Muslim Masculinities Research Articles

From Istanbul to Dakar and Dar es Salaam

This article studies the formation of (borrowing Wilson Chacko Jacob's terminology) efendi masculinity, through the conceptual lens of adab (proper conduct). It combines interviews with members of Süleyman Efendi Cemaati in Dakar, Senegal, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and digital ethnography of Islamic forums in order to develop a historically informed cultural analysis of gendered and raced sartorial practices within the Cemaat. It argues that the Cemaat's culturally specific dress code—an ironed shirt tucked into trousers—is produced by tensions and convergences between civilizational discourses emanating from European metropoles, the modernizing reforms of the Kemalist state, and Islamic pedagogies of civility. At the intersection of these competing and concurring civilizing projects and processes is situated the figure of “Istanbul efendisi” (the gentleman from Istanbul) as the embodiment of civilized Muslim masculinity championed by Süleyman Efendi Cemaati. The article explores efendi masculinity within the Cemaat's pedagogy of adab, as a legacy of the Kemalist modernization project and the Turkish state's civilizing mission, by analyzing the discourses of order and hygiene in dormitories and the adoption of European-style male clothing. It examines how in Muslim Africa these legacies intersect with those of European colonialism and its civilizing mission.

Moral Policing of Gender Norms: Honor-Based Violence as a Mobilizing Factor Towards Militant Islamism

Honor culture, in which the virtue of the family—if not community—depends on the “purity” of its female members, enforced through “moral policing” of gender norms to collectively control women’s sexuality and uphold a patriarchal gender order, is a central aspect of both honor-based violence and the Salafi-jihadist culture in militant Islamist milieus. Drawing on interviews with 1) an imprisoned Danish woman convicted of ISIS-related terrorism, 2) a mother of a deceased Swedish ISIS foreign fighter, who herself was previously part of the Salafi-jihadist milieu, and 3) “professionals” (e.g. police officers, social workers and municipal employees) conducted during ethnographic fieldwork in Sweden and prison ethnography in Denmark, this article explores how honor-based violence can constitute a mobilizing factor for Western Muslims towards militant Islamism in three distinct ways. First, isolation of Muslim women and children through gender segregation and restrictions on accessing public space to “moral police” gender norms enables the Salafi-jihadist milieu to cement and extend its ideological, religious, and physical control. Second, in an honor culture with intense pressure on men to defend and restore family honor whenever it is challenged, joining ISIS can be perceived as a means to fulfill this obligation, thereby affirming “real” Muslim masculinity and upholding a patriarchal gender order. The deeply ingrained cultural expectations to defend honor can even be exploited by militant Islamist milieus in their recruitment efforts. Third, besides providing a “safe space” where one cannot be persecuted and punished for dishonoring one’s family by leaving it as an unmarried woman, ISIS’s multiethnic diversity and embrace of interethnic marriage can be appealing for someone who wants to escape forced endogamous marriage. Given that honor-based violence strikes at the individual freedoms and rights, thereby undermining liberal democratic values and the rule of law, our article contributes knowledge on the broader threat to democracy from anti-democratic forces in the context of militant Islamism.

Beware the Demon of Love Jihad! The Gendered and Sexual Abjectification of Muslim Masculinities by Hindu Nationalists on Twitter

Beware the Demon of Love Jihad! The Gendered and Sexual Abjectification of Muslim Masculinities by Hindu Nationalists on Twitter

Taming Muslim Masculinity: Patriarchy and Christianity in German Immigrant Integration

This article analyzes a growing sector of state-funded pedagogies designed to reform Muslim masculinity in Germany. These programs present Muslim men as suffering from a psychopathology rooted in an alleged Islamic “honor culture”. They rely on a mix of Christian and non-religious welfare providers to supply Muslim youth with alternative masculine role models. We trace three implications of this arrangement: First, these programs' culturalist approach perpetuates Orientalist hierarchizations of masculinity. Second, the de-Islamized masculinity these programs construct as normatively binding revolves around a heteronormative patriarchy imagined as benevolent, thereby reinforcing the subjection of women. Third, these educational initiatives yoke the reform of Muslim masculinity to male participants' dramatic conversion to a Christian-German culture that blurs the line between the religious and the nonreligious. We suggest that studies of (hegemonic) masculinity in Europe ought to attend to the salience of the nation-state and to the public relevance of Christianity—two dimensions given short shrift in recent theorizing.

