Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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Item From Islamic Exceptionalism to Universal Religious Categories: Reconceptualizations of Dīn and Millet in the Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Empire(2024) Agalar, Saban; Karamustafa, Ahmet T.; Zilfi, Madeline C.; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines the transformation of the Islamic category of religion through a conceptual history of dīn (often translated as “religion”) and millet (often translated as “community”) during the Ottoman Empire from the late sixteenth to early eighteenth centuries. Arabic and Turkish world histories, which flourished during this period, exhibited a significant expansion in geographical and cultural scope compared to earlier examples and rarely focused on the House of Osman or Islamic history. I argue that these world historians similarly presented dīn as a universal analytical unit, challenging traditional Islamic scholarship that had reserved dīn for Islam or other monotheistic faiths. By presenting Islam as one dīn among many, these authors viewed dīn as a universal social phenomenon comparable to other domains of human life, although differing perspectives persisted among legal scholars, polemicists, and heresiographers. These world histories, along with a growing body of literature on non-Muslim faiths and scriptures, were also characterized by a more detached and analytical approach to their subjects. The dissertation links these conceptual and historiographical shifts to changes in Ottoman self-perception amid increasing awareness of cultural diversity and declining imperial power. This reconceptualization of dīn coincided with debates on the related term of millet, traditionally associated with monotheistic communities, as scholars explored its broader applicability to various religious groups. In addition to a close reading of historical and religious works, the dissertation employs computational tools to analyze substantial volumes of Ottoman texts, including court records and Evliyā Çelebi’s Seyāḥatnāme, to trace how millet was used in both official and literary contexts. For world historians, millet generally implies a shared confession, which is not always monotheistic. In the Seyāḥatnāme, millet typically refers to Christian communities within the empire while excluding Jews, whereas in court records, it primarily signifies the Muslim community, with occasional references to non-Muslim groups.While focusing on native concepts as understood by the Ottomans themselves, the dissertation also draws parallels with Protestant approaches to categorizing religion, noting similar efforts to develop comprehensive taxonomies in both contexts. At the same time, it underlines key differences: while the Protestant model prioritized creed as the central feature of “world religions,” Ottoman world historians embraced a broader understanding of dīn and millet, which included beliefs, acts of worship, belonging to a confessional community, and sometimes customs and morality. These Ottoman historians did not often exclude polytheistic communities as their Protestant counterparts did. Beyond offering an overlooked conceptual history expressed in an understudied historiographical genre in the Ottoman Empire, this dissertation’s potential contributions extend to the broader fields of Islam and the study of religion. By challenging narrowly defined and ahistorical Islamic conceptualizations of religion and non-Muslim faiths, it aims to expand the current understanding of Islam, moving beyond the traditional focus on the Quran and a few medieval classics. Additionally, the study engages with broader theoretical debates on the nature of religion, questioning the universality of post-Enlightenment European models by exploring non-Western religious categories in early modern history.Item Memorizing the Sacred in the Digital Age: Exploring Qur’an Memorization Experiences Using Physical & Digital Formats(2021) Kabir, Arif Abdal; Golbeck, Jennifer A; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)For centuries, millions of Muslims have been memorizing the entirety of the Qur’an, the holy scripture of Islam that provides guidance to its believers and contains over seventy-seven thousand words in Arabic. This study explores the present-day experiences of these adherents who utilize traditional and digital methods to commit the Qur’an to memory and investigates whether the experience changes when using the different formats. The research instruments include multiple questionnaires, a monthlong diary study involving two weeks of memorization with a digital device and two weeks with a physical Qur’an and interviews with twenty-three participants. The study offers findings that include reported differences in