“Pure/True” Islam versus “Cultural” Islam

Abstract

This chapter examines the salient idea of a “pure/true” Islam as compared to a presumably “cultural” Islam. It argues that this narrative frame has multiple stories and meanings woven into it by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Those Muslims drawing on it come from across the ideological spectrum, in groups labeled as “fundamentalists/Islamists,” “modernists,” “traditionalists,” and “secularists.” This chapter explores how this narrative speaks to fundamental questions about the definition of religion in general and to the anthropology of Islam in particular. Are there one or multiples islam(s), and who decides which is pure or true? It shows that younger generations of Muslim Americans, as well as many converts to Islam, invoke this narrative to argue that immigrant Muslim Americans’ understanding and practice of the religion is colored by their “back-home culture,” which privileges certain norms and traditions and relegates anything different, especially Western, to the category of un-Islamic.