The introduction raises the issue of lived Islam’s irreducible diversity. In asking how the anthropology of Islam can descriptively and analytically tackle this diversity, I consider how Muslims themselves conceive, negotiate, and live it. Accordingly, I understand lived Islam as a nexus of people’s religious conceptions, practices, and imaginaries, which they constantly engage with, debate, and (re)make as they live their religion. The introduction first discusses people’s varied conceptions and uses of Islamic prayer beads as an empirical example of lived Islam’s diversity. Then I introduce zongos as Islamic lifeworlds and present their main Islamic groups. Discussing the literature, I locate my book within the anthropology of Islam and introduce the theoretical concept of Islamic lifeworlds. I then discuss the methodology of my empirical research and ethnographic writing, highlighting the biases and limits of my approach, before ending with an outline of the book. The introduction argues that lived Islam is marked by an irreducible diversity that is inherent in and informed by the discursive tradition that people constantly relate to, engage with, and take part in as they live their religion.

The conclusion offers a general summary and some reflections on the book. I argue that the diversity of lived Islam in the zongos is informed by and informs the lifeworld of these wards as the people of the zongos relate to and live with one another as Muslims. In the process, they engage with and (re)make their religion in open but not ungrounded processes as they ground their divergent Islamic conceptions, practices, and imaginaries in the discursive tradition of their religion and thus participate in and perpetuate it. As a lived and living tradition, Islam is inextricably bound up with how people live it.