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Draft version – for conference presenters only www.helsinki.fi/en/conferences/breaking- and-creating-boundaries-in-the-middle-east This paper draws on the speeches of Hezbol- lah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah be- These three papers by Lund university grad- tween 2013 and 2018, to examine how Hez- uate students show the diversity of the poli- bollah has attempted to legitimize their in- tics of Islam in the contemporary world. Two volvement in the war in Syria. Hezbollah of them fall under the conventional under- framed their discourse in several ways, in- standing of political Islam by analysing two cluding jihad and martyrdom, themes con- notorious groups, the Islamic State in Iraq nected to the issues of Lebanese unity in the and Syria (ISIS) and the Lebanese Shia or- face of adversity and nominal rejection of sec- ganization Hezbollah. Both these papers ex- tarianism, in addition to themes connected to plore the discourse of these organizations the experience, zeal and readiness of the re- through an analysis of the speeches of Hez- sistance. Hezbollah also framed the Syria war bollah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, as both a local and a regional issue, where the and the competing fatwas issued by the reli- future of the region will be decided. This was gious clerics of ISIS and its rival in Syria conducted not only against old enemies, Is- Jabhat al-Nusra. The third paper moves from rael and the US, but also against a new threat the subject matter of political Islam to the po- manifested in the takfiri forces, supported by litical contexts and interactions of two Islamic Israel, the US, and some Arab states. Hezbol- communities in Latvia, the Tatars and recent lah is therefore able to adapt to geopolitical converts to Islam. These three papers are realities and combine previously established based on fieldwork and discourse analysis discourses with new ones to mobilize its fol- conducted while working on master’s theses lowers. at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University. Draft version – for conference presenters only Muslims in Sweden. This will be achieved through conducting semi-structured inter- views with Hajji’s residing in Malmo, Swe- den. In April 2013, Abu Bakr Al- Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), announced his group’s expansion into Syria and merger with Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) to form the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham or ISIS. JN’s leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani denied the merger while accepting ties between the two groups. Al-Jolani also swore an oath to the head of al- Qaeda Central, Aymen Al-Zawahiri. Tension escalated, and the dispute was referred to al- Zawahiri who ruled against the merger. A theological debate then emerged, dividing the Salafi-Jihadi ulamaʾ into those supporting The Mamlūk period was a productive time for and opposed to the merger. Each group’s po- Arabic scholarship and literature, as Damas- sition was supported by texts from the Quran, cus and Cairo arose as vibrant urban centers, the Sunna, and narratives from Islamic his- attracting scholars and students from across tory. I contend that although Salafi-Jihadi the Muslim world. This led to opportunities ulamaʾ used the same concepts (al-baya, for travel, education, and employment, yet these opportunities had one common charac- obedience and Muslims’ unity) to bolster their argument, their distinct interpretations teristic: they were available almost exclu- sively to men. In Syria and Egypt, and most of of these concepts support the theological and the medieval world, women’s involvement in political divides between the different Salafi- travel, education, and public life, was often Jihadi factions. restricted. However, there were exceptions, including the prolific writer and poet cĀ’ishah al-Bācūnīyah (d. 1517) who, as a women, crossed from the margins to the mainstream of religious scholarship and literary produc- tion. Drawing from historical and biograph- ical sources, and especially from cĀ’ishah al- Bācūnīyah’s writings, I will examine her so- cial and intellectual background, her travels, Muslims and the question of integration have and scholarly interactions in order to high- become one of the central themes within the light some of the social trends and intellectual Swedish popular debate, where Islam tends forces at work in the late Mamlūk period. to be discussed as something radically differ- ent to ‘Swedish values’ and incompatible with ‘Swedish ways of life’. This creates a notion of Islam being an obstacle to Muslim immigrant integration into the secular Swedish society, an argument especially widely used by the right-wing populist in Sweden and other Eu- ropean countries. My research seeks to inves- John Gustaf Agelii, also known as Ivan Aguéli tigate this ‘popular notion’ through looking at and as Abd al-Hadi al-Maghrabi, was born in the Hajj, one of the main