Review Essay Secularism and Untranslatability: Reading Talal Asad's
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Review Essay
Secularism and Untranslatability: Reading Talal Asad’s
Secular Translations
SECULAR TRANSLATIONS: NATION-STATE, MODERN SELF, address power’s disposition of people and things, the
AND CALCULATIVE REASON dependence of some on the goodwill of others … these
are all presupposed in the idea of free public debate as
By Talal Asad.
a liberal virtue. But the performatives are not open equally
New York: University of Columbia Press, 2018
Pp. vii + 222. Cloth, $76.69, Paper, $26.00. to everyone because the domain of the speech is always
shaped by preestablished limits (2003, 8, 183–4).
Reviewers: Jun’ichi Isomae and Gouranga Charan Pradhan
International Research Center for Japanese Secularism is thus based on the idea that respect for other’s
Studies (Nichibunken), Kyoto, Japan rights is possible on the condition of a neutral public sphere
with respect to all religions. However, such neutrality in Asad’s
Key words
view is little more than a form of ideology for “the public sphere
translation, secularism, Talal Asad, postcolonial, embodied
practices is a space necessarily (not just contingently) articulated by
power” (2003, 184).
This trenchant critique of Western secularism becomes
The Secular Translation quite easy to understand once one takes into account his po-
Talal Asad’s latest book Secular Translations: Nation-State, sition as a postcolonial intellectual. Let us now turn briefly to
Modern Self, and Calculative Reason is an expanded version of consider the meaning of his personal experiences. He spent
his three-part Ruth Benedict lecture series delivered in 2017 at his childhood in transit living in different linguistic and cul-
Columbia University. The three essays included in this volume tural geographies that must have had shaped his ideas. Yet, the
deal, as the book’s subtitle suggests, three independent themes younger Asad once had enormous admiration for the Western
on which Asad has worked extensively over the last several de- ideas. He recalls his earlier views on Western values as follows:
cades: the nation-state, the modern self, and calculative reason.
A detailed discussion on each of the theme is provided in the When I was young, from at least the age of fourteen, I de-
third section of this essay. veloped an enormous admiration for the West—or rather,
for a certain idea of the enlightened West. I was very much
As a religious studies scholar engaged in the critique of imbued with the idea that the West was where one would
secularism, Asad has been as is well known consistently crit- find Reason, where one would find Freedom, where one
ical of the problems resulting in the wake of the Reformation would find all the wonderful things which were lacking in
Pakistan. And my experience in Britain and then here in the
in the West. This basic line of inquiry was established in 1993 U.S.—and now I speak of a long durée in my life—was one of
with the publication of Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and a slow disabusement. … This seemed to me an incredible dis-
Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Then in Formations covery, that I had failed for so long to see people) in England
as prejudiced, as soaked in prejudice. … So I began to be
of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (2003), the problem
interested in the question of ideology. (Emphasis in original)
of religion’s relegation to the private sphere since Protestantism (Scott 2006, 249).
was taken up as part of the larger problem of secularism.
In these works, Asad defines secularism as a doctrine in Even though Asad developed a fascination for Western values
which the state transcends identities grounded on class, gen- before actually living in the West, his ideas underwent a drastic
der, and religion and substitutes the opposing imageries of the change after he started living in Britain. He spent five years
world with uniform experiences. This is how he characterizes doing fieldwork in Sudan for his graduate dissertation which
secularism: he submitted to Oxford University in 1968. It was published two
years later as Genealogies of Religion Discipline and Reasons of
1. A secular state does not guarantee toleration; it puts into Power in Christianity and Islam (1970). His maiden work was
play different structures of ambition and fear. The law obviously published in English. Moreover, he continued his re-
never seeks to eliminate violence since its object is always search mostly in the Anglophone world. This could be a factor
to regulate violence … The point here is that the public for his ambivalence toward his own linguistic identity including
sphere is a space necessarily (not just contingently) ar- his mother tongue and language in general. His identity crisis
ticulated by power … And everyone who, enters it must is also evident given his father’s Jewish ancestry; he converted
Religious Studies Review, Vol. 0, No. 0, June 2021
© 2021 Rice University 1Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 0 • NUMBER 0 • June 2021
to Islam much later. Thus, it is difficult to define Asad’s identity Asad is critical of Ernest Gellner’s approach to anthropological
within the narrow framework of an Arab Muslim. This ambi- study because it creates a privileged position for the researcher
guity is clear from his own admission. He says, “[A]s a general that offers him or her the agency to decode the “real” meaning
principle, I’ve found myself constantly having to think about of the native subjects. He disapproves of a methodology that
both Europe and the Middle East (Scott 2006, 282). does not involve any genuine dialogue with the target subject,
In a way, as a diasporic intellectual, it was natural for wryly commenting “… it is the privileged position of someone
him to grow immersed within both the Western and Islamic who does not, and can afford not to, engage in a genuine di-
worlds. As a result, his intellectual life defies monolithic alogue with those he or she once lived with and now writes
categorization—something which makes his scholarship invig- about” (1986, 155).
orating. Yet, precisely, this in-betweenness of his scholarship As can be seen from the citation above, Asad’s primary
raises several critical questions. For instance, whom does he concern is, “how power enters into the process of ‘cultural
address in his English writings? How does he articulate his po- translation’,” and “… how the process of ‘cultural translation’
sition? These questions are intricately related to the multiple is inevitably enmeshed in conditions of power—professional,
lifeworlds Asad inhabits. And the moment we talk about his national, international” (1986, 163). Unlike other postcolonial
multiple lifeworlds, our inquiry unsurprisingly directs us to the intellectuals belonging to the postmodernist tradition, such as
practice of translation. Homi Bhabha and Salman Rushdie, who believe in the possi-
bility of “decentering of the subject” in a favorable way while
approaching the Other (or to put it differently in the context of
Asad and the problem of cultural translation
this essay, the translational interaction across cultures), Asad
convincingly demonstrates that discursive power relationship
Asad’s well-known essay “The Concept of Cultural Translation
results in inequality in real-world situations.
