Religious experience in Islam

All of the world’s major religious traditions are marked by considerable diversity of belief and practice. Even though Islam achieves a remarkable degree of unity and coherence through the five pillars and six core beliefs,1 there still remains considerable diversity created by such factors as the degree of commitment to practice, interpretation of belief and the nature of experience participated in by the believer. There are many whose allegiance to the faith is a question of birth or identity and these are often labelled "nominal Muslims" by the devout. In a world where population movements, globalisation processes and conflicts of various kinds impact upon individuals and communities, many Muslims take the issue of identity much further and see in Islam a way of proclaiming selfhood through belonging to a community of God that takes precedence over all other loyalties. Their experience of their faith enters the psychological, sociological and political realms. There are also those who maintain their commitment to the faith as the final and best revelation in which a relationship with the divine can be achieved. To some of these the dominant motivation is obedience to the divine will but to others the emphasis of their practice is closeness or intimacy

The History and Development of Sufism in Britain

-This paper provides an objective analysis of current trends and developments in the beliefs and practices of Sufis in Britain. Sufism is a dynamic and substantial presence within British Muslim communities and is influencing both religious and political discourses concerning the formation of Islam in Britain. In the 21st century Sufis have re-positioned themselves to represent the views of a "Traditional Islam". Major transformations have taken place in Sufism that illuminate debates over authenticity, legitimacy, and authority within Islam, and religion more generally. Through examining the theory and history involved, as well as a series of case studies, Sufism in Britain charts the processes of change and offers a significant contribution to the political and religious re-organisation of the Muslim presence in Britain, and the West.233-25

‘Look into the Book of Life’: Muslim musicians, Sufism, and postmodern spirituality in Britain

Spirituality has been theorised as a characteristic of late-modern society, a consequence of individualisation and of a relativized marketplace of religion. Drawing on findings from ethnographic fieldwork conducted with Muslim musicians in the UK, the author claims that spirituality can indeed be considered a postmodern discourse of belief – with trans-religious applicability – but that at the same time it can be articulated from within a clear understanding of group/religious membership. The concepts of ‘spiritual capital’ and ‘expressive communalism’ are used to explain the ways through which a postmodern discourse of spirituality is utilised by Muslim musicians from within contemporary networks of Sufism in the West. The author suggests that the cosmopolitan and inclusive nature of these types of Sufism in Britain – particularly amongst third and fourth generation Muslims – represents a frontier of religious change in the UK and a challenge to traditional forms of religious authority, discourse and membership

The grinch who stole wisdom

Dr. Seuss is wise. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Seuss, 1957) could serve as a parable for our time. It can also be seen as a roadmap for the development of contemplative wisdom. The abiding popularity of How the Grinch Stole Christmas additionally suggests that contemplative wisdom is more readily available to ordinary people, even children, than is normally thought. This matters because from the point of view of contemplatives in any of the world's philosophies or religions, people are confused about wisdom. The content of the nascent field of wisdom studies, they might say, is largely not wisdom at all but rather what it's like to live in a particular kind of prison cell, a well appointed cell perhaps, but not a place that makes possible either personal satisfaction or deep problem solving. I believe that what the contemplative traditions have to say is important; they offer a different orientation to what personal wisdom is, how to develop it, and how to use it in the world than is presently contained in either our popular culture or our sciences. In order to illustrate this I will examine, in some detail, one contemplative path within Buddhism. Buddhism is particularly useful in this respect because its practices are nontheistic and thus avoid many of the cultural landmines associated with the contemplative aspects of Western religions

From Bengali to English: sequential bilingualism of a second-generation British Bangladeshi

The paper discusses sequential language acquisition of the researcher's daughter Safa who transformed from a monolingual Bengali speaker to an almost monolingual English speaker in a few months after moving to the UK. Safa was born in Bangladesh and was a monolingual Bengali speaker until she was three years and nine months when the family moved to the UK. Unlike most research on sequential bilingualism, Safa's transition from Bengali to English went through a period of an invented language, which she developed and used for a few months. Safa then underwent language shift as Bengali became her passive language. Safa's loss of fluency in Bengali was mainly due to the absence of Bengali linguistic environment, because her family lived outside the community. Safa's mother's indifference to Bangladeshi ethnicity and her parents’ positive attitude towards Britishness meant that her decline in Bengali did not cause them much concern. Despite the lack of proficiency in Bengali, Safa still retains a strong ethnic Bangladeshi identity. Tabors and Snow’s four-stage developmental process of sequential second-language acquisition has been applied to find the similarities and differences in Safa's case, while language maintenance and shift theories have contributed to the analysis of the process of her language shift

Cosmopolitanism and the relevance of ‘zombie concepts’: the case of anomic suicide amongst Alevi Kurd youth

Against Beck’s claims that conventional sociological concepts and categories are zombie categories, this paper argues that Durkheim’s theoretical framework in which suicide is a symptom of an anomic state of society can help us understand the diversity of trajectories that transnational migrants follow and that shape their suicide rates within a cosmopolitan society. Drawing on ethnographic data collected on eight suicides and three attempted suicide cases of second-generation male Alevi Kurdish migrants living in London, this article explains the impact of segmented assimilation/adaptation trajectories on the incidence of suicide and how their membership of a ‘new rainbow underclass’, as a manifestation of cosmopolitan society, is itself an anomic social position with a lack of integration and regulation

