Abstract The sociology of religion has often missed the mark with Islam and Muslims, by forcing external frameworks that are not fit for purpose, by neglecting already-existing constitutive theories that more authentically explain the Muslim experience, and by devoting comparatively fewer studies to Islam and Muslims. This paper offers a small contribution to redress these issues, by examining the religious lives of everyday Melbourne Muslims in Ramadan, using theories first proposed by Ibn Khaldun. By extending Ibn Khaldun’s concept of ‘asabiyya (social binding), this paper explores for the first time the interdependent roles of hardship and Islam in generating a nourishing sense of community cohesion. The research was conducted through anonymous diaries kept over an extended period, providing unprecedented and novel insights into the lives of participants. The findings suggest that the physical and spiritual challenges of Ramadan, combined with the influence of “transnational” Islam, contribute to the formation of ‘asabiyya. Sociological instruments used to understand Muslims are too often external and not fit-for-purpose. This paper expands theories first proposed by Ibn Khaldun 600 years ago, particularly ‘asabiyya, and then applies them in new ways to better explain the modern Muslim experience in Ramadan.

Abstract This paper explores the process of meaning-making in an Islamic site—The Inclusive Mosque Initiative (IMI)—where the cultivation of a plural religious space is pursued as an Islamic, rather than a secular, virtue. The study highlights the discourse, spatiality, and praxis of the Friday prayers at IMI, revealing a distinctive non-hierarchical symbolic spatiality, plural congregational practices, shared ritual leadership, and interactive sermons cultivating diversity in congregants’ ethical self-formation. Drawing on these ethnographic experiences, the paper advocates for an expansion of Talal Asad’s concept of the discursive tradition of Islam by proposing a greater emphasis on ‘non-established’ practices, such as IMI’s gender-expansive Friday prayers. Additionally, by questioning the primacy given to reason and argumentation referring to the foundational Islamic texts in Asad’s approach, it highlights how embodied, affective, and phenomenological experiences play a defining role in Islamic discursive traditions. Inclusive Muslims offer an expanded purpose of power within the Islamic discursive tradition, moving away from conceptions of Islamic authority linked with ‘orthodoxy’ to ones demonstrating, what Shahab Ahmed calls, the ‘explorative’ mode of authority. Consequently, the study of non-normative, inclusive Muslim communities, exemplified by the IMI, offers insights into alternative Islamic practices and discourses and challenges conventional anthropological definitions of Islam as a discursive tradition.