Shari‘a Consciousness: Law and Lived Religion among California Muslims

Abstract

Shari‘a (commonly translated as Islamic law) is at the epicenter of anti-Muslim discourses in the United States. How do Muslims in the United States understand and experience shari‘a in the context of virulent attacks on it and on Islam and Muslims more generally? This article explores the meanings Californian Muslims give to and the intentions they derive from shari‘a when dominant discourses represent shari‘a as a cause for concern in American life. Drawing from fieldwork and interviews with Muslims across California, as well as scholarship on legal consciousness and lived religion, we document three interrelated stages of shari‘a consciousness: perceiving shari‘a and discriminatory depictions of it; educating oneself about shari‘a’s social and political relevance; and forming an intention for social action. Documenting these interrelated stages and theorizing the relationship between legal consciousness, religion, and inequality, this article reveals how religious identity formation is a significant precursor of legal mobilization and how nonstate normative orders provide interpretive frames for understanding human rights and social justice. Ultimately, legal consciousness may stem from sacred sensibilities and the desire to be a more ethical servant of God and not merely to be a more ethical subject of the state.

Race-making, religion and rights in the post-colony: unmasking the pathogen in assembling a Hindu nation

“…Building on these critical insights, law and society scholars have traced the work that law and rights do in relation to race and religion (Darian-Smith, 2010; Massoud and Moore, 2020; Aziz, 2021). For example, Darian-Smith maps out the imperialistic and xenophobic legacies that inform ideas of race and religion in landmark cases in Anglo-American law.…”