Our PhD student Obaidur Rahman Naufal has published a review essay in the prestigious American Journal of Islam and Society (Q2), focusing on Hamid Dabashi’s latest work, “After Savagery: Gaza, Genocide, and the Illusion of Western Civilization (2025)” on March, 2026.
In his essay, Naufal offers a critical engagement with Dabashi’s attempt to situate the genocidal catastrophe in Gaza within the broader epistemic, metaphysical, and moral traditions of Western colonial modernity. The review highlights Dabashi’s incisive interrogation of Western thought from Kant and Hegel to Adorno and Agamben revealing its internal contradictions and inherent violences.
While acknowledging the brilliance of Dabashi’s critique, Naufal argues that the framework ultimately remains confined within the very secular-Western locus it seeks to challenge when envisioning the future of Gaza.
This publication marks a significant contribution to the ongoing scholarly discourse on decoloniality, modernity, and the genocide in Gaza.
