This contribution aims to approach the theme of a traveling Islam by starting from moving people and considering how their religious “luggage”—in terms of beliefs, ideas, and practices—travels with... Show moreThis contribution aims to approach the theme of a traveling Islam by starting from moving people and considering how their religious “luggage”—in terms of beliefs, ideas, and practices—travels with them and what this means for the circulation of religious ideas in Africa and beyond. The paper focuses particularly on Senegalese migrants of the Murid Sufi order residing in Italy and the Netherlands; it investigates how their religious luggage is important to them in the migration context and may circulate further from there. In addition, it explores how their religious luggage is moulded in, and through, their migration experiences: for instance, its meaning may change, or another layer may be added. Finally, ideas on (the force of) the Muridiyya may travel back to Senegal, adding other layers to the meaning of religion there as well. Show less
Religious scholarship can be offensive to believers, as conflicts from the time of Galileo and Spinoza to the recent critique of Danish religious scholars in the wake of the infamous Muhammad... Show moreReligious scholarship can be offensive to believers, as conflicts from the time of Galileo and Spinoza to the recent critique of Danish religious scholars in the wake of the infamous Muhammad cartoons have shown. Studies of this type of scholarship have been appropriated by believers as a means of reinventing their own identities - as the training of twentieth-century Muslim clergy demonstrates. This volume offers a unique collection of training materials from European Muslim clergy since the 1940s - including Third Reich reports on debriefing imams, surveillance files on Muslim activists, and information on Bosnian clergy and their training centres - as well as an exploration of religion and academic freedom in general, accompanied by appendices in both Arabic and English Show less
