WORKING papers

Second thoughts about the anthropology of Islam, or how to make sense of grand schemes in everyday life

Samuli Schielke, Zentrum Moderner Orient

Abstract Introduction1 A growing body of anthropological research has Islam has become a central topic for the anthropo- turned to study Islam as a discursive tradition that logical (and other) study of people, societies, tradi- informs the attempts of Muslims to live pious and tions and concepts that in one way or another can moral lives, the aff ects and emotions they cultiva- be called Muslim. Studies of political movements, te and the challenges they pose to a liberal secular education, morality, migration and diaspora and ideology. While this turn has provided direction for many other issues have become increasingly em- a number of innovative studies, it appears to stop bedded in a paradigm of Islamic-ness, with publi- short of some key questions regarding everyday re- cation titles over and again referring to »The role ligious and moral practice, notably the ambivalence, of Islam in...«, »Muslims in...«,»Islam and...« etc. the inconsistencies and the openness of people’s Given the indeed great signifi cance of Islam in the lives that never fi t into the framework of a single tra- lives of a great number of people around the world dition. In short, there is too much Islam in the anth- these days, this is not entirely past the point. We ropology of Islam. To fi nd ways to account for both are well advised to take religion seriously and to the ambivalence of people’s everyday lives and the avoid the pitfalls involved in reducing religious often perfectionist ideals of good life, society and pursuits to economical or political ones (Starrett self they articulate, I argue that we may have to talk 1998; Lambek 2000; Mahmood 2005). There is a a little less about traditions, discourses and powers problem of focus, however. This paper has grown and a little more about the existential and pragmatic out of a sense that the ways some infl uential recent sensibilities of living a life in a complex and often troubling world. By broadening our focus to include 1 This working paper is a slightly modifi ed version of a the concerns, practice and experience of everyday paper that was presented to the workshop »What makes a life in its various moments and directions, we may good Muslim? Complexities of moral practice and subjectiv- eventually also be better able to make sense of the ity in the age of global Islam« at the Helsinki Collegium for signifi cance of a grand scheme like Islam in it. Advanced Studies in Helsinki, Finland on 16 April 2010, and the workshop of the Internationalisation Network »Confi gu- rations of Muslim Traditions in European Public Spheres« at the Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin on 25 June 2010. I am Keywords especially indebted to Philipp Reichmuth, Knut Graw, Doro- anthropology, Islam, discursive tradition, secula- thea Schulz, Salwa Ismail, Michael Feener, Armando Sal- rism, everyday life vatore, Nadia Fadil, Alexandre Caeiro, Annelies Moors and Sindre Bangstad for their critical and helpful comments. I am also indebted to the DFG collaborative research centre 295 (Cultural and Linguistic Contacts) at the University of Mainz, the research project »What makes a good Muslim: Contested fi elds of religious normativity in the age of global Islam« funded by the Academy of Finland at the University of Joensuu, the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) and last but not least the ZMO, which have at diff erent times between 2006 and 2010 sup- ported the research on which this paper is based.

Kirchweg 33, D-14129 Berlin ©ZMO 2010 Telefon: 030-80307-0 Fax: 030-80307-210 Internet: www.zmo.de E-Mail: [email protected] anthropological research has taken »Islam« as the to have one answer to the question about what Is- Archimedean point to study the lives of people who lam is? After all, it can be rather diff erent things in one way or another adhere to the message of Mu- depending on the questions we ask. This is not to hammad privileges a conceptual engagement with join the argument that there are many »Islams«. the Islamic-ness of its subjects in a way that needs What I mean is that Islam, like any major faith, is to be balanced. To put it more provocatively, there not simply something – it is a part of people’s lives, is too much Islam in the anthropology of Islam. thoughts, acts, societies, histories and more. Con- This requires some explanation. Too much Islam sequently, it can be many diff erent things – a moral in what respect? Isn’t the anthropology of Islam, idiom, a practice of self-care, a discursive traditi- after all, about Islam? I think that this seemingly on, an aesthetic sensibility, a political ideology, a straightforward assumption may actually be part mystical quest, a source of hope, a cause of anxie- of the problem. To explain what I mean, I will try ty, an identity, an enemy – you name it. The second to briefl y point out two peculiarities that characte- part of an explanation, then, is that there is too rise many anthropologies of Islam. much Islam in the sense that the anthropology of First, ethnographies about the religious lives of Islam has a preoccupation with defi ning its fi eld of Muslims often privilege people who consciously study, a preoccupation that may not be very help- present themselves as pious, committed Muslims ful for understanding the signifi cance of Islam as and who participate in the activities of religious a part of people’s lives. groups and organisations – in other words, people These two peculiarities are both related to the who share a sense of activist commitment. This is way »Islam« in the anthropology of Islam has become not to say that it is not important to look at de- more than a just a subject matter. The privileging dicated activists. It certainly is. But most people of Islam as the key to the lives of people of Muslim are not dedicated activists. Focussing on the very faith allows »Islam« to emerge as a class of its own, pious in moments when they are being very pious a paradigm of study that is attractive and accessible (in mosque study groups, for example) risks taking for a growing body of graduate courses, PhD theses, those moments when people talk about religion as funding applications and research papers. The anth- religious persons (at diff erent times, they can talk ropology of Islam appears to have become more than about very diff erent things and enact rather diff e- simply a sub-fi eld of the anthropology of religion rent sides of their personality) as the paradigmatic that has its focus on Islam. The anthropology of Is- ones, and thus unwittingly reproducing the parti- lam is a project concerned with methodological de- cular ideological aspiration of Islamist and Islamic bates of its own, guided by a sense about Islam not revivalist movements: the privileging of Islam as only being a religion diff erent from, say, Hinduism, the supreme guideline of all fi elds of life. but a diff erent kind of an issue altogether, one that It is evident that in many places, defi nitely so in requires a disciplinary approach of its own. Egypt where I have conducted my fi eldwork, adhe- In this process, two key topics have emerged as rence to Islam really is very important for people, guiding paradigms of much of the recent anthro- and has become more so in the past couple of de- pological study of Islam: the concept of Islam as a cades. This is something that needs to be recog- discursive tradition, and a focus on the cultivation nised and accounted for. But in many ethnogra- of moral aff ect grounded in that tradition. These to- phies of Muslims’ lives there has emerged a more pics have provided direction for a number of inno- far-reaching way to a priori privilege the Muslim- vative studies that often share a focus on Muslims ness of the people involved and the Islamic-ness who consciously and consistently aim to be pious, of the projects they pursue. This, then, is the fi rst moral and disciplined, their debates about how to part of an explanation: There is too much Islam in do so, the challenges they face and the challenges the anthropology of Islam in the sense of a lack of they pose to a liberal secular ideology of subjecti- balance between the emphasis on religious com- vity and normativity. Some of this research is very mitment and a not always suffi cient account of the good and has provided signifi cant progress for our lives of which it is a part. theoretical understanding of embodiment, power Second, there is a peculiar preoccupation with and ideology. The problem with this line of studies, the question as to what Islam is. In recent years, however, is that they are somewhat out of balan- many of my colleagues have been highlighting that ce. There is a certain tendency to project Islam they study Islam as a discursive tradition. As a PhD as a perfectionist ethical project of self-discipline, student, this was one of the fi rst things I learned at the cost of the majority of Muslims who – like in the staff seminars of our institute. Meanwhile, most of humankind – are sometimes but not always I have come to fi nd it rather peculiar that people pious and who follow various moral aims and at fi nd it necessary in the fi rst place to state what times immoral ones. The ideals and aspirations they think Islam is. The anthropology of Christia- people express and the everyday lives they live are nity, in comparison, appears much less preoccup- characterised by complexity, ambiguity, refl ectivi- ied with the question as to what kind of object of ty, openness, frustration and tragedy. They argue study Christianity is. Why, then, would we need for discipline at times and for freedom at others,

