Allah is both the Supreme Lord and the Most Just. The facts on the ground are that the regime of capital has made the existence of the masses a daily experience of destitution, suffering and injustice. Just as the fact of the white European being the deity of the East and shining metal being the deity of the West made the Reality of God practically unrecognizable, the fact of the suffering of the masses puts the Reality of Allahs power and justice into question. The manner in which the poem ends suggests that Reality will remain (at best) obscured if not (as is more likely) altogether unrecognizable if the facts on the ground do not change.



Poem 2: The Songs of the Angels

In this poem a chorus of angels responds to what they have just heard from Lenin. It is interesting to note that they do not reply to Lenin directly. As a matter of fact it looks like they are emboldened by Lenins address to Allah and use it as an opportunity to air some of their own observations. Like Lenin, the angels also directly address Allah:

Reason remains unbridled, ishq (love) remains un-embodied,O Master Craftsman, your handiwork is not yet complete.The secular and religious authorities are still in the crosshair of Gods creatures,for now the days and nights continue to revolve as always.Since the rich are trapped by luxury, the poor trapped by need,the masses cant rise from the streets, the elites cant descend from heights. (Iqbal, 2001: 535)

This part of the poem affirms a significant part of Lenins observation by describing some of the material conditions in the world that are responsible for the status-quo. The masses and the elites are equally incapable of initiating change in the world because of their respective material condi-tions. Both the material destitution of the masses (leading to their obsession with daily survival) and the material wealth of the elites (leading to their absorption in luxury) create a situation where the status-quo appears to be unchangeable. Even as it is largely agreeing with Lenin, the beginning part of the angels song brings a dimension and a vocabulary to the discussion that is missing in Lenins materialist conception of reality (i.e. angels and ishq-love). Thus we see Iqbal continuing to inflect Lenin with his own Quranically inspired concerns, thereby distancing his narrative on capitalism from that of Lenins.

The chorus of the angels suggests why the facts on the ground are divorced from Reality. Reason has not attained maturity. It continues to display the lack of discipline that is characteristic of immaturity. Ishq-love has also not fully matured because it is yet to be fully embodied

This means that the self has to embody this love, i.e. expressing it through bodily action. But the question is begged about who is to be the object of this ishq-love. The answer lies in another poem of Iqbal where he distills what many Muslim theologians consider Islams key message for human liberationliberation that is attained by a synthesis of human effort and Divine Grace:

If you are faithful to Muhammad We are yours.The world is but a trifling thing. The pen and table to write Destiny are yours. (Iqbal, 2001: 308)

While accepting the insights of Fanon and Marx about the role of the human subject as a historic actor, Iqbal gives these insights an altogether different inflection. The transformative and liberating motor of historic change is not the human self engaging in acts of violence or class struggle perpe-trated by the human subject but an inner transformation of the self producing a burning love for the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). This is the love that the khudi-human self needs to embody to act as a historic actor in a way that is life-preserving and life-enhancing.

The unique characteristic of Iqbals vision of human liberation and self-realization is high-lighted when compared with other visions. Marx, Durkheim and Iqbal all understood that there was much turbulence and angst in the human soul caused by the modern condition as symbolized in Lenins confession in the first poem. Marx called it alienation and sought its answer in the worker regaining control of his work (Giddens, 1999). For Durkheim it was anomie (a state of normless-ness) and its cure was to be a reconnection of the individual with a society that could provide for his social and material needs (Giddens, 1999). Iqbal too recognized the confusion of the soul in


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modern times. However, in his characteristic distinctive voice, Iqbal gave a different answer. The answer, the sword that is to be unsheathed to end capitals tyranny and quell the human soul, was to emulate the Prophet of Islam. Once again, we see how Iqbals theistic commitments to Islam lead him to formulate a response that falls quite outside the parameters of the more well known Western responses to a particular issuein this case capitalistic modernitys alienation/anomie and its cure.

The songs remaining last four lines explicitly identify ishq-love, as understood above, rather than class consciousness (or collective effervescence for that matter), as the catalyst of the process that will culminate in bridging the gaps between facts on the ground and Reality:

Religion and culture, science and artall slaves of self-interest.That only ishq-love can cut the Gordian knotthis is not yet widely known. The pearl of life is ishq-love, the pearl of ishq-love is khudi-human self,But this sharp sword is not yet unsheathed. (Iqbal, 2001: 535)

The angels are saying that the human being has the potential to change the world of facts but because of certain circumstances the potential remains latent and has not been actualized. Summarily stated, self-interest is the one factor that is putting all the latent potential to waste. Iqbal has the angels identify ishq-love as the sword that can cut the Gordian knot created by self-interest. The reason that ishq-love has failed to perform this task up till now is because the khudi-human self has not yet grasped and embraced the significance of ishq-love.