in British Social Anthropology,” included in James Clifford and
Asad’s essay also sheds light on his understanding of
G. E. Marcus’s edited volume Writing Culture (1986), is key to
Foucault’s power discourse. While Asad holds that power func-
understand his idea of cultural translations. One of his very
tions “constitutively” to form and discipline the subject, he
first attempts at critically revisiting the practice of cultural
also admits that it works, “repressively,” resulting in inequal-
translation commonly practiced by Western social anthropolo-
ity, making his stance somewhat closer to a Marxist notion of
gists of the day, this essay served in a sense as the foundation
power. In that sense, he shares an affinity with cultural studies
upon which the later work in Secular Translation is based.
scholars like Harry Haroutunian and Benita Parry. Haroutunian
Asad disapproves of anthropologist Clifford Geertz’s un-
and Parry disavow postcolonial scholars like Bhabha for being
derstanding of “Religion as a Cultural System,” specifically tak-
too far removed from the social realities. Asad’s scholarship,
ing issue with the approach of, “assuming a symbolic system
therefore, is aimed to “address aspects of the asymmetry be-
separate from practices” (Asad 1993, 35). Countering Geertz’s
tween Western and non-Western histories” (1993, 2). Precisely
claim, Asad argues that a binary opposition between “belief/
for this reason, he refrains from abstract ideas, for instance, as
practice” is absent in Islam just like in the medieval Catholic
exemplified by Benjamin’s notion of “pure language.” Instead,
society of Europe. Bodily practices were not considered merely
he channels his energy to unravel the power play mechanism
the irrational object of interpretation by belief, but as a prac-
that unfolds during actual interactions between linguistic tra-
tical mechanism through which the virtues embedded in the
ditions. Asad’s following passage aptly describes this position:
disciplinary practices of the community were cultivated by
the believer. Drawing upon religious disciplinary practices, … [B]ecause the languages of Third World societies—
including from his own faith in Islam, he moves beyond belief- including, of course, the societies that social anthropolo-
gists have traditionally studied—are “weaker” in relation to
based symbolism to the semiotics of materiality as proposed by
Western languages (and today, especially to English), they
Mikhail Bakhtin: are more likely to submit to forcible transformation in the
translation process than the other way around. … A recog-
… the fact that signs are things and not merely reflections nition of this well-known fact reminds us that industrial
of things. And if signs are things, they must have a physi- capitalism transforms not only modes of production but also
cal presence apprehended by the senses—through hearing, kinds of knowledge and styles of life in the Third World. And
feeling, and seeing. That stress on materiality seemed to with them, forms of language. The result of half-transformed
me important, and I later saw that it was necessary to think styles of life will make for ambiguities, which an unskillful
about signs in relation to the body and its emotions. (…) In Western translator may simplify in the direction of his own
Genealogies I begin to think of authoritative discourse in “strong” language (1986, 157–8).
terms of willing obedience. I talk about monastic disciplines
not as something that comes from outside but as an internal The “asymmetry” that Asad mentions is based on his conviction
shaping of the self by the self. The term “authoritative dis-
course” was for me a means of getting away from a purely that, “… authority is inscribed in the institutionalized forces
symbolic approach (Scott 2006, 270, 272). of industrial capitalist society which are constantly tending to
2Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 0 • NUMBER 0 • June 2021
push the meanings of various Third World societies in a sin- discourse denotes a fault in the latter, but instead critically
gle direction” (1986, 163). When viewed in the context of the examines the normal state of his or her own language (1986,
190).
unequal power relationship between the Western capitalist so-
ciety and the Third World, the relationship between a native Notably, Asad is concerned about the subversion of values. A
linguistic and cultural tradition and that of the West is equally certain deconstruction inevitably results from acts of transla-
informed by a difference of power. This is what Asad calls, “the tion that aim to respect the original, inviting the pitfall of rela-
inequality of languages” (1986, 189). tivism. He further explains:
Asad’s concern, therefore, so far as cultural translation is
concerned, is primarily focused on the question of, “how power Translation, in my view, requires a kind of faithfulness to
an original, even if that often proves impossible. However
enters into the process of ‘cultural translation’, which is both
one conceives of it, subversion is an act of war, and while
a discursive as well as a non-discursive practice” (1986, 199). there is a place for subversion, I think it’s often misplaced
An exemplar of this unequal linguistic power relationship can in talk about translation. Subversion might in fact require
be found in the practice of cultural translations performed by not translation at all but simply the introduction of partic-
ular knowledges to a new site, so that their sheer weight
Western anthropologists. He concludes his essay by mention- then begins to subvert a particular configuration of things. I
ing that, “I have proposed that the anthropological enterprise am not against subversion per se, because I try for example
of cultural translation may be vitiated by the fact that there in Formations of the Secular to subvert a certain rigid po-
larity. But I’m concerned that subversion shouldn’t be used
are asymmetrical tendencies and pressures in the languages of
as a strategy in inappropriate situations so that everything
dominated and dominant societies” (1986, 199). Thus, in sharp becomes an act of subversion … Once something has been
contrast to Geertz’s approach to cultural translations, Asad em- subverted, it can’t be put together again. Subversion brings
phasizes both the inherent ambiguity and the productive poten- down a structure, disables an enemy (Scott 2006, 285–6).
tiality of cultural translation.
