- United Kingdom
Dr Riyaz Timol
Cardiff University, Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK, Department Member
- Muslims in Europe, Ethnography of Religion, Contemporary Movements and Trends in Islam, Diaspora and transnationalism, British muslim identity, Islam and Modernity, and 20 moreMuslim Minorities, Islam in South Asia, Tablighi Jamaat, Jamaat Tabligh, Muslims in Britain, Islam in Europe, Deoband, Sociology of Islam (Sociology), Sociology of islam, Islamic Contemporary Studies, Peter Berger, Multiple Modernities, Sociology of Religion, Islamic revival and reform movements, Postcolonial theory (Cultural Theory), Post-Secular Theory, Islam and Secularism, Islamic revivalism, Secularization, and Pakistanedit
- I work as a Research Fellow at Cardiff University’s Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK. My research interests i... moreI work as a Research Fellow at Cardiff University’s Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK. My research interests include ethnographic methodology, intergenerational transmission of Islam in Britain and the relationship of Islam with modernity. My disciplinary approach is within the sociology of religion with particular reference to the theoretical contributions of Peter L. Berger. I teach the MA module 'History and Development of Muslim Communities in Britain', supervise several postgraduate students and help deliver the innovative online course 'Muslims in Britain: Changes and Challenges'. I am the Principal Investigator of a major research project examining the lived experiences of British Imams and the co-editor of a special issue of the international journal Religions exploring 'Leadership, Authority and Representation in British Muslim Communities'. I am also the Co-Investigator of a research project with colleagues at the University of Birmingham called 'Science and the Transmission of Islamic Knowledge'.edit
The contributions in this book explore Muslim religious leadership in multiple forms and settings. While traditional authority is usually correlated with theology and piety, as in the case of classically trained ulema, the public advocacy... more
The contributions in this book explore Muslim religious leadership in multiple forms and settings. While traditional authority is usually correlated with theology and piety, as in the case of classically trained ulema, the public advocacy of Muslim community concerns is often headed by those with professionalized skillsets and civic experience. In an increasingly digital world, both women and men exercise leadership in novel ways, and sites of authority are refracted from traditional loci, such as mosques and seminaries, to new and unexpected places. This collection provides systematic focus on a topic that has hitherto been given rather diffuse consideration. It complements historical work on community leadership as well as more contemporary discussion on the training and role of Islamic religious authorities. It will be of interest to scholars in Religious Studies, Sociology, Political Science, History, and Islamic Studies.
Research Interests:
The Tablighi Jama'at (TJ) is widely regarded as the largest movement of grassroots Islamic revival in the world yet remains significantly under-researched. This thesis examines the British branch of the movement based on sustained... more
The Tablighi Jama'at (TJ) is widely regarded as the largest movement of grassroots Islamic revival in the world yet remains significantly under-researched. This thesis examines the British branch of the movement based on sustained ethnographic fieldwork conducted over 18 months. Intensive participant observation was combined with 59 semi-structured interviews to present a detailed typology and topography of the movement's organisational structure in Britain. Further, the issue of intergenerational transmission is explored – based on an analysis of the cultural identity markers of language, clothing and food – with clear shifts identified between the first-generation 'Old Guard' and the British-born 'Avant-Garde.' The thesis argues that TJ should best be characterised as a movement in transition located within broader processes of indigenisation operative within British Islam more generally.
Theoretically, the thesis augments Berger and Luckmann's sociology of knowledge with insights derived from Bhaskar’s critical realism to propose the twin 'generative mechanisms' of secularity and spirituality from which empirically accessible social phenomena emerge. These are used to anatomise the process of 'intra-religious conversion' which emerges as a key motif of contemporary TJ experience. Turner's concept of liminality and Schutz's phenomenology of consciousness are further deployed to examine ritual and semantic dimensions of conversion that see the neophyte’s attachment to religion transition from a nominal to a passionate state. Generic theories in the sociology of religion are also consulted to explore issues of retention and post-conversion strategies of commitment-maintenance.
Finally, utilising insights from Peter Berger’s vast oeuvre, the thesis explores the intersection of 'Islamic Revival' with secularisation theory in Europe. It argues that, in the context of contemporary ‘Eurosecularity,’ the willed and conscious exercise of agency in ways which publicly affirm faith is intrinsically imbued with a disconcerting ‘debunking’ potential for those who have unthinkingly imbibed into interior consciousness the taken-for-granted suppositions of a secular nomos.
Theoretically, the thesis augments Berger and Luckmann's sociology of knowledge with insights derived from Bhaskar’s critical realism to propose the twin 'generative mechanisms' of secularity and spirituality from which empirically accessible social phenomena emerge. These are used to anatomise the process of 'intra-religious conversion' which emerges as a key motif of contemporary TJ experience. Turner's concept of liminality and Schutz's phenomenology of consciousness are further deployed to examine ritual and semantic dimensions of conversion that see the neophyte’s attachment to religion transition from a nominal to a passionate state. Generic theories in the sociology of religion are also consulted to explore issues of retention and post-conversion strategies of commitment-maintenance.
Finally, utilising insights from Peter Berger’s vast oeuvre, the thesis explores the intersection of 'Islamic Revival' with secularisation theory in Europe. It argues that, in the context of contemporary ‘Eurosecularity,’ the willed and conscious exercise of agency in ways which publicly affirm faith is intrinsically imbued with a disconcerting ‘debunking’ potential for those who have unthinkingly imbibed into interior consciousness the taken-for-granted suppositions of a secular nomos.
Research Interests: Religion, Sociology of Religion, Ethnography, Sociology of islam, Islam in Europe, and 17 moreEthnography (Research Methodology), Contemporary Movements and Trends in Islam, Muslims in Europe, Islam, Ethnographic fieldwork, Ethnography of Religion, Islamic movements (Anthropology Of Religion), Islam in Britain, Indian Muslims, Islamic revival and reform movements, Muslims, Jamaat Tabligh, Tablighi Jamaat, Islamic revivalism, Deoband, Muslims in Western Europe, and Religius and Islamic Studies
This article provides the first academic analysis of the popular Pakistani Islamic scholar and Urdu-speaking preacher Maulana Tariq Jamil. Drawing on years of ethnographic study of the Tablighi Jama’at, the revivalist movement to which... more
This article provides the first academic analysis of the popular Pakistani Islamic scholar and Urdu-speaking preacher Maulana Tariq Jamil. Drawing on years of ethnographic study of the Tablighi Jama’at, the revivalist movement to which Jamil belongs, as well as content analysis of dozens of his recorded lectures, the article presents a detailed biography of the Maulana in five stages. These comprise: (a) his upbringing and early life (1953–1972); (b) his conversion to the Tablighi Jama’at and studies at the Raiwind international headquarters (1972–1980); (c) his meteoric rise to fame and ascendancy up the movement’s leadership ranks (1980–1997); (d) his development into a national celebrity (1997–2016); and (e) major causes of controversy and criticism (2014–present). Tracing his narrative register within the historical archetypes of the quṣṣāṣ (storytellers) and wuʿʿāẓ (popular preachers), the paper identifies core tenets of the Maulana’s revivalist discourse, key milestones in his life—such as the high-profile conversion to the Tablighi Jama’at of Pakistani popstar Junaid Jamshed—and subtle changes in his approach over the years. The article deploys the classical sociological framework of structure-agency to explore how Maulana Tariq Jamil’s increasing exercise of agency in preaching Islam has unsettled structural expectations within traditionalist ʿulamāʾ (religious scholar) circles as well as the Tablighi leadership. It situates his emergence within a broader trend of Islamic media-based personalities who embrace contemporary technological tools to reach new audiences and respond to the challenges of postcolonial modernity.
