We tend to work on the assumption that the world around us simply self-categorises, and that it is our task to describe it accurately or at least as accurately as possible. In the world of scholarship this often translates into the idea that it is our job to read more and more texts, accumulate greater amounts of data, all with an eye towards better understanding our subject matter, which are believed to simply await uncovering through what we imagine to be objective description. This is not the case, however. The world does not present itself to us tidily or in a manner that our recountings and narrations either reflect correctly or exactly what it is that we encounter. Far from it. We instead bring our data into existence through a variety of methods and theories, subdivided into numerous sub-methodologies and sub-theories, all of which have lengthy genealogies, complete with tacit assumptions, uses and abuses, in addition to covert (and even overt) political and ideological connotations. We choose, for example, what texts to read, what countries or villages in which to do field work, what to compare with something else (or not). None of these are natural acts, however; they are instead all based on choice and selection. We need to reflect – well aware of the limits of reflexivity – on these matters because they are what ultimately make scholarship possible and bring the numerous worlds we create into active existence.

The goal of the present series is to encourage reflection on how we bring these worlds – fields, disciplines, texts, historical narratives and so on – into existence with our scholarly acts. We want to encourage greater contemplation on how we imagine data, locate its existence, bring it into clearer focus and, just as importantly, in a manner that does not simply assume that if we squint hard enough we can describe it both simply and accurately. Such contemplation is not meant to occur at the expense of our data. Method without theory becomes rudderless and simply spins theoretical wheels for the sake of spinning them. It would also seem appropriate to add that some methods seem to be better suited than others because they conform more accurately to what we perceive.

Introduction

With this volume, we, the editors, inaugurate a new series devoted to the methods and methodologies that have defined the academic study of Islam in the past, and that inevitably will continue to do so moving forward into the future. What is novel about this emphasis is that, too often, we tend to focus overwhelmingly on data, oftentimes at the expense of the methods that conjure said data into existence. Such privileging risks the assumption that our data is all that is important and we just have to discover more and more of it in order to reach some Archimedean position of repose. We argue, however, that this is not the case and instead is itself a position that emerges out of its own methodological assumptions that elevate philology to the level of a divine science. Change the interpreter, however, and the interpretation will also change. While so-called Muslim data – texts, beliefs, rituals, historical events – are seemingly available to scholars from a wide array of disciplinary perspectives, we duly note the manifold ways that such data have been and continue to be interpreted. Do not get us wrong. Manifold interpretations are certainly richer and theoretically more nuanced than monolithic or monothetic ones. There can, after all, be no singular let alone definitive interpretation of human behaviour and institutions. Political scientists who deal with Islam, for example, approach their material using the methods supplied by their larger field; ditto for sociologists and anthropologists of Islam. While there is a plethora of methods used to study Islam, there is not a confusion of such methods, but there most certainly is a need to sort them out, classify them and reflect on their utility.