Clearly, Asad does not like the term “deconstruction.”
Geertz argues somewhere that all one has to do in translat- Regardless of whether his understanding of deconstruction is
ing across cultures is to make strange concepts familiar. I in sync with Derrida’s or not, his aversion to the term prob-
argue that that’s too comforting. In translation we ought to be
bringing things into our language even though they cause a
ably stems from his uneasiness with the negative relativism
scandal. Now, one can respond to scandal in two ways: one with which the popular usage of the term has been associated.
can throw out the offending idea or one can think about For if an act of subversion ends in structural subversion, then
what it is that produces the horror. I would like to think that the likelihood of the reconstitution of subjectivity is all but nil.
that kind of translation forces one to rethink some of our
own traditional categories and concepts (Scott 2006, 275, This point is precisely what characterizes his understanding
Emphasis in the original). of translation: the act of translation is essentially a process of
subjectivation.
Asad stresses, like Walter Benjamin, that anthropologists must Asad undeniably shares certain characteristics with other
not project their own cultural conceptions onto the target cul- diasporic intellectuals. The difference between them amounts
ture. Instead, the practice of cultural translation must be under- to the difference between the latter’s position that accepts a
stood as an opportunity to expose the self to the perplexity of an relativism that flattens the value systems and identities and the
encounter with others that leads to new insights or productive former’s position that acknowledges everyday value systems
transformation. and traditions as a discourse that forms compelling reality for
He suggests, “To understand better the local peoples ‘en- certain real people even in the mid of indeterminacy.
tering’ (or ‘resisting’) modernity, anthropology must surely try Instead of distorting the “subversion” strategy, social an-
to deepen its understanding of the West as something more thropologists, according to Asad, should “translate other cul-
than a threadbare ideology” (1993, 23). Therefore, Asad’s schol- tural languages as texts, not to introduce or enlarge cultural
arship constantly focuses on how to deepen the understand- capacities, (but) learnt from other ways of living, into our own”
ing of the self through recognition of the Other. His demand (1986, 193). Surely this underlying idea is what forms the foun-
from the cultural translator involves, just like Walter Benjamin dation of Asad’s understanding of cultural translation. Drawing
mentioned, “… breaking down and reshaping of one’s own lan- from Benjamin, he emphasizes that, “translation may require
guage through the process of translation… “ (1986, 190). Asad not a mechanical reproduction of the original but a harmoniza-
mentions: tion with its intentio” (1986, 193).
This call to transform a language in order to translate the co- Therefore, adequate attention must be paid to the speak-
herence of the original, poses an interesting challenge to the er’s (translator) location when drawing a comparison between
person soon satisfied with an absurd-sounding translation Asad’s attention to the “original” with that of adopting the
on the assumption that the original must have been equally
absurd: the good translator does not immediately assume “subversion” strategy as advocated by other postcolonial de-
that unusual difficulty in conveying the sense of an alien constructionists. Otherwise, when a social anthropologist from
3Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 0 • NUMBER 0 • June 2021
a dominant society with an intention to translate the other’s liberal scholars have asserted the Christian origin of secular-
culture as text abuses the “subversion” strategy, the religion ism as well as that of the ideas of equality, freedom, and liberty.
and tradition of the dominated colonial subject will be easily However, Asad counters that such a claim is essentially false for
crushed. it precludes the very notion of equality. In fact, such a claim ex-
For this reason, Asad is compelled to identify the very val- cludes all those who cannot lay claim to the Christian heritage.
ues that support these social anthropologists located in a domi- It equally results in the exclusion of other, alternative forms
nant position. According to him, a humble and genuine desire to of Christianity, even as claims are made about the egalitarian
listen to the religious and social tradition of the ruled, and more nature of Christianity.
importantly, a willingness to undergo self-transformation, even Asad cites the example of Jürgen Habermas who argues for
at the cost of one’s own life is what is expected from the cul- the translation of the Christian religious discourses into secu-
tural translators. This is how Asad explains about translation in lar political contexts. For instance, Habermas argues that the
his aforementioned essay. Even though more than twenty-five Christian idea of imago Dei can be translated into a concept of
years separate that essay from Secular Translation, we can still political equality for the whole of humanity. What Habermas
see its influence. The values of the dominant society that he does not realize, according to Asad, is the presence of semantic
had intended to unravel in the essay have now been replaced ruptures between Christian and liberal ideas of equality. Asad
with a new focus on the “secular.” clearly proves his point by tracing the shifting position of lib-
eralism toward the notions of liberty, equality, and neutrality.
Whereas in the context of the seventeenth and eighteenth
Brief outline of Secular Translations centuries, liberalism was seen as a revolutionary movement for
defending the separation of church and monarchical author-
Secular Translations: Nation-State, Modern Self, and Calculative
ity, in the subsequent nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it
Reason is an expanded version of his three-part Ruth Benedict
was seen as socially conservative with its complicity with state
Lectures delivered in 2017 at Columbia University. The three
power consolidation and imperial ambitions. In recent years,
essays included in this volume deal with three independent
liberalism has been criticized for its collusion with capitalist
themes: the nation-state, the modern self, and calculative rea-
forces in the promotion of free market economy and the bur-
son, on which Asad has worked extensively over the last sev-
geoning power of multinationals, making it amply clear that
eral decades. Though all three essays deal with separate issues,
the whole notion of liberalism itself has a fluctuating identity.
hence stand independently, as the title of this volume suggests, Liberalism’s claim for equality sits uncomfortably with the
they are interconnected by the common theme of translation. social reality of growing economic inequality and complicity
The brief introduction and epilogue serve well to bridge the di- with the nation-state. Thus, equality in the liberal democratic
vergent themes that each chapter discusses, helping to clarify arrangement not only creates various forms of inequality but
Asad’s position with regard to the practice of translation. more significantly it makes the proliferation of inequality in-
Starting with Habermas, Asad cites the works of Roman visible (31).
