Muslim Subjectivities in Global Modernity: Islamic Traditions and the Construction of Modern Muslim Identities 2019059233, 9789004425569, 9789004425576

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Muslim Subjectivities in Global Modernity

International Studies in Religion and Society Editors-in-Chief Lori G. Beaman (University of Ottawa) Peter Beyer (University of Ottawa) Advisory Board Afe Adogame (University of Edinburgh) Elizabeth Coleman (Monash University) Lene Kühle (Aarhus University) Mary Jo Neitz (University of Missouri) Linda Woodhead (University of Lancaster)

volume 35

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/isrs

Cover illustration: View from Kampung Baru toward Kuala Lumpur City Centre, Malaysia. Photo by Dietrich Jung, 2006. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2019059233

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1573-4293 ISBN 978-90-04-42556-9 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-42557-6 (e-book) Copyright 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

In memory of Richard C. Martin, a marvelous scholar, colleague, and friend

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Contents Contributors  ix Introduction: Islamic Modernities and Modern Muslim Subjectivities  1 Dietrich Jung and Kirstine Sinclair 1

Modern Muslim Subjectivities: Theories, Concepts, and First Findings  11 Dietrich Jung

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Decolonizing Body and Mind: Physical Activity and Subject Formation in Colonial Algeria  33 Jakob Krais

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Daily Ritual, Mission, and Transformation of the Self: The Case of Tablighi Jamaat  55 Zacharias Pieri

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Hasan al-Banna and the Modern Muslim Self: Subjectivity Formation and the Search for an Islamic Order in Early Twentieth Century Egypt  75 Dietrich Jung and Ahmed Abou El Zalaf

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“Worship is Not Everything:” Volunteering and Muslim Life in Modern Turkey  97 Fabio Vicini

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The Modernity of Neo-Traditionalist Islam  121 Mark Sedgwick

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An Islamic University in the West and the Question of Modern Authenticity  147 Kirstine Sinclair

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The Muslimist Self and Fashion: Implications for Politics and Markets  166 Neslihan Cevik

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Social Class, Piety, and the Formation of the Singaporean Muslim: Exploring Educational Choices in a Highly Regulated Society  192 Kamaludeen Mohamad Nasir

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Imaginaries of the Good Life from the Egyptian Revolution in 2011: Pride and Agency  216 Line Mex-Jørgensen

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“When I’m on the Mic Everything is Ḥarām:” Narrative Identity and Modern Subjectivities among American Rap Artists  238 Philipp Bruckmayr



Concluding Remarks: Modern Muslim Subjectivities, Islamic Modernities, and the Multiple Modernities Thesis  269 Dietrich Jung and Kirstine Sinclair

Index  279

Contributors Philipp Bruckmayr has studied Arabic and Islamic Studies, Turkish Studies and History at the University of Vienna. He has published on Islam in Southeast Asia, Arab and Islamic communities in the Americas and on post-classical Islamic theology. Currently a lecturer at the University of Vienna, he has held fellowships at the International Research Center Cultural Studies (Vienna), Passau University, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and the University of Exeter. He was awarded the Dissertation Prize of the German Association of Middle Eastern Studies (DAVO) in 2015 and the Hermann Stieglecker-Scholarship for Christian-Islamic Studies of the Forum of World Religions in 2017. Neslihan Cevik is Ph.D. from Arizona State University and authored Muslimism in Turkey and Beyond: Religion in the Modern World (2016) with Palgrave Macmillan based at IASC, University of Virginia. In addition to peer-reviewed articles, Cevik’s work has appeared in various media, including Al-Jazeera, Thomson Reuters, CNN, Orient XXI, and Political Theology Today, and is translated into Arabic, French, and Turkish. Since 2013, Cevik has consulted the private sector on costumer insight, marketing and branding as well as intergovernmental organizations and political parties. She is the founder of M-Line fashion, Turkey’s first startup modest wear fashion and lifestyle company. Dietrich Jung is Professor and Director of the Center for Modern Middle East and Muslim Studies, University of Southern Denmark. He holds a MA in Political Science and Islamic Studies, and a Ph.D. from the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, University of Hamburg, Germany. His most recent books are Muslim History and Social Theory: A Global Sociology of Modernity, New York: Palgrave (2017); Modern Subjectivities in World Society. Global Structures and Local Practices, edited together with Stephan Stetter, London: Palgrave MacMillan (2018). Jakob Krais is a Research Fellow in the special program “Islam, the Modern Nation-State and Transnational Movements” at the Gerda Henkel Foundation, conducting a research project on sports and modernity in colonial Algeria. He holds a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from Freie Universität Berlin; his dissertation was about

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­ istoriography and nation-building in Qaddafi’s Libya. Publications include: h “Muscular Muslims: Scouting in Late Colonial Algeria between Nationalism and Religion,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 51, no. 4 (2019); “A ‘New Man’ for a New Nation: Activism and Physical Culture in Late Colonial Algeria,” Comparativ 28, no. 5 (2018); Geschichte als Widerstand: Geschichtsschreibung und nation-building in Qaḏḏāfīs Libyen. Würzburg: Ergon (2016). Line Mex-Jørgensen is currently a Ph.D. Fellow at the Centre for Modern Middle East and Muslim Studies at University of Southern Denmark. Her Ph.D. project aims at understanding the kind of life created at Tahrir Square in the Egyptian Revolution in 2011. Through her conceptual lens of imaginaries of the good life, she explores the eighteen days at the square during the opening phase of the revolution. Drawing on elements of the theoretical framework proponed in the present book, she argues that the revolutionary imaginaries of the good life are specifically modern. Preliminary findings of her research are published in the Danish journal, Tidsskrift for Islamforskning (Islamic Studies Journal). Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the Nanyang Technological University Singapore where he is also Associate Chair of the School of Social Sciences. He has authored five books including Digital Culture and Religion in Asia (with Sam Han) (2016) and Globalized Muslim Youth in the Asia Pacific: Popular Culture in Singapore and Sydney (2016). His areas of interest are in the sociology of religion, youth and social theory. Zacharias Pieri is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee. His research focuses on the relationships between religion, politics and violence. He has consulted on international projects investigating counter-radical discourses amongst Muslim communities around the world. He has worked on the adaptation of Islamist movements and the contentious politics of mosque construction in the West, and is an expert on the Tablighi Jamaat movement. Dr. Pieri regularly publishes on Islam in contemporary societies and has advised UK and US governments. His latest book is entitled: Boko Haram and the Drivers of Islamist Violence (London: Routledge, 2019). Mark Sedgwick is Professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, where he teaches in the department for the Study of Religion. He is

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trained as a historian and works on the modern history of Islam, especially Sufism, and on political violence. He is the author of Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century (Oxford University Press, 2004) and of several other books; his most recent publication is a collection, edited together with Francesco Piraino, Global Sufism: Boundaries, Structures, and Politics (Hurst, 2019). In 2019, Sedgwick was elected chair of the Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies. Kirstine Sinclair is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Modern Middle East and Muslim Studies, University of Southern Denmark. Her research interests cover Muslim minorities in the West with special reference to Islamism, political activism, and identity formation. Since 2014, Sinclair has worked on Islamic institutions and subjectivity formation in Western European contexts such as colleges and mosques. Amongst recent publications in English are a co-edited special issue on mosques in Journal of Muslims in Europe 8, no. 2 (2019) and “What They Really Want is a Caliphate! British Salafi Reactions to the Arab Spring” in Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 38, no. 2 (2018). Fabio Vicini is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Istanbul 29 Mayis University. Previously, he was a fellow at BGSMCS, Berlin (2011) and TÜBITAK Pos-Doctoral Fellow (2013–2014). He received a Ph.D. in Anthropology and History from SUM – Instituto Italiano di Scienze Umane in 2013 and was awarded the Malcolm H. Kerr Award in the Social Sciences by MESA. His latest book is entitled Reading Islam: Life and Politics of Brotherhood in Modern Turkey (Brill, forthcoming). Recent work has appeared in the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Culture and Religion, Anthropology & Education Quarterly, and Sociology of Islam. Ahmed Abou El Zalaf is currently a Ph.D. Fellow at the Centre for Modern Middle East and Muslim Studies, University of Southern Denmark. His dissertation is on the historical evolution of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt during the Nasserite years, 1954–1970. His research interests cover Islamism in Egypt and the historical evolution of the Muslim Brotherhood branches in a post-colonial context.

Introduction: Islamic Modernities and Modern Muslim Subjectivities Dietrich Jung and Kirstine Sinclair 1

Islam and Modernity

Questions about the relationship between Islam and modernity have puzzled scholars of the social sciences and the humanities for more than a century. In the eyes of many of them, they are supposedly incompatible and the terms of modern Muslims or Islamic modernity for them would consequently have represented mere oxymorons. As early as 1916, the Dutch founding father of modern Islamic studies, Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (1857–1936), stated that the evolution of modern society is going to transfer Islamic religious traditions from “the treasury of everlasting goods to a museum of antiquities” (Hurgonje 1916: 150). In line with Hurgronje’s opinion, a significant scholarly tradition has considered Islam and modernity to be mutually exclusive social forces. At least implicitly applying some assumptions of classical modernization theories, these scholars considered religion and modernity as nested into a zero-sum game.1 More recent scholarship on Islam, however, has increasingly been informed by approaches that are critical to these theories, not least to their “secularist bias” and conflation of modernization with “Westernization” (Ernst and Martin 2010). Scholars who study religious discourses and social practices in the everyday life of Muslims in both Muslim majority and Muslim minority regions in particular represent this more recent revisionist trend in Islamic studies. A case in point was Saba Mahmood’s path breaking Politics of Piety (2005) that initiated a series of ethnographic studies focusing on the construction of contemporary pietistic Muslim identities, emphasizing the role of religion in modern subjectivity formation.2 With this focus on pietistic interpretations of Islamic traditions as an inherent part of modern Muslim life, these studies deliver a welcome critique to the relative absence of religion in the academic study of modern subjectivities. Furthermore they underpin the revision of simplistic readings of classical secularization theories. At the same time, however, these studies share a propensity to imply a fundamental alterity between “Islam and the West.” Consequently, contemporary scholarship on Islam still has a ­tendency to perceive modern Islam not as an intrinsic part of global ­modernity, 1 Ahmad 1993; Davison 1963; Findley 1989; Lerner 1958; Lewis 2011; Rustow 1971; Tibi 2009. 2 Deeb 2006; Hafez 2011; Inge 2018; Jouili 2015; Mahmood 2005; McLarney 2015. © koninklijke brill nv leiden ���� | doi:10 1163/9789004425576 002

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but represents Muslims as “conscripts of Western modernity,” engaging with modernity as an “external force” (Soares and Osella 2009). In light of the above sketch of the state of the art, this book aims at taking the study of modern Islam in new directions. First and foremost, the contributions to this volume claim that we are all modern, however, we are modern in different ways. With this collection of studies, we oppose the notion of a principle alterity between Islam and the West that seems to be so deeply entrenched in scholarly and public discussions on Islam and modernity. In addition, the chapters of this book will provide new insights to major debates in both Islamic and Religious Studies, in this way making also a contribution to overcome the still existing distance between the two disciplines (Ernst and Martin 2010: 6–7). With this anthology we want to enhance the academic conversation between scholars in the broader field of the study of religion and scholars of contemporary Islamic and Middle Eastern studies. The collection of essays presented here are related to the larger research program, the “Modern Muslim Subjectivities Project” (mmsp), placed at the Centre for Modern Middle East and Muslim Studies, University of Southern Denmark. The mmsp brings together scholars engaged in the study of both Muslim majority and minority countries. Its long-term research strategy aims at a combination of social theory with Islamic studies in novel ways: We seek to inform conceptual discussions within Western social theory by empirical cases from outside the West. With critical reference to the concept of “multiple modernities” (Eisenstadt 2000a, 2000b) we discuss the role of religion in the modern world with examples from Muslim majority and minority settings. From a comparative perspective, the mmsp provides a broad heuristic framework for a number of different research projects on the emergence of Muslim modernities and differing modes of modern Muslim subjectivity formation, placing them in the context of global modernity. In heuristic terms the mmsp poses two general questions: Are modern forms of Muslim subjectivities fundamentally different from Western forms? Or do they both represent historical variations on a common theme? In asking these questions, the mmsp is engaging in more general debates about modernity and exploring the role of religion in the construction of Muslim modernities and its intersection with non-religious, globally relevant social imaginaries (cf. Jung 2017: 11–12). 2 The mmsp Research Program in a Nutshell The mmsp research program springs from two observations. Firstly, in terms of modern subjectivity formation religion is almost completely absent from the theoretical literature. Secondly, social theory in general has been characterized

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with developing conceptual frameworks almost exclusively relating to empirical material and historical examples from the so-called West. In particular contemporary sociologists tend to rely in their conceptual debates almost exclusively on historical experiences from Europe and North America. Apparently, they have abandoned references in their conceptual work to comparative studies of world cultures such as it were at the heart of Max Weber’s work, one of the eminent founding fathers of the discipline (Tiryakian 2001). In contradistinction to this observation, the mmsp and the related studies in this book draw on examples from the history of Muslim peoples and ask questions regarding frames for modern subjectivity formation and the role of Islam in this context. In current debates amongst scholars and media pundits in Christian but predominantly “secular” majority countries, the privatization of religious matters and the concomitant removal of religious affairs from the public sphere are still seen as a major feature of modernity. Connected to this “secularist” understanding of modernity is the assumption that one can only find modernity in circumstances similar to those known from Europe as well as North America. Needless to say, the role of religion in North America is different than in Europe, however, the separation between religion and state institutions is strict and allows for a comparison (Allardt 2005). The ambition in the empirically based sub-projects of the mmsp and in the work presented in this volume has been to challenge this assumption by providing examples from the Muslim world. In this way we are problematizing both the understanding that modernity implies something inherently Western or springing from Western contexts and the assumed incompatibility of modern culture with religion. More generally speaking, with this volume on different forms of the construction of Islamic modernities we aim at criticizing the alleged Western origin and secular nature of modernity.3 We want to explore the various ways in which Muslims have enacted and constructed forms of modern institutions and identities. These studies, therefore, may contribute to the theoretical debates in social theory by feeding back into its conceptual elaborations so far almost exclusively based on the history of the West. 3

The Content and Organization of this Anthology

The authors of this anthology all provide examples illustrating the common ­ambition to understand how Islamic traditions have contributed to and 3 Further information about sub-projects, activities, and publications of the mmsp can be found at the project home page: http://www.sdu.dk/en/om_sdu/institutter_centre/ih/forskning/forskningsprojekter/mmsp.

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c­ ontinue to contribute to the construction of practices and expressions of modern Muslim selfhoods. In doing so, they underpin Eisenstadt’s argument that religious traditions can play a pivotal role in the construction of historically different interpretations of modernity. At the same time, however, they point to a void in Eisenstadt’s approach that does not problematize the multiplicity of forms in which this role of religious traditions plays out historically. Consequently the authors look at the multiple modernities within Islam, which Eisenstadt’s theory hardly takes into account. They do so in employing their own theoretical and methodological approaches, however, in a conceptual and discursive environment that is related to the broader heuristic framework of the mmsp. To be sure, in our studies religion/Islam does not represent the “independent variable.” Muslim modernities are not Islamic modernities per se. The historical construction of collective and individual identities in the Muslim world knows both modern social imaginaries with and without references to Islamic traditions. The early Turkish Republic under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the authoritarian modernization policies of Reza Shah in Iran are cases in point for this non-religious construction of a modern social order in Muslim countries (Atabaki and Zürcher 2004). The volume is the result of a writing process including two workshops. In June 2017 and again in April 2018, the group of contributors met in Kochel am See in the German Alps. Before our first workshop, we had all read the theoretical basis for the project and early drafts of chapters had been circulated. Thus, when meeting for the first time, we had a good idea of each other’s empirical interests and chapter ideas. We spent the workshop discussing the framework and how it would be useful in the individual analyses. By our second workshop in April 2018, we had circulated full chapters. Here, three things became obvious; first of all, the chapters reflected the initial discussions and related to each other empirically as well as thematically, second, however, the continued writing had taken the chapters in different directions and challenged the framework somewhat. Finally, we made the problematic realization that we collectively had neglected to include gender aspects as part of our common investigation of modernity and modern subjectivity formation. Too late to make up for this, as editors we promise to avoid this omission in future. The organization of the book is as follows: The first chapter by Dietrich Jung presents the heuristic theoretical framework, some analytical tools, and general ideas behind the research program. Thereby he puts his focus on the way in which the analysis of modern subjectivity formation can move between the macro and micro levels of analysis, taking issue with both structures of social order and individual identity constructions. In this way, the first chapter provides the reader a brief overview about the theoretical fundamentals of the

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mmsp. The following chapters, then, rest on different research material cutting across geographical and historical boundaries of the Muslim world. At the same time, however, they all investigate the multiple ways in which religion works as a means in the construction of modern individual identities, organizational rationalities, and normative social orders. We organized the chapters of this book according to a thematic rather than a chronological order starting with Jakob Krais who provides us with empirical examples from Algerian anti-colonial thinkers and activists. He makes the argument that anti-colonialist thinking and activism in the period from the 1920s to 1960s was shaped by a highly individualistic approach. Thus, Krais traces this approach in reform initiatives and social movements and especially in educational settings – education understood as both physical and ethical. Focusing on the scout movement, he demonstrates how the understanding of the need to discipline the self was in correspondence with the development of mass movements as clear examples of on the one hand organized modernity and on the other the coexistence of elements of organized and extended liberal modernity. In the next chapter, Zacharias Pieri discusses Tablighi Jamaat as an example of a non-political movement following patterns of organized modernity in taking its point of departure from a morally consolidated religious subject position. Originating from the Indian subcontinent in the nineteenth century, Tablighi Jamaat has expanded to have a strong presence across the globe today. The ideology and practice of the movement entails missionary activity and efforts to mirror the ways of the Prophet Muhammad, and Pieri shows us how this is done through a strong degree of ritualization of everyday life as well as religious practices. In his studies of the movement, he has found that it is the ritualization tied to individual practices that function as the anchor with which the movement seeks to uphold its values in the modern world. Thus, in the chapter we see an interesting example of the interplay between social agency at the individual and organizational levels striving towards creation and maintenance of social order. In clear contrast to Tablighi Jamaat, the Muslim Brotherhood developed from a religious movement into a religiously defined socio-political organization. In their case study, Dietrich Jung and Ahmed Abou El Zalaf look at the Muslim Brotherhood as an exemplary case for the “merger” of Islam and modernity. In their chapter, they show how its founder, Hasan al-Banna (1906– 1949), turned the Brotherhood into an organizational vehicle and ideological blueprint for the development of a particular Islamic variant of modernity and related forms of modern Muslim subjectivities. Emphasizing the importance of understanding the founding and development of the Brotherhood in its

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­ istorical and geographical context, they argue that the Muslim Brotherhood h is an example of the construction of a kind of organized modernity that combines Islamic religious traditions with a set of globally relevant institutional patterns that have parallels in Europe and beyond. Fabio Vicini is also interested in the interplay between individual and organization. His study of volunteerism and members’ commitment in the faithbased organization Deniz Feneri in Turkey based on interviews and fieldwork brings him to discuss individual members’ motivation for engagement in charity organization and activism and the connection to or dependence on underlying the societal conditions in a Turkey marked by neo-liberal marked logics. Vicini’s argument is that volunteerism in Deniz Feneri can be understood as a novel kind of religious commitment in contemporary Turkey; one where the dynamic, self-reliant self creates resonance with collectivistic and peer grouporiented modernity. In the following chapter, we have a different example of individuals negotiating strands of Islamic tradition and religious practice in the modern world. In his chapter, Mark Sedgwick studies an expression of contemporary Islam characterized as neo-traditional Islam found in broad networks spanning both the Arab world and the anglophone West; from Yemen over Jordan and the UK to California. Sedgwick outlines sources of inspiration and discusses the crisis of modernity as it is perceived and expressed by members of the network and compares this to Wagner’s notion of crisis connected to extended liberal modernity. Then, Kirstine Sinclair examines how a specific Muslim college, Cambridge Muslim College, facilitates the formation of modern Muslim subjectivities in Britain through emphasis on guidelines for good, Muslim minority life. Thereby, the traditionalist approach of the College is very different from the modernist ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. Cambridge Muslim College sees itself as mediator between Islamic traditions and modern Muslims in Britain, and as having a responsibility in engaging in the development of both Muslim minorities and the wider society within which it operates. Thus, Sinclair discusses how the college combines understandings of religious identity with preparing their students for professional careers in the social environment of modern Great Britain. In her study, she finds that the college Dean, Shaykh Abdal Hakim, and his understanding of authenticity provides an important tool for the students as they strive to form meaningful selves and careers in contemporary Britain. Neslihan Cevik studies fashion as a visible identity marker allowing groups of young Muslims in Turkey to express new religious “orthodoxies”; the Muslimism phenomenon. In her chapter, she looks at Islamic fashion as a site for

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religious subjectivity formation and argues that Muslimism is a response to imaginaries tied to both globalization and modernity and that pious Muslim women through certain fashion choices resist the binary oppositional categories of public and private, orthodox and rebellious. In choosing particular styling manners and new inventions such as the burqini they challenge religious authorities just as they demonstrate the female self as a legitimate moral and cultural agent. Thus, they are neither assimilating to religious authorities nor rejecting modernity. Muslimism, therefore, appears as a clear alternative version of a specifically Islamic modernity in comparison to the conceptions of Tablighi Jamaat, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Cambridge Muslim College. From Turkey, we move to Singapore and questions regarding religious minorities’ educational choices. Kamaluddin Mohamed Nasir takes as his point of departure the fact, that children of Muslims underperform in the otherwise high-ranking educational system of Singapore. He examines the implications of the diversification of approaches to education found amongst the Malay elites and in particular an increasingly popular tendency to home-school children. Home-schooling can be seen as a particular frame for identity formation as parents and children negotiate minority religious practice and minority identity in this practice in the face of a domineering state. Thus, Nasir’s chapter articulates the role of the state vis-à-vis individual religious subjectivity formation. Following, Line Mex-Jørgensen takes us to Tahrir Square in Cairo during the 2011-revolution against President Mubarak’s regime. Here, she finds popular expressions characterizing life under Mubarak and wishes and dreams for new ways of life in a much longed for post-Mubarak era. She looks at emotional elements and expressions in slogans, songs and on social media, and analyses these in the lights of the volume’s theoretical categories of modernity. At Tahrir Square, activists were balancing ideals for the future, dreams of what a good life in Egypt might look like, containing both strong individual actors and a new notion of a collective, hence drawing on different modern social imaginaries. Phillipp Bruckmayr, finally, studies the influence of Islam on American rap music and musicians. Bruckmayr finds that the distinctly modern discourse of Islam as the original religion of African Americans has provided a highly influential tool for the construction of a black identity in clear contradistinction to white mainstream society – a projection of blackness which has been particularly useful for a group of consciously Muslim rap artists. In his analysis, he demonstrates how modes of narrative identity construction in the formation of modern Muslim selfhoods among American rappers is reflected in biographical accounts in interviews and rap lyrics. Thus, this chapter represents quite an extreme example of how competing understandings of modernity

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come into play when Muslim individuals strive to make sense of themselves in the world today. Our volume ends with a short conclusion that takes stock of the theoretical discussion among its authors. It represents a first acclaim of the feedback of their case studies on Muslim modernities on the conceptual framework of the mmsp in general and the concepts of modernity and multiple modernities in particular. The conclusions will stress the need to further develop the heuristic framework of the mmsp, in particular with respect to the concept of social actorhood by the Stanford School of Sociological Institutionalism, the debate about varieties of modernity, and Norbert Elias’ methodological ideal of a constant move between levels of analyses in grasping social reality. The authors contributing to this volume are aware of the historical fact that social actors interpret religious traditions in light of a diversity of local, regional, and global contexts. Consequently, they interpret the historically different forms of modernity under observation as hybrid fusions of religious and nonreligious institutions, organizational features, ideas, normative assumptions, and social practices. In investigating the role of Islamic traditions specifically in the construction of Muslim modernities, in this volume we seek to move beyond the long-lasting hegemony of the liberal narrative about the secular, rational, and autonomous modern individual in both public opinion and scholarly work without assuming religion necessarily being the prime signifier of Muslim modernities. Hence, the following chapters aim at enhancing our knowledge about the role of religion in this ongoing construction of multiple modernities as well as contributing to a broader conversation between scholars in modern Middle Eastern studies and the study of religions. On an editorial note, in the spelling and transliteration of technical terms and literature in Arabic we follow the guidelines of International Journal for Middle East Studies (ijmes), however, familiar names of individuals and places are written without preserving ʿayn and hamza. Finally, we would like to thank all of those who contributed to getting this book published. This applies first and foremost to the authors of the chapters of this volume who were willing to engage with our heuristic framework and to share their work with us. Furthermore, we owe a big thank you to our colleague Peter Beyer from the University of Ottawa, who not only agreed to serve as editor and Brill contact, but also took a very active part in discussing the chapters with us during the two workshops in Kochel am See. The input from this group of scholars really made a difference for our work, which we appreciate very much. We would also like to thank the two anonymous peer reviewers for constructive suggestions for improvements and Tessa Schild from Brill for smooth communication during the publishing process. In addition, we would also like

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to thank editors Laura Feldt and Gregory Alles along with their team at Numen who published a special issue on the mmsp (Vol. 66, no. 4, 2019). Altered and adjusted versions of the chapters by Jung, Jung and Zalaf, Pieri, Sinclair and Cevic form this special edition. In terms of language, Catherine Schwerin did an excellent job in correcting those errors which inevitably occur by such a diverse group of authors including a number of non-native speakers. Last but not least, we are grateful to the Frie Forskningsråd │Kultur og Kommunikation and the velux fonden for granting us funding for two different projects under the umbrella of the mmsp research program. The workshops in Kochel and the production of this book would not have been possible without their financial contributions. References Ahmad, Feroz. 1993. The Making of Modern Turkey, (reprint 1996). London: Routledge. Allardt, Erik. 2005. “Europe’s Multiple Modernities.” In Ben-Rafael Eliezer and Yitzhak Sternberg (eds.), Comparing Modernitites. Pluralism versus Homogenity. Essays in Homage to Shmuel N. Eisenstadt. Leiden: Brill: 413–442. Atabaki, Touraj and Erik J. Zürcher. 2004. Men of Order. Authoritarian Modernization under Atatürk and Reza Shah. London: I.B. Tauris. Davison, R.H. 1963. Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856–1876. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Deeb, Lara. 2006. An Enchanted Modern. Gender and Public Piety in Shi‛i Lebanon. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. 2000a. “Multiple Modernities.” Daedalus 129(1): 1–29. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. 2000b. “The Reconstruction of Religious Arenas in the Framework of ‘Multiple Modernities’.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 29(3): 591–611. Ernst, Carl and Richard C. Martin (eds.). 2010. Rethinking Islamic Studies. From Orientalism to Cosmopolitanism. Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press. Findley, Carter V. 1989. Ottoman Officialdom. A Social History. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hafez, Sherine. 2011. An Islam on Her Own. Reconsidering Religion and Secularism in Women’s Islamic Movements. New York: New York University Press. Hurgronje, Christiaan S. 1916. Islam: Origin, Religious and Political Growth and Its Present State, reprint of Mohammedanism, Lectures on Its Origin, Its Religious and Political Growth and Its Present State. New Delhi: Mittal Publications [1989]. Inge, Ana Anabel. 2018. The Making of a Salafi Muslim Woman: Paths to Conversion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Jouili, Jeanette S. 2015. Pious Practice and Secular Constraints. Women in the Islamic Revival in Europe. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Jung, Dietrich. 2017. “The Formation of Modern Muslim Subjectivities Research Project and Analytical Strategy.” Tidsskrift for Islamforskning 11(1): 11–29. Lerner, Daniel. 1958. The Passing of Traditional Society. Modernizing the Middle East. Fourth Edition. New York: Free Press [1968]. Lewis, Bernard. 2011. The End of Modern History in the Middle East. Stanford: Hower Institution Press. Mahmood, Saba. 2005. The Politics of Piety. The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press. McLarney, Ellen A. 2015. Soft Force: Women in Egypt’s Islamic Awakening. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rustow, Dankward A. 1971. Middle Eastern Political Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Soares, Benjamin and Filippo Osella. 2009. “Islam, Politics, Anthropology.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15: 1–23. Tibi, Basam. 2009. Islam’s Predicament with Modernity. London and New York: Routledge. Tiryakian, Edward A. 2001. “Introduction: The Civilization of Modernity and the Modernity of Civilizations.” International Sociology 16(3): 277–292.

Chapter 1

Modern Muslim Subjectivities: Theories, Concepts, and First Findings Dietrich Jung 1

Introduction: The Core Concern of the Project

In 2005, I visited Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, for the first time. To my surprise, a form of traditional Malay village life seemed to have survived in the midst of the city. Surrounded by Malaysia’s high-rise architectural symbols of modernity in steel, glass, and concrete, Kampung Baru made the impression of being an “idyllic” place, at least on the surface. Only one metro stop away from Kuala Lumpur’s bustling city center (klcc), the dwellers of Kampung Baru apparently were following a lifestyle in which Malay folk traditions and the religion of Islam seemed to remain the core identity markers. Hereditary ownership of houses and land had so far prevented this place from being sucked into the city’s commercial drive. In sharp contrast to the slow, traditional, and modest way of Muslim life in Kampung Baru, the klcc symbolizes the energetic “Islamic” capitalism that has become an essential part of modern Malaysia. In the conceptualization of Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahatir Muhammad, it was precisely this merger of capitalism and Islam that should make the country the model of a modern Islamic state.1 Although invoking both a conservative brand of Sunni Islam and Malay traditional heritage, it was not the “timeless” traditionalism of Kampung Baru that Mahatir had in mind. On the contrary, under his first premiership (1981–2003) the so-called New Economic Policies (nep) aimed at accelerating economic development and social change. It was the purpose of these policies to push the Malay population into a new age through privileging it politically and economically over the country’s other ethnicities.2 Once inaugurated in

1 Mahatir Mohammad declared Malaysia an “Islamic State” in the year 2001 (Aljunied 2011: 117). 2 In May 2018, Mahatir Mohammad, then 92 years old, won the national elections in Malaysia ahead of an opposition coalition and assumed the premiership of the country for a second time.

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1971, the nep’s “Bumiputera policies” combined top-down nation-building and capitalist economic development with a gradual Islamization of daily life.3 In particular the Suria Shopping Center at the foot of the Petronas Twin Towers is an incarnation of this modern image of the country. There, the consumptive patterns of global capitalism clearly determine the pulse of life. Muslims from all parts of the world engage together with non-Muslims in the pleasures of modern consumerism, united by the attractions of our increasingly commoditized world.4 These commodities comprise both those of the capitalist world market and those of Malaysia’s booming “shariʿa-compliant” business sector and its halal products. The Islamic modernity of Malaysia combines religious traditions with a state-driven capitalization of society and has constructed a new “shariʿa generation” of pious Malaysian nationalist businessmen. While this generation pretends to generate a viable alternative to Western capitalism with all its vices, it factually “reproduced and justified for them the same opportunities, class distinctions, inequalities, and elite definitions of self-worth (and moral loopholes)” as the generations before (Sloane-White 2017: 185). The new, increasingly religiously defined Malaysian subject does not easily throw off the social patterns generated by global capitalism. This brief look at the construction of Malaysia’s Islamic modernity in a merger of capitalism and Islam illustrates well the core concern of the Modern Muslim Subjectivities Project (mmsp). At the center of its research efforts is the question as to how globally relevant social imaginaries have been tied together with the reinterpretation of Islamic traditions in the formation of modern subjectivities in the Muslim world (Jung 2016a: 23). This process, the reinterpretation of Islamic traditions against the background of contemporary non-Islamic norms, social institutions, and more general cultural scripts, is constantly being carried out by the Malaysian shariʿa generation. Even if they want “to make Malaysia the most Islamic place on earth” (Sloane-White 2017: 32), it happens through the lenses of economic and political interests pursued 3 These Bumiputera policies are a form of affirmative action in favor of the ethnic Malay population that is also Muslim. The policies grant this part of the population privileged access to political and economic resources. An overview of these policies is provided in the anthology by Gomez and Saravanamuttu (2012). 4 Observing the scenery at klcc, I must cast doubt on Bryan Turner’s assumption that Islamic fundamentalism could be best understood as a consequence of the global “proliferation of consumer lifestyles” and its destructive impact on religious beliefs and values (1994: 90). In the various shopping complexes in Muslim countries like Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, or the United Arab Emirates, the observer can record a host of evidence that consumerism and conservative or fundamentalist attitudes to Islam are not mutually exclusive phenomena. On the contrary, in this respect I would tend to follow Samuli Schielke’s argument that the so-called Islamic revival and economic liberalization went hand in hand (Schielke 2012: 132).

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in contemporary, globally followed social avenues. Shariʿa-compliancy, therefore, is ultimately knitted into the necessarily selective interpretation of the vast and ambiguous corpus of norms, values, and regulations the shariʿa actually represents in light of Malaysia’s economic and nationalist policies in a global context. In this chapter, I will discuss some of the theoretical core elements and analytical concepts of the mmsp.5 The example of Malaysia’s “Islamic Capitalism” is paradigmatic for the puzzle with which the mmsp research program deals. My theoretical elaborations will be illustrated with respect to our tentative findings and with brief references to my reading of the other contributions in this book. It goes without saying that in utilizing empirical content from other chapters, I do not expect their authors would necessarily endorse my interpretation of their work. Rather, my aim is to read them in the context of the mmsp’s core question and bring them into a discussion with its theoretical framework while using my own pen. In the first section of the chapter, I will briefly sketch out the general rationale behind the theoretical framework of the mmsp and the different strands of theory it combines. Here, Shmuel Eisenstadt’s theory of multiple modernities will be my point of departure. Then I will put my focus on some of the concepts of social structure in the mmsp framework, in particular with respect to Peter Wagner’s theory of successive modernities. In the third section, I move to the modern subject as an analytical concept and the study of modern subjectivity formation as a research strategy. This section will bring together some thoughts on the modern subject by Michel Foucault and Max Weber. I conclude with very tentative findings from my interpretation of the cases studied in this book through the lenses of the mmsp theoretical frame of reference. 2

Global Modernity: Functional Differentiation and Cultural Scripts

This section is driven by the question as to what global modernity is. If we follow the late Israeli sociologist Shmuel Eisenstadt (1923–2010), then it is the expansion of a specifically modern cultural program over the world (Eisenstadt 2000a and 2000b). However, this is a cultural program that has been transformed in its concrete social implementation in various ways through the power of long-lasting religious and other traditions. In Eisenstadt’s eyes, multiple 5 I would like to thank the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University for providing me with an ideal working environment to write this chapter during a visitorship in May/June 2018.

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modernities result from the fusion of a multiplicity of cultural programs with distinctively modern patterns, the latter of which he defined using catchwords such as urbanization, industrialization, autonomous human action, and emancipation. These “basic features of modern society,” according to Eisenstadt, have been molded by the cultural structures of “civilizational complexes” such as Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, or Islam (Eisenstadt 2000b: 592–594). Consequently, Eisenstadt defined global modernity as both unity and difference. It is from this proposition that we can understand modernity as a universal condition appearing in historically different forms. This bifurcation has been a first guidance for the subprojects of the mmsp: We maintain the theoretical claim of modernity being a global and encompassing social structure, however, enacted by social actors in different cultural forms. The more recent proliferation of conceptual ideas about modernities in the plural – alternative modernities, entangled modernities, multiple modernities, successive modernities, or varieties of modernity – has replaced the once wellestablished conceptions of classical modernization theories. According to these classical theories, modernity represented a single social model evolving in a linear process of the global social convergence of formally different institutional settings and ways of life. In his theory of multiple modernities, Eisenstadt put this assumption of social convergence and its concomitant belief in the disappearance of religious and other traditions upside-down: Traditions and religions do not disappear, but they determine to a large extent the ways in which modernization in historically concrete forms appears (Eisenstadt 2000). In which ways do religious traditions mold modernity? The history of Islamic modernism and the related intellectual stream of Islamic reform provide us with an empirical answer to this question. Since the second half of the nineteenth century, Islamic reformers have established a specifically religious discourse of modernity in the Muslim world. Yet, while constructing forms of Islamic modernities with strong references to religious traditions, throughout the twentieth century the Islamic reform movement expanded in a multiplicity of directions, confronting us with what we could label “multiple modernities” within Islam. The different chapters of this book – whether dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Algerian Resistance against French colonialism, Islamic universities in the West, Black Muslim Power in the United States, or Muslimism and Islamic charity in Turkey – all take up specific cases of this construction of Islamic modernities without representing a commonly shared Islamic model. This observation poses two questions: How are these differences among Islamic modernities to be explained, and what kind of unity of modernity is behind them? Regarding these two questions Eisenstadt remains largely silent. In order to sufficiently address them, we

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must look for theoretical insights that can complement Eisenstadt’s approach of multiple modernities. I will present some of these elements in this and in the two following sections of my chapter.6 When it comes to defining the global dimension of modernity, modernity in its structural unity, the framework of the mmsp benefitted first of all from Niklas Luhmann’s Modern Systems Theory and from the Stanford School of Sociological Institutionalism around John W. Meyer. Both theoretical strands conceptualize modern society as world society from the outset. Contrary to the rather imprecise catalogue of “basic features of modern society” in Eisenstadt’s work, these two bodies of social theory provide comprehensive conceptual apparatuses for a genuine understanding of the social specificities of the modern world. However, they do so from different theoretical and methodological angles, representing different traditions in the field of sociology. Moreover, their concepts operate on different levels of abstraction. While Luhmann’s systems theory belongs to the upper macro level, the Stanford group works with empirically more saturated concepts at the upper meso level. I will start with Luhmann’s definition of modernity as world society based on the dominance of functional differentiation as its primary means of social differentiation. Niklas Luhmann’s Modern Systems Theory stands in the sociological tradition of theories of differentiation that goes back to classical sociologists such as Comte, Durkheim, Marx, Simmel, de Toqueville, and Weber (Nisbet 1970). In analyzing the emergence of modern society, the Durkheimian approach of this tradition (Durkheim 1964) has its focus on the structural macro level in order to grasp the relatively abstract and autonomous nature of modern social relations. From this perspective, modern society has developed by increasing social differentiation as a complex and not a directly observable social whole. In Luhmann’s very rigid interpretation of this way of sociological thinking, modernization designates the evolution of an increasing plurality of complementary but relatively autonomous, self-referential, and functionally separated realms of social communications. We conventionally conceive these realms as social systems such as economy, education, law, politics, science, and religion. In drawing sharp boundaries to their environment, according to Luhmann, these modern social systems become indifferent both to the communicative logics of other social systems and to the motivations of social actors.7 6 For a more thorough critique of Eisenstadt’s work pertaining to these two questions, see Jung and Sinclair 2015 and Jung 2016b and 2017a (Chapter 2). 7 Luhmann was an extremely proliferate writer. The first comprehensive presentation of his theory, Soziale Systeme, was published in 1984. He later published another comprehensive view of his theory in 1998 in the two volumes Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft.

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In Luhmann’s theoretical architecture, modern society represents an allencompassing global system of communication without any identifiable center that would represent the social as a whole. Even more important, he completely rejects Durkheim’s assumptions of the necessity of a morally integrated society by the means of a cohesive idea of solidarity (Luhmann 2008: 7–24). In defining individuals as autonomous systems based on the operative mode of consciousness, in Luhmann’s approach to modernity human beings are no longer a part of modern society operating through communications but belong to its environment. In Modern Systems Theory, world society stands for this comprehensive global context of a “non-humanist” society and its subdivision in relatively autonomous, functionally separated subsystems (Luhmann 1990). Modernization, then, designates the socio-cultural emergence of world society in which functional differentiation supersedes other forms of differentiations such as segmentation and stratification in becoming the dominant mode of differentiation in a global dimension (Jung 2017a: 39). Luhmann’s theory provides the mmsp with a highly abstract language of observation. His theory of world society defines the modern social condition in the singular. In contrast to many other theories of social differentiation, in particular those labeled “classical modernization theories,” Modern Systems Theory also accommodates religion. For Luhmann, the relationship between religion and modernity does not have the nature of a zero-sum game. On the contrary, religion represents one of the global subsystems of modern world society. In a process of historically observable conflicting boundary demarcations with other social systems, modernization has generated a particular complex of functionally separated communications with supernatural forces. The global system of religious communication is defined by the communicative code of transcendence/intranscendence (Luhmann 2002). Stabilized with reference to distinct sets of textual, symbolic, and ritual traditions, religious communication has historically manifested itself in different religions such as Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam (cf. Beyer 2006: 89). Consequently, religion as a global subsystem of world society is an inherent part of modernity. Looking at Islamic history, the rise, diversification, and semantic materialization of the Islamic reform movement has taken place in revolving around major questions concerning this process of modern social boundary demarcations. Translated into specifically modern questions about the relationship between religion and politics, religion and science, the status of the shariʿa, or the establishment of non-religious educational institutions, Muslim intellectuals have given diverse answers to these pertinent questions. The chapters of this book deal with this multiplicity of answers in different historical and cultural contexts. From the perspective of Modern Systems Theory, I suggest reading

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them as examples of the ongoing process of modern social boundary formations through societal negotiations at domestic and global levels. The following chapters, then, show the multiple ways in which Muslim intellectuals, Islamic organizations, and social movements have contributed to the factual enactment of the modern social macro structure of functional differentiation. It is against this backdrop of Luhmann’s theory of modernity that the individual projects of the mmsp research program observe social processes in modern Islamic history. However, due to its high level of abstraction, we suggest complementing Luhmann by conceptual tools of other theories operating at a lower level of abstraction. Thus, we add to our framework conceptual ideal types drawing from more easily discernible historical social relations. In this regard, the world cultural theory of the Stanford School is a good choice. The scholars around John W. Meyer define world society in terms of an “overarching world culture” (Boli and Thomas 1997: 172). This world culture consists of a number of world cultural principles visible in a pervasive global isomorphism regarding modern institutions such as administrative units, forms of organizations, educational systems, and national states. In applying those institutional models, social actors establish legitimate agendas for local action on a global scale (Meyer et al. 1997: 144–145). In addition, I would claim that these world cultural models serve us well to further operationalize the observation of processes of the internal differentiation and social organization of Luhmann’s social subsystems. The global political system, for instance, is internally characterized through a structure of segmentation by mutually acknowledged, independent, and territorially demarcated national states. This model of the national state with its government institutions, its reorganization of the population as citizens, and its “educational, medical, scientific and family law institutions” is so compelling that even a previously undiscovered “island society” would quickly develop in this direction (Meyer et al. 1997: 146). Indeed, any attempt to realize a specifically Islamic state nevertheless employed the main features of this pervasive model of the modern national state.8 In this book, the chapter on Hasan al-Banna (1906–1949) and the Muslim Brotherhood shows this “Islamic enactment” of politically important global cultural scripts. Science and its dissemination through higher education, to take another globally acknowledged institutional model, is closely identified with the implementation of the institutional features of the modern university (Drori et 8 This applies even for the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (isis). While rhetorically invoking a transnational Caliphate, the institutional set-up of isis in Iraq and Syria largely resembled the model of a national state (see Jung 2016c).

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al. 2003). Since my first visit to Kuala Lumpur, I have been giving series of lectures and seminars at the International Islamic University Malaysia (iium). This university is a prime institution within Malaysia’s Islamic education sector. iium caters for both national and international students who, first and foremost, aim at the acquisition of an internationally acknowledged university degree. Though dedicated to the project of the “Islamization of knowledge,” iium cannot avoid but fully implement the features of the global system of higher education. Everyday life at the university is characterized by researchbased teaching, the standardization of curricula, and peer-review processes for research grants, promotions, and publications.9 Consequently, also an institution for the Islamization of knowledge cannot rest on Islamic sources alone, but rather its Islamic way of university life is a specific form within the global system of higher education. The chapters of Kirstine Sinclair and Kamaludeen Mohammad Nasir in this volume will give further examples for this kind of global isomorphism in the realm of education. The scholars of the Stanford School see themselves in the tradition of Max Weber’s theory of modernization in terms of an increasing formal rationalization of social life, though they do not subscribe to Weber’s principle of methodological individualism. In fact, with their world cultural approach they strongly criticize social theories that claim ontological primacy to individuals in the analysis of social phenomena. Instead, they conceive modern actors as the result of a “historical and ongoing construction” (Meyer and Jepperson 2000: 101). In their reading of modernity, contemporary world culture disposes over four crucial principles: rationalization, theorization, universalism, and individualization. It is through these four principles that globally acknowledged forms of social actorhood are produced and reproduced. This form of modern actorhood operates on the individual, organizational, and national state levels (Meyer et al. 1997: 168). The social and cultural environments of modernity “are filled with models of actorhood” (Meyer 2010: 10). Thereby, modern actors represent “authorized agents” for their own interests, for the interests of others, and for “broad collective purposes” (Meyer and Jepperson 2000: 101). In this way, these authorized agents are unique features of modern social relations. In the chapters of this book, the reader will meet with a host of Muslim actors – activists, intellectuals, organizations, and states – who perfectly embody this 9 iium is inspired by the Islamization of knowledge movement that was launched after the First World Conference on Muslim Education in Mecca (1977). The movement comprises a heterogeneous group of thoughts converging in the assertion to understand all knowledge “from within an Islamic worldview” (Niyozov and Memon 2011: 14); see also Stenberg (1996).

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feature of modern actorhood of acting as an authorized agent for people, ideas, and normative principles in the name of Islam. 3

Social Order: Three Successive Types of Modernity

How is social order possible? This is the core question around which the academic discipline of sociology has developed. Sociologists inherited this question from political philosophy and its European key representatives such as Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), John Locke (1632–1704) or Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778). In 1908, the German sociologist Georg Simmel (1858–1918) reformulated this question as to how society is possible. Simmel referred to a complex mesh of social relations, the synthesis of which we denote with the term “society” (Simmel 1908: 31). However, while individuals are members of society, they are at the same time in a kind of “antithesis with it.” The in principle antithetical elements of being social and independent at the same time is the characteristic of the modern individual in Simmel’s view (1908: 41). This inherent conflict of modernity, a continuing tension between individual and society, has been temporarily solved in historically established legitimate social orders. Consequently, the quest for social order represents a core question of modernity as such. The modern search for social order is reflected in the prominence of the concept of contingency in those contemporary works of social theory that consider modern society to be an open and emerging social process. Previously established representations of society such as the equation of society with the national state have been put into question. In contemporary social theory, modern life appears as being in a constant tension between order and uncertainty (Bonacker 2008). While contingency may be a fundamental experience of human kind as such (Wuchterl 2011: 7–11), modernization in terms of increasing functional differentiation made the transformation of contingency into certainty a heavily contested task for collective and individual actors alike. In the pluralistic communicative environment of modern world society, the handling of contingency turned into an inner-worldly task mediated by a plurality of particular religious, scientific, political, and philosophical worldviews (Frick 1988). The consensus on any social order providing a kind of certainty, therefore, can only be of a temporary nature. In criticizing the linearity of classical modernization theory, Peter Wagner suggested understanding modern European history according to a sequence of three different models of social order: restricted liberal modernity, organized

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modernity, and pluralistic modernity.10 Thereby he claimed that each of these social transformations was “the outcome of a crisis of the earlier social configuration” (Wagner 2010: 14). All three types, therefore, give historically informed answers to the general modern question of the possibility of social order. According to Wagner’s theory of successive modernities, the restricted liberal order of the nineteenth century applied a set of morally and rationally grounded liberal rules to a bourgeois elite. This severely restricted social order excluded the mass of the population from its elitist liberalism and was marred by massive inequalities and rampant poverty. From the end of the nineteenth century until the end of the Second World War, forms of organized modernity then became prevalent. Organized modernity included the masses as a bounded collective, often governed by a state-centered political vanguard elite. The inclusive character of these organized national societies was accompanied by “a strong standardization of practices and homogenization of life-courses” (Wagner 2010: 15). This hegemony of collectively organized modernity with its belief in linear progress and the top-down management of society has increasingly been challenged by pluralistic forms of modernity since the end of the Second World War. Pluralistic forms of social order emphasize the autonomy of individuals in mastering themselves. In this extended liberal model, social order results from the legal coordination of a plurality of social practices often resembling entrepreneurial strategies of social action (see also Wagner 1994). In Wagner’s theoretical framework, these three forms of social order stand for different answers to two general challenges of modernity that he defined in the autonomous setting of rules and the rational mastery of the world (Wagner 2001: 4) Thereby, historically concrete forms of established modern social orders oscillate between more liberal and more collectivist ways to pursue this autonomous and rational ordering of the social world (2001: 7). In line with Max Weber’s conceptual methodology, we adopt Wagner’s three successive forms of social order as ideal types, rather than as a periodization of historical times. In “accentuating certain conceptually essential elements” (Weber 1905: 100), Weber defined ideal types as scholarly constructs abstracted from historical observations for the analysis of individually concrete patterns of social life. Consequently, in Weber’s definition ideal types are not models of something that ought to exist, but they are ideal in a logical sense such that they never directly correspond with historically concrete social phenomena. However, they can serve as a means of historical analysis in r­ evealing

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Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck advocated a distinction between only two successive forms of first and second/high/late modernity (Beck 1992; Giddens 1990 and 1991).

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the social significance of observable phenomena through relative approximation (Weber 1905: 92). In using them as ideal types, Wagner’s three concepts of modern order add another analytical toolkit to the conceptual framework of the mmsp. They represent common points of reference, forms of globally relevant imaginaries for historically different constructions of social orders and thus play a conceptual role similar to those models or “cultural scripts” of the Stanford School. Together these concepts and models provide us empirically more substantiated analytical instruments than those of Modern Systems Theory. In applying them to Islamic history in our studies, we employ a methodological strategy that once was called “heuristic Eurocentrism” (Huff and Schluchter 1999) . This label refers to the fact that concepts which have been derived from the social history of Europe are applied to other historical contexts. The mere use of these concepts thus also contributes to the purpose of the mmsp of “testing” the applicability of so-called Western concepts in the analysis of Islamic history (Jung 2017b: 15). In my own work on the Islamic reform movement, I have shown the utility of Wagner’s theory of successive modernities with respect to modern Muslim history. I argued that also in Muslim history we can observe the construction of forms of modernity that share crucial elements of Wagner’s three types (Jung and Sinclair 2015: 31–36). A number of the chapters in this book share this view, too. The ideological and organizational features of the Muslim Brotherhood, for instance, are almost paradigmatic examples for the construction of an organized form of Islamic modernity. In Neslihan Cevik’s chapter, on the other hand, the description of what she calls “Muslimism” reminds us strongly of an Islamized version of the pluralistic order that Wagner saw on the rise after the Second World War. The modern social imaginaries which Line Mex-Jørgensen detected in the revolutionary weeks on Cairo’s Tahir square are another example for the relevance of the features of extended liberalism in contemporary social movements beyond Europe. Yet, while in Cevik’s studies these features are tied into an Islamic worldview, Mex-Jørgensen’s chapter underlines their applicability to religious and non-religious movements at the same time. In contradistinction to the holistic collectivism of Hasan al-Banna’s thought, Muslimists in Turkey and the revolutionaries at Tahrir square invoke much more the autonomy of the individual and reject the attempts of the state to control society from the top down. From the perspective of the mmsp, it is in particular these two types of organized and pluralistic modernity that can prove their analytical value if applied to the case studies in this volume. Though in my own interpretation, the Neo-Traditionalist movement in Sedgwick’s chapter displays a number of

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c­haracteristic traits that resemble the conservative and elitist elements in Wagner’s ideal type of restricted liberalism. Those the Neo-Traditionalists combine with traits of a form of modern anti-modernism that has accompanied modernization right from its beginnings (Habermas 1986) . From this perspective, the Neo-Traditionalist movement and its representation in the educational strategies applied at the Cambridge Muslim College have a certain proximity to the conservative if not anxious attitude to modernity of some representatives of the classical type of bourgeois ideology. What is important here is that most constructions of historically observable modern orders are only rough approximations to one of the three ideal types and often they represent hybrid patchworks of elements of each of them. This hybridity in the construction of historical forms of modernity becomes even more pronounced when we now turn to the formation of modern subjectivities at the level of individuals. 4

Subjectivity Formation: Three Types of Modern Selfhoods

Who am I? At the micro level of the individual this is the essential question behind modern subjectivity formation. While this question in pre-modern times largely was determined by fixed social positions (Taylor 1989: 31) , the self-constitution of the individual is a distinctive mark of modernity. In the social context of functional differentiation, the self becomes non transpar­ ent and therefore “needs identity” (Luhmann 2002: 110). In this process of selfconstitution, or identity construction, the individual and society, the micro and the macro levels of the social realm meet. The modern subject is the social site of mediation between society and the individual (Daniel 1981: 19). The analysis of the formation of modern subjectivities, therefore, turns into a key research strategy for our understanding of the culture of modernity. Subjectivity formation is the social process in which individuals, “the indivisibles,” establish an always precarious unity in the light of a structural plurality. In looking at historical processes of subjectivity formation, we can observe the multiplicity of ways in which individuals and collectives try to establish identities in light of modern contingency. It is the modern subject that has to establish a social synthesis at the micro level due to the functional fragmentation of social relations at the macro level. From the perspective of Modern Systems Theory, the modern subject is the result of social exclusion apprehended through the allpenetrating modern semantics of individualization. The individual becomes a self-referential entity that constitutes its unity in processes of self-observation and self-descriptions (Luhmann 1989).

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For Michel Foucault, this process was behind the “double nature” of the subject: being self-referential in one’s own creation and subjected to structural imperatives at the very same time. In this way, Foucault reformulated Simmel’s antithesis and argued that freedom and power are not mutually exclusive in modern subjectivity formation (Foucault 1986: 221). Rather we should see freedom and power in a kind of dialectical relationship with respect to the “compulsory task” for the modern individual of producing oneself (Foucault 1984: 42). Thrown into this world of modern contingency, modern individuals construct their identities through practices of subjection and those of liberation (Cook 1993: 3). These identity constructions comprise practices of their bodies and their souls, modes of conduct and of being in the world, as well as means to pursue happiness and to get in contact with supernatural powers. In Foucault’s terminology, these practices are “technologies of the self” (Foucault 1985: 367). Anthony Giddens emphasized their reflexive potential and defined the construction of modern identities as a “reflexive project” (Giddens 1991: 32). Using different terminologies, social theorists have nevertheless largely agreed upon this task of the self-creation of the modern subject. What often sets them apart, however, is the emphasis they put on the nature of this project, whether we should consider it as the subjugation or the liberation of humankind. Max Weber (1864–1920) was certainly one of those scholars who had a more pessimistic view of the modern condition of humanity. He would have agreed with Richard van Dülmen that modern individualization is a compulsory process rather than one of free self-determination (Dülmen 2001: 3). The modern condition of human beings (das modern Menschentum) was right in the center of Max Weber’s work and reflected in his methodological departure point of the individual (Hennis 1987: 32). According to the interpretation of Weber’s work by Wilhelm Hennis, his focus was on the tension between social order and the individual, the very same conflict that Georg Simmel also had in mind. In the macro context of a world of relatively autonomous social value spheres such as the arts, economics, politics, religion, and science, according to Weber, modern individuals have to construct themselves as holistic unities. The ­position of the modern subject is in the midst of formally rationalized and therewith impersonal spheres of social life. These modern value spheres are in a constant struggle with each other and obstruct the attempt of the individual to find a meaningful and holistic form of personal selfhood (Weber 1915). In Luhmann’s terms, social inclusion only takes place with respect to specific, functionally defined subject positions excluding the modern individual as a whole. In this understanding of modernity as the contradicting unity of fragmented systemic imperatives and individual desires, Max Weber, Michel

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­Foucault, and Niklas Luhmann meet; and it is for this reason that the theoretical framework of the mmsp selectively utilizes some of the concepts of their social theories despite all of their methodological, normative, and contextual differences. If we pay attention to the arguments of the above three theorists, then the relationship between the macro and the micro levels only allows the partial inclusion of individuals in society, due to – in Luhmann’s terminology – the self-referential nature of function systems. In this sense, social inclusion means that individuals submit themselves to the communicative logics of specific social subsystems by simultaneously excluding themselves from other realms of society. They can take over economic, political, or religious roles, but they have to mediate among them at the micro level of their own identity constructions in order to achieve personal unity as individuals. However, the specific ethics of these self-referential communicative worlds no longer provide an unquestionable orientation in the moral space. Modern culture is characterized by a plurality of ethics such that “we do not anymore dispose over a shared framework of judgement, feeling and thoughts” (Taylor 1989: 17). According to Charles Taylor, this moral predicament of modernity has been reflected in the move to center morality and the good life in the “affirmation of ordinary life” (1989: 14). It is in particular in the social realms of intimacy and work that Taylor locates the moral sources of the self: “In labour, making of things needed for life, and our life as sexual beings, including marriage and the family, we are pursuing the good” (1989: 211). In his synthetic work on the modern subject, the German sociologist Andreas Reckwitz identified three complexes of social practices where the construction of modern identities takes place. In combining the argumentation of Charles Taylor with the poststructuralist view of Michel Foucault, Reckwitz defined everyday practices of work, the field of intimacy, and routinized technologies of the self as the three major social complexes for modern subjectivity formation. Each of them offers discursive dispositions for the interpretative construction of modern identities. In European and North American history, Reckwitz discerned in particular three types of subject cultures that have achieved temporal hegemonies since the nineteenth century: the classical bourgeois, the peer-group-oriented self of the organized masses, and the postmodern self of the creative worker and entrepreneur (Reckwitz 2006). These forms of modern subjectivities correspond to a large extent to the three forms of social order in Wagner’s theory of successive modernities. However, these historical forms of subject cultures have not simply replaced each other. Elements of previously hegemonic types live on and may shape together with new and alternative patterns hybrid combinations that challenge the hegemony of

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the respective cultural types in place. In accordance with Reckwitz’s theoretical view, therefore, we do not perceive successive modernities and concomitant forms of modern subjectivities in terms of clear ruptures with the past. The first hegemonic cultural type in Reckwitz’s typology is the “classical bourgeois subject.” This type combines the liberal code of the autonomous, rational, and reflexive individual with the conservative values of moral regulation. In this way, the bourgeois type distinguishes itself from both the previously hegemonic habitus of the aristocracy and popular culture. With its radical distancing from the mass of the population, bourgeois subjectivity reflected the social order of restricted liberalism. Its specific form of moral regulation the bourgeois found predominantly in the daily practices of disciplined routines of work. These routines are supported by the prevalent bourgeois technologies of the self, revolving around the means of the literate subject. Diaries, letters, newspapers, and books were the core media through which the bourgeois subject performed its hermeneutics of the self. In terms of intimacy, marriage developed into the central moral code of bourgeois culture. The nuclear family and life-long friendships represented the social institutions for the bourgeois construction of the intimate self. In its hegemony, bourgeois culture was challenged by romanticism, denigrating it as a non-authentic and artificial form of life (Reckwitz 2006: 97–274). The gradual erosion of the hegemonic status of bourgeois culture began in the late nineteenth century and went hand-in-hand with the rise of organized mass society. Reckwitz put this process into the context of two developments, a series of technological innovations and the dissemination of new knowledge by the humanist sciences. Together these developments facilitated new ideas of social engineering that became a major feature of organized modernity. At the same time, new aesthetic movements discovered the human body as an object for technologies of the self. Having its center in the United States, these social processes generated a new form of subjectivity, the type of the peergroup-oriented subjectivity of the masses. In sharp contradistinction to the rationalistic and introverted self of the bourgeois, this extroverted cultural type with its ideal of the generalization of behavior became the hegemonic model during the early twentieth century.11 While the working subject remained center stage, the individual working ethics of the bourgeois type were 11

Putting his focus on American mass culture, Reckwitz deliberately neglects two alternative forms of subjectivity which play a significant role in the period of first modernity: fascism and communism. He underlines that a comparative study of American peergroup society with fascist and communist societies could not only show differences and similarities among these different social orders, but also contribute to a new understanding of multiple modernities within the West (1986: 29).

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gradually superseded by the ethics of the managerial type, building on the ideal of efficient working coordination. The intimacy of bourgeois private life was challenged by the dominance of informality among peers and its dissolution of the sharp distinction between private and public life of classical bourgeois culture. The new culture of the salaried masses was also marked by a decisive change in the technologies of the self. Prime among those were new practices in which audiovisual media, various modes of consumption, and public performances were of growing importance. Most significant, in borrowing from the aesthetics of the previous romanticist criticism of the mental focus of bourgeois culture, these technologies of the self put the human body center stage. In line with core features of organized modernity, the peer-grouporiented individual of the salaried masses was oriented toward standardized forms of efficiently coordinated social action and advocated practices of social adaptation (Reckwitz 2006: 275–440). A third type of modern subjectivity Reckwitz discerned in the rise of a “postmodern culture” that antagonized the peer-group-oriented “average-culture” of organized modernity. This third type of subjectivity is characterized by strongly individualized patterns of consumption and creative action. Combining the imaginaries of the creative worker with the entrepreneur, postmodern subjectivity challenges the ideals of rational calculability, bureaucratic organization, and technical coordination that have characterized the managerial imaginary of organized modernity. Again, the transformation of the means of communication played a significant role in the rise of the postmodern culture of pluralistic modernity. While the printing press was revolutionized by the new audiovisual media during the first part of the twentieth century, the postSecond World War period has experienced a technological revolution through the introduction of digital media. This technological development facilitates highly individualized forms of work with its model of the self-reliant, dynamic, and creative entrepreneur. They offer the postmodern subject of pluralistic modernity new means for the hermeneutics of the self and contributed to an informalization with respect to intimate relationships, in which we can observe a growing number of new communicational, emotional, and experimental practices (Reckwitz 2006: 441–630). Together with Peter Wagner’s theory of successive modernities, Reckwitz’s typology offers us conceptual tools to distinguish between different forms of modernity on both the level of social order and the level of the individual. They complement Luhmann’s macro sociology and Eisenstadt’s theory of multiple modernities. With respect to Eisenstadt, their typologies offer a way that can account for the historical appearance of multiple modernities within civilizational complexes. Both Wagner’s and Reckwitz’s ideal types help to u ­ nderstand

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the very different ideologies that the Muslim Brotherhood, the Algerian Resistance, and Turkey’s Muslimists advocate within the shared context of a specifically Islamic modern discourse. In their different attempts to combine disciplinary mechanisms with individual self-cultivation, these three movements give historically specific answers to the two essential modern questions about social order and the self. Again, the chapters of this volume show the various ways in which a multiplicity of globally relevant social templates may account for the appearance of multiple modernities within Islam. However, contrary to Eisenstadt, Wagner and Reckwitz remain silent about the role of religion in this construction of multiple modernities. Here the mmsp and the following chapters complement these theories in presenting historical examples of the ways in which religious traditions have contributed to the formation of modern Muslim subjects and social orders. In the words of the Algerian authors Ben Badis and Bennabi in Jakob Krais chapter: Islamic modernities aim at a synthesis of “Western” material progress and scientific advancement with Islamic spirituality. It is these attempts at synthesis that the mmsp wants to explore. Furthermore, Wagner and Reckwitz derive their concepts from and apply them to “Western” historical contexts alone. In theoretical terms, it is one of the aims of the analytical framework of the mmsp to bring these different strands of theory into a conversation by applying them to non-Western histories. The relevance of this research strategy is underpinned when we turn to our first findings, with which I conclude this chapter. 5

The “Muslim Professional” and Concluding Remarks

In a pilot study of the mmsp, we looked at contemporary subjectivity formation among employees and volunteers of Islamic welfare organizations in Jordan and Egypt. In focusing on a variety of Islamic charities, ngos, youth clubs, health clinics, and educational institutions, we wanted to explore the role of religion in the subjectivity formation of contemporary young Muslims who joined these organizations. Similar to Fabio Vicini’s study about religious volunteering in this book, we posed the question as to the different ways in which social structures, civil society organizations, globally relevant ideas about modernity, and religious traditions condition the identity constructions of both our interlocutors and the respective organizations in which they happened to work. We discovered collective and individual identities that displayed rather hybrid combinations of different bodies of knowledge and social practices with strong references to Islamic traditions. Applying our ideal types of social order and modern subjects, the leaders, staff members, and volunteers with

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whom we talked in our fieldwork presented us with rather idiosyncratic forms of the Islamic modern, at least in comparison to the ideal types discussed above. While generally sharing the reference to Islamic traditions, they constructed collective and individual identities by combining religion with various elements we can relate to different features of Wagner’s and Reckwitz’s ideal types (Jung et al. 2014). The normative model of a “Muslim professional” is a good example for these forms of identity construction. Promoting voluntarism, development, and social entrepreneurship, the activities of some of the organizations were guided by this model that combines Islamic morality with neoliberal elements of management sciences, another form of this synthesis at which the Algerian protagonists in Krais’s chapter aimed. In tailored career development courses, our Egyptian interlocutors addressed the specific problems of Egyptian middleclass youth in their self-formation as modern working subjects. In light of challenges such as rampant youth unemployment, relative social apathy, and the often-poor quality of higher education, these courses aimed at conveying a “spirit of social entrepreneurship.” They fused ideas from neoliberal economic theories and management sciences with a specific kind of Islamic morality, presenting role models for the construction of modern Muslim selves. These Muslim professionals are young Egyptians who in appearance and behavior represent morally upright and well-trained businessmen, reconciling Islamic authenticity with the hegemonic values of contemporary global economics. They represent a historically specific modern combination of two contemporary hegemonic projects: neoliberalism as an encompassing set of global social practices and “Islamism” as an authentic form of Muslim modernity (Jung et al. 2014: 141–143). I conclude with brief remarks that interpret this example of the Muslim professional with reference to the theoretical framework of the mmsp as presented in this chapter. In the normative model of the Muslim professional we can observe the historically specific, local construction of a modern subject with respect to more general, globally relevant imaginations of modernity. To a certain extent, this model represents historically concrete answers to the questions according to which this chapter has been organized. It offers a role model for the volunteers in their individual identity constructions as young modern Egyptian working subjects. In answering the question about themselves, they draw on various elements we can identify with Reckwitz’s generic type of the creative worker and entrepreneur. However, they do so within a collectively organized peer group of fellow volunteers under the “enlightened” leadership of an Egyptian vanguard, combining the neoliberal ideas of modern entrepreneurship with some elements of the top-down construction of an organized

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Islamic society. In terms of social order, this vanguard group aimed at the reformation of Egypt’s form of organized society at the micro level by replacing the ethics of efficient working coordination with the ideal of the selfreliant, dynamic, and creative entrepreneur, however, without following the ­highly individualized and pluralistic patterns of Wagner’s model of extended liberalism. The Muslim professional, the volunteers in the Turkish charity organization Deniz Feneri, the missionaries of Tablighi Jamaat, the American Muslim rap artists, and the global network of Neo-Traditionalist intellectuals all represent hybrid identity constructions and visions of an Islamic social order. They are historically concrete examples of Islamic modernities which can be understood within the structural context of global modernity. The following chapters will display a great variety of these constructions of multiple Islamic modernities without necessarily applying the conceptual apparatus of the mmsp. However, its conceptual apparatus and its central question of the fusion of globally relevant cultural scripts with new interpretations of Islamic religious traditions in the formation of modern Muslim subjectivities served in our discussions and the writing of the individual chapters as the central points of reference. In this way, the engagement of the authors of this book ultimately makes a significant contribution to the larger research program of the Modern Muslim Subjectivities Project. References Aljunied, Mohammed Syed Ad’ha. 2011. “Religious Freedom in Malaysia’s ‘Islamic State’: Comparisons with the Islamic State in Medina.” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 31(1): 113–123. Beck, Ulrich. 1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage. Beyer, Peter L. 2006. Religion and Global Society. London and New York: Routledge. Boli, John and George M. Thomas. 1997. “World Culture in the World Polity: A Century of International Non-Governmental Organizations.” American Sociological Review 62(2): 171–190. Bonacker, Thorsten. 2008. “Gesellschaft: Warum die Einheit der Gesellschaft aufgeschoben wird.” In Stephan Moebius and Andreas Reckwitz (eds.), Poststrukturalistische Sozialwissenschaften. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 27–43. Cook, Deborah. 1993. The Subject finds a Voice: Foucault’s Turn Toward Subjectivity. New York: Peter Lang Publishers. Daniel, Claus. 1981. Theorien der Subjektivität. Einführung in die Soziologie des Individuums. Frankfurt a.M.: Campus.

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Drori, Gili S., John W. Meyer, Francisco O. Ramirez and Evan Schofer. 2003. Science in the Modern World Polity. Institutionalization and Globalization. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Dülmen, Richard van. 2001. “Einleitung.” In Richard van Dülmen (ed.), Entdeckung des Ich. Die Geschichte der Individualisierung vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft: 1–10. Durkheim, Emile. 1964. The Division of Labor. New York: The Free Press. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. 2000a. “Multiple Modernities.” Daedalus 129(1): 1–29. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. 2000b. “The Reconstruction of Religious Arenas in the Framework of ‘Multiple Modernities’.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 29(3): 591–611. Foucault, Michel. 1984. “What is Enlightenment.” In Paul Rabinow (ed.), The Foucault Reader. Pantheon Books: New York: 32–51. Foucault, Michel. 1985. “Sexuality and Solitude.” In Marshall Blonsky (ed.), On Signs. Oxford: Basil Blackwell: 365–372. Foucault, Michel. 1986. “Afterword: The Subject and Power.” In Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow (eds.), Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Brighton: The Harvester Press (2nd edition): 208–226. Frick, Werner. 1988. Providenz und Kontingenz. Untersuchung zur Schicksalssemantik im deutschen und europäischen Roman des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts. Teil 1. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. Giddens, Anthony. 1990. The Consequence of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Giddens, Anthony. 1991. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Gomez, Edmund T. and Johan Saravanamuttu (eds.). 2012. The New Economic Policy in Malaysia. Affirmative Action, Ethnic Inequalities and Social Justice. Singapore: NUS Press Habermas, Jürgen. 1986: Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne. Zwölf Vorlesungen. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Hennis, Wilhelm. 1987. Max Webers Fragestellung. Studien zur Biographie des Werks. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck Huff, Toby E. and Wolfgang Schluchter (eds.). 1999. Max Weber & Islam. New Brunswick: Transaction. Jung, Dietrich. 2016a. “Modernity, Islamic Traditions, and the Good Life: An Outline of the Modern Muslim Subjectivities Project.” Review of Middle East Studies 50(1): 18–27. Jung, Dietrich. 2016b. “Understanding the Multiple Voices of Islamic Modernities: The Case of Jihad.” Temenos 52(1): 61–85. Jung, Dietrich. 2016c. “Turmoil in the Levant: Inconclusive Conclusions.” In Martin Beck, Dietrich Jung, and Peter Seeberg (eds.), The Levant in Turmoil: Syria, Palestine, and the Transformation of Middle Eastern Politics. New York: Palgrave, 191–210. Jung, Dietrich. 2017a. Muslim History and Social Theory. A Global Sociology of Modernity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Jung, Dietrich. 2017b. “The Formation of Modern Muslim Subjectivities: Research Project and Analytical Strategy.” Tidsskrift for Islam Forskning (Islamic Studies Journal) 11(1): 11–29. Jung, Dietrich and Kirstine Sinclair. 2015. “Multiple Modernities, Modern Subjectivities, and Modern Order: Unity and Difference in the Rise of Islamic Modernities.” Thesis Eleven 130(1): 22–42. Jung, Dietrich, Marie J. Petersen and Sarah L. Sparre. 2014. Polietics of Modern Muslim Subjectivities. Islam, Youth, and Social Activism in the Middle East. New York: Palgrave. Luhmann, Niklas. 1984. Soziale Systeme. Grundriss einer allgemeinen Theorie. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp [English 1995, Social Systems, Stanford University Press]. Luhmann, Niklas. 1989. “Individuum, Individualität, Individualismus.” In Niklas Luhmann, Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik. Studien zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft, Band 3. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp: 149–258. Luhmann, Niklas. 1990. “The World Society as a Social System.” In Niklas Luhmann, Essays on Self-Reference. New York: Columbia University Press. Luhmann, Niklas. 1998. Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, 2 vol. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp [English 2012/2013, Theory of Society, 2 vol., Stanford University Press]. Luhmann, Niklas. 2002. Die Religion der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Luhmann, Niklas. 2008. Die Moral der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Meyer, John W. 2010. “World Society, Institutional Theories, and the Actor.” Annual Review of Sociology 36: 1–20. Meyer, John W., John Boli, George Thomas and Francisco O. Ramirez. 1997. “World Society and the Nation-State.” American Journal of Sociology 103(1): 144–181. Meyer, John W. and Ronald L. Jepperson. 2000. “The Cultural Construction of Social Agency.” Sociological Theory 18(1): 100–120. Nisbet, Robert A. 1970. The Sociological Tradition. London: Heinemann. Niyozov, Sarfaroz and Nadeem Memon. 2011. “Islamic Education and Islamization: Evolution of Themes, Continuities and New Directions.” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 31(1): 5–30. Reckwitz, Andreas. 2006. Das hybride Subjekt. Eine Theorie der Subjektkulturen von der bürgelichen Moderne zur Postmoderne. Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft. Schielke, Samuli. 2012. “Capitalist Ethics and the Spirit of Islamization in Egypt.” In Samuli Schielke and Liza Debevec (eds.), Ordinary Lives and Grand Schemes. An Anthropology of Everyday Religion. Oxford and New York: Berghan: 131–145. Simmel, Georg. 1908. Soziologie. Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung. Leipzig: Verlag Duncker & Humblot. Sharot, Stephen. 2001. A Comparative Sociology of World Religions. Virtuosos, Priests, and Popular Religion. New York: New York University Press. Sloane-White, Patricia. 2017. Corporate Islam. Sharia and the Modern Work Place, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Stenberg, Leif. 1996. The Islamization of Science: Four Muslim Positions Developing an Islamic Modernity. Lund Studies in History of Religions, Vol. 6. Lund: Coronet Books Inc. Taylor, Charles. 1989. Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Turner, Bryan. 2011. Religion and Modern Society. Citizenship, Secularisation and the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wagner, Peter. 1994. A Sociology of Modernity: Liberty and Discipline. London: Routledge. Wagner, Peter. 2001. Theorizing Modernity. Inescapability and Attainability in Social Theory. London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: Sage Publications. Wagner, Peter. 2010. “Successive Modernities and the Idea of Progress: A First Attempt.” Distinktion 11(2): 9–24. Weber, Max. 1905. “‘Objectivity’ in Social Science and Social Polity.” In Edward A. Shils and Henry A. Finch (eds.), The Methodology of the Social Sciences. New York: The Free press [1949]: 50–112. Weber, Max. 1915. “Religious Rejections of the World and Their Directions.” In From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. London: Routledge [1991]: 323–359. Wuchterl, Kurt. 2011. Kontingenz oder das Andere der Vernunft. Zum Verhältnis von Philosophie, Naturwissenschaft und Religion. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.

Chapter 2

Decolonizing Body and Mind: Physical Activity and Subject Formation in Colonial Algeria Jakob Krais 1

The Colonial Condition The truth is that colonialism in its essence was already taking on the aspect of a fertile purveyor for psychiatric hospitals. […] Because it is a systematic negation of the other person and a furious determination to deny the other person all attributes of humanity, colonialism forces the people it dominates to ask themselves the question constantly: “In reality, who am I?”. fanon 1991: 248–249

Frantz Fanon (1925–1961), the most prominent intellectual of the Algerian liberation struggle, interpreted colonialism not only as a political structure, but also as an everyday situation affecting each colonized individual: colonialism was, for him, a condition determining the entire life of the subjected population.1 Another exponent of Algerian anti-colonial thought, Malek Bennabi (1905–1973), went even further in the psychological interpretation of colonialism, by stating that the reason Muslims had been colonized in the first place had to be found in their own “colonizability” (colonisabilité). From these thoughts results the idea that colonialism is not only a political, economic, and social system of foreign rule, but also, and maybe even predominantly, an individual state of mind. Consequently, the struggle for independence is a decolonization not of the country, but, first of all, of body and mind. It has to start with each and every individual reforming himself or herself to overcome the colonial condition. While adopting in many ways a position similar to Fanon’s, Bennabi built his arguments explicitly on an Islamic basis – albeit one quite different from 1 A professional psychiatrist, Fanon even gave detailed case studies about the effects colonial society produced in terms of mental disorders (Fanon 1991: 253–292 and Fanon 2007: 121–146).