ZMO Working Papers 2 · S. Schielke· Second thoughts about the anthropology of Islam· 2010 2 but often live lives that lack both. If we want to ac- I open the enquiry with a more theoretical dis- count for the signifi cance of Islam in people’s lives, cussion of two key issues, fi rst, the search to un- we have to account for it in this wider context. derstand what Islam »is«, and second, the current In this paper I argue for an existential and ethno- turn to a study of Islam through the notions of tradi- graphic approach that accounts for the motivations, tion, ethics and piety in juxtaposition with secular experiences, complexities and ambiguities of eve- and liberal powers. I then return to the everyday ryday lives. To understand the complex logic of world that is the site of my fi eldwork in Egypt in lived experience, we will have to take the inherent order to point out some key issues that I see as ambiguity of people’s lives as the starting point, helpful for reaching a better understanding about just as we have to locate their world-views in both what it actually means to live a life that, among the local contexts they are physically acting in as other things, can be a Muslim life. well as the global connections, both imagined and enacted, they locate themselves in. These are not What Islam »is« merely exceptions from some kind of normality; Many of the fi rst and groundbreaking anthropolo- on the contrary they are the normality of people’s gical approaches to Islam between the 1960’s and lives – even those who at times argue for holistic 80’s tried to explain what Islam actually is. The and perfectionist ideologies. answers – the blueprint of a social order (Gellner My critique is empirical and methodological 1981), or the locally embedded specifi c version of more than it is theoretical, and so are the sugges- a greater symbolic order (Geertz 1968) or a multi- tions I present at the end of this paper. What con- tude of culturally specifi c »Islams« (El-Zein 1977) cerns me is the question how we can study and were unsatisfactory (see Asad 1986; Varisco 2005; understand people’s lives in a way that credits Marranci 2008). Interestingly, some of the best the importance of religious and other traditions, works from this period did not even try to explain ideologies and expectations without losing sight of what Islam is; instead they off ered some good ac- the complexities of life experience, the powers to counts about what it means to live as a Muslim in which people are subjected and the active reima- a specifi c historical and cultural situation (e.g. gination and reinvention of traditions and ideolo- Gilsenan 2000 [1982]; Abu-Lughod 1996 [1986]). gies that constantly takes place in everyday life. Since then, however, Talal Asad (1986) has come With this critique I take issue especially with up with a very powerful solution that has helped to a research programme that has become very pro- fortify the question about what Islam is as a stan- ductive and infl uential in recent years. Characte- dard part of teaching, PhD theses, and theoretical rised by the keywords piety, ethics and discursive sections of research papers. tradition, this research programme is often associ- According to Asad, Islam is a discursive tradi- ated with the work of Talal Asad and his infl uential tion created by the generations of Muslims deba- intervention in the Anthropology of Islam (1986). ting the correct form of practice with a view to its My critique is not, however, directed at the work past, present and future. While extremely popular of Asad and his concept of Islam as a discursive among anthropologists, this view has not remai- tradition. It is a good concept, and while I do have ned uncontested. For example, Gabriele Marran- certain reservations about it (Schielke 2007), I do ci (2008) has argued that Islam is essentially an not intend to be involved in a conceptual critique emotional category, that Islam is about the feeling here. What I am interested in here is not concepts of being a Muslim. But this is not the key point for as such but what is accomplished through them. me. What concerns me is the question what it is Instead, I wish to off er some points of – hopeful- about Islam that it makes it so important to under- ly constructive – criticism about what has been ac- stand what it »is«? Why is it not suffi cient to say complished by a much wider research programme that Islam is a religion? Asad has a good theoreti- that has taken discursive tradition as its keyword. cal point against the study of Islam as a religion: This is a research programme that has achieved the category of »religion« in the social sciences, he some signifi cant insights, but also created some points out, is the outcome of a very specifi c Euro- problems that need to be tackled. In the following pean development in Christianity and carries the I argue that most of the key insights and issues very likely risk of levelling the specifi c features of of this research programme, notably ethics and religious traditions around the world – notably the the cultivation of aff ect, are highly productive but Muslim notion of dîn (religion), which is both vas- may need to be balanced by a more existential ap- ter and narrower than the social scientifi c cate- proach that foregrounds the many concerns and gory (Asad 1993). Vaster because it involves many pursuits of everyday life. Some issues however, no- more fi elds of life, and narrower because it is a tably the juxtaposition of the Islamic and the secu- normative notion. There is a very common assump- lar/liberal, are fl awed and may need to be revised tion among Muslims that dîn is a true religion re- in favour of an approach that is more perceptive of vealed by God, including Islam, Christianity and the situational, pragmatic and incomplete nature Judaism, but excluding Hinduism, Buddhism Baha- of discursive power. ism, etc. From this point of view, an anthropology

ZMO Working Papers 2 · S. Schielke· Second thoughts about the anthropology of Islam· 2010 3 of »religion« that posits Islam as belonging to the later the anthropologists of Islam already encoun- same class of things as Buddhism would be rather tered an abstract notion of religion as a corpus, beside the point. and to an increasing degree also as a system and But if Asad is rightly sceptical of the heuristic va- as an agent (and this encounter has further con- lue of the term »religion«, his students are very con- tributed to Muslims’ increasing objectifi cation of fi dent about the heuristic value of another general Islam during the past century, see Starrett 1998). notion: tradition. Asad’s name is nowadays regularly Although most of them were not believers in Islam, mentioned in articles and conference papers whose and some of them even openly hostile to it, they authors explain that they »understand Islam as a nevertheless found it very easy to deal with it as discursive tradition«. As mentioned before, it is not something, an entity, a thing. my intention in this context to discuss the premises Why is it so convenient to deal with the adhe- and implications of the notion of discursive tradition. rence of people to Muhammad’s message as an What I want to focus on now is that those who argue entity? The fact that Muslims themselves com- that Islam is a discursive tradition do not argue that monly do so is not a suffi cient answer, for the ty- Christianity, Marxism, human rights, anthropology pical answers given by anthropologists diff er a lot etc., are also discursive traditions – although this from the typical answers given by Muslims (that certainly can be argued and has been taken into is, Muslims not trained in anthropology). For Mus- consideration in the context of the anthropology of lims, Islam is neither a blueprint, nor a multitude, Christianity (Anidjar 2009). They are not involved in nor a discursive tradition. For Muslims, Islam is the general study of discursive traditions, but in the the true Religion of God.3 study of Islam in particular, and they fi nd it impor- To use an extremely old-fashioned anthropologi- tant for the purposes of their analysis and argumen- cal term, »Islam« is a very abstract and powerful tation to specify what Islam is. The label »Islam as fetish: an entity imagined and created by humans a discursive tradition« as it is commonly used these that, because people ascribe it power, begins to days is thus less often about an actual inquiry into have power over them. As a fetish, Islam is in a discursive traditions (but see Salvatore 2007), and way even more powerful than God, because God is more often about an attempt to fi nd a frame that al- always surrounded by secrets and mysteries, and lows one to look at Islam as a whole. His motivations and plans are beyond human un- What, then, does »Islam« explain that makes it derstanding, while Islam can be studied, analysed, so important to know what it is? Evidently it is im- explained and interpreted. And every study, every portant, otherwise it wouldn’t keep us so busy. explanation, every analysis and interpretation ma- Islam is the name of the religion founded by Mu- kes it more solid, more factual and more powerful hammad on the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th cen- over those who engage it – regardless of whether tury A.D. In the literal meaning of the Arabic word, they believe in it or not. »Islam« means submission, that is, submission of From a social scientifi c point of view, the ques- the human to God. In its archaic meaning, Islam tion of what Islam »is« is a bad one, because the is an act, and therefore has no agency. Agency, if logic of the question already loads the category of any, lies with the human believer who submits her Islam with expectations. Expectations that by kno- or his will and acts under the supreme agency of wing what it »is« we will know what will happen God. And yet Muslims today speak of Islam less to people who believe in it. No matter what our as an act of the believer and more as an entity ex- answer to the question of what Islam »is«, by pur- ternal to the believer. What is important is that at suing the question we will willingly or unwillingly some point, probably long before even the oldest contribute to the power of our belief in the fetish Western anthropologists were born, a gradual of Islam, making it more solid and encompassing. conceptual shift began that turned Islam from an For a Muslim proselytiser, this makes good sen- act and a disposition into a corpus of norms, pro- se. But for us as social scientists concerned with cedures and attitudes, and eventually into system the human condition and human agency, there is that itself prescribes acts and attitudes, a system good reason to be cautious about a question that that, metaphorically or literally, is granted agency reinforces, instead of investigating, the growing that is God’s: commanding, prohibiting, knowing, imagination of a world religion as an entity with describing, sanctioning.2 So the Orientalists and agency.

