Transnational halal networks: INHART and the Islamic cultural economy in Malaysia and beyond

The concern for piety among contemporary middle-class Muslims has led to efforts to establish a halal (permissible according to Islamic principles) economy. This can be seen in the thriving Islamic cultural economy in Malaysia, which refers to the links between Islamic culture and economic practices. Malaysia tops the Global Islamic Economy indicator, which serves as the dominant framework for evaluating and measuring the global halal economy. This was achieved through various initiatives, such as establishing research centres, of which the International Institute for Halal Research and Training (INHART) is among the most prominent. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and digital ethnography, this article focuses on INHART initiatives for building transnational halal networks. This article aims to explore how halal interpretations and practices travel across borders. I argue that halal research centres, such as INHART, signify both the decentring and centring of power transnationally and economically in terms of the global flow of halal knowledge and practices.     

Between Ideology and Pragmatism: The Politics of Dual Nationality in Germany1

This article discusses the policy and politics of dual nationality in Germany. It contrasts the policy reality, in which dual nationality is tolerated in a wide range of cases, with Germany's continued opposition in principle to this phenomenon. It then analyzes political, cultural and electoral factors to explain why this opposition persists despite these widespread exceptions. In conclusion, the article argues that by continuing formally to oppose dual nationalities, Germany in effect discourages naturalizations and thereby continues to operate a broadly exclusive citizenship.     

The Social Bases and Discursive Context of the Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism: The Cases of Iran and Syria

This article focuses on the socioeconomic and political context of the 1950s and 1960s to explain the rise of fundamentalism in Iran and Syria. I argue that Islamic fundamentalism in these countries gained support from certain traditional property-owning classes who were antagonized by the state economic policies and bureaucratic expansion and by the state's effective suppression of the ideological and political pluralism of the earlier period. The state's repressive policies channeled oppositional politics through the medium of religion. I further argue that the more immediate determinant of Islamic fundamentalism was the state's ideology and its intervention in culture production. The state shaped the identity of the opposition and structured the kind of argument the opposition formulated against it. On the basis of the empirical cases of Iran and Syria, I argue that conceptualizing ideology as a discourse resolves some of the difficulties involved in the subjective/psychological conception of ideology in the analysis, assessment, and understanding of the way ideology is produced and its role in social process, particularly when only historical materials are available. I also argue for treating ideology as an autonomous category with a dynamic of its own. Finally, I suggest a model of ideological production.     

论“伊斯兰国”的资金链及其影响

伴随恐怖组织＂伊斯兰国＂的迅速发展,中东地区的动荡局势不断恶化。本文以＂伊斯兰国＂资金链为切入点,在梳理该组织发展历史和主要特征的基础上,分析了它的主要资金来源及流向,旨在厘清＂伊斯兰国＂的资金循环逻辑。在此基础上,论文进而分析了在中国逐步推进＂丝路战略＂的现实背景下,＂伊斯兰国＂组织对中国国家安全与海外利益的双重影响。     

Iranian College Students’ Attitudes Toward Premarital Sex,Marriage, and Family Before and After the Islamic Revolution

ABSTRACT. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine Iranian college students’ attitudes toward premarital sex and marriage before and after the Islamic Revolution. Methods: Responses to a survey from 526 students at University of Shiraz in 2011 were compared to those from another study of 392 students from the same university who completed the same survey in 1977 (2 years before the Islamic Revolution). Results: No substantial changes were observed to indicate that college students adopted theocratic views on premarital sex and marriage after the Islamic Revolution. Conclusions: The Islamic regime's efforts to cultivate conservative attitudes toward sexuality and marriage have not achieved their goals.     

‘Not Fanatical’: The Evolution of Sociable Piety and the Dialogic Subject in Multi-religious Indonesia

In Indonesia, the politics of ‘sociable piety’ has been reinvigorated by local Islamic sermon groups opposed to a range of public behaviours labelled as ‘fanatik’. United by an intra-Muslim alliance self-identified as being ‘not fanatical’, members of urban middle-class sermon groups shrewdly redraw moral boundaries across the long-term ‘traditionalist’ and ‘modernist’ divides. As revealed by my fieldwork between 2009 and 2012, the improvisation of ‘sociable piety’ is so prominent that not only optional rituals such as tarawih but obligatory prayers such as salat can be negotiated contextually. Using the multi-religious city of Salatiga as a window to see the broader religious trends in many religiously pluralistic Indonesian cities, this paper contends that the general appeal of Islamic self-cultivation in Indonesia has been simultaneously an individual ethical cultivation and social, even national, improvement. Theoretically, this study of the everyday Indonesian strategies to deal with the tension between piety and sociality is a modest attempt to rethink subjectivity that moves beyond either the docile or the deliberative self and towards the dialogic subject in a world of conflicting heterogeneity.     