Jakobson, Walter Benjamin, and Lamin Sanneh to develop The emphasis on human rights and the presupposition
his argument, which ultimately turns on the pillar of Ludwig that all humans, not just citizens, are equal, hence deserving of
Wittgenstein’s notion of language-game forms. Wittgenstein fa- equal concern and respect is something that liberalism shares
mously suggested that using a language is like playing a game, with European fascism and despotism. It is precisely the liber-
and understanding a language game is understanding a form of al’s commitment toward the secular national community that
life (2). Conversely, to understand a particular way of life, one facilitates the use of violence leading ultimately to authoritar-
needs to understand how language is embedded into everyday ianism as seen in Italy and Germany in the first half of the
lives and practices that ultimately shapes a habitus. Certainly, twentieth century. In the present day, the supposedly Christian
the unpredictable nature of language makes the act of transla- origin of secularism allows the European states to maintain
tion an arduous task. This lexical unpredictability makes obso- double standards toward their European and non- European
lete the conventional idea of translation as something meant to subjects.
establish equivalence. Drawing a straight line between two alto- For instance, whereas the Jewish and Christian origin of
gether different linguistic traditions is all but impossible. Since liberalism allows the European states to easily extend the right
textual practice means that one cannot know what lies ahead, of equality to their citizens of European origin, in the case of
Asad chooses to approach the problem of secularism indirectly. citizens of non-European origin, even though they are born and
The first chapter, “Secular Equality and Religious brought up in the same European states, they are not allowed
Language,” discusses the obscure aspects of equality. The to enjoy the same principle of equality due to their allegiance
concept of equality, according to Asad, is intricately linked to to so-called “illiberal religions” (See Pettersson 2007, 93–6).
secularism having wide political implications. Many Western Here we can observe a clear fracture between the claims of
4Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 0 • NUMBER 0 • June 2021
secularism, allegedly requiring absolute neutrality towards liturgical functions, and the vernacular languages are demoted
its citizens, and the reality on the ground, which is anything to a lower position. Thus, Islam’s persistence on the liturgical
but neutral (36). The political goals of liberal politicians like untranslatability prevents, according to Sanneh, an atmosphere
Margaret Thatcher and Hillary Clinton, who both wanted, de- of cultural pluralism and modernity.
spite considerable differences between them, equality of oppor- However, Asad counters such a claim by stating that there
tunity in the form of a right to compete, essentially resulted is a long history of the Qur’an’s translation into as many as sev-
in the legitimization of inequality as difference. This idea is enty languages. Besides, there is a rich tradition of the Quranic
not only reflected in the current emphasis on meritocracy in interpretation in Islam. Thus, it is not so much the divinity of
our society but also in the myth that the free-market economy the Arabic language as such, but the Qur’anic enunciation in
ensures everyone gets what she truly deserves. The same goes the context of ritual prayer, considered to be a transcendental
with the modern liberal nation-states working hard for the wel- act, that makes translation difficult although not impossible
fare of their citizens in the form of facilitating overproduction (56). Before we embark on the act of translation, Asad suggests,
of food products, resulting in unnecessary food wastage that “[…] we should begin descriptively, as believers do, with the rev-
causes irreparable damages to the environment as well as to erential attitude on the part of the believer toward the Creator,
other nonhuman forms of life. an act that combines feeling and act, public visibility and pri-
These problems caused by the liberal position on equality vate thought” (58–9). Unlike, Western secularism, Islam does
lead Asad to Habermas’s notion of “postsecularism.” Habermas not make a clear-cut distinction between the public and private
argues that the problem of equality could be answered by trans- self, making it difficult for the political as well as religious au-
lating religious discourse into the secular discourse in the pub- thorities to control the scripture’s production of meaning, for it
lic sphere. Thus, when believers use their religious language in offers the believer an infinite possibility of meaning. The mes-
the public sphere that is dominated by secular language, they sage, in the context of Islamic tradition, cannot be separated
are using the liberal principle of equality so long as what they from the medium because the process of meaning production
say is translatable into a universally understandable language is closely related to the way the medium inhabits the believer.
making it accessible to all, including nonbelievers (43). But Asad states that the Qur’an’s untranslatability “sits un-
Asad counters that even if we ignore the fact that the “pub- easily with the ambition of state power and the pervasiveness
lic sphere” to which Habermas refers is merely an “informal of capitalist exchange” (61). In this sense, translation from the
public sphere” in contrast to formal ones like the “parliament” Qur’anic language into bodily practices is not merely about
where policy decisions are taken, Habermas’s postsecularism “what we do with it (language), but also what it does to us and
still only helps expand the sphere of liberal politics. in us (64). Scriptures are not an assemblage of semantic signs
Moreover, when we see Habermas’s argument in the light that could be easily translated to another language or culture.
of the Wittgensteinian idea of “language as a game,” then the Rather, scriptures themselves get translated into the sensible
former’s assumption that religious language is translatable into human bodies, which allows the believer unique insight into
secular language, appears to be incorrect. For language is not how to cultivate her public and private self. Unlike the Christian
merely a neutral lexical practice of expression, but it is, “how tradition in which the Christ embodies the ultimate truth, in
we inhabit the world.” The act of speaking a language shows a Islam, it is in the Qur’anic verses where ultimate authority lies.
