Islamic Topographies

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Bowen
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Transnational Ties ◽  
British Rule ◽  
Teaching Learning ◽  
Religious Differences ◽  
Islamic Institutions

This chapter examines a second kind of pathway, one concerning ideas and practices of religion and politics. In India, British rule both validated religious governance of family affairs and drove Islamic leaders to carve out their own spaces for teaching, learning, and the administration of Islamic law. In postcolonial Britain, the same logics of religious governance and autonomy facilitate efforts to transpose Islamic institutions to London or Birmingham. British Islamic actors have employed three distinct processes to create these spaces: they reproduce South Asian religious differences in Britain, they adapt Islam to the opportunity structures found in Britain, and they maintain transnational ties to religious or political movements elsewhere. To some degree, these three processes—reinforcing boundaries, adapting locally, maintaining transnational ties—figure in all Islamic actors' practical schemas for shaping British Islam.

scholarly journals Islamic Thought in the South Asian Subcontinent

1995 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-130
Author(s):  
Zafar I. Ansari
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
International Institute ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
British Rule ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
Significant Interest ◽  
Revival Movements ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

The International Institute of Islamic Thought-Islamabad, the IslamicResearch Institute, and the International Islamic University, Islamabad,are conducting ongoing seminars on the history of Islamic thought ineighteenth-century South Asia. What follows is a report of some activitiesand decisions taken to date.Recent studies of Islamic thought have generally attributed the rise ofMuslim reform and revival movements, as well as the intellectual activitiesundertaken during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to theimpact of Europe and the influence of its academic, social, political, andtechnological advancement. This raises the following question: If theMuslim world had not come into contact with Europe, would it haveremained a totally unchanged and unchanging society? In order to answerthis question, it is essential to:1. Study and examine how Muslim thinkers analyzed their societyin the precolonial period2. Explore whether there was any dissatisfaction with the statusquo among Muslims;3. Detemine whether there were any trends of reform, revival,ijtihad or whether there was any significant interest in philosophyand rational sciences. Was there any interest in reinterpretingIslamic teachings in order to meet the challenges ofmodernity in general and of the western intellectual experiencein particular;4. Study whether the foundations of the political movements, religiousorganizations, and sects that arose in the subcontinent (i.e.,Ahl-i Hadith, Deobandi, and Barelawi) were laid on the emergentattitudes of opposition and resistance to British rule or whethertheir origins can be traced in the pre-British period; and5. Investigate principles and concepts (i.e., bid’ah, taqlid, ijtihad,dar al harb, jihad, and hijrah) used by Muslim thinkers for totalacceptance, rejection, or adaptation of political, social, and religiousideas and practices and of modern science and technology.How were these developed, refiied, restated, or reconsh-ucted? ...

Mainstreaming Third-Gender Healers: The Changing Perceptions of South Asian Hijras

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pooja Jagadish
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Gender Group ◽  
Media Attention ◽  
Religious Significance ◽  
British Rule ◽  
False Identity ◽  
Third Gender

Mainstreaming is the act of bringing public light to a population or issue, but it can have a deleterious impact on the individuals being discussed. Hijras comprise a third-gender group that has long had cultural and religious significance within South Asian societies. Described as being neither male nor female, hijras were once called upon for their religious powers to bless and curse. However, after the British rule and in the wake of more-recent media attention, the hijra identity has been scrutinized under a harsh Western gaze. It forces non-Western populations to be viewed in terms of binaries, such as either male or female, and it classifies them by inapplicable Western terms. For example, categorizing a hijra as transgendered obfuscates the cultural significance that the term hijra conveys within their societies. Furthermore, media representations of hijras cause consumers to view themselves as more natural, while hijras become objectified as occupying a false identity. This has caused them to be pigeonholed within the very societies that once legitimated their existence and respected them for their powers. With their cultural practices being seen as outmoded, and their differences from Western people be- ing pointed out in the news and on television, hijras have faced significant discrimination and ridicule. After providing a discussion of relevant Western and non-Western concepts, I seek to describe hijras and the effects of mainstreaming on their lives. Finally, I offer a critique of cur- rent research on this population and provide solutions to improve their plight.

