The orthodox-versus-mystical Islam binary reflects scholarly projection, not a real split

Evidence

The complexity in Abduh’s views brings out the inadequacy of the kind of binary thinking (familiar to Western students of Islam since Goldziher) that opposes as mutually exclusive “orthodox Islam” to “sufiIslam,” “doctors of law” to “saints,” “rule-following” to “mystical experience,” “rationality” to “tradition,” and so forth. This is not to say that Muslims never themselves employ such binaries—especially for polemical purposes—but this situated deployment should not be mistaken by the nonparticipatory scholar as objective evidence of a continuous split in the Islamic tradition. The difference that does exist is between would-be authorizer and practioner. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 1074

Categorization

• XREF: Corroborates the Cooper thread’s inverse claim: Christian ‘orthodoxy vs. heresy’ and ‘rational modernity vs. religious tradition’ binaries do comparable projection work, letting comparable cultural content get coded differently. — connects to: Islam as tradition resists both fixed-structure and belief-collection definitions
• QUESTION: “The difference that does exist is between would-be authorizer and practitioner” — Asad gestures at this claim but the paragraph cuts off mid-sentence; worth chasing what he says about that distinction in later chapters.