Session: #327

Content:

Islamic societies have been all too often portrayed and analysed from the perspective of orthodoxy, towns and elitism. Groups within Islam that did not participate in mainstream religious practices and beliefs or who lived beyond the networks of interest of urban elites and dominant dynasties are usually considered ‘heterodox’ and ‘outsiders’. Following recent criticism by Shahab Ahmed, the perspective on “what is Islam” needs to be widened to fit the variations on ‘the Islamic’ within. Islam is not a programme or a set of principles imposed from the top, but a medium and a vocabulary from which the hermeneutical engagement of the believers generates multiple meanings connected by a shared commonality.
In this session we search to shed light on this variation by focussing on processes and communities belonging to ‘the Islamic’ but working in the margins of, or against established powers and structures. We aim to get to know and to discuss case examples of social groups that contested states and institutions within the Islamic world, that offered alternative or dissident social, economic or religious organisations to those that were hegemonic.
We invite colleagues to present case studies, for example, about groups considered ‘heterodox’ in their context, and even about non-Muslim groups as long as they expressed their faith in Islamic terms. Another possibility is the analysis of groups weaving alternative forms social organisation to those usually considered ‘central’ by mainstream approaches: nomads, peasants, gendered groups, ethnic minorities, etc.
This session continues a successful chain of sessions in EAA on Islamic archaeology, where different regions and their connections have been considered in the past.

Session: #327

Theme & Session Format

Title & Content

Organisers