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Christian and Islamic sermons from past and present, and their preachers, are analyzed to reveal the socio-cultural dynamics of religious speeches. Part I focuses on the explicit contribution of sermons in socio-cultural transformation processes. It shows how sermons connect with holy texts, religious norms of the specific group, and social-cultural contexts. Part II analyzes the dynamic tension between normativity and popularity. Rather than juxtaposing normative stances and the popularity of sermons, it shows how that normativity can itself contribute to popularity and the quest of popularity carries its own normative stances. Part III explores the ritual embeddedness of religious speech in the sermon in relation to social dynamics, normativity, and popularity, and shows how speech and rituals have a reciprocal relationship.
Preaching, a practice composed of and accompanied by a myriad of different activities, is an essential element of Muslim religious life both within and beyond mosques. As such, Islamic preaching is a common means of religious promulgation and knowledge transfer, of pastoral guidance and uplift, but also of communication between believers, and as a source of negotiating religious normativity, power relations, and societal topics. Given the centrality of preaching in Muslims' religious life, this collective volume presents contributions on various aspects of performance, text, space, and materiality of Islamic preaching in history and present. The interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary framew...
This volume provides an objective analysis of current trends and developments in the beliefs and practices of Sufis in Britain. Sufism is a dynamic and substantial presence within British Muslim communities and is influencing both religious and political discourses concerning the formation of Islam in Britain. In the 21st century Sufis have re-positioned themselves to represent the views of a 'Traditional Islam', a non-violent 'other Islam', able to combat the discourses of radical movements. Major transformations have taken place in Sufism that illuminate debates over authenticity, legitimacy, and authority within Islam, and religion more generally. Through examining the theory and history involved, as well as a series of case studies, Sufism in Britain charts the processes of change and offers a significant contribution to the political and religious re-organisation of the Muslim presence in Britain, and the West.
Bringing together ten research based contributions, Muslims, Migration and Citizenship addresses questions about the changing experiences of Muslim communities, or specific groups within them, in various national and localised environments. Although not an exhaustive survey of the broad range of scholarly research in this evolving field, this book covers issues that are likely to be of some importance in the coming period. In particular, the contributors highlight the complexity of the experiences of Muslim communities in different national and cultural environments, and the evolution of both policy discourses and debates in civil society. This book was originally published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.
Sufism is a growing and global phenomenon, far from the declining relic it was once thought to be. This book brings together the work of fourteen leading experts to explore systematically the key themes of Sufism's new global presence, from Yemen to Senegal via Chicago and Sweden. The contributors look at the global spread and stance of such major actors as the Ba 'Alawiyya, the 'Afropolitan' Tijaniyya, and the Gülen Movement. They map global Sufi culture, from Rumi to rap, and ask how global Sufism accommodates different and contradictory gender practices. They examine the contested and shifting relationship between the Islamic and the universal: is Sufism the timeless and universal essenc...
Hearing Islam introduces the global religious tradition of Islam through its rich history of sounds and music. The book explores how the centrality of sonic practices and experiences within Islamic traditions stems largely from the orality of the Qur’an and the importance of recitation, while arguing that sound can provide a productive point of entry to human cultures in general. Its tripartite structure guides the reader through the foundations of Islamic traditions and sounds; theoretical frameworks of orality, listening, and deafness; and some of the major types of sonic practices and genres related to Islam, such as chanting the Islamic poetic tradition, South Asian qawwali, and hip-hop. This cutting-edge textbook is the go-to volume for students of Islam and sound, Islamic studies, religion and sound, and the practice of Islam.
Muslim intellectuals may try to define something called British Islam, but the truth is that as the Muslim community of Britain has grown in size and religiosity, so too has the opportunity to found and run mosques which divide along ethnic and sectarian lines. Just as most churches in Britain are affiliated to one of the main Christian denominations, the vast majority of Britain's 1600 mosques are linked to wider sectarian networks: the Deobandi and Tablighi Jamaat movements with their origins in colonial India; the Salafi groups inspired by an austere form of Islam widely practiced in Saudi Arabia; the Islamist movements with links to religious political parties in the Middle East and Sout...
Sufism in Ottoman Damascus analyzes thaumaturgical beliefs and practices prevalent among Muslims in eighteenth-century Ottoman Syria. The study focuses on historical beliefs in baraka, which religious authorities often interpreted as Allah's grace, and the alleged Sufi-ulamaic role in distributing it to Ottoman subjects. This book highlights considerable overlaps between Sufis and ʿulamāʾ with state appointments in early modern Province of Damascus, arguing for the possibility of sociologically defining a Muslim priestly sodality, a group of religious authorities and wonder-workers responsible for Sunni orthodoxy in the Ottoman Empire. The Sufi-ʿulamāʾ were integral to Ottoman networks...
Sufism in Western Contexts explores both historical trajectories and multiple contemporary manifestations of Islamic mystical movements, ideas, and practices in diverse European, North and South American countries, as well as in Australia – all traditionally non-Muslim regions of the “global West”. From early French and British colonial administrators who admired Persian poetry to nineteenth-century American transcendentalists, followed by South Asian and Middle Eastern immigrant Sufi guides and their movements, expansive and many-faceted expressions of Sufism such as its role in Western esotericism, female whirling dervishes and Rumi cafes, and new articulations in cyberspace, are traced and analyzed by international experts in the field.
Memory and Commemoration across Central Asia: Texts, Traditions and Practices, 10th-21st Centuries is a collection of fourteen studies by a group of scholars active in the field of Central Asian Studies, presenting new research into various aspects of the rich cultural heritage of Central Asia (including Afghanistan). By mapping and exploring the interaction between political, ideological, literary and artistic production in Central Asia, the contributors offer a wide range of perspectives on the practice and usage of historical and religious commemoration in different contexts and timeframes. Making use of different approaches – historical, literary, anthropological, or critical heritage studies, the contributors show how memory functions as a fundamental constituent of identity formation in both past and present, and how this has informed perceptions in and outside Central Asia today.