© koninklijke brill nv leiden ���� | doi:10 1163/9789004425576 004

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a traditional religious framework (see also Naylor 2006). He acknowledged the importance of “external factors,” i.e. foreign rule – which he even called “totalitarian colonialism” – for the state of Algerian society and the Muslim world, in general (Bennabi 1988: 55–59; Bennabi 2001).2 His central argument, though, pertained to internal factors: in his work Vocation de l’Islam (translated into English as Islam in History and Society), originally published in 1954 but written several years earlier, he developed the notion of “colonizability.” According to this concept, it is not foreign occupation as such that has caused the decline of Muslim societies, but their own “colonizable” character, which precedes actual colonial domination, both chronologically and logically. Bennabi detects the beginnings of colonizability at the moment of the fall of the Almohad caliphate in the thirteenth century ad. With the demise of this last indigenous empire in the history of the Maghrib, which was based on a purist religious movement (the term Almohad/al-muwaḥḥid referring to its strict monotheism), Muslim society lost its creative vigor, politically as well as spiritually. From the notion of colonizability ensues that the appearance of formal political independence is not a relevant criterium to measure the progress of “post-Almohad” countries, as can easily be demonstrated by the backwardness of a region that was never colonized, such as Yemen, Bennabi argues (Bennabi 1988: 11–14, 40–54). What holds true for countries equally applies to individuals in a society of “post-Almohad men”: true reform is only possible if “Muslim society liquidates this passive inheritance of its six hundred years’ bankruptcy, and renovates the man conforming to the true Islamic tradition and the Cartesian experience” (Bennabi 1988: 13). In this view, true independence can only be achieved if it is preceded by a reform of society’s individual members. Self-reform initiatives of the Muslim community in French Algeria had started already some time before Fanon and Bennabi penned their programmatic texts. A new wave of anti-colonial movements and associations of indigenous civil society in general had been taking shape in the course of the 1920s. New mobility with the onset of migration toward the metropole during World War One, growing urbanization inside Algeria, and the emergence of a French-educated modern Muslim middle class led not only to the establishment of political parties and the development of a nationalist movement, but also to an increasing number of cultural circles, private schools, sports clubs, and scout troops. This emerging professional middle class began voicing its

2 The latter text is part of Bennabi’s work Les conditions de la renaissance, originally published in 1949.

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a­ spirations in new literary genres and a rapidly expanding press in French and Arabic (for an overview see McDougall 2017: 134–166).3 Muslim reformers’ prime concern at the time was education, understood at the same time as physical and ethical, which eventually would produce a new generation of modern Muslim subjects. Therefore, they targeted individuals specifically through athletic training and disciplined exercise in sports teams or boy scout troops as part of this new education. Particularly active in this domain was the Islamic reformist (iṣlāḥ) movement, led by shaykh Abdelhamid Ben Badis (1889–1940).4 One of Ben Badis’s collaborators recounts in his memoir the founding of the two major Muslim soccer teams and the first boy scout troop in the reformist stronghold of Constantine (Amouchi 1991: 10–13, 26–29). These initiatives in the field of sports complemented the broader scheme of educational reform undertaken by the iṣlāḥ movement, which since the 1920s established classes for religious instruction in mosques and private Arabic schools that were then coordinated by the Islamic Association of Education and Instruction (Jamʿiyyat al-tarbiya wal-taʿlim al-islamiyya) (Courreye 2014; Merdaci 2007; McDougall 2004). Ben Badis and his supporters presented themselves as nonpolitical, aiming only at social and religious reform. Their work was directed at forming a new generation of Algerian Muslims or, in other words, at creating modern Muslim subjectivities. Although initially they explicitly rejected the idea of Algerian independence from France (Bin Badis 1345/1926: 2), the Islamic reformers cannot be neatly separated from the nationalist movement. As the allusion to Fanon has shown, secular and leftist thinkers were equally concerned with colonialism as a state of mind and the reform of the individual. In fact, many nationalist and even communist militants had attended an iṣlāḥī Arabic school and taken part in various other activities connected to the Islamic movement. The Muslim scout association, which had been founded in a reformist environment, eventually split into an Islamic and a nationalist wing that both continued to work for self-reform and modernization (Watanabe 2012). The notion of modernity, here, is not understood in a normative sense – as in the teleological discourse of modernization theory, for instance – but, first

3 The formation of a Muslim Algerian middle class during this period has not yet been thoroughly investigated. I use the term here as a social category informed by cultural history, and not exclusively based on “hard” sociological indicators such as income levels (for this approach see Ryzova 2014: 1–37). 4 In 1931, the iṣlāḥ movement constituted itself as the Association of Algerian Muslim ʿUlamaʾ (Jamʿiyyat al-ʿulamaʾ al-muslimin al-jazaʾiriyyin/Association des Ulémas Musulmans Algériens, auma) (Bin Badis 1388/1968; Rahal 2004; McDougall 2014).

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of all, as an emic category, found in the historical sources, i.e. employed by the actors themselves. The theoretical approaches to modernity which are used will mainly support and interpret the source material. These etic definitions are based on concepts of multiple, entangled, and successive modernities. I will elaborate on the idea of successive modernities later in more detail, but it might be useful to clarify my approach to the concept of multiple modernities: while it will be obvious that I do not understand modernity as a universal standard, as in normative theories, and I find the notion of entanglement appropriate for the colonial situation, it is, in my view, also imperative to avoid the culturalist trap the idea of multiple modernities can lead us into. As the sources will show, Algerians at the time in question did not aspire to create a distinct Islamic (or Arab or third-worldist) modernity; rather, they wanted to participate in global modernity (for the theoretical approaches see Jung and Sinclair in this volume; Jung and Sinclair 2015: 23–31; Jung 2017: 13–31; Wagner 1994: 3–18; also Cooper 2005: 113–149). Apart from the modernity discussion, the idea of self-cultivation will play a central role on the following pages. Despite its long-standing presence in Islamic religious discourse, especially in Ghazali’s (1058–1111) treatment of riyāḍat al-nafs (Ghazali 2015: 7–101), the concept of self-cultivation is not discussed in traditional religious terms by the primary texts on which this chapter is based. Consequently, my own analysis of subject formation rests primarily on Michel Foucault’s (1926–1984) works on governmentality and ethics. In the following sections I will analyze programmatic texts and autobiographical recollections dealing with anti-colonial social reform initiatives, particularly in the realm of scouting and sports. Covering approximately the period from 1920 until independence in 1962, I trace the formation of modern Muslim subjectivities among the new middle class which made up the leaders and supporters of both the Islamic reformist and the nationalist movements. The notion of the modern subject – being modern and being an autonomous actor – was, in fact, central to these reform initiatives. I start by showing how it was put forward in autobiographical writings and in texts of the scout movement which gave much importance to examples of great individuals to emulate – including successful athletes as well as the Prophet Muhammad. Linked to this insistence on examples was the idea of guidance (of the self and others) needed in the contingencies of modern life which I interpret through the lens of Foucault’s theory of governmentality. To link my case study back to the general theoretical framework, I finally analyze the specific form modern Muslim subjectivities and organized mass modernity took in late colonial Algeria.

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From Subjection to Subjectivation

The term subject has two meanings; following Foucault, we can distinguish a passive subject subordinated to others by disciplinary techniques from an active subject which constitutes and asserts itself through self-cultivation (Foucault 1982; see also Jacob 2011: 1–26; Jung 2017: 63–66). Applied to the concrete case of colonial Algeria, this means that Muslim Algerians were, first, subjects insofar as they were subjected to colonial rule. Although Algeria was officially considered part of metropolitan France, unlike the settlers of European origin and most of the indigenous Jews, its Muslim population, apart from a small number of individuals, did not hold French citizenship or enjoy the same constitutional rights as the other groups. To break out of this oppressive situation, Algerians aimed at becoming subjects in a second sense, political and social actors on their own, makers of their own history – an aim Fanon and Bennabi stress throughout their works. The latter, for instance, called for a “new man capable of assuming the responsibilities of his existence, morally and materially, both as a witness and an actor” (Bennabi 1988: 92). For Bennabi, this meant being prepared for the challenges of modern life. The consequence was the need for a clear break with tradition, regularly depicted as backward, and the formulation of a self-consciously new subjectivity. Already in 1926, the Muslim leader Ben Badis had published a proclamation with which he called upon his fellow Algerians to reform themselves and explicitly demanded: “Be modern [ʿaṣriyyan] in your thoughts and actions, in your trade and craft and agriculture, in your culture and your development [fī tamaddunika wa-ruqīka]” (Bin Badis 1345/1926: 2).5 What it means to be modern in concrete terms is much less pronounced than the call for a break with the past. There is a certain tautological self-evidence to Ben Badis’s imperative kun ʿaṣriyyan: to be up to the challenges of the modern world requires becoming modern oneself. Even though the definition of a modern subjectivity – apart from the recovery of individual and collective agency – might be a bit unclear, the methods to achieve this aim are not. In the efforts of Ben Badis and his fellow reformers to create active, modern subjects, the scout movement occupied a central place. Founded in the orbit of the reformist Algiers Progress Club (Nadi al-taraqqi or Cercle du progrès), it developed over the course of the 1930s in an iṣlāḥī environment to finally establish a national federation of Algerian Muslim Scouts (Scouts Musulmans 5 Quotations from texts in Arabic and French are translated by the author, if there is no published English translation.

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Algériens, sma) in 1939.6 The leftist historian Mohammed Harbi (b. 1933), then a young activist, recalls how the médersa (the reformist Arabic school) and scouting created his nationalist attitude and goes on to specify: The medersa stimulated me less than scouting with its open-air activities, its debates, the learning of patriotic songs […]. It was also through scouting that I was initiated into certain hadiths repeated over and over by Muslim reformism and taken up by the nationalists – such as “Love of the homeland is part of the faith” – or Koranic verses calling for the refusal of all determinism and fatalism: “Say: Act! God will judge your action, as well as the Prophet and the believers”; and above all: “God will not change the state of a community if it does not reform itself first.” In the name of these verses, my generation had to shake off parental tutelage.7 harbi 2001: 26, 42–43

These kinds of self-reflexive thoughts regarding the formation of political consciousness are present in the accounts of many activists and intellectuals from the period. In fact, to become a subject “as a witness and an actor” (as Bennabi demanded) is closely connected to new forms of self-expression that are reflected in this genre of sources: Muslim Algerians have produced memoirs, recollections, and all kinds of autobiographical material from late colonial times until today. Many of these autobiographical accounts follow the literary form of a Bildungsroman, detailing the character building and the rise of ethical awareness and social consciousness of the subject (see also Ryzova 2014: 139– 177).8 Writing about oneself is an essential technique of the self in the sense of Foucault; together with meditation and exercise, it constitutes the comprehensive activity of mental and physical training which serves the cultivation of the self. Writing about oneself in a truthful way forms part of the examination of 6 While parts of the sma kept insisting on their nonpolitical character, others soon gravitated toward the radical nationalist movement. In 1948, the movement split, with the Boy Scouts Musulmans Algériens (bsma) continuing on the allegedly nonpolitical path close to the Islamic reformists, whereas the sma now developed into the main reservoir of the militant independence movement (on the development of the scout movement see Kaddache 2003; Baghli 2000: 12–43, 151–166; Derouiche 1985: 24–40, 150–162; Kechaï n.d.: 68–83). 7 A hadith is a saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad whose transmitted rules of conduct, the sunna, have, together with Qur’anic commandments, occupied a central role in the Islamic discursive tradition, both for legal regulations and for ethical codes of behavior (Pavlovitch 2019). 8 The prominent intellectual and educator Mostefa Lacheraf (1917–2007) even interprets his life story as an apprenticeship with explicit reference to Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister (Lacheraf 2003: 256; also Zerguini 2000: 207). Early examples of this sort of memoir in the form of a Bildungsroman were published by Muslim Algerians as early as the 1930s (see e.g. Faci 1931).

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conscience and, thus, contributes to the formation of the subject (Foucault 1997). But the Bildungsroman was also meant to guide others. By the 1920s, nationalist intellectuals and activists throughout the Arab world had adopted a perspective on history that privileged the life stories of “great men” (Wien 2017: 35–47). Like this, in Algerian anti-colonial movements, too, autobiographies were complemented by exemplary biographies of role models. Young scouts, in particular, were often presented with historical or mythical figures as examples to follow. The most prominent model to emulate for the Muslim scouts was, not surprisingly, the Prophet Muhammad (see also Jacob 2011: 109). The sma’s spiritual guide (murshid) Mahmoud Bouzouzou (1918–2007), for instance, produced a brief biography of Muhammad for young readers, delineating the Prophet’s exemplary traits (Bouzouzou 1950; see also Bouzouzou 1952a). As the scouts put great emphasis on independent reasoning and critical thinking, among the role models we also find representatives of science, such as Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406), who lent his name to a scout troop in the town of Miliana (Derouiche 1985: 53). The story of the autodidact Hayy bin Yaqzan by the medieval Muslim philosopher Ibn Tufayl (1106–1185) – which apparently was popular in Algerian scout education as a more “authentic” substitute for Rudyard Kipling’s (1865–1936) Mowgli – also shows this concern for a rational worldview (Aroua and Illoul 1991: 40). But in autobiographical accounts we find important figures from the Western philosophical tradition, too: Hocine Aït Ahmed (1926–2015), one of the historic leaders of the National Liberation Front (Front de Libération Nationale, fln), took interest in Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), the revolutionary and educator (Aït Ahmed 1983: 48), whereas Bennabi named the pragmatist pedagogue John Dewey (1859–1952) as a point of reference (Bennabi 2006: 88). Among the contemporaries, Ben Badis himself – who was often referred to as the “Algerian Muhammad ʿAbduh” – became a venerated founding figure of the Muslim scout movement, especially after his untimely death in 1940 (see e.g. Ghasiri 1950; N.N. 1952). Apart from such rather intellectual role models, actual scouts and athletes obviously fulfilled an exemplary function in this environment: not only essentially political boy scouts like King Faruq of Egypt (1920–1965) or Mohamed Bouras (1908–1941), the founder of the sma and one of Algeria’s first modern “martyrs” (Derouiche 1985: 23, 41–47; Aroua and Illoul 1991: 78–83; Kechaï n.d.: 108–112, 118–119),9 but also professional 9 During the 1930s, Faruq of Egypt – who was not only crown prince and then king, but also head scout of his country – was perceived as embodying the aspirations of a new generation (Jacob 2011: 113–123), in particular among Maghribi activists who were increasingly looking east in search of examples to adopt. Mohamed Bouras, a soccer player in Algiers who ­initiated

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c­yclists or s­occer players could offer models for the character building of young generations. In fact, successful Algerian athletes were seen as standing out of the colonized mass as achieving subjects (Abdoun 1990: 33–45; Zerguini 2000: 19–20; M’Hamsadji 2011: 195). It sometimes seems that moral education was only possible in combination with physical training. The sma murshid Bouzouzou actually managed to bring together in one passage such different role models as a Hindu proponent of non-violent resistance, an American boxing star and the Prophet of Islam: Acquiring the spiritual force of Gandhi together with the physical force of Joe Louis should not leave any man of tomorrow indifferent. To be spiritually and physically strong is a quality our Prophet requires from us, when he says: “God prefers the strong over the weak believer and loves him more.” (The same holds true for a people). bouzouzou 1948–49: 19

This quote from the Bulletin of the Algerian Muslim Scouts combines the different aspects of anti-colonial subject formation: spiritual and physical strength go hand in hand, they receive a nationalist twist – and even acquire the status of a religious precept. Probably to appeal to his young audience, the spiritual guide of the youth movement makes reference to symbolic figures that were well known on a global scale. In doing so, Bouzouzou links Western modernity, represented by heavyweight world champion Louis (1914–1981), the professional sports star from the United States, to local authenticity, which Gandhi (1869–1948) stands for in a general sense and Muhammad in the concrete sense, as the ultimate example for Algerian Muslim readers. And yet, for all this admiration of successful athletes, it was not just about winning, as one article in the sma paper reminded the young scouts. To become really great sportsmen even “the Algerian champions are in need of true guides who know how to discipline them, who know how to let them follow rules [un régime].” In short, physical training was nothing without moral education and guidance (Louanchi 1951: 31–32). 3

Guidance and Self-government

If one considers modernity as the constant opening and closing of possibilities (Jung 2017: 59–63; Bromber et al. 2015; Reckwitz 2008), it follows that subjects the Muslim scout movement around 1935, was charged with treason for an alleged nationalist conspiracy and executed by the French authorities in 1941 (Buzar 1999).

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need guidance to navigate the contingencies of life. Representatives of the scout movement in their writings often highlighted the idea that the educational role of scouting did not consist simply in instructing boys and girls in practical knowledge (setting up camp, drawing knots, etc.), but, above all, in forming their characters and raising their ethical consciousness (see also Aroua and Illoul 1991: 29–37). In an article from 1946, a scout leader wrote that the first task was to “smooth down” (dégrossir) village children to prepare them for education, i.e. teach them a basic sense of order, discipline, and cleanliness and open up their horizons. Then, they would be ready for actual education which would lead them toward “a sense of responsibility, love for well-done work, a desire to live in a collective where everything is done with order and discipline, the service for others, the love of the neighbor, resourcefulness, development of the personality in its physical, moral, artistic, religious aspects.” The final goal of scouting, though, was only achieved in “emancipation,” defined as “a certain independence of the spirit, a well-understood love of freedom” (Tédjini 2010: 198). Hence all scout troops had, apart from their regular leaders, the murshid as a spiritual guide. The murshid was responsible for the scouts’ ethical education (as opposed to their technical instruction), as Bouzouzou emphasized: “Irshad consists in forging a soul, by inculcating a spirit, in creating inner life inside the boy, by waking his moral conscience.” He refuted the approach of certain teachers: “Because, instead of doing spiritual and moral education, they give religious instruction” (Bouzouzou 2010: 182). His colleague Mohamed El-Ghassiri (1915–1974), who also served as director of the Arabic school in Philippeville (Skikda), insisted that spiritual guides had to be especially up to date, “conversant with the methods of religious education in light of modern education and modern science” (Ghasiri 1951a: 8). A document of the scout movement from 1951 detailed that the “guidance program” (barnāmaj alirshād) consisted of lessons in the three fields of religion, ethics, and Arabic. It further stressed that murshidūn, though in a leadership position, were by no means external to scout life: they had to take part in the regular activities and fulfill the same duties as any other scout (Ghasiri 1951b: 13–14). Bouzouzou called the murshid “the soul of the group” and brought up, once again, the notion of example by stressing that to guide others he had to be a role model: “He educates more through his conduct than through his words. […] That is why he has to monitor himself” (Bouzouzou 2010: 185). The double meaning of conduct (conduite) as leading and behaving, which this definition of the murshid’s role implies, is also central to Foucault’s theory of governmentality, where he elaborates on the notion of guidance: to guide others one has to be able to guide oneself first (Foucault 2009: 191–226). One has to be a master of oneself and not a slave of one’s desires (Foucault 2005:

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413–452; Foucault 1988: 58–60). It is interesting to note that Ghassiri used the exact same formulation – “be the master of yourself and not the slave of your desires” (fa-kun sayyidan ʿalā nafsika, wa-lā ʿabdan li-shahawātika) – in a text addressed to his murshidūn and that the Scouts de France, through which many Muslim Algerian scout leaders had first come into contact with the movement, even elevated mastery of oneself to a scout law (Ghasiri 1951a: 12; Derouiche 1985: 20–21).10 Bouzouzou, for his part, stressed the function of fasting during the month of Ramadan as a “practical education of the will and the mastery of oneself” for the young Muslim (Bouzouzou 1952b: 1, emphasis in original). In her memoir, the guerrilla fighter Louisette Ighilahriz (b. 1936) gives a similar meaning to the religious precept of fasting, implying that the ascetic exercise of personal endurance during Ramadan actually prepared her for her later life in the maquis (Ighilahriz 2001: 32). To be the master of oneself is, thus, the first prerequisite for the guidance of others. In Foucauldian theory, the government of a country is but the last step which is conceptually preceded by the government of a business, a household or a family, and, in the first instance, the government of the self (Foucault 2009: 115–134). Foucault analyzes the notions of power and even of government not as institutions, but as relations that are inseparable from subjectivity: Although the theory of political power as an institution usually refers to a juridical conception of the subject of right, it seems to me that the analysis of governmentality – that is to say, of power as a set of reversible relationships – must refer to an ethics of the subject defined by the relationship of self to self. Quite simply, this means that in the type of analysis I have been trying to advance for some time you can see that power relations, governmentality, the government of the self and of others, and the relationship of self to self constitute a chain, a thread, and I think it is around these notions that we should be able to connect together the question of politics and the question of ethics. foucault 2005: 252

The prime examples for the double nature of conduct, to govern oneself and others, derive from ancient, particularly stoic, ethics and Christian pastoral care. The idea of government as pastoral care, which keeps a community religiously and ethically on the right track (Foucault 2009: 135–190, 227–254), 10

Scout law number 8 in the original wording by Robert Baden-Powell reads: “A scout smiles and whistles under all circumstances,” whereas the Scouts de France inserted the formulation “le Scout est maître de soi” into their 1920 translation.

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comes quite close to the concept of irshād in the Muslim scout movement just discussed. Although in the Islamic tradition institutions like the Christian clergy and monasticism generally did not exist and although the post of spiritual guide had evidently been adapted from the chaplains of contemporary Christian scout movements, the concept of guidance has of course been present in Muslim communities as well, not least in the North African sufi tradition, where the role of the murshid has often been very strong (for a different example see also Pieri in this volume; on the Algerian sufi tradition see McDougall 2017: 42–43). The notion of navigating through the world’s contingencies, on the other hand, is not only tied to the leadership of a community – as in the well-known image of steering the ship of state – but also, as Foucault shows, to the realms of medicine and of the personal conduct of life (Foucault 2005: 247–270). Again, the physical and mental government of the individual is inextricably linked to the government of a people. Self-cultivation is thus vital not only for subject formation, but also for setting up a government in the modern sense. But into which concrete practices do this necessary self-cultivation and the ethical formation of a subject translate? First of all, care for the self, as Foucault describes it, implies a life-long work on oneself, an “art of existence.” Once again, it is important to note that the term “care” (epiméleia/cura) is used in the same way with oneself, with a patient, with a household, and with the state (Foucault 1988: 43, 50). Even though it is a form of continuous selfformation or education (in the sense of Bildung, evoked earlier), the art of conducting one’s life is evidently not about the acquisition of technical knowledge or practical information (Foucault 2005: 271–314). This seems to be in line with the notion of moral education, as opposed to mere instruction, that the Algerian sources quoted above put forward. As mentioned earlier, the threefold “ascetics” of self-writing and mental and physical training lies at the basis of this constitution of ethical subjects. These practices lead to a constant monitoring of oneself, as Bouzouzou put it with regard to the murshid, or to a regular examination of conscience (Foucault 1988: 60–67). The ideal of speaking the truth (parrhēsía/libertas) again acquires the double sense of a critical self-examination and advice to guide others (Foucault 2005: 149–168, 371–412). In this vein, Bennabi proposed self-critique, especially for those who aspired to leadership, as the basis for reform: But all this calls for a deep understanding of man, his possibilities and inadequacies, and a serious examination of the social values of Islam. […] Now, for knowing man, one must first know oneself, and this ­demands

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a rigorous introspection on the part of Muslim leaders and a searching examination of conscience. bennabi 1988: 82

Furthermore, the Muslim thinker often used the medical language of treating the ills of the individual and society to describe programs of reform (e.g. Bennabi 1988: 13, 42) – another characteristic in the discourse on the care of the self (Foucault 1988: 54–58). In his 1926 proclamation, Ben Badis raises a couple of points that parallel the concerns found in Foucault’s analysis of ancient ascetics: in an enumeration of prescriptions which could also well be part of a scout manual, he urges his addressees to care for their health, to cultivate their minds, to be cleanly and thrifty, truthful in word and deed, and to guide their families. Apart from that, he states, in an almost Protestant manner, his firm refusal of all intermediate authorities between humans and God. All this Ben Badis considers “the basis of your well-being [saʿāda] and the condition of your undertaking useful work for yourself and others” (Bin Badis 1345/1926: 2). The good life, in this conception of self-cultivation, then, consists in permanent self-reflection and training. Beyond its practical role, athletic exercise here becomes a metaphor to characterize the preparedness for the contingencies of life: just as the wrestler trains to be prepared for every situation in an encounter, so everyone should prepare to navigate their lives (Foucault 2005: 225–228, 315–330). A passage from Aït Ahmed’s memoir about his time in Paris displays several characteristics of this kind of subjectivity – from athletic training and care of the self to the examination of conscience: But I have to say that, opening suddenly my briefcase, one would have found most of the time bar-bells and a swimsuit, because, for a time, I was frequenting almost daily the Lutétia swimming pool. It was Abdallah Filali who took me there and who alternated his artistic dives with praises for swimming. Undeniably, his stay in Paris had transformed him. […] He invests as much care in re-appropriating his body through sports and a vegetarian diet as in revisiting thoroughly his ideas, so as to rethink everything by himself and without prejudice. He expresses himself more often in French […]. aït ahmed 1983: 220

To prefer social reform and ethics over politics was not only a way to calm the colonial authorities’ suspicions (Gauthé 2003). It was the necessary first step to construct a modern governmentality. It seems that Algerian anti-colonial

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a­ ctivists were actually well aware of this: in a commemorative address for the war of independence in 1968, one of the major nationalist leaders, Houari Boumédiène (1932–1978), who by then had become independent Algeria’s head of state, asserted: “Counting on oneself, my dear fellow countrymen, is, in fact, the initial independence, upon which all other forms of independence are based” (Boumédiène 1979: 88). Other historic fln leaders – who would also serve as Algerian heads of state at different moments – emphasized the “moral” character of education inside the nationalist movement prior to independence, echoing the concerns of the Muslim scouts (Boudiaf 1976: 16; Bin Balla 1985: 62; see also Zerguini 2000: 209–210). And Bennabi always condemned not only theological disputes out of touch with ordinary people’s lives, but also practical politics, which he referred to with the colloquial Algerian term boulitique – denoting pointless debates and endless maneuvers for the sake of personal gain – and advocated an ethical renewal instead (Bennabi 1988: 51). In his memoir he defined his approach, when talking about a fellow student: “He saw things politically, I saw them in terms of civilization” (Bennabi 2006: 166). Although the ultimate goal remains to end colonial domination (be it in the form of independence or of equality as French citizens), politics remain secondary: it is the effort of every individual to pursue a good, ethical life and live up to the challenges of the modern world that will, finally, lead to the necessary reform of society. 4

Muslim Mass Modernity

But forming a modern subject is obviously not about a simple adaptation or mimicry of Western models: “it is evidently more difficult to know and make the man of a civilization than […] to teach a monkey to carry a tie,” as Bennabi put it with his usual poignancy (Bennabi 1988: 13). On the contrary, “only someone who is authentic can be truly modern,” as Lucie Ryzova has pointed out in a similar context (Ryzova 2014: 3; see also Sinclair in this volume). Admiration for Joe Louis is only useful if complemented by emulation of the Prophet Muhammad. That is why Hayy bin Yaqzan replaces The Jungle Book and the scout ethos is tied not only to Sir Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941), but also to the Qur’an or the sunna of the Prophet (see e.g. Aroua and Illoul 1991: 30–31; Baghli 2000: 19–20). The girl guide leader Zhour Ounissi (b. 1937) – later independent Algeria’s first female government minister – argued for the much debated issue of women’s equality, inside the scout movement and in the nation at large, with references to the female companions of the Prophet, probably also to discard views about the inauthenticity of women’s emancipation (Wanisi 1955).

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Ben Badis, for his part, specified his categorical imperative in the following words, making it effectively an admonition to be authentically modern: “[…] there is no life for you outside your nation, your homeland, your religion, your language and the beauty of your customs. And if you want to live for all that, then be a son of your age and go with the times” (Bin Badis 1345/1926: 2). Although authenticity is of prime importance, authors like Ben Badis or Bennabi did not propose an Islamic modernity distinct from a Western one. They rather exhorted their fellow Muslims to take part in modernity as it existed globally and to create a new synthesis out of Western material progress or technological advancement, on the one hand, and Islamic spirituality on the other. Bennabi – himself trained first as an Islamic jurisprudent in Constantine and then as an electrical engineer in Paris – insisted that a reformed Muslim society had to combine modernity with the true spirit of the religious message to couple “science and conscience, ethics and technique, physics and metaphysics” (Bennabi 1988: 92). The efforts of Algerian organizations such as the iṣlāḥ movement, the Muslim scouts, or the nationalist parties were clearly part of a global moment of “organized modernity,” to employ Peter Wagner’s terminology in his conceptualization of successive modernities. Organized modernity is defined by the extension of modern practices beyond the rather elitist bourgeois circles of earlier “liberal modernity,” in the political realm particularly through new mass movements (Wagner 1994: 73–78, 89–96). In adapting Wagner’s theoretical framework to Islamic reform movements, Dietrich Jung and Kirstine Sinclair refer to three emblematic figures from Egypt: the great scholar Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905), representing nineteenth-century bourgeois modernity, Hasan al-Banna (1906–49), who with his Muslim Brotherhood clearly stands for organized mass modernity, and, finally, Amr Khalid (b. 1967), a popular TV preacher and, hence, a figure exemplifying pluralistic “extended liberal” modernity (Jung and Sinclair 2015: 31–36). In the context of colonial Algeria, modern forms of education and employment, modern media, and new possibilities of political participation spread beyond the settler population of French citizens between the 1920s and 1950s. The shift from an exclusivist politics of – rather collaborationist – notables to modern – anti-colonial – mass mobilization is very present in many accounts on the period (e.g. Harbi 2001: 54–59). One major model for this was certainly the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which had pioneered the concern with a reform of Islam that would not be about theology, but about action, not about individual thinkers, but about the popular masses (e.g. Bennabi 1988: 83–86; see also Krämer 2015a, 2015b; Jung and Zalaf in this volume). Even the “Algerian Abduh” Ben Badis, with his engagement in the fields of education, scouting

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and sports, is actually closer to Banna, who animated a modern mass movement, than to the famous mufti of Egypt with his more elitist intell ectualism. Interestingly, the scout guide Bouzouzou made reference to both with his paper al-Manar, picking up the title of the famous journal edited by Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida (1865–1935) in Cairo and repeatedly publishing texts by Hasan al-Banna and other Muslim Brothers (e.g. al-Banna 1953).11 Algerian organized modernity during the period in question abound s with notions of order, discipline and even the creation of “new men” (e.g. Bennabi 1988: 92). Harbi, combining his own experience as a young activist with the historian’s perspective, characterizes the approach of youth movements at the time in the following way: I was fascinated with the dream of modernization. My generation did not hesitate to try and engage our people, if necessary by force, against those who refused our cult of science, our belief in reason and progress. We had to make up for our retardation to assure our country its place as a state in the concert of nations […]. It is no coincidence, then, that the idea of authoritarian modernization became integrated into the independent Algerian state. As a young man, I was unaware that this path suited perfectly the strata in the process of social ascension, all directed towards the future. harbi 2001: 81

In fact, the developmentalism of the post-colonial state, especially after 1965 under the authoritarian Boumédiène regime with its socialist leanings, can be seen as the realization of modern governmentality (Foucault 2009: 29–86), which the late colonial discourse and practice of self-government had helped to prepare. On the other hand, the modern Muslim Algerian reformers tried to exhibit a certain tension between the insistence on order and discipline, on the one hand, and the concern with individual self-cultivation, on the other. In the colonial situation – and to an even larger extent in a settler colony like A ­ lgeria – the construction of a distinct communitarian identity seems paramount. On the other hand, self-reform toward modernity implies an ­autonomous subject, 11

It lies beyond the purview of this chapter to discuss in detail the complex development of the various strands of Islamic reform and political Islam over the twentieth century (for an overview Lauzière 2015; see also Krämer 2015b: 198–201). It might be mentioned, though, that Bennabi, in particular, has exerted a lasting influence on Islamist movements in North Africa (Johnston 2004; Walsh 2007).

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a responsible, “emancipated” individual (see also Wagner 1994: 94–96). The scout movement proposed a cultivation of the self, not in complete freedom, but following the guidance of others and emulating examples like the Prophet. In general, it evidently teaches, at the same time, individual achievement and responsibility for the community. The same holds true for team sports; one memoir, for example, asserts the importance of soccer in anti-colonial character formation: “Soccer taught us a great deal about the human being,” the author writes about his youth in the 1940s, “the ball, in its brutal course towards the goals, announced victory or defeat, beginning with a perfect dribbling or a strong and precise shot. […] It was actions like these, shared with one’s teammates, that formed in everyone, over time, a secret and sweet self-affirmation” (M’Hamsadji 2011: 215–216). Maybe it is even possible to find a little bit of ʿAmr Khalid avant la lettre – the paradigmatic figure for individualist, neoliberal Islamic modernity – in Algerian reform efforts prior to independence. The liberal spirit of self-help and competition with the settler population, on the sports pitch and beyond, actually pervades many accounts of the period. Ighilahriz recounts how her father would not accept racist discrimination as an excuse for a lack of achievement – he just told his children to work harder (Ighilahriz 2001: 28, 38). Bennabi refuted claims that effective action was impossible or that poverty hindered ­Algerians from challenging the colonial structure; for him, the problem lay simply in the right deployment of material and human resources (Bennabi 1988: 45–47; Bennabi 1999: 447–451). Already Ben Badis had expressly demanded from his fellow Muslims: “Keep your money, it is the basis for your works. Pursue all possible ways to gain and augment it and close every door which leads to spending it” (Ben Badis 1345/1926: 2). Even though the notions of individualism, self-help and an entrepreneurial spirit in an Islamic framework are often perceived as recent, “post-Islamist” phenomena (e.g. Haenni 2005; for a related but slightly different approach see Cevik in this volume), in many places they can actually be traced back to the colonial era (see also Krämer 2011). As Wagner rightly argues, not only was the era of organized modernity the high time of mass politics and the welfare state, but it also laid the foundations for modern consumer culture and a further rationalization of work (Wagner 1994: 77–88). This is especially pertinent for Algerian anti-colonial activists from the new middle class, many of whom were shaped by their experience as immigrant workers in metropolitan France (Blanchard 2014). But this also means that the different successive modernities should not be understood as neatly separated from each other. Features characteristic of “extended liberal modernity” might well be found in the period of “organized modernity” already: if we study neoliberalism, for example, not just

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from the vantage point of its political triumph in the 1980s (in the West as well as in the Middle East, including Algeria),12 but rather from a perspective that looks for its historical trajectory, the middle of the twentieth century offers valuable insights. In his second lecture on the history of governmentality, Foucault showed how early neoliberal discourse established the notions of selfhelp and permanent work on the self, now understood as investment in “human capital” (Foucault 2010: 215–266). The resulting individualizing and even psychologizing of economic fortune (Illouz 2008: 58–103) is actually reminiscent of Bennabi’s and Fanon’s diagnosis of the colonial condition, with which this chapter started: while Bennabi hardly mentions French colonial policies at all, even in Fanon’s analysis the psychiatrist clearly takes advantage over the Marxist. Both focus not on the colonizers and the political or economic structures they have implemented, but rather on the colonized self. 5 Conclusion Anti-colonial reform efforts in French-ruled Algeria were, above all, directed toward the formation of modern Muslim subjectivities. These efforts inscribe themselves into the global moment of organized modernity with the organization of participatory practices through political and social mass movements. Apart from that, they take up on liberal notions of self-help and individualism that have continued to play a central role in the discourse and practice of ­Islamic reform. During the late colonial period, different authors of programmatic writings, from the Islamic scholar Ben Badis in the 1920s to the third-worldist intellectual Fanon in the 1950s, seem more concerned with an ethical and activist renewal of the self than with the concrete political struggles to change the legal or economic status quo of colonial rule. But also young activists, who often combined membership in the scouts and sports clubs with engagement in the iṣlāḥ movement and in nationalist parties (e.g. Harbi 2001: 75–87; Abdoun 1990: 21–32; Kechaï n.d.: 18–22), recount their experiences in terms of rising consciousness, of character building and subject formation. For all these reformers, getting rid of colonialism is, first of all, an ethical problem, not a political 12

Even though Algeria officially remains a socialist People’s Republic with an immense public sector to this day, the post-Boumédiène era after 1978 was marked by a progressive economic liberalization, which, together with the failed political liberalization that followed, was partly responsible for the unrest leading up to the civil war of the 1990s (McDougall 2017: 270–284).

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one. A recurrent idea is that, to move out of colonial subjection and become an active subject, one has to be one’s own master, lead one’s life well, so that one can finally guide others. In this view, young people have to follow examples – from the Prophet Muhammad to successful contemporary athletes – in their personal conduct, until they are able to set an example themselves. Foucault’s theory of governmentality has proven useful to interpret the instances regarding self-cultivation from the sources in the context of decolonization which starts, as Boumédiène put it, with personal independence, i.e. with the decolonization of body and mind. References Abdoun, Mahmoud. 1990. Témoignage d’un militant du mouvement nationaliste. Algiers: Dahlab. Aït Ahmed, Hocine. 1983. Mémoires d’un combattant. L’esprit de l’indépendance 1942– 1952. Paris: Messinger. Amouchi, Si Brahim. 1991. Mémoires d’un éducateur de la jeunesse. Constantine: El-Baâth. Aroua, Ali and Illoul, Mohamed Tayeb. 1991. Le groupe Emir Khaled de Belcourt. Un maillon des Scouts Musulmans Algériens 1946–1962. Algiers: Dahlab. Baghli, Abdelouahab. 2000. L’itinéraire d’un Chef de Meute: Khaled Merzouk. Scouts Musulmans Algériens, Groupe El Mansourah de Tlemcen 1936–1962. Tlemcen: Baghli. Al-Banna, Hasan 1953. “Suʾal wa-jawab ʿala mabadiʾ al-ikhwan al-muslimin.” al-Manar, January 23: 5–6. Bennabi, Malek. 1988. Islam in History and Society, translated by Asma Rashid. Islamabad: Islamic Research Institute. Bennabi, Malek. 1999. “The Conditions of the Renaissance,” translated by Asma Rashid. Islamic Studies 38(3): 447–457. Bennabi, Malek. 2001. “The Conditions of Renaissance,” translated by Asma Rashid. Islamic Studies 40(2): 305–314. Bennabi, Malek. 2006. Mémoires d’un témoin du siècle. L’enfant – l’étudiant – l’écrivain – les carnets, Nour-Eddine Boukrouh (ed.). Algiers: Samar. Bin Badis, ʿAbd al-Hamid. 1345/1926. “Ayyuha al-muslim al-jazaʾiri.” al-Shihab, Safar 15/ August 23: 2. Bin Badis, ʿAbd al-Hamid. 1388/1968. “Daʿwat Jamʿiyyat al-ʿulamaʾ al-muslimin aljazaʾiriyyin wa-usuluha.” In Kitab athar Ibn Badis, vol. ii.1: Maqalat ijtimaʿiyya tarbawiyya akhlaqiyya diniyya siyasiyya, Ammar al-Talibi(ed.). Algiers and Damascus: Dar wa-maktabat al-sharika al-jazaʾiriyya and Dar al-yaqza al-ʿarabiyya: 131–134.

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Bin Balla, Ahmad. 1985. Hadith maʿrifi shamil, Muhammad Khalifa (ed.). Beirut: Dar al-wahda. Blanchard, Emmanuel. 2014. “Un « deuxième âge » de l’émigration en France?” In Abderrahmane Bouchène, Jean-Pierre Peyroulou, Ouanassa Siari Tengour and Sylvie Thénault (eds.), Histoire de l’Algérie à la période coloniale 1830–1962. Paris: La Découverte: 589–595. Boudiaf, Mohamed. 1976. La préparation du 1er novembre, suivi par La lettre ouverte aux Algériens. Paris: Collection El Jarida and Éditions de l’Étoile. Boumédiène, Houari. 1979. Citations du Président Boumédiène, Khalfa Mameri (ed.), 3rd edition. Algiers: SNED. Bouzouzou, Mahmoud. 1948–49. “Le culte de l’homme.” Bulletin Scouts Musulmans Algériens 1: 9–24. Bouzouzou, Mahmoud. 1950. Le dernier messager. Algiers: SMA/Mahteb. Bouzouzou, Mahmoud. 1952a. “12 Rabi Al-Awal 1372 – Anniversaire de la naissance de Mohammed: Esprit et Action, tel est le message du Prophète.” La Voix des Jeunes, November: 1–2. Bouzouzou, Mahmoud. 1952b. “Ramadhan : École de maîtrise de soi.” La Voix des Jeunes May: 1–2. Bouzouzou, Mahmoud. 2010. “El-Irchâd (L’éducation religieuse).” In Chikh Bouamrane and Mohamed Djidjelli (eds.), Scouts Musulmans Algériens (1935–1955). Algiers: Dar El Oumma: 180–188. Buzar, Hamdan. 1999. “al-Shahid Muhammad Buras wal-kashshafa al-jazaʾiriyya walharaka al-wataniyya.” In al-Kashshafa al-islamiyya al-jazaʾiriyya: dirasat wa-buhuth al-nadwa al-wataniyya al-ula hawla tarikh al-kashshafa al-islamiyya al-jazaʾiriyya. Algiers: al-Markaz al-watani lil-dirasat wal-buhuth fi al-haraka al-wataniyya wathawrat awwal nufambir 1954: 105–113. Bromber, Katrin, Paolo Gaibazzi, Franziska Roy, Abdoulaye Sounaye, and Julian Tadesse. 2015. “‘The Possibilities Are Endless’: Progress and the Taming of Contingency.” ZMO Programmatic Texts 9: www.zmo.de/publikationen/ProgramaticTexts/ progress2015.pdf. Cooper, Frederick. 2005. Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press. Courreye, Charlotte. 2014. “L’école musulmane algérienne de Ibn Bâdîs dans les années 1930, de l’alphabétisation de tous comme enjeu politique.” Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 136: remmm.revues.org/8500. Derouiche, Mohamed. 1985. Le scoutisme, école du patriotisme. Algiers: ENAL/OPU. Faci, Saïd. 1931. Mémoires d’un Instituteur Algérien d’origine indigène. Constantine: Attali. Fanon, Frantz. 1991. The Wretched of the Earth, translated by Constance Farrington. New York: Grove.

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Fanon, Frantz. 2007. A Dying Colonialism, translated by Haakon Chevalier. New York: Grove. Foucault, Michel. 1982. “The Subject and Power.” In Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow (eds), Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 208–226. Foucault, Michel. 1988. The History of Sexuality, vol. iii: The Care of the Self, translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books. Foucault, Michel. 1997. “Self Writing,” translated by Robert Hurley. In Paul Rabinow (ed.), Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth. New York: The New Press: 207–221. Foucault, Michel. 2005. The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1981–82, Frédéric Gros (ed.), translated by Graham Burchell. New York: Picador. Foucault, Michel. 2009. Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977–1978, Michel Senellart (ed.), translated by Graham Burchell. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Foucault, Michel. 2010. The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978– 1979, Michel Senellart (ed.), translated by Graham Burchell. New York: Picador. Al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad. 2015. Al-Ghazālī on Disciplining the Soul – Kitāb Riyāḍat al-nafs & on Breaking the Two Desires – Kitab Kasr al-shahwatayn: Books xxii and xxiii of the Revival of the Religious Sciences – Ihyaʾ ʿulūm al-din, translated by Timothy J. Winter (ed.). Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society. Gauthé, Jean-Jacques. 2003. “Les Scouts musulmans algériens vus par les services de renseignement français (1945–1962).” In Nicolas Bancel, Daniel Denis and Youssef Fatès (eds): De l’Indochine à l’Algérie. La jeunesse en mouvements des deux côtés du miroir colonial, 1940–1962. Paris: La Découverte: 83–93. Al-Ghasiri, Muhammad al-Mansuri. 1950. “al-Shaykh Abd al-Hamid Bin Badis walkashshafa al-islamiyya al-jazaʾiriyya.” al-Hayat, April-May: 5–7. Al-Ghasiri, Muhammad al-Mansuri. 1951a. “Ilayka ayyuha al-murshid al-kashshaf.” alHayat January: 8–12. Al-Ghasiri, Muhammad al-Mansuri. 1951b. “Qararat majlis al-irshad.” al-Hayat January: 13–15. Haenni, Patrick. 2005. L’islam de marché. L’autre révolution conservatrice. Paris: Seuil. Harbi, Mohammed. 2001. Une vie debout. Mémoires politiques, vol. i: 1945–1962. Paris: La Découverte. Ighilahriz, Louisette. 2001. Algérienne. Paris: Fayard/Calmann-Lévy. Illouz, Eva. 2008. Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of SelfHelp. Los Angeles and London: University of California Press. Jacob, Wilson Chacko. 2011. Working Out Egypt: Effendi Masculinity and Subject Formation in Colonial Modernity, 1870–1940. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

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Johnston, David L. 2004. “Fuzzy Reformist-Islamist Borders: Malek Bennabi and Rachid Ghannouchi on Civilization.” The Maghreb Review 29(1–4): 123–152. Jung, Dietrich. 2017. Muslim History and Social Theory: A Global Sociology of Modernity. Cham: Springer/Palgrave Macmillan. Jung, Dietrich and Sinclair, Kirstine. 2015. “Multiple Modernities, Modern Subjectivities and Social Order: Unity and Difference in the Rise of Islamic Modernities.” Thesis Eleven 130(1): 22–42. Kaddache, Mahfoud. 2003. “‘Les soldats de l’avenir.’ Les Scouts musulmans algériens (1930–1962).” In Nicolas Bancel, Daniel Denis and Youssef Fatès (eds): De l’Indochine à l’Algérie. La jeunesse en mouvements des deux côtés du miroir colonial, 1940–1962. Paris: La Découverte: 68–77. El-Kechaï, Mohamed. (n.d. [1996]). 60 années de lutte ou la longue marche d’un hef scout musulman volontaire du Croissant rouge. n.p. [Tizi-Ouzou]: n.p. Krämer, Gudrun. 2011. “Islam, Kapitalismus und die protestantische Ethik.” In Gunilla Budde (ed.), Kapitalismus. Historische Annäherungen. Göttingen and Oakville (CT): Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht: 116–146. Krämer, Gudrun. 2015a. “Die Erziehung des aktiven Muslims. Hasan al-Banna, die ägyptischen Muslimbrüder und das Projekt der islamischen Reform.” In Tobias Georges, Jens Scheiner and Ilinca Tanaseanu-Döbler (eds.), Bedeutende Lehrerfiguren. Von Platon bis Hasan al-Banna. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck: 333–358. Krämer, Gudrun. 2015b. “Making Modern Muslims: Islamic Reform, Hasan al-Banna, and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.” In Ralph Weber and Sven Trakulhun (eds.), Delimiting Modernities: Conceptual Challenges and Regional Responses. Lanham (MD): Lexington: 197–214. Lacheraf, Mostefa. 2003. Des noms et des lieux. Mémoires d’une Algérie oubliée, 2nd edition. Algiers: Casbah Éditions. Lauzière, Henri. 2015. The Making of Salafism: Islamic Reform in the Twentieth Century. New York and London: Columbia University Press. Louanchi, Salah. 1951. “Quelques propos … sur le Sport.” Bulletin d’Information – Scouts Musulmans Algériens 5: 30–32. McDougall, James. 2004. “The Shabiba Islamiyya of Algiers: Education, Authority, and Colonial Control, 1921–57.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 24(1): 147–154. McDougall, James. 2014. “Abdelhamid Ben Badis et l’association des oulémas.” In Abderrahmane Bouchène, Jean-Pierre Peyroulou, Ouanassa Siari Tengour and Sylvie Thénault (eds.): Histoire de l’Algérie à la période coloniale 1830–1962. Paris: La Découverte: 387–392. McDougall, James. 2017. A History of Algeria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Merdaci, Abdelmadjid. 2007. “’Djam’iyat ettarbiya oua etta’lim’ (1930–1957). Au carrefour des enjeux identitaires.” Insaniyat 35–36: 97–107.

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M’Hamsadji, Kaddour. 2011. Le petit café de mon père. Récits au passé. Algiers: OPU. Naylor, Phillip C. 2006. “The Formative Influence of French Colonialism on the Life and Thought of Malek Bennabi (Malik bn Nabi).” French Colonial History 7: 129–142. N.N. 1952. Abdelhamid Ben Baddis. La Voix des Jeunes. May: 3. Pavlovitch, Pavel. 2019. “Ḥadīth.” In Kate Fleet et al. (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Islam, Three. Leiden and Boston: Brill: dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_ COM_30163. Reckwitz, Andreas. 2008. “Moderne: Der Kampf um die Öffnung und Schließung von Kontingenzen.” In Stephan Moebius and Andreas Reckwitz (eds.), Poststrukturalisti­ sche Sozialwissenschaften. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp: 226–244. Ryzova, Lucie. 2014. The Age of the Efendiyya: Passages of Modernity in National-Colonial Egypt. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Tédjini, Tahar. 2010. “Mission de notre Scoutisme: Dégrossir, Éduquer, Émanciper.” In Chikh Bouamrane and Mohamed Djidjelli (eds.), Scouts Musulmans Algériens (1935–1955). Algiers: Dar El Oumma: 197–199. Wagner, Peter. 1994. A Sociology of Modernity: Liberty and Discipline. London and New York: Routledge. Walsh, Sebastian J. 2007. “Killing Post-Almohad Man: Malek Bennabi, Algerian Islamism and the Search for a Liberal Governance.” The Journal of North African Studies 12(2): 235–254. Wanisi, Zuhur. 1955. “al-Marʾa al-muslima wal-haraka al-kashfiyya.” al-Hayat November–December: 7–8. Watanabe, Shoko. 2012. “Organizational Changes in the Algerian National Movement as Seen through the Muslim Boy Scouts in the 1930s and 1940s: The Struggle for Influence between the Association of Ulama and the PPA-MTLD.” Journal of Sophia Asian Studies 30: 41–69. Wien, Peter. 2017. Arab Nationalism: The Politics of History and Culture in the Modern Middle East. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Zerguini, Colonel Mohamed. 2000. Une vie de combats et de lutte. Témoignages et appréciations. Algiers: En-Nahdha.

Chapter 3

Daily Ritual, Mission, and Transformation of the Self: The Case of Tablighi Jamaat Zacharias Pieri 1

Introduction: A Muslim Missionary Movement

The impacts of migration by Muslims to non-Muslim countries over the past several decades (in particular to liberal democracies in the West) have opened up avenues for new lived experiences and transformations of modern selfhoods. Within the West, Muslims have attempted to create (whether consciously or not) modern subjectivities that allow for meaningful lives in diverse spaces. Globalization has been a catalyst in the (re)shaping of modern selfhoods, or as Paul Gilroy (2000: 113) puts it, “identity is an anchor in globalization.” Iner and Yucel (2015: 3) go even further in arguing that identity “becomes a beacon in the middle of vacillating borders and a shield to protect one from being everything or nothing.” In this sense, there has been an “interlacing of Islamic traditions with globally relevant social imaginaries,” which has contributed to the “construction of collectively acknowledged ways of forming meaningful Muslim selfhood” (Jung 2016: 18). For members of Tablighi Jamaat, an international Muslim missionary movement, much emphasis is placed on working among Muslim communities in order to shape modern Muslim selfhoods in an Islamic way. For participants in the activities of Tablighi Jamaat, the world as it is now and especially in the west, is seen to be in a state of jāhiliyya, that is the state of ignorance that is said to have existed prior to the revelation of the Qur’an in Arabia. From this perspective the world has deserted its dependence on Allah and has drifted into a state of decadence and confused immorality where identities are increasingly fused together, and less emphasis is placed on Islam as a distinguishing marker of identity. Tablighis believe that this has happened because Muslims as the vice-regents of Allah have become lazy, forsaking their religious and social duties (Ali 2006: 182). Despite significant differences between the outlook of Tablighi Jamaat and the more overtly political ideologies of Adbul Maududi (1903– 1979) and Sayyid Qutub (1906–1966), discourse over the nature of jāhiliyya in particular seem to have converged. Many participants in Tablighi Jamaat identify with Maududi’s recoinning of jāhiliyya as the “new b­ arbarity” that is

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­incompatible with Islam; and with Sayyid Qutb’s sentiment that jāhiliyya “is now, not in that simple and primitive form of the ancient jāhiliyya, but takes the form of claiming that the right to create values, to legislate rules of collective behavior, and to choose any way of life rests with men, without regard to what Allah has prescribed” (Qutb 2006: 27). To rectify this, Tablighi Jamaat leaders stress the importance of missionary activity by Muslims among other Muslims as a means of re-orienting lapsed Muslims back to a correct understanding of Islam and solidifying an identity based on what they regard as an authentic understanding of Islam. Tablighi leaders are conscious however, that participation in the movement impacts not only those who are the targets of missionary activity, but importantly also those who are doing the missionizing. There is an understanding that the process of engaging in missionary activities has a powerful effect upon the formation of selfhoods, and indeed stress that this is one of the main benefits of joining the movement. Indeed, those who partake in the activities of Tablighi Jamaat often view themselves as participants rather than followers or adherents, and this serves to capture the experiential and transformative aspects of the movement. This is well captured by Noor who notes that participation in the work of Tablighi Jamaat is seen by Tablighis as “a state of being, a process of becoming” (Noor 2012: 166). For Tablighi leaders, the process of engaging in missionary activities and traveling away from the familiar to the unknown in order to preach to other Muslims is essential for the development of what they would define as an appropriate modern selfhood. This chapter will examine the ways in which Tablighis shape modern selfhoods as a result of participation in the movement, and will address the following interrelated questions: Do the daily rituals of the movement, and going out on mission help participants to develop a sense of agency? And do these impact on the formation of new Muslim subjectivities? To do this, the chapter moves away from a pure analysis of the canonical and important texts of Tablighi Jamaat to the exploration of forms of discourse and social practices in the everyday lives of its members. The chapter will investigate how everyday ritual practices, aspects of purity, and the ways in which texts are (re)interpreted contribute to the individual and collective identity construction among Tablighis living primarily in Britain but also more broadly in the west. For Tablighi Jamaat the formation of modern Muslim selfhoods is of vital importance, as the belief is that an identity centered on an authentic form of Islam acts as protection in a fast changing world. It is clear that missionary activities can serve to impact the lives of those being proselytized, but the focus of this chapter is on Tablighi missionary tours as a means of transformation of the self.

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2 Methods The research for this chapter is based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork among Tablighi communities in the UK for almost a decade between 2009 and 2018. The period between 2009 to 2012 included regular (almost weekly) attendance at Thursday evening bayan – or motivational preaching, interviews with leaders and grassroots members, collecting and analyzing Tablighi literature (e.g. Elahi 1992; Elias 2004; Hasani 1987; Ilyas 1967; Kandhlawi 1997; Miah 2001; Nadwi 2002; No’mani 2001). Between 2013 and 2018, visits were made to Tablighi mosques in the UK for Thursday evening bayan during the summer months (June to August), while also keeping up with video lectures by prominent Tablighis online as recommended by different Tablighi participants. Elements of risk and security were important considerations of the research design and implementation. Anonymity was granted to all participants so as to mitigate what Lambert terms “risks of harm,” except in instances where their role was a matter of public record and their consent was forthcoming (Lambert 2010: 75). All names used in this chapter are pseudonyms to protect the identity of individual participants. While in the past, Urdu was the most common language associated with Tablighi gatherings in the UK, over time, the use of English has become more prominent, and now any sermons delivered in Urdu are translated into English, and in some cases Arabic at the movement’s key mosques in the UK. Tablighi Jamaat’s mosque in West Ham where I spent most of my time researching the movement (and which has since relocated due to failure to comply with planning permissions) was divided into three separate prayer halls, with each room having the sermon translated into English, Urdu, or Arabic, depending on the language of the person speaking. Given the central importance of teaching to Tablighi Jamaat, efforts are made for the talks to be accurately translated, though some words are not – for example ʿamal (work or effort), īmān (faith), ḥaqq (truth) – as it is assumed that the majority of those present would understand the meanings. All of my interviews were conducted in English, and I was able to purchase the official publications of the movement in English both at its mosque shop in London and Dewsbury. Almost all discussion on internet forums that Tablighi activists recommended to me was in English (demonstrating that English has become a key language alongside Urdu for many Tablighis, and many, though not all, of the recommended YouTube videos had English translations. Tablighi Jamaat enforces strict segregation of the sexes and as such all of the participants in this research are men. Though these men talked about the ways in which women can participate in the movement, I was not able to verify

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any of the details with female members. Additionally, I was not able to observe any women attending any sessions as any Tablighi mosque that I visited, due to women not being permitted to attend the gatherings, though in interviews with senior members of the movement, the claim was that women were encouraged to pray at home, rather than prohibited from attending the mosque. In order to try and gain a better perspective about women’s involvement with Tablighi Jamaat, I supplemented interview data with ethnographic accounts provided by female researchers, including Barbara Metcalf (2004) and Marloes Janson (2014). The chapter will draw on the ethnographic data to argue that donating time to Tablighi activities is integral to shaping the subjectivities of Tablighis and that every day practices which the movement seeks to inculcate in every member are very important and influential in solidifying those subjectivities. Important to this will be the notion that all participants in Tablighi Jamaat, whether on mission or not, are to structure their daily lives in direct imitation of the ṣaḥāba – or the companions of the Prophet Mohammad. The daily lives of committed Tablighis are regulated in minute detail from how to drink a glass of water to how to sleep in bed at night. Through the everyday experiences of members – the seemingly mundane – we can gain a better understanding of how following rules in every aspect of living can serve to internalize those behaviors and over time forge a distinct Muslim subjectivity. Aspects that were explored in interviews with participants included the ways in which the religious traditions of Tablighi Jamaat condition the formation of modern Muslim subjectivities, and the extent to which taking part in Tablighi Jamaat missionary tours changed the ways in which participants view themselves. These questions are of vital importance when looking at the impact of Tablighi missionary tours on the formation of modern subjectivities especially as Tablighi men while out on missionary tours are expected to cook, clean, iron, and do many other non-traditional tasks that would fall to their female relatives at home, and as such claim that they return as better husbands, and as better members of society. The movement also claims that teenage boys who take part in missionary activities are less prone to use drugs or gang activities when back home. As such the movement in the west argues that far from being isolationist, they are a force for producing responsible citizens who are active and ethical members of the community (Pieri 2015). 3

Theoretical Framework

The notion of how individuals form their subjectivities was central to the thinking of Michel Foucault whose work continues to be influential in debates

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on subjectivity formation. Foucault was primarily concerned with how subjects regulate themselves, and how “a human being turns him or herself into a subject” (Foucault 1988: 19). Foucault described “the encounter between technologies of domination of others and those of the self” as governmentality and saw subjectivity produced through individual self-regulation as an effect of power (2003: 147). A central aspect of the concept of governmentality is what Foucault calls “technologies of the self,” “which permit individuals to effect by their own means, or with the help of others, a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality” (Foucault 1988: 18). At the core of this is a subject that Garland (1997) calls the “responsibilized actor,” that is the individual who actively participates in shaping his or her self and governs him or herself to align with larger social, governmental, and institutional aims (Schneider 2012: 406). Thus, governments or socio-cultural institutions exert power over individuals “not through coercion of passive subjects, but through the production of subjects who choose to be active in their own government” (Schneider 2012: 407). This is something that is clearly seen with participants in the Tablighi Jamaat, for example who willingly choose to live their lives according to the rules that govern every aspect of the way they live, or through participation in missionary tours with the expectation that these will impact their notions of their own self. As Foucault states, “power is exercised only over free subjects, and only insofar as they are free” (Foucault 1982: 790). While individuals may choose the various ways in which they care for the self and constitute themselves as subjects, they are limited by the patterns that are available in their culture. That is, the constitution of subjects always takes place within some system of truth. For Tablighis, this system of truth is found in the structuring, or ordering, of the world according to Tablighi principles, and is shaped through the daily rituals of the movement and in the missionary activities in which members participate. The truths that Tablighi Jamaat as a movement holds dear often jar with the prevailing outlook in the societies in which it operates in, and this is especially the case in the west, where secular and liberal values form the sociocultural milieu. Through ritualizing every aspect of daily life and through using proselytization as a central tool to its activities, Tablighis gain a sense of agency that frees them of local norms and cultures. Stewart argues that through providing connections between “individual participants and an imagined transnational community,” participants gain agency which he defines as “acting autonomously from cultural constraints […] to purposefully fashion one’s perceptions of and interactions with external actors, events, and situations.” It is this that is

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referred to as subjectivity, and that consciously shaping “a more pious subjectivity is a primary means by which Tablighis assert agency” (Stewart 2018: 4). As such, the form of power that Foucault talks about “applies itself to immediate everyday life which categorizes the individual, marks him by his own individuality, attaches him to his own identity, imposes a law of truth on him which he must recognize and which others have to recognize in him” (Foucault 1982: 781). Foucault places importance on context as a determining factor in subjectivity formation. In the case of this chapter, contextual factors refer to both the experiences of members of Tablighi Jamaat living in relatively secular western liberal democracies, as well as the image of the good life, which Tablighi Jamaat as an institution carves out for their members, based on a specific understanding of Islam. Belonging to a transnational organization such as Tablighi Jamaat “both frees one from local constraints on agency and encourages one to assert agency by reshaping one’s subjectivity to embody a perception of transnational orthodoxy” (Stewart 2018: 4). Tablighi Jamaat as a movement is an example of governmentality beyond the state because for those who participate in its activities, true piety is defined as īmān (or faith), and this is located in the heart and cannot be enacted or forced by the state or through legislation (see also Cevik, this volume). This is a voluntary choice. The chapter also draws upon Jung and Sinclair’s definition of modernity – “namely the principle belief in the contingent nature of social life” (Jung and Sinclair 2015: 25). Modern individuals and collectives, as Jung and Sinclair put it, “live in constant tension between order and uncertainty. At the macro level this social contingency raises the question as to the way in which a man-made social order is possible; at the micro-level individuals are confronted with the task of constructing their own meaningful forms of subjectivity” (Jung and Sinclair 2015: 25). 4

Tablighi Jamaat

Tablighi Jamaat was founded in India in 1926 by Maulana Muhammad Ilyas (1885–1944). Since that time it has gone on to expand at a rapid pace and now has a presence in almost every country across the globe, and estimates of participation in the movement’s activities have ranged up to 80 million. The key drivers behind the movement have been discussed in detail by a number of studies to date, and all refer to the famous Six Points of Tabligh as outlined by Ilyas. These points focus on (1) the kalima – the articulation of the Muslim faith by all Tablighi adherents; (2) ṣalāt – commitment to performing all of the daily

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prayers and in the correct manner; (3) ʿilm and zikr – commitment from all Tablighi adherents to acquire religious knowledge and to remember God; (4) ikrām – to always respect fellow Muslims; (5) niyyat – the striving to reorient one’s own self through pure intentions; and (6) nafr – the donation of time to go out in the path of God to bring others to the correct understanding of the faith (Ilyas 1967; Elahi 1992). While the first five of the six-points adhere to the regular expectations for all practicing Muslims, Ilyas’ innovation was in the sixth point – that of donating time for missionary purposes. Ilyas called for his followers to become travelling lay preachers to be dispatched all over India at the time to bring back lapsed Muslims into the fold of Islam. As Reetz argues, the objective of the travelling groups was twofold: “the participants should reform themselves on these tours and they should carry their faith to other fellow Muslims who so far had remained passive or disinterested in the observance of religious practices” (Reetz 2003: 296). For Ilyas the six-point program of the Tablighi Jamaat aimed at the revitalization of faith, and in reforming the whole character of the individual, providing a complete system and structure for living in the world (Elahi 1992: 11–12). Tablighi Jamaat’s initial emphasis was on establishing firm boundaries between Muslim and Hindu identities in India during the colonial period, and to protect Muslims from Hindu conversion efforts. Muslims were engaging in inter-faith activities such as celebrating Hindu festivals, and to Ilyas and early Tablighi leaders, this was seen as an affront, and something to be challenged. Ilyas regarded Mewat, the area in India where the movement first started as “backward” where the inhabitants, although nominally Muslim, had lost touch with what it was to be Muslim – in other words they were in a state of jāhiliyya – or ignorance of what it was to be Muslim. Mayaram comments that the Meos – that is those who live in Mewat – professed a “happy combination of Hinduism and Islam” (Mayaram 1997: 43). Tablighi Jamaat’s goal was to reignite a passion for Islam among lapsed Muslims, to bring them back into the full fold of Islam, ensuring that Muslims developed strong Muslim identities. The bringing back to Islam of lapsed Muslims is an objective that still resonates in the contemporary period. While Tablighi leaders believe that Muslims are in need of reorientation in all societies, the need is seen as more pressing in the west, where secularism and liberal attitudes (they argue) can have disastrous impacts on individual believers. For example, Ilyas once said that, “atheism and apostasy, which is coming hand in hand with the western government and political system … these sources of waywardness will rush like the flood” (Mohammad Ilyas in No’mani 2001: 97). The perception here is that Muslims as a minority would lose their religious identities in the wave of western ­education

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and cultural dominance that would follow. In the view of Tablighi Jamaat, many Muslims in the west have deviated from the straight path of Islam, being Muslim in name, but secular in custom. One participant in this research noted, perhaps with some ironic humor, that “it has now become so difficult to distinguish Muslims, that the only option left if someone was to suddenly die, is to pull down their pants to see if they are circumcised.”1 Many of my participants also stressed that the situation in Britain is so bad that it is akin to a modern day Mewat, and British Muslims are the new Meos. Tablighi Jamaat cannot be understood without placing it within the context of the Deobandi tradition of Islam from which the movement first emerged, and with which close ties are still maintained. Deobandism has its origins in nineteenth century India, and was established in the aftermath of the Indian Mutiny to create a consciousness of Islam among Indian Muslims, and to set them apart from their British masters and Hindu neighbors (Pieri 2012: 15). The emphasis of this tradition is to inculcate in Muslims the central importance of Islam as the very essence of what it means to be a contemporary Muslim – that the way one dresses, acts, works, and socializes is of central importance to one’s identity and character as a spiritual being. The Deobandis were concerned that through their standard of correct belief and practice, they would be defined as a group not only separate from, but also morally superior to the British (Metcalf 1982: 153). It was from this tradition that Tablighi Jamaat would later emerge in the 1920s, stressing and intensifying many of the concepts around that individual renewal and moral purity. Worried that existing Islamic educational institutions were not capable of fending off the Hindu challenge, Ilyas envisioned a movement that would send missionaries to villages to instill Muslims with core Islamic values. Many participants of the movement see their activities in the organization as central to their own formation of modern Muslim selfhoods and this is because Tablighi Jamaat stresses the importance of forming distinct Muslim subjectivities that can root an individual deep within the practice of Islam and to protect them from secularizing and western influences. As Horstman states, Tablighi Jamaat “support a view of social change that is characterized by a transition from a primitive past to a civilized present” (2007: 28). Because of this, it has fallen under suspicion for providing a platform in which its members can become radicalized, and in the West it has been branded as a vehicle for promoting segregation and rejecting the values of liberal democracies (Pieri 2015). Tablighi Jamaat recommends for its male members (and increasingly female members) to spend a certain portion of time each year working on the 1 Participant 1, Thursday 21 January 2010.

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path of Allah – to donate time to working on the missionary activities of the movement – going door to door to call back Muslims to a stricter and more authentic version of Islam. This process of going out on Jamaat, or missionary tour, is known as khurūj. The missionary activities cannot be separated from any other activity that a Tablighi engages in. Members are to strive to implement Tablighi principles in every aspect of their daily lives including the work place and their dealings from the ordinary to the extraordinary. This constant process of striving in the path of piety has a deep impact on the ways in which Tablighis form modern selfhoods. Tablighi Jamaat is based on the understanding that Muslims have grossly neglected the teachings of Islam and that many Muslim elites have become too comfortable in the lap of luxurious living and have given up their obligations to Allah. Furthermore, for Tablighis the religious establishment, the ʿulamaʾ, focus excessively on knowledge construction within the confines of educational institutions and mosques, and in the process have neglected preaching to the majority of Muslims (Ali 2010: 105). To counter this “division between learned and lay Muslims, Mohammad Ilyas invoked the fundamental principles of Islam in these communities. He argued that the responsibility of spreading Islam was not confined to the ʿulamaʾ but was incumbent on every Muslim” (Ali 2010: 105). The idea was that every Muslim by virtue of simply being a Muslim could educate fellow Muslims in the fundamentals of the faith. As Ali argues, this type of educational process is potent not only in encouraging correct practice and knowledge of Islam in other Muslims but also “helping the educators themselves gain deeper insight and understanding of Islam and thus perfecting their own practices” (2013: 175). This has the powerful effect of elevating every Muslim, no matter how learned (or not) they are, to the position of ambassadors for the faith. Because of this many “ordinary” Muslims now have the opportunity when participating in Tablighi activities to leave “their life worlds […] which [may] have little to offer marginalized Muslims, and to jump on the train of exciting future perspectives in an empowered, pure, and disciplined umma of the globalizing Tablighi Jamaat” (Horstman 2007: 38). 5

The Ritualization of Everyday Life

For Tablighi Jamaat prime importance is placed on the individual’s entire being as what constitutes a Muslim first and foremost. The physical material self of the Muslim is the real site where faith is constituted and cultivated. For Mahoney (1974), the material being, or material self is an environment in its own

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right with which we become familiar early in life. While it is possible that we may have little control over the contexts in which we find ourselves, we do have control over our own material being which we can train and discipline in a particular way should we choose to, to meet specific needs and desires. Thus, Tablighis find it logical and feasible to reform the individual self – the material self – because as an environment individuals have jurisdiction, or in Foucauldian terms, governance over the material me to the extent that s/he does not have over the wider environment. In this sense, then, the resolve of Tablighi Jamaat is not to directly engage in the remaking of the world through restructuring key social, economic, and political institutions in society but rather to re-imagine individual lives and recreate Muslims in the form of “true” Muslims of an imagined pristine Islamic period. The re-creation of Muslims is not so much about inculcation of belief or persuasion to subject oneself to transformation rather it is about concentrating on rituals and practices – doing good deeds, repeating certain behaviors, and engaging in ritual actions (Ali 2010: 113). As Ali discusses, for Tablighi Jamaat, social change always begins with individuals who “engage in selfreformation and in disseminating the rituals and practices of the movement embodied in the Tablighi path beyond the confinements of religious institutions into the broader community.” This approach is intended to rejuvenate the Muslim population and regenerate their Islamic faith leading to the creation of a pious community and society governed by Islamic law (Ali 2010: 123). For committed Tablighis, their daily lives and interactions are regulated by strict guidelines that the movement puts into place in order to keep participants oriented towards Islamic selfhoods. Acts that would be considered as mundane by many in society, for example drinking water, going to the bathroom, brushing one’s teeth, and how to sleep in bed to name a few, are all regulated by the movement, and in a sense these acts are ritualized. This serves the purpose to remove those who follow a Tablighi lifestyle from the prevailing secular (or un-Islamic) societies in which they would ordinarily function and helps to create a new subjectivity that reinforces their identity as good Muslims. As Stewart notes, Saba Mahmood’s use of the Aristotilian notion of habitus is appropriate here, because with Tablighi Jamaat it “represents conscious and purposeful self-transformation by embodying virtuous behaviors in the hopes that they will become internalized” (Stewart 2018: 31). Through constant repetition of specified ways of living one’s life, the expectation is that these behaviors will eventually become effortless. This was reflected in an interview with one of my participants.2 We were talking about the significance of Islamic dress to Tablighi Jamaat, and the 2 Participant 2, Thursday 8 December 2011.

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­participant said that it was very important for all Muslims to dress in accordance with Islamic standards. The preference is for traditional Islamic clothing such as the shalwar kameez (often associated with Pakistan), or a thowb (often associated with Arab countries), the pants should stop at the ankles, beards should be a fistful in length, socks should be leather. My participant claimed that all of this is done in imitation of the Prophet Mohammad. The movement expects women to follow strict codes of Islamic dress which means that all parts of the body should be covered in loose fitting garments while out in public, including the face. When I questioned this emphasis on outward appearance as perhaps being somewhat shallow, my participant retorted saying that what is important to realize is that “once someone starts dressing as a Muslim, even if their faith is not strong, they will start to behave more like a Muslim. Perhaps they will be in the shop thinking of buying alcohol, but because they are dressed in that way they will stop and not do it.”3 The emphasis was on the importance of making efforts in correct practice irrespective of the strength of one’s faith. This is because Tablighi Jamaat participants believe in the power of appearance and practice to have a transformative effect on the self – it is a means to represent a new construction of selfhood, and a performance of religiously oriented subjectivity. In another example, at one of my first Thursday evening gatherings at Tablighi Jamaat’s mosque in the West Ham area of London, a participant of the movement, who later also became a participant in my research, stopped me to correct me on how I entered the mosque.4 He explained that I had rushed in not paying attention to which foot I had placed forward before the other. I was baffled by this and he explained that for those who participate in Tabligh, they always enter the mosque with the right foot first and leave the mosque with the left foot first. He said, “likewise when you go to the toilet, you enter with the left foot and you leave with the right foot.” At a later date the participant explained that this level of detail is important because it prompts Muslims to think about each and every action that they take. Having to consider each step helps the Muslim to focus inward on building their faith and in solidifying their identity.5 Once I became more familiar with Tablighi practices I noticed that almost every action taken by regular Tablighis was regimented and it soon became easy to distinguish between the regulars of the movement and those who were not. Many of the rules that participants in Tablighi Jamaat follow are clearly detailed in the literature of the movement, and it is claimed, directly based on 3 Participant 2, Thursday 8 December 2011. 4 Participant 3, Thursday 26 November 2009. 5 Participant 3, Thursday 15 March 2012.

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examples of the Prophet Mohammad and the first three generations of Muslims. Some of the rules outlined in the movement’s literature (Miah 2001: 69–74; Ilyas 1967: 47–50; Kandhlawi 2007), include always eating with the right hand and always from the corner of the dish – never from the center – and to lick one’s fingers to remove all food from them. When it comes to drinking water, one should do so while sitting down and holding the glass in the right; the water should be taken down in three gulps. Bedtime is another instance regulated by rules. Tablighis are instructed to dust the bed three times before laying down to sleep, and for sleeping, Tablighis should lie on their right side, with the right hand under the right cheek and recite: “Oh Allah in your name I live and die.” In order to encourage correct practice in behavior Tablighi leaders have devised a system of points and rewards, which all of my participants cited as being of the utmost importance to them, with some even carrying around small note books with them to keep a tally of their points.6 One participant told me that depending on which action one follows, one is rewarded a certain amount of points. If one cleans their plate and licks their fingers they are awarded “x” amount of points. If they sleep on their right side and dust their bed they are awarded a different amount of points. At the end of a Muslim’s life, “Allah will tally up the points and decide on who can enter the hereafter.”7 In this way emulating the pious ancestors is not just a way of life whilst on earth, but also a way of ensuring entry into heaven. During the month of Ramadan there are extra incentives for Tablighis to engage in the work of the movement, and this is encouraged through the accruing of extra points. One Tablighi elder I interviewed stated that “when a person performs something which is fard [religiously obligatory] during Ramadan it is multiplied by 70, but when he goes out in the path of Allah in Ramadan all this is multiplied by thousands.”8 Because of this, many Tablighis take the month of Ramadan off from work to focus solely on Tablighi activities. The same elder stated that, “going out in the path of Allah is much more than virtue. We want to make an effort and a struggle in the path of Allah so that we achieve paradise. And because of this struggle our akhirāt [afterlife] will be made better.”9 These standardized everyday interactions serve to create a bond between practicing Tablighis because irrespective of one’s background all are united in a common system of praxis. 6 This point came up with almost all interviews with Tablighi adherents conducted between 2009 to 2014. 7 Participant 4, Thursday 22 October 2009. 8 Participant 5, Thursday 20 October 2011. 9 Participant 5, Thursday 20 October 2011.

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6 Khurūj There is a general tendency within Tablighi Jamaat to argue that ordinary Muslims have neglected their faith and that religious scholars have fallen into inertia. It requires that ordinary believers constitute a preaching group and travel for a stipulated number of days so as to transform their practice and remind others of religious obligations. It shuns materialism, sectarianism, and other forms of classifications. It wrestles with the duty of preaching which has traditionally fallen to the ʿulamaʾ as an ultimate duty of every Muslim male and female, who by teaching others, may get a deeper knowledge of the fundamentals of Islam (Wario 2012: 238). Central to the ideology of Tablighi Jamaat is the role of travel as the most effective tool of personal reform. Tablighi Jamaats’s discourse is based on the notion that the call to others for joining the movement will first begin with purifying the individual self. In other words, The Tablighi ideal is based on the premise that one cannot change/convert the world without converting oneself (Chakrabarti 2010: 601). The method of this conversion takes place through a process of religious journeying referred to by the followers as going on jamaat or khurūj. These travels, in order to ensure best outcome, are organized according to strict discipline and program. In interviews with Tablighi participants, I was informed that the movement offers a number of options to those who wish to donate time to the movement and makes joining in these activities as flexible as possible in terms of time commitment.10 While Tablighi Jamaat is famous for its three-day preaching tours which regular Tablighis are encouraged to do once a month, interviewees said that the preference for new recruits is to donate a period of forty days. This is known as a chillā, and from the most committed members is expected on an annual basis. The reason new recruits are encouraged to do this instead of the three days according to one participant is that new recruits should be “seen like the old batteries you used to get. The first time you charge them you need to charge them for a long time and after that it is ok to use shorter top up charges.”11 By this the participant meant that an extended period of time in missionary activities would serve to better reorient a participant and allow them to experience the transformative nature of Tablighi Jamaat’s work. After this experience, the participant may be more likely to continue in the activities of the movement. Other options for regular members 10 11

Almost all participants interviewed between 2009 to 2014 commented on the high level of flexibility in Tablighi Jamaat’s missionary tours – though this did not translate to flexibility once on tour. Participant 6, Thursday 22 October 2009.