Poem 3: Allahs Commands to the Angels

Upon hearing both Lenins apology and the angels song, Allah finally pronounces to the angels:

Rise! Go and awaken the wretched poor of My earth.Rattle the doors and walls of the ruling elites mansions. Energize and embolden the slaves through the fire of faith,make the timid sparrow courageous enough to fight the falcon.The age of the rule of the masses has arrived,obliterate every vestige of inherited hierarchy.Any field whose crop does not first feed the peasant, ,burn to the ground every grain of its standing crop.Why should barriers continue to separate the Creator from creatures?Throw the priests out of the temples dedicated to Me.The truth prostrates in subjugation and its the idols of falsehood that circumambulate it is better that you extinguish the lanterns in the Masjids [mosques] and Temples.I am dismayed and sickened by the marble columns,Build me a new entirely earthen Haram (inviolable sanctuary of worship in Mecca)Modern civilization is only a hall of mirrors,Go [smash it] by teaching the Poet of the East the etiquette of selfless passion. (Iqbal, 2001: 536537)

In the final poem, Iqbal is giving full vent to his anger at the injustices described in the first two poems. Given that the two immediately preceding poems, which set the context for this poem, deal at considerable length with Western capitalism it seems warranted to suggest that the elites being referred to in the last poem are those in charge of this system.

It is also instructive to note that religious authorities and their places of worship are singled out as being complicit in this crime against humanity. While Iqbal sees religion as being essential for



worldly human liberation and other-worldly salvation, the last poem leaves little doubt that he is aware that it can be an oppressive and reactionary force in history. In this sense, he would not dis-agree with Lenin or CMS scholarship on religion that sees it largely as a colonial force often mis-used by the powerful (Bell, 2008). Given Iqbals commitments to Islamic monotheism, he would argue that this is a narrow view and that religion can play an emancipatory role. Thus, we see a nuanced thinker cognizant of religions repressive as well as emancipatory potentialities.

According to Iqbal, religions, in this particular case Islams emancipatory potentialities do not appear to be restricted to just Muslims. If they were so restricted, then Iqbal, by championing Islam, could be seen to be a proponent of a global colonizing Islam that advocates freedoms for only Muslims. However, if one looks carefully at these commands, it hits one with striking clarity how these commands of Allah are non-denominational, making it difficult to position Iqbal as a chauvinistic Muslim zealot. The angels are being instructed by Allah to not restrict themselves to assisting the oppressed and exploited Muslim poor. Rather, the commands are universal cutting across gender, race and religious affiliations. All of the wretched poor on Allahs earth, have to be collectively organized against the elites orchestrating the system of Western capitalism that caused so much confusion and pain to Lenin.

Much of the actions that Iqbal calls for here Lenin would agree with. The difference is that these actions are occurring on a very different set of epistemic and metaphysical coordinates that make these actions of a qualitatively different nature. For Lenin the system has to be abolished to end the needless suffering of humanity. For Iqbal one has to abolish the system because it is obstructing humanity from recognizing its Creator.

Discussion

Having presented a reading of the three poems, we are now in a position to identify at least two key features or axes of Iqbals critical narrative on Western capitalism. One belongs to the realm of knowledge. The other to the realm of action. Taken together they seem to suggest that a different and alternative (i.e. theistic) narrative to what passes for standard (secular) postcolonial CMS scholarship is being articulated here.

Before discussing these two key features of Iqbals alternative narrative, we would just like to state that we are cognizant of the fact that we are the ones constructing Iqbals narrative on Western capitalism and its two key features but we hope our construction is faithful to Iqbals ideas and simultaneously will open up new spaces and resources in CMS postcolonial imagination.

Theocentric epistemic and metaphysical knowledge commitments

Iqbals narrative on capitalism is a critique whose vocabulary contains God, Angels, faith, Life after death. It is obvious that all of these elements stand outside the secular theoretical per-spectives, vast as the spectrum may well be from Marxism to poststructuralism, within which the dominant discourse in postcolonial CMS theorizing situates itself. In spite of the numerous differ-In spite of the numerous differ-ences found in this spectrum between the various contending critical perspectives we can easily identify some of the fundamental characteristics that they share when Iqbal is brought into the conversation. The common characteristic being theoretical agnosticism but practical atheism about three things: (1) the reality of a Creator God; (2) the reality of this Creator God communicating to humanity via revelation and (3) the reality of life here-after.

