Civic Virtue and Religious Reason: An Islamic Counterpublic

Abstract

Since the rise of modernization theory in the 1960s up through present concerns with globalization, a growing body of anthropological and sociological scholarship has explored the impact of modern media technologies on religious practice. Scholars have frequently approached this topic in terms of a polarity between what are assumed to be two contradictory processes: the deliberative and the disciplinary. Analyses focusing on the deliberative aspect have emphasized the possibilities of argument, contestation, and dialogue that have been afforded by the advent of universal modern literacy, the diffusion of printed texts, and the operation of electronic mass media. 1 Following conventional histories of the Protestant revolution, this scholarship has given particular emphasis to the role of print and other media technologies in propelling a democratization of religious authority. The new object-like quality of religion and the universal accessibility of religious texts, it is argued, transform ritual speech into individual assertion, oral mnemonics into analytical memory. Equipped with these newly found sophistications and the autonomous reasoning that they facilitate, a growing number of individuals engage with and revise the religious traditions they have inherited.Scholars emphasizing the disciplinary functions of religious media, on the other hand, have stressed the ideological over the dialogic aspects of the phenomenon. 2 Media technologies, in this view, enable an extension of an authoritative religious discourse. The resultant public is less a sphere of discussion than one of subjection to authority, part of a project aimed at promoting and securing a uniform model of moral behavior. In short, the public arena constituted by the media practices of religious actors tends to be identified either as a deliberative space of argument and contestation between individuals or as a normative space for education in community-oriented virtue. The assumption is that the more truly deliberative a public is, the weaker its disciplinary function, and vice versa. This way of framing the inquiry reflects, in part, a tendency within liberal thought to view the individual as necessarily in conflict with the community and the forms of collective discipline that undergird it.Cultural AMhrvpology 16(l):3-34.In this article I want to rethink this polarity between deliberative and normative models through an interrogation of the practices of public sociability tied to the production and consumption of "cassette-sermons" in Egypt. In Cairo, where I conducted fieldwork for two years, cassette-recorded sermons of popular Islamic preachers, or khutaba 1 (sing, kha(lb), have become a ubiquitous part of the contemporary social landscape. The recorded voices of these orators can be heard to echo from within cafes, butcher shops, private homes, and most forms of public transportation throughout the city. Beyond its use as a form of pious entertainment, taped-sermon audition in Egypt has become a popular technique for the cultivation of Isla...

New Media and Political Dissent in Egypt

“…In my earlier work, I discussed the emergence in Egypt of what I called "an Islamic counterpublic" (Hirschkind 2001(Hirschkind , 2006. Articulated by the wide circulation of popular cassette-recorded sermons among the lower and lower-middle classes in Cairo, this public arena connects Islamic ethical traditions to practices of deliberation about the common good, the duties of Muslims in their status as national citizens, and the future of the greater Islamic community.…”

Giving in God’s name: investing in the ethical self in the case of the kermes

“…Hence with my interlocutors it is apparent that they saw this kind of participation in events such as the kermes as not only an act of charity and fund raising but, like piety, it is a commitment in every aspect of life to a greater meaning. In many studies, anthropologists refer to religious practices as main constituents of the moral self (Mahmood 2005;Hirschkind 2001), but in my ethnography I have found that even the mundane conduct can be a method of moral construction, if the person doing it bears the consciousness of investing time and effort for God's disposition.…”

Production of mystical Islam in Europe: Religious authorization in the Süleymanlı Sufi community

“…The emergence of new media in the dissemination of religious ideas changes the character of religiosity because it empowers different social actors and increases access to religious knowledge, which result in a "fragmentation of authority" (Eickelman and Anderson 1999). For instance, using the new technology of CDs transformed the methods for cultivating the pious self through listening to religious poetry (Eisenlohr 2006) or listening to taped sermons challenging the reason-based public sphere (Hirschkind 2001). However, this article analyzes how rituals, as media of representation, impact the content of the Islamic message and the social organization of the community.…”