Islam from Anthropological Perspective/ Anthropology of Islam Orientalism Q1. How anthropology explains Islam Q2.

What is Orientalism thesis? And what about? What is Anthropology? Academic study of humanity (characteristics of human experience, from physiology and the evolutionary origins to the social and cultural organization of human societies, as individual and collective forms of human experience. Anthropos = Men

Concern with human life and origin, characterizations of human physical traits, how human behave, why there are variants differing between different groups and so on.
Social organization and culture. 4: Physical, Cultural, Archeological, Linguistic.

William Robertson Smiths book: Religion of the Semites (1889) Robertson Smith (1846-1894): Semitic, Shem/Saam: Son of Noah/Nuh A.S., people who speak a language family of Middle-Eastern origin. Three of the largest religion: Source in the Middle East. Scottish Orientalist, Reader in the dept. of Arabic in Cambridge Robertson is interested to understand previous religious systems.

Ritual and practice precede belief and doctrines

Anthropological: not to ask: what was told by God, but to ask: what were practices It analyzes manifestations: rituals, sacrifices, pilgrimages, charities, fasting and so on. Social context of religious practices Religion exists for preserving welfare of the society, not for salvation or spiritual destination. Positive/Scriptural religions vs. Hedonism.

Book: The Sanusi of Sareneika (1949) by Sir Edward Evans Pritchard

Historical Anthropology
Social Martyrdom Religion is not only for ritual or spiritual purposes, it influences peoples every decision, death and life. Clifford Geertz Religion is a belief system, acting to establish powerful, pervasive and long lasting modes and motivation in men, by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence, and clothing those conceptions with such an aura of factuality, that the moods and motivation seems uniquely realistic.

Two sides of religion: model of reality/what is vs. model for reality/what should be.
Book: Islam Observed (1968) Compatibility of Islam with modernity. Ernest Gellner Interest in nationalism, political philosophy. Book: Post Modernism, Reason and Religion (1992) Attempt to dialogue between Western academia and Islam on the context of the Eighties. j

Orientalism: Edward Said (1935-2003) Palestinian American Christian Orientalism (1978) describes Western Eurocentric prejudice about Arabo-Muslims.

Criticized by scholars like Bernard Lewis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwCOSkXR_Cw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AEACqvTj6k (8:00-16:00) History of Colonial rule History of Muslim decline in knowledge