Devout Believer Research Articles

Michel Foucault's Power Relations Theory on al-Maududi's Thought

Al Maududi stated that the responsibility for istikhlaf fi al-ardi in the sense of niyabah for God's formal function on earth, must be delegated to a devout believer, it is inappropriate for the responsibility of the caliphate to be given to a munafiq, fasiq and dhalim Muslim. Thus, this research has two objectives, namely first; analyzing al Maududi's thoughts which are reflected specifically in his work Tafhim Al-Qur‘an in Surah an-Nur verses 48-56, which describes the identification of hypocritical people and the criteria for mukhlisin Muslims. Second, to analyze Michel Foucault's social theory of power relations towards the analysis of the genealogical context between al- Maududi and the social context in which the interpretation was produced, so that the idea of al-Maududi's interpretation forms a discourse of knowledge and becomes the truth ideology of the fundamentalist group. This research is classified as qualitative research using the library research approach method. The methodology used is a study of tafsir tahlily based on analysis of primary data sources, namely the interpretation of Tafhim Al-Qur‘an in Surah an Nur verses 48-56. The results of this research conclude that the interpretive analysis used by al Maududi in the letter is classified as sharp and broad argumentative analysis. Tafsir Tafhim Al-Qur‘an has genealogical roots from the Turjuman Al-Qur‘an magazine and the Jamaat-i Islami party. This interpretation is written in two phases; namely the phases before and after the formation of Pakistan. From these two phases, no strikingly different interpretation patterns were found, because in these two phases, al-Maududi remained in a defeated position. Al Maududi's inner conflict struggles can be seen from how he interprets the term munafiq, which in fact Pakistan is a Muslim- majority country but uses a secular government system.

The political economy of education in Central Asia: exploring the fault lines of social cohesion

ABSTRACT This scoping review examines the political economy analysis of education in four Central Asian states – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. By analysing the intersections of politics, economy, society and education policy, the study aims to understand the impact of post-Soviet education reforms on social justice and cohesion. The findings reveal that despite commitments to building peaceful and inclusive societies, the education systems in these states tend to promote asymmetric nationalist discourses and adopt neoliberal practices, resulting in the marginalisation of vulnerable groups, such as ethnic minorities, women, rural populations, and devout believers. The implications of these findings can inform efforts to promote sustainable positive peace and social cohesion through education.

Religious Attitude of the Muslim Community of Lombok Island in the Covid-19 Pandemic Season

The Covid-19 pandemic has an impact on changes in the human lifeline, including the pattern of worship of religious people at large. Religious practices that are carried out regularly and implemented in special places are undergoing a shift. The practice of communal worship involving many worshippers is limited at home by involving people who are also limited. This article aims to explain the shift in the way of worship of the people of Lombok Island related to the Covid-19 that hit the world today. The study also exposed a new form of habit in Muslim religious practices due to the pandemic on Lombok island. This article shows that changes in worship patterns are the result of emergencies and the choice to continue to carry out their duties as devout believers. The limitations of the worship space are avoided by adjusting it to government policy. Policies regarding social distancing and adherence to health protocols are an effort to prevent the spread of the virus. In a religious context, it is part of a life-saving effort so it must be obeyed. The new normal requires Muslims to conform and change new habits (new habitus) in carrying out religious practices (prayers). For example, there is a shaf distance, wearing a mask, bringing prayer mats and other equipment needed when praying in the mosque, preparing hand sanitizer in each house of worship, and routinely checking the body temperature of worshippers visiting the mosque and always referring to health protocols guided by Maqosid Assyariah.

Dennis C. Rasmussen. The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship that Shaped Modern Thought.

Dennis C. Rasmussen. <i>The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship that Shaped Modern Thought</i>.