form of life through our linguistic behavior and precisely for That is why the Qur’anic enunciation must be considered as the
this reason languages, including liturgical ones, are untranslat- God’s words, a revelation that makes the task of translation dif-
able in Asad’s assessment. ficult. Asad clarifies his position through concrete illustrations
The untranslatability of liturgical language is, fittingly, the from the Islamic past in the second part of the chapter.
focus of the second chapter. In Chapter Two, “Translation and In the latter part of the chapter, Asad moves on to discuss
the Sensible Body,” Asad discusses the problem of untranslat- Islamic traditions of ritual, a subject on which he has done ex-
ability of the Qur’an. He cites the example of Christian theolo- tensive research—among which his Genealogies of Religion is
gian Lamin Sanneh who claims that unlike Islam, Christianity best known. He mentions the example of the twelfth century
believes in the divisibility of language from the message, and Persian philosopher and mystic Al-Ghazālī (1058–1111) to ex-
it resulted in Christianity’s message getting translated into plain how a believer, through a ritual called Qur’anic enuncia-
vernacular languages and thus the expansion of Christianity tion, continuously strives for the formation of the human self.
all over the world, which ultimately paved the way for moder- Emphasizing the fact that the traditions in the areas surround-
nity. However, Islam’s insistence on the untranslatability of its ing the Eastern Mediterranean were, “distinctive, yet partly
scripture which is deeply enmeshed within Islamic ritual ob- linked,” through active mutual engagements which could be
ligations, by contrast, has resulted in a formation of linguistic characterized as “antagonistic” (67), Asad shows that the old
hierarchy. In this hierarchy, Arabic remains at the top due to its Greek practice of paideia that stresses, “learning to cultivate
5Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 0 • NUMBER 0 • June 2021
behavior through a process that can be termed ritualization by modern nation-state to control its citizens but also the burgeon-
its correction and repetition” (68), can also be found not only ing range of applications that endanger the very survival of all
in Christianity but also in Islam, although in a different form. forms of life, including humans. As the chapter title suggests,
While Al-Ghazālī inherited several classical ideas circulat- Asad traces the genealogy of the “masks” in order to demon-
ing in the Eastern Mediterranean, his thinking on the matter of strate their relationship with the idea of personhood and their
the “formation of the self” differs vastly from that the Aristotle. usage in everyday life. He cites Marcel Mauss’s studies on the
Contrary to the Aristotelian idea that takes thinking as the cen- idea of the “person” which in the classical Latin originally
ter of the self, Al-Ghazālī holds that the formation of the self is a meant “a mask”—an idea that acquired during the medieval pe-
continuous process of learning through which humans, “orient riod a metaphysical implication under Christianity that heavily
[themselves] toward God” (69). As it is a continuous process of informed the modern secular understanding of the “self.”
learning that perdures across one’s entire lifespan, it cannot be Since the self in this conception is thought of as an au-
martialed to distinguish between separate spheres of “religion” tonomous entity, hence naturally self-interested, the role of the
and “nonreligion.” Moreover, unlike other traditions that stress mask becomes critical not only to protect but also to navigate
an individualistic approach to the formation of self, Islam, on the the uncertain world. The usage of the mask makes it imperative
other hand, stresses learning, “within a tradition that presupposes for the person who encounters it to interpret, or in other words,
generational collaboration in the preservation, teaching, and exer- to translate, it (101). The mask further symbolizes the prolif-
cise of practical knowledge,” (74) through bodily cultivation. eration of dualities beginning with those between body and
Thus, the Qur’anic language is translated into corporeal mind, the individual and the relational, and the private and the
human existence with the ultimate objective not to communi- public sphere—the translation of which becomes problematic
cate but to model the body through the development of sensi- when used by anthropologists to understand ritual and culture.
bilities, including both mental and physical cultivation. More Confronted by cultural anthropologists like Clifford Geertz who
importantly, this form of translation does not distinguish “be- see culture merely as a space with meaningful signs that need
tween a real private self and a socially evident self.” The rejec- to be translated into secular languages Asad asserts that cul-
tion of that duality leads us to the final chapter of the book, in ture must be seen rather as an inherited space for learning. For
which Asad contrasts the translation of the Qur’anic language a culture, like religion is embodied in practices directed toward
into corporeal existence remakes both body and soul with a acquiring a particular kind of subjectivity and is passed on to
different kind of translation, essentially numeric, designed to the next generations. A culture, thus inherited from the past,
serve the goals of the modern liberal state and capitalist market. helps model the sensible body, and discipline the soul.
What, then, is Asad’s view on the practice of cultural trans- It goes without saying that the separation that divides the
lation? He avoids a clear-cut answer to this question. Derrida private self from its public mask is an idea whose origins lie in the
famously stated that “at every moment, translation is as neces- premodern European Renaissance. This duality, which persists
sary as it is impossible” (Derrida and Venuti 2001, 183). Gayatri in the current era, has resulted in a state of suspicion and para-
Spivak echoes the Derridean view of translation, and her ap- noia on the basis of which the modern nation-state operates. The
proach to translation is that of surrendering to “the rhetoricity of modern nation-state, due to this element of suspicion, justifies the
language” of the original text. As mentioned earlier, Asad shares use of elaborate, scientific, and at times violent mass surveillance
Spivak’s stance for he stresses that the translator must first of of its own citizens as well as of noncitizens. According to Asad,
all reposition herself in the place of the believer, both in terms of this suspicion on part of the liberal state stimulates the passage
feeling and practice before she even attempts to translate. of measures to prevent treason and police profiling for the suste-
However, unlike Derrida and Spivak, Asad eludes the nor- nance and prosperity of the nation-state in the guise of protecting
mative question of whether the cultural translation should, or the collective life of its citizens. It is in this context that the lan-
should not, be performed. Nevertheless, we can safely conclude guage of numbers becomes important, for, through its powers of
that he is against the idea of a secular translation of cultural abstraction and generalization, the language of numbers proves an
signs. Support for this view could be found in Chapter Three, effective mechanism of governmental control and manipulation.
