| 1. |
- Petersen, Jesper
(författare)
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The making of the Mariam Mosque : Serendipities and structures in the production of female authority in Denmark
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation defines a number of new concepts, such as pop-up mosque, social media adhan, non-Muslim Islam, and warping, to give a detailed description how the Mariam Mosque (with female imams) was established and the kind of phenomenon it is. The latter concept (warping) plays an important role as the dissertation argues that, while Islams may be presented in a certain way, obeying rules such as scriptural accountability and claims of continuity with tradition, these are merely the form Islams take in spaces structured by power. That is, Islams are – irrespective of how they were originally produced – warped when presented in structured spaces, and thus, sampling strategies need to take the power dynamics of the spaces within which they are applied into account. Warped samples on Islams say something about the power dynamics of the space within which they are collected, but the production of these Islams may be erased due to the warping. This dissertation attempts to sample in “pre-warped” spaces and study the transition into warped spaces.I argue that the production of Islams takes place within structures and is often serendipitous, and from an etic perspective these two – structures and serendipities – can be considered sources of Islams in addition to for example the Quran and hadiths. Furthermore, the production of Islams is confined by contemporary discursivities, and thus, any claim to continuity or belief in previous generations’ Islam should be considered emic claims, and thus, studied as such. That is, the Islamic tradition is something simultaneously appropriated and produced in the present; from an etic perspective, it is ruptured, even if it, from an emic perspective, is produced as being a continuation of tradition. In short, Islams are products of human creativity formulated within discursivities that encompass the idea that Islam is singular and, when produced by Muslims in their role as believers, it is regularly claimed to exist independently of human communication and interaction.The Mariam Mosque is a pop-up mosque that calls social media adhans online. Although both concepts demonstrate the rupture, they are produced as part of the so-called Islamic tradition. Thus, even though the Mariam Mosque is not a building it has mosque in its name, and even though the social media adhan is not an actual soundwave – or use the words of an adhan – it has replaced the traditional adhan. The traditional adhan, called publicly, that throughout history has been used to call Muslims to the mosque (a building) is now called within the mosque spaces as part of a ritual sequence (in addition to the iqama).This means that only Muslims who have already arrived to the mosque can hear the adhan, and thus it has fundamentally changed. This dissertation focuses on this kind of ruptures and argues that they are caused by structures and serendipities rather than engagement with scripture.Interestingly, even if pop-up mosques are not mosques in the conventional sense of the word, they produce Islamic authorities; the Mariam Mosque produced Sherin Khankan and other women as female imams. In her capacity as imam, Khankan performs rituals such as conversions, aqiqah (name giving), women only Friday prayer, and nikah (Islamic marriage) between Muslim women and non-Muslim men, which is commonly seen as forbidden. These rituals – even if they are new and closely connected to the Danish context – are all produced as in compliance with and a continuation of the Islamic tradition. I argue that creativity and thus rupture is the norm in the production of Islams.The dissertation argues that non-Muslims also produce Islam and that these are productions in their own right and should be taken seriously as objects of study. Non-Muslims’ production of Islams are often oriented towards political goals or play an important role as an “Other” in the construction of non-Muslim identities. That is, while these Islams may not be oriented towards belief in Allah and salvation, they play important roles for non-Muslim identities and they significantly influence Muslims’ production of Islams.
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| 2. |
- Ataseven, Ilhan
(författare)
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The Alevi-Bektasi Legacy: Problems of Acquisition and Explanation
- 1997
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Mystics and amateur politicians in the margin of Turkish society. The specific case of marginalisation in the specific context of my choice provides a wealth of details to be accounted for. All details taken together are real life itself and can thus not be accounted for in a book. Enough can be said, however, about marginalisation in general in order for a meaningful discussion to take place. But generalisations make the problem of choosing and interpreting information poignant. I have dealt at length with this problem. Also when one talks about real life, instead of living it, the problem of talking in a meaningful manner comes to the fore. One might wonder what it is that makes statements meaningful and if meaning is static. And is it more meaningful to talk from a marginal position than from the center? Do the Alevis gain from their marginal position when they speak their (collective) mind? Why do the Bektasis feel they gain from their marginal position even if they keep silent? These questions, and others, are not answered in this thesis, but I have provided som arguments for a set of ideas concerning these questions and also concerning how to deal with these questions.
