P – Hybrid Learning

PERVEZ HOODBHOY

Batoota — Sun, 23 Jul 2017 09:19:49 +0000

Pervez Amir Ali Hoodbhoy born 11 July 1950) is a Pakistani nuclear physicist, mathematician and activist who serves as distinguished professor at the Forman Christian College and previously taught physics at the Quaid-e-Azam University. Hoodbhoy is also a prominent activist in particular concerned with promotion of freedom of speech, secularism and education in Pakistan.
Born and raised in Karachi, Hoodbhoy studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for nine years, where he received degrees in electrical engineering, mathematics and solid-state physics, eventually leading to a PhD in nuclear physics. In 1981, Hoodbhoy went on to conduct post-doctoral research at the University of Washington, before leaving to serve as a visiting professor at the Carnegie Mellon University in 1985. While still a professor at the Quaid-e-Azam University, Hoodbhoy worked as a guest scientist at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics between 1986 until 1994. He remained with the Quaid-e-Azam University until 2010, throughout which he held visiting professorships at MIT, University of Maryland and Stanford Linear Collider.
In 2011, Hoodbhoy joined LUMS while simultaneously working as a researcher with the Princeton University and a columnist with the Express Tribune. His contract with LUMS was terminated in 2013 which was a result of a controversy.[8] He is a sponsor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and a member of the monitoring panel on terrorism of the World Federation of Scientists.[9] Hoodbhoy has won several awards including the Abdus Salam Prize for Mathematics (1984);[10] the Kalinga Prize for the popularization of science (2003); the Burton Award (2010) from the American Physical Society. In 2011, he was included in the list of 100 most influential global thinkers by Foreign Policy. In 2013, he was made a member of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament.
Hoodbhoy remains one of Pakistan’s most prominent academics. He is the author of Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality He is the head of Mashal Books in Lahore, which claims to make “a major translation effort to produce books in Urdu that promote modern thought, human rights, and emancipation of women”. Hoodbhoy has written for Project Syndicate, DAWN, The New York Times and The Express Tribune. Hoodbhoy is generally considered one of the most vocal, progressive and liberal member of the Pakistani intelligentsia.
More on wikipedia

PRAYER

Batoota — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 12:27:21 +0000

Salah ” prayer” called namāz is one of the Five Pillars in the faith of Islam and an obligatory religious duty for every Muslim. It is a physical, mental, and spiritual act of worship that is observed five times every day at prescribed times. In this ritual, the worshiper starts standing, bows, prostrates them self, and concludes while sitting on the ground. During each posture, the worshiper recites or reads certain verses, phrases and prayers. The word salah is commonly translated as “prayer” but this definition might be confusing. Muslims use the words “dua” or “supplication” when referring to the common definition of prayers which is “reverent petitions made to God”.

Salah is preceded by ritual ablution. Salah consists of the repetition of a unit called a rakʿah (pl. rakaʿāt) consisting of prescribed actions and words. The number of obligatory (fard) rakaʿāt varies from two to four according to the time of day or other circumstances (such as Friday congregational worship, which has two rakats). Prayer is obligatory for all Muslims except those who are prepubescent, are menstruating, or are experiencing bleeding in the 40 days after childbirth. Every movement in the salah is accompanied by the takbir except the standing between the ruku and sujud, and the ending which has a derivation of the Muslim greeting As-salamu alaykum.
How to Perform
More read on Wikipedia

POTTERY

Batoota — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 11:34:14 +0000

Early Islamic pottery followed the forms of the regions which the Muslims conquered. Eventually, however, there was cross-fertilization between the regions. This was most notable in the Chinese influences on Islamic pottery. Trade between China and Islam took place via the system of trading posts over the lengthy Silk Road. Islamic nations imported stoneware and later porcelain from China. China imported the minerals for Cobalt blue from the Islamic ruled Persia to decorate their blue and white porcelain, which they then exported to the Islamic world.

Likewise, Islamic art contributed to a lasting pottery form identified as Hispano-Moresque in Andalusia (Islamic Spain). Unique Islamic forms were also developed, including frit ware, luster ware and specialized glazes like tin-glazing, which led to the development of the popular majolica.
One major emphasis in ceramic development in the Muslim world was the use of tile and decorative tile work.
Since the eighteenth century Islamic societies have undergone profound changes. Traditional economies were locally based, dominated by guilds of craftsmen and traders. Increasing contacts with industrial Europe dramatically transformed this system, especially in the provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Fine ceramics were imported from Meissen or Vienna, where manufacturers began producing special series for sale in the East, and even from Sevres in France. In the nineteenth century a few, mostly short-lived porcelain factories were established in Iran and Turkey, notably at Incirli in 1845 and Yildiz in 1894. These enterprises used European manufacturing technology but adapted forms and designs to local tastes. During the same period the arrival of industrial products on the Eastern market at competitive prices made the middle classes increasingly dissatisfied with local products. The gradual disappearance of the guilds, which set standards for trades and trained apprentices, often brought a decline in quality, although this change did not reach the Maghrib until the twentieth century. Today the demand generated by tourism has created new outlets for Oriental ceramics, but the quest for maximum yield and steady profits is not always favorable to maintaining a high level of quality, let alone fostering creativity and innovation.
Fortunately, a few ceramists have devoted themselves to restoring the creative vision of past centuries through technical research or original designs; examples are the Chemla family in Tunis since 1880 and Lamali in Morocco beginning in 1920. At the same time, some contemporary artists have made ceramics their favored medium, while others, like the Algerian Baya, see it as an occasional support for their work. Various countries include ceramics in the curricula of their fine-arts academies, such as the programs at Istanbul and Baghdad. Furthermore, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries some artists in Europe (Theodore Deck and Edmond Lachenal, for instance) and the Far East (Takuo Kato, the contemporary Japanese potter) have imitated or adapted Islamic styles and techniques with varying degrees of success.
Pottery is still produced in great quantity in most Islamic countries, where ordinary people use clay vessels to drink, cook, serve, store, and carry their food. These vessels remain cheap and popular, although they are gradually being replaced by plastic, aluminum, and enamelware. Various writers have addressed the rapid changes in ceramics materials, form, design, and production, making detailed studies of such key centers of the industry as Fez in Morocco, Nabeul in Tunisia,
Fustat and Luxor in Egypt, or Nain and Meybod in Iran.
Throughout the Maghrib two types of traditional pottery can be found-hand-built earthenware made by women, and turned pottery made by men. The first, produced in rural areas almost exclusively for local use, dates to Neolithic times and is today found mostly in northwestern Tunisia, in Algerian Kabylia, and in the Rif mountains of Morocco; production is very widely dispersed. Forms vary greatly; after a short firing, a piece may be glazed with a resin to make it watertight or decorated with vegetable or mineral dyes in a geometric design characteristic of the region. The second style is produced in urban potteries, primarily for sale rather than for personal use. Centers of production are less numerous, and the designs still reflect Andalusian and Ottoman influences. Ceramic architectural elementsglazed mosaics or excised terra cotta in Morocco and painted tiles in Tunisia-are common as facings (zulayj) throughout North Africa in religious schools, mosques, private homes, and official buildings.
Moroccan ceramics from the medieval period to the eighteenth century are poorly documented. Fez is the most famous center of production, but other potteries exist at Meknes, at Sale, and later at Safi. Ordinary clay is used, as in all of the Maghrib; a preliminary firing precedes the application of an opaque lead-tin glaze. A second firing fixes the decoration, blue or polychrome. Sometimes dots of minium (red lead) were added by retailers. Around 1850 the designs, either floral or geometric and often radiating from a central motif, grew denser, and the use of industrial pigments made the colors more enduring. Traditional forms are varied, including plates, covered dishes, and bowls, as well as oil or butter jars, inkwells, and lamps.
In Algeria pottery was never highly developed and virtually disappeared in the nineteenth century. Its porcelain and ceramics are imported primarily from the Netherlands, France, and Italy, or acquired through traditional trade with neighboring countries.
In the last two centuries, Qalliline, a suburb of Tunis, has continued to produce and export ceramic panels adorned with large floral or architectural patterns as those from Iznik or Damascus previously were. Its generously proportioned tableware is noted for vigorous, stylized decoration, often featuring such animal motifs as fish, birds, or lions. In the south of Tunisia, the island of Djerba, whose production of ceramics has been documented for centuries, is best known for its large, un-glazed storage jars and the green and yellow ware that has recently been much in demand. At the beginning of the twentieth century a few Djerba potters established themselves in Nabeul on Cape Bon and began to produce glazed poly chrome pottery that reflected their efforts at research and creativity. While Nabeul is presently the most important center of production, there are others in different parts of the country, including Moknine in the Sahel and Tozeur in the south.
In Egypt, despite a long and brilliant history, pottery and ceramics today are produced almost exclusively for utilitarian purposes. The poorest Egyptians use earthenware for a variety of everyday vessels such as water jugs and bowls. There are many potteries in Fustat and Alexandria, and in Upper Egypt at Ballas, Qena, and Luxor. They rarely sell their wares directly, however, instead supplying peddlers at the local market and other middlemen. Most of the production is not very refined and is usually unglazed, although a few wares get a lead glaze, generally colored but occasionally opaque. The number of potteries is rapidly decreasing with the ongoing changes in rural life and the disappearance of ancient ways of life. In 1956 a new pottery center was created in Garagos in Upper Egypt, with the goal of developing a renewed popular art based on traditional pottery.
In Turkey during the golden age of the Ottoman Empire, the work of the court potteries at Iznik and Tekfur Sarayi dominated the field. Their collapse in the eighteenth century brought about a renaissance of production in the provinces. Among the most notable new products were those of Kutahya, whose tableware, architectural tiles, and religious objects were created primarily for the Armenian community. For everyday use, the pottery at Canakkale on the Dardanelles produced designs that became nineteenth-century stereotypes. Today, in addition to the traditional studios, there is a steady flow of pottery imitating ancient Iznik, intended primarily for the tourist trade.
Nineteenth-century reports from diplomats and other foreign agents in Iran identify several cities as important centers of pottery and ceramics, including Kashan, Isfahan, Meybod, Shiraz, Nain, and others. A number of pieces with dates, identifying inscriptions, or signatures have been found to confirm these accounts. The techniques used are varied: bicolored black and blue, European-influenced polychromy, and a revival of lustre painting. Siliceous pastes are dominant here, and some workshops have made a kind of porcelain. The production of architectural tiles remains vigorous, primarily for garden pavilions as well as for the tourist trade. Folk pottery still yields such charming items as ceramic beehive covers. Copies of historical objects, like the overpainted haft-rang or mindi, lustre painted, and so-called Kubatcha wares are also widely produced.
Afghanistan and Central Asia saw far fewer nineteenth-century imports than their neighbors to the west. As a result traditional styles and techniques are well preserved, and ceramics produced today closely resemble those of earlier centuries: turquoise glazes with splashes of dark blue and purple, designs in colored engobe, and incised green-and-yellow ware that recalls a kind of earthenware produced in China under the Tang dynasty. Potteries are found near many cities, especially Bukhara, Dushanbe, and Khiva, renowned for the ceramic decorations of the many of their monuments. Here too the twentieth century has seen a decline in craftsmanship, despite massive public-works projects to restore many facades clad in brilliant tile.
In the Near East, the related art of glassmaking continued to develop from ancient times well into the fourteenth century, especially in Egypt and Syria and to a lesser degree in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. Lustre glass, cut glass, gilt glass, and enameled glass were all produced. Since the sixteenth century, however, fine glassware has been imported, first from Venice and later from Bohemia and Silesia. Nineteenth-century Western artists like Emile Galle and Joseph Brocard drew some of their ideas from Islamic glasswork.
As in the case of ceramics, the Ottoman government decided in the nineteenth century to build a glass factory on a European model. Situated at Beykoz near Istanbul, its most celebrated products, called casmibulbul, were often difficult to distinguish from Venetian glass. Today little fine glass is produced in the Islamic world, except in a few large cities like Cairo, Damascus, and Herat, where studios using recycled materials and kilns fired by gas or heating oil operate on a regular or occasional basis. Nevertheless, the skill of the craftspeople is obvious, even in pieces that have little or no decoration-a simple painted or enameled pattern, or just a thread applied to the surface. In addition to traditional pieces, apprentices make objects of personal adornment, especially glass beads and bracelets. Finding themselves threatened by a glass industry whose superior products are preferred by local buyers, these artisans are trying to adapt to meet foreign demand, both tourist and export, which recognizes the quality and particular value of handmade products, especially in the form of lamps and tableware.
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POPULATION GROWTH

