On my NRC (National Register of Citizens) card, my ethnicity—or rather, ethnicities—is listed as Kayin, Kaman, Yakhine (Rakhine), Bama, Bengali, and Bengali.

Yes, Bengali appears twice: once because I am Rohingya, and once because I am Bengali. That small bureaucratic repetition, absurd as it may seem, says something rather revealing about Burma and about the fiction of “pure” identity. It shows, at the very least, that identity in Burma has never been as clean, singular, or coherent as nationalist rhetoric wants us to believe. It is layered, mixed, inherited, imposed, negotiated, denied, and sometimes even repeated by the state itself in ways that almost expose the fragility of its own categories.

So when I say, “I am kalar,” I am not saying it recklessly. I know what the word has become. I know the violence and implications attached to it. I know how it is used on the tongues of racists, nationalists, Islamophobes, and those who want to remind people like me that we are, supposedly, not fully from Burma—and therefore not really “Burmese.” I know that for many Muslims, Rohingya, Bengalis, Indians, and people of South Asian descent in Burma, kalar (ကုလား) is not merely a word. It is a wound. It is a constant reminder that we do not really belong.

But I also know that the word has a history before its weaponization. And I know, more importantly, that refusing the word has not freed us from the structures that made it violent in the first place.

That is the difficulty.

Because what exactly is the alternative? If we say “Muslim,” we reduce race to religion. If we say “Indian,” or more precisely, “people of Indian descent”—India-nwe-pwa (အိန္ဒိယနွယ်ဖွား) in Burmese—we impose a modern national category onto people whose histories are far more complicated than the borders of the modern Indian state. Pakistan and Bangladesh are obvious examples. Not only that, the phrase sounds quite formal, and we lose the actual social category that exists in Burmese life. No one really speaks like that. No one organizes memory, prejudice, affection, distance, or belonging through such artificial terminology.

It names a social formation that cannot be reduced to religion, nationality, phenotype, or ancestry alone. It names those who are marked in Burma as having some form of South Asian origin or association, whether through skin color, language, food, dress, religious practice, bodily features, family history, or simply through the prejudiced imagination of others. It names a people who have been in Burma for generations, who have contributed to Burma, who speak Burmese, who think in Burmese, who belong to Burma, and who are nevertheless often treated as permanent outsiders.

This is why I think the issue is not simply whether the word kalar is offensive. Of course it is offensive when used offensively—sauk kalar (စောက်ကုလား) being an obvious example. The more important question is: who gets to define it?

Do racists get to keep the word forever? Do nationalists get to dictate its meaning? Do those who used it to humiliate us also get the final say over whether we can reclaim it?

I do not think so.

The History of the Word Is Not as Simple as People Pretend

Language carries history and the Burmese language is no different. It carries with it traces of older worldviews, social hierarchies, and inherited prejudices, among other things. A word can outlive the world that produced it, but it can also absorb new meanings as power changes around it. Kalar is one such word.

This is why the usual arguments about kalar are often too simplistic and reductive. Some insist that it simply means “Indian.” Others insist that it simply means “Muslim.” Others claim that it has always been a slur and nothing else. But the historical record is more complicated than any of these claims.

The Burmese term kalar is old. It appears to have been used long before the modern racial and religious politics now attached to it. Its older semantic range was broader than “Indian” in the narrow modern sense. It referred, in different contexts, to peoples associated with lands west of Burma. It could include South Asians, but it was not limited to them. Colonial-era dictionaries still preserved the expression kalar phyu (ကုလားဖြူ), literally “white kalar,” for Europeans. That alone should give us pause. If Europeans could be called “white kalar,” then the word could not have originally meant simply “dark-skinned Indian” or “Muslim.” Its older meaning was broader, closer to “western foreigner” or “person associated with the lands west of Burma.”

The etymology is also debated. One serious explanation connects the word to Pāli/Sanskrit kula (ကုလ). The Myanmar-English Dictionary, compiled by the Myanmar Language Commission, lists Pāli kula as the origin of kalar, while U Hote Sein’s Pāli-Burmese dictionary defines kula as race, noble race, home, one’s parents’ home, or a patron who feeds and takes care of another. If this etymology is correct, then the term’s older semantic field was not simply racial (slur), but referred to lineage, belonging, origin, and inherited social identity. This would make sense in a Burmese context where people from the Indian subcontinent were associated with caste, lineage, and inherited forms of social identity.

Other explanations have also been proposed. Another theory connects the word to the Chola/Cola world of South India (or as we know it, Chulia), which is historically plausible given the long history of South and Southeast Asian maritime contact. A third explanation links it to Indic kāla, meaning “black” or “dark,” but this seems more convincing as a later racial reinterpretation than as the original meaning, precisely because older usage could include “white kalar” as well. A fourth explanation, at least in public rhetoric, is that kalar derives from ku-lā (ကူးလား), meaning “to cross over” or “to come across,” a border. To my knowledge, however, this explanation has little serious historical or linguistic credibility.

The term also appears in older Burmese historical sources. Pagan-era inscriptions, for example, refer to Indian dancers and drummers using the term kalar, while expressions such as kalar kyaung (ကုလားကျောင်း) were used for Indian-style monasteries or temples. Figures such as Aung San and U Nu are reported to have used the word (but without intending any negative connotation).

None of this means that kalar is harmless today simply because it did not begin as a slur. That is precisely where we need to be careful. A word can have a non-derogatory origin and still become violent through history. Meaning is not fixed at the point of origin; it is transformed by power, repetition, humiliation, and social use.

The point, then, is not to recover some pure “real” meaning of the word, as if history can be undone by etymology. The point is to recognize that kalar did not fall from the sky as a fully formed slur. It became what it became through history.

The decisive shift, however, for the negative sense of the word seems to have taken place under colonial rule. Burma was governed as part of British India, and large numbers of Indians came to Burma as laborers, clerks, dockworkers, moneylenders, merchants, policemen, and administrators. For many Burmese, colonial domination was not encountered only through distant British rulers, but through the visible presence of Indians in the colonial economy. Indians became associated with bureaucracy, labor competition, debt, urban change, and social displacement, among other things. This does not justify anti-Indian racism, of course, but it helps explain how an older word became increasingly charged with resentment.

It absorbed race, class, religion, resentment, colorism, nationalism, and anti-colonial humiliation. Then, in the postcolonial period, especially through Buddhist nationalism and anti-Muslim politics, the word narrowed even further. Although it continued to refer primarily to people of Indian or South Asian origin, it increasingly became associated with Muslims, despite the fact that Hindus too are referred to as kalars. Thus, the word’s center of gravity shifted from geography to race, then from race to religion, and finally from religion to national exclusion—and eventually, the language of genocide.

By the time we arrive at modern Burma, kalar is no longer just an ethnonym. It is a political accusation.

This is what I reject. Not the existence of the term itself, but the political theology of exclusion that now hides inside it.

Reclaiming Is Not Forgetting

Some may say that reclaiming kalar is impossible because the word is too damaged. I understand that objection. In fact, I do not dismiss it at all. Many people have been humiliated by this word. Many have heard it in moments of bullying, discrimination, suspicion, and violence. It would be arrogant to tell every person who has suffered under the word that they must now embrace it. That is not my argument.

My argument is more modest: those of us who have been named by the word should have the right to decide what to do with it. If some reject it entirely, that is their right. If others choose to reclaim it, that too should be possible.

This has happened elsewhere. Words that were once used as insults have, in some cases, been reclaimed by the very communities they targeted. “Queer” is perhaps the clearest example. It was once a term of contempt, but many LGBTQ+ people transformed it into a political, intellectual, and communal identity. Of course, not everyone accepts it. Some still hear the injury first. But its meaning has undeniably changed because the community struggled over it.

The same can be said, in a different and far more restricted way, about how some Black communities have reworked the N-word in in-group contexts. Again, this does not mean outsiders can use it freely. That is precisely the point. Reclamation is not permission for everyone. It is not a general social license. It is an act of semantic resistance by those who were targeted.

