... With this profession of faith Javanese Muslims acknow-ledge a relationship with the internati... more ... With this profession of faith Javanese Muslims acknow-ledge a relationship with the international community even while insisting upon the distinctiveness and integrity of their own hybird tradition. ... Page 6. 502 Julia D. Howell casual Muslims. ...
This article examines the impulsion that ritually patterned emotion can impart to Islamic movemen... more This article examines the impulsion that ritually patterned emotion can impart to Islamic movements in late modern settings, focusing on a new type of revival activity that has become sensationally popular over the last decade in Southeast Asia: mass prayer rallies featuring long braces of rousing sung prayers (salawat) and litanies (zikir). While much of the literature on social movements has sought to explain mobilization by identifying cognitively framed interests underlying participation, this article recognizes the complex interplays of ideation and affect and moves the analysis of emotion beyond the mere identification of cultural categories through emotion is expressed. Contrasting the novel renderings of salawat prayers in the new rally settings to traditional usages, and to the motivational impulsion of another highly popular revival ritual practice, Qur’an memorization as analyzed by Gade (2004), the article models an extension of emotion studies that attends to the psychophysiological shaping of affect through bodily ritual performance as it interacts with the particularities of cultural shaping and social context. Further, it identifies the distinctive ways in which the mass prayer rallies cater to the participation proclivities typical of Muslims and others caught up in the individualizing currents of highly fluid late-modern societies.
This chapter examines contrasting usages of a core Sufi ritual, ‘remembrance’ of God using repeti... more This chapter examines contrasting usages of a core Sufi ritual, ‘remembrance’ of God using repetitive litanies (dzikr). These litanies are composed of phrases from the Qur’an and are deployed with the intention of bringing God more and more constantly to mind, and in so doing ‘cleansing’ the ‘heart’ of base desires. In Islam, the use of these litanies has been perennially associated with the heroic quest for mystical awareness of God in Sufi orders. However, dzikr litanies are also recited as part of everyday practice simply as modest efforts at enriching the obligatory five daily prayers (sholat wajib) with a deeper inward focus and sense of intimacy with God. Dzikr and other Sufi practices have ancient lineages (their advocates say going back to the Prophet himself), but of interest here are the places they have found in Indonesia’s Islamic revival of the last thirty to forty years, and the different ways in which they work to support religious recommitment, which, as Bayat (2007) has shown, is the hallmark of Islamic revival around the world. This chapter illustrate the diversity in usages of dzikr litanies by Sufi orders (tarekat) and in non-tarekat groups and the ‘emotion regimes’ commonly associated with them. It shows that in mass rally and mass-media ministries where dzikr is used, the patterning of litany recitations and their rhetorical framings serve to amplify emotions drawn from everyday life experience, refocusing them upon the religious object (the Prophet and his family, and ultimately, Allah). In contrast, in the more intimate settings of the traditional Sufi order examined, the patterning of the litany recitations and the instructions framing them offer practitioners the possibility of moving beyond everyday emotions of remorse, repentance and love (such as known from family and romantic experience) into non-ordinary subjective states where (as the classical Sufi literature leads us to expect) self-awareness is muted or effaced, and ordinary emotion words, in retrospect, less often seem applicable. The words of the litany, then, are used to transcend words, sometimes successfully.
The author extends the comparative analysis of religion in late modernity beyond its place of ori... more The author extends the comparative analysis of religion in late modernity beyond its place of origin in North Atlantic Christian-heritage countries to the Muslim world, asking whether processes of industrial and post-industrial change that have intensified religious individualization and the erosion of the parish-based religious community in the early-developer countries have stimulated similar transformations in the social forms of religious life in the later-developing Muslim-heritage countries as well. Analysis of a newly salient type of religious mobilization in Muslim Indonesia – mass audience religious revival (dakwah) ministries promoted through televangelism and mass prayer rallies – shows that key features of late-modern North Atlantic religiosity, including seeker spirituality, fluidity of participation, the importance of religious experience, the prominence of lay leaders and preference for an immanent, loving God, are also evident in these new Asian Islamic mobilizations.
