6,052 research outputs found
De-mystifying the Muslimah: Exploring Different Perceptions of Selected Young Muslim Women in Britain
No full textIn this research I argue that although Islam as a faith is inherently emancipatory, Muslim
women are doubly marginalised: by patriarchal interpretations of their faith within Muslim
communities and by pluralist society that often does not understand the faith-based values
and practices of Muslim women. The empowerment of Muslim women is crucial not just for
the women themselves but also for socio-political dynamics within the Muslim community
and its relationships in pluralist society. It is from this context, and acknowledging the paucity
of academic literature written by Muslim women, that I set out to give voice to them, so that
their opinions may be heard in discourses that they think are relevant to their lives. By
encouraging Muslim women to take voice and by facilitating mechanisms for these voices to
be heard, this research presents alternate narratives of Muslim women that challenge
dominant media imagery of the oppressed and subjugated Muslim woman. These narratives,
which are by and for Muslim women, portray instead the inherent diversity in the category
'Muslim woman' and thus add more facets to the category 'woman'.
I used an ethnographic methodology that involved participants as contributors in the creation
of new knowledge. Semi-structured interviews with 45 young university-educated Muslim
women and 7 group discussions were used as initial data-gathering tools. The penultimate
ethnographic stage involved Muslim women creating 3-minute long self-representational
digital stories (DSTs), which consist of an autobiographical narrative accompanied by still
pictures. This was a process of self-reflection for the women and an opportunity to take voice
and to be heard. The subsequent screening of these DSTs to audiences who were not
Muslim resulted in discussion and active debate about the reasons for prevalent
(mis)understandings of Muslim women and stereotypes were challenged. In its initiation of
more balanced representations of Muslim women this research empowers Muslim women,
and by contributing to dialogue and cohesion it also empowers pluralist society as a whole.
This research clarifies the overlapping priorities and identities of young British Muslim
women and initiates new discourses, as narrated by the women, on subjects including
religious interpretation and practice, feminism, media representation and social cohesion. In
the research findings I propose an evolving British-Muslim identity among Muslim youth (in
this case young women) which is distinct from that of their parents; a theological articulation
of a 'feminist' struggle for women's rights; and the need to engage with the media and others
to create positive representations of Muslim women. Experiences with DSTs indicate the
potential of personal narratives and interaction for the purposes of inter-community dialogue
Muslim discourses on integration and schooling
No full textSince 2001 Muslim communities in Britain have largely been governed through the educational policy framing of integration and segregation. This Manichean bio-construct sees mono-cultural ethnic schools as problematic spaces, whilst integrated schools as the liberal ideal. By drawing upon the subaltern studies approach, this study provides a space for Muslim pupils and parents to articulate their own discourses on integrated and segregated schools in Britain. In doing so, it allows Muslim communities a position of power, by giving them agency to construct their own narratives on the policy debate on integration and schooling.
This thesis attempts to make sense of Muslim discourses through a theoretic interpretation drawn from Muslim intellectual history. By using Ibn Khaldun’s (d. 1406) sociological theory of ‘asabiyya this study provides a broader theoretical context to the Muslim voice. The empirical and the theoretical perspectives contained in this study attempts to make significant contributions to the study of race, religion and Muslim studies in Britain.
Public policy discourses has often seen the concept of integration as a linear cultural process, with minority groups gradually adopting the social mores of the host society. Evidence presented in this study sees integration as an analytical process and not as a fixed cultural template. It shows how the concept of integration can often be used, by political actors, as a tool for anti-Muslim racism.
The discourses of Muslim parents and pupils have much in common with each other, especially when rejecting the idea of self-segregation, or highlighting the importance of ‘asabiyya based on religion, but they have little in common with the public policy framing of Muslim communities.