difficulty, sentiments, and sense of connection to God, insights into the prevalent benefits and challenges of digital and traditional scriptural memorization and design suggestions on tools and methods to improve the experience of memorizing the Qur’an with both formats.Item POLEMIC AGAINST PRE-ISLAMIC DEITIES IN THE SŪRAH NAMED AFTER THE PLEIADES(2020) Zaman, Asad Uz; Borrut, Antoine; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The thesis explores the idea of whether Allāt, al-‘Uzzā, and Manāt were worshipped as manifestations of Venus by Muhammad’s pagan opponents known as the mushrikūn; an idea inspired through engagement with Gerald Hawting’s book The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam. By reading Q53 Sūrat al-Najm within a broader context of ancient Near Eastern astral religion/mythology I develop an “astral” interpretation of Muhammad’s angelic vision of the Archangel Gabriel, highlighting how the description of Gabriel at the beginning of the sūrah parallels the movements of Venus as the morning star in some salient features. Based on this finding I argue that the Venusian description of Gabriel serves as a polemic posing him in comparison to the goddesses mentioned later in the sūrah at Q53:19-20. These developments prompt me to examine their implications for the Satanic verses story and propose a date for Q53’s revelation.Item Self, Space, Society, and Saint in the Well-Protected Domains: A History of Ottoman Saints and Sainthood, 1500-1780(2019) Allen, Jonathan Parkes; Karamustafa, Ahmet T; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Through an exploration of the historical trajectory of Islamic saints and sainthood across the early modern Ottoman world by means of a wide selection of case studies this dissertation argues for the importance of sainthood in all its facets as both a subject of Ottoman history and as a lens for illuminating many other aspects of social and cultural history. Beginning with the newly expanded empire under Selīm I (r. 1512-1520) and stretching all the way to the second half of the eighteenth century, this study explores the intersection with saints and sainthood of large-scale political and social transformations that shaped the empire as a whole at various points during this time-span, from the integration of new provinces into the empire to the rise of Islamic puritanism to the elaboration of new sociabilities and expressions of the self. The case studies that structure this study range from examinations of particular important figures and their textual corpora such as ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʿrānī (d. 1565) and ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (d. 1731) to investigations centered on particular regions or communities, paying particular attention to rural contexts in Syria, the Kurdish lands, and Anatolia. Subjects and sources, in a wide range of genres, from both the Arabophone and Turcophone divisions of the empire are treated, the dissertation examining the empire as an interconnected whole despite linguistic differences. Eschewing a focus on Islamic mysticism or sufi organizations narrowly conceived, I demonstrate the socially distributed nature of sainthood and its interplay with many aspects of wider discourse and practice. Drawing upon theoretical models of script and repertoire, language and dialect, I work to make sense of different yet interrelated practices of Ottoman sainthood across the empire, paying especial attention to the uses and constructions of social space, the performance and making of the self, and the generally socially embedded nature of saints and associated phenomena. Finally, this study unfolds within the context of the wider early modern world, Islamicate and beyond, with the larger goal of situating my arguments and findings within the global patterns and dynamics that marked the early modern world.Item SUFIMINISM: THE SEXUAL, THE SPIRITUAL, THE SELF(2018) Haq, Sara; Tambe, Ashwini; Women's Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)My dissertation addresses the question: what does an exploration of sexual politics within Islam look like if the mandate of respectability is refused? It explores the possibilities of Sufi thought as an epistemological approach to thinking about sexuality studies and reframing the relationship between Islam and sex. Existing scholarship on Sufism, Islam, and feminism tends to overrely on legal framings of sexuality and heavily exegetical engagements with religion, and offers too many unstated concessions to respectability politics. I argue that by centering the poetic, the everyday, and the transgressive, Sufism can offer alternative understandings of counter-hegemonic Islamic traditions. I use an expansive range of texts such as Sufi qawwali (spiritual songs), Sufi poetry, Qur'anic exegeses, hagiographical