Batoota — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 11:28:52 +0000

POPULATION GROWTH. See Family Planning.

High population growth rates over the past forty years coupled with worries about economic and social development have spurred debate on the use of family planning measures by Muslims

Popular Religion in Europe and the Americas

Batoota — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 10:32:56 +0000

Popular Religion in Europe and the Americas
Local Muslim belief and practice in non-Muslim countries reflect the historical experience of the community and the larger cultural environment within which it lives. Conversion and migration throughout the twentieth century have resulted in about eleven or twelve million Muslims living in Europe and America (the Muslim population figures tend to be estimates because of illiteracy, misunderstanding, and concealment of identity for fear of becoming entangled with the law). This large number has complicated the already complex relationship between Islam and the West. Islam is no longer “over there,” in Asia or Africa; it is now a Western religion also.
To bring into relief the complicated processes at work in discussing popular Muslim belief and practice in the West, I will compare two Muslim communities: the Black Muslims in the United States and Muslims in Britain.
The range of belief and practice among these Muslims is wide, including fresh migrants from Muslim countries bringing their orthodox ways and local converts sometimes inventing their own. In some cases, the opposite is true: local Muslims have been notably correct in Islamic behavior and critical of Muslim visitors for being lax or improper. An interesting example, because it contains a paradox, comes from Cambridge University in iggi when British Muslim students threatened members of the University’s Pakistan society with physical violence if they went ahead with their plans for an ethnic folkdance. Dancing, they said, was un-Islamic, and as Pakistan to them represented Islam, the Pakistani students needed to live up to their ideal.
Aghast at such challenges to their “Muslimness,” the Pakistanis in turn complained that these British Muslims oscillated between two points: either very Islamic or very westernized. They have good-humoredly coined a name for local Muslims: BBCD or “British-Born Confused Desi” (“native”); in America, it is ABCD. For their part, the local Muslims call such Pakistanis TPs or “typical Pakistanis.” Both labels contain negative connotations and reflect the inherent cultural tensions between Muslims in the West and those visiting from Muslim lands.
Developments in technology, transport, and communication-fueling the trend to globalization-in recent decades have ensured that no community can remain isolated, least of all Muslims; that all communities, however isolated in the past, are moving toward a defined uniformity. There are increasingly smaller chances for the survival of popular local religious practices in clashes with mainstream and orthodox Islam. Imams from Cairo and Medina, visiting scholars, audio- and video cassettes, ensure that the correct message is available as never before in history (Ahmed, x988, 1992; Esposito, 1991; Nielsen, 1992; Shaikh, 1992).
Another factor in the decline of local customs is the dynamic and increasingly well-educated younger generation. Generally better educated than the previous one, it has higher hopes. Islam gives it an identity and pride. Young Muslims have wide and well-established networks in the academic world and jealously guard the frontiers of Islam.
Media interest in Muslims has been heightened by the growing notion in the West that Islam is the next major enemy after the collapse of communism. Discussion and debate around certain issues-the controversy around Salman Rushdie’s novel, the Gulf War, the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International-have also forced onto Muslims an Islamic identity. In each case, this identity is reinforced in the community, as its members feel identified by their Muslimness regardless of their individual ideas. Muslimness is reinforced by a sense of deprivation, the feeling that as a community they have a long way to go in spite of numbers, education, and in many cases, wealth: there are still no Muslim members of Parliament in Europe or congressmen or senators in the United States.
Black Muslims. Perhaps the most dramatic example of how local Muslim belief and practice in the West differs substantially from orthodox Islam is provided by some of the Black Muslims in the United States. Although their membership was always a small percentage of the total U.S. Muslim population (about six million), their objectives, dedication, and the media’s interest nonetheless gave them a high profile. In fact, they be came the face of Islam in America as far as the media was concerned.
However, the Black Muslim movement cannot be understood without understanding the cultural environment in which it took root. Islam, however improperly and dimly understood, provided a genuine link with an atavistic past in Africa. It also provided a legitimate idiom in the fight for civil rights. Thus, the movement became inextricably linked with the struggle for civil rights, the need to combat slavery and racial discrimination, and the desire to locate dignity and pride in the face of ugly and massive racial prejudice.
Islam gave a coherent philosophy of life to many African Americans, and it provided a viable, ready-made role model in the form of the former slave Bilal, one of the most ardent supporters of Islam in the seventh century and a great favorite of the prophet Muhammad. Indeed, the Prophet appointed Bilal as the first muezzin (Ar., mu’adhdin; the person who calls people to prayer at the mosque). The early African American Muslims called themselves Bilalians; Islam gave them a sense of honor and dignity.
However, there was much unorthodox thinking in the early Black Muslim movement. Although members of the Nation of Islam, founded in 1930 in Detroit, believed in the notion of one God called Allah, they also believed that Elijah Muhammad was the last messenger of God. Heaven and hell were believed to exist on earth, and the number of stipulated prayers during the day was increased from five to seven. The month of December was fixed for fasting. Central Islamic beliefs, such as the finality of the Prophet, and accepted traditional practice, like the daily prayers or the month of fasting, were being challenged.
The belief in black supremacy, that the white race is intrinsically evil, was a major plank of the Nation of Islam’s platform and reflected the racial situation in the United States. This philosophy was consciously inverting the form of racism that the African American community faced, especially in the southern states. There, some believed that blacks were congenitally inferior, their brains were smaller, their morals looser, and so on. Islamic belief and practice provided black groups with social cohesion, a sense of moral purpose, and above all, much-needed dignity. Also, a strict code of dress and conduct sought to stamp out drug and alcohol abuse in the community.
Hatred of white people, however, could not be justified in Islam. The Qur’an emphasizes that all humanity-regardless of color-is equally the creation of God and among God’s wonders. Indeed, this was conveyed in the last message of the Prophet at Arafat when he underlined that Arab and non-Arab, black and white, are all equal before God; only piety makes one person better than another.
Any Black Muslim seriously wishing to learn about Islam would confront many Nation of Islam teachings as un-Islamic and therefore ask questions. This is precisely what Malcolm X, one of the most charismatic of the Black Muslims, did. One of Elijah Muhammad’s most trusted lieutenants, he had risen from the slums, knowing prison and drug abuse.
A pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964 opened Malcolm X’s eyes to the true nature of Islam and changed his views dramatically. He expressed the change in his powerfully moving letters. He formally became a Sunni and took the name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. But by accepting orthodox Islam, he was challenging local belief and practice and therefore antagonizing his alreadyestranged group. Louis Farrakhan, once his friend, now demanded his death. A few months later, in 1965, Malcolm X was shot.
Spike Lee’s film Malcolm X (1992) revealed the complexity and character of Malcolm X. It also revealed his continuing relevance to America today. The first American Muslim martyr, Malcolm X, ironically, has of late been recognized as a modern popular icon-not just a marginal black leader.
In the 1970s, important changes were taking place among the Black Muslims. After Elijah Muhammad’s death in 1974, the succession of his son, Wallace (later Warith) Muhammad, the growth of the African American middle class, and the success of the Nation of Islam’s chain of supermarkets, barber shops, and restaurants created a more relaxed community. Wallace Muhammad promptly dismantled the Fruit of Islam, the Nation of Islam’s force of young men trained in martial arts and firearms use.
Postwar Muslim migrants from the Middle East and South Asia were also organizing Islamic societies which interacted with the Black Muslims and further drew them toward global Islam. Most important, increasing contact with and awareness of other Islamic movements outside the United States brought Black Muslim belief and practice more in line with international Islam. This occurred during the late 1970s, a time of increased international awareness of Islam, the era of King Faysal, of Saudi Arabia, General Zia ul-Haq of Pakistan, and Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran.
The pressures to reform split the Black Muslims in 1978 between Wallace Muhammad, who became head of the World Community of Islam, the U.S. component of which is the American Muslim Mission (present membership is about 150,000, but it has wide general support), and Louis Farrakhan, who revived the original Nation of Islam (membership about 50,000).