The difference between being called kalar and calling myself kalar is not insignificant.

When someone calls me kalar to remind me that I do not belong, the word is doing the work of exclusion and semantic violence. But when I say, “I am kalar,” I am refusing the shame that the word is supposed to produce. I am saying: yes, I know what you see when you look at me. I know the history you are trying to attach to my body. I know the place you want me to occupy. And I reject the inferiority you built into that name. In turn, I invoke the word’s older history and usage not to erase its violence, but to refuse the inferiority others have attached to it and to reclaim the agency to name who I am and what I am.

This is, of course, not a naive return to some pure original meaning. We cannot simply pretend that the word has not been poisoned and corrupted. But perhaps we can refuse to let that poison be its final meaning. Perhaps reclamation means insisting that those who turned the word into a weapon do not get to have the last word.

It is to say that the shame belongs not to those who were called kalar, but to those who used the word to degrade them. It is to fight semantic violence with semantic resistance.

The Problem with Polite Alternatives

One reason I am not satisfied with simply abandoning the word is that the available alternatives are, frankly, inadequate and impractical.

“Muslim” does not work. It names a religion, not a race, ethnicity, or historical community. There are kalars who are not Muslim, such as Hindus, and there are Muslims in Burma who are not kalar, such as Panthays and Pashus. To collapse the category into “Muslim” is to accept the very Islamophobic logic that made the word dangerous in the first place. It also expects people to be referred to by their religion, as if strangers are supposed to know one’s religion without one identifying it oneself.

“Indian” also does not work. Many people called kalar are not Indian in any meaningful national sense. Some are Bengali, Tamil, Chulia, Gujarati, Pathan, Surti, or of mixed ancestry. Some have lived in Burma for generations and have no actual relationship to India as a nation-state—like the Rohingya who are indigenous to Arakan. Others descend from regions that are now Bangladesh or Pakistan. Some are simply Burmese Muslims whose “Indian-ness” exists mostly in the imagination of others. And while calling people by their specific ethnic identities would be ideal in a perfect world, it does not solve the social problem I am naming here. The category kalar functions precisely because—from the perspective of the outsider—these distinct ethnic identities are collapsed into one racialized social category.

Another often proposed alternative is “South Asian descent.” This is better in academic writing, but it is not a living communal term. It is too sterile, too formal, too NGO-like. It can describe a demographic, perhaps, but it does not name the social experience of being marked as kalar in Burma.

The only other alternative I can think of is the word desi. In some ways, desi is probably the closest available equivalent to kalar. It comes from the Sanskrit/Hindi-Urdu word deś/desh, meaning land, country, or homeland, and in modern usage it often refers broadly to people, cultures, foods, and practices associated with the Indian subcontinent and its diaspora. In places like the United States, Canada, and Britain, desi can function as a loose umbrella term for Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and sometimes other South Asians, especially when people want to name a shared cultural world without reducing everyone to one nation-state or one ethnicity.

This is why desi is tempting. It does some of the work that kalar does. It can name a broad South Asian formation without the racist undertones, without reducing the matter to religion, and without pretending that Bengalis, Gujaratis, Chulias, and others are all the same ethnicity. It is capacious, informal, and already used by many South Asians themselves.

But the problem is obvious: desi is not a Burmese social category or word. It does not carry the history of how people are marked in Burma the way kalar is legible in Burmese life. To use desi would be to import a new word into Burmese discourse and then ask people to reorganize an already existing social reality around it. That may be possible in diaspora discourses, but as a practical replacement for kalar in Burma, it feels unworkable. It may be the closest conceptual alternative, but it is not a living Burmese alternative.

This is why the word kalar persists.

And here we need to be honest. Our desire to replace kalar with a more acceptable term comes less from a genuine reckoning with racism and more from discomfort with naming the thing directly. It allows us to appear progressive without confronting the deeper structure. We can say, “Do not use that word,” while continuing to believe that we are foreign, suspicious, culturally incompatible, or only conditionally Burmese—all without providing a viable alternative. It fails to do both the pragmatic and substantive work.

If tomorrow everyone stopped saying kalar and began saying “Bengali” with the same contempt, nothing would be solved. In fact, this is already what has happened to the Rohingya. “Bengali” is not a neutral descriptor in the Burmese political context. It has been weaponized precisely to deny Rohingya identity and existence, my NRC being a prime example. It is used to say: you are not indigenous, you are not from here, you are an illegal migrant, you are a problem to be managed.

So the issue is not simply the label itself. The issue is the structure of exclusion that survives every terminological change.

We Are Not Guests

The most dangerous idea attached to kalar is not merely that we are different. Difference, by itself, is not the problem. The problem is that our difference is interpreted as foreignness. And that foreignness is then used to make us guests—as if we live in Burma only by permission, and therefore do not really belong.

This language of “guest”—ei the (ဧည့်သည်)—is everywhere in Burmese Buddhist nationalist discourse. It is sometimes said gently, sometimes aggressively, but the meaning is usually the same:

After all, you are guests, and guests do not have equal claims. Guests can be tolerated, but they do not belong. And more importantly, guests can be discarded whenever necessary. The quintessential example is Aung San Suu Kyi throwing the Rohingya under the bus and siding with the junta—perhaps, and I am guessing here (quite charitably too), for the “greater good” of Burma, as if the Rohingya were not themselves part of Burma.

And this is precisely the problem.

What makes this even more ironic is that in a 1944 Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League declaration, “Kala[r]s” were listed alongside Karens, Shans, Kachins, Chins, Mons, Chinese (“Ta-yoke”), and other minorities whose political, economic, and social rights required protection. Here, “Kalars” are a rights-bearing minority within Burma, not simply guests living there by permission. But despite this, once a people are imagined as guests rather than as a community with equal claims to belonging, the demand placed on them changes. They are no longer simply asked to participate in the country. They are asked to prove that they deserve to remain in it.

The demand that kalars must “integrate” into Burmese culture is often presented as common sense. But what does “integration” actually mean here? Does it mean learning Burmese? Many of us already speak Burmese as our first or dominant language (in my case, both Urdu and Rohingya are lost to me). Does it mean participating in Burmese society? We already do. Does it mean loving Burma? Many of us do, with many kalars involved in the nation’s history and liberation—despite everything Burma has done to us.

So what is really being asked?

The answer, often, is not participation but legibility. “Integration” becomes the demand that we make ourselves recognizable according to Bama Buddhist norms of national belonging. We may speak Burmese, live in Burma, love Burma, and contribute to Burma, but if we appear too visibly Muslim, too visibly Indian, too visibly Rohingya, or too visibly kalar, our belonging becomes suspicious again. The issue is not whether we are part of Burma. The issue is how much of ourselves we are allowed to carry in public before Burma withdraws its recognition from us.

What is especially painful is that many Muslims themselves have absorbed this logic. They repeat the same nationalist assumptions back to their own communities, only in softer language. They say we should “adapt,” “be realistic,” “not provoke,” “respect Burmese culture,” “avoid standing out,” or “show that we are Burmese too.” On the surface, this sounds practical, even wise. But beneath it is often suppression and internalized racism: the quiet belief that our own inherited forms of dress, language, food, names, and religious expression are liabilities to be managed before the majority. I have seen this even among friends, some of whom outright refuse to identify with their own ethnic origins, let alone with kalar, and insist instead that they are simply “Burmese”—almost in an ethnic sense, as if Burmeseness requires the denial of everything else.

This is how domination becomes intimate. It does not always arrive as an explicit order from the outside. Sometimes it becomes a voice within the community itself. The majority does not need to demand assimilation at every moment because minorities begin disciplining themselves. We learn to anticipate what will make us look “too Muslim,” “too Indian,” or too visibly kalar. We become careful before anyone tells us to be careful. We shrink before anyone explicitly asks us to shrink. And then, tragically, some of us mistake that shrinking for wisdom.

