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Transnational Learning Networks Amongst Asian Muslims: An Introduction*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 April 2014

CHRISTOPHE JAFFRELOT*
Affiliation:
Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales, Sciences Po/Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and King's India Institute, King's College London Email: [email protected]

Abstract

The students of transnational flows, including James Rosenau,1 have pertinently highlighted the growing assertion of ‘sovereign free actors’ at the expense of ‘sovereign bound actors’ in what they call postinternational politics.2 Dealing mostly with the end of the Cold War era, they have tended to focus on the increasingly important role of not only the multinational firms but also of the financial companies on newly globalized markets, and not only law-abiding but also illicit traffickers (of drugs, arms etc.) which have prospered along with increasingly more effective means of communication.

They have almost completely ignored the transnationalization of religions, except from the point of view of fundamentalisms and related terrorist networks. Sociologists have paid more attention to this development.3 But these studies, which have mostly focused on the impact of migrations,4 have tended to under estimate the resilience of state boundaries5 and have often neglected the circulation of ideas, especially from the point of view of the learning networks—the very object of this Special Issue which concentrates on one particular creed: Islam.

Type
SPECIAL ISSUE INTRODUCTION
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

*

The papers in this Special Issue are drawn from a workshop that Christophe Jaffrelot and Miriam Künkler co-organized under the title, ‘Networks of Religious Learning and the Dissemination of Religious Knowledge across the Middle East and Asia’, and held in Hong Kong in June 2012 under the framework of the SSRC Initiative on Inter-Asian Connections III. The organisers are grateful to the sponsor of this event and to the participants to the meetings during which the original papers were discussed.

References

1 Rosenau is considered to be one of the theoreticians of transnationalism since the publication of his book, Turbulence in World Politics: A Theory of Change and Continuity, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.

2 See also Russett, Bruce and Starr, Harvey, World Politics: The Menu for Choice, New York, W. H. Freeman, 1989Google Scholar.

3 Ben-Rafael, Eliezer and Yitzhak, Sternberg (eds), World Religions and Multiculturalism: a Dialectic Relation, Leiden, Brill, 2010Google Scholar.

4 Eickelman, Dale and Piscatori, James (eds), Muslim Travelers: Pilgrimage, Migration and the Religious Imagination, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1990Google Scholar;Barbara, Metcalf (ed.), Making Muslim Space in North America and Europe, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1996Google Scholar; Menjívar, Cecilia. ‘Religious Institutions and Transnationalism: A Case Study of Catholic and Evangelical; Salvadoran Immigrants’, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society,12 (4): 1999, 589611CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Werner, Schiffauer, ‘Migration and Religiousness’, in Gerholm, T. and Lithman, Y. G. (eds), The New Islamic Presence in Western Europe, London and New York, Mansell, 1988, pp. 146158Google Scholar; Vertovec, Steven, ‘Hindus in Trinidad and Britian: Ethnic Religion, Reification, and the Politics of Public Space’, in Van der Veer, Peter (ed.), Nation and Migration, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995, pp. 132157Google Scholar; Vertovec, Steven and Peach, Ceri (eds), Islam in Europe: The Politics of Religion and Community, London, Macmillan Press, Ltd. 1997CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sheringham, Olivia, Transnational Religious Spaces: Faith and the Brazilian Migration Experience, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillian, 2013CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Rudolph, Susanne Hoeber and Piscatori, James, (eds), Transnational Religion and Fading States, Boulder: Westview Press, pp. 104121, 1997Google Scholar.

6 Cole, Juan, Roots of North Indian Shi’ism in Iran and Iraq: Religion and State in Awadh, 1722–1859, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1988Google Scholar; and Louër, Laurence, Transnational Shia Politics. Religious and Political Networks in the Gulf, New York, Columbia University Press, 2008Google Scholar.

7 On this trauma, see Jaffrelot, Christophe, The Pakistan paradox. Instability and resilience, London, Hurst and Co, forthcomingGoogle Scholar.

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10 Galonnier, Juliette, ‘Aligarh: Sir Syed Nagar and Shah Mahal, Contrasted Tales of a “Muslim” City’, in Gayer, L. and Jaffrelot, C. (eds), Muslims of India's Cities. Trajectories of Marginalization, London, Hurst, 2012, pp. 129158Google Scholar.

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12 http://www.darululoom-deoband.com/english/ [Accessed 25 February 2014].

13 Ahmad, Mumtaz, ‘Madrassa Education in Pakistan and Bangladesh’, in Limaye, S. P., Wirsing, R., and Malik, M. (eds), Religious Radicalism and Security in South Asia, Honolulu, Asia Pacific Centre for Security Studies, 2004Google Scholar, http://www.apcss.org/Publications/Edited%20Volumes/ReligiousRadicalism/ReligiousRadicalismandSecurityinSouthAsia.pdf [Accessed 25 February 2014].

15 Cooley, John K., Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, London, Pluto Press, 1999Google Scholar.

16 Mariam Abou Zahab and Olivier Roy, Islamic Networks. The Afghan-Pakistani Connection, op. cit., p. 27.

17 ‘The Great Banuri Town Seminary’, available online at: http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthread.php?10176-Binori-Town-Ulema [Accessed 25 February 2014].

18 Rashid, Ahmed, Taliban Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 91Google Scholar.

19 Hussain, Zahid, Frontline Pakistan, Hussain, Zahid, Frontline Pakistan. The Struggle with Militant Islam, New York, Columbia University Press, 2007, p. 81Google Scholar.

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21 Clement, Victoria, ‘Central Asia's Hizmet Schools’, in Barton, Greg, Weller, Paul and Yilmaz, Ihsan (eds), The Muslim World and Politics in Transition, New York, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013, pp. 154167Google Scholar.

22 See the list of the schools of the Hizmet movement at http://www.avrasya-is.org/katilimcilar.php [Accessed 25 February 2014].

23 Bayram Balci convincingly argues that the Hizmet movement has clear affinities with the Jesuits’ techniques as far as their educational strategy is concerned (Bayram Balci, Turkey's Religious Outreach in Central Asia and the Caucasus, January 2014, The Hudson Institute, http://carnegieendowment.org/2014/01/27/turkey-s-religious-outreach-in-central-asia-and-caucasus/gzni [Accessed 25 February 2014]). See also, in French, Bayram, Balci, Missionnaires de l’islam en Asie centrale, les écoles turques de Fethullah Gülen, Paris, Maisonneuve and Larose et Institut français d’études anatoliennes, 2003Google Scholar.

24 ‘Fethullah Gülen Condemns 9–11 Terrorist Attacks’, Gülen in the News 1 September 2011, http://guleninthenews.blogspot.com/2011/09/fethullah-gulencondemns-9–11-terrorist.html [accessed 25 February 2014].

25 Robertson, Roland, ‘Glocalization: time-space and homogeneity-heterogeneity’, in Featherstone, Mike, Lash, Scott and Robertson, Roland (eds), Global Modernities, London, Sage, 1995, p. 26Google Scholar.