10. Religious Minorities and the Anxieties of an Islamic Identity in Pakistan

2019 ◽  
pp. 202-234
Keyword(s):  
Religious Minorities ◽  
Islamic Identity

scholarly journals EN MINORITET SØGER IDENTITET: Drusisk religiøs identitet i den libanesiske offentlighed

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Skovgaard-Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
National Consciousness ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
Islamic Movements ◽  
Lebanese Civil War ◽  
Islamic Identity ◽  
The 1960S

Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen: A Minority in Search of Identity. Druze Religions Identity in the context of the Lebanese Public In recent years a number of Middle Eastem religious minorities have been engaged in redefinitions of their religious identities. One of the impulses for this activity has been the growth of Islamic movements that give strict and narrow definitions of what constitutes proper Islam. Another impulse has been the growing awareness of civil and religious rights of minorities. The Druze in Lebanon constitute such a minority that seeks to establish its proper identity in the aftermath of the Lebanese civil war 1975-90 and the general upheavals in the Lebanese national consciousness. Tracing the history of publications about the once-so-secretive Druze religion, the article explores the tendency to stress an Islamic identity for the Druze religion. This Islamization of Druze religion became apparent in a number of publications in the 1960s but has received a new impetus after the end of the civil war. Since this period more sophisticated arguments have centered on the Sufi character of the Druze holy writings and defended their Islamic character along the lines of Sufi apologetics. The article argues that this increased sophistication and professionalization of the agrument is partly due to the polemics against an Islamic identity of the Druze coming from Sunni and Maronite thinkers, some of whom were writing under Druze pseudonyms during the war. It is also due to a novel understanding of the Druze as a religious public which must be leamt about and adapt its Islamic identity through a public debate.

Religious Minorities and the Anxieties of an Islamic Identity in Pakistan

2019 ◽  
pp. 202-234
Author(s):  
Muhammad Qasim Zaman
Keyword(s):  
Public Life ◽  
The State ◽  
Iranian Revolution ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
Islamic Identity ◽  
Senior Officers ◽  
The Military

This chapter focuses on contemporary Pakistan, now entangled in sectarian strife, though this was not always so. There were religious minorities: the Ahmadis and Shiʻites. The former were heterodox many times over: they did not believe in jihad, and they did believe in a post-Muhammad prophet, Ghulam Ahmad. They were also a successful minority, self-styled modernizers who had carved out for themselves an outsized place in public life in the early postcolonial years. The Shiʻites too had enjoyed success as great landlords in the Punjab and as senior officers in the military. They were, moreover, a minority that did not hesitate to stand up for themselves, protesting when the state treated members as second-class citizens and proudly proclaiming their difference at Muharram festival processions. Ahmadis and Shiʻites may have been resented in certain quarters, but overall, they remained a significant and self-assured public presence in the postcolonial order. It was the Iranian revolution and General Zia's Islamization campaign of 1979 that turned this situation around. Once tolerated minorities were now stigmatized and targeted by blasphemy laws, comparative tolerance giving way to the politics of sectarianism. So, there it is again, the state—this time not colonial but postcolonial—converting difference into discrimination, if not outright persecution.

Religious Minorities and the Anxieties of an Islamic Identity

2018 ◽  
pp. 164-194
Author(s):  
Muhammad Qasim Zaman
Keyword(s):  
Islamic Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Sectarian Violence ◽  
Muslim Minority ◽  
Islamic Identity ◽  
Muslim Minorities

This chapter focuses on two Muslim minorities, the Ahmadis and the Shi`a, and some of the contestations around their position in the state. How these communities have fared in Pakistan is part of the story here, with the Ahmadis being declared a non-Muslim minority in 1974 and significant Shi`i-Sunni sectarian violence in the country since the 1980s. The principal concern of the chapter is, however, to explore the anxieties that the existence and activities of these minority communities have generated among the `ulama and the Islamists. In case of the Ahmadis, the anxieties in question have had to do not merely with the peculiarities of Ahmadi beliefs about the Prophet Muhammad, but with Islamic modernism itself. The anxieties generated by the Shi`a have a different locus, and also go beyond Sunni discomfort with particular Shi`i beliefs and practices. Much more than the Ahmadis, the Shi`a have raised difficult questions about what, if any, kind of Islamic law can be given public force in Pakistan, laying bare in the process nagging uncertainties about whether Pakistan can ever fully claim to be an Islamic state.

Book Reviews

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 225-246
Author(s):  
Kariane Westrheim ◽  
Michael Gunter ◽  
Yener Koc ◽  
Yavuz Aykan ◽  
Diane E. King ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Kurdish Conflict