We see this most clearly in debates over clothing. Some Muslims insist that one should wear “Burmese” attire instead of so-called “foreign” Muslim or South Asian clothing, such as the kurta, jubbah, thawb, sari, or other inherited forms of dress. Even in the mosque, clothing that marks one as visibly Muslim, Indian, or more broadly kalar can be dismissed as backward, foreign, or excessive. Meanwhile, Bama traditional attire is treated as “properly” Burmese and progressive. In some cases, this logic has even been institutionalized, as with spaces like the 59th Street Mosque, where wearing traditional Burmese clothing becomes a public statement about what “proper” Burmese Muslim respectability is supposed to look like.

To be clear, the problem is not Burmese clothing itself. There is nothing wrong with Muslims wearing Burmese attire; in fact, we should wear it when the circumstance calls for it, just as we might wear a suit when the occasion demands it. The problem begins when one form of dress is treated as “normative” while another is treated as foreign or backward. If someone wishes to wear Burmese traditional clothing, that should be respected. If someone wishes to wear a kurta, thawb, jubbah, sari, hijab, or any other form of cultural or religious attire, that too should be respected. People should have the right to wear what they wish without being made to feel that their clothing determines the legitimacy of their belonging or how “progressive” they are.

Nor is there anything wrong with wanting Islam in Burma to speak in a Burmese idiom, to take root in Burmese language, history, and culture. In fact, I think there is a real need for a localized, even indigenous, Islam in Burma—what I would call Burmese Islam. The Islamic Institute of Burma, which I founded, is in many ways one attempt to contribute to precisely this project: to make Islam speak meaningfully in Burmese, for Burmese Muslims, within the intellectual, cultural, and historical realities of Burma, and ultimately to help give birth to a distinctly Burmese tradition of Islam.

But Burmese Islam cannot be built through self-erasure. Localization is not assimilation. An indigenous Burmese Islam should not mean that Bengali, Rohingya, Chulia, Gujarati, Pathan, Kaman, or other Muslim histories disappear into a single Bama cultural mold. Nor should it mean that the kurta, jubbah, thawb, sari, hijab, or other visible markers of Muslim and South Asian identity must be treated as embarrassments to be erased. Cultures become local organically through translation, adaptation, mixture, memory, appropriation, and everyday life—not by forcibly copying the dominant group.

The goal, then, should not be a Muslim who has become culturally smaller in order to be accepted. It should be a Muslim who can be fully Burmese without ceasing to be Bengali, Rohingya, Indian, Tamil, Chulia, Kaman, or kalar. It should allow a person to wear a longyi one day and a kurta another day, or both simultaneously, as many do; to wear a jubbah to the mosque without being seen as backward; to speak Burmese without feeling ashamed of Urdu, Hindi, Arabic, or any other languages tied to family and religious memory.

The same is true of food. Mohinga is often treated as self-evidently Burmese, while biryani is marked as foreign/kalar—as if one belongs naturally to the land and the other always points somewhere else. But this distinction collapses the moment we look honestly at Burmese life. Kalars have eaten mohinga for generations, just as they have made biryani local in its own right. Burmese biryani—danbauk—is not simply “Indian biryani” transplanted unchanged into Burma. It is its own variety of biryani in its own right, and in many ways, it is already a Burmese dish, shaped by the histories and kitchens of the people who made Burma their home. (I myself can attest that danbauk is quite different from regular biryani—and, in my opinion, much tastier.)

A single family can eat mohinga for breakfast and serve danbauk at a wedding. The same person can crave both. The same tongue can taste both as home. That is precisely the point: belonging is not proven by choosing one dish over the other. Burmese life has always been made from mixtures, borrowings, adaptations, and local transformations. Mohinga and biryani are not opposites. They are both part of the world we inherited, cooked, shared, and made our own. That is why “between mohinga and biryani” is not, for me, a space of confusion. It is the space where I learned that belonging does not require purity.

The same demand appears around festivals and public culture. We are told that, because we are Burmese, we should celebrate Thingyan and be more “open-minded.” But this demand is rarely neutral. Thingyan may be treated today as a national festival, but it is also ritually tied to Buddhist practice and Burmese Buddhist cultural life. For Muslims, then, the demand to participate is not merely a harmless invitation to national belonging. It can become a demand to compromise one’s Muslimness in order to prove one’s Burmeseness.

And this is the point: the burden is always placed on us. We must adjust. We must explain. We must soften our difference. We must accept Bama Buddhist norms as the default standard of national belonging and then prove our loyalty by erasing whatever makes the majority uncomfortable.

A truly equal Burma would not require minorities to dissolve themselves into the majority in order to be accepted. A truly equal Burma would understand that one can be Burmese while retaining one’s own religious, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural identity. One can wear Burmese dress and still preserve South Asian dress—or mesh the two. One can speak Burmese and still preserve other language that carries one’s family memory. One can eat mohinga and biryani. One can belong to Burma without becoming Bama.

This should not be difficult to understand.

Burma itself is not culturally pure. It never has been. It is a country of borderlands, migrations, courts, ports, pagodas, mosques, churches, markets, wars, trade routes, and mixed communities. Mon, Pyu, Arakanese, Shan, Karen, Chinese, Indian, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, and countless other histories have shaped the land. The idea that there is one pure Burmese “Bama” culture into which everyone must integrate is not history. It is ethno-nationalism pretending to be history.

Even Burma’s own mythic and semi-historical traditions make this purity impossible to sustain. In the Hmannan Yazawin (The Glass Palace Chronicle), the story of Byat Wi and Byat Ta already places two kalar Muslim brothers within the sacred imagination of Burma. They are not remembered simply as foreign strangers who passed through the land. Their story moves through Thaton, Bagan, Mount Popa, King Anawrahta, royal service, execution, spirit possession, and eventually deification. Byatta marries Me Wunna of Mount Popa, and their sons, the Shwe Hpyin brothers, become among the Thirty-Seven Great Nats (Spirits) of Burma.

The point is not that this legend should be read as straightforward history. Its importance is cultural and symbolic. Burmese memory itself preserves kalar Muslim figures not merely as outsiders, but as beings absorbed into the country’s royal, religious, and mythic world. Even one of Myanmar’s major nat festivals, Taungbyone, is tied to the Shwe Hpyin brothers, and worshippers are said to avoid pork out of respect for their Muslim origin.

There is another irony here as well. If we return to the older, broader sense of kalar as a term associated with peoples and lands west of Burma, then Burma’s own sacred history becomes much harder to separate from the very category now treated as foreign. Buddhism itself did not originate within Burma, but came from the Indian subcontinent; and the Buddha, too, belonged to that western world which older Burmese usage would have placed well within the orbit of kalar. This is not meant as provocation, but as a reminder of how deeply Burma has always been shaped by crossings, translations, and incorporations from beyond its imagined ethnic center. That should unsettle the language of “guesthood.” What does it mean to call kalars guests in a land where Buddhism becomes the heart of sacred life, where figures such as Byat Wi and Byat Ta enter mythic memory, and where their descendants become part of the country’s nat tradition? Guests do not become part of a people’s pantheon. Guests do not haunt sacred memory. Guests do not become woven into the ritual life of the land.

More specifically, the kalar communities of Burma are not foreign communities that remained unchanged on Burmese soil. Over generations, they became something distinct: Burmese in language and memory, South Asian in ancestry, and religiously diverse—Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Christian, and more. Their lives cannot be reduced to a single origin point. They carry Burma in their speech, South Asian ethnicity and culture in their family histories, Islam (or other religious traditions) in their practices, and a distinctly local inheritance in their food, dress, ceremonies, humor, and everyday rhythms. This is what “real” integration actually looks like when it happens organically across generations.

This is not failure to integrate. This is Burma.

My NRC Card and the Absurdity of Purity

This is why my own NRC card matters to me.

Kayin, Kaman, Yakhine, Bama, Bengali, and Bengali.

