Soundscapes of Uyghur Islam

Soundscapes of Uyghur Islam PDF Author: Rachel Harris
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253050197
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is experiencing a crisis of securitization and mass incarceration. In Soundscapes of Uyghur Islam, author Rachel Harris examines the religious practice of a group of Uyghur women in a small village now engulfed in this chaos. Despite their remote location, these village women are mobile and connected, and their religious soundscapes flow out across transnational networks. Harris explores the spiritual and political geographies they inhabit, moving outward from the village to trace connections with Mecca, Istanbul, Bishkek, and Beijing. Sound, embodiment, and territoriality illuminate both the patterns of religious change among Uyghurs and the policies of cultural erasure used by the Chinese state to reassert its control over the land the Uyghurs occupy. By drawing on contemporary approaches to the circulation of popular music, Harris considers how various forms of Islam that arrive via travel and the internet come into dialogue with local embodied practices. Synthesized together, these practicies create new forms that facilitate powerful, affective experiences of faith.

Soundscapes of Uyghur Islam

Soundscapes of Uyghur Islam PDF Author: Rachel Harris
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253050197
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Get Book Here

Book Description
China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is experiencing a crisis of securitization and mass incarceration. In Soundscapes of Uyghur Islam, author Rachel Harris examines the religious practice of a group of Uyghur women in a small village now engulfed in this chaos. Despite their remote location, these village women are mobile and connected, and their religious soundscapes flow out across transnational networks. Harris explores the spiritual and political geographies they inhabit, moving outward from the village to trace connections with Mecca, Istanbul, Bishkek, and Beijing. Sound, embodiment, and territoriality illuminate both the patterns of religious change among Uyghurs and the policies of cultural erasure used by the Chinese state to reassert its control over the land the Uyghurs occupy. By drawing on contemporary approaches to the circulation of popular music, Harris considers how various forms of Islam that arrive via travel and the internet come into dialogue with local embodied practices. Synthesized together, these practicies create new forms that facilitate powerful, affective experiences of faith.

Ethnographies of Islam in China

Ethnographies of Islam in China PDF Author: Rachel Harris
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824886437
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
In the late 1970s Islam regained its force by generating novel forms of piety and forging new paths in politics throughout the world, including China. The Islamic revival in China, which came to fruition in the 2000s and the 2010s, prompted increases in government suppression but also intriguing resonances with the broader Muslim world—from influential theoretical and political contestations over Muslim women’s status, the popularization of mass media and the appearance of new patterns of consumption, to increases in transnational Muslim migration. Although China does not belong to the “Islamic world” as it is conventionally understood, China’s Muslims have strengthened and expanded their global connections and impact. Such significant shifts in Chinese Muslim life have received scant scholarly attention until now. With contributions from a wide variety of scholars—all sharing a commitment to the value of the ethnographic approach—this volume provides the first comprehensive account of China’s Islamic revival since the 1980s as the country struggled to recover from the wreckage of the Cultural Revolution. The authors show the multifarious nature of China’s Islam revival, which defies any reductive portrayal that paints it as a unified development motivated by a common ideology, and demonstrate how it was embedded in China’s broader economic transition. Most importantly, they trace the historical genealogies and sociopolitical conditions that undergird the crackdown on Muslim life across China, confronting head-on the difficulties of working with Muslims—Uyghur Muslims in particular—at a time of intense religious oppression, intellectual censorship, and intrusive surveillance technology. With chapters on both Hui and Uyghur Muslims, this book also traverses boundaries that often separate studies of these two groups, and illustrates with great clarity the value of disciplinary and methodological border-crossing. As such, Ethnographies of Islam in China is essential reading for those interested in Islam’s complexity in contemporary China and its broader relevance to the Muslim world and the changing nature of Chinese society seen through the prism of religion.

The Sound of Salvation

The Sound of Salvation PDF Author: Guangtian Ha
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231552483
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
Winner, 2023 Clifford Geertz Prize in Anthropology of Religion, Society for the Anthropology of Religion The Jahriyya Sufis—a primarily Sinophone order of Naqshbandiyya Sufism in northwestern China—inhabit a unique religious soundscape. The hallmark of their spiritual practice is the “loud” (jahr) remembrance of God in liturgical rituals featuring distinctive melodic vocal chants. The first ethnography of this order in any language, The Sound of Salvation draws on nearly a decade of fieldwork to reveal the intricacies and importance of Jahriyya vocal recitation. Guangtian Ha examines how the use of voice in liturgy helps the Jahriyya to sustain their faith and the ways it has enabled them to endure political persecution over the past two and a half centuries. He situates the Jahriyya in a global multilingual network of Sufis and shows how their characteristic soundscapes result from transcultural interactions among Middle Eastern, Central Asian, and Chinese Muslim communities. Ha argues that the resilience of Jahriyya Sufism stems from the diversity and multiplicity of liturgical practice, which he shows to be rooted in notions of Sufi sainthood. He considers the movement of Jahriyya vocal recitation to new media forms and foregrounds the gendered opposition of male voices and female silence that structures the group’s rituals. Spanning diverse disciplines—including anthropology, ethnomusicology, Islamic studies, sound studies, and media studies—and using Arabic, Persian, and Chinese sources, The Sound of Salvation offers new perspectives on the importance of sound to religious practice, the role of gender in Chinese Islam, and the links connecting Chinese Muslims to the broader Islamic world.

