I want you to be a Muslim

Religious subjectivity, proselytization, and discursive conversion in an ethnography of Islam

Bibliographic Data

ID12966384
AuthorsJohannes Renders (0000-0002-2254-0716, Aarhus University, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume12
Issue1
Pages55-77
Publication date2018-09-16
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScandinavian Journal of Islamic Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1901-9580 • E-ISSN: 1901-9580
DOI10.7146/tifo.v12i1.109130
OpenAlexW2892040899
LanguageEN
References cited24

“I cannot pressure you. I want you to be a Muslim. You could die tonight!” In this article, I examine some recurrent ethical and methodological ambiguities in my anthropological fieldwork among Danish Muslims, involving repeated confrontation with Muslim proselytization and daʿwā (invitation). I argue that the ethnographer’s religious subjectivity, as well as the manner in which the ethnographic self is constructed, negotiated, and positioned in the field, directly relates to the possibility of an intimate engagement with the Muslim narrative, affecting the reliability of the analysis and success of the ethnography. I also introduce the notion of ‘discursive conversion’ to describe the stage in which the internalization of the language of faith and voluntary acceptance of local categories allows for the direct invitation to Islam

Education and Islamic Studies · Islamic Studies and History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies

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