Salat-al-Juma: organizing the public in Tahrir Square

What were the sources of solidarity that bound anti-government protesters in Tahrir Square? This article complicates Judith Butler’s claim that this solidarity originated in shared vulnerability to police violence and the practices of mutual care that were necessary to sustain bodies in the square. I draw on existing scholarship that suggests that passive knowledge of this shared vulnerability was already present among Egyptians, especially those working in the informal economy and living more of their lives – eating, chatting, praying, selling, etc. – on the streets of Egypt’s cities and thereby drawn into increasing contact with state police forces. Given that aggressive policing and intimidation had generated a sense of passive solidarity among Egyptians, I ask how this solidarity was transformed into animated opposition to the regime. My answer is that the Islamic congregational prayers as well as the Sunday Masses held during the revolution were spectacles of interfaith cooperation that inspired courage and trust across sectarian and religious/secular communities. These prayers were rational rituals that generated trust among diverse Egyptians that Mubarak had sown suspicion among and played against one another to stay in power. These were embodied rituals that lent moral support to more the mundane aspects of occupying Tahrir Square, which was symbolically and strategically important in bringing down the regime.     

The Cultural Legacy of Makassar Stone in East Timor

During research on the archaeology and ethnohistory of fortified settlements in East Timor, a series of old graves was recorded with masonry features that local Timorese referred to as ‘Makassar stone’ (M: Batu Makassar, or Makassar mataru in the Fataluku vernacular). Oral histories of Fataluku-speaking communities associate the grave styles with traders from Sulawesi who developed a major maritime network from the late sixteenth century. While the stone used in the Timorese graves is clearly of local origin, the use of similar stonework for grave construction in seventeenth-century Makassar graves in Sulawesi suggests the possibility of close links between the two societies, including the extension of Islamic influences into East Timor at this time. In the following paper, we evaluate a range of evidence for these associations, including a seventeenth-century Islamic burial of a high-born Sulawesi woman near the port of Hera in East Timor.     

Muslim Women's Challenges to Islamic Law The Case of Malaysia

The reform of Islam by women and especially the lessons this activism might contain for feminist praxis is a highly topical and important issue. This article outlines some of the lessons to be drawn from studying this area with a specific focus on the activism of some groups of Malaysian Muslim women aimed at the reform of Islam. Two different strategies for reform are explained and traced in their attempts to reform religious interpretation and the Islamic legal system, the Syar'iah. The aim of the article is to provoke dialogue over the relationship of Islam to women's rights, while highlighting the agency of Muslim women within an Islamic framework. Another aim is to contribute to the debate over what constitutes feminism and the need to subject the debate continuously to cross-cultural and international perspectives.     

伊斯兰文明中的“共处”思想:基于世界主义光谱的分析

伊斯兰文明中“共处”思想关注的核心是如何解决承认伊斯兰教普遍性/唯一性与各种以伊斯兰教为标尺而划定的“他性”存在的合理性之间的矛盾。使用世界主义光谱来对伊斯兰文明中不同“共处”思想进行排列,从最偏向宗教普遍主义一侧到最偏向宗教社群主义的“共处”思想分别是:不同伊斯兰教派间的“共处”思想、伊斯兰国家内部不同宗教群体间的“共处”思想、古代伊斯兰国家与非伊斯兰国家之间的“共处”思想、近代以来伊斯兰国家与非伊斯兰国家之间的“共处”思想、非伊斯兰国家中穆斯林与非穆斯林群体之间的“共处”思想、不同宗教之间的“共处”思想等六种类型。通过有针对性地挖掘“共处”思想来纾解当今伊斯兰世界所面临的诸种挑战,具有重要的现实意义。     

State Building as a Source of Islamic Political Organization1

Previous research on political Islam in the Middle East and North Africa has been limited in providing a generalizable theory of its origins and systematically account for the cross‐national variation in the prevalence of Islamic movements. Following a state‐centered approach, this study argues that state‐building activities are a primary origin of Islamic movements. Regimes adopt religious symbolism and functions that legitimate the role of Islam in the public sphere. State incorporation of religion thus creates Islam as a frame for political action, with increased access to mobilizing resources and better able to withstand repression and political exclusion. To provide an explicit and systematic test of cross‐national variation, data on 170 political and militant organizations across the region are analyzed. Results indicate that state incorporation of religion is a crucial factor in the religiosity of movement organizations. Mixed effects of political exclusion and repression are found. No support is found for theories of economic grievances or foreign influence as causes of Islamic mobilization. In sum, analysis suggests that a state‐centered perspective is the most fitting account of political Islam.     

