Mosques, Muslims, Methods: the Role of Mosques in Research about Muslims in Europe

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torkel Brekke ◽  
Lene Kühle ◽  
Göran Larsson ◽  
Tuomas Martikainen

Abstract Previous research has questioned the use of mosques as points of entry for research about Muslims in Europe. Part of the background has been a new emphasis on lived religion and a critique of a one-sided focus on religious institutions. We argue that some of this criticism is theoretically ill-founded and we also point out that some trends may make mosques more important in research about Muslims. In section 1, we go through the most important literature addressing the methodological problems posed by using mosques in research about Muslims in the West. In section 2, we look at some of the fundamental problems of definitions in some of this critical methodological literature. In section 3, we discuss how the choice of methods, not least sampling modes, will be of significance for meaningful discussion about the appropriateness of using mosques in research, and in section 4, we present what we see as important advantages of using mosques as a point of entry to study Muslims. In section 5, we conclude with a brief summary and discussion.

Author(s):  
Paul Gifford

This chapter addresses the limits of religious change. It argues that invoking the notion of change is sometimes less helpful than admitting that something has been discarded or hollowed out or evacuated. A new mentality has arisen in the West, which has marginalized the awareness of the otherworldly that is indispensable to ‘religion’ as substantively understood. Moving to this new cognitive style has constituted a definitive break (the ‘Great Ditch’) in the history of humankind. This new cognitive style is the essential plank of modernity. Modernity can be manifested in a variety of cultural expressions but the concept of ‘multiple modernities’ is misleading if it suggests that modernity is possible without it. Religious institutions persist in the West, in many cases with considerable power and influence, but they have been largely NGO-ized or reduced to the role of pressure groups or agencies within civil society. Their role today is as promoters of human values; it is hardly the role traditionally claimed, which was relating the human to the otherworldly. It is not that religion ‘poisons everything’, as some New Atheists say; it is that a new cognitive style has changed the human situation irrevocably.


Al-Albab ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eka Hendry Ar.

The urgency of exploring the history of the harem is important, not only because of being a rare phenomenon today or no longer in existence but perhaps this work is like opening the pandora’s box, a nightmare for women. This paper is presented as an academic review to portrait the fact that power is always in contact with wealth and attractive women, especially during a period when patriarchy was dominant. Sultan Sulaiman I was in power between 1520 to 1566 AD, in the 16th century AD. In western literature, Sultan Sulaiman was known as Suleyman the Magnificent. The work concludes, first, that the harem to the people of the Middle East in the medieval times was considered respectable for the family, especially for women both in the context of the imperial and domestic harem, where it was constructed in the name of honor, comfort and safety for women. Second, the construction of social, cultural and religious institutions of harem is the integration between the will to protect and maintain the honor of women, the concept of marriage in Islam and the patriarchal system hegemony in the Islamic world particularly in the context of the imperial harem. Third, the role of Sulaiman I who was “brave” to go against the tradition that had been practiced for many years in the Ottoman Empire, a milestone was important for the emancipation of women of the harem. Finally, to respond to the harem tradition, we must be in an impartial position, between the construction of the West and East.


2018 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 02017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadezda Sivricova ◽  
Elena Moiseeva

The review of scholarly research on generations is presented in the article. First, authors consider theoretical and methodological problems of studying the generations. Second, the main directions and results of empirical research on communication between generations are presented. The paper demonstrates the existence of a gap between generations in different countries. Results allow to conclude that now in Russia, communication between generations gradually loses a role of relaying cultural values, which leads to limitations in communicative chains in the inter-generational space and to violation of sociocultural continuity of generations. Third, the review of empirical researches of generations confirms that in the world differences in values of representatives of different generations are observed. In the West traditional values, the senior generation are replaced with secular (rational) values, and in the East – the senior generation is more committed to collectivism values, and the younger – to individualism values.


2020 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-340
Author(s):  
Mauro Nobili

AbstractRecent research points to a renewed scholarly interest in the West African Middle Ages and the Sahelian imperial tradition. However, in these works only tangential attention is paid to the role of Muslims, and especially to clerical communities. This essay tackles theoretical and historiographical insights on the role of African Muslims in the era of the medieval empires and argues that the study of Islam in this region during the Middle Ages still suffers from undertheorizing. On the contrary, by using a ‘discursive approach’ scholars can unravel access to fascinating aspects of the history of West African Muslims and in particular to the crucial role played by clerical communities, who represented one node of the web of diffused authority which is characteristic of precolonial West African social and political structures.


1998 ◽  
pp. 124-127
Author(s):  
V. Tolkachenko

One of the most important reasons for such a clearly distressed state of society was the decline of religion as a social force, the external manifestation of which is the weakening of religious institutions. "Religion," Baha'u'llah writes, "is the greatest of all means of establishing order in the world to the universal satisfaction of those who live in it." The weakening of the foundations of religion strengthened the ranks of ignoramuses, gave them impudence and arrogance. "I truly say that everything that belittles the supreme role of religion opens way for the revelry of maliciousness, inevitably leading to anarchy. " In another Tablet, He says: "Religion is a radiant light and an impregnable fortress that ensures the safety and well-being of the peoples of the world, for God-fearing induces man to adhere to the good and to reject all evil." Blink the light of religion, and chaos and distemper will set in, the radiance of justice, justice, tranquility and peace. "


2003 ◽  
pp. 66-76
Author(s):  
I. Dezhina ◽  
I. Leonov

The article is devoted to the analysis of the changes in economic and legal context for commercial application of intellectual property created under federal budgetary financing. Special attention is given to the role of the state and to comparison of key elements of mechanisms for commercial application of intellectual property that are currently under implementation in Russia and in the West. A number of practical suggestions are presented aimed at improving government stimuli to commercialization of intellectual property created at budgetary expense.


2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-112
Author(s):  
Pierre Legendre

"Der Beitrag reevaluiert die «dogmatische Funktion», eine soziale Funktion, die mit biologischer und kultureller Reproduktion und folglich der Reproduktion des industriellen Systems zusammenhängt. Indem sie sich auf der Grenze zwischen Anthropologie und Rechtsgeschichte des Westens situiert, nimmt die Studie die psychoanalytische Frage nach der Rolle des Rechts im Verhalten des modernen Menschen erneut in den Blick. </br></br>This article reappraises the dogmatic function, a social function related to biological and cultural reproduction and consequently to the reproduction of the industrial system itself. On the borderline of anthropology and of the history of law – applied to the West – this study takes a new look at the question raised by psychoanalysis concerning the role of law in modern human behaviour. "


Author(s):  
George Hoffmann

On a warm summer afternoon in 1561, Calvin’s chief editor donned a heavy stole, thick robes, and a gleaming tiara and proceeded to strut and fret his hour upon the stage in a comedy of his own devising. For little more than a century, Christians in the West had celebrated on August 6th Christ’s Transfiguration as the son of God in shining robes. But on this Sunday in Geneva, the city council, consistory, and an audience fresh from having attended edifying sermons at morning service gathered to applaud the transfiguration of the learned Conrad Badius into the title role of ...


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