On The Many Names in Academia, For One Thing

'This is what medieval theologians called Vahdat dar Takassur (Unity in Diversity). Seh nagardad barisham ar ou ra parnian khanish ya harir-o-parand, says the great Persian poet Hatif Isfahani (d. 1783), “Silk will not become three different things, if you were to call it parnian, harir, or parand” (three Persian words for “silk”).'

-Hamid Dabashi (2008: 258).

Intellectuals can make three or a thousand names for one thing, but that does not change what the thing truly is, only what it denotes for us. The many names are constructions grasping to assign meaning. A desperate endeavour carried out by all societies. The things remains, regardless of what chatter says about it. The truth of a matter should be more important than our labels (is this the yearning for facts?), but on anything discussed seriously,  people find themselves in a game of ever-changing names and definitions, a circling joust of competing labels.

I study Islamism, and the subjects of this topic go by many names: jihadists, jihadis, Islamic revivalists, Islamic radicals, radical conservatives, nativists, religio-ethnic nationalists, fundamentalists, theocrats, anti-moderns. The writers can't seem to help but proliferate multiple names for a single thing. Here the naming labels emphasise the different aspects of the Islamist, and betray how they are seen and identified by the name-giver. The name denotes what theories will be use to explain the subject, what intellectual direction they come from, and where emphasis will be placed e.g. as anti-moderns, jihadists, theocrats, nativists or conservatives.

It was wonderful to share this quote with you; now back to editing for me. This will require some tea.


Note: I have serious reservations with Dabashi's text, his vilification of Ayaan Hirsi Ali for one; but this was a quote worth drawing out.