Non-Belonging: borders, boundaries, and bodies at the interface of migration and citizenship studies

ABSTRACT Non-belonging is an undertheorized current in work on migration and citizenship, too often understood as simply the absence of belonging. We define non-belonging as an actively constructed space and logic that entails the denial of personhood, where personhood captures one’s sense of self, one’s capacity to act, as well as the human and citizenship rights tied to this. We suggest that distinct processes interact to foster spaces and logics of non-belonging: (1) bordering through state practices; and (2) boundary formations through representation, with (3) both of these inscribed on bodies. We illustrate our framework through the example of a legal case regarding the repatriation of Dutch women who joined the Islamic State. We also apply our framework to examples from our previous research on Muslim masculinities in Canada and Germany and Turkish mothers in Berlin who circumvent immigrant stigma by sending their children to international schools to show the framework’s utility in analyzing non-belonging writ large.

Deconstructing Cardboard Muslim Man: Masculinity Continuum and Women’s Economic Empowerment in Bangladesh

This paper analyses the construction of Muslim masculinities and their positioning towards women’s economic empowerment through a life history method applied to examine the lives of 12 purposely selected Bangladeshi Muslim men. The analysis of the men’s accounts positioned the narrators on a masculinity continuum, which incorporates three fluid masculinity markers – Antagonists, Allies and Advocates. The paper challenges the notion of one specific hegemonic masculinity, although some common features were identified, such as dominance of the male breadwinner and situatedness within heteronormativity. The narrators demonstrated a strong inter-generational shift towards rejection of violence and preference for peaceful intrahousehold relationships, even among Antagonists. The proximity of Ally masculinities to Advocates and their relational interests create strong potential for strategic engagement and guiding Ally men to adopt more progressive masculinities.

Being a good Muslim man in Asia's world city: Performing youthful South Asian Muslim masculinities in Hong Kong

Hong Kong has long been home to immigrants and citizens of South Asian background, popularly known as ‘ethnic minorities’. Young Muslim men are both ethnically and religiously stigmatized in the contemporary conjuncture as the bearers of patriarchal masculinities and radical Islamism in Asia, as elsewhere. This paper looks at the ways in which young Muslim men of South Asian background perform their masculinities in Hong Kong. My analysis focuses on differentiated capacities for mobility, embodied practices of Muslim manhood as well as complex entanglements of desire, fear and safety to understand the ways in which ethno-religious difference of minority populations are produced, experienced and accommodated through embodied ethno-religious encounters in Asian cities. Through my ethnographic fieldwork with young Muslim South Asian men in Hong Kong, I explore how these youth draw from different cultural traditions and engage various discourses of pious subjectivity to negotiate an unstable politics of belonging in Hong Kong. My findings point to the importance of transnational moral geographies operating at multiple scales in regulating embodied encounters with, as well as constant (mis)recognition and negotiation of, cultural difference in ‘Asia's world city’.

Muslim Masculinities in Literature and Film: Transcultural Identity and Migration in Britain, written by Peter Cherry

Muslim Masculinities in Literature and Film: Transcultural Identity and Migration in Britain, written by Peter Cherry

Depiction of Polygamous Character Traits in Che Husna Azhari’s Mariah

In Malaysia, literary texts produced in English remain a challenging terrain, especially among Malay writers who must cautiously negotiate between their Malay identity, religion, and cultural globalization. For instance, Che Husna Azhari’s literary works, especially her notable short story Mariah, have received tremendous scholarly attention recently. Mariah has been criticized from several viewpoints, such as the playwright’s conscious self that forms identity and gender. Thus, using a context-oriented approach, this analysis aims to explore how the Malaysian author, Che Husna Azhari, depicts polygamous character traits in Mariah from a feminist perspective. The feminist rendering employed in this analysis could interestingly reveal how a female writer portrays the issue of polygamy. The analysis revealed that through major characters, Azhari boldly depicts Muslim masculinity, polygamous tendencies, and lust toward women, particularly in the Imam’s character. Yet, the narrative tends to mirror patriarchy in Malay society for crediting the use of religion to suppress women. This analysis could advance our understanding of how female characters are represented by a female writer within the socio-cultural and religious contexts of typical Malay society. There is a need, therefore, for modern writers to reassess the narratives of women and polygamy in literary works. This step can guide the reader’s understanding of polygamy as a hotly-debated topic as well as enlighten the public about the widespread misconceptions about women's issues in society.

I won’t buy that for a dollar: Orientalist representation of masculinity in remake of RoboCop movie

The prevailing representation of Muslim masculinity is often profiled in negative stereotypes or regarded as toxic and violent owing to their religion or racial heritage. Using Raewyn Connell’s theory of gender hegemony and orientalism paradigm, this paper investigates the remake of an original Hollywood blockbuster, RoboCop (2014). Following a textual analysis, this aims to answer some questions concerning the power dynamics between various male characters in the movie and how masculinity is playing part based on geographical racial orientation; more specifically, how masculinity could be traced in white western men vs. brown eastern men. Moreover, this paper pays particular attention to the characteristics of these characters’ masculinity vs. their western counterparts since the involvement of Middle Eastern characters was the most fundamental change in RoboCop (2014).

