Sexual ethics, marriage, and sexual autonomy: the landscapes for Muslimat and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered Muslims

Muslims today are increasingly re-examining gender and human rights in the light of Qur’anic teachings, and these issues crucially intersect in the terrain of sexual autonomy. The Qur’an insists that men and women are spiritually equal, yet dominant interpretations of sexual rights in Islam are not gender symmetrical. This paper asks whether Islam’s depiction of sexuality and marriage allows a space for female, and non-heterosexual, sexual autonomy. It also explores current interpretations of Islam, sexuality and same-sex relationships amongst British Muslims who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered. Large issues are at stake for contemporary Muslims re-examining their institutions and identity. Does marriage remain authoritative when paradigms of sexuality shift, and what does this mean for sexual autonomy in the wider Muslim consciousness?     

Identity practices, ingroup projection, and the evaluation of subgroups: a study among Turkish-Dutch Sunnis

This research focuses on religious subgroup evaluations by examining the attitude of Turkish-Dutch Sunni Muslims towards Alevi and Shiite Muslims. Following the Ingroup Projection Model, it was expected that Sunni participants who practice Islam will project their self-defining subgroup practices on the superordinate Muslim category, which will be related to more ingroup bias towards Alevis, a Muslim subgroup that performs different religious practices. Two studies yielded consistent evidence that practicing Islam increased ingroup bias towards Alevis. Furthermore, in Study 2, we found evidence that the effect of practicing Islam on ingroup bias was mediated by relative ingroup prototypicality (RIP). Moreover, practicing Islam did not affect RIP in relation to Shiites who perform the same religious practices that we examined. These findings support the Ingroup Projection Model.     

Media making Muslims: the construction of a Muslim community in Germany through media debate

This article focuses on the ways in which Muslims actively participate in media debates about Islam and Muslims in Germany, and how they challenge or reinforce representations of themselves. It questions the narrative of powerlessness versus dominant actors in media and politics. Even though they were already perceived as part of a Muslim community, several prominent individuals in the German cultural and political sphere took an explicit position as Muslims—some insisting on their distance to religion. This paper aims at describing the various reasons and reflections accompanying this decision and argues that media images of Muslims steered individuals, who are not members of Islamic organizations let alone representatives of them, to become active or change their self-representation and act as Muslims. By demanding recognition as active members of German society, prominent Muslim individuals are creating new images of Muslims beyond an imaginary that is reducing them to their (alleged) religiosity and positioning them outside German national identity.     

Muslims and the media in the blogosphere

In the past two decades a virtual Ummah has evolved in cyberspace. While some of these websites are targeted specifically at Muslims, others attempt to provide outreach on Islam or counter Islamophobic bias. As noted by Jon Anderson, in his pioneering work on Islam in cyberspace, Muslims were among the first engineering students to create websites at the dawn of the Internet, before mainstream Islamic organizations posted official websites. There is a wealth of material by Muslims in English and Western languages, some of it archived for research. This article explores the methodological problems posed in studying the range of Islam-content blogs, from private individuals to religious scholars, as well as Muslim websites that feature comments from readers. The focus of the paper is an analysis of blogs about Islam or by Muslims that either act as watchdogs on the media or try to provide alternative views to the mainstream media of competing Muslim groups. Researching these blogs as a form of e-ethnography calls for a rethinking and refining of anthropological methodology as e-ethnography.     

Islamic identity and its role in the lives of young Swedish Muslims

This paper concerns the level of wellbeing experienced by Swedish Muslim youths and young adults as well as the ways in which this is influenced both positively and negatively by their sense of Islamic religious identity. Taking Akerlof and Crantons’ Treatise on “identity economics” as its point of departure, the paper explores, discusses and analyses the following two questions: (1) what are the contexts in which identification with Islam tends to facilitate the wellbeing of Swedish Muslim youths and young adults; and (2) what are the contexts in which identification with Islam tends to destabilize (or increase the sociocultural discomfort of) this same group. Here, the notion of Islam as a “resource” is important, since this underlines its potential to resolve the types of existential dilemmas that are often found to confront the young and undermine their sense of wellbeing. The paper bases its assessments on the results of a questionnaire concerning life, values, relations, leisure time activities and religion that was distributed to a total of 4,000 young Swedes, a certain number of whom identified themselves as “Muslims”. Apart from studying the survey’s Muslim-specific results, I have conducted a number of additional interviews with young Muslim respondents, aiming to extend our understanding beyond the strictly quantitative findings of the material. The survey indicates that, much like their Christian counterparts, a majority of the Muslim respondents considered their belief in Islam to be a private, personal matter; one-third described themselves as “seekers”—an identification that previous research has found to be associated primarily with secular majority youth. The results further indicate that a majority of Muslim youths have a low level of confidence in religious leaders and that very few are actively involved in mosque activities and the like; on the contrary, they prefer to spend their leisure hours earning money, being with friends and/or “working out” at the gym. While the survey found that the vast majority of Muslim respondents looked upon the social and spiritual dimensions of Islam as a positive resource, the interviews indicate that the ability of young Muslims to appropriately shift between different forms of cultural belonging is highly advantageous as well.     

