Final Year Project

Project Title

Sacrificing Life Without Blood: Rethinking Violence in Benjamin and Sacrifice in Islam

Description

This paper explored the meanings and forms of violence, tracing the violent underpinnings of sacrifice in Islam and locating its center within the moment of death. Using Ibn Arabi’s exegesis, the project also presented an alternative way of reading sacrifice (in the ethos of Divinity), that is, through an active passivity implying the death of the acting agent. Benjamin’s conception of pure and immediate violence also helped re-interpreting God/the Source of divine power as an “an-archon”, thus opening up an alternative interpretation of the sacrifice of Ishmael. Following this line of inquiry, it is argued that even if sacrifice is understood to be the essence of religious subjectivity, blood violence is not integral to it. The paper concluded with the idea that in contemporary times, any misinterpretation of sacrifice (like suicide bombing) that grounds itself in blood is hollow and devoid of any foundational reality, merely “claiming” religious sanctions.