2 It is necessary to specify that historically speaking, there probably was no direct shift from »God« to »Islam« as the fo- and objectifi ed Islam as textbook knowledge (see Eickelman cus of attention. Importantly, Muslim intellectual traditions 1992 and Starrett 1998). typically focussed on scholarly masters and related to their 3 My free translation, oriented toward vernacular usage, specifi c arguments and the traditions they established. The of the Qur’an verse »Inna al-islâm huwa ad-dîn ‘ind Allâh« increasingly systemic quality of »Islam« emerged through which is commonly quoted by Muslims to state the suprema- these intellectual traditions, but it only became dominant cy of Islam over other faiths. This is in fact the only passage in the 20th century, when mass education and media made in the Qur’an that allows the interpretation of Islam as a traditions of scholarly transmission increasingly obsolete religion rather than as an act of the individual believer.

ZMO Working Papers 2 · S. Schielke· Second thoughts about the anthropology of Islam· 2010 4 The focus on Islam as a peculiar entity of its own the connections between everyday religiosity and kind is part of a history of exceptionalism in the religious scholarship and the relationship between study of cultures and societies in which Islam is Muslim practices of piety and secular architectu- the dominant religious tradition. Even in variants res of power. For the anthropology of Islam, these that are radically critical of Orientalism, it carries works have come to constitute what Imre Laka- an Orientalist heritage: an assumption that Is- tos (Lakatos and Musgrave 1970) has described lam is something signifi cantly diff erent from »the as a research programme, that is, a shared set of West«. Instead of being the backward other of Eu- problems, methods and terminology that provide ropean modernity, Islam may now be taken up as productive fi elds of research. According to Laka- the pious other of secularism, the resisting other tos, a research programme is seldom proven false, of neo-colonialism or the methodological other of because its key premises and theories can always comparative social science. Elevated to such a po- be protected through ad hoc theories. Instead, the sition of signifi cant alterity, the religious traditions key criterion by which the success of a research of Muslims gain particular brilliance and impor- programme can be judged is its capability to pro- tance for the sake of highlighting their particula- duce new problems and solutions. This is a prag- rity through their diff erence. But at the same time, matic criterion and a useful one for inquiring what the faith and lives of Muslims in their own unique- is and what is not accomplished by the research ness, their specifi city in their own right – and not programme of ethics, piety and tradition. just comparatively – become opaque, reduced to While this research programme is most promi- their Islamic-ness. To study Islam as »something« nently associated with the work of Saba Mahmood makes it much easier to enter sophisticated theo- (2005) and Charles Hirschkind (2006), it is far from retical debates, but it also makes it much easier unifi ed, of course, and diff erent lines of inquiry re- to overlook the ways Islam actually matters in the garding ethics and piety have been developed in lives of people who adhere to it. the works of Michael Lambek (2000), Heiko Hen- The problem, then, lies not with the answer but kel (2005), Lara Deeb (2006) and Stefania Pandolfo with the question. If we should give any anthropo- (2007), to mention just few of the many worth men- logical answer at all to the question of what Islam tioning. The insights provided in these works have is, we must fi rst realise that this is an empirical been taken up in recent years by a veritable fl ood question. The answer depends on the situation at of publications marked with the keywords of pie- hand, the people involved, the dynamics evolving ty, tradition and ethics. This emerging fi eld of stu- and the questions we as researchers are asking. dy, albeit far from unifi ed, is marked by a shared This is not to say that the question or the answers preoccupation with Muslims’ pious practice, alig- to it should be bare of theoretical directions. That ned with a framing of the enquiry as one about »Is- would be a sure recipe for bad research. But it is lam as a discursive tradition«. While some authors to say that our theoretical directions should have have been making rather free and eclectic use of a diff erent focus. If we want to understand what it these themes (see, e.g. Starrett 1998, Ismail 2003, means to live a Muslim life, then we need a groun- Schulz 2006), in other cases there is a tendency ded and nuanced understanding of what it means to develop a canon of references and concepts to to live a life – more urgently than we need a so- the degree that, especially in northern America, phisticated theory about what Islam is. one may speak of the emergence of something like But the problem is not settled yet. The two ques- an orthodox canon (see, e.g. Scott and Hirschkind tions of what Islam is and what it means to live a 2006; Anjum 2007).4 life are commonly intertwined. And they are inti- The research programme of piety, ethics and mately bound together in what may be the most tradition has made it possible to recognise much infl uential and productive research programme in better how Muslims’ engagement with their religi- the anthropology of Islam at the moment: the stu- on is neither the outcome of blind adherence, nor dy of piety, ethics and tradition. the result of coercion, but an active and dynamic process of engagement with ideals of good life and Piety, ethics, tradition personhood – a point that has been truly impor- The tremendous signifi cance of Talal Asad’s work tant in a decade overshadowed by the global »war for the contemporary anthropology of Islam lies of terror«, as it perhaps should more accurately less in that particular short essay in which he deve- lops the notion of discursive tradition (Asad 1986) than in the way his wider body of work (Asad 1993; 4 This is a development that has to do with institutional 2003; 2006; 2009) has been taken up and develo- politics as much as with the nature of the argument itself, ped by a generation of anthropologists who have and the infl uence of the research programme of piety and made creative use of his critical enquiries about ethics is correspondingly uneven across the international academic fi eld. Its infl uence is most marked in northern religion and the secular in order to study the dyna- America. In Europe it has been appropriated more critical- mics of doctrinal debate among Muslim activists, ly. It seems to be rather marginal in the Francophone and the power of Islamic ideals of morality and piety, Spanish-speaking worlds.

