Islam and the cognitive study of colonialism: The case of religious and educational reform at Egypt’s al-Azhar

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Aria Nakissa
Keyword(s):  
Educational Reform ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Colonial Power ◽  
Cognitive Science Of Religion ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Islamic Reform ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Cognitive Study ◽  
Spirit Beings

Abstract This article argues that the emerging Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR) provides a valuable new perspective on colonialism. CSR argues that humans are innately inclined towards certain types of religious belief (e.g., belief in spirit beings, belief in immortal souls) and certain types of non-utilitarian morality (e.g., belief in an obligation to care for kin, belief in an obligation to avoid ‘disgusting’ substances or behaviours). These innate inclinations underlie many religious and cultural traditions transformed by colonialism, including Islam. The article suggests that colonial power operates not only by suppressing traditional non-Western institutions but also by suppressing the natural inclinations underlying non-Western traditions. This claim is developed through a study of colonial efforts to transform Egypt’s al-Azhar, the world’s most influential institution of Islamic learning and scholarship. These efforts made al-Azhar into the centre of a global Islamic reform movement, which sought to integrate Islam with a colonial scientific-utilitarian worldview.

Rethinking Religious Cognition and Myth: A New Perspective on how Religions Balance Intuitiveness and Interest-Provokingness/Memorability

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 112-137
Author(s):  
Aria Nakissa
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Just World ◽  
Cognitive Science Of Religion ◽  
Science Of Religion ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Spirit Beings

Abstract In his influential work on the cognitive science of religion (CSR), Pascal Boyer argues that the spread of religious ideas involves a tradeoff between their “intuitiveness” and their interest-provokingness/memorability (i.e.,their capacity to provoke interest and be remembered). For Boyer, religious ideas are “intuitive” insofar as they are easy to understand and learn. However, other CSR studies suggest that religious ideas are “intuitive” insofar as they are easy to believe. In analyzing the spread of religious ideas, no study has considered the tradeoff between interest-provokingness/memorability and intuitiveness in the sense of being easy to believe. The present article takes up this task by considering several religious concepts that are intuitively easy to believe (e.g., immortal souls, spirit beings, a Creator God, a just world). It is argued that, in typical religions, such concepts are incorporated into myths. Through incorporation, these concepts lose some of their intuitive believability but gain interest-provokingness/memorability.

scholarly journals PEREDARAN OPIUM DI MINANGKABAU ABAD KE-19

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Nasir
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Opium Trade ◽  
Islamic Reform ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Made In

This article discusses the history of Minangkabau in the 19th century AD. One of the themes of 19th century Minangkabau history is the Islamic reform movement promoted by religious groups commonly called the Padri movement. One of the central issues of the Padri movement was eradicating the habit of drinking alcoholism that occurred in Minangkabau society. The habit of smoking the drug that comes from boiling opium certainly indicates the existence of the drug on a large scale. Therefore, this article will present a picture of the opium trade in Minangkabau in the 19th century from upstream (providers) to downstream (dealers). It is hoped that this article will be useful as an explanation for the habit of smoking made in the Minangkabau community at that time.

scholarly journals ADVISING FUTURE TEACHERS IN AN ERA OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM

1987 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-82
Author(s):  
Martha McMillian
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Education Reform ◽  
Educational Reform ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Teacher Education Programs ◽  
Academic Advisors ◽  
Future Teachers ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
The Status

Academic advisors and counselors of future teachers can have a great impact on the status of education and its reform by attracting top-notch students into the field and by providing encouragement to those who select teaching as their career. Consequently, advising in teacher education programs should elicit top priority in funding and rewards. In this article, several suggestions are outlined for teacher education advisors who wish to become leaders in the education reform movement and who are concerned about dealing more effectively with students entering the profession of teaching.

The Rationality of (Over)imitation

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 678-687 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefanie Keupp ◽  
Tanya Behne ◽  
Hannes Rakoczy
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Social Constraints ◽  
Rational Action ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Human Capacity ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Cognitive Foundations ◽  
Different Levels

Imitation is a powerful and ubiquitous social learning strategy, fundamental for the development of individual skills and cultural traditions. Recent research on the cognitive foundations and development of imitation, though, presents a surprising picture: Although even infants imitate in selective, efficient, and rational ways, children and adults engage in overimitation. Rather than imitating selectively and efficiently, they sometimes faithfully reproduce causally irrelevant actions as much as relevant ones. In this article, we suggest a new perspective on this phenomenon by integrating established findings on children’s more general capacities for rational action parsing with newer findings on overimitation. We suggest that overimitation is a consequence of children’s growing capacities to understand causal and social constraints in relation to goals and that it rests on the human capacity to represent observed actions simultaneously on different levels of goal hierarchies.