Context, Complexity and Contestation: Birmingham's Agreed Syllabuses for Religious Education since the 1970s

publication-status: AcceptedThis is an Author's Original Manuscript of an article whose final and definitive form, the Version of Record, has been published in the Journal of Beliefs and Values, September 2011. Available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/ or DOI: 10.1080/13617672.2011.600823The present article offers an historical perspective on the 1975, 1995 and 2007 Birmingham Agreed Syllabuses for Religious Education. It draws upon historical evidence uncovered as part of ‘The hidden history of curriculum change in religious education in English schools, 1969–1979’ project, and curriculum history theories, especially David Labaree’s observations about the distance between the ‘rhetorical’ and ‘received’ curricula. We argue that, contrary to the existing historiography, curriculum change in religious education (RE) has been evolutionary not revolutionary. Multiple reasons are posited to explain this, not least among which is the capacity and agency of teachers. Furthermore, we argue that ongoing debates about the nature and purpose of RE, as exemplified in the Birmingham context, reflect the multiple expectations that religious educators and other stakeholders had, and continue to have, of the curriculum subject. These debates contribute to the inertia evident in the implementation of RE curriculum reforms. A consciousness of the history of RE enables curriculum contestations to be contextualised and understood, and, thereby, provides important insights which can be applied to ongoing and future debates and developments

Being Tamil, being Hindu:Tamil migrants’ negotiations of the absence of Tamil Hindu spaces in the West Midlands and South West of England

This paper considers the religious practices of Tamil Hindus who have settled in the West Midlands and South West of England in order to explore how devotees of a specific ethno-regional Hindu tradition with a well-established UK infrastructure in the site of its adherents’ population density adapt their religious practices in settlement areas which lack this infrastructure. Unlike the majority of the UK Tamil population who live in the London area, the participants in this study did not have ready access to an ethno-religious infrastructure of Tamil-orientated temples and public rituals. The paper examines two means by which this absence was addressed as well as the intersections and negotiations of religion and ethnicity these entailed: firstly, Tamil Hindus’ attendance of temples in their local area which are orientated towards a broadly imagined Hindu constituency or which cater to a non-Tamil ethno-linguistic or sectarian community; and, secondly, through the ‘DIY’ performance of ethnicised Hindu ritual in non-institutional settings

Community leaders and the preservation of cultural traits

We explain persistent differences in cultural traits of immigrant groups with the presence of community leaders. Leaders influence the cultural traits of their community, which have an impact on the group's earnings. They determine whether a community will be more assimilated and wealthier or less assimilated and poorer. With a leader cultural integration remains incomplete. The leader chooses more distinctive cultural traits in high productivity environments and if the community is more connected. Lump sum transfers to immigrants can hinder cultural integration. These findings are in line with integration patterns of various ethnic and religious groups

Sectarian influences within Islam in Britain with special reference to community

Although much is heard from the Media of the Muslim `community' in Britain, the latter is in fact far from presenting a united front. There are divisions between generations and ethnic origins, and a diversity of religious practice and doctrine. There are many different religious groups at work that originate from the subcontinent, and reflect this wide range. Organisations like Young Muslims UK, Tabligh-i Jamaat, and schools of thought represented by the Deobandis and Barehvis, to name but four, play a vital role in the life of many Muslims. They both link them back to their roots in the subcontinent and influence the direction that Islam will take in Britain. The Muslim population in Britain is approaching two million. It is involved in a process of redefining itself as a minority in an alien culture. For the older generation the conflict has been cultural, their own ethnicity being under seige from the values of the receiving culture. Islam becomes an important ally of ethnic identity. For many Muslims born in Britain, however, the process is more complex. Their parents' values can seem as strange, or even stranger, than the values of the receiving culture. For this increasing percentage of the population, their religion can offer an identity. Stimulated by Islam's global revival and the West's reaction to it, some Muslims are attempting to discover a faith stripped of cultural accretions which are considered to be unlslamic. In the process they hope to find the universal Islam which can be practised in any environment. They feel that this is the key to establishing a successful British Islamic community. The ideal of ammah has always been central in Islam, but now becomes an important concept in the development of Islam in Britain. There are several questions to be considered: To what degree does an unmrah exist? What is its form? How is it likely to change? What effect will it have on the development of Muslims seeking a more localised identity in Britain? Within this context, what will be the effect of the various organisations and schools of thought at work amongst Muslims? To what degree will they shape the development of Islam in Britain? Are they free from 'cultural accretion' or are they firmly rooted in idiosyncratic local expressions of the faith? Will Islam in Britain be moderate, or strongly revivalist in nature under their influence? Are they unifying or divisive forces? Can they hope to resolve traditional differences and work together in the new environment of Britain? In spite of the increasing interest in the Muslim presence in Britain, very few major works have looked at the influence of these various groups in the context of these questions. I know for myself that I could have used this kind of study when working for my M. A. in Religious Studies, and I know of many students in the same position. I feel that this study will therefore contribute not only to the study of Islam but also to the study of the various minority faiths found in Britain