The Birth Of The Prophet Muhammad: Devotional Piety In Sunni Islam

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E-Book Overview

In the medieval period, the birth of the Prophet Muhammad (the mawlid) was celebrated in popular narratives and ceremonies that expressed the religious agendas and aspirations of ordinary Muslims, including women.

This book examines the Mawlid from its origins to the present day and provides a new insight into how an aspect of everyday Islamic piety has been transformed by modernity. The book gives a window into the religious lives of medieval Muslim women, rather than focusing on the limitations that were placed on them and shows how medieval popular Islam was coherent and meaningful, not just a set of deviations from scholarly norms.

Concise in both historical and textual analysis, this book is an important contribution to our understanding of contemporary Muslim devotional practices and will be of great interest to postgraduate students and researchers of Islam, religious studies and medieval studies.


E-Book Content

The Birth of the Prophet Muhammad In the medieval period, the birth of the Prophet Muhammad (the mawlid) was celebrated in popular narratives and ceremonies that expressed the religious agendas and aspirations of ordinary Muslims, including women. Mawlid celebrations expressed the hope for salvation through the relationship of love and mutuality with the Prophet, rather than exclusively through obedience to Islamic Law. The Birth of the Prophet Muhammad: Devotional piety in Sunni Islam examines the mawlid from its origins to the present day and provides a new insight into how an aspect of everyday Islamic piety has been transformed by modernity. The book demonstrates that medieval popular Islam was coherent and meaningful, not just a set of deviations from scholarly norms. It gives a window into the religious lives of medieval Muslim women, rather than focusing on the limitations that were placed on them. Elite scholars attempted to co-opt and discipline these forms of piety, but were not able to control or suppress them, and popular narratives about the Prophet’s birth remained a powerful counter-canon for centuries. In the twentieth century, social and economic change transformed the ways in which Muslims imagined the Prophet Muhammad, and the celebration of his birthday was marginalized by political forces. Combining textual and historical analysis, this book is an important contribution to our understanding of contemporary Muslim devotional practices and will be of great interest to graduate students and researchers of Islam, religious studies, and medieval studies. Marion Holmes Katz is Associate Professor at the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, New York University, USA. Her research interests are Islamic law, ritual, and gender. Culture and Civilization in the Middle East Series Editor: Ian R. Netton University of Leeds This series studies the Middle East through the twin foci of its diverse cultures and civilisations. Comprising original monographs as well as scholarly surveys, it covers topics in the fields of Middle Eastern literature, archaeology, law, history, philosophy, science, folklore, art, architecture and language. While there is a plurality of views, the series presents serious scholarship in a lucid and stimulating fashion. 1. Arabic Literature – An Overview Pierre Cachia 2. Modern Arab Historiography Historical Discourse and the Nation-State Youssef Choueiri 3. The Philosophical Poetics of Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes The Aristotelian Reception Salim Kemal 4. The Epistemology of Ibn Khaldun Zaid Ahmad 5. The Hanbali School of Law and Ibn Taymiyyah Conflict or Concilation Abdul Hakim I Al-Matroudi 6. Arabic Rhetoric A Pragmatic Analysis Hussein Abdul-Raof 7. Arab Representations of the Occident East-West Encounters in Arabic Fiction Rasheed El-Enany 8. God and Humans in Islamic Thought Abd al-Jabbar, Ibn Sina and al-Ghazali Maha E