texts, and oral storytelling to explore pivotal concepts in sexuality studies: heteronormativity, consent, and the divide between licit and illicit sex. In addition to textual analysis, I present interludes of experiential narratives that are drawn from semi-structured interviews with sexually marginalized Muslims as well as from autoethnographic reflections; they illustrate the complex relationships between religio-spirituality and sexual expression. Each analysis chapter is focused on distinct Sufi tropes, such as wisal/firaq (union/separation), niyyat (intentionality), ‘ubudiyya (servanthood), pain-and-pleasure, kanjri (whore), zaat (being), and izzat (honor). Together, these chapters challenge imperatives of marriage and sex, make the case for affective consent, reflect on unconventional sexual practices such as kink/BDSM, and reframe a conversation about sex work beyond the binary of licit versus illicit sex. I conclude by discussing the possibilities of future research on the contemporary resurgence of feminism and Sufism in South Asian popular culture, as well as my vision for a queer and interdisciplinary approach I call Sufiminism.Item Assessing the Relationship of Muslim-American Identity with Practices in Mate Selection: Familial Involvement and the Intention to Marry(2018) Al-Mansur, Rafee; Leslie, Leigh A; Family Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Muslim Americans may experience conflict between societal norms and the values of their religion with respect to mate selection. Whereas American norms prioritize autonomy and love, Muslim societies prioritize family and chastity. This study assessed the extent to which Muslim and American identities impact (1) desire to involve family in mate selection and (2) willingness to enter romantic relationships without considering marriage. Researchers partnered with a Muslim matrimonial and dating mobile app to survey U.S. users, resulting in 962 responses. Muslim identity and American identity were both found to be significantly correlated to mate selection practices. Results suggest most Muslim Americans are caught between models: they are transitioning away from traditional mate selection practices which rely on parents to find partners, a major shift in the last 30 years. However, they are also not willing to adopt American practices which do not consider marriage, such as casual dating.Item From Karbala to Qādesiyyeh: the Spectacle of Arab “Other” in Persianate and Parsi Literary Traditions(2017) Jamshidi, Abbas; Karimi-Hakkak, Ahmad; Richardson, Brian; Comparative Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In early decades of the twentieth century, a distinct anti-Arab discourse emerged in modern Persianate literature. A complex process of identification and disidentification of self and “otherness” came to cast them as the “other” of the Persianate people who are represented as occupying a higher standing on an imaginary evolutionary scheme. While this view faced strong competing discourses in the 1960s and 1970, prior to the 1979 Islamic revolution, it did not fade completely. The present dissertation argues that the emergence of antiquarianism in Iran and its neighboring cultures in the nineteenth century, and a growing Shi’i conceptualization of “otherness,” underlined the discourse that recast the Arabs as destroyers of Iran’s antiquities. As the title of this project indicates, two traumatic moments define the range of materials examined here. “From Karbala to Qādesiyyeh” tries to demonstrate how the mutable image of the “other” in some Persianate literary environments historically has gone through certain changes where religious conceptualizations of self and “other” were displaced by ethnic ones. Examples of early Shiʿi poetry and performative practices like taʿziyeh performances and cursing rituals are sites where in Chapter One I examine the identity of this religious “other” as it ambivalently consisted of Omayyad Arabs, Ottoman Turks and Uzbeks. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, this ambivalence was reduced in favor of an ethnic “other” who was resolved to destroy not Iran’s Shiʿi faith but the Persian “nation.” This was when the emergent ideology of modern Persian nationalism replaced Shiʿi-Sunni paradigms of self and “otherness” with tropes and discourses derived from colonial sciences of archaeology and anthropology. As a result, the newly conceptualized Arab “other” no longer came from the battle of Karbala (680 CE) which is a foundational moment for the Shiʿi faith; instead, he came from the battle of Qādesiyyeh (636 CE) which marked the downfall of the Sasanian Empire and the advent of Islam in Iran. The career of renowned modern writer, Sadeq Hedayat (1903-1951), tends to epitomize this epistemological shift. As a preamble to my study of Hedayat, in