Muslim‐Christian polemics in Indonesian Islamic literature

As Indonesian Muslim depictions of Christianity have varied over time and according to the receptivity of particular regions, this study provides a brief survey of the Muslim attitudes towards Christianity from the seventeenth to the twentieth century in Indonesia. In this article, Nuruddin al‐Raniri and Hasbullah Bakry are taken as the prototype of Indonesian Muslims’ depictions of Christianity in the early and modem eras. In Bakry's works, as the main concern of this study, we find greater familiarity with the Bible which is quoted in an almost literal fashion. The biblical verses are quoted for the purpose of convincing a Muslim audience that Islam is the last religion and that Muhammad is the last messenger; they are used to defend Islam from the misrepresentations of Christians who had wielded the Bible as one of their chief weapons in the effort of Christianize Indonesia.     

Islamophobia in Contemporary Britain: The Evidence of the Opinion Polls, 1988–2006

British attitudes towards Islam and Muslims are examined on the basis of 104 public opinion polls conducted between 1988 and 2006, 90 of them since 2001. Many of these surveys were undertaken at national crisis points of one sort or another for which Islam and Muslims could not avoid being seen as causal factors. Nine high-level conclusions are drawn from this evidence. There has been increasing Islamophobia, not least since 2001. A stereotypical picture of British Muslims in the eyes of the majority population has emerged, Muslims being seen as slow to integrate into mainstream society, feeling only a qualified sense of patriotism, and prone to espouse anti-Western values that lead many to condone so-called Islamic terrorism. To an extent, these stereotypes reflect the reality of Muslim views, as displayed in 29 polls conducted among the British Muslim community, mainly since 2001.     

Fostering Mutual Understanding Among Muslims and Non-Muslims Through Counterstereotypical Information: An Educational versus Metacognitive Approach

Fostering interfaith tolerance may help to reduce religious tensions. The authors examined the attitudes of Christians, Muslims, and people with no religious affiliation toward different religions and explored whether their negative attitudes toward other faiths could be ameliorated. Participants (N = 298) were asked about their attitudes toward Judaism, Christianity, and Islam before they were randomly assigned to either a metacognitive intervention or an educational intervention. Information was conveyed in a simple narrative form in the educational condition. In the metacognitive condition, participants were first asked apparently simple questions that frequently elicited incorrect responses. This was followed by corrective information. Both Christian and Muslim participants appraised their own religion as the most peaceful and tolerant. The educational approach was more effective in reducing stereotypes about Islam among non-Muslims, whereas the metacognitive approach was more successful in lessening prejudice about Christianity among Muslims. Muslims displayed overconfidence in their responses related to religious topics.     

Religious identification and politicization in the face of discrimination: support for political Islam and political action among the Turkish and Moroccan second generation in Europe

Taking an approach from religion as a social identity and using large-scale comparative surveys in five European cities, we investigate when and how perceived discrimination is associated with religious identification and politicization among the second generation of Turkish and Moroccan Muslims. We distinguish support for political Islam from political action as distinct forms of politicization. In addition, we test the mediating role of religious identification in processes of politicization. Study 1 estimates multi-group structural equation models of support for political Islam in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden. In line with a social identity model of politicization and across nine inter-group contexts, Muslims who perceived more discrimination identified (even) more strongly as Muslims; and high Muslim identifiers were most ready to support political Islam. In support of a competing social stigma hypothesis, however, negative direct and total effects of perceived discrimination suggest predominant depoliticization. Using separate sub-samples across four inter-group contexts in Belgium, Study 2 adds political action tendencies as a distinct form of politicization. Whereas religious identification positively predicts both forms of politicization, perceived discrimination has differential effects: Muslims who perceived more discrimination were more weary of supporting political Islam, yet more ready to engage in political action to defend Islamic values. Taken together, the studies reveal that some Muslim citizens will politicize and others will depoliticize in the face of discrimination as a function of their religious identification and of prevailing forms of politicization.     