By reappraising the role of Elijah Muhammad-as a great teacher rather than a messenger-and adopting an international approach, the American Muslim Mission has reconciled with Sunni sentiment. This link is further strengthened by the fact that the American Muslim Mission sends some members to study in Cairo and Medina.
Smaller groups, such as the Hanafi Muslims, whose leader, Abdul Khaalis, is accepted as an authority in about a hundred mosques, also split from the Black Muslims to move even more closely to mainstream Islam.
The beliefs and practices of Wallace Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan remain opposed: the former has opened membership to all races and moved toward the Sunni position, the latter flaunts antiwhite sentiments, has recreated the Fruit of Islam, and rejects integration into the American political mainstream; indeed, he demands a separate African American state. Wallace Muhammad enjoys a degree of respectability in America never enjoyed before by a Black Muslim leader, but Farrakhan remains a figure of controversy. [See Nation of Islam and the biographies of Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X.]
Muslims of the Outer Hebrides. The Muslim community in Stornoway on the Outer Hebrides, off the coast of Scotland, provides a dramatic contrast with the American Black Muslims. This group is almost invisible, grateful to be where it is, and earnestly working away to be accepted and integrated.
On Sundays the island is cut off from the world; there is no ferry or plane. No washing is hung out, and the parks are closed. The children’s swings are chained and padlocked and so are the public toilets. This is high Presbyterian country, and Sunday is exclusively given to the Lord. No one in Stornoway would violate the cultural code that demands that people stay indoors, least of all the Muslim minority.
The group numbers about fifty and is mainly composed of Arain people from the Punjab in Pakistan (Ahmed, 1986). The Arain have specific social characteristics. They are generally small farmers from lowincome groups. They tend to be thrifty, austere, and reflect the work ethic that made the Calvinists such a force in the drive toward Western capitalism (according to Max Weber’s famous thesis).
In Stornoway, the Arain work ethic meets the Protestant work ethic, and the result is the success story of the small Pakistani community. The success, and the community’s respectability, is reflected in the neat, gray suits, white shirts, sober ties, and clean-shaven appearance which the elders favor. Education is another area where the two ethics meet happily. Many of the young generation are pursuing advanced degrees.
The older generation did not build a mosque. There is no imam on the island. Indeed, they celebrate the religious festivals in a low-key manner, by taking an evening off on Saturday; both the work ethic and local cultural sensibilities are thus satisfied.
Muslim culture might seem subdued in Stornoway, but the sense of Muslimness is far from obliterated. In fact, there are many signs that the new generation is asserting itself in a much more distinctly Islamic manner than the previous one. A female Ph.D. candidate at Glasgow University, for example, is preparing for an arranged marriage in Pakistan. She has no qualms about this or her role as a Muslim wife; it is strange to hear this traditional Muslim speak in a strong Scottish accent. The living room of one of the Pakistani household heads is full of Islamic symbolism, of photos of Mecca and Medina; but it is a private room. We have in this Muslim group an example of a minority almost invisible and well integrated but showing signs of Islamic assertion under the surface. However, the harmony of the Outer Hebrides must not be taken as representative of the fife of average British Muslims, which is fraught with change, tension, and challenge.
British Muslims. The main difference between Islam in the American and European contexts is the social and economic composition of the Muslim community. In the United States, the community is largely middle class; doctors, engineers, academics. This gives it a greater social confidence and a positive sense of belonging. In Europe, by and large, the community remains stuck in the underclass, still seen as immigrants. Its failure on the political scene is spectacular: although Britain has about two million Muslims, they have not been able to win a single seat in Parliament. Worse, their leaders tend to be divided and more interested in attacking each other than representing the community.
Another difference is that in the United States there is a greater geographical spread; Muslims are not seen as concentrating in one state or city. In Europe, there is a tendency to concentrate; Bradford, England, is an example. The concentration allows greater uniformity in belief and practice. During the Rushdie crisis, the leaders of Bradford were constantly consulted by the media. Concentration allowed the media to simplify questions of leadership, values, strategy, and organization among Muslims. Only subsequently did people realize that, although the Bradford spokespeople reflected broadly the general opinion of Muslims, they were by no means elected or unanimously accepted leaders of the entire Muslim community of the United Kingdom.
The concentration of Muslims in England has another consequence. The community can-and frequently does-import and perpetuate its sectarian and ethnic characteristics from home. The traditional sectarian tensions in Pakistan between the Barelwis and Deobandis, both mainstream Sunni Muslims, were lifted en bloc to the United Kingdom. For the outsider, the differences between these sects would be confusing and difficult to understand. For example, the holy Prophet for the Barelwis (or Barelvis, who are mostly from the Pakistan province of Punjab) is a superhuman figure whose presence is all around us and at all times hazir (present); he is not bashar (material or flesh) but nur (light). The Deobandis, who also revere the Prophet, argue he was the insan-i kamil (the perfect person) but still only a man, a mortal. This explains why Kalim Siddiqui in the United Kingdom, demanding the implementation of Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie for insulting the Prophet in his novel, found his most sympathetic audience among the Barelwis. [See Barelwis and Deobandis.]
The known characteristics of British Muslims underline the differences between the community in the United Kingdom and in the United States: there is a greater concentration of the Muslim population in certain cities. There is the continuing pull of the old, home country. This has social implications. For instance, many Pakistani families still look for spouses in Pakistan. The larger political confrontation in South Asia between India and Pakistan, between Hindus and Muslims, is also reflected in the United Kingdom. An example is provided by the events following the destruction of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya, India, in December 1992. Hindu temples were attacked in the United Kingdom, and there was considerable tension between Muslims and Hindus in the traditionally peaceful Asian community.
However, there are also similarities between the United States and Europe. In both places, the mosque is an important center of social and political activity and has provided leadership in times of crises. In both places, the media have been involved in the Muslim debate, particularly in such cases as The Satanic Verses controversy. This in turn has united the community across sectarian and ethnic barriers.
The one major difference between the American and European situation is that in the United States a large percentage of Muslims are local or indigenous. So while the struggle in Europe is between Muslims attempting to establish a foothold, united in their foreignness, otherness, and alienness, in America, it is the move to find a balance between the local Black Muslims and mainstream Muslims from the rest of the Muslim world, between local practice and mainstream Islamic thinking and tradition.
The problem of an accurate population census of Muslims in both the United States and Europe remains. Therefore, not only populations but also percentages can only be estimates at best. Yet it is clear that the dynamics of Muslim belief and practice on the two different continents is affected by the percentage of immigrants in the Muslim population, which is overwhelming in Europe and much less so in the United States. However, this situation is beginning to change as a younger Muslim generation comes of age in Europe and sees itself as both Muslim and European. It is also changing in the United States as Black Muslims themselves move closer to the mainstream Muslim position recognized throughout the world.
Local belief and practice in Europe and the Americas have grown as a Muslim response to the larger nonMuslim community, echoing it. Over time, these beliefs and practices have been aligned more and more closely with the orthodox Islamic position. This process has been helped by the media, by international politics, by fresher migration from Muslim countries, and by a more educated and assertive younger generation. The reconciliation between the demands of local identity and those of universal Islam will be one of the great challenges for Muslims in Europe and America, a process fraught with excitement and, at times, tension.
[See also Islam, articles on Islam in Europe and Islam in the Americas.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ahmed, Akbar S. Pakistan Society: Islam, Ethnicity, and Leadership in South Asia. Karachi and Oxford, 1986.
Ahmed, Akbar S. Discovering Islam: Making Sense of Muslim History and Society. London and New York, 1988.
Ahmed, Akbar S. Postmodernism and Islam: Predicament and Promise. London,1992.
Esposito, John L. Islam: The Straight Path. Exp. ed. New York and Oxford. 1991.
Nielsen, Jorgen S. Muslims in Western Europe. Edinburgh, 1992. Shaikh, Farzana, ed. Islam and Islamic Groups: A Worldwide Reference Guide. Essex, 1992.
AKBAR S. AHMED

