The Muslim Difference
Youshaa Patel
Lafayette College, USA/ Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies
Tuesday, November 14th, 2023, 5 pm
Basement Teaching Room 1
Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Pusey Lane
Drawing on his recently published book, The Muslim Difference (Yale 2022), Youshaa Patel
will explore the vexing Islamic discourse of reprehensible imitation (tashabbuh), a discourse
that enjoined ordinary believers to embody and display their religious difference from
Christians, Jews and others in public life. Setting limits on cross-cultural imitation and
assimilation was as crucial to the construction of Muslim identity and alterity during Islam’s
formative period as it is today. This lecture will situate the religious discourse of tashabbuh
within Islamic scripture and tradition, drawing attention to the role of the Partisans of Hadith
in canonizing the doctrine and considering its implications for the study of Islam, past and
present.