Research Interests: Islamic Contemporary Studies, Celebrity Culture, Pakistan, Religious Conversion, Islam, and 15 moreIslam in South Asia, Pakistan Studies, Stardom and Celebrity, Digital religion, Islamic preachers, Jamaat Tabligh, Tablighi Jamaat, Ulama, Deoband, Ulama and their impact, Religious conversion and conversion to Islam, Contemporary Islamic Movements and Trends, Researching on Deoband, Dawah Methodology, and Muslim Scholars
Since its inception in 1920s British India, the Tablighi Jama’at (TJ) has grown into a global movement of faith renewal, animating grassroots Muslim communities around the world. Based on sustained ethnographic fieldwork with the British... more
Since its inception in 1920s British India, the Tablighi Jama’at (TJ) has grown into a global movement of faith renewal, animating grassroots Muslim communities around the world. Based on sustained ethnographic fieldwork with the British branch of the movement, this article proposes a concept of ‘intra-religious conversion’ to capture a key modality of its impact in everyday Muslim lives. By this is denoted a shift from a nominal form of Islamic practice to one of passionate devotion. Multiple interview narratives are presented to dissect the conversion experience through a series of precipitating push and pull factors, of which ‘affective ties’ and ‘intensive interaction’ emerge as key. Three key reasons for TJ’s enduring appeal to British-born male Muslims are suggested: (1) its propensity to transform the individual’s relationship with his religion from a ‘passive consumer’ to an ‘active purveyor’; (2) its fostering of strong bonds of belonging and brotherhood; (3) its ability to offer certainty in a world of flux. The findings challenge previous scholarship on British TJ by demonstrating its ongoing popularity among successive generations of Muslims, though reasons why followers may drift away from the movement after undergoing life-changing intra-religious conversion experiences are also explored.
Research Interests: Islam in Europe, Religious Conversion, Islamic Studies, Contemporary Movements and Trends in Islam, Muslims in Europe, and 15 moreIslam, Islam in India, Indian Muslims, Islamic revival and reform movements, Conversion, Muslims in Britain, Conversion to Islam, Jamaat Tabligh, Tablighi Jamaat, Islamic revivalism, Islam and Sufism in South Asia, Deoband, Muslims in the West, Islam in the West, and Researching on Deoband
This paper interfaces a specific theory of socialisation, derived from Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann’s influential book The Social Construction of Reality, with the empirical story of Muslim settlement in Britain. It makes a key... more
This paper interfaces a specific theory of socialisation, derived from Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann’s influential book The Social Construction of Reality, with the empirical story of Muslim settlement in Britain. It makes a key distinction between the primary socialisation experiences of immigrants, which unfolded in their countries of origin, and that of their diaspora-born offspring whose identity is forged between an inherited ethno-religious culture and the wider British collective conscience. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted with the Islamic revivalist movement Tablighi Jama’at, the paper explores the cultural embodiments of religion as it evolves over generations through an examination of identity markers such as language, dress and food. The analysis triangulates Berger and Luckmann’s concepts of primary and secondary socialisation with a tripartite model of British Muslim identity developed by Ron Geaves. It further argues, in light of Kwame Gyekye’s theory of nation-building, that recent government efforts to promulgate a set of fundamental British values in schools represent an essentially Durkheimian attempt to supply the ‘social glue’ that binds citizens together. While the article acknowledges the increasing salience of religion for many British-born Muslims, it argues for the ongoing influence of ethnicity and nationality in determining their lived experience.
Research Interests: Religion, Sociology of Religion, Sociology of Knowledge, Identity (Culture), Cultural Identity, and 15 moreNational Identity, Indian Diaspora (Migration and Ethnicity), Diaspora and transnationalism, Immigration and identity (Anthropology), Islam in Britain, Muslims in Britain, British muslim identity, Theory and politics of multiculturalism, ethno-religious identities, national identity, Islamophobia, soci-economic disadvantage and secularism, with especial reference to British Asian Muslims., Tablighi Jamaat, Peter Berger, British Culture, Ethnicity and National Identity, Religious Socialization, Intergenerational Transmission, and Fundamental British Values - FBV
Research Interests: Islamic Education, Islam in Britain, Muslims in Britain, British Muslims and the media, Imams, and 10 moreUlama, Islamic Religious Authority, Islamic religious education, Ulama and their impact, Islam in the West, Religious Authority in Islam, Religious Leadership, Representations of Muslims, Media Representations of Islam, and Muslim Leadership
The Tablighi Jama'at (TJ) is widely regarded as the largest grassroots Islamic revival movement in the world, but it remains significantly under-researched. This paper, based on sustained ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2013 and... more
The Tablighi Jama'at (TJ) is widely regarded as the largest grassroots Islamic revival movement in the world, but it remains significantly under-researched. This paper, based on sustained ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2013 and 2015, provides a comprehensive overview of the movement's organisational structures and loci of authority in Britain. It describes how different levels of the movement interact, from the local and regional to the national and international, to constitute a truly glocal movement. TJ's European headquarters, located in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, is identified as a centralised hub that for several decades has coordinated the movement's activities in the West through the devoted leadership of Hafiz Muhammad Patel (1926-2016) and ongoing contact with the global spiritual centre in Nizamuddin, New Delhi. TJ's simultaneous links with hundreds of mosques across the country, largely-though not exclusively-of Deobandi orientation, are also described. The functioning of its regional centres of operation in Birmingham, Blackburn, Glasgow, Leicester and London is elaborated with reference to key weekly meetings convened on-site and the "routing" of numerous TJ groups to various British mosques each weekend. Although TJ's leadership has recently become embroiled in schism, the paper argues for the successful establishment of a robust institutional infrastructure in Britain which has facilitated the movement's transmission to a generation of British-born activists.
Research Interests: Islam in Europe, Contemporary Movements and Trends in Islam, Muslims in Europe, Islam, Ethnography of Religion, and 13 moreIslamic movements (Anthropology Of Religion), Indian Muslims, Islamic revival and reform movements, Muslims in Britain, Religious anthropology, Jamaat Tabligh, Tablighi Jamaat, Islamic revivalism, Islam and Sufism in South Asia, Deoband, Muslims in the West, Researching on Deoband, and Religius and Islamic Studies
Rooted in the concepts of ‘theodicy’ and ‘alienation’, Peter L. Berger famously anatomised the social mechanics through which religion is projected from human consciousness into the cosmos as a ‘sacred canopy’ protecting against chaos and... more
Rooted in the concepts of ‘theodicy’ and ‘alienation’, Peter L. Berger famously anatomised the social mechanics through which religion is projected from human consciousness into the cosmos as a ‘sacred canopy’ protecting against chaos and anomy. Interweaving this with his more recent work on ‘Eurosecularity’, this chapter proposes that in Western Europe today, it is often secularity that is externalised, objectivated then internalised into subjective consciousness as taken-for-granted facticity. The author further argues, drawing on fieldwork conducted with the British branch of the Islamic Revivalist movement the Tablighi Jama'at, that the conscious exercise of agency in ways which publicly affirm faith breaches the cognitive and normative presuppositions of the European collective conscience. In classical Bergerian terms, such non-indigenous expressions of religion are intrinsically imbued with a disconcerting debunking potential by exposing the precariousness of the social fictions which together conspire to construct the ‘sacred canopy’ of contemporary secular actors.
Research Interests: Religion, Sociology, Sociology of Religion, Ethnography, Islam in Europe, and 17 moreEthnography (Research Methodology), Secularization, Muslims in Europe, Secularisms and Secularities, Islam in Britain, Islamic revival and reform movements, Secularism, Islam and Secularism, Muslims in Britain, Religious Revivals, Jamaat Tabligh, Tablighi Jamaat, Islamic revivalism, Peter Berger, Muslims in Western Europe, Peter L Berger, and Religious Revivalism
Extant academic literature on the Tablighī Jamā‘at provides the rudiments of a schema for understanding its modalities of expansion in new socio-cultural milieus. This paper first explicates these modalities in more detail and applies... more
Extant academic literature on the Tablighī Jamā‘at provides the rudiments of a schema for understanding its modalities of expansion in new socio-cultural milieus. This paper first explicates these modalities in more detail and applies them to the historical development of TJ in Britain. I then test and amplify this schema utilizing fresh data generated during a 40-day fieldwork khurūj (outing) to Bulgaria as a reflexive participant observer with a British TJ group. The paper argues that the Western branch of the movement has achieved a degree of institutional robustness and autonomy from TJ’s South Asian headquarters. Finally, the paper reflects upon possible future trajectories for British TJ in relation to the author’s ongoing ethnographic fieldwork.