The Islamic Frontier in Southwest India: The Shahīd as a Cultural Ideal among the Mappillas of Malabar

1977 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen F. Dale
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Unique Feature ◽  
Satisfactory Explanation ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Cultural Ideal ◽  
British Rule ◽  
Southwest India

The only really unique feature of the Mappilla outbreaks which occurred in Malabar District during the period of British rule was that each attack was conducted as a kind of suicidal jihād, in which the Mappillas involved intentionally sought to become shahīds or martyrs for the faith. No other South Asian Muslims who took part in protest movements to achieve goals similar to those which underlay the Mappilla attacks resorted to suicidal jihāds as a means of coercion. Yet no satisfactory explanation has ever been given to account for the Mappillas' peculiar militancy. Modern scholars have generally ignored the question, while the few British officials who tried to answer it usually argued, or implicitly suggested, that the attacks represented the inherent fanaticism of Islam. This explanation is, of course, vitiated by the very uniqueness of the Mappillas' suicidal ritual.

Mumtaz Bibi's broken heart

2009 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rohit De
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Muslim Women ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
The Public ◽  
Traditional Practitioners ◽  
Women In India

This article investigates the formation of a political consensus between conservative ulama, Muslim reformers, nationalist politicians and women's organisations, which led to the enactment of the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act in 1939. The Act was a radical piece of social legislation that gave South Asian Muslim women greater rights for divorce than those enjoyed by other women in India and Britain. Instead of placing women's rights and Islamic law as opposed to each other, the legislation employed a heuristic that guaranteed women's rights by applying Islamic law, allowing Muslim politicians, ulama and women's groups to find common ground on an Islamic modernity. By interrogating the legislative process and the rhetorical positions employed to achieve this consensus, the paper hopes to map how the women's question was being negotiated anew in the space created in the legislatures. The legislative debate over family law redefined the boundaries of the public and the private, and forced nationalists to reconsider the ‘women's question’. The transformation of Islamic law through secular legislation also gave greater licence to the courts in their interpretation, and widened the schism between traditional practitioners of fiqh and modern lawyers.

The Muslim Tradition of Political Philosophy

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shahrough Akhavi
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Epistemological Foundation ◽  
The Individual

The doctrine of salvation in Islam centers on the community of believers. Contemporary Muslim political philosophy (or, preferably, political theory) covers a broad expanse that brings under its rubric at least two diverse tendencies: an approach that stresses the integration of religion and politics, and an approach that insists on their separation. Advocates of the first approach seem united in their desire for the “Islamization of knowledge,” meaning that the epistemological foundation of understanding and explanation in all areas of life, including all areas of political life, must be “Islamic.” Thus, one needs to speak of an “Islamic anthropology,” an “Islamic sociology,” an “Islamic political science,” and so on. But there is also a distinction that one may make among advocates of this first approach. Moreover, one can say about many, perhaps most, advocates of the first approach that they feel an urgency to apply Islamic law throughout all arenas of society. This article focuses on the Muslim tradition of political philosophy and considers the following themes: the individual and society, the state, and democracy.

An ʿĀ lim in the Russian Empire

2019 ◽  
pp. 29-90
Author(s):  
Nathan Spannaus
Keyword(s):  
Structural Changes ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
The State ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Muslim Population ◽  
Russian State ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
Islamic Institutions

Following the Russian conquests of the 16th century, ulama became the foremost social authorities for Volga-Ural Muslims. Tsarist efforts at governing the Muslim population increasingly focused on them in the 18th century, with greater tolerance and state support for Islamic institutions alongside a co-optation of scholars’ authority. In 1788, the Orenburg Spiritual Assembly was founded, placing all ulama under a hierarchy controlled by the state. The Spiritual Assembly offered stability and permanence to Islamic institutions, allowing for a flourishing in Islamic scholarship, but it also transformed the ulama and application of Islamic law. This chapter addresses Muslims’ shifting relationship to the Russian state and the structural changes to Islamic institutions, and how this impacted scholarship. Focusing specifically on ulama in the 18th and early 19th centuries, it places Qursawi’s life and career within this context, particularly his education, the formation of his thought, and his condemnation in Bukhara for heresy.