ZMO Working Papers 2 · S. Schielke· Second thoughts about the anthropology of Islam· 2010 5 be called. But this research programme has also recognise the humanity of Muslims (and anyone magnifi ed some of the problems inherent in the an- else) as they see themselves and not reduce them thropological turn to Islam as the key to the lives to the ideological patterns of Western liberalism. of Muslims. These are problems that many in the As a political critique, this master narrative is fi eld are acutely aware of, and many share the sen- justifi ed. Certainly European and American po- se that it is necessary to look beyond the elegant liticians, intellectuals, journalists and ordinary but narrow confi nes of piety and tradition and to citizens very often do make questionable claims include the messier but richer fi elds of everyday to civilisational and moral superiority, and such experiences,5 personal biographies and complex claims do need to be questioned. And certainly it genealogies (see, e.g. Abu-Lughod 1996 [1986]; Ew- is imperative to recognise the humanity of all peo- ing 1990; Marsden 2005; Osella and Soares 2009; ple, regardless of the notions and ideals they hold. Masquelier 2009; Moors 2009; Bangstad 2009b; As a paradigm of anthropological research, howe- Deeb 2009). Part of the problem is located in the ver, this master narrative carries the risk that we specifi c focus on moral and pious subjectivity. Ano- will fi nd it too easy to point our fi nger at the usual ther part is based in the wider master narrative in suspects, with the result that our enquiries may which the study of Islam as ethics and tradition is fail to account for what is really at stake for the commonly embedded. people involved. In the end we may once again fail The fi rst part of the problem – moral and pious to seriously recognise the humanity of people on subjectivity – is primarily one of balance, whereby their own terms. the privileging of pious pursuits in isolation from To make this clearer, I off er a short critical re- wider paths of life has contributed to accounts of view of two recent contributions (both published religious experience that are based more on what in 2009) from this fi eld of study, not because I fi nd people argue for and less on how they actually live. them bad, but on the contrary because I fi nd them All I want to add to this problem are some practi- so good that they deserve a serious critical enga- cal suggestions on how a more balanced approach gement that I hope may show where their power could be accomplished while building on the im- and where their problems lie. portant insights about ethics and subjectivity. I The fi rst example is Saba Mahmood’s brilliant will return to this point towards the end of this but also somehow hermetic essay »Religious Re- paper. The second part of the problem – the wider ason and Secular Aff ect: An Incommensurable master narrative – is a more fundamental one and Divide?« (Mahmood 2009), in which she scrutini- may require some more substantial rethinking, zes the ways what she describes as secular and which is why I try to tackle it in some more detail liberal assumptions about speech, law and mo- in the following. ral injury have caused a misunderstanding about the reasons why Muslims so energetically protest Islam vs. liberalism against the cartoons published by the Danish The key themes of this research programme in the daily Jyllandsposten in 2005. Mahmood argues anthropology of Islam – ethics, piety, subjectivity, that what really made Muslims upset about the self-formation, the cultivation of aff ect, debate, cartoons was the way Muslim devotional tradi- governmental rationality – are very often bound tion works towards building an intimate perso- together by a master narrative that posits the Mus- nal relationship with the Prophet Muhammad as lim tradition of ethics, aff ect, devotion and debate an extension of the believer’s self and family, in in juxtaposition with liberal and secular notions contradistinction to a secular understanding of about the state, law, self and so on. This juxtapo- speech and meaning that insists on a clear dif- sition is not merely an analytical tool; it is part ferentiation of things and their representation.6 and parcel of a political self-critique of liberalism For this reason, Mahmood argues, Europeans and secularism aimed at revealing how the alleged were unable and/or unwilling to understand the superiority and universality of Western traditions motivations of Muslims. Muslims in turn failed to of enlightenment actually conceal mechanisms of successfully make their point and instead tried to coercion, silencing, and exclusion, as well as cultu- rally and historically specifi c notions that cannot be taken to be valid for all of humanity. The coun- 6 This seems to be a rather reduced understanding of the ter-claim made by this critique is that we have to complex ways of dealing with speech, image and representa- tion in contemporary European cultures. Take, for example, the ways the swastika has become identifi ed with Nazi ter- ror. One may successfully claim with European media that 5 By juxtaposing »elegant but narrow« with »messy but a caricature depicting the Prophet Muhammad in an unfa- rich«, I am obviously making an aesthetic distinction and vourable way is »just a caricature«, yet one might expect a equating it with a distinction in the substance of the argu- lot less understanding if one claimed that a Nazi fl ag is »just ment. This is intended. As is known among anthropologists a fl ag«. So Europeans do seem to be very well able to think at least since the Writing Culture debate, the ways one wri- beyond the fl at distinction of things and representation. But tes anthropology cannot be separated from the substance of some of them may not want to do so if it would suggest ma- the argument one makes. king important political and ideological concessions.

ZMO Working Papers 2 · S. Schielke· Second thoughts about the anthropology of Islam· 2010 6 make reference to European laws against discri- prophet, a caricature could cause a strong sense of mination and hate speech without understanding moral injury in a way other provocations could not. that the European practice of law regarding mo- And yet Mahmood’s analysis strikes me as proble- ral off ence is by nature majoritarian and unlikely matic, because I miss something of the emotional to take seriously the concerns of a religious mi- dynamics I encountered during the controversy. It nority, the more so as their concerns are not cor- off ers only a partial account of why the caricature rectly translated due to a misconception about controversy could arouse such strong emotions. the nature of speech and representation, a mis- Because Mahmood’s analysis is so much focussed conception that, according to Mahmood, is essen- on the quasi-systemic features of an Islamic and a tially due to a »normative understanding of religi- liberal model of cultivating political and religious on internal to liberalism« (Mahmood 2009: 74). aff ect, her analysis remains confi ned to this duali- Mahmood’s primary level of analysis is highly ty. But this duality is not helpful if we want to un- sophisticated cultural concepts, such as Ferd- derstand the emotional dynamics of the caricature ninand de Saussure’s theory of language (Mah- controversy. mood 2009: 72). While she does quote the voices I was in Egypt at the time of the controversy, of Muslims to develop the point about the emo- and my impression was that something more was tional importance of intimate attachment to the going on. I encountered people being at once an- Prophet, in general the article moves on a high gry and enthusiastic about defending their pro- level of abstraction where concepts, rationalities phet. Pain and anger were actively cultivated and and traditions – rather than people – are the main exercised as part of an intensive and enthusias- agents. This becomes especially clear in the way tic event through which people felt encouraged to the secular, the liberal and the state repeatedly express a strong emotional sense of aff ection and appear not just as key analytical categories but as off ence. At least in Egypt, the controversy was not things, so much that they are implicitly attributed just a reaction of Muslims »committed to preser- agency: ving an imaginary in which their relation to the Prophet is based on similitude and cohabitation« (88). It was part of a dynamic process of creating (...) contrary to the ideological self-under- and promoting – rather than just preserving – a standing of secularism (as the doctrinal sepa- specifi c religious and political sensitivity. And it ration of religion and state), secularism has provided many people a very gratifying possibility historically entailed the regulation and re- to do something good, something real in defence of formation of religious beliefs, doctrines, and the Prophet: boycott Denmark. practices to yield a particular normative con- As I returned to the Netherlands, I found a ception of religion (that is largely Protestant strikingly similar sentiment being cultivated in Christian in its contours). (Mahmood 2009: 87) the press and in informal discussions among my friends. Rather than a secular rationality at work, Historically speaking, the secular state has not what I saw was a much more plain and old-fashioned simply cordoned off religion from its regulatory chauvinist gut reaction that turned the freedom ambitions but sought to remake it through the to provoke Muslims into a matter of honour (and agency of the law. (Ibid.) refusing to do so into a matter of cowardice), an issue at which one’s moral commitment to »our« shared values was measured. Again, I found peo- There thus emerges an over-arching and all-pre- ple rather enthusiastic about having a clear sense sent secular rationality, embodied by the national of fear and off ence, about feeling justifi ed anger state and intimately paired with liberalism in a way and being able to make a strong point about where that is not explained. Mahmood takes up the car- they stand. toon controversy as a point to drive home the point On both sides, the issue was roiled again and that »the secular« is inherently partial, saturated again for many weeks, off ering the people involved with power and prejudice, and hence unlikely to a strong sense of righteous indignation, emotional fulfi l its publicly proclaimed promise of inclusion bonding and knowing one’s place. Thus while the and tolerance. In other words, her critique targets discourses and the arguments expressed as well as these abstract entities and not the Europeans who the specifi c moments of moral injury experienced found it convenient not to take seriously Muslims’ on both sides of the controversy may have been concerns. diff erent, the emotional quality of the event was Mahmood does off er a welcome clarifi cation often strikingly similar on both sides; and this can about the importance of emotional attachment be explained by neither Islamic tradition nor secu- that makes the person of the prophet Muhammad lar power. If we want to understand why the reac- such a sensitive issue for Muslims. Because of the tion of Muslims – and indeed, just like them, the work of an intimate and sensitive emotional bond defenders of the cartoons who reacted in emotio- that characterises Muslims’ veneration of their nally similar ways – was not irrational, it is there-