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include what is known as a “grand chillā” which consists of three consecutive ones (equating to 120 days) usually in another country; and for some a yearlong tour. This is for the most devoted Tablighi and usually a chillā consists of tavelling by foot, from mosque to mosque in a given country calling other Muslims to the work of the Jamaat. (Hasani 1982: 772). One of the things that stands out about khurūj from the perspective of my interviewees is that this is a period in which they all claim to have pondered the purpose of earthly life. My interviewees reiterate that life in this world “is short and that our goal is to prepare for the life hereafter.”12 The drive for salvation runs strong throughout Tablighi Jamaat as a movement and it participants not only want to to “save” themselves, but also their fellow Muslims. The goal is to ensure that “we are able to enter the gardens of paradise and not be burned in the fires of hell.” As such khurūj is a chance for each sojourner to rectify any aspects of their own lives which they believe may be hampering them from achieving salvation, as well as bringing salvation to others. As Ali (2003: 177) notes by doing away with the luxuries of life and “sleeping on hardened floor instead of mattresses, doing own cooking, washing own clothes, and overcoming the reliance of material resources, Tablighis are able to gain self-abnegation, modesty and a new outlook on life which sets them apart from ordinary Muslims.” Theoretically, any Sunni Muslim can take part in khurūj, and no previous experience is necessary. Indeed, Tablighi Jamaat often targets Muslims who have never participated in its activities before and encourages them to start off by joining a travelling group. The travelling preaching groups have a hierarchical structure, though each position is filled through consensus among the group. Often an experienced Tablighi is elected to act as amir (leader), and those with knowledge of the local language or terrain may be elected to fill various other positions, such as identifying Muslim households in the locality. The preaching groups vary in size and consist of anywhere between three-15 members, and each member is expected to finance their own travel costs, and all stay together, often cooking, eating, and sleeping in local Tablighi mosques along the way. After completing khurūj, there are those who do not engage with the programs of Tablighi Jamaat any more, while others choose to engage with it as and when their time allows, and others still become committed members, donating the required time each month to the activities of the movement. The more one participates in khurūj, the more opportunities open 12

This phrase cannot be attributed to a single participant, but rather echoed by many of those I spoke to. The phrase was also reiterated by Tablighi leaders in Thursday evening talks from 2009 through to 2018.

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up to that individual for leadership roles within the organization. As such it should be noted that Tablighi Jamaat, as with any large organization, has dedicated core members, and at its periphery, those who engage as and when they want. While traveling, Tablighi men are expected to acquire a strong set of domestic skills. Most of them learn for the first time how to wash clothes, cook, and clean (Wario 2012: 246). Hands-on experiences with managing “kitchen affairs” inculcate in Tablighi men a greater perception of the challenges of everyday livelihood strategies at home. For this reason, these men are seen to feel more sympathetic, less demanding, and gentler towards the challenges of carrying out domestic chores by women at home. Tablighi women have to learn to lead the household in the absence of their husbands, a kind of reverse household headship that could not be imagined in patriarchal societies (Wario 2012: 247). While I was not able to speak with any female participants in the movement, male participants commented that they felt more appreciative of their wives and often changed their behaviors once they got home, for example sometimes helping with chores around the house, or spending more time playing with their children. One participant who said that his wife attends Tablighi preaching circles for women, would often allow his wife to attend while he prepared the evening meal, recognizing that their relationship was more equal, and driven by a joint desire to re-orient their own lives as well as the lives’ of fellow Muslims.13 This participant also said that this would play in his family’s favor on the day of judgment. Engaging in khurūj and implementing rituals into everyday life allows committed members of Tablighi Jamaat to develop what they believe to be a close and lived relationship with Allah and which makes the faithful’s daily experience full of joy. In the context of Tablighi Jamaat, the relationship between a Tablighi and Allah are interlocked and should be regarded as similar to social relationship in the secular world (Ali 2010: 110). Tablighi Jamaat has something to offer: it provides Muslims an identity, a sense of purpose, and a meaning in life. It forges communities in which Muslims experience self-satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment (Ali 2010: 127). Travelling away from one’s locale to spread the word of God and to develop one’s own sense of spirituality is also seen as important in other proselytizing movements such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, more popularly known as Mormons. One important distinction however is that Tablighi Jamaat is for the most part an intra-Islamic movement focusing on correcting lapsed Muslims rather than knocking on doors in an indiscriminate way. For 13

Participant 7, Thursday 16 June 2016.

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the Mormons, the period spent on mission is an important rite of passage, a time when young Mormons can dedicate themselves to a total commitment to preaching the gospel and can often “gain a degree of status within the Mormon world that may last a life time” (Davies 2000: 175). The word “mantle” is often used to refer to a “special religious state” that missionaries are in – a sense of being “spiritually guided or empowered by God, or able to provide words of encouragement that seem to possess a depth over and above that which a nineteen-year old might expect to command” (Davies 2000: 175). This is remarkably similar to Tablighi experience of mission – a process from which Tablighi men often claim to have returned changed. Numerous studies show that those who take part in missionary activities, irrespective of faith background, emerge from that experience with reconfigured notions of their own selfhoods (Ali 2010; Janson 2014; Metcalf 2000; Pepper 2014; Pieri 2014; Wario 2012). 7 Conclusions Tablighi Jamaat seeks to see the return of all Muslims to a more orthodox understanding of Islam, as interpreted by the movement, and seemingly based on the examples of the Prophet Mohammad and early generations of Muslims. Tablighis view the formative period of Islam as a golden age, one that is to be emulated, and one that can show the path to salvation. In this sense Tablighi Jamaat as a movement argues that anything other than striving to lead a pious and observantly Islamic life is akin to the ignorance that was present in the pre-Islamic era, also known as jāhiliyya. Tablighi leaders argue that what most people call modern societies, and modern subjectivities, are in fact not modern, but rather trapped in the same pattern of degeneracy that existed prior to the revelation of Islam. Tablighi leaders believe that the movement empowers those who participate in its activities to really develop modern subjectivities in the form of correctly oriented Muslim selfhoods. Because of this, Tablighi Jamaat has a focus on individual self-transformation and this allows participants to construct new and Tablighi approved subjectivities, and to keep refreshing and reinvigorating these Muslim selfhoods as they progress through the ranks of the movement. For Tablighis Muslim selfhoods are about leaving behind traditional forms of Islam associated with various cultures, and instead reorienting one’s life to a correct understanding of Islam as interpreted by the organization and shaped through active participation in the everyday rituals of Tablighi Jamaat, and in missionary activity. After the completion of missionary service there are no

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outward manifestations of the “returned missionary”; it is an invisible social status even among other Tablighis but it does serve to provide a common cultural currency. Because of this, Tablighis see their participation in missionary activities as being deeper than a cultural currency; instead it is at the core of shaping the very notion of their selfhoods. Tablighi Jamaat’s ideal form of Muslim selfhoods is “an external manifestation of a renewed internal consciousness of religious realities, such as God, the life hereafter, and the importance of religious virtues” (Dickson 2009: 109). This internal consciousness often includes a profound re-arrangement of life priorities for those who start to become more regular in the activities of Tablighi Jamaat, and include greater time spent at the mosque, increased observance of religious obligations such as praying, fasting, and doing good deeds, and importantly, developing a ritualized performance of living out everyday life. For regular participants in Tablighi Jamaat, the other expectation is that they willingly give up time in order to go out and preach a “correct” version of Islam to other Muslims. It is clear that participation in the movement’s activities has profound impacts on shaping the subjectivities of those who become committed to the everyday rituals of the movement, and especially so for those that regularly go on khurūj. Tablighi leaders ensure that power of being involved with Tablighi Jamaat can be immense, and this is something that Jan Ali captured in his fieldwork with the movement in Australia: In Australia I have seen, for example, a lot of drug addicts and gangsters becoming involved in the religion because of the Tablighi Jamaat. They left the bad things and they don’t do bad things […] they pray. The Tablighi Jamaat has provided the environment for the people to have more self-respect, something that’s not found in wider Australia. There are a lot of misbehaving teenagers and dysfunctional and dismantled families […]. Tablighi Jamaat has a lot of good effect on them. Tablighi Jamaat adherent in, ali 2006: 208

It is also apparent that adhering to the daily rituals of the movement seems to give participants in a greater sense of agency (Pieri 2015) – allowing individuals to break from the currents of a predominantly secular society and allows them to strive for a different purpose – a purpose that is more important – that of salvation. For Tablighi Jamaat it is first important to re-orient the individual to a correct understanding and practice of Islam and as such the movement tends to eschew any involvement with politics in the hard sense. Ilyas’ doctrine “while positing a … break with [the] secular and mundane, generated a new

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overriding social definitions of Muslim umma and bound Tablighis with new ties of fellowships as well as ideas of a new type of morality based on inner conscience” (Ali 2003: 178). For participants in Tablighi Jamaat the formation of modern Muslim selfhoods is of vital importance, because they believe that an identity centered on an authentic form of Islam serves to bolster them in a fast-changing world. The movement aims to provide a space to its participants in which they can develop their identities as Muslims as well as the encouragement to help other Muslims develop Muslim selfhoods too. Tablighi Jamaat’s missionary activities have shown to impact the lives of those being proselytized, but perhaps more importantly, it is the missionary that develops a transformation of the self while on mission. As argued throughout the chapter, the missionary tours that Tablighis participate in, function as modes of self-conversion as much as shaping the selfhoods of others. To put it another way, it is the agent of change (i.e. the individual) who is also frequently the main beneficiary of the missionary tour (Chakrabarti 2010: 603). References Ali, Jan. 2010. “Tablighi Jama’at: A Transnational Movement of Islamic Faith Regeneration.” European Journal of Economic and Political Studies 3(0): 103–131. Ali, Jan. 2006. Islamic Revivalism: A Study of the Tablighi Jamaat in Sydney. Sydney: University of New South Wales. Ali, Jan. 2003. “Islamic Revivalism: The Case of the Tablighi Jamaat.” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 23(1): 173–181. Chakrabarti, Anindita. 2010. “Soteriological Journeys and Discourses of Self-transformation: The Tablighi Jamaat and Svadhaya in Gujarat.” South Asian History and Culture 1(4): 597–614. Davies, Douglas. 2000. The Mormon Culture of Salvation: Force, Grace and Glory. Aldershot: Ashgate. Dickson, Rory. 2009. “The Tablighi Jama’at in Southwestern Ontario: Making Muslim Identities and Networks in Canadian Urban Spaces.” Contemporary Islam 3(2): 99–112. Elahi, Ashiq. 1992. Six Points of Tabligh. Delhi: Rasheed Publications. Elias, A.H. 2004. Tabligh Made Easy. Karachi: Zam Zam Publishers. Foucault, Michel. 1982. “The Subject and Power.” Critical Inquiry 8(4): 777–795. Foucault, Michel. 1988. “Technologies of the Self.” In Martin H. Luther, Huck Gutman and Patrick Hutton (eds.), Technologies of the Self: A seminar with Michel Foucault. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press: 16–49.

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Garland, David. 1997. “‘Governmentality’ and the Problem of Crime: Foucault, Criminology, and Sociology.” Theoretical Criminology 12(2): 173–214. Gilroy, Paul. 2000. Between Camps: Race, Identity and Nationalism at the End of the Color Line. London: Penguin. Hasani, M. 1982. Sawanih Hazrat Maulana Muhammad Yusuf Kandhalawi. Lucknow: Maktaba Darul-ulum Nadwatu’l-Ulama. Horstman, Alexander. 2007. “The Tablighi Jama’at, Transnational Islam, and the Transformation of the Self Between Southern Thailand and South Asia.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 27(1): 26–40. Ilyas, M. 1967. Six Points of Tabligh. Karachi: Darul-Ishaat. Iner, Derya and Yucel, Salih. 2015. Muslim Identity Formation in Religiously Diverse Societies. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Janson, Marloes. 2014. Islam, Youth, and Modernity in the Gambia: The Tablighi Jamaat. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jung, Dietrich. 2016. “Modernity, Islamic Traditions, and the Good Life: An Outline of the Modern Muslim Subjectivities Project.” Review of Middle East Studies 50(1): 18–27. Jung, Dietrich and Sinclair, Kirstine. 2015. “Multiple Modernities, Modern Subjectivities and Social Order: Unity and Difference in the Rise of Islamic Modernities.” Thesis Eleven 130(1): 22–42. Kandhlawi, Zakariyya. 1997. Fazail-E-Amal. New Delhi: Islamic Book Service. Kandhlawi, Zakariyya. 2007. Faza’il-E-A’maal. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. New Delhi: Islamic Book Service. Lambert, Robert. 2010. “The London Partnerships: An Analysis of Legitimacy and Effectiveness.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Exeter. Mahoney, Michael. 1974. Cognition and Behavioral Modification. Cambridge: Ballinger. Mayaram, Shail. 1997. Resisting Regimes: Myth Memory and the Shaping of a Muslim Identity. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Metcalf, Barbara. 1982. Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband: 1860–1900. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Metcalf, Barbara. 2000. “Tablighi Jama’at and Women.” In Muhammad Khalid Masud (ed.), Travellers in Faith: Studies of the Tablighi Jama’at as a Transnational Islamic Movement for Faith Renewal, Leiden: Brill, 44–58. Metcalf, Barbara. 2004. “Traditional Islamic Activism: Deoband, Tablighis and Talibs.” Barbara Metcalf (ed.), Islamic Contestations: Essays on Muslims in India and Pakistan. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Miah, S.R. 2001. A Guide Book of Tabligh, 2nd edition. Dhaka: Tabligi Kutubkhana. Nadwi, Abdul. 2002. Life and Mission of Mohammad Ilyas, translated by M. Kidwai. Lucknow: Academy of Islamic Research and Publications.

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No’mani, M. 2001. Words and Reflections of Hazrat Maulana Muhammad Ilyas (R.A.), translated by S. Muhammad. Lahore: Iqra Books. Noor, Farish. 2012. Islam on the Move: The Tablighi Jama’at in Southeast Asia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Pieri, Zacharias. 2012. Tablighi Jamaat: Handy Books on Religion in World Affairs. London: Lapido. Pieri, Zacharias. 2015. Tablighi Jamaat and the Quest for the London Mega Mosque. London: Palgrave MacMillan. Pieri, Zacharias. 2014. “Any One for Tabligh?” In Sardar Ziauddin and Robin YassinKassab (eds.), Critical Muslim: Sects, London: Hurst, 87–98. Pepper, Kevin. 2014. “You Are Hereby Called: An Ethnographic Study of Mormon Missionaries,” PhD Thesis, Texas A&M University. Qutb, Sayyid. 2006. Milestones. Birmingham: Maktabah Booksellers. Reetz, Dietrich. 2003. “Keeping Busy on the Path of Allah: The Self-Organization of the Tablighi Jama’at.” Orient Moderno 84(1): 295–305. Schneider, Barbara. 2012. “Blogging Homelessness: Technology of the Self or Practice of Freedom.” Canadian Journal of Communication 37(3): 405–419. Stewart, Alexander. 2018. “Tablighi Jama’at in China: Sacred Self, Worldly Nation, Transnational Imaginary.” Modern Asian Studies 52(4): 1194–1226. Wario, Halkano. 2012. “Reforming Men, Refining Ulama: Tablighi Jama’at and Novel Visions of Islamic Masculinity.” Religion and Gender 2(2): 231–245.

Chapter 4

Hasan al-Banna and the Modern Muslim Self: Subjectivity Formation and the Search for an Islamic Order in Early Twentieth Century Egypt Dietrich Jung and Ahmed Abou El Zalaf 1

Introduction: Hasan al-Banna’s Mission

In 1927, a young Egyptian schoolteacher began to preach the mission of Islam in the coffeehouses of Ismailia. If we trust his own records, he wanted to spread his mission of a “true Islam” in an uncomplicated everyday language among ordinary Egyptians. In this way, he hoped to get rid of the widespread religious ignorance that in his eyes characterized Egypt in the early twentieth century (al-Banna 2013: 83 and 91). Together with a small group of followers, Hasan alBanna (1906–1949), so the name of the teacher, rented a modest room in one of Ismailia’s Quran schools. There the group met in the afternoon reciting the Quran, memorizing Islamic traditions, discussing appropriate forms of worship, and studying the history of Islam as well as the biographies of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions (al-Banna 2013: 97). In the “School of Moral Discipline” (madrasa al-tahdhīb), as they called this tiny place, they started developing a program of religious and practical teachings for the moral betterment of Egyptian society. In his memoirs, Hasan al-Banna tells us that he perceived the group as “brothers in serving Islam” and therefore called it al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, the Muslim Brothers (al-Banna 2013: 96). What started as a small religious association grew within ten years into a broader movement with offshoots all over Egypt. In the course of the twentieth century, then, the Muslim Brotherhood developed into the largest and probably most influential organization of modernist Islamic thought and action. Founded as a predominantly religious and at this point in time rather insignificant movement in 1928, the Brotherhood represented toward the end of the twentieth century a well-organized institution and a cadre party with mass appeal far beyond the borders of Egypt (cf. Krämer 2010: 36).1 Moreover, it developed into a kind of institutional blueprint for the establishment of ­numerous 1 According to Brynjar Lia, the Muslim Brotherhood grew from a few departments in 1931 into an organization with more than a hundred branches in 1936 (Lia 1998: 53).

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branch organizations throughout the Muslim world. The Muslim Brotherhood assumed the role of a major social vehicle for the promotion of a specifically Islamic imagination of modernity and related forms of modern Muslim subjectivities. Who was its founder Hasan al-Banna, and in which way did he imagine a modern Islamic social order and the ideal type of a modern Muslim? In putting the focus of our study on the foundational figure of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, Hasan al-Banna, we do not follow a hagiographic enterprise. On the contrary, in this chapter the life and work of Hasan al-Banna will serve to illustrate a distinct theoretical perspective. We are not interested in the “genius of the man” but in the theoretically informed contextualization of his life and worldview. We consider the evolution of the Muslim Brotherhood as an inherent part of the emergence of global modernity, as part of a social process that has been labeled as “world history.”2 From this perspective, Hasan al-Banna represents one voice in a choir of Muslim thinkers who constructed an Islamic language of modernity parallel to European versions of modernism (Schulze 2000: 4–11). Yet in Europe, the hegemonic form of modernism took a distinct non-religious form, whereas in the Muslim world Islamic traditions have assumed a major role in some modernist imaginations of individuals and society. In our interpretation, Hasan al-Banna acted in a global age of sweeping nationalization, industrialization, mechanization, urbanization, and educational professionalization, a period of time whose spirit Robert Wiebe once characterized as an all-pervasive “search for order” (Wiebe 1967: 11). While Wiebe’s book covered historical developments in the period from 1877 to 1920 in the United States, we argue that a similar and typically modern search for order was behind the successful development of the Muslim Brotherhood from an initially religious into a socio-political movement. In the Muslim Brotherhood movement we can detect a specifically religiously defined, Islamic variation of a more general trope of social organization and of the construction of modern individual selfhoods that characterized world history in the decades before the First World War and in the interwar period. The ideological worldview of Hasan al-Banna provides us with an Islamic version of what Peter Wagner defined as “organized modernity,” a theoretical statement which we will underpin in this chapter by drawing from theories of multiple modernities, successive modernities, and poststructuralist concepts of modern subjectivity formation (Eisenstadt 2000; Foucault 1980; Reckwitz 2006; Wagner 1994, 2010, 2012). 2 The German historian Jürgen Osterhammel located this emergence of world history in the nineteenth century in terms of a “reflection on its own globality” (Osterhammel 2011: 14).

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Scholarly literature on the Muslim Brotherhood movement and on Hasan al-Banna himself is abundant. We agree with the mainstream of it in considering the movement as a thoroughly modern one. Hasan al-Banna, this is the core argumentation of this body of literature, reinterpreted traditional Islamic concepts such as the shariʿa and assigned them new meanings. In the mobilization and education of its members, the Muslim Brotherhood acted in the context of the concomitant emergence of a modern public sphere and of the phenomenon of mass politics (Baron 2014; Khatab 2001; Krämer 2010; Lia 1998; Mitchell 1969; Mårtensson 2015; Pargeter 2013). Brynjar Lia, for instance, argued to understand Hasan al-Banna’s thought in the combined context of the stratified and strongly hierarchical organization of Egyptian society and the country’s struggle for independence. In this context, the recourse to Islam provided the only viable framework that could include the Egyptian population as a whole in the nation-building project (Lia 1998). Khalil al-Anani (2013) complemented this structural dimension with a closer look at the ways in which Hasan al-Banna constructed the collective identity of the Muslim Brotherhood, integrating aspects of the everyday life of its members. Studies dealing with the Brotherhood after al-Banna’s death in 1949 mainly explored the radicalizing influence of Sayyid Qutb’s (1906–1966) thought and the reaction to it by Hasan al-Hudaybi (1891–1973), who was the second leader of the Muslim Brotherhood from 1951 until his death in 1973 (Calvert 2010; Kepel 1985; Toth 2013; Zollner 2011). In utilizing both these secondary sources and a number of primary sources from Hasan al-Banna’s own pen, this study argues that in his explicitly Islamic imagination of modernity the founder of the Brotherhood nevertheless enacted global scripts about modern subjectivity and social orders prevalent in his time. In this way, the chapter will not only contribute to our understanding of the Muslim Brotherhood as a specifically modern social movement but also to further undermining the still widespread perception of the Middle East and Muslims as an exception to world-historical developments. With respect to the field of religious studies, the benefit of our perspective on Hasan al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood is twofold. On the one hand, it adds a number of valid arguments against the once hegemonic assumption of an exclusively secularist understanding of modernity. This chapter clearly shows the synthesis of nonreligious core features of modernity with Islamic religious traditions in the modern transformation of Egypt. On the other hand, this pertinent role of Islamic traditions in the construction of modern selfhoods and social orders could not have taken place without a decisive change in their contemporary meanings. Through its contextualization by globally relevant non-religious

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cultural scripts the meaning and practice of Islam itself has undergone fundamental changes in becoming a modern religion. The argumentation of the chapter proceeds as follows: In the first section, we present our analytical framework and relate it to the historical context of the interwar period. Then, we move on to the biography of Hasan al-Banna. From the way in which he described his own course of life in his memoirs – this is the core argument in the second section – we can derive an ideal type of the modern Muslim subject, one which Hasan al-Banna made a core element of the Muslim Brotherhood ideology.3 In the third section, then, we analyze the specific Islamic social order which al-Banna envisaged as the necessary basis for both the independence of Muslim nations and the good life of its people in Egypt and beyond. The fourth section zooms in from the level of social order down to the micro level of the individual, analyzing the core elements of the modern Muslim subject which the Brotherhood ideology promoted in its early years. Finally, we will conclude with some findings regarding modern Muslim subjectivity formation in general and pose questions for future research. 2

Organized Society: In Search of an “Authentic” Islamic Order

Charles D. Smith defined the First World War as the “pivotal period” in the emergence of the modern Middle East (Smith 2006: 39). The formation of the modern political landscape of the Middle East went along with the demise of three empires – the Russian, the Austro-Hungarian, and the Ottoman Empires – and the eventual introduction of the national state to the region. At the same time, the implementation of the mandate system reinvented colonial power structures in a new form. In the post-First World War international order, Great Britain and France tried to maintain their control over Middle Eastern politics. The formation of regional states was thus inseparably knitted into the struggle against Western domination. In addition, the experience of the First World 3 Given this purpose of our focus on Hasan al-Banna, we do not critically discuss the historical accuracy of his memoires. In taking them “for granted” they serve our interest in this chapter perfectly, i.e. discerning his construction of the modern Muslim subject and the way in which it is supposed to act in the world. The exact date of the compilation of al-Banna’s memoirs is not entirely clear. Most likely, he has written the majority of the texts that entered this compilation in the years 1946–1948. The first edition, Mudhakirat Hasan al-Banna, was published in Beirut shortly after his death. A couple of years later, a more comprehensive edition appeared in Cairo under the title Mudhakirat al- Daʿwa wal-Daʿiyya. For our chapter we have used this edition.

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War heavily discredited the remaining appreciation of European civilization by Muslim intellectuals. The adoption of European ideas and institutions, previously advocated by liberal Arab intellectuals, increasingly appeared as a wrong path. Together this discrediting of the claims of European humanism and the search for authenticity in light of mandate tutelage provided the fertile soil in which ideas of Islamic modernities flourished. In this “age of crisis of orientation,” the search for order in the Middle East increasingly attained the character of a search for a specifically Islamic order that would provide both an authentic modern Islamic identity and political independence from colonial rule (cf. Gershoni 1999; Safran 1961; Smith 1973). The Muslim Brotherhood represents one, if not the most significant representative of this shift toward a specifically Islamic imagination of modernity in the Middle East. In their search for order, however, actors in the Middle East were not alone. They were part and parcel of a broader global stream of reformist ideas about culture, politics, and society. The late nineteenth century marks the beginning of “modernism” as a visible literary and intellectual movement promoting the rejuvenation of the arts (Levenson 2011: 8). As “a self-reflexive concern with formal innovation in the face of perceived historical and moral crises,” modernism represented a global intellectual movement with culturally different reactions to the “predicament of modernity” (Boehmer and Matthews 2011: 285). In considering this perspective of modernism as more than the rationale of a Western literary movement, we suggest perceiving Arab and Muslim intellectuals in “the liberal age” as participating within this stream of modern reformist thought.4 Islamic modernism developed as a religious, social, and political reform movement in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, at least to a substantial part, had its intellectual roots in the world of ideas of this movement of Islamic reform. In his social history of modernity, Peter Wagner tries to make conceptual sense of this transformation of modern social imaginations. In putting his emphasis on social order, Wagner differentiates between three successive forms of modernity: the order of restricted liberalism in the nineteenth century, modernity in form of a highly organized mass society in the first part of the twentieth century, and a more pluralistic type of mass society with extended liberties toward the end of the twentieth century (Wagner 2012: 35–38). According to him, various forms of strictly organized mass societies – Fordist, nationalist, socialist, fascist – resulted from the erosion of the “highly liberal but socially severely restricted” order of late nineteenth-century bourgeois society. 4 Albert Hourani referred to this period in his seminal work on the rise of modernist ideas in the nineteenth and early twentieth century’s Middle East as the “liberal age” (Hourani 1962).

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In our understanding, the Muslim Brotherhood movement took part in this universal social reconstruction at the end of the hegemonic rule of restricted liberalism. From the perspective of Islamic history, we can identify Wagner’s three successive forms of modernity beginning with the elitist but relatively liberal nineteenth-century Islamic reform movement, in Egypt closely associated with Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905), through the establishment of organized Islamist mass movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood (1928), to contemporary Islamic networks and organizations that strongly were represented in the so-called Arab Spring (2010–2012). The rise and evolution of these specifically Islamic imaginations of modernity has taken place in the context of world-historical developments. The ongoing intellectual stream of Islamic reform has taken part in the formation and enactment of more globally relevant modern scripts of educational and moral cultivation, bodily performances, collectively sanctioned peer-group-oriented forms of behavior, and rather loosely organized forms of consumerist and creative self-made identities. In this sense, the construction of Islamic modernities has been an inherent part in a globally relevant transformation of hegemonic imaginations of modernity. In which ways is the shift from restricted liberalism to organized modernity reflected in the construction of both viable Islamic social orders and meaningful Muslim selfhoods? We will answer this question with selective reference to the works of Peter Wagner and Andreas Reckwitz (2006). Together, these sociologists provide us with conceptual tools to observe the abovementioned successive steps of modernity on the macro and on the micro levels. We treat the conceptualization of these three forms of modernity as ideal types, as heuristic instruments for the comparison of historically different appearances of modern orders and meaningful selfhoods (cf. Weber 1905: 90–101). In their successive character, the approximation of historical developments to these three ideal types is of a hegemonic character. We should not understand their succession as the complete replacement of a previous form of modernity by another, but as successive, relative hegemonies of elements of one type over another. In fact, historically observable social orders and identity construction may display elements of all three of these different types at the same time. In the unfolding of global modernity, we can observe hybrid patterns of modern imaginations constantly challenging the hegemony of those concrete forms of modernity that have been established. Consequently, there is no synchronic succession of these hegemonies in world history and we may observe certain relapses from one into the other type. According to Wagner, the ideal of an organized form of modernity resulted from a crisis to which the inconsistencies of nineteenth century liberalism had

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led. Liberal rules of morality and rationality only applied to a small bourgeois minority that distinguished itself sharply from the majority of the population. This elitist liberal order excluded the majority of the people, resulting in massive social inequalities and impoverishment (Wagner 2010: 14). The pressing “social question” in Europe and the imperialist order of world politics are domestic and international expressions of this form of modernity, leading to the rise of socialist, nationalist, and anti-colonialist movements on a global scale. It is in this world-historical context that the modern Islamic reform movement also emerged. The gradual move of restricted liberalism into deep political and social crises demanded the establishment of new forms of regulative social orders. “The solution for this first crisis of modernity was eventually the invention of organized society within the territorial confines of a bureaucratically administered national state” (Wagner 1994; Jung et al. 2014: 14). The ideal of organized society with its focus on collectivity brought in the previously excluded masses. Drawing its legitimacy from collectivist political ideologies, this state-centered model of modernity built upon shared beliefs in philosophies of linear progress, the ordering power of instrumental rationality, and the principle ability of managing society through bureaucratic processes. In close relationship with these macro-sociological types of restricted liberalism and organized society, Andreas Reckwitz discerned in European history the shift from a classical bourgeois type of subjectivity to a peer-group-oriented type of the mass societies of the twentieth century (Reckwitz 2006). While the classical bourgeois derived its moral autonomy from being a sovereign, rational, tempered, and introverted individual, the peer-group-oriented subject of organized society was characterized by extroverted generalizations of publicly acknowledged forms of behavior. The individual working ethics of the bourgeois gave way to the collectively binding practices of an ideal of the collective management of society. In the cultural context of the United States, for instance, William Whyte critically addressed this ideal in his “Organization Man,” which characterized the “Fordist” ethics of the American mainstream population in the interwar period (Whyte 2002). Andreas Reckwitz discussed this shift in hegemonic subject cultures as the crisis and erosion of bourgeois subjectivity in the early twentieth century. Through structural changes in the areas of technology, education, the human sciences, and new artistic movements, according to Reckwitz, mass society as a clearly visible and manageable social collectivity moves into the focus of social organization. The fundamental organizability of society through social technologies, in Michel Foucault’s terms through technologies of domination and technologies of the self, turns into the governing idea behind different historical forms of organized society. In the German historical experience, for

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i­ nstance, Siegfried Kracauer identified the ethics of this new type of the peergroup-oriented subject in his study on the salaried masses. This new hegemonic type of subjectivity in the Weimar Republic not only undermined the cultural predominance of the cultivated German bourgeoisie, but also partly paved the way for the rise of the mass culture of German Fascism (Kracauer 1929). In the following sections of our chapter, we will examine the activities and thoughts of Hasan al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood movement in the light of the conceptual apparatus derived from Wagner and Reckwitz. We argue that we should understand the establishment of the Muslim Brotherhood as an integral part of this globally observable, historical shift from forms of the classical bourgeois culture of restricted liberalism to the establishment of social orders that were based on the idea of organized mass society. However, in sharp contrast to the work of Wagner and Reckwitz, in which religion as a socially relevant factor of modernity is almost completely absent, the example of the Muslim Brotherhood emphasizes the formative role that religion can play in modern transformations. 3

Hasan al-Banna: Growing up in Times of a Search for Order

Hasan al-Banna was born in 1906 in al-Mahmudiyya, a small provincial town in the province of Buhayra, about ninety miles northwest of the Egyptian capital Cairo. His father, Shaykh Ahmad Abd al-Rahman al-Banna (1881–1958), was the son of a small landowning family from the village of Shamshira in Gharbiyya province. After attending the local Quran school, Shaykh Ahmad studied at the Ibrahim Mosque in Alexandria, where he was also trained as a watchmaker. In 1904, he married Hasan al-Banna’s mother and moved to al-Mahmudiyya the following year. According to Jamal al-Banna (d. 2013), the youngest son of Shaykh Ahmad, his father had a literary artistic leaning that he passed on to his sons (al-Banna 2010: 16). Hasan al-Banna himself wrote that the readings suggested by his father made him familiar with Islamic traditions and the Sunni schools of law (al-Banna 2013: 40–42). Due to his religious knowledge and social esteem, the people of al-Mahmudiyya appointed Shaikh Ahmad as the local Imam in 1913. Interested in crime novels and romantic stories, Shaykh Ahmad disposed over a private library and, at the same time, he acquired profound knowledge of the traditions of the Prophet (hadith) and the exegesis of the Quran (tafsīr). Moreover, he was the author of several books, among them Musnad al-Fath al-Rabbani, in which he classified and explained the compilation of traditions of the Islamic scholar Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (d. 241AH/855CE) (Lia 1998: 23). In the above conceptual terms, Hasan al-Banna grew up in the

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house of a man who combined the status of a traditional Islamic learned person with elements of the nineteenth century bourgeois subject. Through Islamic traditions, Shaykh Ahmad gained his moral sovereignty as a religious subject while he acquired all the means to become a successful subject of work at the same time. With his strong interest in reading and writing, Hasan alBanna’s father applied the central practices of the classical bourgeois self-­ formation of the nineteenth century (Reckwitz 2006: 97–274). Shaykh Ahmad endowed his son Hasan with both religious knowledge and bourgeois technologies of the self closely revolving around modern literacy. Hasan’s brother Jamal tells us about a harmonious and happy childhood in which Hasan acquired knowledge of Islam at an early age. His father sent him to the highly respected village teacher Shaykh Muhammad Zahran, who taught Hasan al-Banna until the age of eleven (al-Banna 2010: 74; Lia 1998: 24). In his memoirs, Hasan al-Banna appreciated Shaykh Zahran’s teachings as “directed to teach ordinary people” and generating a “spiritual and emotional relationship” with them. Moreover, he stressed the lay character of his teacher, who did not hold the official certificate (ʿālamiyya) of an Islamic scholar. Later, both the focus on ordinary people and the non-certificated character of Islamic knowledge became essential traits of Hasan al-Banna’s own religious teachings (al-Banna 2013: 14–16). Receiving a rather traditional early education in Islam, Hasan al-Banna nevertheless soon took a different path than his father. Initially against Shaykh Ahmad’s will, he replaced the traditional school (kutāb) with the modern Egyptian primary school at the age of twelve. Two years later, he moved to the primary teacher’s training school in Damanhur, not to a religious institution of education such as his father once attended in Alexandria. Finally, Hasan al-Banna completed his education as a teacher in joining the famous Dar al-Ulum in Cairo in 1923. Founded in 1872, the Dar al-Ulum was a kind of predecessor of Egypt’s modern university system for the training of teachers of modern school subjects. It combined religious education with non-religious subjects, offering an alternative to the al-Azhar University and its more clerical milieu. Later, the Dar al-Ulum was merged with Cairo University. Studying for four years in Cairo, Hasan al-Banna obtained his first teaching position in 1927 in Ismailiyya, before he returned to Cairo in October 1932. Thus, throughout his education, he followed the general direction of educational professionalization of his times, and he did so in an urban environment. While Hasan al-Banna received his education in a professionalized and urbanized context, he also clearly moved away from the more introverted style of life that Reckwitz assigned to the ideal type of the classical bourgeois. During his time in al-Mahmudiyya he already joined religious associations striving for

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the moral education of youth and opposing sins among the population. He was the elected president of the Jamʿiyya al-Ikhwan al Adabiyya (the Fraternal Literary Society) and a founding member of both the Jamʿiyya Manʿ al-Muḥaramat (The Society of Preventing the Forbidden) and the al-Jamʿiyya al-Ḥaṣafiyya alKhayriyya (The Benevolent Hassafiyya Association), the latter named after the strongly shariʿa-minded Ḥaṣafiyya Sufi order of which Hasan al-Banna later became a member (Lia 1998: 25). In particular in the years 1920 to 1923, he immersed himself in Sufi activism, which he considered to be more important than contemplative religious worship (al-Banna 2013: 44). In sharp contrast to the traditionalist approach, he advocated a form of organized activism through which social morals in society at large should be improved (al-Banna 2013: 17). At the same time, his propagation of Islamic morals was directed against the influence of Christian missionaries and their educational institutions.5 From his youth onwards, Hasan al-Banna combined a form of modern social activism with his Islamic call (daʿwa) to religious reform and revitalization. Already during his time in Damanhur, he urged his fellow students to perform the obligatory prayers even if they had to interrupt classes against the will of their teachers (al-Banna 2013: 24). This zeal for religious and moral reform in Egypt was further enhanced with his move to the urban environment of Cairo. In Cairo, Hasan al-Banna was faced with features of social life that he did not know from his provincial hometown. He noticed a defection of the educated youth from what he considered to be the Islamic way of life (Mitchell 1969: 5). At the same time, he developed a critical attitude vis-à-vis what he called the “Islamic camp” (al-muʿaskar al-Islāmī). According to him the established institutions of Islam were not able to resist the dissolution of Islamic morals and virtues in the name of so-called personal freedoms (Lia 1998: 28). In the spread of secularist and libertarian ideas he identified a threat to Islam, whereas the religious establishment of the al-Azhar was stuck in traditionalist thinking, not able to defend Islam. In terms of national politics, the young Hasan al-Banna observed and increasingly opposed the fruitless struggle of Egypt’s liberal political class in achieving the country’s independence from Great Britain. When Hasan al-Banna left primary school, Egypt witnessed a failed nationalist revolution that left thousands of Egyptians dead at the hands of the British military. The 1919 revolution was sparked by the rejection of a petition with which a delegation around Saad Zaghlul (1857–1927) demanded the end of the

5 For studies about the role of Christian Missionaries in the formation of the Islamic reform movement and the Muslim Brotherhood, see Baron (2014) and Ryad (2009).

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British protectorate over Egypt. In 1922, then, “Britain unilaterally declared Egypt independent,” however, with a number of exceptions that basically granted the British High Commissioner the right to rule the country with respect to all matters of British interest (Provence 2017: 124). Moreover, Hasan al-Banna was a witness of the Iraqi revolt and the Syrian insurgency against French domination in the 1920s.6 In post-First World War Cairo, he encountered both an Egyptian society in deep misery and an Arab world dominated by foreign forces (al-Banna 2004: 238–39). He bemoaned the miserable living conditions of ordinary Egyptians and criticized foreign control over the country’s economy, a situation to which Egypt’s political elite had not found any solution (al-Banna 2004: 107, 108, 117). In this historical context, Hasan al-Banna combined religious with nationalist agitation, defining patriotic duties as religious obligations (al-Banna 2013: 35). For him, defending Egypt against British colonialism and Christian missionaries represented the religious obligation of fighting a jihad (al-Banna 2013: 37). With the foundation of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, Hasan al-Banna eventually fused the “defense of Islam” with the struggle for Egypt and took his reform agenda directly to the people (Mitchell 1969: 211). Hasan al-Banna grew up in the local Egyptian context within a global search for order. In this period, different Egyptian actors in a world of competing ideas aimed at national independence through political, religious, and social reforms. Unified in this aim, however, these social actors were deeply divided in their means and in their visions about what kind of social order would suit Egypt’s future. In his educational background, professional orientation, socioeconomic status and move to Cairo, Hasan al-Banna was a typical representative of a new, emerging Egyptian middle class, which increasingly voiced its social interest concomitant with this more general search for order. Modern education, nationalist sentiments, social up-climbers, newly urbanized, a critical and ambivalent attitude toward Europe, and a pronounced stance of social activism circumscribe the key features of this emerging new middle class, the so-called effendiyya (Eppel 2009). In the Egyptian historical context, the effendiyya represented a specifically modern stratum of society that had common elements with the middle classes characterized by the German type of the “salaried masses” or the American type of the “organization man.” It was this new middle class together with workers and educated members of Egypt’s

6 Hasan al-Banna also met with Shakib Arslan (1869–1946) the exiled Lebanese modernist who was one of the most “prolific petition writers protesting French rule in Syria” (Provence 2017: 175).

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rural population that became the social carriers of the Muslim Brotherhood.7 In addition, the effendiyya generated among itself a new type of Islamic avantgarde that took on the task of organizing the Egyptian population at large. As a member of this avant-garde, Hasan al-Banna envisioned the formation of an Islamic mass organization that should bring about the resolution of Egypt’s social and political crisis through the establishment of an Islamic form of organized society. 4

Islamic Governance: The “Organized Islamic Society” of the Muslim Brotherhood

In Cairo, Hasan al-Banna became personally acquainted with prominent thinkers of the Islamic reform movement such as Rashid Rida (1865–1935) and Muhib al-Din al-Khatib (1886–1969), the latter known for being the co-founder of the Salafiyya Press and Bookshop, which according to Henri Lauzière played a “key role in the advent of the notion of ‘Salafism’” (Lauzière 2010: 370). In his memoires, Hasan al-Banna recounts his frequent visits to the Salafiyya Press and Bookshop and his meetings with “the devout, and hard-working scholar and journalist” al-Khatib (al-Banna 2013: 67). In particular important for the development of his ideas, however, was Rashid Rida, of whose journal alManar he had been a “diligent reader” (Krämer 2010: 16). In Hasan al-Banna’s eyes, Rida was a fierce defender of Islam and he became a tireless reader of Rida’s publications (al-Banna 2013: 67). In this way, the original reform ideas of Muhammad Abduh entered Hasan al-Banna’s world of ideas in Rashid Rida’s interpretation. We can make sense of this sequence of three Islamic reformers in terms of the transformation from a “restricted liberal” imagination of Islamic modernity toward the organized form of Islamic modernity that characterizes the Muslim Brotherhood ideology. Abduh was versed in both classical Islamic sciences and European ideas, which influenced him in his lifelong endeavor to reform the Egyptian educational system (Arafat 2001: 377). In Abduh’s thinking, “the complex interplay of religious reform, scientific discourse, international politics, and modern state formation gave birth to the idea of a specifically Islamic form of ‘bourgeois’ modernity with its normative foundations in the revealed sources of the shariʿa” (Jung 2017: 24). In Muhammad 7 It goes without saying that this rising middle class was only nascent in the interwar period, in which Egypt’s liberal bourgeoise class still dominated in major sectors of society. For more about the ideology and socio-economic background of the effendiyya, see: Krämer 2010: 39; Voll in Mitchell 1969: xiv; Lia 1998: 181.

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Abduh’s reading, the shariʿa represented a set of general principles and normative ideas – with respect to the European context of the history of ideas, something similar to natural law. Consequently, this normative apparatus was open to legislative processes in light of historically changing social needs (cf. Kerr 1966: 103–109). Yet this reinterpretation of the normative sources of Islamic traditions paved the way to the modern idea that an authentic Islamic social order should be based on the shariʿa. Rashid Rida continued this zealous work for an Islamic reform after Muhammad Abduh’s death in 1905. However, he transformed the rather “bourgeois-liberal” character of Abduh’s thought increasingly into a resource for more radical and essentialist interpretations of Islamic modernism, eventually entering through Hasan al-Banna the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. Most significant in this transformation was Rida’s tendency to reinterpret the meaning of the shariʿa in terms of the modern concepts of the national state and its positive law. In his theory of the Islamic Caliphate, for instance, he envisioned a strong Islamic state that would enforce Islamic Law without any foreign interference (Haddad 1997: 256; Rida 1938). In the beginning, Rida’s reformist agenda aimed at a combination of the modern sciences, technologies, and constitutionalism with the moral values and ethical principles of Islam. In his later years, however, he propagated a more rigid and “traditionalist” version of Islamic reform, merging modernist Salafi thinking with the puritan school of Hanbalism, increasingly restricting the “golden age of Islam” to the life of the Prophet and the first generation of pious Muslims (Hourani 1962: 230). Even more important, Rida abolished the approach of his mentor Muhammad Abduh in replacing his strategy of gradual reform and selective collaboration with Britain by a strongly confrontational and revolutionary stance. In this way, Rashid Rida’s later reform agenda was animated by the conviction that there was a principle antagonism between Islam and the West (Tauber 1989: 124–127). From the elder Rashid Rida, Hasan al-Banna appropriated the concept of an authentic Islamic social order that is based on the shariʿa. Going even further than Rida, he turned Islamic Law into the prime source of moral integrity and cultural authenticity and into a symbol of national independence (Krämer 2010: 114). In order to solve the political, religious, and social crisis in Egypt, Hasan al-Banna called for a return to the exemplary period of early Islam, represented by the Prophet Muhammad himself and the first four rightly guided Caliphs (Mitchell 1969: 210). From the experience of the first Islamic community he wanted to derive a practical reform program for Egypt (al-Banna 2004: 95). In his own words: “Let us be soldiers for the Islamic call through which we realize the life of the nation and the glory of society” (al-Banna 2013: 96). While

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vigorously promoting this Salafi approach of returning to the normative ideal of the first Islamic community, Hasan al-Banna completely downplayed one of the other central features of Muhammad Abduh’s Islamic modernism, the conscious but critical appropriation of European ideas and institutions into an Islamic context. Instead, he gradually expanded the regulative claims of the shariʿa toward the social realms of economics, politics, law, education, arts, and religious practices under a form of Islamic governance (Commins 2005). Hasan al-Banna argued that the “first Islamic state” under the Prophet provided a reform program comprising all realms of society whether we speak about rulers, the military, or financial institutions (al-Banna 2004: 94–96). In the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, the idea of a modern Islamic order (al-niẓām al-islāmī) attained the character of a form of Islamic governance that promised an all-encompassing answer to the complex social transformation that characterized this age of the search for order. In Hasan al-Banna’s version of an organized Islamic modernity, the regulative responsibility of the Islamic government should comprise such different fields as the arts, religious practices, school curricula, the media, and all kind of state institutions (al-Banna 2006: 38–41). In his holistic approach to Islamic governance, Hasan al-Banna developed further a line of thought already known from the reform agenda of Jamal adDin al-Afghani (1838–1897) and Muhammad Abduh. Being a part of the general discourse on civilizations of the nineteenth century, they applied the modern historicist concept of civilization in identifying the totality of Islam as a civilization in the ideal of a Golden Age in early Islam (Jung 2011: 235). However, while Afghani utilized this holistic concept of Islam as civilization loosely in order to support his fight against European imperialism with Islamic unity, Hasan al-Banna employed it as the foundational model for a specifically Islamic social order, whose establishment he envisaged in Egypt. In content, this vision clearly reflects major elements of organized modernity, in particular the idea of a conscious reconstruction and management of society by an “enlightened” ruling avant-garde, an idea which also was an essential ideological feature in the formation of many of the modern national states in Europe. The move of the Muslim Brotherhood from a benevolent religious association to a socio-political organization is highlighted by the central role that the Islamic state acquired in its ideology. The idea of Islamic governance assumed the primary role in the disciplining and structuration of society. The future Islamic state should implement the ideal order revealed in the shariʿa in the name of social and moral progress. In this way, Hasan al-Banna constructed a specifically modern form of Islamic governance similar to the system of rule that Timothy Mitchell once described in “Colonizing Egypt” (Mitchell 1988).

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­ itchell’s book deals with the political efforts of Middle Eastern rulers and M colonial administrators of the late nineteenth century that made the supervision of people’s health, the policing of urban neighborhoods, the reorganization of streets, and, above all, the schooling of the people the central responsibility of government (Mitchell 1988: 103). Evidently, Hasan al-Banna developed his ideas about the Islamic state in close reference to the repressive and authoritarian attempts at state and nation building that characterized the global search for order in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 5

The Modern Muslim Subject: Vanguard Activist and Peer-grouporiented Self

Hasan al-Banna’s self-representation and social actions after moving to Cairo clearly remind us of the patterns of an avant-garde subject of organized modernity aiming at guiding the previously excluded masses into the center of Egyptian society. Though not a very original thinker himself, Hasan al-Banna’s self-understanding resembles the type of the activist “new intellectual” that emerged in late nineteenth century Egypt (Skovgaard-Petersen 2001). Expressing the features of a relatively autonomous, self-conscious individual actor, this new type of a modern subject was introduced in a serial story first published by Rashid Rida in his journal al-Manar. Later compiled in a book under the title “Conversations of a Reformer and a Traditionalist (muhawarat al-muslih wa al-muqalid),” these stories feature a long discussion between a young Islamic reformer and an older traditionalist-minded shaykh. Rida describes the reformer’s conscious attempts to address the contemporary social crisis by critically reflecting upon religious traditions. He laments the deplorable status of Muslims and asks the shaykh about the reasons behind this decline in the Islamic umma. The shaykh appeals to the reformist to remain passive and have trust in God. Should the umma indeed be in decline, then this would only indicate the expected arrival of the Day of Judgment. In sharp contrast to the shaykh’s passive, traditionalist worldview, the young reformer, however, called for the problems of the Muslim world to be addressed by a kind of social activism based on personally acquired knowledge (Rida 2007: 15–19). This is precisely the attitude that we find in Hasan al-Banna’s description of his dissatisfaction with the religious establishment that he experienced after his arrival in Cairo, which led to his criticism of it, declaring it to be ineffective with regard to the defense of the Egyptian people and Islam (al-Banna 2013: 68). We can read the biography of Hasan al-Banna as the emergence of a modern “agentic actor” who acquired the capacity for responsible agency for himself,

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for other actors, and for his values, ideas, and normative principles (Meyer and Jepperson 2000: 106–108). Confronted with the modern predicaments in Egypt, he first took over responsibility for himself. Like the young reformer in Rida’s conversation, he combined faith with modern education and the self-reliant acquisition of knowledge. Then he claimed responsibility for other actors in aiming at the mobilization, cultivation, and religious indoctrination of the Egyptian people at large. Finally, he bestowed himself with the existential responsibility of defending Islam and the Egyptian nation against the cultural and political assaults of the “West.” Even while studying in Damanhur, Hasan al-Banna transformed his Islamic beliefs into practical work among his fellow students. In Cairo, he joined the “Islamic Society for Nobility and Character” and continued organizing young students in the name of Islam (al-Banna 2013: 61). In Ismailia he eventually founded the Muslim Brotherhood and began to spread its ideology and institutions throughout the country. For Hasan al-Banna the modern individual was without a doubt a religious subject fundamentally basing its moral sovereignty on the teachings and social practices of Islam. The creation of this modern religious Muslim was once his point of departure in founding the Muslim Brotherhood as a religious movement. In his memoires, he explains his mission to organize, socialize, and supervise these modern Muslim subjects within a religious framework of correctly applied Islamic traditions (al-Banna 2013: 91). But al-Banna’s modern Muslim was also a subject of knowledge, disciplined work, and organization. He understood the ideal member of the Muslim Brotherhood as an active agent in society whose engagement appears in a collective framework. Hasan al-Banna’s teachings aimed at the generalization of behavior across Egyptian society in which detailed rules and regulations should define the everyday behavior of the ordinary Muslim. In the form of an organized collectivity, shaped by collectively binding social practices, the Muslim Brotherhood was supposed to instill agency into ordinary Egyptians who so far belonged to the socially excluded masses. One of the core tools in this construction of modern Muslims was education. As early as 1931, Hasan al-Banna established the first school of the movement. The curriculum of the school was tailored to fit both its Islamic mission and the educational needs of a mobilized Egyptian society. The school comprised three study programs that prepared the students to join religious institutions such as the al-Azhar, to attend technical schools, and to enroll in upper public secondary schools (al-Banna 2013: 123). In this way, he not only wanted to lift the educational standard of ordinary Egyptians, but also aimed at r­educing the influence of Christian missionaries in the modern Egyptian educational sector. Moreover, he expressed his ambition to carry the ideas and mission of

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the Muslim Brotherhood to every village in Egypt by means of schooling the masses (al-Banna 2013: 128). According to the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, a modern Muslim ought to be a pious religious subject whose moral integrity was simultaneously based on practical work. Through the Brotherhood, Hasan al-Banna wanted to facilitate the formation of a new social order consisting of modern Muslim subjects based on the Islamic faith. From our theoretical perspective, Hasan al-Banna aimed at constructing a specifically Islamic form of modernity. For this purpose, he introduced new technologies of the self and social practices in which the human body and public performances played an increasing role. This was documented by the growing significance of celebrations, honorific titles, badges, and disciplining formations in the identity construction of the organization (Krämer 2010: 37).8 The Muslim Brotherhood established moral brigades (al-katā ʾib) monitoring the correct public behavior among its members. With the building of excursion troops, roving troops, and boy scouting associations, Hasan al-Banna wanted to take care of the physical formation of the Brotherhood’s members (al-Banna 2004: 126). The ideal young Muslim Brother was a modern subject of self-cultivation, inspired by his religious faith and defined by characteristics such as manly, virtuous, industrious, temperate, clean, self-confident, modest, polite, physically active, productive, and punctual (Krämer 2010: 111). In combining religious and formal education with physical training, Hasan al-Banna was guided by the normative ideal type of a modern Muslim subject that was educated, energetic, orderly, and pious in its behavior (al-Banna 2004: 130). In short, it was the kind of a peer-group-oriented culture of the Islamic masses that the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood wanted to shape through the managerial means of Islamic governance. 6 Conclusions This chapter has offered a theoretically guided and historically contextualized interpretation of the biographical background of Hasan al-Banna and the ways in which he wanted to construct a specific form of Islamic modernity through the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Looking at his work and actions, in Hasan al-Banna we indeed meet with a “man of transition,” a man who was driven by the globally observable wave of an all-penetrating search for order. Gudrun Krämer described this transition as occurring in al-Banna’s move from the 8 This forms of material representations of the Muslim Brotherhood are further discussed by Lia 1998: 131, 171; Abdel Halim 2013: 121, 123, 14–41; al-Sisi 2003: 78.

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countryside to an urban lifestyle and the fusion of the subject positions of a shaykh and an effendi (Krämer 2010: 87–88). In his own identity construction, Hasan al-Banna combined elements of traditional Islamic education, Sufi spirituality, bourgeois literacy, and the modern working subject. This combination turned him into a man who represented a new Egyptian vanguard for the establishment of an Islamic form of organized society that should lead the country toward national independence. The ideal modern Muslim in this order resembled a pious version of the modern individual of a peer-group-oriented society that has been formed by a cross-generalization of the behavior of the masses. This generalization Hasan al-Banna wanted to achieve through his teachings of “true Islam,” through a form of Islamic governance applying the ideas of the conscious management of Egyptian society based on the ideological and institutional means of a new form of mass organization: the Muslim Brotherhood. In The Orphan Scandal, Beth Baron concluded that the Muslim Brotherhood “arose in reaction to missionaries as well as in their image” (Baron 2014: 197). She argued that in its institutions and methods such as “mobile preaching units, preaching in cafes and clubs, spreading the daʿwa on the countryside” (Baron 2014: 124), the Muslim Brothers resembled the “evangelical enterprises” which they aimed at countering through their social activities (Baron 2014: 128). Apparently, in countering the projects of Christian missionaries in Egypt, Hasan al-Banna set up similar institutions, in particular with regard to education and the spread of the faith, as he witnessed them in the endeavors of the evangelical missionary movement. However, that observation should not mislead us to conclude that the Brotherhood was a mere copy of its “evangelical foes.” Rather, our findings here suggest that we should understand the rise, spread, and transformation of the Muslim Brotherhood from a small benevolent religious association to one of the most powerful socio-political movements in the Muslim world in a much more comprehensive explicative framework. While the Muslim Brotherhood applied similar institutional means as the Christian missionaries did, the organization went far beyond the evangelical enterprise in both its institutional make-up and social activities. We would therefore argue that it is a local expression of the global search for order in a period dominated by the rise of organized society.9 From our theoretical perspective, the case of the Christian missionaries was only one of the historically significant aspects of the historical context in which Hasan al-Banna worked and lived. In his lifelong struggle, however, we consider him animated by the 9 For a theoretical discussion of this crucial enactment of global schemes through local forms of activism, see: Jung and Stetter 2018.

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vision of the establishment of an Islamic form of organized modernity with both distinct institutional features and a normative ideal type of a modern pious Muslim subject. Without any doubt, in Hasan al-Banna we meet a religious man whose understanding of Islam was visibly shaped and molded by the nonreligious ideological, social, and political currents of his times.

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Mitchell, Timothy. 1988. Colonizing Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mårtensson, Ulrika. 2015. “‘Islamic Order’: Semiotics and Pragmatism in the Muslim Brotherhood?” Journal of Islamic Research 9(1): 35–57. Osterhammel, Jürgen. 2011. Die Verwandlung der Welt. Eine Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts, Sonderausgabe. München: C.H. Beck. Pargeter, Alison. 2013. The Muslim Brotherhood: From Opposition to Power. London: Saqi Books. Provence, Michael. 2017. The Last Ottoman Generation and the Making of the Modern Middle East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reckwitz, Andreas. 2006. Das hybride Subjekt. Eine Theorie der Subjektkulturen von der bürgerlichen Moderne zur Postmoderne. Weilerswirst: Velbrück Wissenschaft. Rida, M. Rashid. 1938. Le califat dans la doctrine de Rashid Rida, translated by Henri Laoust. Beyrouth: Mémoires de l’institut francais de Damas. Rida, M. Rashid. 2007. Muhawarat al-musalih wa al-muqalid wa wahda al-islamiyya. Cairo: Dar al-Nashr al-Jamiat. Ryad, Umar. 2009. Islamic Reformism and Christianity. A Critical Reading of the Works of Muhammad Rashid Rida and His Associates (1898–1935). Leiden: Brill. Safran, Nadav. 1961. Egypt in Search of Political Community: An Analysis of Intellectual and Political Evolution of Egypt, 1804–1852. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Schulze, Reinhard. 2000. A Modern History of the Islamic World. New York: New York University Press. Smith, Charles D. 1973. “The ‘Crisis of Orientation’: The Shift of Egyptian Intellectuals to Islamic Subjects in the 1930s.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 4: 382–410. Smith, Charles D. 2006. “The Historiography of World War i and the Emergence of the Contemporary Middle East.” In Israel Gershoni, Amy Singer and Y. Hakan Erdem (eds.), Middle East Historiographies: Narrating the Twentieth Century. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Skovgaard-Petersen. 2001. “Portrait of the Intellectual as a Young Man: Rashid Rida’s Muhawarat al-Musalih wa al-Muqalid (1906).” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 12(1): 93–104. Tauber, Eliezer. 1989. “Rashid Rida as Pan-Arabist before World-War i.” The Muslim World 79 (2): 102–112. Toth, James. 2013. Sayyid Qutb: The Life and Legacy of a Radical Islamic Intellectual. New York: Oxford University. Wagner, Peter. 1994. A Sociology of Modernity: Liberty and Discipline. London Routledge. Wagner, Peter. 2010. “Successive Modernities and the Idea of Progress: A First Attempt.” Distinktion 11(2): 9–24. Wagner, Peter. 2012. Modernity: Understanding the Present. London: Polity.

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Chapter 5

“Worship is not Everything:” Volunteering and Muslim Life in Modern Turkey Fabio Vicini 1

Introduction: Islamic-inspired Volunteerism

This chapter investigates Islamic-inspired volunteerism at Deniz Feneri Aid and Solidarity Association (Deniz Feneri Yardımlaşma ve Dayanışma Derneği), a charity operating in Turkey since 1998, under the light of theories of successive modernities (see Jung and Sinclair 2015; Jung 2016 and 2017). Based on indepth interviews with five volunteers and fieldwork within the organization, it tackles questions related to how Muslim forms of commitment have emerged and changed, both in shape and meaning, in the context of broader socioeconomic neoliberal restructuring in the country since the 1980s. In particular, the chapter investigates the way Muslims working as volunteers in this faith-based organization in contemporary Turkey think of their activism as a significant, often even essential, part of fully living a Muslim life in today’s society. For them, volunteerism is as important as complying with the key pillars of faith and with Muslim etiquettes of virtuous behavior. In this regard, they see their commitment as a fundamental complement to their life as pious people.1 In current sociological and anthropological literature, the Foucauldian notion of “subjectivity” has been often invoked to investigate how Muslims live their faith in contemporary times. Rather than taking it as a neutral analytical category, however, this chapter stands on the assumption that the view of individuals as “subjects” endowed with a particular agency first emerged in the West in conjunction with the modern nation-state and related new conceptions of progressive time, social change, and the place of humanity – intended as a motor of history – in it (Asad 2003). This new – “modern” if you wish – understanding of the self and of individuals’ place and role in social change initially developed in relation to bottom-up sociopolitical and economic

1 The research that is presented in this work was supported for one year (2013–2014) by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (Tübitak) with a one-year scholarship (2013–2014) [Grant No. 2216].

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­transformations first initiated in Europe around a century and a half ago.2 Bringing this observation a step further, I argue that the idea of subjectivity has in time evolved in conjunction with new processes associated with the liberalization of the global economy following the 1980s, which have given origin to new forms of activism all across the world. In this light, this study reads the sense of engagement permeating the view of Muslim life among people at Deniz Feneri as being the – only partial, as it will be argued – effect of the emergence of such new global conceptions. New views of the agential self have indeed raised new interrogatives in the minds of pious Muslim people, including ethical concerns about the extent to which an action can be considered worthy or not from an Islamic and ethically informed perspective. For example, “What is worth action in today’s world?” “Can I simply be content with fulfilling Muslim religious obligations or is something more expected from me?” “How can I better realize myself as a Muslim and a person in a world in which civic engagement, participation, and responsibility are especially valued?” The promotion of neoliberal policies on a global scale has provided the ground for a renewed engagement by Muslims in public life. Following the retreat of the state from the in the 1980s economy and the subsequent opening of new spaces of action for non-state actors, Muslims in Turkey were allowed to rejoin religiously inspired organizations after decades of forced stagnation under secular regimes. Relatedly, the chapter engages with an abundant body of literature that has recently explored the emergence of Islamic faith-based ngos in the context of the state’s retreat from welfare activities and the imposition of neoliberal agendas in Muslim-majority societies since the 1980s (Atia 2012, 2013; Clark 2010; Gökariksel and Secor 2009; Isik 2012, 2014; Osella and Osella 2009; Rudnyckyj 2009). Contrary to intuitive assumptions that would see Islam and neoliberal policies at odds with one another, this scholarship has shown how Muslims have brought together religiously grounded views of salvation with a rhetoric in favor of development, personal success, and entrepreneurship, originating what has been dubbed by Atia (2012) as “pious neoliberalism.” Inspired by the works of Michel Foucault on governmentality (Foucault 1991; Gordon 1991), these studies have illustrated the way religious discourse has even thrived on “modern” views of progress, rationalism, and success, bringing forth new, unpredictable, and syncretic ways of living a Muslim life 2 Following both Foucault and Weber in speaking of this process of institutionalization of subjectivity within the framework of modern-state formations, Knauft (2002: 7) has highlighted how modern views of subjectivity are grounded upon a particular signification of daily life: “The incitement to search for value in daily life – to heroize the present while avoiding the stigma of being backward or depraved – was paralleled by a mandate to reinvent oneself as a newly ascetic and disciplined modern subject (Foucault 1984: 41–42; cf. Weber 1958).”

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(Atia 2012; Osella and Osella 2009; Rudnyckyj 2009). Similar to what has happened in some Christian contexts (Elisha 2008; Muehlebach 2012), faith-based organizations have provided a particularly fruitful terrain for the affirmation of these new forms of Muslim “subjectivities”. Islamic-inspired ngos have indeed matched the neoliberal imperatives of participating in civil society activities with a religiously grounded call for both helping the neighbor and improving one’s self (Atia 2013; Elyachar 2005). However, following Jung (2016, 2017) the chapter departs from those approaches that more or less explicitly have given priority to Western modernity as the reference paradigm of change and modernization for world societies. Rather than pointing to new forms of Muslim subjectivity as “cultural hybrids” between an alleged self-enclosed Western modernity and a likewise monolithic Islamic civilization, these will be accounted as “historically contingent and fragmented results of the ways in which social actors have imagined solutions to modern questions” (Jung and Sinclair 2015: 28).3 In this light, they are seen as responses to socioeconomic transformations brought about by successive stages of modernity (Reckwitz 2006, referenced in Jung and Sinclair 2015; see also Jung et al. 2014; Jung 2017). According to this theoretical approach to modernization, new interrogatives related to how to live a pious life in a constantly changing world have been faced in different places synchronically as people passed through simultaneously developing stages of economic, social, and political transformation (Wagner 2010, 2012). Further, inasmuch as the above-mentioned studies on Muslim faith-based NGOs have focused on the compliance of Muslim subjectivities with neoliberal logics and broader structural transformations, not much space has been left in their analysis for a consideration of how these transformations have impacted on the way Muslims engage with their religious tradition. Previous works have indeed been mainly concerned with the rising levels of individualism and entrepreneurial spirit in Islamic inspired forms of volunteerism – and hence in how a religious logic has been homologized in order to fit with an economic capitalist logic. I am more interested in the other side of the issue, namely how economic-inspired views of individual engagement and entrepreneurship have been appropriated as legitimate and worthy forms of Islamic commitment by Muslim actors who thus broaden the limits of proper and worthy Islamic behavior beyond conventional lines. 3 In this configuration, “[i]nstead of perceiving modernity as a social arrangement with a definite origin in time and space, we would suggest conceptualizing it as an emerging complex of social problems which as a cognitive, normative and expressive matrix has assumed essential properties of its own […]” (Jung and Sinclair 2015: 38).

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In order to address these questions, I first frame the emergence of Deniz Feneri in the socioeconomic transformations brought about by neoliberal policies in Turkey since the 1980s. Then, I explore the way the organization contributed to the re-publicization of Islamic discourse beginning with the late 1990s, by so providing pious Muslims also with a new organizational framework within which they could live a life waving between civic engagement and religious commitment. Finally, I consider how volunteerism at Deniz Feneri confers my interlocutors with a new sense of religious commitment, a sense that is boosted by what in the successive stages of modernity theory is classified as “postmodern” views of the dynamic, self-reliant self. As I will conclude, these forms of experiencing a worthy Muslim life are not entirely new, as they retain an attachment to long-standing Islamic goals of satisfying God. This fact does not only put them at odds with compassion-based secular conceptions of humanitarian intervention (Mittermaier 2014); it also marks their more collectivistic and peer-group-oriented character, which can be associated with second modernity models (Jung and Petersen 2014: 288; Jung et al. 2014; Jung and Sinclair 2015; Jung 2016, 2017). New ways of living a worthy Muslim life, indeed, reveal underneath the resilience of long-standing notions of charity and the common good, which are not so easily erased by the impact of broader structural transformations. 2

Neoliberal Transformations and the “Civil Society” Framework

Formally established in 1998, Deniz Feneri is one of the best-known charity organizations in Turkey. Promoting poverty relief and humanitarian aid projects in more than sixty countries, in 2015 alone it delivered humanitarian aid for nearly 47 million Turkish Lira (around 16.5 million US dollars).4 According to its own estimates, Deniz Feneri helps around half million families all over the world by donating them food (gıda), shelter (barınma), health (sağlık), and financial assistance (para).5 In recent years, the organization has been particularly active in providing first response help (including the provision of food, securing shelter, and managing rescue operations) to regions hit by natural disasters, such as Haiti in 2010.6 In Turkey, it operates mostly in the fields of 4 http://www.denizfeneri.org.tr/en/haberler/deniz-feneri-2015-annual-report_4187 (last accessed 8 February 2018). 5 http://www.denizfeneri.org.tr/kurumsal/hakkimizda_43/ (last accessed 20 January 2018). 6 As for other similar organizations in Turkey, the 1999 earthquake in Kocaeli (a locality close to Istanbul), in which around 17,000 people died and more than half a million remained homeless, marks an important symbolic moment in the emergence of a humanitarian-kind

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education and assistance to the needy and children. Deniz Feneri is also well known for the fundraising campaigns it organizes during the annual Feast of Sacrifice (Kurban Bayramı) to send meat, other food, and general aid to poor countries around the world. In 2017, for that occasion alone, it distributed meat in thirty-five countries spread over three continents, including surrounding countries such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Macedonia, but also places farther afield such as Afghanistan, Palestine, Syria, Indonesia (Aceh), Mongolia, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Kenya, and Ethiopia.7 As an association (dernek), Deniz Feneri answers to the Ministry of the Interior’s Department of Associations (Dernekler Dairesi Başkanlığı) and it operates within the legal boundaries allowed by this associative form.8 The organization keeps a low profile in terms of making explicit reference to Islamic values. This is in conformity with secular regulations that until recently prevented the expression of religious symbols and claims in public. At the same time, as illustrated below, this attitude reflects the organization’s desire of being as inclusive as possible. Rather than appealing to the obligation that every practicing Muslim has of donating part of his income to the needy (zekat), on its website Deniz Feneri refers to a more vaguely defined culture of helpfulness (yardımlaşma) and benevolence (hayırseverlik) as its founding values – terms which inevitably maintain, however, a religiously laden meaning, as the latter word in particular indicates. As will be clarified, the large majority of volunteers, both at the lower and higher levels, are pious Muslims. Nevertheless, people at Deniz Feneri preferred to emphasize the organization’s compliance with the criteria of efficiency and impartiality that in their views distinguish civil society organizations from “more conventional” faith-based associations which only randomly distribute food to the population during religious festivities. For the same reason, aid culture in the country. Memories of this event are recalled when natural disasters happen in other countries abroad and play an important role in spurring people to donate their money, as happened for the Haiti earthquake of January 2010. 7 Türkiye Gazetesi, 28 August 2017. http://www.turkiyegazetesi.com.tr/yasam/499516.aspx (last accessed 20 January 2018). 8 This is the official webpage of this state’s department https://www.dernekler.gov.tr/tr/Teskilat/gorevlerimiz.aspx (last accessed 20 January 2018). Associations’ legal boundaries have been broadened in the last fifteen years. Recent changes in Turkish law have made regulations concerning associations not very different from those of foundations (vakıf). The new Law of Associations (number 5253), which was passed by the akp administration in 2004, enabled a dernek such as Deniz Feneri to benefit from both public and foreign donations, as well as to develop partnerships with other organizations without prior government authorization (Isik 2014). For the text of the law see: https://www.dernekler.gov.tr/tr/mevzuat/ kanun/5253-dernekler-kanunu.aspx (last accessed 24 January 2018).

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v­ olunteers were eager to depict the organization as modern, efficient, qualityoriented, and professional. In support of this claim, they highlighted the rigorous tracking system through which donations are managed along the entire process, from acceptance to redistribution. In 2001, Deniz Feneri was indeed certified by the iso 9001 quality management system. This accomplishment is considered key by the administrators because, in their words, today’s people want to be reassured about the transparency of the transactions and be certain that donations are allocated following rigorous criteria. Making people at Deniz Feneri even more sensitive about standards of professionalism is the investigation scandal that in 2008 hit a German counterpart with which it was informally associated for mismanaging and embezzling funds (Bugra and Candas 2011; Kaya 2015).9 While people in the Turkish branch were never convicted, the case had involved some members of the administration, thus casting a shadow on the transparency of the organization that still hovers around it.10 Demonstrating commitment to rigorous principles of certification along all the stages of the process is in this sense considered essential to rebuild the positive image of the organization. Providing most of the workforce of Deniz Feneri, volunteers (around 62,000 according to 2013 internal records) can be directly involved in one or more of the following activities: social research ascertaining which families deserve help and in what measure, food and clothes stocking and distribution, callcenter operators, promoters of the organization, medical care providers (if qualified) either in Turkey or in expeditions abroad, or employees helping to file documents or maintain the organization’s webpage. For example, many of the people I met volunteered on a non-regular basis by stationing at Deniz Feneri’s stands scattered across the city during the main religious festivities. Others contributed by joining some special gatherings or by participating in the distribution of goods on specific days of the week. No matter how intermittent, the volunteers’ contribution was considered crucial for the organization. This was so not only because Deniz Feneri could not function without them, but also – and especially – because their participation is seen as an intrinsic and essential trait for its self-definition as a “civil society organization.” As singled out on its website, “the contribution of volunteers is necessary to the development of the basis of a just and democratic

9 10

Hürriyet, 17 September 2008. http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/germany-convicts-charityfraud-suspects-passes-ball-to-turkey-9916248 (last accessed 20 January 2018). Recep Kocak, interviewed by author, fieldnotes, 10 July 2013, Istanbul.

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society.” It is indeed through their service in organizations that volunteers across Turkey can contribute to their society’s well-being and future.11 The correlation that is here established between volunteering, civil society, and democratization is not incidental, but the reflex of global trends of the last three decades. Since the 1980s, and especially after the fall of the Berlin Wall, new economic policies oriented toward the liberalization of the market and the corresponding softening of state-centered welfare policies were implemented all around the world (Hann 2005 [1996]). The literature has extensively documented how such transformations have significantly impacted Turkey as well in the last thirty-five years (Eder 2009; Bugra and Candas 2011; Kaya 2015). This is part of a project that had already been initiated after the military coup of 1980, when then Prime Minister Turgut Özal (1927–1993) had transformed what was a mainly state-driven economy into a free market system open to foreign investments and ready to downplay the state’s role both in the economy and in welfare provision (Öniş 2004). Since 2002, the akp administration12 has continued pursuing these policies by infusing them with an Islamic aura, with the consequence that organizations such as Deniz Feneri, and other major Islamic associations such as Humanitarian Relief Foundation (ihh), Yardım Eli, or Türgev have almost substituted the state in the promotion of poverty relief programs (Isik 2014; Kaya 2015). A full politico-economic analysis of the interrelation between neoliberal policies and charity is beyond the scope of this chapter, and I refer to the quoted literature for an overview. Relevant for our purpose is how neoliberal economic restructuring has infused Turkish society with new ideas about the place and role of people in society. These include the view that being an active member of a civil society organization should be not only wished for, but even desired as a condition for full participation, as citizens, in activities aimed at fostering the collective wellbeing. It is in this new discursive environment that what successive modernity literature has defined as a “postmodern” kind of Muslim “subjectivity” emphasizing the active and self-reliant self has emerged (Reckwitz 2006, referenced in Jung and Sinclair 2015; see also Jung et al. 2014; Jung 2017). In this context, volunteering in poverty relief organizations such as Deniz Feneri offers but one example among others of how committed Muslims can live a pious life in contemporary society. 11 12

“Gönüllülerin varlığı, adil ve demokratik bir toplum altyapısını oluşturmak için gereklidir.” http://www.denizfeneri.org.tr/gonullu/gonullu-kimdir-ne-is-yapar_1/ (last accessed 22 January 2018). The Islamic-inspired Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party, henceforth akp), which is still in power.

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In sum, Deniz Feneri’s insistence on professionalism and its self-ascription to the sphere of civil society both reflect the impact of these broader socioeconomic restructuring processes. By complying with the conditions posed by these structural transformations, the organization provides Muslims in contemporary Turkey the institutional framework they need for cultivating new “Islamic modernities” that are in tune with, and can be seen as an inherent part of, global modernity (Jung 2017: 7). Not being the simple expression of such neoliberal logic, however, new ways of living a committed Muslim life through volunteerism also reflect parallel inner transformations of the Islamic charity tradition that took place in Turkey in the last two decades under the AKP. The next section illustrates this, namely how Deniz Feneri contributed to the republicization of long-standing Islamic ideas of the good by conferring them new meaning in the modern public sphere. 3

Publicizing Islam

Although Deniz Feneri is defined nowhere in its charter as a faith-based organization, given its association with major Islamic festivities and its alleged close relationship with the akp administration, the general public identifies it with the conservative circles and with Islamic culture in general. Its activities are indeed part of a new wave of Islamic revival that followed akp’s political affirmation in 2002. However, my interlocutors were hesitant to associate themselves either with this or any other political party. Leaders of the association thought that being associated with some specific political faction could jeopardize their attempt to reach as many donors and receivers as possible (see also Isik 2014). Contrary to foundations which can rely on rentier capitals generated by their endowments, as an association, Deniz Feneri does not own assets and hence strictly depends on external funding.13 Moreover, most of its revenues do not consist of big amounts deposited by wealthy people but are composed of small-size donations made by middle-income people through the internet or by sms.14 Deniz Feneri’s wary approach to state-society relations should not, however, be read just in aseptic strategic terms. In my interlocutors’ view, it also ­responds

13 14

On the main legal differences between foundations and associations, see Isik (2014). For a general introduction to foundation culture in Ottoman times, see Singer (2008). According to Deniz Feneri’s own statistics, donors are people occupying a middle position in the income scale. Recep Kocak, interviewed by author, fieldnotes, 10 July 2013, Istanbul.

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to the organization’s mission of reviving Islamic values of benevolence in society.15 In the words of Recep Kocak – a long time member of the board of directors and today’s communications manager of Deniz Feneri: We want to function as a bridge connecting rich and poor people (zengin ve fakir arasında bir köprü). In particular, we aim to connect the “altruistic people” (hayırsever) and the poor.16 The volunteers often highlighted this aspect by remarking that beyond providing concrete aid to the needy, they were moved by a desire to revitalize longstanding Islamic values of benevolence (hayırseverlik). In their words, the goal was to build a bond based on a relationship of solidarity and helpfulness ­between the poor and the ordinary citizens, as the one that existed during ­Ottoman times. Differently from the state’s welfare system, which follows a bureaucratic and redistributive logic, it is the moral-religious link lying underneath their motivation that makes their approach to poverty and inequality distinctive.17 The story of how Deniz Feneri was founded is particularly illustrative in this regard. The organization was established as a response to the success of “City and Ramadan” (Şehir ve Ramazan), a TV show first broadcast in 1996 during the holy month of Ramadan on Kanal 7.18 According to Recep, the producers envisioned a format that could promote a “positive movement” (iyilik hareketi) and publicize the values of help and solidarity (yardımlaşma ve dayanışma). The intent was to show the miserable conditions in which people inhabiting the outskirts of Turkey’s major cities lived in order to spur a spontaneous emotional reaction in the audience.19 The format was selected accordingly. It consisted of a 20-minute show shot a few hours before the breaking of the fast ­(iftar) where the two presenters visited a poor family to which they brought 15

16 17

18 19

One should not forget to consider, however, that the spatial distance that continues to shape the relationship between donors and receivers in a Muslim context may sometime make the former even “more prone to established bodily limits and societal prejudices” against the latter (Alkan-Zeybek 2012: 151). Recep Kocak, interviewed by author, fieldnotes, 10 July 2013, Istanbul. This does not mean to underrate an important body of literature on charity in Turkey arguing that charity-based assistance to the poor has grown in parallel with the deregulation policies of the neoliberal state, by so ending up recreating the conditions of chronic poverty (see especially Kaya 2015). Rather, I am pointing to the different philosophical assumptions upon which charitable action is based if compared with the logic of modern bureaucratic states. A conservative TV channel opened in 1994, among many others, following the liberalization of the broadcasting market by Prime Minister Turgut Özal in 1990. Recep Kocak, interviewed by author, fieldnotes, 10 July 2013, Istanbul.