where Asad cites Wittgenstein’s view that “not everything in One of several examples that Asad has offered in defense
life [has] to be interpreted” because the act of interpretation— of his argument is the use of the language of numbers by the
translation—essentially involves, “substituting one formulation state and capitalist corporations that has resulted in the trans-
for another,” a process that he finds unacceptably problematic formation of not-for-profit friendly societies that operated in
(101). In other words, from Asad’s perspective, comprehending eighteenth-century Britain into the for-profit insurance indus-
the other’s form of life is all but impossible. try that we see today (127–131). He is highly apprehensive of
The third and final chapter, titled “Masks, Security, and the the “way statistical calculation comes to be regarded as an ob-
Language of Numbers” explores the mathematical language, a jective translation of social reality and a rational instrument for
distinctive “language of numbers” that not only enables the resolving future problems and eliminating obstacles inherited
6Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 0 • NUMBER 0 • June 2021
from the past” (3). In fact, he goes on to state that the “math- Asad and translation theory
ematical calculation and secular reason” upon which the un-
precedented development of modern science, technology, and Inspired by Asad’s Secular Translation, the present authors co-
industry is based point to a “dark future” for humanity in the operated in organizing a conference in New York in February
form of large-scale climate change, irreparable environmental 2020. The objective was to revisit the problem of translation
destruction, and perhaps even nuclear war. as a “process of subjectivation” and how to tackle the prob-
In the epilogue, Asad concludes that the very foundation lem of “translating the untranslatable.” Especially, how do
of secular reason is based on the assumption of humanity’s in- we understand the notion of “pure language” as discussed in
finite capability to find the solution to all sorts of problems, Walter Benjamin’s “The Task of Translator” (1921) and Jacques
rather than acknowledging, as the ancient traditions all over the Derrida’s “Des Tours de Babel” (1985), in reference to Naoki
world did, human limitations and failures. While secular reason Sakai’s theorization of translation as a process of subjectivity
has, undoubtedly, brought spectacular scientific achievements, (Translation and Subjectivity, 1997) and Asad’s emphasis on un-
simultaneously it has also generated an unprecedented level of translatability (Secular Translation, 2018)? How should we un-
uncertainty. While the application of the language of numbers derstand untranslatability, or, more importantly, how shall we
and probability theory can strive to minimize this state of un- understand the need that calls for translation? These are some
certainty, it is ultimately neither possible to eliminate nor to de- of the crucial questions raised during the aforesaid conference.
termine when disaster will strike. The premise that the whole The term “subjectivation” (Butler 1997, 1.5.11) comes from
world is knowable, therefore predictable and controllable, has the later Foucault’s “Liberal Government and Techniques of
made it difficult to, “open up the possibility of a new language,” the Self” (1996) which he defines thus: “What I wanted to try
other than the languages of secular reason and numbers that to show was how the subject constituted itself, in one specific
would save humanity from the imminent disaster it is facing. form or another, … through certain practices that were also
Although Asad does not explain how the new language games of truth, practices of power, and so on. I had to reject a
should look or the way it should be developed, he makes it clear priori theories of the subject in order to analyze the relation-
that the new language must be adequate to express our collec- ships that may exist between the constitution of the subject or
tive lives in its entirety. Due to his candid acceptance of failure different forms of the subject and games of truth, practices of
and uncertainty, Asad’s conclusion may appear to be pessimis- power, and so on” (Foucault 1997, 290).1
tic. At times it appears that Asad struggles to see a future be- Foucault’s conception of subjectivation is most vividly re-
yond the unprecedented environmental and industrial disasters flected in his call for “living the age in another way” (1979,
that the capitalist-backed liberal state mechanism has wrought. 788–90). Through Foucault, Asad inherits Nietzsche’s “gene-
However, this characterization is inaccurate. As a critical thinker alogy” and has made it the foundation of his anthropological
and an anthropologist, he recognizes the immense potentiality investigation. Foucault differentiates the genealogy of subjecti-
of human beings. He begins the book by mentioning, “I proceed vation from the theory of subjectivity in order to understand his
in the unreasonable hope that a human future is possible—and own subjectivation process within a concrete historical context:
that anthropology, as a modern discipline, has a small part in
I don’t believe the problem can be solved by historicising the
keeping that hope alive” (12). This statement at the very begin- subject as posited by the phenomenologists, fabricating a
ning of the book makes it clear that he is firmly convinced in the subject that evolves through the course of history. One has to
human ability to develop a new language that would not only dispense with the constituent subject, to get rid of the subject
itself, that’s to say, to arrive at an analysis which can account
save humanity but also other forms of planetary life.
for the constitution of the subject within a historical frame-
Secular Translations is a welcome addition not only to the work. And this is what I would call genealogy, that is, a form
domain of critical anthropology but also to the areas of transla- of history which can account for the constitution of knowl-
tion studies and humanities in general. Going beyond transdis- edges, discourses, domains of objects etc., without having to
make reference to a subject which is either transcendental in
ciplinary scholarship, all three chapters offer new possibilities relation to the field of events or runs in its empty sameness
by critically evaluating the world’s current sociopolitical condi- throughout the course of history” (1980, 118).