Constantine’s Radiate Statue and the Founding of Constantinople

This essay challenges the idea that Constantine’s radiate statue on his Constantinopolitan column assimilated the Christian emperor to the pagan deity Apollo Sol, the Radiant Sun. Iconographic analysis of Roman coinage allows us to understand the imperial crown of rays as an attribute of Divus Augustus, Augustus the God. I argue that from Nero through Constantine, the last Roman emperor to use the corona radiata in his portraiture, the radiate crown signified the theomorphic assimilation of the reigning emperor to Divus Augustus. Every man who wore it claimed to be “the Divine Augustus of the Present Age.” The corona radiata was thus at once a religious and an imperial symbol that signified the continuity of the “Augustan line.” My analysis of imperial coinage affirms this conclusion in demonstrating that its uses were independent of the emperor’s personal patron deity, including Sol. These proposals have important repercussions for understanding Constantine’s faith. The religious compromise that the Christian Constantine entered in agreeing to a radiate portrait concerned imperial legitimation. Though a devout believer, the emperor still chose to remain the Divine Augustus in his new city, as that concession signaled something important that he could not communicate otherwise: his new city’s identity vis-à-vis Rome.

Religious Festival Marketing: Distinguishing between Devout Believers and Tourists

Customer classification is an integral part of marketing planning activities. Researchers have struggled to classify “pilgrims” and “tourists” because these groups overlap to a large extent in terms of their identities while participating in religious activities/sightseeing. To achieve sustainable tourism development for the region with rich religious and cultural characteristics, the present article outlines a process for analyzing the motivation of participants attending religious festival of Mazu in Taiwan and then classifies religious festival participants according to their motivations. Using cluster sampling, a total of 280 responses were obtained and analyzed. The results revealed four different motivation categories: Fun traveler, devout believer, cultural enthusiast, and religious pragmatist. The study concludes that while festivalgoers are influenced by secularization to some extent, the original doctrine of the religion epitomized in the festivals fundamentally retains the essence and spirit of its religious rituals. The findings may have a significant value for the development of religious tourism marketing as it offers a foundation for future research seeking to develop regional cultural and religious sightseeing attractions sustainably.

A Real American “Spakes English”: Ethnicity, Religion, and Respectability in John Talbot Smith’s “How the McGuinness Saved His Pride” (1891)

A Real American “Spakes English”: Ethnicity, Religion, and Respectability in John Talbot Smith’s “How the McGuinness Saved His Pride” (1891) Lindsay Janssen (bio) The French-Canadian of any rank in life feels that God can confer no greater honor than to make one of his boys a priest, one of his girls a nun. This is a curious view…. The life of the ordinary priest or nun in Canada is not financially a happy one.… It seems to make little difference to the Canadian, as long as his son is the priest. Therefore Protestant missions have found it difficult to bribe this people. Honor seems to mean more to them than soup,1 and they are evidently determined to continue in their priest-ridden condition. We apologize for them to our separated brethren.2 In 1889, author, editor, and priest John Talbot Smith (1855–1923) defended the French Canadians of Quebec to the readers of the New York Catholic World, casting the former as devout believers immune to the lure of financial standing or corruption. Dipping his pen in irony, as he frequently did, Smith took it upon himself to apologize for the ardently religious and virtuous spirit of the French Canadians to those displaying antipathy towards them—“the Orangemen of Ontario…the faction represented by Goldwin Smith,” and several newspapers in Canada and the US.3 British journalist and historian Goldwin Smith made pejorative comments concerning the French Canadians of Quebec, seeing them as a backward, “surviving offset of the France of the Bourbons, cut off by conquest from the mother country and her revolutions,” whose religious “character has been perpetuated by isolation like the form of an antediluvian animal preserved in Siberian ice.”4 Moreover, he warned against a rise in Ultramontanism in Quebec, which he perceived to be a threat to English-speaking Protestants in the province.5 Goldwin Smith’s ideas were disseminated throughout Britain, Canada, and the US, which was demonstrated by the simultaneous publication of his Canada and the Canadian Question—from which the quote above is taken—in Toronto, London, and New York in 1891. Talbot Smith, on the contrary, set out to counter such negative views, and represented Quebec’s Catholics as ardent rather than extremist. When taking Talbot Smith’s fiction into account, it becomes clear that he not only viewed French Canadian Catholics in a favorable light, but [End Page 146] also posited them as an example for US Catholics. In his story “How the McGuinness Saved his Pride,” published in the collection His Honor, the Mayor: And Other Tales (1891), Talbot Smith exposes what he perceived as the potential superficiality of Irish American Catholicism. He does so through an exploration of the exclusionist tendencies of a small-town Irish immigrant community towards the figure of a poor Catholic French Canadian immigrant who tries to assimilate. By the time of Talbot Smith’s literary activity, Catholicism in the US had become practically synonymous with ethnic Irish identity, and the author himself belonged to the Irish American community. Thus, the specific Irish American dimension to his criticism is logical from both a personal and a sociohistorical standpoint. This essay will analyze how Talbot Smith constructs his criticism of Irish American Catholicism and will do so through an analysis of “How the McGuinness Saved his Pride.” Talbot Smith presents his readers with an Irish immigrant community in which religion is inevitably compromised by ethnic differences that are perceived to be insurmountable, labor tensions, and pretensions to middle-class respectability. Within this atmosphere, the narrative simultaneously acknowledges and problematizes the strong links existing between ethnic Irish identity and Catholicism in late nineteenth-century America and achieves this by presenting Irish American Catholicism as a veneer. In Talbot Smith’s story, the Catholic religion serves a means to achieve middle-class respectability but has become divested of those Christian virtues which would give it its actual value: unconditional compassion and acceptance. Talbot Smith was born in Saratoga (NY), a town with a considerable Irish population.6 His parents were Brigid O’Donnell and railroad worker Bernard Smith. In 1881, he was ordained a priest. Eight years later, he moved to New York, where...