Full title: ‘Calling’ and ‘Training’: Role Innovation and Religious De-differentiation in Commer... more Full title: ‘Calling’ and ‘Training’: Role Innovation and Religious De-differentiation in Commercialised Indonesian Islam.
Abstract: This article explores parallels between emergent Islamic popular culture in the commercial arena in Indonesia and popular religion propagated through the mass media in Europe and North America. Focusing on two emergent types of emicly distinguished but eticly overlapping lay religious roles, that of the da’i (lay preacher) and the ‘trainer’, it shows how borrowing from globally disseminated genres of secular culture by Islamic lay leaders in the commercial arena in Indonesia partially blurs the boundaries between religiously marked and unmarked communications, despite the popularity there of Islamicly marked dress styles and consumables. This is suggestive of a similar, if partial, de-differentiation of the religious and other communication spheres in Indonesia such as Hubert Knoblauch found in Europe.
However, as in his reading of European popular religion, it does not further imply Weberian ‘disenchantment’, since leading exemplars of Indonesian Islamic commercialised ‘preaching’ and ‘training’, such as those examined in case material presented here, still focus consumers on the transcendent, while those proselytisers yet work to overcome the compartmentalisation of Indonesian selves in their differentiated modern society.
This chapter focuses on Sufi currents within the contemporary Islamic revival movement in Southea... more This chapter focuses on Sufi currents within the contemporary Islamic revival movement in Southeast Asia. It surveys the variety of Sufi-inflected renewal initiatives, covering: elite urban Sufism that fosters highly autonomous forms of individualised spiritual striving and progressive understandings of Islam’s canonical texts; adaptations of the Sufi heritage in religious orders (tarekat) located in traditional but rapidly modernising Islamic school complexes (pesantren); and Sufistic Islam that is conservative but highly produced for mass audiences as television programming and new-style outdoor rallies.
Surveying this contemporary variety of elite and popular Sufi-inflected Islam, the chapter demonstrates how, despite their derivation from a tradition concerned with mystical awareness, latter-day Sufi movements are not ineluctably otherworldly. Sufi ritual and ethical practices, in their numerous contemporary reworkings, uniformly promote active engagement in the world of work and family life. And important instances of Sufi revivalism actually encourage the adoption of moral disciplines suited to strongly rationalised modern social forms. They are thus reminiscent of Weber’s ‘innerworldly asceticism’, to which Turner has also found parallels in rival, and often hostile, late twentieth and twenty-first century scripturalist Islamic reform.
... FOLK TALES FROM K.AMMU (VOLUME 5) Kristina Lindcll, Jan-Ojvind Swahn and Damrong Tayanin 67. ... more ... FOLK TALES FROM K.AMMU (VOLUME 5) Kristina Lindcll, Jan-Ojvind Swahn and Damrong Tayanin 67. ISLAM AND POLITICS IN AFGHANISTAN Asta Olesen 68. EXEMPLARY CENTRE, ADMINISTRATIVE PERIPHERY Hans Antlov 69. ...
Sufism and the 'Modern' in Islam, edited by Martin van Bruiness... more Sufism and the 'Modern' in Islam, edited by Martin van Bruinessen and Julia Day Howell, gives full attention to the influence of modernity upon the devotional, spiritual and mystical dimensions of Islam, namely, Sufism. The book offers a broad view of a socio-historical context of ...
Conceptualizations of commitment to reli~ous organizations that credit non-ordinary experi. e,u:e... more Conceptualizations of commitment to reli~ous organizations that credit non-ordinary experi. e,u:es as sources of intrinsic'isatisfaction areas yet weakly developed. This poses a problem lar the stucly of those NRMs that market themselves specifically as facilitators of non. ...