Islamic religious rit- 1869 in Sala, Västmanland, and broke artis- uals – the mandatory pilgrimage to Mecca. It tic, political, geographical, and religious asks how the Hajj experience has influenced boundaries. He became one of Sweden’s sense of belonging and identity among Hajji leading painters, engaged in violent “direct the Middle East and North Africa. We discuss action” in support of anarchist politics and migratory contexts in which forced and more animal rights in France, and was one of the voluntary forms of mobilities come together, first people from the Nordic region to convert including people without a regular migration to Islam and become a Sufi, while living in status and returning diasporas, in a pace that Egypt. After his early death in 1917, Aguéli be- may contrast with imagined timings of mov- came the subject of myth, both in Sweden ing about and forging spaces where one could and, as an early figure in the Traditionalist feel as someone who belongs. Within these movement, in France and then America. This encounters, multiple boundaries need to be paper looks at Aguéli’s life and at subsequent challenged and transgressed, not all of which myth-making, especially at Aguéli’s signifi- are easy to foresee beforehand. We also argue cance for Traditionalism. that, in these processes, new spaces of some- times unexpected solidarity are being formed. Sedgwick’s work focuses on Western Europe and North America, however, some of the au- thors he analyzes have been translated into languages and are read in places beyond the scope of his studies, in this case, Macedonia. These texts have exclusively been translated This paper explores the politics of positioning by Edin Lohja, an Albanian scholar living in among young people originating from the Le- Washington DC. This paper places Sedg- vantine diasporas in the Americas as they wick’s definition of Traditionalism in conver- “come back” to live in a place where they are sation with Satareh Houman’s, situating said to have their roots in. Relying on collab- Lohja at their intersection. Key to both defini- orative ethnographic work conducted in stu- tions is Rene Guénon. Guénon, however, is dent milieus in Beirut (2007-2016) and Mon- absent from Lohja’s translations. Instead of treal (2016-2019), it discusses how young framing these texts through the lens of people arriving in a city they imagined with- Guénonian Traditionalism, in his prefaces out knowing have to learn how to navigate en- Lohja alludes to a tug of war between extrem- tangled social boundaries. Not only does the ists and moderates, framing Traditionalist Is- discovery of these multiple potential fault lam as the authentic tradition lost in the lines affect their ability to interact with their struggle. This paper provides an initial foray surroundings but it also forces them to con- into the study of Traditionalism in the Alba- front their understanding of their own life- nian community within Macedonia – a con- trajectories as the “normal” direction of mi- text which forces us to rethink our definitions gration is reversed and several temporalities of Traditionalism. collide with each other. Drawing on these mi- cro-sociological situations, this paper ques- tions how we conceptualize basic notions such as “home”, “roots” or “belonging” when we study people and communities on the move and shifts the focus toward the complex interplay between roots/routes and iden- tity/alterity. In this panel, we draw on ethnographic ap- proaches to delve into the multiplicity of tem- poralities and materialities embedded within assorted configurations of mobile practices in Draft version – for conference presenters only together with other dimensions, such as age and migration status (or lack thereof). The migration route from the Horn of Africa to the central Mediterranean is described one of the most dangerous in the world. Interna- tional organizations have promoted securit- ized protection policies for migrants travel- ling across the route, in which scant assis- tance is associated with the repression of the networks facilitating mobility. However, re- cent literature highlights the need for more nuanced accounts of the actual experiences of safety, violence, risk and aid along this and other routes. Drawing on fieldwork in Egypt, this paper proposes the notion of hybrid and mobile protections. Such notion foregrounds: 1) the deterioration of state and UNHCR- based protection; 2) migrants’ demand for a This paper draws on various archival sources transnationally flexible and mobile system of found in France, Britain and Syria to study protection 3) the centrality of work and eco- the short and long term impact of the politics nomic relations, and the role they play in un- of partition French mandatory authorities in- dermining or reinforcing basic protection troduced in 1920, which divided post-Otto- from violence. man Syria into five statelets: Damascus, Aleppo, the Alawite State, the Druze State and Greater Lebanon.

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