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The Ethical Substance of Salvation

Materiality and Religious Rejection of the World in a London Mosque

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2020

Elisabeth Becker
Elisabeth Becker*
Affiliation:
University of Virginia, Religious Studies and the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture [ejb3sx@virginia.edu]
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Abstract

Materiality has been largely left out of the study of Muslim life in Europe, and limited to an etic rather than emic approach. In this paper, I analyse a conservative London mosque community (the East London Mosque) that depends on the material––what I term “ethical substance”––to reinforce its ascetic rejection of the world. Drawing from five months of ethnographic research in this mosque, I examine three aspects of materiality––clothing, the mosque building, and technology––in order to explore how the community negotiates its position in the city at hand, as well as more broadly vis-à-vis modernity. The mosque emerges as a site of discursive-material tension where ethics and locale intersect, and where intention (niyya) matters more than the constitution of objects. It elucidates European modernity as broader than liberal democratic ideals (i.e. in a community stressing a returns towards, rather than away from, tradition).

Résumé

Résumé

La matérialité a été largement laissée de côté dans l’étude de la vie musulmane en Europe, et limitée à une approche étique plutôt qu’émique. Dans cet article, j’analyse la communauté d’une mosquée conservatrice de Londres (la East London Mosque) qui dépend de la matière – ce que j’appelle la « substance éthique » – pour renforcer son rejet ascétique du monde. En m’appuyant sur cinq mois de recherche ethnographique dans cette mosquée, j’examine trois aspects de la matérialité : les vêtements, le bâtiment de la mosquée et la technologie, afin d’explorer comment la communauté négocie sa position dans la ville en question et plus largement dans la modernité. La mosquée apparaît comme un site de tension discursive-matérielle où l’éthique et le milieu se croisent, et où l’intention (niyya) importe plus que la constitution des objets. La modernité européenne y est présentée comme plus vaste que les idéaux démocratiques libéraux, à l’intérieur d’une communauté qui met l’accent sur un retour vers la tradition.

Zusammenfassung

Zusammenfassung

Das Wesentlichkeitsprinzip wurde bei der Untersuchung des muslimischen Lebens in Europa weitgehend ignoriert und mehr auf einen etischen als auf einen emischen Ansatz beschränkt. In diesem Aufsatz untersuche ich eine konservative muslimische Gemeinde in London (die East London Mosque), die sich auf Wesentlichkeit – ich nenne sie „ethische Substanz“ – stützt, um ihre asketische Ablehnung der Welt zu verstärken. Grundlage meiner Beobachtungen ist ein fünfmonatiges ethnografisches Forschungsprojekt in dieser Moschee. Drei Aspekte der Wesentlichkeit oder Materialität werden erörtert: Die Kleidung, das Gebäude der Moschee und die Technologie, um zu beschreiben, wie die muslimische Gemeinschaft ihren städtischen Standort sowie im weiteren Sinne ihre Verortung in der Moderne aushandelt. Die Moschee erscheint als ein Ort der diskursiv-materiellen Spannung, an dem sich Ethik und Umgebung überschneiden und an dem die Absicht (niyya) wichtiger ist als die Konstitution von Objekten. Die europäische Moderne geht hier weit über die liberal-demokratischen Ideale hinaus, und dies innerhalb einer Gemeinschaft, die eine Rückkehr zur Tradition betont.

Keywords

IslamEuropeMosqueMaterialityModernity.IslamEuropeMosquéeMatérialitéModernité.IslamEuropaMoscheeMaterialitätModerne.
Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , April 2020 , pp. 129 - 158
Copyright
© European Journal of Sociology 2020

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