“Whoever Imitates a People Becomes One of Them”: A Hadith and its Interpreters

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 359-426
Author(s):  
Youshaa Patel
Keyword(s):  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Ibn Taymiyya ◽  
Over Time

AbstractThis article examines the canonization of the Prophetic hadith, “Whoever imitates a people becomes one of them,” which became the keynote expression of tashabbuh (reprehensible imitation), a Sunni doctrine commonly invoked by religious authorities to distinguish Muslims from non-Muslims. First, I analyze how the Partisans of Hadith transmitted and classified the hadith, highlighting the pivotal role of Abū Dāwūd (d. 275/889) in canonizing the tradition. I then trace the divergent trajectories of its interpretation over time, especially the glosses of two brilliant Damascenes: Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) and Najm al-Dīn al-Ghazzī (d. 1061/1651). This study draws not only from hadith commentaries but also from treatises on law, ethics, and Sufism, illustrating how hadith interpretation takes place in multiple Islamic literary genres. A detailed appendix catalogues the collections of hadith that transmit the tradition; compares different narrations in order to date and locate its circulation; and visually maps its isnād networks.

Trajectories of Spatial Assimilation or Place Stratification? A Typology of Residence and Workplace Histories of Newly Arrived Migrants in Sweden

2022 ◽  
pp. 019791832110373
Author(s):  
Guilherme Kenji Chihaya ◽  
Szymon Marcińczak ◽  
Magnus Strömgren ◽  
Urban Lindgren ◽  
Tiit Tammaru
Keyword(s):  
Sequence Analysis ◽  
Housing Market ◽  
Housing Markets ◽  
Host Population ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Spatial Assimilation ◽  
Stratification Theory ◽  
Place Stratification ◽  
Over Time

In most societies, resources and opportunities are concentrated in neighborhoods and workplaces occupied by the host population. The spatial assimilation and place stratification theories propose trajectories (the sequences of events) leading to minority and migrant access to or exclusion from these advantageous places. However, most previous research on these theories did not ask whether such theorized trajectories occur. We apply sequence analysis to decade-long residence and workplace histories of newly arrived migrants in Sweden to identify a typology of combined residence-work trajectories. The seven types of trajectories in our typology are characterized by varying degrees of proximity to the host population in residential neighborhoods and workplaces and by different patterns of change in such proximity over time. The pivotal role of socioeconomic gains in spatial assimilation, posited by the namesake theory, is not supported, as we do not find that migrant employment precedes residence alongside the host population. The importance of housing-market discrimination for migrants’ exclusion from host-dominated spaces, posited by place stratification theory, is only weakly supported, as we find that migrants from less affluent countries accumulate disadvantage over time, likely due to discrimination in both the labor and housing markets. Our findings also underscore the need for new theories explaining migrant residential outcomes which apply to contexts where migrant-dense neighborhoods are still forming.

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