Legend of the locked doors: The sexualization of archaeological site workers in the Middle East

AbstractSexual violence in fieldwork contexts is an urgent and pervasive problem. In archaeology, much discussion is currently ongoing regarding how to change fieldwork policies and climate in order to end sexual violence in the field. In this context, I examine a legend that circulates among the Bedul Bedouin community in Petra about an American archaeologist who locked women students inside their bedroom at night in order to protect them from endangering themselves by going out at night. While I cannot corroborate the story with former students on the project, studying the contemporary life of this legend can teach us about the confrontations of race, gender, and sexuality that occur on archaeological sites in the Middle East and elsewhere. Examined in the context of research on Muslim masculinities and the myth of Arab men's hypersexuality, I use this legend to argue that our approaches to ending sexual violence in archaeology and other fieldwork disciplines should avoid reifying Orientalist and racial stereotypes if these approaches are going to be effective in making our fields safer.

Cognitive Dissonance between a Conservative and a Liberal Gender Order: How Afghan Muslim Men Overcome the Impact of Migration on their Gender Identity in Canada

Previous research has shown that, after migration, some immigrant Muslim men experience a surge of marital conflicts—from the extent of their involvement in domestic labour, through challenges regarding the headship role of the household, to issues of divorce and child custody. In most cases, such conflicts surface against the background of a deeper conflict between the cultural gender norms in their old and new countries. There is, however, little research on how those immigrant Muslim men manage and respond to such emotional and relationship conflicts, setting the stage for stereotypical accounts based on some false Orientalist and neo-Orientalist assumptions. Based on 33 interviews with Afghan Muslim immigrant men and drawing on Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance as well as Berry’s typology of immigrant acculturation, this study shows the diversity of: (a) the issues over which such conflicts emerge; and (b) the responses the subjects develop vis-à-vis those conflicts. The findings provide the contours of a theoretical framework for understanding the changing and diverse nature of Muslim masculinity in future research.

Cognitive Dissonance between a Conservative and a Liberal Gender Order: How Afghan Muslim Men Overcome the Impact of Migration on Their Gender Identity in Canada

Previous research has shown that, after migration, some immigrant Muslim men experience a surge of marital conflicts-from the extent of their involvement in domestic labour, through challenges regarding the headship role of the household, to issues of divorce and child custody. In most cases, such conflicts surface against the background of a deeper conflict between the cultural gender norms in their old and new countries. There is, however, little research on how those immigrant Muslim men manage and respond to such emotional and relationship conflicts. Based on 33 interviews with Afghan Muslim immigrant men and drawing on Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance and Berry's typology of immigrant acculturation, this study shows the diversity of: (a) the issues over which such conflicts emerge; and (b) the responses the subjects develop vis-à-vis those conflicts. The findings provide the contours of a theoretical framework for understanding the changing and diverse nature of Muslim masculinity in future research.

MASCULINITIES IN MUSLIM WOMEN`S POST-9/11 NOVELS: MEN IN THE NIGHT COUNTER AND SAFFRON DREAMS

This article explores the representation of masculinities in Alia Yunis’ The Night Counter and Shaila Abdullah`s Saffron Dreams. The two novels I examine represent Arab-American and Pakistani-American Muslim masculinities in the post-9/11 context. In the first part, I provide an overview of research on Arab, Arab-American, Muslim, Pakistani and Pakistani-American masculinities after defining the key terms. In the rest of the paper, I trace the representations of masculinities in the two novels. Yunis redeems Arab manhoods by underscoring diversity in Arab-American masculinities whereas Abdullah erects a metaphorical monument for a young Pakistani-American man who loses his life during the attacks on the World Trade Center, thereby arguing that some Muslim men were innocent victims of the attack.

The pursuit of ‘the good life’: Muslim masculinities and the transition to higher education in Australia

ABSTRACT Within the social imaginary of Australia’s dominant ‘White’ culture, ethnic minority men, particularly Muslim men, are often depicted as ‘folk devils,’ resistant to the cultural norms of mainstream society. Muslim masculinities have been problematically conflated with notions of radicalisation, terrorism and violent extremism. There has been decidedly less attention to Muslim men’s acclimatisation to the secular mainstream. This article presents a longitudinal case study of two second-generation young Australian-Muslim men who have attended an Islamic secondary school and spent most of their lives within a cloistered Islamic community. We document their experiences and aspirations as they come to be in higher education. The article considers the discursive production of identities of these men during a liminal time in their lives and how they construct their identities in relation to familial and community-based expectations around success and failure.