Sociological studies have often demonstrated the disjuncture between public policy and lived experience. This study confirms this observation by elucidating the disconnect between political discourse of integration and lived cultural experience of Muslim communities. The discourses of Muslim communities in this study suggest a complex, paradoxical, intersectional reading of integration, which is fundamentally rooted within social constructionism. Most importantly it dismisses the integration and segregation binary, as seen within the educational framing of Muslims, whilst recognising the importance of Muslim group solidarity, or ‘asabiyya in Muslim discourse
Post 9-11 U.S. Muslim Labor Market Outcomes
Get PDFUsing a difference-in-differences framework and micro data from the Current Population Survey-Merged Outgoing Rotation Group Files (1999 to 2004), this paper estimates the impact that the 9-11 terrorists attacks had on the U.S. labor market outcomes of individuals with nativity profiles similar to the terrorists. We find that shortly after the attacks, the employmentpopulation ratios and hours worked of very young (ages 16 to 25) Muslim men fell. By 2004, most losses had begun to dissipate. The employment-population ratios and hours worked of older Muslim men experienced little deterioration.
Assembly: performing the materiality of Muslim prayer spaces
No full textAssembly is a series of site-specific installations, comprising of 1:1 scaled moving floor projections with 5.1-surround sound. Assembly has been made and exhibited at Birmingham Central Mosque (Salat) in 2016, Brick Lane Mosque, London (Jamaat) in 2018/9, Old Kent Road Mosque, London (Jamaat) in 2019/20 and Harrow Mosque, London (Jamaat) in 2020. As the audience enters each prayer site the projection is activated, revealing a pre-recorded film of congregational prayer. The controlled motorisation of the projection re-traces the movement of the recorded image, giving the effect of only the frame moving through physical space, constantly revealing and concealing the actual site below. At the end of each residency the general public were invited into the prayer spaces to see the artwork. This provided an opportunity for Muslims and non-Muslims to experience Jumu'ah prayer first hand via the site-performances.
Previous research into Muslim sites of worship has mostly been conducted as theological and sociological studies, which neglect to acknowledge the performativity of Muslim prayer. “Mosques in the UK sit within a wider unhelpful discourse that likens them all to each other, making any one mosque representational of the many” (Marsh et al 2018, 45-46). When sites of worship are reduced to representation the performative and experiential qualities are lost. Assembly builds upon this notion via an understanding of Muslim prayer sites as emergent, relational and beyond representational regimes. This research uses the projected image as a performative rather than representational tool, providing a platform to engage and connect communities in Islamic sites of worship, temporarily dissolving the religious/social boundaries of the mosque.
Assembly uses the working methodology 'site-integrity', a term coined during my practice-based PhD at London College of Communication, University of the Arts, London. Site-integrity is an interdisciplinary and process-driven research practice that questions the material, political and sensory representation of place. It is a site-specific and collaborative practice that builds direct social relationships with new audiences specific to the site. The research is essentially a performance art practice, exploring the comprehension of space as dualistically experienced and represented.
The research findings from Assembly will also be shown as part of The 2021 V&A/ La Biennale Special Project titled The British Mosque, curated by Shahed Saleem, author of The British Mosque: An Architectural and Social History (Historic England) and Chris Turner (V&A) & Ella Kilgallon (V&A). The exhibition uses different forms of reproduction, the digital and the physical to articulate an under-represented aspect of Britain’s religious heritage, the self-built mosque
Liberal theory and Islam: (re)imagining the interaction of religion, law, state and society in Muslim contexts
No full textWithin the global phenomenon of the (re)emergence of religion into issues of public debate, one of the most salient issues confronting contemporary Muslim societies is how to relate the legal and political heritage that developed in pre-modern Islamic polities to the political order of the modern states in which Muslims now live.
This study seeks to develop a framework for addressing this issue by drawing upon two sources. The first is an interpretative understanding of the history of Muslim contexts emphasising, in particular, the diversity of views about what Islam mandates that have always been a part of Muslim experience and the distinction between political and religio-legal authority that developed in practice in these environments. The second source is a variety of contemporary liberal theory which this study develops and calls ‘justice as discourse’.
