Historical Anthropology of Muslim Societies

ECTS: 7,5 / 5

Many in the West see ‘Islam' as a monolithic block threatening Western values. Such an image does not do justice to the complexity of Islam, nor to the religious experiences of actual Muslims. After all, someone is not just a Muslim but also a man or a woman, young or old, married or unmarried, literate or illiterate, etc. In addition, a Muslim is also always a member of an ethnic group, a class, a family, a region, a country, a village or a town. All of this influences the way people experience Islam. This module will concentrate on the wider cultural context in which Muslims experience faith. Central question in this course is how Muslims formulate guidelines from the Islamic repertoire of symbols, rituals and dogmas to orientate themselves in the world and find answers to fundamental existential questions.