A shared Y-chromosomal heritage between Muslims and Hindus in India

Arab forces conquered the Indus Delta region in 711 AD and, although a Muslim state was established there, their influence was barely felt in the rest of South Asia at that time. By the end of the tenth century, Central Asian Muslims moved into India from the northwest and expanded throughout the subcontinent. Muslim communities are now the largest minority religion in India, comprising more than 138 million people in a predominantly Hindu population of over one billion. It is unclear whether the Muslim expansion in India was a purely cultural phenomenon or had a genetic impact on the local population. To address this question from a male perspective, we typed eight microsatellite loci and 16 binary markers from the Y chromosome in 246 Muslims from Andhra Pradesh, and compared them to published data on 4,204 males from East Asia, Central Asia, other parts of India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Iran, the Middle East, Turkey, Egypt and Morocco. We find that the Muslim populations in general are genetically closer to their non-Muslim geographical neighbors than to other Muslims in India, and that there is a highly significant correlation between genetics and geography (but not religion). Our findings indicate that, despite the documented practice of marriage between Muslim men and Hindu women, Islamization in India did not involve large-scale replacement of Hindu Y chromosomes. The Muslim expansion in India was predominantly a cultural change and was not accompanied by significant gene flow, as seen in other places, such as China and Central Asia.Electronic supplementary material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at and is accessible for authorized users.Ramana Gutala and Denise R. Carvalho-Silva contributed equally to the article.     

Racial and ethnic differences in perceptions of discrimination among Muslim Americans

I use data from the 2011 Pew Survey (N?=?1,033) to examine the prevalence and correlates of perceived discrimination across Muslim American racial/ethnic groups. Asian Muslims report the lowest frequency of perceived discrimination than other Muslim racial/ethnic groups. Nearly, all Muslim racial/ethnic groups have a few times higher odds of reporting one or more types of perceived discrimination than white Muslims. After controlling for socio-demographic characteristics, the observed relationships persist for Hispanic Muslims but disappear for black and other/mixed race Muslims. Women are less likely than men to report several forms of discrimination. Older Muslims report lower rates of perceived discrimination than younger Muslims. White Muslim men are more likely to report experiencing discrimination than white, black and Asian Muslim women. The findings highlight varying degrees of perceived discrimination among Muslim American racial/ethnic groups and suggest examining negative implications for Muslims who are at the greatest risk of mistreatment.     

Intermarriage and reciprocal household exchange practices in a mixed community in Roti,Indonesia

For several generations, intermarriage has been common between indigenous Rotinese Christians and migrant Muslims and their descendants in the Indonesian village of Oelua on Roti Island. Muslims have engaged with the customary institutions upheld by indigenous Rotinese Christians—namely, those associated with marriage proposals and bridewealth. They have also engaged in reciprocal inter‐household exchanges to raise the cash to pay for weddings and bridewealth, as well as for other life cycle events such as funeral feasts and gatherings in the post‐funeral mourning period. This article argues that intermarriage and inter‐household monetary exchanges are important, among other factors, in promoting low conflict relations between the two groups, primarily because of the regular opportunities generated to interact in both public and private spheres. Marriage preferences in Oelua are changing, however, with young Muslim men preferring to marry women who subscribe to the same religion and similar customs. Muslim attitudes are also changing with respect to their involvement in inter‐household reciprocal exchanges, with many wanting to engage in different ways, or not at all. The article discusses what these changing attitudes and practices may mean for maintaining congenial inter‐group relations between Christians and Muslims in the future.     

Muslims in the 2001 Census of England and Wales: Gender and economic disadvantage

The article presents new data for the Muslim population of Britain from the 2001 Census. It uses the cross tabulations of ethnicity by religion to back-project the growth of the Muslim population from 21,000 in 1951 to 1.6 millions in 2001. It examines the social, economic, demographic and geographic characteristics of the population. Although Muslims are often represented as a homogenous group, there are considerable internal differences, so that the characteristics of the population as a whole do not apply to all groups within. The 2001 Census shows that two-thirds of British Muslims are ethnically Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi, but one-third comes from diverse European, African, North African, Middle Eastern and other Asian sources. Nevertheless, Muslim gender roles emerge as a critical differentiator of socio-economic vulnerability. Taken as a whole, the Muslim population is young and rapidly growing; its socio-economic profile is depressed, marked by the exceptionally low participation rate of women in the formal labour market, and by high concentration in areas of multiple deprivation.     