In that list, the state tries to classify me. But it also accidentally tells the truth. It tells the truth that identity in Burma exceeds the clean boxes into which the state wants to place people. It tells the truth that people are mixed. It tells the truth that categories overlap. It tells the truth that the fantasy of pure national belonging is exactly that: a fantasy.

What am I supposed to do with this list?

Am I supposed to choose only one? Am I supposed to apologize for the Bengali part? Am I supposed to explain that one Bengali refers to Rohingya and another to “real” Bengali? Am I supposed to prove that my Kaman identity is acceptable but my Rohingya identity is suspicious? Am I supposed to insist on my Bama Buddhist ancestry so that people will forgive the rest? Am I supposed to become less Muslim, less Bengali, less Rohingya, less visibly kalar, in order to become more Burmese?

That is the point. My identity is not an obstacle to my belonging. It is the very form through which I belong. I do not need to amputate parts of myself to fit into someone else’s idea of Burma. I do not need to become culturally smaller to become politically and socially acceptable.

And this is exactly what the language of “guest” cannot tolerate. It can tolerate minorities only as long as they know their place. It can tolerate Muslims if they are quiet. It can tolerate kalars if they are grateful. It can tolerate Rohingya if they disappear into another name—preferably in toto. It can tolerate diversity only when diversity does not challenge hierarchy, and ideally when it blends into Bama normativity.

Why I Am Kalar

So why am I kalar?

I am kalar because I refuse the shame attached to the word.

I am kalar because I refuse to be a guest in the country that formed me.

I am kalar because I refuse the idea that Burmese identity belongs only to those who can pass as Bama Buddhist.

I am kalar because I want to remember the older meaning of the word, before colonial resentment, Buddhist nationalism, Islamophobia, and anti-Rohingya racism turned it into a weapon.

But more than that, I am kalar because reclaiming the word forces the real question into the open:

Until that question is answered honestly, every discussion about democracy, liberation, and justice will remain incomplete. A liberated Burma that still treats minorities as guests is not truly liberated; it is only liberated for the Bama. A democratic Burma that still requires Muslims, Rohingya, Indians, and other minorities to assimilate into Bama Buddhist norms is not truly democratic. A federal Burma that keeps the old racial hierarchy intact has only rearranged power, not dismantled it.

I admit, of course, that reclaiming a word will not solve these problems by itself. It will not undo military violence and the genocide perpetrated. It will not rewrite the 1982 Citizenship Law. It will not end Islamophobia, anti-Indian racism, or the denial of Rohingya identity and their active erasure. It will not magically produce justice.

But naming matters.

Language is not everything, but it is never nothing. The words through which a society names its people reveal the moral limits of its imagination. And in Burma, the word kalar has long revealed who is allowed to belong fully and who must remain conditional.

So I say it deliberately.

I am Kayin.
I am Kaman.
I am Yakhine.
I am Bama.
I am Bengali.
I am Bengali again—that is, I am Rohingya.
I am Muslim.
I am Burmese.

I am the child of mohinga and biryani, of longyi and kurta, of Burmese language and Urdu lingo, of a land that keeps trying to make me choose only one part of myself.

And yes, I am kalar. Not because I accept the slur. But because I reject the shame.
Not because I am asking to be included. But because I was never a guest in my own land. I am not kalar instead of Burmese. I am kalar because this, too, is what Burmese can be.

References

Imperial_Auntorn. “Why was the term ‘Kalar’ (ကုလား), once widely used and considered acceptable, deemed inappropriate after 2012? For instance, in 1928 Yangon, there was an advertisement on a tram for ‘ကုလားမချင်းတောင်းဆွဲနို့ဆီ,’ reflecting the term’s common usage at the time.” Reddit Post. R/Myanmar, September 1, 2024. https://www.reddit.com/r/myanmar/comments/1f6i8u0/why_was_the_term_kalar_ကလ_once_widely_used_and/.

Khin Maung Saw. (Mis)Interpretations of Burmese Words: n.d. https://www.academia.edu/29525819/Mis_Interpretations_of_Burmese_Words_In_the_case_of_the_term_Kala_Kula.

Opening a Can of Worms in Burmese Teaching: Tackling Controversial Words in a Language Class. n.d. Accessed May 21, 2026. http://kennethwongsf.blogspot.com/2017/04/opening-can-of-worms-in-burmese.html.

I (am glad to) see a lot Burmese folks cheering The Gambia’s case against Burma for its perpetration of genocide against the Rohingya. At the very least, this case exposes the brutality of the military junta to the world, and if it is successful (God-willing) it will further discredit them on the international stage. That, in itself, matters.

But the irony here is difficult to ignore.

This newfound enthusiasm did not exist six years ago, before the coup, when “the Lady” stood before the world to defend the very same military and insisted that no genocide had taken place. We should not forget the widespread “We stand with Aung San Su Kyi” movement, mobilized precisely to shield her and to deny the Rohingya’s suffering (and even existence!). Let us also remember that the age old racist rhetoric “there is no Rohingya, only Bengali” was not (and is not!) fringe rhetoric. It was (and is) mainstream, repeated openly and without shame. At the time, solidarity with the Rohingya was not only absent but actively resisted.

The UN envoy Kyaw Moe Tun, back then, in effect, sold the narrative that the genocide was a “counter-terrorism” effort and that there was no such thing as “Rohingya.” Of course, with the changing of tides, he (along with the newly formed NUG) are forced, and I repeat, FORCED, to accept the Rohingya to push for their own agenda. It is, of course, obvious that this recognition is not born of moral clarity or genuine repentance, but of necessity. Otherwise, what legitimacy will they have on the international stage?

Now, however, when the same guns once aimed at the Rohingya have turned toward a different target (a target inward), many from that pro-Lady camp have suddenly jumped on the bandwagon. This shift, unfortunately, does not appear to stem from a genuine reckoning with the genocide or a commitment to justice and human dignity for fellow humans, the Rohingya. Rather, it serves a different agenda, one framed as the struggle for a “just” and “egalitarian” Burma.

Yet by “justice,” what often seems to be meant is a return to the pre-coup status quo: a Burma in which minorities remain perpetual “guests” (ဧည့်သည်) on their own land, even when they are indigenous to it and have, in many ways, contributed to and shaped the nation. I fear that the persistent rhetoric of forced assimilation, of insisting that Rohingya and Muslims (and other minorities) must “integrate,” submit, and conform to the “norms” of the counter even if it be “Bama-supremacy,” will still hold water even after Burma is liberated. Liberation, in this sense, does not dismantle hierarchy and systematic oppression; it merely rearranges it.

The Rohingya (at least to me, seems to) face a threefold challenge. The first is the political-genocidal violence inflicted by the military junta. The second (although less visible but no less dangerous) is the entrenched political and social racism that persists even in anti-junta circles and larger Burmese public, a sentiment that continues to deny the Rohingya’s belonging to Burma and that, in many ways, enabled the first crime. Too often, opposition to military rule stops short of confronting the deep ethno-nationalist assumptions that underwrite it. The Rohingya are routinely excluded from the moral imagination of the nation, spoken of as outsiders and (illegal) migrants rather than as a people with historical roots and legitimate claims to belonging. It is precisely what made the first crime possible. Genocide does not begin with violence alone, but with the normalization of exclusion, the quiet consensus that some lives do not fully count.

The third, and most painful of all, is how readily segments of the broader Burmese Muslim community in Burma are willing to throw their fellow Muslims under the bus, driven by racist and classist sentiment. We rather fight amongst ourselves along sectarian lines of bidʿa and kufr rather than for the protection of fellow Muslims. It is as we do not recite the Qurʾān when our Lord asked “And what is [wrong] with you that you do not fight in the cause of God and for the oppressed—men, women, and children—who say, ‘Our Lord, take us out of this town whose people are oppressors’?” (Q 4: 75) or when the Prophet told us that we are like one body, that when one part of it in pain, the whole body feels it (Ṣāḥīḥ Muslim).