Research Interests: Sociology of Religion, Ethnography, Sociology of islam, Islam in Europe, Contemporary Movements and Trends in Islam, and 27 moreMuslims in Europe, Islam, Reflexive Anthropology, Ethnography of Religion, Islamic movements (Anthropology Of Religion), Sociology of Islam (Sociology), Post-Communism, Islam in Britain, Islamic Movements and Political Islam, Islamic revival and reform movements, Muslims in Britain, Anthropology of Islam, Muslims, Jamaat Tabligh, Islamic Movements, Tablighi Jamaat, Islamic revivalism, Participant Observation, Deoband, Muslims in the West, Islam in the West, The dynamics of the networks of Islamic reformist movements, Muslims in Bulgaria and the Balkans, Muslims in Western Europe, Researching on Deoband, Anthropology of Religion, and Transnational Islamic Movement
Though Europe’s drive towards increasing secularity has often been judged as an inexorable reality, the influx of immigrant communities – Christian and otherwise – has transformed its religious landscape. New configurations of religion... more
Though Europe’s drive towards increasing secularity has often been judged as an inexorable reality, the influx of immigrant communities – Christian and otherwise – has transformed its religious landscape. New configurations of religion proliferate as the form and content of religious experience evolves with changing circumstances. Islam took root in Britain primarily due to the economic migrations arising from post-war labour shortages but it has nevertheless succeeded in establishing a robust infrastructure for itself which now boasts nearly 2000 mosques. Movements for Islamic revival, usually developed abroad in the context of colonial rule, were transplanted into the diaspora by early migrants seeking ways to negotiate their commitment to faith in a vastly different socio-cultural milieu. Yet these movements have today been appropriated by their offspring – second and third generation British-born Muslims – who seek to reconcile the tensions of a secular sociality, a counter-cultural religious praxis and an inherited ethnic culture. This paper draws upon extensive ethnographic fieldwork undertaken with the British branch of the Tablighi Jama’at (TJ), the world’s largest Muslim lay missionary movement, as part of the author’s doctoral thesis. It examines, through a complex prism of identity, diaspora and transnationalism, how the lived experiences of committed British-born TJ activists illuminate current debates about secularisation theory and also suggests ways in which Muslim experiences may ally more closely with the emergence of newer post-secular paradigms.
Research Interests:
The volume as a whole provides a welcome corrective to increasingly frequent rhetoric that pathologises young Muslims as either a threat to national security or a disgruntled underbelly of delinquents, dropouts and deadbeats. It also... more
The volume as a whole provides a welcome corrective to increasingly frequent rhetoric that pathologises young Muslims as either a threat to national security or a disgruntled underbelly of delinquents, dropouts and deadbeats. It also challenges the stereotypical characterisation of a monochrome British Muslim community inhabiting a rigid, static structure called Islam. But, alas, it seems the exorbitant price-tag will restrict its readership to those with access to university libraries. Read in conjunction with other recent publications, such as Maruta Herding’s Inventing the Muslim Cool or Shelina Janmohamed’s vivacious
Generation M, this book documents an important shift in intergenerational dynamics as hybridised modes of cultural expression drawing simultaneously upon multiple repertoires of lived experience develop organically in the Western Muslim diaspora. Alternatively, one also detects a basic synergy with the poignant yet provocative invective delivered by Afua Hirsch (2018) against the unspoken structures of racial and class hegemony that continue to permeate British society. A diaspora-born generation, clearly, has come of age amidst an aching vortex of questions concerning ethnicity, identity and belonging. The
contributions gathered in this volume shed light on how Muslim-inflected responses play out in the ordinary life experiences of young British citizens.
Generation M, this book documents an important shift in intergenerational dynamics as hybridised modes of cultural expression drawing simultaneously upon multiple repertoires of lived experience develop organically in the Western Muslim diaspora. Alternatively, one also detects a basic synergy with the poignant yet provocative invective delivered by Afua Hirsch (2018) against the unspoken structures of racial and class hegemony that continue to permeate British society. A diaspora-born generation, clearly, has come of age amidst an aching vortex of questions concerning ethnicity, identity and belonging. The
contributions gathered in this volume shed light on how Muslim-inflected responses play out in the ordinary life experiences of young British citizens.
Research Interests:
The W.W. Norton Company has developed something of a reputation for producing definitive anthologies; as a young undergraduate I vividly recall lugging around two hefty volumes of The Norton Anthology of English Literature over three... more
The W.W. Norton Company has developed something of a reputation for producing definitive anthologies; as a young undergraduate I vividly recall lugging around two hefty volumes of The Norton Anthology of English Literature over three tiring years. It was with some excitement then that I opened the Islam volume of the recently published Norton Anthology of World Religions. Could we expect the same canon-shaping selection of primary texts that capture, in this case, the lifeblood of Islamic literary production over 14 centuries condensed into a single, accessible, English-language volume? The answer, after some lengthy and very pleasant perusal, has transpired to be a resounding yes.
Research Interests: Islamic Law, Islamic Contemporary Studies, Islamic Philosophy, Islamic Education, Islamic Studies, and 10 moreIslamic History, Islam, History of Islamic Civilization, Islamic Intellectual History, Islamic History and Muslim Civilization, Quranic and Islamic Studies, Islamic Literature, Arabic and Islamic Studies, Religius and Islamic Studies, and Islamic teaching
Cottee’s book, in essence, is a moving and empirically rich collection of tales of human suffering. Beyond the intergenerational incomprehension hinted at by Farhad above, one also senses the basic tension of the autonomous... more
Cottee’s book, in essence, is a moving and empirically rich collection of tales of human suffering. Beyond the intergenerational incomprehension hinted at by Farhad above, one also senses the basic tension of the autonomous post-Enlightenment subject struggling against the structures and strictures of religious conformity. Yet the epiphany of disavowal proves to be a double-edged sword; the liberating wave of relief and exuberance (sometimes accompanied by bouts of gung-ho hedonism) reported by many respondents soon gives way to an aching farrago of angst. Beyond searing stabs of guilt (for the pain caused to loved ones), festering anger (for “a crushing awareness of lost time and missed [sexual] chances” (p. 68)), frustration (at ongoing inhibitions and damaged relationships) and residual anxiety (what if I’m wrong, after all?), the prospect of inhabiting a godless universe stripped of all metaphysical telos proves, for many respondents, daunting. Jean-Paul Sartre’s pithy maxim can well be paraphrased here: “[The ex-Muslim] is condemned to be free.” Or, in the anguished cry of Nietzsche’s madman: “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?” The apostate’s existential co-ordinates, which had once seemed so precise and immovable, are now scattered across the distant reaches of nameless galaxies.