"Sufism has not only survived into the twenty-first century but has experienced a significant res... more "Sufism has not only survived into the twenty-first century but has experienced a significant resurgence throughout the Muslim world. "Sufism and the 'Modern' in Islam" offers refreshing new perspectives on this phenomenon, demonstrating surprising connections between Sufism and Muslim reformist currents, and the vital presence of Sufi ideas and practices in all spheres of life. Contrary to earlier theories of the modernization of Muslim societies, Sufi influence on the political, economic and intellectual life of contemporary Muslim societies has been considerable. Although less noticed than the resurgence of radical Islam, Sufi orders and related movements involve considerably larger numbers of followers, even among the modern urban middle classes. This innovative study brings together new comparative and interdisciplinary research to show how Sufis have responded to modernization and globalization and how various currents of Islamic reform and Sufism have interacted.
Offering fascinating new insights into the pervasive Sufi influence on modern Islamic religiosity and contemporary political and economic life, this book raises important questions about Islam in the age of urbanism and mass communications."
... With this profession of faith Javanese Muslims acknow-ledge a relationship with the internati... more ... With this profession of faith Javanese Muslims acknow-ledge a relationship with the international community even while insisting upon the distinctiveness and integrity of their own hybird tradition. ... Page 6. 502 Julia D. Howell casual Muslims. ...
This article examines the impulsion that ritually patterned emotion can impart to Islamic movemen... more This article examines the impulsion that ritually patterned emotion can impart to Islamic movements in late modern settings, focusing on a new type of revival activity that has become sensationally popular over the last decade in Southeast Asia: mass prayer rallies featuring long braces of rousing sung prayers (salawat) and litanies (zikir). While much of the literature on social movements has sought to explain mobilization by identifying cognitively framed interests underlying participation, this article recognizes the complex interplays of ideation and affect and moves the analysis of emotion beyond the mere identification of cultural categories through emotion is expressed. Contrasting the novel renderings of salawat prayers in the new rally settings to traditional usages, and to the motivational impulsion of another highly popular revival ritual practice, Qur’an memorization as analyzed by Gade (2004), the article models an extension of emotion studies that attends to the psychophysiological shaping of affect through bodily ritual performance as it interacts with the particularities of cultural shaping and social context. Further, it identifies the distinctive ways in which the mass prayer rallies cater to the participation proclivities typical of Muslims and others caught up in the individualizing currents of highly fluid late-modern societies.
This chapter examines contrasting usages of a core Sufi ritual, ‘remembrance’ of God using repeti... more This chapter examines contrasting usages of a core Sufi ritual, ‘remembrance’ of God using repetitive litanies (dzikr). These litanies are composed of phrases from the Qur’an and are deployed with the intention of bringing God more and more constantly to mind, and in so doing ‘cleansing’ the ‘heart’ of base desires. In Islam, the use of these litanies has been perennially associated with the heroic quest for mystical awareness of God in Sufi orders. However, dzikr litanies are also recited as part of everyday practice simply as modest efforts at enriching the obligatory five daily prayers (sholat wajib) with a deeper inward focus and sense of intimacy with God. Dzikr and other Sufi practices have ancient lineages (their advocates say going back to the Prophet himself), but of interest here are the places they have found in Indonesia’s Islamic revival of the last thirty to forty years, and the different ways in which they work to support religious recommitment, which, as Bayat (2007) has shown, is the hallmark of Islamic revival around the world. This chapter illustrate the diversity in usages of dzikr litanies by Sufi orders (tarekat) and in non-tarekat groups and the ‘emotion regimes’ commonly associated with them. It shows that in mass rally and mass-media ministries where dzikr is used, the patterning of litany recitations and their rhetorical framings serve to amplify emotions drawn from everyday life experience, refocusing them upon the religious object (the Prophet and his family, and ultimately, Allah). In contrast, in the more intimate settings of the traditional Sufi order examined, the patterning of the litany recitations and the instructions framing them offer practitioners the possibility of moving beyond everyday emotions of remorse, repentance and love (such as known from family and romantic experience) into non-ordinary subjective states where (as the classical Sufi literature leads us to expect) self-awareness is muted or effaced, and ordinary emotion words, in retrospect, less often seem applicable. The words of the litany, then, are used to transcend words, sometimes successfully.