Until all three of these realities are confronted, justice for the Rohingya will remain conditional, fragile, and perpetually postponed. And any so-called liberated Burma, if it is ever to materialize, risks reproducing the very structures it claims to oppose: a Burmese-supremacist, neo-fascist order designed for the “pure-blood” Burmese-Buddhist majority, where ethnic and religious minorities continue to exist only, at best, as tolerated presences. In such a future, the Rohingya, along with other minorities, would remain guests, never equals, and the cycle of exclusion, violence, and denial would simply repeat itself under a new banner.

I admit that I have no concrete solutions to propose at this stage but mere criticisms. And it won’t be wrong to point out that these criticisms may sound like empty words, reflecting my privileged position writing from across the world in a foreign language. That is a fair charge, and one I do not dismiss. But I maintain that my criticism, even when imperfect, is not entirely meaningless. Naming uncomfortable truths, especially those that are ignored, denied, and postponed, is itself a refusal to participate in collective amnesia. Silence has never been neutral in Burma’s history, and it has never been harmless. If these words do nothing else, let them at least resist the urge to move on too quickly as things that should be addressed and fixed (if ever) later or to imagine liberation without serious reckoning, not just for the atrocities committed against the Rohingya, but for Burma’s identity.

The research demonstrated a few key points. First, contrary to popular belief, logic can play—and does play—a central role in faith, so much so that, in this case, it became a primary tool for understanding not only God’s word but also God Himself. Second, it challenges an old but still popular view that al-Ghazālī was anti-rationality and that he was responsible for ending the Islamic golden age.3 Instead, my work shows how seriously al-Ghazālī took logic (and, by extension, philosophy) as a discipline, “neutralizing” it into mainstream Islamic theology (particularly Ashʿarism) and redefining the study and methods of Islamic theology itself. This actually adds to the rather complicated relationship al-Ghazālī had with philosophy—which was the subject of my MA thesis. Finally, my research aims to hint at the fact that Aristotelian logic—much contrary to what al-Ghazālī might himself have thought—wasn’t merely an “empty tool” used in reasoning properly but was embedded with metaphysical presuppositions. Hence, by employing Aristotelian logic in the formation of his hermeneutical framework, al-Ghazālī was implicating his overall understanding of ontology and, particularly, his understanding of God’s nature and attributes with that of the Peripatetic school.4

It should be noted that originally, this research was conceived as the first part of a two-part master’s thesis investigating how al-Ghazālī and Ibn Taymiyya5 (d. 728/1328)—two giants of competing Sunni theological schools—viewed logic and appropriated it within their own respective theological and hermeneutical paradigms. However, as my research progressed, I ended up zooming in on al-Ghazālī alone and his rather complicated relationship with philosophy. Not only that, but after having done more research since the podcast interview a year ago, I can’t help but feel that there were aspects that could have been clarified or contextualized differently, as well as points that could have been explained more accurately. To address this, I’ve edited the podcast transcript below—not only for readability but also to incorporate new insights from my research (post-podcast). You’ll find these updates and clarifications in the form of minor rephrasing of the original transcript, square brackets, and footnotes. Please note that this isn’t an exact word-for-word transcript.

If you’d prefer to listen to the original episode, you can find it linked here and also embedded below.

Podcast Transcript

As-salāmu ʿalaykum wa-raḥmat-ullāhi wa-barakātuh, everyone, and welcome to the TISA podcast. This podcast is produced by TISA students, and its aim is to spread the word about TISA and highlight the amazing work of Muslim scholars. TISA, or The Islamic Seminary of America, is the premier American Islamic graduate institution dedicated to cultivating a generation of world-class doers and thinkers who lead from an Islamic paradigm. In other words, TISA is in the business of marrying religious scholarship with ethical leadership.

In this episode, we speak with Huzaifah Islam-Khan. Brother Huzaifah is a teaching assistant at TISA and a writing fellow. He is also the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Islamic Institute of Burma, which focuses on making Islamic knowledge more accessible in Burmese and empowering Burmese Muslims to engage with contemporary issues unique to their community.

Over the summer, Brother Huzaifah had the opportunity to present his research at the Mellon Mays Summer Symposium at the University of Chicago. His research topic was al-Ghazālī's incorporation of Aristotelian logic into Islamic theology and its effect in shaping his overall approach. Today, we'll learn more about that.

ME: As-salāmu ʿalaykum. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Huzaifah Islam-Khan, and I work as a teaching assistant and a writing fellow at TISA. I've been with TISA since its inception, al-ḥamdu lillāh, for about two [four] and a half years. My background is in philosophy, with a minor in Arabic studies, and I’m currently pursuing my MA in philosophy at the City University of New York. I specialize in Islamic philosophy and Islamic intellectual history. I’m in my final year of my MA, working on my thesis, al-ḥamdu lillāh.

It’s been an interesting journey because I didn’t initially intend to go into Islamic studies or philosophy. I started out in architecture, but TISA changed my mind about that. I audited a course, and I realized I couldn’t do architecture anymore—I had to go into Islamic studies.

What was the course that changed the course of your life?

ME: It was the very first course I took, ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān [Sciences of the Qurʾān], with Dr. Yasir Qadhi. That course blew my mind, and it really shattered a lot of what [I thought] I knew. [It made me feel like] I had to rebuild my understanding anew, and I couldn’t continue with my academic journey [in the same way].

I want to know just the brief summary—like the two-sentence summary of your research. Specifically the research you presented at the University of Chicago this summer. And what got you interested in this [topic]?

ME: My MA thesis is about the role of Aristotelian logic in Islamic theology.6 That’s a broad explanation of what I’m studying, [but it’s essentially] about how Aristotelian logic has influenced our understanding of Islamic theology. I’m focusing on al-Ghazālī and Ibn Taymiyya and their interaction with Aristotelian logic. At the University of Chicago, I presented on al-Ghazālī, in particular, as part of my thesis work.

Okay. And how did you become interested in Aristotelian logic?

ME: Since I study philosophy, especially Islamic philosophy, I have encountered different philosophical traditions like Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism. As a philosophy major interested in Islamic intellectual history, I started asking how these traditions impacted Islamic theology. I’m personally very interested in theology and ʿaqīda,7 and I’ve always been fascinated by how Islamic scholars [and theologians] interacted with these philosophical traditions and how, in this interaction, their understanding of Islam is produced. I chose al-Ghazālī and Ibn Taymiyya as my focus because they represent two main strands of Sunni Islam, and I find both of their approaches to be really intriguing.

Okay, just curious—when you studied philosophy, you weren't necessarily approaching it from an Islamic perspective. Did you notice any mention of Islamic philosophy in the curriculum, or is Islam largely absent from the Western presentation of philosophy?

ME: If you study philosophy at the undergraduate or even graduate level [in the West], Islamic philosophy is generally out of the picture. You study Aristotle, Plato, and the ancient Greeks, then jump right into Descartes or maybe Thomas Aquinas, where over at least 800 years [of history of philosophy] in between are lost.8 Here is where thinkers like Ibn Sīnā [Avicenna] and Ibn Rushd [Averroes], all these figures of traditional Islamic philosophy, are just skipped over. This omission is something even people within the Academy critique—it’s a very Western-centric [or Eurocentric] approach to studying philosophy. Philosophy didn’t just begin with Socrates. There’s also Buddhist philosophy, Hindu philosophy, and, of course, Islamic philosophy. So, it's usually skipped [over], and I’ve had to make a conscious effort to communicate to the faculty at my program that I’m interested in Islamic philosophy. Thankfully, while they don't offer exclusive classes on Islamic philosophy, they’ve allowed me to pursue independent studies, which has been helpful, al-ḥamdu lillāh.

Even within traditional Islamic studies, philosophy is often seen as a borderline subject, something that’s sometimes advised against.

ME: Right. It’s interesting because "philosophy" means different things depending on who’s using the term. When we talk about “philosophy” in the Western canon [in the broad sense of the word], we’re referring to [any] intellectual tradition consisting of ideas and methods [or rational method of inquiry]. Defined this way, it would definitely include figures like Ibn Taymiyya and al-Ghazālī, who engaged deeply in intellectual inquiry, even if we don’t label them as "philosophers" in the Western [or English] sense [of the word]—although we do call them theologians and jurists.