Theoretical agnosticism/practical atheism has been the usual way to perform radical critiques in CMS (Bell, 2008). Theistic priorities do not play much of a role in CMS. This can be seen for


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example in an important recent review on CMS (Adler et al., 2007). In that review, society appears 20 times. God appears once, and then a bit disparagingly as a God trick in a discussion of the problems of writing theory from value neutrality, a view from nowhere (Adler et al., 2007: 45). It is in this sense of theistic perspectives versus secular agnostic/atheistic ones that Iqbals critical narrative on Western capitalism in the Global South is an alternative to conventional CMS radical critiques. It provides a theistic alternative to secular CMS orthodoxy.

Since it is based on monotheistic epistemic and metaphysical commitments, Iqbals alterna-tive critical narrative helps us better see the predominately secular nature of CMS discourse. This is somewhat understandable given that this discourse stems from largely Western univer-sities considered by some as the last remaining bastions of secular thought (Berger, 1996/1997). Thus, in CMS we find hardly any discussions of faith, angels, God, life after death and love for the Prophet, categories that we have found to be pivotal in filtering the experience of Western capitalism and formulating a response to it in Iqbals case and, given the rise of religiosity in parts of the Muslim world, we would trust by many other Muslims as well (Davis and Robinson, 2006).

CMS as presently constituted then appears to be an extremely Westernized way of making criti-cal sense of capitalism including its imperial encounter between the West and the Global South. Iqbals critical narrative is confirming Feyerabends observation that there are indeed other ways to make sense, whether about science or in this case about Western capitalism and thus Western critical social theory (including postcolonial CMS) is not the only obligatory passage point to reach cogent critical evaluations of Western capitalism.

Iqbals critical faith-based narrative helps CMS see its own current Western-secular underpin-nings. Perhaps, it needs to add this qualifier Western-secular to its title till the time when the knowledges of others (theistic but also secular) are found in such abundance that the qualifier can be dropped. It is only then that CMS can be seen to be representative of all the insightful radical critiques on capitalism and its managerial and organizational knowledge/practices taking place in the world rather than just those taking place in the specific privileged locations of Western secular universities.

Without this qualifier it seems to stand guilty of the charge levelled at the mainstream manage-ment field that by using the unqualified term management it pretends to be providing universal knowledge about the subject of management when it is actually just providing largely American views on it, views not likely to be shared by the rest of the planet (Boyacigiller and Adler, 1991). Taking specifically Western knowledges and assuming they hold for the Global South and can be universalized to it is the practice of Eurocentrism decried by CMS scholarship (Banerjee and Prasad, 2008). However, if CMS itself does not add the above qualifier to its title it too can be seen to be perhaps inadvertently guilty of this practice, claiming it is providing universal knowledge on radical critiques of structures of domination when all it is providing are secular perspectives fash-ionable in Western secular universities. The latter are not likely to find the same level of acceptance in those parts of the Global South that operate on theistic perspectives and which have their own radical critique forms of Western capitalism of which Iqbals narrative is but one.

Thus, it is due to postcolonial CMS agnostic/atheistic commitments that it cannot speak to and hence be universalised to theistic others who are not likely to accept it. This is because they will find missing in it their important interpretive resources (e.g. God, Revelation and the Prophet) just as theistic narratives too cannot be universalized to secular settings i.e. their theistic commitments would make them unconvincing to secular audiences (e.g. financial interest should be banned because God says so). If Western secular CMS wishes to attain universality and be representative of the critical conversations taking place in the world and not just in Western secular universities



then one strategy would be to invite the theists (in the North and the South) into its domain and contribute to its conversations on their own terms.

Embodied love-ishq as agency

Postcolonial CMS scholars who would pay attention to Iqbals critical narrative on capitalism would come away with an appreciation that religion can be a motivating force for individuals resisting capitalisms dominion in the Global South. This sensitivity may help them better locate the subjectivity (experience of the subject) as well as resistance and agency (the subjects effectiv-ity) dynamics that are taking place in the struggle against Western capitalism and its organizational and managerial knowledge/practices in the Global (particularly Muslim) South.

If they were to engage with the Muslim other in the Global South armed only with their pre-established agnostic or atheistic commitments they might give secular reasons for agency and resistance in organizations enacting capitalism (e.g. MNCs). This would forestall the possibility of posing (and thereby investigating) alternative propositions that indicate that the key aspects of agency dynamics in those places are arising from religious motivations and that religion is condi-tioning agency. Let us illustrate these points with an example.

