Dreams from Elsewhere: Muslim subjectivities beyond the trope of self‐cultivation

Abstract

Drawing on dream stories from a Sufi community in Egypt, this article probes the limits of the paradigm of self-cultivation which has come to be widely employed in the anthropology of Islam. While the concept of self-cultivation has complicated the equation of agency and resistance, its emphasis on intentionality and deliberate action obscures other modes of religiosity that centre neither on acting within nor on acting against but on being acted upon. Far from reaffirming a self-cultivating subject, narratives of visitational and divinely inspired dreams are profound reminders of the unpredictability of divine interventions and the contingency of life itself. Through an analysis of Egyptian dream narratives and in conversation with anthropological literatures on an ethics of passion, this article traces a relational understanding of subjectivity which poses an even more radical challenge to the liberal model of the autonomous self than do practices of self-cultivation.

The 'Orthodoxy' of Orthodoxy: On Moral Imperfection, Correctness, and Deferral in Religious Worlds

“…In recent work we have seen a push back against a too narrowly defined scope focusing merely on piety. Amira Mittermaier (2011Mittermaier ( , 2012 has shown how Sufi Muslims in Egypt most definitely work to cultivate a particular moral self, but that this is only one aspect of being that is guided just as much by the teachings of spiritual leaders, visions, and dreams. Samuli Schielke (2009Schielke ( , 2010 has in many ways likewise shown how Muslim subjects at times may want to conform with norms and a project of moral self-disciplining, even if at other times they are less preoccupied with such a project (see also Bandak and Bille 2013a).…”

A catalogue of vice: a sense of failure and incapacity to act among Roma Muslims in Macedonia

“…For example, James Laidlaw has queried Mahmood's presumed distinction of pietistic agency from a reified ‘Western liberal’ modality of action (Laidlaw : 150‐4). Another trenchant critique of pietistic agency appears in Amira Mittermaier's study of Egyptian Sufis, which demonstrates how self‐cultivation as a matter of volitional ritual regimen to attain piety is undermined by other‐than‐human modes of agency experienced as being acted upon by divine or unpredictable forces (). Samuli Schielke has argued that the portrayal of Islam as ‘a perfectionist ethical project of self‐discipline’ (: 2) obscures the fact that some Muslims are indifferent to their religion and most are not particularly pious or willing to adhere to prescriptive principles of their faith.…”

The social life of prayers – introduction

“…In order to do so it is vital to broaden the scope of enquiry from cultivation to the existential aspects of seeking protection and comfort in times of crisis, a time when prayers, more than constituting a moral self, are a way of acting upon the world (see also Mittermaier 2012). Here it is important also to focus on the subjects who are not equally invested in the religious labour such as prayer, or who are so only when particular issues are felt pressing or specific occasions invite and incite this practice (Schielke 2009;Simon 2009).…”