But typically, when people refer to "Islamic philosophy" within Western academia, they mean a very specific Graeco-Arabic tradition—[represented by] thinkers like Ibn Sīnā, Ibn Rushd, al-Fārābī, and al-Kindī, who engaged with Aristotelian and Neoplatonic thought and "Islamicized" or "Arabicized" it. This is often referred to as falsafa [in Arabic]. It’s this falsafa tradition that traditionalist scholars often caution against studying. But if we broaden the definition of philosophy, it could encompass other intellectual traditions within Islam, like ʿaqīda [theology], Ashʿarism, and Māturīdism [etc.].

So, it really depends on how you define philosophy. Within the Western canon, Islamic philosophy is usually equated with falsafa. The one borderline figure who might be acceptable in both traditional Islamic [study of theology] and academic circles [in the study of philosophy] is al-Ghazālī.

That’s an interesting point. So, now that we have a better understanding of philosophy and how it can have broader definitions that don’t necessarily contradict Islamic beliefs let's focus on your thesis. You're examining how al-Ghazālī interacts with and adopts Aristotelian logic. But before we dive into that, I know there are some foundational concepts we need to understand first. Could you start by explaining what anthropomorphism is and why it’s a key concept before understanding al-Ghazālī's arguments?

ME: Sure. To give a bit more context, I’m studying how al-Ghazālī and Ibn Taymiyya interact with Aristotelian logic and how their reception [of logic] influences their interpretation of scripture or revelation [naql]—specifically, how they understand God’s attributes or al-asmāʾ wa-l-ṣifāt.

So, anthropomorphism [within this context] refers to verses or descriptions in revelation that attribute human-like qualities to God. For example, references that describe God as having "hands" or "eyes" can sound anthropomorphic because they ascribe human-like characteristics to Him. The term can even apply in stories where animals are portrayed with human traits, like speaking or acting like humans. But within the Islamic tradition, when God is described in human-like terms, those descriptions are considered anthropomorphic in nature. I hope that clarifies it.

So, I understand what anthropomorphism is. Your argument, if I’m correct, is that al-Ghazālī finds Aristotelian logic and then uses it to interpret scripture, especially verses that might be considered anthropomorphic. Is that accurate?

ME: Yes. Al-Ghazālī, like many Islamic theologians, was troubled by these [anthropomorphic] verses from the beginning. The question was: how do we interpret texts that seem to refer to God in human-like terms, given that God is not like anything? This debate has long existed in Islamic tradition. Al-Ghazālī tried to address this issue by adopting Aristotelian logic and using it as a framework not just for [interpreting God’s] anthropomorphic attributes but for interpreting scripture in general, setting up parameters on how scripture should be interpreted.

I’m not sure if you want to delve into this now, but he says that whenever scripture contradicts what he calls demonstrative reasoning or burhān, then scripture should be interpreted figuratively.9 However, he's not suggesting we interpret scripture figuratively whenever we feel like it. He specifies that the only time we’re allowed to contradict or negate the literal wording of scripture [by reinterpretation] is when it contradicts demonstrative proof.

To give a bit more context, within Aristotelian logic, there are three types of reasoning. The first, or lowest level, is rhetorical reasoning. This is reasoning that’s widely accepted but isn’t grounded in rigorous logic. For instance, a common belief might be, "If you eat two different types of food together, you’ll get food poisoning." It's a claim people accept without scientific or logical proof just because it is commonly said around the household.

The second type is dialectical reasoning. This reasoning is based on premises that most people have already agreed upon. In Islamic theology, for example, Muslims start from the shared belief that God exists, and reasoning flows from there without needing to prove God's existence from scratch. This is why kalām, or speculative theology, is considered dialectical—it builds on agreed-upon premises.

The third and highest level of reasoning is demonstrative reasoning, which is based on first principles that leave no room for doubt. According to Aristotle, very few things can be proven demonstratively, but if something is, it becomes an undeniable fact.

Al-Ghazālī argues that if something is proven demonstratively, and the literal wording of scripture contradicts it, that’s the one [and only] instance where scripture should be interpreted figuratively. This principle is what he calls Qānūn al-taʾwīl, or the Rule of Figurative Interpretation. It shows how much he is convinced by Aristotle’s [logical] framework and integrated it into his approach to [understanding] scripture. I hope that's helpful.

Yeah, that's really helpful. So, let's define what taʾwīl and tafwīd are.

ME: Let’s start with tafwīd. Essentially, it means entrusting or delegating. In Islamic theology, especially within kalām, tafwīd refers to a stance where, upon encountering a verse whose meaning isn’t clear, you delegate its meaning to God. In other words, you say, "I don’t know what it means; I’ll just entrust it to God," and you abstain from trying to interpret it. The technical term I am thinking of calling it is “interpretive abstinence.”

However, it’s worth noting that tafwīd doesn’t mean exactly the same thing across all theological schools. For instance, the kalām schools—[like] the Ashʿarīs and Māturīdīs—on one side, and the Ḥanbalīs on the other, approach tafwīd differently. When they use the word “tafwīd,” they mean different things.10

For the Ḥanbalīs, tafwīd means that when you encounter a verse, particularly one related to God’s [anthropomorphic] attributes—such as "God rises over [istiwāʾ] the throne"—you affirm its apparent or literal meaning but avoid asking "how" [bi-lā kayf]. So you would say, "God rises over the throne in a way that befits His majesty," accepting the literal meaning but without speculating about its exact nature.

That’s the Ḥanbalī approach.

ME: Right. Now, for the Ashʿarīs and Māturīdis, tafwīd is a bit different. When they come across verses like "God rises over [istiwāʾ] the throne," they maintain that since God is not bound by time [and space]—as established by the kalām cosmological argument—they say that istiwāʾ in this verse cannot mean rising over the throne like it is literally understood. Instead, according to them, the literal meaning of the word [istiwāʾ] is negated, and once it is negated and since the [new or intended] meaning is not known, they entrust its actual meaning to God in this context. This way, they avoid committing to any anthropomorphic interpretation, leaving the real meaning to God.

Taʾwīl, on the other hand, is figurative interpretation. Although the term literally means "interpretation," here it specifically refers to figurative interpretation. It is to interpret something metaphorically [or figuratively]. For instance, calling someone "a lion on the battlefield" doesn’t mean they are literally a lion. That’s a metaphor [or a figure of speech]. Taʾwīl is just a metaphorical [or figurative] interpretation, but it’s only used under particular conditions, as outlined by al-Ghazālī.

In summary, tafwīd is about abstaining from interpretation (interpretive abstinence), while taʾwīl is figurative interpretation. So those are two different approaches.

Okay, but really, it's three different approaches.

ME: Yes, if we distinguish between the two types of tafwīd, it does result in three different approaches.

And where does Imam al-Ghazālī fall among these three approaches to scriptural interpretation?

ME: Al-Ghazālī, like the Ashʿarīs, accepts both tafwīd and taʾwīl. The Ḥanbalī are a different camp. They have a whole entire thing against taʾwīl. I don't want to make general statements about that. But generally, the Ashʿarīs and al-Ghazālī himself would accept tafwīd and taʾwīl. For him, when [a layperson] is faced with an anthropomorphic verse, the default is tafwīd, and you leave it at that. This means you reject the literal meaning and leave the true [actual and intended] meaning to God. However, he permits taʾwīl for a specific group of highly qualified scholars. He's not even talking about general scholars. He's talking about a very specific set of scholars. For these scholars, he says that they can do taʾwīl. He then produces his Qānūn al-taʾwīl, or the Rule of Figurative Interpretation or the Canon of Figurative Interpretation, which sets the guidelines for when taʾwīl can be done. According to him, the default is to read scripture literally, but if a literal interpretation is problematic, tafwīd should be used [for lay people]. But if you are a qualified scholar, you may do taʾwīl as per the rules that he comes out with [in his Qānūn al-taʾwīl]. So that's what al-Ghazālī would say.