Research Interests: Religion, Sociology of Religion, Atheism, Islam in Europe, Islamic Studies, and 14 moreIslam, Ethnography of Religion, Islam in Britain, Apostasy, Secularism, Islam and Secularism, New Atheism, Atheism/Secular Studies, muslims in Canada, British muslim identity, Deconversion, Islam in the West, Religious Apostasy, and Islam in Canada
‘What else could it be? It is an exotic which, though it may be artificially nurtured like some tropical plant in a hothouse, can never have the vitality it has on its native soil’ (p. 92). Thus did the Liverpool Review dismiss as no more... more
‘What else could it be? It is an exotic which, though it may be artificially nurtured like some tropical plant in a hothouse, can never have the vitality it has on its native soil’ (p. 92). Thus did the Liverpool Review dismiss as no more than an audacious cultural experiment the burgeoning community of Victorian Muslim converts that gathered around the iconic and iconoclastic Abdullah William Quilliam in 1890. The subsequent influx of substantial migrant communities into Britain has somewhat complicated matters, and expressions of British Islam today are tightly bound with the imports of foreign culture. Modern incarnations of the Liverpool Review’s verdict abound: a persistent strand of the polyvocal discourse that has exploded around the Muslim presence in Britain insists that a
commitment to Islam—and, by extension, the culture of the Orient it has historically been wedded to—undermines the patriotism expected of British subjects. Put differently, facing Makka to pray five times a day requires one to turn one’s back on Queen and country; or, in the stark dichotomization of the
Poet of Empire, Kipling: ‘East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.’ Identity, allegiance and belonging have thus crystallized into critical buzzwords through which diaspora communities are examined, and the evocative oxymoron captured in the title of this book assails today’s believer just as much as it did yesteryear’s convert.
commitment to Islam—and, by extension, the culture of the Orient it has historically been wedded to—undermines the patriotism expected of British subjects. Put differently, facing Makka to pray five times a day requires one to turn one’s back on Queen and country; or, in the stark dichotomization of the
Poet of Empire, Kipling: ‘East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.’ Identity, allegiance and belonging have thus crystallized into critical buzzwords through which diaspora communities are examined, and the evocative oxymoron captured in the title of this book assails today’s believer just as much as it did yesteryear’s convert.
Research Interests: British History, Islam in Europe, Modern British History, Religious Conversion, Nineteenth Century British History and Culture, and 15 moreHistory of Islam, Muslims in Europe, Conversion to Islam in the Ottoman Empire, British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), Religious Conversion and Converts in the Early Modern Mediterranean context, History of the British Empire, Islam in Britain, Islamic History and Muslim Civilization, Religious Conversions, Muslims in Britain, Conversion to Islam, White British Muslims, Islamic conversion, Western converts to Islam, and Muslims in the West
Few octogenarians command intellectual respect like Peter Berger. His prolific oeuvre, spanning half a century, includes several classics which have shaped both the sociology of knowledge and the sociology of religion. In the 1960s,... more
Few octogenarians command intellectual respect like Peter Berger. His prolific oeuvre, spanning half a century, includes several classics which have shaped both the sociology of knowledge and the sociology of religion. In the 1960s, Berger was a key proponent of secularisation, a theory which essentially posits that the constituent components of modernisation—rationality, bureaucratisation, and the emergence of social institutions from the shadow of ecclesiastical control—collectively tend towards religious decline. More recently, reflecting a broader shift in the discipline, Berger has recanted his earlier views, declaring them untenable in the face of global empirical evidence. If secularisation theory is not defensible, what should replace it? In this, his latest book, Berger sketches the rudiments of an alternate paradigm—rooted in the phenomenon of pluralism—and sets out to synthesise some of his earlier insights with the seemingly implacable verve of a global religious landscape.
...
In sum, this is an eminently readable attempt by a leading sociologist of religion theoretically to interrogate the contemporary religious landscape. The title derives from Nietzsche whose anguished forebodings over a century ago proclaimed a future of abandoned, desolate altars. What has instead transpired, maintains Berger, is a proliferation of altars, as the religious impulse refracted through the prism of modernity. Why this should be so will no doubt continue to exercise sociologists of religion for years to come.
...
In sum, this is an eminently readable attempt by a leading sociologist of religion theoretically to interrogate the contemporary religious landscape. The title derives from Nietzsche whose anguished forebodings over a century ago proclaimed a future of abandoned, desolate altars. What has instead transpired, maintains Berger, is a proliferation of altars, as the religious impulse refracted through the prism of modernity. Why this should be so will no doubt continue to exercise sociologists of religion for years to come.
Research Interests: Religion, Sociology, Sociology of Religion, Theory of Religion, Religious Pluralism, and 11 moreModernity, Multiple Modernities, Secularization, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, Secularisms and Secularities, Religion and Modernity, Pluralism, Islam and Secularism, Shmuel Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, and Peter Berger
“One must allow oneself to be bent out of shape. This is part of the pain of sociological field work, but also part of its craft.” (84) This slim yet pithy volume exercises the issues that arise when ethnographers of religion engage... more
“One must allow oneself to be bent out of shape. This is part of the pain of sociological field work, but also part of its craft.” (84)
This slim yet pithy volume exercises the issues that arise when ethnographers of religion engage explicitly with the personal and interpersonal nature of fieldwork and interrogate the intersection of their own identities, biographies and positionalities with the field. What does it mean to be “bent out of shape,” to experience that which is profoundly disconcerting yet equally real when attempting to grasp the Verstehen of one’s participants? How does it feel when one’s most cherished ideals and assumptions are challenged, even publicly ridiculed, by those one seeks to empathically understand? And how do I gauge the influence of my personal proclivities, academic socialisation and childhood religious experiences upon the interpretation of events that are unfolding before my eyes? These are some of the questions explored through a series of seven illuminating essays which retell specific field experiences with a reflexive eye.
This slim yet pithy volume exercises the issues that arise when ethnographers of religion engage explicitly with the personal and interpersonal nature of fieldwork and interrogate the intersection of their own identities, biographies and positionalities with the field. What does it mean to be “bent out of shape,” to experience that which is profoundly disconcerting yet equally real when attempting to grasp the Verstehen of one’s participants? How does it feel when one’s most cherished ideals and assumptions are challenged, even publicly ridiculed, by those one seeks to empathically understand? And how do I gauge the influence of my personal proclivities, academic socialisation and childhood religious experiences upon the interpretation of events that are unfolding before my eyes? These are some of the questions explored through a series of seven illuminating essays which retell specific field experiences with a reflexive eye.
Research Interests: Religion, Sociology of Religion, Anthropology, Ethnography, Qualitative methodology, and 23 moreQualitative Methods, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Fieldwork in Anthropology, Preaching, Reflexivity, Missiology and Mission Theology, Religious Conversion, Study of Religions, Ethnographic Fieldwork (Anthropology), Ethnography (Research Methodology), Qualitative Research, Reflexivity (Sociology), Qualitative Research Methods, Ethnographic fieldwork, Cultural Anthropology, Ethnography of Religion, Objectivity, Subjectivity, Conversion, Qualitative Methodologies, Proselytism, Anthropology of Religion, and Reflexivity In Research
South Asia’s encounter with Western colonialism preceded that of the Arab world, arguably rendering it more sensitive to the intellectual challenges implicit in political subjugation. Consequently, scholars of South Asian Islam, such as... more
South Asia’s encounter with Western colonialism preceded that of the Arab world, arguably rendering it more sensitive to the intellectual challenges implicit in political subjugation. Consequently, scholars of South Asian Islam, such as Francis Robinson, have highlighted its role historically more as an exporter than as an importer of reformist ideas, particularly during the decades of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The subject of this book, Shaykh Abu al-Hasan Ali Nadwi (1915–99), exemplifies both these tendencies through his life and works. First, he confronts head-on the challenges posed to Muslim civilization by Western cultural and political hegemony. Second, through a corpus of eloquent and passionate Arabic publications and frequent lecture tours abroad, he speaks to the trauma of a post-colonial Arab world still reeling with the shock of its inglorious place in the new global political order.
