Muslim Cosmopolitans? Transnational Life in Northern Pakistan

Bibliographic Data

ID3633285
AuthorsМагнус Марсден (SOAS University of London, corresponding author), Magnus Marsden
Year2008
Volume67
Issue1
Pages213-247
Publication date2008-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of Asian Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-9118 • E-ISSN: 1752-0401
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/s0021911808000077
OpenAlexW2103058923
LanguageEN
Citations received36
References cited73

This article explores the importance of transnational forms of Muslim cultural identity in northern Pakistan. By documenting the dynamism of a transnational form of Muslim identity that encompasses people belonging to a wide range of ethnic communities and Islamic doctrinal traditions, as well as extending across countries whose Muslim peoples have experienced the differential effects of their incorporation into both the Soviet Union and British India, the author seeks to challenge the work of Islam specialists who emphasize the centrality of "globalizing modernity" to the making of contemporary forms of Muslim identity. In contrast, this article builds on historical accounts of premodern forms of Muslim cosmopolitanism, notably Engseng Ho's study of Hadrami Muslim scholars who saw themselves as active creators of a universal world structured around the transregional ideals of their faith in the expansive Indian Ocean trading world. Building on this and other work on cosmopolitanism, the author documents the ways in which older experiences of mobility in this politically sensitive region of the world influence villagers' present-day engagements with globalizing processes. The ethnographic focus is on the ways in which Sunni and Shi'a Ismai'li Chitrali Muslims interacted with refugees into their region from Afghanistan and Tajikistan between 1979 and 2002, a time when both countries were experiencing violent civil and international conflict

Cosmopolitanism · Ethnography · Geography · Identity (music) · Islam · Modernity · Muslim world · Political science · Sociology · Anthropology · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Gender Studies · Law · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies

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