tions Moreover, Asad opens a new chapter in the area of transla-
tion studies by going beyond the textual approach to which this Therefore, according to Foucauldian understanding, the subject
field has been tightly tied until now, focusing equal attention on exists as, “the locus of an empirico-transcendental doublet”
the verbal and nonverbal aspects of language. This provides a (1994, 322). Possibly, Asad would have called it “belief” and
great opportunity for translation studies to revisit the problem “practice” (2009, 3–4).
of nonverbal bodily senses and signs, which form an integral Significantly, all the aforesaid scholars share an interest in
part of the language game. We expect that Asad’s new volume the reality of the overlap and slippage between the subject func-
will prove helpful to both seasoned researchers and university tioning as a unit of bodily practices and a consciousness that over-
students alike. looks it. The subject retains its duality by perpetually trying to
7Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 0 • NUMBER 0 • June 2021
unify the slippage in the midst of heterogeneity and homogeneity. Inspired by Edward Said’s concept of the “contrapuntal”
The ensuing heterogeneity caused by this duality, compounded by (Said 2012, 234), we may call this strategy of appropriation a
attempts to rectify it, makes it impossible for the subject to remain process of interplay between the colonizer and the colonized.2
as a static entity. At this moment, the subject gets socially embed- This is possible because, for the colonizer, it is not easy to con-
ded as an “‘agent’, all the while maintaining both its dynamism trol all aspects of the colonial subject’s action. Conversely, it
and its passivity, as it engages with multiple subjects, the ‘web of is also true, at least in a restricted sense, that obtaining so-
human relationships’” (Arendt 1958, 183–4). cial rights or becoming a sovereign subject is difficult without
The subject is thus understood on the basis of her socio- the colonizer’s imposition of meaning or participation in the
historical presence. Precisely due to such slippages, the subject colonizer’s value system by the colonized. Said’s contrapuntal
cannot become self-complacent. As a result, the subject forever movement can be seen as a complex cultural phenomenon: first,
remains in a state of openness to the other. The subject thus as a recognition of the colonizer’s cultural influence and the en-
situated in the midst of an ever-changing “web of human rela- during effects that persist notwithstanding the political libera-
tionships” is characterized by its essential quality of creating tion of independence, and second, as an act of “appropriation”
“commensurability out of the incommensurable.” This is what as mentioned above, effecting changes in the social production
we mean by the phrase “the process of subjectivation” or “sub- of meaning through the acquisition of agency all the while still
ject formation” in this essay. Thus, “subjectivity” is altogether being ruled. Following Bhabha, Said called this chameleonic na-
different from the notion of the “subject” in the sense that it (sub- ture of the postcolonial subject “hybridity.” A multiculturalist
jectivity) refers to the position acquired by a subject who keeps translation theory based in a closed, homogenous language is
actively intervening in the context of historical constraints. no longer possible when the subject’s hybridity is recognized.
Let us now delve a little deeper into Asad’s idea of trans- The aforementioned problems elicited vibrant discussion
lation. In the postcolonial tradition, translation is considered during the New York symposium that could be broadly catego-
as an act of “trans-,” which implies some kind of transfer, like rized into three main themes. First, the relationship between
transferring from one language to another, or conveying in a “untranslatability” and “translation.” Untranslatability is un-
different spatiotemporal context. One of the earliest scholars derstood as the subject’s inability to communicate its own ex-
to discuss the problem of translation from a postmodern view- periences to others without any change—an experience that
point, Derrida for instance, defines translation as, “the linguis- Spivak, drawing from Derrida, calls as “experience of the im-
tic transformation or rewriting” (Derrida and Toyosaki 2016, possible.” She defines it as the untranslatable experience and
20). It may involve both active and passive acts of conveying. It further terms the relationship between the subject and untrans-
is well known that the intended meaning of the original speaker latable experience as “alterity,” which escapes from the other’s
undergoes a transformation during translation (Munday 2009). experience (1999, xii). The subject here does not consist of in-
Similarly, in the postcolonial context, the notion of “appropria- dividuals but could refer to groups or communities. Given that
tion” is seen as an act of active translation by colonial subjects. the individual subject cannot ascribe a framework to the unit
Even though the colonial subjects appear to be passive onlook- of experience, the experience should be viewed as one that de-
ers, in reality, they still could appropriate the same colonial cides what kind of unit the subject will be constituted from, that
ideas to “subvert” the colonizer. is, whether it will be an individual or a group. The “experience
The strategies of “appropriation” or “subversion” are of the impossible” is not merely a translational relationship
grounded in an immanent semantic shift in the conveyed mean- between the untranslatable and the subject. It also includes
ing. That is why they have served as the point of departure relationships between the subjects who translate in their own
for postcolonial understandings of translation. The likelihood unique ways. For the subject, the other is nothing more than
of an accurate translation with respect to the idea of convey- that which embodies the nature of alterity. Hence, translation of
ing something accurately (consequently based on an implicit the subject escapes from the other subject’s perception.
assumption of mistranslation) is not necessarily assumed During the symposium, Spivak talked on the relation-
in this conception of translation. A binary notion of accurate ship between untranslatability and the act of translation.
translation and mistranslation mirrors the binary positions of Translation, according to her, is an “act of inflicting violence on
metropole and colonies, center and periphery, and so forth. By the source text. Nevertheless, translation is a necessary act.”
contrast, the postcolonial understanding of translation is seen Therefore, it is impossible to convey untranslatable individual
as a process that results from the slippage in meaning. Hence, experiences without modifying them during the translation.