FULL BOOK REVIEW CAN BE ACCESSED HERE: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/h4ra9XG7a9gDYEs8Gn5A/full
FULL BOOK REVIEW CAN BE ACCESSED HERE: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/h4ra9XG7a9gDYEs8Gn5A/full
Research Interests: Islamic Contemporary Studies, Islamic Studies, Islamic History, Islam, Islam in India, and 27 moreIslam in South Asia, Islamic Thought & Philosophy, Contemporary Islamic Thought, Islam and the West, Islamic History and Muslim Civilization, Indian Muslims, Islamic revival and reform movements, Islamic Studies: Islam & Democray; Modern islamic Political thought;; Contemporary Islamic Political Thinkers (esp. of South Asa, Islamic Modernism in India & Pakistan, Arab nationalism, History of Islam; History of India/South Asia; The British Empire, South Asian Islam, Deobandi Islam, Ulama, LUCKNOW, Deoband, Ulama and their impact, History of Indian Islam, Arabic and Islamic Studies, Deobandi Islam in Pakistan and the Diaspora, Researching on Deoband, Islamic Scholarly Tradition, Ulama and Interfaith Relation, Islamic Thought and Theology, Deobandi Sunni Islamic Thought, Biographies of Islamic scholars,, and Indian Ulama
Murad’s Commentary on the Eleventh Contentions is a rare and profound book. It consists of 100 pithy aphorisms - termed "contentions" - on a diverse array of topics ranging through ethics, cosmology, metaphysics, theology, law and... more
Murad’s Commentary on the Eleventh Contentions is a rare and profound book. It consists of 100 pithy aphorisms - termed "contentions" - on a diverse array of topics ranging through ethics, cosmology, metaphysics, theology, law and history. Each contention is a terse distillation of Murad's often exquisitely crafted ruminations on a given matter followed by his own compressed elucidation (the commentary). Though sometimes abstruse and esoteric, the book weaves itself into a dense, multi-faceted tapestry of insights into a range of contemporary issues that concern the religious mind.
Research Interests: Islamic Contemporary Studies, Islamic Philosophy, Islamic Studies, Sufism, Muslim Minorities, and 43 moreContemporary Movements and Trends in Islam, Muslims in Europe, Islam, Contemporary Sufism, Muslim Converts / Reverts (Sociology), Muslim diasporas in Europe and the US, Religion and Modernity, Postsecularism (Sociology), Muslim Theology and Philosophy, Islamic Thought & Philosophy, Islamic Mysticism, Contemporary Islamic Thought, Islam & the West, Islam and the West, Islam in Britain, Islam and Modernity, Islamic Epistemology, Islamic Reformism, Modern Islamic Thought, Contemporary Islamic Studies, Islam and Secularism, Conversion to Islam, White British Muslims, Muslims, English and literature, Islamic studies, Cosmopolitan Sufism & Religiosity, Postsecular Philosophy, Postsecular theory, Western converts to Islam, Western Islam, Muslims in the West, Concept of Knowledge from the Western and Islamic Perspectives, Islam in the West, Muslim Philosophy, Muslims in Western Europe, Islamic Modernism, Islamic Scholarly Tradition, Postmodern Culture and Religion / Theology, Muslim Theology, Muslim Modernities, Islam and Postmodernism, Muslim philosophy and thought, and Contemporary Muslim society
This is a vivid and illuminating ethnographic account of an emerging force in contemporary Gambian social and religious life: the Tablīghī Jamā’at (TJ). Through the prism of five detailed biographical narratives, Janson evokes the... more
This is a vivid and illuminating ethnographic account of an emerging force in contemporary Gambian social and religious life: the Tablīghī Jamā’at (TJ). Through the prism of five detailed biographical narratives, Janson evokes the everyday lived experiences of TJ activists embedded in the socio-cultural matrix of the Gambia. Her central objective is to dissect the ways in which youth, Islam and modernity – as distinct analytical concepts – intersect and coalesce in the lives of young Gambians seeking paths to piety through a contested arena in which tribal and reformist strands of Islam vie for primacy. Sensitive yet scholarly, Janson’s presentation is laudable for the way in which her micro observations – the raw field data – are consistently sutured to broader theoretical frames and a comprehensive body of scholarship on the phenomenon of resurgent Islam in several international contexts. What transpires is a multi-layered work of depth and texture that makes an important contribution to our understanding of the ways in which young women and men, inhabiting an ambivalent postcolonial space caught in the orbit of globalisation, appropriate and internalise religious experience.
Research Interests: Islam in Africa, Africa, Islamic Contemporary Studies, West Africa, Sociology of islam, and 24 moreWomen and Gender Issues in Islam, Contemporary Movements and Trends in Islam, Islam, Ethnography of Religion, Islam (West Africa), Islam and women, Saba Mahmood, Islam and Modernity, Islamic revival and reform movements, Transnational Religious Networks, Women in Islam, Religious Revivals, Salafism, Islam and the Contemporary Youth Scene, The Gambia, Jamaat Tabligh, Gambia, Tablighi Jamaat, Islamic revivalism, Deoband, The dynamics of the networks of Islamic reformist movements, African Islam, Religious Revivalism, and Postcolonialism
In an incisive and pithy 160 pages, Coffey elaborates her basic premise that ethnographic fieldwork is an essentially human activity which cannot be divorced from the selfhood of the ethnographer. We inhabit the field we study, building... more
In an incisive and pithy 160 pages, Coffey elaborates her basic premise that ethnographic fieldwork is an essentially human activity which cannot be divorced from the selfhood of the ethnographer. We inhabit the field we study, building relationships, developing rapports and intimately binding our personal narratives to that of our social participants. Ethnography simultaneously informs and is informed by our sense of self. Employing the metaphor of a romantic love affair (Chapter 6), Coffey explores the deep emotional attachments which often develop between an ethnographer and their field, driving home the multiply experienced reality that ethnographic fieldwork does not occur in a vacuum, nor does the ethnographer occupy a realm of autonomous reality insulated from the effects of the field. Rather, in seeking to understand the social world of our participants, we are implicitly involved in recasting our understanding of ourselves: “In researching, constructing and writing the lives of others we are engaged in negotiating and writing ourselves" (pg. 47).
Research Interests: Sociology, Self and Identity, Ethnography, Qualitative methodology, Qualitative Methods, and 14 moreFieldwork in Anthropology, Identity (Culture), Reflexivity, Ethnographic Fieldwork (Anthropology), The Self, Ethnography (Research Methodology), Qualitative Research, Reflexivity (Sociology), Qualitative Research Methods, Reflexive Anthropology, Ethnographic fieldwork, Ethnographic Methods, Identity, and Qualitative Methodologies
This one-day conference brings together academics and activists to explore issues of leadership, authority and representation in British Muslim communities. Who speaks for British Muslims? How is authority construed, constructed and... more
This one-day conference brings together academics and activists to explore issues of leadership, authority and representation in British Muslim communities. Who speaks for British Muslims? How is authority construed, constructed and exercised in an age of mass media and the Internet? What internal and external factors shape leadership structures and modalities of representation for British Muslims living as a minority in a culturally Christian but largely secular social context? Where do leaders come from in a decentralised religious tradition lacking a priestly hierarchy? How do government discourses and media representations impact upon dynamics of leadership and authority in British Muslim communities?
This conference has been organised in conjunction with a special issue of the international journal Religions jointly edited by Professor Sophie Gilliat-Ray and Dr Riyaz Timol. Delegates may be invited to submit a paper for publication, subject to normal peer-review procedures, after the event. The deadline for final paper submissions is 25 April 2019.
This conference has been organised in conjunction with a special issue of the international journal Religions jointly edited by Professor Sophie Gilliat-Ray and Dr Riyaz Timol. Delegates may be invited to submit a paper for publication, subject to normal peer-review procedures, after the event. The deadline for final paper submissions is 25 April 2019.
Research Interests:
Researching issues ‘close to home’ is an increasingly prominent aspect of contemporary fieldwork and the complexity of (post)modern identities complicate traditional binaries of insider / outsider. The landscape of research with and about... more
Researching issues ‘close to home’ is an increasingly prominent aspect of contemporary fieldwork and the complexity of (post)modern identities complicate traditional binaries of insider / outsider. The landscape of research with and about British Muslims has seen reconfigurations in recent years with an increasing number of British Muslims conducting qualitative fieldwork with communities of which they are also members.