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| 3. |
- Carlsson, Leif Å
(författare)
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Round Trips to Heaven : Otherworldly Travelers in Early Judaism and Christianity
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the beginning of the Common Era, a number of religious texts were written recounting heavenly journey adventures. These narratives have come to constitute a recurring theme in research regarding ancient religions. Round Trips to Heaven features several early Jewish and Christian heavenly journey texts. Most of them are included in the apocalyptic literature. During the earlier research, the heavenly journey motif was understood to be one of many elements in this literature. It was not until the latter part of the 20th century that the stories of the heavenly journeys were treated as a type of their own among these texts. The approach of this study serves to illuminate the function of the texts and the circumstances and settings in which they were composed and later passed on, something which scholars have only recently begun to acknowledge. Of vital importance is the status of the heavenly travelers as well as their relationships with other members of the Tradition Group considered to have authored the texts. Two main types of heavenly journeys appear in the accounts. One type has the function of providing an identity for the heavenly traveler, and the other constitutes a paradigm for the events awaiting mankind after death. The concluding section of the book is a relatively long exposition of 3 Baruch. This text, which in its entirety portrays a heavenly journey, informs the reader about death. In common with a number of other heavenly journey texts, 3 Baruch has both Jewish and Christian elements. Moreover, it clearly reflects a universal perspective. A similar perspective is also found in several of the other heavenly journey narratives which provides a reasonable explanation for how they could be used in both Jewish and Christian contexts.
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| 4. |
- Fiscella, Anthony
(författare)
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Universal Burdens : Stories of (Un)Freedom from the Unitarian Universalist Association, The MOVE Organization, and Taqwacore
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Zen Buddhists have long given the following advice to attain liberation: “Eat when you’re hungry. Sleep when you’re tired.” In other words: “Freedom” is the “knowledge of necessity” (Hegel, Marx, and Engels). Early Islamic communities dealt with the challenge of internal warfare and tyranny and concluded that, “sixty years of tyranny is better than one day’s anarchy.” In other words, the worst-case scenario is a war “of every man against every man,” (Thomas Hobbes) and all theories of statecraft are built upon that premise. Ever since the dawn of colonialism, indigenous peoples have been struggling for self-determination. Many, such as Comanche thinker Parra-Wa-Samen, lived and died for the right to move across a land without state or borders. In other words, “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!” (Patrick Henry). How is it then that an English textbook could possibly focus on “freedom” as a universal value and simultaneously exclude all non-European traditions and perspectives? Why should conversations about “freedom” begin with Hegel, Hobbes, and Henry rather than the earlier examples of Zen, Islam, and indigenous peoples? If “freedom” concerns everybody then do not the conversations in academia about “freedom” by scholars (as well as rising economists, planners, and politicians) affect everybody? If democratic inclusivity entails the demand that all people affected by decisions are to be included in those very decision-making processes then contemporary academia has a problem when talking about “freedom.” In selling the term “freedom” as a universally applicable but uniquely European (and sacrosanct) idea most of the planet has been excluded from these conversations. This means that control over the idea and how it is interpreted has been determined by a very narrow range of persons, from the mid-1600s to mid-1900s: almost exclusively white, male, heterosexual, property-owning, able-bodied, and, not uncommonly, racist. This thesis argues that the problem goes deeper than white supremacy and patriarchy and cannot be resolved with quota systems to ensure inclusion on the basis of race or gender. Instead, the problem is two-fold: (1) dominant conceptions of “freedom,” as the opposite of “slavery,” “tyranny,” or “constraint,” are seen here as bound to a mentality and language of domination, and (2) “freedom,” as a central value in social orders, perpetuates white supremacy and patriarchy. Focus on “freedom” contra “unfreedom” obscures, disguises, or denies those “unfreedoms” upon which “freedom” is necessarily bound. Once those “unfreedoms” are exposed or recognized (whether violence, obligation, responsibility, dependency and interdependency, equality and inequality, needs, justice, limitations, etc.) the conversations about “freedom” can be spoken in a language that all cultures can understand in order to participate as equal parties. Toward these ends, this dissertation engages in stories from three contemporary empirical contexts in the U.S.: the Unitarian Universalist Association, the MOVE Organization, and taqwacore. Through a blend of text analysis, ethnography, storytelling, and personal experience, the purpose of this thesis is to imagine what more inclusive conversations might look like. Using the term (un)freedom to transcend the false binary of “freedom” and “unfreedom,” three potential types of (un)freedom are conceived to further the aim of democratic inclusivity: Negotiating the Limits of Language, Shouldering Incalculable Responsibility in Community, and Feeling an Obligation to Challenge Injustice.
