The Materiality of Middle English Anchoritic Devotion

Anchorites and their texts, such as <i>Ancrene Wisse</i>, have recently undergone a reevaluation based on material circumstances, not just theological import. The articles here address a variety of anchoritic or anchoritic-adjacent texts, encompassing guidance literature, hagiographies, miracle narratives, medical discourse, and mystic prose, and spanning in date from the eighth through the fourteenth centuries. Exploring reclusion and materiality, the collection addresses a series of overlapping themes, including the importance of touch, the limits of religious authority, and the role of the senses. Objects, metaphorical and real, embodied and spiritual, populate the pages. These categories are permeable, with flexible and porous boundaries, demonstrating the conflation of ideas, concepts, and manifestations in medieval materiality. In fact, the permeability of these categories demonstrates how materiality can reshape our approach to medieval texts. It leaves room for directions for future study, including the application of material analysis to previously unstudied objects, spaces, and literary artifacts.

Islamic Religious Authority in Cyberspace: A Qualitative Study of Muslim Religious Actors in Australia

The arrival of new technologies has always presented new challenges and opportunities to religious communities anchored in scriptural and oral traditions. In the modern period, the volume, speed and accessibility of digital technologies has significantly altered the way knowledge is communicated and consumed. This is particularly true for the way religious authority is constructed online. Using in-depth fieldwork interviews and survey findings of Australian Muslims, this article examines the way religious actors, including imams/sheikhs, educators and academics in the field of Islamic studies, perceive and use online platforms to convey their religious knowledge. The findings suggest Muslims value the benefits of accessing knowledge, communicating ideas and facilitating religious pluralism via digital platforms. By the same token, participants warned against the dangers of information anarchy, “Sheikh Google” and the limitations of “do it yourself Islam”. Importantly, the article shows imams, educators and Muslim scholars largely prioritise face-to-face learning as a more reliable and effective method of teaching and establishing rapport among Muslims compared to eclectic internet-based information dissemination. At the same time, religious actors are not averse to Muslims using digital platforms so long as they possess the skills to cross-examine online content and verify the credentials of religious actors. For more complex and circumstantial issues, participants encouraged Muslims to consult a local imam or trusted religious scholar from the community.

Child Sexual Abuse by Religious Authority Figures in Germany and Israel: The Experiences and Perceptions of Adult Survivors

The current study is based on an in-depth thematic analysis of 20 interviews with German and Israeli adult survivors of child sexual abuse (CSA) by religious authority figures (RAF). This paper aims to explore survivors’ experiences within the Jewish ultra-Orthodox and Christian communities, as well as to draw comparisons between the abusive structures and disclosure in these two contexts. The results point to the complexity of CSA by RAF, which is embedded in the survivors’ perceptions of themselves as emotionally and cognitively captured by the perpetrators who are a symbol of a parent or God and faith. The participants expressed great concern regarding disclosing the abuse against the backdrop of familial, cultural, and community inhibitors, such as fear of social stigmatization, inability to recognize the abuse, and the taboo of sexuality discourse. The survivors’ traumatic experiences were intensified in light of negative social responses to disclosure and encounters with insensitive officials. A comparison of the cultures revealed differences regarding the nature of community life and educational institutions, which may have shaped the disclosure and recognition of the abuse. The study highlights the importance of comparative follow-up studies related to this phenomenon in order to examine its universal and unique cultural contexts.

Da'wa in Social Media: The Views of Ustad Hanan Attaki and Felix Siauw to The Hijrah Phenomenon

This article examines the views of Ustad Hanan Attaki (UHA) and Ustad Felix Siauw, who use social media as a medium of preaching. The utilization of the internet as a new way of preaching Islam has helped shape contemporary forms of religious thinking and behavior for Muslim youth in Indonesia. One of them is marked by the emergence of the trend of hijrah in their community. This study aimed to explain the Islamic views of UHA and Siauw, which have implications for the emergence and development of the hijrah trend. This research focuses on extracting data through observations on a number of predetermined social media accounts, field participation and interviews, and puts forward literature studies on the fragmentation of religious authority as a result of the emergence of a number of popular ustadz who use social media as a new space for preaching. Regarding the fragmentation of religious authority, this article is based on the thesis of Eickelman and Anderson, which states that the current religious authorities are those who have succeeded in transmitting religious texts and preaching them through new media. In more detail, this study discusses two important issues, namely the trend of Islamic da'wa on social media and, in particular, the implications of the Islamic views of UHA and Siauw for the emergence of the trend of hijrah Muslim youth. This article concludes that according to UHA, hijrah is a message of Islamic da'wa that not only tells about individual repentance but also as a current trend that young Muslims must follow. Meanwhile, Siauw interprets it as an effort to awaken the spirit of Muslims to achieve the establishment of the Islamic Khilafah.