Reflexivity has been proposed as one way in which to manage the challenging experience of conducting research on a topic or in an environment where one has a personal stake. Even ostensible ‘outsiders’ are expected to map the impact of their identity and biography upon the field. This conference proposes to gather researchers involved in such enquiry to explore these issues from a range of cross-disciplinary perspectives.
We are pleased to confirm that the conference will host Professor Ron Geaves who will deliver the keynote lecture entitled ‘The 'death' pangs of the insider/outsider dichotomy in the study of religion.’
There will also be a range of papers presented exploring reflexivity and methodology in the study of British Muslims; please see the attached programme for a list of abstracts. If you have any questions or queries, please feel free to contact the organisers Riyaz Timol and Abdul-Azim Ahmed at [email protected].
Reflexivity has been proposed as one way in which to manage the challenging experience of conducting research on a topic or in an environment where one has a personal stake. Even ostensible ‘outsiders’ are expected to map the impact of their identity and biography upon the field. This conference proposes to gather researchers involved in such enquiry to explore these issues from a range of cross-disciplinary perspectives.
We are pleased to confirm that the conference will host Professor Ron Geaves who will deliver the keynote lecture entitled ‘The 'death' pangs of the insider/outsider dichotomy in the study of religion.’
There will also be a range of papers presented exploring reflexivity and methodology in the study of British Muslims; please see the attached programme for a list of abstracts. If you have any questions or queries, please feel free to contact the organisers Riyaz Timol and Abdul-Azim Ahmed at [email protected].
Research Interests: Anthropology, Social Research Methods and Methodology, Social Sciences, Research Methods and Methodology, Research Methodology, and 26 moreEthnography, Qualitative methodology, Qualitative Methods, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Fieldwork in Anthropology, Reflexivity, Ethnographic Fieldwork (Anthropology), Qualitative Research, Muslim Minorities, Reflexivity (Sociology), Insider research (Social Sciences), Insider/Outsider research teams, Muslims in Europe, Qualitative Research Methods, Ethnographic fieldwork, Cultural Anthropology, Ethnography of Religion, Insider research, Islam in Britain, Fieldwork, Muslims in Britain, Emic and etic, Outsider insider methodology, Indigenous Ethnology, Anthropology of Religion, and Reflexivity In Research
Public discourse about Muslims in Britain often gravitates to concerns around ‘securitisation’ or ‘integration’, frames which impinge all-too-frequently upon academic study also. This public seminar seeks to shift this narrative by... more
Public discourse about Muslims in Britain often gravitates to concerns around ‘securitisation’ or ‘integration’, frames which impinge all-too-frequently upon academic study also. This public seminar seeks to shift this narrative by examining the religious lives of devout young Muslims affiliated with the transnational Islamic movement Tablighi Jama’at (TJ). By juxtaposing their spiritual practices with Third Order members of the Society of Saint Francis (who live not in enclosed communities, but in society), it foregrounds the strategies and mechanisms through which religious commitment is maintained by devout believers in overwhelmingly secular social contexts. Drawing on St Francis of Assisi’s own conversion from soldier to saint, the concept of ‘intra-religious conversion’ is unpacked as a common trope of TJ experience in Britain today. Further, the relationship of the founder of each movement (Shaykh Muhammad Ilyas Kandhalwi and St Francis) to the founder of the religion (the Prophet Muhammad and Jesus respectively) is examined to highlight convergences and tensions sometimes arising between members of the group and the wider community of the faithful. Lastly, the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience taken by Franciscans are explored in light of the reformist ethos of South Asian Sufism from which the Tablighi Jama’at emerged.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This session comprises of three elements. First, Sufism is located within the framework of the Islamic religion utilising the well-known 'Hadith of Gabriel' and the 'Hadith of the Optional Prayers'. Students are introduced to the three... more
This session comprises of three elements. First, Sufism is located within the framework of the Islamic religion utilising the well-known 'Hadith of Gabriel' and the 'Hadith of the Optional Prayers'. Students are introduced to the three interrelated dimensions of imaan, islaam and ihsaan and shown how contemporary Sufism often self-identifies as an expression of the latter. Secondly, the Sufi roots of the Tablighi Jama'at (TJ) – an important yet under-researched global expression of contemporary Muslim spirituality – are examined including its unremittingly anti-political stance and quietist vision of Muslim reform. Its historical development in British India is juxtaposed to the emergence of various 'Islamist' movements animating the ummah in the wake of the 1924 fall of the Ottoman caliphate, and its international spread briefly mapped. Thirdly, students are provided a window into lived experiences of contemporary TJ spirituality culled from the speaker's recently completed doctoral fieldwork with the British branch of the movement. TJ emerges as a powerful vehicle of 'intra-religious conversion' in modern Britain premised upon a series of mosque-based retreats that operate on the interface of the local and the global. This phenomenon is related, in conclusion, to parallels within Christian tradition and analysed through the conceptual lens of the sociology of religion.
Research Interests: Sociology of Religion, Contemporary Spirituality, Spirituality, Islam in Europe, Islamic Studies, and 16 moreSufism, Contemporary Movements and Trends in Islam, Muslims in Europe, Islam, Contemporary Sufism, Islam in South Asia, Islam and Christianity: relations and exchange of ideas, Islam in Britain, Islamic Movements and Political Islam, Islamic revival and reform movements, Muslims in Britain, Islam and Christianity, Jamaat Tabligh, Tablighi Jamaat, Islamic revivalism, and Islam and Sufism in South Asia
Peter L. Berger (1929-2017) was one of the most influential sociologists of the twentieth century. His sizeable oeuvre includes several classics such as The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge named... more
Peter L. Berger (1929-2017) was one of the most influential sociologists of the twentieth century. His sizeable oeuvre includes several classics such as The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge named by the International Sociological Association in 1998 as the twentieth century’s fifth most influential work of sociology. This session examines Berger’s work on religion and its relevance for the study of contemporary Islam. It explores the three-pronged process through which he suggests reality is socially constructed and deploys the concepts of primary and secondary socialisation to examine identity construction among British Muslims. Berger’s life-long fascination with the sociological dynamics of pluralism is also highlighted, especially the idea that a serious exposure to alternative world-views undermines the certainty of one’s own. His work on secularisation is critically examined and students are introduced to the way in which his personal faith commitment led to a genre of books that interface sociology and theology.
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This session examines the processes through which academic knowledge production takes place about Muslim communities in Britain using, as a case study, the speaker's recently completed PhD on the British branch of the transnational... more
This session examines the processes through which academic knowledge production takes place about Muslim communities in Britain using, as a case study, the speaker's recently completed PhD on the British branch of the transnational Islamic movement the Tablighi Jama'at (TJ). What kind of data is generated though a social scientific approach and how do ethnographic research methods provide intimate portrayals of subjective life experience? What are the techniques through which data is analysed to reach broad, overarching theoretical conclusions about the community under study? And what are the methodological pitfalls that a researcher should be conscious of when attempting to navigate a tightrope between personal faith and rigorous social science? All these themes are unpacked in relation to the religiosity of modern TJ activists in Britain.