The politics of engagement between Islam and the secular state: ambivalences of 'civil society'

The paper reveals contemporary transformations of the interaction between Islam and secular states from opposition to engagement. In-depth ethnographic evidence challenges the predominant juxtaposition of Islam against the secular state. Following micro-sites of interaction between the Gülen movement and the state from Turkey to Kazakhstan, my fieldwork revealed a continuum of engagements between them. The paper analyses the engagements ranging from contestation and negotiation to co-operation. The case illustrates the extent to which scholarly interest in opposition and clash has left a wide-ranging variety of state-Islam interaction understudied with regard to civil society. It also reveals the conditions under which effective Islamic horizontal organizations have provided the platforms of vertical engagements with the secular states. The major argument of the paper is that both civil and uncivil outcomes in the Muslim world are primarily shaped by the nature of state-Islam interaction. The evidence suggests that the key to understanding the relationship between Islam and civil society is the state.     

Debating the Burqa in France: the Antipolitics of Islamic Revival

In 2009 a French national commission was created to issue recommendations against “the burqa” and raise the possibility of a ban on the practice in certain public settings. This paper explores the different normative stakes of politicizing the burqa and the form of Islamic Revival with which it is associated. Recent scholarship has sought to overturn orientalist depictions of Islamic movements but has insisted that bodily ethical practices, such as Muslim women’s veiling, constitute forms of politics. Based on ethnographic research in a women’s mosque community in a poor suburb of Lyon, France, I argue that these women are not engaged in a form of politics but rather, antipolitics, a movement originally conceptualized in the 1970s and 80s as a rejection of politics and a valorization of private life. Three components define their antipolitics: a reconfiguration of the private sphere against an intrusive state, a retreat into a moral community, and emphasis on spiritual conditions and achievement of serenity. In interrogating different meanings of politics and antipolitics, this paper suggests a rethinking of the relationship between “political Islam” and piety movements.     

Zastiin Nogoodoi: Tribal Zakhchin Music of Western Mongolia

When national governments support homogenising religious programs within plural populations, scholars are called to pay close attention to the subsequent interactions between state power and religious projects/actors. This article responds to this need by providing a sub-national perspective on Indonesian Council of Islamic Scholars (MUI), a national body seen by some as a state-supported homogenising project. Based on fieldwork in the Indonesian cities of Tasikmalaya and Malang, the article describes the ideological diversity that exists between the central MUI and its regional branches. In the regions, the MUI is supported financially by regional governments, and in this way, its branches are shaped by local political conditions rather than by allegiance to ideological programs promoted from the centre. The authors observe the openness of the Tasikmalaya MUI to a wide range of Islamic movements, and contrast this with the ideological homogeneity of Malang's MUI, where the regional government is intent on restricting Islamic programs that threaten religious and social diversity. The contrasting religio-political positionings of the regional MUI signal the ideological heterogeneity to be found within the Indonesian Islamic Scholars’ Council and shed light on the importance of sub-national factors in shaping Indonesia's institutional responses to religious diversity.     

Small Town in Mass Society Revisited1

Abstract The case study of a small New York town that dramatized the thesis that the secular expansion of macro forces—urbanization, industrialization, bureaucratization—has permanently reduced the autonomy of all small communities is an example of a special type of discovery/persuasion strategy in the social sciences: the “opposition case study.” In contrast to the more rigorous “competitive test” or the atheoretical “negative case,” opposition case studies confront the dominant perspective with a qualitative illustration of a new theory in the context of a zero-sum game. When they are successful, opposition cases meet four criteria: the dominant view is immediately rendered obsolete; the origin of the new idea supports its plausibility; the new perspective is shown to be testable; and the new perspective quickly generates new lines of research. Small Town in Mass Society meets the first criterion, and may have been heuristic, but its probable origin in populist ideology undermines its testability.     

从伊斯兰法到二元法——巴林法律体系的变迁轨迹

法律体系是衡量文明社会的重要标志.巴林作为中东民族国家建构体系中地缘、社会与文明实体的重要一环,尽管面积不大,人口较少,但其法律体系却在海湾地区具有历史悠久、体系完备以及内容丰富等特点.巴林法律体系历经四个时期:教法学家主导下的伊斯兰法时期、酋长管理下的部族法时期、英国控制下的混合法时期以及世俗和伊斯兰共生下的二元法时期.巴林法律体系的现代化呈现出多元化的理论形态与文化取向.     