ZMO Working Papers 2 · S. Schielke· Second thoughts about the anthropology of Islam· 2010 7 fore not suffi cient to provide a nuanced theoretical I have no problem with the critique. I have a pro- analysis of the way a revered person becomes part blem with the juxtaposition. In my view, this kind of a believer’s self. This does make it easier to un- of an anthropological theory does a bad job insofar derstand the kind of injury involved, but it does not as it does not tell us how it actually is to live under yet allow us to understand how and why that injury the conditions it describes. In the abstract image was cultivated with such enthusiasm (and how and of secular/liberal rationality I recognize neither why a diff erent sense of injury was cultivated with the Europe in which I grew up, nor the Europe in similar enthusiasm on the other side). In my view, which I live (there is quite a diff erence between the Danish caricature aff air was an event of me- the two, marked by the end of the Cold War). For aningful anger on both sides: an occasion to feel one thing, secularism is in no way particularly li- and express righteous anger about being hurt and beral, and at least where I come from (Finland) threatened in a way that both requires and allows secularism has been at least as much if not more a clear response. As such, I suggest that if we look related to socialism, communism, occultism and for an interpretive framework to understand it, po- the many other social and cultural movements that pulism may do much better than a juxtaposition of have marked the last century and half (see, e.g. Jo- secular/religious reason and aff ect. kinen 1906; Ervast 1928 [1903]; Soikkanen 1961). Populism, Leena Avonius (2008) argues in her Furthermore, while Europe’s anti-Muslim new study on Sharia implementation in Aceh, is a mo- nationalist movements do write secularism large dality of political discourse and mobilisation that in their declarations, I see a more opportunistic turns a diff use and often implicit moral »gut fee- populist usage, rather than an underlying secular ling« into simple slogans and personifi ed distinc- rationality at work. tions of good and evil, us and them. Populism is I also do not see the lives of Muslims in Egypt furthermore characterised by a highly opportu- accounted for by this theory. The traditions of nistic use of whatever legitimate discourses are Muslim devotion are important but not suffi cient available (such as Sharia in Aceh or secularism in to account for the complex lives my Muslim friends the Netherlands) in order to place them in the ser- and interlocutors live – not to mention the degree vice of an personifi ed political battle. By making it to which the forms and aims of Muslim devotion possible to give names to a sense of moral unease, have shifted in a matter of just a generation or populism not only allows one to express implicit two from an emphasis on saintly intercession and moral anxieties, it is also off ers a way to actively communal belonging towards an emphasis on mo- enlarge and aggravate them to a point of escala- ral knowledge and activist commitment (see also tion. The Danish cartoon aff air is a prime lesson Deeb 2006). in how that works, although history of course does One could object that I am taking issue here off er other lessons in populism that are much gra- with Mahmood’s specifi c preference for high the- ver and much more terrible in their consequences. oretical critique rather than with the substance Since a key power of populism lies in its utility in of her argument. With my declared preference for naming and reinforcing anxieties that people really grounded and dialogical ethnography, my objec- have, it would be mistaken to label populism simply tions would therefore be more a matter of taste as false. Yet thinking about global events of anger than a serious argument. There may be something in terms of populist agitation may help us look bey- to this objection, which is why I want to take up ond explicit discursive justifi cation and give more another example that is more ethnographic and attention to the emotions that are being cultivated. more sensitive to the actual lives of people but in While Mahmood’s point about the specifi c kind which the ethnography is framed by the contrast of emotional bond Muslims cultivate with their of the Islamic and the secular. Prophet and about the specifi c kind of expectations This second example is Nadia Fadil’s article and anxieties that are involved in applying positi- »Managing aff ects and sensibilities: The case of ve law do take us a step further, her insistence on not-handshaking and not-fasting«. (Fadil 2009). framing this as a quasi-systemic diff erence bet- Fadil, too, explores the issue of causing and taking ween the Islamic and the secular/liberal results in off ence, but her focus is less on abstract notions a brilliant theoretical critique that somehow mis- and more on the pragmatics of everyday life. In ses the point. It misses the point, I argue, because a rich and sensitive fashion she looks at the ex- the engagement with Islamic tradition and secu- periences and narratives of two groups of Muslim larism/liberalism is informed by a political meta- women in Belgium: pious women who insist on narrative that directs the analysis towards a ge- not shaking hands with men, and impious women neric critique of modern power and away from the who insist on not fasting during Ramadan. Both actual lives, emotions and experiences of people in are highly aware that their insistence will off end their everyday lives. In the end, what we see is a the sensibilities of some of the people with whom critique of idealised secular and liberal self-under- they interact and try to balance the complicated standings by means of their juxtaposition with an demands of standing by their principles and of equally idealised Islamic tradition. showing tact towards their colleagues, friends and

ZMO Working Papers 2 · S. Schielke· Second thoughts about the anthropology of Islam· 2010 8 families. Their situations and positions are quite Fadil treats the problem of giving moral off ence diff erent, however, Fadil argues, because the way indicates that the solution does not work well and »we« view their actions from a liberal perspective that a better solution is needed. with its maxims of authenticity and outspokenness What we need, then, are better narratives of privileges the not-fasting women against the not- exactly how powerful discourses work in practice handshaking women. and of what powerful discourses there are out the- As for Mahmood, also for Fadil the diff erence is re anyway. I must admit that I do not have a clear once again one of Islamic tradition on one side and solution to this problem, but I will try to make liberal and secular notions of personhood on the some suggestions. other. Fadil is careful to point out that this is not The problem with the meta-narrative of a cri- a hermetic boundary: the not-handshaking Muslim tique of secular and liberal power through its women’s understandings of selfhood and agency other, Islam, is that it reduces the complexity, rich- are in a signifi cant way infl uenced by liberal no- ness and ambivalence (which is not necessarily tions they have appropriated, and the not-fasting painful, but often also joyful, see Marsden 2005) of women’s sensibilities and also some of their solu- human experience into providing evidence against tions are informed by their intimate rootedness a liberal/secular power constellation. Especially in in Muslim families and embodied traditions. This Mahmood’s essay and to a less sharp degree also diff erentiated outlook notwithstanding, Fadil’s in Fadil’s article, the reader is presented with an analytical framework stands and falls with the ca- image of a secular/liberal hegemony so strongly tegorical diff erence between the Islamic and the reduced to few key terms, notions and powerful secular/liberal, and this categorical diff erence is points of view that to me it looks very much like once again more than an analytical framework: in a straw man and very much unlike the European the fi nal instance, it is a political critique of the cultures and societies as I know them. Perhaps a way a »liberal« common sense views some choices critical anthropology of secularism and new nati- as legitimate and others as illegitimate. onalism would do much better if it gave up or at This is a valid point, and a necessary one in or- least toned down its paradigmatic equation of the der to make the reader realise that both the not- secular with the liberal and the nation state, and handshaking and the not-fasting women are ma- instead included the life worlds, experiences and king complex moral and pragmatic choices that trajectories of being secular in their main focus. must be taken seriously. And yet by insisting on This would certainly involve expanding the list of this as the key point, her analysis falls short of her powerful discourses to include much more than ethnography. Some of Fadil’s ethnographic mate- the liberal. It would also involve the pragmatics rial makes it very clear that there are multiple – of acting on the side of power, something that I partly competing, partly combined – claims to and see very sensitively accomplished by Oskar Ver- determinations of a normality, all of which come kaaik (2010) in his study of the ways Dutch civil together in people’s lives in complex and often si- servants run naturalisation ceremonies that have tuational ways. Some of them make a diff erence been established as part of a cultural nationalist among colleagues while others make a diff erence policy – a policy that the civil servants are often among family. But some of the very though-provo- critical of, and yet they often end up endorsing king material is used to come to rather sweeping it in subtle ways. Such ethnographic and histo- and (meanwhile) conventional conclusions about riographic enquiry would be likely to be more the power of the secular/liberal to determine a successful in tracing the connections of existen- specifi c normality. Fadil’s critique of secular po- tial concerns, powerful discourses and the prag- wer stops short of accounting for what it means to matics of action in a way that is critical without be aware that one’s convictions and actions can be being reductionist. off ensive to others, what kind of off ences may be involved, what may be at stake for the people invol- Compelling pursuits ved and why diff erent situations create diff erent Regardless of the points of critique that I have kinds of off ence. To accomplish this, it might have made and the many more points others have made been helpful to look at the not-handshaking and (Marsden 2005; Van Der Veer 2008; Bangstad not-fasting women more in their own right and less 2009a; Simon 2009; Starrett 2010) about the turn as representatives of an Islamic-secular divide. to the cultivation of ethics and the master narrati- Fadil, however, aims at more. The problem Fadil ve of Islamic tradition vs. secular power, I do fi nd tries to tackle is how to account for the pragmatics it important to highlight that this turn, whatever of moral action without losing sight of the reali- its problems may be, has provided some important ty of powerful discursive registers that pave the insights into the study of the human condition. And way for certain paths while closing others. This is that, of course, is what counts. a problem to which the master narrative of the cri- The turn to look at a creed as a discursive tra- tique of the secular off ers a very compelling soluti- dition off ered an important step forward by focus- on. In my view, however, the ambiguity with which sing our attention to the fact that religion is not

