ABSTRACTS
Collective Contexts of Islamic Identities:
Nurjahan and her Sisters: Gender, Community and Religion in Rural Bangladesh
Dina M Siddiqi
This paper considers the shifting role of the informal village tribunal or shalish, the social institution that has conventionally policed women’s bodies and sexualities in rural Bangladeshi communites. The shalish came into national and international spotlight in the mid-1990’s for fatwa-sanctioned violence against women enacted through its rulings. The paper argues that globally circulating cultural scripts of Islam and Muslim women, mediated through local lenses, obscure our understanding of fatwa-related ‘on the ground’ events. A reductive binary framework, in which Islam is pitted against development and modernity, results in the misrecognition of the disciplinary powers that shape rural women’s lives. The paper offers an alternative reading of the social meanings of shifting shalish practices and the kinds of agency afforded women by such shifting contexts.
Dina M Siddiqi
This paper considers the shifting role of the informal village tribunal or shalish, the social institution that has conventionally policed women’s bodies and sexualities in rural Bangladeshi communites. The shalish came into national and international spotlight in the mid-1990’s for fatwa-sanctioned violence against women enacted through its rulings. The paper argues that globally circulating cultural scripts of Islam and Muslim women, mediated through local lenses, obscure our understanding of fatwa-related ‘on the ground’ events. A reductive binary framework, in which Islam is pitted against development and modernity, results in the misrecognition of the disciplinary powers that shape rural women’s lives. The paper offers an alternative reading of the social meanings of shifting shalish practices and the kinds of agency afforded women by such shifting contexts.
‘Pearl from a Grain of Sand: A Case of Gender Lens in the History of Early Sufism’
Stephen Fennell
Stephen Fennell
Although it has at various times and places been regarded as the cultural apogee of Islam, the mystical nature of Sufism has put it in a position both inherently heterodoxical and in various respects paradoxical: on the one hand representing a form of spiritual aspiration more sublime than (and hence doctrinally threatening to) the major orthodoxies within Islam, and yet transparently presupposing semantic links with the lower rituals of secular life (consumption, reproduction and rhythmic entertainment – wine, women and song as one might say in the West –): one can readily perceive the organic reasons why Sufism has enjoyed repeated waves of popularity of various kinds since the eleventh century (and to some extent since the eighth), and yet also why it has necessarily remained a danger to the forces of orthodoxy to the present day. This schizophrenic reception, caught between cultural prestige and political hazard, has had a fascinating impact on the issue of women’s involvement – from R?bi‘a to ‘?bida – in this movement over the centuries. This paper examines the role of various orthodoxies in the perception and reception of the earliest known example.
The Sufi Rocker as New Man? Music, Debate and Masculinity in Contemporary
Pakistan
Ananya Jahanara Kabir
This paper will examine the mobilisations of South Asian Sufi musics by the well known Pakistani Sufi rock group, Junoon. Junoon merges the sonic features of classical rock with those of a vernacular Punjabi Sufism in order to intervene within current constructions of 'Islam' at the interface of national and global discourses. While their musical interventions draw on an inherited Sufi agonism within Islam in general, and the particularly rich role South
Asian sufi musical traditions have played within this broader history, what will be of particular interest to this workshop is the masculinist self-fashioning by these neo-Sufi rockers. Given the fraught gender politics of the Pakistani public sphere, and the projections of those politics on to wider stereotypes of Islam, do these Bulleh Shah singing, guitar and drum playing Sufi rockers present themselves as the epitome of a cosmopolitan, New Pakistani
man? How does this deduction sit against the virtual absence of female rock and pop stars of equal visibility and stature within the Pakistani musical scene? Analysing the lyrics and musical style of Junoon will enable us to answer these and other questions while focusing on the central issue of how music, debate and masculinity intersect in contemporary Pakistan.