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food and medicines. The visits were improvised. People were shot in real time and shown in their deplorable living conditions. All this conferred a high ­degree of veracity to the images, which made the show particularly effective on the audience. As the spectators tended to empathize with the people on the screen – so the rationale of the show was – they were then prompted to donate. The TV show was aired for several years – on Kanal 7 until 2009, and on Hilal TV since the following year – until its broadcast came to a halt in 2014.20 Many volunteers, including those I have met, became acquainted with Deniz Feneri by watching Şehir ve Ramazan. The reputation of the association has long remained attached to the show and to its main character, the elderly and retired actor İbrahim Uğurlu, aka Ramazan Ağabey (“Ramadan brother”), who today still joins in with many initiatives of the organization. It is not by chance that Deniz Feneri continues to receive most of its donations during the month of Ramadan, either in the form of obligatory alms (zekat) or, mostly, of voluntarybased donations (bağış) made in small amounts of five, ten, 20 or 30 Turkish liras via sms.21 Not necessarily prompted by a felt sense of obligation and will to comply with strict Islamic obligations of annually donating the zekat, indeed, donations are apparently a response to Deniz Feneri’s more visceral public appeal to shared sentiments of solidarity and helpfulness toward brothers in religion. Similarly to what is happening in other Muslim contexts, in Turkey too Islamic alms are being partly hollowed out of the more strictly legal dimension that they once owned and are turned into acts of “will-based” donation spurred by sentiments of empathy with the victim of natural disasters, war, and poverty (e.g. Retsikas 2014). At this point, it may be tempting to see a parallel between the publicization of charity discourse by Deniz Feneri and the diffusion of humanitarian discourse on a global scale – which, as noted, is in turn the reflex of broader economic transformations and of the related disengagement of national states from welfare programs. As observed by Didier Fassin (2012) with regard to the place of moral sentiments and humanist reason in the language of humanitarian intervention, today morality derives most of its authority from emotional language, that is, from appeals that exceed reason-based ethical considerations. In his words:

20 21

Some episodes can still be found on YouTube. For example: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=O8zUdpVS26o (last accessed 25 January 2018). Recep Kocak, interviewed by author, fieldnotes, 16 July 2013, Istanbul.

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In this philosophical tradition, the experience of empathy precedes the sense of good. Compassion represents the most complete manifestation of this paradoxical combination of heart and reason: the sympathy felt for the misfortune of one’s neighbor generates the moral indignation that can prompt action to end it. fassin 2012: 1

While compassion and the related notions of suffering, empathy, and sentiment are defining traits of the modern European experience in general, “organized compassion” for those who are distant and beyond national borders is specific to a modern understanding of humanitarianism that developed in the latecolonial context. It is in this period that humanitarianism emerged as “a permanent, transnational, institutional, neutral, and secular regime for understanding and addressing the root causes of human suffering” (Watenpaugh 2015: 5). The way Deniz Feneri operates contains the signs of a possible turn toward this kind of humanitarian logic – and hence toward a “secular” kind of morality. These include both the assimilation of Islamic charitable obligations to voluntary donations and the fact that Deniz Feneri aims to generate an emotional response in the people to convince them to donate or volunteer. The webpage of the organization is filled with pictures of frightened, wide-eyed children suffering the hardships of war in Syria and forced to live in tents in refugee camps; of undernourished Africans in line to access potable water in some anonymous sub-Saharan village; or of children living in precarious lodgings in some of the poorest neighborhoods of Istanbul. These are all marks of the organization’s inclination to elicit a secular understanding of compassion as a way to spur donations. Easy comparisons between Muslim forms of charity and their modern “secular” counterparts have to be taken cautiously, however. Writing about Islamic volunteerism in Egypt, Amira Mittermaier observed that something akin to compassion also emerges from talks with her interlocutors. Yet, she argues, this is just the surface of deeper motivations that would remain concealed if we projected modern liberal motives on them. As an abundant body of literature has shown, the ethical premises of liberal modernity are quite different from those of pre-modern philosophical and religious traditions (e.g. MacIntyre 1988; Asad 2003; Salvatore 2007). For instance, drawing upon MacIntyre (1988), Salvatore (2007) has illustrated how in the Scottish Enlightenment moral reasoning has been redefined as a prudential kind of sentiment (prudentia) which is based on people’s innate and natural capacity for identifying themselves with others. In this configuration, moral reasoning is divorced from a transcendent and trans-individual hierarchy of goods, a role that was fulfilled by God in

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religious traditions whose emergence marked the Axial revolution. As Salvatore puts it, in the thinking of Scottish moralists: The premises are laid for turning the sharp triadic engagement [of egoalter-God] into a mild dyadic game where Alter [God/telos] is given a somewhat honorary, basically functionless (yet often symbolically overloaded […] and potentially ideological) position. salvatore 2007: 221

Contemporary humanitarian discourse stems from this modern secular genealogy. Indeed, the feeling of compassion for the neighbor that lies at the core of international aid discourse is based on a similar sentiment of altruism, intended as sympathy and identification with the person in need of help. Instead, in Islamically-grounded ethical systems, God functions as a third element in the construction of the social bond. Consequently, as illustrated below by the words of my interlocutors, generally Muslim altruistic action does indeed first stem from a Godly warranted prescription to help others. Only in a second moment, can such an action be also spurred by a feeling of empathy with the neighbor. In this regard, Mittermaier suggests considering the multilayeredness of volunteer’s ethics. More importantly, she highlights the fact that Islamic-­ inspired forms of volunteerism disrupt “the affective underpinnings of altruism” as this is conceived in global humanitarian rhetoric (Mittermaier 2014: 519). In contrast to a language of humanitarianism that is imbued with a sense of compassion of the donor for the recipient, she suggests that Islamic charity in Egypt is first of all based on a sense of obedience toward God’s prescriptions. In the Muslim context, donating is indeed based on an ethically binding relationship that exceeds the donor’s sentiment of empathy with, or regret for, the victims. Rather, such a relationship is established upon a Godly-sealed sense of justice that moves the donor to offer money in order to rebalance the inequality of the contingent world. In this context, donors see the recipients as necessary partners within a religiously bonded relationship that is conducive to God and that only eventually brings a reward in the afterlife. One point of divergence from Mittermaier is that while she mainly sees Islamic activism as a response to a felt sense of duty and will to obey God, my case shows that by equating God’s will with the societal good my interlocutors broaden the ethical reach of Islamic practice beyond compliance with a set of obligations, as well as beyond the goal of reaching paradise by “collecting” good actions (sevap). By linking transcendent and mundane orders by means of an ideal of the good that has to be striven for, my interlocutors’ involvement

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in charity activities cannot be read simply as a response to a normative imperative. Rather, it points to the more urgent need for creating a societal order that can please God. In this configuration, in-world and transcendent orders are intertwined in complex ways. As I illustrate below, the convergence toward a public display of compassion for the needy by Deniz Feneri cannot be interpreted as a complete turn of Islamically inspired volunteerism to a modern humanitarian logic, as defined by Fassin. While Deniz Feneri publicly relies on a rhetoric based on moral sentiments and this same sentiment is what often motivates the volunteers to join the organization, for my interlocutors attaining God’s satisfaction remained their main goal. By referring to a transcendent order of things, volunteers at Deniz Feneri are at odds with an immanentist ethics that sees moral action as derived from feelings of compassion for the needy. While such feelings are never absent, they are only an expression of a broader call to help one’s neighbor which gains its full meaning in the direction of pleasing God by realizing His will on Earth. 4

Volunteering Beyond Secular Humanism

As also pointed out by other studies on the organization, beyond its integration into a neoliberal framework, charitable action at Deniz Feneri provides both donors and volunteers with a sense of belonging to a community as well as with emotional relief (Isik 2014). The volunteers I met held a wide range of religious and political affiliations. While they were all pious people with a conservative background, they voted for different Islamic or nationalist parties22 and could be members of rival religious confraternities (tarikat) or communities (cemaat). Volunteers could be young people active in this as well as other Islamic associations, middle-age housewives, or even retired people. Generally, most of them shared a low-to-middle-class background. Whatever their age or background, they were moved by what they called a “spiritual motivation” (manevi motivasyon) and willingness to dedicate their time and energies to what they thought to be a good cause, as well as a proper way of living a Muslim life. As said by Songul – a 45-year-old mother of four who had become an orphan when she was only six years old: 22

While I did not ask my interlocutors what political party they vote for, allegedly these can include the akp, but also the more traditionally Islamic Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi), or more nationalist-oriented kinds of conservative parties such as the Nationalist Movement Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi) and the Great Unity Party (Büyük Birliği Partisi).

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Since when I became a volunteer at Deniz Feneri not much has changed in my life from a material point of view. Yet things have changed from a spiritual (manevi) perspective. Giving help to others makes me happy. I sincerely hope that, God willing, I will continue to volunteer for Deniz Feneri until the last person in need of help is satisfied.23 Volunteering for the organization was indeed for my interlocutors a way of contributing to a broader project aimed at fostering solidarity by helping others and, relatedly, satisfying God’s will. As the volunteers expressed through an oft-repeated adage about an alleged Turkish inclination to help others: “It is not like us to lie down full while our neighbor is hungry” (komşusu açken tok yatan bizden değildir). The cultural dimension is important here. In our conversations, indeed, volunteers liked to trace their contribution to the organization back to a long-standing “culture of donating through endowments” (vakıf kültürü) (see also Singer 2008). Although Deniz Feneri is not a foundation, and their volunteerism cannot be ascribed to such an organizational form, claiming such origins was a way for them of establishing continuity with their glorious Ottoman past by so legitimizing their activism. Some of the volunteers, such as Nuriye – a 30-year-old woman who was a university graduate, but at the time unemployed – thought that it was part of her duty as a Muslim to be of help (yardımcı) to others not only by offering charity but also by fully dedicating herself to them. As she said when asked about what relationship she sees between living the religion and volunteering for Deniz Feneri: There is a clear relationship between these two things. If you are a Muslim, you must help other people by offering them your donations (zekat). However, this is not enough. You also have to constantly dedicate yourself (fedakar olmak) to others […]. You always have to be willing to be of help to others. […] “It is not like us to lie down full while our neighbor is hungry.” […] You must have heard this saying. […] Actually, it is this constant practice of charity and of feeling the desire to help others that teaches you how to be a Muslim.24 This feeling that something must be done in order to live Muslim life fully is particularly true for the contemporary world, where a new kind of participation and involvement in society is required of pious Muslims. This was stressed 23 24

Songul, interviewed by author, fieldnotes, 3 October 2013, Istanbul. Nuriye, interviewed by author, fieldnotes, 1 October 2013, Istanbul.

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also by Selami a 28-year-old volunteer that I visited while he was overseeing a Deniz Feneri stand in the pious neighborhood of Eyüp during Ramadan. According to him, it is urban modern life that prompted Muslims to take part in civil society activities. Before, when people lived in some remote village in Anatolia, solidarity was a normal part of their communal life and there was no need for people to dedicate specific activities to its promotion.25 My interlocutors saw volunteering at Deniz Feneri as a way of both being occupied in good action and living a full Muslim life. Clearly, a multilayered set of more personal motivations lay behind their decision to join the organization. Songul’s personal story as an orphan raised by her elder brother must have represented a significant incentive for her. As she emphasized, being a volunteer at Deniz Feneri offered her a way of helping people who were in need, as she had been during her early years, so that dedicating an important part of her time to this occupation did not represent a burden.26 Instead, Nuriye seemed to be moved more by her desire to promote the cause of Islam, which she described as a civilization that was particularly “sensitive” (hassas) to people’s problems. Further, her activism in this as well as in other Muslim organizations was made possible by her unemployed status. In the same condition, Selami came from an experience of bankruptcy. As he openly told me, volunteering was a better and more rewarding way of spending his time than sitting somewhere drinking tea or playing video games, which at the same time allowed him to forget about his worries.27 Lying beyond all these individual motivations, however, was the common perception that volunteering at Deniz Feneri was a way of inhabiting a Muslim life in one of the best possible ways in contemporary society. The volunteer that probably best exemplifies this sense of urgency for today’s Muslims to be active in society is Gülsüm. The first time I met her was in July 2013 in Recep’s office at Deniz Feneri’s Istanbul headquarters. When she entered the room, she sat in front of me waiting for Recep to drop his call. Knowing she was one of the volunteers to whom I was going to be introduced, I started chatting with her. Around 55 years old, she was wearing a loosely knotted scarf that communicated a more relaxed attitude toward Islamic prescriptions than that of the women wearing more ostentatious kinds of headscarves such as the türban or the çarşaf (robe-like, black over-garment). While some aspects of her attire and behavior conveyed a pious attitude, the energy 25 26 27

Selami, interviewed by author, fieldnotes, 1 October 2013, Istanbul. Songul, interviewed by author, fieldnotes, 3 October 2013, Istanbul. Selami’s electronics shop had recently gone bankrupt. Selami, interviewed by author, fieldnotes, 1 October 2013, Istanbul.

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and dynamism she emanated were at odds with the dispositions of humility and sobriety that pious Muslim women are generally asked to abide by in Turkey. Originally from the Black Sea region, since her marriage she has lived in Büyükçekmece, an industrial district located in the western suburbs of Istanbul, on the European side, around forty kilometers away from the center. Gülsüm is one of the most active and long-standing volunteers at Deniz Feneri. She first came to offer her assistance to the organization after watching the story of a mutilated man on Şehir ve Ramazan. However, she clarifies, she has always been moved by what she defines as “a natural disposition to help one’s neighbor.” This was proved by the fact that she has always brought food and clothes to the needy on an occasional basis. For a period of her life, she had also been the president of a local women’s branch of the Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi) and, as such, she often organized charity initiatives. Gülsüm says she has always wished to improve herself from a young age. Because she was a girl from a small village, her parents did not allow her to study, and she risked being beaten by her brothers when found to be reading. So she had to learn how to read and write in secret and by herself. Only later in life, after she married and she moved to Istanbul, could she complete elementary education. After working for twenty-five years and raising two children, Gülsüm retired at a relatively early age and decided to dedicate herself to volunteering. Yet she was not satisfied with her charity work as head of the Motherland party’s district women’s branch. She now thinks that the real goal of the party at the time was “getting votes” rather than helping people. Conversely, she is convinced that people at Deniz Feneri donate their time and money just out of charity and only to please God (Allah’ın rızası için) – that is, not thinking of their reward in this world or the next. Gülsüm describes her involvement with the organization as an opportunity to help other people and “donate herself wholeheartedly” to them (gönül vermek).28 Donating one’s time to others just to please God and without having a second aim in mind is what actually makes Deniz Feneri’s enterprise possible in the first place according to Gülsüm. 28

The Turkish expression she uses literally means “giving the heart” (gönül), which is also the root of the word “volunteer” in Turkish (gönüllu). Although the term is used also within secular organizations without any religious connotation being attached to it, gönüllu literally means “with the heart.” It thus echoes Islamic notions of sincerity and purity of intentions (ihlas) that are associated with multilayered forms of religious activism in Turkey (Vicini 2020, 84–95). Indeed, the heart has always occupied a central place in Islamic practice, and in this context, keeping a pure and sincere heart while engaging in mundane activities such as volunteering is central for conferring an aura of religious legitimacy to these actions (Vicini 2017).

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As she affirms: “Although I may have to load and unload my car ten times per day or go from one place to the other to bring clothes or food, I do not feel tired. This is because I do what I do only to please God.”29 The importance that Gülsüm attributes to satisfying God before anything else is at odds with the idea that she and other volunteers behaved as if mainly motivated by the feeling of empathy with and compassion for the victims of natural disasters that underlies contemporary humanitarian logic as described by Fassin (2012). As Gülsüm affirmed during our first meeting, “it is important to do all we do for God alone: only in order to demonstrate that we are good servants (kul) of Him and that we exclusively want His satisfaction.”30 As indicated by her use of the word kul, obedience and submission to God are an important part of her motivation. By referring to a transcendent order of things, Gülsüm rejects an immanentist ethics that sees moral action as mainly spurred by the compassion one may feel toward the victim of destruction or poverty. Rather, her key motivation is the desire to satisfy God and enforce His moral order on society. Although a feeling of empathy with the needy may have represented the initial spark pushing her and others to join Deniz Feneri, Gülsüm’s vocation is a response to a broader call to help one’s neighbor to please God and realize His will on Earth. 5

Toward a New Muslim Self?

Apart from exceeding secular ethics, Gülsüm’s view of volunteerism in an Islamic charity also reflects a particular understanding of how, in her view, Muslims should live their religion today. Whereas the fact that charity and volunteerism are key dimensions of Islam and that they are a way to realize God’s will appears as self-evident to Gülsüm, the majority of Muslims do not engage in such activities and are often content with complying with a Muslim pious conduct that is respectful of fundamental Islamic rules, like performing the daily prayer. This is not so for Gülsüm, who thinks that being involved in charity is equally important, if not more so, as following basic religious prescriptions. When asked about how engaging in charity changed her life, Gülsüm replied that for her living Islam means: […] being good and acting for the good (iyimsel olmak), and having a pure heart. […] For example, Islam prescribes us the offering of zakat, as well 29 30

Gülsüm, interviewed by author, fieldnotes, 3 October 2013, Istanbul. Gülsüm, interviewed by author, fieldnotes, 26 August 2013, Istanbul.

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as the performance of the daily prayer, and we have to follow these prescriptions. But these are all actions that have to be accomplished for our own good. But what am I doing for God? [As a Muslim] I have to think what I can do for Him. This is Islam: to do something to please Him and gain His pleasure.31 Interestingly, Gülsüm establishes a distinction between those Islamic acts that God has prescribed to each Muslim for conducting a just and righteous life, and eventually going to paradise, but which remain individually centered, on the one hand, and those other actions that although not so markedly prescribed by the tradition do, however, please God, on the other. This does not mean disqualifying other forms of Islamic commitment. Complying with Islamic norms that discourage blaming other Muslims, Gülsüm clarified: Everybody makes her own kind of service to society (hizmet). You are also doing your own service [with your own research]. This [helping the needy] is not the fate of everybody (herkese nasip olmaz). Each person accomplishes her service as she thinks best. There are those who do it by reading the Qur’an, those who do something else… I am only able to do this. [I am only able] to provide help to the poor. Nonetheless, Gülsüm attributes particular importance to active involvement in good-oriented activities in this world. Although including volunteering at Deniz Feneri in this second typology of actions seems self-evident to her, a subtle ethical operation is underway. Gülsüm is indeed placing helping others into the basket of proper actions that a Muslim should strive for in order to live his religious life fully in today’s society. Not simply depending on the need to comply with God’s prescriptions in order to gain entrance into paradise, in her view, religious activism becomes a way of pleasing God by at the same time contributing to the wellbeing of society. In this light, there is no separation between eradicating social poverty and achieving God’s satisfaction according to Gülsüm.32 Rather the contrary, participating in such programs is for her one indispensable way of fulfilling a pious religious life. 31 32

Where not stated differently, this and all the following quotes from Gülsüm are taken from: Gülsüm, interviewed by author, fieldnotes, 26 August 2013, Istanbul. A series of hadiths that were quoted by my interlocutors highlighted how donating or volunteering were also seen by them as ways to collect “points” (sevap) that will be weighed against their wrongdoings in the afterlife. However, as proven by the words of Gülsüm, it would be limiting to reduce her commitment to helping the needy to this end.

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This does not mean that she does not conform to Islamic norms. To the contrary, Gülsüm is a practicing Muslim who regularly complies with all Islamic obligations. During one of our conversations, she argued that without performing these obligations she would not take full pleasure from volunteering.33 However, helping the needy has taken a central place in her view of a good and happy life. Repeating a statement that is often made during training seminars that Deniz Feneri regularly organizes for the volunteers, she describes her involvement in charity activities as a way of “achieving happiness, which consists in making other people happy.”34 Pleasing God cannot be achieved with the same intensity by just conforming to religious conduct. For her, being actively involved in charity programs is a better and more appropriate way of living a Muslim life today. Inasmuch as Gülsüm highlights the importance of “doing something” in this world to please God, she upholds the dynamic dimension of Islamic tradition and points out the limitations of those approaches to faith that remain mainly concerned with personal conduct and do not contemplate active engagement in society. To some extent, her words echo those of nineteenth century modernist Islamic reformers like Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905) who rejected “passive” forms of religiosity based on the repetition of tradition (taklid) and asked for Muslims’ direct involvement and organization in society (Rahman 1979 (1966): 197–198). As illustrated by theories of successive modernities referenced above, new forms of Muslim participation emerged along with parallel processes of early-capitalist economic and social transformation. In the case of Deniz Feneri, however, we are at a later stage. Gülsüm’s emphasis on activism, indeed, is most certainly the reflex of a more recent understanding of worthy action in the sphere of civil society that emerges from late-capitalist neoliberal transformations. Gülsüm’s evaluation of what the best path toward living a full Muslim life is reflects such late-modern inflections. It indeed reminds of some attitudes of the “self-reliant, dynamic, and creative” postmodern self (Jung 2016: 22; see also Reckwitz 2006) in ways that are discussed further in the following, concluding section.

33 34

Gülsüm, interviewed by author, fieldnotes, 3 October 2013, Istanbul. As reported to me by Recep Kocak, during their formative seminars they ask: “Do you know what the secret of happiness is?... The secret for achieving happiness is to make others happy (Mutluluğun sırrı başkalarını mutlu etmektir). If you think of your work as a means (vesile) to achieve this goal, then you will be happy together with the people you have helped.” Recep Kocak, interviewed by author, fieldnotes, 23 July 2017, Istanbul.

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6 Conclusion Similar to what has happened for Islamically inspired forms of entrepreneurship elsewhere in the Muslim world, volunteerism at Deniz Feneri epitomizes a contemporary way of being a modern and morally concerned Muslim. This can be defined as a way “to live moral lives, beyond simple observance of religious obligations,” as people who feel responsible toward the community as a whole (Osella and Osella 2009: 204). This way of experiencing and living a Muslim life, though not entirely new, is today articulated through modern views of responsibility, citizenship, and participation in society. These views have emerged concomitantly in Turkey and elsewhere as the result of global transformations beginning with the nineteenth century, but which took their actual shape following the liberalization of the market and the opening of space for pious organizations’ activities in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The central place that volunteerism takes in Gülsüm’s personal path to a full Muslim life significantly reminds, indeed, of postmodern forms of the Muslim self, which highlight the “self-reliant, dynamic, and creative” self that is described by Jung (2016: 22) and others (see Reckwitz 2006). In Muslim-majority societies in which long-standing patterns of authority are challenged by modern educated Televangelists, new public intellectuals, and new forms of religious endeavor such as those promoted by Deniz Feneri, Muslims are often driven to take a personal path to living their faith. Volunteerism is one these possible paths, a path that calls for a self-reliant and dynamic person who, as in the case of Gülsüm, has to be ready to “get her hands dirty” by engaging with people’s problems and dedicating energies and time to them. In this framework, as in other forms of “spiritual economies,” not only work comes to be redefined as a form of worship and of religious duty (Rudnyckyj 2009). It also becomes a form of “spiritual empowerment,” namely a way to find one’s place in a religious mission of service to society in the direction of realizing God’s will on Earth. As highlighted by Jung and Petersen (2014) following Reckwitz (2006), however, stages of modernity are ideal types and, as such, they should not be seen as progressive stages of an evolutionary path leading to the replacement of old models with new ones. Rather, some elements of previous types may survive beside others, so that different types of modernity can overlap within one single form of Muslim activism. In this light, forms of volunteerism expressed by Gülsüm and other volunteers at Deniz Feneri can be understood as a combination of a postmodern model emphasizing individualization and creativity with one based on collectivistic and peer-group-oriented culture (Jung and P ­ etersen

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2014: 288; Jung et al. 2014). On the one hand, my interlocutors frame their activism in a long-standing tradition of charity in Islam that is oriented toward seeking the common good for society and that, in this sense, can be seen in connection with a culture of collectivism. On the other, however, their volunteerism is also lived by them as a specific path to inhabiting a Muslim life in new and creative ways. In Gülsüm’s view, long-standing Islamic values of selfsacrifice and dedication to others are blended together with ideas of worldly activism and volunteerism. Moreover, practical and ethical considerations about religious action in the world are at stake. In the eyes of my interlocutors, activism today occupies one of the highest positions in the hierarchy of the good actions that a pious Muslim should accomplish. The connection they establish between religious commitment and involvement in charity activities does indeed question conventional conceptions of Muslim piety and pushes Islamic tradition to its own limits in ways that also redefine its own standards. In this light, a closer analysis of the idea of the good that underlies these forms of Muslim commitment is to the point. As noticed, while a sense of compassion may motivate volunteers to join Deniz Feneri in the first place, compassion is not the main reason behind their choice to invest time and energies in voluntary activities. Rather, volunteers are moved by a religiously grounded desire to satisfy God’s will, a motivation that is at odds with secular humanitarian logic. However, this cannot be reduced to a matter of obedience or compliance with religious prescriptions, since what pleases God is, in their view, directly linked to the attainment of the societal good. Implicit in my interlocutors’ evaluation of what a worthy Muslim life is are ethical considerations about what forms of Muslim commitment are most needed in contemporary society. Leaving aside how these concerns may be or may not be dictated by the structural transformations discussed above, they can neither be reduced to an expression of obedience to God, nor to the volunteers’ utilitarian goal of reaching paradise by “collecting” good actions. Rather, they are the reflex of the volunteers’ attempt to link transcendent and mundane orders together by reference to an ideal of the good that has to be striven for. A notion of the societal good appears to be central, in this case, in defining how a good Muslim life should be lived beyond compliance with Islamic standard obligations. Concerns for the common good and related processes of ethical deliberation have been present in Muslim-majority societies since their inception (see Salvatore and Eickelman 2006; Salvatore 2007). What seems to be new, however, is the emphasis that people at Deniz Feneri put on activism and societal engagement as best ways of conducting and achieving a full, God-pleasing, Muslim life. While such emphasis is most certainly the outcome of a modern stress on ideas of individual responsibility and civic engagement as citizens’

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duties, it is also grounded upon latent Islamic views of the s­ ocietal good that cannot be understood as disconnected from a transcendent order. In this regard, the ideals of the “good life” that underlie postmodern types of Muslim life such as those exemplified by Gülsüm do not only go beyond secular humanitarian logic, but also exceed those views that tend to overemphasize a compliance of contemporary forms of Muslim life with the hedonistic discourse and logics of capitalist market consumerism and individualism. In other words, for volunteers at Deniz Feneri, sticking to a “good life” may not immediately translate into the search for a happy individual life, at least not if intended as the simple realization of individual goals under an “Islamic guise.” Rather, personal commitment to voluntary work within a charity is for them a way to conduct a happy and worthy Muslim life. Whereas a multiplicity of individual motivations lay behind my interlocutors’ decision to volunteer (including a search for reassurance about entering paradise, or other even simpler matters such as opting for doing something rather than staying at home), it is the idea of contributing to such a worldly – though directed towards transcendence – project for the good of society that spurred them to join Deniz Feneri in the first place. This is for them a path to living a Muslim life fully, or at least, in one of the best possible ways allowed by the conditions of late-capitalist society. References Alkan-Zeybek, Hilal. 2012. “Ethics of Care, Politics of Solidarity: Islamic Charitable Organizations in Turkey.” In Baudouin Dupret, Thomas Pierret, Paulo G. Pinto and Kathryn Spellman-Poots (eds.): Ethnographies of Islam: Ritual Performances and Everyday Practices. Edinburg: Edinburgh University Press: 144–152. Asad, Talal. 2003. Formations of the Secular. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Atia, Mona. 2012. “‘A Way to Paradise:’ Pious Neoliberalism, Islam, and Faith-Based ­Development.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 102(4): 808–827. Atia, Mona. 2013. Building a House in Heaven: Pious Neoliberalism and Islamic Charity in Egypt. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Bugra, Ayşe, and Aysen Candas. 2011. “Change and Continuity Under an Eclectic Social Security Regime: The Case of Turkey.” Middle Eastern Studies 47(3): 515–528. Clark, Janine A. 2010. Islam, Charity, and Activism: Middle-Class Networks and Social Welfare in Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Eder, Mine. 2009. “Retreating State? Political Economy of Welfare Regime Change in Turkey.” Middle East Law and Governance 2(2): 152–184. Elisha, Omri. 2008. “Moral Ambitions of Grace: The Paradox of Compassion and Accountability in Evangelical Faith-Based Activism.” Cultural Anthropology 23(1): 154–189.

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Elyachar, Julia. 2005. Markets of Dispossession: NGOs, Economic Development, and the State in Cairo. Durham: Duke University Press. Fassin, Didier. 2012. Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present. Berkeley: University of California Press. Foucault, Michel. 1984. The Foucault Reader, Paul Rabinow (ed.). New York: Pantheon. Foucault, Michel. 1991. “Governmentality.” In G. Burchell, C. Gordon and P. Miller (eds.): The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 87–104. Gordon, Colin. 1991. “Governmental Rationality: An Introduction.” In G. Burchell, C. Gordon and P. Miller (eds.): The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 1–51. Gökariksel, Banu, and Anna J. Secor. 2009. “New Transnational Geographies of Islamism, Capitalism and Subjectivity: The Veiling-Fashion Industry in Turkey.” Area 41(1): 6–18. Hann, Chris. 2005 [1996]. “Introduction: Political Society and Civil Anthropology.” In Chris Hann and Elizabeth Dunn (eds.), Civil society: Challenging Western Models. London and New York: Routledge: 1–26. Isik, Damla. 2012. “The Specter and Reality of Corruption in State and Civil Society: Privatizing and Auditing Poor Relief in Turkey.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 32(1): 57–69. Isik, Damla. 2014. “Vakıf as Intent and Practice: Charity and Poor Relief in Turkey.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 46(2): 307–327. Jung, Dietrich. 2016. “Modernity, Islamic Traditions, and the Good Life: An Outline of the Modern Muslim Subjectivities Project.” Review of Middle East Studies 50(1): 18–27. Jung, Dietrich. 2017. Muslim History and Social Theory: A Global Sociology of Modernity. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Jung, Dietrich and Kirstine Sinclair. 2015. “Multiple Modernities, Modern Subjectivities and Social Order: Unity and Difference in the Rise of Islamic Modernities.” Thesis Eleven 130(1): 22–42. Jung, Dietrich and Marie Juul Petersen. 2014. “We Think That This Job Pleases Allah: Islamic Charity, Social Order, and the Construction of Modern Muslim Selfhoods in Jordan.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 46(2): 285–306. Jung, Dietrich, Marie Juul Petersen, and Sara Cathrine Lei Sparre. 2014. Politics of Modern Muslim Subjectivities: Islam, Youth, and Social Activism in the Middle East. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kaya, Ayhan. 2015. “Islamisation of Turkey under the AKP Rule: Empowering Family, Faith and Charity.” South European Society and Politics 20(1): 47–69. Knauft, Bruce M. 2002. “Critically Modern: An Introduction.” In Bruce M. Knauft (ed.), Critically Modern: Alternatives, Alterities, Anthropologies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press: 1–54. MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1988. Whose Justice? Which Rationality? London: Duckworth.

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Mittermaier, Amira. 2014. “Beyond Compassion: Islamic Voluntarism in Egypt.” American Ethnologist 41(3): 518–531. Muehlebach, Andrea. 2012. The Moral Neoliberal: Welfare and Citizenship in Italy. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Öniş, Ziya. 2004. “Turgut Özal and His Economic Legacy: Turkish Neoliberalism in Critical Perspective.” Middle Eastern Studies 40(4): 113–134. Osella, Filippo, and Caroline Osella. 2009. “Muslim Entrepreneurs in Public Life Between India and the Gulf: Making Good and Doing Good.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15(s1): 202–221. Rahman, Fazlur. 1979 [1966]. Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Reckwitz, Andreas. 2006. Das Hybride Subjekt. Eine Theorie der Subjektkulturen von der Bürgelichen Moderne zur Postmoderne. Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft. Retsikas, Konstantinos. 2014. “Reconceptualising Zakat in Indonesia: Worship, Philanthropy and Rights.” Indonesia and the Malay World 42(124): 337–357. Rudnyckyj, Daromir. 2009. “Spiritual Economies: Islam and Neoliberalism in Contemporary Indonesia.” Cultural Anthropology 24(1): 101–141. Salvatore, Armando 2007. The Public Sphere: Liberal Modernity, Catholicism, Islam. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Salvatore, Armando, and Dale F. Eickelman. 2006. Public Islam and the Common Good. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Singer, Amy. 2008. Charity in Islamic Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vicini, Fabio. 2017. “Thinking Through the Heart: Islam, Reflection and the Search for Transcendence.” Culture and Religion 18(2): 110–128. Vicini, Fabio. 2020. Reading Islam: Life and Politics of Brotherhood in Modern Turkey. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Wagner, Peter. 2010. “Successive Modernities and the Idea of Progress: A First Attempt.” Distinktion 11(2): 9–24. Wagner, Peter. 2012. Modernity: Understanding the Present. Cambridge and Malden: Polity. Watenpaugh, Keith David. 2015. Bread From Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism. Oakland: University of California Press. Weber, Max. 1958. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Scribners.

Chapter 6

The Modernity of Neo-Traditionalist Islam Mark Sedgwick 1

Introduction: Neo-traditionalism

The varieties of contemporary Islam that currently attract most attention are Jihadism, Salafism, and the ikhwāni Islam of the Muslim Brothers. There is, however, a fourth variety of contemporary Islam that deserves attention, represented by theologians and preachers who self-identify as exponents of “traditional Islam,” but who will be described in this chapter as “Neo-­traditionalists,” as it will be argued that their traditionalism is, in fact, modern.1 The Neo-traditionalists promote what they see as traditional Islamic theology and practice. They are organized in an informal network spanning both the Arab world and the West, incorporating educational and research institutions in Jordan, Yemen, California, and Cambridge, England. They are defined also by the understandings of Islam that they oppose, which they label nontraditional, and which, as this chapter will show, are mostly characteristic of what Peter Wagner (1994) calls “restricted liberal modernity” (which this chapter will call “early modernity”), and “organized modernity” (a term this chapter will use). To this extent, then, the Neo-traditionalists are a product of what Wagner would call a “crisis of modernity,” the reaction against one stage of modernity that gives rise to a new stage of modernity. As this chapter will show, they are also typical in other ways of other responses to what Wagner calls “extended liberal modernity” (which this chapter will simply call “current modernity”). The analysis of Neo-traditionalism in terms of theories of multiple and successive modernities, following Wagner and also following Dietrich Jung and Kirstine Sinclair (2015),2 serves two purposes. Firstly, it highlights the ways in which Neo-traditionalism is a wave of the future rather than a conservative 1 William Shepard (1987: 319–320) also used the term “Neo-traditionalism” to refer to a somewhat broader phenomenon, in which he included some whom this chapter will call Guénonian Traditionalists. 2 I would like to thank the other participants in the Modern Muslim Subjectivity Project, and especially Dietrich Jung and Kirstine Sinclair, for their help and support. I would further like to thank Usaama al-Azami for his comments on an earlier version of this chapter.

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throw-back to the past. Secondly, it throws light on the conditions of current modernity in the Muslim world. After first discussing multiple and successive modernities and their crises, the chapter describes the Neo-traditionalist movement and its relationship with Sufism, other forms of traditionalism, and Arab and Western governments. It then investigates the Neo-traditionalists’ understandings of the nontraditional “modern” Islam that they reject, and their understandings of the modernity that is its context, which in some cases is simply identified as the End Times, but in one case is analyzed with reference to a Western theorist of modernity rather different from Wagner, Jung or Sinclair – Julius Evola (1898– 1974), a controversial Italian philosopher. Finally, the chapter returns to the question of what theories of modernity tell us about Neo-traditionalism, and how the analysis of Neo-traditionalism expands our understanding of current Muslim modernity. 2

Multiple and Successive Modernities

Modernity may be understood in terms of progress made in the realization of the Enlightenment project, as Wagner (2010: 16) notes. This understanding has normative value, as liberty, equality and solidarity are important, but is of limited analytic use, since the Enlightenment project was only one of a number of responses to those new conditions and circumstances that can be called the conditions of modernity. The projects of the Soviet Union and of Nazi Germany were equally responses to conditions of modernity. There is clearly more than one modernity, as Jung and Sinclair (2015) argue, following Shmuel Eisenstadt (2000). It is useful to distinguish between what this chapter will call “projects of modernity” and “conditions of modernity.” Most discussions of modernity are in fact discussions of projects of modernity, and sometimes confuse projects with conditions. Projects often aim to manage conditions, and new projects arise to manage new conditions. As Wagner writes, modernity is “a situation, a condition, which human beings give themselves and/or in which they find themselves” (Wagner 2004: 42). “Under conditions of modernity,” he continues, “there is always a range of possibilities… characterized by problématiques that remain open, not by specific solutions to given problems” (Wagner 2004: 42). Similar conditions give rise to similar problématiques; the conditions of modernity are finite. Projects of modernity, however, are more varied. There are multiple modernities more because there are multiple projects than because there are multiple conditions.

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The distinction between projects of modernity and conditions of modernity is useful in understanding Wagner’s successive modernities, which Jung and Sinclair (2015) also incorporate into their model. Wagner (1994) proposes three stages of modernity: the early “limited liberal modernity” of Herder and Jefferson, the “organized modernity” of the mid-twentieth century, and the current “extended liberal modernity” that began to succeed organized modernity in 1968. Wagner understands the transition from one form of modernity to another in terms of “crises,” of “the perception of problems or shortcomings of […] [established] practices in the light of principles, expectations or demands” (Wagner 2012: 36). In this understanding, Wagner is in effect holding the conditions of modernity constant and seeing the projects as varying. This can of course happen, for example when it becomes clear that particular solutions that once seemed to hold much promise have not in fact worked as hoped. But it is also possible that the conditions of modernity vary, and variation in conditions probably does a better job of explaining the transition from one form of modernity to another than does variation in projects. If there are multiple projects of modernity reflecting changing conditions of modernity even within the West, it is hardly surprising that further multiple projects of modernity can also be identified in the Muslim world. Jung and Sinclair identify three major Muslim “attitudes in reaction to the colonial and indigenous confrontation with modern institutions and ideas” (2015: 31), that is to say, three major Islamic projects of modernity. They associate the reform movement represented by Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905, Mufti of Egypt 1899–1905) with early modernity, the Muslim Brothers with organized modernity, and lay preachers such as Amr Khalid (born 1967) with current modernity (Jung and Sinclair 2015). This is convincing, and also fits with some of the other major patterns already noted. The Muslim Brothers not only directed criticism against inequality, impoverishment and exclusion, to use Wagner’s words, but also responded to the problématique of the increasingly powerful state, ultimately developing a project around using the powers of the state. Amr Khalid not only directs criticism against the standardization of practices and homogenization of life-courses, but also responds to the problématique of the decline of the state – as a provider of inclusion, equality and social security, if not as an authoritarian force. His project is individual, based around akhlāq (personal morality and good conduct). Jung and Sinclair do not, however, consider the relationship with modernity of three major forms of contemporary Islam: Jihadism, Salafism,3 and 3 Used in the standard contemporary sense. They do consider the Salafism of Muhammad Abduh.

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­Neo-traditionalism. A separate chapter would be required for a full examination of each of these, so before devoting the remainder of this chapter to Neo-traditionalism it will simply be noted that while neither the Jihadi nor the Salafi projects correspond to the conditions of early modernity, the Jihadi project might be associated with either organized or current modernity, and the Salafi project might equally be associated with current modernity. Salafism focuses on the conduct of the individual, not the uses of the state, rather as Amr Khalid does. Although Jihadism does arguably focus on the individual jihadi, it also aims at the creation of a state. The Neo-traditionalist project, it will now be argued, can be associated with current modernity, partly because it is a reaction against the projects of early and organized modernity, and partly because it is a response to the conditions of current modernity. 3

The Neo-traditionalist Movement

The Neo-traditionalist movement takes the form of a loose network of individuals and institutions that share a common approach to Islam, tradition and modernity. It has previously been identified by Jonathan Brown (2009: 243), who calls it Late Sunni Traditionalism, by Kasper Mathiesen (2013: 191), who calls it the Traditional Islam current, by Sadek Hamid (2016: 68–87), who calls it the Traditional Islam network, and by Thomas Pierret (2013a: 126–127), who calls it the “anti-Salafi international.” Pierret is right that it is anti-Salafi, as we will see, but it is better characterized by what it stands for: what it calls, in English and sometimes also in Arabic, “traditional Islam.” There are, in fact, at least two overlapping Neo-traditionalist networks, one spanning Arab and Anglophone countries and one spanning Arab and Francophone countries. This chapter will focus on the Arab-Anglophone network, but the Arab-Francophone network is also interesting, and deserves further study.4 3.1 The Neo-traditionalist Network Neo-traditionalism is present in the Muslim world, in the West, and in the global space that is increasingly replacing geographically-defined space. This global space is partly virtual, on the internet and especially on YouTube, but is also partly physical, created by the erosion of geographical distance. In 2015, 4 The key points in the Francophone network are two Sufi ṭarīqas, the very successful Boutchichiya in Morocco (Sedgwick 2004b) and the somewhat less prominent Alawiyya in Algeria, and King Mohammed vi of Morocco.

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I attended a Neo-traditionalist meeting in Cairo that was addressed by a Sufi shaykh from Amman and attended by followers from Egypt and beyond. One man to whom I spoke had come for the occasion from the United Arab Emirates (uae). His passport, however, identified him as a Canadian, and the passport of the shaykh from Amman identified him as a US citizen. The Canadian from the uae who went to Cairo to listen to an American from Amman was himself, however, born to parents of South Asian origin (interview, Cairo, November 2015). This example shows one way in which Neo-traditionalism inhabits a global space. The oldest key Neo-traditionalist based in the Arab world is the now-­ deceased Syrian scholar Muhammad Said Ramadan al-Buti (1929–2013). The most prominent Neo-traditionalist today is a resident of the uae, Ḥabīb Ali Zayn al-Abidin al-Jifri (born 1971), a young and dynamic member of the Ba ʿAlawi family or sāda, the hereditary leaders of a Sufi order that has operated internationally from its base in Hadramut for many centuries.5 A search for alJifri on YouTube produces 90,000 hits, 46,000 in Arabic and 44,000 in English.6 One Arabic video with English subtitles has now been viewed 3.3 million times (Al-Jifri 2013), and many others have viewing statistics in the hundreds of thousands. On Facebook (2018), al-Jifri has six million followers. Also important in the Muslim world is another Ba Alawi, Ḥabīb Umar bin Hafiz (born 1963), the founder and director of the Dar al-Mustafa in Tarim, Hadramut. The Dar alMustafa is the most important Neo-traditionalist educational institution in the Arab world. Also associated with Neo-traditionalism is Ali Gomaa (Jumʿa, born 1952), Grand Mufti of Egypt from 2003 to 2013. Another important Arab Neotraditionalist is Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal of Jordan (born 1966), a first cousin of King Abdullah ii (born 1962, assumed throne 1999) and the president of the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, a Jordanian ngo. Also based in the Arab world is the American shaykh I encountered in Cairo, already mentioned, Nuh Ha Mim Keller (born 1954), shaykh of the Shaghuri Shadhiliyya ṭarīqa. The most prominent Neo-traditionalist in the Anglophone West is Hamza Yusuf Hanson (born 1958) in Berkeley, California, where he directs Zaytuna College, the most important Neo-traditionalist educational institution in America. Zaytuna’s BA degree is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. Hamza Yusuf’s most popular YouTube video (Hamza Yusuf 2014) has 600,000 views, and several others have hundreds of thousands of views. In Europe, there is Abdal Hakim Murad (born 1960) in Cambridge, 5 Ḥabīb is a title used by the Ba Alawi sāda, not a name. 6 In early 2018.

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­ ngland, where he directs the Cambridge Muslim College (cmc), the most imE portant Neo-traditionalist educational institution in Europe, previously studied by Sinclair (2016), and also discussed by her in this volume (2020). Abdal Hakim Murad has a smaller presence on YouTube, where none of his videos have more than 100,000 views, but still has a wide reach in cyberspace.7 He is also known by his original name, Tim Winter, in which capacity he is a lecturer in Islamic Studies at Cambridge University’s Faculty of Divinity (Divinity ND). The Cambridge Muslim College thus has a geographical connection with Cambridge University and a personal connection through Winter, though its degrees are validated not by Cambridge University but by the Open University, a large British distance-learning institution that is considerably less prestigious than Cambridge, though still respected. Cambridge Muslim College, like Zaytuna, is attended primarily by Western-born students with family origins in the Muslim world. Other Neo-traditionalists in the West include Faraz Rabbani (born 1974), a Canadian of Pakistani origin whose teachers include Keller, who runs SeekersHub, an online “Islamic Seminary” used, to judge from the numbers of study circles, mostly in the US and England, with a presence also in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, in Germany, and in Kuwait, Malaysia, Nigeria, and the Philippines.8 A similar Neo-traditionalist website offering formally-­ structured online courses, also connected to Keller, is Qibla: Islamic Sciences Online.9 The total number of full-time and part-time Neo-traditionalists teachers in the West is hard to estimate, but is probably in the hundreds rather than the thousands. 3.2 Internal Connections These individuals and institutions all operate independently of each other, but all also refer to each other and cooperate with each other, and promote very similar understandings of Islam. Among numerous examples of cooperation are that al-Buti invited al-Jifri on preaching tours of Syria, while al-Jifri invited al-Buti to join him on preaching tours of Europe (Pierret 2013a: 127–128). Abdal Hakim’s Cambridge Muslim College sent a delegation to the Ba ʿAlawis in Tarim (cmc 2011: 3), while Ali Gomaa visited the Cambridge Muslim College (Cambridge Khutbas 2008). Al-Jifri, Abdal Hakim, and Hamza Yusuf all collaborated with the Radical Middle Way, a British Muslim group that ran a website and 7 For example, Abdal Hakim Murad (2016), discussed below, was delivered to about fifty people, but has been watched in YouTube 38,000 times (by March 2018). 8 http://seekershub.org. 9 https://qibla.com.

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organized meetings as “an organic response by traditional Islam to challenges posed by extremist ideas” (Radical Middle Way 2006). Prince Ghazi, al-Jifri and Hamza Yusuf all met in Mecca (Ghazi 2013: 45), and Hamza Yusuf wrote the foreword to Prince Ghazi’s book What is Islam and Why? (Hamza ­Yusuf 2012a: 7). Abdal Hakim joins Hamza Yusuf and other prominent American Neo-­ traditionalists at the annual Reviving the Islamic Spirit Conference, a major event normally held in Toronto, Canada, over Christmas, and attended by many thousands.10 Finally, all the major Neo-traditionalists mentioned were signatories of the Amman Message, a statement issued in 2004 by King ­Abdullah ii and arranged by Prince Ghazi’s Aal al-Bayt Institute, discussed further below. The Neo-traditionalist network is a network by virtue of these connections. 3.3 External Connections The Neo-traditionalist network has important overlaps in three further areas. One is Sufism, as all the key Neo-traditionalists are also Sufis. Al-Buti was a Naqshbandi, and one of his last works was a sharḥ (commentary) on the famous Hikam (sayings) of Ibn Ata Allah al-Sikandari (Pierret 2015). Al-Jifri and Ḥabīb Umar are both representatives of one of Islam’s oldest Sufi families, technically not a ṭarīqa but behaving very much like one (Peskes 2011). Ali Gomaa is known as a Sufi and has written and spoken in defense of Sufism, though it is unclear which ṭarīqa, if any, he follows.11 Prince Ghazi is a follower of the Maryamiyya ṭarīqa (Ghazi 2013: 70). Hamza Yusuf does not self-identify publicly as a Sufi, probably because he feels that “labeling people or groups as Salafi, Sufi, or Wahhabi… engender[s] animosity” (Hamza Yusuf and Zaid Shakir 2013: 30), but he originally became Muslim through joining a Western Sufi order, the Darqawiyya (Grewal 2014: 160), and is said still to follow a shaykh. Much of what he teaches (Hamza Yusuf and Zaid Shakir 2013: 12–26, 31–34) is, in fact, the Sufi path, though it is not identified in these terms. Abdal Hakim likewise refers to his shaykh and is known as a Sufi. Keller, as has been noted, is himself a Shadhili shaykh. The second area with which the Neo-traditionalist network overlaps is the network of Guénonian Traditionalism,12 an influential though low-key Western esoteric movement (Sedgwick 2004a), to which Prince Ghazi, Abdal Hakim and Hamza Yusuf are all linked. From 1990, while studying at Cambridge 10 11 12

ris Convention, https://risconvention.com. See also the very glossy promotional video at https://youtu.be/_lh1ilRxKEU (last accessed 1 October 2019). He may have been a follower of the Moroccan shaykh Abdullah al-Sadiq al-Ghumari (1910–1993). A capital T is commonly used to denote this school of thought, as a capital N is used for Neo-Traditionalism.

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­ niversity in England, Prince Ghazi followed Martin Lings (Abu Bakr Siraj adU Din, 1909–2005) (Ghazi 2013: 70), the English Guénonian Traditionalist who was a close companion of René Guénon (Abd al-Wahid Yahya, 1886–1951) in Cairo during the 1940s and who succeeded Frithjof Schuon (Isa Nur al-Din, 1907–1998) as shaykh of the Maryamiyya ṭarīqa in England. Hamza Yusuf is not a member of the Maryamiyya, but is an admirer of Lings (Hamza Yusuf 2005) and often works with Seyyed Hossein Nasr (born 1933), an Iranian-­American and the chief successor of Schuon as shaykh of the Maryamiyya in the US,13 and occasionally uses Guénonian Traditionalist terminology.14 Abdal Hakim is likewise not a Maryami but – as we will see below – is well-read in the Guénonian Traditionalist classics. 3.4 Neo-traditionalism and Arab and Western Governments The third area with which the Neo-traditionalist network overlaps is that made up of Arab and Western governments. Al-Buti and Ali Gomaa were both government employees. Prince Ghazi is close to the Jordanian king, and al-Jifri has good relations with the uae government and has been the honored guest of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (born 1954, assumed office 2014). The Radical Middle Way was supported by the British government under Prime Minister Tony Blair (born 1953, in office 1997–2007), receiving £1.2m (then $2m) in government funding between 2006 and 2009 (Hope 2009; Jones 2013). This overlap is especially significant because both Arab and Western governments have their own agendas so far as Islam is concerned. An important concern of Arab governments is restraining the Islamist groups that have, since the 1980s, been their major political rivals. Similarly, since 9/11 and especially since 2005, Western governments have invested considerable resources in promoting “moderate” alternatives to “radical Islam.” The consequences of the overlap with Arab governments are explicitly political. This is clear in the case of the Amman Message, which was eventually signed by the governments of almost all the world’s Muslim countries, as by Prince Ghazi and a number of other Neo-traditionalists and Guénonian Traditionalists (Aal al-Bayt Institute 2009: 23–83). The Amman Message is more of an intergovernmental declaration than a theological text. Its most important context was, as Michaelle Browers (2011: 948–949) has argued, global tensions unleashed by 9/11 and the subsequent US invasion of Iraq, and Jordan’s own domestic difficulties with Islamist rebels in Maʿan. Although it was certainly an 13 14

They often publicly endorse each other’s books and projects. Thus in 1997 he discussed the relationship between the esoteric and the exoteric in terms close to those used by Traditionalists (Kugle 2006: 15).

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expression of the Neo-traditionalist understanding of traditional Islam, it was also a response to the call issued by Western political leaders in the aftermath of 9/11 for “moderate” Islam, and Browers concludes that “the true or authentic Islam promoted in the Message is a regime-sponsored brand of ‘official Islam’” (Browers 2011: 947, 953). The connection between Neo-traditionalism and regime-sponsored official Islam extends beyond the Amman Message. Al-Buti was also closely associated with his regime. As an opponent of the Muslim Brotherhood, he became a supporter of the Syrian government during Syria’s 1979–1982 Islamist insurgency. He developed a good personal relationship with President Hafez al-Assad (1930–2000, in office 1971–2000), which gave him access to Syrian television and helped advance some of his social projects, such as the closing of the Damascus casino (Pierret 2013b). Up to this point, it might be argued, his political engagement was justified by its fruits. After the start of the Syrian Civil War, however, he became the only respected Sunni figure to remain faithful to the Assads, at one point comparing regime forces with the Companions of the Prophet and identifying the anti-Assad rebels with a global Zionist conspiracy against Syria (Pierret 2013b). He thus aligned himself with the Assads against the majority of Syria’s Sunni population. It is unclear who was responsible for his assassination in 2013. In Egypt, Ali Gomaa, too, was considered excessively close to the regimes of both presidents Mubarak and Sisi (Warren 2017), but survived an assassination attempt in 2016. Al-Jifri has been criticized for his implied support of President Sisi and for his key role in a conference in 2016 similar to the one that was arranged around the Amman Message, but which was held in Grozny, Chechnya, Russian Federation. One issue with the “Grozny Conference” was that its declaration, which resembled the Amman Message, initially appeared to exclude Saudi Islam from its definition of Sunnism, a mistake that the Amman Message had not made. This provoked outrage in Saudi Arabia, including talk of a “cultural war” against the Kingdom (Al-Mutayri 2016). Even Muslims unsympathetic to Saudi Arabia were unhappy about prominent Sunni scholars accepting the hospitality of the Russian-sponsored Chechen government, as many saw the Russian government as hostile to Islam, given the Russian role the Syrian conflict, and before that in the Chechen conflict (afp 2016; Al-Jifri 2016). The consequences of the overlap with Western governments are likewise political, explicitly so in the case of the Radical Middle Way, which was established in reaction to the 2005 terrorist attacks in London to support “Prevent,” the counter-radicalization part of the British government’s counter-terrorism strategy, by “strengthening the [British Muslim] mainstream,” which in terms of Prevent means strengthening non-radical Islam. It aimed to do this by

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“­providing a steady flow of ideas, digital content, programming, that created space […] where real pertinent political issues could be raised and talked about” (McQueen 2017). The Radical Middle Way, it might be argued, was thus supporting what might also be called “a regime-sponsored brand of ‘moderate Islam.’” British government understandings of what constituted “moderate Islam” changed in 2011 under the new government of David Cameron (born 1966, in office 2010–16), ending support for the Radical Middle Way, but the Neo-­ traditionalists’ pro-government positions remain controversial. The Radical Middle Way experienced what Abdul-Rehman Malik called “a big trade-off in terms of fighting for credibility and fighting for the money to operate” (Jones 2013: 559), and Hamza Yusuf was criticized for associating too closely with the Bush administration in the aftermath of 9/11, to the extent that some then characterized him as the president’s “pet Muslim,” and others began to refer to him not as Hamza Yusuf but as “Hamza Useless” (Grewal 2014: 308). More recently, Hamza Yusuf’s relations with the Trump administration (from 2017) have led to him being described as “in an awkward and compromised position” (Birt 2017). Neo-traditionalism, then, is associated with regime-sponsored official Islam in the Arab world, and with government-sponsored “moderate” Islam in the Western world. This association brings benefits, of which the generous financial support for the Radical Middle Way in 2006–09 is one example. It also brings costs, however, as Neo-traditionalism seems to some to be serving questionable political agendas. Political support for the counter-radicalization programs of Western governments arguably differs from political support for the anti-Islamist policies of Arab governments, as Western governments take an approach to political dissent that is very different from that taken by the Egyptian and Syrian governments, or even the Jordanian government. Similarly, no recent Western military action in the Muslim world has been quite as bloody as Russian action in Chechnya and Syria. Even so, the agendas of Western governments may still appear questionable. 4

Neo-traditionalist Thought

Neo-traditionalists use the term “traditional” in connection with “Islam” more often in English than in Arabic, partly because the connotations of the Arabic term taqlīdī (traditional) are less positive than the connotations of the English term “traditional.” The Amman Message was published in both an Arabic and an English version, and while the English introduction described the Message as “a consolidation of traditional, orthodox Islam” (Aal al-Bayt Institute 2009:

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vii), the slightly different Arabic introduction described it simply as “a consolidation of orthodox (ḥanīf) Islam” (Aal al-Bayt Institute 2013: 15). In the Q&A section appended to the Message, authored by Prince Ghazi, the Arabic refers to “‘moderate,’ orthodox, traditional (taqlīdī) Islam” (Aal al-Bayt Institute 2013: 111), but this is unusual, and could be because Prince Ghazi may have composed the Q&A section in English – the English text refers to English “traditional, orthodox, ‘moderate’ Islam” (Aal al-Bayt Institute 2009: 88).15 More typically, the bilingual website of al-Jifri’s Taba Foundation refers in its English version to “traditional Islamic sciences” but at the equivalent point in its Arabic version refers to “Shariʿa sciences by uninterrupted (muttaṣil) transmission (isnād)” (Taba Foundation ND). This, then, is one Neo-traditionalist understanding of traditional Islam: uninterrupted transmission of Islamic knowledge.16 A related but slightly different Neo-traditionalist understanding of traditional Islam is found in the ­Amman Message: taqlīd (adherence) to one of the madhāhib (schools of interpretation), to the ʿaqīda (doctrine) of Abu’l Hasan al-Ashʿari (died 935–6), and to Sufism (Aal al-Bayt Institute 2013: 33). For much of the history of Islam, an individual’s adherence to a madhhab was the norm.17 This is probably the definition most frequently encountered in English, and is that used by Brown (2009: 261) and Mathiesen (2013: 199). It is compatible with the understanding of tradition as uninterrupted transmission of Islamic knowledge, since uninterrupted transmission is precisely what the madhāhib stress, and transmission is also central to Sufism. This definition is, however, perhaps more important for what it implicitly rejects than for what it endorses. The main significance of al-Ashʿari is that he is rejected by Salafis, and the main significance of the madhāhib is that taqlīd to them is generally rejected by modernists in both liberal and Muslim Brothers strands, and also by Salafis.18 Sufism is likewise generally rejected by both modernists and Salafis, but, unlike al-Ashʿari and the madhāhib, it does also have major positive significance for Neo-traditionalism, as most of the key Neo-traditionalists are Sufis, as has been noted.

15 16 17 18

The website of the Amman Message has English as its primary language and Arabic only as a secondary language. http://ammanmessage.com/. Prince Ghazi’s English is that of a native speaker. As Usaama al-Azami (2015) points out, this form of transmission is also used by some of those the Neo-traditionalists condemn. Although in principle a Sunni Muslim adhered to Islam and the sharīʻa, in practice this means adhering to a madhhab. See Hallaq 1984. This rejection is not invariable or absolute, but the Neo-traditionalist perception that taqlīd is rejected by modernists and Salafis has a good basis.

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4.1 Guénonian Traditionalist Understandings of “Tradition” The Guénonian Traditionalist understanding of tradition is complex, and has been discussed elsewhere (Sedgwick 2004a), so I will only summarize it briefly here. It is, in essence, that the tradition is the same as the perennial philosophia, the single esoteric truth that once existed inside all the world’s multiple religions, and is now found primarily in the Sufi tradition of Islam, and also in the Hindu Vedanta, Buddhism, and some non-Protestant Christian traditions. The esoteric is, in this understanding, defined in opposition to the exoteric: the visible mythical, doctrinal, and ritual manifestations of all religions are exoteric, while their internal and mystical core is esoteric. Guénonian Traditionalists stress that perennial esoteric traditions must be practiced only within the exoteric frame of the religion that holds them, from which they are not properly detachable. Sufism is understood as the esoteric tradition of Islam. In the Guénonian Traditionalist understanding, then, the Ashʿari ʿaqīda and the madhāhib are significant not so much because they constitute traditional Islam, but because they are the exoteric container of the esoteric perennial tradition. The perennial tradition is found in Sufism, not in exoteric Islam. It is not clear to what extent Prince Ghazi personally understands tradition as perennial philosophia. I have found no public statements of sympathy with the perennialist position, but Prince Ghazi is presumably fully aware of the risk that outrage might greet such views if expressed too publicly by someone who is not only Muslim but also in the line of succession to the throne of a Muslim country. Prince Ghazi is, however, proficient in Guénonian Traditionalist theory, as can be seen from his article “The Traditional Doctrine of Symbolism,” published first in the Guénonian Traditionalist journal Sophia and then republished in an Introduction to the Perennial Philosophy, co-edited by Lings (Ghazi 2007). Given this, it is unlikely that he does not in fact accept the perennialist position. His engagements in inter-faith projects certainly suggests that he does. These include the composition and publicizing of two high-profile dialogue documents, “A Common Word,” a statement emphasizing the “common ground” between Muslims and Christians, and “Common Ground Between Islam and Buddhism,” doing the same for Muslims and Buddhists (Ghazi 2013: 57–61, 75–77). “A Common Word” attracted some attention in the West when it was released (Farouky 2007), though “Common Ground Between Islam and Buddhism” has attracted less attention. Neither dialogue document advances explicitly perennialist positions, but “A Common Word” was a joint Neo-traditionalist and Guénonian Traditionalist project, composed by Prince Ghazi with the help of al-Jifri and al-Buti on the Neo-­traditionalist side, and of Seyyed Hossein Nasr on the Guénonian

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­Traditionalist side (Ghazi 2013: 57–61),19 while “Common Ground Between Islam and Buddhism” was the fruit of discussions between the Dalai Lama and Reza Shah-Kazemi (born 1960) (Ghazi 2013: 75–77), a British scholar who is almost certainly a Maryami Guénonian Traditionalist.20 Prince Ghazi’s understanding of tradition almost certainly includes Guénonian Traditionalist perennialist elements, then, as well as uninterrupted transmission, the Ashʿari ʿaqīda, the madhhabs, and Sufism. Guénonian Traditionalist perennialism is not, however, found among other Neo-traditionalists. Abdal Hakim is well-read in Guénonian Traditionalist thought, as we will see below, but has condemned “religious pluralism” (and by implication perennialism) as a form of paganism incompatible with Islam, which is the final and definitive revelation rather than just one way of conceiving truth (Winter 2013). Hamza Yusuf writes that he and al-Jifri once discussed perennialism with Lings, and concluded that “while Dr. Lings’ view on the subject was not mainstream, it was not a complete rejection of the classical Islamic position which holds that previous religious dispensations were abrogated by the final message of the Prophet Muhammad” (Hamza Yusuf 2005: 55). This is far from an endorsement. The Neo-traditionalist who has been most critical of Guénonian Traditionalist perennialism is Keller, on the basis that perennialism proposes the validity of all religions, while Islam accepts the validity of only one religion, Islam (Keller 1996).21 Even so, Keller notes the importance for his own conversion to Islam of his readings in philosophy, which he studied at the University of Chicago, and of the books of Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Keller NDa). 4.2 The Neo-traditionalists on Modern Islam Neo-traditionalists define themselves by what they oppose as much as by what they promote, and what they oppose is non-traditional, “modern” Islam. The context of this modern Islam is identified by many Neo-traditionalists simply as the End Times, but is also analyzed by Abdal Hakim with reference to the understandings of modernity of Evola, the Italian philosopher associated with Guénonian Traditionalism. I have found no comparable discussions of modernity by other Neo-traditionalists, but it is likely that Neo-traditionalists who 19 20 21

It was signed by these authors, all the main Neo-traditionalists, three Maryamis, and two non-Maryami Traditionalists (Aal al-Bayt Institute 2007). I have found no clear statement of this, but given his career and writings it is highly unlikely that he is not a Maryami. This position was slightly softened in Keller 2007.

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are close to Guénonian Traditionalism (notably Prince Ghazi) subscribe to similar understandings. The oldest Neo-traditionalist argument for traditional Islam was made by al-Buti in his now classic Al-Lamadhhabiyya: Akhtar biʿda tuhaddidu al-shariʿa al-Islamiyya (Abandoning the Madhhabs: The Most Dangerous Innovation that Threatens the Shariʿa) in 1970.22 This was originally written as a refutation of an argument against the madhāhib made by the Saudi scholar Muhammad Sultan al-Khojandi (1880–1959). Its target, then, is Saudi (and thus in effect Salafi) Islam. It argues for tradition (in the sense of the madhāhib) on the basis of the inherent difficulties of interpreting the Qurʾan and Sunna to derive accurate rulings, which it illustrates with various examples (Al-Buti 2005). It also makes a comparison between the lack of competence of the untrained fiqh (jurisprudence) scholar and the lack of competence of the untrained medical practitioner: A man has a child who suffers from some infections, and is under the care of all the doctors in town, who […] warn his father against giving him an injection of penicillin […]. Now, the father knows from having read a medical publication that penicillin helps in cases of infection. So he relies on his own knowledge about it, disregards the advice of the doctors since he doesn’t know the proof for what they say, and employing instead his own personal conviction, treats the child with a penicillin injection, and thereafter the child dies. Should such a person be tried, and is he guilty of a wrong for what he did, or not? Al-Buti ND

This becomes the standard argument against lāmadhhabiyya and for the madhāhib. It may draw on earlier works preceding the emergence of Neo-­ traditionalism such as Muhammad Zahid al-Kawthari (1879–1952) in Al-­ Lamadhhabiyya qintarat al-ladiniyya (Abandoning the Madhhabs: The Bridge to Atheism). The closest that al-Buti gets to advancing a conception of modernity is when lamenting that intellectuals (mufakkirīn) have encroached on the field of the ʿulamaʾ, with the result that changes in the fiqh are proposed on grounds that circumstances have changed – even though the changes of recent centuries are in fact less major than the changes that came in the first centuries of Islam (Pierret 2013a: 110–11). Al-Buti is evidently criticizing liberal modernism. AlButi also criticizes the contemporary West as atheist and as the scene of “the 22

Most references are to the second edition of 1970.

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destruction of culture, morality, and health, through drugs, venereal diseases, and neuroses,” and regrets that any Muslim should be attracted by “European progress” (Christmann 2000). Although al-Buti’s arguments are not overtly political, they have clear political implications, especially when seen in the context of his own relations with the Syrian regime. Al-Jifri (1999) repeats al-Buti’s arguments against lāmadhhabiyya, which remain the standard ones, also pointing to the inherent difficulty of interpretation, and also using the medical metaphor (Al-Jifri 1999). He goes further than al-Buti regarding the negative role of intellectuals, noting that since the replacement of the classic institutions of learning with institutions modeled on Western universities, “whoever has a doctorate is considered prepared, even if he is ignorant.” Methods that are appropriate for training students in the modern sciences are unsuitable for training people in the religious sciences. What is needed for this is “a path of reception linked to the chain of transmission [sanad], where we find interconnected a chain of transmission with a chain of knowledge and a chain of purification of the soul” (Al-Jifri 1999). The result is that Islam has been oversimplified, removing diversity and multiple perspectives, and so making many individuals “feel as though they are the only true representative of Islam.” Al-Jifri, then, understands modernity not only in terms of the lessened authority of the ʿulamaʾ but also in terms of the popularity of alternative forms of knowledge production that are of Western origin and do not involve purification of the soul. He seems to be referring to both liberal modernism and the Muslim Brothers, who are presumably those who, he believes, think they are the only true representative of Islam. Al-Jifri also understands modernity in terms of the End Times. He explains the loss of knowledge by citing the famous hadith that: Allah does not take away knowledge by taking it away from the people, but takes it away by the death of the ʿulamaʾ until when none of the ʿulamaʾ remains, people will take the ignorant as their leaders, who will give fatwas without knowledge. So they will go astray and will lead the people astray. Al-Bukhari ND

To this al-Jifri adds a further understanding of modernity in terms of disunity and dispute among the Muslims caused by their (unidentified) enemies. Turmoil results from “internal sectarian and exclusionist divisions” and “an ideology of takfīr [accusation of unbelief] that shrouds itself in the garb of Ahl alSunna” (Al-Jifri 2016), evidently a reference to Jihadism, which its opponents

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often term takfīr-ism. While on the one hand this is the result of “people appointing themselves to ijtihād [new interpretation] without the necessary qualities” (Al-Jifri 1999) and of Muslims turning away from God, it also results from the activities of “the enemies of truth [who] have been allowed to overpower us because of our sins and vices” (Al-Batati 2006). A similar argument is developed in a lesson in which al-Jifri attacks Wahhabis and Salafis (though without naming them) for their lack of love for the Prophet. This is not a mistake, he says, but a deliberate attempt to divide the Muslims from their Prophet and their religion. When the enemies of Islam failed in separating Muslims from their faith honestly, they planted among the Muslims those who would take religion from the hearts of the Muslims in the name of religion, using those who were happy to sell their religion for the price of the world (Al-Jifri ND). Al-Jifri, then, echoes two aspects of a discourse that is very widespread in the Arab world: the idea that Islam is under attack from unnamed enemies, generally understood as Westerners and Jews, and that the positions of one’s opponents can be explained and discredited by their association with the enemies of Islam. Al-Jifri’s arguments, then, are more political than al-Buti’s. He attacks not just liberal modernism, Saudi Islam, and Salafism, but also the Muslim Brothers and Jihadism. He identifies these with the enemies of Islam and the forces of evil present at the end of time. Keller and Hamza Yusuf both follow the classic arguments of al-Buti and al-Jifri, also drawing attention to the inherent difficulties of interpretation, and also both using the medical metaphor (Hamza Yusuf 2012b; Keller 1995). Keller (NDa) does not advance a detailed critique of modernity, beyond occasional comments such as one noting “our own plight in the twentieth century, which could no longer answer a single ethical question… as if this century’s unparalleled mastery of concrete things had somehow ended by making us things.” Hamza Yusuf (2012b) also makes the End-Times argument that al-Jifri makes. Knowledge is passed by transmission, and “as time goes on it gets weaker and weaker, that’s why it’s much easier to break towards the end,” “in these last days, in which Islam has become a stranger, just as it began a stranger.” This is, in his view as in al-Jifri’s, the result of inappropriate educational methodologies. Secular education has “undermined the spiritual authority of the scholars of Islam,” and “most of the schools that presently exist are more effective in stunting the intellectual, spiritual, and social growth of our youth than in nurturing them” (Hamza Yusuf and Zaid Shakir 2013: 4, 9). Also like al-Jifri, Hamza Yusuf draws attention to the consequences of turning away from God (Hamza Yusuf and Zaid Shakir 2013: 3), and also to the presence of conflict, but as effect, not as cause: if you “say everybody just work it out for yourself, you’re supposed

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to be a mujtahid not a muqallid […] if you open this, if you unleash it and let it out, well, welcome to the modern world! Welcome to the Islamic dawla [state] of Iraq!” (Hamza Yusuf 2016). This is an explicitly political statement. For Hamza Yusuf, however, the central problem is not that Islam is under attack from unnamed enemies, but civilizational decay. In his view, although “angry youth” may use Islam as “a political platform to rage against the injustices of the West,” in fact the problem is not the West, but “tyrannical governments” in the Muslim world, and “an indolence and lassitude that make Muslims among the least productive peoples on earth” (Hamza Yusuf and Zaid Shakir 2013: 5). There is, however, also a problem with Western modernity, where society is disintegrating into “reckless abandon regarding sexuality, tattooed, and even mutilated bodies, escapism via manufactured music and mass entertainment, and angst-ridden youth living in a nature-deprived world of mediated reality, their obsessive-compulsive addictions further alienating them from self and other” (Hamza Yusuf 2017). A more complex argument is made by Abdal Hakim. Like the other Neotraditionalists, he stresses the difficulty of interpreting hadith, and uses the medical metaphor. He also references al-Buti. His understanding of modernity likewise includes conflict among Muslims, the End Times, and the negative consequences of secular education, of “a Western-influenced global culture in which people are urged from early childhood to think for themselves and to challenge established authority.” Just as the Enlightenment and its logic encouraged Westerners to reject hierarchy and authority, so it is having a similar impact on Muslims (Abdal Hakim Murad 2014: 2016). One reason that Ibn Taymiyya is now so popular, suggests Abdal Hakim, is that his understanding of fiṭra (nature) can be used to validate the sovereign human self. “The jāhiliyya [age of ignorance] is precisely predicated on the sovereign human self” (Abdal Hakim Murad 2016). 4.3 Abdal Hakim on Modernity Beyond this, however, Abdal Hakim also sometimes proposes an understanding of modernity based in Guénonian Traditionalist thought. In 2016, for example, he devoted a two-hour lecture at the Cambridge Muslim College to a discussion of modernity that took both its title and general framing from Ride the Tiger (Cavalcare la tigre), one of the most famous books of Evola, the Italian Traditionalist who adopted much of Guénon’s thought. Evola’s point was that one way to survive the dangerous “tiger” of modernity was to jump on its back. Evola is little stressed by most Muslim Guénonian Traditionalists, partly because (unlike Guénon) he never became Muslim, and partly because of an association first with Fascism and Nazism, and then with the New Right.

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A ­passing reference to Evola by President Trump’s Chief Strategist Steve Bannon (born 1953) was enough to unleash a series of shocked articles in the American media in 2017. Abdal Hakim noted that Evola was indeed problematic because of these associations, and also “a tragic figure,” as he had never discovered Islam. Despite this, however, “Evola is a point of reference for those who are seeking an alternative” to modernity, even if “much of his analysis is alien and difficult” (Abdal Hakim Murad 2016). In his lecture, Abdal Hakim referred not only to Evola but also to the mainstream and generally respected philosophers Charles Taylor (born 1931) and Slavoj Žižek (born 1949), and also to the rather less mainstream Markus Willinger (born 1992), a young Austrian Identitarian, some of whose writing he read out approvingly. Identitarians such as Willinger, Abdal Hakim felt, were wrong in their often xenophobic and racist solutions to the problems they saw, but right in spotting those problems in the first place, unlike so many other people, who failed even to spot them (Abdal Hakim Murad 2016). Abdal Hakim’s thought, then, is distinctly eclectic. Abdal Hakim started by explaining the Guénonian Traditionalist understanding of modernity as the kali yuga (the fourth and final age of Vedanta chronology), an understanding on which he expanded, identifying modernity not only with the End Times but also as “the absence of the sacred” in a “bland consumer void.” “Modernity lapses and limps into post-modernity,” explained Abdal Hakim, “so that the very sovereign human subject which the Enlightenment thought that it could put in the space vacated by the Christian God is itself in a state of increasing crisis and anxiety” (Abdal Hakim Murad 2016). Like Wagner, then, Abdal Hakim has identified a crisis of modernity, and like Hamza Yusuf he notes general anxiety. Under these circumstances, Abdal Hakim argued, one reaction to “anxiety about the loss of meaning, the confiscation of identity by modernity” was anxiety about identity that found expression on the European Right in such movements as Pegida.23 It also found a parallel expression, however, among European Muslims, in very similar concerns about “identity and boundary issues,” and in understandings of Islam that fitted this, and had little relationship to traditional Islam. This is why it was so important “to look at the usul [bases of jurisprudence], to see what is authentic here, rather than just panicking about making concessions to the kuffār [unbelievers]” (Abdal Hakim Murad 2016).

23

Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes, Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, a German group.

