Search Results (11)

For over two decades, France’s Muslim population has faced a series of legal measures and hostile public narratives aimed at problematizing their faith. Notable examples include the 2004 national ban on “ostentatious religious symbols” in state schools, which prohibits obligatory religious dress in various settings. These individual instances are compounded by more recent broader policies, decisions, laws, and executive statements that negatively impact Muslim life. This paper examines France’s trajectory from a new perspective: A Muslim legal viewpoint. It argues that the French approach constitutes a two-step process of institutionalized Islamophobia, understood here as hostility towards Islam as a faith. First, the state redefines mainstream Islamic orthopraxy as “extreme”, pitting ordinary religious practices against averred Republican values. Second, it seeks to promote an alternative concept of a “French Islam”—one that aligns with France’s secular principles and is stripped of its religious essence—positioning it as the only acceptable framework for Muslims to practice their faith in France. We argue that this process is not about upholding laïcité or state neutrality; rather, invoking the latter serves as a smokescreen for the state’s Islamophobia. Full article

In the debate over the theory and practice of the Spanish empire at the beginning of the sixteenth century, political, religious, and legal discourses differentiated conquered peoples and recent converts to Christianity from so-called “old Christians”, thereby creating distinct categories of Spanish subjects. In Spain itself, cultural markers like language, dress, and diet became the foundations of fiscal and legal differences, while normative codes were promulgated and negotiated across a range of documents, e.g., legal instruments, civic and ecclesiastical records, university debates, and juridical theory. Concomitant with this process, a set of Christian catechisms was produced in Spain, both before and after the promulgation of Tridentine reforms, that were directed especially at the converted morisco populations in Granada and Valencia. These catechisms were produced in Iberian Arabic and Romance languages and included instructions about how new converts from Islam should behave, as well as what they should believe in order to participate in liturgical activities and to be recognized as full members of the Christian community. This article examines the morisco catechisms produced in Spain between 1496 and 1566, as these documents are representative of a unique period in both the history of Latin Christianity and the burgeoning Spanish empire. Through the emergence of this corpus and against the backdrop of targeted legislation and new policies aimed at Arabic-speaking moriscos, first in Granada and later in Valencia, the ideological foundations constraining the morisco experience were forged. Full article

Christian communities in Palestine and Al-Andalus faced similar challenges during the ninth century. Although Muslim authorities tolerated Christianity and enshrined a certain degree of religious freedom, they downgraded these communities and encouraged conversion to Islam. In the long span, Christian communities decreased because many of their leading members emigrated or converted. Moreover, many of those that remained adopted the Arabic language, dressed like Muslims, and became increasingly assimilated into the ruling elite Muslim culture. This article suggests that the contacts and reciprocal influence between Christian communities from Palestine and Spain during this period were more substantial than hitherto perceived. Thus, they used the same methods with some local adaptations to tackle their critical situation. They introduced a growing use of Arabic in religious life, established and upgraded important pilgrimage shrines, and some extremist monastic communities fostered and encouraged martyrdom. Full article

Majapahit was one of Indonesia’s most prominent and last Hindu kingdoms in the 12–15th centuries. During this time, there was a process of changing religious beliefs among the Javanese population, who then embraced Hinduism to eventually become Muslim. In the 14th and 15th centuries, according to estimates, Islam began to spread throughout the Majapahit Empire. There was also a cultural shift in the Majapahit Kingdom’s society, from how they dressed to the shape of their houses. This study aims to determine how structures from that time were interpreted using a 3D model based on field surveys and previous studies. This documentation’s findings are divided into typology, spatial distribution, and architectural elements. Each of these three groups was further defined through Islamic law to determine the extent of Islam’s Influence on dwellings throughout the Majapahit Era. The impact of Islam on Majapahit architecture during that time was characterised by openness in terms of building typology, compactness in the internal layout of buildings, and the employment of ornamental architectural features based on plant and abstract patterns. Full article

