Suchergebnisse

Irrational killings and prejudice for and against one religion and another has been ravaging Nigeria. The risks associated with the re-occurring violence and terrorism in Nigeria remains of concern. When such incidents are juxtaposed with the state of affairs in Nigeria and the rise of religiosity in Nigeria, it becomes glaring that faith based violence is a time bomb which explodes at any little opportunity. It is however established that those that execute these violence actually do grave harm to the reputation. The dangers are undesirable and despicable. But this requires an urgent call to action towards eradicating faith based violence as a result of psychological complex. To live beyond this menace, there is need to intensify vocal denouncement of terrorism by non-Islamic and Islamic leaders, a guarantee of good governance, proper and modest hermeneutics of the scripture, intra and inter-faith dialogue and tolerance as way forward to this plague called faith based violence.

This master's thesis inquires how rapid economic transformations and fractures intersect with alterations in personal religious sentiments among university students in Slemani, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The answers to the research question are sought by tracing Kurdistan Region's recent history and contemporary social reality in connection with transformations in the global economic system, especially in the context of the today's international 'War on Terror'. At the same time, the thesis will emphasise an ethnographic approach which begins with the students' own experiences and interpretations. The research data has been accumulated during fieldwork carried out in spring and autumn of 2014. In addition to fieldnotes and participant observation, it is comprised of semi-structured group interviews that took place in five different campuses around Slemani and its surroundings. Theoretically the research follows a tradition of anthropological research on Islam which examines religion as an internal social force rather than an external social structure and emphasises both individual experience and contextuality but the thesis also seeks to historicise and analyse wider societal changes through world-system theory. In the oil-rich autonomous Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq, the students represent the first generation to have been born and brought up almost entirely during the time of self-rule, which began to develop with the establishment of the No-Fly zone in 1991. Societal transformation in Kurdistan especially over the past two decades has been extremely rapid. At the same time, while the region has stabilised, prospered, and reintegrated into the global world-economy, students and youth in general have felt increasingly disgruntled and betrayed by unfulfilled political promises. The social role and visibility of Islam on campuses have likewise grown. This thesis posits that the intensification of religiosity and the growing support for modern and transnational conservative religious movements is connected with the improved access to various communication technologies such as the internet. Kurdistan's Islam has traditionally been very heterodox and syncretic but, in parallel to the rest of the Middle-East, the acts of negotiating, challenging, and reproducing religious traditions and interpretations has become even more polyphonic. However, this development has to be understood against the background of growing inequality, widening generational gaps, societal instability, the past and present threats of violence, and the geopolitical conditions of the entire region. This complex social reality is analysed as 'uncertainty', as a state where conflict or the possibility of conflict is not an anomaly or a rupture of everyday routines but instead societal emergency is the natural condition of ordinary life itself. TIIVISTELMÄ Tämä pro gradu -tutkielma kysyy, miten nopeat taloudellis-yhteiskunnalliset murrokset ja henkilökohtaisen uskontosuhteen muutokset risteävät ja kytkeytyvät toisiinsa suleimanialaisten yliopisto-opiskelijoiden elämässä Irakin Kurdistanissa. Vastauksia tutkimuskysymykseen etsitään kartoittamalla Kurdistanin lähihistoriaa ja nykypäivän yhteiskunnallista todellisuutta sekä hahmottamalla niiden yhteyksiä laajempiin globaalin talousjärjestelmän muutoksiin erityisesti nykypäivän kansainvälisen "terrorismin vastaisen sodan" kontekstissa. Samalla tutkielma kuitenkin korostaa opiskelijoiden omista kokemuksista ja tulkinnoista lähtevää etnografista tutkimusotetta. Tutkimusaineisto perustuu etnografiseen kenttätyöhön kevään ja syksyn 2014 ajalta. Aineiston keräämisen menetelmänä on käytetty osallistuvan havainnoinnin ja kenttäpäiväkirjojen lisäksi puolistrukturoituja ryhmähaastatteluja, jotka toteutettiin viidellä eri kampuksella Suleimaniassa ja sen lähiympäristössä. Teoreettisesti tutkielma pohjaa kontekstoivaan ja kokemusta korostavaan islamin antropologisen tutkimuksen perinteeseen, joka tarkastelee uskontoa yhteiskunnallisena voimana ulkopuolisten rakenteiden sijasta. Samalla tutkielma kuitenkin pyrkii samanaikaisesti maailmanjärjestelmäteorian kautta laajempien yhteiskunnallisten muutosten historiallistamiseen ja analyysiin. Opiskelijat edustavat Irakin pohjoisosassa sijaitsevan öljyrikkaan Kurdistanin itsehallintoalueen ensimmäistä sukupolvea, joka on syntynyt ja varttunut lähes kokonaan vuoden 1991 lentokieltovyöhykkeen perustamisesta alkaneen autonomiakehityksen aikakaudella. Yhteiskunnallinen muutos Kurdistanissa on erityisesti kahden viime vuosikymmenen aikana ollut äärimmäisen nopeaa. Mutta samalla kun alue on vakautunut, vaurastunut ja integroitunut uudelleen osaksi globaalia maailmantaloutta, opiskelijoiden ja nuorison tyytymättömyys sekä kokemukset lunastamattomista poliittisista lupauksista ovat lisääntyneet. Islaminuskon yhteiskunnallinen merkitys ja näkyvyys kampuksilla on niin ikään kasvanut. Tässä tutkielmassa esitetään, että uskonnollisuuden syvenemiseen ja modernien ylirajaisten konservatiivisten islamilaisten liikkeiden kannatuksen kasvuun liittyy merkittävästi erilaisten viestintäteknologioiden, kuten internetin, käytön helpottuminen. Kurdistanissa islaminusko on ollut jo perinteisesti hyvin heterodoksista ja synkretististä, mutta muun Lähi-idän tapaan sielläkin uskonnollisten perinteiden ja tulkintojen neuvotteleminen, haastaminen ja reproduktio ovat entisestään moniäänistyneet. Taustalla kuitenkin vaikuttaa ennen kaikkea kasvava eriarvoisuus, kuilut sukupolvien välillä, yhteiskunnallinen epävakaus, niin menneiden vuosikymmenten kuin nykypäivänkin väkivallan uhkakuvat sekä koko Lähi-idän geopoliittiset olosuhteet. Tätä sosiaalista todellisuutta tarkastellaan tutkielmassa analyyttisesti epävarmuutena, tilana, jossa konflikti tai konfliktin mahdollisuus ei ole poikkeus tai repeämä tavallisessa arjessa, vaan jokapäiväinen elämä itse on jatkuva yhteiskunnallinen hätätila.