Popular Religion in Sub-Saharan Africa

Batoota — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 09:57:43 +0000

Popular Religion in Sub-Saharan Africa
During the nineteenth century, and to an even greater extent under colonial domination in the twentieth century, rapid and widespread islamization touched hundreds of African ethnic groups in West Africa, extending well into the forest zone, and in the interior of East Africa as far as Zaire and Malawi and South Africa. Previously many of these groups had only marginal contact with the Islamic world; in many places active Christian missionary efforts competed with the agents of Islam. As a result, popular expressions of piety in Islamized Africa exhibit rich diversity, both within individual societies and in developments across time. Examples of popular religion in sub-Saharan Muslim societies can be grouped in three categories: culturally specific social behavior and religious ideas that include appropriations of Islamic motifs; the permeation of the Qur’anic word into everyday life; and ritual practice.
Islam and Local Culture. The processes of Islamization beyond the Sudanic belt in Africa that began during the nineteenth century and continue today are among the most dynamic in the Islamic world. Because of the rapidity of this process and because it occurs piecemeal, affecting some individuals and communities and leaving others untouched, it is frequently Islamic dress that most effectively distinguishes converts from non-Muslims living around them. That dress is generally a variation on the jalabiyah and cap (kaffiyah)both sometimes bearing elaborate embroidery that may be an indicator of economic class-ornament in the form of talismans in leather amulet pouches tied to the arm or hung around the neck, tasbih (prayer beads), and, for the traveler, a rolled prayer mat and a kettle of water carried for ablutions. To be so equipped is to be identified as a Muslim in sub-Sudanic African societies where specific local customs relating to diet, marriage, divorce, or inheritance may conflict with Islamic law or where the full weight of orthopraxy may not be felt. [See Dress.]
The decorative arts of local cultures across Muslim Africa, like their music and poetry, reveal great genius in the islamization of local motifs as well as in local appropriation of Islamic symbols. Islamic designs pervade local arts, exemplified by crescent designs on post independence cloth prints, late colonial calabash engraving incorporating symbols of modernity alongside stylized lawh (wooden copy boards for Qur’anic memorization), or elaborate nineteenth-century fans inscribed with one of Allah’s ninety-nine names. Islamic symbols and elements of Muslim material culture have also entered African arts in such forms as elaborately woven prayer mats, amulet-case designs in metal or leather, jewelry, and ornament in mask designs. No single symbol so remarkably conveys this appropriation of the Islamic tradition into folk arts in West Africa as does alBuraq, the winged horse said to have carried the Prophet to Jerusalem. In sculpture cloth prints, amulets, masks, and drum stands, al-Buraq reappears across West Africa as one of the most enduring symbols of the mystical powers of the Prophet. Analogous to these representations in the arts are Islamic motifs in music and verse, woven into such diverse styles as Lagos juju music and-judging from the periodic denunciations by `ulama’-the unholy use of drumming as an integral part of Muslim marriage celebrations and performances on festival days.
Distinctive Islamic dress and Islamic motifs in the arts of many sub-Saharan African societies are the result of centuries of contact with Muslim lands. Beyond material culture, local cultures have also appropriated certain popular Islamic beliefs, perhaps most dramatically illustrated by the Mahdist expectations that have swept Sudanic Africa during the past two centuries. The popular belief was that the Mahdi would come from the east, just as the Antichrist Dajjal would appear in the west. At least nine Mahdis are documented during the nineteenth century from the Senegal Valley and Futa Jalon in the west to Omdurman and Somalia in the east, and a like number of Mahdis appeared during colonial rule, as late as the 1940s. The Sudanese Mahdi Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allah (1843-1898) was the most celebrated, inspiring a flurry of Mahdist claims (and colonial worries) during the opening decades of the twentieth century; well before this, however, each of the West African mujahids was obliged by his followers to explain why he was not the expected Mahdi. Less well-known are the Muslim communities in Niger, Nigeria, and Cameroon at the end of the nineteenth century where the reappearance of `Isa (Jesus) was awaited as slayer of the Antichrist, a role for which he competed with the Mahdi in some traditions. Mahdist eschatology was popularly professed throughout the Sudanese communities during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As late as the mid-twentieth century a Yoruba “MahdiMessiah” invented an amalgam of Christian and Muslim practice that inspired a thriving community of twenty thousand until his death in 1959. [See also Mahdi; Mahdiyah.]
An integral part of historical and contemporary Muslim life in sub-Saharan Africa is spirit-possession cults such as sar (from Gondar, Ethiopian zar, “origins”) in East Africa, the Sudan, and parts of North Africa, and bori in Hausa-speaking West Africa and also in North Africa, sometimes seen as survivals of pre-Islamic practice. I. M. Lewis has argued persuasively that these cults-today largely urban, dominated by women and marginalized male migrant workers-hold special appeal to wives of the religiously minded who condemn the cults (“The Past and Present in Islam: The Case of African `Survivals’,” Temenos 19 [1983]: 55-67). These cults, varying in precise form from culture to culture but retaining the sar or bori appellation, thus become interwoven with orthopraxy, providing women and others alienated by locally constructed ideals of Islamic society with an avenue for participating in a counterculture whose definition is itself dependent upon Islamic orthodoxy.
Qur’an and Popular Piety. The most pervasive example of Qur’anic transcendence in popular usage throughout sub-Saharan Africa is the talisman or amulet industry, the products of which adorn babies, children, and adult men and women and hang in many a home and car. Talismans are mainly utilized for their therapeutic benefits or preventative powers, which underlines the important therapeutic attraction of Islam among peoples on the fringe of the Muslim world. The use of “washings” (typically inked or chalked verses from the Qur’an, washed into a vial to be periodically drunk or dabbed on the body) to cure or at least mitigate a wide variety of ills has long been part of the repertoire of holy men and seers throughout Muslim Africa. In the same fashion talismans hung at a prescribed spot or worn on the body can serve a range of purposes: protection in armed conflict or everyday affairs, for individuals or whole communities; security for safe travel, avoidance of slander, or assurance of success or influence; advantage to protect pregnancies, cure disease, or promote intelligence; and punishment in the form of proactive measures against enemies.
Washings and talismans are at the juncture of medicine (tibb) and esoteric sciences (bataniyah) in Islamic learning, and these specifically Islamic cures compete with other therapeutic remedies readily available in most African societies. Murray Last notes that in Hausa society some Muslim holy men are known today for their success rate in prescriptions for physical illness just as others become specialists in social problems (“Charisma and Medicine in Northern Nigeria,” in Donal Cruise O’Brien and Christian Coulon, eds., Charisma and Brotherhood in African Islam, Oxford, 1988, pp. 183-204). It is to those specialists in social problems that politicians and businessmen apply for formulas for success, and there are few heads of state, Muslim or Christian, who are not reputed to have a personal mallam or marabout. [See Magic and Sorcery.]
Esoteric sciences that complement the efficacy of washing and talismans are numerology and astrology, both of which emphasize, in I. M. Lewis’s phrase, the “mystical defense system” popularly attributed to Islam in this region. Indeed, numerology is frequently the main science utilized in talisman production, and the propitious alignment of stars is as carefully watched by specialists in Sudanic Africa as by astrologers in the West. The significance of these practices lies not in the sciences themselves, nor in the fact that Islamic remedies are popularly understood to have therapeutic properties that compete favorably alongside non-Islamic medicines; rather, it lies in the symbolic power of the Qur’anic scripture and the demonstrable function of the word in response to everyday needs. [See Numerology; Astrology.]
