Institute of Islamic Studies

This is the fourth workshop in the series “Theoretical and Methodological Advances in Studying Islam and Muslims in Canada”

As social scientists grapple with how to theorize and measure Islamophobia, Canada offers a unique site to address these questions. Canada has long been hailed as an exceptional country when integrating immigrants, yet researchers have documented a significant and salient increase in anti-Muslim violence. Therefore, this monthly workshop will create an opportunity for all interested in the topic to reflect on methodological design in how scholarship claims to investigate the social experiences and outcomes among Canadian Muslims.

“The Big Books” series is monthly reading group, led by IIS Post-Doctoral Fellow Youcef Soufi, that allows Islamic studies students to delve into influential texts of their discipline.

About this month’s reading:

In Muslim Becoming, Naveeda Khan challenges the claim that Pakistan’s relation to Islam is fragmented and problematic. Offering a radically different interpretation, Khan contends that Pakistan inherited an aspirational, always-becoming Islam, one with an open future and a tendency toward experimentation. For the individual, this aspirational tendency manifests in a continual striving to be a better Muslim. It is grounded in the thought of Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938), the poet, philosopher, and politician considered the spiritual founder of Pakistan. Khan finds that Iqbal provided the philosophical basis for recasting Islam as an open religion with possible futures as yet unrealized, which he did in part through his engagement with the French philosopher Henri Bergson. Drawing on ethnographic research in the neighborhoods and mosques of Lahore and on readings of theological polemics, legal history, and Urdu literature, Khan points to striving throughout Pakistani society: in prayers and theological debates and in the building of mosques, readings of the Qur’an, and the undertaking of religious pilgrimages. At the same time, she emphasizes the streak of skepticism toward the practices of others that accompanies aspiration. She asks us to consider what is involved in affirming aspiration while acknowledging its capacity for violence.

This is the 5th workshop in the series Theoretical and Methodological Advances in Studying Islam and Muslims in Canada

As social scientists grapple with how to theorize and measure Islamophobia, Canada offers a unique site to address these questions. Canada has long been hailed as an exceptional country when integrating immigrants, yet researchers have documented a significant and salient increase in anti-Muslim violence. Therefore, this monthly workshop will create an opportunity for all interested in the topic to reflect on methodological design in how scholarship claims to investigate the social experiences and outcomes among Canadian Muslims.

This is the sixth workshop in the series Theoretical and Methodological Advances in Studying Islam and Muslims in Canada

As social scientists grapple with how to theorize and measure Islamophobia, Canada offers a unique site to address these questions. Canada has long been hailed as an exceptional country when integrating immigrants, yet researchers have documented a significant and salient increase in anti-Muslim violence. Therefore, this monthly workshop will create an opportunity for all interested in the topic to reflect on methodological design in how scholarship claims to investigate the social experiences and outcomes among Canadian Muslims.

“The Big Books” series is monthly reading group, led by IIS Post-Doctoral Fellow Youcef Soufi, that allows Islamic studies students to delve into influential texts of their discipline.

About this month’s reading:

Spanning a thousand years of history–and bringing the story to the present through ethnographic fieldwork in Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania–Rudolph Ware documents the profound significance of Qur’an schools for West African Muslim communities. Such schools peacefully brought Islam to much of the region, becoming striking symbols of Muslim identity. Ware shows how in Senegambia the schools became powerful channels for African resistance during the eras of the slave trade and colonization. While illuminating the past, Ware also makes signal contributions to understanding contemporary Islam by demonstrating how the schools’ epistemology of embodiment gives expression to classical Islamic frameworks of learning and knowledge.

Today, many Muslims and non-Muslims find West African methods of Qur’an schooling puzzling and controversial. In fascinating detail, Ware introduces these practices from the viewpoint of the practitioners, explicating their emphasis on educating the whole human being as if to remake it as a living replica of the Qur’an. From this perspective, the transference of knowledge in core texts and rituals is literally embodied in people, helping shape them–like the Prophet of Islam–into vital bearers of the word of God.