Hegemonic Muslim Masculinities and Their Others: Perspectives from South and Southeast Asia

AbstractThis article provides ethnographic, comparative, and theoretical perspectives on Muslim masculinities in South and Southeast Asia, home to more than half the world's 1.9 billion Muslims. Its empirical and thematic focus broadens the scholarly discussion of gender and sexuality among Muslims insofar as most of the literature deals with the Middle East and North Africa and is devoted to women and the discourses and practices of femininity and sexuality associated with them. More specifically, the article develops theoretical insights bearing on gender hegemonies and the pluralities and hierarchies of discourses on masculinities in the Muslim-majority nations of Pakistan and Malaysia, each of which illustrates broad trends in the region. It thus sheds important light on the empirical diversity of Muslim masculinities (amidst commonalities) and some of the ways they have been informed by locally and regionally variable macro-level processes keyed to colonialism, postcolonial nation-building, global/neoliberal capitalism, and post-Cold War geopolitical struggles including the Global War on Terror.

Coming Home to One’s Self: Butch Muslim Masculinities and Negotiations of Piety, Sex, and Parenthood in Singapore

ABSTRACT In Singapore, discrimination toward LGBT citizens has been reinforced through a monolithic notion of the traditional Asian family. This ethnography focuses on the lived experiences of 7 ethnic minority Malay Muslim “butch” individuals and their journey to parenthood. Drawing upon frameworks of intersectionality and piety, I explore how butches negotiate and reconcile their queer practices and desires as Muslim daughters around “coming out,” foster children with same-sex partners, being a biological parent and their perceptions of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART). Reproductive futures, enacted by Malay Muslim butches, disrupt yet reinforce the durability of “natural” life trajectories scripted through conventions of marriage, family and fatherhood that have, insofar, excluded them. Further, their experiences also offer alternatives to existing literature on same-sex families that tend to render other nonwhite and/or non-Western queer family practices invisible.

Reclaiming Khadija's and Muhammad's Marriage as an Islamic Paradigm: Toward a New History of the Muslim Present

Using masculinities studies and a history of the present framework, Shadaab Rahemtulla and Sara Ababneh examine the marriage of Prophet Muhammad and Khadija (d. ca. 620) to question hegemonic narratives on "ideal" Muslim marriages. Muhammad's marriages—and, by extension, his masculinity—are often portrayed as expressions of power disparity, with Muhammad marrying multiple wives who were significantly younger in age. Due to the normative place of "prophetic practice" (sunna), these historical narratives have exerted a lasting impact on marital ethics and law. Yet the example of Khadija paints an alternative prophetic practice/masculinity: she was a powerful businesswoman fifteen years Muhammad's senior, and their monogamous marriage lasted twenty-five years. In this article, the authors ask, what can we, as Muslim feminists committed to gender egalitarian partnerships in our own contexts, learn from this premodern marriage, and how can we reclaim it as a model for contemporary Muslim masculinities?

Boundary Regimes and the Gendered Racialized Production of Muslim Masculinities: Cases from Canada and Germany

Boundary regimes consist of multiple discursive and material registers in media, politics, law and everyday interaction. We show how “safety” and “danger,” as key concepts of symbolic boundaries, produce particular understandings of Muslim masculinities. In Canada, the government discussed (but did not enact) placing single Syrian men at the bottom of the admissible to-be-resettled refugee list in 2015. In Cologne, Germany, refugee men were accused of sexually assaulting a large number of women in 2015. Focusing on “safety” and “danger” discourses, we show that symbolic boundaries had limited material impact in Canada while they informed major legal changes in Germany.

Gendered identities and German Islamophobias

ABSTRACT The German political imaginary and reality increasingly equate the presence of Muslim ‘Others’ within and beyond national borders with the Islamization and ‘Global Islam’, deemed an existential and national security threat. While Islamophobia assumes universal characteristics, its expression within national narratives impacts political discourse. This article explores narrative strategies employed by East and West Germans who assert aspects of ethnic identity to exclude Islam, contain its influence, or critique advocates of German tolerance. Their arguments reassert a primary German identity, linked to European citizenship. By taking the historical and geographic differences between plural Islamophobias into account, German gender identity is considered against portrayals of Muslim masculinity and femininity in cultural contexts, with the assumption that these pose imminent threats to the public and private sphere. Representations of anxieties about Muslims resort to the ‘moralization of borders’ and the mapping of eastern inflections of Islamophobia onto the political landscape of Europe, fuelled by populism and far-right electoral successes across the continent. Islamophobias’ mainstreaming empowers local and regional politics to engage in ‘moralizing borders’, exacerbating anxieties about the nation, the region, and the body.