The Sufi brotherhoods have long been the vanguard of islamization in sub-Saharan Africa, and with them have arisen popular attachments to individual shaykhs that are analogous to the special relation between shaykh and student in many other parts of the Muslim world. Pilgrimage to the tombs of saints may have therapeutic effects, most frequently for women to safeguard pregnancies. The desire for prayers of intervention on behalf of individuals has spawned a minor prayer industry for shaykhs in other settings. With this mediating role, most frequently played by Sufi leaders, has come an iconization of both dead saints and living shaykhs. This is most vividly illustrated by the religious paraphernalia associated with the Muridiyah in Senegal, where postcards and glass paintings commemorating events in the life of the patron saint, Ahmadu Bamba (d. 1927) can be found at most corner dealers in religious wares as well as adorning taxis and trucks driven by prudent followers. [See Muridiyah.] Analogous marketing of local Tijani shaykhs in Ghana, or of the Senegalese (Kaolack) Tijani holy man al-Hajj Malik Sy in northern Nigeria, has become increasingly sophisticated during the past thirty years; today, few homes of the religious who can afford it lack a framed photo of their shaykh.
The Sufi shaykh as a conduit between the supernatural and the common folk has long been an important fixture in the moral economy of Muslim communities. As with therapeutic matters, the shaykh’s possession of at least a rudimentary knowledge of Arabic certifies his authority to mediate between scripture and supplicant in societies where Arabic is not spoken and access to the Qur’an is thus quite restricted. Whether he is a writer of simple talismans or an accomplished jurist, a shaykh’s authority rests largely on his near-monopoly over the scripture, but his barakah (blessing) may also be sought for its own sake. Where a local Sufi tariqah institutionalizes exploitive relationships between shaykh and student, it also makes popular religion a commodity. The Qadiriyah and Tijaniyah in West Africa, the Qadiriyah, Shadhiliyah and `Askariyah in East Africa, and the Qadiriyah, Sammaniyah, Khatmiyah, and Mahdiyah in the Sudan, all fulfill analogous roles at one broad level of orthopraxy. Their ultimate meaning and local impact, however, depend heavily on individual shaykhs and their skills at mediating or manipulating the holy word. The title “al-Shaykh,” like the pilgrim’s title “al-Hajji,” connotes local recognition of the religious, objects of veneration among their followers and subjects of snickers among their critics. In recent years inexpensive cassette tapes of sermons and readings by both Pan-Islamic notables and local preachers have become available on national markets in sub-Saharan Africa, providing an electronic form of mediation and translation of the word in local settings that now competes with the scripture in the economy of popular piety. [See Qadiriyah; Tijamyah; Shadhiliyah; and Khatmiyah.]
Ritual Practice. Piety in most sub-Saharan African Islamic communities, as elsewhere in the Islamic world, is most publicly displayed at prayer and most effectively demonstrated on festival days. These are the occasions for new outfits for children, new gowns for adult members of the household, lavish displays of food for dependents, and generous dispensing of cash gifts-all widely accepted as indices of religiosity. Although the relative importance of individual festival days varies from region to region, `Id al-Kabir (widely known as “Tabaski” in West Africa) and `Id Saghir (or al-Fitr, also known as “Salla” in West Africa) at the end of Ramadan generally compete in importance; in East Africa `Id al-Hajj replaces the first of these as a principal festival. Celebration of the Prophet’s birth, the mawlid, is a minor holiday in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, although it has been appropriated by the Sufi brotherhoods in many countries as an annual display of piety before saints’ tombs. Large followings of some local saints have spawned individual festivals, exemplified by the annual Grand Maggal (Wolof, “to celebrate”) in Touba, Senegal, when Murid followers gather by the tens of thousands to observe the anniversary of the death of Ahmadu Bamba in a festive atmosphere.
The centrality of the visitation of saints’ tombs varies across Africa’s Muslim populations; in the northern Sudan such tombs are a chief source of barakah and popular sites of local pilgrimage. Across the continent in southern Mauritania, gravesites are modestly marked even for holy men, and although visitations take place they are not yet ritualized. Between these extremes, hundreds of African Muslim societies integrate local custom, generally heavily tinged with veneration of ancestors, with Islamic burial ritual. [See Ziyarah; Sufism, article on Sufi Shrine Culture.]
Elements of life-cycle rituals in Muslim societies are popularly understood to be linked to Islamic prescriptions. In sub-Saharan Africa these focus on naming ceremonies (which frequently involve an imam or local shaykh and elaborate displays of hospitality), the acts of circumcision and clitoridectomy, the formalities and types of marriage (dowries, the degrees of proximity permitted in Islamic law, the number of wives, etc.) and divorce, and burial rites. In each islamized society compromise is negotiated among local custom, scripturally sanctioned practice, and orthopraxy in neighboring Muslim communities and lands. It is generally with respect to Islamic laws of inheritance and in particular land that local custom has proven most intractable. [See also Rites of Passage.]
Since the mid-twentieth century, as a result of increased communication between the Muslim heartlands and sub-Saharan Africa and also as a result of increasing numbers of African pilgrims traveling to the Hejaz, there has been a tendency toward a certain homogeneity within national Muslim cultures. This is most noticeable in ritual life, where the political influence of religious leaders has been recognized by national authorities and ritual reinforcement of that influence has been encouraged (in contrast to a definite wariness toward that same influence during colonial times). As a result, national Islamic political cultures have emerged in many countries. These tend to focus on annual rituals such as the mawlid, generally under the supervision of shaykhs in the local (tariqahs), whose mediating roles increasingly extend into the political sphere.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bravmann, Rene A. African Islam. Washington D.C., 1983. Elegantly illustrated exhibition catalog with extended essays on the material culture of Muslim societies in sub-Saharan Africa.
El-Tom, Abdullahi Osman. “Drinking the Koran: The Meaning of Koranic verses in Berti Erasure.” In Popular Islam South of the Sahara, edited by J. D. Y. Peel and Charles C. Stewart, pp. 414-431. Manchester, 1985. This collection also includes six contributions that address aspects of popular Islam in the Sudan, Nigeria, and Senegal.
Le Grip, A. “Le Mahdisme en Afrique noire.” L’Afrique et l’Asie 18 (1952): 3-16. Remains one of the best, brief surveys of Mahdism in Sudanic Africa during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Lewis, I. M., ed. Islam in Tropical Africa. 2d ed. London, 198o. Twenty-five years after its first appearance, this study remains one of the most succinct and comprehensive surveys of orthopraxy and popular piety in sub-Saharan African communities; includes an updated introduction.
Nimtz, August H., Jr. Islam and Politics in East Africa. Minneapolis, 198o. Surveys Sufi brotherhoods in East Africa, with particular reference to Tanzania, and their gradual involvement in national politics.
Owusu-Ansah, David. Islamic Talismanic Tradition in NineteenthCentury Asante. Lewiston, N.Y., 1991. Detailed study of a set of over five hundred folios of instructions on the manufacture of talismans recovered from a non-Muslim state on the Gold Coast in the early years of the nineteenth century.
Trimingham, J. Spencer. Islam in West Africa. Oxford, 1959. While the conceptual schema presented in this and other studies by the author may be contentious, the core of his ethnographic material collected on institutional Islam, Sufi orders, and life cycles as observed in the mid-twentieth century remains useful.
Trimingham, J. Spencer. The Influence of Islam upon Africa. 2d ed. London, 1980.
CHARLES C. STEWART