Asian sufi musical traditions have played within this broader history, what will be of particular interest to this workshop is the masculinist self-fashioning by these neo-Sufi rockers. Given the fraught gender politics of the Pakistani public sphere, and the projections of those politics on to wider stereotypes of Islam, do these Bulleh Shah singing, guitar and drum playing Sufi rockers present themselves as the epitome of a cosmopolitan, New Pakistani
man? How does this deduction sit against the virtual absence of female rock and pop stars of equal visibility and stature within the Pakistani musical scene? Analysing the lyrics and musical style of Junoon will enable us to answer these and other questions while focusing on the central issue of how music, debate and masculinity intersect in contemporary Pakistan.
Beyond Sacred and Secular: Islamist Party Mobilization in Muslim Southeast Asia
Kikue Hamayotsu
The electoral prominence of Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood in recent years is an intriguing puzzle for political scientists and observers of religion and politics alike. Why and how do Islamist organizations manage to mobilize committed followers to gain power against hostile conditions? One of the contended theoretical questions concerning Islamist mobilization is the function of welfare provision. To what extend and how does provision of social services such as education and health care condition the recruitment of committed followers?
This paper attempts to explain outcomes in the cases of Muslim-dominant Southeast Asia: Indonesia and Malaysia. It particularly look into the mobilizational mechanisms of Indonesia’s Prosperous and Justice Party (PKS), an Islamist party that has rapidly expanded its support base in politically important urban middle-/working-class constituencies to become the most influential religious-based political party at the onset of democratized elections.
The paper emphasizes the strategic choice of Islamist parties to argue that PKS’s “community-building” approach and its ability to provide both secular and religious services as a package deal is the key in recruiting and mobilizing committed followers in targeted constituencies. To test this hypothesis, the paper extends the analysis to Malaysia where the Islamist party, Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), has been largely unsuccessful in mobilizing urban middle-class constituencies.
The Simplicity and, the Complexity of Islamic Identity in Pakistan
Maleeha Aslam
The speaker shall engage with the notion of Islamic identity and what it means individually for men and women, and collectively for a local community. Islamic identity at the local level in Pakistan can best be summarized as syncretistic; a mosaic of polytheistic and monotheistic religious history of its people.
The discussion shall be based on a three year doctoral project that included six months field work in the town of Khairpur, in Pakistan. At present global understanding of Islamic identity is mostly dominated by images from contentious and maligned political representations of Islam and Shariah. It is important to realise that Islamic way of life within a local sphere is not limited to Qur?n and Sunnah – but has significant elements of indigenous culture and history. A clear distinction needs to be made between the political depictions of Islam at the global level and the way it is actually ‘lived’ at the local level. What does Islam entail at the community level, namely its institutions, leadership, practices and rituals etc; all require deeper understanding.
Ordinary women and men, incapable of reading Qur?nic texts go about their routine lives while ensuring a passionate presence in the religious sphere. Religious sphere is interesting as it can be used as a domain for expression, a sphere, where at times and under certain circumstances even women receive special treatment. It is significant to capture rituals; the symbolism embedded within & the human expectations both implicitly and explicitly expressed in the religious sphere. Are rituals symbolic practices that originate from devotion and inspiration or are these a strategy for nurturing belongingness to a certain social group?
Finally, the speaker shall engage with complex social issues that emerge from this polysemic Islamic identity. Evidence informs us that gendered identities are negotiable within a local sphere However, it is important to remember that interaction with the institution of Islam varies with gender and generation. For example, younger women are smart enough to use Islam for negotiating their freedom, at times with and on occasions without observing pardah. On the other hand, older women and most men may bring in Islam to curtail women’s freedom, impose codes for disciplining and punishment. Islam is used as a key to inform men and women about their expected gender roles and establish gender relations so as to meet socio-economic and political needs of a community. Certain notions and behavioral standards that are considered central to one’s Islamic identity will be highlighted; for example, the concept of pardah and the importance of a timely (and even early) heterosexual marriage. Any contrary representations may instigate collective reaction within a Muslim sphere – at times resulting in violence such as honour killing. Honour killing is a classic example where the hybrid of culture & religion has gone severely wrong. The State apparatuses in Pakistan have repeatedly insisted on the fallaciousness of honour killings as Islamic- but in vain. This implies that eventually what becomes visible as Islam is in reality how its followers choose to operationalise it.
