Professor Asad Ahmed

Fall 2015
Wednesdays 11-1
Peabody Museum 12
aaahmed@fas.harvard.edu

Office hours
Mon:2-3.30
Tozzer 309

Anthropology 2676
Muslims, Islam and Anthropology
* Syllabus is subject to Change*

Course Description:
The course is designed to analyse various anthropological approaches to the study of
Muslims and Islam. First, we critically examine seminal interventions by Ernst Gellner,
Clifford Geertz & Michael Gilsenan before turning to Talal Asads analysis of
anthropological categories and attempt to situate the study of Islam as a discursive
tradition. We proceed to examine the analytical purchase and critiques of this
formulation before shifting attention to ethnographic materials that explore Muslim
contestations over various forms of Muslim subjectivity. In the final few weeks we
explore Muslim engagements with, and responses to, various features of modernity such
as free speech, secularism and liberalism.

Requirements:
1) Attendance and active participation are mandatory: unexcused absences will affect
your grade. Students will take turns presenting on weekly readings. These presentations,
of 15-20 minutes, should (a) articulate the principal arguments and (b) critically engage
with the texts. After the presentation a designated discussant will provide a response
before opening up the conversation to the rest of the class.
Each week, students (with the exception of presenters and discussants) are expected to
post one or two paragraphs of comments on the weeks reading on Canvas. This has to be
on the website by 9.00pm Monday. You are allowed to miss two submissions. (35%).
2) Five Response papers of between 500-650 words (30%).

Each response paper is on a single weeks reading and your task is to outline the
arguments of at least two but no more than three key texts, except when a single
ethnography is assigned. The basic objective is to ensure that you have understood the
arguments and are able to articulate them in your own words. However, you should also
critically engage with the texts and arguments in order to improve your grade. Due 6.00
pm Tuesday.
3) Essay of 12-15 pages, which is due by December18th (35%). An abstract of your
proposed essay should be submitted no later than November 17 and you are encouraged
to discuss your essay idea by making use of office hours.

Key Notes:
a) No prior familiarity with anthropology is required but some basic knowledge of Islam
would be advantageous.
b) All papers should be double-spaced and in twelve point font.
c) Any use of another persons words or ideas, taken directly or paraphrased, without
citing the source is plagiarism. This includes taking material from the Internet without
citing the website. If you have any questions on how to properly cite your sources please
refer to the Harvard Guide to Using Sources and in particular the pages on avoiding
plagiarism:
http://usingsources.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k70847&tabgroupid=icb.tabgrou
p106849
d) Undergraduates wishing to take the class should see me.

Required Texts:
Asad, T. et al 2013 (2009). Is Critique Secular? Blasphemy, Injury and Free Speech.
Fordham University Press.
Mahmood, S. 2005. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject.
Princeton. Princeton University Press.
Agrama, H. 2012. Questioning Secularism: Islam, Sovereignty and the Rule of Law in
Modern Egypt. University of Chicago Press.
Schielke, S. 2012. The Perils of Joy: Contesting Mulid Festivals in Contemporary Egypt.
Syracuse University Press.
Janet McIntosh. 2009. The Edge of Islam. Power, Personhood, and Ethnoreligious
Boundaries on the Kenya Coast. Duke University Press Books.

SCHEDULE

Week 1 (Sept. 9): Introduction

Week 2 (September 16): Models, Meaning and Multiplicity

Gellner, E. 1980. Flux and Reflux in the Faith of Men, in Muslim Society. Cambridge
University Press, pp. 1-56 only.
Geertz, C. 1968. Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia.
New Haven. Yale University Press. Preface & Chapters 1& 4.
Gilsenan, M. 1983. Recognizing Islam: Religion and Society in the Modern Arab World.
New York. Pantheon Books. Preface, Chapter 1, 11 and Afterword.

Further Reading:
Gellner, E. 1969. Saints of the Atlas. University of Chicago Press. Chapter 1. Available
through internet link:
http://hollis.harvard.edu/?itemid=|library/m/aleph|001048602
Asad. 1973. Two European Images of Non-European Rule. Economy & Society 2(3):
263-77.
Caton, S. 1987. Power, Persuasion and Language: A Critique of the Segmentary Model
in the Middle East. International Journal of Middle-East Studies. 19(1): 77-102.
Zubaida, S. (1995). Is there a Muslim Society? Ernest Gellner's sociology of
Islam. Economy and Society 24(2): 151-188.

Week 3 (September 23): Conceptualizing Religion

Geertz, C. 1973. Religion as a Cultural System, in The Interpretation of Cultures. New
York, Basic Books.
Asad,T. 1993. The Construction of Religion as An Anthropological Category, in
Genealogies of Religion. John Hopkins University Press.
Lambek, M. 2000. The Anthropology of Religion and the Quarrel between Poetry and
Philosophy. Current Anthropology, 41(3): 309-320.

Further Reading:
Asad, T. 1986. Medieval Heresy: An Anthropological View. Social History. Vol. 11(6).
McCutheon, R.T. 1995. The Category Religion in Recent Publications: A Critical
Survey. Numen 42 (3) 284-309.
King, R. 1999. Orientalism and Religion. Routledge.
Masuzawa, T. 2005. The Invention of World Religions. Chicago. University of Chicago
Press.
Smith, J. Z. (1998). Religion, Religions, Religious. Critical Terms for Religious Studies,
269-284.

Week 4 (September 30): An Anthropology of Islam?