In Europe, gender equality can be framed as a secular value, juxtaposed against affiliation with and practice of Islam. Academic and public debate has either given special attention to the spread of religious fundamentalism in Europe, or to the way Muslim women dress, citing how both purportedly jeopardize gender equality. This is despite findings that a link between gender equality and religiosity or practice of Islam is neither inherent nor circumscribed. Moreover, it is possible to demonstrate that such discourse rests on implicitly racialized conceptualizations of the Muslim “other”. Meanwhile, Muslim youth in particular are benchmarked against these imagined standards of gender equality, as compared with non-Muslim peers. This work examines ways in which normative secular frameworks and discourses, taking ownership of gender equality narratives, have shaped Europe’s academic inquiry regarding Muslim youth. It notes what is absent in this inquiry, including intersections of race and class, which remain divorced from the limited conversation on gender and religious difference. A reflexive, intersectional approach to this discussion, conscious of the importance of embedded racial or structural inequality and what is absent in current inquiry, better serves in understanding and navigating power relations that ultimately contribute to multiple exclusion of these youth. Full article

This article, part of an evolving and large project, examines the relationship between clothing, freedom and choice, and specifically Islamic dress in shaping the identity of Dutch Muslim women after the Burka Ban that was voted into law on 1 August 2019 in the Netherlands. It discusses the debates before and after this date, as well as the background to the ban. A veil covering the face is a garment worn by some Muslim women to adhere to an interpretation of hijab (modest dress). It can be referred to as a burqa or niqab. In the aftermath of the Burka Ban that prompted considerable public alarm on the part of Muslim men and women, niqab-wearing women, as well as women who do not wear a veil, but are in solidarity with their niqabi sisters, raised a number of questions that form the basis for the analysis presented here: how do Dutch Muslim women shape their identity in a way that it is both Dutch and Muslim? Do they incorporate Dutch parameters into their Muslim identity, while at the same time weaving Islamic principles into their Dutch sense of self? The findings show how Islamic clothing can be mobilized by Dutch Muslim women to serve identity formation and personal (religious) choice in the Netherlands, where Islam is largely considered by the non-Muslim population to be a religion that is oppressive and discriminatory towards women. It is argued that in the context of being Dutch and Muslim, these women express their freedom of choice through clothing, thus pushing the limits of the archetypal Dutch identity and criticizing Dutch society while simultaneously stretching the meaning of Islam to craft their own identity. Full article

This study discusses two religious elements of culture emerging within various religiously conservative groups in Turkey. The first is concerned with the building of a religious work ethic, framing work life with Islamic morals and norms. The second involves religiously oriented consumption patterns among these groups, which generate a faith-driven dimension of culture in capitalist consumer society. The study deals with how and why these two religious-cultural dimensions arose, and what forms they take in contemporary Turkey. These forms operate in the background of dress and fashion concerns of the aforesaid groups, influencing clothing styles and consumption patterns, as well as being linked to the capitalist-Islamic work ethic. The study demonstrates how consumption styles have changed in line with transformations in the class structure of the groups in question. It examines the extent to which, with the development of new religious ethic and consumption styles compatible with capitalist economic order, interpretations of Islam have shaped and organized the economic and cultural fields in Turkey. We argue that there is a mutually formative relationship between economy, religion, and culture. In that relationship, religion, which paves the way for forming a class-based religious perspective in keeping with a capitalist system, undertakes an active role in shaping an economic sphere and cultural activities in everyday life. Full article