ZMO Working Papers 2 · S. Schielke· Second thoughts about the anthropology of Islam· 2010 9 about gods, books and institutions, but about the ety movement that promotes a rigorous moral and ways people worship gods, read books and act in religious discipline. institutions. This may appear to be a trivial insight, In Alexandria, Egypt’s second-largest city and yet it seems to be necessary to keep remin- whither the upper and middle class Cairine head ding colleagues, students, intellectuals, publicists for summer vacation, the cosmopolitan heritage and politicians about it. Also, the turn to the cul- and easygoing holiday atmosphere of this port tivation of aff ect has been an important step for- city has been challenged by the spectacular rise ward in the way of understanding what it means of various Islamic movements, most importantly to believe in something and to live a life guided by the Salafi movement, which controls a large part that belief. And the critical theoretisation of the of the mosques, especially in the eastern districts secular has off ered ways to think about modern of the city. Men sporting long beards and short- power and subjectivity in ways that go beyond the hemmed trousers and women wearing a full veil self-celebratory tendency of modernist secula- (niqâb) covering their entire bodies have become rism. The question for me, then, is: how can we go more and more common in the streets of the city. on from here? How can we overcome the problems But also those who do not join the Salafi movement of this line of research without losing sight of the generally show a strong sense of emotional com- insights it has to off er? How can we account for the mitment to the religion of Islam. There is a very ways people express perfectionist ideals in pursuit wide consensus about the need for Muslims to fear of living a complex, imperfect life? How can we tell God, to fulfi l their religious duties, to shape their about the motivations and pressures that make lives and societies accordingly and to defend their some ideas so compelling? How can we tell about faith, their Prophet and their Muslim brothers and the ways a meaningful world is imagined and the sisters. ways it both shapes and is shaped by people’s ex- In Cairo, Egypt’s gigantic capital, a similar pectations and lives? image prevails. Buildings, public transportation, This is an ethnographic problem as much as it is shops and homes are covered with posters, sti- a theoretical one, and for the sake of an answer I ckers and graffi ti calling people to pray and fast, will start by taking a look at the situation in three to mind their manners and to cultivate their cha- sites in Egypt where I have been conducting fi eld- racters, to fi ght the Jews and to feed the poor, for work since 2002. women to cover themselves and for men to teach In present-day Egypt, Islam has become omni- Islam to their families. Religious literature domi- present. Like many other places around the world, nates the newsstands and bookstores. Broadcasts Egypt has been swept by a veritable religious eu- and cassette recordings of the Qur’ân and sermons phoria since the 1970’s. Religion is continuously are routinely played in cafés, busses, shops and visible, audible and palpable. And it has become homes. While various social niches especially in characterised to an unprecedented degree by an Cairo and Alexandria continue to encourage world enormous emphasis on individual learning, know- views and lifestyles that are at odds with the wave ledge and practice, guided by the perfectionist aim of Islamisation, most of the upper- and middle- to create a pious character that is »committed« class citizens have come to embrace the wave of (multazim, a term borrowed from the nationalist/ the Islamic revival, albeit in ways that do not chal- modernist notion of engagement (Klemm 2000)) to lenge the sources of their wealth or their pursuit of religion as a complete framework of emotions, will consumerist pleasure (Lutfi 2009 [2005]). and acts. This image is far from harmonious. While the- In a village that I call Nazlat al-Rayyis in nort- re has been a signifi cant increase in religiosity as hern Egypt, a strong sense prevails that people well as a general turn to a specifi c kind of religi- have become more religious and that this is a very osity, this does not mean that Egypt has become good thing. People greet each other with the Isla- a generally more pious, moral or happy country. mic greeting »peace be upon you« (as-salamu ‘alay- There are many ambiguities and contradictions, kum) rather than with the confessionally neutral and some of them are sharp. In the village, young »good morning/evening«; a lofty new mosque is people express a nihilistic sense of boredom and being built in the outskirts of the village (although frustration in spite of the great promises of moder- the work has temporarily stopped as a result of nist progress and religious hope they have embra- the global fi nancial crisis); the bar in the villa- ced. The village has become a local centre of drug ge closed decades ago; and all adult women now trade in recent years as marihuana and hashish wear the headscarf (higâb) as a part of a covering have swept the black market in tremendous quan- dress that reveals only hands, feet and face. In a tities and at low prices, and an increasing number village that was once a socialist and communist of young people have become habitual consumers. stronghold, the Muslim Brotherhood has become In Alexandria, the rising commitment to religion the most important political force and the most has also become a breeding ground for violent con- important religious one, along with the Salafi pi- fessional clashes between Muslims and Christians that have cost many lives (mostly of Christians)