this view considers translation as a process of creative transfor- She aptly observes, “… it (translation) involves the destruction
mation. Without denying the fact that the colonizer’s language of the body of the language” (Spivak 2014, 65). And what it de-
and culture leave their marks on the colonized, the postcolonial stroys is the immanent elements lying deep inside the human
scholars have been successful in appropriating the very lan- emotions. Thus, Spivak draws our attention to the historicity
guage and culture of the colonizer as a constructive process. of the body called language. Certainly, then, translation is not
8Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 0 • NUMBER 0 • June 2021
an easy task of simply transferring words between languages. physical individual subject, the “mysterious Other,” by contrast,
Rather, it is an act of confronting the historicity of the language. includes “symbols” like the Gods and Buddhas, the emperor, pop
In short, translation of the untranslatable is about shoulder- stars, nation-states, and even ideologies.
ing the responsibility to bridge two divergent bodies “regardless” Jacques Lacan calls it “mysterious” precisely because it is a,
of their disjunctive relationship. It amounts to experiencing im- “gaze that circumscribes us, and which in the first instance makes
possibility in the form of a “double-bind”—“a competition between us beings who are looked at, but without showing this.” (1981, 75).
diachronic linguistic reality intersecting history while crossing It is “mysterious” because it is beyond human reach and compre-
various languages, and a chronologically separated synchronic lin- hension. Lacan famously states that “[T]he relation of the subject
guistic reality that removes historical contexts.” (Spivak 2014, 67). to the Other is entirely produced in a process of gap,” and goes on
But since it concerns experiencing the impossible, it is therefore to mention that “… man’s desire is the desire of the Other.” (1981,
a “productive double-bind,” as Spivak states (2014, 60). Debates 38, 206). What is important here is that the human subject’s ex-
during the symposium helped clarify the participant’s stances. istence is not grounded on her own desire, but is rather due to
Whereas Talal Asad, Hent de Vries, and Junichi Isomae focused on her surrender to the gaze of the Other, also called the desires.
the problem of “untranslatability,” Naoki Sakai, Gayatri Spivak, and Consequently, while the human subject forms the center of mod-
Katsuya Hirano, in contrast, raised the practical aspect of the act ern Enlightenment thought, according to the Lacanian concept of
of translation. Despite the differences in approach, the problem of the “mysterious Other,” it is rather the case that the human sub-
subjectivity remained the focal point throughout the symposium. ject is constituted by the mysterious Others. This understanding is
Needless to mention, this problem is also related to the diverse closer to the position held by religious studies scholars.
stands taken by the participants with respect to the question of Asad has shown that this problem concerning the subject
secularism that Asad has been raising consistently in recent years. is intricately linked to the Western notion of secularism. We
Without going into the details, it is safe here to mention in passing may even find a precursor to Asad’s argument in Edward Said.
that the problem of secularism occupies a position that is equally But whereas Said maintained that religious believers cannot
crucial for both postcolonial studies and translation studies. take a critical stance on the formation of subjectivity, Asad, on
The problem of untranslatability stimulated equal interest the contrary, argues that active religious commitment does not
from the participants. Untranslatability implies a concept simi- prevent the subject’s critical stance. Indeed, for this reason,
lar to what Jacques Lacan called the “mystical Others,” the very Asad disavows several cultural anthropologists and even some
ground upon which the process of subjectivation occurs. But postcolonial scholars because of their indifference toward prob-
this understanding leads to another fundamental question. Is lematizing Western secularism. In this vein, he criticizes, as
subjectivation possible in the absence of the Other while the we have seen, the notion of “culture” advanced by the likes of
subject forms her “subjectivity” as an active agent? As men- Clifford Geertz and Homi Bhabha. The following short passage
tioned earlier, the “other” is something that escapes the sub- exemplifies his criticism of Said’s secular stance.
ject’s comprehension. If this understanding is not wrong, then
It is more accurate to say that modern Enlightenment has
should we not categorize the “Other” into two further groups? produced a particular concept of critique: an abstract uni-
First, the Other as a concrete individual—which may be an in- versalized concept. Every critical discourse has conditions
dividual or a community—who could be identified physically. of existence that define what it is, … There is no such thing
as a trans-historical attitude of worldly criticism that is
Second, the Other as the “mysterious Other,” who is incompre-
“open to its own failings,” or that is distinctive of the last
hensible and unilaterally gazes at the subject. five centuries of secular modernity (2008, 605).
The debate concerning an ethical position toward the Other
is a central theme in postcolonial studies. But the object of eth- Asad criticizes cultural anthropologists who study religion as
ics in previous studies has been restricted to the aforementioned part of “culture,” for the category of culture according to Asad is
first category of the Other, that is, the individual subject. Here the nothing but a product of Western secularism. Western cultural
act of initiative remains in the individual. Consequently, the atti- anthropologists lack this crucial perspective of the Others that
tude toward the Other depends solely on the individual subject’s would allow one to discern the secular subject in the form of
behavior. However, would not such an understanding of the Other Gods and Buddhas in the fashion of the Lacanian “mysterious
be merely a Cartesian one based on the typical Enlightenment for- Others.” Scholars like Said and Sakai, for their part, however,
mula, “I think, therefore I am”? When rephrased in terms of the have refrained from discussing the problem of the untranslat-
“mysterious Other,” the initiative remains not with the individual able out of apprehension that the subject would become over-
but with the mysterious Others. The subject is, in principle, placed whelmed by the mysterious Others. Their approach calls for us
in a state of being unilaterally gazed upon by the Other, with- to be on guard against an uncritical relationship, one in which
out being in a reciprocal position able to look back at the Other. the untranslatable overwhelms the translator.
This view of the subject is quite different from the Cartesian one. Understandably then, Asad voiced disapproval of Bhabha’s
For while Cartesian enlightenment exclusively recognizes the support for Salman Rushdie when the latter was accused of
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