Baker Raymond William - One Islam, Many Muslim Worlds

One Islam, Many Muslim Worlds

RELIGION AND GLOBAL POLITICS

SERIES EDITOR

John L. Esposito

University Professor and Director

Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding

Georgetown University

RACHID GHANNOUCHI

A Democrat Within Islamism

Azzam S. Tamimi

BALKAN IDOLS

Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States

Vjekoslav Perica

ISLAMIC POLITICAL IDENTITY IN TURKEY

M. Hakan Yavuz

RELIGION AND POLITICS IN POST-COMMUNIST ROMANIA

Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu

PIETY AND POLITICS

Islamism in Contemporary Malaysia

Joseph Chinyong Liow

TERROR IN THE LAND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Guatemala under General Efrain Rios Montt, 19821983

Virginia Garrard-Burnett

IN THE HOUSE OF WAR

Dutch Islam Observed

Sam Cherribi

BEING YOUNG AND MUSLIM

New Cultural Politics in the Global South and North

Asef Bayat and Linda Herrera

CHURCH, STATE, AND DEMOCRACY IN EXPANDING EUROPE

Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu

THE HEADSCARF CONTROVERSY

Secularism and Freedom of Religion

Hilal Elver

THE HOUSE OF SERVICE

The Glen Movement and Islams Third Way

David Tittensor

MAPPING THE LEGAL BOUNDARIES OF BELONGING

Religion and Multiculturalism from Israel to Canada

Edited by Ren Provost

RELIGIOUS SECULARITY

A Theological Challenge to the Islamic State

Naser Ghobadzadeh

THE MIDDLE PATH OF MODERATION IN ISLAM

The Qurnic Principle of Wasaiyyah

Mohammad Hashim Kamali

ONE ISLAM, MANY MUSLIM WORLDS

Spirituality, Identity, and Resistance across Islamic Lands

Raymond William Baker

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Baker, Raymond William, 1942

One Islam, many Muslim worlds : spirituality, identity, and resistance

across Islamic lands / Raymond William Baker.

p.cm. (Religion and global politics)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 9780190230791 (ebook) 1. Islam21st century. 2. Muslims.

3. Islamic sociology. 4. Islam and politics21st century. I. Title.

BP161.3.B344 2015

297.09051dc23

2014048242

135798642

Typeset in Scala Pro

Printed on 45# Glatt offset 400 ppi

Printed by Edwards Brothers, North Carolina

To Laila, Suad, Muhammad, and the numerous other ordinary Muslims encountered in Islamic lands who somehow create small miracles of kindness and courage, as they wage everyday battles to live good and productive lives in often extraordinary and, far too often, cruel circumstances.

How splendid is the wisdom of God in revealing the nature of Islam. Islam appeared as a River of Life, welling up in the barren desert of Arabia.

MUHAMMAD ABDUH

TWO CIRCLES OF special people have made this book possible. The first arose from decades of interaction with friends, colleagues, and a multitude of strangers in the Islamic lands where I have lived and traveled for some four decades. Always to my great delight, they have very often been more than willing to share with an American student of their religion, culture, and political life their experiences and their feelingsnot to mention whatever they were eating or drinking as I passed by. Endless acts of generosity have marked those encounters. Relationships of all kinds emerged, and those relationships inform the observations offered here. The second circle has taken shape from the generations of students, especially in Egypt and the United States, who have struggled with me to better understand and appreciate one of the worlds great civilizations and the astonishingly diverse personal and collective lives it has made possible.

Only living in communities of Muslims can provide the indispensable experiential grounding for an interpretive essay on contemporary Islam like this one. Islam is about acting in the world. For believers, faith is very much about the struggle to live personally and in community as God intended for his creations. I am grateful for the wonderful opportunities I have received from the Muslims among whom I have lived to share joys and sorrows through the years. Without my designation as a Carnegie Islam Scholar and the generous support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York that came with it, travel to these far-flung places to meet and discuss with scholars, public intellectuals, and ordinary people would not have been possible, although Carnegie bears no responsibility for what I imagined I learned from those encounters.

Academic colleagues across the disciplines and around the globe, most notably those in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Cyprus, Syria, Tunisia, and Iraq as well as the United States, have reacted continuously to my earlier published work on Islam. I have greatly appreciated their kindnesses in pointing out shortcomings and misinterpretations. I like to imagine that their efforts have improved this latest effort. It is impossible to list all of those colleagues. However, I simply cannot fail to mention three: Tareq Ismael of the University of Calgary, Manar Shorbagy of the American University in Cairo, and John Esposito of Georgetown.

Of the hundreds of students who have studied things Islamic with me, two Americans have been especially helpful on this project: Alex Henry over the course of several years, including a summer in Cairo, and Alex Hermsen, most recently, for assisting in the very final stages of the manuscript. Of former Egyptian and Arab students, allow me to celebrate Karen Aboul Kheir and Omar Mahmoud, two of the most brilliant who very early made the teacherstudent role a reversible one and taught me a great deal about Islam, the many Muslim worlds, and the world beyond. They are now lifelong friends and professional peers in very different fields. I have learned most when our disagreements on issues have been sharpest and the discussions most animated. I have reveled in those friendships. Miraculously, both Karen and Omar still respond to calls for help from a former teacher. Lively discussions with both of them have proceeded apace as I have worked for a very long time to finish this manuscript. Omar, I should also add, has read every line in this book. He helped me reconsider and rewrite more sections than I can count. He corrected errors and offered suggestions for important improvements all along the way. Omar deserves considerable credit for any strength the book may have and no blame at all for the weaknesses and misinterpretations that remain, since I did not always take his advice.