Abstract
The aim of this thesis is to redefine 1) how decoloniality relates to the figure of the Muslim and 2)
how decoloniality relates to postcolonial Muslim thinking. The field of Decolonial Studies has done
substantial archival work on revealing the underside of modernity; what decolonial scholarship
calls coloniality. Many of the thinkers whom have formed the canon of Decolonial Studies have
been located in Latin America, the Caribbean and North America though, and have not fully
explored the depth of the Muslim Question in relation to coloniality. The first half of this work deals
with redefining the narrative of coloniality with regards to systems of Islamophobia and anti-
Muslimness which shed further light on the complexities of Western ontology. The second half
deals with postcolonial Muslim thinkers who have provided necessary decolonial insights into the
ways Muslims have sought to resist and move beyond the confines of coloniality while also
perpetuating neo/colonial divides. This work argues for a process of critique and appraisal of
postcolonial reflections on Muslim ontology with the ultimate aim of decolonizing Muslim being.
The concept of the good Muslim – bad Muslim binary is also investigated as one of the main ways
which the political disciplines Muslim ontology; by making Muslims friends through Islamophilia
or enemies through Islamophobia, the good Muslim – bad Muslim binary is a discourse and
function of power which must be reconceptualized in order to account for the longue durée of
coloniality and the persistence anti-Muslim/Islamist social orders. Ultimately, I argue that in order
to move beyond the good Muslim – bad Muslim binary and the neocolonial snares of postcolonial
Muslim thought, we must more deeply reconstruct what it means to decolonize Muslim political
ontology.
M.A.