Chapter Two, I briefly investigate the emergence of antiquarianism in nineteenth-century Iran in the works of revolutionary poet, Mirzādeh ʿEshqi (1894-1924). I argue that ʿEshqi’s romantic reception of Iran’s antiquities, especially the Ctesiphon ruins where the remains of the Sasanian past could be seen, was a watershed moment for the formation of an antiquarian discourse in modern Persian literature. This was when ʿEshqi transplanted “footsteps of a barefooted Arab” at the Ctesiphon ruins in an effort to restore the latter’s agency as the purported destroyer of Iran’s pre-Islamic glories. As I argue in Chapter Three, Hedayat transformed ʿEshqi’s imaginary encounter with the Arab “other” into a political theatre where presumptions about the inferiority of Arab material culture, especially their uncouth appearance and humble source of subsistence, function as the armature of the evolutionary discourse he directs at them. Hedayat’s appropriation of the findings of European sciences of archaeology and anthropology –popular among elite circles in Iran in 1920s and 1930s – tends to frame his representations of Arabs as some “primitive” people attacking a superior Persian civilization. The racial anthropological underpinnings of his writings reached an unprecedented level when in one of his satirical works, he paraded the Arabs in a human zoo (ethnological exhibition) in Berlin supposedly to expose their “barbarous” deeds and creeds. By submitting the Arabs to the category of “savages,” Hedayat mobilized the pernicious tropes and discourses of certain colonial exhibitions where Africans and “Orientals” were put on display in Europe as signifiers of alterity. In Chapter Four, I argue that certain colonial elites in the Indo-Persian community of India, known as the Parsis, played a vital role in fostering the absorption of colonial sciences of archaeology and anthropology in the elite discourses of history and literature in nineteenth-century Iran. Examining the writings of Manekji Limji Hataria (1813–1890), the well-known emissary who was sent from Mumbai to Iran to improve the lives of its Zoroastrian community, can shed light on how the image of Arabs as “uncivilized” destroyers of Iran’s ancient glories was discursively manufactured by projecting onto them the very practices Hataria observed among contemporary Persians when it came to failing to protect their country’s ancient heritage. The Parsi texts examined here capture a vibrant interplay between age-old Persian concepts, and tropes and discourses they borrowed from European colonial literature. Exploring the intertextual continuities we find between the two traditions can offer fascinating comparative insight into the polyphony of voices that animates the Persianate literature in its trans-regional reach.Item TOWARDS A FEMINIST RECONSTRUCTION OF PERSIAN SUFISM(2017) Nourbakhsh, Safoura; MOSES, CLAIRE; Women's Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Contrary to many claims, Sufism is not a gender-neutral discourse and practice. Although women have been present since the inception of Sufism in the eighth century CE, like most androcentric knowledge, the foundational discourse of Sufism is defined by male interest and male privilege. Seeking to address the gender bias in Persian Sufism, this dissertation offers a feminist interdisciplinary examination of Persian Sufism through various forms of textual analysis—linguistic, psychoanalytic, formal—in different fields of study: religious studies, medieval historiography, literature, and ethnography. Through analysis and interpretation of some of the foundational texts of Persian Sufism written from the 10th to the 13th century CE—Hujwiri’s Kashf al-mahjub, Ibn Munavvar’s Asrar al-tawhid, Attar’s Tazkirat al-awliya and Illahi-nama, and Rumi’s Masnavi—my work offers a map of the construction of gender and women’s participation in the early discourse of Persian Sufism that continues to shape the understanding and practice of Sufism in contemporary times. Following medieval textual analysis, I provide an ethnography of women’s diverse experiences as members of the Nimatullahi Sufi order from an insider perspective. The analysis of early influential texts will reverberate through the ethnographic chapter, since many of the texts that I discuss are still central in Sufi ethos and practice. My aim throughout this dissertation is to address male privilege in Persian Sufism by deconstructing the myth of the exceptional woman in Sufism, highlighting women’s involvements in early Sufi communities, reinterpreting Sufi narratives to engage the gender question meaningfully, turning negative interpretations of women into empowering and inspiring tales of women’s spirituality, and finally, to record and preserve the contributions of contemporary women in Sufism for future generations.