Different Interpretations Of Islam Research Articles

What it takes to be religious: Religion online vs. online religion1

How individuals live their religion has been one of the most frequently studied areas of social sciences in recent years. The starting point of this study is based on the observation that people who describe themselves as religious have different ways of using social media platforms in relation to their religious beliefs. Similar to the diversity observed in the definitions of religiosity over Christianity in the West, different interpretations of Islam and Islamic way of living have also become prevalent in Turkey. With the intensification of computer-mediated communication, the communication resources and forms of discourses (re)produced online of the religious people have also diversified. This study aims to examine how active users of social media in relation to their religious values and commitments evaluate the construction and byproducts of religion online. The results show that there are three main repertoires related to the use of social media and religiosity in Turkey: religiosity as religious duties, religiosity as interpreting Islam and religiosity for managing impressions. The results can be evaluated together with the secularization theory, that is, discourses about being religious ‘warn’ individuals about the negative consequences of social media use, while offering an alternative to the positive ones.

Gatekeeper Perspectives on Substance Misuse Among a Muslim Community in Southwestern Ontario, Canada

ABSTRACT This study was conducted during 2018 with 20 community leaders and professionals from within one Muslim community in Canada: Imams, physicians, police officers, social workers, and teachers, who serve as gatekeepers to treatment for Muslims who are seeking support for addiction. Major themes revealed were i) The Impact of Islam on responses to psychoactive substance use and misuse, ii) The influence of family and community on responses to psychoactive drug use and misuse, and iii) Barriers Muslims face in seeking help for substance misuse. The influence of faith was identified as a source of both protection and burden due to different interpretations of Islam and negative cultural beliefs which fuel stigma and shame. The greatest protective factors were also often the reasons preventing individuals from seeking treatment. Recommendations for future action to address this community issue are provided.

Jihadists and Refugees at the Theatre: Global Conflicts in Classroom Practices in Sweden

In democratic societies schools have an obligation to address complex societal issues such as ethnic/religious tensions and social conflicts. The article reports an exploratory study of how theatre plays were used in upper-secondary schools to generate pedagogically relevant platforms for addressing the current Middle East conflicts and their impact on European societies in the context of religious education and civics. The schools are situated in areas with substantive migrant populations of mixed backgrounds, and this has implications for how these issues are understood as a lived experience. In the same classrooms, there were students who had refugee backgrounds, who represented different interpretations of Islam, and religion more generally, and whose families were victims of terrorism. There were also students with strong nationalist views. The study is ethnographic documenting theatre visits and classroom activities in relation to two plays about the Middle East situation. The results show that plays may open up new opportunities for addressing these issues, but that they may also be perceived as normative and generate opposition. An interesting observation is that a play may generate space for students to tell their refugee story in class, which personalized the experience of what it means to be a refugee.

Talking to the Muslim world: how, and with whom?

The struggle against terrorism in the Middle East, and the success of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in its use of social media to spread its ideas, has led to a search for new messages to counter the appeal of violent extremists. Thus far, United States counter-messaging has failed to articulate a normative position that is compelling to its target audiences. The US has also not found an effective way to speak to and with other parts of the Muslim world. The article shows that these failures are not accidental but reflect profound factors in American culture and society. The US' normative position has also failed to take into account the crucial differences between 'liberals' and 'moderates' in the Muslim world. To proceed one must acknowledge that there are two fundamentally different interpretations of Islam, both of which are supported by a close reading of the Qur'an and other major texts. To draw on that difference, the article shows, requires drawing on voices and resources not available in the US. The article proposes a way forward that both acknowledges the inherent weaknesses and liabilities of the US government as a messenger and points to more credible messengers within the Muslim world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HOW SLAVES USED ISLAM: THE LETTERS OF ENSLAVED MUSLIM COMMERCIAL AGENTS IN THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY NIGER BEND AND CENTRAL SAHARA

ABSTRACTHistorians of slavery in Africa have long struggled to recover the voices of enslaved people. In this article, an unusual set of sources found in Timbuktu (Mali) reveals the existence of a stratum of literate, Muslim slaves who wrote and received letters written in Arabic. These letters make it possible to probe the Islamic rhetoric used by Muslim slaves and ask how enslaved people who adopted Islam understood their faith. Did Muslim slaves arrive at different interpretations of Islam than those Muslims who were free? Using the correspondence of two slaves who worked as agents in their master's commercial activities in the Niger Bend and Central Sahara during the second half of the nineteenth century, this article demonstrates the extent to which Muslim slaves used appeals to their own piety in attempting to carve out a certain amount of social autonomy. For these Muslim slaves, Islam could be made to serve both spiritual and practical ends. And yet, this did not require slaves to interpret Islam in ways that rejected the legitimacy of slavery.

"Fewer Children, Better Life" or "As Many as God Wants"?

In the West it is often assumed that religion (esp. Islam) and contraception are mutually exclusive. Yet, the Islamic Republic of Iran has one of the most successful family-planning programs in the developing world, and is often looked to as a potential model for other Muslim countries. Although Iran's family-planning program has been extremely successful among Iranians, it has been far less successful among Afghan refugees and other ethnic groups. Afghans and Iranians both seek services in Iran's public health sector for family health care, treatment of infectious disease, and childhood vaccinations. On these occasions, all adult married patients are strongly encouraged to use family planning to reduce the number of offspring. In this article, we explore how Iran's family-planning program is differentially perceived and utilized among low-income Iranian and Afghan refugee families in rural and urban locations. Particular attention is given to how different interpretations of Islam may or may not influence reproductive health-related behaviors and how cultural factors influence reproductive strategies.