Significant theoretical and conceptual insights shall be juxtaposed with empirical data from Pakistan. There are many questions that need answers – but more importantly, there are answers that need to be questioned.
Projected commonality in Bukhara: A model of Eastern cosmopolitanism
Siddharth S Saxena
We use the experience of Bukhara to propose the idea of Projected Commonality to garner insight and answer the question - how cities ‘work’. This idea articulates the view that in Bukhara the nature of cosmopolitanism is constructed not by the usual means of creating a hybrid society through inter-ethnic and inter-religious mixing, but through building of trade, education, community, and cultural and ritualistic institutions. This Projected Commonality creates spaces for interaction where Bukharan’s have achieved not just mere tolerance but a way to celebrate the differences and to coexist peacefully.
Paper contrasts this locally readable plurality with the case of the Muslim Jews, Chala, who converted to Islam. The Chala tag is a derogatory one, as it refers to something that is in between or incomplete. This is how these hybrids, who had transgressed religious and ethnic lines, were viewed in the local social landscape. However, fort the soviet ideologues such groups were ready made and ideal Soviet citizens who seem to imbibe what looked like the Western forms of cosmopolitanism. They were the ones to be celebrated, to be turned into role models to bring ‘tolerance’ and civilisation to these oriental backwaters!
The experience of Bukhara helps to articulate both a quintessential and practical example of an eastern notion of cosmopolitanism as well as its limitations. It is a model of coexistence which the world has much to learn from and this understanding could be the key that will unlock the door to integration in Europe, America, and perhaps even Japan of the ever increasing migration from the east and the south.
Spaces and Bodies: locating seclusion and segregation in the creation of collective identity
Shailaja Fennell
The dominant consideration in the study of Muslim societies, particularly in South Asia, has been with seclusion of the female body. Also these studies on female seclusion have tended to presume that segregation is a subordinate feature of female seclusion. The lack of separation of phenomenon of seclusion and segregation has led to difficulties in untangling their individual impact on the gendered lives of women. Another shortcoming is the omission of aspects of female seclusion that are not directed primarily at the female body and consequently a neglect of apsects of spatial location.
This paper will make a distinction between the norms of segregation and seclusion for the purpose of furthering our understanding of the impact of such norms on the spatial location of women (and men) in households and communities in Asia. It also raises the possibility that there are spatial aspects of gender seclusion which might or might not be due to norms of gendered segregation, but these cannot be presumed as automatic or bearing a constant relation to each other. The intention is to explore the implications of interaction between gendered bodies and gendered spaces where collective identity is enacted in everyday life. The paper will drawing on current debates of gender equality and Muslim identity to show how an erroneous understanding of these norms has led to misplaced emphasis on the relative importance of spaces and bodies within current demands for individual rights in South Asia and in the South Asian Diaspora.
Companionship between Men and Women in the Islamic University
Adeel Khan
Anthropologists have observed Muslim men to treat their women like 'chattel' in different ethnographic contexts. This paper seeks to explore how men developed different ways of relating to women in the Islamic University compared to the anthropological evidence. The importance of companionate relations with women in these men's lives were related with ideas of Muslim personhood and virtue. It will be seen how modern scholars excavate models of companionship between men and women from early Islam as well as from more recent contexts in Islamic University publications. This evidence is provided to demonstrate an alternative view of gender relations in the Islamic world.
Restructured post-secular religions and European Muslim tessellated identities
Federica Sona
Globalisation, being a process based on the development of differences (LeVine, 2003), emphasises ethnic, local, religious, cultural and national peculiarities and similarities, therefore implying the urgent social need to (re)define our own identity.
