This article explores how in Morocco, music is used to construct and subvert discourses on a 'moderate' vs. a 'radical' Islam. I focus on experiences and practices of vocal performers of Islam-inspired music, who operate in two different musical domains: statesponsored stages for Sufi music, and non-state-sponsored stages for anashidacapella Islamic songs, generally associated with more orthodox interpretations of Islam. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork among these artists, I analyze how the Moroccan response to the War on Terror, and concomitant perceptions of 'radical' versus 'moderate' Islam, affect the ways in which they present themselves and their music. I propose the notion of 'dissonance' to demonstrate how the artists' musical practices, as well as their narratives of performance, ethics, and emotions converge with, yet simultaneously also rub against state discourses on a 'moderate' vs. a 'radical' Islam.
Publishers are often compared to gatekeepers both on account of the role they play in the selection process as on account of their vital contribution to the social recognition of authorship. The comparison signals an important phenomenon but has its limitations. The first is of a historical nature. For centuries the printing culture coexisted with the much older manuscript culture. Publishers only started to play a key role between authors and the market at the moment when in the 18th and 19th century a print society originated. The second limitation concerns the distinction between literary genres. Those who call publishers gatekeepers suggest that they do so all across the board. That this is incorrect appears from an investigation into the publication of poetry and plays.
This article focuses on furnishing practices in the domestic space of the homes of white Flemish and Dutch Muslim female converts to Islam who made hijra (Islamic migration) to Morocco. Fed up with European Islamophobia and longing for a place that supports and strengthens their faith, they decided to emigrate to a Muslim country. However, remarkably, once settled in Morocco, many experience discontent with regard to a perceived “lack of true Islam” in the country. To gain insight into the positions and experiences of these women, I look at how they create a sense of belonging through furnishing practices in the domestic space of their new homes. I am interested in how various senses of belonging are expressed and come together in relation to their construction of religious belonging and place, and are renegotiated through domestic decoration practices. Building on literature on home, transnational migration, conversion, and material religion, I demonstrate that mechanisms of distinction and notions of religious (im)perfection intersect in the organization of the domestic space. Based on ethnographic accounts, I argue that my interlocutors bring a “culturalized” West-European Islam to Morocco, with tastes and sensibilities that jostle uneasily against local Moroccan religious practices but also allows them to repair some of the privileges they lost upon their conversion in their homeland. Lastly, this article shows that it is through the engagement with mundane material forms, but also with absence and empty spaces, that Islam becomes present in their domestic spaces, enhancing the cultivation of their ethical selves.
This review examines the fourth year of the Fez Festival of Sufi Culture (17-24 April 2010). Through a description of the festival, the impact of commercial interests on attitudes toward Sufi spirituality among different actors of this festival will be explored. Also, perceptions of the coexistence of these seemingly incompatible values will be addressed. The review further explores the transformation of religious ceremonies from local contexts into staged festival performances, and how the recent emphasis of Sufism by the Moroccan state has contributed to the re-emergence of Sufism in the Moroccan public sphere.
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