The central argument is that liberal theory, and justice as discourse in particular, though it may have emerged in a different social and cultural milieu, can be normatively useful in Muslim contexts for relating, religion, law, state and society. It is argued first, that Muslim contexts are facing issues similar to those out of which liberal theory emerged. Additionally, it is argued that both Muslim contexts and liberal theory are dynamic and continually developing and that this shared dynamism means that there may be space for convergence of the two. Just as Muslim contexts have developed historically (and continue to develop today) the same is the case with the requisites of liberal theory and this may allow for liberal choices to be made in a manner that is not a renunciation of Muslim heritage
From the geopolitical to the everyday : 'home' for Muslim women in London and Bristol.
No full textPhDMy thesis examines ideas of home, identity and belonging for Muslim women within the context of the domestic ‘War on Terror’. My project has two main strands. My research is framed by a discursive examination of both the mobilization of ideas of home and the positioning of Muslim women within imaginative geographies of the domestic War on Terror. I focus upon media coverage of terror plot home raids (beginning with the 7/7 bombings) and subsequent socio-political debates concerning the ‘veil’. The second strand of my research concentrates upon exploring the lived experience and emotional geographies of home, identity and belonging for Muslim women in London and Bristol.
My research addresses several important research agendas. I contribute to and develop contemporary debates concerning geographies of race and racism. I examine both the construction of racialised discourses of national identity, belonging and securitization and how racism is experienced negotiated and resisted. I examine some of the effects that religio-racial profiling has had upon my participants’ everyday lives, geographies of mobility and articulations of belonging/citizenship, particularly in relation to national identity. I argue that covering practices as a marker of religious identity have socio-spatial effects, which inform my participants’ negotiation and inhabitation of the different localities encountered within their everyday geographies. I explore how identity and belonging are experienced through the material and emotional creation of home, particularly in relation to religious practices, arguing that home becomes an important site of identity affirmation in relation to experiences of racism. More broadly my research contributes to debates concerning the increasing prevalence of religion within contemporary community and individual identity politics. Finally, I draw out how my participants’ experiences impact upon their ideas of citizenship and belonging, augmenting theorisations of citizenship which posit citizenship as multiple and rooted in place not nationality
Muslim-Christian relations in Palestine during the British mandate period
No full textMy dissertation
examines
Muslim-Christian
relations
in Palestine during the British
mandate period, specifically, around the question of what constituted
Palestinian-Arab identity. More broadly
speaking, the dissertation
addresses the topic within the
context of the larger debate
concerning the role of material
factors (those
related to
specific
historical developments
and circumstances) versus that of
ideological
ones. in
determining
national
identities. At the beginning
of the twentieth, century, two models
of
Arab
nationalism were proposed-a more secular one emphasising a shared
language
and culture
(and thus, relatively
inclusive
of non-Muslims) and one wherein
Arab identity
was seen as essentially an extension of the Islamic
religious
community, or umma.
While
many
historians dealing
with
Arab
nationalism
have
tended to focus
on the role of
language (likewise, the role of
Christian Arab
intellectuals), I
would maintain that
it is the latter
model that proved
determinative
of
how
most
Muslim Arabs
came to conceive of their identity
as Arabs. Both
models
were essentially
intellectual
constructs; that the latter
prevailed
in the end reflects the
predominance of material
factors
over
ideological
ones.