Popular Religion in the Middle East and North Africa

Batoota — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 09:46:47 +0000

Popular Religion in the Middle East and North Africa
“Popular” Islam is the term used to describe the variations in belief and practice in Islam as they are understood and observed throughout the Muslim world. Religious leaders and spokespersons talk of the unity of Islamic belief and practice, but, as in other religions, there is considerable local variation. Muslims often implicitly assume that their local beliefs and practices are inherently Islamic because they are central to local tradition or to a given subgroup of society. These beliefs may include a special respect for claimed descendants of the prophet Muhammad, the veneration of saints, possession cults (zar), participation in religious brotherhoods (tariqahs), or commemoration of the Prophet’s birth (mawlid al-nabi).
Traditionally educated religious scholars `ulama’ and self-appointed contemporary Islamist spokespersons often dismiss as non-Islamic or “incorrect” local practices that they consider not in accord with central Islamic truths, even though the people who maintain such traditions consider themselves Muslims. Religious scholars usually pass over these understandings in silence unless they are held by members of weak or subordinate groups. Such practices include participation in religious brotherhoods (tariqahs), zdr cults in the Sudan, Turkish celebrations of the birth of the prophet Muhammad (mevlud) in which women play dominant roles, and the veneration of saints or “pious ones” (al-salihun) in North Africa.
Saints. A salih is a person, living or dead, who serves as an intermediary in securing God’s blessings (barakah) for clients and supporters. In earlier centuries lineages of “pious ones” tied tribes to Islam and mediated disputes, and they are still thought to be particularly efficacious for those who have maintained long-term ties with them. In French usage, these saints are often called “marabouts” (Ar., murabit, literally “tied one”). Most North Africans use the more ambiguous term “pious one” (salih) because it does not imply that God has intermediaries, a notion at odds with Qur’anic doctrine but implicit in local beliefs. Many of the shrines associated with these saints are the focus of local pilgrimages and annual festivals. Some offerings-such as sacrifices at the annual festival of a saint-are annual obligations that ensure that the social groups involved “remain connected” with the marabout to secure his blessings. Festivals for major saintly figures attract tens of thousands of clients annually. [See Barakah.]
In addition to offering collective sacrifices to “remain connected,” individuals give gifts or sacrifices for specific requests. For instance, it is common for women to go to certain shrines to ask for a saint’s help in becoming pregnant. The woman may tear a strip of cloth from her dress and attach it to the door of a shrine as a reminder to the pious one. If the request is granted, she and her spouse give the promised payment.
Use of the term salih instead of “marabout” or “saint” evokes the multiplicity of the Moroccan concept. Participation in such a cult does not constitute evidence of an alternative, independent interpretation of Islam. Those who honor pious ones or seek their support are aware of the disapproval of some religious elites, but they nonetheless regard their vision of Islam as realistic and appropriate. Maraboutic shrines dot the landscape throughout North Africa, and the significance of saints is formally acknowledged in a variety of ways. In the Maghrib it is common for people going on the pilgrimage to Mecca first to visit local shrines or sanctuaries and to do so again on their return. Such ritual activities suggest that believers have an integrated vision of local religious practices and more universally accepted rituals such as the pilgrimage to Mecca. The Arabic word for pilgrimage (hajj) is not used to describe such local visits; the pilgrimage to Mecca is conceptually a separate phenomenon.
Belief in the efficacy of the salihun as intermediaries involves the implicit assumption that, whatever is formally stated about Islam, relations with the divine work in almost the same way as relations among humans. For a North African who implicitly accepts such beliefs, the main issue is not the existence of pious ones-that is taken for granted-but whether particular pious ones will exercise their powers on one’s behalf. They are more likely to do so if a client can claim “closeness” (qarabah) to a pious one or his or her descendants. Offerings and sacrifices create a bond of obligation (haqq) between the pious one and his client. [See Sainthood.]
Religious Orders in the Modern World. Religious brotherhoods (tarigahs) and lodges (Ar., zdwiyah; Per., khanqah; Tk., tekke), associated with mysticism, also figure in popular religious practices. As with the North African regard for pious ones, these orders are seen by many Muslims as complementing and enhancing the vitality of the Muslim community, although this view is subject at times to vigorous internal debate. In Iran, radical Islamist groups such as the Fida’iyan-i Islam incorporate Sufi practices into their observances, and in Morocco “fundamentalist” or Islamist groups adopt stylistic elements derived from Sufi brotherhoods as a means of securing popular legitimacy. Even in Algeria, the scene of violent clashes between the government and Islamic radicals since the late 1980s many radical groups have links with religious orders and local maraboutic families who have lost influence because of their suspected compromises with the French during the colonial era.
Such popular practices often reflect social differentiation. In North Africa, for instance, the Tijaniyah order had numerous government officials among its adherents, as did the Bektashiyah order in Turkey. Other orders were associated with particular crafts or trades. Some were considered highly respectable; others, such as the Hamadshah and the Haddawah in Morocco, were associated with the use of drugs, trances, and other marginal activities.
Until the 1920s the majority of adult urban males and many villagers belonged to some brotherhood in most parts of the Middle East. A popular saying was, “He who does not have a Sufi master as his guide has Satan to guide him.” In recent times some of these orders are enjoying a revival, as religious traditions become “reimagined.” This is particularly the case in the newly independent states of Central Asia and in Cairo where, alongside the rise of Islamic radicalism, “neo-Sufism”essentially a re-imagined tradition of Islamic mysticism purified of “non-Islamic” practices-has emerged as a significant religious force.
Zar Cults and the Birth of the Prophet. Sometimes popular religious practices are dismissed as little more than an affective complement to the formal side of Islamic practice and belief, and thus they are thought to be practiced more by women than by men. Such characterizations can be highly misleading. For example, zdr cults are prevalent throughout Egypt, the Sudan, and East Africa and are associated with certain North African religious brotherhoods and some groups in the Arab Gulf and the Yemen. Because women often play a major role in these practices, some observers have speculated that they compensate for the often subordinate status women have in society. More recent studies suggest, however, that the elaborate array of spirits called up by participants in zdr cults, which include both men and women, offer a conceptual screen against which villagers and others can imagine alternative social and religious realities, much like the veneration of saints, the “invisible friends” of early Latin Christianity.
Women also predominate in the ceremonies that mark the birth of the prophet Muhammad, the mevlud, in Turkey, while men predominate in activities that take place in mosques. Rather than seeing the mevlud as primarily a women’s activity, it is best to see it as complementary to mosque activities and an integral element of the way Islam is understood locally and practiced by both women and men acting as households.
Ritual and Community. Popular elaboration of ritual also distinguishes communities within the Muslim world. The ritual cycle of mourning for the betrayal of the Prophet’s grandson Husayn (d. 68o) provides Shi’i Muslims with a sense of self-renewal and victory over death and strengthens a sense of sectarian identity. On the tenth of Muharram, funerary processions in Shi’i communities throughout Iran, Afghanistan, southern Iraq, Pakistan, and Lebanon reenact the last episodes of Husayn’s life and his burial. Central to these occasions is a mourning play (ta’ziyah) about his martyrdom, its many versions being keyed to local circumstances. Since the audience knows the paradigm of the play, the drama does not rely on suspense but on how the scenes are enacted. Anachronisms abound; in some versions, European ambassadors rather than Sunni Muslims betray Husayn, and Old Testament figures are introduced. The final scene involves a procession with the martyr’s coffin (or a severed head) to the court of the Sunni caliph. On the way, Christians, Jews, and Sunni Muslims bow before Husayn. The intensity of such public performances, especially when they are elaborated in the context of other religious events, provide Sh-N leaders with a means of mobilizing public opinion. In the last years of the Shah’s rule, for example, political demonstrations were often planned to coincide with the cycle of Shi’i religious activities.
The Alevi (Ar., `Alawi) Muslims of Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon illustrate another dimension of popular religious understanding, one which requires more elaboration than other examples of popular religious expression because Alevi religious beliefs are less well known. Until the mid-twentieth century the Alevi were primarily village-based and thus lacked a tradition of the formal religious scholarship and jurisprudence that produces the “authoritative” discourse that justifies a sect’s divergence from other Muslim groups. Most Alevi villages in eastern Turkey lack mosques, and ritual practices also differ markedly in the interpretation of the “five pillars” of Islam. Alevis, like the Shi’is, emphasize the role of `All, the prophet Muhammad’s son-in-law, as much as they do the oneness of God and the prophecy of Muhammad. Sunni Muslims of the region’s prevalent Hanafi rite pray five times daily, with a total of forty bowings (rak’as). Alevis believe that two bowings annually in the presence of their spiritual leader (dede or pir) suffice. Sunnis fast for the entire lunar month of Ramadan; Alevis consider this a fetish and fast instead in the month of Muharram for twelve days in memory of the twelve imams. They call this fast yas, or “mourning” (for the martyrs of Karbala), not sawm, as the Ramadan fast is called. Alevis consider the pilgrimage to Mecca “external pretense”; for them the real pilgrimage takes place in one’s heart.
