Muslim Ritual Research Articles

Peculiarities of religious practices of Muslim servicemen in the Russian Imperial Army in 1874-1914

The article is dedicated to the analysis of religious practices of Muslim servicemen in the Russian Imperial Army in 19th – early 20th century (prior to 1914). The author briefly reveals the historiography of the problem, describes a small number of Muslim units, documents numbers of Muslims in the Army, identifies reasons leading to the loss of their confessional identity, and discloses factors, which influenced amplification of the Muslim rituals in the Russian Imperial Army. The exposure of religious situation of Muslim soldiers is conducted through the analysis of conditions of executing religious rituals that Muslims were ought to observe. A considerable attention is given to the legal status of regular and public mullahs in military bases, as well as to the participation of civilian Muslim clerics in ensuring the fulfillment of religious duties by their fellow Muslims.

The Birth of the Prophet Muhammad

Despite the central importance of festival and devotional piety to premodernMuslims, book-length studies in this field have been relatively rare.Katz’s work, The Birth of the Prophet Muhammad, represents a tour-deforceof critical scholarship that advances the field significantly both throughits engagement with textual sources from the formative period to the presentand through its judicious use of theoretical tools to analyze this material. Asits title suggests, the work strives to explore how Muslims have alternativelypromoted and contested the commemoration of the Prophet’s birth atdifferent points in history, with a particular emphasis on how the devotionalistapproach, which was prominent in the pre-modern era, fell out of favoramong Middle Eastern Sunnis in the late twentieth century. Aimed primarilyat specialists in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies, especially scholarsof history, law, and religion, this work is recommended to anyone interestedin the history of Muslim ritual, the history of devotion to the Prophet, andthe interplay between normative and non-normative forms ofMuslim beliefand practice ...

Violence, the State, and a Chinese Muslim Ritual Remembrance

This article discusses how contemporary Chinese Muslims in the city of Xi'an remember a massive conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims that devastated northwest China in the Tongzhi period (1862–74) of the Qing dynasty. Every year on the seventeenth day of the fifth lunar month, local Hui hold a series of mourning rituals for the Muslims who died at that time. They recount stories about these events during the ritual and in other settings. The author uses Bakhtin's concept of “social heteroglossia” to explore the discursive features of three accounts of the violence, arguing that Xi'an Hui memories of this past show the influence of state-sponsored ethnic policies, a religious model of Hui identity, and a less formally articulated collective sentiment (what Raymond Williams calls a “structure of feeling”) based on shared experience. The author discusses how these discourses are disseminated and which factors generate the “structure of feeling” that colors contemporary Muslim accounts of the Tongzhi period, and reflects on the consequences of Xi'an Hui internalization of the state's framework for ethnic identity.

Commoners in the process of Islamization: reassessing their role in the light of evidence from southeastern Tanzania

AbstractMany societies became Muslim gradually, without conquest by Muslim rulers. Explanations of this process typically focus on Muslim traders, proselytizing ‘holy men’, and the conversion of ruling elites, as the limited sources suggest. Yet it cannot be assumed that Islamization always made sense for elites as a power-enhancing stratagem, or that rulers or holy men were willing or able to shape the religious allegiances of commoners. In fact, studies of contemporary Islamic societies demonstrate the relative autonomy of commoners’ religious observance, and the tendency of elites towards accommodation. Evidence from a recently Islamized region in East Africa shows that, rather than following elite converts, ordinary villagers initiated rural Islamization. They learned from coastal Muslim ritual rather than scripture, and evoked Islam to challenge social hierarchies and assert a more egalitarian social ethos. The possibility of similar processes also exists in other sites of gradual Islamization.