Religions become today an essential, sometimes prime, identity components (Evans, 2001 and Tozy, 2002), at the core of individual and group identity (Seul, 1999). In the post-secular era (Habermas, 2006), thus, a religious experience is often part of an expressive individualism and particularly Islam has become a “point of reference for an imaginary bond between those Muslims who are socially uprooted” (Göle, 2006).
This paper seeks to investigate the contemporary somehow regressive identity search-quest among the European Muslims, in order to shed light on what I will define as contemporary tessellated Muslim identity.
We will first analyse the processes of reshaping Islam as religion, faith, belief, or modus vivendi by the Muslim communities living in a “diaspora space” (Brah, 1996). Then, I will try to deconstruct the mileux of renowned definitions of Islamic identity, as delineated by prominent scholars, in order to answer some pivotal questions. Is Islam the cornerstone of Muslim identity? Is the Islamic identity a collective identity, being intertwined with the concept of Ummah? Or does contemporary Islam describe a more a personal individualised phenomena? Are Muslim women symbolic bearers of the identity of the Islamic community (Kirmani, 2009)? Has the European Islamic identity a diasporic, transnational and transplanted nature?
The Social Worlds of British-Pakistani Muslim Women in Slough
Aisha Anees Malik
Muslim women from south-Asia form the largest proportion of the Muslim female population in Britain. Out of these majority come from Pakistan. Although British-Pakistani women have often been the subject of policy debates in relation to forced marriages and the controversies related to the wearing of hijab, there is a dearth of ethnographic writing on their experiences of migration and settlement within diaspora studies. Also there is the tendency to see them within the defining category of ‘Muslim’ that does not allow for the expression of the multifaceted realities of their existence. Academic writing and media debates tend to give the impression of veiled women who victims of oppressive traditions masking active dynamics of their lives and the choices they make. Based upon the ethnographic research carried out in Slough in East of England, this paper analyses the social worlds of British-Pakistani Muslim women and how they have actively created social spaces inside and outside their homes. It also touches upon their experiences of education and employment and their perceptions of identity, association and religiosity. Drawing upon women’s narratives the paper highlights the agency of these women. It also shows that there are multiple explanations for the actions they take and the choices they make rather than a singular simplistic religious justification.
Ethnic Identity and Citizenship in a tensely plural Polity: Middle class Muslims in contemporary Sri Lanka.
Fara Haniffa
Muslims, Sri Lanka’s second minority has long had a fraught and conflictual relationship to the Sri Lankan state. Middle class Muslims, assuming a position as the community’s vanguard has engaged in debates amongst themselves regarding Muslims’ place in the Sri Lankan polity. When Sri Lanka was approaching independence and its leadership was eager to embrace modernity in all its promise of democracy and citizenship, Muslims too aspired to be members of the new polity. The Muslim leadership embraced this new notion of citizenship and urged “backward” segments of its population to catch up, and participate as equals in the new Ceylon. As was evident elsewhere in the world, women’s seclusion, hesitation regarding the usefulness of education for instance were emblematic of Muslims at independence. Community intellectuals urged greater liberalism.
The promise of modern nation-hood for post colonial Ceylon slowly turned into a nightmare of majoritarianism, ethnic violence and later, civil war. Muslims in this context have struggled to find a place for themselves. Most recently, some middle class Muslims have begun to participate in local versions of the globally prevalent Islamic piety movement referencing an international Muslim Umma in preference to the troubled Sri Lankan polity. To many though, the promise of a liberal Sri Lankan middle class sensibility is difficult to let go of. Embracing an exclusivist piety as many Muslims have begun to do is regarded by this group as only one more element in the downward spiral of the country as a whole and detrimental to the future of Sri Lankan Muslims. This paper discusses the manner in which, certain segments of the Muslim middle class struggle to find an ethical position as Sri Lankan citizens in a context where their world view is threatened both by the new international perspective of the piety movement, and the marginalization of Muslims through the majoritarianism of the state.