ZMO Working Papers 2 · S. Schielke· Second thoughts about the anthropology of Islam· 2010 10 in recent years. While public moral discourse fo- kinds of stickers, neatly organised next to each cusses very strongly on the rigorous prohibition of other: adultery, both Alexandria and Cairo have become centres of prostitution for wealthy Egyptians and »Don’t forget to invoke God« Arab tourists, often arranged for in the form of Photo of Nancy Ajram (Lebanese female pop very short-term Islamic ‘urfî marriages. singer) Yet most of the ambiguities surrounding the Is- »This is due to the grace of my Lord« (a pious lamic revival are actually of a much less dramatic phrase against envy) and bleak nature than those listed above. Rather Photo of Haifa Wehbe (Egyptian-Lebanese female than dark cracks in a perfectionist image of hope, pop singer) they present themselves as a complex patchwork »I seek refuge in the Lord of the dawn... « (a of diff erent kinds of hope, diff erent senses of living chapter of the Qur’ân believed to protect from a good life. The same people who repent their sins evil and envy). and think about the Afterlife also debate the pre- vious evening’s football match, tell jokes, feel tired Zapping through satellite television the way and glance at the opposite sex, even with religious many Egyptians do, one can quickly shift between stickers decorating the walls and the voice of the a Salafi sermon, a video clip, a news programme, an Qur’ân in the background. They entertain ideals of Egyptian soap opera, a Hollywood fi lm, a football obsessive romantic love that defi es all norms. They match, a talk show and so on. Yet one thing that search for a place in life, try to be responsible to- unites almost all programmes (with the exception wards their families and dream about new possibi- of some state channels) is their commercial nature lities for themselves. They try to make money and and the aggressive advertisements they make for to move up in society, often by any means possib- commercial text message services that have be- le. And at diff erent moments, they hold diff erent come a fi nancial backbone of television channels points of view and outlooks on life, arguing for of various kinds. them in very diff erent tones. What happens, then, Whenever one goes for a walk on the seafront to the power of guidance, the purity that was the of Alexandria and on the Nile promenades of Cai- very reason and the justifi cation for the ubiquitous ro, the scenery is without exception dominated everyday presence of religious objects and signs? by lovers (habbîba in Egyptian Arabic). Pairs of Writing on cassette tape sermons, Charles young people walk or sit on the promenades, tal- Hirschkind (2006) has fi ttingly described their king to each other, sometimes holding hands, al- presence as an »ethical soundscape« that fi lls and ways closely together, always keeping as much structures the noisy and crowded spaces of Cairo. polite distance as possible from other pairs. In The sensory presence of Islam as an overwhelming another minibus, this one driving up and down and compelling idiom of life, morality and politics the seafront in Alexandria, religious stickers ad- is in fact almost omnipresent. It is present in the monish youths about dating: »Didn’t he know that sounds of prayer calls, sermons and recitations, in God sees?« »Would you accept it for your sister?« the visual presence of religious decoration, graffi ti, »Where is your life?« Indeed, the idea of young un- stickers and the minarets that mark the skyline. It married people dating, sitting shoulder to shoul- is present in the bodily motions of prayer and invo- der, holding hands and possibly kissing is a cause cation, the strain of wearing covering dress in hot of considerable moral and religious unease among weather, the weariness caused by fasting, the ex- Egyptians. But at the same time, the same Egypti- change of greetings, phrases and handshakes and ans also consider the meetings of lovers as a natu- the smell of certain perfumes preferred by Sala- ral part of life, write and consume love poetry and fi activists. But this sensory presence is seldom songs, enthusiastically celebrate Valentine’s day clearly diff erentiated from other, very diff erent and proudly identify themselves as the romantic kinds of sounds, images and surfaces that mark people (Kreil forthcoming). Some of them do deci- the everyday life of the big city and the provinces de to become »committed« and to give up all the alike. Rather than a competition between pious ambivalence, stop writing love letters and looking and secular sensory regimes, an unpredictable co- the opposite sex into the eyes and instead dedi- existence of diff erent nuances, moments and regis- cate themselves to the purpose of purifi ed piety. ters characterises daily life in Egypt. But for many of them this remains a passing peri- A kiosk at a bus station in Cairo, decorated with od in their lives, one part of a complex and often verses of the Qur’an and stickers with moral and troubled biography. And sometimes even the most pious messages, has the radio turned on, playing energetic Salafi s fall madly in love. the newest mellow love song produced by a Saudi- Diff erent worlds stand here side by side: the owned and Lebanon-based music corporation. A world of Islam as a regime of divine protection, minibus arriving on the bus station from the coun- order and justice; the world of commercial media tryside has been decorated by its owner with two with its reliance on consumerism, advertisement and sexual attraction; the world of romantic love

ZMO Working Papers 2 · S. Schielke· Second thoughts about the anthropology of Islam· 2010 11 with its celebration of passion. But these are not paralleled by other approaches to subjectivity that diff erent worlds. They are constituent parts of are more concerned with ambivalence (Luhrmann people’s life worlds – life worlds that can never be 2006; Biehl et al. 2007). Both were preceded by an explained by any single principle but that need to engagement with the issue of multiple identities, be understood in their complexity and openness, an engagement that, whatever its shortcomings in their many hopes and frustrations (Jackson may be, provided important insights that appear 1996; 2005). While the conservative ethics of the to have been partly forgotten by the research pro- religious revival may appear completely opposed gramme of piety and ethics (Ewing 1990; Wilce to, for example, the liberal celebration of romance 1998; Van Meijl 2006). The existence and impor- and sexuality in pop music, fi lm, video clips and tance of multiple voices, too, has been recognised youth culture, in fact one cannot be understood for quite some time (see, e.g. Abu-Lughod 1996 without the other, nor are they clearly distinct in [1986]). And since the complexity of human cha- people’s lives (Schielke 2009). An attempt to un- racters is common knowledge and therefore also derstand what exactly is going on must take these known by anthropologists, there is good reason diff erent highly compelling pursuits as parts of an to assume that this history could be taken much essentially complex and often contradictory sub- further back in time. Good ideas are usually quite jective experience and practice. old. There is thus no need to reinvent the wheel I argue that we need to take these ambiguities to account better for what it means to live a life of seriously and to consider the ways people live them which Islam is a part. The theoretical directions and their attempts to make sense of their lives. To are largely available. understand what is going on, it is helpful indeed to In this light, what a good anthropology of being look at the ways people cultivate emotional aff ects, a Muslim needs most is a commitment to a sensiti- the ways sensual experience structures daily life ve and dialogical fi eldwork and an eye for the bio- and the ways people try to solve, circumvent or graphical and historical depth of people’s trajecto- cope with complex moral dilemmas. It is not help- ries and societies, along with a theoretical analysis ful, however, to work with idealised oppositions, that is committed to doing justice to the people it such as revivalist piety vs. liberal secularism, be- tells about, which is far from a trivial task. In the cause most people adhere to something of both end, this is more than a theoretical problem: it is a (and something of many other things as well), to matter of an emotional commitment to anthropolo- diff erent degrees at diff erent times. Nor is it help- gy as a dialogue and an encounter. ful to hold the aspirational aspect of pursuing pi- ety too high without taking into consideration the Grounds of commitment troubles and disappointments that are often an in- Above I have critically noted that there may be too evitable part of aspirational projects. much research on committed activists and too I suggest that one good way to provide a better little research on the majority of Muslims who are account is to take seriously Michael Jackson’s ar- not that committed. The empirical focus on the gument about the primacy of existential concerns committed activists, I argued, seems to be rela- (Jackson 2005; see also Graw forthcoming). This ted to the theoretical focus on Islam as a key to means we should take as our starting point the understanding Muslim lives. While I am critical immediate practice of living a life, the existential of this theoretical focus, this does not mean that concerns and the pragmatic considerations that I would argue that we should stop doing research inform this practice, embedded in but not reduced on committed activists. But I do argue that thin- to the traditions, powers and discourses that grant king about the existential primacy of people’s legitimacy to some concerns over others and struc- search for a place in life and the tragic quality ture some considerations while leaving others dif- this search often takes also off ers us a diff erent fuse. Following this existential line of enquiry, it image of activist religious commitment. The pro- is also important to realise that the ways people blem with many of the numerous ethnographies try to fi nd a place in life are ambiguous and often about Muslims that have been published in recent tragic in their outcomes. As Robert Orsi (2005) has years is that they take committed activism as shown in his work on American Catholicism, the the paradigmatic, normal standard of religiosity same aspects that provide hope, recognition and instead of looking at committed activists as what inclusion can also be a source of frustration, inti- they are: committed activists who are willing to midation and exclusion. This ambiguity appears to go very far beyond ordinary expectations for the be characteristic of our attempts to live good lives, sake of an important cause in a way most people and an anthropology committed to understanding are not. This is a characteristic feature of acti- the human condition is well advised to take it se- vism and should have a prominent place in the riously. study with and of activists. This is, in fact, something that has been taken In my own ethnographic encounters with people seriously by anthropology for a long time. The cur- who for a period of time have tried to live a dedi- rent preoccupation with ethics and subjectivity is cated and activist religious life, two related moti-