Frenkel (2008a) reflects on research that looks at resistance of Jordanian managers working in a subsidiary in Jordan belonging to an Israeli MNC. Frenkel (2008a: 936) describes the resistance dynamics of these Jordanian managers as follows:

The agreement of Jordanian managers to implement certain practices at the demand of their Israeli MNCs managers at a time of peace, followed by their refusal to implement very similar practices when the Al-Aqsa Intifada broke out two years later (Mizrachi, Drori and Anspach, 2007) constitutes another excellent example of the way resistance should be understood as strategic action embedded in a broader geopolitical context of core-periphery relations.

Al-Aqsa is the third holiest site in Islam. The action is taking place in Jordan a country that is not only predominantly Muslim but also a country whose citizens want the Sharia (Islamic Law) as the only legal framework for their country by an overwhelming majority according to surveys. For example, in a survey conducted in 2003, 79.9% of Jordanians considered the statement that a good government should implement only the laws of the sharia as either important or very impor-tant (Davis and Robinson, 2006: 178).

Having looked at the original study by Mizrachi et al. (2007) cited above, we find its analysis puzzling. There are core-periphery relations, strategic action and geopolitical context but no Islam. In the entire article by Mizrachi et al. (2007) there are only two cursory references to Islam. Did the Jordanian managers turn into dependency theorists reading dependency theory to guide their actions rather than the Quran? Were their own narratives of resistance based on Islam discounted by the secular postcolonial scholars in favour of core-periphery and geopolitics arguments? Or working within their secular theoretical prisms the researchers simply could not see the presence of religion which was one crucial force among others actuating the agency that was observed. After all, it seems plausible given the information we have supplied here about Jordan and Islam that these Jordanian managers agency might also have been shaped by their commitments to Islam where they disobeyed their Israeli MNC headquarters to fulfil what they perhaps felt was a reli-gious obligation of showing solidarity to their Palestinian Muslim brothers and sisters who they perceived to be victims of aggression of an occupying force.

We do not have the information to know the answers to these questions. However, the above discussion on the research done on Jordanian managers makes it reasonably plausible to suggest


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the possibility that CMS secular commitments may lead it to ignore religious forces shaping agency in the Global (especially Muslim) South. Even if we grant the concession that Islam was taken into account by the research on Jordanian managers but ruled out in favour of core-periphery explanations what appears clear is that with the Iqbalian critical narrative we are put in a position where we can pose such questions to postcolonial CMS critiques on organizations and organizing in the Global South. This is especially the case when they involve the Muslim other and as a con-sequence open up the postcolonial imagination in CMS to the possibility of alternative readings of these research efforts as we hope to have illustrated here with this example.

The discussion above leads us into a broader discussion of agency where we feel the Iqbalian critical narrative on capitalism has something to offer CMS especially with regard to the way it conceptualizes agency (of which we can only provide here its faint contours and that too briefly due to space constraints).

For Iqbal what will set things aright and sink the regime of capital, as mentioned earlier, is the khudi-selfhood but one that needs to embody ishq-love. Thus, the site of resistance and agency for Iqbal is the human body carrying ishq-love. Here we see an interesting contact with Foucauldian thought. Foucault too has reflected upon the human body to theorize power. However, he has viewed the body more as a site of domination rather than as a site of resistance and agency accord-ing to Foucauldian scholars: In practice Foucault spends much more time detailing the production of docile bodies (in Discipline and Punish) and bodies saturated with disciplinary technique (in the History of Sexuality) (McNay, 1994: 102; cited in Graaff, 2006: 1399). Our reading of Iqbals poems suggests that he has a more positive view of the human body in relation to agency.

Iqbal situates agency in the body as indicated in the second poem. Now for the body (sword) to produce agency (cutting the Gordian knot of the oppressive material conditions of capitalism) it has to embody ishq-love of the Prophet. This love of the Prophet, according to the Islamic teach-ings, is not simply a privatized belief performed in the inner recesses of the mind disconnected from physical reality of the individuals body and social group which is is how faith and belief tend to be understood in modern times (Asad, 2003). But in pre-modern cultures and religions, one cannot separate faith from bodily actions and social settings (Mahmood, 1996). For example, all the five pillars of Islam require bodily acts: the attestation about the Unity of God and the mes-sengership of the Prophet on the tongue, the five daily canonical prayers, the fasting in Ramadan, the giving of zakat (religious tithe) and the performance of Hajj (the obligatory pilgrimage to Mecca). All these are bodily acts. Hence, Al-Ghazali (d. 1111), points out that it is action and bod-ily acts done in the Prophetic tradition (the Sunnah) that indicates the presence of ishq-love for him (Al-Ghazali, 2005).

