Between Muslims - (Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and) by J Andrew Bush (Paperback)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>"This book asks what it means to be Muslim, yet not pious, in Iraqi Kurdistan. Though Islam is often represented in terms of either daily devotion, such as prayer and fasting, or abandonment of faith, there are many who turn away from tradition without departing from Islam. J. Andrew Bush offers us a new way to understand religious difference in Islam, one that invites questions about divine texts and rejects easy answers about political or sectarian identities. Exploring the lives of irreligious Muslims, Bush highlights the paradoxes of their ethical orientation. While profoundly averse to many aspects of Islamic traditions, irreligious Muslims nonetheless harbor attractions to other aspects--such as Sufi poetry. Exploring this complex weave of attraction and aversion, Relating to Islam in Kurdistan provides intimate portraits of irreligious Kurdish Muslims in everyday life and the historical conditions that have allowed such paradoxical religious orientations to appear very ordinary in contemporary Kurdistan. Whether readers approach the book as Muslims with a commitment to Islam, or as Muslims with ambivalence to Islam, or as non-Muslims who bear their own forms of certainty or ambivalence about Islam, the book will open to the door to thinking about the relationship between commitment and ambivalence in Islamic traditions"--<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><p>Within the broad contours of Islamic traditions, Muslims are enjoined to fast during the month of Ramadan, they are invited to a disciplined practice of prayer, and they are offered the Quran as the divine revelation in the most beautiful verbal form. But what happens if Muslims choose not to fast, or give up prayer, or if the Quran's beauty seems inaccessible? When Muslims do not take up the path of piety, what happens to their relationships with more devout Muslims who are neighbors, friends, and kin? </p> <p><i>Between Muslims</i> provides an ethnographic account of Iraqi Kurdish Muslims who turn away from devotional piety yet remain intimately engaged with Islamic traditions and with other Muslims. Andrew Bush offers a new way to understand religious difference in Islam, rejecting simple stereotypes about ethnic or sectarian identities. Integrating textual analysis of poetry, sermons, and Islamic history into accounts of everyday life in Iraqi Kurdistan, <i>Between Muslims</i> illuminates the interplay of attraction and aversion to Islam among ordinary Muslims.</p><p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>[G]roundbreaking and innovative... <i>Between Muslims</i> holds up as an accessible and eloquent account of social dynamics in contemporary Iraqi Kurdistan.--Edith Szanto "<i>Journal of the American Academy of Religion</i>"<br><br>A finely nuanced study about the impossibility of sequestering what is religious from what is not. In exemplary fashion, Andrew Bush shows us how the categories with which we work--religion, atheism, or secularism--are insufficient to understand the simultaneously sacred and profane world of everyday life.--Faisal Devji "Oxford University"<br><br>A refreshing departure from the focus on nationalist identity in studies of Iraqi Kurdistan, <i>Between Muslims</i> is a beautifully written and original work on the dynamics of Islamic traditions. Andrew Bush subtly explores how 'fractures of difference' are lived in everyday intimate relationships.--Sara Pursley "New York University"<br><br>Andrew Bush has written a remarkable book that makes highly original contributions to the anthropology of religion as well as Kurdish studies. There is no other book quite like this. Approaching Kurdish society through its poetics, he has grasped important insights into the ambiguities of everyday ethics underlying the social reality of contemporary Kurdistan.--Martin van Bruinessen "Utrecht University"<br><br>Written with a scholar's rigor and a poet's grace, <i>Between Muslims</i> depicts textures of Islamic tradition rarely discussed in the literature. Fiercely independent in its approach to theorizing Muslim life, this deeply-layered monograph is a must-read for scholars in anthropology, religious studies, and beyond.--Noah Salomon "Carleton College"<br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br><b>J. Andrew Bush</b> is a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Law School.
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