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Keynote lecture delivered at the MBRN Gender and Muslim Spaces Conference at the University of Leeds
Research Interests: Religion, Sociology of Religion, Gender Studies, Anthropology of Dress, Ethnography, and 31 moreGender and Sexuality, Fieldwork in Anthropology, Reflexivity, Gender, Islam in Europe, Ethnographic Fieldwork (Anthropology), Islamic Studies, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, Muslim Minorities, Contemporary Movements and Trends in Islam, Reflexivity (Sociology), Muslims in Europe, Islam, Dress and identity, Ethnographic fieldwork, Ethnography of Religion, Gender and Islam, Islam in Britain, Islamic Movements and Political Islam, Gender Issues, Salafism, Jamaat Tabligh, Deobandi Islam, Tablighi Jamaat, Contemporary Salafism, Deoband, Muslims in Western Europe, Deobandi Islam in Pakistan and the Diaspora, Researching on Deoband, Anthropology of Religion, and Contemporary Muslim society
In this public lecture delivered at Cardiff University’s Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK, Riyaz Timol presents the findings of his doctoral research on the Tablighi Jama’at (TJ) in modern Britain. Though widely regarded as the... more
In this public lecture delivered at Cardiff University’s Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK, Riyaz Timol presents the findings of his doctoral research on the Tablighi Jama’at (TJ) in modern Britain. Though widely regarded as the largest movement of grassroots Islamic revival in the world, TJ remains significantly under researched. Based on extensive recent ethnographic fieldwork with the British branch of TJ, Riyaz explains its appeal to second and third generation Muslims raised in a predominantly secular sociocultural milieu.
Link to the lecture: Spiritual Wayfarers in a Secular Age: The Tablighi Jama’at in Modern Britain
Link to the lecture: Spiritual Wayfarers in a Secular Age: The Tablighi Jama’at in Modern Britain
Research Interests: Sociology of Religion, Ethnography, Islam in Europe, Religious Conversion, Ethnography (Research Methodology), and 25 moreIntergenerational Relationships, Muslim Minorities, Contemporary Movements and Trends in Islam, Muslims in Europe, Ethnographic fieldwork, Ethnography of Religion, Islamic movements (Anthropology Of Religion), Islam in Britain, Islamic Movements and Political Islam, Indian Muslims, Islamic revival and reform movements, Conversion, Conversion to Islam, Jamaat Tabligh, Deobandi Islam, Tablighi Jamaat, Islamic revivalism, Deoband, Muslims in the West, Religious conversion and conversion to Islam, Muslims in Bulgaria and the Balkans, Muslims in Western Europe, Deobandi Islam in Pakistan and the Diaspora, Researching on Deoband, and Religius and Islamic Studies
What does the Covid-19 debate about mosque closures tell us about religious authority in British Islam?
https://www.britishmuslimstudies.com/post/mosque-closures-and-religious-authority-in-the-british-muslim-community-amidst-covid-19
https://www.britishmuslimstudies.com/post/mosque-closures-and-religious-authority-in-the-british-muslim-community-amidst-covid-19
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Food. We all need it and we all eat it. But what does it tell us about who we are? This was one of many questions I explored in recent research focused on the evolution of Muslim identity in the West.
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I first discovered Peter Berger late in 2014. I’d passed the halfway point of my PhD and was busy generating reams of ethnographic data dripping with ‘thick description.’ My supervisor at this point was insisting I need to find a... more
I first discovered Peter Berger late in 2014. I’d passed the halfway point of my PhD and was busy generating reams of ethnographic data dripping with ‘thick description.’ My supervisor at this point was insisting I need to find a ‘theoretical hook’ on which to hang all this lovely data. So I cast my net around in the sociology of religion hoping it would dredge something up. It was Woodhead and Heelas’ excellent edited anthology Religion in Modern Times that first sparked my interest. Nestled amid excerpts from all the key thinkers in the discipline, Berger’s incisive prose struck a chord. So I followed up by procuring the source books from which his extracts were drawn. And, from that point on, I was hooked.
Research Interests: Religion, Comparative Religion, Sociology, Sociology of Religion, Ethnography, and 11 moreSociology of Knowledge, Islamic Contemporary Studies, Sociology of islam, Islam in Europe, Islamic Studies, Sociology of Islam (Sociology), Religious Studies, Islam and Secularism, Peter Berger, Peter L Berger, and Religius and Islamic Studies
In late 2012, I commenced a PhD at Cardiff University’s Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK as a fortunate recipient of Jameel funding. Last week I emerged out of the other side relatively unscathed and with, as far as I can tell, my... more
In late 2012, I commenced a PhD at Cardiff University’s Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK as a fortunate recipient of Jameel funding. Last week I emerged out of the other side relatively unscathed and with, as far as I can tell, my sanity intact. In this short blog piece, I reflect upon my experiences by sharing Six Points for a Successful PhD.
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Riyaz Timol reflects on the life and achievements of Hafiz Patel, one of the most influential Muslims in Britain who passed away in February 2016.
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April 23 marks National Shakespeare Day, an annual celebration commemorating the life of one of the world's greatest poets and playwrights - William Shakespeare. In 2011, 1st Ethical Charitable Trust commissioned a research paper... more
April 23 marks National Shakespeare Day, an annual celebration commemorating the life of one of the world's greatest poets and playwrights - William Shakespeare. In 2011, 1st Ethical Charitable Trust commissioned a research paper highlighting the significance of his life and works for British Muslims.
Research Interests: Shakespeare, Islam in Europe, Muslims in Europe, Islam and the West, Islam in Britain, and 12 moreOthello, Muslims in Britain, Islam and English Literature, William Shakespeare, British muslim identity, Shakespeare in the Arab worls, English and literature, Islamic studies, Globe theatre, Trying to share ideas and meet people interested in the image of Islam in English Literature, Islam in the West, Islam in English Literature, and integrating Islamic values in teaching of English
Though frequently cited as the world’s largest transnational Islamic revivalist movement of modern times, the Tablighi Jama’at (TJ) has paradoxically received only limited academic attention. Key reasons for this are usually identified... more
Though frequently cited as the world’s largest transnational Islamic revivalist movement of modern times, the Tablighi Jama’at (TJ) has paradoxically received only limited academic attention. Key reasons for this are usually identified in the movement’s long-standing aversion to publicity and its avowedly apolitical stance. Based on unprecedented ethnographic fieldwork recently undertaken with the British branch of the movement, this paper interrogates the movement’s reformist ethos which, rather than engaging with structures of secular governance, seeks instead to cultivate a pious selfhood bringing about social transformation through an unceasing commitment to self-reformation. Deriving insights from fieldwork conducted in France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria on an extended TJ outing [khuruj], the paper argues that the movement’s normative praxis functions to unshackle Islamic conceptualisations of the sacred from their traditional anchors, both spatial (e.g. the mosque) and temporal (e.g. Ramadan), through the activities of itinerant groups out ‘in the Path of Allah.’ Most significantly though, it is the traveller’s journey of self-transformation that constitutes the movement’s implacable core dynamic. In conclusion, international findings are triangulated with interviews conducted in a single Lancashire mosque to explore reasons for TJ’s success in the highly individualised societies of late modernity.
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Sociology of Religion, Sociology of islam, Secularization, Secularisms and Secularities, Islamic movements (Anthropology Of Religion), and 7 moreSociology of Islam (Sociology), Islamic revival and reform movements, Islam and Secularism, Jamaat Tabligh, Tablighi Jamaat, Islamic revivalism, and Peter Berger
Study of conversion has long been a staple of the sociology of religion, particularly in relation to sects, cults or New Religious Movements. While conversion to Islam has been examined from both sociological and historical perspectives,... more
Study of conversion has long been a staple of the sociology of religion, particularly in relation to sects, cults or New Religious Movements. While conversion to Islam has been examined from both sociological and historical perspectives, extant studies focus on non-Muslims entering the faith; the phenomenon of intra-religious conversion therefore remains under-theorised. By this is meant a shift in orientation within Islam which sees a nominal form of religious attachment supplanted by passionate devotion. Rooted in the concepts of primary and secondary socialisation outlined in Berger and Luckmann's The Social Construction of Reality, this paper presents a novel theory which anatomises the mechanics through which this phenomenon occurs in the context of contemporary European Islam. Drawing upon extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted with the British branch of the Tablighi Jama'at – frequently cited as the largest movement for Islamic renewal in the world – as part of the author's doctoral thesis, the paper observes that though conversion is often an intensely private experience it can reverberate in the public domain in a myriad of unexpected ways. In particular, the paper argues that intra-religious conversion represents for British-born Muslims a recommitment to those core ethno-religious values administered during the primary socialisation of their childhood and a concomitant shift away from more secular values internalised during secondary socialisations into the wider British collective conscience – a process often manifested through the beard or hijab. Finally, this paper examines the ways in which intra-religious conversion intersects with secularisation theory in the context of Muslim minorities in Europe.