If one reads the poems synchronically, we see that Iqbal is adhering to the traditional view on faith. For Iqbal faith is a fusion of beliefs and actions whose existence is affirmed and comes to life when articulated through the medium of the body in deliberative, methodical and conscientious acts of worship. There is a reflexive relationship between the acts of the body and the inner, mental attitude of the individual where the one is making and remaking (and is being made and re-made) by the other. It is through cultivating the body in this highly reflexive-self-making fashion where body and consciousness operate together in expressing faith that insights about hitherto veiled domination structures are revealed to the human being along with the courses of actions to over-come them.

A concrete example may help illustrate this process. Malcolm X (also known as Al Hajj Malik Al Shahbbaz) gives a first person account of how Hajj turned out to be a defining and transforma-tive experience for him. In a well known letter he describes what he experienced during his pil-grimage to Mecca shortly after he had left the Nation of Islam in 1964:



There were tens of thousands of pilgrims ... of all colors, from blue-eyed blondes to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual [our emphasis], displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and the non-white. (cited in Haley, 1999: 343)

Here we can see how the performance of bodily acts of worship serves as a catalyst for trans-forming deeply held inner convictions ultimately producing insights (e.g. that race does not mat-ter). These insights caused Malcolm X to exercise agency in the form of breaking free from the clutches of the doctrines of Nation of Islam that preached black racial superiority.

Moreover, those bodily experiences of the Hajj allowed Malcolm X to exercise agency in terms of stepping outside the discourse of the civil rights movement and beginning a different narrative on the race issue in the United States. The physical experience of the international dimension of the Hajj made him see things including the race issue in an international perspective. After the Hajj, he saw the racism in the United States not as a domestic issue but as an international issue and thus not as a civil rights problem (that comes under domestic jurisdiction) but as a human rights prob-lem (that comes under international jurisdiction) for which he was seeking the intervention of the United Nations (Haley, 1999).

In sum, the Iqbalian approach to agency illustrated through the example of Malcolm X is that agency emerges from bodily acts of worship (e.g. Hajj). This approach to agency can best be cap-tured in the deep Sufi aphorism: Act in accordance with what you know for what you do not know [will] be unveiled to you [by God] (Al-Ghazali, 2005: 40). An aphorism that mirrors well Malcolm Xs own words My pilgrimage broadened my scope. It blessed me with a new insight (cited in Haley, 1999: 369). In other words, the emphasis under a pre-modern religious outlook according to Talal Asad (2003) is on ortho-praxis (correct practice) and less on ortho-doxy (correct beliefs/insights). If the former is there, as the Sufi aphorism suggest, the latter will follow.

Of course, there could be other explanations to the one provided by the Iqbalian approach to agency for Malcolm Xs transformation and his new narrative. For example, it was his interaction with other nationalities not the Hajj bodily acts that brought about awareness of an international dimension to the race issue in the United States. This would raise the interesting question then of why did such insights not emerge in the United States where Malcolm X must have come across other nationalities as well. Why did it happen in the Hajj and not in multicul-tural Harlem?

Nor are we arguing that the Iqbalian view on agency through bodily acts provides the explana-tion for the agency of Malcolm X. However, Iqbals view on agency will prove to be a valuable asset for a CMS scholar because it can provide the theoretical resources to account for particular types of faith based agency that remain hidden or obscure when viewed from the orthodox agnos-tic/atheistic perspectives. It helps the postcolonial CMS scholar to avoid the pitfall of having to play God and reveal hidden meanings and latent functions on behalf of other mere mortals [the subalterns] (Graaff, 2006: 1393). Because the Iqbalian approach to agency can come close to the Muslim subjects own experiences, it may well provide the space for the Muslim subaltern in the Global South exercising such faith-based agency through bodily acts to speak in postcolonial CMS scholarship. It will enable the postcolonial CMS theorist to avoid silencing the subaltern whose action is motivated by ethical and spiritual concerns when theorizing about her.

We are not denying the value of hidden meanings and history working behind the backs of actors. All we are requesting is that along with these explanations a view on agency should also be entertained that is capable of understanding the subjective experience of the faith-based agency of the Muslim other on its own termsIqbal offers one such alternative.