The author extends the comparative analysis of religion in late modernity beyond its place of ori... more The author extends the comparative analysis of religion in late modernity beyond its place of origin in North Atlantic Christian-heritage countries to the Muslim world, asking whether processes of industrial and post-industrial change that have intensified religious individualization and the erosion of the parish-based religious community in the early-developer countries have stimulated similar transformations in the social forms of religious life in the later-developing Muslim-heritage countries as well. Analysis of a newly salient type of religious mobilization in Muslim Indonesia – mass audience religious revival (dakwah) ministries promoted through televangelism and mass prayer rallies – shows that key features of late-modern North Atlantic religiosity, including seeker spirituality, fluidity of participation, the importance of religious experience, the prominence of lay leaders and preference for an immanent, loving God, are also evident in these new Asian Islamic mobilizations.
Full title: ‘Calling’ and ‘Training’: Role Innovation and Religious De-differentiation in Commer... more Full title: ‘Calling’ and ‘Training’: Role Innovation and Religious De-differentiation in Commercialised Indonesian Islam.
Abstract: This article explores parallels between emergent Islamic popular culture in the commercial arena in Indonesia and popular religion propagated through the mass media in Europe and North America. Focusing on two emergent types of emicly distinguished but eticly overlapping lay religious roles, that of the da’i (lay preacher) and the ‘trainer’, it shows how borrowing from globally disseminated genres of secular culture by Islamic lay leaders in the commercial arena in Indonesia partially blurs the boundaries between religiously marked and unmarked communications, despite the popularity there of Islamicly marked dress styles and consumables. This is suggestive of a similar, if partial, de-differentiation of the religious and other communication spheres in Indonesia such as Hubert Knoblauch found in Europe.
However, as in his reading of European popular religion, it does not further imply Weberian ‘disenchantment’, since leading exemplars of Indonesian Islamic commercialised ‘preaching’ and ‘training’, such as those examined in case material presented here, still focus consumers on the transcendent, while those proselytisers yet work to overcome the compartmentalisation of Indonesian selves in their differentiated modern society.
This chapter focuses on Sufi currents within the contemporary Islamic revival movement in Southea... more This chapter focuses on Sufi currents within the contemporary Islamic revival movement in Southeast Asia. It surveys the variety of Sufi-inflected renewal initiatives, covering: elite urban Sufism that fosters highly autonomous forms of individualised spiritual striving and progressive understandings of Islam’s canonical texts; adaptations of the Sufi heritage in religious orders (tarekat) located in traditional but rapidly modernising Islamic school complexes (pesantren); and Sufistic Islam that is conservative but highly produced for mass audiences as television programming and new-style outdoor rallies.
Surveying this contemporary variety of elite and popular Sufi-inflected Islam, the chapter demonstrates how, despite their derivation from a tradition concerned with mystical awareness, latter-day Sufi movements are not ineluctably otherworldly. Sufi ritual and ethical practices, in their numerous contemporary reworkings, uniformly promote active engagement in the world of work and family life. And important instances of Sufi revivalism actually encourage the adoption of moral disciplines suited to strongly rationalised modern social forms. They are thus reminiscent of Weber’s ‘innerworldly asceticism’, to which Turner has also found parallels in rival, and often hostile, late twentieth and twenty-first century scripturalist Islamic reform.
... FOLK TALES FROM K.AMMU (VOLUME 5) Kristina Lindcll, Jan-Ojvind Swahn and Damrong Tayanin 67. ... more ... FOLK TALES FROM K.AMMU (VOLUME 5) Kristina Lindcll, Jan-Ojvind Swahn and Damrong Tayanin 67. ISLAM AND POLITICS IN AFGHANISTAN Asta Olesen 68. EXEMPLARY CENTRE, ADMINISTRATIVE PERIPHERY Hans Antlov 69. ...