This article explores the dress practices of Muslim women in Brazil, focusing on the ways through which they choose, prepare, use, and talk about their wedding garments. The aim is to understand how religiously oriented women interpret the Islamic normative codes concerning the coverage of the female body when managing their appearance, particularly when “special celebrations” such as wedding rituals are involved. How do they combine bridal fashion trends with religious orientations? Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and personal interviews, this analysis stresses that the desired aesthetic of Muslim women’s marital garments unfolds a search for a modest authenticity through which “Brazilian culture”, “female beauty”, and Islam are mobilized. In conclusion, the study points to the dynamic ways through which this specific encounter of religion and fashion produce an aesthetic based on a degree of improvisation and creativity, since the Islamic fashion industry is absent in the Brazilian market. Full article

This paper focuses on the relationship between clothing and identity—specifically, on Islamic dress as shaping the identity of Dutch Muslim women. How do these Dutch Muslim women shape their identity in a way that it is both Dutch and Muslim? Do they mix Dutch parameters in their Muslim identity, while at the same time intersplicing Islamic principles in their Dutch sense of self? This study is based on two ethnographies conducted in the city of Amsterdam, the first occurring from September to October 2009, and the second took place in August 2018, which combines insights taken from in-depth interviews with Dutch Muslim women and observations in gatherings from Quranic and Religious studies, social gatherings and one-time events, as well as observations in stores for Islamic fashion and museums in Amsterdam. This study takes as its theme clothing and identity, and how Islamic clothing can be mobilized by Dutch Muslim women in service of identity formation. The study takes place in a context, the Netherlands, where Islam is largely considered by the populous as a religion that is oppressive and discriminatory to women. This paper argues that in the context of being Dutch and Muslim, through choice of clothing, these women express their agency: their ability to choose and act in social action, thus pushing the limits of archetypal Dutch identity while simultaneously stretching the meaning of Islam to craft their own identity, one that is influenced by themes of immigration, belongingness, ethnicity, religious knowledge and gender. Full article

Salafis’ everyday lives, social relations, and attitudes towards both Muslims and non-Muslims are often shaped implicitly or explicitly by the theological concept of al-wala’ wa-l-bara’ (“loyalty and disavowal”). It indicates whom to be loyal to on the one hand, and whom to disavow on the other hand—or from which persons, deeds, and practices one should distance oneself. However, within the highly heterogeneous spectrum of Salafi orientations, beliefs, and religious practices, interpretations of al-wala’ and al-bara’ differ as well as its actual relevance and its implications for concrete life situations. This article explores how Muslims in Germany who identify themselves with non-violent, so-called ‘purist Salafism’ perceive and practice social relations, social closeness, or separation in their everyday lives by drawing implicitly or explicitly on principles of loyalty and disavowal. Based on qualitative interviews and participant observations (data gathered between 2014 and 2018), we shed light on how individuals’ ideas of loyalty and disavowal intersect with issues of identity, belonging, inclusion, and exclusion. The article thus shows how local interpretations and implementations of a Salafi core concept are strongly interwoven with realities of everyday life. Full article

Questions of ‘coveredness’ in Islamic codes of dress, particularly as they apply to women, are often framed through the symbolic statements that they enable or disable, or through discourses on public versus private spaces. Rather than focus on these disciplining dimensions, this article explores observations about embodied practices for clothing oneself ‘modestly’, and some of the paradoxes thereof, which emerged in the context of research about diasporic mobilities of European-Moroccans in Morocco. Drawing heavily on Karen Barad and a materialist phenomenological approach to corporeality, this approach produces an understanding of how moral bodies materialize with and through clothing. By observing and following the mobilities of participants across spaces dominated by ‘Muslim’ and ‘Western’ regimes of modesty, certain dissonances of their practices in these differentiated spaces indicate ways bodies, clothing and moralities are intra-actively entangled. Proposing ethnography as a diffractive apparatus, the analysis incorporates participant reports, as well as embodied learning through ethnographic time. By approaching this ‘disciplining’ diffractively, all agents–knowledgeable bodies, malleable clothes and spatially moral gazes–are considered as intra-actively influencing each other, mattering into ‘modesty’ where ‘subjected’ bodies, as well as clothing and regimes of modesty are adapting. Full article