Looking at community newspaper debates immediately prior to independence that write of the new Ceylonese Muslim, and informed by interviews of contemporary middle class Muslims opposed to the new orthodoxies of the piety movement, this paper will explore one way of being a middle class Muslim in Sri Lanka that is currently in crisis.
The resistance to the piety movement, or the extreme discomfort that it causes many Muslims all over the world has received inadequate scholarly attention. My paper attempts to address this gap. Most scholars on contemporary Muslim communities attempt to make the "illiberal" (Mahmood2006, Deeb 2007 ) nature of the piety movements world wide comprehensible-- mostly to a Euro American audience in the aftermath of 9-11 --and adopt a humanist frame work to do so. This is true of both Mahmood and Deeb. But few have dealt with another significant segment of the Muslim population, arguably mostly middle class, that sees their way of life to be under threat from the piety movement. This paper will address the nature of this threat as experienced by some middle class Muslims in Sri Lanka.
Horsing through Dhaka: mapping the trails of Paikis' Urdu pasts
Annu Jalais
Shailaja Fennell
The dominant consideration in the study of Muslim societies, particularly in South Asia, has been with seclusion of the female body. Also these studies on female seclusion have tended to presume that segregation is a subordinate feature of female seclusion. The lack of separation of phenomenon of seclusion and segregation has led to difficulties in untangling their individual impact on the gendered lives of women. Another shortcoming is the omission of aspects of female seclusion that are not directed primarily at the female body and consequently a neglect of apsects of spatial location.
This paper will make a distinction between the norms of segregation and seclusion for the purpose of furthering our understanding of the impact of such norms on the spatial location of women (and men) in households and communities in Asia. It also raises the possibility that there are spatial aspects of gender seclusion which might or might not be due to norms of gendered segregation, but these cannot be presumed as automatic or bearing a constant relation to each other. The intention is to explore the implications of interaction between gendered bodies and gendered spaces where collective identity is enacted in everyday life. The paper will drawing on current debates of gender equality and Muslim identity to show how an erroneous understanding of these norms has led to misplaced emphasis on the relative importance of spaces and bodies within current demands for individual rights in South Asia and in the South Asian Diaspora.
Companionship between Men and Women in the Islamic University
Adeel Khan
Anthropologists have observed Muslim men to treat their women like 'chattel' in different ethnographic contexts. This paper seeks to explore how men developed different ways of relating to women in the Islamic University compared to the anthropological evidence. The importance of companionate relations with women in these men's lives were related with ideas of Muslim personhood and virtue. It will be seen how modern scholars excavate models of companionship between men and women from early Islam as well as from more recent contexts in Islamic University publications. This evidence is provided to demonstrate an alternative view of gender relations in the Islamic world.
Restructured post-secular religions and European Muslim tessellated identities
Federica Sona
Globalisation, being a process based on the development of differences (LeVine, 2003), emphasises ethnic, local, religious, cultural and national peculiarities and similarities, therefore implying the urgent social need to (re)define our own identity.
Religions become today an essential, sometimes prime, identity components (Evans, 2001 and Tozy, 2002), at the core of individual and group identity (Seul, 1999). In the post-secular era (Habermas, 2006), thus, a religious experience is often part of an expressive individualism and particularly Islam has become a “point of reference for an imaginary bond between those Muslims who are socially uprooted” (Göle, 2006).
This paper seeks to investigate the contemporary somehow regressive identity search-quest among the European Muslims, in order to shed light on what I will define as contemporary tessellated Muslim identity.
We will first analyse the processes of reshaping Islam as religion, faith, belief, or modus vivendi by the Muslim communities living in a “diaspora space” (Brah, 1996). Then, I will try to deconstruct the mileux of renowned definitions of Islamic identity, as delineated by prominent scholars, in order to answer some pivotal questions. Is Islam the cornerstone of Muslim identity? Is the Islamic identity a collective identity, being intertwined with the concept of Ummah? Or does contemporary Islam describe a more a personal individualised phenomena? Are Muslim women symbolic bearers of the identity of the Islamic community (Kirmani, 2009)? Has the European Islamic identity a diasporic, transnational and transplanted nature?