Geographical contributions to understanding contemporary Islam: current trends and future directions

In recent years, geographers have been giving increasing attention to religion—and Islam in particular—yet such work is rarely referred to within the broader social science literature about Islam and Muslims. This paper seeks to promote interdisciplinary dialogue, discussion and debate by highlighting the contributions that human geographers are making to understandings of contemporary Islam. In particular, I draw upon research within urban, social, cultural and feminist geographies to review current trends within geographical scholarship about Muslims individuals and communities. I then use this paper to suggest ways in which interdisciplinary research—in collaboration with human geographers—might seek to advance contemporary understandings of the social and spatial experiences of Muslim families and communities. I propose that a focus upon households, nations and intersections offer potential avenues for future research, whilst also highlighting the importance of thinking critically about the methodological issues involved in understanding contemporary Islam     

Muslims and ecology: fostering Islamic environmental ethics

Recent scholarly interest in religions and ecology reaffirm the importance of religious models in understanding humanity’s place in nature. While Islam provides detailed ethical principles on the environment, the majority of Muslim majority countries show an apparent indifference to environmental issues. Due to the complexities in Muslim majority countries in relation to environmental issues, this paper contends that there is a need for an examination of the different aspects of Muslim environmentalism, and to what extent environmental practices are influenced by Islamic environmental ethics. Therefore, this paper develops a multi-pronged approach whereby both environmental and non-environmental practices by Muslims are discussed, giving an overview of Islamic attitudes towards ecology and environmental practices and suggesting reasons for Muslim non-concern for the environment. Moreover, the paper illustrates how Muslims in western and Muslim majority countries implement Islamic environmental ethics. Finally, western and eastern Muslim thinkers who have written on Islam and the environment are explored.     

From religious emotions to affects: historical and theoretical reflections on injury to feeling,self and religion

ABSTRACT

Images of angry Muslims have become a common sight in repeated controversies problematising the compatibility of Islam and freedom of speech. To explain such outrage, it is often put forward that Muslims reacted to the disrespect and violation of their ‘religious feelings’. In this paper, we challenge the trope of hurt religious feelings in the explanation of unrest. Referring to the writings of Schleiermacher, James and Taylor, the discussion traces how religion and feeling have become inextricably intertwined, located within the individual self and institutionalised as a dominant interpretation of religion. We introduce affect as a conceptual alternative to such understandings, which allows us to analyse the emphasis on Muslim emotionality as a relationship between Muslim and secular bodies, hence no longer reduced to the interiority of Muslim subjects. We will illustrate the potential of an affect-based approach discussing Muslim feelings’ vital role in the construction of European democracies.     

Religion,Cultural Clash,and Muslim American Attitudes About Politically Motivated Violence

Does adherence to Islam predict attitudes about “suicide bombing” among American Muslims? This study examines the effects of religious and political factors on views of politically motivated violence (PMV). We draw from diverse scholarship, emphasizing arguments that are inspired by Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations perspective, as well as recent work in the sociology of Islam. Using a measure that gauges support for “suicide bombing” from the 2007 Pew Survey of American Muslims, results from logistic regression models suggest that political views and religious factors have a minimal effect on Muslim American attitudes toward suicide bombing. Furthermore, we find that Qur’ānic authoritativeness (i.e., the view that the Qur’ān is the word of God and not written by men) is associated with lower odds of supporting this form of PMV. We discuss the implications of our findings for the often anecdotal and alarmist accounts that link Muslim religiosity to support for “radical” extremism. We close with study limitations and avenues of future research.     

Secular Tolerance? Anti‐Muslim Sentiment in Western Europe

The literature about secularization proposes two distinct explanations of anti‐Muslim sentiment in secularized societies. The first theory understands it in terms of religious competition between Muslims and the remaining minority of orthodox Protestants; the second understands it as resulting from value conflicts between Muslims and the nonreligious majority. The two theories are tested by means of a multilevel analysis of the European Values Study 2008. Our findings indicate that, although more secularized countries are on average more tolerant towards Muslims and Islam, strongest anti‐Muslim attitudes are nonetheless found among the nonreligious in these countries.     

Do We Need a Psychology of Women in the Islamic World?

In these brief remarks I use the present collection of papers to this special issue on women in the Muslim World to address broader questions about a psychology of women in Islam. I discuss what might constitute Muslim culture, arguing that the combination of the themes of religiosity, collectivism, tightness, conservatism, gender differentiation and patriarchy, and honor offer a good starting point as a taxonomy for a distinct Islamic culture. Next, I discuss the present contributions to this special issue in the broader context of challenges faced by women in Muslim cultures, which are often among the most gender unequal in the world. Finally, I offer some suggestions for advancing cultural research on women in the Islamic World.     

A Model of Spirituality for Ageing Muslims

Spirituality’s influence on general well-being and its association with healthy ageing has been studied extensively. However, a different perspective has to be brought in when dealing with spirituality issues of ageing Muslims. Central to this perspective is the intertwining of religion and spirituality in Islam. This article will contribute to the understanding of the nature of Islamic spirituality and its immense importance in the life of a practicing ageing Muslim. Consequently, it will help care providers to include appropriate spiritual care in the care repertoire of a Muslim care recipient. It is assumed that the framework for a model of spirituality based on Islamic religious beliefs would help contextualise the relationship between spirituality and ageing Muslims. Not only challenges, but also the opportunities that old age provides for charting the spiritual journey have underpinned this model.