Charisma, personification and continuous revelation: broadening the concept of Islam
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22409/antropolitica2024.v56.i3.a65199Keywords:
Charisma, Alevism, Islam, Talal Asad, Islamic normativity.Abstract
This article aims to broaden and pluralize our approach to Islam as a discursive tradition. It formulates an intervention to the scholarly debate on the conceptualization of Islam as a discursive tradition that was launched by Talal Asad. This conceptualization has been criticized for a certain Sunni bias in its notion of orthodoxy, which posits the Quran and Ḥadīth as central reference points in Muslim engagements with Islam, notably by Shahab Ahmed and Zeynep Oktay. The latter has, based on her work on Alevism, argued for taking charismatic authority more seriously in the conceptualization of the knots of Islamic normativity. Following up on these interventions, this article maintains that recognition of the central role of charisma, that is emphasis on devotion to sacredness embodied in saints, embodiment of the divine in sacred sites and things, and the affective dimensions of piety (in the context of specific soundscapes and aesthetic formations) can help to de-centre scripture-loyal and logocentric reference points in the conceptualization of Islam. The chapter argues that pluralization of the central reference points in relation to which Islam is conceptualized is in line with a genealogical perspective, which should be skeptical of conceptualizations of Islam that overlap with established hegemonies, and take for granted the scripture-centeredness of Islamic piety.
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