Centre for Islamic and West Asian Studies 3 rd Annual Conference

Centre for Islamic and West Asian Studies 3rd Annual Conference Urban Islam: Muslim Minorities, Identity, and Tradition in West Asian, South Asian, and African Cities 21 February 2020 9 am – 5:30 pm Moore Auditorium, Royal Holloway University 09:00 – 10:00 am Registration and Opening Remarks 10:00 – 11:00 am Keynote Address: Professor Justin Jones (University of Oxford) 11:00 – 11:30 am 11:30 – 01:00 pm Coffee Break Panel I: Muslim Minorities in Islamic Cities  The contribution of Muslim communities to the cosmopolitan process of Mumbai Reza Masoudi Nejad (SOAS, University of London)  Seeking Abu Bakr in Sabzawār: Shiʿism, sectarian boundaries, and the city in late Mongol Iran Alexander Khaleeli (University of Exeter)  The making of Sufi spaces: the gatherings of the Ba’alawi order in contemporary Saudi Arabia Besnik Sinani (Freie Universität Berlin) 01:00 – 02:00 pm 02:00 – 03:30 pm Lunch Break Panel II: Identity & Urban Islam  Shifting sacred geographies: from Mecca and Karbala to Delhi and Ajmer Ronie Parciack (Tel Aviv University)  Reconstructing Muslim youth identity in an era of social media: the case of Muslim inner-cities in Accra De-Valera Botchway (University of Cape Coast) & Charles Prempe (University of Cambridge)  From Tarīqa to Jamā ‘iyya; Urbanization and Religiosity in Postcolonial Egypt Panos Kourgiotis (University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki) 03:30 – 04:00 pm 04:00 – 05:30 pm Coffee Break Panel III: Islamic Traditions, Culture & Urbanisation  The tales of one city: Isfahan and challenges between religiosity, histories and tourism Younes Saramifar (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)  Kerbela: a universal city Hassan Syed (UniNettuno University)  Charity as Zanzibar’s urban logic, 1840s to 1900 Stephen A. Pierce (Indiana Wesleyan University) The contribution of Muslim communities to the cosmopolitan process of Mumbai In the 19th century, Bombay was known for its Muharram Taboot Procession, while Muslim communities were minority groups in the cosmopolis of the Indian Ocean. This paper will articulate how Shiʿiand Sunni communities made a splendid contribution to Bombay’s cosmopolitan process, shaping urban landscape, culture and economy of this great city. The colonial records indicate that the Muslim communities made up about 10% of Bombay’s population (recent censuses also show the same). However careful examinations of archive materials and historical maps reveal that not only the procession on Ashura day was the most important annual festival of the city, but also Muslims’ religious places were dominant in urban landscape. The Muslim communities have never been a monolithic group rather diversified social entity, and often hostile and marginalised. Nonetheless they played an important role in driving urbanisation process, shaping city form and inspiring urban culture. For example, not only Muslims’ religious places, from Jama Masjid to Iranians’ Mosque (better known as Moghul Masjid) characterize the cityscape of old city. But also, as I shall explain Tilak, the godfather of Hindunationalists, cleverly (re)invented the modern Ganapati festival in the late 19th century based on the Indian Ashura procession. *** Seeking Abu Bakr in Sabzawār The conversion of Iran to Twelver Shiʿism by the Safavid Dynasty (r. 1501–1722) has long overshadowed the study of Iranian Shiʿism in preceding centuries. The Mongol-Timurid period, in particular, was a time of confessional ambiguity and cross-pollination in the Persian world, which saw an upsurge of pro-Shiʿi sentiment in nominally Sunni circles. To date, studies on this phenomenon (which Hodgson termed “Alid loyalty”) have focused on messianic and heterodox movements. By contrast, relatively little research has been carried out into the state of “orthodox” Shiʿism in Iran at this time. In this context, Sabzawār presents an interesting case study: An overwhelmingly Shiʿi city in predominantly Sunni Khurasan, it served as the capital of the Sarbadārs – an oligarchy who governed parts of Khurasan during the fifty-year interregnum between Mongol and Timurid rule, and whom later sources portray as Shiʿi sectarians. Drawing upon new sources, this paper re-evaluates the religious identity of Sabzawār and examines how its inhabitants articulated their Shiʿism as a local majority and regional minority while politically ascendant. Studying Shiʿi religious sermons preached in the city under the Sarbadārs, I will argue that – far from exhibiting sharp sectarian boundaries – they reflect broader religious trends in Iran; incorporating material drawn explicitly from non- Shiʿi sources and invoking shared sacred symbols. This throws into question later accounts of Sarbadār rule and asks that we re-evaluate the state of Shiʿism in Persian lands before the Safavid period. *** The making of Sufi spaces Following the formation of the People’s Socialist Republic of South Yemen and the persecution of religious scholars in the 1970s, leading figures of the Ba Alawi Sufi order migrated to neighboring Saudi Arabia. The communal rituals and educational life of the order in exile centered around the establishment of gatherings (majlis; pl. majālis) in private spaces, a tradition that continues till today. This paper will focus on the status, composition, and ethics of such gatherings, analyzing how the modality of these spaces mirrors the teachings of the order. Following the writings of Saba Mahmoud, the Ba Alawi spaces are seen here as more then reflective of their communicative and deliberative aspects, focusing instead on the analyses of such spaces as leading to the creation of particular kinds of subjects and the cultivation of capacities that make participation possible. It discusses the existence of Ba Alawi space as related to the social, political, and historical context that enables their presence in a country known for the promotion of anti-Sufi religious views. It will finally discuss how such spaces are marked in terms of material culture, sensory perceptions, and visual elements. *** Shifting sacred geographies Though aspiring to reach all over the globe, Orthodox Islam is endowed with a very specific, well-defined geographic authoritative loci: Mecca and Medina, and to a certain extent, relevant mostly to Shi'i communities, also Karbala. All such urban spaces are located in the Arabian Peninsula and the Hijaz. The spatial authority of these