Islamic and Muslim Studies in Australia
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Islamic and Muslim Studies in Australia Edited by Halim Rane Printed Edition of the Special Issue Published in Religions www.mdpi.com/journal/religions Islamic and Muslim Studies in Australia Islamic and Muslim Studies in Australia Editor Halim Rane MDPI • Basel • Beijing • Wuhan • Barcelona • Belgrade • Manchester • Tokyo • Cluj • Tianjin Editor Halim Rane Centre for Social and Cultural Research / School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science Griffith University Nathan Australia Editorial Office MDPI St. Alban-Anlage 66 4052 Basel, Switzerland This is a reprint of articles from the Special Issue published online in the open access journal Religions (ISSN 2077-1444) (available at: www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special issues/ Australia muslim). For citation purposes, cite each article independently as indicated on the article page online and as indicated below: LastName, A.A.; LastName, B.B.; LastName, C.C. Article Title. Journal Name Year, Volume Number, Page Range. ISBN 978-3-0365-1222-8 (Hbk) ISBN 978-3-0365-1223-5 (PDF) © 2021 by the authors. Articles in this book are Open Access and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. The book as a whole is distributed by MDPI under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. Contents About the Editor .............................................. vii Preface to ”Islamic and Muslim Studies in Australia” ........................ ix Halim Rane Introduction to the Special Issue “Islamic and Muslim Studies in Australia” Reprinted from: Religions 2021, 12, 314, doi:10.3390/rel12050314 ................... 1 Fethi Mansouri On the Discursive and Methodological Categorisation of Islam and Muslims in the West: Ontological and Epistemological Considerations Reprinted from: Religions 2020, 11, 501, doi:10.3390/rel11100501 ................... 5 Halim Rane, Adis Duderija, Riyad H. Rahimullah, Paul Mitchell, Jessica Mamone and Shane Satterley Islam in Australia: A National Survey of Muslim Australian Citizens and Permanent Residents Reprinted from: Religions 2020, 11, 419, doi:10.3390/rel11080419 ................... 23 Zuleyha Keskin and Mehmet Ozalp Islamic Studies in Australia’s Universities Reprinted from: Religions 2021, 12, 99, doi:10.3390/rel12020099 .................... 63 Nafiseh Ghafournia Negotiating Gendered Religious Space: Australian Muslim Women and the Mosque Reprinted from: Religions 2020, 11, 686, doi:10.3390/rel11120686 ................... 79 Mehmet Ozalp and Mirela Cufurovi´´ c Religion, Belonging, and Active Citizenship: A Systematic Review of Literature on Muslim Youth in Australia Reprinted from: Religions 2021, 12, 237, doi:10.3390/rel12040237 ................... 97 Sara Cheikh Husain Muslim Community Organizations’ Perceptions of Islamophobia: Towards an Informed Countering Response Reprinted from: Religions 2020, 11, 485, doi:10.3390/rel11100485 ...................123 Joshua M. Roose The New Muslim Ethical Elite: “Silent Revolution” or the Commodification of Islam? Reprinted from: Religions 2020, 11, 347, doi:10.3390/rel11070347 ...................147 Aidan Parkes Afghan-Hazara Migration and Relocation in a Globalised Australia Reprinted from: Religions 2020, 11, 670, doi:10.3390/rel11120670 ...................165 v About the Editor Halim Rane Associate Professor Halim Rane leads the Islam in Society field of study at Griffith University. He is one of Australia’s leading scholars in the field of Islamic Studies. His research focuses on contemporary Islam in the West, religious and ideological extremism, and interfaith relations. He has authored over 60 publications on Islamic and Muslim issues, including six books. Assoc. Prof. Rane is a previous recipient of the prestigious ’Australian University Teacher of the Year’ award and he is the current President of the Australian Association of Islamic and Muslim Studies (AAIMS). vii Preface to ”Islamic and Muslim Studies in Australia” This Special Issue comes at a time when the study of Islam and Muslims continues to be of high academic, social and political importance. Muslim population growth in Australia, the Asia–Pacific region and globally as well as ongoing tensions in Islam-West relations has raised the need for a better understanding of Islam and Muslims. This has been intensified by the narrow and distorted framing of Islam and Muslims within contexts of security and othering. Particularly since the turn of the century, in Australia and Western universities more generally, the study of Islam, and especially Muslims, has been preoccupied with a focus on villains and victims at the expense of the rich and diverse topics that have historically been