Premodernity, Modernity, Postmodernity, and Eu-Modernity as the Four Stages of Civilizational Developmental Psychology: Comte’s Parallel Human-Civilizational Developments

In this paper, the Auguste Comte’s parallel human-civilizational developments in the early nineteenth century are broadened and updated for the twenty-first century. Comte establishes the parallel between European civilizational development as the law of three stages (the theological stage, the metaphysical stage, and the positive scientific stage) and human development (childhood, adolescence, and adulthood). He holds that each individual human develops from the stage of a devout believer in childhood as in the theological stage, to a critical metaphysician to question the abstract notions of existence in adolescence as in the metaphysical stage, and to a natural philosopher in adulthood as in the positive scientific stage. The Comte’s parallel human-civilizational developments are broadened to include collectivism-individualism, human evolution, and developmental psychology from Erikson’s psychosocial development, and are updated to include the stages after the nineteenth century. The four stages of infancy, toddlerhood, childhood, and adulthood in the proposed human development are parallel to the four stages of premodernity, modernity, postmodernity, and eu-modernity (post-postmodernity) in the proposed civilizational development. Each individual human develops from believing infancy to believe in parent as believing premodernity to believe in authoritative religion, to autonomous toddlerhood to explore as rational autonomous modernity to explore, to diverse childhood to learn diversity as diverse postmodernity to learn diversity, and to eusocial adulthood to establish eusociality by interdependent division of labor, multigenerational generativity, and intergroup generosity as eusocial eu-modernity to establish eusociality by interdependent division of labor between individualism and collectivism, multigenerational generativity for long-term wellbeing, and intergroup generosity for long-distance wellbeing. Eusocial eu-modernity is the adulthood civilization.

The blessings of fungi

If you have ever joined a Jewish family for a meal on the Sabbath, or seen one depicted in movies, you will know it is quite a ceremonial occasion. Before...

Religion in the Life of Langston Hughes

ABSTRACT Langston Hughes published so much brilliant literature with a strongly religious flavor that many people, including academic critics, appear to assume that he was in some way ultimately a devout believer in God. This essay argues that while Hughes was fascinated and inspired by the dynamic role of religion in black American life, he himself, like so many writers black and white, was hostile to religion. Growing up with a sense of personal abandonment, he experienced God as a power that promised much but delivered little or nothing. Threatened because of his harshly irreligious poems (notably “Goodbye Christ”) written especially in the 1930s, when he was a radical, Hughes later embraced religious themes as a writer less because of his faith than because he saw this posture as likely to bolster his position against right-wing leaders, such as Senator Joe McCarthy, who wanted to silence him. Hughes's script for his own funeral, which explicitly excluded religion, reflected his bitterness on the subject and his rival belief in the redemptive power of values rooted in the black world, including jazz and the blues.