Arabian Urban spaces, and the ideal Muslim's geo-political orientation, are further stressed through the practices of the Hajj pilgrimage and the qibla – turning towards Mecca during the five daily prayers. However, for many Muslims in India, these desired spaces are far away and out of reach. Furthermore, ethnic and linguistic differences enhance a formally illegitimate yet practically a vivid alienation towards these authoritative Arab spaces, (Hasan and Jalil, 2009). No wonder, then, that Indian Islams have shaped a local system of sacred spaces. The Indian soil underwent a slow process of acknowledgment as sacred Islamic land (Carl Ernest 1995; Nile Green 2012); moreover, Indian Urban spaces are constituted, through both public rituals and images designed by local Islamic media, as equally authoritative to Mecca and Karbala. This presentation addresses the constitution of such spaces, first and foremost in Delhi and Ajmer. I show how Mecca, Madina and Karbala are being systematically embedded within Indian territory, and contend that this is partly a response to the dominant discourse of Hindu nationhood in contemporary India. Reconstructing Muslim youth identity in an era of social mediainner-cities in Accra In this paper, we argue that, following the ubiquity of social media, mediated by the internet, the dynamic nature of identity has been felt among Muslim youth in Africa. These Muslim youth are (re)constructing their identity to cohere with the ethos of the contemporary world. Traditionally, Islamic identity is constructed around stories of the Qur'an. Through the stories about the life and teachings, as well as the practices of Mohammed, Islamic identity is defined and set apart from other religious identities. These stories and beliefs are consolidated in an entire gamut of rituals: rituals that shape and guide the construction of Islamic identity and also define the normative life of Muslims. As ethnographic research, we argue from our interactions with Muslim youth in the Muslim inner-cities of Maamobi and Nima of Accra, the capital of Ghana, that social media has shaped the (re)construction of Muslim youth as more of virtual beings and less of social beings. We seek to explore how the virtualisation of Islamic identity is shaping the new religio-secular hermeneutics Muslim youth are devising to rationalise their consumption of marijuana, their patronising of reggae and hip-hop music, their participation in Ghanaian politics within the frame of an inner-city culture based on a hybridised concept of localism, cosmopolitanism and glocalisation *** From Tarīqa to Jamā ‘iyya This research examines the background against which the Islamic associations (al-jama ‘iyyāt al-islamiyya) emerged in the Egyptian cities during the interwar years and spread their reformist message. Their founders and first followers were among the urban middle class, better known in the bibliography as the effendiyya. For this reason, this model of activism and indoctrination represented a new trend compared to the centuries – old Sufi tarīqa or the Azharite ulama and it should be interpreted in tune with the wider modernization/urbanization process that the region of the Delta had been going through since the early 20th century. *** The tales of one city A city and its urbanity become Islamic through practices, contestations and socializations. Therefore, I trace how Isfahan, a city of two million Iranian, struggles to become Islamic and I follow the elements that facilitate or obstruct the process of ‘becoming’ Islamic? The city of Isfahan is known as the third most populous city in Iran. Isfahan is highly prominent in religious rhetoric of Islamic Republic of Iran because the fierce commitment of its inhabitants to the militant political Islam. It has become the site of struggles between different groups and ideologies that attempt to influence its urban design and identity. I explore how ideologies behind its contemporary design and maintenance of the city change according to the political climates. By exploring these contestations, I explain how the notion of Islamic city emerges from the entanglement of urbanities, urban design and political ideologies. *** Kerbela: a universal city The city of Kerbela has been the focus of the Islamic world since the battle of Kerbela in 680 AD. Historical records show that the land of Kerbela belonging to the Adananite Arab tribe of Banu Asad. Hussian, the third Shiʿi Imam purchased the land from Banu Asad before the battle of Kerbela on the 10th of October 680 AD. The city of Kerbela started to grow around the graves of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson and the third Shiʿi Imam, Hussian. The last 1300 years history of the city of Kerbela tells a unique story of its genesis and evolution as one of the holiest sites of Islam. This paper presents a historic view of the city’s evolution intertwined with its deep cultural and religious underpinnings. *** Charity as Zanzibar’s urban logic, 1840s to 1900 African historians have long had to contend with notions of cityhood created and maintained by Eurocentric discourse. Even parts of Africa which were quite urban continued until the era of decolonization to be perceived as rural, or the logic of existing cities evaluated through metropolitan paradigms. This paper extends William Bissell’s observation about colonialera Swahili cities—that colonial officials fantasized about creating order in Africa, but in fact generated more chaos than stability—by interrogating the internal, Islamic logic of the city of Zanzibar during its most crucial formative phase. Zanzibar was continuously inhabited from very early times as a small fishing village, but during the 1840s a flow of Arabspeaking Hadhrami and Omani immigrants effectively constructed what is now known as the historical “Stone Town.” Based upon archival research done for the author’s dissertation, this paper suggests that by mapping Islamic charities (Sw., wakf) endowed in the city during the formative period—alongside the surviving deeds—what emerges is an Islamic social logic that preceded British urban planning and continued to be contested during the colonial era. Rather than being just a tangle of unplanned alleyways concealing exotic Swahili naughtiness, as the British often supposed, Zanzibar’s land allocation, local knowledge, and endowment practice aimed at kinds of social and spiritual formation that have been characterized as the “Islamic city.”