global flows, local appropriations facets of secularisation and re-islamization among contemporary

357 Pages·2008·2.61 MB·English

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G LO B A L F LO W S , LO C A L A P P R O P R I AT I O N S RO
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Global Flows, Local Appropriations: Facets of Secularisation and Re- PS
Islamization Among Contemporary Cape Muslims is the first ethnographic R,

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study of Muslims in Cape Town, South Africa at this level in 25 years. A
It explores processes of secularisation and re-islamization among Cape T
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Muslims in the context of a post-apartheid South Africa in which liberal O
and secular values have attained considerable purchase in the new N
political and social elites. Fractured by social status, ethnicity and religious S
orientation, Cape Muslims have responded to these changes through an
ambiguous accommodation with the new order. The study explores this
development through chapters on conversions to Islam among black
Africans in Cape Town, Cape Muslim women’s experiences with polygyny,
Cape Muslims and HIV/AIDS, the status of Islam in a prison in Cape Town
in the post-apartheid era, and on contestations over rituals among Cape
Muslims.

S I N D R E B A N G S TA D
GLOBAL FLOWS,
Sindre Bangstad (born 1973 in Oslo, Norway) has been engaged in
ethnographic research on Cape Muslims since 1998. He graduated with
a cand.polit. degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Bergen LOC AL APPROPRIATIONS
in Norway in 2002, and has been a PhD Fellow at the International S
Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) in Leiden, N
The Netherlands between 2003 and 2007. O FACETS OF SECULARISATION
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ISBN 978 90 5356 015 0 S T
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N A AND RE-ISLAMIZ ATION AMONG
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A CONTEMPOR ARY CAPE MUSLIMS
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D Sindre Bangstad

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www.aup.nl I I
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AUP-ISIM-PS-Bangstadt-OM-DEF3.indd 1 27-06-2007 14:59:21
GLOBAL FLOWS,
LOC AL APPROPRIATIONS
FACETS OF SECULARISATION
AND RE-ISLAMIZ ATION AMONG
CONTEMPOR ARY CAPE MUSLIMS
Sindre Bangstad
isim dissertations
isim / leiden
Amsterdam University Press
Cover illustration: Demonstrators in Cape Town
at a rally in protest against the Israeli invasion
of Lebanon in 2006. Photograph by O. Esack.
Cover design and lay-out: De Kreeft, Amsterdam
ISBN-13 978 90 5356 015 0
NUR 741 / 717
© ISIM/ Amsterdam University Press, 2007
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written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.
Mondiale stromingen,
locale toeёigeningen:
Aspecten van secularisatie en
her-islamisering onder hedendaagse
Kaapse Moslims
Een wetenschappelijke proeve
op het gebied van
de Sociale Wetenschappen
P R O E F S C H R I F T
ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor
aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
op gezag van de rector magnificus prof. mr. S.C.J.J. Kortmann
volgens besluit van het College van Decanen
in het openbaar te verdedigen op maandag 10 oktober 2007
om 15.30 uur precies
door
Sindre Bangstad
geboren op 08.12.1973
te Oslo, Noorwegen
Promotores:
Prof. Abdulkader I. Tayob, Universiteit van Kaapstad, Zuid-Afrika.
Prof. Harald Motzki, Radboud Universiteit.
Manuscriptcommissie:
Prof. dr. H. Driessen
Mw. dr. K. van Nieuwkerk
Prof. dr. A. Moors
Global Flows,
Local Appropriations:
Facets of Secularisation and
Re-Islamization Among
Contemporary Cape Muslims
An academic essay in Social Sciences
D O C T O R A L T H E S I S
to obtain the degree of doctor from Radboud University Nijmegen
on the authority of the Rector Magnificus prof. dr. S.C.J.J. Kortmann
according to the decision of the Council of Deans
to be defended in public on Monday 10 September 2007
at 15.30 hours
by
Sindre Bangstad
born in Oslo, Norway
on 08.12.1973
GLOBAL FLOWS, LOCAL APPROPRIATIONS
Supervisors:
Prof. Abdulkader I. Tayob, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Prof. Harald Motzki, Radboud University.
Doctoral Thesis Committee:
Prof. dr. H. Driessen
Mrs. dr. K. van Nieuwkerk
Prof. dr. A. Moors
CONTENTS
Contents
Summary in English 9
Samenvatting in het Nederlands (Dutch Summary) 12
Citations 16
Abbreviations and Acronyms 17
Acknowledgements 20
A Note on Nomenclature, Spelling and Transliteration 25
1. Global Flows, Local Appropriations:
Facets of Re-Islamization and Secularisation
Among Contemporary Cape Muslims 29
2. Africanising Islam: Black African Conversion
to Islam in Cape Town 61
3. Polygyny in Transition 99
4. La’a Taqrabuna al-Zina and Beyond:
Exploring The Narratives of Infection
of Cape Muslims Living With HIV/AIDS 129
5. Asserting The Rights of Muslim Prisoners
in a Prison in Post-Apartheid Cape Town 163
6. Global Flows, Local Appropriations: Islamic Rituals
and Their Transformation in a Globalising Age 191
Conclusions: Theorising The Secular and
The Religious in Secularising and Re-Islamizing
Cape Muslim Communities 229
Notes 243
References 304
List of interviewees cited 344
Glossary 346
Appendices 353

Summary in English
This dissertation, titled ‘Global Flows, Local Appropriations: Facets of
Secularisation and re-Islamization Among Contemporary Cape Muslims’, anal-
yses the impact of processes of general societal and political change in the
South African post-apartheid society on contemporary Muslim communities
in Cape Town, South Africa. It does so from a social anthropological perspec-
tive, and is based on 15 months of fieldwork in 2003-04 and in 2004-05.
Muslims in South Africa represent a small minority, with a mere 1,46
percent of the total population in 2001. However, Muslims in Cape Town,
the historical heartland of Islam in South Africa, represent approximately 10
percent of the population. Post-apartheid South Africa has seen a process
of secularisation, understood as an increasing differentiation between reli-
gious and secular spheres, and as entailing a decrease in the the regulatory
capacities of institutionalised religion on social and individual levels. This
secularisation has been linked in particular to the new ‘modernising’ social
and political elites of post-apartheid South Africa, and has been articulated
in the predominantly secular and liberal Constitution of 1996, and the legali-
sation of abortion, pornography and same-sex relationships, as well as the
abolishment of the death penalty that it has ushered in. Since the elites of
post-apartheid South Africa, and even more so its predominantly religious
citizenry, are fractured in terms of their adherence to, and acceptance of, the
Constitution and the liberal and secular normative framework it is mainly
based on, post-apartheid South Africa can best be described as a society
which is ‘ambivalently secular.’
This dissertation pursues the topic of the impact of societal and
political change in post-apartheid South Africa on contemporary Cape Mus-
lim communities from a variety of angles. The chapters of the dissertation
present findings from ethnographic research on black African conversion to
Islam in the black African townships and informal settlements of Cape Town,
on Muslim women in polygynous marriages in underprivileged communi-
ties in Cape Town, on Muslims living with HIV/AIDS in Cape Town, on the
status of religious rights for Muslim inmates in a prison in Cape Town, as well
as on public deliberations between reformists and Sufis in Cape Town on the
appropriateness of certain Sufi rituals practiced at the Cape.
These chapters shed light on the tensions as well as the re-align-
ment between secularisation and re-Islamization in contemporary Cape
Muslim communities. On the basis of the findings, I argue that processes of
secularisation and re-Islamization must be seen as implicated in, and inter-
9