PARVEZ Alam鈥檚 second book, Madina, published in the year 2020 from Adarsha, is a powerful intervention within the community of the new readers in Bangladesh. Undoubtedly, it is an ambitious project that offers critical discussions of contemporary statehood and justice in the context of Bangladesh. In my reading, I found it a thought-provoking text which presents the Islamic historical concept of the city of Madina as a political, ethical, and philosophical model for reimagining the conditions of the oppressed (唳唳侧唳�). However, it must be mentioned that Alam does not present simply a historical narrative in it but rather prepares a dense theoretical discourse in the form of historiography that blends Islamic history, political theology, and critical theory into a new interpretative and innovative framework which the author terms as the 鈥楳adina Paradigm鈥�.
To elaborate, Madina Paradigm is a term that Alam employs not as part of a theological abstraction but as an epistemo-ontological construct. The paradigm is introduced with thoughtful complexity, drawing upon the paradigm theory of Thomas Kuhn鈥檚 The Structure of Scientific Revolution (1962) in which Kuhn argued that scientific progress is determined not merely by cumulative knowledge but by radical shifts in worldviews, or paradigms. Alam revisits Kuhn鈥檚 framework but deliberately integrates it with Agamben鈥檚 conception of paradigm, offering a larger understanding of this concept in his book that reflects the approaches informed by both theorists. By introducing such an innovative yet powerful idea of the Madina paradigm, Alam critiques the functioning of a modern state whereby the struggles of the oppressed are erased and rendered invisible. He highlights how modern governance often fails to address the marginalised others and/or 鈥榦utcast proletariat鈥� voices and, in so doing, draws parallels with the ethical and justice-driven governance of historic Madina city that contradicts the ways the current state apparatus operates.
In order to offer such a novel angle, this book draws heavily from Giorgio Agamben, especially his notions of bare life, homo sacer, and profanation. Alam uses Agamben鈥檚 critique of Western sovereignty to expose the limitations of the modern nation-state, including its secular-sacred divide and its dependence on the articulations of divisions. Through Agamben, Alam reinterprets Madina not merely as a historical city-state but as a site of resistance, a space that complicates the boundaries between the sacred and the profane and the legal and the theological. In his analysis, Madina becomes a model of the process which wants to unravel and unmake what has already been built through the addictive designing of modernity. In that sense, the concept of Madina, as presented by Alam, is not the history of the making of a state but rather a radical attempt to expose the logic of disposability that runs through every state-making process. From that perspective, I see this book as a radical political project by Alam, one in which he constantly searches for a political praxis that points towards a 鈥榩erfect nihilism鈥� (Agamben, Potentialities 171), ultimately ensuring a messianic moment of redemption for all of us.
That said, Walter Benjamin鈥檚 concept of Messianic time also appears largely, especially in Alam鈥檚 reading of historical ruptures. Benjamin鈥檚 groundbreaking idea of 鈥榯he time of now鈥� is reflected in the book鈥檚 framing of the Madina moment, that is, a revolutionary and redemptive possibility for the oppressed to reorganise time and history from the standpoint of justice and ethics. With a concept such as 鈥楳essianic paradigm鈥�, Alam tends to expose in what ways law and violence are embedded. Perhaps Talal Asad鈥檚 critique of modern secularism and the genealogy of religious categories might have, to some extent, supported Alam鈥檚 argument that our understanding of Madina must escape the binary of modern secular-religious categories. In addition, the work acknowledges Ibn Sina, Ibn Arabi, Al-Ghazali, and other Islamic intellectuals who have attempted to construct Islamic epistemologies. These thinkers provide Alam with the platform to formulate a state logic based on Madina that is neither modernist nor traditionalist but paradigmatic and pluralistic.
The book is structured in thematically rich chapters. Each of them aims to address a philosophical exposition on topics such as Hijrat (migration), the existence of Rohingya people who are stateless within the nation-state, the questions of sovereign power in the context of Bangladesh, Shariah and modern law, apocalyptic imagination, and so on. Indeed, this structure mirrors the complexity of Alam鈥檚 epistemological ambitions. It is such an attempt which is not only aimed at re-narrating the life of the Prophet but also at constructing a metaphysical framework around it by combining religious history with philosophical investigations.
In my opinion, one of the book鈥檚 strengths lies in its interdisciplinary methodology, which seamlessly blends history, political philosophy, Islamic theology, and cultural studies. It becomes evident in Alam鈥檚 adept application of the methods of cultural analysis to sacred Islamic events such as the Hijra, treating them not only as religious milestones but also as epistemic ruptures in the Benjaminian sense. In terms of cultural theory, Alam demonstrates a deep awareness of methodological pluralism, building his analysis upon textual interpretation, narrative critique, and semiotics. For instance, the references of Sura from the Qur'an, the narrations of Hadith, and classical Arabic terms are not provided as rigid doctrinal elements but are contextualised within broader themes.
However, despite its many strengths, Madina is not without limitation. While reading the book, I found that theoretical abstractions and some unexplained jargon (which were not clarified in the footnotes/endnotes) made my reading experience a bit challenging. In my opinion, the major difficulty is that the book鈥檚 language is often highly abstract and dense. Such a level of abstraction makes it difficult for even those Bengali readers who are academically inclined. Besides, frequent theoretical digressions, specialised jargon, and complex sentence structures may sometimes alienate readers who are unfamiliar with political theology or critical theory. Of course, this book packed with rich theoretical and philosophical references is aimed at advanced readers, but the lack of explanatory notes for key terms and the absence of an index limit its accessibility, making it harder for a broader audience to engage with. I believe the next edition of this intriguing book will mostly benefit from the inclusion of glossaries, particularly for readers who are less familiar with political philosophy and metaphysical concepts.
Apart from that, Parvez Alam鈥檚 Madina stands as a seminal and brilliant work in Bangladesh, where lately a new generation of readers has emerged who approach social issues through the lens of philosophy, theology, and cultural theories. Keeping that in mind, it can be asserted that Alam鈥檚 Madina will remain for a long time an influential text for this theoretically equipped Bengali readership and for new emerging critical thinkers who will surely find a comprehensive method to address challenging issues of our time. Its depth and relevance make it essential reading for those who still think of making a society where life does not remain captured within totalitarian control. Moreover, this book opens up a multitude of perspectives for all Bengali leftist thinkers to tackle the questions of statehood, Bengali Muslim identity, authoritarian law, sovereign violence, and messianic power, especially at such a time when the world gradually heads towards dystopian possibilities. Overall, upon reading the book, the new generation of Bengali thinkers will find a way to reimagine Islamic political theology against the dominant stream of global injustice and epistemic crisis. By invoking the 鈥楳adina Paradigm鈥�, Alam offers a critique of the modern state through rigorous philosophical radicalism and by pointing out the possibility of transhistorical solidarity with the oppressed. While the book could benefit from clearer structure, broader inclusivity, explanatory glossaries, and more grounded methodology, its theoretical contribution to the epistemo-ontological understanding of Islamic traditions is both timely and essential.
听
听Anupam Kamal Sen is a grant-based doctoral researcher in 'Social and Cultural Encounters' at the University of Eastern Finland. His research interests include dystopian literature, biopolitics, border studies, ethics, and multispecies justice.
