The Anthropology Of Islam

Acknowledgements p. ix 1 Introduction p. 1 2 Islam: Beliefs, History and Rituals p. 13 3 From Studying Islam to Studying Muslims p. 31 4 Studying Muslims in the West: Before and After September 11 p. 53 5 From the Exotic to the Familiar: Anamneses of Fieldwork among Muslims p. 71 6 Beyond the Stereotype: Challenges in Understanding Muslim Identities p. 89 7 The Ummah Paradox p. 103 8 The Dynamics of Gender in Islam p. 117 9 Conclusion p. 139 Glossary p. 147 References p. 151 Index p. 173

The Anthropology of Islam Reader brings together a rich variety of ethnographic work, offering an insight into various forms of Islam as practiced in different geographic, social, and cultural contexts. Topics explored include Ramadan and the Hajj, the Feast of Sacrifice, and the representation of Islam. An extensive introduction and bibliography helps students develop their understanding of the variety of methodological and theoretical approaches involved in the anthropological study of Islam. In his selections, Jens Kreinath highlights the diversity of practices and themes that were formative for this field of study, making this essential reading for students of Islam at undergraduate and graduate level.

An increasing number of people have questions about Islam and Muslims. But how can we approach and study Islam after September 11th? Which is the best methodology to understand an Islam that is changing in a globalized world? The Anthropology of Islam argues that Islam today needs to be studied as a living religion through the observation of everyday Muslim life. Drawing on extensive original fieldwork, Marranci provides provocative analyses of Islam and its relation to issues such as identities, politics, culture, power and gender. The Anthropology of Islam is unprecedented in its innovative and challenging discussion about fieldwork among Muslims, and its ethnographically based interpretations of contemporary aspects of Islam in a post-September 11th society. The book will appeal to those in anthropology and beyond who see and are interested in investigating the unsettled place of Islam in our multicultural society.

The Anthropology of Islamic Law shows how hermeneutic theory and practice theory can be brought together to analyze cultural, legal, and religious traditions. These ideas are developed through an analysis of the Islamic legal tradition, which examines both Islamic legal doctrine and religious education. The book combines anthropology and Islamist history, using ethnography and in-depth analysis of Arabic religious texts. The book focuses on higher religious learning in contemporary Egypt, examining its intellectual, ethical, and pedagogical dimensions. Data is drawn from fieldwork inside al-Azhar University, Cairo University's Dar al-Ulum, and the network of traditional study circles associated with the al-Azhar mosque. Together these sites constitute the most important venue for the transmission of religious learning in the contemporary Muslim world. The book gives special attention to contemporary Egypt, and also provides a broader analysis relevant to Islamic legal doctrine and religious education throughout history.

This powerful, accessible new study explores the contributions that anthropology has made to the study and understanding of Islam.

This collection of arresting and innovative chapters applies the techniques of anthropology in analyzing the role played by Islam in the social lives of the world’s Muslims. The volume begins with an introduction that sets out a powerful case for a fresh approach to this kind of research, exhorting anthropologists to pause and reflect on when Islam is, and is not, a central feature of their informants’ life-worlds and identities. The chapters that follow are written by scholars with long-term, specialist research experience in Muslim societies ranging from Kenya to Pakistan and from Yemen to China: thus they explore and compare Islam’s social significance in a variety of settings that are not confined to the Middle East or South Asia alone. The authors assess how helpful current anthropological research is in shedding light on Islam’s relationship to contemporary societies. Collectively, the contributors deploy both theoretical and ethnographic analysis of key developments in the anthropology of Islam over the last 30 years, even as they extrapolate their findings to address wider debates over the anthropology of world religions more generally. Crucially, they also tackle the thorny question of how, in the current political context, anthropologists might continue conducting sensitive and nuanced work with Muslim communities. Finally, an afterword by a scholar of Christianity explores the conceptual parallels between the book’s key themes and the anthropology of world religions in a broader context. This volume has key contemporary relevance: for example, its conclusions on the fluidity of people’s relations with Islam will provide an important counterpoint to many commonly held assumptions about the incontestability of Islam in the public sphere.

Ethnographers have observed Muslims nearly everywhere Islam is practiced. This study analyzes four seminal texts that have been read widely outside anthropology. Two are by distinguished anthropologists on either side of the Atlantic, Islam Observed (by Clifford Geertz in 1968) and Muslim Society (by Ernest Gellner in 1981). Two other texts are by Muslim scholars, Beyond the Veil (Fatima Mernissi in 1975) and Discovering Islam (by Akbar Ahmed in 1988). Varisco argues that each of these four authors approaches Islam as an essentialized organic unity rather than letting 'Islams' found in the field speak to the diversity of practice. The textual truths engendered, and far too often engineered, in these idealized representations of Islam have found their way unscrutinized into an endless stream of scholarly works and textbooks. Varisco's analysis goes beyond the rhetoric over what Islam is to the information from ethnographic research about what Muslims say they do and actually are observed to do. The issues covered include Islam as a cultural phenomenon, representation of 'the other', Muslim gender roles, politics of ethnographic authority, and Orientalist discourse.