Private Pieties, Mundane Islam and New Forms of Muslim Religiosity: Impact on Contemporary Social and Political Dynamics

Project Information

PrivatePieties

Grant agreement ID: 693457

DOI

10.3030/693457

Project closed

EC signature date 23 August 2016

Start date 1 October 2016

End date 30 September 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 2 494 455,00

EU contribution

€ 2 494 455,00

Coordinated by

GEORG-AUGUST-UNIVERSITAT GOTTINGEN STIFTUNG OFFENTLICHEN RECHTS
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - PrivatePieties (Private Pieties, Mundane Islam and New Forms of Muslim Religiosity: Impact on Contemporary Social and Political Dynamics)

Reporting period: 2021-04-01 to 2022-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Outside perceptions of North African and Near Eastern countries have often represented these countries in a rather essentialistic way as "the Islamic world", arguing that religion (Islam) is a pervasive and in fact dominating force for social and political life in this geographic region. Such views ignore the fact that religion is only one among many factors that have to be considered when talking about the region. North African and Near Eastern societies are linked indeed with varying historical legacies, different social, cultural and ethnic traditions, diverging economies, a plethora of political regimes and a multitude of religious orientations. As a consequence, religion has acquired a rather variegated social, cultural and political importance in the region. However, the above mentioned essentializing representation of North African and Near Eastern countries has hidden the development of social movements in the region, from Senegal to Pakistan, that are not specifically religious. Our research has shown indeed that social movements and voices in North Africa and the Near East have started to contest the Islamist's claim to represent Islam and their corresponding claim to speak for all Muslims. The strength and the social relevance of such oppositional movements varies, though, and is informed by different regional and temporal contexts. All of these oppositional movements contend, however, that religiosity as well as non-religiosity should be a private, an individual and a personal affair. Their resistance against hegemonic (and often Islamistic) interpretations of Islam is particularly pertinent in places and contexts where either a state (as in Iran) or parastatal Islamist movements (as in Tunisia between 2011 and 2016, in Egpyt between 2011 and 2013) tried or try to impose a specific concept of religiosity. An increasing number of Tunisians, Egyptians and Iranians (etc.) has started indeed to privilege an individualistic approach to the faith. This process of change has led to the weakening of the authority and influence of established religious authorities. Individual religiosity (as well as non-religiosity) may adopt many different guises, though: it could, for instance, be a form of dissociation from established religion; it could also be a form of compassion fatigue and it could even be seen as an excuse for individual atheism. Public and semi-public declarations of atheism have indeed been on the increase in North African and Near Eastern countries in recent years, above all in the social media. Iranians, Egyptians and Tunsisians (etc.) are fed up with sectarian debates, fed up with Islam's instrumentalization for political means and fed up with authoritarian regimes (that try to instrumentalize religion for legitimatory purposes), and they have come to insist that religion (as well as non-religion) is a private and an individual affair. The question thus arises what kind of consequences such processes of individualization will have for the social development of the societes in the region and for the development of Islamist movements and their ability to mobilize people for political aims.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Due to the fact that project members already knew their respective countries of research and already had a good command of the respective languages of communication, research work could start quickly and consisted, in its very beginning, of the task to set up networks of local interlocutors and partners in research. This task was achieved successfully by 2017. In fact, the project was able to invite a considerable number of local interlaocutors and partners in research to conferences at the University of Göttingen in 2017, 2018 and 2019. This form of mutuality helped us tremendously in our field work. Also, a number of our local partners in research contributed articles to our first edited volume (published in 2021 by Roman Loimeier). Between 2017 and early 2020, all project members were also able to conduct their respective field work. At the same time, project members met in weekly (Friday) laboratory meetings to discuss texts, to discuss research, and to discuss terminologies and concepts of work. As a result of these efforts, the project was able to produce (in 2022) four further monographs (two by Roman Loimeier, one edited by all research group members and one by Katja Föllmer) as well as a working paper (edited by Nadine Sieveking in 2021). Due to the CoViD-19 pandemic, we were not able to conduct final research trips, yet, entered into contact with our local interlocutors by digital means and also organized a fourth (digital) conference in 2021 that helped us to finalize results. A major result of our research is that we have been able to confirm our major working hypotheses as formulated in the original resesarch proposal. Second, we have been able to show that due to processes of individualization, religion, in particular "public" religion (i.e. individual commitment to public religious practice), has at least partially lost its mobilizing social and political power, even if this development has taken different intensities in different countries: While public religion still plays a major role in Pakistan, we could observe widespread disenchantment with public religion in Iran as well as Lebanon and Tunisia. By contrast, individual (but private) religiosity has remained a powerful social force in both Egypt and Senegal. At the same time, political regimes in both Senegal and Egypt, but also in Tunisia, have more or less dropped religion as a legitimizing argument for their respective forms of government and policies - in stark contrast to Iran, where religion still plays a major legitimizing role for politics (rejected, however, by many Iranians). These results show that something like a monolithic "Islamic world" simply does not exist and that societies in North Africa and the Near East have to be regarded as being highly dynamic in many respects, including religion.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

A major result of our research has been that we have been able to identify a number of social processes common to all six case studies, in particular, processes of "individualization" that are expressed in political, social and religious terms. Such processes of individualization have had a major impact on "religion", in particular "political (and public) religion", because religion has lost in many (not all) North African and Near Eastern countries its role/function as a platform for political mobilization. By contrast, civilian movements, social movements as well as social non-movements have gained considerable importance for the social, religious and polticial development in the six countries that we had identified for our research. Our research results show that research on and in North African and Near Eastern countries not only has to respect the "individuality" of each of these countries and to refrain from generalizing statements about religion, society and polititcs, but that religion equally has to be seen as a social and political factor that may change character and impact quickly and unexpectedly in many different ways. One astonishing result of our research was for instance, that declarations of non-religiosity (ranging from passion fatigue to indifference with respect to religion to outright atheism) have become quite common in a number of countries, in particular Iran, Lebanon and Tunisia.

bild.roman.loimeier