Specifically, I
consider the
impact
of social, political and economic changes related to the Tanzimat
reforms and
European
economic penetration of the nineteenth century; the role of proto-nationalist
models of communal
identification-particularly
those related to religion; and
finally,
the role played
by
political actors seeking to gain or consolidate authority through the
manipulation of proto-nationalist symbols
Responding to the Threat of Violent Extremism - Failing to Prevent
Get PDFThe shocking 7/7 London bombings and subsequent plots have confirmed the Islamist terrorist threat faced by the UK. How should we understand such home-grown terrorism, and how successful since 2005 have government attempts to ‘prevent violent extremism’ through community-based education been? This 2012 monograph draws on research evidence, much of it from work with young people in the north of England, to suggest that the 'Prevent' policy approaches have been misguided and ineffective, further alienating British Muslim communities rather than supporting longer-term attempts to encourage community cohesion and integration that provides resilience against extremism
The Islamic Council of Norway and the Challenge of Representing Islam in Europe
Get PDFGovernments all across Europe have attempted to govern the Muslim population by working with representative Muslim councils. These councils, however, have often been plagued by conflicts and splits. Why? This book is the first attempt to answer this question in full. It does so by zooming in on the history of The Islamic Council of Norway. For many years, this organization functioned well. But after a prolonged conflict, the organization split in two in 2017. Based on a thorough study of the organization, the author claims that pressure from society at large has made it more difficult for such organizations to fulfil their role as Muslim representatives
Demand and Supply Conditions of Islamic Housing Finance in the United Kingdom: Perceptions of Muslim Clients
Get PDFAn important aspect of Islamic finance in the retail market has been the introduction of mortgage products for housing finance. These are offered by a number of banks in the UK. The aim of this research is to examine the characteristics of the UK market for Islamic mortgages and to analyse the activities of the major institutions involved. Supply and demand conditions are explored.
This study evaluates the development of Islamic housing finance in the United Kingdom by focusing on the following main areas: First, it investigates whether there is any effective demand for Islamic Mortgages in the UK. Second, the study evaluates the perceptions of UK Muslims towards various aspects of Islamic mortgages and provides an empirical assessment of these perceptions. Also, the study analyses how Muslim client attitutes and the overall environment affects preferences for Islamic mortgage products. Third, it investigates the factors which might encourage or discourage home-buying among UK Muslims. Fourth, it investigates the current structures of Islamic mortgages and examines whether these play a role in helping low-income groups from the Muslim community to achieve home ownership. Fifth, it investigates the current practices surrounding Islamic mortgages to identify the obstacles and factors influencing decision making with the aim of suggesting possible remedies. The study also evaluates accessibility issues with the objective of defining effective ways of raising awareness in the Muslim Community. It also discusses the marketing of Islamic mortgages and investigates the importance of product awareness by bank staff. Furthermore, it explores in detail the role of religion, Muslim households’ consumer preferences and the prospects for Islamic banks cross-selling mortgage products to Muslim customers. Finally this study investigates the factors influences clients’ choices of Islamic mortgage providers.
In fulfilling its aims and objectives, this study has utilized both primary and secondary data from the UK. A survey questionnaire was conducted among the Muslim community in London. Non-parametric procedures and tests have been used to analyze the data collected.
The findings of the study demonstrate that there is a gap in home ownership among British Muslims compared to the general public, which is determined by affordability, financial exclusion and information gaps. In addition, this study found that there is substantial potential demand for Islamic mortgages in the UK, which requires effective but also sound marketing strategies. Perception and opinion analysis also indicated that wider social factors and lifestyle choices may be increasing the demand for Islamic mortgages. Moreover, the findings also demonstrate that perceptions of Islamic mortgages are similar between different ethnic and tenure groups. Some Muslim ethnic groups are more willing than others to take on an Islamic mortgage even if it is more expensive than a conventional mortgage.
The study concludes that the prospects of Islamic mortgages in UK are promising and, unlike conventional bank mortgages, they are not financed by borrowing from wholesale markets, but rather from Islamic deposits. Islamic housing finance has proved sustainable, and has not been subject to the problems associated with sub-prime defaults. On the other hand a careful risk appraisal by Islamic institutions providing housing finance has made it more difficult for low-income Muslims or those with less secure employment to obtain Shariah-compliant mortgages
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