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Abdal Hakim’s analysis of modernity, then, is compatible with that of the other Neo-traditionalists, but also owes much to Evola, Traditionalism, and other modern Western philosophers. It is implicitly political. 5

The Modernity of Neo-traditionalism

The Neo-traditionalists do not see themselves as modern, and the understandings of Islam that they promote are indeed generally pre-modern. The movement itself, however, is modern rather than pre-modern to the extent that it is a response to conditions of modernity and to other Islamic projects and movements that came into being under earlier conditions of modernity. It is also modern in that is focuses on the individual rather than the state, and that it uses media that are characteristic of current modernity – YouTube, Facebook, and the internet – and occupies a global space. As we have seen, the Neo-traditionalist movement criticizes the liberal modernist project of early modernity, and the Muslim Brotherhood’s organizedmodernity project. Neo-traditionalists also criticize the Jihadis and Salafis, whose projects are less easy to locate in terms of modernity. The Neo-traditionalist emphasis on the madhāhib and the ʿaqīda of al-Ashʿari are, like alButi and al-Jifri, opposed to Saudi-Salafi Islam and liberal modernism. Al-Jifri further attacks the Muslim Brothers, and he and Hamza Yusuf attack Jihadism and the people of takfīr. Al-Jifri, Hamza Yusuf, and Abdal Hakim also refer specifically to what they see as the crisis of modernity, and Abdal Hakim even uses the word “crisis.” All see it as the End Times, a perspective that those influenced by Guénonian Traditionalism may be expected to share, given the Guénonian Traditionalist emphasis on the kali yuga. Hamza Yusuf and Abdal Hakim both identify angst and anxiety, for Hamza Yusuf “angst-ridden youth living in a nature-deprived world of mediated reality” and for Abdal Hakim the “sovereign human subject […] in a state of increasing crisis and anxiety.” Both, then, like Wagner, see a crisis of modernity, a crisis that perhaps has something in common with Wagner’s “strong standardization of practices and homogenization of life-courses” (Wagner 2010: 14–15), though Wagner does not, of course, refer to the End Times. In addition to this, the Neo-traditionalists generally also focus on the individual rather than the state, the exception being al-Buti, who as a protégé of the Syrian Baʿth Party unsurprisingly stressed the importance of the nation state (Christmann 2000: 76). This might in theory be characteristic of responses to current modernity or, equally, of early modernity, given that an emphasis

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on the state is characteristic of organized modernity, and not found in other stages. In the context of an understanding of modernity in terms of “mediated reality” and a “bland consumer void,” it is more likely to indicate current modernity. Although Neo-traditionalists are associated with Arab and Western governments, as we have seen, this is not the same as the instrumental focus on the state that is characteristic of the projects of organized modernity, including that of the Muslim Brothers. Theologians and preachers routinely accepted support from rulers and states even in pre-modernity. The Neo-Traditionalists use media that are characteristic of current modernity, and occupy the global space that is also characteristic of current modernity. Al-Jifri is the undisputed Neo-traditionalist star of digital media with 3.3 million views of one YouTube video and 6 million followers on Facebook, but other Neo-traditionalists have significant digital media presences, if not as great as Al-Jifri’s. Keller, the American shaykh from Amman who addressed followers in Cairo who included a Canadian South Asian from the Emirates, is about as global as it is possible to get. Prince Ghazi, the Jordanian follower of an English shaykh, is also very global. This globalism brings with it a certain hybridity, but hybridity is characteristic of all stages of modernity, not just current modernity – Muhammad Abduh drew on the European liberal thought of his time, and the Muslim Brothers drew on European and Soviet organizational models. What is characteristic of current modernity is not its hybridity (though current modernity is indeed hybrid), but significantly increased globalization. Finally, the Neo-traditionalists are also modern rather than pre-modern in that the understandings of Islam that they promote are not always pre-­modern, if pre-modern Islam is understood in terms of the Islam that might have been found in Cairo or Damascus in the eighteenth century ce. One way in which the Neo-traditionalists differ from eighteenth century Islam is their emphasis on Sufism: many members of the eighteenth century ʿulamaʾ were Sufis, but many were not, while all the key Neo-Traditionalists are Sufis. A second way in which the Neo-traditionalist understanding of Islam differs from the eighteenth century one is that some Neo-traditionalists use devices such as talfīq (joining) to “mitigat[e] the stipulations of Islamic law that seem incompatible with modernity” (Brown 2009: 261–62). This can be seen, for example, in the monumental fiqh manual published in 1991 by Keller, The Reliance of the Traveler. This is based on the ʿUmdat al-Salik of Ahmad Ibn Naqib al-Misri (1302– 1367), adjusted to incorporate other classic sources and sometimes the comments of Keller’s teacher, Abd al-Wakil al-Durubi. As the introduction notes, Keller (1991: ix) did not translate into English “rulings about matters now rare or nonexistent,” a category into which he put most discussions relating to slavery (Ali 2016: 62–63). Thus, for example, the text relating to the ­requirement

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for a slave to have the permission of his or her master to perform iʿtikāf (retreat) is removed from the English translation, leaving only the requirement for a wife to have the permission of her husband for this purpose (Keller 1991: 296). This avoids the parallel treatment of wives and slaves found in the original. On at least one occasion, Keller went further than selective forgetting. Kecia Ali has identified what appears to be a deliberate mistranslation, where in a discussion of circumcision the word baẓr is translated not as “clitoris” but as “prepuce of the clitoris” (i.e. the clitoral hood) (Ali 2016: 138). This mistranslation permits a reduced form of circumcision that fits current modernity better than do the standard practices of pre-modernity. 6 Conclusion This chapter has looked at Neo-traditionalism in terms of the network that is Arab and, in its international and global forms, Anglophone rather than Francophone. It has identified this network in terms of certain key persons and institutions: Muhammad Said Ramadan al-Buti in Syria and Ali Gomaa in Egypt, Umar bin Hafiz and the Dar al-Mustafa in Tarim, Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad and the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought in Amman, and Nuh Keller, also in Amman, but with followers internationally. Then there is Abdal Hakim Murad and the Cambridge Muslim College in England, and Hamza Yusuf Hanson and Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California. Finally, Ali al-Jifri, like Hamza Yusuf, also inhabits global cyberspace. These Neo-traditionalists have a common understanding of tradition, which they promote, and of modern Islam, which they condemn. All agree that tradition is the Islamic tradition, and that this is defined by uninterrupted transmission of knowledge, interconnected (according to al-Jifri) with “a chain of purification of the soul.” Put slightly differently, tradition is the Ashʿari ʿaqīda and the madhāhib, interconnected with Sufism. That it is wrong to attempt to dispense with the madhāhib is argued in terms of the inherent difficulty of properly interpreting the Qurʾan and Sunna, supported by the medical metaphor. Modern Islam, which the Neo-traditionalists deplore, is the Islamic projects of early and organized modernity – liberal modernism and the Muslim brothers, and perhaps also Jihadism. The Neo-traditionalists also deplore Salafism, which may be an alternative Islamic response to the conditions of current modernity, as indeed Jihadism may be. The Neo-traditionalists are modern because they are responding to earlier projects of Islamic modernity, and also because they are responding to the

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conditions of current modernity, focusing on the individual rather than the state, using media that are characteristic of current modernity and occupying the global space that is also characteristic of current modernity. They are also modern because the understandings of Islam that they promote are not always pre-modern. Neo-traditionalism, then, is not a conservative throw-back to the past but a wave of the future. It suggests that the conditions of current modernity in the Muslim world include a shift from the state to the individual as they do elsewhere, and also a crisis of the projects of earlier stages of Islamic modernity. If Salafism is also a reaction to this crisis, which it may be, perhaps Neotraditionalism is now its major rival. References Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, Royal. 2007. Signatories, A Common Word. http://www.acommonword.com/signatories/ (last accessed March 18, 2018). Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, Royal. 2009. The Amman Message. Amman: Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought. Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, Royal. 2013. Risālat ʿAmmān. Amman: MABDA. Abdal Hakim Murad. 2014. “Understanding The Four Madhhabs: The Problem with Anti-madhhabism.” Masud (6 July), http://masud.co.uk/understanding-the-fourmadhhabs-the-problem-with-anti-madhhabism/ (last accessed March 18, 2018). Abdal Hakim Murad. 2016. “Riding the Tiger of Modernity (March).” YouTube, https:// youtu.be/07Ien1qo_qI (last accessed March 18, 2018). AFP. 2016. “Sunni Islam Riven anew by Ancient Dispute.” Al-Monitor (September 17), https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/afp/2016/09/islam-religion.html (last accessed March 18, 2018). Al-Azami, Usaama. 2015. “How Not to Disown ‘Islamist’ Terrorism.” Huffington Post December 17, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/usaama-alazami/how-not-to-disownislamis_b_8823864.html (last accessed March 18, 2018). Al-Batati. 2006. “Interview with Habib Ali Zain al-Abideen al-Jifri.” Yemen Times (December 18), http://yementimes.com:80/article.shtml?i=1008&p=report&a=1 via Wayback machine. Al-Bukhārī. ND. Kitāb al-ʿilm. Ḥadīth 100. Al-Būṭī, Muḥammad Saʿīd Ramaḍān. 2005. Al-lamadhhabiyya: akhṭar bidʻa tuhaddidu al-shariʻa al-Islamiyya. Damascus: Dār al-Farābī. Al-Būṭī, Muḥammad Saʿīd Ramaḍān. ND. Al-lamadhhabiyya, translated by Keller. http://www.sunnah.org/fiqh/usul/buti_vs_salafi.htm (last accessed 18 March 2018).

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Al-Jifrī, ʿAlī. 1999. “Comprehensive Intellectual Dialogue with the Yemeni Al-Masdar Newspaper.” Al-Masdar (November 30), http://www.alhabibali.com/en/writing/ comprehensive-intellectual-dialogue-with-the-yemeni-al-masdar-newspaper/ (last accessed 18 March 2018). This is an English translation of an original that I have not been able to locate. Al-Jifrī, ʿAlī. 2013. Video, YouTube, https://youtu.be/OdnVOfdwpEY (last accessed 18 March 2018). Al-Jifrī, ʿAlī. 2016. “Storm in a Teacup: A Statement on the Chechnya Conference.” Tabah website (November 30). http://www.alhabibali.com/en/news/storm-in-ateacup-a-statement-on-the-chechnya-conference/ (last accessed 18 March 2018). Al-Jifrī, ʿAlī. ND. Undated recording made in Cairo, YouTube, https://youtu.be/ G1JPIC3BovY (last accessed 18 March 2018). Al-Muṭayrī, Muṭlaq bin Saʻūd. 2016. Al-ḥarb al-thaqāfiyya ʻala al-mamlaka, AlRiyāḍ (September 5), http://www.alriyadh.com/1531144 (last accessed 18 March 2018). Ali, Kecia. 2016. Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qurʾan, Hadith and Jurisprudence. London: Oneworld. Birt, Yahya. 2017. “Blowin’ in the Wind: Trumpism and Traditional Islam in America.” Medium February 14. https://medium.com/@yahyabirt/https-medium-com-yahy abirt-blowin-in-the-wind-trumpism-and-traditional-islam-in-america40ba056486d8 (last accessed 18 March 2018). Browers, Michelle. 2011. “Official Islam and the Limits of Communicative Action: The Paradox of the Amman Message.” Third World Quarterly 32: 943–958. Brown, Jonathan A.C. 2009. Hadith: Muhammad’s Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World. Oxford: Oneworld. Cambridge Khutbas. 2008. “A Common Word in Cambridge.” Cambridge Khutbas website (October 18). http://cambridgekhutbasetc.blogspot.com/2008/10/commonword-in-cambridge.html (last accessed 18 March 2018). Christmann, Andreas. 2000. “Islamic Scholar and religious leader: Shaikh Muhammad Saʻid Ramadan al-Buti.” In Ronald L. Nettler, Mohamed Mahmoud and John Cooper (eds.), Islam and Modernity: Muslim Intellectuals Respond. London, I.B. Tauris: 57–81. CMC. 2011. “CMS takkes in the Yemen.” Unity: Newsletter of the Cambridge Muslim College 2 (September): 3. Divinity, Faculty of, University of Cambridge. ND. Dr Timothy Winter, Faculty of Divinity website. https://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/directory/timothy-winter (last accessed 18 March 2018). Eisenstadt, Shmuel. 2000. “Multiple Modernities.” Daedalus 129(1): 1–29. Facebook. 2018. ʿAlī Al-Jifrī’s Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/alhabibali/ (last accessed 18 March 2018).

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Farouky, Jumana. 2007. “Muslim Leaders Send Peace Message.” Time (October 11). http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1670291,00.html (last accessed 18 March 2018). Ghazi bin Muhammad. 2007. “The Traditional Doctrine of Symbolism.” In Martin Lings and Clinton Minnaar (eds.), The Underlying Religion: An Introduction to the Perennial Philosophy. Bloomington, Indiana: World Wisdom: 157–171. Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal, Prince. 2013. Twenty Years of Historic Religious Initiatives based in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan by H.R.H. Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal and Many, Many Friends, 1993–2013 ce. Amman: National Press. Grewal, Zareena. 2014. Islam is a Foreign Country: American Muslims and the Global Crisis of Authority. New York: New York University Press. Hallaq, Walid. 1984. “Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?” International Journal of Middle East Studies 16: 3–41. Hamid, Sadek. 2016. Sufis, Salafis and Islamists: The Contested Ground of British Islamic Activism. London: IB Tauris. Hamza Yusuf. 2005. “A Spiritual Giant in an Age of Dwarfed Terrestrial Aspirations: Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Pays Tribute to the Man who Led his Heart to Islam.” Q-News 363 (June): 53–58. Hamza Yusuf. 2012a. Introduction to Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, What is Islam and Why? Amman: MABDA, 2012. Hamza Yusuf. 2012b. “The Importance of Following a Madhab.” YouTube, https://youtu. be/OKCNfBTD9no (last accessed 18 March 2018). Hamza Yusuf. 2014. “The Crisis of ISIS: A Prophetic Prediction.” YouTube, https://­ youtu.be/hJo4B-yaxfk (last accessed 18 March 2018). Hamza Yusuf. 2016. “What Happens when you do not Follow a Madhhab.” YouTube, https://youtu.be/R7J5W4HNc8g (last accessed 18 March 2018). Hamza Yusuf. 2017. “Is the Matter of Metaphysics Immaterial? Yes and No.” Renovatio (May), https://renovatio.zaytuna.edu/article/the-matter-of-metaphysics (last accessed 18 March 2018). Hamza Yusuf and Zaid Shakir. 2013. Agenda to Change Our Condition. NP: Sandala, 2013. Hope, Christopher. 2009. “Ministers Spend £90,000 a Day on ‘Soft Schemes’ to Tackle Extremism.” Daily Telegraph March 23, available https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/uknews/law-and-order/5038157/Ministers-spend-90000-a-day-on-softschemes-to-tackle-extremism.html (last accessed 5 July 2018). Jones, Stephen H. 2013. “New Labour and the Re-making of British Islam: The Case of the Radical Middle Way and the ‘Reclamation’ of the Classical Islamic Tradition.” Religions 4: 550–566.

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Jung, Dietrich, and Kirstine Sinclair. 2015. “Multiple Modernities, Modern Subjectivities and Social Order: Unity and Difference in the Rise of Islamic Modernities.” Thesis Eleven 130(1): 22–42. Keller, Nuh Ha Mim. 1995. “Why Muslims Follow Madhhabs?” Masud, http://www .masud.co.uk/ISLAM/nuh/madhhabstlk.htm (last accessed 18 March 2018). Keller, Nuh Ha Mim. 1996. “On the Validity of all Religions in the Thought of ibn Al'Arabi and Emir 'Abd al-Qadir: A Letter to `Abd al-Matin.” Masud, http://masud .co.uk/ISLAM/nuh/amat.htm (last accessed 18 March 2018). Keller, Nuh Ha Mim. 2007. “Truth, Other Religions, and Mysticism.” SeekersHub, http:// seekershub.org/blog/2010/09/truth-other-religions-and-mysticism-shaykh-nuhkeller/ (last accessed 18 March 2018). Keller, Nuh Ha Mim. ND. “Becoming Muslim.” Masud, http://www.masud.co.uk/ ISLAM/nuh/bmuslim.htm (last accessed 18 March 2018). Keller, Nuh Ha Mim (ed.) 1991. Reliance of the Traveller: The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law. Abu Dhabi: NP. Kugle, Scott. 2006. Rebel Between Spirit and Law: Ahmad Zarruq, Sainthood, and Authority in Islam. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Mathiesen, Kasper. 2013. “Anglo-American ‘Traditional Islam’ and Its Discourse of Orthodoxy.” Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 13: 191–219. McQueen, Megan. 2017. “An Interview With Abdul-Rehman Malik: Storyteller, Activist, and Cultural Organizer.” The Politic November 27, available http://thepolitic.org/aninterview-with-abdul-rehman-malik-storyteller-activist-and-cultural-organizer/ (last accessed 5 July 2018). Peskes, Esther. 2011. “Bā ʿAlawī.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, Third edition. Pierret, Thomas. 2013a. Religion and State in Syria: The Sunni Ulama from Coup to Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pierret, Thomas. 2013b. “Syrian Regime Loses Last Credible Ally among the Sunni Ulama.” Syria Comment (March 22), http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/syrian-regimeloses-last-credible-ally-among-the-sunni-ulama-by-thomas-pierret/ (last accessed March 18, 2018). Pierret, Thomas. 2015. “al-Būṭī, Muḥammad Saʿīd Ramaḍān.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, Third edition. Radical Middle Way. 2006. Home Page as at August 3. Archived at archive.org. Sedgwick, Mark. 2004a. Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press. Sedgwick, Mark. 2004b. “In Search of a Counter-Reformation: Anti-Sufi Stereotypes and the Budshishiyya’s Response.” In Michaelle Browers and Charles Kurzman (eds.), An Islamic Reformation? Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books: 133–141.

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Shepard, William E. 1987. “Islam and Ideology: Towards a Typology.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 19: 307–335. Sinclair, Kirstine. 2016. “‘Liberal Arts are an Islamic Idea:’ Subjectivity Formation at Islamic Universities in the West.” Review of Middle East Studies 50(1): 38–47. Ṭāba Foundation. ND. Dār al-Muṣṭafā-Tarīm. Tabah Foundation, http://www.tabah foundation.org/ar/establishment/programs/?id=2 (last accessed June 11, 2017). Warren, David H. 2017. “Cleansing the Nation of the ‘Dogs Of Hell’: ʿAli Jumʿa’s Nationalist Legal Reasoning in Support of the 2013 Egyptian Coup and its Bloody Aftermath.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 49: 457–477. Wagner, Peter. 1994. A Sociology of Modernity: Liberty and Discipline. London: Routledge. Wagner, Peter. 2004. “Modernity: One or Many?” In Judith R. Blau (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Sociology. Oxford: Blackwell: 30–42. Wagner, Peter. 2012. Modernity: Understanding the Present. Cambridge: Polity Press. Winter, Tim. 2013. “Realism and the Real: Islamic Theology and the Problem of Alternative Expressions of God.” In Mohammad Hassan Khalil (ed.), Between Heaven and Hell: Islam, Salvation, and the Fate of Others. New York: Oxford University Press: 122–145. Zaytuna. ND. Perennial Inspiration, Zaytuna website, https://zaytuna.edu/mission/ perennial-inspiration (last accessed 18 March 2018).

Chapter 7

An Islamic University in the West and the Question of Modern Authenticity Kirstine Sinclair 1

Introduction: The College

In the foreword to Islamic Education in Britain: New Pluralist Paradigms, Tim Winter, founder and Dean of The Cambridge Muslim College, explains the choice faced by “young Muslim school-leavers seeking to ‘travel the path of knowledge’”: either they can study Islam in traditional seminaries or they can enrol in an Islamic Studies programme at a secular university (Scott-Baumann and Cheruvallil-Contractor 2015). The first type of education is characterised by Winter as a “warm and spiritual fellowship nurtured by centuries-old Indian theological syllabus,” whereas the latter is dominated by an “‘area studies’ paradigm of little relevance to the needs of domestic Muslims or by a nineteenthcentury orientalist philological approach, many of whose older texts are written in woundingly disdainful or patronizing idiom.” As we shall see in the following, a “warm and spiritual fellowship nurtured by centuries-old Indian theological syllabus” is the ideal behind Winter’s college in Cambridge.1 Winter’s (b. 1960, convert to Islam, hence also known as Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad) harsh characterisation of university area studies should be understood as neither ill-informed nor ill-willed. With an educational background from Cambridge University and al-Azhar in Cairo, Egypt, and a clear vision of what British Muslims need in terms of education and community development, there is no reason to think that Winter would find Islamic studies in modern universities superfluous or irrelevant. It is more likely, rather, he finds them less than ideal for Muslim youth in Britain. Secular universities offer secular education and while that may be of sound and good academic quality and benefit some, it does not meet the expectations or requirements of young believers. Therefore, Cambridge Muslim College offers young British Muslims a programme bridging the traditional seminaries with the surrounding British 1 The field research for this chapter was funded by Carlsbergfondet as part of the mmsp subproject “The Role of Islamic Universities in Modern Muslim Subjectivity Formation in Europe and the usa.” For this, I am grateful.

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society, thus making sure that the individuals graduating with knowledge from “centuries-old Indian theological syllabus” can use this in serving their contemporary Muslim community in Britain. Cambridge Muslim College was founded in 2009. Since then it has received formal accreditation by the British Accreditation Council for Independent Further and Higher Education and offers a Diploma in Muslim community leadership in Britain entitled: Diploma in Contextual Islamic Studies & Leadership – the first of its kind in the British Isles. The one-year Diploma is especially directed at graduates from darul uloom colleges in Britain.2 Darul uloom institutions derive from India where, in 1866, a school in Deoband in Uttar Pradesh became the starting point of the Deoband movement (Reetz 2007: 139). The core of the curriculum consists of Qur’an exegesis, Hadith, Fiqh and Arabic language. Graduates from darul uloom seminaries in Britain have studied Islamic scripture extensively for a minimum of five years, but purportedly lack knowledge and experience regarding contemporary British society and its historical and philosophical foundations. The Diploma, then, provides introductions to a broad selection of academic disciplines and opportunities to study British history and society empirically. Most years have seen a student enrolment of fifteen to twenty of which darul uloom students constitute approximately 90 percent.3,4 This study of Cambridge Muslim College is guided by two interrelated questions: What role do Islamic universities play in shaping modern Muslim subjectivities in the West? And: How does Cambridge Muslim College combine understandings of authentic Islam with preparing their students for professional careers in Britain?. Taking a case study of Cambridge Muslim College as a point of departure, these questions are discussed and answered through analysis of Cambridge Muslim College’s curricula, background, values and aims; through observation, 2 During a visit in November 2014, then Academic Director, Dr. Atif Imtiaz, explained that in 2013 and 2014 all of the accepted 15–20 students came from darul uloom institutions, however, the college aims to enroll one or two students from ordinary university Islamic studies courses each year. The choice of spelling of “darul uloom” is based on the spelling used at Cambridge Muslim College, in work by Tim Winter and in British mainstream media such as Wikipedia. 3 Dr. Atif Imtiaz in interview, November 2014, and via email correspondence in June 2016. 4 This chapter does not include a paragraph on the history and institutionalization of higher Islamic education in Europe in general due to formal limitations. It is, however, necessary to state that the educational initiative in Cambridge is not the only one of its kind. I would like to point the interested reader in the direction of the volume by Hashas, Mohammed et al. (eds.) Imams in Western Europe. Developments, Transformations, and Institutional Challenges (Amsterdam University Press, 2018).

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participation in classes and excursions, and through interviews with students, faculty members and the founder of the institution. I have paid special attention to what kind of place the college is and what practices students and faculty engage in in order to understand the college as frame for subjectivity formation. In the case of Cambridge Muslim College, I argue that notions of authenticity are referred to both in the college design and the academic content but also in how the students are expected to develop and change their perception of their own religiosity and its usefulness in a British context during the course of the Diploma programme. In this process, authenticity becomes a reference point in the creation of an understanding or feeling of rootedness which is otherwise typically absent from the modern experience of contingency in social affairs. The college is based on Shaykh Abdal Hakim’s ideal of education as a means to preserving and maintaining a good life for Muslims in the British minority context through emphasis on the connection between tradition and modernity. The tool offered is authenticity which, then, is understood and practiced in different and partly overlapping ways as we shall see. In the following, I am going to start with an introduction of the analytical framework before turning to empirical examples of how the college can be understood as both place and practice. Based hereon, I discuss how different types of authenticity become a tool to overcome discrepancies between tradition and modernity, before returning to answering my two questions. 2

The Conceptual Triangle

I tie my study of Cambridge Muslim College to the broader question regarding the role of Islamic universities in the West through a conceptual triangle consisting of modernity, higher education and authenticity. When talking about modernity, I refer to the experience of contingency of social life; that nothing is impossible, and nothing is necessary (Jung and Sinclair 2015: 25). This implies that the individual is subjected to no dominant natural order and is responsible for creating coherence and meaning herself. This does not imply any specific connection to institutions, neither does it point to the absence of religion as a feature of modernity, nor the absence of durable historical structures. What it does entail, however, is placement of the individual at the center of sense making and subjectivity construction. Thus, modern individuals and collectives live in constant tension between order and uncertainty as a consequence of the mentioned contingency. This line of argument is developed elsewhere with Dietrich Jung and pointed to the works by Wagner, according to

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whom the ways of overcoming this tension are multiple and diverse but all draw on – or depend on – the individual striking a balance between her own autonomy and the autonomy of the collective (Jung and Sinclair 2015: 25; Wagner 1994). In translating this starting point to the concept of subjectivity formation, I look to the later works of Michel Foucault (1926–1984) who observed two kinds of processes and technologies: external technologies of domination and internalised technologies of the self; both serving the purpose of disciplining the individual and her social interaction (Jung and Sinclair 2016; Foucault 1995, 1988). The subject is the result of successful disciplining processes drawing on both external factors such as requirements of the state, behavioural regulation through upbringing and education as well as internal factors such as individual priorities and understandings of moral right and wrong. Here my interest is in higher education as a specific means to form subjects through academic programmes and syllabi as well as shaping the self-understanding and worldviews of students in a transformative phase of their lives. At Cambridge Muslim College, this is expressed with reference to the necessity to educate students in both the circumstances of the surrounding modern world and the Islamic intellectual tradition.5 Although authenticity is part of the analytical framework, the status of the concept differs from that of modernity and higher education as I have been open to different understandings and practices as encountered empirically. My attention was drawn to the importance of the concept as it is referred to at the college’s home page and was used to stress the importance of the diploma program in conversations with individuals at the college. For instance, when explaining the aim of the college, the following is stated at the homepage: It is the College’s aim, by Allah’s grace, to serve the Muslims of Britain and abroad by supplying education at the very highest level. With a full commitment to values of Islam and the most authentic classical Islamic scholarship and equipped with a critical and deep awareness of the nature of modernity and contemporary British and European contexts, the College hopes to be a flagship institution of which Muslims everywhere can be deeply proud.6 Rather than taking a specific definition as my point of departure, I follow the ambition in much of the literature discussing authenticity, which aims at gaining insight into “the discursive and social generation of authenticity claims” 5 http://cambridgemuslimcollege.ac.uk/about/history/ (last accessed 1 February 2019). 6 http://cambridgemuslimcollege.ac.uk/about/history/ (last accessed 1 February 2019).

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(Bramadat 2005: 1).7 Ergo, the aim has been to find out what is referred to as authentic at the college rather than decide on a specific definition. What I have found so far, is that in the context of Cambridge Muslim College, authenticity is understood as being innate, experienced and instrumental simultaneously which I shall discuss after turning to the college as place and as practice (Banks 2013).8 3

The College as Place

The college is based in a big, beautiful, Victorian house from 1847 in St. Paul’s Road – a former vicarage called “Unity House” – in walking distance from both the train station and the town center of Cambridge.9 Next to it is a parking lot and opposite a privately-run kindergarten in a similarly sized house. The street sees a steady flow of pedestrians, parents, children, and traffic. As one enters the house, the reception and administration office is to the left and the lecture room on the right. The kitchen and stairway to the first floor are found further down the main hall. On the first floor one finds the bathrooms with washing facilities, two common rooms, a prayer room, a library as well as the office of the Dean, the Academic Director and the Operations Director.10 The students have access to the kitchen during all breaks and help themselves to tea etc. Lunch is served in an adjacent dining area and everybody dines together in the middle of the day. The meal in the middle of the day consists of either a hot dish with salads and hummus, freshly made sandwiches or the like. The occasion is valued and never rushed. It is marked by vivid conversation of very diverse topics ranging from politics, health, food recipes, the weather to specificities of the curriculum. In other words, the mealtime is reminiscent of that in a rather large family. The lecture room has a bay window facing the street at the one end and the lecturer’s place at the other. In the middle of the room, remnants of a wall on

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For other elaborate discussions of authenticity, identity and culture in the contemporary world, I recommend tourism and heritage studies (fx. Barthel-Bouchier 2001), architectural and design studies (fx. Heynen 2006), anthropology (fx. Banks 2013) and religious and Islamic studies (fx. Bramadat 2005 and Casey 2008). Banks differentiates between nominal, expressive and instrumental authenticity in analyses of Tasmanian repatriation claims (Banks 2013). http://www.cambridgemuslimcollege.org/about/history/ (last accessed 1 February 2019). This part of the article, The College as Place, is based on participant observations during visits at the college in November 2014 and May 2015. Dr. Atif has read and commented on draft versions of the article in its entirety and this section in particular.

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either side suggest that it used to be two smaller rooms. There are rows of chairs on either side of a central aisle, and in the academic year of 2015, the female students were seated on the left, and the male students on the right. When I took part in lectures, there were 12 male students and four females. Of this group, the men were more vocal than the women of which only one asked questions and took part actively in discussions. The students reside in a dorm separated from the college, and here gender segregation is also observed. The same goes for the common rooms at the college. Gender segregation is emphasised when students are recruited to the college by the Dean visiting darul uloom throughout the country. A typical day is structured around classes in the morning and early afternoon leaving time for breaks, the mentioned lunch and leisure activities in the afternoon. Classes are 90 minutes long and typically take the shape of either lecture-led discussions of course readings or guest lectures followed by plenum discussions. The afternoon activities stand out compared to other colleges in that social and physical activities otherwise organised in and by societies are organised by the college itself. Thus, on Wednesday afternoons, a tai chi instructor of South American origin visits the college and gives lessons to the female students. In this manner, the college provides for physical education in a protected environment, and the aim to create both strong and able bodies and minds is emphasised in conversations on diets, Chinese herbal medicine, tea habits and the like. Everything is tied together, one understands, and (re-) turning to Chinese traditions is not understood as forming a contradiction to living wholesome Muslims lives in Britain. There is no conflict, no contradictions; everything is presented as connected in traditional ways of life. On arrival to the college in the morning, students ask Academic Director Dr. Atif in the office: “Is he in?” thereby referring to Winter. In his presence, they address him as “Shaykh Abdal Hakim”. The rhythm of the day differs slightly depending on whether the Shaykh is in. If he is in, the students expect to see him during breaks and at lunch and prepare by discussing what questions to ask him. If he is out, they speak more freely amongst themselves. As a visitor one feels more of a buzz in the house, if the Shaykh is in. The role of the Shaykh to the students at the college cannot be underestimated. The special role of the Shaykh is established before they even meet him and only becomes stronger as he visits darul uloom institutions and talks to pupils and parents there. Shaykh Abdal Hakim is amongst the best-known Muslims in Britain and in the world.11 When he visits darul uloom institutions, he draws on his name and reputation 11

See also the chapter by Mark Sedgwick in this volume for an elaboration of Shaykh Abdal Hakim’s international network.

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and his strong connection to academia and Islamic learning traditions in general and to his affiliation to Cambridge University in particular. The public standing and long history of Cambridge University has strong connotations of academic knowledge and solid scholarly traditions with generations of individuals growing up in the Commonwealth and thus also for immigrant parents of contemporary darul uloom pupils. As already established, the vast majority of students at Cambridge Muslim College come from darul uloom institutions offering little other than Islamic and Qur’anic studies. Thus, Cambridge Muslim College does not offer courses in Qur’anic studies, Arabic language classes or Islamic Law. Rather, in courses such as “Introduction to World History,” “Introduction to World Religions,” “Introduction to the UK State,” “Introduction to Social Sciences,” “British Islam Today,” and “Islamic Counselling” (all first term), the programme introduces students to academic approaches to the world outside Islamic and Qur’anic studies. In the second and third terms, courses on astronomy, British politics and religious pluralism (second term) as well as explicit modern perspectives on Muslim history, ethics and gender (third term) are offered. From the first through to the third term, the courses develop from introductory and general to more British and modern in orientation. Apart from discussions of Shakespearean plots, gender in contemporary theatre traditions and astronomy, the programme includes visits to police stations, hospitals and other public offices and institutions, whereby their Muslim students have the opportunity of familiarizing themselves with central institutions and norms of the British society that are necessary to manoeuvre as professional representatives of Muslim citizens; knowledge and experience of both academic and practical nature. Besides combining academic and practical content in the programme, the college also explicitly expresses a vision of what types of careers, graduates may aspire to as reflected in courses such as “Islamic Counselling” and “Effective Community Leadership.” Graduates are expected to use the Diploma to work for the Muslim community; i.e. they are expected to combine their religious background and experiences from the programme as moral and working subjects. According to Shaykh Abdal Hakim, education in terms of preparation for professional functions in the British society and education in terms of strengthening awareness of the authentic content of Islam are of equal importance to the college, and in a conversation at the college, he described the aim of the diploma course as a matter of working with the Muslim community and of “giving back to the community.”12 12

Interview, Shaykh Abdal Hakim, November 2014.

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The Deobandi background of the majority of students is important in order to understand what kind of community is referred to.13 In other words, where the students come from in terms of educational principles and traditions and the kind of decision they make when coming to Cambridge Muslim College. The Deobandi tradition sprung from two strong sentiments: anti-colonialism and theological puritanism. The aim was to secure an independent Muslim identity separated both from the British/Western influence and from the surrounding Hindu majority by turning towards shariʿa and shying away from local customs (Pieri 2015: 33–35; Reetz 2007: 140–141). Behind the first educational institute was the persuasion that Islam was a source of both superiority and of identity formation taking the shape of political pan-Islam thus forming a break with the past (Reetz 2007: 142). Some scholars even argue that it was the ambition of one of the founders, Shaykh al-Hind (aka. Mahmud al-Hasan, 1851–1920), to overthrow the Empire militantly (Hartung 2016: 350). Deobandis started arriving to Britain in in the 1960s and 1970s, and especially Indian Gujaratis were instrumental in establishing mosques in cities such as Bradford and Birmingham.14 Alongside mosques, the first dar ul-uloom institutions were opened in this period in order to secure the education and training of a “new generation of British-born’Ulama” (Gilliat-Ray 2010: 87). By 2005, still building on the idea of securing and protecting Islam from colonial powers and still following curricula and puritan lines of thought from the 1860s, approximately seventeen darul uloom were dominating the Islamic educational scene in Britain (Gilliat-Ray 2010:88). Seemingly, this ideal marks a clear contrast to the teaching and thinking at Cambridge Muslim College. 4

The College as Practice

At Cambridge Muslim College, the comprehensive approach to education is supplemented by the contributions and personal experiences of guest lecturers adding practical elements to the programme. During their year at Cambridge, students receive a wide range of lecturers from individuals holding important and influential jobs in the British society. They are lectured on Shakespearean drama by a lecturer from Cambridge University, they have the opportunity to discuss British engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan with a 13 14

Recently, the composition of students is closer to 50–50 between Deobandi and Barelwi according to Dr. Atif (email correspondence in June 2018). In email correspondence in June 2018, Dr. Atif pointed out that today Gujarati Muslims tend to predominate in Leicester and Blackburn, rather than Birmingham and Bradford.

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high-ranking individual from the British army and they visit local hospitals. In this manner, they experience a wide range of successful individuals’ take on societal debates and personal career choices and they are directly and indirectly informed by illustrative examples of what one might strive for in life. Added to this is the comprehensive approach to life as illustrated by a focus on health, diet and physical exercise in everyday conversation and as part of the daily routine at the college. Another example of how the college offers practical knowledge is the two annual excursions offered to the students. Every year, the students are taken on a bus trip to Norfolk, UK, and a visit to Rome, Italy. The trip to Norfolk includes visits at Grime’s Graves, Castle Rising, Holkham Bay and Walsingham, and the idea behind the bus trip is to introduce the students to “old, Christian England” by visiting a prehistoric flint mine, a fortification from 1138 and a village and pilgrimage site known for its shrines honouring the Virgin Mary. The first two stops demonstrating the age of civilization on the British Isles, the latter the integral part of religion and religiosity. In other words: To show the devout Muslim students that Britain has a past which is both long and religious. The trip to Rome, which includes meeting the Pope if he is in, has the purpose of showing students at the college that Europe’s relationship with religion is not merely historic but also, in places other than Britain, practiced in contemporary and visible manners. Shaykh Abdal Hakim is the mind and engine behind both curricular and extra-curricular activities. Having authored a number of books, functioned as commentator in radio and other media, and being active and visible through various profiles on social media platforms, Abdal Hakim is commonly referred to as the most influential Muslim in Britain (The Independent 2010). Due to his educational background (Cambridge and al-Azhar), his public appearances and his personal style, he personifies the ideal of bridging two worlds, bringing together tradition and modernity, as well as showing profound respect and understanding of the needs of their Muslim communities. His eloquence and ability to talk directly to his students and other young Muslims in Britain about their conditions and experiences is enough to attract ever growing audiences. This alone makes him appear as a trustworthy role model to his students. A concrete example of this social position was seen as we boarded the bus outside the college in May 2015, to go on the annual excursion to Walsingham. The college bus seated approximately 30 persons, and female students automatically went to the back where I joined them. Apart from four female students, two female administrators and I in the back were twelve male students and a male visitor from Dubai. The Shaykh was the last person to board the bus, and as the male students were expecting him to sit in the front, they had

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left the first row of seats available and placed themselves on rows two, three and four. Then, when the Shaykh entered and saw me, the visitor sitting in the back of the bus, he passed by the empty row and the male students in rows two, three and four and chose a seat in the row in front of me. As a result, the male students were sitting quite far from him, and they reacted instantly by moving down the rows of the bus and turning around to face the Shaykh rather than the front of the bus. Thus, for the entirety of the trip, the majority of male passengers were facing away from the direction of travel. The movement of the male students was reminiscent of sunflowers following the sun from east to west as the day progresses. After departure, the male students then started asking the Shaykh questions such as: “Can you elaborate on clinical psychology, Shaykh? I have heard that many young Muslims struggle with mental health issues.” The Shaykh gave thorough answers explaining what a psychology degree would entail in terms of academic content and investment of time and money (fees and other expenses), and they agreed that although the Muslim minority in Britain would benefit from more trained psychologists with Muslim background, for this particular student expanding his student years with such a comprehensive course would not be feasible. Other questions concerned course material, British history, war developments in the Middle East and the British army (“Do you think we need more Muslims in the army?”) and translations of concepts from Arabic to English. At one point, a student asked the Shaykh to sing, which he did, and before long most passengers had joined in. The song lyrics were Gleams from the Garden of the Martyrs by Husayn Vaiz Kashifi, translated from Arabic to English by the Shaykh and put to Medieval, i.e. traditional English, tunes. The effort made to translate and prepare such material for recital and singing in English, and to find suitable tunes bears witness to the ambition and self-perception of Shaykh Abdal Hakim: He connects historical epochs, traditions, geographies and individuals. Hereby, the Shaykh demonstrates the flexibility of Islam (& himself) and the everlasting relevance of history, tradition and Islam regardless of national context. The point made indirectly and thus ever more elegantly is this: Islam does not need to change to fit the British context, if one looks to tradition, the fit is perfect always already. To the students, Shaykh Abdal Hakim he is more than lecturer and dean; he is also chief advisor and lodestar to the individual student and his opinions and assessments are recognised as authoritative and rewarded with great respect and loyalty. Thus, it would seem that the Shaykh himself establishes the link between the wider society, Muslim minorities, the students and their efforts to create coherent identities within the given expectations and frames

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provided. The Shaykh, thus, practices what he preaches, and he demonstrates to the students that college and education is practice and lifestyle as much as it is place and degree. 5

Notions of Authenticity

The references to authenticity are many and diverse at the college. During my visits, I came across at least three interdepending and somewhat overlapping understandings: the innate, the experienced, and the everyday. The innate is seen in the college’s ambition to prepare darul uloom students for professional life in the British society as Chaplains, Imams and Muslim Community leaders. Here, the college sees itself as performing an important part in securing a more prosperous future for Islam and Muslims in Britain. This is clearly expressed by Abdal Hakim when he described the college’s aim as giving back to the Muslim community.15 The aim of the college is not an alteration of Islam as practiced and interpreted at darul uloom institutions or any other type of adjustment or reinterpretation, but rather a strengthening of Muslim communities through education of future community leaders. In doing so, the founder sees the role of college activities as restoring tradition and securing authenticity. The students are perceived as always already authentic due to their Islamic schooling and knowledge of Qur’an and scripture from the darul uloom, so authentic Islam is not something the college seeks to create, but something the students carry with them to the institution and which can be recovered and harnessed for modern life. The second notion of authenticity is experience based and communicated through the two annual excursions to Norfolk and Rome. Here, the students experience that religion is as central to the history and present of their home country – Britain and Europe – as it was and is to the home countries of their parents. These excursions serve as a demonstration of British and European history as intrinsically tied to religion and religious practice, and at the same time, they serve as a reminder to the students of the need for them to relate to their actual and practical context as Muslim minorities in Britain and Europe. In conversations with students after their trip to Rome in the spring of 2015, their surprise at experiencing spirituality and practiced religion in contemporary Europe was apparent. One explained how she would characterise it as a spiritual experience in itself watching Catholics in prayer and being moved by 15

Interview, Abdal Hakim, November 2014, also referred to earlier in this chapter (see note no. 12).

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prayer.16 Thus, experiencing religiosity as part and parcel of both past and present of their contemporary surroundings reflects on the students’ own religiosity and may create the basis for increased confidence when practicing Islam in a minority context. Connected to this second notion is the everyday experiences at the college. Behind the course work and the schedule by which the students’ everyday lives are organised while attending the college lies a principle of universality. Shaykh Abdal Hakim is opposed to university education organised according to faculty and disciplinary divisions, as these are regarded false and unnatural, which explains why courses on astronomy have the same status as a course entitled “Islam and Religious Pluralism.” Thus, the educational ideal behind the college involves an understanding of knowledge as whole and undivided and thereby avoidance of the distinction between arts and science. This all-encompassing approach to knowledge and education goes beyond the academic content and views the students as whole beings with offers of exercise for body as well as for the mind communicated through the integration of physical exercise for female students taking place at the college after classes in the afternoon and lengthy conversations about health, herbal tea and fresh air during breaks initiated by staff members. Thereby, the college introduces perspectives and practices suggesting guidelines for a good and healthy life. Finally, one can point to a third understanding of authenticity at play at Cambridge Muslim College, namely a more instrumental notion which will be developed in the following. 6

Authenticity as Tool

The different kinds of authenticity recognized and practiced at Cambridge Muslim College result in a layered and complex palimpsest. The Deoband seminary tradition is brought to the college by the students, the programme itself emphasises the British context – history, religious background and contemporary society – and above or beyond is an all-encompassing or universal approach to education and wholesome living. As discussed above, to the students the Shaykh is a role model, a living example of the interplay between education and religion, respect for tradition and the needs of the contemporary British Muslim community. According to Shaykh Abdal Hakim, Islam is a discursive tradition undergoing constant challenges and developments (Asad 1986; Mathiesen 2013). ­Rather 16

Interview with female student, Cambridge, May 2015.

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than promoting an anti-modern narrative, he understands Islam as challenged by deterioration of tradition and in need of constant efforts to protect and restore what was (Mathiesen 2013: 201). Abdal Hakim’s Traditional Islam does not stand in the way of recruiting students from Deobandi darul uloom despite the apparent dichotomy between the orthodox Deobandi thinking and Sufism because emphasis is put on the recognition of all contributions to the discursive tradition. Also, at the college emphasis is on the challenges faced by the conditions for minority Islam in Britain, meaning restoring and protecting the faith for all its followers. Shaykh Abdal Hakim’s thinking revolves around criticism of modernity which gives his notions of authenticity special evidence and credibility. His understanding of the potential of religion, religion as source and core of what it means to be a decent human being is presented as a powerful counterweight to contemporary British, Western, modern and secular society. In his writings, he presents opposition to what he understands as British monoculture. This is seen in his Commentary on the Eleventh Contentions where he explains the role of Islam vis-à-vis culture and contemporary Britain (Abdal Hakim Murad 2012). Here, Abdal Hakim challenges what he understands as the monoculture behind “roots” thinking. He himself thinks along the lines of “roots” but understands roots as the core of the individual’s mind and belief, not the foundation for a society or a national culture. Within cultural studies and cultural geography, “roots” is a metaphor used to describe the understanding of culture as something that ties an individual to a certain geographical area. According to this understanding, culture is something you are born into and something of a quite static nature. Should you move to a different location, you are uprooted, and you should not expect to set roots in your new location. While Abdal Hakim does not refer to discussions of the usage of “roots” within cultural geography and cultural studies, it is worth noting that the oppositional metaphor within discussions in these academic fields is “routes” used to illustrate the understanding that culture is a matter of geographical and temporal trajectories which an individual carries with her regardless of where she goes. According to this understanding, culture is dynamic, changes over time and can include whoever joins in on certain characteristic practices, notions and values. Furthermore, all individuals combine many trajectories in the contexts they become a part of, just as they over a lifetime will pass, combine and intersect many such trajectories. According to this understanding, individuals cannot evade being placed and similarly places will always be the result of intersections of trajectories consisting of activities and things that went before (Massey 2005 and 1995; Cresswell 2004; Hall 1995). Abdal Hakim’s understanding of “roots” bears similarities to this concept, in that Islam is

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something the individual carries with her, however, he would maintain that it remains a constant rather than something in flux. In Abdal Hakim’s work, “roots” has positive connotations as he understands the metaphor as connected to religion and belonging but not something which can be limited to national borders or territory. To Abdal Hakim, “roots” is a matter of identifying with certain traditions and history linked to religion and religious practice primarily. Thus, when liberal politicians talk about “interfaith” Abdal Hakim understands this as a challenge to the distinctive nature of certain roots – he understands this as somehow subduing or suppressing the possibilities of expressing Muslimness in a British context – as a watering down of Muslimness. A relativistic “anything goes” approach which he does not approve of. His argument is, essentially, that if any religion is as good as the other, none of them can be said to hold Truth. Thus, the differentiation between roots and routes is challenged and redefined in Abdal Hakim’s writings. Roots, to Abdal Hakim, are Islamic and transnational in essence. Roots connect the individual believer to God, not to a nationally defined territory or a state. Monoculture in this understanding means reducing the diversity of roots to just one British culture, where all religions are of equal value which of course is in opposition with the belief that Islam contains and points to the Truth. Abdal Hakim illustrates his understanding of roots in the older publication Muslim Songs of The British Isles, a songbook published for educational purposes with which the college students are familiar – hence the singing on the bus mentioned earlier. In the introduction, he explains: What of Islam’s growing presence in the West? In Europe, new Muslim communities may find themselves living beside local tradition which has already been deeply influenced by Islamic culture. […] In the United Kingdom, by contrast [to Spain, Portugal, Poland, Russia and Ukraine], such ingredients are more elusive, despite hints of medieval or even older interactions between Celtic and North African cultures. The musical practice of British Muslims as it has developed since the late 19th Century has therefore tended to find its inspiration in fully “indigenous” traditions of folk music. abdal hakim murad 2005: 3 The songs in the book have been arranged to be used in musical education in British Muslim schools so as to meet the requirements of the national curriculum. Besides this primary purpose of the publication, it is a good illustration of Abdal Hakim’s roots thinking in that the new arrangements of traditional

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­British folk songs with lyrics inspired by Islam and the holy scripture in English, demonstrate that the individual believer can combine any tradition or cultural practice with Islam as long as it is done without relativizing the latter. By combining folk tunes with Islamic lyrics, Abdal Hakim is reviving British traditional music for an audience of Muslims (children) in Britain – and as witnessed on the bus trip, the students are familiar with the arrangements – whereby he shows how Muslimness is in no way a contradiction to local culture or traditions. Rather, Islam is the core of any believer’s identity and makes it possible to belong anywhere. In this line of work, Abdal Hakim finds yet another way of illustrating the relevance and need for authenticity as a tool in the creation of meaningful selves. 7

The Modern Anti-modern Shaykh and his Authentic College

Understanding Islam as the root of everything and Islamic (and all other) traditional ways of life as the key to sensemaking in the modern world is not necessarily equivalent to being anti-modern. Rather, the criticism of modernity found in Shaykh Abdal Hakim’s thinking is a tool providing coherence and meaning in a life dominated by contingency. Thus, the anti-modern principle invites to or facilitates accommodation to modernity in practice. The students at Cambridge Muslim College are invited to transform their religious knowledge and practice into a language comprehensible in British society. They are to do so, however, without experiencing or creating any type of hybridity, gap or “in-betweenness” as so often discussed in analyses of minority youth and integration. Guiding this article and the study of Cambridge Muslim College were questions regarding Islamic education and subjectivity formation. I asked: What role do Islamic universities play in shaping modern Muslim subjectivities in the West? How does Cambridge Muslim College combine understandings authenticity with preparing their students for professional careers in Britain?. Starting with the latter, I argue that at the college, the students’ knowledge of Islam from Deoband seminaries is not questioned, rather they are taught to bring their knowledge to use for the wider Muslim community in Britain. Moreover, Shaykh Abdal Hakim functions as just that to his students: A Shaykh. With his comprehensive approach to religious traditions and education, Abdal Hakim provides guidance in terms of career choices and how to bridge the apparent gap between making individual choices and serving the community in a manner that not only supports but restores and revitalises Islam in contemporary Britain. During the diploma programme, this ­understanding is

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­exemplified through the integration of spirituality, health and lifestyle. Chinese herbal tea and the practice of Tai Chi in the afternoon is seen as complimentary to the practice of Islam and the course’s aim of educating students capable of using their religion as forces of good in their careers and as citizens in the British society; as moral and working subjects. Shaykh Abdal Hakim teaches his students to understand different notions of authenticity without inventing anything. He points to practices and knowledge already present as the students bring it with them from their education at darul uloom institutions and their parents’ religious upbringing. Abdal Hakim then proceeds to teach them how to apply it, hence, it becomes a tool for them to make themselves useful and their lives meaningful. Their acknowledgement of possessing authentic Islamic cores means they carry the key to success with them. In this sense, education at Cambridge Muslim College is both a matter of technology of domination and of technology of the self. Authenticity is a means to building self-awareness and self-esteem, just as it becomes a bridge between Islam as minority religion and non-Muslim majority Britain. Modernity and authenticity are juxtaposed in the educational content of the Diploma and in the Shaykh’s writings, however if we look not at what the Diploma consists of (course content, excursions, discussion topics) but how it serves as higher education of students – its transformative potential – it helps overcome the modernity-authenticity-dichotomy. While emphasising different notions of authenticity, the innate, experienced and everyday varieties, the college and its founder demonstrate how challenges faced by individuals belonging to and practicing a minority religion in contemporary Britain can be met and dealt with constructively. Shaykh Abdal Hakim has placed his college right in the center of the modernity-authenticity-divide. Here his ambition with the Diploma and his underlying trust in higher education is bright and clear: With his all-encompassing approach to education and trust in academia, he aims at building bridges to overcome gaps and conflicts both in the mind of the individual student, within the Muslim community in Britain and in society as a whole. The former question is of a different and more general nature; what role do Islamic universities play in shaping modern Muslim subjectivities in the West? In my attempt to answer this, two extraordinary circumstances must be taken into consideration: The role of the Shaykh and the background of the students. Shaykh Abdal Hakim’s role is comparable only to that of Hamza Yusuf (b. 1958) at Zaytuna College in Berkeley California, to my knowledge, but here the students enrol in a BA programme based on Islamic content in the shape and form of classes on Islamic history, tradition and

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scripture.17 The curriculum consists on material on specific schools and interpretative traditions, fiqh and the like. This is not the case at Cambridge. Hence, Cambridge Muslim College is in no way representative of Islamic education in the West or anywhere else. In fact, one may even ask if it qualifies as an Islamic college at all? I would argue that it is Muslim rather than Islamic. There is a lack of scriptural studies, but the Shaykh and the students identify as Muslim and the majority of references to authenticity and criticism of the surrounding modern society take Islam (or religiosity more generally) as its point of departure. At Cambridge Muslim College, notions of authenticity supplement scripture as a point of departure both in terms of academic content and practice. In introducing authenticity as a tool to create meaningful private and professional lives, the college also formulates expectations to the graduates: They are to find meaning and turn this into something beneficial to their Muslim community and the wider society. They are expected to give back to Islam by restoring it in a version suitable for their modern, British lifestyles, and this combination of providing a tool and communicating expectations is how the college facilitates subjectivity formation. Behind this lies the understanding that religious practice in a minority setting demands something special; an ability to understand and use religion as positive source of identity formation and career choices. Headless or numb reproduction of religious traditions will jeopardize the graduates’ prospects of successful careers and lives, whereas reflecting on religion as an inner, positive source of identity and meaning making in social interaction marked by contingency and potential conflict may secure success. However, merely telling someone how to think or feel rarely works. Rather, you need to show the way, give examples of how it is done and leave time for reflection and transformation. This is the key to Cambridge Muslim College’s success (a BA programme has been launched since I first visited the college) – college is understood and practiced as both place, tool and feeling – and this is how an otherwise unique educational institution tells us something about Islamic Universities in the West in general: In minority contexts, Islam needs to be taught as practice, identity and lifestyle in order to facilitate coherence and meaning for modern Muslims.

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Please see the chapter by Mark Sedgwick in this volume for additional information about the connections between Abdal Hakim and Hamza Yusuf.

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References Abdal Hakim Murad. 2012. Commentary of the Eleventh Contentions. Cambridge: The Quilliam Press. Abdal Hakim Murad. 2008. Understanding the Four Madhabs, http://www.masud.co .uk/ISLAM/ahm/newmadhh.htm (last accessed 10 May 2018). Abdal Hakim Murad. 2005. Muslim Songs of The British Isles. Cambridge: The Quilliam Press. Asad, Talal. 1986. “The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam.” Occasional Papers Series. Washington: Georgetown University: 1–28. Banks, Marcus. 2013. “Post-Authenticity: Dilemmas of Identity in the 20th and 21st Centuries.” Anthropological Quarterly 86(2): 481–500. Barthel-Bouchier, Diane. 2001. “Authenticity and Identity: Theme-Parking the Amanas.” International Sociology 16(2): 221–239. Bramadat, Paul. 2005. “Towards a New Politics of Authenticity. Ethno-Cultural Representation in Theory and Practice.” Canadian Ethnic Studies (37): 1–20. Cambridge Muslim College, Homepage: cambridgemuslimcollege.ac.uk (last accessed 1 February 2019). Casey, Conerly. 2008. “‘Marginal Muslims’: Politics and the Perceptual Bounds of Islamic Authenticity in Northern Nigeria.” Africa Today 54(3): 67–92. Cresswell, Tim. 2004. Place: A Short Introduction. Malden and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Foucault, Michel. 1995. Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Book. Foucault, Michel. 1988. “Technologies of the self.” In Martin H. Luther, Huck Gutman and Patrick H. Hutton (eds.), Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press: 16–49. Gilliat-Ray, Sophie. 2010. Muslim in Britain: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gilliat-Ray, Sophie. 2005. “Closed Worlds: (Not) Accessing the Deobandi dar ul-uloom in Britain.” Fieldwork in Religion 1(1): 1–33. Hall, Stuart. 1995. “New Cultures for Old.” In Doreen Massey and Pet Jess (eds.), A Place in the World? Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hartung, Jan-Peter. 2016. “The Praiseworthiness of Divine Beauty – The ‘Shaykh alHind’ Maḥmūd al-Ḥasan, social justice, and Deobandiyyat.” South Asian History and Culture, 7(4): 346–369. Hashas, Mohammed, Niels Valdemar Vinding and Jan Jaap de Ruiter. 2018. Imams in Western Europe. Developments, Transformations, and Institutional Challenges. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Heynen, Hilde. 2006. “Questioning Authenticity.” National Identities, 8(3): 287–300.

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Jung, Dietrich and Kirstine Sinclair. 2016. “Modernitet, Subjektivitet og religion: Hizb ut-Tahrirs forestilllinger om den moderne muslim.” TEMP – Tidsskrift for Historie 6(12): 130–148. Jung, Dietrich and Kirstine Sinclair. 2015. “Multiple Modernities, Modern Subjectivities and Social Order: Unity and Difference in the Rise of Islamic Modernities.” Thesis Eleven 130(1): 22–42. Massey, Doreen. 2005. For space. London: SAGE Publications. Massey, Doreen. 1995. “The Contestation of Place.” in Massey, Doreen and Pat Jess (eds.), A Place in the World? Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mathiesen, Kasper. 2013. “Anglo-American ‘Traditional Islam’ and its Discourse of Orthodoxy.” Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 13: 191–219. Pieri, Zacharias P. 2015. Tablighi Jamaat and the Quest for the London Mega Mosque. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Reetz, Dietrich. 2007. “The Deoband Universe: What Makes a Transcultural and Transnational Educational Movement of Islam?” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 27(1): 139–159. Scott-Baumann, Alison and Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor. 2015. Islamic Education in Britain: New Pluralist Paradigms. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Wagner, Peter. 1994. A Sociology of Modernity: Liberty and Discipline. London and New York: Routledge.

Chapter 8

The Muslimist Self and Fashion: Implications for Politics and Markets Neslihan Cevik 1

The Third Space: Mipsterz

By the turn of the new Millennium, in the West, third generation young Muslim immigrants spawned a new movement, along with a unique fashion, and called it the Mipsterz (Muslim Hipsters) movement. This new framing of the Muslim self by the young Diaspora is puzzling to many; on the surface, why many are puzzled seem to make sense. After all, hipster culture of the Western young capitalizes non-conformism, individualism, creative self-expression, and liberalism (Victoriana 2014; Zukin 2010; Schiermer 2014), and it is marked by a unique, trendy sense of fashion. In contrast, Islam is stereotypically viewed as a religion that preaches blind submission, authoritarian communalism and fanaticism. Moreover, Islam, especially its hijab, is seen as not only unfashionable, lacking taste, but also as morally and ideologically anti-fashion (Tarlo and Moors 2013). For ones following these (putatively) clear dichotomies, mipsterdoom would reflect nothing more than Islam’s assimilation into the Western consumerist culture. For why such assimilation occurs they then point out the young Diaspora’s overzealous desire to fit in to the host culture, a desire that has been further fueled by a growing Islamophobia in the West in the last few years (Shirazi 2016). The Mipster however constructs a different narrative. He-she simply refuses the presumed exclusivity of Muslim and Western identities and instead defines the Mipster identity as a “third space” or “third culture,”1 which blends home and the host, and Islam and modernity. This third culture reframes and publicly presents the young Mipster as a passionately Muslim self who is at the very same time already and rightfully modern, or American, or British, or French. The Mipster identity, a seeming oxymoron on the surface, in the deeper veins of sociology then challenges the historical prescription of social theory on religion. For centuries, social theory has prescribed that, religion, in its 1 Please see: https://mipsterzinamerica.com/muslim-hipsters/ (last accessed 27 May 2018).

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r­esponse to modernity, wavers between “a sterile conservation of its pre-­ modern characteristics and a self-effacing assimilation to the secularized world” (van der Veer and Lehmann 1999:10). That is: religions are to either reject modernity, termed fundamentalism, or submit to it, turning into liberal theology. In fact, the Mipster is not alone in the challenge he-she poses to social theory nor that challenge is limited to Diasporic contexts. Throughout the last few decades, across Islamic traditions and beyond Islam, new religious expressions have emerged that put the “fundamentalist rejection versus liberal submission” dichotomy into question. Within Islamic traditions, Turkey is one such prominent case. Through previous empirical work (Cevik 2015), I identified the emergence of a new Islamic form in Turkey since the 1980s and termed this form Muslimism, which neither rejects modernity nor submits to it, but engages aspects of modern life by using Islam. The data I use in this chapter is retrieved from my fieldwork on Muslimism and Muslimist organizations, which was composed of in-depth interviews, ethnographic observations, and focus groups and conducted with various self-identified Islamic organizations in Ankara and Turkey (2007– 2009). The empirical work mapped key Muslimist attitudes along three macro realms: din/religion, devlet/state, and dünya/this-world, which I broadly translate as “everyday life.”2 Muslimism is manifest in “cultural sites of hybridity.” Similar to the third space of Mipsterz, in these sites, Muslimist men and women refuse the presumed dichotomies of the religious versus modern divide and construct new practices, institutions, and identities that articulate Islam and modernity. These sites are prevalent across key sectors of Turkish society: civil society associations, everyday life, markets, and politics. They include, for example, Muslim women’s associations that claim both a pious and a democratic identity and that challenge patriarchal norms, whether embedded in religious practices (such as male-dominant exegesis of the Quran) or secular-modern everyday life (such as exploitation of female labor or sexuality). They also include Islamic human’s rights organizations that consider both the UN Human Rights Convention and Farewell Sermon of the Prophet as their own values and tap into both in defining and practicing human rights. The political arena too has become a site of hybridity where Muslimists embrace pluralism and individual rights through using key Islamic theological notions, articulating in turn a new Islamic political ethos. 2 I further divided each realm into reality orientations: ontology, action, and agency, please see Cevik 2015.

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Indonesia and Jordan are other prominent cases that host Muslimist style Islamic expressions. Rahman (2016), for example, finds Muslimism to be a useful framework to explain the attempts of devout Indonesian youth – p ­ articularly the new generation of Muhammadiyah activists – to achieve social change and innovation while simultaneously re-instituting Islamic identity in their lives. Jung’s work on Jordan (Jung et al. 2014) also points to a growing number of young Muslims who challenge authoritarian regimes and their authoritarian style of Islam via a new Islamic commentary, which constructs Islamic identity by engaging aspects of contemporary modernity. The Muslimist style of religious engagement of modernity can also be found within Christianity, especially contemporary US Evangelicalism, which neither completely disengages from [as with fundamentalism] nor totally assimilates into [as with liberal Christianity] the dominant culture (Smith and Emerson 1998; Gay 2010). Studying American Evangelical elites, Lindsay labels this particular Evangelical attitude (neither disengagement nor assimilation) “elastic orthodoxy” and argues that elasticity “[…] is not a softening of conviction or a blurring of the lines that makes Christianity distinctive” (Lindsay 2007: 217). Similarly, Berger argues that with its emphasis on the born-again experience – that is, religious identity becoming an act of choice – Evangelicals succeed where fundamentalism fails (Berger 2009, 2006). Importantly, they do so, like Muslimists in Turkey, without becoming secularized by the modern world while, however, without emigrating from it. This common response to modernity across different cases seems to point to a possible global category of religion, which has not been captured by previous theories. Thomas and Cevik (2012) refer to these movements as New Religious Orthodoxies (nros): neither fundamentalist nor liberal, they reject both the attitude that modernity and religion are thoroughly incommensurable and that there is no or little conflict between global-rationalism and religion. More specifically put, new religious orthodoxies embrace modern institutions such as capitalist markets, nation-states, and individualism (citizenship, rights, education, subjective expression) and simultaneously submit them to the sacred, moral order of their religious traditions. “nros select elements of their tradition they identify as fundamentals but use them to leverage innovative versions of modern practices, as seen in Muslimism in Turkey” (Cevik and Thomas 2012: 170).3 3 We are aware of the rightful critiques against the term orthodoxy – both within the context of Christianity (Davidson and Gay 1976) and, more so, non-Christian, especially Islamic, traditions (Watt 1985; Knysh 1993; Asad 1993; Wilson 2009). However, we mainly use the term in a technical sense. We simply denote a commitment to the super-empirical: people view the

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In this article, my aim is to link Muslimism (and nros) to the broader theory of Muslim subjectivities (Jung et al. 2014; Jung and Sinclair 2015; Jung 2016; Jung 2017). I argue that such a link can produce mutually useful insights. First, this link locates Muslimism (and nros) into a conceptual approach that sees modernity as “[…] cultural framing rather than the concrete institutionalization of solutions to the specifically modern questions about social order and identity” (Jung and Sinclair 2015: 36). More specifically put, without discarding differences and disunity, Muslim subjectivities literature views the Muslim world as an integral part of global society (Jung et al. 2014) that picks up on relevant global social imaginaries: namely, restricted liberal modernity, organized modernity, and third modernity (Wagner 1994, 2004, 2010). For example, as Jung and Sinclair trace the evolution of Egypt’s Islamic reform movement, they show that the nineteenth century movement of Muhammad Abduh (1845–1905) resembled elements of restricted liberal bourgeoisie of the nineteenth century Europe, twentieth century’s Muslim Brotherhood resembled elements of organized modernity at the time, and contemporary, more pluralistic constructions of Islamic orders and lifestyles, embodied by lay preachers of the digital platform like Amr Khaled (b. 1967), resemble elements of current extended liberal modernity. This approach, in turn, opens up the possibility to talk about a global modernity that is bigger than Western modernity and it allows us to explore various roles religions have assumed in the shaping of modern self and identity. Second, Muslimism reveals that the devout can in fact tap into Islam to engage and reshape global modernity, which is typically seen as an external force that Muslims have to engage with. As such, Muslimism can deepen our knowledge about the changing role Islam plays in shaping modern forms of individual self-understanding. It can help us to examine the ways in which Muslims constitute themselves both as “passionately Muslim” and “modern” subjects, document discourses they articulate and reject to affirm this identity and identify concrete manifestations of this identity (institutions as well as discourses) across key areas of life, from politics and civil society to fashion and leisure (Deeb 2006).

God-given moral order (such as the separation of halal and haram) as an objective truth to which individuals must submit and live accordingly. We are, therefore, not using the term to refer to the separation of orthodoxial and orthopraxial forms (on the origins of this separation in Islamology, see Smith 1957). Nor we make a judgment on what should be considered orthodox or how orthodoxy should be delineated. In this technical sense, the term “orthodoxy” becomes useful to identify or point to a shared commitment to the transcended across religious traditions.

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In my attempt to link Muslimism to Muslim subjectivities literature, I select Islamic fashion as my site to exemplify and document Muslimist style of subjectivity formation. This is in fact a very deliberate selection; while the Islam versus modernity divide is increasingly being put into question in various areas, such as human rights or democracy, most work on fashion and Islam continues to think along a stereotypical track. Some of these works on Islam and fashion have emphasized commodification of the religious female body and identity (Navara-Yashin 2002; Kılıcbay and Binark 2002; Gökariksel and McLarney 2010; Gökariksel and Mitchell 2005; Sandikci and Ger 2002), some has pointed to hijab becoming an expression of Muslim women’s agency (Tarlo and Moors 2013; Genel and Karaosmanoglu 2006), and some has highlighted the construction of a transnational Ummah identity through commodities in the face of growing islamophobia in the West (Ajala 2018; Maqsood 2014; Shirazi 2016) and a global stereotyping against Muslims (Yaqin 2007). Despite its variation, however, this body of work has turned to consumerism and market expansion as the main mechanisms to explain the rise and growth of Islamic fashion. The result of this approach is that Islamic fashion automatically becomes a symbol for Islam’s erosion by modern conditions. Namely, markets engulf Islam and desacralize religious symbols turning them into items that can be bought and sold in the markets. The market itself, on the other hand, becomes an area of sacred and its expression. This framework, in turn, reinforces Islam versus modernity divide and the assumption that Muslims are forced to deal with modernity as something external to them, disrupting their lives (Soares and Osella 2009). What I have empirically found, however, demonstrates that even in an area like Islamic fashion, a seeming epitome of religion versus modernity, Muslim engagements with modernity and subjectivity formation is open to possibilities that go beyond the choices of rejection of modernity or else assimilation/ secularization of religion. Mapping these possibilities is where we can gain greater insights on how religions respond to, redesign, and reshape modernity and their potent agency in articulating new sources for self-formation and collective identity. Additionally, subsequent to my formal academic research on Muslimism, I deepened my grasp of Islamic fashion and textile industry as a founder and ceo of a modest fashion company (M-Line Fashion), which catered only to young female Muslim wearers.4 This experience allowed me to confront and 4 Starting the brand was a pure business decision, which followed providing consultation services to major Turkish Islamic brands as they picked up on the results of empirical work on

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revisit my own academic findings through key market indicators, which included bestselling products, conversion rates, and customer responses to marketing strategies and advertisement. Overall, these indicators pointed out to a common endeavor: young modest wearers consciously sought products that would help them to communicate, as they enter into the public sphere from malls to university campuses, their religious but at the same time modern identity (Maqsood 2014). Markets, in other words, have become a site where the new generation rejects the exclusivity of modern and Islamic identity and thus challenges both puritan Islamists and modernists. In the rest of the chapter, the reader will first find a brief definition of Muslimism followed by a discussion of the historical conditions and key actors that generated it. This is necessary to historically frame Islamic fashion as a site of hybridity. Within this framework, I will then document, based on interviews, the ways in which women make sense of and use Islamic fashion to resist binary patterns, engage modernity using Islamic categories, and construct new imaginaries of the self and the community within the symbolic limits of the orthodoxy. To reiterate, the qualitative data presented in the chapter is part of my broader work on Muslimism in Turkey (Cevik 2015). The fieldwork started with pilot ethnographic observations on and in-depth interviews with various selfdefined Islamic organizations. Based on the pilot work, I identified four selfdefined Islamic organizations5 as potential cultural sites of hybridity and went back to those sites to elaborate the content and discourse of Muslimism. This is similar to targeted sampling (Watters and Biernacki 1989); cultural sites of hybridity, in other words, function as “congregating places” (Weiss 1995) where people whom I identify as Muslimists would gather (for more on my methodology, please see Cevik 2010). Here, I am presenting only those interviews conducted with females relating to Islamic fashion and associated themes. 2

Notes on Muslimism

Neither fundamentalist rejection of modernity nor liberal translation of religion, Muslimism embraces aspects of modern life while submitting that life back to a sacred, moral order, creating as such hybrid institutions, lifestyles fashion and Islam. The reader therefore should not interpret it as a reflection that I myself am part of the Muslimist or any other movement. 5 These organizations included Başkent Kadın Platformu (Capiltal Women’s Platform) musiad, Mazlum-Der Kalkınma ve Adalet Partisi (Justice and Development Party).

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and spaces, and practices. Within this hybrid framework, the aim is not Islamization of the state or society; Muslimism is neither state nor society-centered. Rather, it is individual-oriented. A caveat is in order here. The Muslimist individual-orientation does not refer to individualism; prioritization of self-interest over community. Instead, Muslimists are in a quest to formulate a lifestyle in which the individual believer can be incorporated into modern life while holding passionately on to? religion. Furthermore, my fieldwork has shown that this individual-orientation is filtered through theological notions on true faith. Across organizations and gender, Muslimists defined true piety as iman, a heartfelt submission to Allah. Neither the heart nor, therefore, true piety, as something located in the heart, can be compelled by any external authority (state or community). Moreover, when faith is an individual choice, it also becomes a conscious choice rejecting blind submission to traditional religious authority and norms (taqlīd). Muslimist individual orientation refers then to the individual’s finding theological importance and validation in respect to moral (conscious) decisions and behavior. Another caveat is that this attitude towards faith does not imply a vacuum in moral authority nor waning of orthopraxy among Muslimists. On the contrary, the filed work has shown that it results in a theological awareness and commitment that is ever present irrespective of an external authority compelling religious conduct and moral rules. Moreover, the emphasis on iman does not mean that Muslimism is a mere cultural identity, or it is apolitical; individual-orientation has concrete implications politically and related to community. Politically, the theological primacy of the individual tends Muslimists toward rejection both of Islamist and secularist states for each equally violates individual agency and the moral imperative for a conscious faith – for instance, either by forcing or banning hijab. In line with their political sensibilities, Muslimists mobilize as civil organizations, engage party politics, and support political parties to effect political change. This includes taking public law and social policy seriously (for example regulations on alcohol or missionary activities): While emphasizing iman and individual rights, Muslimists also press the state for regulations in line with moral rules and refuse to relegate religious sensitivities to the private realm. Across these regulations, however, it is important that Muslimists have a sense that they are not violating individual moral agency and freedoms. Muslimism therefore is political but not in the narrow sense of being state centered or being dominated by ideology. Relative to social relations, on the other hand, similar to their political attitudes, Muslimists averse traditional religious conceptions (sufi orders and

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cemaat formations) that associate one’s faith with the level of her submission to community and its religious and cultural norms. This is not a rejection of religious communal life, but a conservative transformation of it: Muslimists are still strongly committed to a moral community (umma), while requiring that community to open up space for individual moral agency, religious selfidentity, and self-expression. 3

The Term Muslimism

This new Islamic expression in Turkey calls for a new term to communicate its novelty and to distinguish it in particular from Islamism.6 In fact, the need for a new vocabulary to talk about emerging forms of Islamic expressions that deviate from Islamism has been long recognized and a various terms were suggested, most notably including moderate Islamism, civil Islam (Hefner 2011), cultural Islam (Simsek 2004), Muslimhood (White 2004), and post-Islamism (Bayat 2005). Among these, post-Islamism, as elaborated by Bayat, can be the most helpful to draw attention to major religious change taking place in Turkey, however, it falls short in communicating what the content of this major change is. Bayat employed the term to refer to a condition, whereby Islamism has lost its previous appeal, energy and legitimacy and thus a search for a new normative project that would establish a new rationality and modality, transcending Islamism, has started (2005). Yet, while the term successfully communicates the end of an historical period, it does not specify what the content of this “post-era” will be. Some have questioned, for example, whether this new search is an abandonment of the Islamist agenda or is it a reconstruction of the same agenda in forms more suitable to the global world (Mandaville 2010), and for others post-Islamism focuses too much on state power, ignoring everyday life (Sinanovic 2005). In sum, to describe the content and difference of the emerging religious expression in Turkey, we need a specific term and a clearer break from the term “Islamism” and its variants. We need concepts that are versatile enough to be open to religious innovations and novel forms that can cover not only formal politics but also everyday life.

6 A practical definition of Islamism can be found in Mozaffari (2007). Islamists “[…] aim at the re-instauration of the Islamic might in the world: to achieve this goal, the use of violence is not rejected” (2007: 17).

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In addition to its linguistic use, I use Muslimism both as analytical and empirical category. It is analytical because Muslimism brings with it a new set of assumptions about religion and about how religion responds to modernity – hence the necessity for a new concept. Yet, it is also empirical. While Muslimism is not a self-identified movement organization – that is, people do not identify with each other under a label of Muslimism or any other name – it is a cultural frame and identity that inform individuals throughout society. It emphasizes a specific empirical pattern, and distinguishable theological, political, and cultural orientations embodied in concrete institutions and organizations (e.g., human rights organizations), lifestyles (e.g., fashion,) and discourses (e.g., a new political ethos). Although people do not label themselves as Muslimists, they advocate and share a particular reading of Islam (and modernity), challenging both Islamist and liberal readings (hence, it is an “ism”), and they recognize they have in common the same understanding of Islam and modernity. 4

Historical Conditions, Key Actors, and Sites

The rise of Muslimism was largely associated with Turkey’s adaptation to neoliberal regime in the 1980s. More than an economic change, neo-liberal framework dissolved the previous statist, bureaucratic order and created a new liberal polity and cultural order. The bureaucratic order of the pre-1980s Turkey resembled “organized or first modernity” elsewhere (Wagner 1994, 2000; Giddens 1991), and was characterized by a strong belief in linear progress and management of society from above. Top-down and authoritarian policies especially targeted religion. The modernizing elite viewed Islam as a barrier in the way of Turkey’s modernization, sought a total exclusion of religion from the public sphere, and oppressed religious political and civil mobilization (Kuru 2007). In the mirror image of this particular order, Islamic movements adopted an Islamist idiom: they adopted authoritarian and state-centered political goals; they articulated an antimodern, puritan religious discourse; they were reactionary against economic and cultural oppression of religious mobilization. International conditions – most notably the Khomeini revolution, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the RussiaAfghanistan war, and the failure of modernization movements in various Muslim countries – reinforced Islamism. Liberalizing reforms of the 1980s undermined the historical conditions that enabled and fueled Islamism and created a favorable context for new religious expressions, eventually paving the way for Muslimism.

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Reflecting elements of extended liberal modernity (Wagner 1994, 2000; Giddens 1991), the new liberal order was marked by an expansion of individual rights and liberties, flourishing of civil society, pluralism, and globalization (Yavuz 2003). This does not mean that Turkey established a full democracy and liberal polity, but it means that statism came to a historical end. The end of statism (and the retreat state of from economic and social life) was especially consequential for religious segments: state control on religion declined remarkably, and Islam regained cultural legitimacy and symbolic power. Equally importantly, if not more, the new liberal order generated a new language of modernity. The previous definition of modernity with such simplistic divides as “religious/backwards/covered” versus “secular/modern/uncovered” was now being challenged with new values of the liberal order: globalization, pluralism, and rights and freedoms. This new definition of modernity significantly toned down its previous anti-Islamic content and in turn allowed devout Muslims to engage modern life, and to rethink and reevaluate its various aspects independent of statist categories. Islam’s reintegration into the politics and economy, coupled with globalization of the Anatolian market, generated, moreover, an economically and socially upwardly mobile, urbanizing Muslim status group, ranging from petty entrepreneurs rooted in Anatolia to civil activists, intellectuals (theology faculties, in particular), and students (Ozdemir 2006; Göle 2011). Altogether, with the changing meaning of modernity, declining state control, and the emergence of upwardly mobile religious actors, the anti-state and anti-modern rhetoric of protest Islamism began to lose appeal and relevance. Muslimism emerged in this vacuum. A wave of Islamist political resurgence (the strong but short-lived rise of the Welfare Party in the mid-1990s) and a statist backlash (the 28 February 1997 coup) challenged the liberal order and Muslimism, but Muslimism has continued to thrive. The globalization of markets, the end of the Cold War, and the prospect of EU membership too, favored the liberal order as well as the Muslimist expression. In the early 1990s, the new Muslim status group – disenchanted with puritan, traditional, anti-modern, and anti-state religious establishments – ­engaged contemporary institutions by using Islam to formulate an Islam-observant life that was also commensurate with (liberal extended-) modernity. As this group has prevailed in these institutions, they also reshaped them into “cultural sites of hybridity,” where Muslims formulate new lifestyles through which they can engage and exercise aspects of modern life while observing a proper Muslim life. These sites first emerged in the markets in the form of Islamic vacations, restaurants, Islamic fashion companies, or business associations. Yet, going

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b­ eyond the confines of a market orientation, these institutions challenged both the secularist state in defining modernity and how to be modern and Islamist establishments in defining “true Islam.” Cultural sites of hybridity have altered the boundaries that used to strictly separate religious and secular (Kemalist) lifestyles, spaces, and codes in Turkey. They functioned, in other words, as spaces of resistance and challenge against strict binary patterns (Bhabha 1994; Young 1995), showing the possibility for taking part in modernity while preserving religious commitments. By the mid-1990s, the sites of hybridity were prevalent across sectors of society, becoming manifest in civil organizations (character education schools, women’s organizations, business formations, human rights movements, etc.) and subsequently in a new Islamic political ethos that uses Islam to embrace modern political values. For example, the emphasis on iman and moral agency produce affirmative attitudes about separation of the state and religion, as such relativizing the state. In the 2000s, the formation and rapid rise of the Justice and Development Party (jdp) carried Muslimist political elements to the political arena. This does not make the party essentially Muslimist. Rather, the party picked up on Muslimist elements and articulated them in a political discourse, especially in its first two terms (2002–2011); hence giving Muslimism a boost, while getting support from Muslimists. However, since the party’s shift towards illiberal tendencies its third term on (2013-), Muslimist presence at the political and at the state level have started to fade gradually. An analysis of the party and why party might have moved away from its previous commitments to Muslimist elements is not within the scope of this chapter. The important point rather is that, for one, the early terms of the party demonstrated how Muslimist elements would look like in the political sphere, and second, political processes will influence both the relationship between Muslimists and the party and the future evolution of Muslimism itself. The party moving away from Muslimist sensibilities may alienate Muslimists, although given historical concerns on religious freedoms, and ongoing concerns on political, economic, and national security in an unstable region with strained relationships with the West, Muslimists may still support the party. How this relationship will evolve and how it will impact the future of Muslimism is historically contingent. Historically, a secularist and authoritarian state prevented the emergence of Muslimism throughout the bureaucratic order, there emerged conditions that could have cultivated Muslimism, but these were oppressed by statism and entrenched Islamism. The reverse too would apply: an Islamist authoritarian party would bode ill for Muslimism as well opening up Turkey back to old binaries of committed secularist and Islamists.