On Islam

On Islam PDF Author: Rosemary Pennington
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253032563
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
In the constant deluge of media coverage on Islam, Muslims are often portrayed as terrorists, refugees, radicals, or victims, depictions that erode human responses of concern, connection, or even a willingness to learn about Muslims. On Islam helps break this cycle with information and strategies to understand and report the modern Muslim experience. Journalists, activists, bloggers, and scholars offer insights into how Muslims are represented in the media today and offer tips for those covering Islam in the future. Interviews provide personal and often moving firsthand accounts of people confronting the challenges of modern life while maintaining their Muslim faith, and brief overviews provide a crash course on Muslim beliefs and practices. A concise and frank discussion of the Muslim experience, On Islam provides facts and perspective at a time when truth in journalism is more vital than ever.

Teaching Islamic Studies in the Age of ISIS, Islamophobia, and the Internet

Teaching Islamic Studies in the Age of ISIS, Islamophobia, and the Internet PDF Author: Courtney M. Dorroll
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253039827
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
How can teachers introduce Islam to students when daily media headlines can prejudice students' perception of the subject? Should Islam be taught differently in secular universities than in colleges with a clear faith-based mission? What are strategies for discussing Islam and violence without perpetuating stereotypes? The contributors of Teaching Islamic Studies in the Age of ISIS, Islamophobia, and the Internet address these challenges head-on and consider approaches to Islamic studies pedagogy, Islamophobia and violence, and suggestions for how to structure courses. These approaches acknowledge the particular challenges faced when teaching a topic that students might initially fear or distrust. Speaking from their own experience, they include examples of collaborative teaching models, reading and media suggestions, and ideas for group assignments that encourage deeper engagement and broader thinking. The contributors also share personal struggles when confronted with students (including Muslim students) and parents who suspected the courses might have ulterior motives. In an age of stereotypes and misrepresentations of Islam, this book offers a range of means by which teachers can encourage students to thoughtfully engage with the topic of Islam.

Muslims and New Media in West Africa

Muslims and New Media in West Africa PDF Author: Dorothea E. Schulz
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253223628
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
Although Islam is not new to West Africa, new patterns of domestic economies, the promise of political liberalization, and the proliferation of new media have led to increased scrutiny of Islam in the public sphere. Dorothea E. Schulz shows how new media have created religious communities that are far more publicly engaged than they were in the past. Muslims and New Media in West Africa expands ideas about religious life in West Africa, women's roles in religion, religion and popular culture, the meaning of religious experience in a charged environment, and how those who consume both religion and new media view their public and private selves.

Islam in the African-American Experience

Islam in the African-American Experience PDF Author: Richard Brent Turner
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253343239
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
The involvement of African Americans with Islam reaches back to the earliest days of the African presence in North America. This book explores these roots in the Middle East, West Africa and antebellum America.

Russia's Muslim Frontiers

Russia's Muslim Frontiers PDF Author: Dale F. Eickelman
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253208231
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
"Readers will find fresh and thought-provoking studies: the differing approaches of the U.S. and the [former] Soviet Union to Middle East policy, Central Asia, and South Asia . . . provide grounds for self-criticism and the exploration of new directions." —John L. Esposito ". . . recommended highly for its expert analyses of political Islam." —Journal of Third World Studies Russian, Central Asian, and American scholars appraise recent political and religious developments among Russia's Muslim neighbors.

Making Modernity in the Islamic Mediterranean

Making Modernity in the Islamic Mediterranean PDF Author: Margaret S. Graves
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253060354
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
The Islamic world's artistic traditions experienced profound transformation in the 19th century as rapidly developing technologies and globalizing markets ushered in drastic changes in technique, style, and content. Despite the importance and ingenuity of these developments, the 19th century remains a gap in the history of Islamic art. To fill this opening in art historical scholarship, Making Modernity in the Islamic Mediterranean charts transformations in image-making, architecture, and craft production in the Islamic world from Fez to Istanbul. Contributors focus on the shifting methods of production, reproduction, circulation, and exchange artists faced as they worked in fields such as photography, weaving, design, metalwork, ceramics, and even transportation. Covering a range of media and a wide geographical spread, Making Modernity in the Islamic Mediterranean reveals how 19th-century artists in the Middle East and North Africa reckoned with new tools, materials, and tastes from local perspectives.

Remaking Islam in African Portugal

Remaking Islam in African Portugal PDF Author: Michelle Johnson
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253052769
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
When Guinean Muslims leave their homeland, they encounter radically new versions of Islam and new approaches to religion more generally. In Remaking Islam in African Portugal, Michelle C. Johnson explores the religious lives of these migrants in the context of diaspora. Since Islam arrived in West Africa centuries ago, Muslims in this region have long conflated ethnicity and Islam, such that to be Mandinga or Fula is also to be Muslim. But as they increasingly encounter Muslims not from Africa, as well as other ways of being Muslim, they must question and revise their understanding of "proper" Muslim belief and practice. Many men, in particular, begin to separate African custom from global Islam. Johnson maintains that this cultural intersection is highly gendered as she shows how Guinean Muslim men in Lisbon—especially those who can read Arabic, have made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and attend Friday prayer at Lisbon's central mosque—aspire to be cosmopolitan Muslims. By contrast, Guinean women—many of whom never studied the Qur'an, do not read Arabic, and feel excluded from the mosque—remain more comfortably rooted in African custom. In response, these women have created a "culture club" as an alternative Muslim space where they can celebrate life course rituals and Muslim holidays on their own terms. Remaking Islam in African Portugal highlights what being Muslim means in urban Europe and how Guinean migrants' relationships to their ritual practices must change as they remake themselves and their religion.