Second Thoughts about the Anthropology of Islam, or How to Make Sense of Grand Schemes in Everyday Life

Abstract

A growing body of anthropological research has turned to study Is‑ lam as a discursive tradition that informs the attempts of Muslims to live pious and moral lives, the affects and emotions they cultivate and the challenges they pose to a liberal secular ideology. While this turn has provided direction for a number of innovative studies, it appears to stop short of some key questions regarding everyday religious and moral practice, notably the ambivalence, the inconsistencies and the openness of people’s lives that never fit in the anthropology of Islam. To find ways to account for both the ambivalence of people’s every‑ day lives and the often perfectionist ideals of good life, society and self they articulate, I argue that we may have to talk a little less about traditions, discourses and powers and a little more about the existen‑ tial and pragmatic sensibilities of living a life in a complex and of‑ ten troubling world. By broadening our focus to include the concerns, practice and experience of everyday life in its various moments and directions, we may eventually also be better able to make sense of the significance of a grand scheme like Islam as such.