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Sites of Hybridity Explained: Empirical Observations

Many have rushed to interpret Muslim engagements of markets as a newfangled Islamic consumerism and demonized particularly the coming together of hijab and fashion (Belhadj and Merdaoui 2017). This is not startling. Hijab and fashion are both mega-signifiers. They are par excellence representations of their communities’ key stereotypes (vices and virtues) both in the imaginaries of their own communities and the outsiders. Fashion, for example, signifies the West’s hedonism, individualism, materialism, and moral perversion but also personal freedom, self-expression, liberalism, democracy, and gender equality (Lipovestky 1994). In contrast, hijab signifies Islamic solidarity, spirituality, modesty, other-worldliness but also sexual oppression, lack of liberties, and authoritarianism. As such, for many the duo of hijab and fashion works as the most powerful duo to reveal the clashes between Islam and the West. Within this line of thought, the only mechanism that can logically explain such an obvious oxymoron is the surrender of Islam to the dominant secular market forces (Kılıcbay and Binark 2002). Markets engulf Islam, and in turn secularize, or corrupt, it and its values, and turn the Muslim female into an individualized passive consumer colonized by shrewd marketing. Just like her Western counterparts, she now taps into secular markets for inspiration to form herself, express herself and her religiosity, and perform that religiosity. In her engagement with fashion, fashion (and modernity) always seems like an alien force to which she adapts herself. (It is interesting, though, in this view Islam’s adaptation seem to remain “unfinished” because fashion only “corrupts” Islam’s “virtues” while not able to “transform” its “vices.”) Yet, the coming together of hijab and fashion holds more surprise than what meets the eye. When treated as a site of hybridity, Islamic fashion becomes a channel that both manifests and takes place within broader sociological and theological processes: namely, a revolutionary transformation in conceptions of self and community and an attempt to resist established categorizations of culture and identity. This transformation is not secularization of Islam but rejection of traditionally defined forms of piety based on Islam’s own theological notions. Tapping into Islam’s key notions, Muslimists capitalize the legitimacy of the self as a potent moral agent and rethink the religious community as a tight sodality that is however cognizant of that individual agency. This theological process takes place within the broader framework of hybridity, where devout Muslims radically contest both secularist and Islamist prescriptions that have so far delineated the limits of religious and modern identities. This aspect of Islamic fashion is particularly evident in innovative

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clothing pieces such as the Islam proper swimming suits or outfits designed for sporting activities. Such pieces have radically changed the dynamics of Turkish public space, once clearly drawn along the lines of Muslim versus Kemalist (secular). This is not to suggest that markets and consumption have nothing to do with the rise of self-styling among Muslim females. Surely, and for one, the growth of Islamic textile sector and a related economic infrastructure (production, design, stores, network) have been major enablers. Second, recognizing vast opportunities, Muslim and otherwise companies have mobilized into this sector approaching Islamic symbols and identity with market strategies and perspective. However, market mobilization is not the main mechanism that explains the rise of self-styling and it is not the most outstanding result. ­Neither market is the only actor. In other words, I argue that Islamic fashion cannot be reduced to market expansion. Rather, it speaks into devout Muslim females’ reversion of traditional religious communal codes, their desire for a conscious and genuine faith, their claim to moral agency, and their engagement of modern institutions and imaginaries with a careful distance. 6

The Legitimacy of Human Subjectivity and the Muslim Community

To begin with, in our discussions on Islamic fashion women, across four organizations, did not talk about or referred to tesettür fashion as something that they use to make tesettür more “stylish,” “trendy,” or “modernized.” They instead understood and talked about fashion as being able to “self-style” or “personalize” the tesettür wear. Like other women, Yasemin, for example, complained that in her college years as a young hijab wearer, she was never able to find pieces, styles, or colors that reflected in any way “who she was”: her age and body type and taste in color and style. By then, what the market offered was monolithic and confined to dark colors: “Our headscarves and wardrobes looked all the same and all dark colors.” With the economy becoming global and the associated rise of an Islamic sub-market, including textile and clothing, things began to change. By the 1990s, the new Islamic textile industry and tesettür-fashion stores were already tailoring Islamic clothing to individual preferences. Today, Yasemin says, she can dress in accord with “who she is” – that is, something that represents her style, is appropriate to her age and body figure, and puts forward her artsy and assertive personality. The new tesettür styles, she continues, allows for “self-expression and individual autonomy.”

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Similar to Yasemin, Jale is now able to pursue her personal favorite style: while in her college years, she remained loyal to “conventional codes” (codes that prescribed a homogenous look for women of tesettür), today she is wearing loose jeans and long jackets that represent, she says, her “outgoing but nonchalant personality.” Personalization of aesthetics of veil then represents an urge to individually craft one’s outfit as a symbol of one’s unique identity. But what is one to make of the pursuit of self-expression? Why is it important for Muslimist women to dress in accord to and expression of “who one is”? The personalization of aesthetics of the veil in fact indicates remarkable changes taking place in conceptions of the Islamic self and community: the direction of this change has been towards the rising legitimacy of and interest on the self and human subjectivity and rigorous critique of authoritarian conceptions of religious community, as perpetuated both by traditional religious establishments (cemaat) and Islamists. As an object that has become a visible symbol through which individuals can assert or proclaim their own personality and preferences, personalization of tesettür wear poses a serious threat to Islamists. Islamism advocates strong communal attitude and behavior: religious community is to be a homogeneous social unit with standardized religious performances and lifestyles, in turn preserving pristine religion. In this view, women who cover in personalized styles disrupt prescribed (putatively pristine) codes, threaten the social cohesion and homogeneity, weaken communal ties, and in turn corrupt the “shared” purity of Islam. Muslimists, in contrast do not see new veiling styles as a threat. Gülin, for example, used to be critical of colorful veiling and eye-catching tesettür outfits, now she thinks differently: I think we should be more flexible. How many veiled women we have are how many types of veil we have […].” Similarly, Pinar says: “Plus, there is the age factor. Why would a sixty-year-old grandma and a fifteen-year-old girl wear the same things, tie their scarves similarly, or use same colors? I think it should be diversified. The diversification based on age or taste is natural anyway. For these women instead of a threat different tesettür styles and forms are natural outcomes and reflection of individual difference, from marital status to physical features to personal preferences. Through discussion on fashion, what we observe then is that individual difference, the self, and human subjectivity

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find a new interest and legitimacy among Muslimists. Is this pursuit of the self an expression of individualism and secularization of Islam via consumerism? Does it suggest that Islam’s symbolic boundaries are waning? In fact, Muslimists’ pursuit of self is shaped by and filtered through the symbolic realities and theological notions of their faith. To reiterate, for Muslimists, faith cannot be externally imposed: embodied in iman, it is a voluntary individual choice and a conscious choice. More specifically, faith is not something that “just occurs” to the individual by submitting to ideological-moral codes or to religious norms of a cemaat (or a tight religious community). Instead, one has to use his-her akil (reason) and think through, question, and dig out (i.e., tahkik) “what is it that I believe and why?” as put by Nur: What do I believe in and why? Allah has given us akil (reason and intellect) and the skills and capacity for reasoning. Allah always says in the Quran: “Are you not thinking? Are you not using your akil?” I mean, Allah has created us with the necessary and efficient equipment to reason and question what we see and what we hear and to dig out the truth among all that we hear, and we see [emphasis mine]. This attitude towards faith puts Muslimists at odds with Islamist and traditional establishments, both attempting to subjugate or submerge the self to the totalistic group and the group’s authoritative, homogeneous identity. Any strong orientation to the self opens up a threatening distance between the individual and community, undermining collective identity and religious purity. The sharpening of individual gains meaning against the backdrop of oppressive religious communalism that suppresses personal choice in the most private aspects of the self: one’s plan and goals in life, one’s likes and dislikes (e.g., mating preferences), and one’s taste (e.g., fashion) and expect blind submission. This attitude manifests itself in the critique women direct to traditional religious circles for trying to format the tesettür, as Pinar, for example, contends that tesettür wear in Turkey used to be almost like a “uniform.” In fact, these women in common depicted the 1980s Turkey as the “uniform era,” where the pious, particularly women, was not able act or think independently of authoritarian religious communities (cemaat). Authoritative prescriptions also coalesced with patriarchal relations; men defining tesettür formats and policing women’s moral action. New tesettür styles and options as such represented for these women getting out of the uniform era. Considered from this perspective, the talk that everyone has a different favorite, a color, a style, or a personality” seems no longer a superficial discourse

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driven by desires for beauty and consumption. Rather, this discourse illustrates that personalizing tesettür has become a new channel for religious women to open up space for human subjectivity and autonomy and challenge authoritarian style of religious community and its supposed forms of piety. On the other hand, as self-styles replace prescriptions, which to reiterate tend to be determined by men, it also becomes a channel for women to refuse patriarchal codes that are part of the authoritarian style of religious community. Asli describes this strikingly as she discusses how she joined the Capital Women’s Platform Association (cwpa): […] throughout the 1980s, the religious scene was dominated by the cemaat(s) and tarikat(s). People could not even take one step independent of the cemaat(s); they would follow whatever the head of the cemaat says. By then, also, if you were religious, or veiled, people would expect you to have or accept certain rules or ideas [emphasis mine]. She continues with explaining why she has chosen to join the cwpa platform: By the 1990s, this changed, and people became more individualized in terms of being able to act and decide independently [emphasis mine]. This is how I view the cwpa platform. Here women are not tied to anywhere. This is why I decided to become a member. The cwpa women are women who were able to realize this individualization. They neither belong to a cemaat nor to a political party. They have different and creative ideas, and they can express these differences. Before, you could not even think about that. The process we find here is not rejection of religious communal life or an advocacy for individualization. It is a conservative transformation of religious community into a sodality, where believers are strongly committed to a moral ­community, a common good, and a shared identity, but simultaneously, discover and realize individual choice, preference, difference, and independency. This process is not secularization of Islam either. It is a rejection, however, of socially constructed communal forms and codes that have accreted power over the ages as of supposed expressions of piety. This rejection is based on, moreover, symbolic realities and notions of Islam: self-autonomy and tahkik. In fact, fashion is not the only empirical site where we capture demands for individual autonomy and a questioning of authoritarian communal codes. The fieldwork has shown that same demands were evident in for example in Muslimists’ preference to form and join civil society organizations over cemaat

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f­ ormations as well as to engage religious intellectuals and theologians instead of prophetic or parochial religious elites for religious learning. This further enforces the argument that self-styling is not just and mainly about consumerism, but it is part, or one manifestation, of a broader revolutionary transformation in conceptions of self and religious community. However, through fashion, within this process of change, we are able to pinpoint to the role played by women: their potent agency in questioning not only patriarchal codes but also authoritarian communal codes (that bear upon both men and women). 7

Imagining the Ideal Self

Discussions on fashion in the context of community and individual autonomy also open up a window into the Muslimist perception and construction of an ideal type of self. For this new status group, the individual is not simply a dull image of community: it has its own differences, unique assets and traits. The self, moreover, does not blindly submit to religious or cultural codes that are imposed on it; for true piety, one has to work through faith with investigation, reason, and intellectual thought. The self as such is constructed, at least in the ideal form, to be an objective, critical thinker, and intellectually curious – it questions established codes, received knowledge, and conservative hierarchy. Religion or faith in this process does not work to limit reason but necessitates it. Derya epitomizes this process as she reminds us that: “In the Quran, Muslims are repeatedly warned against submitting to the path of the ancestors.” Ancestors here refer to traditional norms. “We are to reflect and use our aql (reason)” she continues. It may be useful to note here this particular conceptualization of self emerges across different discussions, most notably over the scope and basis of religious authority. Muslimists seem to be skeptical of parochial elites and are rather drawn towards religious scholars, described as the alim (an expert or a scholar) for religious learning. Alim establishes his-her religious authority and credibility via formal education and studious work in Islamic theology. Differing from parochial elites, alim is comparable to a scholar or scientist who uses intellectual endeavor, educated investigation, rational thinking, and questioning in articulating and composing his-her religious interpretation. Alim impersonates in an idealized form the very traits and attitudes on which Muslimists try to remodel the Islamic self in connection with their definition of true-piety.

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Waning of Monotone Binaries

There is yet more. The growth of Islamic textile industry has not just been about expanding options in color, style, or cut but also included innovative products. Take the Haşema, the Islam proper swimming wear for women. The first producer or inventor of Haşema in Turkey, Yunus, is known as “the man who made Muslim women swim.” This epithet right away communicates the distance that used to exist between Muslim women and swimming as a cultural, in fact an ideological, exercise. Conventional sociological theories may interpret the production of Haşema as a shrewd response to Islam’s integration into the markets. Yunus, nevertheless, presents a more evocative story, one that is related to the reconstruction of the Muslim self and identity through resisting normalizing categories that have so far defined the “normal” ways to be modern and to be devout. Consider swimming and sports. These activities have been dominated by secularist aesthetics and norms: “the normal way” to swim is to uncover or “to run the normal way” you have to wear shorts. These normalizing standards are not just discursive; they turn into binding regulations; e.g., the ban on hijab at a girls’ football league in Britain or the recent ban on the burqini or Haşema in France. The normalizing categories also have a strong grip on markets determining product lines; for decades, based on these normalizing categories, designs were either appropriate to religion but not to sports activity or swimming, or vice versa. Haşema, however, was different; it ignored normalizing categories, claimed both the secularists and Islamists, and was appropriate both for swimming and religion. Before Haşema, Yunus produced the mid-cuffed male shorts. By then, the only option markets presented to men for swimming was the slip, which offended Islamic injunctions on male dressing and bodily ethics. Lacking options, Yunus and his friends would cut their jeans, and some even their pajamas and swim that way. As a pious urban Muslim and an owner of a textile company – repulsed by both slips and half-cut pajamas, which reflected a traditional formulae and rural aesthetics – Yunus was urged to find an alternative. He found the solution in crafting a new aesthetic. This new form followed the quality standards of modern textile and was crafted for swimming only. Nevertheless, while modern in terms of aesthetics and style, it was also proper for Islam. By the 1990s, Yunus extended his innovative designs to women’s wear: he produced the Haşema and subsequently the Heşofman, Islam-proper tracksuits. Heşofman covered the body properly; but it was a specialized gear.

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This was, of course, associated with the growing opportunities and demands in the market for Islamized products and services. But the effects again went beyond business and consumerism. The heşofman freed fitness and sports from the hegemony of secularist norms and standards of normality. In fact, Haşema and heşofman brought in a revolution: the company did not simply sell swimming and sports gear. It sold the possibility of engaging ­activities – swimming and sports – and public spaces (e.g. the beach or gyms) that once used to be closed off to the pious women. More than expanding pious Muslims’ wardrobe, these inventions have become tools to realign the ways in which bodies and modern spaces and activities (swimming and sports) have been connected to, or disconnected from, one another. They revolutionize as such what a Muslim female body rightfully can do, where it belongs, what it can enjoy, and how it can live. Can a veiled Muslim woman choose sports as her professional career, for example? Can she dream to join the Olympics? The hybrid, innovative products that emerged out of halal markets affirm these questions, and alter, as such, the boundaries that had strictly separated Islamic versus secular life spaces, practices, and cultural codes. In sociological terms, these inventions shorten the distance between the Muslim body and secular everyday life, both literally, in terms of spaces, and culturally, in terms of lifestyles, allowing the pious to participate in core institutions of the society. Innovative products and the idea that “you don’t have to wear a revealing outfit to swim” importantly undermine these categories and remove the subjective restrictions they impose on the Muslim female body. They also undermine Islamist prescriptions that see modern cultural practices (swimming or sports or leisure) to be corrupt. They act as moments of challenge and resistance to historically embedded binary patterns. What I fundamentally found in my empirical work was that the rise of Islamic fashion has not been an independent development fueled by shrewd marketing and capitalist engulfment of religious symbols and sentiments. It was part and parcel of comprehensive Muslimist engagements of modernity. It spoke into a revolutionary transformation in concepts of self and community and a resistance to religious communitarianism and secularist totalization. Importantly, what creates this individual space of is the new hybrid ontology, one that allows Muslims to not only transgress established boundaries that separate Islam and modernity, but also to estrange them. 9

Concluding Remarks

In the chapter, I identify a major revival of Islam in Turkey since the 1980s that looks neither fundamentalist nor liberal (or modernist). In the face of this

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a­ mbiguity, scholars and policy makers debate whether it is moderate Islam or Islamism in sheep’s clothing, while many Islamists throughout the Muslim world decry it as apostate. I term this revival Muslimism and argue that it is a new and potentially global category of religious engagement of modernity and globalization, New Religious Orthodoxies (nros), which has not been captured by previous theories. Muslimism in Turkey, and nros globally, has broad implications for theory and policy-making. In regard to social theory on religion and modernity, nros in Islamic contexts, such as Muslimism in Turkey or Mipsterz in the usa, poses severe empirical challenges to the idea that the relationship between Islam and modernity is marked mainly by clashes, and clashes result either in Islam’s erosion by modernity or modernity’s rejection by Islam. This dichotomy bears a binary outcome upon everyday life and polity as well. In the political, it prescribes either an Islamist polity coopting the state or a secularist polity coopting religion. In everyday life, it prescribes either an Islamist rejection of global social imaginaries or Islam’s engulfment by them. Muslimism and cultural sites of hybridity, in contrast, demonstrate that ­Islam’s relationship with modernity is not limited to binary outcomes; rather Islamic actors combine civilizational legacies with global modern imaginaries (Jung and Sinclair 2015). More than an adaptation of consumerism, for example, Islamic fashion becomes a tool to engage, using Western terminology, pluralism, human subjectivity, and self-expression. More specifically, it becomes a tool to resist strict spatialization and polarization of public space and everyday life based on religious versus secular identities (covered versus uncovered bodies), to challenge authoritarian religious communalism, and to emphasize the moral and cultural agency of the self. More broadly, Muslimism and cultural sites of hybridity illustrates a third way to fundamentalism and aggressive secularism that can balance out tensions between religious orthodoxy and individual or women’ rights, secular state and moral freedoms, and West and Islam. This third way, or what Berger calls a religiously founded middle ground, is important for two main reasons. For one, it provides a location for those “who want to be religious believers without emigrating from modernity” (Berger 2006: 13). Second, recognizing the existence of such a middle ground is in fact a necessity in the contemporary international context stricken by increased immigration, third wave radicalism, and the rise of Islamophobia in the West. Consider the Arab Spring. Many interpreted it as a clash between secular Arabs demanding liberty and democracy and religious populations (Knickmeyer 2011; Wright 2012). Muslim subjectivities, however, pointed out a growing number of youths who construct individual and national contemporary Islamic identity by employing pluralistic and individualized aspects of high-modernity (Jung et al.

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2014) and challenge authoritarian regimes (and their authoritarian style of Islam) via this new Islamic commentary. That is, the religious middle ground has become a way to oppose contemporary fundamentalism from within Islam (Berger 2006). Missing out on this new commentary is a severe problem for it would lead to policy outcomes that are out of synch with the empirical realities of the field and such neglect, in turn, would trivialize and thus impede Muslims’ own confrontation of fundamentalist religious claims. My fieldwork and interviews on Islamic fashion were with the self-defined pious women, mostly in their thirties at the time of the study, who witnessed the very first Islamic runways and the earliest attempts to combine contemporary fashion with tesettür (Islamic attire) around the early l990s. These women were, in other words, the “first adapters” of Islamic fashion. Since the last 10 years or so however, three major developments took place transforming the field: mainstream brands, including Western fashion giants such as D&G, Marks & Spencer, mango and Tommy Hilfiger, have mobilized into the Islamic fashion market in pursuance of market opportunities; social media has become the leading channel of marketing, advertisement, and branding; and Islamic fashion has become a youth-oriented and driven phenomena. In regard to generational differences, one remarkable change is that the first adapters had to fight against strict authoritarian communal codes. To reiterate, those women first and foremost defined “fashion” as getting out of what they termed the uniform era and being able personalize one’s tesettür wear in expression of who one is. The second adapters have grown up in a world where there is already a plethora of options for styling and a greater space for expression of self and human subjectivity. Therefore, for the second adapters that aspect of Islamic fashion, a tool to challenge traditional conceptions of self and community, may not be as evident or relevant as it was for the former generation. Second, companies are seeking greater stake and agency in Islamic fashion sector. In this attempt, some locate their brands to be “more religious” pressing for instance for halal fashion certificates (which would be based on length of skirts or transparency of textures) whereas some go the opposite direction and ease certain moral rules (such as using bonnets as opposed to headscarves that fall upon shoulders). Third, social media and Internet have become the new channels for marketing and advertisement. Hejabi bloggers and Instagram celebrities sharing their daily outfits in street-style photo shoots have been increasingly replacing the 1990s catalogs that displayed outfits on professional models who were uncovered in their daily lives – most of these models were in fact non-Muslim with notably Western features such as blue eyes and light skin. Moreover, whereas

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for first adapters, tesettür styles were mostly limited to local producers with limited global access, for the second adapters, with the help of e-commerce, Islamic fashion has become a global field. To understand the impact of these new parameters one direction of research would be comparing the two generations’ discourses and in fact allow these two generations to have a conversation and share their own generational stories with one another. Most likely, we would still find the second-generation to talk about a need to find pieces that can communicate their “both modern and religious identity” and to reject simplistic divides, as is the case with Muslim Hipsters. However, the second generation may be judged more harshly by academics given the aggressive growth of halal markets overall and overt commercialization of religious items – consider for example halal bone chinaware sold in Malaysia, or the Crystal Crown Hotel of Malaysia which has an elevator designated to lift halal products only (Shirazi 2016). Islamists, and secularists too will judge the second generation more harshly, for each has already produced their backlashes within a global political environment where Islam versus the West polarization is making a strong comeback. This may lead the second generation towards a more critical approach towards markets. They may become more susceptible and conscious about not promoting products and brands as signifiers of one’s conformity to faith and Ummah and generate a new discourse that emphasizes problem-solving aspects of products – such as swimming suits that enable swimming at public beaches. Backlashes from academics, Islamists and secularists may, however, also lead to a reactionary discourse among the youth, eventually making the second generation more vulnerable to assimilation. Whatever direction will take place is historically contingent; however, what is certain is that approaching second generation only from the markets’ point of view will hide more sophisticated and insightful processes that shape Muslim subjectivity formation in contemporary societies. References Ajala, Imene. 2018. “Muslim Youth and Consumerism: A Study of Islamic Street Wear.” Contemporary Islam 2(1): 57–71. Asad, Talal. 1993. “The Construction of Religion as an Anthropological Category. Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power.” Christianity and Islam 2: 27–54. Bayat, Asef. 2005. “What is Post-Islamism?” ISIM Review 16.

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Chapter 9

Social Class, Piety, and the Formation of the Singaporean Muslim: Exploring Educational Choices in a Highly Regulated Society Kamaludeen Mohamad Nasir 1

Introduction: Singapore’s Educational System

Singapore’s rigorous education system is well-known. Its high standards imposed at a very young age have been the subject of both praise and criticism. On the one hand, the quality of Singapore’s education system has been purported to be one of the key drivers for the nation’s progress. Young students are taught in schools that the small island-state with limited natural resources can only be propelled by its human capital, and that Singapore’s belief in meritocracy will always reward hard work and distinction. In this vein, education is touted to be the great leveler of social inequalities. Despite the very high standards of education in the city-state, Malays who make up the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Singapore, have for decades been characterized by low academic achievement, as seen in their underrepresentation in the nation’s mainstream tertiary institutions and disproportionately high numbers in the lower streams of the schooling system. There are no available statistics on the educational breakdown based on different religious groups but published data on ethnic groups prove revealing. As of 2016, Singapore comprises of 74.3 percent Chinese, 13.4 percent Malays, 9.1 percent Indians and 3.2 percent Others. According to the latest census of 2010, the Malays have graduated only 6.8 percent of the community, less than a quarter of the national average, which stands at 28.3 percent. This makes Muslim graduates in Singapore a scarce commodity within the national landscape. To compound matters, studies have also shown that unlike the other two major ethnic groups in Singapore, the dominant Chinese and minority Indians, the Malay educational elites do not seem to be able to transfer the continuity of their success onto their children (Chua 2015). This has been a source of perplexity for both educators and the Malay community alike and their inability to reproduce themselves is framed as source of moral panic. This study traces the strategies of the class of educated Malay elites to ensure social production in highly competitive and secular Singapore. By elites,

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I am referring to the degree holders, who make up a miniscule percentage of the Singapore Muslim community. I will demonstrate how the Malay elites have diversified their approaches in educating their children. There are essentially three routes that are broached. The first group immerse themselves in the prevailing culture of sending their children to elite national schools. Even though the state has, in more recent years, tried to change the mindset of its citizens, expressing their commitment to ensure that every school is a good school,1 many Singaporeans still strategize and plan to secure a place for their children in these sought-after institutions. A lesser-discussed group opts out of the mainstream schools in favor of a madrasa. A significant number of the madrasa graduates aim and successfully qualify for the National University of Singapore (nus) and the Nanyang Technological University (ntu) – the foremost varsity institutions in Singapore which are placed as QS global university rankings. As a result, the madrasa schools have gradually shed the stereotype that they are the pariahs of society that merely harbor the outcasts and rejects from national schools. A much less visible group, albeit growing steadily has chosen to homeschool their children. Homeschooling is fast gaining popularity among the young educated Muslim elite and is seen by its proponents as an effective way to negotiate one’s identity in the face of a domineering state. This paper seeks to explore the subjectivities and the multiple modernities that are manifest in the schooling choices of highly educated pious Muslims in a highly competitive, secular and cosmopolitan space. As Jung (2017) argues, an examination of multiple modernities allows scholars to analyze the diverse ways that religion flourishes and molds institutions, cultures and individuals. Building on the works of Eisenstadt and Arnason, Jung states clearly the errors embedded in early modernization theories that prematurely announced the victory of secularism over tradition in the public sphere. This observation is particularly pertinent in a study set against the background of increasing religiosity among the Muslim population locally. It illuminates the Muslim subjectivities and the creative self-made identities, as reflected in the differentiated paths they had chosen for their children and their attempts to reconcile these decisions with their piety. Singaporean Muslims present an appropriate social laboratory to study the aspirations and strategies devised by Muslims in global cities not just to integrate into mainstream society but to pursue their notions of success.

1 https://www.moe.gov.sg/education/education-system/every-school-a-good-school.

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A World-Class Education System?

Singapore’s education system consistently ranks amongst the highest in the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report. Its students perform incredibly well in the pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment) tests in mathematics, science and reading, and the nation boasts a highly skilled workforce. Behind this remarkable achievement within Singapore’s short history of nation-building would be the tight ship that the state runs for its educational institutions and processes. Primary school education that begins at the age of seven culminates in the Primary School Leaving Education (psle). After which, students are streamed into the Express, Normal (Academic) or Normal (Technical) streams in secondary schools of different distinction. The top schools such as Raffles Institution, Hwa Chong Institution and Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) offer the Gifted Education Programme (gep), which caters to students in the top one to two per cent of their cohort, as well as the Integrated Programme (IP) that allows students to bypass the Singapore-Cambridge General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level (O-level) by providing a continuous secondary and junior college education. These schools directly feed students to the local universities via the Singapore-Cambridge General Certificate of Education Advanced Level (A-level) exams. The intermediate cluster of what are considered “good (secondary) schools” has been given autonomous status to provide more diversified programs for their students. From a handful of schools being chosen in 1994, the list has grown to 26 out of over 160 schools. Their students would typically either go to junior colleges to sit for their A-level exams for university placement or qualify for more prestigious courses at local polytechnics. The remaining secondary schools have been derogatorily called “neighborhood schools.” These schools take on Express stream students with lower aggregate scores, who would usually pursue placements at the polytechnics, as well as students of the Normal (Academic) and Normal (Technical) streams, who typically feed the institutes of technical education (ite) for vocationalbased training. Students from the polytechnics and ites have been able to pursue university education, albeit with a much more complex pathway. For decades, such “streaming” has been the cornerstone of the education system. The state boasts this as the best strategy to identify the best and brightest. For the rest of the populace, streaming at various junctures of their educational journey has a great influence on their vocations. Therefore, many Singaporeans pursue what they deem as the classic path to success: doing well for the psle, O-level and A-level exams and attaining a University degree that is widely believed to set one up for life. It is not only the end goal of having a

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university degree that matters. This path is the shortest and most economically-viable route that also entices the best and brightest with access to bursaries and scholarships. The underlying narrative of “meritocracy” fuels the belief that anyone can get ahead based on their abilities, rather than their familial or racial backgrounds. Consequently, the majority of Singaporean parents embrace the hyper-competition of Singapore’s education system as an inevitable inconvenience. The intense competition amongst Singaporeans with respect to the psle has often centered on the getting a place into a “good (secondary) school” that will in turn provide the best preparations for the subsequent national examinations. For a significant number of Singaporeans who have their eyes set on prestigious programs like the gep and IP, getting into top schools becomes even more important than ever. Since this is contingent upon students’ performance at the psle, there has been an unavoidable trickle-down effect on demands for “good (primary) schools.” Despite the entrenched processes and buy-in for the Singapore’s education system however, Compulsory Education was introduced in 2003 with the two key objectives of providing “a common core of knowledge which will provide a strong foundation for further education and training” and “a common educational experience which will help to build national identity and cohesion.” To make sense of this, one needs to cast the net onto the wider educational landscape in Singapore. Almost all Singaporeans send their children to national schools – be it for the primary, secondary or post-secondary levels. Despite being broadly termed as national schools, these schools are characterized by a high level of diversity. What binds them is that they enjoy state-funding in their everyday operations and follow the national syllabus due to the goal of having their students sit for national examinations. These include Christian mission schools like Saint Andrews, Anglo Chinese School and elite Special Assistance Plan (sap) schools like Dunman High and Hwa Chong that promote Chinese culture. Schools that do not fall under the category are the San Yu Adventist School and the local madrasa. There are six full time madrasa schools in Singapore – Al-Irsyad, Aljunied, Al-Arabiah and Wak Tanjong, which are co-ed schools, and Al-Maarif and Alsagoff, which are all-girl schools. Madrasa students in Singapore, as with students in national schools, go on to take the O-Level examinations. After that, a significant number of the students proceed to take the A-Level exams in the madrasa while others exit after the O-Level exams to enroll in one of the local polytechnics. From here, the community has witnessed an increasing number of madrasa students enter nus and ntu with a number of them on prestigious scholarships. Many from the madrasa system also go on to prestigious Islamic

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universities such as Al Azhar, Madinah and others in Malaysia, Kuwait, Jordan, Syria and Libya. When the compulsory education law was first mooted, the biggest uproar came from the Muslim community. Fierce contestations and criticisms were levelled against the state and its Muslim political elites in what seemed like an attempt targeted towards closure of the madrasa, should all Muslim children of “compulsory school age” be necessitated to receive education at “national primary schools.” The issue was eventually “resolved” with them being listed as designated schools along with San Yu Adventist School. After all, the state still admits on its website that students who are not enrolled in national schools “form only a small percentage of the cohort.” However, under the Compulsory Education Act, the six full-time madrasah schools and San Yu Adventist School are required to meet a minimum psle benchmark at least twice in each 3-year assessment period from 2008 onwards to be allowed to admit new Primary 1 pupils. This poses huge challenges to the madrasa. The next evolution of the madrasa within the Singapore educational landscape came in 2007. Islam is after all, the most regulated religion in the city-state (Nasir, Pereira and Turner 2010), evident from the appointment of a Ministerin-Charge of Muslim Affairs, to the creation of a statutory board called the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (muis) where the Mufti is located, and to the Administration of Muslim Law Act that has regulatory powers over local mosques and Islamic schools. In a bid to “upgrade” the madrasa system, the Singapore government made a dramatic policy shift by introducing the Joint Madrasah System (jms). Significantly, only three of the six full-time madrasa schools, committed themselves. Under this scheme, beginning 2009, both Madrasah Aljunied and Al-Arabiah ceased enrolling primary pupils focus on secondary education, whereas the Al-Irsyad madrasa specializes in primary education and functions as a feeder school to the other two schools. Al-Arabiah will be focusing more on the “academic subjects” while Aljunied will be leaning towards “religious subjects” (Berita Harian 29 October 2007). muis pledged more aid to these three madrasa schools. Amongst the purported benefits was a salary raise amongst their teachers who would also undergo further training and experienced teachers from national schools could also be recruited to teach at a madrasa. Interestingly, both the all-female madrasa schools, Alsagoff and Al-Maarif, chose not to participate in this endeavour. Among those who have done very well for themselves, there is an overwhelming number of girls. The state has given the following reasons for the implementation of this new strategy: the move will raise the academic standards and make the madrasa more efficient. When it first came into effect, the Compulsory Education Act also exempts two other groups of children from attending national schools – those with

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special education needs and those who are homeschooling. The state places stringent rules for the homeschooling community. As an administrative rule, the primary homeschooling parent must be a graduate and he or she must not be working. Parents will have to submit a six-year curriculum for examinable subjects for the psle, as well as their plans for National Education. An officer will then be assigned to schedule house visits and the yearly collation of academic updates on the child. A homeschooling child is still required to sit for the psle in the year he or she turns twelve years of age and is expected to fulfil the minimum psle benchmark. Failing which, the child would have to retake the exams. The Act was recently amended with respect to students with special education needs. With effect from April 2018, Government-funded special education (sped) schools that serve children with moderate-to-severe special education needs are also recognized as national primary schools. Parents of students with special needs who prefer homeschooling to admitting their children to sped schools must apply for exemption from the Act. These parents must propose an Individualized Education Plan (iep) – similar to recognized special education frameworks – and demonstrate that they have the relevant skills and competencies to deliver the educational aspect of the iep. Children with mild special education needs are to be enrolled in national schools. If their parents choose to homeschool, they are to seek exemption from the Act and be subjected to similar conditions as all other homeschoolers. There are already criticisms that homeschooling children are judged by higher standards at the psle. A child is benchmarked at the 33rd percentile aggregate score of students in national schools to be deemed to have passed, which translates into homeschoolers having to do better than one in three mainstream students. All homeschoolers, even those with (mild) special education needs would have to sit for the psle at the Standard Level although children without special education needs who attend national primary schools may be given the option to offer subjects at the Foundation Level. These policies can be easily seen as disincentives for parents to opt out of the mainstream education system. They not only reflect the paternalistic nature of the state, which sees its form of education as the best. It is a great reminder of how education is key to the state’s social engineering pursuits, especially where managing its minority communities are concerned. 3

Education and the Good Life

It is worth examining what is meant by a progressive or modern Singaporean. For most of Singapore’s history in nation-building, the pursuit of progress through education is a unanimous belief. Stories of “rags to riches,” where one

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struggles out of poverty through hard work and entrepreneurship in the immediate post-colonial era, slowly evolved into success stories of those from working class origins achieving the good life via academic credentials. The two traits of being highly educated and financially secure, are often not mutually exclusive. Lauding education as the main vehicle towards upward social mobility and achieving the good life is an important ideological tool especially in societies that claim meritocracy as one of it guiding principles. Citizens who are not attuned to the latter trait are increasingly in peril. Many global rankings have placed Singapore among the richest country in the world and one of the most expensive to live in. It is difficult to imagine a modern person who is a destitute. The two images do not go together in the popular imagination, not that it does not exist. It is worth highlighting at this juncture, that the state has carved a dedicated manifesto for its Muslim community. The Singapore Muslim Identity document produced by muis2 lists ten traits of the Singaporean Muslim, of which the word “modern” is mentioned twice. The text also contains compelling concepts and ideas, describing the pious Muslim as someone who is secular and contextual. The Singapore Muslim Identity is an attempt by the state to provide a road map for its citizens on how to be a modern Muslim and what kind of modernity is desirable (Nasir 2016). In Muslims in Singapore: Piety Politics and Policies, my co-authors and I examined the policies of containment, or enclavement as we call it, and the more positive policy of “upgrading” of Muslims to manage them more effectively. The Singapore political elite is obviously conscious of the revival and growth of Islam in the region and is concerned with maintaining control of its own Muslim community. As we have seen, one aspect of this strategy is to modernize madrasa education in both content and orientation (Aljunied and Albakri 2018; Gopinathan 2018; Nasir, Pereira and Turner 2010). Do you want them to grow up all being religious teachers and religious preachers, or do you want them to be trained in IT, to be engineers, doctors, architects, professionals? If the madrasahs were training 100 or 200 students a year, I think we can live with that. But if you are training 400, 500, 1000, 2000 in full-time madrasahs or in full-time religious education 2 The Singapore Islamic Religious Council (muis) is a statutory board formed in 1968 under the auspices of the Administration of Muslim Law Act. It governs Muslim life including halal certification, charitable trusts, mosques and madrasah schools. The Mufti, the highest local religious authority, the president of muis and members of the muis council are appointed by the President of Singapore.

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supplemented by some secular subjects, what will be the future of the Malay community? […] I cannot say, however, that some madrasahs may not close because we want to have standards. Former Prime Minister goh chok tong, May Day Rally, The Straits Times, 2 May 2000

Although the fate of the madrasa is now far from what the Muslim community had feared, what the former Prime Minister expressed in the thick of the compulsory education debates is indicative of the underlying concern of religious education. Islam is associated with the “Malay problem”3 (Nasir 2007) and part of the state’s religious policy is to incorporate Muslims into its vision of a technological, rational, consumer society through paternalist strategies of education, training and improvement. It is expected that the modern Singaporean will have no problems exchanging his labour for a decent amount of wages. It is with the category of education that this study concerns itself with. To be more precise, to what extent does subscribing to the national education system equate to achieving the good life? What areas have been overlooked and what assumptions have been made in the state narratives that have emerged as pressure points for the society as a whole and its Muslims both as individuals and as a collective? The following paragraphs highlight some of these issues. There has been much tinkering to the streaming system over the years, in large part owing to the more educated and opiniated populace that makes up the new generation of parents. Professionals with children aged ten years old for example, have complained in the national papers about having to seek help to teach their children fourth grade mathematics. The government also admits that the mere grilling of students and rote learning do not bode well for the future of the country. In the last decade, there has been much initiatives at building critical thinking skills and amidst the slogan of “(teaching) less is more.” Parents, often joined by teachers, continue to debate the enduring limitations of the education system in terms of the challenges of class management, overwhelming syllabus, increased difficulty of national examinations and the lack of robustness to accommodate different learning styles, among other issues. The foremost criticism is how, through standardized testing and 3 The “Malay Problem” refers to the economic backwardness and social problems of the Malay Muslim community. Many theories have been advanced to explain the Malays’ lack of success in participating in the national economy coupled with the relatively high number of Malays involved in issues such as drug abuse and divorce. Since Malays make up the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Singapore, there has also been a tendency to look at Islam as a source of the problem.

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streaming, students are prematurely marked to pursue certain courses of study. It is a system that disadvantages “late bloomers,” who would have to compensate for their earlier academic results by pursuing a longer route to success and one that increasingly only gives respite to those with monetary means. In coping with the high demands of the education system, many participate in the rapidly rising billion-dollar tuition industry to ensure that children stay abreast in class or even forge ahead of the competition (Teng 2016), with some who has the means taking the drastic decision of emigration to escape competing in a punishing system and the stigma of not doing well (Lim 2012). A discussion on these issues is beyond the scope of the paper but it is important to mention them here as they contribute a significant part to the decision of pursuing alternative educational paths. A more pertinent sociological issue would be the extent that the state’s claim that national education ensures national cohesion is in line with Singapore’s social realities. The principal of Singapore’s premier school, Raffles Institution created a stir in 2015 when he talked about the school becoming “insular” and acknowledging that the student demography is coming from privileged backgrounds. The anxiety that the student populace of elite schools is homogeneous and lacking in diversity is highlighted by a poll conducted by the Straits Times. A previous survey of 100 students from Raffles Girls,” Raffles Institution, Nanyang Girls High, Hwa Chong Institution and Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) revealed that those polled do not have any close friends who come from households with lower incomes or from social groups with lower academic attainment. More alarmingly, 40 per cent of the respondents declared that they have no close friends from a different ethnic group. This is something that the Minister of Education acknowledged. In May 2018, he declared that Some schools, due to their history, culture or programme offerings, have large proportions of students from higher income groups. That has raised concerns, and a few principals have pointed that out in their public comments and speeches over the years. People are free to choose their friends and who they want to be with. But when groups are predominantly formed along socio-economic status – whether one is rich or poor – it is the start of stratification and that will poison society over time. Education Minister ong ye kung, Today, 15 May 2018

To make matters worse, while Singapore was a more egalitarian society upon independence in 1965, which saw political and economic elites selected from different schools, experts predict that as inequalities set in with the maturing

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of Singapore’s economy and a more pronounced wage gap arise between the rich and the poor, the brand name of the school might carry greater weight in affecting both “work location and life chances” (Chua 2015) due to the ultracompetitive environment in the global city. Such elitism induced by state structures therefore becomes a great source of disillusionment of the education system. The decision to embark on different routes in a country that has a history of dabbling in eugenicist policies to ensure the homogeneity and social reproduction of its educated class is especially significant. Under its first Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, who governed for more than three decades, the country embarked on a slew of controversial policies such as the Graduate Mothers Scheme that encouraged those with university education to have children (Nasir and Turner 2014). We must further amend our policies, and try to reshape our demographic configuration so that our better-educated women will have more children to be adequately represented in the next generation […]. Equal employment opportunities, yes, but we shouldn’t get our women into jobs where they cannot, at the same time, be mothers […]. You just can’t be doing a fulltime heavy job like that of a doctor or engineer and run a home and bring up children. Former Prime Minister lee kuan yew, National Day Rally Speech in August 1983

With the “thinning of the gene pool,” a slew of reactionary policies was formulated to remedy the downward population trend. This “social problem” was hailed in the press as “The Great Marriage Debate.” Ensuing dialogues also highlight the lower fertility rate within the educated Chinese community. The controversy lies in the fact that these were done along the lines of an individual’s educational level, encouraging those doing well in school to have more children while disincentivizing the lesser educated through initiatives that included concessions to get sterilized after the birth of their first two children (Lyons-Lee 1998). While many of these policies have been reversed or repackaged, they have left an indelible evidence of the state’s notion of the desired, or preferred, citizens. These inert ideals of the state however face-off with its citizens’ conceptions of the role of women. Not unlike other ethnic or religious communities, Muslim women are building and realizing their preferred narratives. In Muslims in Singapore: Piety, Politics and Policies (2010), which builds on Saba Mahmood’s seminal work Politics of Piety (2005) where she takes aim at conventional perspectives of western feminism on the veil in Islam, my co-authors and I have

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demonstrated through our interviews, how women who are classified as “middle class,” highly-educated professionals intellectualize the religion and sought to practice their beliefs in the public sphere. As these women take on the role of mothers, together with their spouses, they inevitably projected their values and worldview onto their children’s educational paths. The response of Singapore Muslim elites towards the national education system is in line with the general population. It varies from discernment to disillusionment. Bourdieu argues that the education system of industrialized and developed countries work in a way that legitimizes class inequalities. Success in these centers of learning is determined by the amount of cultural capital an individual possess and his access to a higher-class habitus. Educational credentials go some distance in reproducing social inequalities (Sullivan 2002). Given that Malays have lower access to economic capital, social capital and human capital that includes educational attainment (Chua and Ng 2015), these create a vicious cycle that is especially chronic for the community. Against this backdrop, the decisions of Malay elites who have made it in the stringent Singapore system become more crucial. Bourdieu asserts that one of main components of the dominant habitus is “the system of dispositions towards the school, understood as a propensity to consent to the investments in time, effort and money necessary to conserve and to increase cultural capital” (Bourdieu 1977: 495). Does this mean that parents who choose to embrace the national education system are colluding with the dominant habitus without regard to their Muslim identities? On the flipside, does this mean that the Malay elites find their enhanced striving to succeed in the national schools not worth their children’s while? At the same time, the educational choices of Muslim parents cannot be thought of in dichotomous terms according to the sacred and profane. Whether among the homeschooling community or stakeholders of both full time and part time madrasa schools, there have been immense debates on how to reconceptualize the way subjects are being taught. Traditionally in the madrasa, the sciences, mathematics, and English language, are traditionally referred to as “secular” or “academic” subjects while the study of hadith (Prophetic traditions), sīra (“Life of the Prophet/Islamic history), tafsīr (Qurʾanic exegesis) and the like have been termed “religious” or ukhrawi (relating to the after-life) subjects. Proponents of this rethinking argue that all beneficial knowledge comes from the divine and therefore, this dichotomy is a false one. Beyond advocating for a change in mindset, there have also been rather active attempts at integrating these subjects such that the conventional secular curriculum can be taught through religious lens and vice versa. Although there have been no

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c­ oncrete results of these discussions – curriculum wise – these signal agency on the part of individuals to reorder the social and to formulate modern Muslim selfhoods. Educational choices of their young must be understood as a reflexive exercise of modern Muslim parents. It offers a window into their notions of success, their deference to fuse global western narratives while incorporating their cultural and religious references and their confidence to exercise agency. The following sections elaborate on three differing paths that these Muslim parents take, focusing primarily on the primary level of their children’s education. Beyond the reason that these are the years covered by the state’s compulsory education laws, educational choices taken at this stage usually indicate the trajectory of a child’s educational journey. This crossroad therefore offers the best vantage point to understand their parents’ motivations, challenges and aspirations. 4

National Schools

Singaporeans have embraced numerous strategies to navigate the demands of education in Singapore. Some of these include jostling for the best schools. There are many strategies that Singaporeans deploy to get ahead of the queue for these schools. Parents are known to have moved houses to gain an advantage from being near the school. When I attended an “Our Singapore Conversation”4 session on campus in 2013, fellow faculty members with young families were asking me if I had plans to relocate to a home that is near a “prestigious” primary school. Being a young parent, I was advised to make this move a few years before my child’s primary one enrolment so that my child could get priority for entry based on proximity. In conversations with other graduate Muslim parents, other strategies they undertook included volunteering in 4 Since 2012, Singaporeans have been engaged in a unique Our Singapore Conversation initiative. The conversations involved about 47,000 Singaporeans from the various strata of society participating in dialogue sessions nationwide. Among the topics discussed include the issues of education, housing and fertility. To this end, a report in 2013 from the National Population and Talent Division provides a range of policy options designed to increase fertility such as faster access to housing to support young couples and providing affordable child care options. As a corollary, the 2013 Suara Musyawarah report documents conversations with the Malay community noting their dissatisfaction at being discriminated in various spheres such as the workplace and the military. See Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir and Bryan S. Turner (2014): The Future of Singapore: Population, Society and the Nature of the State, London: Routledge.

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grassroots activities of the ruling party as well as parent support groups in school. Securing a place for the first child also ensures enrolment for their younger siblings. While most Singaporeans send their children to national schools, the elite ones have an interesting aspect to them. Recently, scholars from the Singapore’s Institute of Education have focused their attention on the perceptions and training of elite students (Sim 2012; Kenway and Koh 2013). Taking the sociological perspective of Pierre Bourdieu, Kenway and Koh contend that “Chinese-ness,” the English language and Mandarin constitute a consecrated social capital that pays large dividends in all fields in Singapore. What we might call “the state nobility” is mostly Chinese, the Chinese are numerically dominant and Chinese-ness is increasingly valorized. This situation can be read as Singapore’s pragmatic ploy to make China part of its economic hinterland and to deploy its Chinese-ness as a form of what Hage (1998) calls “national cultural capital.” Thus, it becomes even more imperative for Malay boys to be siphoned into the dominant group’s networks early as a recent study (Chua, Matthews and Loh 2016) reveals that Malay men are the most disadvantaged group in Singapore in terms of having access to contacts in high-status jobs even when compared to their female counterparts. They have the least amount of social capital as they know less people who hold lofty positions in the workforce. It becomes crucial to ease the boys into these networks early in their academic journey as the university is not the free mingling social networking scene it seems to be. The research also showed that while Malays are least likely to have a university education, among those who do, “a university education accrues social capital at a slower rate for Malay men than for the other combinations of gender and ethnicity.” Having these revelations, the desire to access the prestigious schools and tap into the valuable social network of the dominant Chinese majority has also seen numerous top Muslim students of non-Chinese background enroll in these sap schools and adopt Mandarin as the other compulsory language. In Singapore, every student has to matriculate in English as a first language and a mother tongue language. The latter is usually one that is spoken at home and usually the parlance of at least one of the parents. Even among those who do not send their children to sap schools, it has become increasingly common for Muslim graduate parents who are generally more affluent to send their children for Mandarin supplementary classes outside of school. The increasing role played by China in global economy aside, locally, there are many job advertisements that insist on Mandarin speaking applicants. Therefore, although these elite Malay parents adopt the same strategy of pursuing placement in elite schools as with other like-minded Singaporeans, their disposition reflects

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the community’s unique challenges in ensuring social reproduction i.e. their lack of cultural capital. Bourdieu (1984), in drawing a link between class and culture, provides a more nuanced framework to study how domination is sustained over generations. Taking into consideration both elements of structure and agency, he argues that culture is a focal point of class stability and each class faction has a unique cultural taste with certain systems of taste forming a cultural capital that can be transformed into economic capital. Bourdieu argued that society is stratified in a way that the dominant class comprises of a relatively “autonomous space whose structure is defined by the distribution of economic and cultural capital among its members” (1984: 260). As such, Bourdieu argues in his works The State Nobility (1996) and Distinction (1984) that class structures influence mental structures. The social, cultural and symbolic capital that is inherited replenishes the social reproduction of society and embeds inequalities as a permanent feature of everyday living. Shamus Khan (2012), in his ethnographic study of a prestigious school in America, demonstrates in his book, Privilege, that amidst talk of inclusivity, elite schools provide students the necessary tools to embody privilege thus ensuring that social reproduction and inequalities persist. Likewise, while these aspirations are not limited to the educated elites of society, the class dimension of their pursuits cannot be ignored. For one, enrolment into elite secondary schools would cost much more than the mainstream schools. While the basic school fees after government subsidy is only $5 per month, school fees in independent schools would range between $250–300 per month. Secondly, the ability to take up intermediate measures such as volunteerism is predicated on the parents’ capability of performing skilled tasks at the community level. The third key strategy of relocation to gain proximity to the coveted school requires the highest capital. Even so, for these Muslim parents, their choices are not merely material in nature and they are most likely to frame their choice from their own cultural references. Many expressed their belief in pursuing this endeavor out of a sense of responsibility towards their children and the fact that a child is a form of ʾamāna (a trust that one is obligated to fulfill) from God. Given the parents’ own successful educational upbringing, even though most of them had not taken a similar elite path to academic and economic success, these parents see it as their duty to give their children better opportunities than the ones they had growing up. These parents are also as likely as their non-Muslim counterparts to engage a long list of other educational services to enhance their children’s education. The only difference for many of these Muslim parents is that besides sending their children for academic tuition, Chinese language classes

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and/or music lessons, they also ensure that religious education is sufficiently provided for. It is not uncommon for their children’s weekends to be filled with various enrichment classes and for these parents to be shuttling their children to-and-fro, one class after another. Expenditure on education presumably adds up. However, while spending in other areas would be quickly deemed as excessive or indulgent, Muslim parents who engage in such an endeavor often consider it as an act of ʿibāda (worship) due to the common exhortation to berusaha (Malay for putting in genuine effort) or ikhtiar (the Arabic word of the same meaning that has been adopted into the Malay vernacular). Hence, it is evident that Muslim subjectivity formation, in this instance, is malleable enough to embrace modern ideas of educational cultivation. 5

The Madrasa

Although the madrasa in Singapore has a long and proud history of having produced many ʿulamaʾ (religious teachers) in the region (Kamaludeen and Aljunied 2009), in the decades ensuing the post-independent era of 1965, they were perceived as a “dumping ground” for weak students who could not survive in the fast-paced national schools (Steiner 2011). However, contrary to what one may believe about the nature of Islamic schools, Singaporean students in the madrasa system straddle both the “secular” subjects as well as the “Islamic” ones. Hence, it is not surprising to hear of madrasa students taking twice the number of subjects compared to their counterparts in national schools. On top of the regular subjects on languages, mathematics, sciences and the humanities, madrasa students also tackle modules on tafsīr, hadith, and sīra. The complexion of these Islamic schools has however changed quite radically since the turn of the millennia. In contemporary times, it is common to see madrasa students with parents who are teachers, engineers, directors and lecturers. This changing demography among those who send their children to ha madrasa has led to a shift in the approach by the state to invest more in these institutions. On the surface, it might seem that it is easiest to explain the symbiosis between Islamic piety and schooling decisions when examining the madrasa case studies. The reality is not so obvious. First and foremost, it is also a myth that all parents send their children to the madrasa so that they will become religious teachers. Although there are no official numbers, the reality is, of the thousands of students these establishments have graduated; only a small proportion belongs to this group. In fact, contrary to popular belief, a significant

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number of religious leaders in Singapore started their formal education in national schools before pursuing religious studies overseas at a later stage in life. I have discussed some of the rationalizations behind the popularity of the madrasa among the relatively well-off in my previous works. Primarily, I argue that the support of the madrasa schools among the elites is both a response to secularization and institutionalized discrimination. Professionals are flocking to sending their children, both girls and boys, to these institutions. One central issue concerns the hijab (Dayang Istiaisyah 2003). Two of the six full time madrasa schools are all-girl schools and girls make up a majority in the other four. Rather than putting it down to patriarchy, it can certainly be argued that the enrolment for girls in the madrasa will drop significantly if national schools were to allow the hijab.5 Singapore is one of the few countries to insist on the hijab ban among the highly developed countries. To be sure, the hijab issue has altered the life courses of many Muslim girls in Singapore. In some instances, it has even altered the life courses of entire families. Since a few decades ago, young girls who have worn the hijab have had to make many decisions at critical junctures of their lives that other Singaporeans are not subjected to. Parents had gone through great lengths to preserve the Islamic requirement for the hijab, which was not considered a part of the common space in national schools. Some have chosen to homeschool their girls. Others have even migrated to matriculate in more hijab-friendly schools such as those in Australia, UK and other Asian countries. The fate of the four girls suspended from national schools in the 2002 “tudung issue” is a mere microcosm of a larger social reality. For parents who have successfully enrolled their daughters in a full-time madrasa, even at the expense of the classic path to success that I highlighted earlier, most of these children have to spend an extra year for their secondary school education because most madrasa schools do not provide the Express stream and those that do, have filled their quota. After the O-Level, many among those who took the local madrasa route go on to further their dreams in local polytechnics instead of the junior colleges as the latter allow a Muslim girl to observe the hijab. This is a “choice” that would again cost them another extra year, coupled with higher tuition fees, and arguably a more difficult route to the university. In the polytechnics, hijab-adorning girls must make an early 5 Singapore prohibits the donning of the hijab in national schools at the level of primary, secondary and junior colleges which basically affect girls from ages seven to eighteen. Women are also not allowed to wear the hijab in uniformed jobs like nursing, the police and sectors of the tourism industry. There have also been reports of women being discriminated at the workplace in the private sector owing to their choice to adorn the hijab (Humairah 2017; Walid 2016).

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decision regarding their career path. What course will give them the best chances in landing a hijab-friendly job? When it comes to joining the Singapore workforce, they are faced with a situation whereby careers adjudged to be “frontline” such as jobs in the nursing, policing, tourism industries just to name a few, have shut their doors. I have listened to too many stories of promising Singaporeans having to make a cocktail of these unfortunate decisions. Whilst most parents have made the choice of sending their children to the madrasa for reasons related to piety, the class dimension cannot be ignored. With the quota imposed by the state on the number of students that madrasa schools can receive, coupled with the increasing number of middle-class parents sending their children to these institutions, the local madrasa is also becoming more a luxury that is afforded to the privilege. The overwhelming applications and limited number of seats mean that a madrasa today can impose entry level aptitude tests to get the best students who are likely to be privileged children whose parents can afford to give direct coaching or send for supplementary classes to prepare for these tests. This is in addition to the mandatory interviewing of parents who wish for their offspring to enroll in a madrasa. In addition, because of its status as private schools, the madrasa charge a much higher fee compared to the national schools, which are heavily subsidized by the state. The rigorous academic demands due to additional subjects also mean that students of average intelligence must have had access to additional resources to do well. In the local madrasa system, the formation of a Muslim identity exists side by side with that of a more national conceptualization of the self, as students attempt to embrace both curricula. This dual identity provided by a madrasa of being a good Muslim who is able to function seamlessly in a competitive society, and the promise of being able to straddle both worlds competently, has since the turn of the millennium, become a choice track for a significant group of educated parents. 6 Homeschooling Homeschooling is not a modern idea but its modern adoption that emerged significantly out of the ideas of educational reformer John Holt, reflects a keen opposition to conventional social institutions. Present day homeschooling is a movement that reflects both the leftist leanings of freedom of choice, voluntary association and individual judgement, among others, as well as the rightist battle against secularism. It comes as no surprise that homeschooling in Singapore would be closely regulated within the compulsory education landscape. Despite this, nationally, we are seeing an increase in homeschoolers.

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There were 26 who sat for the exam in 2008, the year homeschoolers were subjected to the psle. By 2014, there were 42 students. This number is set to grow. While it is getting trendy especially among the educated class to say that they are homeschooling their toddlers and young kids before enrolling them in primary schools for formal schooling, in this section, by homeschooling, I am referring to those aged about seven and above, whose parents have made deliberate choices to remove or not enroll their children in school upon reaching Compulsory Education age. The reason being, pre-school is not mandated by the government. Furthermore, the decision to not enroll children in pre-school is not a new practice among Malay parents. In the past, Malay parents have done so either out of poverty or for perceiving pre-school education not to be an important pre-requisite to primary school education. This had led to concerns expressed by community leaders that Malay children are ill-equipped for formal education. Nonetheless, educated parents who have chosen to opt out of pre-school education are doing so with deliberate plans for their children’s literacy and social development. There are at least three pervasive trends that we see when examining homeschooling in Singapore – those who are devout or religious, those who have children with special needs and those who believe that their children are way ahead of the learning curve. Many parents of these students are very critical of the inability of the education system to accommodate their children who would have otherwise been deemed deviant in the mainstream schools. Devout Christians have fronted the Singapore homeschooling scene since the 1990s. There are many interviews conducted with staunch Christians, even pastors and deacons, on their decision to homeschool their children and how they utilize a Christian based curriculum, which is freely available from the United States. The availability of Christian-based academic curriculum also makes homeschooling much more accessible for the Christian community. A huge catalyst for the growth of homeschooling had been the expatriate community who had either been homeschooling or had chosen to homeschool out of practical reasons like the cost of international schools or for having an aversion to national schools. The popularity of homeschooling among the educated Singapore Muslims is new. Globally, there has been an increase in the number of Muslims choosing to home school since the turn of the millennium, with a burgeoning number of academic studies that have mostly focused on the UK, US and the rest of Southeast Asia. Muslim homeschooling in Singapore is in its nascence. An increasing number of Muslim parents, many of them professionals, over the last five years have chosen the path of homeschooling. Just like other ethnic groups, for the Muslim community, social media has played a great part in this upward trend. Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest feed parents with countless

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parenting and educational ideas. Even parents who have chosen not to homeschool take great interest in the undertakings of homeschooling parents to carry out their own home-based education. This has inadvertently caught the state’s watchful eye, drawing requests to engage the community through its Muslim representatives. When I attended events organized by Muslim homeschoolers, almost all parents who homeschool their kids and those who are considering homeschooling, cited faith as a primary factor. It is interesting that from 1984 to 1990, the state experimented with making religious knowledge a compulsory subject in national schools as a way of cultivating moral values. This was replaced with civics and moral education as the state thought that it was inappropriate to teach religion in secular common spaces. Homeschooling can be partly seen as a response to this. The role of piety in the homeschooling decision amongst Muslim elites cannot be understated. While several of them shared that their choice was between enrolment into a madrasa or homeschooling, most of these parents shared that they had at least contemplated madrasa education before deciding to homeschool. For the former, one key consideration was whether their children could get a place in their madrasa of choice after the entrance test administered by the respective schools. It is more interesting to look at the motivations of the latter group and the remaining parents who had not considered madrasa as an option. Conventionally, parents have expressed that their preference for enrolling their children into madrasa had been due to the Islamic curriculum offered and particularly for their daughters, so that they can observe the hijab. It is therefore apparent for these groups of parents, the resolution of these two issues is inadequate in themselves. One of the foremost complaints of Muslim homeschoolers is the unavailability of a curriculum that fully integrates Islamic knowledge, like the ones available for the Christian homeschoolers. These parents are therefore doubtful that education in a local madrasa would help them achieve this vision. The continued dichotomy in approaching academic and religious subjects in the local madrasa, in addition to the enhanced striving required in having to be competent in both fields, do not appeal to them. Another underlying motivation arises from the institutionalized nature of Islam in Singapore. To ensure that its interpretation is not disrupted, the state often intervenes in the affairs of the religious elites. Many international preachers have fallen on the bad side of the Singapore government and banned from lecturing in Singapore. Local religious teachers are to be accredited by a centralized body and through its think tanks, there are regular discussions of banning books and overseas radio stations that are deemed not to be falling into

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the neat narrative of what constitute a “modern Singaporean Muslim.” By homeschooling, not only are parents free to bring back religious values into their child’s pedagogy, they are free to choose what kind of religious strands that they deemed suitable. Free from the constrains of formal social control, the Muslim parent can teach the child from any Islamic school of thought – may it be Hanafi, Hanbali, Shafii or Maliki – and extol values that are either Sufi, Salafi, Shiite or anything in between. Often times incorporating Islamic popular culture (Nasir 2016) into their child’s education, as seen in the fusion of elements of music, fashion and literature, homeschooling is thus a strategy to raise individually defined moral subjects, as parents experiment and amalgamate to form creative Muslim self-made identities. For these Muslim elites, it would be impossible to group them into Van Galen’s neat categories of “ideologue” versus “pedagogue” (Van Galen 1991). The “ideologues” are Christian fundamentalists who strive to raise their children in conservative values while the “pedagogues” are parents who aim to provide a more natural learning environment that formal schooling does not provide. These two visions are not necessarily at odds for these Muslim elites. A key concern among these parents is catering to their child’s fiṭra (innate nature). Homeschooling parents extol the virtue of self-directed learning as a precursor to problem solving skills and critical thinking that drives success even in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (stem) subjects. Even for parents who want to forge ahead of the curve, they reject the mainstream system’s emphasis on drilling and testing. The narrow and limited skill sets in which students from national school are tested and in turn rewarded and punished do not appeal to them. Increasingly, parents are also becoming more informed on alternative perspectives in educational philosophies. Furthermore, a scan into blogs and other social media pages of Muslim homeschoolers reveals how they have adopted, to varying degrees, western approaches like the Montessori, Charlotte Mason and Waldorf methods. The often-quoted figures for the homeschooling movements include Muslim thinkers like Al-Ghazali. Al-Ghazali’s pedagogy for engaging young minds are very popular and discussed at length among Muslim homeschooling circles. Among his descriptions of an effective teacher, as documented in his magnum opus Revival of the Religious Sciences, are that – aside from the instructor practicing what he or she preaches – one teaches for the sake of Allah, not make it a virtue to learn speedily so that one can be ahead, to only scold a student in moderation and privately, and not to make the student set in his ways by blaming him for his errors. The customized education of past ʿulamaʾ is also often discussed. Parents look to the fluidity and malleability of homeschooling in order to “hack” their children’s education so that they can play to

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the strengths of their child and expose him or her to unconventional subjects. For these parents, their modern aspirations for a high level of individualization and personalization that are advocated by these approaches coincide with religious notions of nurturing their children with a high degree of respect for one’s fiṭra. One aspect of homeschooling in Singapore that is often not talked about is the heavily gendered aspect of it. Owing to state regulations that one parent must be a full-time caregiver as a criterion for homeschooling, this almost always mean that the mother adopts the role of a stay-at-home-mum to fulfill this requirement. Hence, not only is the education of the children a largely female terrain, this comes at a huge financial sacrifice to the family compared to graduate mothers who choose to go to work and send their children to either a national school or the madrasa. These highly qualified women would have earned good money in the workforce with their decision undoubtedly perceived as a brain drain to the capitalist state. Seen from the lenses of these mothers, their sacrifice is cumulatively cemented by a heightened notion of motherhood based on Islamic tradition. The saying that the “mother is the first madrasa” is one that is often heard and spoken of approvingly. The child, AlGhazali also wrote, “is a trust (placed by God) in the hands of his parents, and his innocent heart is a precious element capable of taking impressions.” 7 Conclusion To many, the experience of suffering under the education system is a rite of passage to being Singaporean. This is even more so than the National Service, as the two-year conscription and the ensuing yearly call ups over the next decade or so, only affects the men in the country. Over the past decade, there have been many articles that have surfaced on the elitism that is bred by the Singapore national education system. What is not mentioned though, is that inequalities have even set in among the educationally backward and economically depressed Muslim community. All three educational domains of national schools, madrasa schools and homeschooling are unfairly slanted and advantage the privileged. This is to a significant extent due to the structural impediments imposed by the policies of the state. The schooling choices of Muslim elites in Singapore cannot be caricatured into polarizing paradigms such as the push for greater liberalization and the retreat to fundamentalism that colors much scholarship on Islam today. This would be the kneejerk reaction of observers who perceive that a prized stratum of society is not passing on their social capital to the next generation.

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­ dditionally, conventional heuristic tools such as the scared versus the profane A axes of analyses, developed by sociologists of religion, also need to be rethought in the light of the fluid identities of religious selves in contemporary times. To be certain, Muslims in Singapore cannot be disentangled on the one end, from the global secular “grand schemes” that shapes modern subjectivities, and on the other, national identity projects that shapes what it means to be the ideal citizen. Their educational choices, although diverse, are pragmatic and rational, and can be located within larger trends affecting other religious groups and global communities. Even so, the fact that the alternative courses are pursued by the more affluent and educated class in a compact and highly controlled environment, is fascinating. Within the context of unpacking the theme of Muslim subjectivities, it will be interesting to further explore the dynamics within the Singapore Muslim community at a few levels. How do these elites perceive the variegated paths undertaken by those in their social group? How different are they compared to the rest of the Muslim community and what are the perceptions of the rest of the minority elites? What is certain though is that not only is a disillusionment of the state narrative clearly evident among the elites, it shows a confident and matured community, long chastised for not being fully integrated into the Singaporean way, charting their own paths to be modern as manifested in their pursuits for alternative definitions of success and happiness which include spiritual dimensions. References Aljunied, Farah Mahamood and Albakri Ahmad. 2018. “Integrated and Holistic Islamic Education Curriculum: The Singapore Madrasah Model.” In Mukhlis Abu Bakar (ed), Rethinking Madrasah Education in a Globalised World. London: Routledge: 152–173. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. “Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction.” In Jerome Karabel and A.H. Halsey (eds.), Power and Ideology in Education. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 487–511. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1996. The State Nobility: Elite Schools and the Field of Power. Cambridge: Polity. Chua, Vincent. 2015. “Do Raffles Boys ‘Rule’ and Anglo-Chinese Boys ‘Own’ Singapore? Analysing School-to-work Correspondences in an Elite Developmental State.” International Studies in Sociology of Education 25(1): 1–19.

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Chua, Vincent and Irene Y.H. Ng. 2015. “Unequal Returns to Social Capital: The Study of Malays in Singapore through a Network Lens.” Asian Ethnicity, 16(4): 480–497. Chua, Vincent, Matthews, Matthew and Loh, Yi Cheng. 2016. “Social Capital in Singapore: Gender Differences, Ethnic Hierarchies, and their Intersection.” Social Networks 47: 138–150. Dayang Istiaisyah Hussin. 2003. School Effectiveness and Nation-building in Singapore: Analysis of Discourses on Madrasahs and Why Madrasahs Stand out from National Schools? Unpublished Master’s Thesis. National University of Singapore. Gopinathan, S. 2018. “Modernising Madrasah Education: The Singapore ‘National’ and the Global.” In Mukhlis Abu Bakar (ed.), Rethinking Madrasah Education in a Globalised World. London: Routledge: 65–75. Hage, Ghassan. 1998. White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society. Sydney: Pluto Press. Jung, Dietrich. 2017. Muslim History and Social Theory: A Global Sociology of Modernity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kenway, Jane and Aaron Koh. 2013. “The Elite School as ‘Cognitive Machine’ and ‘Social Paradise’: Developing Transnational Capitals for the National ‘Field of Power’.” Journal of Sociology 49(2–3): 272–290. Khan, Shamus Rahman. 2012. Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Lim, Selina. 2012. “The Role of the State in Transnational Migrant Identity Formation: A ‘Uniquely Singapore’ Experience.” In Caroline Plüss and Chan Kwok-bun (eds.), Living Intersections: Transnational Migrant Identifications in Asia. London: Springer: 101–121. Lyons-Lee, Lenore. 1998. “The ‘Graduate Woman’ Phenomenon: Changing Constructions of the Family in Singapore.” Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 13 (2): 1–19. Nasir, Kamaludeen Mohamed. 2007. “Rethinking the ‘Malay Problem’ in Singapore: Image, Rhetoric and Social Realities.” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 27 (2): 309–318. Nasir, Kamaludeen Mohamed and Syed Muhd Khairudin Aljunied. 2009. “Muslims as Minorities: History and Social Realities of Muslims in Singapore.” Bangi: National University of Malaysia Press. Nasir, Kamaludeen Mohamed, Pereira Alexius and Bryan Turner. 2010. Muslims in Singapore: Piety, Politics and Policies. London: Routledge. Nasir, Kamaludeen Mohamed and Bryan Turner. 2014. The Future of Singapore: Population, Society and the Nature of the State. London: Routledge. Nasir, Kamaludeen Mohamed. 2016. Globalized Muslim Youth in the Asia Pacific: Popular Culture in Singapore and Sydney. New York: Palgrave.

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Sim, Jasmine B.-Y. 2012 “The Burden of Responsibility: Elite Students’ Understandings of Civic Participation in Singapore.” Educational Review 64(2): 195–210. Singapore Press Holdings. 1996. “Singapore is Indebted to Winsemius.” The Straits Times, 10 December. Steiner, Kerstin. 2011. “Madrasah in Singapore: Tradition and Modernity in Religious Education.” Intellectual Discourse. 19: 41–70. Sullivan, Alice. 2002. “Bourdieu and Education: How Useful is Bourdieu’s Theory for Researchers?” Netherlands Journal of Social Sciences 38(2): 144–166. Teng, Amelia. 2016. “Tuition Industry Worth over $1b a Year.” The Straits Times 25 December. Van Galen, Jane. 1991. “Ideologues and Pedagogues: Parents Who Teach Their Children At Home.” In Jane Van Galen and Mary Anne Pitman (eds.), Home Schooling: Political, Historical, and Pedagogical Perspectives. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing: 63–76.

Chapter 10

Imaginaries of the Good Life from the Egyptian Revolution in 2011: Pride and Agency Line Mex-Jørgensen 1

Introduction: The Eighteen Days of Tahrir Square

On 25 January 2011, thousands of Egyptians marched toward Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo to protest against Mubarak’s (born 1928) regime.1 “The people want to overthrow the regime,” they shouted. In the following eighteen days, Tahrir Square became the second home of many Egyptians, and something interesting happened: During the eighteen days of occupying Tahrir Square, Egyptians told of no harassment of women, no religious divides, cooperation across the usual class divides, trust in strangers, spontaneous organizations of pharmacies, medical aid, kindergarten, et cetera (for a number of participant accounts see Aswat Masriya 2011; Rashed and El Azzazi 2011; Shokr 2011), things that were truly extraordinary in Egyptian society. Several scholars point to the eighteen days of revolution at Tahrir Square as an extraordinary time and place where imaginaries of another Egypt were possible (see, e.g., Gregory 2013; Rashed and El Azzazi 2011; Sabea 2012; Shokr 2011). Something had changed during these days – a new kind of life was imagined. In this chapter, I analyze central features of the new kind of life that was imagined during these eighteen days of revolution at Tahrir Square. I do so in two steps. In the first step, I characterize the new life that was imagined through the concept of imaginaries of the good life. In the second step, I discuss these revolutionary imaginaries of the good life through the perspective of modern forms of social order. The two steps are merged in this chapter. I will introduce

1 I have used two different ways of transliteration in this chapter. I have transliterated terms with a clear online presence as they are typically transliterated on Google, Wikipedia, or other relevant webpages, e.g. homepages. I have done so because there seems to be some sort of consensus on the transliteration of many terms related to the Egyptian Revolution. Following the ijmes transliteration chart would complicate the interested reader’s attempts to find additional material in English. For terms that do not have a clear online presence, I have used the ijmes guidelines generally employed in this book.

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the conceptual and theoretical background for these two steps in the next section.2 2

Conceptual and Theoretical Background

In the first step, I aim at capturing the dreams of a new Egypt, a new kind of society, and a new kind of life as they were expressed during the eighteen days of revolution at Tahrir Square in 2011. I call these imaginaries of the good life. By imaginaries of the good life, I do not mean lofty dreams or non-existent utopian ideals described in literature or in academic books. On the contrary, I  mean guiding ideals that are to various degrees practiced in everyday life. I define imaginaries of the good life as understandings and practices of a desirable social order and the individual’s place therein. The term “imaginaries” covers both understandings and practices, i.e. words, images, actions, artifacts, buildings, other symbols – everything that communicates. Imaginaries are thus dispersed throughout a given social order.3 The term “social order” refers to collective arrangements that are explicitly or implicitly agreed upon within a given group of individuals. Social order thus refers to structures that are understood as largely outside of the individual’s control. In this chapter, I am particularly interested in the ordering of human relations, and thus in specific imaginaries of “the individual’s place therein.” The individual’s place within a given social order is expressed in categorizations of individuals, such as ordinary Egyptians and Mubarak, or majority and minority, and in expectations of such categories of individuals. Finally, I describe the social order as “desirable,” meaning that it is positively evaluated, considered good, worth striving for, et cetera. It is explicitly or implicitly juxtaposed with what is negatively evaluated, but it does not entail a specific definition. Rather, it is an empty template to

2 This chapter is based on my Danish essay, which appeared in the Tidsskrift for Islamforskning 11(1), 2017. The structure and overall points are the same, but the analysis has been reworked substantially, the sources have been expanded, and theoretical aspects have been elaborated. See Mex-Jørgensen (2017). 3 My take on the term “imaginaries” is obviously inspired by Charles Taylor’s concept of “modern social imaginaries.” In particular, I have borrowed two things from him. One the one hand, I have borrowed the idea that imaginaries consist of both understandings and practices, i.e. not only words in texts. On the other hand – and as a consequence – I have borrowed the idea that imaginaries are dispersed throughout a given social order and that they are to be found not mainly in theoretical texts, but in popular practices and understandings in ordinary life (Taylor 2004).

