Call for breaking free from colonial mindsets to inhabit own place in world

The Habib University celebrated the successful conclusion of the sixth edition of its Postcolonial Higher Education Conference. This globally recognised annual event held at the university campus gathered scholars, thinkers, activists and writers from around the world to engage in enriching discussions under the theme titled ‘The Ethical and the Spiritual in Islam: Pasts, Presents and Futures’.

The second day of the conference featured a distinguished keynote address by world-renowned author and scholar Dr Oludamini Ogunnaike, associate professor of African religious thought and democracy at the University of Virginia.

In his thought-provoking speech titled ‘Against the Dying of the Light: The Perils and Imperatives of Decoloniality in Islamic Temporalities’, Dr Ogunnaike highlighted the need to break free from colonial mindsets, urging the audience to appreciate and inhabit their place in the world beyond imposed formations.

“A colonial mindset forms the basis of where power, knowledge and being will exist in society. The West made their knowledge model universal. We need to break out of these formations, away from our coloniser, so we can truly appreciate and inhabit our place in the world.”

Dr Ogunnaike engaged the audience in a riveting presentation, transforming the way decoloniality is considered and contemplated in the context of indigenous and Western education.

“We have three tasks,” he pointed out. “We have to continue to cultivate and develop the Islamic traditions, we also have to learn the Western humanities and sciences, and finally, we need to learn from and engage with other traditions from around the world.”

Panel discussions included ‘The Politics of Spiritual Ethicality’ and ‘Ethico-spiritual Reorientations in an Age of Extreme Nihilism’, featuring contributions from notable scholars such as Aaron Eldridge, SSHRC postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, Arsalan Khan, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Tennessee, and Muhammad Faruque, assistant professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Cincinnati, and Dr Nauman Naqvi, associate professor of comparative humanities at HU, respectively.

The sessions highlighted addressing challenges arising from the swift pace of modernisation, specifically examining the unravelling and distortion of connections between religion, ethics and spirituality.

The comprehensive exploration identified the consequences of the global disintegration and misshaping of these interlinked dimensions, emphasising its far-reaching significance for individual well-being across various traditions and lifestyles.

Delivering the closing remarks, conference chair Dr Naqvi reinforced the conference’s commitment to navigating modern challenges while preserving core values and traditions. As inherited systems of thoughtful self-cultivation face distortion and disarticulation globally, the Islamic context emerges as a critical test case, notably in the delegitimisation, disarticulation and misappropriation of Sufism.

Aligned with the mission of shaping reparative futures, HU’s sixth Postcolonial Higher Education Conference illuminated, investigated and analysed the essential linkages between the ethical and spiritual dimensions in Islamic traditions, spanning late antique and medieval articulations, modern reconfigurations, and envisioning future reparative possibilities for theory and practice.