Research Interests:
Paper abstract (200 words): The Tablighi Jama'at (TJ) is frequently cited as the largest movement of Muslim renewal in the world yet, paradoxically, it is little known outside the Muslim community and remains severely under-researched.... more
Paper abstract (200 words): The Tablighi Jama'at (TJ) is frequently cited as the largest movement of Muslim renewal in the world yet, paradoxically, it is little known outside the Muslim community and remains severely under-researched. The British branch of the movement developed in the context of mass economic immigration from former colonies following World War II and extant academic studies, notably that of Sikand in the 1990s, assert that the movement's modus operandi remains inextricably intertwined with South Asian culture. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork undertaken recently with British TJ as part of the author's doctoral thesis, this paper examines ways in which the movement is being appropriated and indigenized by second and third generation British-born Muslims raised in predominantly secular socio-cultural milieus. Distinct shifts in relation to the cultural identity markers of language, dress and food are identified and the ways in which contemporary British-born TJ activists engage with the social structures of mainstream British society while maintaining a commitment to their religious activism are examined. The paper also explores the extent to which TJ has managed to penetrate non South Asian Muslim communities resident in Britain and tentatively explores future trajectories of the movement, particularly in the face of current socio-political pressures.
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Research Interests: Sufism, Indian Sufism, Contemporary Sufism, Islam in South Asia, Sufism in the West, and 10 moreIslamic revival and reform movements, Jamaat Tabligh, Deobandi Islam, Tablighi Jamaat, Islamic revivalism, Islam and Sufism in South Asia, Deoband, The dynamics of the networks of Islamic reformist movements, Deobandi Islam in Pakistan and the Diaspora, and Researching on Deoband
Research Interests: Secularization, Muslims in Europe, Secularisms and Secularities, Islam in Britain, sociology of religion, Secularization, and 9 moreIslamic revival and reform movements, Secularism, Islam and Secularism, Muslims in Britain, Post-Secular Theory, Jamaat Tabligh, Tablighi Jamaat, Islamic revivalism, and Islam (Globally and In the UK)
The classical trajectory of ethnographic enquiry sees an alien ethnographer enter the generative habitus of another people to understand and relay it through a 'secondary socialisation'(1) into their life world. During the course of this... more
The classical trajectory of ethnographic enquiry sees an alien ethnographer enter the generative habitus of another people to understand and relay it through a 'secondary socialisation'(1) into their life world. During the course of this immersion, the ethnographer must take care not to ally his perspectives too closely with that of his participants' or risk "going native". The 'primary socialisation'(1) of the indigenous researcher, on the other hand, has generated a habitus which converges with that of the people she wishes to study. This requires the cultivation of an analytic apparatus which renders the familiar as strange so as to allow the ethnographer to critically engage with the taken for granted realities of the setting. This is not inherently problematic. The end point of both indigenous and exogenous researchers is the same: the cultivation of a delicately balanced poise on the tightrope between strangeness and familiarity which allows sufficient physical proximity to the life worlds of the researched to plumb the depths of the esoteric meanings of their culture yet which maintains sufficient critical distance to allow a theoretical interrogation of that culture. The exogenous researcher focusses on the former; the indigenous the latter - each constructing a differing range of methodological apparatus to arrive at the same goal. This paper shares my practical experiences of ‘walking this tightrope’ during the course of doctoral fieldwork undertaken with the Muslim missionary group, the Tablighi Jama’at, in modern Britain.
1 See Berger, Peter, and Thomas Luckmann. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. London: Penguin Books, 1966.
1 See Berger, Peter, and Thomas Luckmann. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. London: Penguin Books, 1966.
Research Interests: Anthropology, Social Sciences, Ethnography, Qualitative methodology, Qualitative Methods, and 22 moreSocial and Cultural Anthropology, Fieldwork in Anthropology, Reflexivity, Ethnography (Research Methodology), Reflexivity (Sociology), Insider/Outsider research teams, Qualitative Research Methods, Reflexive Anthropology, Ethnographic fieldwork, Ethnography of Religion, Ethnographic Methods, Insider research, Muslims in Britain, Emic and etic, Jamaat Tabligh, Deobandi Islam, Tablighi Jamaat, Deoband, Outsider insider methodology, Deobandi Islam in Pakistan and the Diaspora, Researching on Deoband, and Anthropology of Religion
Fifteen years ago an outpouring of new academic material asserted the value of being an insider in religious research. Conventional assumptions that linked objectivity with outsider status were challenged. This valuable burst of... more
Fifteen years ago an outpouring of new academic material asserted the value of being an insider in religious research. Conventional assumptions that linked objectivity with outsider status were challenged. This valuable burst of scholarship worked hard to critique the kind of research that preceded it, where faith or identity was seen to compromise research values, and undermine integrity and rigour. We propose a 'lightning' discussion session to interrogate the legacy of the shift towards practitioner-research with religious-spiritual-magical-secular communities. Do we now find ourselves in a position where integrity and rigour are questioned by either academics or practitioners unless the researcher takes an explicitly insider position (or at least demonstrates a faith, cf Edith Turner)? Such questions remain critical and salient. Further to this we ask how the insider/outsider debate plays out when research is not examining the processes of faith and belief, but broader social, historical and political concerns.
A thorough discussion about the nubbly problems of 'belonging' in religious research across disciplinary boundaries will be generated by short presentations by Katie Aston (Goldsmiths), Helen Cornish (Goldsmiths), Aimee Joyce (Goldsmiths), Fiona Bowie (Kings College London), Jo Bryant (Independent researcher), George Chryssides (University of Birmingham), Amanda van Eck (Inform, LSE), Yafiah Randall (University of Winchester) and Riyaz Timol (Cardiff University).
Roundtable discussion led by Helen Cornish, Katie Aston, Aimee Joyce (Goldsmiths).
A thorough discussion about the nubbly problems of 'belonging' in religious research across disciplinary boundaries will be generated by short presentations by Katie Aston (Goldsmiths), Helen Cornish (Goldsmiths), Aimee Joyce (Goldsmiths), Fiona Bowie (Kings College London), Jo Bryant (Independent researcher), George Chryssides (University of Birmingham), Amanda van Eck (Inform, LSE), Yafiah Randall (University of Winchester) and Riyaz Timol (Cardiff University).
Roundtable discussion led by Helen Cornish, Katie Aston, Aimee Joyce (Goldsmiths).
Research Interests:
The Tablighi Jama’at is widely regarded as the largest movement of grassroots Muslim renewal in the world, with its annual convocations in Pakistan and Bangladesh attracting several million participants each. Originating amidst the rural... more
The Tablighi Jama’at is widely regarded as the largest movement of grassroots Muslim renewal in the world, with its annual convocations in Pakistan and Bangladesh attracting several million participants each. Originating amidst the rural peasantry of early C20th Northern India, it rapidly spread in a few decades to over 100 countries from Fiji to Finland. Yet the modalities through which it transmits and embeds itself into new socio-cultural milieux have received but scant academic attention. Building upon existing scholarship which traces the international spread of TJ, this paper argues that it was through allying itself with widespread South Asian diaspora communities that TJ gained footholds in many new lands. Yet it would be wrong to assume that its existence is constrained to those communities. Citing specific case studies, this paper presents an innovative new framework for understanding the way in which TJ is appropriated and interpreted by myriad new populations.