The Social Worlds of British-Pakistani Muslim Women in Slough
Aisha Anees Malik
Muslim women from south-Asia form the largest proportion of the Muslim female population in Britain. Out of these majority come from Pakistan. Although British-Pakistani women have often been the subject of policy debates in relation to forced marriages and the controversies related to the wearing of hijab, there is a dearth of ethnographic writing on their experiences of migration and settlement within diaspora studies. Also there is the tendency to see them within the defining category of ‘Muslim’ that does not allow for the expression of the multifaceted realities of their existence. Academic writing and media debates tend to give the impression of veiled women who victims of oppressive traditions masking active dynamics of their lives and the choices they make. Based upon the ethnographic research carried out in Slough in East of England, this paper analyses the social worlds of British-Pakistani Muslim women and how they have actively created social spaces inside and outside their homes. It also touches upon their experiences of education and employment and their perceptions of identity, association and religiosity. Drawing upon women’s narratives the paper highlights the agency of these women. It also shows that there are multiple explanations for the actions they take and the choices they make rather than a singular simplistic religious justification.
Ethnic Identity and Citizenship in a tensely plural Polity: Middle class Muslims in contemporary Sri Lanka.
Fara Haniffa
Muslims, Sri Lanka’s second minority has long had a fraught and conflictual relationship to the Sri Lankan state. Middle class Muslims, assuming a position as the community’s vanguard has engaged in debates amongst themselves regarding Muslims’ place in the Sri Lankan polity. When Sri Lanka was approaching independence and its leadership was eager to embrace modernity in all its promise of democracy and citizenship, Muslims too aspired to be members of the new polity. The Muslim leadership embraced this new notion of citizenship and urged “backward” segments of its population to catch up, and participate as equals in the new Ceylon. As was evident elsewhere in the world, women’s seclusion, hesitation regarding the usefulness of education for instance were emblematic of Muslims at independence. Community intellectuals urged greater liberalism.
The promise of modern nation-hood for post colonial Ceylon slowly turned into a nightmare of majoritarianism, ethnic violence and later, civil war. Muslims in this context have struggled to find a place for themselves. Most recently, some middle class Muslims have begun to participate in local versions of the globally prevalent Islamic piety movement referencing an international Muslim Umma in preference to the troubled Sri Lankan polity. To many though, the promise of a liberal Sri Lankan middle class sensibility is difficult to let go of. Embracing an exclusivist piety as many Muslims have begun to do is regarded by this group as only one more element in the downward spiral of the country as a whole and detrimental to the future of Sri Lankan Muslims. This paper discusses the manner in which, certain segments of the Muslim middle class struggle to find an ethical position as Sri Lankan citizens in a context where their world view is threatened both by the new international perspective of the piety movement, and the marginalization of Muslims through the majoritarianism of the state.
Looking at community newspaper debates immediately prior to independence that write of the new Ceylonese Muslim, and informed by interviews of contemporary middle class Muslims opposed to the new orthodoxies of the piety movement, this paper will explore one way of being a middle class Muslim in Sri Lanka that is currently in crisis.
The resistance to the piety movement, or the extreme discomfort that it causes many Muslims all over the world has received inadequate scholarly attention. My paper attempts to address this gap. Most scholars on contemporary Muslim communities attempt to make the "illiberal" (Mahmood2006, Deeb 2007 ) nature of the piety movements world wide comprehensible-- mostly to a Euro American audience in the aftermath of 9-11 --and adopt a humanist frame work to do so. This is true of both Mahmood and Deeb. But few have dealt with another significant segment of the Muslim population, arguably mostly middle class, that sees their way of life to be under threat from the piety movement. This paper will address the nature of this threat as experienced by some middle class Muslims in Sri Lanka.
Horsing through Dhaka: mapping the trails of Paikis' Urdu pasts
Annu Jalais