Power or Ideology

Power or Ideology

Debating Moderate Islam

Since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, there have beenseveral conversations about the different interpretations of Islam, its impacton Muslim politics, and the relationship between Islam and the West. Thisdebate gained renewed vigor after the London attacks on July 7 and 21,2005. Scholars and policymakers agree that a politically angry and intellectuallynarrow interpretation of Islam – loosely referred to as militant orradical Islam – is exacerbating the already rampant anti-Americanism inthe Muslim world and encouraging terrorist responses to real and perceivedinjustices. Some analysts assert that the United States is completely innocentand thus blame radical Islamists alone for all of the problems in theworld, while others totally ignore the existence of extremism in the Muslimworld and blame the United States for all of the ills of our times. Most peopleare somewhere in between.Regardless of where one stands in this debate, there is now a growingconsensus that those on the moderate side in the Muslim world must assertthemselves and join the battle against extremism. Western governments arebeing advised to actively welcome the help and cooperation of moderateMuslims in order to ensure that the war against extremism does not become– or appear to be – a war against Islam. This policy idea of including moderateMuslims as allies against extremism in the Muslim world has generatedan interesting debate about what moderation really means and who isa moderate Muslim.In this special issue of the American Journal of Islamic SocialSciences, prominent voices from the policy community, the academic community,and the American Muslim community come together to debate whois a moderate Muslim and just what moderation means in a theological as ...

Power or Ideology

Power or Ideology

Situating Transnational Islam in Nanyang History from the Colonial to the Postcolonial Era

This article explores the changing Southeast Asian Muslim diaspora from the colonial to the postcolonial era. Based on the ethnographic and oral accounts of two Muslim brothers coming from the same Southeast Asian family, and particularly focusing on the diasporic experience of the elder brother’s migration from Pakistan to Hong Kong and finally to Britain, the article shows how the European colonial expansion in Southeast Asia altered the paths of the Muslim diaspora. By comparing the experience of the elder brother in Britain with his younger brother in Hong Kong, this article suggests the importance of agency, in the sense that one’s life history, personal encounter, and different interpretations of Islam are vital determinants as regards their paths in the diaspora and their evaluations toward non-Muslim host societies in both the West and the East.

Situating Transnational Islam in Nanyang History from the Colonial to the Postcolonial Era

This article explores the changing Southeast Asian Muslim diaspora from the colonial to the postcolonial era. Based on the ethnographic and oral accounts of two Muslim brothers coming from the same Southeast Asian family, and particularly focusing on the diasporic experience of the elder brother’s migration from Pakistan to Hong Kong and finally to Britain, the article shows how the European colonial expansion in Southeast Asia altered the paths of the Muslim diaspora. By comparing the experience of the elder brother in Britain with his younger brother in Hong Kong, this article suggests the importance of agency, in the sense that one’s life history, personal encounter, and different interpretations of Islam are vital determinants as regards their paths in the diaspora and their evaluations toward non-Muslim host societies in both the West and the East.

Islam’s View on Physical Activity and Sport

The questions asked in this study were: what kind of views do Egyptian women have on the relationship between Islam and physical activity/sport, and what consequences do different interpretations of Islam have for Egyptian women’s involvement in physical activity and sport? The data were gathered during a four-month field-study in Egypt, and consist of 27 qualitative interviews in addition to many hours of field-observation. The results show that the women in the study agreed that Islam encourages sport participation for women. The women who most strongly emphasized the fact that they had to participate in some sporting activities were supporters of the fundamentalistic interpretation of Islam. Some Muslim women therefore find a non-secular relationship between sport and religion. The study further revealed that the different interpretations of Islam had consequences for the informants’ participation in sport. These were related to the use of the veil, gender segregation, the concept of ‘excitement’ (non-sexual movements) and the power relationship between women and men. Most of these barriers seem to be products of Muslim society’s view of women and their sexuality. The data further support the opinion that power strategies get internalized into people’s bodily practice.

PÅ TVÆRS I EN POLARISERET VERDEN

Susanne Nour: Cutting across a Polarised
 World
 The article focusses on the experiences of a
 young Egyptian woman from one of the socalled
 “old” families. It deals with her
 difficulties situating herself in Egypt. The
 present polarisation of Western and Islamic
 values makes it very difficult for her to
 formulate a national identity in correspondence
 with the hegemonic identity discourse
 in Egypt today. On the basis of interviews
 made during fieldwork in Cairo, the article
 argues for distinetion between two different
 constructions of Egyptian national identity
 and discuss how they are conneceted with
 different social groups, with particular
 family backgrounds, as well as with
 different interpretations of islam.

Monarchs, Mullas, and Marshals: Islamic Regimes?

This article examines three regime types that assert that they represent “Islam in power.” They are the conservative dynastic regime of Saudi Arabia, the populist clerical regime of Iran, and the authoritarian military regimes of the Sudan and Pakistan. These regimes articulate different interpretations of Islam that reflect the interests and ideology of those who control the state machinery, the influence of society's historical legacy, and specific characteristics of the immediate situational setting. The Islamic legitimization of all three types has been contested on religiopolitical grounds by domestic rivals for power and external rivals for leadership in the Muslim world. The most effective challenges to regime legitimacy have been manifested in the Islamized military regimes. The predicament of “the Islam of the marshals” is due to several factors: their lack of the political capital available in the Saudi type of “the Islam of wealth,” or the legitimacy generated by revolutionary change under charismatic leadership known in the Iranian type of “the Islam of revolution,” and their antipolitical character, manifested in their distrust of political movements that supported their Islamization programs and whose leaders aspired to play the roles of its theoreticians and organizers.