First published online: 26 May 2017 ; This special issue investigates contemporary transformations of Islam in the post-Communist Balkans. We put forward the concept of localized Islam as an analytical lens that aptly captures the input of various interpreting agents, competing narratives, and choices of faith. By adopting an agent-based approach that is sensitive to relevant actors' choices and the contexts where they operate, we explore how various groups negotiate and ultimately localize the grand Islamic tradition, depending on where they are situated along the hierarchy of power. Specifically, we outline three sets of actors and narratives related to revival of Islamic faith: (1) political elites, mainstream intellectuals, and religious hierarchies often unite in safeguarding a nation-centric understanding of religion, (2) foreign networks and missionaries make use of open channels of communication to propagate their specific interpretations and agendas, and (3) lay believers tend to choose among different offers and rally around the living dimension of religious practice. Contributions in this issue bring ample evidence of multiple actors' strategies, related perspectives, and contingent choices of being a Muslim. Case studies include political debates on mosque construction in Athens; political narratives that underpin the construction of the museum of the father of Ataturk in Western Macedonia; politicians' and imams' competing interpretations of the Syrian war in Kosovo, Macedonia, and Albania; the emergence of practice communities that perform Muslim identity in Bulgaria; the particular codes of sharia dating in post-war Sarajevo; and veneration of saints among Muslim Roma in different urban areas in the Balkans.

This special issue investigates contemporary transformations of Islam in the post-Communist Balkans. We put forward the concept oflocalized Islamas an analytical lens that aptly captures the input of various interpreting agents, competing narratives, and choices of faith. By adopting an agent-based approach that is sensitive to relevant actors' choices and the contexts where they operate, we explore how various groups negotiate and ultimately localize the grand Islamic tradition, depending on where they are situated along the hierarchy of power. Specifically, we outline three sets of actors and narratives related to revival of Islamic faith: (1) political elites, mainstream intellectuals, and religious hierarchies often unite in safeguarding a nation-centric understanding of religion, (2) foreign networks and missionaries make use of open channels of communication to propagate their specific interpretations and agendas, and (3) lay believers tend to choose among different offers and rally around the living dimension of religious practice. Contributions in this issue bring ample evidence of multiple actors' strategies, related perspectives, and contingent choices of being a Muslim. Case studies include political debates on mosque construction in Athens; political narratives that underpin the construction of the museum of the father of Ataturk in Western Macedonia; politicians' and imams' competing interpretations of the Syrian war in Kosovo, Macedonia, and Albania; the emergence of practice communities that perform Muslim identity in Bulgaria; the particular codes of sharia dating in post-war Sarajevo; and veneration of saints among Muslim Roma in different urban areas in the Balkans.