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be filled out by those imagining a specific social order and the individual’s place therein. Practically speaking, I go about using the concept of imaginaries of the good life by looking for evaluations and understandings or practices connected to these evaluations. That is, first, I look for evaluative words like “good,” “joy,” “pride,” “bad,” “sad,” and “humiliating.” In this way, I find the “good” in the imaginaries of the good life. And, second, I look for words and images connected to these evaluations, for instance the word “Egypt” or images of action, power, and doing connected to the evaluative word “pride.” More specifically, I look for what these words and images can tell us about the imagined social order and the individual’s place therein. This approach enables me to characterize the understanding of the bad life before the revolution and the imaginaries of the good life during the revolution. In the second step, and as a way of putting my findings in perspective, I discuss the kind of imaginaries of the good life that were constructed during the revolution through the perspective of theories of modernity. To do so, I use the distinction between three forms of modern social order presented by Jung in the Introduction of this book. I use the distinction as a heuristic tool, meaning that I do not “test” whether the good life imagined at Tahrir Square fits either of these three forms of social order. Rather, I use it as a theoretical discussant. That is, I see the three forms of modern social order as expressing some schematized ideas about social order that are globally shared in modern times. In my theoretical perspective, such schematized ideas are always interpreted locally, i.e. they are legitimized in local terms or they are adapted to fit a given local context. I am thus not proponing a theoretical perspective that equals globally shared ideas to standardization or Westernization. Rather, I am proponing a theoretical perspective that enables me to discuss the interplay between modern globally shared ideas and local interpretations of these. The three forms of social order are restricted liberal modernity, organized modernity, and extended liberal modernity. My understanding of these three modern forms of social order is inspired by the theoretical framework proponed by Jung alone or in collaboration with other scholars (Jung 2017a, 2017b; Jung et al. 2014; Jung and Sinclair 2014, 2015). However, my rendition of these three forms of social order is interpreted through an explicit focus on the notion of agency. I focus on the notion of agency because it is a consistent theme in my sources. I am therefore combining a reading of Jung et al. (in particular Jung et al. 2014: 12–15 and 20–24; Jung and Sinclair 2015: 25–31) with a reading of Meyer and Jepperson’s article about agency as a specifically modern feature (Meyer and Jepperson 2000). Meyer and Jepperson define agency as “the cultural construction of the capacity and authority to act for [oneself]” (Meyer

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and Jepperson 2000: 105), and they argue that ascribing agency to human beings is a specifically modern feature. In earlier times, agency was ascribed to nature or God, but not to human beings (Meyer and Jepperson 2000: 102–106). Meyer and Jepperson’s perspective is constructivist (Meyer and Jepperson 2000: 101, note one), i.e. they are not interested in whether or not humans “truly” hold agency, but in how agency is constructed as belonging to certain entities in different times. Consequently, the understanding of agency differs from one form of social order to another. In restricted liberal modernity, agency is ascribed to a minority or an elite. Only the minority or the elite is considered modern. Social inequalities are huge, and the way the elite lives differs radically from the way the masses live. This social order is thus characterized by a sharp distinction between minority and majority. The minority or the elite is considered modern, rational, enlightened, and essentially different from the majority. In contrast, the majority is considered uncivilized, irrational, (too) emotional, wild, etcetera (Wagner 2002: 38–42). Agency is therefore only ascribed to individuals of the minority who are expected to control, steer, tame, confine, or manage the irrational and non-modern masses. In organized modernity, agency is ascribed mainly to the collective. Here, the distinction between the minority and the majority is partially dissolved because of a “collectively shared belief in linear progress, instrumental rationality and the management of society” (Jung et al. 2014: 14). That is, all individuals share the same kind of rationality. The minority is no longer considered essentially different from the majority as in restricted liberal modernity but is seen as an avant-garde that simply have more progressive ideas, are particularly charismatic, or in other ways are good at leading and steering the collective. The majority is thus let into the modern sphere, but as a homogenous, group-oriented mass. This homogenous, group-oriented mass is ascribed collective agency under the rational guidance of the avant-gardist minority. In extended liberal modernity, agency is ascribed to everybody on an equal footing. This form of social order is centered around self-reliant individuals. Any distinction between minority and majority is gone, and individual agency is now ascribed to everybody on an equal footing. All individuals are considered rational and thus capable of steering their own lives, but they are not seen as sharing the same kind of rationality. Hence, the idea of homogenous groups does not make sense. Social practices are pluralized and individualized, and an emphasis is placed on structures that provide everybody with the opportunity to express themselves as individuals. The rest of the chapter is structured as follows. In the next section, “The bad life before the revolution: A humiliating and passive life,” I characterize how

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life before the revolution is evaluated and described in my sources. This understanding of life before the revolution forms the background against which the revolutionary imaginaries of the good life should be understood. In the section thereafter, “Imaginaries of the good life during the revolution: A proud and active life,” I characterize how life during the revolution is evaluated and described. In both of these two sections, I discuss the findings through my rendition of the three forms of modern social order with a particular emphasis on agency. Finally, I draw some tentative conclusions in the section, “The Egyptian Revolution: Constructing a modern social order.” Before moving on to the analysis, I will briefly present the empirical data I have used. Because imaginaries of the good life are dispersed throughout a given social order, I focus on popular sources, i.e. sources produced or consumed by a broad spectrum of individuals, in this case by individuals at Tahrir Square during the eighteen days of revolution. Therefore, my empirical data consist of a wide variety of slogans, two prominent songs, selected posts with images from the influential Arabic Facebook Page “We Are All Khaled Said,” and selected tweets, poems, and memoirs. 3

The Bad Life Before the Revolution: A Humiliating and Passive Life

In this section, I show how life before the revolution is evaluated as humiliating and how this humiliation is related to a social order with a sharp distinction between majority and minority and in which individuals of the majority are forced into passivity or deprived of the ability to steer their own lives. Life before the revolution is often described as humiliating, defined as a feeling of being reduced to a lower position (Merriam-Webster 2018, entry “humiliate”). Humiliation is described either by the use of words specifically related to humiliation or through descriptions of situations implicitly evaluated as humiliating. Take, for example, these two slogans from the days of revolution: Mubarak M: Mahāna (humiliation) B: Baṭāla (unemployment) A: ʾIkhtilās4 (embezzlement) R: Rashwa (bribery) K: Kūsa (“squash,” a metaphor for nepotistic connections) 4 In Arabic, the long vowel “a” in Mubarak can also be used as an “I” at the beginning of a word.

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(ThePalestinianNetworkForDialogue 2011b, my translation)5 Enough insults (ʾihāna)

khalil 2011: 87, my translation

In these two slogans, the words “mahāna,” humiliation or degradation, and “ʾihāna,” insult, both point to a life in humiliation. The first slogan likens the letters in the name Mubarak to the malaises of his rule. Among these malaises are mahāna, humiliation. The second slogan simply states that there have been enough ʾihāna, insults, also referring to the time before the revolution. The words mahāna and ʾihāna are closely related in Arabic. They are both derived from the verb hān, meaning “to insult, humiliate, debase” (Badawi and Hinds 1986: 917). Seen from a grammatical point of view, ʾihāna means “causing” mahāna, i.e. the kind of insults that are described by the word ʾihāna cause humiliation or degradation. Both slogans thus describe life before the revolution as a life in humiliation. In another slogan, a man uses yet another word referring to humiliation, namely ʾittihān, to be humiliated. In Arabic, all of the lines rhyme, thus giving the slogan a poetic air: I am not a poor soul I am a human being I do not want to be humiliated I want to live in peace and quiet Is that so much to ask for, man?

Egyptianhumour.blogspot.com 2011a, my translation

Here, the man characterizes life before the revolution, a life that he protests against, by the words “poor soul” and “to be humiliated.” Grammatically, the word ʾittihān is closely related to mahāna and ʾihāna, the two words used in the two slogans above. ʾIttihān is the passive version of the verb hān, i.e. to be humiliated (by someone else). It brings attention to the association between humiliation and being treated as an object or as someone that things are done to. That is to say, in this slogan, it is clear that the writer of the slogan is left passive in this humiliation. It is someone or something else who is humiliating him. In the end, he scornfully asks Mubarak, i.e. “man,” if that is so much to ask for, thus, on the one hand, implying that Mubarak is responsible 5 The two short vowels “u” and “a” in Mubarak are not considered proper letters in Arabic and are therefore usually not written. Hence, only the letters “M,” “b,” “a,” “r,” and “k” figure in this rendition of what “Mubarak” means. The image is unfortunately no longer available online.

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for the humiliation, and on the other hand, implying that these demands are humble. Together, these three slogans show that humiliation is related to life before the revolution and to Mubarak. In the last slogan, we also get a few indications of what is entailed by humiliation, e.g. being treated as an object. Other slogans further elaborate on why life before the revolution was evaluated as humiliating. In an uncharacteristically long slogan, a man tells us what life before the revolution was like: Why, oh president, have we had enough? Did anybody from the police insult you or beat you or give you electric shocks? Did your son die in a public hospital because of neglect? Did you not have money for private tutoring for your offspring? Can you not find a job, and are now sitting in a café because you do not have any connections? Is your son not able to save up the last two cents to buy an apartment and get married? Why have we had enough, oh president? Egyptianhumour.blogspot.com 2011b, my translation

In this slogan, the man addresses the president and asks him rhetorically why “we” have had enough. Because “we” is juxtaposed with “president” and because of the subsequent descriptions of ordinary life situations in Egypt, “we” seems to refer to ordinary Egyptians at large. The man then asks five more questions. In all the questions, there is an implicit “like it happens to us,” for example “Did anybody from the police insult you or beat you or give you electric shocks, like it happens to us?” These questions are thus at the same time rhetorical questions to Mubarak and descriptions of the lives of ordinary Egyptians before the revolution. A distinction between Mubarak and ordinary Egyptians, i.e. between minority and majority, is thus set up. In the question about the police, the man uses the word ʾahāna, which I have translated as “insult.” This is yet another word derived from the verb hān, but in this case with the same meaning as hān, i.e. to humiliate, insult, or debase. In this sentence, living in humiliation is thus related specifically to the police’s mistreatment of ordinary Egyptians. Apart from the sentence about the police, the man describes a horrible public health system, a bad and expensive education system, unemployment due to the lack of connections, low wages, and the impossibility of marriage without money. The man ends his address to the president by, rather scornfully, repeating the first question, “Why have we had enough, oh president?” The problems are all presented as something that a single individual cannot do anything about, i.e. the slogan points to structural problems and to how the

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social order is constituted. In this social order, the majority of Egyptians simply have to accept a life in which they struggle to make ends meet and in which the regime treats their grievances with contempt, either by setting up impossible structures or by threatening with the police. This is the kind of life that is evaluated as humiliating. On the We Are All Khaled Said Facebook Page, a post describes some of the same grievances, but evaluates these not by words pointing directly to humiliation, but by the absence of, among other things, dignity: “Why do people have to work and earn [only] 250 or 350 pounds [i.e. per month]? Why do you have to live without dignity, freedom, and democracy? Why do you have to live afraid of the riot police and terrified of the state security and deprived of your rights?” (KhaledSaidFacebookPage 2011c, my translation). In this post, the questions of low wages and fear of the police’s brutal treatment of Egyptians come up again. The description of life before the revolution implicit in these questions resembles the description in the previous slogan, and I therefore argue that they are talking about “the same thing,” i.e. a humiliating life for the majority of the Egyptians. But in this post, the writer does not use the word “humiliation” to evaluate life before the revolution. Instead, he evaluates it by pointing to what is lacking, namely dignity, freedom, democracy, and rights. These terms, and perhaps in particular the term “dignity” may thus stand in juxtaposition with humiliation. The term “dignity” is commonly related to the Arab Revolutions (Aleya-Sghaier 2012; Clarke 2013; Eyadat 2012), and in academic texts, humiliation and dignity are indeed often juxtaposed (Statman 2000: 523). In another post, a life in humiliation is characterized by a description of the feelings and behavior that were intimately related to life before the revolution: “[…] the time of fear, the time of ‘walking beside the wall,’ the time of being satisfied with the crumbs of the rich man’s table and the time where we believed we were a worthless people […]” (KhaledSaidFacebookPage 2011a, my quotation marks and translation). In this post, life before the revolution is described as a life in fear, “walking beside the wall,” accepting what is given to you, and believing that you are not worth more than that anyway, a humiliating life in submission. And once again, a distinction is set up between the minority and the majority. The expression “walking beside the wall” is particularly interesting. It is a reference to a famous Egyptian proverb. The proverb comes from a story about a wall built around Cairo at the time of the Fatimids. The wall segregated the ruling elite and its closest circle from ordinary people. The proverb proposes that ordinary Egyptians should walk beside the wall, not minding what is going on behind the wall, and basically just staying away from the ruling elite, its wealth, and its power. If you do not do so, severe punishment awaits you (Jumʿa 2018).

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The proverb thus speaks of the relationship between the ruler and the ruled or between the minority and majority, a relationship built on fear and marked by a need to accept a huge divide. By using the expression “walking beside the wall,” the post thus draws on a local and historically rooted experience with what life in Egypt was like before the revolution. Themes of being made passive and treated as objects are thus inherent in the social order described in this and other posts. This happens forcefully at the hands of the police, by self-imposed restrictions on behavior like “walking beside the wall,” and by structures made to uphold a social order in which the majority of individuals should not act on their own. One post on the Facebook Page “We Are All Khaled Said” states the consequences of such a social order particularly well: “People have had their lives planned for 50 years, oh President, and now we do not even know how to pick up trash from the streets of Cairo […] I beg you, enough, oh President” (KhaledSaidFacebookPage 2011b, my translation). The post describes a causal relation between Egyptians having had their lives planned and their inability to pick up trash from the street: Egyptians have become humiliated, passive objects exactly because they have been treated as such. What all of these excerpts from sources have in common are descriptions of a social order in which a sharp distinction between the minority and majority is set up and in which the lives of the majority are marked by passivity, objectification, and lack of ability to act. This kind of life is evaluated as humiliating. This understanding of the majority resembles the understanding of the majority in restricted liberal modernity, where only the minority or the elite is considered modern. The majority is considered unmodern and, hence, too irrational, wild, and emotional to know what is best for themselves. In this perspective, it makes perfect sense for the minority to lead and steer the majority. Such an understanding of the majority and of the relationship between minority and majority is not foreign to local Egyptian experiences. At the end of the nineteenth century, Muhammed Abduh (1849–1905), an influential Egyptian reformist, proposed a social order resembling restricted liberal modernity. In this social order, liberal elements “were restricted to a well-educated bourgeois class which should rule over a non-autonomous population” (Jung and Sinclair 2015: 32), i.e. a distinction was set up between an enlightened minority and an unmodern and irrational mass. And until the twentieth century, the relation between ruler and the ruled was perceived as equivalent to the relationship between a shepherd and his flock of sheep. In this perspective, the ruler has a duty to treat the people justly, but it is a duty of the ruler and not a right of the people (Ayalon 1987, chapter three).

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Even during the revolution, an understanding of the people as a flock to be led was proponed by the newly appointed vice president Omar Sulaiman (1936–2012). In a TV interview, he stated that Egyptians were not cultured enough to have democracy (Onlinedocument 2011, 4:46 min), thus preserving and proponing a centuries-old understanding of Egyptians as uncivilized, irrational, and incapable of controlling themselves. Implicitly, a strong leader who knows what is best for the masses was needed. What was rejected during the revolution was therefore not just an undesirable distinction between a majority and a minority constructed during the reign of Mubarak. On the contrary, it was a rejection of a specific kind of social order resembling restricted liberal modernity and rooted in a long historical experience in Egypt. 4

Imaginaries of the Good Life During the Revolution: A Proud and Active Life

Life during the revolution is characterized in radically different terms. Even though sources tell about life during the revolution, I argue that their characterizations can also be seen as dreams of a future Egypt after the revolution. This is so because life at Tahrir Square during the revolution is repeatedly described as an ideal, e.g. by the use of expressions like “Tahrir Square: The ideal city” (Yusuf 2011: 83, my translation), “Tahrir Square. Republic of possible dreams” (ThePopularCommitteeToDefendTheRevolution 2011), “This is the kind of society I want to live in” (Shokr 2011: 16), “A symbol of the Egyptian people’s aspirations and a functioning social universe” (Rashed and El Azzazi 2011: 22). Life during the revolution can thus be seen as imaginaries of the good life. In this section, I show how the feeling of humiliation, so dominant in the descriptions of life before the revolution, was replaced by pride in being Egyptian during the revolution. I show that this pride is related to notions of humans being capable of doing things, taking charge, and changing things, on both a collective and individual level, and I characterize important features of these two levels. In the descriptions of life during the revolution, pride is a commonly conveyed feeling. In the present chapter, pride is defined as “a feeling of pleasure and satisfaction that you get because you or people connected with you have done or got something good” (CambridgeDictionary 2018, entry “Pride”). In the sources from the revolution, pride is conveyed in different ways. It is conveyed by the use of specific words, by metaphors of being proud, or by descriptions

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of something to be proud of. The following two slogans and a Facebook post represent these three ways of expressing pride: Now I am proud to be Egyptian.

ThePalestinianNetworkForDialogue 2011c, my translation6

Raise your head up high, you are Egyptian. assaf et al. 2011: 82, translation as given

Seriously, the Egyptian youth and the Facebook youth have made the most beautiful heroic tale in modern Egyptian history. KhaledSaidFacebookPage 2011g, my translation

In all of these examples, pride is coupled with being Egyptian. This is often so (see also, for example, Assaf et al. 2011: 100; Khalil 2011: front cover). In the first of the examples, the word “to be proud” is used directly. By starting the sentence with the word “now,” the slogan implicitly makes a distinction between before and during the revolution, relating pride specifically to this change. In the next example, the metaphor of raising your head as a way of showing pride is used. According to some sources, this slogan was a central slogan during the eighteen days of revolution at Tahrir Square (Assaf et al. 2011: 82; Onodera 2011: 15). A similar phrase is employed in a patriotic song from 2006, “Say it as loud as you can, and raise your head up high, I’m Egyptian, and my father is Egyptian” (Bassiouney 2013: 169). Revolutionary expressions about raising your head thus draw on preexisting notions of patriotism but relate such pride in being Egyptian specifically to the revolution. In the third example, the post praises the Egyptian youth and the so-called Facebook youth. The post was uploaded on 13 February, and I therefore interpret “the most beautiful heroic tale” as the tale of the eighteen days of revolution that culminated in Mubarak’s resignation on 11 February. Because Wael Ghonim (born 1980), the main administrator of the Facebook Page “We Are All Khaled Said” is himself young, Egyptian, and using Facebook, i.e. part of this Egyptian Facebook youth, I see not only praise, but also pride in this post. Summing up on these three examples, pride is related to the revolution and to being Egyptian. More elaborated descriptions tell us that pride in being Egyptian is in particular related to words about humans acting, taking charge, and changing things, or in other words, to agency. Cairokee (lead singer born 1983), an Egyptian band renowned for their song about the revolution, “Voice 6 The image is unfortunately no longer available online.

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of Freedom,” tells about this linkage between pride and humans capable of acting. “Voice of Freedom” was produced in collaboration with Hany Adel (born 1976) from another popular band, Wust El-Balad, and originally released as a music video on YouTube 10 February 2011, the day before Mubarak stepped down. Here is the second verse: We raised our heads to the sky, and hunger did not matter anymore The most important thing is our rights, and to write our history with our blood. cairokee 2011, my translation

In the first line of the song, the metaphor of raising one’s head as an expression of pride is employed again. For the purpose of this chapter, the linkage between pride in line one and writing history with blood in line four is p ­ articularly interesting. In line four, Cairokee constructs the “we,” the Egyptians, as capable of writing their own history, i.e. as capable of taking charge and changing things. The pride in writing their own history is a break with the construction of a humiliated and passive “we,” and it is simultaneously an attempt at replacing humiliation and passivity with pride in humans capable of acting. Egyptians are even willing to take responsibility for writing their own history by the ultimate sacrifice, “our blood.” In these lines, it is “we,” i.e. Egyptians as a collective, who are ascribed agency. Looking at the images from the music video, the collective proposed in the song is not characterized as a homogenous mass as in organized modernity, but as a diverse yet unified group. The video shows men, women, rich, poor, individuals in traditional garments and so-called modern clothes, Muslims, Christians, veiled, unveiled, et cetera. They are thus not united because of their similarities. Such an understanding of the Egyptians as a people is also proponed in other sources, for example in images showing a cross and a crescent together as a symbol of unity between Christians and Muslims (e.g. Assaf et al. 2011: 76; Gröndahl and Mohyeldin 2011: front cover) and in enthusiastic descriptions of different categories of individuals present at Tahrir Square (Soueif 2014: 45; Yusuf 2011: 64–65). These differences are positively evaluated. A pluralistic social order, as in restricted liberal modernity, is thus proposed as an ideal. But at the same time, the individuals of this pluralistic social order are capable of acting together collectively. Hence, notions of collective agency, as in organized modernity, are simultaneously at play here. In another famous song from the revolution, a strong “we” capable of doing and changing things is also proposed. Here, the unspecified character of the “we” and the use of the collective noun “the people” present the collective

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in much more homogenous terms. The song “Leave” by the young musician Ramy Essam (born 1987) is composed of slogans and chants he heard at Tahrir Square. The entire song consists of the following lines: All of us, one hand, demand one thing Leave, leave, leave, leave Down, down with Hosny Mubarak The people want to overthrow the regime He shall go, we will not go. khalid 2011, my translation

In this song, a collective is constructed through the use of the words “we” and “people.” In the first line, the collective is constructed as united, and in the subsequent lines, it is constructed as steadfast and determined, as the rest of the song basically repeats the same message in different ways: Leave! Because of the repeated steadfastness and determination, the song gives the impression that it is already a fact that Mubarak will leave. It is inevitable. As in Cairokee’s “Voice of Freedom” mentioned before, the collective is constructed as highly capable of acting, but this time more as a homogenous mass. Other slogans also construct Egyptians as a strong collective capable of acting, taking charge, and changing things (e.g. Assaf et al. 2011: 32, 77; Khalil 2011: 52). And likewise, the famous cleaning of the square points to the construction of humans capable of acting and taking responsibility for changing things (see Winegar 2011 for an analysis of the cleaning of the square). In these sources, Egyptians are thus constructed as a collective capable of acting and changing things. This is presented as something to be proud of. As already mentioned, the idea of collective agency is dominant in organized modernity. Collective agency in organized modernity is based on the idea of a shared rationality and the concomitant notion of the majority as a homogenous and group-oriented mass. During the revolution, the construction of Egyptians as an agentic collective draws on elements of organized modernity: in both the imaginaries of the good life and in organized modernity, the majority is considered capable of enacting agency as a united and strong collective. However, there are also important differences. First, in organized modernity, collective agency is based on the idea of a homogenous, group-oriented mass, but during the revolution, collective agency was based on the idea of a diverse yet unified people. Such an understanding of Egyptians as diverse yet unified was common in Egyptian public discourse before the revolution, for instance in patriot songs (Bassiourney 2013: 150, 165). Likewise, Mubarak made use of an understanding of the people as an inclusive community in his speech from 1 February 2011, that is to say, during the days of revolution

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(Salama­ 2014: 138–139). In the imaginaries of the good life from the revolution, the existing understanding of the people diverse yet unified was continued. And second, in organized modernity, the mass is imagined as led by an avantgardist elite, but during the revolution, the collective is imagined as a leaderless collective capable of leading itself – a “leaderful” collective. The term leaderful refers to the idea that each individual steers him- or herself in a responsible way and contributes with what his or her capabilities allow in a specific situation (see Chalcraft 2012 for a discussion of the Egyptian Revolution as leaderful). Agency is thus ascribed to all individuals on an equal footing. Understanding the Egyptian Revolution as leaderful means that no single individual is needed to spearhead the revolution. Consequently, even when a prominent opposition figure like Mohamed ElBaradei (born 1942) declared his willingness to lead the transition (Memmott 2011), it was rejected, for instance on Twitter: Screw this. We don’t need leaders! “Al Arabiya: Elbaradei says ready ‘to lead the transition’ in Egypt http://bit.ly/dWMcwO #jan25. One of the best things about this uprising is that it’s from and for the people, not the parties, not ElBaradei. Keep it that way. #jan25. #jan25 but worth noting that the protesters aren’t begging for ElBaradei to come save them. This happened without him.” Idle and Nunns 2011: 54, 56, originally in English

The tweets clearly indicate that this is a leaderless or leaderful collective. By rejecting any form of leadership, they insist that the collective is capable of leading itself, i.e. it is leaderful. The tweets will not accept any notion of an avant-garde leading the collective, as in organized modernity. Instead, the protesters at Tahrir Square are capable of leading themselves. The idea of the leaderful collective in the imaginaries of the good life from the revolution ties together collective and individual agency in a distinct local interpretation: The leaderful collective can only enact collective agency without a formal leadership because each individual is ascribed individual agency, a feature of extended liberal modernity, and because all individuals share the same kind of rationality, a feature of organized modernity. That is, the idea of the leaderful collective combines notions from extended liberal modernity with notions from organized modernity, perhaps substantiated with locally rooted fears of ending up with yet another so-called strong man like Mubarak. However, not only notions of collective agency, but also notions of individual agency are emphasized and taken pride in. In the following post from the We

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Are All Khaled Said Facebook Page, a young man is portrayed in an image. He is standing face-to-face with an armored car. One can only see his back. The car is splashing water out of a water cannon, but without a lot of intensity, and it does not hit him. Behind the car, several lines of riot police, dressed in black, with helmets and shields, are standing or moving forward. The young man in front of the car is standing with his hands on his hips and both feet on the ground, as if he has no intention of moving. The text accompanying the image says: I saw him myself, and I salute him and kiss him, and I say that I am proud that you are my Egyptian brother, oh you, one of the best soldiers on earth. As a further explanation, there is a video showing that the young man stopped in front of the armored car while it was driving at medium speed. He forced them to stop and prevented them from going any further. He was willing to sacrifice his life in the most enviable way. This is a young Egyptian man. KhaledSaidFacebookPage 2011d, my translation

The post expresses pride in the young man. It praises the young man’s brave and successful attempt to stop the police by telling us that the young man single-handedly “forced,” “prevented,” and was willing to “sacrifice his life.” These words show that the young man is constructed as capable of acting, even in the face of the superior force of an armored car and several lines of police officers. And through the evaluations inherent in words like “proud,” “one of the best soldiers on earth,” and “most enviable way,” we learn that this kind of individual is an ideal for others to follow. The phrase “one of the best soldiers on earth” stands out in this Facebook post. It refers to a hadith or a prophetic saying, “You shall conquer Egypt, and when you have done so, take many soldiers, for these are the best soldiers on earth” (Mishʿal 2015). This hadith is weak, i.e. according to the way hadiths are usually verified, it probably cannot be attributed to the Prophet Muhammed. Hence, the reference to this hadith does not work as a way of legitimizing the young man’s actions in strictly Islamic terms. Rather, the reference works as a way of legitimizing the young man’s action in local popular-religious terms. Furthermore, while the young man is presented as a soldier, he is a soldier of a quite unusual kind, namely a peaceful soldier without arms. The presentation of the young man is thus not a presentation of a traditional soldier hero, for example like William Wallace, but a presentation of a modern peaceful icon like the socalled tank man at Tiananmen Square in China in 1989. The presentation thus draws on a peaceful, modern understanding of how to protest against a superior force.

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Indeed, an important revolutionary chant was “peaceful, peaceful” (Prince 2014: 19, 21). The post concludes that “this is a young Egyptian man,” thus proposing the young man’s actions as an ideal to follow for other young Egyptian men. On the We Are All Khaled Said Facebook Page, similar posts of young men standing up against the police also show a desire to construct the individual as capable of changing things by standing up to superior force without arms (KhaledSaidFacebookPage 2011e, 2011f, 2011h, 2011i). The ideal of the individual capable of acting and changing things is also visible in a line from a poem written by Abdel Rahman El-Abnudi (1938–2015). El-Abnudi was a wellknown and popular Egyptian poet, famous for criticizing Sadat’s and Mubarak’s regimes in his poetry (Radwan 2012, chapter five). During the revolution, he wrote a new poem, “The Square,” as a tribute to the revolutionaries at Tahrir Square during the revolution. One of the lines says: “In my blood, I am writing another life for my country” (Madeyemoody7 2011, my translation). The line tells us about an “I” who is actively “writing another life,” i.e. changing things for his or her country. The “I” writes this new life in blood, i.e. the person is willing to sacrifice his or her own life for the country. In this line, it is thus clear that it is an individual, not a collective, who is imagined as capable of acting and changing things. What is just as interesting as the line in itself is how widely the poem and this specific line have been distributed. The poem in its entirety was recited by the poet himself on 4 February 2011, on the popular TV show Al-Hayat Al-Youm and uploaded on YouTube the same day (Youm7.com 2011). It was also recited on the radio during the eighteen days of revolution (Prince 2014: 176). An excerpt of the poem, including this line, was incorporated in Cairokee’s “Voice of Freedom” word-by-word, as well as interpreted in the verse analyzed earlier in this chapter. The line has also been used as a slogan, photographed in at least two different contexts (Khalil 2011: 86; ThePalestinianNetworkForDialogue 2011a).7 The line is thus dispersed in various sources and presumably among various audiences, ranging from families in front of the TV to young Egyptians watching YouTube clips online and Egyptians participating in the revolution at Tahrir Square. The notion of the individual capable of writing another life for the country, i.e. changing things, was thus well known during the revolution. Other descriptions of individuals capable of acting came in images and stories telling about practices, for example the hundreds of images of individuals holding signs with individually composed slogans on them (see, e.g., Khalil 2011 for a collection of slogans), the story about how Ramy Essam as an ordinary individual simply went to Tahrir Square with 7 The image from The Palestinian Network for Dialogue is unfortunately no longer available online.

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his guitar and sang his way to fame (Lynskey 2011), or short texts praising individuals who brought supplies to Tahrir Square on their own initiative (e.g. ThePalestinianNetworkForDialogue 2011d).8 The notion that the individual is capable of acting, taking responsibility, and changing things constitutes an important part of the revolutionary imaginaries of the good life. In many ways, the revolutionary notion of individual agency draws on notions of individual agency from extended liberal modernity on a one-to-one basis. For example, structures providing all individuals with equal access to enact agency were set up, for example everybody was allowed to go on stage to perform or speak, people from all walks of life participated in the revolution at Tahrir Square, and slogans on signs were individually produced and in creative ways expressed the thoughts of each individual. The dissolving of the distinction between minority and majority is also prevalent in both the revolutionary imaginaries of the good life and in extended liberal modernity. And the praise of pluralism and the underlying notion of individuals as different are also prevalent in both the revolutionary imaginaries of the good life and in extended liberal modernity. With the exception of the sporadic use of religious language, for example the expression about “the best soldiers on earth,” the construction of individual agency in the imaginaries of the good life thus draws quite directly on the understanding of individual agency in extended liberal modernity. 5

The Egyptian Revolution: Constructing a Modern Social Order

In this chapter, I have shown how selected popular sources from the Egyptian Revolution characterize the new kind of life imagined during the eighteen days of revolution at Tahrir Square in 2011. And I have shown how these imaginaries of the good life revolve around questions of modernity. The sources show that a social order drawing on the dominant distinction between an elitist minority and a passive, inactive majority in restricted liberal modernity is rejected. Instead, a social order drawing on notions of collective agency from organized modernity and individual agency from extended liberal modernity is proposed. I have also shown how the revolutionary imaginaries of the good life on the one hand draw on these schematized and globally shared ideas about modern social order, but on the other hand, interpret such ideas locally, for example by using local and historically rooted expressions like “walking beside the wall” or “one of the best soldiers on earth.” I thus argue that the 8 The image is unfortunately no longer available online.

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imaginaries of the good life from the eighteen days of revolution in 2011 display thoroughly modern features in distinctively local interpretations. Arguing that something in the Arab world displays modern features is not a trivial argument, as leading social theorists such as Michel Foucault (1926–1984), Anthony Giddens (born 1938), Andreas Reckwitz (born 1970), Charles Taylor (born 1931), and Peter Wagner (unknown) did not tire of emphasizing that their respective concepts of modernity only had relevance with regard to the analysis of ‘Western’ societies as Jung points out in the introduction of this volume. That is, these theorists implicitly say that modernity exclusively belongs to the West, and that non-Western societies, like Egypt or the Arab world in general are not modern. Along with the other scholars in the Modern Muslim Subjectivities Project, I challenge this assumption. The present chapter thus supports the shared assumption of the Modern Muslim Subjectivities Project that concepts of modernity derived from a Western context can indeed tell us something about the non-Western world, in this case Egypt and the Egyptian Revolution. In my Ph.D. thesis I elaborate further on how the imaginaries of the good life from the Egyptian revolution were constructed, which elements were at the center of attention, and how these imaginaries can be seen as a struggle over modernity. References Aleya-Sghaier, Amira. 2012. “The Tunisian revolution: The revolution of dignity.” The Journal of the Middle East and Africa, 3(1): 18–45. Assaf, Sherif, Omar Attia, Rehab K. El Dalil, Timothy Kaldas, Zee Mo & Monir El-Shazly. 2011. The Road to Tahrir. Front Line Images by Six Young Egyptian Photographers. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press. Aswatmasriya. 2011. Sally Moore: Egyptian activist describes life in “Republic of Tahrir.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L-ue1e3x3c. Last accessed 10 January 2020. Ayalon, Ami. 1987. Language and change in the Arab Middle East: The evolution of modern Arabic political discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Badawi, El-Said, Martin Hinds. 1986. A Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic. Arabic–English. Beirut: Librairie du Liban. Bassiouney, Reem. 2015. Language and identity in modern Egypt. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Cairokee. 2011. Voice of Freedom/Sout El Horeya. https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=PAEt6QJJi-c. Last accessed 10 January 2020). Chalcraft, John. 2012. “Horizontalism in the Egyptian Revolutionary Process.” Middle East Report, (262): 6–11. Clarke, Killian. 2013. “Aish, huriyya, karama insaniyya: Framing and the 2011 Egyptian Uprising.” European Political Science, 12(2): 197–214.

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Egyptianhumour.Blogspot.Com. 2011a I am not a poor soul/ʾAna mish ghalbān. http:// egyptianhumour.blogspot.com/2011/02/revolution-jokes_8901.html. Last accessed 10 January 2020. Egyptianhumour.Blogspot.Com. 2011b. Why, oh President, did we get enough?/Līh yā rais fāḍ bīk al-kīl? http://egyptianhumour.blogspot.com/2011/02/revolution-jokes _1939.html. Last accessed 10 January 2020. Eyadat, Zaid. 2012. “The Arab revolutions of 2011: Revolutions of dignity.” Change and Opportunities in the Emerging Mediterranean: 3–19. Gregory, Derek. 2013. “Tahrir: Politics, publics and performances of space.” Middle East Critique, 22(3): 235–246. Gröndahl, Mia & Ayman Mohyeldin. 2011. Tahrir square: The heart of the Egyptian revolution. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press. Idle, Nadia, Alex Nunns (eds.). 2011. Tweets from Tahrir. New York: OR Books. Jumꜥa, Muṣṭafâ ꜤAṭiyya. 2018. Walking beside the wall/Al-sīr jānib al-ḥāʾiṭ. http://elsada. net/73094/. Last accessed 10 January 2020. Jung, Dietrich. 2017a. “The Formation of Modern Muslim Subjectivities: Research Project and Analytical Strategy.” Tidsskrift for Islamforskning, 11(1): 11–29. Jung, Dietrich. 2017b. Muslim History and Social Theory: A Global Sociology of Modernity, Palgrave Macmillan. Jung, Dietrich, Marie Juul Petersen & Sara Cathrine Lei Sparre. 2014. Politics of Modern Muslim Subjectivities. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Jung, Dietrich & Kirstine Sinclair. 2014. “Modernitet og moderniteter: Subjektivitet og social orden i konstruktionen af islamiske moderniteter.” Dansk Sociologi, 25(2): 51–75. Jung, Dietrich & Kirstine Sinclair. 2015. “Multiple modernities, modern subjectivities and social order: Unity and difference in the rise of Islamic modernities.” Thesis Eleven, 130(1): 22–42. Khaledsaidfacebookpage. 2011a. The copts formed a circle around the Muslims/Al-ʾaqbāt yawm al-khamīs waqafū sāꜤa al- ṣalā fī kardūn ḥawl al-muslimīn. Available on https://www.facebook.com/ElShaheeed/ in the photo album, “Jan25 Revolution,” 5 February 2011. Last accessed 3 January 2018. Khaledsaidfacebookpage. 2011b. Enough, oh president, I beg you/Kifāya yā rais ʾarjūk. Available on https://www.facebook.com/ElShaheeed/ in the photo album, “Timeline Photos,” 27 January 27 2011. Last accessed 2 March 2018. Khaledsaidfacebookpage. 2011c. General strike/ʾIḍrāb Ꜥām. Available on https://www. facebook.com/ElShaheeed/ in the photo album, “Timeline Photos,” 26 January 2011. Last accessed 2 March 2018. Khaledsaidfacebookpage. 2011d. I saw him myself/Nafsī ʾashūfuh. Available on https:// www.facebook.com/ElShaheeed/ in the photo album, “Timeline Photos,” 27 January 2011. Last accessed 2 March 2018.

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Khaledsaidfacebookpage. 2011e. Real men did not die in ’73/Al-riggāla mamātatsh fī 73. Available on https://www.facebook.com/ElShaheeed/ in the photo album, “Jan25 Revolution,” 27 January 2011. Last date of access 5 July 2018. Khaledsaidfacebookpage. 2011f. The role of the Egyptian security forces/Al-ʾamn al-miṣrī dawruh…. Available on https://www.facebook.com/ElShaheeed/ in the photo album, “Timeline Photos,” 26 January 2011. Last accessed 2 March 2018. Khaledsaidfacebookpage. 2011g. To the former regime/ʾIlā al-niẓām al-sābiq. Available on https://www.facebook.com/ElShaheeed/ in the photo album, “Jan25 Revolution,” 13 February 2011. Last accessed 5 July 2018. Khaledsaidfacebookpage. 2011h. Yesterday I discovered that Egypt is full of fearless men/ ʾIktashaft ʾimbāriḥ ʾinna miṣr milyāna rijjāla faꜤalan mish byakhāfū. Available on https://www.facebook.com/ElShaheeed/ in the photo album, “Timeline Photos,” 26 January 2011. Last accessed 2 March 2018. Khaledsaidfacebookpage. 2011i. Young people from the National Democratic Party’s electronic committee/Shabāb al-lajna al-ʾiliktrūniyya fī al-ḥizb al-waṭaniyy. Available on https://www.facebook.com/ElShaheeed/ in the photo album, “Jan25 Revolution,” 26 January 2011. Last accessed 5 July 2018. Khalid, Ibrahim. 2011. The song “Leave” from Tahrir Square – Ramy Essam/ʾUghniyya ʾirḥal min maidān al-taḥrīr – rāmiyy Ꜥiṣām. https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=wFTwl-cEnE4. Last accessed 10 January 2020. Khalil, Karima (ed.). 2011. Messages from Tahrir. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press. Lynskey, Dorian. 2011. Ramy Essam – the voice of the Egyptian uprising. https://www. theguardian.com/music/2011/jul/19/ramy-essam-egypt-uprising-interview. Last accessed 10 January 2020. Madeyemoody7. 2011. Abdel Rahman El-Abnudi’s latest masterpiece – The Square/ Ākhir rawāʾiꜤ Ꜥ abdu-l-raḥman al-ʾabnūdiyy – al-maidān. https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=kV_q7qlw1gU. Last accessed 10 January 2020. Memmott, Mark. 2011. ElBaradei Back in Egypt; Says It’s Time For A New Government. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/01/27/133275390/el-baradei-backin-egypt-says-its-time-for-a-new-government?t=1531219387380. Last accessed  10 January 2020. Meyer, John W. & Ronald L. Jepperson. 2000. “The ‘actors’ of modern society: The cultural construction of social agency.” Sociological theory, 18(1): 100–120. Mex-Jørgensen, Line. 2017. “Den egyptiske revolution 2011 og det gode liv – en analyse af slogans og sange” [The Egyptian Revolution 2011 and the good life – an analysis of slogans and songs]. Tidsskrift for Islamforskning, 11(1): 48–64. Mishꜥal, ṭalâl. 2015. Who are the best soldiers on earth?/Man hum khair junūd al-ʾarḍ. Available on https:mawdoo3.com. Can be found by googling the title in Arabic. Last accessed 10 January 2020.

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Onlinedocument. 2011. Omar Soliman with ABC News. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=XpOsU9YIRz0. Last accessed 10 January 2020. Onodera, Henri. 2011. “‘Raise Your Head High, You’re An Egyptian!’ Youth, Politics, and Citizen Journalism in Egypt.” Sociologica (3): 1–22. Prince, Mona. 2014. Revolution is My Name: An Egyptian Woman’s Diary from Eighteen Days in Tahrir. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press. Radwan, Noha. 2012. Egyptian Colloquial Poetry in the Modern Arabic Canon: New Readings of Shi‘r al-āmmiyya. New York: Springer. Rashed, Mohammed Abouelleil & Islam El Azzazi. 2011. “The Egyptian revolution: A participant’s account from Tahrir Square, January and February 2011.” Anthropology Today, 27(2): 22–27. Sabea, Hanan 2012. “A ‘Time out of Time’: Tahrir, the Political and the Imaginary in the context of the January 25th Revolution in Egypt.” Cultural Anthropology [Online]. Available from: https://culanth.org/fieldsights/a-time-out-of-time-tahrir-the-politi cal-and-the-imaginary-in-the-context-of-the-january-25th-revolution-in-egypt. Salama, Amir H.Y. 2014. “Whose face to be saved? Mubarak’s or Egypt’s? A pragma-semantic analysis.” Pragmatics and Society, 5(1). Shokr, Ahmad. 2011. “The 18 days of Tahrir.” Middle East Report, 258: 14–19. Soueif, Ahdaf. 2014. Cairo: My city, our revolution. New York: Anchor Books. Statman, Daniel. 2000. “Humiliation, dignity and self-respect.” Philosophical Psychology, 13(4): 523–540. Taylor, Charles. 2004. Modern Social Imaginaries, Durham: Duke University Press. Thepalestiniannetworkfordialogue. 2011a. In my blood, I am writing another life for my country/bāktub bidammī ḥayā tāniyya liʾawṭānī. https://www.paldf.net/forum/ showthread.php?t=742115. Last accessed 14 November 2017. Thepalestiniannetworkfordialogue. 2011b. Mubarak: M for…, B for…/Mubārak. M: mahāna, B: baṭāla…. https://www.paldf.net/forum/showthread.php?t=736055. Last accessed 14 November 2017. Thepalestiniannetworkfordialogue. 2011c. Now I am proud to be Egyptian/al-ʾān ʾaftakhir biʾannī miṣriyy. https://www.paldf.net/forum/showthread.php?t=742115, Last accessed 14 November 2017. Thepalestiniannetworkfordialogue. 2011d. This young man came yesterday from the Emirates/wahadhā shāb ʾatā ʾawwal ʾams min al-ʾimārāt https://www.paldf.net/ forum/showthread.php?t=736055. Last accessed 14 November 2017. ThePopularCommitteeToDefendTheRevolution. 2011. Children of the revolution... Those who take possession of the revolutionary ember/ʾabnāʾ al-thawra.. al-qābiḍūn Ꜥalā jamr al-thawra Wagner, Peter. 2002. A sociology of modernity: Liberty and discipline. London and New York: Routledge.

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Winegar, Jessica. 2011. Taking out the trash: Youth clean up Egypt after Mubarak, Middle East Report, (259): 32–35. Youm7.Com. 2011. Youm7 publishes Abdul Rahman El-Abnudi’s poem to the protesters at Tahrir, “The Square”/“Al-yawn al-sābiꜤ” yanshir qaṣīdat Ꜥabdu-l-raḥman al-ʾabnūdiyy lithuwwār al-taḥrīr “al-maidān” bikhaṭṭ yadihi. Available on www.youm7.com. Can be found by googling the title in Arabic script. Last accessed 10 January 2020. Yusuf, Abdu Al-Rahman. 2011. Diary of the revolution of the patient/Yawmiyyāt thawrat al-ṣabbār. Cairo: Dār Al-ShāꜤir li-l-nashr wa-l-tawzīꜤ.

Chapter 11

“When I’m on the Mic Everything is Ḥarām:” Narrative Identity and Modern Subjectivities Among American Rap Artists Philipp Bruckmayr 1

Introduction: Black Islam and the American Rap Scene

On the morning of 8 August 2015, the Brooklyn rap artist and record label owner Buckshot (Kenyatta Blake, b. 1974) received a phone call. The voice at the other end told him: “Yo, this nigger Ruck died, man!” It took Buckshot a few moments to fathom that his friend, the rapper and flagship of his Duck Down record label, Sean Price (Ruck, b. 1972), had passed away that night. The news about Price’s death spread fast in hip-hop circles around the globe. What was rarely acknowledged and, arguably, of little concern to most worldwide hiphop fans, however, was that Price had died as a Muslim, having adopted Islam in 2009. What is more, this was not an unusual choice, neither in his immediate surroundings, nor in his musical community. Indeed, right after the call Buckshot, himself a Muslim by birth, rushed to Price’s apartment to wash his dead body according to Muslim tradition together with the well-known Duck Down records rap duo Smif-N-Wessun, Tek (Tekomin Williams, b. 1973) and Steele (Darrell Yates).1 This anecdote from the tight-knit Brooklyn rap community around Buckshot, known as the Boot Camp Clik, is well reflective of wider developments within American hip-hop culture, which has been tied to Islam on several levels right from its very beginnings in the Bronx of the late 1970s. Accordingly, the present contribution will look at American rap artists2 and the wider hip-hop scene as a specific case of the formation of modern Muslim subjectivities in the West. It will be shown that, due to its initial formation within urban African-American communities, rap and hip-hop have been inter alia shaped and influenced by Islam in general and specifically by an array of 1 Vlad TV, “Buckshot on Cleaning Sean Price’s Dead Body According to Muslim Tradition,” 14 August 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KasbzPUux4w (last accessed 4 February 2018); personal communication with Steele, Linz (Austria), 1 June 2017. 2 Throughout this study, “American” will be used, unless indicated, in the exclusive sense of US-American.

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so-called “Black” Muslim movements3 and related Islamically infused discourses of Black Power. Even though the Islamic elements and references in American rap music are easily lost on non-Muslim listeners, the pervasiveness and popularity of rap since its large-scale commercial breakthrough in the mid-1990s have accounted for the fact that it in turn also has gradually impacted more widely on American Muslim subjectivities (Abdul Khabeer 2016). In this regard it will be argued that the discourse of Black Power or Black Liberation, albeit neither necessarily nor universally linked to Black Islam, represents an important discursive framework – resting on specific contextualized social imaginaries – in the construction of modern Muslim selfhoods in the West. Hip-hop music and culture must be regarded as an important carrier and locus of this discursive frame. Moreover, it represents a particular sub-discourse with global outreach and import, including embodied performative practices, which are otherwise hardly associated with Islam. Much to the contrary, American rappers, including Muslim ones, are rarely associated with overt piety, but rather with lifestyles perceived as antithetical to Islamic norms (e.g. substance abuse and promiscuity), which they embody and celebrate to varying degrees in their lyrics. Despite this, these rappers are at the same time consciously constructing Islamic identities and modern Muslim selfhoods and striving for individual spiritual progress and its corollary, the “good life.” As an Islamic discursive tradition which is both distinctly modern and Western, Black Islam represents a conundrum for those who, as Jung has observed (Jung 2016: 20), subscribe to the idea of a mutual exclusiveness of Western and Islamic modernities. It will be argued, with reference to Ricoeur, that American rap artists and hip-hop culture, as a specific arena for the expression of a distinctive, polyvocal Islamic discursive tradition primarily shaped by African Americans, are reflective of the construction of one’s self as a modern and Muslim subject through narrative identity formation, both on an individual and on a communal level. Closely tied to the liminal notions of the progressive rediscovery of the true self and ongoing spiritual development, transitions to Islam and/or from one form of Black Islam to another characterize the 3 The label “Black Muslims” was coined by the sociologist C. Eric Lincoln in his classic study of the Nation of Islam (1961) to differentiate its followers from what he perceived to be “orthodox” Muslims. Keeping in mind that the realm of Black Islam and Black Muslims is much more diverse and wider in scope than the Nation of Islam, and deliberately staying clear from any attempt to define what is orthodox or what is not, these labels will not be used in this sense in this study. Rather, Black Islam and Black Muslims here are referring to the variegated manifestations of a distinctively modern Islamic discursive tradition formulated and developed primarily by and among Black Americans in the twentieth century usa and to its exponents, respectively.

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b­ iographies of many rap artists. Against the background that Muslim rappers routinely tie together both enhanced “knowledge of self” (a classical trope of rap music originating with Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam) and continuous spiritual progress to the notion of the good life, this study seeks to analyze the intimate relationship between selfhood, narrative identity, and ethical aims. For Ricoeur, personal identity is neither fully stable nor self-transparent. Yet, it is not incoherent or self-alienated either. In contrast, it derives its coherence from the interpretation and narrativization of disparate events, practices, and guiding ideas of one’s life – however uncertain or temporary – to form a meaningful unity by way of emplotment into the narrative. “The narrative constructs the identity of the character, what can be called his or her narrative identity, in constructing that of the story told. It is the identity of the story that makes the identity of the character” (Ricoeur 1992: 147–148). Nevertheless, narrative identity formation is not fully autonomous either. Indeed, there are important constraining factors as “people are guided to act in certain ways, and not others, on the basis of the projections, expectations, and memories derived from a multiplicity but ultimately limited repertoire of available social, public, [religious] and cultural narratives” (Somers 1994: 614). The emplotment of a person or a community into a narrative, however, also serves to communicate one’s selfunderstanding vis-à-vis and to others in narrative form. In this way, narrativization also responds to what has been identified by Hervieu-Léger (1999) as one of the characteristics and dilemmas of distinctly modern individualized religiosity: the process of bricolage, i.e. the construction of an individual religious identity – outside of the narrower confines of inherited religiosity and institutionalized religion – by assembling elements of available religious and non-religious resources. Again, it is narrativization and the personal emplotment in narratives which gives coherence to the bricolage and communicates this coherence to others. Finally, such narratives, in which “the self seeks its identity on the scale of an entire life” (Ricoeur 1992: 115), are never ethically neutral. Indeed, “the idea of gathering together one’s life in the form of a narrative is destined to serve as the basis for the aim of a ‘good’ life” (Ricoeur 1992: 158) and is therefore rich in ethical anticipations. In other words, it anchors identity in purpose. In this respect, narrativity is as much about making sense of the self and describing it as about prescribing proper courses of action. Thus, the “narrative identity approach assumes that social action can only be intelligible if we recognize that people are guided to act by the structural and cultural relationships in which they are embedded and by the stories through which they constitute their identities” (Somers 1994: 624).

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The distinctly modern discourse of Islam as the original religion of African Americans, as articulated by a succession of Islamic movements in the usa, has provided a highly influential tool for the construction of a Black identity in clear contradistinction to white mainstream society and its projections of Blackness by deliberately cultivating previously devalued racial and religious differences.4 It will be argued that the distinctly modern Muslim subjectivities it has engendered, including among the seemingly unlikely group of consciously Muslim rap artists, are best understood through the lens of narrative identity formation. After sketching the genesis of Black Islam in its various manifestations, this contribution will scrutinize the organic relationship between hip-hop culture and Islam since the emergence of the former. Subsequently, it will analyze modes of narrative identity construction in the formation of modern Muslim subjectivities among American rappers, as reflected in extensively quoted interviews and rap lyrics. With a special focus on members of Buckshot’s Boot Camp Clik, it thereby traces the emergence of the notion of the Muslim as the epitome of Blackness. Furthermore, it problematizes the related, seemingly smooth transition from one expression of Black Islam to another, as mirrored in the biographies of numerous rappers, through a narrative identity approach. 2

The Different Paths of Black Islam

The emergence of Black Islam as a religious movement and a distinctively African-American Islamic discourse date back to the 1910s and 1920s. In 1913, Noble Drew Ali (Timothy Drew, 1886–1929) established what would become “the first mass religious movement in the history of Islam in America” (Turner 1997: 71–72), the Moorish Science Temple, in Newark, New Jersey. This organization already exhibited many of the characteristics of later Black Islam. It promoted an early form of African American nationalism, was urban-based and antiChristian. More importantly, it proclaimed that Black Americans had not only historically been Muslims, but also that Islam was their natural religion. Relying on this narrative and its own scripture, the Holy Koran of the Moorish S­ cience Temple, this first indigenous Black Muslim movement attracted 4 It shall be noted that the argument of Islam as the original religion of African Americans has initially been much more a historical and cultural than a theological one. It was only the growing influence of Sunni Islam that brought the classical Islamic view of man as Muslim by nature (fiṭra) to the debate, which has, however, remained of secondary importance to Black Muslim movements. Cf. Gobillot (2000).

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t­housands of followers until the 1940s (Turner 1997: 71–72, 90–108; Dannin 2002: 26–31). Black Islam and its discourse, however, also received a strong impetus from Islam’s first global missionary movement, the South Asian Ahmadiyya. From the early 1920s onwards, the Ahmadiyya disseminated the view that Islam had been the original religion of the African Americans and would moreover offer them an avenue toward equality and freedom (Curtis 2008: 53–58). It eventually attracted several thousands of African Americans to Islam, including several prominent jazz musicians, who further popularized Islam among Black audiences (McCloud 1995: 20; Turner 1997: 139–140), as is the case with rap artists today. Both the Moorish Science Temple and the local Ahmadiyya’s discourse and orientation toward African Americans laid the groundwork for the emergence of the most-widely known and until its split in the mid-1970s clearly dominant movement within Black Islam, the Nation of Islam (noi). Founded in Detroit in the early 1930s by Elijah Muhammad (Elijah Poole, 1897–1975), “arguably the most influential American Muslim in the twentieth century” (Berg 2009: 128), it built on many of the ideas developed by Noble Drew Ali and the Ahmadiyya, particularly the conviction that Islam was the original religion of African Americans. Combining a strong Black nationalist and segregationist impulse with a peculiar foundation myth picturing Blacks as the original people of the earth, eventually overpowered by the white race, which had been genetically engineered by a mad scientist, the noi advocated a clear break with white America and the slaveholders’ religion (i.e. Christianity) as part of Black moral and spiritual restoration. The noi reached its climax in the late 1950s and 1960s, when the charismatic orator Malcolm X (Malcolm Little, 1925–1965), director of the organization’s Temple Nr. 7 in Harlem, and heavy-weight champion Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay, 1942–2016), became its public voices and faces. Estimates about the noi’s membership at that time range from 20,000 to over 100,000 people (Curtis 2006: 4). After his death, Elijah Muhammad was succeeded by his son Warith Deen Muhammad (1933–2008), who moved the organization away from his father’s demonization of whites and his teachings about racial superiority. Moreover, Warith Deen brought the movement, eventually renamed American Society of Muslims, into line with Sunni doctrine and practice, however, without discarding his father’s teachings and narratives altogether. Staying true to the noi’s specific mission as a movement for the empowerment and salvation of African Americans, he presented its progression toward Sunni Islam as an inevitable evolution already foreseen by his father’s spiritual mentor, the shadowy figure of Fard Muhammad, who had disappeared in 1934 (Berg 2009: 129–133). Warith

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Deen’s turn toward Sunni Islam had been foreshadowed by the departure of Malcolm X from the noi in 1964. Indeed, his break with the organization, and his murder the following year, which was quickly attributed to the noi, inspired a number of conversions to Sunni Islam, including among small segments of the noi membership, former noi sympathizers, and particularly Black revolutionaries such as Eldridge Cleaver (1935–1968) and Dhoruba alMujahid bin Wahad (Richard Moore, b. 1944) (Cleaver [1968] 1992: 57–66; English 2011: 115–117).5 It was, however, only Warith Deen’s initiative which prompted a large-scale shift within Black Islam in this regard. By the beginning of the twentyfirst century, the primarily African-American members of his movement were estimated at close to 2.5 million (Cesari 2004: 196–197). Nevertheless, parts of the noi refused to go along with these changes. In 1977, Louis Farrakhan (Louis Walcott, b. 1933), an old associate of Elijah Muhammad, broke away from Warith Deen to reestablish the noi on the basis of its original doctrines. Even though numerically weaker than Warith Deen’s accommodationist branch, Farrakhan’s noi and its radical posture toward the white establishment attracted great numbers of urban African-American youths throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Indeed, as will be shown, it had a major impact on hip-hop culture and profited greatly from the rise of hip-hop music in return. In this capacity it was only truly rivalled by another, earlier noi offshoot, the Five Percent Nation of Islam (fpn), founded in 1964 in Harlem (New York) by Clarence 13X (Clarence Smith, 1928–1969), the “Father Allah” (Knight 2007; Nuruddin 1994)). Building on a distinctive interpretation of Fard Muhammad’s “120 LostFound Muslim Lessons,” the Five Percenters have developed complex numerological and linguistic theories, known as “Supreme Mathematics” and “Supreme Alphabets,” respectively. As far as its doctrines and practices are concerned, the fpn is surely the group within Black Islam that is the farthest from mainstream Sunni Islam. Conversely, at least on the surface, it takes Elijah Muhammad’s racial teachings even further than the noi. Describing Islam “as a natural way of life; not a religion,” and asserting that “Blackman is God and His proper name is Allah” (Curtis 2008: 121), the fpn divides humanity into three groups: an 85 percent majority believing in a mystery god; ten percent misleading and sucking the blood of the former group; and the five percent of Poor Righteous Teachers destined to struggle against the latter. Five Percenters do not engage in any formal religious service and reject the Islamic taboos on alcohol and drugs, albeit abiding by the prohibition on the consumption of pork. 5 Personal communication with Dhoruba bin Wahad, Vienna (Austria), 21 June 2018.

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Finally, it must be noted that several African-American Sunni movements, with varying degrees of association with the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, had established themselves in urban centers of the East coast even before the advent of Warith Deen Muhammad. In the early 1960s, the African-American Sunni Darul Islam movement (dar) was founded in Brooklyn. One of its earliest mosques was located in Brownsville, the home of Buckshot’s Boot Camp Clik. dar was almost exclusively oriented toward the African-American community, but exhibited strong animosity toward the noi, particularly following the murder of Malcolm X. With at least 31 mosque communities in major East coast cities and a strong presence in New York and Philadelphia, it represented America’s largest indigenous Sunni group until Warith Deen’s changes in the noi (Dannin 2002: 141–164; Curtis 1994). From around 1970 to the early 1990s, Brownsville was also the center of yet another Black Muslim movement. Characterized by messianic overtones and an explicit eclecticism drawing from Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, Isa Abd Allah al-Mahdi alias Dr. Malachi Z. York (Dwight York, b. 1945) established a community known, among other names, as the Ansaaru Allah. In Brownsville, York founded a commune for several hundred people, consisting of several apartment blocks on Bushwick Avenue. Whereas dar was highly critical of Elijah Muhammad’s noi, particularly because of its understanding of Islam, York preached the inferiority of the white race and also held on to other main noi teachings for some time. Later on, however, he wrote a highly influential denunciation of the noi and its mythical founding figure, Fard Muhammad (York n.d.). In addition, he claimed to be a descendent of the Sudanese Mahdi, identified the Sudan as the original homeland of the Ansaars, and stressed the importance of learning Arabic (Haddad and Smith 1993: 105–136; Palmer 2010: 45–70). Due to a general scarcity of documentation and the fact that all these movements and religious groups competed with each other and had frequently only emerged through internal splits, the available sources for the study of their history are often problematic. Indeed, scholarship had to rely mostly on autobiographical or otherwise biased accounts deriving either from within the respective movements or from their detractors, including competing groups and law enforcement agencies, regarding them at best as controversial (Larsson 2004). It will be shown, however, that the narratives of these accounts, no matter how problematic they may seem from a scholarly point of view, continue to shape Black Muslim subjectivities just as much as they continue to be appropriated on an individual level. Most movements making up the polyvocal modern Islamic tradition of Black Islam were either established or otherwise strongly implanted in New

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York, specifically in Harlem and Brooklyn, which would soon, together with the Bronx and Queens, become the cradles of a new, predominantly Black, youth culture: hip-hop. Hip-hop culture and music, including rap, came into being in the 1970s in the South Bronx. It began among mainly, but not exclusively, African-American youths in the form of so-called block parties and park jams within the “projects,” i.e. public housing developments established primarily for lower-income residents and recipients of public assistance. Early as well as later hot-spots of hip-hop and rap music in New York were in their great majority situated in parts of the South Bronx, East Brooklyn, and Queens, in which by the 1970s “public housing was booming but jobs had already fled” (Chang 2005: 11). This geography largely coincided with the strong points of Black Islam. Eventually, hip-hop and rap would serve as tools for the familiarization with Islam also among communities which had hitherto been much less exposed to it, and for its further spread throughout America. This state of affairs was not even substantially affected by the fact that it was “gangsta rap,” rather than earlier established forms emphasizing Black consciousness (i.e. “conscious rap”), which gained the greatest prominence in the latter half of the so-called “golden era” of rap music from 1986–1994. It did, however, affect the fortunes of particular movements of Black Islam within rap music, most notably the ascendancy of Five Percenter rap and the global dissemination of fpn discourse at the partial expense of Farrakhan’s noi (Miyakawa 2005). Conversely, in the aftermath of 9/11 and a temporary muting of Islamic references in lyrics, Black Islam made a remarkable comeback in rap music, once more precipitated by widespread disillusionment in the wake of renewed racialized police brutality and growing resentment and racial tensions toward the end of the Obama presidency and during that of his successor Donald Trump. Strikingly, this latter phase was characterized by a marked Sunnification of Islam in the rap scene. As will be shown, these shifts have not only manifested themselves in American rap at large, but also within the biographies of individual rappers. It is these instances, and the way they are framed, rationalized, and narrated both by the particular rappers themselves and the wider rap scene, which are drawing attention to the role of narrative identity in the formation of modern Muslim subjectivities on both personal and community levels. 3

At the Confluence of Hip-Hop and Islam

Even though Islam is hardly a dominant component of hip-hop culture, Black Muslim discourses and movements were so well implanted in its foundational

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environment in New York of the 1970s and early 1980s that it was only natural for it to leave a decisive mark, even on those not subscribing to Islam in religious terms themselves. In 1973, hip-hop’s first movement, the Universal Zulu Nation (uzn), was founded by a former gang member, Afrika Bambaataa (Lance Taylor, b. 1957), who was bent on uniting Blacks and Puerto Ricans in the gang-ridden Bronx (Chang 2005: 45, 100, 102). The set of Zulu beliefs as propagated by the organization,6 albeit staying clear of explicit denominational affiliations among the Black community’s two major religions (i.e. Christianity and Islam), was clearly inspired by the noi’s “Muslim Program.”7 Indeed, the noi and uzn’s second clause, “We believe in the Holy Bible and the Glorious Qur’an and in the scriptures of all the Prophets of God,” are – except for the initial reference to the Bible – identical in wording. Similarly, the uzn’s third clause, “We believe that the Bible has been tampered with and must be reinterpreted, so that mankind will not be snared by the falsehoods that have been added to it,” is again almost a verbatim reproduction of its noi counterpart. Indeed, Bambaataa noted that he had already been exposed to the noi and Ansaaru Allah in childhood, as several members of his wider family were Black Muslims (Chang 2005: 100, 105–106; Alim 2006: 49). His experience, however, was far from unique. Similar constellations prevailed for numerous rap musicians starting their careers in New York in the 1980s and 1990s. Percee P (John Percy Simon, b. 1969), contender in one of the most legendary lyrical rap battles in history, taking place in the Bronx in 1989, related that several of his uncles and cousins, as well as his stepfather, were Muslims.8 Artists born into Islam include Buckshot, members of A Tribe Called Quest (est. 1985), and Mos Def/Yasiin Bey (Dante Smith, b. 1973), whose father left the noi to follow Warith Deen. The father of Buckshot’s associate Steele had been Muslim and kept “his Qur’an on the night table,” whereas his uncle, who had exerted a major influence on him until he was sentenced to 23-years in jail, had already been a Five Percenter in Steele’s childhood.9 By the mid-1980s smaller towns outside New York city were also deeply penetrated by Black Islam. When Sadat X (Derek Murphy, b. 1968) moved from the Bronx to New Rochelle (New York State) in the late 1970s, he came into contact with numerous “Gods,” i.e. members of the fpn. Likewise, several of his uncles and cousins were Five Percenters.10 In 1989, he founded the group Brand 6 7 8 9 10

http://new.zulunation.com/zulu-beliefs/ (last accessed 12 February 2018). https://www.noi.org/muslim-program/ (last accessed 12 February 2018). Personal communication with Percee P, Linz (Austria), December 9, 2017. Personal communication with Steele, Linz (Austria), 1 June 2017. Personal communication with Sadat X, Linz (Austria), 15 March 2014.

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­Nubian together with the Five Percenters Lord Jamar (Lorenzo Dechalus, b. 1968) and Grand Puba (Maxwell Dixon, b. 1969), who by his own account “grew up in the bla” (i.e. Black Liberation Army, 1970–1981) (Coleman 2007: 95).11 The hip-hop duo Pete Rock (Peter Philips, b. 1970) and C.L. Smooth (Corey Brent Penn, b. 1968 in New Rochelle) called their first album Mecca and the Soul Brother (1992), upon suggestion from C.L.’s Muslim cousin Adofo Abdullah Muhammad (Coleman 2007: 310, 313). The most prominent Black Muslim group in early rap was undoubtedly the noi, as personified by its leader Louis Farrakhan. This was apparently due to his strong Black Power and Black nationalist stance as opposed to the more acquiescent approach of Warith Deen and other Black Sunni movements. Clearly Farrakhan was more appealing to those rap groups with a revolutionary posture. A prime example for this is Public Enemy, arguably the most radical and most overtly political American hip-hop group. On Public Enemy’s classical albums, Farrakhan and his noi play a prominent role in the lyrics, the liner notes, and the artworks. The group’s front man Chuck D (Carlton Ridenhour, b. 1960), for instance, called himself a “follower of Farrakhan” and described him as a prophet.12 Excerpts from speeches of Farrakhan and his radical protégé Khalid Abdul Muhammad (Harold Moore Jr., 1948–2001) were used in two other songs on the same album.13 Such material was commonly provided by Public Enemy’s “Minister of Information,” Professor Griff (Richard Griffin; b. 1960) (Coleman 2007: 357f.), a devoted noi member. The group’s decidedly militant aura partly stemmed from its infamous contingent of bodyguards, the “Security of the First World” (S1Ws). Strikingly, the back cover of Fear of a Black Planet shows the S1Ws dressed as members of the Fruit of Islam (foi), i.e. the paramilitary wing of the noi.14 It is hereby important to note that the growing popularity of Black Islam in general, and specifically of Farrakhan’s noi, owed much to the increasing appeal of hip-hop. Boston’s rap veteran Edo G (Edward Anderson, b. 1970), a 11

12 13 14

A radical break-away from the Black Panther Party (bpp), the bla – like its mother organization – featured a number of Muslim members, commonly oriented toward the legacy of the late Malcolm X rather than the noi. According to a bla founding member, “almost all of the political prisoners of the bpp and the bla became Muslim.” Personal communication with Dhoruba bin Wahad, Vienna (Austria), 21 June 2018. Public Enemy, “Don’t believe the hype” and “Bring the Noise,” It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (Def Jam, 1988). “Terminator X to the Edge of Panic” and “Night of the Living Baseheads.” Khalid Muhammad left the noi after he was silenced by Farrakhan due to a controversial speech in 1993 (Turner 1997: 280 n. 9). Public Enemy, Fear of a Black Planet (Def Jam, 1990).

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­n­on-Muslim born in Farrakhan’s native Roxbury, remembers that he only really became exposed to Islam through hip-hop: Muslim stuff probably came with Farrakhan, the 90s. We started hearing the noi. You know, it was more Black Muslim. It was Muslim, but it was Black – Muslim – first. […] And it was all kind of consciously with hiphop – and Farrakhan, […] the new Black leader at the time, especially for the hip-hop community, and wow, he is from Roxbury.15 Whereas many youths exposed to Black Islam via hip-hop found support and reassurance in Muslim family members, others faced opposition from elders. After becoming a Five Percenter, Lord Finesse (Robert Hall, b. 1970), Percee P’s contender in their epic rap battle, could only refrain from eating pork once he moved out of his grandmother’s place.16 In 1991, the first major rap album from the West Coast with strong noi overtones was released, Death Certificate by Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson, b. 1969), the former mastermind behind California’s radical counterpart to the East Coast’s Public Enemy, N.W.A. (Niggaz Wit Attitudes, 1986–1991). Whereas Chuck D preached revolutionary discipline, N.W.A. celebrated the criminal, sexual, and drug-related excesses of ghetto life, thus becoming the virtual founders of gangsta rap (Chang 2005: 318–320). On Death Certificate both traditions seemed to converge in its lyrics as well as in its imagery. While strongly playing off the gangster ethos, Ice Cube at the same time positioned himself as a Black nationalist of the noi brand, inter alia by a guest appearance of Khalid Muhammad (Daulatzai 2012: 123–128). The growing appeal of the noi among the youth in South Central Los Angeles, the cradle of West Coast rap, is also reflected in the movie Menace ii Society (1993), which features the character of a local gangster who changed his life after joining the noi. Despite such synergies between early gangsta rap and the noi and the fact that there would have been a notable historical precedent for such entanglements with the so-called Black Mafia, which had been active in late 1960s and 1970s Philadelphia and consisted mainly of local noi and foi members (Griffin 2003), the rise of gangsta rap eventually inaugurated a shift toward the fpn as the most prominent Islamic movement in rap. As could be gleaned from some of the examples above, the fpn was also an inextricable part of the urban environment from which hip-hop emerged. According to one of its most outspoken advocates in rap, Sadat X of Brand ­Nubian, 15 16

Personal communication with Edo G, Linz (Austria), 26 September 2017. Personal communication with Lord Finesse, Linz (Austria), April 5, 2018.

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the first Five Percenter hip-hop group was The World’s Famous Supreme Team (est.1979).17 By the mid-1980s New York boasted two major rap artists associated with the fpn: Rakim (William Griffin, b. 1968) and Big Daddy Kane (Antonio Hardy, b. 1968). fpn affiliation and teachings were, however, even more pronounced in the records of a new wave of groups, prominently including Brand Nubian (Miyakawa 2005). The members of these crews had intimate ties to street life in the “hood,” including the drug trade. Forming part of the emerging “conscious” movement in late 1980s-early 1990s rap music together with non-Five Percenters such as De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest with its predominantly Sunni background, they, however, emphasized fpn/Islaminfluenced teachings of Black power and individual righteousness rather than the daily hustle. Besides the important place of peculiar fpn terminology, Five Percenter rappers not only introduced growing audiences to the Black Muslim narratives of Islamic origins, primordial identities, and empowerment. In addition, they also familiarized listeners with specific aspects of the religious world of Islam in a more general fashion. A case in point is the Brand Nubian song “Allah U Akbar,” which includes parts of the Muslim call to prayer in its intro and chorus.18 Due to the growing success of gangsta rap, the “conscious” movement was gradually eclipsed by a brand of rap centered on tales of drug trafficking and street violence. Despite the great popularity of Farrakhan as a Black leader throughout the early and mid-1990s, the synthesis between the gangsta ethos and the disciplined resistance of the noi, as represented by Ice Cube and others, eventually had only limited appeal. Contrastingly, it was Five Percenter rap which succeeded in synthesizing violent stories from the hood with less prominent but nevertheless pervasive calls for individual and communal advancement through increased knowledge of self – all couched in typical fpn lingo. Undoubtedly, doctrinal differences between the austere and moralistic approach of the noi and the less rigid teachings and conventions of the fpn played a role in this regard. Particularly the fpn’s tolerance toward alcohol and narcotics and its comparable lack of social control naturally proved much more amenable to the lifestyles of rap artists. The prime example of this synthesis is undoubtedly the Wu-Tang Clan from Staten Island (New York). Combining gangsta tales, martial arts esoterica, and fpn discourse, it took the rap world by storm with its debut album in 1993. 17 18

Personal communication with Sadat X, Linz (Austria), March 15, 2014. Brand Nubian, “Allah U Akbar,” In God We Trust (Elektra, 1993). Other songs on the record were strongly geared toward transmitting fpn teachings, such as “The Meaning of the 5%.”

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­ lbeit representative of larger developments within contemporary rap music, A the Wu-Tang Clan is widely credited – including by rap veterans from environments hitherto less permeated by the fpn (e.g. Detroit, Boston) – for bringing the Five Percenter universe to global attention.19 By the mid-1990s, fpn influence in New York rap was so pervasive that also the lyrics of many non-Five Percenters referenced it or employed some of its lingo. Even Buckshot and his group mate in Black Moon, 5 FT (Kaseem Reid), both born into Islam and former residents in Brownsville’s Ansaar commune, temporarily came to identify themselves as “Gods.”20 Whereas the fpn could not match the Ansaars’ massive output of books, pamphlets, and cassettes (Haddad & Smith 1993: 107; McCloud 1995: 62), this was soon compensated for by the dominance of Five Percenter references in golden era rap music. Despite the longevity of groups such as the Wu-Tang Clan, however, the fpn could not maintain its dominant position into the twentyfirst century, as major groups of the fpn universe such as Smif-N-Wessun and even individual members of the Wu-Tang Clan moved toward Sunni Islam. It will be argued in the following that the wider developments outlined above and the apparently very smooth transition of Five Percenter and NOI-affiliated rappers to Sunni Islam are both connected to an element shared by all Black Muslim movements and their past and contemporary adherents or sympathizers: the role of common narratives of identity and the related quest for the good life on communal as well as individual levels. 4

Narrative Identity among Muslim Rappers

This section of our study brings us back to its first character, the rapper and record label owner Buckshot. When asked about a debate which had sprung up following a public statement by the Five Percenter Lord Jamar to the effect that White rappers were merely “guests in the house of hip-hop,” he expressed strong disagreement with Jamar. Contrastingly, he asserted that Whites had been part of hip-hop right from the beginning. More importantly, he felt compelled to highlight his credentials as a decidedly Black commentator on the issue: “I love you, Black people, I love you. But let me tell ya’ll something. My name is Hanif al-Sadiq, that’s my Muslim name, right. Yes, I speak Arabic, no question. Anā atakallamu ʽarabiyya. Very good, right? If you wanna challenge 19 20

Personal communication with Guilty Simpson and Phat Kat, Linz (Austria), 9 December 2017; and with Relentless, Vienna (Austria), 2 October 2017. Personal communication with Steele, Linz (Austria), 1 June 2017.

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me, I’m the worst motherfucker in your life.” This was then followed by a demonstration of his proficiency in Five Percenter methods of “building” (i.e. deriving knowledge from interpretations of the Supreme Mathematics).21 Whereas his desire to highlight his own Five Percenter credentials in a controversy with one of the fpn’s most well-known spokesmen22 should perhaps not come as a surprise, his earlier emphatic remark about his status as a Muslim (and not just as a Five Percenter) is revealing for the implicit connection it makes between Muslim and Black identity. Apparently, Buckshot perceived emphasizing his Muslimness, including his proficiency in Arabic, as the most decisive way to establish his credibility as a true member of the Black community or in other words, as the epitome of Blackness. In this regard, he must have anticipated that his audience would recognize such credentials as pertinent to Black identity within the hip-hop community. This is of particular interest as – compared to other rappers – Buckshot, who has been active since 1991, hardly ever sprinkles his lyrics with religious references. His biography, however, reflects much of the connected histories of Black Islam and rap music. Born into a Muslim family, he left home at a tender age to live in the Ansaar commune for several years before being exposed to major Five Percenter influence in his early years as a rapper.23 Even though evidently retaining a spiritual link to the fpn and its discourse, we see him now, as a rap legend with more than 25 years of experience, emphatically proclaiming his status as a (Sunni) Muslim – a term shunned by the fpn.24 His recourse to Islam to appeal to an audience that is both primarily Black and hip-hopaffiliated highlights the crucial role of Islam and specific discourses of Black empowerment that are not necessarily but perhaps most prominently associated with Islam (inter alia as the perceived original religion of African Americans) as inextricable components of American hip-hop culture and its constructions of Black identity. Apparently, these elements are subscribed to, or at least recognized as legitimate, across all sectarian divisions within Black Islam and even beyond the confines of its adherents. This will become more obvious by viewing this phenomenon through the lens of narrative identity.

21 22 23 24

VladTV, “Buckshot to Lord Jamar: How is Rap a Black Thing?” 23 March 2014, https://www .youtube.com/watch?v=ivmYDaBRa3E (last accessed 4 March 2018). Lord Jamar’s fame derives not only from his music but also from his role as the Five Percenter Kevin “Supreme Allah” Ketchum in the TV series Oz, which is set in a maximumsecurity prison. Personal communication with Steele, Linz (Austria), 1 June 2017. Whereas Five Percenters see themselves as representatives of Islam, they commonly reject the label “Muslim” due to its literal meaning, as they refuse to “submit.”