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| 5. |
- Gansten, Martin
(författare)
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Patterns of Destiny : Hindu Nāḍī Astrology
- 2003
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Like all divination, Hindu astrology (jyotisa) is concerned with central religious issues such as man’s relation to the world, moral responsibility, and the revelation of a coherent divine order underlying human experience. Comprising a descriptive as well as a prescriptive aspect, jyotisa allows for both prediction and the exercise of free will. This double nature enables a seamless union of astrology with the concept of karman, its descriptive aspect referring to ‘fate’ (daiva) or actions of previous lives now bearing fruit (prarabdha-karman), its prescriptive aspect to present action (kriyamana-karman) or ‘human effort’ (purusakara). Astrological divination is based on observation of planetary movements relative to the earth and to the zodiac. By the employment of a hierarchy of interpretative principles, the qualities of a given point in space-time are determined, representing a number of potential life events which by various prognostic techniques are translated into predictions. While some authors ascribe a form of causality to the planets, perceiving them as divine supervisors of karman, others reject causal language in favour of a view of the planets as mere signs, related synchronically to human experiences. Nevertheless, propitiation of the planetary deities for the alleviation of undesired results is a practice universally supported. Occasionally the astrologer himself serves as an object of such propitiation, becoming a full-fledged mediator between man and the divine planets by simultaneously disclosing the fate they dictate and accepting on their behalf the worship intended to remedy any anticipated misfortune. While nadi reading is commonly perceived as a form of astrology, and generally moves within an astrological paradigm, most current practitioners do not base their interpretations on the client’s natal horoscope, but rather on a method of thumb reading. The (alleged) reading of predictions from preexistent texts of supposed antiquity and divine or semi-divine origin is, however, a common characteristic of all nadi divination. The Sanskrit nadi texts examined in the present study – the Gurunadi, Amsanadi, and Dhruvanadi – deal entirely with the interpretation of natal horoscopes. The texts, datable by the astronomical information they contain to the 18th and 19th centuries, originate in the Dravidian language area (as, most likely, does the term nadi itself), and may be seen as representing a common school or style of astrology, known as devakerala. Divided into a number of individual horoscope readings of varying length, the texts reverse the general trend of Sanskrit astrological works to concern themselves only with universals. The readings, generally expressing a mainstream smarta Hindu worldview, are invariably based on minute divisions of the zodiac known as nadi or amsa, a unique feature not found elsewhere in jyotisa literature. The amsas, numbering 150 in each zodiacal sign, are thought to embody certain fixed destiny patterns, which undergo permutations by superimposition on the natal horoscope. This concept of a limited number of predefinable, basic patterns of destiny, to one of which every human being is necessarily born, marks the most drastic deviation of the nadis not only from mainstream Hindu astrology, but also from orthodox teachings on karman.
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| 6. |
- Hornborg, Anne-Christine
(författare)
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A Landscape of Left-Overs : Changing Conceptions of Place and Environment among Mi'kmaq Indians of Eastern Canada
- 2001
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation seeks to explore historical changes in the lifeworld of the Mi’kmaq Indians of Eastern Canada. The Mi’kmaq culture hero Kluskap here serves as a key persona in discussing issues such as traditions, changing conceptions of land, and human-environmental relations. In order not to depict Mi’kmaq culture as timeless, two important periods in its history are examined. The first study reviews historical evidence of the ontology, epistemology, and ethics – jointly labeled animism – that stem from a premodern Mi’kmaq hunting subsistence. This evidence dates from the period between 1850 and 1930, which is also the period when the Mi’kmaq were gradually being forced to settle in the reserves. The second study situates the culture hero in the modern world of the 1990s, when allusions to Mi’kmaq tradition and to Kluskap played an important role in the struggle against a planned superquarry on Cape Breton. This study discusses the ecocosmology that has been formulated by modern reserve inhabitants and that could be labeled a “sacred ecology”. If the premodern ecocosmologies have been favorably treated by Westerners, the modern Natives’ attempt to create a “sacred ecology” has been received with ambivalence. It has been welcomed by some as an alternative to Western ways of treating nature, which threaten our global survival. But it has also been criticized as a modern construction designed by Natives to gain benefits from Canadian society. In the example of the Mi’kmaq struggle against the superquarry, this critique is discussed, with a focus on how the Mi’kmaq are rebuilding their traditions and environmental relations in interaction with modern society. In this process, environmental groups, pan-Indianism, and education play an important role, but so does reserve life. By anchoring their engagement in reserve life the Mi’kmaq traditionalists have to a large extent been able to confront both external and internal doubts about their authenticity.
