Muslims through Discourse
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A01=John R. Bowen
Adhan
Agriculture
Agriculture (Chinese mythology)
Al-Falaq
Arabic
Areca nut
Author_John R. Bowen
Basmala
Betel
Burial
Catechism
Category=JHM
Category=QRP
Category=QRVJ1
Church service
Clergy
Confession of Faith (United Methodist)
Darul Islam (Indonesia)
Datu
Deity
Divination
Eid al-Adha
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eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Exegesis
Exorcism
Glossary
Glutinous rice
God
Hajj
Household
Incense
Islam
Islamic culture
Islamic party
Kenduri
Literature
Malaysia
Meal
Mosque
Muhammad
Muhammadiyah
Muslim
Muslim world
Narrative
Pawang
Piety
Polytheism
Prayer
Public sphere
Puffed rice
Quran
Recitation
Religion
Religious education
Religious orientation
Religious text
Rite
Sacred history
Saleh
Sermon
Shafi'i
Sharia
Shia Islam
Sibling
Sufism
Sunni Islam
Symptom
Takbir
Tariqa
Theology
Ulama
Veneration of the dead
West Sumatra
Worship
Writing
Product details
- ISBN 9780691028705
- Weight: 567g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 09 May 1993
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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In this rich account of a Muslim society in highland Sumatra, Indonesia, John Bowen describes how men and women debate among themselves ideas of what Islam is and should be--as it pertains to all areas of their lives, from work to worship. Whereas many previous anthropological studies have concentrated on the purely local aspects of culture, this book captures and analyzes the tension between the local and universal in everyday life. Current religious differences among the Gayo stem from debates between "traditionalist" and "modernist" scholars that began in the 1930s, and reveal themselves in the ways Gayo discuss and perform worship, sacrifice, healing, and rites of birth and death, all within an Islamic framework. Bowen considers the power these debates accord to language, especially in arguments over spells, rites of farming, hunting, and healing. Moreover, he traces in these debates a general conception of transacting with spirits that has shaped Gayo practices of sacrifice, worship, and aiding the dead.
Bowen concludes by examining the development of competing religious ideas in the highlands, the alternative ritual forms and ideas they have pro-mulgated, and the implications of this phenomenon for the emergence of an Islamic public sphere.
John R. Bowen is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Washington University. He is author of Sumatran Politics and Poetics: Gayo History, 1900-1989 (Yale).