Implementation of The Mui’s Fatwa No.14/2020 Concerning Worship During Pandemic: Study on Muslim Society in Ternate

This article describes how Muslims deal with fatwa through examining the extent to which Muslims in Ternate (North Maluku) respond to MUI’ fatwa concerning the application of ibadah (worship) during the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic. In order to control and prevent the infection of the virus widely, people are required to stay at home and to keep their distance from crowds, including attending congregational worship (shalat jamaah) in mosques as issued in the MUI’s fatwa. The fieldwork was conducted in Ternate between March-May 2021, using qualitative research methods through participatory observation and interview. This article shows that the obedience of Muslim society in Ternate to the MUI’s fatwa is not only determined by aspects of the religious authority of the MUI, but also by local government, local religious leaders, and pragmatic considerations of the society as well as their perception about the dangerous impact of the Covid-19.

Effects of Pope Francis’ Religious Authority and Media Coverage on Twitter User’s Attitudes toward COVID-19 Vaccination

This paper is interdisciplinary and combines the research perspective of medical studies with that of media and social communication studies and theological studies. The main goal of this article is to determine [from arguments on all sides of the issue] whether, and to what extent, statements issued by a religious authority can be used as an argument in the COVID-19 vaccination campaign. The authors also want to find answers to the questions of how the pope’s comments affect public opinion when they concern the sphere of secular and everyday life, including issues related to health care. The main method used in this study is desktop research and the analysis of the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching on vaccination and on the types and significance of the pope’s statements on various topics. The auxiliary methods are sentiment analysis and network analysis made in the open source software Gephi. The authors are strongly interested in the communication and media aspect of the analyzed situation. Pope Francis’ voice on the COVID-19 vaccination has certainly been noticed and registered worldwide, but the effectiveness of his message and direct impact on Catholics’ decisions to accept or refuse the COVID-19 vaccination is quite questionable and would require further precise research. Comparing this to the regularities known from political marketing, one would think that the pope’s statement would not convince the firm opponents of vaccination.

The Early 20th Century Resurgence of the Tibetan Buddhist World

The Early 20th Century Resurgence of the Tibetan Buddhist World is a cohesive collection of studies by Japanese, Russian and Central Asian scholars deploying previously unexplored Russian, Mongolian, and Tibetan sources concerning events and processes in the Central Asian Buddhist world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Set in the final days of the Qing empire when Russian and British empires were expanding into Central Asia, this work examines the interplay of religious, economic and political power among peoples who acknowledged the religious authority of Tibet's Dalai Lama. It focuses on diplomatic initiatives involving the 13th Dalai Lama and other Tibetan Buddhist hierarchs during and after his exile in Mongolia and China, as well as his relations with Mongols, and with Buriat, Kalmyk, and other Russian Buddhists. It demonstrates how these factors shaped historical processes in the region, not least the reformulations of both group identity and political consciousness.

Contested identities: Tuan Guru and Ahmadiyah in the redrawing of post-1998 Sasak-Muslim boundary lines in Lombok

<p>This study examines what drives the increasing hostility towards Ahmadiyah in post-Suharto Lombok. Fieldwork was undertaken in three villages – Pemongkong, Pancor and Ketapang – where Ahmadiyah communities lived and experienced violent attacks from 1998 to 2010. The stories from these villages are analysed within the context of a revival of local religious authority and the redefinition of the paradigm of ethno-religious identity. Furthermore, this thesis contends that the redrawing of identity in Lombok generates a new interdependency of different religious authorities, as well as novel political possibilities following the regime change. Finally, the thesis concludes there is a need to understand intercommunal religious violence by reference to specific local realities. Concomitantly, there is a need for greater caution in offering sweeping universal Indonesia-wide explanations that need to be qualified in terms of local contexts.</p>

Contested identities: Tuan Guru and Ahmadiyah in the redrawing of post-1998 Sasak-Muslim boundary lines in Lombok

<p>This study examines what drives the increasing hostility towards Ahmadiyah in post-Suharto Lombok. Fieldwork was undertaken in three villages – Pemongkong, Pancor and Ketapang – where Ahmadiyah communities lived and experienced violent attacks from 1998 to 2010. The stories from these villages are analysed within the context of a revival of local religious authority and the redefinition of the paradigm of ethno-religious identity. Furthermore, this thesis contends that the redrawing of identity in Lombok generates a new interdependency of different religious authorities, as well as novel political possibilities following the regime change. Finally, the thesis concludes there is a need to understand intercommunal religious violence by reference to specific local realities. Concomitantly, there is a need for greater caution in offering sweeping universal Indonesia-wide explanations that need to be qualified in terms of local contexts.</p>