Sufism and the 'Modern' in Islam, edited by Martin van Bruiness... more Sufism and the 'Modern' in Islam, edited by Martin van Bruinessen and Julia Day Howell, gives full attention to the influence of modernity upon the devotional, spiritual and mystical dimensions of Islam, namely, Sufism. The book offers a broad view of a socio-historical context of ...
Conceptualizations of commitment to reli~ous organizations that credit non-ordinary experi. e,u:e... more Conceptualizations of commitment to reli~ous organizations that credit non-ordinary experi. e,u:es as sources of intrinsic'isatisfaction areas yet weakly developed. This poses a problem lar the stucly of those NRMs that market themselves specifically as facilitators of non. ...
"Sufism has not only survived into the twenty-first century but has experienced a significant res... more "Sufism has not only survived into the twenty-first century but has experienced a significant resurgence throughout the Muslim world. "Sufism and the 'Modern' in Islam" offers refreshing new perspectives on this phenomenon, demonstrating surprising connections between Sufism and Muslim reformist currents, and the vital presence of Sufi ideas and practices in all spheres of life. Contrary to earlier theories of the modernization of Muslim societies, Sufi influence on the political, economic and intellectual life of contemporary Muslim societies has been considerable. Although less noticed than the resurgence of radical Islam, Sufi orders and related movements involve considerably larger numbers of followers, even among the modern urban middle classes. This innovative study brings together new comparative and interdisciplinary research to show how Sufis have responded to modernization and globalization and how various currents of Islamic reform and Sufism have interacted.
Offering fascinating new insights into the pervasive Sufi influence on modern Islamic religiosity and contemporary political and economic life, this book raises important questions about Islam in the age of urbanism and mass communications."
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Papers by Julia D Howell
Dzikr and other Sufi practices have ancient lineages (their advocates say going back to the Prophet himself), but of interest here are the places they have found in Indonesia’s Islamic revival of the last thirty to forty years, and the different ways in which they work to support religious recommitment, which, as Bayat (2007) has shown, is the hallmark of Islamic revival around the world.
This chapter illustrate the diversity in usages of dzikr litanies by Sufi orders (tarekat) and in non-tarekat groups and the ‘emotion regimes’ commonly associated with them. It shows that in mass rally and mass-media ministries where dzikr is used, the patterning of litany recitations and their rhetorical framings serve to amplify emotions drawn from everyday life experience, refocusing them upon the religious object (the Prophet and his family, and ultimately, Allah). In contrast, in the more intimate settings of the traditional Sufi order examined, the patterning of the litany recitations and the instructions framing them offer practitioners the possibility of moving beyond everyday emotions of remorse, repentance and love (such as known from family and romantic experience) into non-ordinary subjective states where (as the classical Sufi literature leads us to expect) self-awareness is muted or effaced, and ordinary emotion words, in retrospect, less often seem applicable. The words of the litany, then, are used to transcend words, sometimes successfully.
Abstract: This article explores parallels between emergent Islamic popular culture in the commercial arena in Indonesia and popular religion propagated through the mass media in Europe and North America. Focusing on two emergent types of emicly distinguished but eticly overlapping lay religious roles, that of the da’i (lay preacher) and the ‘trainer’, it shows how borrowing from globally disseminated genres of secular culture by Islamic lay leaders in the commercial arena in Indonesia partially blurs the boundaries between religiously marked and unmarked communications, despite the popularity there of Islamicly marked dress styles and consumables. This is suggestive of a similar, if partial, de-differentiation of the religious and other communication spheres in Indonesia such as Hubert Knoblauch found in Europe.
However, as in his reading of European popular religion, it does not further imply Weberian ‘disenchantment’, since leading exemplars of Indonesian Islamic commercialised ‘preaching’ and ‘training’, such as those examined in case material presented here, still focus consumers on the transcendent, while those proselytisers yet work to overcome the compartmentalisation of Indonesian selves in their differentiated modern society.
