muslim identity
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Islamization and Islamophobia present two different narratives. Since Cold War, these two narratives have been influencing Muslims globally, especially Pakistan due to its support of Talibanization during the Soviet (communist) invasion of Afghanistan. Pakistan’s initial support of Talibanization in coalition with America, where the country yielded a religiously extremist status, provides a premise to suspect America and the West’s (capitalists) role in its development. The treatment of the very ‘Muslim identity in the pre-Cold War and the post-Cold War contexts reveals an interesting shift in the Western approach towards Muslims. The pre-Cold War era shows overt Western support for the narrative of Islamization in Muslim countries, whereas the post-Cold War era shows a sudden bounce of anti-Muslim sentiments in the West. This shift calls into question the role of power in the development of both narratives. Using Stephen Greenblatt’s critique of self-fashioning, subversion, containment, and power, we aim to explore both narratives concerning the selected Pakistani Anglophone fiction: Muhammad Hanif’s A Case of Exploding Mangoes (2008) and Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album (1995). The current article concludes that Islamization and Islamophobia are both political policies that have been serving the interest of power to contain the subversions it encountered in different forms. We also suggest that both narratives exploit the discursive forms (literary and non-literary) of the particular era where they are recorded.

Mohsin Hamid, one of the powerful voices to emerge from Pakistan engages with themes that go beyond the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 and portrays contemporary issues relevant to Pakistan. In the process, Hamid consciously performs the role of the mediator and attempts to explain his country to the readers. In his two novels, Moth Smoke and The Reluctant Fundamentalist Hamid not only represents modern-day Pakistan but also offer resistance to the association of Pakistan with terrorism thereby replicating the postcolonial tendency to “write back” and reclaim one’s identity. Furthermore, he offers a nuanced understanding of the hostilities that prevail between India and Pakistan. Fictional representations of Islam and Muslim identities by writers of Pakistani origin have received increased attention, especially in the post 9/11 political climate with its attendant reductive representations of Islamic fundamentalism. The ‘war on terror’ which has had the effect of equating Islam and Muslims with terrorism has become a dominant political narrative in Europe and the US over the last decade. It is such diffused representation of Muslim identity which has evoked criticism in the ‘orient’ and Hamid shines bright in this regard.

Abstract Kitāb al-Maǧdal is a large East Syrian theological treatise that was composed in Arabic, probably in the late tenth or early eleventh century CE. One section of the work is an ecclesiastical history of the Church of the East. This essay argues that close analysis of this section reveals that elite East Syrian identity in the period overlapped to a significant extent with contemporary Muslim identity, at the level of vocabulary and conceptions of revelation and communal history. In this sense, the work represents a kind of “inter-confessional” history writing. The essay aims to contribute to recent studies of Middle Eastern Christian identity and historiography, which have focused of Syriac sources and/or late antiquity rather than Arabic sources for the Islamic middle periods.

In this study, the Byzantine image in the religious and literary texts produced by Muslim societies in the first four centuries of the Hijra has been examined in terms of historical process. To this end, first, a theoretical basis has been established within the framework of the concepts of identity, difference, other, and othering. Then, the imagery of Byzantium is analyzed through the interpretation of the first five verses of the Surah Rûm, with regards to naming, politics, religion, culture, science, philosophy, art and women's descriptions. The main argument of the study is that the Byzantine image of Muslims cannot be addressed independent of the relationships established with Byzantium. From a historical point of view, it is seen that the image of Byzantium, which was initially positive, turned into negative depending on the course of relations and was balanced over time in terms of change, while the style and content of political and political imagery varied, there is very little variation in descriptions of social life with regards to Constantinople, Byzantine craftsmanship, family life and women. While the Qur'an and the Sunnah culture formed the basis of the Byzantine perception in the early days, political developments became dominant over time. On the other hand, Muslims did not deal with Byzantium in a monolithic, shallow and reductive way, but they used the distinction between “us” and “them” to improve the image of Islam and reinforce Muslim identity.

In this study, the Byzantine image in the religious and literary texts produced by Muslim societies in the first four centuries of the Hijra has been examined in terms of historical process. To this end, first, a theoretical basis has been established within the framework of the concepts of identity, difference, other, and othering. Then, the imagery of Byzantium is analyzed through the interpretation of the first five verses of the Surah Rûm, with regards to naming, politics, religion, culture, science, philosophy, art and women's descriptions. The main argument of the study is that the Byzantine image of Muslims cannot be addressed independent of the relationships established with Byzantium. From a historical point of view, it is seen that the image of Byzantium, which was initially positive, turned into negative depending on the course of relations and was balanced over time in terms of change, while the style and content of political and political imagery varied, there is very little variation in descriptions of social life with regards to Constantinople, Byzantine craftsmanship, family life and women. While the Qur'an and the Sunnah culture formed the basis of the Byzantine perception in the early days, political developments became dominant over time. On the other hand, Muslims did not deal with Byzantium in a monolithic, shallow and reductive way, but they used the distinction between “us” and “them” to improve the image of Islam and reinforce Muslim identity.

Abstract The status of being a Muslim minority in a non-Muslim country has obtained public and international attention with the consequence of globalization and immigration in the contemporary world. The increasing rate of immigration to the United States after the 1980s resulted in a new identity that mainly includes two main ingredients: Muslim identity and American identity. Especially, the following generation of the first immigrants has unexpectedly confronted the issue of an identity crisis ensuing from the simultaneous belonging to American and Muslim identities. With permanent settlement and acquiring American citizenship, Muslim Americans have shouldered dual responsibilities and duties. Occasionally, the dual identity of Muslim Americans has resulted in clashes between the religious and citizenship responsibilities. The Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA), a voluntarily established fatwā institution, tries to find Islamic legal solutions to that of American Muslims’ paradoxical predicaments. In the light of particular fatwās (legal opinion) issued by the FCNA, this paper will analyse how the identity crises of Muslim Americans are resolved; which Islamic legal methodologies are predominantly deployed to obliterate the mundane and religious paradoxes of those Muslim Americans; and whether the preponderance is given to American identity or Muslim identity by the FCNA.

Abstract Since its inception, Pakistan has faced challenges of ethnic-nationalism from her ethnicities. State efforts to mold these diverse identities into one communal Muslim identity have been continually resisted by the different nationalities comprising Pakistan. The demands of ethno-national movements have fluctuated between independence and autonomy, depending upon the relation between the state and the respective ethnic group. Sometimes the demand for autonomy has expanded into a desire for independence, as was the case with Bengali ethnic nationalism. At other times, the desire for independence has shrunk to a demand for autonomy, as manifested by Pashtun nationalism. This shift is explicated through the relationship between the state and ethnic groups. The author analyzes this shift through the prism of Paul Brass’s instrumental theory of elite competition. The factors that contributed to the success of Bengali nationalism in achieving statehood and the failure of Baloch nationalism to do so are viewed through Ted Gurr’s concept of relative deprivation. The integration of Sindhi and Pashtun ethnic groups into the state structure is explained via Andreas Wimmer’s notion of ownership of the state.

This chapter explores the interaction between religious life and spirituality, and other sectors of society. Topics include Christian charities, Protestant names, economy and social good in Tibet, and Muslim identity among the Hui. Chapter contents: 2.0 Introduction (by Gerda Wielander) 2.1 Religion, Economy, and the Social Good: Reflections from Tibet (by Jane Caple) 2.2 Names from God: The Power of Protestant Names in China (by Mark McLeister) 2.3 Migration, Faith, and Belonging in Urban Hui Communities (by David R. Stroup) 2.4 Out of the Margins: The Rise of Religious Charity in China (by Caroline Fielder)