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Somers (1994, 613f.) has noted that “it is through narrativity that we come to know, understand, and make sense of the social world, and it is through narratives and narrativity that we constitute our social identities.” Specific networks, genealogies, and media are instrumental for the emergence of such narratives. The case of Black Islam in the West appears to be predisposed to such an approach. The narration of a primordial Muslim history has been part and parcel of its discourse right from the outset. Central figures such as Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali have provided highly influential narrative blueprints in this regard. Both have successfully confronted White oppression and have defeated their Black contenders favored by the White establishment, the complacent “house negros” – to use a famous topos of Malcolm X – with words or fists. Moreover, Malcolm left a narrative blueprint in the literal sense through his autobiography, which traces his path from a street hustler in an identity crisis to a conscious Black Muslim leader epitomizing “the possibility of Black resistance and redemption that Black Islam represents in U.S. Black communities” (Khabeer 2016: 57). It is not by coincidence that his autobiography is frequently identified as an entry point into the world of Islam by individual rappers, including the white Brother Ali (see below) and the gangsta rap icon Prodigy (Albert Johnson, 1974–2017) (Johnson 2011: 46, 107, 237). Likewise, Clarence 13X is of central importance for the narrative identity of Five Percenter and Muslim rappers. He was clearly the instrumental figure in the history of Black Muslim movements in bringing their crucial discourses to the street kids, the initial chief clientele of hip-hop. What is more, narrativity, either in reference to personal experience or the broader Black (Muslim) experience, is undoubtedly a main vehicle of rap music. Due to its situatedness in a specific subculture, which is often perceived as hedonistic, amoral, and irreligious, but has emerged out of an urban environment saturated with Black Muslim influences, rap also highlights the existence of “multiple, intersecting and competing identifications that constitute a person or social identity (that is, individuals and groups are involved in several narratives of being, all of which might affect each other to varying degrees)” (Gaiser 2017: 70). For Black Muslims, the general Islamic religious narrative is but one of these broader narratives, whereas a second grand narrative is that of Muslim Black Power and of gaining true knowledge of self, appropriated in varying and at times idiosyncratic ways across different contexts, times, and sectarian frameworks. As the narrative unity of a life is not merely the cumulative result of practices and events, “but is governed equally by a life project, however uncertain and mobile it may be, and by fragmentary practices, which have their own unity” (Ricoeur 1992: 158), the specific background of rap artists and the practices associated with their vocation likewise shape their narrative

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identity formation and the related construction of modern Muslim subjectivities to a significant degree. It is argued that narration within the American rap community, and especially among its representatives associated or engaging with Black Islam, functions primarily on two levels, which are naturally overlapping to a certain extent: the communal and the personal one. For the communal narrative, the most decisive elements are the notions of empowerment through acquiring true knowledge of self, including the ancestral history of the community and the related recovery of an original identity. On this level, the acquisition of knowledge of self, a formulation, which goes back to the “120 Lost-Found Muslim lessons” of Fard Muhammad but was arguably present as a discursive tool already in the Moorish Science Temple and the early Ahmadi mission among African Americans, is strongly tied to the notion of Islam as the natural and original religion of African Americans. Representing a communal affair in the quest for identity construction, it has also become a major component of hiphop epistemology (Abdul Khabeer 2016: 57–62). Gaining knowledge of self, however, is also a personal responsibility and experience, and it is particularly on the personal level that it is imbued with ethical anticipations. In this regard, narration – in the form of either communal or personal narratives – serves “as a natural transition between description and prescription” (Ricoeur 1992: 170). The narratives of Black Islam and of the lives of rap artists are not confined to describing the loss of liberty, identity (prominently including religion), and agency at the hands of a White slave-holding society or the racial discrimination, economic marginalization, and consequent brutalization of “hood” life. In contrast, they are even more strongly characterized by their narration of the reclaiming of a true identity, of agency and self-esteem, marking the transition from the sufferer, who – by virtue of his subaltern status – has to endure what is dealt to him, to the acting self-empowered agent.25 The view of Black Islam as playing a major part in steering the community toward the path of increased knowledge of self and thus of lasting empowerment has become so deeply engrained in narrative identity constructions in rap music that it clearly transcends the confines of those explicitly identifying themselves with Black Islam in a religious sense. Thus, rap legend Guru (Keith Elam, 1966–2010) said in one of his songs: Don’t ask me if I’m Muslim, don’t say noting to me. I said I was raised like one. I had two cousins, they pushed me to find myself 25

Cf. Ricoeur (1992: 144–145).

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or else they knew I wasn’t gonna make it and then end up a statistic. […] But now I got K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E of self, cause I’m me. And the Nation of Islam has my support cause they try to reeducate the ones who are lost. And the 5 Percent Nation takes other steps to get through to brothers on the corners with their reps. [..] For right now, yo, my religion is rhyming. Perfect timing, test the flow and climb in. Ansaar[u Allah], Sunnite, Shiite, Jihad. All must regard the times are hard. Unite or perish is the message that I cherish. That goes for my people of all religions. If we`re all black why have so many divisions?26 While clearly embracing all religions in the Black community as legitimate and not claiming personal adherence to Islam, it is explicitly Black Islam which is singled out as having put Guru on the path of knowledge of self. Additionally, it is exclusively Black Muslim movements that are credited for their positive social role. Finally, the enumeration of Ansaars, Sunnis, and Shiites serves to complete his overview of the variegated forms of Black Islam. Thus, Guru’s narrative strongly echoes Buckshot’s in the role it attributes to Islam in Black identity, something to which the latter’s contender Lord Jamar would have undoubtedly agreed with as well. A crucial aspect hereby is the connection made between embracing Islam as the original ancestral religion and the questioning of conventional knowledge within a White-dominated American society, which together lead to the construction of a historical narrative and identity separate from the one imposed by white America. Thus, for Edo G, the pervasiveness of Black Muslim discourse in the hip-hop scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s was primarily related to not accepting the transmitted knowledge of wider society: “There was a huge consciousness of Black people […] wanting to have knowledge about everything. Forget everything we were told, let’s do our own research and find out! […] More consciousness into being more pro-Black, with religion.”27 One of Malachi York’s chief mantras, inter alia taken to heart by Prodigy, was to “question everything,” even in Islam (McCloud 1995: 64). By the 26 27

Gang Starr, “2 Deep,” Daily Operation (Chrysalis, 1992). Personal communication with Edo G, Linz (Austria), 26 September 2017.

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time of the emergence of hip-hop, this of course included white constructions of Black identity as well as of (Black) Islam. The following excerpts from an interview with Buckshot’s associate Steele touch on several of these issues and may serve as examples for Black Muslim narrative identity among rap artists. Responding to my question regarding the recent turn of several well-known Five Percenter rappers to Sunni Islam, which implicitly also ties in with developments within his Boot Camp Clik, in which Sunni Muslim references clearly came to take center stage vis-à-vis an earlier pervasiveness of Five Percenter references in the 1990s,28 his answers highlighted a number of crucial aspects: the transmission of knowledge concerning the Black man’s original religious nature through a close relative; the rejection of White and non-Muslim constructions of Islam; and the personal journey in the quest for a deeper personal knowledge of self. Finally, this narrative also serves to present the transformation of Five Percenters into Sunni rappers as an almost natural evolution and not as a break with an earlier identity. Likewise, it posits discursive continuity from the noi and the fpn to Black Sunni Islam by stressing the gradual nature of the process, as indicated by the usage of notions such as “evolving/transiting to Islam,” rather than “converting,” for all stages of the development. My route was going through the Nation of Gods and Earths [i.e. fpn]. My uncle Intelligent Ruler God Allah, he was teaching us as young [boys] the Lessons, the 120, and stuff like that. […] My [Muslim] dad wasn’t one to push it on us, but we knew about it [i.e. Islam] because of my uncle. […] What I learned from my uncle is that we are all Muslims. […] In the [120] Lessons it says you’re a Muslim. […] Now you might not study the theology because you are not going to study at Farrakhan’s university [i.e. schools of the noi’s Muhammad University of Islam network], Khalid Muhammad […] or any one of these guys. Even when you look at Malcolm X: Malcolm X has evolved. Us as Muslims, theoretically it says all of us are Muslims. It would be one day, when we see our life, and we were: ‘Ok, I understand it now.’ What that means to be a Muslim. It is not this 28

Steele himself, for instance, who is otherwise much less outspoken about affiliation to Islam compared to his partner Tek (El-Amin), begins a recent verse like this: “Bi-smi llāh al-raḥmān al-raḥīm, my life’s real but sometimes it seems like a dream, my akhī [brother] advised me to stay up on my dīn [religion, i.e. Islam].” Pete Rock & Smif-N-Wessun, “Roses,” Monumental (Duck Down, 2011). Most recently Sunni religious worship was brought on display in a music video which pictures the group praying together before and after a heist. Smif-N-Wessun, “Stahfallah,” The All (Duck Down, 2019). https://www.youtube .com/watch?v=rImkhbd1RXY (last accessed 13 August 2019).

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thing that these people say. Like Malcolm X said: “It’s not what these people are saying.” Muhammad Ali said: “It’s not what these people are saying.” It’s me following the being that I am, who I am created to be through my higher power. […] That’s God, that is Allah. […] When I see [Black] brothers and sisters transcend or evolve their culture – I think it’s beautiful. And to look at it in respect to hip-hop, we have to give credit to guys like Rakim, Just Ice [Joseph Williams, b. 1965]. […] Those guys were already preaching the Nation of the Five Percent.29 Tellingly, the response of Sadat X, ever since a firm supporter and spokesman of the fpn, to the same question (i.e. Five Percenters becoming Sunni Muslims), displays a similar inclusiveness toward all manifestations of Black Islam: They master themselves. They are their own Gods, so whatever they choose to move to, […] you’ve got to respect that. It’s all brotherhood, it’s all for the cause of righteousness and for uplifting yourself, the Black man. It’s a good thing, whether they become Five Percenters or Sunni Muslims or study the Nation of Islam. It’s still the same goal.30 This, however, does not mean that FPN–Sunni relations within hip-hop might not sometimes be fraught with tension. Questioned about the claim of Sunni Muslim rap artist Freeway (Leslie Pridgen, b. 1978), perhaps the most ostentatiously pious gangsta rapper, that Five Percenters are actually committing a grave sin by calling themselves Gods, Sadat X retorted by pointing to the past excesses of the “Black Inc.” (i.e. the so-called Black Mafia) in Freeway’s hometown Philadelphia. Subsequently, he asserted that neither had anything to do with the bases of religion: He can say that we can’t call ourselves God and I can say: “But how you’ll sell cocaine out of the mosque?” […] I have respect for everybody who deals with freedom, justice and equality. That’s what religion is supposed to be dealing with. […] It’s even in tenets that make each one unique unto themselves.31

29 30 31

Personal communication with Steele, Linz (Austria), 1 June 2017. Personal communication with Sadat X, Linz (Austria), 15 March 2014. Personal communication with Sadat X, Linz (Austria), 15 March 2014.

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Notwithstanding such misgivings, we have seen above that the perceived unity of purpose and communal benefits among the different orientations of Black Islam is also recognized by rappers not personally affiliated with any of them. Just as Guru’s lyrics of the early 1990s were paying respect to the whole array of Black Muslim movements for their contribution to raising Black consciousness and acquiring knowledge of self, Detroit Rap veteran Guilty Simpson (Byron Simpson, b. 1980), who has never been deeply involved in Islam, regards Five Percenters and Sunni Muslims as based on common foundations and assumptions: “Even if they were Five Percent and now they are Sunni Muslims, they still read from the same lessons. They are just interpreting what they were being taught in a different way now.”32 A specific part of the narrative of rappers who came to Islam through the fpn maintains that the type of people they are – or once were – could only have been reached through the distinctive approach of Clarence 13X: “The fpn was perceived as a gang. In actuality, the fpn was like the bastard children of Islam: Kids who maybe weren’t as structured as the foi, but they still got the lessons. But they were on the streets and they did drugs and they did some nefarious works.”33 In the narratives of fpn rappers, this aspect is strongly emphasized. Hereby the founding context of the fpn is frequently likened to that of the personal exposure to the organization. Sadat X, for instance, notes: I came up at the time of the crack wars. […] And when the Five Percenters first came out, especially when the Father [i.e. Clarence 13X] brought the light in Harlem, […] it was a hard heroin time. […] He chose to go after those brothers that couldn’t be reached. He had to reach a lot of those brothers that was like: “Yo, I get down, but I gotta be able to smoke and drink. I get down to you. I’m listening to everything you are saying, but I wanna smoke and drink.” And he was like: “Well, if you can get down and take some of these mathematics, I’ll look beyond that, if you live a right and exact life. Then I’ll be like: Ok, we will allow that.” Cause these brothers they were not trying to hear anything else.34 The crucial aspect thus was not religious purity or ritual but raising awareness and setting in motion gradual processes of change, again something asserted by most movements within Black Islam. “It tells you something like: ‘the job of the civilized is to civilize the uncivilized.’ That’s a great mantra, especially for a 32 33 34

Personal communication with Guilty Simpson, Linz (Austria), 9 December 2017. Personal communication with Steele, Linz (Austria), 1 June 2017. Personal communication with Sadat X, Linz (Austria), 15 March 2014.

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rapper, because you’re talking to numerous amounts of people.”35 Indeed, both the urban Black communities and hip-hop are perceived to have been in need of a specific type of Islam in order to have an appeal. This resonates with Elijah Muhammad’s assertion after his visit to Saudi Arabia that insisting on the observance of all the ritual aspects of Islam would be detrimental to his mission to spread Islam among African Americans. In this respect, Steele specified that hip-hop “is a rebel culture. Like I read the same Bible, but for some reason it’s a different theology.”36 It is this part of the shared narrative which lends itself to an eventual Sunnification of fpn teachings, in which the personal identity as a God is not rejected but becomes oriented toward the creator in its search for the true self: Even the seed of science has been planted into you, […] you’ve just got to get to that point, […] then you get closer to your god-self. That’s why I love the Nation of the Five Percent, […] because they talk about “I am god.” […] If I have to worship God, I have to worship myself. I have to worship the seed planted in me by my father, the creator.37 The idea of gradual long-term changes, however, is of course not alien to rappers coming to Sunni Islam without prior association with the fpn. Thus, when asked about his eventual adoption of Islam in 2009, the late Sean Price regularly related how he had told an imam that – due to his un-Islamic habits (e.g. marijuana and alcohol consumption) – he felt not ready to take that step. The imam, however, explained that if he wanted to wait until he became perfect, then he would never become a Muslim. Instead, he should use Islam as a guide to where he needs to be. Having felt attracted to Islam for a long time, he took the confession of faith right then without any further postponement or any major rupture.38 While being less pertinent to other facets of narrative Black Muslim identity, this story brings us to a specific dilemma faced by many rappers associated with Islam: the perceived incongruity between their lifestyles and the ethical aims going together with their religious convictions. Indeed, the Islamic narratives of rappers are often characterized by references to the balancing act of being street guys and rappers on one hand and 35 36 37 38

Personal communication with Steele, Linz (Austria), 1 June 2017. Personal communication with Steele, Linz (Austria), 1 June 2017. Personal communication with Steele, Linz (Austria), 1 June 2017. “Sean Price x DJ J Hart – Mic Tyson Interview,” 9 August 2013. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=IV8JnrvTHNc (last accessed 12 March 2018); Daniel Shaked, “Sean Price Interview – That’s for you and Allah to discuss,” The Message, 22 February 2013, https://themessage.at/sean-price-interview/ (last accessed 12 March 2018).

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Five Percenters or Muslims on the other. Particularly Sunni rappers, including Freeway, Sean Price, and Steele, have pondered the question whether rap music is not actually to be considered ḥarām. Sean Price even shared his worries in this regard when touring with fellow non-Muslim artists.39 Even though accepting the view of his imam on rap as ḥarām, he stressed that this was after all how he was feeding his family.40 More generally, however, Sean Price would diffuse such tensions as an intrinsic part of his transition to Islam as an ongoing spiritual evolution, something most forcefully expressed in his song “Haraam,” in which he playfully engages with the doubtful position of rap from an Islamic perspective: Niggas needin’ a song, I’m like: Fuck rap, then I read the Qur’an Kareem Said,41 oh indeed, on my dīn, akhī Except when I rhyme, every line from Sean is ḥarām Uh, nigga, I’m a work in progress Came a long way from the jerk in the projects42 A similar ambivalence, yet nevertheless leaving room for the legitimacy of rap, is felt by Steele: Rap is a thin line, because even when you get to the Qur’an, and if you study the [Sunna of the] prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, [he] was talking about, like: “Music is a gateway” [to sin]. And some people even say actually music is ḥarām. In the sense of that version, it leads you to crazy stuff. But then we [i.e. Muslims] also talk about the music, the harps, the flutes in this heavenly place.43 On the one hand rap music is – either as a vocation or a profession – framed as the reason for the turn toward Islam in the first place. Similarly, Islam is not merely identified as an antithesis to rap. Instead, it is frequently regarded as an inextricable part of one’s identity as an artist. In this respect, Steele notes: One thing you’ve got to understand about this hip-hop game – […] it strips you down to your bones and makes you decide what type of person 39 40 41 42 43

Personal communication with Guilty Simpson, Linz (Austria), 9 December 2017. Shaked, “Sean Price Interview.” This is a reference to the gang leader and prison imam Kareem Said, another character of the TV series Oz. Sean Price, “Haraam,” Mic Tyson (Duck Down, 2012). Personal communication with Steele, Linz (Austria), 1 June 2017.

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you are. You could be rapping about all kinds of crazy stuff, but then you’ll be looking into the mirror and be like: “What am I doing?” Some of these cats look at themselves and then go: “I want to be something more, I am something more!” And then they take that step [i.e. to become Muslims].44 Of Buckshot, who had received his education in Arabic during his time in the Ansaar commune, whose leader was characterized by a markedly positive stance toward music and was highly supportive of the musicians (including rappers) associated with his group (Haddad & Smith 1993: 132; McCloud 1995: 62), it is related that he learned the language in a musical fashion, including by likening its letters to notes.45 Thus, during this formative period of the rap veteran, becoming both more consciously Muslim and – in line with his abovequoted forceful affirmation of his Black identity through Islam – Black went hand-in-hand with his love for music. Likewise, the two famous Wu-Tang Clan members Raekwon The Chef (Corey Woods, b. 1970) and Ghostface Killah (Dennis Coles, b. 1970), whom I have frequently invoked in my interviews as major examples of well-known Five Percenter rappers to have recently embraced Sunni Islam, portray Islam not as being in opposition to rap, but rather as a mechanism for rappers to improve and guide themselves. As the latter rhymes on a recent track: From the righteous mind of Allah, he powers my soul Teaching me positivity in the whole How to walk amongst the evil and smile in the face of death To speak knowledge and wisdom ‘til my last breath […] Superficial, don’t get sucked into the scene The grass ain’t always green, the meat ain’t always lean Make sure it’s ḥalāl, no pork on the fork […] Keep your Qu’ran handy, keep it close to your heart See that dumb is far from smart, it sparkles light in the dark46 In their narratives, as disseminated in lyrics and interviews, they similarly reject the idea of rupture in transitioning from Five Percenters to Sunni Muslims, or of any contradiction between their past violent lifestyles in the hood, as related in their songs, and their early embrace of Black Islam. Thus, Raekwon 44 45 46

Personal communication with Steele, Linz (Austria), 1 June 2017. Personal communication with Steele, Linz (Austria), 1 June 2017. badbadnotgood & Ghostface Killah, “Nuggets of Wisdom,” Sour Soul (Lex Records, 2015).

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sees an inherent connection between both of these elements of his personality. After noting that “we drop jewels inside the music, when we tell you these great stories of our lifestyle,” he reminds his listeners that “the Father [i.e. Clarence 13X], he always wanted the bad ones, to make them better. […] It’s like the sense of a father telling you to grow but [to] apply these things to your life, and that’s what I took it for. It showed me who I was.”47 Concerning his formation and identity as an artist, he is even more explicit about the confluence of Islam and the gangsta lifestyle in his persona, as well as about the influence of older Five Percenters in his early days: “Once [Wu-Tang Clan’s] gza and rza came in, that caused an abomination, that’s how The Chef got made. I studied Islam and at the same time I was a wolf, in the streets. You put those together and that’s what came out of me” (cited in Coleman 2014: 435). What Raekwon has described as the “wolf” component of his identity is, of course, not entirely unproblematic, especially so, when individual rappers start to think about their potential as role models for the young, and – as they grow older – for their own children. Of course, spiritual and educational aspects, most frequently couched in fpn terms, have always been present in the lyrics of gangsta Five Percenter rappers such as Smif-n-Wessun and the WuTang Clan. Nowadays, however, the now seasoned (and Sunnified) rappers routinely refer to their role as family fathers when rationalizing the inclusion of Islamically derived concepts in their otherwise thematically largely stable gangsta-influenced output. As Raekwon puts it: “While I’ll be making these kinds of movies [i.e. graphic gangsta rap accounts], I’ve still got to go home and be who I am supposed to be.48 On a more introspective note, Steele related the following with reference to his youngest son: It’s crazy because […] as an artist, […] I get on planes, I go to meet people, […] I smoke weed, I drink shit. Somebody might put something in my drink, somebody might slip me a mickey. I could fucking not make it from this trip. But I gotta think that I gotta leave something in these raps for my son to go, like: “How was your dad, what type of guy was he?” “I [i.e.

47 48

uggh, “Raekwon – Never Before Seen 2009: OB4CL, Nation of Islam, Origins of Wu-Tang Clan!” 3 August 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXcmtKGuKvw (last accessed 16 March 2018). uggh, “Raekwon – Never Before Seen 2009: OB4CL, Nation of Islam, Origins of Wu-Tang Clan!” 3 August 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXcmtKGuKvw (last accessed 16 March 2018).

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Steele’s son Maasai] remember he [i.e. Steele] used to say this,” but then you press play, and motherfucker, there’s another world.49 As a final clue to our discussion of narrative identity among Muslim rappers, it should be highlighted that even White artists in the US may eventually fully situate themselves in a primarily Black Islamic narrative. A case in point is Brother Ali (Jason Newman, b. 1977) from Minneapolis, who joined Warith Deen’s community at the age of fifteen. Intriguingly, he credits the (non-Muslim) Bronx rap veteran KRS-One (Lawrence Parker, b. 1965) for putting him on this path: “He assigned the autobiography of Malcolm X to me; I read it, and that’s what led to me becoming a Muslim.”50 Tellingly, the video for his song “Good Lord” was shot at the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial Center in New York at a hip-hop event featuring the “Hip-Hop Imam” Al Hajj Talib Abdur-Rashid of Harlem’s Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood (i.e. the direct successor to Malcolm X’s Muslim Mosque Inc.) (Abdul Khabeer 2016: 93, 187–189).51 Nevertheless Brother Ali also feels compelled to address the apparent tension between rap as a vocation and the ethical aims associated with the embrace of Islam. More importantly, he sketches a kind of hall of fame of Black-cum-Hip-Hop Sunni Islam in the song: Givin’ voice to the dream and let it be seen I admit it’s obscene but dīn recognize dīn So it isn’t pristine when I spit a sixteen [i.e. a verse consisting of classical sixteen bars] Clean words don’t describe the shit that I’ve seen But layin’ in the alley, I whispered the shahāda Bullets fly by from the drive-by So, Imam [Warith Deen] Muhammad might pound on the podium 49 50

51

Personal communication with Steele, Linz (Austria), 1 June 2017. Adam Woodward, “In hip-hop Brother Ali found faith and identity. A unique perspective,” Huck Magazine (22 November 2016), http://www.huckmagazine.com/art-and-culture/ music-2/brother-ali-hip-hop-portal-finding-faith-identity/ (last accessed 26 February 2018). As Abdul Khabeer (2016: 93–98) vividly describes based on an anecdote related by Imam Talib, West African and African American culture and music (including rap) are frequently much less positively evaluated by other Black Sunni imams. It is undoubtedly such figures who have induced individual rappers to think that rap as such could be ḥarām. Imam Talib is a widely respected figure even among Muslim Black Power activists, who are critical of the perceived subservience to the government of most imams linked to the Warith Deen community. Personal communication with Dhoruba bin Wahad, Vienna (Austria), 21 June 2018.

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Popmaster Fabel work it out on the linoleum52 Chappelle bust funnies,53 Mos Def bust rhymes Muhammad Ali is the greatest of all time54 5 Conclusion Mohammed Arkoun (2006: 133) has noted that an adequate study of lived Islam, or rather of Muslim societies, would require a historical sociology of belief for each group employing a distinct language preserving a distinct memory of particular ways of adherence to the Islamic “orthodox” corpus and its grand narratives. Black Islam in general, and particularly as reflected in hip-hop culture, represents such an – albeit polyvocal – Islamic tradition born out of and developed in a specific ethno-socio-cultural and linguistic environment characterized by a shared collective historical memory deployed in narrative form.55 Even though the polyvocality of Black Islam manifests itself in a variety of different religious communities and movements, they are indeed – despite marked doctrinal and practical differences – subscribing to strikingly unitary historical perspectives and narratives as well as discursive frames. This underlying unity in apparent diversity in doctrine and praxis finds common expression in the music and biographies of Black Muslim rap artists, and rests on shared patterns of narrative identity formation. What is more, this Islamic discursive tradition and way of constructing Muslim subjectivities is a distinctly modern one, which has only emerged and taken shape over the course of the twentieth century. In addition, the Black Muslim communities in the usa, as well as in several Caribbean, South American, and European countries to which Black Islam has spread from there, are clearly products of the West. Thus, even within (undoubtedly misleading) compartmentalized thinking envisioning more or less clearly separated Muslim and Western cultural and discursive spheres, their construction of modern Muslim selfhoods can be regarded as part of nothing other than “Western modernity.” They have emerged through conversion, more often framed as a reversion

52

Popmaster Fabel (Jorge Pabon) is a legendary Harlem break-dancer, who first became acquainted with Islam through the radio show of DJ Afrika Islam (Charles Glenn, b. 1967) (Khabeer 2016: 46f.). 53 The hip-hop-savvy comedy star Dave Chapelle (b. 1973) embraced Islam in 1998. 54 Brother Ali, “Good Lord,” Truth Is Here EP (Rhymesayers, 2009). Inspired by Warith Deen, Muhammad Ali left the noi for Sunni Islam in the 1970s (Ali 2004: 85). 55 Cf. Arkoun (2006: 266).

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(i.e. as return to an ancestral original religion) to Islam. Notwithstanding salient discursive, political, and cultural linkages to the Muslim World, the emergence of Black Muslim communities must necessarily be understood as a development within modern Western societies. Indeed, we are here concerned with Western Muslim social experiences, and with those of Westerners transitioning to Islam. Since its emergence in the 1970s, but particularly from the late 1980s onwards, hip-hop has provided a specific framework for the construction of modern Muslim subjectivities in the usa and beyond. The case of Muslim rappers is hereby of particular interest, as it clearly conflicts with the conventional scholarly “focus on strictly pious forms of Islamic behavior at the expense of their interlace with broader discourses of a non-religious character” and of its frequent definition of “Muslims [and especially converts] as religiously observant people per se” (Jung 2016: 20, 21). The biographies and trajectories discussed in this study are undoubtedly reflective of such an interlace with largely non-religious discourses. Moreover, they are representative of the “religious individualism of modernity” (Hervieu-Léger 1999), or of what has been dubbed in the discussions of this project – following Reckwitz (2006) – “third/pluralistic (post-)modernity.” They clearly contradict common assumptions about stable religious identities and especially artificial dichotomies between those who are perceived as religiously observant and those who are not (e.g. practicing and non-practicing Muslims). Contrary to Reckwitz, who speaks of the “hybrid subject,” we have – following Hervieu-Léger – identified bricolage as a central feature in current individualized religious identity formation. Bricolage, as the process of re-assembling available resources to confront new challenges, can only draw on a limited amount of such resources and experiences. In our case, we could therefore speak of a form of bricolage whose repertoire mainly consists of collectively acknowledged discourses, social practices, and narratives which have developed in a specifically American social and cultural environment, in which hiphop and Muslim subjectivities have been influencing each other since the late 1970s. As observed by Roy (2010: 75–76), the ethnic/racial barrier, which derived inter alia from the racially exclusivist teachings of groups such as the noi, and which once separated Black Muslims from their immigrant counterparts from the Muslim world, is now more a social one, based on the socioeconomic and political marginalization of Blacks, including Muslims and the rapsavvy urban youth, in American society. This state of affairs circumscribes the repertoire of bricolage and influences the selective appropriation of Islamic discourses and concepts, thereby aiding the persistence of specific narratives underpinning the bricolage as a distinctive expression of modern Muslim

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­subjectivities within the wider American rap community. Moreover, many important elements of the modern Muslim selfhoods constructed within the American rap scene are largely unrelated to religion and Islam – which after all still clearly represents a minority religion even within urban Black communities – but are rooted in shared Black social and cultural experiences and practices, and therefore transcend religious boundaries. Indeed, Islam, or religion in general for that matter, is but one component of the much broader discourse of Black Power/Liberation. Similarly, religion is hardly a dominant aspect of hip-hop. Particularly when looking at Muslim rappers of various persuasions, who nowadays arguably represent the most visible faces of Black Islam in the usa and beyond, it is striking that many of them are hardly associated with strictly following religious rules and practices. Yet, they are at the same time consciously engaged in the construction of Islamic identities and modern Muslim selfhoods. This could very likely be a consequence of their situatedness in a culture and music scene primarily distinguished by shared practices and symbols transcending religious boundaries. On the other hand, however, the question may be raised whether, or to which degree, this is not actually a feature inherited from earlier currents within Black Islam in the West, which only seems more pronounced among the protagonists of a culture largely associated with lifestyles perceived as antithetical to Islamic norms. In any case, despite its conservative, moralistic, and abstemious drive, the noi, as the original spearhead in the construction of Black Muslim identities in the West, also put strikingly little emphasis on key Islamic practices such as the daily prayers (Curtis 2006: 132f.), whereas the fpn came to ignore many aspects of Islamic ritual and many of its taboos altogether. Islamic observance, as defined in the West, was not necessarily the touchstone for the formation and transmission of Islamic identities, and the construction of Muslim selfhoods, in this regard. Contrarily, Dannin (2002: 7) described the public recitation of personal narratives of conversion/reversion and the recuperation of one’s original religion as “an essential ritual of AfricanAmerican worship.” This apparent conundrum, however, seems less paradoxical when viewed through the lens of narrative identity formation. Indeed, communal and personal emplotment into the grand narratives of both Black Islam and rap music – shaped by changing times and places – seems to have been the most decisive element in the construction of the selfhoods of Muslim rappers. It was the understanding of Islam as the original religion of Blacks, and therefore as the epitome of Blackness, as well as the quest for a true knowledge of self, to be recovered from centuries of dispossession, which were instrumental in the first place. Additionally, the figure of the Father Allah and the fpn

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provided major templates to be integrated into the narratives of individual rappers. This was primarily due to his perceived focus on the aims of the good life and on the moral capacities of individuals, rather than on their accomplishments or obedience to rules. By bringing Islam to “black youth not reached by Muslims […], to the poor and the hardcore, young thugs and niggas on drugs”56 in this way, Clarence 13X and his movement laid the groundwork for another specific Black Muslim narrative. Departing in certain important aspects from those formulated by the noi or more Sunni-oriented groups, the fpn Islamic narrative was ideally suited to the chief clientele of rap music. What is more, despite its marked non-conformist stance, it lent itself well to further individual spiritual transformations inter alia along Sunni lines by stressing the capacity of the Five Percenter, the God, to master himself. Of course, the oft-times quite eclectic combination of elements and narratives derived from diverse Black Muslim movements and expressions of hiphop culture, and their application in the life and career projects of rap artists, only serves to strengthen the notion of bricolage based on a restricted repertoire. Even though the various Black Muslim movements were at times engaged in bloody confrontations in the 1960s and 1970s (Dannin 2002: 70–72, 142–160; Knight 2007: 62, 76), they evidently coalesced around more or less mutually shared narrative identity formations within hip-hop culture and individual rappers, notwithstanding the persistence of sectarian groups and their specific doctrines. Just as the complex identities of Muslim gangsta rappers cannot be understood by focusing exclusively on either the violent or the spiritual sides of their output, the polyvocal narratives of Black Islam within rap music and the related constructions of modern Muslim selfhoods can only be comprehended – as is befitting in hermeneutics – through the exchange between the whole and the part. References Abdul Khabeer, Su’ad. 2016. Muslim Cool. Race, Religion, and Hip Hop in the United States. New York: New York University Press. Ali, Muhammad (with Hana Yasmeen Ali). 2004. The Soul of a Butterfly. Reflections on Life’s Journey. New York: Bantam Press.

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Alim, H. Samy. 2006. “Re-inventing Islam with Unique Modern Tones: Muslim Hip Hop Artists as Verbal Mujahidin.” Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society 8(4): 45–58. Arkoun, Mohammed. 2006. Islam: To Reform or to Subvert? London: Saqi Books. Berg, Herbert. 2009. Elijah Muhammad and Islam. New York: New York University Press. Cesari, Jocelyne. 2004. When Islam and Democracy Meet. Muslims in Europe and in the United States. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Chang, Jeff. 2005. Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop. A History of the Hip-Hop Generation. London: Ebury Press. Cleaver, Eldridge. 1992[1968]. Soul on Ice. New York: Dell. Coleman, Brian. 2007. Check the Technique. Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies. New York: Villard Books. Coleman, Brian. 2014. Check the Technique Volume 2. More Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies. Berkeley: Wax Facts Press. Curtis, Edward E. 2006. Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press. Curtis, Edward E. (ed.). 2008. The Columbia Sourcebook of Muslims in the United States. New York: Columbia University Press. Curtis, R.M. Mukhtar. 1994. “Urban Muslims: The Formation of the Dar ul-Islam Movement.” In Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad & Jane I. Smith (eds.): Muslim Communities in North America, Albany: SUNY Press: 51–73. Dannin, Robert. 2002. Black Pilgrimage to Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Daulatzai, Sohail. 2012. Black Star, Crescent Moon. The Muslim International and Black Freedom Beyond America. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. English, T.J. 2011. The Savage City. Race, Murder and a Generation on the Edge. New York: Harper Collins. Gaiser, Adam. 2017. “A Narrative Identity Approach to Islamic Sectarianism.” In Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel (eds.): Sectarianization. Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East, London: Hurst: 61–75. Gobillot, Geneviève. 2000. La fiṭra. La conception originelle, ses interprétations et fonctions chez les penseurs musulmans. Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale. Griffin, Sean Patrick. 2003. “Philadelphia’s “Black Mafia”: Assessing and Advancing Current Interpretations.” Crime, Law & Social Change 39: 263–283. Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck and Jane Idleman Smith. 1993. Mission to America. Five Islamic Sectarian Communities in North America. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. Hervieu-Léger, Danièle. 1999. Le pèlerin et le converti. La religion au mouvement. Paris: Flammarion.

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Johnson, Albert “Prodigy.” 2011. My Infamous Life. The Autobiography of Mobb Deep’s Prodigy. New York: Touchstone. Jung, Dietrich. 2016. “Modernity, Islamic Traditions, and the Good Life: An Outline of the Modern Muslim Subjectivities Project.” Review of Middle East Studies 50(1): 18–27. Knight, Michael Muhammad. 2007. The Five Percenters. Islam, Hip Hop and the Gods of New York. London: OneWorld. Larsson, Göran. 2004. “Controversial Afro-American Muslim Organizations.” In James R. Lewis and Jesper A. Petersen (eds.): Controversial New Religions, Oxford: Oxford University Press: 114–127. Lincoln, C. Eric. 1961. The Black Muslims in America. Boston: Beacon Press. McCloud, Aminah Beverly. 1995. African American Islam. New York: Routledge. Miyakawa, Felicia. 2005. Five Percenter Rap. God Hop’s Music, Message, and Black Muslim Mission. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Nuruddin, Yusuf. 1994. “The Five Percenters: A Teenage Nation of Gods and Earths.” In Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad & Jane I. Smith (eds.): Muslim Communities in North America, Albany: SUNY Press: 109–133. Palmer, Susan. 2010. The Nuwaubian Nation. Black Spirituality and State Control. Farnham: Ashgate. Reckwitz, Andreas. 2006. Das hybride Subject. Eine Theorie der Subjektkulturen von der bürgerlichen Moderne zur Postmoderne. Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft. Ricoeur, Paul. 1992. Oneself as Another, translated by Kathleen Blamey. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Roy, Olivier. 2010. Holy Ignorance. When Religion and Culture Part Ways, translated by Ros Schwartz. New York: Columbia University Press. Somers, Margret R. 1994. “The Narrative Constitution of Identity: A Relational and Network Approach.” Theory and Society 23(5): 605–649. Turner, Richard Brent. 1997. Islam in the African-American Experience. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. York, Malachi Z. n.d. Shaikh Daoud (1891–1980 a.d.) Vs. W.D. Fard. n.p.: Holy Tabernacle Ministries.

Concluding Remarks

Modern Muslim Subjectivities, Islamic Modernities, and the Multiple Modernities Thesis Dietrich Jung and Kirstine Sinclair 1

Multiple Modernities within Islam: Conceptual Questions

This book is the final result of two workshops that took place in June 2017 and April 2018 in Kochel am See in the Bavarian Alps. The participants were both scholars directly engaged with their subprojects in the “Modern Muslim Subjectivity Project” (mmsp) at the University of Southern Denmark and those who responded to our call for papers with interesting and highly relevant topics complementary to our subprojects. In particular, we were looking for more expertise regarding the enactment of non-religious, global cultural scripts in a Muslim context. The purpose of the workshops was to critically discuss the feasibility of the heuristic framework of the mmsp in light of studies on multiple modernities within Islam. Moreover, we were interested in discussing a broad variety of case studies. In this way, we aimed at expanding the empirical basis for the mmsp’s critical reflection on religion, Islam, and social theory. The exercise was to see how theoretically informed studies of very different cases feed back into the heuristic framework and can challenge, confirm, or alter it. In this sense, the common conceptual apparatus of the mmsp has functioned as a heuristic horizon for this book and not as its theoretical straitjacket. In this conclusive chapter, we would like to give a brief reassessment of the theoretical and conceptual discussions that have paved the way to this book, rather than providing a systematic overview of the results from each of its chapters. At the center of discussions based on the volume’s chapters and the work behind them was the very general question of how to understand modernity in our cases? During the workshops, we kept returning to discussions of the difficulties in making sense of the dichotomy between a generic concept of modernity and the empirical observation of the appearance of multiple forms of modernity. The conceptual nature of this dichotomy was one of the most significant sources of disagreement amongst the participants of our workshops. If modernity is not a means for periodization, if we have multiple kinds of modernity existing simultaneously, and if even explicitly “anti-modern agendas” and initiatives such as those by Islamic traditionalists are modern – is

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then everything de facto modern? Has the concept of modernity become an empty signifier watering down all analytical gains? The search for answers to these questions, for which Shmuel Eisenstadt’s theory of multiple modernities is a good starting point, raised new ones regarding the level of analysis. Even if we agreed on the mmsp’s understanding of modernity in generic terms based on Luhmann’s Modern Systems Theory, that is to say as a structural setting characterized by functional differentiation, where do we look for expressions of the enactment or contestation of these structures of modernity that are behind the appearance of multiple forms of modernity? The mmsp introduced the theory of successive modernities by Peter Wagner in order to take into account that globally relevant ideas about social order can find local expressions and generate different forms of Islamic modernities. While Eisenstadt’s theory of multiple modernities opens up for the possibility of modernities beyond the so-called West, it does not provide us with answers to the phenomenon of multiple forms of modernity within other civilizational complexes. Here, Wagner’s sequence of liberal, organized, and extended liberal modernity offers conceptual tools for understanding the variation in the historical construction of modernities (Wagner 2010). Yet who are the collective or individual agents behind these constructions and how do they get public recognition? Do our case studies support the assumption of the Stanford School of Sociological Institutionalism (Meyer and Jepperson 2000) that a specific kind of modern actorhood is behind these constructions and, if yes, what is the relationship between these two social levels of actors and of the highly abstract macro-structure of modernity? Taking the chapter on the Muslim Brotherhood and Hassan al-Banna as an example, we discussed whether we are looking at masses or those seeking to organize the masses when we discern expressions of social order characteristic for an Islamic version of organized society? Or when studying religious phenomena and agreeing that religion is many things including practice, identity, and organization, how many of these aspects do we need to recognize as modern, before we can talk of an expression of religious practices as modern? For instance, in the Tablighi Jamaat movement as covered in the chapter by Pieri, the organization as such falls within a recognizable modern template sharing hybrid elements of Wagner’s type of organized and liberal modernity. However, if the members’ individual choice of participation in missionary work turns them less free in their social comportment, does this make them modern still? In other words, is it the existence of free choice that constitutes modernity at the micro level, or should we rather emphasize the limiting result of such a choice? Can a phenomenon belong to different types of modernity at the same

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time depending on the level of analysis? Is an ideology explicitly modern if those unconsciously adhering to it are not? In connection with the chapters by Sedgwick and Sinclair on neo-traditionalist networks and educational ideals, should we perceive the invention or revitalization of something perceived as traditional as modern even if the inventors do not understand it this way? It goes without saying that we will not be able to answer this host of questions in the conclusion to this book. Rather they will lead us to design future research. Yet in this conclusion we can use them as a backdrop in order to briefly reflect upon two theoretical core features of the mmsp, the critical application of Eisenstadt’s theory of multiple modernities and the role of modern actorhood in their historical construction. To a certain extent, multiple modernities and modern actorhood are concepts intrinsically related to each other. Who else than modern social actors can transform the challenges of global modernity into a multiplicity of modern projects? Defining modernity as a multi-facetted process in which social actors and movements compete with “distinct views of what makes a society modern” (Sinai 2019: 2), only makes sense in combining macro and micro levels. The chapters of this book, according to our reading, have given ample proof of this assumption. 2

Multiple Modernities: The Concept and its Weaknesses

Once coined at the change of the millenniums, Eisenstadt’s concept of multiple modernities has made a triumphal march into the Social Sciences and Humanities. With his emphasis on “plurality, creativity and reflexivity” (Mota and Delanty 2015: 41), as well as the religious roots of many modern projects, Eisenstadt reinvented modernization theory in a pluralistic and less Eurocentric way. Moreover, he offered a new theoretical standpoint from which contemporary social theory can reconnect to the intellectual trajectory of comparative historical sociology in the Weberian tradition. In line with this sociological tradition, the concept of multiple modernities is much more than a mere expression of cultural diversity as its often almost random application in current literatures might suggest (cf. Thomassen 2010). However, Eisenstadt’s approach also suffers from a number of theoretical weaknesses. At least three of them we will briefly address in light of the chapters of this book: Eisenstadt’s confusion of the generic concept of modernity with the civilizational complex of the socalled West, the disregard of his approach for intercultural encounters in the historical emergence of modernity, and the relative void in his theory to articulate the diversity within civilizations.

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Eisenstadt saw the rise of multiple modernities in the continual reinterpretation and reconstruction of the cultural program of modernity. He defined modernity in pointing to processes such as urbanization, industrialization, and a distinct “shift in the conception of human agency” (2000: 609). While he claims that modernization has proceeded in varying patterns of cultural and institutional expressions, he nevertheless maintains that the origin of the generic program of modernity was in the so-called West. Similar to classical modernization theory, Eisenstadt perceived the rise of multiple modernities in a social transformation that expanded from Europe over the globe (Eisenstadt 2001). Already in 1957, that is to say under the scholarly supremacy of classical modernization theory, the historian of the Middle East, Albert Hourani, put this conventional wisdom into question. Since then, an increasing number of scholars on the Middle East and other Islamic regions have argued that we can observe the emergence of distinctively modern ideas and institutions already before the impact of the West. In particular, representatives of the genre of the provincial histories of the Ottoman Empire have argued convincingly that the major Muslim reform projects of the nineteenth century in terms of economy, education, law, and politics also had indigenous roots (Singer 1999). These studies have contributed to a revision of the classical historical narrative according to which modernity entered the Middle East with the “Napoleonic moment” (Sajdi 2007: 27). The theoretical decision in the mmsp to define modernity as a generic concept according to Modern Systems Theory strongly supports this revision of the history of Ottoman modernization from a social theory perspective. When understanding modernity at the macro level in the emergence of functionally separated realms of social life, indeed we can observe processes of functional differentiation in Muslim social environments of pre-colonial times (Jung 2018). Moreover, the paradigm of functional differentiation is compatible with Eisenstadt’s move to bring religion back in. Luhmann’s theory does not claim the disappearance of religion in modernity but its reconstruction as one among the global social subsystems of world society (Luhmann 2002). Historically, this reconstruction was observable in long-lasting and intense border negotiations between religious communication and the self-referential communicative codes of the emerging functionally separated realms of modern society. In his Zwischenbetrachtungen, Max Weber articulated these social negotiations as the competition of religious ethics with ethical demands such as given by the realms of economics, politics, or the arts (Weber 1915). Applying this specific theoretical perspective, we can read the chapters of this book as different accounts of these kinds of border negotiations by Muslim social actors who have pursued distinct projects of modernity. In many but not all of

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them, Islamic traditions came to play a decisive role in bestowing these projects of modernities with a specific kind of authenticity. However, Hasan al-Banna, Abdelhamid Ben Badis, or Abdal-Hakim Winter have not acted in hermetically closed cultural and social containers. Social movements, Islamic networks, and Muslim organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Tablighi Jamaat, the Algerian Boy Scouts, or Traditionalist intellectuals have not unfolded within a clearly circumscribed Islamic civilization. On the contrary, various processes of cultural encounters have shaped their modern projects. The very fact of these historically shaped instances of cultural bricolage is acknowledged in the concept of entangled modernities that has been developed by scholars with a postcolonial theoretical outlook (Bhambra 2014; Getachew 2016; Randeria 2002). To be sure, the modernizing projects of Algeria’s resistance movement, the modern ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, or the origins of the Tablighi Jamaat in the context of the Islamic reform movement in South Asia were strongly conditioned by the power structures of European colonialism. However, these asymmetric power relations did not exclude agency on the side of the colonialized. The concept of entanglement rejects the simplistic idea that cultural transfers in the epoch of colonialism represented a one-way-street from Europe to the rest of the world. This argument of entanglement becomes even more important when we look at the chapters of Bruckmayr, Cevik, and Mex-Jørgensen that deal with contemporary projects of modernity. The combination of the Islamizing narrative about African Americans, rap music, and the racial politics of the United States generated a hybrid but nevertheless coherent form of modernity in the expression of Black Islam. Turkey’s Muslimists combine Islamic piety with elements of global fashion, individual agency, and liberal understandings of the self. At Cairo’s Tahrir Square, a mixture of Egyptian national experiences with globally relevant normative frameworks of the good life characterized the political visions and the every-day practices of the activists of the Egyptian revolution, some of them including Islamic traditions some of them not. With respect to Eisenstadt’s theory of multiple modernities, the chapters of this book endorse the role of religious and other traditions he assigned to the historical formation of multiple modernities. At the same time, however, they are proof for the significance of inter-cultural encounters in the construction of these Islamic modernities. The role of Islamic traditions only becomes understandable in analyzing these historically contingent and culturally diverse entanglements. This brings us to the last point of critique concerning Eisenstadt’s theory. The really interesting and puzzling observation is not the role of Islam in the construction of modern projects as such, but the diversity in which particular

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social actors have interpreted Islamic traditions through the lenses of other relevant normative, narrative, and institutional templates. In the conceptual language of the Stanford School, the real task is to understand the historically contingent ways in which social actors with a capacity for responsible agency for themselves, for others, and in the name of Islam have engaged in modernizing projects (Meyer and Jepperson 2000). Hasan al-Banna’s idea of Islamic governance is no less an expression of Islamic modernities than the cultural constructions of Muslim Hipsters in Cevik’s study. Yet, the Muslim Brothers and Turkey’s Muslimists read Islamic traditions very differently. The Tablighi missionaries are pursuing individual forms of modern self-formation and so do the rappers of African American Islam. The very results of this modern identity building processes, however, are utterly diverse. The Cambridge Muslim College combines modern education with Islamic traditions, likewise do Malay Muslim schools in Singapore though both do that in very different forms drawing from their respective national institutional environments. It is in these concrete projects of modernity, for which the authors of this book give a divers account, where the macro- and micro levels of observation meet. It is here, we can observe historically specific forms of entanglement and dependence. Each case study in this book focuses on a particular social figuration requiring of the analysis that it moves between different but interdependent social levels. The macro structures of modernity and the multiple projects of modernity represent different but co-determinant social levels. In order to understand these social complexities, “we must constantly move between models of the whole and those of its parts” (Elias 2007: 94). The theoretical elaborations of the mmsp attempt to provide a heuristic framework for this methodological task, but the discussions among the authors of this volume also showed the difficulties of its operationalization in empirical ­research. Consequently, while the collected studies in this book broaden the research program’s empirical substance and confirm the usefulness of some of its conceptual tools, they simultaneously raise new questions in theoretical and empirical terms. Then it comes to the mmsp’s theoretical framework, the recourse to the concept of modern actorhood by the Stanford School, and the ways in which the majority of case studies in this book suggested this without naming it, is one significant case in point. The methodological insights of Norbert Elias, the need of a multi-level analysis, need to be more closely knitted into the operationalization of this concept of social actorhood by the Stanford School. In sum, this book supports Eisenstadt’s thesis that religious traditions can play a central role in shaping variations in the imaginations of modernity at institutional and individual levels. However, it demonstrates the historical

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complexities at work, too. In contemporary collective and individual identity processes, religion only plays a role in historically contingent and thus changing interlacements with other, non-religious social imaginaries. The chapters of this volume describe multiple ways in which Islam provides a large reservoir of symbols, norms, and social practices for these processes. Thereby, our case studies confirm that Islamic traditions have been subject to shifting and contingent historical interpretations. Islamic modernity, therefore, only appears in the plural and does not unfold according to the “cultural program” of a clearly circumscribed civilizational complex; and the observable multiple modernities of Islam are an inherent part of global modernity as such. In this sense, Islamic and Western modernities are not fundamentally different modernities but they relate to and depend on each other. Moreover, we observe them in the form of historically concrete projects tackling the challenges to which modern social actors are exposed by the emergence of modernity as a global social macro structure. In his wholesale critique of Eisenstadt’s theory, Volker Schmidt suggested to replace the concept of multiple modernities by the concept of the varieties of modernity. In his eyes, Eisenstadt’s thesis does not contribute to a clear understanding of modern society. With his almost exclusive focus on culture, according to Schmidt, Eisenstadt rather obscures the rational of modernity (Schmidt 2006). What Schmidt advocates is to consider the empirical differences of modernizing projects in terms of varieties under a common theme. This argument resonates with other works that put the focus of their studies on the analysis of institutional varieties of capitalism or democracy (Hall and Soskice 2001; Kurunmäki, Nevers, and te Velde 2018). These studies look at the historical evolution of multiple forms of capitalist and democratic institutions and compare their different national settings in states in Europe and other world regions. The multiple Islamic modernities described in this book provide additional empirical substance to this conceptual debate about the varieties or multiplicities of modernity. But even more importantly, they add a religious component to this debate about the question as to whether we live in one or in many modernities. Engaging in this discussion about institutional varieties in the emergence of modernity by strengthening a perspective including religion will be another task for future research efforts of the mmsp. References Bhambra, Gurminder K. 2014. “Postcolonial Entanglements.” Postcolonial Studies 14(4): 418–421.

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Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. 2000. “The Reconstruction of Religious Arenas in the Framework of ‘Multiple Modernities’.” Millenium: Journal of International Studies 29(3): 591–611. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. 2001. “The Civilizational Dimension of Modernity: Modernity as a Distinct Civilization.” International Sociology 16(3): 320–340. Elias, Norbert. 2007. Involvement and Detachment. The Collected Works of Norbert Elias, Vol. 8, Stephen Quilley (ed.), Dublin: The University of Dublin Press. Getachew, Adom. 2016. “Universalism after the Post-Colonial Turn: Interpreting the Haitian Revolution.” Political Theory 44(6): 1–25. Hall, Peter A. and David Soskice (eds.). 2001. Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hourani, Albert. 1957. “The Changing Face of the Fertile Crescent in the xviiith Century.” Studia Islamica 8: 89–122. Jung, Dietrich. 2018. “Modern Subjectivity and the Emergence of Global Modernity: Syntax and Semantics of Modern Times.” In Dietrich Jung and Stephan Stetter (eds.), Modern Subjectivities in World Society. Global Structures and Local Practices, Palgrave Studies in International Relations. New York: Palgrave MacMillan: 45–62. Kurunmäki, Jussi, Jeppe Nevers, and Henk te Velde. 2018. Democracy in Modern Europe: A Conceptual History. New York: Berghahn Books. Luhmann, Niklas. 2002. Die Religion der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Meyer, John W. and Ronald L. Jepperson. 2000. “The Cultural Construction of Social Agency.” Sociological Theory 18(1): 100–120. Mota, Aurea and Gerard Delanty. 2015. “Eisenstadt, Brazil and the Multiple Modernities Framework: Revisions and Reconsiderations.” Journal of Classical Sociology 15(1): 39–57. Randeria, Shalini. 2002. “Entangled Histories and Uneven Modernities: Civil Society, Caste Solidarities and Legal Pluralism in Post-Colonial India.” In Elkana Yehudan, Ivan Kratev, Elíso Macamo, and Shalini Randeria (eds.), Unravelling Ties – From ­Social Cohesion to New Practices of Connectedness. Frankfurt a.M. and New York: Campus: 284–311. Sajdi, Dana (ed.). 2007. Ottoman Tulips, Ottoman Coffee. Leisure and Lifestyle in the Eighteenth Century. London and New York: I.B. Tauris. Schmidt, Volker. 2006. “Multiple Modernities or Varieties of Modernity?” Current Sociology 54(1): 77–97. Sinai, Stavit. 2019. “The Analytical Incoherence of the Multiple Modernities Thesis.” Journal of Classical Sociology 19(1): 1–11. Singer, Amy. 1999. “Review of State and Provincial Society in the Ottoman Empire: ­Mosul, 1540–1834 by Dina Rizk Khoury.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 31(2): 300–303.

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Thomassen, Bjørn. 2010. “Anthropology, Multiple Modernities and the Axial Age Debate.” Anthropological Theory 10(4): 321–342. Wagner, Peter. 2010. “Successive Modernities and the Idea of Progress: A First Attempt.” Distinktion 11(2): 9–24. Weber, Max 1915. “Religious Rejections of the World and Their Directions.” In From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. London: Routledge [1991]: 323–359.

Index Abdal Hakim Murad approach to knowledge 158 music and 156, 160–161 and Neo-traditionalism 125–126, 127, 128, 133, 137–139, 158–159 role of in Cambridge Muslim College 152–153, 155–157, 161, 162 “roots” and culture 160 Abduh, Muhammad 86–87, 115, 224 Abdullah ii, King 127 el-Abnudi, Abdel Rahman 231 activism, social 89, 111, 113–115, 117 actorhood, social 18, 271 Adel, Hany 227 al-Afghani, Jamal ad-Din 88 African Americans, original religion of 241–242 agency collective agency 228, 229, 232 of Hasan al-Banna 89–90 of individuals 229–232 in organized modernity 219, 227–229, 232 of participants in Tablighi Jamaat 59–60 Ahmadiyya 242 Aït Ahmed, Hocine 44 akp (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) 103, 104 Algeria 33–50 authenticity and modernity 45–46 autobiographical accounts 38–39 colonialism 33–34, 37, 49 education 35 government of self and state 42–44 liberal spirit of self-help and competition 48 mass movements 46–47 middle classes 34–35, 48 multiple modernities 36 organized modernity 46, 48 politics, secondary nature of 44–45 role models 39–40 scout movement 35, 37–40, 48 self-critique 43–44 spiritual guidance 40–42 Ali, Jan 63, 64, 68, 71

Ali, Kecia 141 Ali, Noble Drew (Timothy Drew) 241 alms-giving 101, 106, 110 altruism 108 American Society of Muslims 242 Amman Message 127, 128–129, 130–131 Amr Khalid 123 al-Anani, Khalil 77 Anderson, Edward (Edo G) 247–248, 254 Ansaaru Allah 244 anxiety, of modernity 138, 139 Arkoun, Mohammed 263 al-Ashʿari, Abu’l Hasan 131 al-Assad, Hafez 129 athletes 39–40, 48 Atia, Mona 98 Australia 71 authenticity and education 149, 150–151, 157–161, 162 authenticity and modernity in Algeria 45–46 autobiographical accounts 38–39 Ba ʿAlawi family 125, 126 Bambaataa, Afrika (Lance Taylor) 246 al-Banna, Hasan, and the modern Muslim self 75–93 activism of al-Banna 84, 89–90 education of al-Banna 83 family background of al-Banna 82–83 identity construction of al-Banna 91–92 interwar period, modernism of 78–82 Islamic reform 86–88 literature on al-Banna 77 mission of al-Banna 75 Muslim Brotherhood, growth of 75–76, 85–86, 92, 270 reform ideas of Muhammad Abduh 86–87 religious associations and al-Banna 83–84 revolts against colonialism 84–85 schools 90–91 Bannon, Steve 138 Baron, Beth 92

280 Bayat, Asef 173 behaviors, ritualized 64, 65–66 Ben Badis, Abdelhamid 35, 37, 39, 44, 46–47, 48 Bennabi, Malek 33–34, 37, 39, 43–44, 45, 46, 48, 49 Berger, Peter 168, 185 Black Islam and hip-hop 247–248, 263, 264, 265 movements and organizations 241–244 and narrative identity 252–263, 265–266 in New York 244–245 and rap music 239–240, 251 spread of 246 in Western societies 263–264 Blake, Kenyatta (Buckshot) 238, 246, 250–251, 260 Boumédiène, Houari 45 Bourdieu, Pierre 202, 205 bourgeois subjectivities 25–26, 81, 83, 86–87, 224 Bouzouzou, Mahmoud 40, 41, 42, 45 Brand Nubian (hip hop group) 246–247, 249 bricolage in identity formation 240, 264, 266 Brother Ali (Jason Newman) 262–263 Browers, Michaelle 128, 129 Brown, Jonathan 124 Brownsville, Brooklyn, New York City 244 Buckshot (Kenyatta Blake) 238, 246, 250–251, 260 Buddhism 133 al-Buti, Muhammad Said Ramadan 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 132, 134–135, 139 Al-Lamadhhabiyya (Abandoning the Madhhabs) 134 Cairokee (rock band) 226–227, 231 Cambridge Muslim College 147–163 accreditation 148 authenticity in education 150–151, 157–161, 162 building, description of 151–152 and Cambridge University 126 curriculum 153 days, structure of 152 Deobandi background 154

Index excursions 155–156 graduates, expectations of 153, 161–162, 163 guest lecturers 154–155 individuals and modernity 149–150 and Neo-traditionalism 22 Shaykh Abdal Hakim, role of 152–153, 155–157, 161, 162 capitalism, Islamic 11–12 Capital Women’s Platform Association (cwpa) 181 care for the self 43–44 Cevik, Neslihan 168 charities. See Deniz Feneri Chechnya, Russian Federation 129 chillā, period of religious journeying 67–68 Chinese-ness in Singapore 204 Christian homeschooling in Singapore 209 Christianity 168 Chuck D (Carlton Ridenhour) 247 circumcision 141 City and Ramadan (Şehir ve Ramazan), (TV show) 105–106 civilization, concept of 88 Clarence 13X 252, 257, 266 classical modernity 14 class inequalities and education 202 clothing 64–65, 111 Coles, Dennis (Ghostface Killah) 260 collective agency 228, 229, 232 collective societies 20 colonialism 33–34, 37, 49, 84–85 colonizability 34 commitments, Islamic 60–61, 99, 117 compassion 106–109, 117 conditions of modernity 122–123 contingency and social order 19 crises of modernity 20, 80–81, 123, 138, 139 cultural capital 204, 205 cultural programs 13–14 cultural sites of hybridity 167, 175–176, 177–178, 185–186 culture, definitions of 159 current modernity 121, 123, 124, 139–140 See also extended liberal modernity Dalai Lama 133 Dannin, Robert 265

281

Index Dar al-Mustafa, Tarim, Hadramut 125 Darul Islam Movement (dar) 244 darul uloom colleges 148, 154 Deniz Feneri (charity) 100–103, 104–107, 109 Deobandism 62, 154 differentiation of the modern world 15–16 digital media and Egyptian revolution (2011) 224, 226, 229, 230, 231 and fashion marketing 186 and Neo-traditionalism 125, 126, 140 and postmodern subjectivity 26 dignity in Egypt 223 domestic skills 69 donations 100, 101, 106, 108, 110 dress, Islamic 64–65, 111 Drew, Timothy (Noble Drew Ali) 241 drinking water, ritualization of 66 Dülmen, Richard van 23 Durkheim, Emile 15 early modernity 121, 123, 124, 139–140 See also restricted liberal modernity eating, ritualization of 66 economic policies in Malaysia 11–12 Edo G (Edward Anderson) 247–248, 254 education in Algeria 35 and authenticity 150–151, 157–161, 162 darul uloom colleges 148, 154 of Hasan al-Banna 83 Islamic 162–163 Islamization of knowledge 17–18 school of Hasan al-Banna 90–91 and subjectivity formation 150 types of 147–148, 162–163 See also Cambridge Muslim College; Singapore, educational choices in effendiyya (Egyptian middle class) 85–86 Egypt British control in 85 Hasan al-Banna and 75–93 Islamic reform in 87–88 middle classes 85–86 Muslim professionals 28–29 Revolution attempt (1919) 84–85 Egypt, pride and agency in 216–233 bad life before the revolution 220–225

conceptual and theoretical background 217–220 eighteen days of Tahrir Square (2011) 216–217 good life during the revolution 225–232 modern social order 232–233 Eisenstadt, Shmuel 13–14, 270, 271–272, 275 Elam, Keith (Guru) 253–254 ElBaradei, Mohamed 229 elitism in Singapore 200–201 End Times 133, 135, 136, 139 enemies of Islam 135–136, 137 English language resources 57 Enlightenment project 107, 122 entangled modernities 273 esoteric perennial traditions 132–133 Essam, Ramy 228, 231–232 eugenicist policies in Singapore 201 European humanism, discrediting of 79 Evangelicalism 168 Evola, Julius 133, 137–138 extended liberal modernity 48–49, 121, 175, 219, 229, 232 See also current modernity Facebook 125, 140, 224, 226, 230, 231 Fanon, Frantz 33, 49 Farrakhan, Louis (Louis Walcott) 243, 247–248 fashion. See Muslimist self and fashion Fassin, Didier 106–107 fasting 42 First World War 78–79 Five Percent Nation of Islam (fpn) 243, 245, 246, 248–251, 255–261, 265–266 Foucault, Michel care for the self 43 government of self and state 41, 42, 43, 49 power, exercise of 59, 60 subjectivity formation 23, 59, 150 subjects of colonial rule 37 Fruit of Islam (foi) 247 gangsta rap 248, 249 Garland, David 59 gender aspects 4 gender segregation 152, 155–156 Germany 82

282 el-Ghassiri, Mohamed 41, 42 al-Ghazali 211, 212 Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal, Prince 125, 127–128, 131, 132–133, 140 Ghonim, Wael 226 Ghostface Killah (Dennis Coles) 260 Giddens, Anthony 23 Gilroy, Paul 55 globalization and identity 55 global modernity 13–19, 169 global political system 17 global religion 168 global space and Neo-Traditionalism  124–125, 140 God and community reform 38 pleasing of 109–110, 112–115, 117–118 preferences of 40 relationship with 44, 108 Gomaa, Ali 125, 126, 127, 128, 129 governance, Islamic 88 government of self and state 41, 42–44, 49 governments and Neo-traditionalism 128–130 Great Britain control in Egypt 85 Muslims in 57, 62, 65 and Neo-traditionalism 128, 129–130 See also Cambridge Muslim College Grozny Conference 129 Guénonian Traditionalism 127–128, 132–133 Guru (Keith Elam) 253–254 Hafiz, Ḥabīb Umar bin 125, 127 halal products 186, 187 Hall, Robert (Lord Finesse) 248 Hamid, Sadek 124 Hamza Yusuf 125, 126, 127, 128, 130, 133, 136–137, 139, 162 Harbi, Mohammed 38, 47 Haşema swimming wear 183–184 Hervieu-Léger, Danièle 240 Heşofman track suits 183–184 heuristic Eurocentrism 21 higher education. See Cambridge Muslim College hijab, wearing of 177, 207–208 hip-hop music 239, 245–250, 263–264, 265

Index homeschooling in Singapore 197, 208–212 Horstman, Alexander 62 humanism, discrediting of 79 humanitarian aid projects 100, 101 humanitarianism 106–109 humiliation in Egypt 220–224 Hurgronje, Christiaan Snouck 1 hybridity, cultural sites of 167 Ice Cube, Death Certificate 248 ideal types of social order 20–21 Identitarianism 138 identity and globalization 55 identity construction 22–27, 240, 264–265 Ighilahriz, Louisette 42, 48 Ilyas, Maulana Muhammad 60, 61, 62, 63 imaginaries of the good life 217, 218 incentives for correct practice 66 independence 33, 34 India 61, 62 individuals actions of 21 agency of 229–232 and modernity 22–27, 90, 149–150 and Muslimism 172–173, 180–182 and Neo-traditionalism 123, 124, 131, 139 Indonesia 168 Iner, Derya 55 International Islamic University Malaysia 18 Isa Abd Allah al-Mahdi (Dwight York, Malachi Z. York) 244, 254 iṣlāḥ movement 35 Islam, original religion of African Americans 241–242 Islamic capitalism 11–12 Islamic dress 64–65, 111 Islamic governance 88 Islamic modernism 14, 79, 88 Islamic projects of modernity 123 Islamic reform 14, 16, 87 Islamic reformist (iṣlāḥ) movement 35 Islamic state, idea of 88–89 Islamic studies and modernity 1–2 Islamic welfare organizations 27–29 Islam in Singapore 196, 198–199, 210–211 Islamism 173n6, 174, 179 Islamization of knowledge 18

Index jāhiliyya (state of ignorance) 55 Jepperson, Ronald L. 218–219 al-Jifri, Ḥabīb Ali Zayn al-Abidin 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 132, 133, 135–136, 139, 140 Jihadi project 124 Jordan 168 Jung, Dietrich 46, 60, 123, 193 Justice and Development Party (jdp) 176 Kampung Baru, Kuala Lumpur 11–12 Keller, Nuh Ha Mim 125, 127, 133, 136, 140 The Reliance of the Traveler 140–141 Kenway, Jane 204 Khan, Shamus 205 al-Khatib, Muhib al-Din 86 khurūj (religious journeying) 62–63, 67–70 kitchen affairs 69 Kocak, Recep 105 Koh, Aaron 204 Kracauer, Siegfried 82 Krämer, Gudrun 91–92 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 11–12 languages in Singapore 204 Lauzière, Henri 86 Lee Kuan Yew 201 Lia, Brynjar 77 liberal modernity 80, 107–108, 134, 135 See also current modernity; early modernity; extended liberal modernity; restricted liberal modernity liberal societies 20, 21–22, 25–26, 81 life stories of great men 39 Lindsay, Michael D. 168 Lings, Martin 128, 133 Lord Finesse (Robert Hall) 248 Luhmann, Niklas 15–16, 23, 272 madrasa in Singapore 193, 195–196, 198–199, 202, 206–208 Mahatir Muhammad 11 Mahmood, Saba 1, 64 Mahoney, Michael 63–64 Malaysia 11–12, 18 Malays in Singapore 192, 193, 199n3, 202, 203n4, 204 Malcolm X 242–243, 252 Malik, Abdul-Rehman 130

283 Mandarin language 204 mandate system and the Middle East 78 man of transition, Hasan al-Banna as 91–92 mass movements 46–47, 81–82 Mathiesen, Kasper 124 Mayaram, Shail 61 Menace ii Society (movie) 248 meritocracy in Singapore 195 Meyer, John W. 15, 17, 218–219 middle classes 34–35, 48, 85–86 Middle Eastern political landscape 78–79 middle ground, religiously founded 185–186 See also cultural sites of hybridity Mipsterz (Muslim Hipsters) movement 166–167 missionary movements. See Mormons; Tablighi Jamaat Mitchell, Timothy 88–89 Mittermaier, Amira 107, 108 modern Islam, opposition to. See NeoTraditionalist Islam modernism, Islamic 14, 79, 88 modernities 14, 19–21, 79–80, 218, 219 See also social order modernity, definition of 60, 175, 233 modernity, Islamic 1–2, 79, 80, 85, 87–89, 123, 270 modernity and the case studies 269–270, 274 modern Muslim subjectivities 11–32 global modernity, theories of 13–19 introduction 11–13 Muslim professionals 28–29 selfhoods, modern 22–27, 55, 56, 62, 63, 70–72 successive modernities 19–22 Modern Muslim Subjectivities Project (mmsp) 2–3, 13–19, 269–270, 274 modern selfhoods 22–27, 55, 56, 62, 63, 70–72 modern social imaginaries 217n3 modern subjectivities 22–27 Modern Systems Theory 15–16, 22, 272 modest fashion 170–171 Moorish Science Temple, New Jersey, usa 241–242 moral reasoning 107–108 Mormons 69–70

284 mosques 57, 65 motivation, spiritual 109–110, 111, 113, 117 Muhammad, Prophet 39, 40 Muhammad, Elijah (Elijah Poole) 242, 258 Muhammad, Warith Deen 242–243 multiple modernities 2, 13–15, 16, 36, 122, 270, 271–275 Murad, Abdal Hakim. See Abdal Hakim Murad Murphy, Derek (Sadat X) 246, 248–249, 256, 257 murshid guides in scout movement 41–42 music 226–228 See also rap artists in the usa; singing Muslim Brotherhood 85–91 criticism of 135 growth of 75–76, 85–86, 92 ideal members of 90 influence of in Algeria 46 and Islamic modernity 79, 80, 85, 87–89, 270 literature on 77 modern Muslims 91 moral brigades 91 organized modernity of 76, 88, 89, 123 schools, role of 90–91 Muslim education. See Cambridge Muslim College; Singapore, educational choices in Muslimism 167–168, 171–174, 175–176, 180, 182, 185 Muslimist self and fashion 166–187 cultural sites of hybridity 167, 175–176, 177–178, 185–186 faith, emphasis on 180 fashion 170 global modernity 169 hijab and fashion 177 individuals 172–173, 180–182 modest fashion 170–171 subjectivities and Muslimism 169 swimming and sports wear 183–184 tesettür fashion 178–179, 180–181, 186–187 Muslim modernities 4 Muslim professionals 28–29

Index narrative identity formation 240, 250–263 Black Islam and rap music 252–263, 265–266 Buckshot (Kenyatta Blake) 250–251 communal narratives 253 Nasr, Seyyed Hossein 128, 132 national schools in Singapore 193, 195, 203–206 national states 17 Nation of Islam (noi) 242–243, 247–248, 265 neoliberal policies 98, 103–104 Neo-traditionalist Islam 121–142 Abdal Hakim on modernity 137–139 governments and 128–130 Guénonian Traditionalist understanding 132–133 Jung's views on 21–22 modernity of 139–141 multiple and successive modernities 122–124 networks 124–128 opposition to modern Islam 133–137 understandings of Islam 130–131 new intellectual activists 89 Newman, Jason (Brother Ali) 262–263 New Religious Orthodoxies (nros) 168, 185 New York, usa 244–245, 249 non-governmental organizations (ngos) 98–99 Noor, Farish 56 N.W.A. (Niggaz Wit Attitudes) 248 organized modernity agency in 219, 227–229, 232 in Algeria 47 definition of 20, 46 in Egypt 80 examples of 21, 46, 81–82, 123 and Hasan al-Banna 76, 88, 89 rise of 25, 48, 79 in Turkey 174 Ounissi, Zhour 45 Özal, Turgut 103 peer-group-oriented subjectivity of the masses 25–26, 81–82, 91, 116 Penn, Corey Brent (C.L. Smooth) 247

285

Index Percee P (John Percy Simon) 246 perennial philosophia 132–133 personal identity 240 Philips, Peter (Pete Rock) 247 Pierret, Thomas 124 pious neoliberalism 98 pious subjectivity 60, 91, 92, 99, 103, 110–111 pluralistic societies 20, 21 poems in Egypt 231 points for ritualized behaviors 66 politics, secondary nature of 44–45 Poole, Elijah (Elijah Muhammad) 242, 258 population policies in Singapore 201 post-Islamism 173 postmodern subjectivities 26, 116 poverty, awareness raising of 105–106 poverty relief programs 100, 101, 103 power, exercise of 59, 60 Price, Sean (Ruck) 238, 258, 259 pride in Egypt 225–232 projects of modernity 122–123 Public Enemy (hip hop group) 247 Qutb, Sayyid 56 Rabbani, Faraz 126 Radical Middle Way 126–127, 128, 129–130 Raekwon The Chef (Corey Woods) 260–261 Ramadan 42, 66, 105–106 rap artists in the usa 238–266 Black Islam and the rap scene 238–241 conclusions 263–266 ḥarām rap music 259 hip-hop and Islam 245–250 narrative identity of rappers 250–258 paths of Black Islam 241–245 Reckwitz, Andreas 24–27, 81 Reetz, Dietrich 61 responsibilized actors 59 restricted liberal modernity 121, 219, 224–225, 227, 232 See also early modernity Reviving the Islamic Spirit Conference 127 Ricoeur, Paul 240 Rida, Rashid 86, 87, 89 Ridenhouse, Carlton (Chuck D) 247 ritualization of everyday life in Tablighi Jamaat 63–66

Rock, Pete (Peter Philips) 247 role models in Algeria 39–40 “roots” and culture 159 Roy, Olivier 264 Ruck (Sean Price) 238, 258, 259 Ryzova, Lucie 45 Sadat X (Derek Murphy) 246, 248–249, 256, 257 Salafism 87–88, 124, 131 Salvatore, Armando 107–108 Schmidt, Volker 275 scholarly traditions on Islam and modernity 1–2 schools. See education; Singapore, educational choices in scout movement in Algeria 35, 37–40, 41, 48 Security of the First World (S1Ws) 247 SeekersHub 126 self-critique 43–44 self-help 48 selfhoods, modern 22–27, 55, 56, 62, 63, 70–72 Shah-Kazemi, Reza 133 shariʿa 86–87 shariʿa-compliant businesses 12–13 Simmel, Georg 19 Simon, John Percy (Percee P) 246 Simpson, Guilty (Byron Simpson) 257 Sinclair, Kirstine 46, 60, 123 Singapore, educational choices in 192–213 approaches to education 192–193 enhancement activities, expenditure on 205–206, 208 homeschooling 197, 208–212 madrasa 193, 195–196, 198–199, 202, 206–208 national schools 193, 195, 203–206 quality and standard of education 194–197 social mobility 197–203 special education needs 197 streaming in education 194, 199–200 Singapore Muslim Identity 198 singing 156, 160–161 slavery 140–141 sleeping, ritualization of 66 slogans in Egypt 220–223, 226, 231–232

286 Smith, Charles D. 78 Smooth, C.L. (Corey Brent Penn) 247 social activism 89 social actorhood 18–19 social capital 204, 205 social inclusion 24 social media 186, 224, 226, 229, 230, 231 social mobility in Singapore 197–203 social order 19–22 individual’s place in 217–218 Islamic 85, 87–89 minority and majority, distinction between 220–225 See also modernities social theory 2–3, 15–16, 166–167 societies, liberal 20, 21–22, 25–26, 81 soldiers 230 Somers, Margret R. 252 songs, revolutionary 226–228 special education needs in Singapore 197 spiritual guidance in scout movement 41–42 spiritual motivation 109–110, 111, 113, 117 sports and subjectivity 39–40, 48 sports wear 183–184 stages of modernity 99, 116, 123, 169 See also successive modernities Stanford School cultural theories 15, 17, 18 Steele 246, 255–256, 258, 259–260, 261–262 Stewart, Alexander 59, 64 streaming in education 194, 199–200 subjectivity formation 22–27, 59, 97–98, 150 subjects of colonial rule 37 successive modernities 19–20, 21, 24–25, 46, 48–49, 103, 123, 270 See also stages of modernity Sufism 127, 131, 132, 140 Suleiman, Omar 225 Sunni Islam 242–243, 244, 250, 255–261, 266 Suria Shopping Center, Kuala Lumpur 12 swimming wear 183–184 Syria 129 Taba Foundation 131 Tablighi Jamaat agency of participants 59–60 Deobandism and 62 educational process 63

Index fieldwork methods 57–58 in India 61 jāhiliyya, state of ignorance 55–56 khurūj religious journeying 62–63, 67–70 modernity of 270 participation in, effects of 56, 58 ritualization of everyday life 63–66 selfhoods, modern 62, 63 Six Points of Tabligh 60–61 theoretical framework of study 58–60 view of the West 55–56 women and 57–58, 65, 69 Tahrir Square protests 216, 225–232 Taylor, Charles 24, 217n3 Taylor, Lance (Afrika Bambaataa) 246 technological development 26 technologies of the self 23, 59 television shows 105–106 tesettür fashion 178–179, 180–181, 186–187 theoretical framework of mmsp 13–19 third spaces/cultures 166 Thomas, George M. 168 toilets, entering and leaving of 65 traditional Islam 130–131 Trump, Donald, presidency of 245 tuition industry in Singapore 200 Turkey modernity in 174 Muslimism in 167, 174, 175–176 post-Islamism in 173 tesettür fashion 178–179, 180–181 volunteering in 97–118 Twitter 229 United States of America Evangelicalism 168 and Neo-traditionalism 130 rap artists in 238–266 Universal Zulu Nation (uzn) 246 universities 17–18, 147 Van Galen, Jane 211 volunteering in Turkey 97–118 beyond secular humanism 109–113 conclusions 116–119 Deniz Feneri organization 100–103, 104–107, 109 Islamic-inspired volunteerism 97–100

287

Index Muslim selfhood 113–115 neoliberal policies 98, 103–104 publicizing Islam through charity 104–109 volunteers 102–103, 109–115 Wagner, Peter 19–21, 27, 48, 76, 79, 80–81, 121, 122–123, 139, 270 Walcott, Louis (Louis Farrakhan) 243, 247–248 walking beside the wall, proverb 223–224 water, ritualization of drinking 66 We Are All Khaled Said, Facebook Page 223, 224, 226, 230, 231 Weber, Max 18, 20, 23, 272 websites 126 Weimar Republic 82 welfare organizations 27–29 West, Muslims in 55, 62 Western society and modernity 3 Whyte, William 81 Wiebe, Robert 76 Willinger, Markus 138 Winter, Tim 147 See also Abdal Hakim Murad women education of 152, 155–156, 196, 207–208 equality of 45

and fashion 177–182 homeschooling by 212 Islamic dress 65, 111 roles of in Singapore 201–202 and slaves 140–141 and sports 183–184 in Tablighi Jamaat 57–58, 69 Woods, Corey (Raekwon The Chef) 260–261 world cultural theories 15, 17, 18 World War I 78–79 writing workshops 4 Wust El-Balad 227 Wu-Tang Clan 249–250 York, Dwight (Isa Abd Allah al-Mahdi, Malachi Z. York) 244, 254 youth movements 47 See also scout movement in Algeria YouTube Neo-Traditionalist videos 125, 126 Yucel, Salih 55 Yunus 183 Yusuf, Hamza. See Hamza Yusuf Zaytuna College, California 125, 162–163 zekat (obligatory alms) 101, 106, 110