"He won't be my son": Middle Eastern Muslim men's discourses of adoption and gamete donation

In the Sunni Muslim world, religious mandates prohibit both adoption and gamete donation as solutions to infertility, including in the aftermath of in vitro fertilization (IVF) failures. However, both of these options are now available in two Middle Eastern countries with significant Shi'ite Muslim populations (Iran and Lebanon). On the basis of fieldwork in multisectarian Lebanon, I examine in this article attitudes toward both adoption and gamete donation among childless Muslim men who are undertaking IVF with their wives. No matter the religious sect, most Muslim men in Lebanon continue to resist both adoption and gamete donation, arguing that such a child "won't be my son". However, against all odds, some Muslim men are considering and undertaking these alternatives to family formation as ways to preserve their loving marriages, satisfy their fatherhood desires, and challenge religious dictates, which they view as out of step with new developments in science and technology. Thus, in this article I examine the complicated intersections of religion, technology, marriage, and parenthood in a part of the world that is both poorly understood and negatively stereotyped, particularly in the aftermath of September 11, 2001.     

Does French Islam Have Borders? Dilemmas of Domestication in a Global Religious Field

Although many accounts of transnational religious movements emphasize mobility and communication, equally important are efforts by both political actors and religious leaders to carve out distinctive national forms of religion. In this article I examine dilemmas faced by Muslims in France who seek both to remain part of the global Muslimcommunity and to satisfy French demands for conformity to political and cultural norms. I consider the history of immigration and the importance of French notions of laïcité but emphasize the structural problem of articulating a global religious field onto a self-consciously bounded French nation-state. I then draw on recent fieldwork in Paris to analyze two recent public events in which attempts by Muslim public intellectuals to develop an "Islam of France" are frustrated by internal, structural tensions concerning religious authority and political legitimacy, and not simply by a conflict between "Muslims" and "France."     

Making muslim babies: Ivf and gamete donation in sunni versus shi’a islam

Medical anthropological research on science, biotechnology, and religion has focused on the “local moral worlds” of men and women as they make difficult decisions regarding their health and the beginnings and endings of human life. This paper focuses on the local moral worlds of infertile Muslims as they attempt to make, in the religiously correct fashion, Muslim babies at in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics in Egypt and Lebanon. As early as 1980, authoritative fatwas issued from Egypt’s famed Al-Azhar University suggested that IVF and similar technologies are permissible as long as they do not involve any form of third-party donation (of sperm, eggs, embryos, or uteruses). Since the late 1990s, however, divergences in opinion over third-party gamete donation have occurred between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims, with Iran’s leading ayatollah permitting gamete donation under certain conditions. This Iranian fatwa has had profound implications for the country of Lebanon, where a Shi’ite majority also seeks IVF services. Based on three periods of ethnographic research in Egyptian and Lebanese IVF clinics, this paper explores official and unofficial religious discourses surrounding the practice of IVF and third-party donation in the Muslim world, as well as the gender implications of gamete donation for Muslim marriages.     

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Power and Powerlessness of Transnational Narratives among Gay Martinican Men

In Martinique, self-identified gay men often tell each other stories about gay communities in other societies. France and Martinique are central characters in these stories but their presence is largely negative: life in the former is criticized for its economic or racial hardships and life in the latter is criticized for homophobia, hypocrisy, and smallness, creating a frustrating catch-22 for these men. However, in these narratives Quebec often emerges as an ideal destination of racial and sexual freedom. In this paper, I argue that Quebec is signified as utopic in terms that are antithetical and therefore profoundly connected to impressions of social life in France and Martinique. At the same time, however, I maintain that these narratives also reveal common threads in the African-pan-American diasporic experience. Furthermore, these men's experiences of "gay" life in other countries demonstrate their awareness of a "global gay" identity, albeit one that is commercially and ideologically centered in Euro-American societies, [homosexuality, Martinique, transnationalism, diaspora, race]     

