Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences - Institute of Asian and African Studies

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences | Department of Asian and African Studies | Transregional Departments | Mediality and Intermediality in Asia and Africa | Events | Archives | Organizing the Tablighi Jama'at and the 'Unintended Consequence' of Piety: An Anthropological view from Gujarat, India

Organizing the Tablighi Jama'at and the 'Unintended Consequence' of Piety: An Anthropological view from Gujarat, India

Einladung zu einem informellen Colloquium mit Dr. Anindita Chakrabarti (Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India)
  • When Oct 18, 2013 from 03:00 to 05:00
  • Where Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften, Invalidenstr. 118, Raum 217
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Presenting ethnographic work from Gujarat, India, I shall discuss how religious movements such as the Tablighi Jama’at question the binary between ‘political’ and ‘apolitical’ religious movements. In 2002, the Muslim community bore the brunt of the unprecedented commu-nal violence in Gujarat. I shall trace the rise of Tablighi Jama’at in Gujarat and discuss how such grass-root networks function in times of crisis. The discussion that follows questions another dualism in the field of sociology of Islam, that is, the binary of Islamization versus syncreticism. I argue that in the study of religious movements in South Asia, contemporary sociology suffers from a conceptual ‘lag’ and needs to re-appraise its concepts. Finally, I draw attention to the importance of studying religion as a social institution and not only as a question of minority identity.