ZMO Working Papers 2 · S. Schielke· Second thoughts about the anthropology of Islam· 2010 12 vations feature very centrally. One is the search take seriously his idiosyncratic experience, his fa- for a solution to a personal crisis; the other is the mily history and the characteristic way he some- desire to fi nd something truly important to pur- times marches and sometimes stumbles through sue in a way that gives one’s life a single and per- life. And considering this idiosyncratic level also manent purpose. Both appear to be quite general helps to make intelligible the more general fea- human pursuits, and yet neither of the two is very tures of his quest. typical of everyday human experience, in which Take, for the sake of comparison, the way Mus- there are usually several important purposes in tafa describes his motivations to become a Salafi life. and the way John Steinbeck (1961 [1936]) has the To understand what these activists are after, it is literary fi gure of Jim Nolan describe his decision therefore important to ask why, on what grounds to join the Communist Party in his novel In Dubi- a nd w it h what ex pect at ion s some people em ba rk on ous Battle. the search for dedicated perfection while others do not, and why some go on while others stop after a while. Muslims do not simply want to be good Mus- Nilson touched the desk here and there with his lims. Neither the will to be pious, nor the choice fi ngertips. »Even the people you’re trying to help for piety rather than other forms of activism is ob- will hate you most of the time. Do you know that?« vious. Strikingly, many of those who join the Sala- »Yes.« fi movement do so because the ritual and moral »Well, why do you want to join, then?« rigour of Salafi sm promises order in a confusing Jim’s eyes half closed in perplexity. At last he life. At other times or in other contexts, they might said, »In the jail there were some Party men. have joined other religious or political groups, but They talked to me. Everything’s been a mess, all for similar reasons. The questions I fi nd worth as- my life. Their lives weren’t messes. They were king, then, are: What makes a specifi c direction working toward something. I want to work to- of activism attractive in a specifi c situation? What ward something. I feel dead. I thought I might are the anxieties people try to overcome and what get alive again.« (Steinbeck 1961 [1936]: 6) are the promises they are off ered? What does their actual work of dedication look like? What conse- quences does it have? How do the experiments of In the time when I started to get back to mys- activist dedication, which are often temporary, be- elf I had lost many things. I started to search. come a part of people’s biographies? Where is the right way? [...] I didn’t have a ba- To pursue these questions, it is helpful to be open sic method that I could follow to solve my prob- to both the generally human, the historically and lems and to face the world. I had no principle to culturally specifi c and the individually idiosyncra- follow. I had no law that I could apply and that tic. For the sake of illustration, take the account of would allow me to tell right from wrong. [...] Mustafa, who became a dedicated Salafi in his early I took to asking about everything in my life: Is it twenties after experiencing a period of strong diso- halâl or harâm? Even if I didn’t have awareness rientation, but stopped after less than a year. Today, about it, no clear textual proof. But my feeling he looks back at his Salafi period with a mixture of was: If only I could know whether this is haram fondness, distance and regret. He remembers his or halâl? [...] For a while I lived a better life like I short period of dedicated piety as a happy time, but hadn’t lived it since the death of my father. It was is neither willing nor able to return to it. even better. I got to know a lot of people, and I felt To understand Mustafa’s story, it is important that the life I live is good. (Mustafa, interview in but not suffi cient to look at Salafi Islam’s suc- 2006) cess in northern Egypt in establishing itself as the most powerful religious voice and therefore Mustafa’s likeliest choice in the search for a clear Would Mustafa have been attracted to communism diff erence between right and wrong. Having cho- instead of Salafi sm if he had lived in a diff erent sen the Salafi path, Mustafa’s dedication took a time? Interestingly enough, his father was. But for specifi c direction with emphasis on gender segre- Mustafa, the answer is probably no. Communism gation, abstinence from alcohol, drugs and ciga- and Salafi sm are diff erent solutions, not because rettes and viewing life as the application of divi- they stand on diff erent sides of the secular-Islamic ne Law. This had very specifi c consequences for divide, but because they appeal to slightly diff erent the way he dealt with his mother and some of his kinds of sensibility. Both the real person Mustafa friends, for example. But the emotional work this and the literary fi gure Jim Nolan search for a way experiment did for him was also of a more general to feel alive, to do something meaningful, to have nature: Mustafa later compared it to me with his a basis and direction of life. But while the com- time in the army, which, he said, similarly provi- munist creed that provides the sense of existential ded him the clear structure he was missing. To hope on the pages of In Dubious Battle is oriented understand his account, we therefore also need to toward a struggle against someone, a search for

ZMO Working Papers 2 · S. Schielke· Second thoughts about the anthropology of Islam· 2010 13 meaningful existence through collective action, perfection external to daily life and to the existen- the Salafi creed that provided Mustafa a tempora- tial signifi cance of the everyday, such grand sche- ry fi rm hold in a time of crisis was heavily focussed mes can never be accounted for alone. They must on individual discipline and salvation. There may always be understood as connected in at least two be more similarity between activist careers in dimensions: fi rst, in their relation to everyday con- communism and militant Islamism, but Mustafa cerns and experiences; and second, in their rela- had his reasons to stay away from both. tion to other compelling grand schemes that also The point that I am trying to make is that when promise to provide meaning and direction to those we look at Islamic – or any other – activism, it is everyday concerns and experiences. necessary but not suffi cient to look at the particu- In the case of my fi eldwork in Egypt, such grand lar activist movement and the tradition to which it schemes include commitment to Islam, romantic lays claim. This look needs to be supplemented by love, capitalist wealth and consumption, education a look at both the idiosyncratic and the comparati- and social mobility, development and modernisa- ve levels. This is likely to require more work, but tion and nationalist, pan-Arabic and pan-Islamist it is also likely to give us a much deeper view of politics, to name just a few. This is not to say that the motivations and the consequences of activist the promise of good life and eternal salvation (with commitment. the converse threat of eternal damnation) that is central to people’s adherence to Islam today is no Conclusion: The ambiguity of grand schemes diff erent from romantic love or from social mobi- In a way, this approach bids farewell to the project lity. It is very diff erent, and herein lies its appeal of an anthropology of Islam, at least if the anthro- and its power. But the ways people »live Islam«, as pology of Islam is meant to be an anthropology that Magnus Marsden (2005) has put it, may not be so is marked not only by its subject matter but also by dramatically diff erent from the ways they live ca- its own set of theoretical concerns. Such anthropo- pitalism and love. In all these cases, we are talking logy is too likely to be trapped in the pitfalls of ex- about great hopes, deep anxieties and compelling ceptionalism, too preoccupied with Islam to make promises about grand schemes and powerful per- really good sense of what it may mean to be a Mus- sons that will lead to practical solutions, promises lim. I am hesitant, however, to relegate the issue that people try to follow and to put in practice. Some to the anthropology of religion. Doing so, we would do it more consistently than others. Some attempts still face an analogous problem of an excessive pri- actually help people to live a better life as they un- vileging of religious identity and action in people’s derstand it. Others result in tragedy. Most are am- lives. We would still risk drawing an arbitrary divi- bivalent, providing both satisfaction and suff ering. ding line between religious pursuits and other pur- Many attempts are short-lived, and almost all of suits, a line I wanted to question by taking up the them are partial. In all cases, the grand schemes comparison of Salafi and communist activism. are forever unrealised, and yet always apparently I think that to understand the signifi cance of a within reach, promising a hold, a direction in a dif- religious or any other faith in people’s lives, it is fi cult, complex and often frustrating life. 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