Should Abraham Get a Religious Exemption?

The standard liberal egalitarian approach to religious exemptions from generally applicable laws implies that such exemptions may be necessary in the name of equal respect for each citizen’s conscience. In each particular case this approach requires balancing the claims of devout believers against the countervailing claims of other citizens. I contend, firstly, that under the conditions of deep moral and ideological disagreement the balancing procedure proves to be extremely inconclusive. It does not provide an unequivocal solution even in the imaginary case based on the biblical story of Abraham’s sacrifice, not to speak of real-life cases that are far less suggestive. Secondly, I argue that it is possible to consider demands for religious exemptions respectfully, without even challenging the way they are justified, but still reject them for principled reasons—namely, because these demands cannot be met without arbitrarily bending popular sovereignty to the dictate of religious doctrines.

Save the Children

Beginning in the early 2000s, American evangelicals became one of the most powerful forces in international adoption, lining up devout believers to follow the biblical mandate that Christians care for “orphans and widows in their distress.” This call would become a movement that launched major conferences, spawned a small library of books on “adoption theology,” and changed the complexion of many conservative U.S. churches.

We Need to Talk About Ezra: &lt;em&gt;Ezra Pound's Fascist Propaganda, 1935–45&lt;/em&gt;

Ezra Pound’s Fascist Propaganda, 1935–45 calls attention to the extensive propaganda work that Ezra Pound undertook (both paid and gratis ) in the years before and during World War II on behalf of the British Union of Fascists, Mussolini’s Fascist Italy, and the short-lived Nazi satellite Salo Republic. Feldman presents compelling evidence that challenges the view that Pound was an “accidental” or “aloof ” fascist, and that exposes him as a dedicated and fervent fascist propagandist. While Feldman’s thesis that Pound was a devout believer in the “political religion” of fascism fails to capture the complexity of his thought and activism at the time, it sheds light on this dark — and curiously understudied — aspect of Pound’s career, significantly adding to our knowledge of Pound’s fascist work. Primarily for this reason, it is an invaluable contribution to Pound scholarship, and one that deserves a wide readership, even if it lacks the finesse, scope, and depth of more scholarly accounts of Pound’s work.

Desire beyond the Château d'If

Desire beyond the Château d'If

Volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and Islam

PurposeThis research aims to examine the extent to which eruptions and earthquakes are explained using religious terms of reference within Islamic countries, and those where Muslims constitute a significant minority. Is the notion that disasters represent divine punishment so pervasive that the only reaction for the devout believer is passive acceptance of suffering or, alternatively, is the innovation of policies of disaster reduction acceptable theologically?Design/methodology/approachInformation is derived from: bibliographic sources; archives; questionnaires; and interviews.FindingsThere is a distinctive theological perception of natural disasters within Islamic thought. Although the inhabitants of Islamic countries may explain earthquake and eruption losses in religious terms, there is little evidence to suggest that this inhibits the introduction of programmes of planned loss reduction. Relief is a generally acceptable response for both aid donors and recipients.Research limitations/implicationsThe impact of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes is not as well researched as those occurring in countries with a Christian ethos. Generalizations have had to be made from a more limited set of examples. More detailed research is required both within the countries affected and in the languages used in hazard‐exposed Islamic states (e.g. Arabic, Urdu and Farsi).Practical implicationsIntroduction of programmes of hazard reduction is generally possible in Islamic countries, but requires theological justification.Originality/valueIn comparison with the study of earthquake and eruption impacts in countries with a Christian ethos, little has been published on disasters and Islam.

The state and identity: the relationship between religion and politics – Tunisia as an example

This paper presents the discourse, or more often the struggle, between secularists and Islamists in Tunisia relating religion and the state within the desired democratic system. The movement of 18 October is a landmark in the efforts for constructive work between different political constituents which emphasized that the relationship between religion and the state is not expected to have a ready-made formula; instead, it is the product of a social pact that interacts with politics, culture and economics. The paper looks into the basis or foundation for cooperation, the feasibility of the merger between religion and the state, the timing – before or after democracy takes hold – the focus on form and substance of democracy, its connection to laws, etc. Whereas it may be possible to separate religion from the state, it is not possible to separate it from politics as this requires a dissociation of some devout believers from their system of belief, thus denying their basic rights. There are no guarantees that within a democratic system some groups and parties basing themselves on religion will be against democracy. These groups should remain part of the political system, the solution being to honour a social pact that is based on respecting constitutional institutions, national identity, principles of the republican system and human rights.