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From our perspective, Iqbal provides a theistic approach to agency (especially faith-based agency) whose contours have been briefly and faintly indicated here. This approach is altogether different from the dominant secular subaltern (e.g. see Banerjee, 2000) and Foucauldian approaches (e.g. see Frenkel, 2008a) in postcolonial CMS. In spite of its theistic commitments (e.g. seeing agency stemming from faith through bodily acts) the Iqbalian approach to agency brings to sharp relief some insights for theorizing agency that these secular postcolonial CMS approaches can adopt to perhaps extend their own understandings of agency.

For example, postcolonial CMS theory inspired by Iqbal but now inflecting his insights on agency with its secular commitments can pose interesting questions about agency, such as: How do bodily acts problematize the smooth functioning of hegemonic capitalistic/managerial discourses and thereby produce agency? How do bodily acts involving the physical motions of limbs such as sit-ins or marches or even farting affect the smooth functioning of such discourses and practices as com-pared to bodily acts involving direct usage of language (e.g. speech through the movement of the tongue)? What is the relationship between physical/external bodily acts of resistance and non-bodily acts/internal states of resistance (e.g. forming an internal will to commit to a cause/making the inten-tion not to surrender in ones consciousness). As can be seen, postcolonial CMS scholarship can gain much by allowing the Iqbalian view of agency some space in it. It can then engage with the insights Iqbal brings to the conversations on agency such as the explicit focus on the body as agency that appears under theorized in postcolonial CMS that focuses more on the consciousness and experi-ences of the subalterns than on their bodily practices and the latters relationship to agency.

The other insight that the Iqbalian approach to agency brings to the attention of the postcolonial CMS imagination to help it see that agency need not arise solely from manoeuvring between dis-courses (e.g. Frenkel, 2008b). Agency can also arise from manoeuvring with and within the self, the movement triggered by experiences gained through bodily acts. In the theistic universe of Iqbal the bodily acts/movement with the self (the Hajj) create an experience (erasure of racial difference) that generates a subject shift/movement within the self (e.g. conversion to orthodox Islam) putting the subject on new coordinates (e.g. part of an international brotherhood/community of Muslims/ummah) from which agency becomes possible (e.g. constructing a different discourse on the race issue as a problem of international human rights).

Postcolonial CMS theorists can fruitfully engage with the Iqbalian model and see how Iqbals agency through self-making can be translated to cohere with their secular commitments. For exam-ple, the bodily acts (which could be secular in nature such as Daniel Ellsbergs visit to Vietnam during the Vietnam War) can create an experience (this is a war of aggression against a Global South country) putting the subject on new coordinates (e.g. secular conversion to the cause of the Vietnamese) enabling agency (e.g. the release of the classified Pentagon Papers showing the lies on the war perpetrated by elite US policy circles thereby disrupting the discourse of the war as a fight for freedom). But a note of caution is in order in this regard. For Iqbal or any other theocentric critical perspective to enrich CMS discourse, it is absolutely essential that they be accepted on their own terms and not be reduced to the existing categories of the dominant secular modes of theoriz-ing. For this to happen it is important to have the likes of Iqbal present in their authentic forms in postcolonial CMS scholarship and ward off the temptation of homogenizing out their differences with conventional understandings of what constitutes proper theory through the reviewing proc-ess where it is precisely such differences that can provide the resources for critical reflection and extension of existing theory.

Clearly, there are possibilities of productive engagement between the two styles of theorizing (i.e. the established largely poststructuralist and hence secular canon of postcolonial CMS scholar-ship and the faith-based radical critiques emerging from the Global (especially Muslim) South



such as that of Iqbals) as shown in the above discussion of agency. This is of course provided the First World postcolonial CMS community is willing to listen from the theistic subaltern in the Global South in her own voiceGod, angels, life after death and all. What listening requires is for the First World postcolonial CMS community to temporarily stop speaking its own privileged voice of secular epistemic and metaphysical commitments that decisively shape its theoretical concerns. In that silence they will hear the theistic subaltern speaking.