So I guess my question is, what is the demonstrative proof he's pointing to, to say, "This is the reason I can abandon the literal meaning and go to another layer of meaning"?

ME: For al-Ghazālī, it seems he's very convinced that you can demonstrably prove God is not anthropomorphic in the way scripture might initially [and literally] suggest. He argues that you can show through demonstrative proof that God doesn’t have a hand, doesn’t occupy space, isn’t bound by time, and so on. He’s convinced you can prove this through burhān or demonstration.

To put it in modern terms, it’s like knowing the Earth is round—we take it as scientific fact and wouldn’t claim anything else. Similarly, al-Ghazālī sees God’s transcendence beyond physical form as a fact, which to him is demonstrable through reason and kalām cosmological argument. Hence, this knowledge is a demonstration or burhān for him. This is where he is starting. Given that certainty, he argues that this demonstrative knowledge must take precedence over the literal wording of scripture. Since we know, through demonstration, that God cannot occupy space or time and cannot have parts, he believes we have to prioritize this interpretation over a literal understanding of scripture.

It seems like philosophy wasn’t the basis of his belief but rather a means to convince others of what he already believed.

ME: That’s a tricky thing because there’s an ongoing debate about al-Ghazālī’s attitude toward philosophy. There is always the question of how al-Ghazālī views philosophy. When we talk about "philosophy," are we referring to a mode of inquiry or a specific tradition [like falsafa]? This is a complex topic on its own.

In my research, I’ve found that al-Ghazālī has a specific epistemological framework that he operates. He describes three modes of human cognition [or ways of knowing]. The first and lowest level is taqlīd or blind imitation. This is where you do something simply because someone else told you to. For example, you go to the doctor and follow their diagnosis and treatment without fully understanding it yourself. This, for him, is the lowest form of knowledge—it doesn’t lead to certainty.

That’s essentially what children do.

ME: Exactly. And he believes most people operate at this level, even some religious scholars. In his al-Munqidh min al-dalāl [The Deliverance from Error], al-Ghazālī describes this as his own struggle. He says he didn’t know anything for certain; he’d been doing taqlīd his whole life—taking everything on authority without personal inquiry. His [intellectual-spiritual] crisis starts from realizing this.

The second level, which is higher than taqlīd, is knowing through demonstration and logical reasoning from first principles. If something can be known through demonstrative proof and logical reasoning from first principles, it provides intellectual certitude or yaqīn. This is the level where he places philosophical reasoning, as it can produce certainty.

But for al-Ghazālī, there’s an even higher level of knowledge: maʿrifa [gnosis], or direct experiential knowledge, also called dhawq [tasting]. This is where his Sufism comes in. Maʿrifa isn’t just knowing about something; it’s experiencing it firsthand. He gives an example: imagine I tell you there’s someone in the other room. And since you believe me, you’ll believe that’s true—that’s taqlīd. That's the lowest level of knowing. If you hear the person’s voice from the other room, you deduce that someone is there—this is a demonstration, and it brings certainty. But if you walk into the room and see the person yourself, that’s maʿrifa—knowledge through direct experience—which he considers the completion [or perfection] of knowledge. Essentially, this is where al-Ghazālī's epistemology rests.

For al-Ghazālī, maʿrifa can only be attained through Sufism and the mystical path. While trained individuals can understand demonstrative knowledge, which is the second-highest form, the knowledge through maʿrifa and dhawq is deeply personal—it’s something you can only know through direct experience. I can describe sweetness to you, but you’ll never truly understand it until you taste it yourself.

So, al-Ghazālī’s engagement with philosophy—specifically, not just falsafa but as a mode of reasoning and inquiry—corresponds to the second way of knowing. It can produce intellectual certainty. But maʿrifa, which is derived from Sufism, produces certainty in the heart and soul. That’s the highest level in his tripartite epistemology, and that’s my understanding of his relationship with philosophy.

Okay, that makes sense. I guess I’m still wondering—when you were talking about how he would need demonstrable evidence to break away from a literal reading of scripture—doesn’t it seem like he's not actually discovering anything [new]? He’s calling on something he already believes to be true. That is, he already holds it as truth that God couldn't have these human or man-like qualities. Does that make sense?

ME: Yeah, that makes sense. It seems to me that in al-Munqidh min al-dalāl, al-Ghazālī discusses this, and he says that he doesn't know anything for certain except three things: [1] that there is God, [2] that the Prophet is the true messenger, and [3] that there is a Day of Judgment. These are things he says he knows from the heart. But beyond that, he claims he doesn’t have knowledge of anything else—he has thrown it all out and has to figure things out for himself. That’s where he begins. In that sense, yes, we could argue that he seems to have already made up his mind and is just trying to prove it through philosophy. But I don’t think there’s a conclusive way of saying that because his thoughts appear to have been influenced by philosophers, like Ibn Sīnā in particular. Al-Ghazālī seems to be extremely influenced by him. So, if he's influenced by Ibn Sīnā, and if we accept a certain argument within the academy—which I find quite convincing—then he’s trying to find a middle ground between the theologians on one side and the philosophers on the other, aiming for a synthesis between them. If we take that reading of him, then it’s not that he’s already made up his mind; he’s actually convinced, at least partially, of what the philosophers are arguing, at least to a certain degree, and is trying to synchronize it with his understanding of scripture. Through this process, he develops his view of God’s attributes, if you will.

Interesting. So, going back to his use of Aristotelian logic—borrowing from it—we’ve studied in class how ideas often seep into other communities, and there’s no restricting ideas. How did these ideas reach al-Ghazālī? Were they imported into his society? Was it simply because he was living in a time when philosophy and Aristotelian logic were widespread, so he naturally adopted them?

ME: Before al-Ghazālī’s time, Muslim theologians had already been interacting with the philosophers of the Peripatetic School, like Ibn Sīnā, al-Fārābī, and al-Kindī. Their works had achieved a certain level of intellectual prominence—much like how liberalism or other ideologies have become prominent in modern America. Al-Ghazālī himself would likely have studied these works while studying with al-Juwaynī, his teacher. Al-Juwaynī seems to have been one of the first to directly engage with and adopt certain aspects of Ibn Sīnā’s thought. So al-Ghazālī would have studied logic and parts of philosophy with al-Juwaynī, who even produced proof for God’s existence, using a contingency-and-necessary argument he got directly from Ibn Sina. Al-Ghazālī would have had access to all this through his teacher, al-Juwaynī, and not only through him but also because these ideas were prominent at that time. This was the main intellectual discourse taking place in his society.

Was this intellectual discourse confined to certain geographical pockets, or was it widespread? Had philosophy infiltrated the broader intellectual scene?

ME: I don’t want to say it was everywhere across the Muslim world, but it was definitely prominent in Central Asia, especially in the Middle East—particularly in regions like Iran and Iraq. Those areas were hotspots for philosophical thought, especially because of the influence of figures like Ibn Sīnā and al-Fārābī.

Okay. So, the groundwork was already laid as he was growing up, and he absorbed these ideas in his early education. Do you think it’s problematic to employ a foreign framework, like Aristotelian logic, to interpret scripture?

I think that depends on who you’re asking.

Do you think al-Ghazālī found it problematic? Obviously, he used it, but do you think he had any reservations?

ME: I don’t think he saw it as problematic. Interestingly, he seemed to believe that philosophy, or “original” philosophy from figures like Aristotle and Socrates, actually had a prophetic origin. He thought logic wasn’t something Aristotle invented; rather, it was something prophets like Abraham, Moses, and prophets of old possessed. Al-Ghazālī even writes about this. He suggests that philosophers merely adopted and preserved this knowledge, though in a way that became mixed with falsehood over time—much like how Islam views Christianity and Judaism as containing some truth but corrupted. So, he sees philosophy in a similar light, where logic [is one of the disciplines that] has been preserved “purely” within the philosophical tradition, while metaphysics has issues due to corruption by philosophers. He sees philosophy as a revealed science from God, so he definitely doesn’t think of it as foreign. He sees it as rediscovering knowledge, much like if one were to come across the Bible or Jewish scriptures.