Adem Uzun, “Living Freedom”: The Evolution of the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey and the Efforts to Resolve it. Berghof Transitions Series No. 11. Berlin: Berghof Foundation, 2014. 48 pp., (ISBN: 978-3-941514-16-4).Ebru Sönmez, Idris-i Bidlisi: Ottoman Kurdistan and Islamic Legitimacy, Libra Kitap, Istanbul, 2012, 190 pp., (ISBN: 978-605-4326-56-3). Sabri Ateş, The Ottoman–Iranian Borderlands: Making a Boundary, 1843-1914, New York; Cambridge University Press, 2013. 366., (ISBN: 978-1107033658).  Choman Hardi, Gendered Experiences of Genocide: Anfal Survivors in Kurdistan-Iraq. Farnham, Surrey and Burlington Vermont: Ashgate, 2011, xii + 217 pp., (ISBN: 978-0-7546-7715-4).Harriet Allsopp, The Kurds of Syria: Political Parties and Identity in the Middle East, London and New York, I.B. Tauris, 2014, 299 pp., (ISBN: 978-1780765631).Khanna Omarkhali (ed.), Religious Minorities in Kurdistan: Beyond the Mainstream [Studies in Oriental Religions, Volume 68], Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2014, xxxviii + 423 pp., (ISBN: 978-3-447-10125-7).Anna Grabole-Çeliker, Kurdish Life in Contemporary Turkey: Migration, Gender and Ethnic Identity, London: I.B. Taurus, 2013, 299 pp., (ISBN: 978-1780760926).  

Multiculturalism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nasar Meer
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Race Relations ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Prominent Feature ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
The Core ◽  
National Question ◽  
Multicultural Citizenship ◽  
Future Status

The purpose of this chapter is to locate the discussion about Muslims in Scotland in relation to questions of national identity and multicultural citizenship. While the former has certainly been a prominent feature of public and policy debate, the latter has largely been overshadowed by constitutional questions raised by devolution and the referenda on independence. This means that, while we have undoubtedly progressed since MacEwen (1980) characterised the treatment of ‘race-relations’ in Scotland as a matter either of ‘ignorance or apathy’, the issue of where ethnic, racial and religious minorities rest in the contemporary landscape remains unsettled. One of the core arguments of this chapter is that these issues are all interrelated, and that the present and future status of Muslims in Scotland is tied up with wider debates about the ‘national question’. Hitherto, however, study of national identity in Scotland has often (though not always) been discussed in relation to the national identities of England, Wales and Britain as a whole.

Beyond Religious Freedom

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Shakman Hurd
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Religious Tolerance ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
Religious Difference ◽  
Power Difference ◽  
Ways Of Being

In recent years, North American and European nations have sought to legally remake religion in other countries through an unprecedented array of international initiatives. Policymakers have rallied around the notion that the fostering of religious freedom, interfaith dialogue, religious tolerance, and protections for religious minorities are the keys to combating persecution and discrimination. This book argues that these initiatives create the very social tensions and divisions they are meant to overcome. It looks at three critical channels of state-sponsored intervention: international religious freedom advocacy, development assistance and nation building, and international law. It shows how these initiatives make religious difference a matter of law, resulting in a divide that favors forms of religion authorized by those in power and excludes other ways of being and belonging. In exploring the dizzying power dynamics and blurred boundaries that characterize relations between “expert religion,” “governed religion,” and “lived religion,” the book charts new territory in the study of religion in global politics. The book provides new insights into today's most pressing dilemmas of power, difference, and governance.

الجامعة الاسلامية العالمية بماليزيا وودورها فى تعليم اللغة العربية للناطقين بغيرها International Islamic University of Malaysia and Its Role in Teaching Arabic to Non-Native Speakers

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 66
Author(s):  
علاء حسنى المزين (Alaa Hosni)
Keyword(s):  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Strong Connection ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
The World ◽  
Islamic Identity ◽  
Islamic Civilization ◽  
The University ◽  
Scientific Documentation

كان من أهم الآثار الإيجابية للصحوة الإسلامية التى عمت العالم الإسلامى بشكل ملحوظ منذ أوائل السبعينيات فى القرن العشرين زيادة إقبال الشعوب الإسلامية على تعلم اللغة العربية، وبدأ الاهتمام الحقيقى لجامعات العالم الإسلامى بتوفير مساقات متخصصة لهذا الغرض منذ أوائل الثمانينات، وكانت الجامعة الإسلامية العالمية بماليزيا التى أسست سنة 1983 من أنشط الجامعات فى هذا الصدد، وهو نشاط استلفت نظر الباحث إذ وجده يستحق الرصد والتوثيق العلمى، والمراجعة إذا اقتضت الضرورة لا بهدف الإشادة بالتجربة بل رغبة فى الإفادة والاستفادة من قبل المختصين من المهتمين بهذا الميدان الحيوى من ميادين خدمة اللغة العربية بل خدمة الإسلام، وحضارته نظرا للارتباط الوثيق بين اللغة العربية وهذا الدين الحنيف باعتبارها لغة كتابه الخالد، والمعلم الرئيس من معالم الهوية الإسلامية المميزة والصمود الحضارى.*****************************************************One of the most positive effects of the Islamic awakening since the early seventies, in the twentieth century, which spread across the Islamic world in a significant manner, has been the increased Muslims’ interest in learning the Arabic language all over the world. There began a real interest in the universities of the Muslim world for the Arabic language by providing specialized courses for this purpose since the early eighties and  the International Islamic University Malaysia established in 1983 has been the most active university in this regard. And this activity of the university drew the interest of the researcher who found it worthy of investigation and scientific documentation as well as of revision, if necessary, not in order to pay tribute to the experience, but for taking advantage and learning from specialists interested in this vital field of the fields of Arabic language service which is actually service of Islam and its civilization considering the strong connection between Islam and the Arabic language, the language of the Qur’Én , the most distinctive feature of Islamic identity and resilience of Islamic civilization.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document