From a Sunni or Shi’i perspective, Alevi interpretations of the Muslim tradition are unacceptable. Most scandalous of all from a Sunni perspective is the Alevi feast of Ayin i Cem (“the day of gathering”). This feast is as important for the Alevis as the Feast of Abraham (Ar., `Id al-Kabir; Tk., Kurban Bayrami) is for Sunni Muslims. Like the Shi’is, the Alevis practice taqiyah, the dissimulation of their beliefs and practices, and the Ayin i Cem, at least in Turkey, takes place when outsiders are not present. This is when community disputes are resolved, often with the mediation of the dede. Members of the community approach the dede in pairs, hand in hand, kneeling down and crawling on all fours to kiss the hem of his coat. This collective occasion is when the only obligatory annual Alevi prayer is performed. Sema music, accompanied by a saz (a sort of long-necked flute), is performed, and the men and women dance. Some dancers go into trance. Villagers recite mystical poetry commemorating the martyrs of the Alevi community; in Alevi gatherings outside Turkey, especially in Germany, the event is used to recreate or “reimagine” Alevi history in line with contemporary claims to identity. The climax of the festivity is the “putting out of the candle” (mum sondurmek): villagers throw water on twelve burning candles, representing the twelve imams and martyrs.
Alevi practices have thrived in western Germany because there the Alevis need not be concerned about government interference. Alevi migrants have been able to establish community-wide networks more easily in Germany than in Turkey, where state authorities have been suspicious of regional gatherings because many Alevis are Kurds. Since the 1970s these wider networks in the diaspora have also facilitated a greater sense of collective Alevi political identity.
Alevi beliefs and practices and the disapproval with which they are viewed by many Muslims serve as a reminder that orthodoxy and orthopraxy-conformity to standardized ritual-are situationally defined and linked to prevailing notions of dominance and religious authority. They also suggest the ongoing internal discussion and debate among Muslims of what constitutes common belief and practice.
The Alevis may be regarded as an extreme example, but similar ranges of popular perception and misperception prevail between Sunni and ShM, between the Ibadiyah of Oman and North Africa and their neighbors, and with the Ahmadiyah in Pakistan. Indeed, after major riots against the Ahmadiyah in 1953, an official government committee of inquiry concluded that the country’s religious scholars were unable to agree on a definition of what a Muslim is.
The strength of the Alevi tradition and its capacity for self-renewal indicates the persistence of particularistic traditions within the Muslim community. The Alevi community, for the most part, lacks high scholarship and carriers of formal learning, but it compensates for this in the strength of shared local traditions and interpretations of Islamic belief and practice. These particularistic interpretations are not waning or becoming more homogenized in the face of modernization but maintain their vitality as much as do the Muslim traditions that have highly literate religious intellectuals to represent them. [See `Alawiyah.]
The Particular and the Universal. Carriers of a religious tradition often adhere to practices and beliefs that religious authorities, intellectuals, or scholarly observers see as contradictory because they cannot be reduced to a cohesive set of principles. Thus the late Fazlur Rahman (1919-1988), a leading Islamic scholar and reformist, dismissed the mystical and popular understandings of Islam that dominated in many parts of the Middle East and North Africa after the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as ideas and practices perpetrated by “charlatans” and “spiritual delinquents” who deceived the ignorant. An alternative view is that popular religious expression involves both explicit discussion and debate, and an implicit reimagination of belief and practice, which together contribute to a continuing reconfiguration of religious though throughout the world of Islam. In one dimension, opposing (or complementary) conceptions of Islam are particularistic and are significantly intertwined with the local social order. They often strengthen commitment to Islam. Thus the theologian Ibn Taymiyah (d. 1328) condemned all celebrations of the Prophet’s birth as a harmful innovation (bid’ah;) many other theologians, however, tolerate it as an acceptable innovation (bid’ah hasanah) because it promotes reverence for the Prophet.
Other conceptions are universalistic, more amenable to generalization and application throughout the Muslim world, such as the pilgrimage to Mecca and ritual prayer. Some ideological expressions of Islamic doctrine, such as those characteristic of reformist Islam and the beliefs of many educated Muslims, tend to be universalistic in that they are explicit and more general in their implications. Others, including North African saint cults, are particularistic, in that they are largely implicit and tied to particular social contexts. These universalistic and particularistic strains are in dynamic tension with each other.
Islam’s “New” Intellectuals. A major development in the popular understanding of Islam is associated with the rise of mass education and the decline of traditionally trained men of learning (`ulama’). Not all Muslims regard a long apprenticeship under an established man of learning as a prerequisite to legitimize religious knowledge. Increasingly, the carriers of religious knowledge are those who claim a strong Islamic commitment, as is the case with many educated urban youths. Freed from traditional patterns of learning and scholarship, which have often been compromised by state control, religious knowledge is increasing]y interpreted in a directly political fashion. Mimeographed tracts and the clandestine dissemination of sermons on cassettes have begun to replace the mosque as the vehicle for disseminating visions of Islam that challenge those sanctioned by the state.
The ideological spokespersons of most radical Islamist movements have received education in secular subjects, not religious ones. In the poorer quarters of Cairo or in the provincial capital of Asyut in Upper Egypt, the leaders of activist groups rely on pamphlets, books by journalists such as Sayyid Qutb (1909-1966)–executed by Nasser and now regarded as a leading radical ideologue-and sermons on cassette rather than on direct study of the Qur’an, hadith, and other elements of the formal Islamic tradition. These understandings of Islam have become an important component of popular thought.
In the hands of radical Muslim thinkers such as Morocco’s `Abd al-Salam Yasin, the militant argument provides an ideology of liberation. Yasin argues that contemporary Muslim societies have been deislamicized by imported ideologies and values, which are the cause of social and moral disorder. Muslim peoples are subjected to injustice and repression by elites whose ideas and conduct derive more from the West than from Islam. His argument is circumspect on how Muslims should liberate themselves from present-day polities, except to propose (ironically) that the state should allow militant Muslims (rijal al-da’wah) the right to speak to compensate for state-sponsored violence against them. His overall aim is to set coreligionists on the “right path” to a new era, not directly to confront the state.
The content of Yasin’s sermons and writings and those of other new religious intellectuals suggests that their principal audience is educated and younger and already familiar with the imported, secular ideologies against which they argue. Their key terms, derived from Qur’anic verses and religious slogans, are more evocative for their intended audience than the language and arguments of secular political parties. This language, in turn, has caused a transformation in how governments throughout the Muslim Middle East represent themselves, with many now stressing their religious credentials.
[See also Islam, article on Islam in the Middle East and North Africa; Sufism.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Boddy, Janice. Wombs and Alien Spirits: Women, Men, and the Zar Cult in Northern Sudan. Madison, Wis., 1989. Rich, evocative description and analysis of “possession” cults and how they relate both to Islam and to ideas of gender and person.
Chelkowski, Peter, ed. Ta’ziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran. New York, 1979. Standard, accessible account of the ritual mourning of the death of Husayn among Iran’s Shi’ah.
Eickelman, Dale F. Moroccan Islam: Tradition and Society in a Pilgrimage Center. Austin, 1976. Thorough account of saints in a Moroccan context and the ambiguous tension between their veneration and other interpretations of Islam.
Eickelman, Dale F. The Middle East: An Anthropological Approach. ad ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1989. Chapter 10 provides an extensive bibliographic description of “popular” religious practices throughout the region.
Fernea, Elizabeth W. Guests of the Sheik. Garden City, N.Y., 1965. Classic, accessible discussion of the mourning for Husayn during the lunar month of Muharram among the Shi’i of southern Iraq pp. 194-208).
Geertz, Clifford. Islam Observed. New Haven, 1968. Classic account of how a world religion has taken root in Morocco and Indonesia. Gilsenan, Michael. Saint and Sufi in Modern Egypt. Oxford, 1973. Good account of a modern Sufi order.
Kepel, Gilles. The Revenge of God: The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism in the Modern World. Translated by Alan Braley.
Cambridge, 1994. The chapter on “The Sword and the Koran” offers insight into the “new” Muslim intellectuals and their appeal. Mandel, Ruth. “Shifting Centres and Emergent Identities: Turkey and Germany in the Lives of Turkish Gastarbeiter.” In Muslim Travellers: Pilgrimage, Migration, and the Religious Imagination, edited by Dale F. Eickelman and J. P. Piscatori, pp. 153-171. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1990. Its account of how the Alevi Turks in Germany are regarded as more “progressive” than the Sunni Turks can be usefully read in tandem with Yalman’s earlier account (see below).
Mardin, Serif. Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey: The Case of Bedruzzaman Said Nursi. Albany, N.Y., 1989. Fascinating study of a religious order that originated in late nineteenth-century Turkey and has become a significant transnational movement.
Reeves, Edward B. The Hidden Government: Ritual, Clientelism, and Legitimation in Northern Egypt. Salt Lake City, 1990. Excellent account of contemporary context of the veneration of saints in Upper Egypt.
Tapper, Nancy, and Richard Tapper. “The Birth of the Prophet: Ritual and Gender in Turkish Islam.” Man 22.1 (March 1987): 6992. Provides one of the best accounts of the complementarity of men’s and women’s religious practices for the entire region.
Yalman, Nur. “Islamic Reform and the Mystic Tradition in Eastern Turkey.” European Journal of Sociology 1o.1 (May 1969): 41-6o. Although relatively inaccessible, this article remains a standard account of Alevi belief and practice.
DALE F. EICKELMAN