Does al-Ghazālī cite instances of the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) employing Aristotelian logic during the Prophet’s lifetime?

ME: Al-Ghazālī has a treatise called al-Qisṭās al-mustaqīm (The Correct Balance), where he lays out five principles of logic. In this book, he provides both a rational and scriptural basis for these principles. He argues that these five principles are found in the Qurʾān, and he cites various verses to support his claim. One example he gives is Abraham’s use of these principles in his debate with the polytheists of his time. Now, I can’t think of a specific example where the Prophet (ﷺ) used these exact principles, but al-Ghazālī definitely believes they are embedded in the Qurʾān. In a way, he “Quranicized” these Aristotelian principles, calling them “the balance.” This is because be believed that knowledge should be measured against these principles—which have a basis in both reason and revelation—and if knowledge conforms to them, it is sound; if not, it is unreliable.

So he’s convinced that there’s a basis in the Qurʾān. Are you convinced by his argument?

ME: Personally? I think that [the act of] reasoning exists within the Qurʾān, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that it’s exactly the same type of reasoning as found in Aristotelian logic. Throughout history, logic has evolved, and today, we have different forms, like the type founded by Gottlob Frege and modern philosophy. Each logical system has its strengths and weaknesses. But reasoning in general, yes, I think that’s implied within the Qurʾān. I’m just not convinced that it is exactly the same as Aristotelian logic.

It seems as though, for al-Ghazālī, logic is integral to attaining true faith. Would you say that's accurate?

ME: Yes, that's the highest way of achieving certainty in faith—as far as the intellect is concerned. There’s only one step higher than that, which is the knowledge of the soul—ma’arifa, dhawq, whatever you want to call it. But, as far as the intellect or the mind is concerned, logic is the highest way of attaining certain knowledge. The only exception to this is the path of the Sufis, which involves the direct experience of knowledge itself. Al-Ghazālī is convinced of the importance of logic, but he expects scholars of a certain rank to practice taqlīd to a degree. He’s speaking to a very specific group—what he calls the “elite of the elites” or mujtahids. These are the only people qualified to do ijtihād (independent reasoning) from the ground up.

In your research, do you explore whether this dichotomy between acceptance and rejection of logic persists today?

ME: Do you mean the dichotomy of accepting and rejecting logic? This is actually the second part of my research, where I focus on Ibn Taymiyya. He is highly critical of logic, but even he wouldn’t dismiss it entirely. He adopts certain aspects of it despite his criticism. I don’t think he would reject logic in its entirety because Aristotelian logic contains elements that are foundational to reasoning. I don’t think anyone would reject those. So, what we mean by “logic” is actually the bigger question here. Are we talking about Aristotelian logic or other forms of logic? [Or just a systematic and coherent way of reasoning in general?] Ibn Taymiyya is known for his suspicion and critique of Aristotelian logic, while al-Ghazālī is very certain of its framework.

My question is, how does this dichotomy persist or present itself in our current landscape?

ME: I think this comes up whenever an Ashʿarī and an Atharī, Ḥanbalī, or Salafi sit down and discuss God's attributes. The fundamental issue is their understanding of logic and the limitations of the mind [in its ability to understand the Divine]. Al-Ghazālī is convinced that God cannot be corporeal in any way. So, he rejects all anthropomorphic descriptions and insists on going down the route of taʾwīl, whereas a—very open-minded—Ḥanbalī, Salafi, or Atharī might say, "Sure, that's one possible way [of looking at it], but it’s not the only way." Ibn Taymiyya, for instance, develops an entirely different paradigm for understanding God's attributes, although he still adopts certain notions from Aristotle—like the Aristotelian notion of space. I think John Hoover has written a paper about this.11

Even Ibn Taymiyya does that. The point is that all these theologians couldn't help but interact with these philosophical ideas. They all did. They adapted [, reacted, and neutralized] it with their [pre-existing] knowledge, just like today. We see this entire genre of "scientific miracles" in the Qurʾān—a modern response to what we think as “scientific” knowledge. So, this is how it plays out: how we interact with scripture and the limitations we place on our understanding of it. Al-Ghazālī, for example, is not limiting scripture itself. He's actually giving it a lot of leeway by saying scripture should be taken literally except in one specific instance when it absolutely requires figurative interpretation. This is the opposite of what the philosophers would say, as they saw most of scripture as metaphorical. Nothing in it is to be taken literally. Al-Ghazālī is really going against the grain here to emphasize that it should be taken literally.

Yeah, and I think that’s an important point. It seems like the center is always moving. In his time, maybe al-Ghazālī was moving public opinion toward a balanced middle ground because he was dealing with the extremes of the philosophers. But today, our center is much more conservative and strict in interpretation, so some might see his ideas as a bit too lenient. I think that it really depends on the historical context.

ME: Absolutely. He’s trying to provide a coherent way of looking at scripture, giving it a lot of authority by making only one exception to literal interpretation. And what strikes me when I read both Ibn Taymiyya and al-Ghazālī is just how shocking their statements are. They say things that, if someone said today, would probably get them labeled as a mubtadiʾ [heretic].12 For example, al-Ghazālī claims that philosophy originates with the prophets of old—that figures like Socrates and Aristotle somehow got philosophy from God or revelation. I was taken aback, like, "On what basis are you arguing this?" because he doesn’t quote any ḥadīth or Qurʾānic verses to back it up. He takes it for granted.

Then you have Ibn Taymiyya, who proposes that hellfire might not be eternal and entertains the idea that the universe could be eternal, being perpetually created by God. This was a huge debate. Al-Ghazālī is firm that the universe isn't eternal, and he even issues a fatwa at the end of the Tahāfut al-falāsifa [Preciptiance of the Philosophers], saying that anyone who believes that the universe is eternal is a kafir [disbeliever] and should be executed. But then Ibn Rushd responds, saying that you're claiming scripture definitively states the universe isn’t eternal, but scripture also mentions that before God created the heavens and the earth, His throne was on water. And that God created the heavens and the earth from gas. This implies that something existed before the creation of the heavens and the earth.

When they talk about the eternality of the universe, they don’t mean the universe as we mean it today. For them, "universe" simply means anything that exists apart from God—matter, water, whatever. The philosophers believed something always existed. Then Ibn Taymiyya comes along and proposes “perpetual creation,” which, to me, seems like a middle ground between the philosophers and al-Ghazālī. God is perpetually creating one thing after another, but nothing created is eternal in itself. It’s an original take, and they had so much intellectual leeway. Today, if we explored ideas like these, it would probably be problematic.

We’d be canceled! Why do you think they had so much freedom to come up with creative ideas like this?

ME: Honestly, I don’t know. I'm still looking into it, but I suspect there was a broader socio-political context at play. They lived in a time when Islam was dominant, mostly in Muslim lands, so they had the freedom to make interpretive leaps without risking their faith status. Today, if you make an interpretive leap, you risk immediate condemnation. It also depends on the paradigm and the community you’re in. I found al-Ghazālī’s claim about philosophy originating in revelation interesting, and he’s not alone—other thinkers were also convinced of this. I might explore this further in my research to trace where this motif comes from.

Overall, my research aims to give a clearer account of why these debates existed and how they engaged with what were considered “foreign sciences.” My MA thesis’s second part looks into Ibn Taymiyya’s critique of Aristotelian logic,13 which ultimately steers him away from taʾwīl and toward his own interpretive system. I find it fascinating and original, and I think it will make for an interesting comparison.

We look forward to hearing [about] part two of this journey. Jazakallah Khayr, thank you for listening to the podcast and supporting our work. Until next time, As-salāmu ʿalaykum wa-raḥmat-ullāhi wa-barakātuh.