Changing Islam,changing the world: contrasting visions within political Islam

ABSTRACT

How do political Islamists, movements and thinkers view political change? To what extent do they promote violence as a means of bringing about change? Are they themselves willing to change and adapt to modern political systems? There is a wide array of movements in the Muslim world that grapple with these questions and as a consequence, numerous answers and disagreements. This paper will focus on three cardinal and contested issues: Is violence a legitimate means to bring about change? Is it legitimate to adopt Western political institutions? How should Muslim movements and regimes coexist with ancient political entities such as tribes and ethnic groups? By comparing and contrasting the political outlooks of the Muslim Brothers and the Salafi-Jihadis, the article highlights the ideological gaps between moderate and militant political Islam.     

Organ transplantation: contemporary Sunni Muslim legal and ethical perspectives

The problems that organ transplantation poses to the Muslim mind may be summarized as follows: firstly, a Muslim believes that whatever he owns or possesses has been given to him as an amanah (trust) from Allah. Would it not be a breach of trust to give consent for the removal of parts of one's body, while still alive, for transplantation to benefit one's child, sibling or parent? Secondly, the Shari'ah (Islamic Law) emphasizes the sacredness of the human body. Would it not then be an act of aggression against the human body, tantamount to its mutilation, if organs were to be removed after death for the purpose of transplantation? In this paper I attempt to illustrate how the Muslim jurists have tried to resolve the dilemma of Muslims by providing them with certain guidelines based on the original sources of Islam, namely, the Qur'an and the Prophetic tradition. In order to assist the followers of other religious traditions to grasp the gravity of the problem posed by organ transplantation to the Muslim mind, I begin by discussing the opinions of Muslim jurists on the issue of utilization of human parts. Thereafter, I touch upon the resolutions taken by the various Islamic Juridical Academies on the issue in question. Finally, I shed light upon the inclusion of organ donation in a Muslim Will and the enforceable nature of such a will.     

On the politics and practice of Muslim fertility: comparative evidence from West Africa

Recent popular works have represented Muslim fertility as dangerously high, both a cause and consequence of religious fundamentalism. This article uses comparative, statistical methods to show that this representation is empirically wrong, at least in West Africa. Although religion strongly inflects reproductive practice, its effects are not constant across different communities. In West African countries with Muslim majorities, Muslim fertility is lower than that of their non-Muslim conationals; in countries where Muslims are in the minority, their apparently higher reproductive rates converge to those of the majority when levels of education and urban residence are taken into account. A similar pattern holds for infant mortality. By contrast, in all seven countries, Muslim women are more likely to report that their most recent child was wanted. The article concludes with a discussion of the relationship between autonomy and fertility desires.     

Religious visibility: perceptions and experiences of residents in two Muslim concentration suburbs in Melbourne,Australia

In recent decades, and especially after the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack on US, an antipathy towards and fear of Muslim minorities in Western countries have increased, forming part of the current widespread anti-immigration sentiment. In this context, the ‘religiously visible’ Muslims are the most obvious target of negative perceptions, discrimination and other manifestations of ‘Islamophobia’. This paper uses quantitative and qualitative data on religious visibility collected through a survey and in-depth interviews in two suburbs with residential concentrations of Muslims in Melbourne, Australia. The two localities, ‘Broadburb’ and ‘Greenburb’, have similar proportions of Muslim residents (about 1/3) but the levels of religious visibility differ. The paper discusses perceptions and experiences of being religiously visible in a secular society, and particularly being a ‘visible Muslim’. We also discuss perceptions of Muslim visibility by others – non-visible Muslims and non-Muslims – who share neighbourhoods with the visible Muslim minority.     

