The Barelvī School of Thought

The Barelvī movement or school is a theological interpretation within South Asian Sunnī Islam with roots in developments in the late 19th and early 20th centuries spanning colonial India and into the post-independence history of the subcontinent. Most of its adherents are found today in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, but also in educational and religious institutions in the United Kingdom, South Africa, and other parts of Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. The Sunnī Ḥanafī scholar Aḥmad Raẓā Khān of Bareilly (d. 1921) was born in Uttar Pradesh during British colonial rule. Typically, his interpretations of certain doctrines of Sunnī Islam are seen as a response to the Deoband school and its theological ancestry that was formed in 1866-7, found in the northern Indian town of Deoband. The Barelvī school of thought is defined by a set of theological positions that revolve around the persona of the Prophet Muhammad and his special, if not exceptional, relationship and status with God. The Barelvī movement defines itself as the most authentic representative of what is known as Sunnī Islam and thus adopts the generic moniker, Ahl-i-Sunnat wa-al-Jamāʿat (The people who adhere to the Prophetic Tradition and preserve the unity of the community). Some describe the movement as first spreading among rural Muslims immersed in a selection of Sufi and shared Indian cultural practices. Today, it has its own franchise of seminaries (madrasas), scholars, and a robust industry of publications that engage in polemics with other theological sects prevalent in South Asia. It keeps its sights trained on the Deobandi movement and the global Muslim evangelical group known as the Tablīghī Jamāʿat and continuously exposes what it believes to be its doctrinal errors. Other adversaries are the anti-canonical school tradition, known as the Ahl-i-Ḥadīs, the variant doctrines of the Aḥmadis and Qādianis, as well as the Shīʿa. Aḥmad Raẓā Khān declared aspects or, all of these sects to be worthy of anathematization (takfīr) because they doctrinally depart from the true tradition and its interpretation of Islam. It would be a mistake to think of the Barelvī theological positions as paradigmatically Sufi. Indeed, the Deobandis, the Shīʿa, and even the Aḥmadis also accept variant teachings of Sufism, though they might diverge from the Barelvīs on precisely what the detailed doctrines of Sufism entails (Tareen 2020 [cited under General Overviews]).

Turkey

This chapter argues that the supposed binary of a secular state and popular Islam is inadequate as a tool of analysis if we are to understand how religion has become a prominent category of both privilege and exclusion in Turkish society. Specifically, it contends that successive Turkish governments have privileged Sunni Islam as national identity. To build this argument, the chapter follows two parallel threads. The first analyses the ethnic and religious homogenization of the national body with a particular emphasis on violence against non-Muslim and non-Sunni groups. The second shows how, within the larger historical context of modernization theory, Cold War politics, and the post-9/11 promotion of moderate Islam, successive Turkish governments worked towards maintaining Sunni Muslim privilege while continuously expanding the category of enemies of the Turkish nation.

Bilder i hjemmet – hvordan visuelle uttrykk definerer muslimske rom i Norge

Målet for denne artikkelen er å undersøke hvordan norske muslimske familier orienterer seg mellom sunni-islamsk og vestlig visuell tradisjon, hvordan de forholder seg til dilemmaer som oppstår når tradisjoner divergerer, og hvordan de konstruerer sin visuelle og religiøse identitet når de lever i diaspora. Artikkelen baserer seg på empiri fra intervjuer med tjue unge informanter. De forklarer at de og deres familier klassifiserer bilder i to hovedkategorier: Religiøse kalligrafiske bilder, som behandles i tråd med skikker og ritualer i hjemmet. Når det gjelder den andre kategorien, figurative bilder med sekulært fokus, er situasjonen annerledes: Noen typer av figurative bilder, særlig portrettfotografier, skaper konflikter i familiene. Innen sunni-islam finnes det ulike syn på slike bilder. Ofte blir portrettfotografiet oppfattet som en selvstendig sosial aktør, og man tenker seg at det kan øve uheldig innflytelse på betraktere og skape uro på de stedene der bønn praktiseres. Siden mange muslimer ber hjemme, kreves det nøye overveielser når bilder skal plasseres.

Escaping Atonement in Sunni Islam: Death by Jihad for Deliverance

In the Islamic hadith corpus and Quran, the way to atone for sins is called tawba (or tawbah), which requires one to complete a series of steps to receive forgiveness from Allah (God). Jihadist terrorist organizations use primarily Quranic scripture to recruit and employ suicide bombers who may have a guilty conscience for their past sins. It is said that martyrdom, or istishadi, will automatically save Muslims from hell and grant access to paradise no matter the sin committed. One of the understudied reasons for istishadi suicide bombings in jihadist groups is the concept of atonement. This article answers the following research questions: What role does guilt in Islam play in the motivations for male and female Sunni jihadist suicide bombers, and why is tawba not utilized?

Indexing the translation of Fath al-Bari, a multi-volume Islamic classic

Hadith, the collected traditions of Prophet Muhammad, are the second source of Islamic law after the Qurʾan. The Sahih of al-Bukhari is the most authoritative collection of hadith in Sunni Islam, and Fath al-Bari by Ibn Hajar is one of the most important commentaries on the Sahih. While al-Bukhari has been available in English translation since 1971, Ibn Hajar is only being translated now. Ælfwine Mischler was asked to write multiple indexes for the translation of this multi-volume classic Islamic text. In this article, she describes the nature of Ibn Hajar’s work, some of the challenges in indexing it, and her solutions for writing both cumulative and single-volume indexes.