Surveying this contemporary variety of elite and popular Sufi-inflected Islam, the chapter demonstrates how, despite their derivation from a tradition concerned with mystical awareness, latter-day Sufi movements are not ineluctably otherworldly. Sufi ritual and ethical practices, in their numerous contemporary reworkings, uniformly promote active engagement in the world of work and family life. And important instances of Sufi revivalism actually encourage the adoption of moral disciplines suited to strongly rationalised modern social forms. They are thus reminiscent of Weber’s ‘innerworldly asceticism’, to which Turner has also found parallels in rival, and often hostile, late twentieth and twenty-first century scripturalist Islamic reform.
Books by Julia D Howell
Offering fascinating new insights into the pervasive Sufi influence on modern Islamic religiosity and contemporary political and economic life, this book raises important questions about Islam in the age of urbanism and mass communications."
Dzikr and other Sufi practices have ancient lineages (their advocates say going back to the Prophet himself), but of interest here are the places they have found in Indonesia’s Islamic revival of the last thirty to forty years, and the different ways in which they work to support religious recommitment, which, as Bayat (2007) has shown, is the hallmark of Islamic revival around the world.
This chapter illustrate the diversity in usages of dzikr litanies by Sufi orders (tarekat) and in non-tarekat groups and the ‘emotion regimes’ commonly associated with them. It shows that in mass rally and mass-media ministries where dzikr is used, the patterning of litany recitations and their rhetorical framings serve to amplify emotions drawn from everyday life experience, refocusing them upon the religious object (the Prophet and his family, and ultimately, Allah). In contrast, in the more intimate settings of the traditional Sufi order examined, the patterning of the litany recitations and the instructions framing them offer practitioners the possibility of moving beyond everyday emotions of remorse, repentance and love (such as known from family and romantic experience) into non-ordinary subjective states where (as the classical Sufi literature leads us to expect) self-awareness is muted or effaced, and ordinary emotion words, in retrospect, less often seem applicable. The words of the litany, then, are used to transcend words, sometimes successfully.
Abstract: This article explores parallels between emergent Islamic popular culture in the commercial arena in Indonesia and popular religion propagated through the mass media in Europe and North America. Focusing on two emergent types of emicly distinguished but eticly overlapping lay religious roles, that of the da’i (lay preacher) and the ‘trainer’, it shows how borrowing from globally disseminated genres of secular culture by Islamic lay leaders in the commercial arena in Indonesia partially blurs the boundaries between religiously marked and unmarked communications, despite the popularity there of Islamicly marked dress styles and consumables. This is suggestive of a similar, if partial, de-differentiation of the religious and other communication spheres in Indonesia such as Hubert Knoblauch found in Europe.
However, as in his reading of European popular religion, it does not further imply Weberian ‘disenchantment’, since leading exemplars of Indonesian Islamic commercialised ‘preaching’ and ‘training’, such as those examined in case material presented here, still focus consumers on the transcendent, while those proselytisers yet work to overcome the compartmentalisation of Indonesian selves in their differentiated modern society.
Surveying this contemporary variety of elite and popular Sufi-inflected Islam, the chapter demonstrates how, despite their derivation from a tradition concerned with mystical awareness, latter-day Sufi movements are not ineluctably otherworldly. Sufi ritual and ethical practices, in their numerous contemporary reworkings, uniformly promote active engagement in the world of work and family life. And important instances of Sufi revivalism actually encourage the adoption of moral disciplines suited to strongly rationalised modern social forms. They are thus reminiscent of Weber’s ‘innerworldly asceticism’, to which Turner has also found parallels in rival, and often hostile, late twentieth and twenty-first century scripturalist Islamic reform.
Offering fascinating new insights into the pervasive Sufi influence on modern Islamic religiosity and contemporary political and economic life, this book raises important questions about Islam in the age of urbanism and mass communications."