Conclusion

Edward Saids (1978, 1993, 1997) masterful trilogy to which postcolonial CMS pays much deserved homage was based largely although not exclusively on the Wests engagement with Islam and the Muslim World. Yet, the views and voices of Muslims on how they perceive this engage-ment using their own epistemic and critical resources has largely been absent from postcolonial CMS theory. One major contribution of this article has been to add to the postcolonial CMS theo-retical oeuvre a critical narrative from the Global Muslim South shaping resistance and alternatives to Western capitalism without reducing that narrative to the existing theoretical categories in post-colonial CMS. It is hard for us to fathom how postcolonial CMS theory can champion the cause of subalterns (including Muslims in the Global South under direct occupation as in Iraq or ruled by West-friendly autocratic regimes as in Egypt) when it is perhaps inadvertently engaging in subal-ternalization itself by being free of practically any content derived from Muslim/Islamic sources. By introducing a portion of Muhammad Iqbals ideas and highlighting the specifically Islamic roots/sources of his ideas we hope we have brought the inadvertent Eurocentrism in orthodox post-colonial CMS down by a couple of significant notches.

While the above are important contributions, we feel that this articles main contribution lies in articulating Iqbals critical narrative of Western capitalism and some of its key dimensions i.e. theocentric epistemology and metaphysics as knowledge and embodied love as praxis. We argue that this Iqbalian critical narrative is articulating a new (theistic) genre or style in postcolonial CMS theorizing and thus can be considered a significant contribution to that field. In this genre, traditional concerns of postcolonial CMS are given new inflections and twists. For example, capi-talism is denounced but for shrouding God from creation. The self is a liberating force exercising agency but only when reason is saddled and harnessed by a burning love of the Prophet (peace be upon him) expressed through bodily acts of worship.

These inflections extend the range of our understandings by pointing out that there is an alto-gether different and much broader spectrum of concern regarding capitalism than what is presently allowed in postcolonial CMS scholarship. For example, Iqbal extends our concern on capitalisms crimes to also include heedlessness of God. This extends our range of concern from not only a hori-zontal dimension relating to material issues in society (e.g. death and destruction caused in the Global South by Western capitalism; see Banerjee, 2010), but also to a vertical dimension relating to God, and capitalisms efforts at severing the connection of the human subject to the Divine.

Moreover, understandings of agency in postcolonial CMS are enriched through an engagement with Iqbal. The body returns as a focus for theorizing not just domination but also resistance and agency. This focus on the body brought to the fore by the Iqbalian narrative in turn allows the cur-rent conversations on agency in postcolonial CMS to be enriched by articulating another route to agency, not by maneuvering between discourses but by maneuvering with and within the self through conscious acts of self making involving bodily acts.

Finally, as our comments on Mizrachi et al.s (2007) and Frenkels (2008a) discussion of agency of Jordanian managers suggest, the Iqbalian critical narrative can help postcolonial CMS theorists


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to be on the look out for and be sensitive to agency driven by religious sentiments. These senti-ments and others like it from the Global South are likely to be overlooked when viewed from secu-lar Western atheistic/agnostic theoretical lenses. The problem is not so much with having perspectives that are Western per se. Rather the problem is that these Western perspectives anchored in their own secular epistemic and metaphysical commitments may not be able to explain through their ideas aspects of Muslim agency in the Global South. For example, the Jordanian managers may have been acting out of religious obligations and secular Western CMS theorys vocabulary (e.g. core-periphery relations) then becomes quite impoverished in gaining access to and explain-ing the meanings and intentions driving such faith-based agency.

One aim of postcolonial theory is to help show the provincial (non-universal) nature of Western knowledges and challenge their universalizing claims (Chakrabarty, 2000). This is done by bringing in non-Western perspectives (e.g. Iqbals) that make sense of history and human experience (e.g. on Western capitalism in the Global South) without an exclusive recourse to concepts that are emerging from a primarily Western European experience. As these alternative sense-making narratives from the Global South are brought to light the claims of Western knowledges as being the only way to articulate experience are destabilized. Western knowledges thus end up being provincialized, restricted at best to the domain of the West and not applicable to the rest who have their own narratives.

We feel that that Iqbalian critical narrative contributes to provincializing postcolonial CMS scholarship. It shows there are concepts and categories available in non-Western perspectives (e.g. Islam) that can provide, as Feyerabend also argued, meaningful sense making resources for inter-preting experience and generating radical critiques (e.g. on Western capitalism in the Global South) without having to exclusively rely on Western thought formations (e.g. postcolonial CMS). Thus, the Iqbalian critical narrative helps provincializes postcolonial CMS showing it as an important way rather than the only way of imagining radical critiques of Western capitalism.

