On Scriptural Essentialism and Ritual Variation

Muslim sacrifice in Sumatra and Morocco

Bibliographic Data

ID7572113
AuthorsJohn R Bowen (corresponding author)
Year1992
Volume19
Issue4
Pages656-671
Publication date1992-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Ethnologist (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0094-0496 • E-ISSN: 1548-1425
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1525/ae.1992.19.4.02a00020
OpenAlexW2132900970
LanguageEN
Citations received20
References cited29

This article examines the contrasting ways in which Muslims in Sumatra and those in Morocco observe the Feast of Sacrifice, and it advances an argument against recent essentialist studies of Islam. Whereas Moroccans publicly reaffirm patriarchy through the ritual, many Gayo men and women in highland Sumatra interpret it in terms of transactions and bilateral family ties. But within each society there are alternative interpretations of the ritual: in Morocco domestic and interstitial rites assert gender complementarity; in Sumatra religious modernists underscore the proper attitude of the sacrifier and deny the possibility of transaction. In each society the multiple ritual forms engage in an internal dialogue, each shaping the other, and are thus “double‐voiced” in Bakhtin's sense. [ ritual, sacrifice, gender, Islam, religion, Indonesia, Gayo, Sumatra, Morocco

Argument (complex analysis · Complementarity (molecular biology · Dichotomy · Epistemology · Essentialism · Ethnology · Islam · Patriarchy · Sacrifice · Sociology · Sociology of religion · Theology · Variation (astronomy · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Asian Studies and History · Gender Studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Philosophy · Religious studies

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