Born idolaters: The limits of the philosophical implications of the cognitive science of religion

2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Jong ◽  
Christopher Kavanagh ◽  
Aku Visala
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Cognitive Science Of Religion ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Cognitive Constraints ◽  
Science Of Religion ◽  
Work Done

SummaryIn recent years, theoretical and empirical work done under the rubric of the cognitive science of religion (CSR) have led many to conclude that religion (or, at least, some aspects thereof) is “natural”. By this, it is meant that human beings are predisposed to believe in supernatural agents, and that their beliefs about these agents are constrained in various ways. The details about how and why these predispositions and cognitive constraints developed and evolved are still largely unknown, though there is enough of a theoretical consensus in CSR for philosophers to have begun reflecting on the implications of CSR for religious belief. In particular, much philosophical work has been done on the implications of CSR for theism, on both sides of the debate. On one hand, CSR might contribute to defeating particular arguments for theism, or indeed theism altogether; on the other hand, CSR might provide support for specific theological views. In this paper, we argue that the CSR is largely irrelevant for

Transforming Ethnomusicology Volume II

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Engagement ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Musical Knowledge ◽  
Indigenous Perspectives ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Historical Practices ◽  
Structure Of Knowledge

Transforming Ethnomusicology aims to deepen and broaden the dialogue about social engagement within the discipline of ethnomusicology. It draws upon a wide array of perspectives that stem from different ethnocultural contexts, philosophical histories, and cultural situations. Volume I begins with overviews of ethical praxis and collaboration in different countries and institutions. Some of the following studies reflect on the challenges that ethnomusicologists have faced and the strategies they have adopted when working in situations as diverse and challenging as the courtrooms of America, the refugee camps of Kenya, the post-earthquake urban context of Haiti, and war-torn South Sudan. Other studies reflect on community activism and the complexities of sustaining and reviving cultural traditions. The final chapter offers a new perspective on disciplinary practice and methodology by examining the power relations implicit in ethnography and the potential of shifting our position to “witnessing.” Volume II focuses on social and ecological issues and includes Indigenous perspectives from America, Australia, and South Africa. The volume as a whole recognizes the interlinking of colonial and environmental damage as institutions that failed to respect the land and its peoples. As in Volume I, the authors deal with the challenging circumstances of the present day where historical practices and modern neoliberal institutions threaten the creation and sustaining of musical knowledge, the memory of the land (both urban and rural), and the dignity of human life. As in Volume I, the second volume ends with a model for change, a radical rethinking of the structure of knowledge already underway in Brazil.

In Good Company

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Darakhshan Haroon Khan
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Geographic Mobility ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
North India ◽  
Islamic Reform ◽  
Women's Participation ◽  
Role Of Teachers

Women’s participation in the Tablīghī Jamā‘at, an Islamic reform movement launched in the 1920s that emphasizes personal piety, remains underexamined, impeded by the organization’s strict pardāh requirements but also by the popular perception that it is a body of male preachers. While there is no indication that its founder wanted women to play an active role in his movement, women were a part of the Jamāt a few decades later. This paper points to important twentieth-century shifts in the socio-economic configuration in north India that paved the way for women’s inclusion in the Jamāt. The mode of piety that evolved in this period was better suited to handle the stresses of the emerging salaried class, and it upheld the pious wife as an ideal companion for the pious man, underplaying the role of teachers and spiritual masters. This paper argues that the possibility of social and geographic mobility that changed the structure of the household and the texture of local communities also formulated a mode of piety that enabled women to perform da‘wā.

Parents’ Expectations of Religious Congregations

2021 ◽  
pp. 191-216
Author(s):  
Christian Smith ◽  
Amy Adamczyk
Keyword(s):  
Religious Education ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Religious Development ◽  
Religious Congregations ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Youth Ministers

Church leaders, youth ministers, and volunteers are likely curious about the extent to which parents find congregations useful in transmitting religious beliefs and behaviors. This chapter explores how parents use religious congregations to transmit religious belief. The chapter discusses why parents tend to feel that they, rather than their congregations, are primarily responsible for passing on religious faith. Many parents select their congregations for fairly practical reasons, they have a lot of confidence in their own understanding of religion, and they want to be involved in all aspects of their child’s life, including religious development. This chapter also unpacks what parents see as the most valuable contributions that congregations provide for their children. These include the congregation’s role in providing religious education, making religion fun for their children, and transmitting cultural traditions.

An Awakening for Whom?

2020 ◽  
pp. 192-210
Author(s):  
David Komline
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
School Reform ◽  
Educational Reform ◽  
Educational Change ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
The Awakening ◽  
Common School ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Way

In the 1830s, the population of Ohio was much more diverse than was that of Massachusetts. For the most part, school reformers in both states came from a white, Protestant, English-speaking majority and did little to look beyond their narrow cultural horizons when advocating educational change. In Ohio, however, groups that fell outside of this majority were larger and could more feasibly, although not always successfully, engage the debate about school reform. This chapter highlights the way three such groups, African Americans, Germans, and Catholics, interacted with the Common School Awakening, illustrating how their objections to the key assumptions of the awakening adumbrated larger weaknesses that would eventually undermine this educational reform movement.

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