In terms of future research directions, we believe that postcolonial CMS theory will do well in terms of reducing its current provincial nature if it takes religion seriously. Without creating space for religion, we believe that the prospects for postcolonial CMS in the Muslim world, given its ris-ing religiosity (Davis and Robinson, 2006), are quite bleak. Prospects would be stronger if it is able to engage with the religious terms and categories contested and diverse as they may well be, through which Muslims are interpreting their postcolonial experiences. Otherwise, this stream will be seriously out of touch with what is taking place in the proverbial barricades outside the clois-tered marble halls of the secular academy, a point that Berger has already noted for the wider social sciences. Commenting on the surprise expressed by the social scientists in the 1980s and 1990s upon seeing the emergence of religious fundamentalism and their feverish attempts to understand it, Berger (1996/1997: 3) notes:

Put simply: The difficult-to-understand phenomenon is not Iranian mullahs but American university professors. The point ... is that the assumption that we live in a secularized world is false: The world today, with some exceptions attended to below, is as furiously religious as it ever was, and in some places more so than ever.

Some may object to our characterization of management and organization studies, including postcolonial CMS as being devoid of content on religion. They would argue that such bodies of knowledge have taken heed of Bergers observation and are taking religion seriously as shown by the burgeoning literature on workplace spirituality (Steingard, 2005) and discussions of spirituality in CMS (e.g. Cals and Smircich, 2003). However, we would argue along with King Jr (2008) that religion is being ignored in these conversations as spirituality is being discussed with hardly any



reference to religion. This is problematic because as King Jr (2008: 220) notes most of the popula-tion experiences spirituality in or from a religious context, perceiving little distinction between them. This marginalization of religion in favour of spirituality as Bell (2008) points out also appears in CMS where religion is either ignored altogether or if addressed is then largely viewed as a repressive disciplinary force maintaining control of organization members.

CMS may well wish to break out of what appears from the foregoing to be its highly secularized and Westernized intellectual academic ghetto by engaging with religion on its own terms. Iqbal provides one avenue of doing so. Alternatively, CMS can continue to ignore religion altogether and decide instead to preach down to theistic-minded others (including Muslims) why their critical theoretical resources (e.g. God, the Prophet and the Quran) are part of false consciousness in which case we would all be back to the civilizing mission and the White Mans (or more pre-cisely White Scholars) Burden. And that would be a shame.

Notes

1 In this article we use the terms Western and the West heuristically to refer primarily to the metropoli-tan centre largely constituted by North America, Western Europe and others included in the dominant centre of the world order. Non-Western refers to what is commonly referred to as Third World or the Global South. We recognize the dangers of essentialisms potentially inherent in such terms but we feel such usage is a necessary device to avoid clumsiness and endless caveats.

2 We prefer the term Western to global capitalism. This is in keeping with the credible understanding of a considerable part of historical scholarship on imperialism (Blaut, 1993) and the Left-Realist tradi-tion (Klein, 2007; Petras and Veltmeyer, 2001). They argue that the parameters of capitalism enacted in the Global South from the colonial period to todays neocolonial era via the market friendly neoliberal regimes continue to be set largely by organizations (e.g. the World Bank and the IMF) in which large corporate interests in the West (particularly in the United States) have the decisive say as opposed to other centres of capitalism (e.g. Japan and China). The latter are effectively subordinate to and work in the Global South within the security umbrella and policy regimes set by Western capitalism shored up by the threat and use of Western imperial arms (Chomsky, 2004).

3 Allah is the Arabic word for God. It is used not just by Muslims but also by Arabic speaking Jews and Christians among the Abrahamic traditions as well pre-Islamic pagans to refer to God.

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Biographies

Farzad Rafi Khan, Associate Professor, graduated with a PhD in Strategy and Organization from McGill University in 2005. He is currently an Associate Professor at the Suleman Dawood School of Business, Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan. His research interests centre on exploring state capitalism and imperialism, impacts of organizations on society, critical approaches to management, and Islamic business ethics.Address: Suleman Dawood School of Business, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Opposite Sector U, DHA, Lahore Cantt. 54792, Pakistan. Email: [email protected]

Basit Bilal Koshul has one PhD from Drew University (2003) in the Sociology of Religion and a second one from the University of Virginia (2011) in Religious Studies. He is Associate Professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. His areas of research include the sociology of religion, philosophy of science, the philosophy of religion and the contemporary Islam-West encounter. Integrating the insights of Muhammad Iqbal, Charles Sanders Peirce and Max Weber is a key part of his research interests. His publications include The Postmodern Significance of Max Webers Legacy: Disenchanting Disenchantment (Palgrave, 2005). Address: Suleman Dawood School of Business, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Opposite Sector U, DHA, Lahore Cantt. 54792, Pakistan. Email: [email protected]


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