El-Zein, A.H. 1977. Beyond Ideology and Theology: The Search for an Anthropology of
Islam. Annual Review of Anthropology 6:227-254.
Asad, T. 1986. The Idea of Anthropology of Islam. George Washington Center for
Contemporary Arab Studies.
Caton, S. 2006. What is an Authorizing Discourse? in Scott, D & Hirschkind, C. (eds).
Powers of the Secular Modern. Stanford University Press.

Further Reading:
Abu-Lughod, L. 1989. Zones of Theory in the Anthropology of the Arab World. Annual
Review of Anthropology 18: 267-306.
Varisco, D.M. 2005. Islam Obscured: The Rhetoric of Anthropological Representation.
Palgrave Macmillan.
Bowen, J. 2012. A New Anthropology of Islam. Cambridge University Press.
Asad, T. 2014. Video Link to The Idea of An Anthropology Today: Towards NonOrientalist Genealogies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4a1idgurBc
Asad, T & Scott, D. The Trouble of Thinking: An interview with Talal Asad, in Scott,
D & Hirschkind, C. (eds). Powers of the Secular Modern. Stanford University Press.
Tapper, R. 1995. Islamic Anthropology and the Anthropology of Islam.
Anthropological Quarterly 68 (3): 185-193.

Week 5 (October 7): Texts and Contexts

Messick, B. 1993. The Calligraphic State. University of California Press. Chapters 1, 4 &
6. Available online through Harvard library: http://quod.lib.umich.edu.ezpprod1.hul.harvard.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;idno=heb00285
Bowen, J. 1993. Muslims Through Discourse. Princeton University Press. Chapters 1, 2
& 14.
Further Reading:
Eickelman and J.W. Anderson. 1999. Redefining Muslim Publics, in New Media in the
Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere. Indiana University Press.
Messick, B. (1989). Just writing: Paradox and political economy in Yemeni legal
documents. Cultural Anthropology, 4(1), 26-50.
Eickelman, D. 2004. Compromised Contexts: Changing Ideas of Texts in the Islamic
Tradition, in Irene A. Bierman (ed.) Text and Context in Islamic Societies. Garnet &
Ithaca Press

Week 6 (October 14): Ethical Discipline and Pious Selves

Mahmood, S. 2005. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject.
Princeton. Princeton University Press. Chapters 3 & 4
Hirschkind, C. 2001. The Ethics of Listening. American Ethnologist Vol. 28(3): 623650.
Schielke, S. 2009. Being Good in Ramadan: ambivalence, fragmentation and the moral
self in the lives of young Egyptians. Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S), S:
24-40.

Further Reading:
Mittermaier, Amira (2011). The Ethics of the Visitational Dream, in Dreams That
Matter: Egyptian Landscapes of the Imagination. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Nakissa, Aria (2014). An Ethical Solution to the Problem of Legal Indeterminacy: Shara
Scholarship at Egypts Al-Azhar. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 20 (1):
93112.
Ewing, K. 1988. Introduction, in Ewing, K.P (ed.) Shari'at and Ambiguity in South
Asian Islam. University of California Press.

Week 7 (October 21): Ambivalence and Difference

Ewing, K. 1990. The Illusion of Wholeness: Culture, Self and the Experience of
Inconsistency. Ethos 18(3): 251-278.
Ewing, K. 1997. The Qalander Confronts the Proper Muslim in Arguing Sainthood:
Modernity, Psychoanalysis and Islam. Duke University Press.
Marsden, M. 2006. Living Islam: Muslim Religious Experience in Pakistans North West
Frontier; pp.1-23 & Chapter 6.

Further Reading:
Schielke, S. 2009. Ambivalent Commitments. Journal of Religions in Africa 39(2):
158-185.
Khan, N. 2006. Of Children and Jinns: An Inquiry into an Unexpected Friendship in
Uncertain Times. Cultural Anthropology 21(2): 234-264.

Week 8 (October 28):

Schielke, S. 2012. The Perils of Joy: Contesting Mulid Festivals in Contemporary Egypt.
Syracuse University Press.

Week 9 (November 4): Ethnicity and Islam in Kenya

McIntosh, J. 2009. The Edge of Islam. Power, Personhood, and Ethnoreligious
Boundaries on the Kenya Coast. Duke University Press Books

Week 10 (November 11): The Conundrums of Secularism

Agarma, H. 2012. Questioning Secularism: Islam, Sovereignty and the Rule of Law in
Modern Egypt. University of Chicago Press.

Week 11 (November 18): Wounded Sentiments and Free Speech

Asad, T. et al. 2009. Is Critique Secular? Blasphemy, Injury and Free Speech. University
of California Press. (selected essays)

Further Reading:
Brown, W. 1995. Wounded Attachments, in States of Injury. Princeton University Press.
Keane, W. Keane, W. 2009. Freedom and blasphemy: on Indonesian press bans and
Danish cartoons. Public Culture, 21(1): 47-76.

Week 12 (November 25): Thanksgiving Holiday

No Class.

Week 13 (December 2): Liberalism and Islam

Mahmood, S. 2005. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject.
Introduction, Chapter 5 & Epilog.
Massad, J. 2015. Islam in Liberalism. University Of Chicago Press. Introduction and
Chapter 1.
Further Reading:
Laidlaw, J. 2013. The Question of Freedom in Anthropology, in The Subject of Virtue:
Anthropology of Ethics and Freedom. Cambridge University Press.
Abbas, S. 2014. At Freedoms Limit: Islam and the Postcolonial Predicament. New
York: Fordham University Press.