Muslim Worldviews and Everyday Lives

By (author) El-Sayed el-Aswad

Publication date:

13 July 2012

Length of book:

248 pages

Publisher

AltaMira Press

ISBN-13: 9780759121195

el-Aswad introduces the concepts of worldviews/cosmologies of Muslims, explaining that the different types of worldviews are not constructed solely by religious scholars or intellectual elite, but are latent in Islamic tradition, embedded in popular imagination, and triggered through people's everyday interaction in various countries and communities. He draws from a number of sources including in-depth interviews and participant observation as well as government documents and oral history. Through the perspectives of ethno-cosmology, emic interpretation of sacred tradition, modernity, folklore, geography, dream, imagination, hybridity, and identity transformation, he examines how culturally and religiously constructed images of the world influence the daily actions of people in various Muslim communities. The worldviews of Sunnis, Shi'as, and Sufis are covered in turn, and Muslims in the UAE, Egypt, Bahrain, and suburban Detroit are the focus. el-Aswad also discusses the effects of Western attempts at imposing its essentially secular worldview through the process of globalization and how cyberspace has promoted connectivity among Muslim communities and, especially in the United States, opened up unlimited options and new possibilities.

Acknowledgments
Notes on Transliteration and Translation
List of Figures
Introduction: Worldview, Geography, and Ideology
1. Muslim Worldviews: Unity and Diversity
2. The Worldview of the Sunni
3. The Esoteric Worldview of the Shi‘a
4. The Mystic Worldview of Sufism
5. Muslim Worldviews, Imagination, and the Dream World
6. Multiple Worldviews and Multiple Identities of the Muslim Diaspora
7. Conclusion
Glossary of Arabic Terms
Bibliography
Appendix: Muslim Code of Honor
Index
About the Author

This is a rich and comprehensive book that poses questions to contemporary studies on religion in general and Islam in particular. The ethnographic approach and focus on ordinary Muslims illustrated through informants’ practice and perceptions of the world presents Islam as a lived religion that must be understood in local contexts informed by global processes. The book shows how worldviews inform and are informed by practice, and is a valuable comment on how Islam and Muslims are being studied and perceived today; and it highlights the need to rethink methods and understandings found among some scholars as well as journalists. It further illustrates the need to study religion as, to a large extent, being created, understood, reformulated and practiced by ordinary people in connection to their daily life, disregarding what established religious scholars or acknowledged ideologues consider as being true religious belief or practice.