Memory, community, and opposition to mosques: the case of Badalona

A number of recent studies have examined the sources of conflict surrounding the presence of Muslim minorities in Western contexts. This article builds upon, and challenges, some of the principal findings of this literature through analyzing popular opposition to mosques in Badalona, a historically industrial city in Catalonia where several of the most vigorous anti-mosque campaigns in Spain have occurred. Drawing upon 46 semi-structured interviews and ethnographic observation conducted over a two-year period, I argue that opposition to mosques in Badalona is not reducible to anti-Muslim prejudice or fears of Islamic extremism. Rather, it is rooted in powerful associations drawn between Islam, immigration, and a series of social problems affecting the character of communal life and the quality of cherished public spaces in the city. These associations are expressed through local narratives that emphasize a sharp rupture between a glorified ethnically homogeneous past of community and solidarity, and a troublesome multicultural present fraught with social insecurity and disintegration. I show how the construction of these ??rupture narratives?? has entailed active memory work that minimizes the significance of prior social cleavages and conflicts, and selectively focuses on disjuncture over continuity with the past. I also highlight how these narratives have been reinforced by strong socio-spatial divisions, which have intensified contestations over public space and led to the integration of mosque disputes into broader struggles over social justice and public recognition.     

中阿文明交往面临的挑战及对策思考

中阿文明交往迄今已有2000余年历史,形成"官民并举"的一种基本交往态势,在各个历史阶段采取了不同方式,并呈现出不同交往内涵与特征;伊斯兰文明面临的现实挑战主要包括:1."9·11"事件使阿拉伯-伊斯兰世界因受连坐而声名狼藉,伊斯兰文明面临何去何从的"十字路口"、2.美国借"大中东民主改造"之名进行的文化改造,加重了伊斯兰世界在全球化中被边缘化的程度,伊斯兰文明面临如何与怎样融入全球化的现实困境、3.目前发生的这场内生型的阿拉伯民主运动,实为阿拉伯民族从清真寺走向广场来集体表达民主诉求之举,凸显出伊斯兰文明主动融入全球化的自觉意识;为进一步推进中阿文明交往,双方应进一步加强认知、增进理解与沟通,警惕并应对美国互联网外交带来的新挑战,将宗教交流作为深化中阿文明交往的突破口。     

Gender cultures and the division of labour in contemporary Europe: a cross‐national perspective

Drawing on the vast literature concerned with the cultural aspects of gender, this article explores the ways in which individuals living in different national contexts value the ideal of a dual earner/dual carer couple at the expense of the male breadwinner model. Via a comparison of fifteen European countries included in the Family and Gender Roles module of the 2002 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), three attitudinal patterns were identified: the unequal sharing that portrays a male breadwinner norm, the familistic unequal that also endorses a gender‐segregated arrangement though with a greater wish for men's involvement in housework and childcare, and the dual earner/dual carer model, which, despite covering nearly 40 per cent of respondents, is very unequally distributed across countries. It is proposed that societal gender cultures are of major importance to an understanding of cross‐national variations in attitudes and their relationship with the real forms of gender division of labour. The connection between couples' attitudes and practices is thus examined in order to assess the extent to which support for the dual earner/dual carer model encourages couples to engage in more equal sharing of paid and unpaid work. Findings reveal the importance of the normative dimension insofar as the impact of attitudes on practices seems to depend on the historical pathways of gender cultures and the ways in which they underpin welfare policies and female employment.     

The Impact of Islamic and Customary Laws on Urban form Development in Southwestern Saudi Arabia

Urban form and architecture, whether religious or secular, does not rely only on principles of aesthetics to reflect its essence, but to a great extent reflects a society's religious and social demands. The article reviews Islamic law, shari^cah, and local customary laws, ^curf, and the influence they have had on the structural development of the urban form and architecture of the traditional highland settlements of southwestern Saudi Arabia. Although living conditions in Saudi Arabia are much changed today, the Islamic religion still plays a prominent role in everyday life. The paper argues that the architectural heritage in traditional villages may provide a more satisfactory basis for contemporary community design than the concepts now being implemented since Islamic law continues to influence the organizational characteristics of Saudi settlements. An analysis of physical elements shows how the principles underlying the structure of Islam and the tribal system are pertinent to each settlement's physical development. The conclusion is that the urban form resulted as a response to the Shari^cah and ^cUrf to verify the basic need for defense, climate and the community's social structure.