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Towards a sociology of Islamic texts
Abstract
This article tries to understands the dynamics of texts and practices in Islamic tradition. It also addresses the larger question related to the praxis of what is often termed in the binaries of the folk Islam and Elite Islam. The main focus of the article is what is social in the texts as received and circulated in different parts of the Muslim world.
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The current wave of religiously motivated protest movements throughout the Islamic world has frequently been associated with popular Islam. This concept of a popular, as opposed to an official, practice has deep roots, however, extending back to the formative period of the Muslim tradition. Classically, the emergence of a clerical elite defined in terms of their functions in the fields of law, education, and administration as well as religion coincided with the rise of a parallel folk piety inspired by Sufism which adapted Islam to local circumstances. The sweeping changes of the last two centuries have undermined many of the old religious institutions belonging to both these spheres. But the overall structures of social relations have largely remained within the context of the nationstate. With few and short-lived exceptions, rural peasants and urban masses who continue to regard Islam as the primary basis for their identity have not responded positively to the summons of the current revival. On the other hand, Islamicists, despite divisions among themselves, have established their importance. Popular Islam persists therefore as a vital concept pointing in two directions.
Critical study of the academic rhetoric used in representing Islam in the seminal anthropological texts of Geertz, Gellner, Mernissi, and Ahmed. The epilogue builds on what anthropologists have learned by observing Muslims; this is offered as a prolegomenon to future anthropological study within Islamic contexts and a more effective sharing of ethnographic analysis with scholars outside the discipline
Essentially a critique of Geertz's Religion of Java, which claimed that Islam has never really taken hold in Java except among a small community of merchants. Argues that Islam is the predominant force in the religious beliefs and rites of central Javanese, and that it shapes the character of social interaction and daily life in all segments of Javanese society. This penetration was achieved so quickly and completely because Islam was embraced by the royal courts as the basis for a theocractic state. Sufism forms the core of the state cult and the theory of kingship, with religious discord based on the age-old Islamic question of how to balance the legalistic and mystical dimensions of the tradition. The chapters examine: texts and ethnography, Java and the Islamic tradition, Sufism, royal and village religion, the Yogyakarta kraton, and Hindu elements in Javanese Islam. -M.Amos
Islamic Thought is a fresh and contemporary introduction to the philosophies and doctrines of Islam. Abdullah Saeed, a distinguished Muslim scholar, traces the development of religious knowledge in Islam, from the pre-modern to the modern period. The book focuses on Muslim thought, as well as the development, production and transmission of religious knowledge, and the trends, schools and movements that have contributed to the production of this knowledge. Key topics in Islamic culture are explored, including the development of the Islamic intellectual tradition, the two foundation texts, the Qur'an and Hadith, legal thought, theological thought, mystical thought, Islamic Art, philosophical thought, political thought, and renewal, reform and rethinking today. Through this rich and varied discussion, Saeed presents a fascinating depiction of how Islam was lived in the past and how its adherents practise it in the present. Islamic Thought is essential reading for students beginning the study of Islam but will also interest anyone seeking to learn more about one of the world's great religions.
This collection of essays by one of the best known contemporary Muslim scholars writing in English covers many facets of Islamic life and thought. The author has brought together studies dealing with the practical as well as intellectual aspects of Islam in both their historical and contemporary reality. The contemporary significance of themes such as religion and secularism, the meaning of freedom, and the tradition of Islamic science and philosophy is given particular attention.
The major part of this book is devoted to the study of the social life at the shrine of al-Sayyida Zaynab in Cairo. As granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad, al-Sayyida Zaynab is regarded by many as the patron saint of women. Their belief in her purity, and hence her powers, is part of the fabric of their thought. Al-Sayyida Zaynab's anniversary is an occasion observed by both government and people, and on the Great Night at the end of a week of celebrations, women's special association is expressed through a night-long vigil culminating in dawn festivities. The other studies in the book include analyses of the practices of the common person in the performance of certain rituals, such as the rain rituals in Tunisia. Throughout the work, the author seeks to break down the assumptions and stereotypes expressed in other studies on Muslim societies and provides us with a more accurate picture of how the Islamic tradition is developed and integrated within these societies.
