Containing the Umma?: Islam and the Territorial Question

The sociopolitical upheavals that appeared suddenly toward the end of 2010 and swept through Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and other parts of the Middle East and North Africa caught most observers off guard and grasping for explanation. The inability to anticipate these popular uprisings may relate to a wi...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Derrick, Matthew (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: [publisher not identified] [2013]
In: Interdisciplinary journal of research on religion
Year: 2013, Volume: 9, Pages: 1-30
Online Access: Volltext (kostenfrei registrierungspflichtig)
Description
Summary:The sociopolitical upheavals that appeared suddenly toward the end of 2010 and swept through Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and other parts of the Middle East and North Africa caught most observers off guard and grasping for explanation. The inability to anticipate these popular uprisings may relate to a widely held understanding of the relationship between Islam and the political-territorial ordering of modernity, namely, the notion that the primacy of the umma - the worldwide community of Islamic believers - is incompatible with the sovereignty of nation-states. In this article, I first identify and discuss the tendency to underappreciate modern territoriality in shaping contemporary Muslim identities and then, drawing on a range of examples, illustrate how the bases of Muslim identities and the relative significance of Islam to those identities have shifted in relation to changing political-territorial circumstances.
ISSN:1556-3723
Contains:Enthalten in: Interdisciplinary journal of research on religion