Religion and politics in contemporary Iran

1995 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Farazmand
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
National Character ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
World Power ◽  
Modem World ◽  
Historical Tradition ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis article discusses religion and politics in contemporary Iran, with an emphasis on Shia radicalism, revolution, and national character. The relationship between religion and politics in Iran is analyzed in an historical context from the ancient time, the role of religious leaders in the Iranian political movements is discussed with a focus on the Iranian Revolution and on the Islamic Government, and aspects of Shia radicalism and Iranian national character are analyzed in some details. It is argued that the Iranian innovation in introducing Shi'ism as a minority, radical sect of Islam has been a manifestation of Iranian national character of independence and of her historical tradition as a great regional and world power. Shi'ism is a byproduct of the Iranian ancient traditions of state, religion, and politics, and of her cultural contributions to the Islamic and world civilizations; hence a remarkable continuity in Iran's past heritage of asserting her independence in the modem world of global transformation led by the superpowers. Iran is the motherland and springboard of Shi'ism and Shi'ism is an inalienable part of Islamic Iran, just as Zoroastrianism was of the ancient Sasanid Persia.

Religion and Politics in South Asia

Worldview ◽  
1965 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-5
Author(s):  
Donald Smith
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
British Empire ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Geographical Region ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
World Religions ◽  
The West

The relation of religion and politics in South Asia is a subject of unusual complexity, with a richness of phenomena which at once intrigues and embarrasses. In the West we are concerned chiefly with the major branches of the Christian church; in South Asia we find a compact geographical region which is the meeting place of three major world religions. The majorities in the three most important South Asian countries, India, Pakistan and Ceylon, profess respectively Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism. From a comparative point of view it is important to note that the three countries share a similar colonial background: all three were part of the British Empire. British policies with respect to religion in undivided India and in Ceylon were not identical, but they did follow the same general lines.

The Voice in the Drum

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard K. Wolf
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
South Asia ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Musical Instruments ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Novelistic Form ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

Based on extensive research in India and Pakistan, this book examines the ways drumming and voices interconnect over vast areas of South Asia and considers what it means for musical instruments to be voice-like and carry textual messages in particular contexts. The book employs a hybrid, novelistic form of presentation in which the fictional protagonist Muharram Ali, a man obsessed with finding music he believes will dissolve religious and political barriers, interacts with the book's field consultants, to communicate ethnographic and historical realities that transcend the local details of any one person's life. The result is a daring narrative that follows Muharram Ali on a journey that explores how the themes of South Asian Muslims and their neighbors coming together, moving apart, and relating to God and spiritual intermediaries resonate across ritual and expressive forms such as drumming and dancing. The story charts the breakdown of this naiveté. A daring narrative of music, religion and politics in late twentieth century South Asia, the book delves into the social and religious principles around which Muslims, Hindus, and others bond, create distinctions, reflect upon one another, or decline to acknowledge differences.

Religion and American Politics

2020 ◽  
pp. 277-294
Author(s):  
Daniel K. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Moral Regulation ◽  
Early American ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

This article surveys the intersection of religion and politics in America from the colonial era to the present, with a particular focus on the controversies surrounding religiously inspired political causes during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The article argues that religion (and, in particular, Protestantism and Catholic Christianity) has always played a central role in American politics, and that religious ideologies have inspired both liberal and conservative political movements. In the colonial era and the early American republic, controversies over religion focused primarily on disputes about church establishment and religious liberty, but in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, controversies over religion and politics increasingly centered on debates over religiously inspired moral regulation. Whether the issue was the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century or regulation of abortion in recent decades, America’s culture wars were usually political contests between competing sets of religiously inspired arguments.

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