pursued. This Special Issue seeks to challenge and transcend the constraints of this paradigm by confronting underlying assumptions and stereotypes and featuring research that contributes to Islamic and Muslim studies more broadly. Halim Rane Editor ix religions Editorial Introduction to the Special Issue “Islamic and Muslim Studies in Australia” Halim Rane Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD 4111, Australia; h.rane@griffith.edu.au The field we call Islamic studies has a long history that could be said to date from the 8th and 9th centuries in the Middle East when Muslim scholars, including Quran exegetes, hadith compilers, jurists and historians, began to systematically write about the teachings of Islam. What many refer to as classical Islamic studies continues today in Muslim-majority countries and has been an academic field of study in Western universities since the 16th century. In more recent decades, Islamic studies has been joined by Muslim studies. While the former tends to focus on the formative Islamic texts, documents and literature, such as the Quran, hadith and a multitude of classical writings on Islam, the latter tends to be more anthropological and sociological in its focus on Muslim communities and societies. In both respects, Australian universities are relative newcomers. While the University of Melbourne has offered Islamic studies since the latter half of the 20th century, most of the handful of Australian universities engaged in Islamic and Muslim studies today only began researching and teaching in these fields in the past two decades. As such, Australia has a relatively small but growing number of scholars that contribute to these fields. The aim of this Special Issue is to showcase some of the important research currently being undertaken in Islamic and Muslim studies by Australian academics. In total, eight articles are published in this Special Issue. All of which involve original, empirical research, using various methods of data collection and analysis, in relation to Citation: Rane, Halim. 2021. topics that are pertinent to the study of Islam and Muslims in Australia. The contributors Introduction to the Special Issue include long-serving scholars in the field, such as Professor Fethi Mansouri; mid-career “Islamic and Muslim Studies in researchers, including Adis Duderija, Zuleyha Keskin, Mehmet Ozalp, Joshua Roose and Australia”. Religions 12: 314. myself; and early career researchers: Mirela Cufurovi´´ c, Sara Cheikh Hussain, Nafiseh https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12050314 Ghafournia, Jessica Mamone, Paul Mitchell, Aidan Parkes, Riyad Rahimullah and Shane Satterley. These contributors represent many of Australia’s universities engaged in Islamic Received: 22 April 2021 and Muslim studies, including the Australian National University, Charles Sturt University, Accepted: 28 April 2021 Deakin University, Griffith University and the University of Newcastle. The topics covered Published: 29 April 2021 in this Special Issue include how Muslim Australians understand Islam (Rane et al. 2020); ethical and epistemological challenges facing Islamic and Muslim studies researchers Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral (Mansouri 2020); Islamic studies in Australia’s university sector (Keskin and Ozalp 2021); with regard to jurisdictional claims in Muslim women’s access and participation in Australia’s mosques (Ghafournia 2020); published maps and institutional affil- iations. religion, belonging and active citizenship among Muslim youth in Australia (Ozalp and Cufurovi´´ c 2021); responses of Muslim community organizations to Islamophobia (Cheikh Husain 2020); Muslim ethical elites (Roose 2020); and migration experiences of Hazara Afghans (Parkes 2020). This Special Issue comes at a time when the study of Islam and Muslims continues Copyright: © 2021 by the author. to be of high academic, social and political importance. Muslim population growth in Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Australia, the Asia-Pacific region and globally, as well as ongoing tensions in Islam–West This article is an open access article relations, has raised the need for a better understanding of Islam and Muslims. This distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons has been intensified by the narrow and distorted framing of Islam and Muslims within Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// contexts of security and othering. Particularly since the turn of the century, in Australia creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ and Western universities more generally, the study of Islam, and especially Muslims, has 4.0/). been preoccupied with a focus on villains and victims at the expense of the rich and