Doubt as Methodology and Object in the Phenomenology of Religion

The Holy Grail in the phenomenology of religion (and, to a lesser extent, the sociology of religion) is a definition of religion that actually works, but, so far, this seems to have been elusive. Classical definitions of religion—substantive (e.g. Tylor) and functionalist (e.g. Durkheim)—fail, in part because they attempt to be in three places at once, as it were: they attempt to distinguish religion from non-religion; they attempt to capture what religions have in common; and they attempt to grasp the 'heart', or 'core', of religion. Consequently, family resemblance definitions of religion replace certainty and precision for its own sake with a more pragmatic and heuristic approach, embracing doubt and putting forward definitions that give us a better understanding (Verstehen) of religion. In this paper, I summarise some 'new' definitions of religion that take this approach, before proposing and defending another one, defining religion as non-propositional and 'apophatic', thus accepting that doubt is central to religion itself, as well as to the analysis of religion.

Religion and the Enlightenment(s)

AbstractThis article focuses on the ‘relationship’ between ‘science’ and ‘religion’ in the ‘Enlightenment’. It shows through a ‘historiographical’ survey of the last half‐century how our understanding of the ‘Enlightenment’ has evolved, and with it the assumptions pertaining to the relationship between religion and science have undergone a series of revisions. From seeing the Enlightenment as a single‐minded project aiming to rid the world of organized religion and its concomitant superstitions to appreciating the multifaceted nature of the century with its local variations has made historians question the very idea of an Enlightenment. The old consensus narrative invoked by a ‘rise of modern paganism’ theory along with a tendency to view the secularizing effects upon society as inevitable have by now ceased its hold over the ‘historical imagination’. The situation was remarkably different in country to country: In France, ‘Materialist’‘philosophes’ such as Voltaire, d’Holbach, and Diderot launched a vituperative campaign to erase what they saw as the infamy of organized religion. Across the channel, however, the situation was far from that polarized. In Britain, a number of the most prominent ‘natural philosophers’ of the day were actually devout believers despite their scientific interests. From seeing the ‘Enlightenment’ as a ‘teleological project’ which apotheosis was ‘secularizing’ eighteenth century society, we now have a much more nuanced and complete picture of the ‘long eighteenth century’ and its relationship between science and religion. It has thus been suggested that there were several enlightenments spread both in terms of geography and time. Portraying a spectrum of Enlightenments, either compartmentalized in a national context or thematically distinguished – recent revisionist literature has come a long way from the old consensus thesis.

Another man’s faith? The image of Judaism in the BBC television series Men Seeking God

The 1954 BBC television series Men Seeking God saw Labour MP Christopher Mayhew interview devout believers of the world’s great living religions. The present article uses press coverage, Mayhew’s and the BBC’s archives, and the surviving 15 minutes of footage to reconstruct and discuss episode three on Judaism, arguing that it conflates Judaism, Jewishness, Anglo-Jewish and Israeli identity.

The multipliable body

In the modern understanding of the living body, bodily division is both fatal and distinctive; in the contemporary, the body is biologically and technologically multiple. Four premodern religious phenomena suggest yet another, much more fluid and multiple, conception of the living, spirited body. In relics, the divided body of the saint retains its miraculous vitality across its scattered locations, even restoring wholeness to other bodies. In transubstantiation, the host multiplies, according to the Eucharistic formula, ‘the body of Christ’ in all its specificity. Stigmata multiply the wounds of that body onto those of devout believers, yet retain the identity of these wounds as Christ's. The development of wound imagery furthers this curious multiplying of the nonetheless carefully numbered wounds; they may appear arrayed behind the body of Christ or even heraldically arranged on their own. The very ontology of the body is different here.