The Study of Islamic Ritual and the Meaning of Wuḍūʾ

The academic study of Islamic ritual, interested scholars agree, has been sorely neglected. Particularly in the 1980s, a number of voices arose identifying and lamenting this lack. “Neither in terms of rich comparative study nor in terms of interpretive study of Muslim ritual on its own terms,” wrote William Graham in 1981, “do we have any really significant work to build upon”. Although “Islam itself places great emphasis on ritual activities”, wrote Frederick Denny in 1985, “the systematic study of ritual within traditional Islamic studies has been recessive”. Almost a decade after Graham’s essay, Kevin Reinhart could still speak in 1990 of “a desiccating lack of studies … of Islamic ritual life” by either Islamicists or historians of religion.

The Anthropology of Religion and the Quarrel between Poetry and Philosophy

Proposant une mise en perspective des fondements epistemologiques de l'anthropologie religieuse, l'A. examine les questions suivantes : 1. l'apport de certains aspects de la pensee d'Aristote pour une approche de la religion ; 2. la signification de la moralite pour l'anthropologie religieuse et la theorie sociale ; 3. la dimension pratique des approches de la moralite et l'apport complementaire d'Aristote et de Roy Rappaport ; 4. l'integration de la dimension morale dans l'interpretation de la pratique. Il suggere qu'une theorie de la pratique se doit de prendre en compte le jugement raisonne, tel que cela a ete developpe dans des interpretations recentes de l'Ethique d'Aristote. Finalement, il soutient qu'il est necessaire d'aller au-dela de la caracterisation et de l'evaluation unique de la raison abstraite par Platon, et qu'il faut, dans les approches contemporaines, conjoindre les dimensions du politique et du pouvoir, mais egalement de la vertu et de la morale.

The Anthropology of Religion and the Quarrel between Poetry and Philosophy

The Anthropology of Religion and the Quarrel between Poetry and Philosophy

Nebi-Musa: A Therapeutic Communuity for Drug Addicts in a Muslim Context

'Maqam Al-Nebi Musa' an eight-centuries old Muslim religious site located between Jerusalem and Jericho, is analyzed as a drug rehabilitation therapeutic community (TC). Male recovering addicts visit the site for upwards of 6 months, and follow a five-stage therapeutic program. The TC was initiated by, and is led by, five Sufi mystics, themselves former addicts. Its therapeutic significance is analyzed in the context of Muslim religious teaching and rituals, traditional Arab culture, and community and familial support systems.

Applications of Folk Astronomy and Mathematical Astronomy to Aspects of Muslim Ritual

Modern accounts of Islamic astronomy, with their emphasis upon technical achievements, tend to ignore the simple, popular astronomy which flourished alongside mathematical astronomy in the Islamic world throughout the medieval period. This popular tradition was far more widely practised than mathematical astronomy but has not yet received the attention it deserves. This paper will discuss the two main trends in Islamic astronomy and then point to the areas of interaction and overlap of interest between them.

Forced Migration and Muslim Rituals: An Area of Cultural Psychology?

The psychological foundation of rites de passage have long been debated within the history of religion and related areas. The significance of such rites in facilitating emotional readjustment to a new life situation have been particularly stressed. Emotional reactions on the individual level largely remain outside the competence of anthropologists, despite their awareness of the general influence of culture on this as on other areas of human endeavour. Focusing on traumatized female refugees from Iran, a critical question is whether the changing living conditions which have provoked traumatic experiences in the lives of these refugees have been in any way related to Muslim ritual requirements or rites de passage.

Religious attitudes and development in Dakar, Senegal

A survey of 205 male heads of household was conducted in Dakar to explore the relationship between religious attitudes and development. It was hypothesized that: (a) the more modern an individual (by socio-economic indicators), the more likely he is to deny Muslim affiliation; (b) the more modern an individual, the less likely he is to perform Muslim rites; and, (c) the more modern an individual, the less likely he is to use or consult marabouts (Muslim leaders) for any purpose, religious or social. The results of the study did not support these hypotheses. Instead, the following hypotheses are suggested: (a) as development occurs, individuals will be equally or more likely to perform Muslim rituals; and (b) as development occurs, individuals will be less likely to consult marabouts on temporal matters.