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| 7. |
- Janson, Torsten
(författare)
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Your Cradle Is Green : The Islamic Foundation and the Call to Islam in Children's Literature
- 2003
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis deals with the conceptualisation of da‘wa, ‘the call to Islam’, of the British organisation the Islamic Foundation, and focuses its 25 years of publication of Islamic-English children’s literature. In order to analyse the implications of the new modalities of da‘wa in the late modern Muslim minority context, the present study applies a genealogical perspective. The study explores the discursive order of da‘wa in history, and devotes particular attention to questions of power. Who has taken recourse to da‘wa and for what purposes? To what extent do the periods of recession and intensity of da‘wa reflect broader socio-historical tendencies? It argues that a new order of da‘wa has emerged in modernity, predominantly defined by Sunni revivalism. The study describes how the Islamic Foundation converts the post-colonial and post-migrant debates on da‘wa into a number of intellectual and pedagogic commitments. It offers an overview of the establishment of the British Muslim communities and its central concerns and debates. It goes on to describe how the Foundation has formed its discourse to accommodate interests of both the Muslim minorities and the public British society, through interfaith dialogue, research, Islamic economics, informational courses, engagement in higher education and, most notably, publication. The thesis explores how this discursive order of da‘wa is inscribed into the children’s literature published by the Islamic Foundation. It offers a detailed analysis of the instructions, narratives, imagery and norms of both texts and paratexts. Particular attention is devoted to the tendencies of creolisation: the inherently subversive attempts to find novel forms of cultural enunciation. It turns out that the order of references authorising the children’s literature is equally shaped by Islamic literary traditions and current socio-cultural concerns and conventions. The Foundation thus negotiates Islamic revivalism with the aesthetics and pedagogic models of British-global culture. The early works were predominantly defined by internal and traditional concerns, such as faith, worship and sacred history. Recently, however, the literature has come to display an increasingly self-confident depiction of contemporary Britain, from the vantage-point of Islamic injunctions and ideals. Today, the children’s literature of the Islamic Foundation combines a markedly inclusive cultural identity with strains of exclusive, Islamic particularism.
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| 8. |
- Johansson, Andreas, 1980-
(författare)
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Pragmatic Muslim Politics : The case of Sri Lanka Muslim Congress
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation investigates the use of religious terms and symbols in politics. More specifically, it investigates Muslim politics. Its aim is to analyze the role of religious terms and symbols within a non-fundamentalist political party, namely the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), a Muslim political party that has been part of the democratic process in Sri Lanka since the 1980s. I thereby hope to broaden the range of research concerning political parties founded on religious ideologies. The empirical focus of the dissertation is on the official documents of the SLMC, such as internal documents to members, online publications from their official website and social media. The empirical data also includes parliamentary speeches made by the late leader M.H.M. Ashraff during the years from 1989 to 1992 and parliamentary speeches made by the current leader Rauff Hakkem during the years from 2006 to 2011. I have also conducted interviews with 33 leading members of the party on three different occasions. In 2006, 2011 and 2013 I visited Sri Lanka and had Colombo as my base.This thesis also contains an introduction to the history of Muslims in Sri Lanka and thereafter the structure of this thesis follows the different empirical data that I have collected. The first of my empirical chapters focuses on official documents written by the SLMC. The second presents and examines interviews with leading members of the SLMC. The third and fourth empirical chapters concern the parliamentary speeches of the two party leaders mentioned above, M.H.M. Ashraff (1989–1992) and Rauff Hakeem (2006–2011). The final chapter discusses the conclusions drawn from the empirical chapters in relation to the theoretical framework presented in Chapter 2.In sum, “Pragmatic Muslim politics” can be seen as the complete opposite of a politics that is ideology driven and utopian. This fits well with what has been observed in the case of the SLMC. The main use of references to Islam as a religious tradition in the party has been to delimitate Muslims as a specific group in a political situation in post-colonial Sri Lanka. While there have been some initial attempts made, particularly during the 1990s, to put forward specific “Islamic” solutions to social problems, with direct references made to the scriptures particularly in the field of economics, few if any such attempts can be seen today.