POPULAR RELIGION

Batoota — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 09:38:22 +0000

POPULAR RELIGION. [To consider local beliefs and practices as they differ from mainstream Islamic traditions, this entry comprises six articles:
1-An Overview
2-Popular Religion in the Middle East and North Africa
3-Popular Religion in Sub-Saharan Africa
4-Popular Religion in South Asia
5-Popular Religion in Southeast Asia
6-Popular Religion in Europe and the Americas
The first considers the principal forms of Muslim belief, ritual, narrative, and religious practice that have lent themselves to local and regional variation. The companion articles describe diverse modes of Muslim piety in various parts of the modern world.]
An Overview
The term “popular Islam” refers to the constellations of Muslim belief, ritual, narrative, and religious practice that flourish at particular points in time and space. They simultaneously islamize indigenous culture and popularize scripture. In some instances elements of pre-Islamic practices are given Islamic meanings, while in others particular interpretations of elements of the textual tradition are employed in the formulation of narrative, ritual, and social practice.
Popular Islams are as varied as contexts in which they are found, ranging from the austere, legalistic Islam of the Saudi Arabian Wahhabi sect to the ecstatic, charismatic cults of saints and Shi` imams characteristic of the popular Islam in South Asia and Iran. Despite this variety, popular Islams play similar mediating roles in Muslim religious life. They mediate between culturally specific patterns of social behavior and the idealized models for behavior expressed in the Qur’an, hadith, and shari’ah; between the transcendentalism of Qur’anic Islam and the deeply and widely felt need for direct and local access to the sacred; and between the limited, strict ritual requirements of textual Islam and the realities of human existence.
Islam, Custom and Culture. Scriptural Islam is more than religion. It is a detailed guide to human conduct, providing precise instruction in areas including personal hygiene, diet, dress, marriage, divorce, inheritance, taxation, and others. Particularly in the case of family law, the demands of the texts often clash with longestablished cultural patterns. The problem is particularly vexing in matrilineal Muslim societies such as the Minangkabau of Indonesia. In many Islamic cultures a distinction is drawn between shad `ah (Islamic law) and `adat (custom). While `adat is rarely recognized as entirely legitimate, many jurists tolerate deviation from shari’ah, particularly in legal domains other than ritual performance. Others demand strict compliance with shari`ah norms. The theoretical and highly demanding nature of shari `ah has resulted in the recognition of a distinction between civil and religious law in many Islamic societies. [See Family Law; Adat.]
Qur’anic Transcendence and Popular Piety. The doctrine of tawhid (the unity of God) is among the central teachings of Islam. The absolute power and majesty of God is a major theme in the Qur’an and subsequent textual traditions. While understandings of tawhid range from transcendent monotheism to pantheistic assertions that all is God, textual traditions push God to the limits of the cosmos or, in mystical texts, to the depths of the human soul. In either case God is the sole object of devotion. [See Tawhid.]
Saint cults provide more direct, readily available access to the sacred and play important roles in most popular Islams. Saints are asked to intercede with God and are also sources of blessing (barakah). Pilgrimage to the tombs of saints (ziyarah) is among the most common Islamic devotional acts. They range from strictly local shrines to tombs of the founders of Sufi orders and legal schools that attract pilgrims throughout the Muslim world. Muslims approach saints with requests ranging from desire for mystical knowledge to mundane problems of daily life. In ShN communities imams and members of their families are the most important saints. Throughout the Muslim world, descendants of the prophet Muhammad, religious teachers, and leaders of Sufi orders are thought to be sources of blessing to whom devotees owe unquestioned obedience. Control of shrines and the equation of sainthood and kingship figure significantly in the legitimation strategies of many Muslim monarchies. [See Barakah; Ziyarah; Sufism, article on Sfifi Shrine Culture; and Authority and Legitimation. ]
Ritual Practice. The five pillars of the faith, (the confession of faith, the five daily prayers, fasting during Ramadan, alms, and pilgrimage to Mecca) are described in the Qur’an and hadith. Legal texts describe the relative merits and mode of performance of these rites in great detail. The formal, orthoprax ritual system was devised by an urban scholarly elite, and its concern with ritual purity and the strict requirements for the fast of Ramadan make it difficult for those who must toil in fields and factories to comply. Pilgrimage to Mecca is greatly valued, but relatively few Muslims can hope to perform it. Lax observance of the formal ritual requirements of Islam should not, however, necessarily suggest impiety or secularism. While shari`ah provides exemptions for those who find orthoprax ritual impossible, it does not provide alternatives. Popular Islamic practice fills this gap in the religious lives of many of the world’s Muslims. [See Pillars of Islam.]
The comparative study of popular Islamic practice is underdeveloped. It has been largely ignored by Islamicists, and with few exceptions anthropologists have been reluctant to engage in comparative studies. Comparison of studies conducted in the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia reveals several common elements. Many of these are based on textual sources, particularly the hadith, but adapt them to specific local contexts. Others are derived from the ritual systems of Sufi orders, which played major roles in the conversion of non-Arab peoples to Islam.
The Mawlid al-Nabi that commemorates the birth and death of the prophet Muhammad is celebrated from Morocco to Indonesia and is frequently an element of Muslim imperial cults. Qur’anic recitation, reproducing the speech of God, is performed at funerals, marriages, and other rites of passage, to cure the sick, to exorcise demons, and for numerous other purposes. The written text of the Qur’an is used in charms and amulets. Modern developments include tape-recordings of famous Qur’anic reciters and national and international recitation contests. Dhikr (remembrance of God) is the patterned recitation of Qur’anic passages and the names of God, often involving the use of rosaries. Oral and written narratives concerning the lives and adventures of the prophet Muhammad, members of his family, and other famous figures from Islamic history as well as saints and jinn circulate widely. Jinn, particularly those believed to have accepted Islam, are invoked for numerous magical purposes. Jinn and shaitan (devils) are often thought to be responsible for miraculous or unusual events. Ritual meals and the distribution of blessed food are especially common in the popular Islams of South and Southeast Asia. [See Mawlid; Qur’anic Recitation; Dhikr; Magic and Sorcery.]
Puritanical Sects as Popular Islam. Owing to their insistence on the primacy of scripture, Wahhabis and other fundamentalist/puritanical sects would appear to be exceptions to this view of the mediating function of popular Islam. Most fundamentalist programs include a deliberate rejection of aspects of popular Islam, particularly the cult of saints. However, fundamentalists base their religious lives on restricted readings of the textual tradition and maintain that their particular modes of ritual practice are the only source of God’s blessing and mercy. Bruce Lawrence (Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt Against the Modern Age, New York, 1989) argues that fundamentalisms mediate between the demands of scripture and the intellectual and political contexts of modernity. In both senses fundamentalisms are contemporary popular Islams. [See Wahhabiyah; Fundamentalism.]
Islamic and Western Views. There is an enduring tension between popular and scriptural Islam that exists within most contemporary Muslim societies and is deeply rooted in Islamic scholarship. Islamic scholarly views have ranged from the intolerance of Ibn Taymiyah to al-Ghazali’s acceptance of a variety of modes of Muslim piety. The rise of scripturally oriented reform and fundamentalist movements in the twentieth century has increased the level of tension. Those who condemn popular Islams and those who are devoted to them share a conviction that their own understanding of Islam is the proper way of submitting to God-which is after all the meaning and purpose of Islam.
Western scholarship reflects this tension. Evaluations of popular Islams range from those of Orientalists who regard deviation from textual precedent as corruption or simply non-Islamic, to that of Reinhold Loeffler (Islam in Practice: Religious Beliefs in a Persian Village, Albany, N.Y., 1988) who argues that popular Islams are the means through which people who cannot possibly meet scriptural demands adapt the faith to local conditions. Most recent studies avoid questions of orthodoxy and corruption and focus instead on the ways in which Islam is understood and practiced in local contexts.
[See also Syncretism.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Antoun, Richard. Muslim Preacher in the Modern World: A Jordanian Case Study in Comparative Perspective. Princeton, 1989. Life history of a Jordanian village preacher.
Campo, Juan Eduardo. The Other Sides of Paradise: Explorations into the Religious Meanings of Domestic Space in Islam. Columbia, S.C., 1990. Explains the sacred character of domestic space in contemporary Egyptian Islam, including detailed references to the Qur’an and hadith.
Delaney, Carol. The Seed and the Soil: Gender and Cosmology in a Turkish Village Society. Berkeley and Oxford, 1991. Study of popular Islam in Turkey focusing on issues of gender, fertility, and domestic life.
Eickelman, Dale F. Moroccan Islam: Tradition and Society in a Pilgrimage Center. Austin, 1976. Study of the social and religious roles of Sufi saints in Moroccan Islam.
Geertz, Clifford. The Religion of Java. Chicago, 1960. The most comprehensive account of popular Islam and its relationship to scriptural tradition and culture in Southeast Asia.
Geertz, Clifford. Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia. Chicago and London, 1968. One of the few comparative studies of popular Islam, this work also considers the impact of modernity on Islamic civilization in North Africa and Southeast Asia.
Lewis, I. M., ed. Islam in Tropical Africa. Bloomington, 1980. Collection of essays by leading Africanists and Islamicists concerning the popular Islams of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Martin, Richard C., ed. Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies. Collection of articles by leading Islamists combining theoretical approaches to the- study of popular Islam with case studies of conversion, ritual, veneration of the prophet Muhammad, ritual uses of the Qur’an, and other topics related to popular Islams.
Metcalf, Barbara D. Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900. Princeton, 1982. Study of one of the most important Islamic educational institutions in South Asia and its impact on Islamic thought and practice.
MARK R. WOODWARD

POLYGYNY

Batoota — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 09:04:39 +0000

POLYGYNY. The practice of one man simultaneously having several wives is a controversial issue in modern Islamic societies. Before the advent of Islam polygyny was practiced in many societies of Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean; some observers have attributed this pattern to the predominance of patriarchal systems in the region, but it should be noted that elsewhere in the world, polygyny may occur in non-patriarchal societies. This traditional practice continued under Islam, where it is supported by the authority of the Qur’an (4-3, 24, 25) and sunnah.
The religious justification for polygyny is found by some in the marriages of the prophet Muhammad. He is said to have had a strictly monogamous relationship with his first wife, Khadijah, until her death in 619 CE. He subsequently married two women, Sawda’ and `A’ishah, and later took Hafsah and Umm Habibah as his `aqdi (concubines) ShN tradition also offers the multiple marriages of certain imams in support of polygyny.
Polygyny has historically been practiced by both Sunni and Shi’ 1 Muslims, with certain differences, primarily in the number of secondary wives permitted. In the Sunni tradition the number of wives is restricted to four, but the Shi’i tradition does not limit the number. Even among Sunnis, rulers and other wealthy men often kept much larger harems.
Many modern Islamic nations have either outlawed or regulated polygyny; such laws were promulgated in Turkey (1917), Egypt and Sudan (1920, 1929), India (1939) Jordan (1950, Syria (1953), Tunisia (1956), Morocco (1958), Iraq (1959), Pakistan (1961), Iran (1967, 1975), and South Yemen (1974) (see Coulson and Hinchcliffe, 1978). In Iran, for example, modernizing legislation in 1967 attempted to create legal obstacles to men’s unilateral exercise of the privileges of multiple marriage and of terminating marriages at will. The more conservative 1975 Family Protection Act provided that a man who wished to take a second wife must seek the permission of the court; furthermore, his first wife must either consent or be proven unwilling or unable to fulfill her conjugal responsibilities because of illness, imprisonment, or infertility. With the success of the Islamic Revolution, however, the 1975 act was repealed and the rules of the shari `ah reinstated.
Beyond ordinary marriage, another form of polygyny exists in some Islamic societies in the form of mut`ah, a temporary relationship between a man and a woman based on mutual consent and certain contractual obligations. A form of concubinage, mut `ah requires exclusivity on the part of the woman for the duration of the contract and two months thereafter; the man provides her with financial support and a stipulated payment at the termination of the contract. Mut `ah has been the subject of ongoing legal and religious controversy in Iran: during the modernizing period attempts were made to ban it, but under the present regime it is not only permitted but actively promoted by the government.
[See also Family; Family Law; Marriage and Divorce; Mut’ah; Sexuality; and Women and Islam, article on Role and Status of Women.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Coulson, Noel J., and Doreen Hinchcliffe. “Women and Law Reform in Contemporary Islam.” In Women in the Muslim World, edited by Lois Beck and Nikki R. Keddie, pp. 37-51. Cambridge, 1978. Haeri, Shahla. “The Institution of Mut’a Marriage in Iran: A Formal and Historical Perspective.” In Women and Revolution in Iran, edited by Guity Nashat, pp. 231-252. Boulder, 1983.
Kusha, Hamid R. “Minority Status of Women in Islam: A Debate between Traditional and Modern Islam.” Journal Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs i1 (1990): 58-72.
Matindaftari, Maryam. “Piramun-i aymnamah-yi ijra-yi mubarazah ba `badhijabi.’ ” AZADI 9 (Spring 1989): 30-43.
Mutahhari, Murtaza. Nizam-i huquq-i zan dar Islam. Tehran, 1986. Vatandoust, Gholam-Reza. “The Status of Iranian Women during the Pahlavi Regime.” In Women and the Family in Iran, edited by Asghar Fathi, pp. 107-130. Leiden, 1985.
HAMID R. Kusha

POLITICAL PARTIES

Batoota — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 08:54:47 +0000

POLITICAL PARTIES. See Hizb