Project description
A closer look at non-conformist movements in Islamic intellectual history
How did Islamic antinomian movements consolidate Islam in a vast region from the Balkans to Bengal? How did this spur self-reflection, allowing for critical thinking within Islamic streams of thought? To answer these questions, the ERC-funded PIETY project will examine how generations of Islamic mystics and intellectuals in the Persianate world challenged, redefined or rejected Islamic canonical law. The focus will be on their poetic, artistic, philosophical and political writings and teachings. By explaining the emergence, flourishing and lasting appeal of non-conformist movements in Islamic intellectual history, the findings will shed new light on issues of transgression.
Objective
This project seeks to explain the emergence, flourishing and lasting appeal of non-conformist movements in Islamic intellectual history, investigating how Islamic antinomian movements both consolidated Islam in a vast region from the Balkans to Bengal, while offering methods of self-reflection that allowed for critical thinking within Islamic streams of thought. By examining how generations of Islamic mystics and intellectuals in the Persianate world challenged, redefined or rejected Islamic canonical law in their poetic, artistic, philosophical and political writings and teachings, this project generates significant new insights on transgression in Islam.
Non-conformist mystics combined the ascetic principles of early Islam with shocking deviance, transgressing the holiest Islamic laws such as prayer, fasting, and the pilgrimage to Mecca, and praising other religions such as Christianity. By rejecting the outward piety of the clerics, celebrating wine, gambling and homo-erotic love, they provoked the orthodox, craving rejection and criticism, which they used as a shield to protect their piety. Using transgression as a theoretical frame, this project demonstrates how non-conformist mystics relativized the status of the Islamic jurists at the centre in Islamic life, while validating what for the jurists was peripheral.
Examining non-conformism as part of Islam since the tenth century breaks new grounds in the field of Islamic Studies, and in the wider fields of Religious Studies, Literary Studies and History.
This is the first study dealing in a broad way with questions about the relationships between centre and periphery, normal and deviant, profane and divine, and low culture versus high religion in Islamic culture. As such it also offers significant contributions to transgression studies from Islamic Studies perspectives, demonstrating why antinomian themes, motifs and metaphors have taken a central position in Islam, especially in art and through poetry.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
ERC-ADG - Advanced Grant
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
3584 CS Utrecht
Netherlands
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.