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| 9. |
- Kull, Ann
(författare)
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Piety and Politics : Nurcholish Madjid and His Interpretation of Islam in Modern Indonesia
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation in the field of Islamic studies offers a critical analysis of Nurcholish Madjid's attempt to interpret Islam within the framework of modern Indonesia. Nurcholish, who recently passed away at the age of sixty-six, had been active in the reform of Islamic thought for over thirty years, and while remaining deeply coloured by the local Indonesian context, was also part of a global and century-old tradition of reform. Nurcholish developed a contextual approach both to the Qur'an and to a variety of other sources from Muslim history. In this regard the "Constitution of Madinah" and the works of Ibn Taymiyya had been of particular importance. Nurcholish's understanding of Ibn Taymiyya, for example, was instrumental in the formation of his own inclusive view of religion; however, such an understanding of Ibn Taymiyya is not common. Throughout his career Nurcholish attempted to negotiate Islam and modernity by way of a contextual and collective ijtihad. His intent had been to formulate common values that favour social justice, religious pluralism and tolerance, as well as democracy. He failed, however, to address the issue of gender equality in a systematic manner. Spirituality and the Islamic concept of takwa, or ?god-consciousness?, played a continuous and increasingly important role in Nurcholish's interpretation of Islam. These ideas also provided the foundation for the realisation of his societal and political aims. He was therefore active in the spheres of both piety and politics. The aim of this dissertation is twofold. Firstly, it is a study in the tradition of the history of ideas, and thus attempts an analysis of Nurcholish's ideational production and methodological approach. Secondly, it aims to locate Nurcholish's ideas and activities within the Indonesian context. To this end it provides a presentation of his life, intellectual influences and an overview of relevant historical facts. In addition it presents a variety of material collected during several periods of fieldwork in Jakarta. This material discusses the diffusion of Nurcholish's ideas through higher Islamic education, the socio-religious organisation Paramadina, and his role as an independent public intellectual. His target groups had been the Indonesian middle class and elite, many of whom have been drawn to his ideas over the years. Then again Nurcholish's ideas and activities have been subject to criticism from both conservative and secular elements in Indonesia. This study includes an examination of these critiques as well.
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| 10. |
- Liljefors Persson, Bodil
(författare)
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The Legacy of the Jaguar Prophet : An Exploration of Yucatec Maya Religion and Historiography
- 2000
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis deals with Maya religion and history. The Books of Chilam Balam is the collective title of a body of texts ascribed to the Jaguar Prophet. They are written in the Yucatec Maya language, and tell the reader about Yucatec Maya cosmology, rituals, prophecies, calendars, medicine and they are as well considered as Yucatec Maya emic historiography. These manuscripts are considered enigmatic and difficult to understand, as indeed they are. It is the aim of this thesis to try to interpret and highlight them aided by a contextual approach. Other features of Classic Maya religion, such as the concept of the divine, other mythological categories, the ritual ballgame and the scaffold human sacrifice, are described and reconstructed by analysing and synthesising recent archaeological and epigraphical research results. The Cruzoob religion of the contemporary Yucatec Maya who live in the eastern parts of the Yucatan peninsula, is also presented and placed in its historical context. The Post-Colonial Cruzoob religion is analysed as a synthesis of both Yucatec Maya and Catholic religious traditions. This thesis is an exploration of Yucatec Maya religion and historiography, and the Books of Chilam Balam are considered collectively as a valuable Legacy of the Jaguar Prophet.
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