Night life in southern urban Mali: being a Muslim maquisard in Bougouni

Alcohol has been part of local culture in southwest Mali since precolonial times. In the last century, when Islam spread into the region, it became a ‘haram’ (forbidden) substance; therefore its consumption moved to the margins of society. Based on an ethnography of night life in discreet bars called ‘maquis’ where power, wealth, and alcohol become juxtaposed during the night in the small town of Bougouni, this article explores how Muslims handle their participation in forbidden activities from within a local Muslim community. Analysing the social significance of the darkness of the night in relation to a public Islam based on sight, it illustrates how forbidden activities are handled through strategies of diurnal conformity and nocturnal discretion in urban Mali. Exploring the fact that a Muslim can at the same time be known as a respectable member of the local community and a suspected drinker during the night, this analysis aims to demonstrate that the interplay between display and secrecy is an important component of morality in urban Mali, while the wealth and power of m?g?baw (big men) often work as veils that cover their forbidden activities. Besides studying the ways Muslims strive to be pious, this article finally stresses the need to explore also the field of haram as an integral part of a Muslim life so as to develop a humanly wider and more complete understanding of Islam's relationship to contemporary Muslim societies.     

Reluctant pluralists: European Muslims and essentialist identities

An emerging consensus among scholars of Muslim political and social identity suggests that Western Muslims live out an anti-essentialist critique of identity construction. Considering this view, this paper examines a cross-national comparison of British Bangladeshis in London and Spanish Moroccans in Madrid that solicits the perceptions of working-class Muslim men. While the results indeed reaffirm respondents' concomitant relationships to a variety of identity paradigms, interview content demonstrates that subjects' multiplicity is complicated by their desire to meet – not reject – the essentialist standards of belonging to the identity paradigms discursively available to them. Rather than defiantly cherry-picking preferred characteristics of religion, ethnicity and nationality, individuals' responses suggest that they are trying to fulfil perceived standards of authenticity. Such a contention helps explain the prevalence of Western Muslims' expressed and well-documented ‘identity crisis’, suggests the enduring relevance of identity essentialisms, and more broadly, complicates post-modern conceptions of identity formation.     

Homegrown foreigners: how Christian nationalism and nativist attitudes impact Muslim civil liberties

Building from the literature on racialization of Muslims, we argue that there are two unique dimensions to anti-Muslim attitudes: Christian nationalism and nativism. Christian nationalism subscribes to the idea of Christianity as being central to American identity, and nativism provides insight into the monopolies regulating citizenship. We then test this framework’s hypotheses on data drawn from the General Social Survey in 2014 to see if these two dimensions predict support for civil rights infringements of Muslim-Americans compared to other outgroups, including atheists, communists, and racists. The results indicate both Christian nationalism and nativism have significant and negative effects on Muslim civil liberties. We also find some differences between the effects of Christian nationalism and nativism on Muslim civil liberties compared to the other outgroups. We interpret these results as an indication that nativism works as an ordering principle to reconstitute who counts as American and who does not.     

Health profile of two social groups living in a squatter settlement in Calcutta

Health and well-being of individuals largely depend on socioeconomic and environmental conditions. The low socioeconomic groups face the highest health burdens. In the present study an attempt has been made to compare and contrast the health related traits prevalent in two social groups (Hindu and Muslim), living in a squatter settlement in Calcutta, India. The study has been conducted on women between 20 to 40 years of age. The results show that the Muslims are more frequently affected with respect to most of the traits than the Hindus, but the difference is significant with respect to only a few traits. Thus, micro-cultural traits associated with religion do not seem to have much effect on the health related traits considered in this study.     

The politics of fear: what does it mean to those who are otherized and feared?

Islamophobia has, of late, created a tendency to conflate all Muslims as belonging to a single nation of Islam that does not recognize and respect boundaries imposed by western geopolitics. This has been done by some to create and by others to generate a sense of exclusive unity that would separate all Muslims and make them into ‘others’ within western societies. It is the contention of this paper that such calls both embody and ignore the diversities of Islam as understood and practised by its adherents. Furthermore by ‘otherizing’ the entire community of Muslims in the West, the singular label of ‘Islamism’ marginalizes and may even silence the vibrant contestations among Muslims about their faith and its teachings; these include questions posed by women who may be described as feminists. The attributes of Islamism, ascribed to the faith by public, the media and politicians in the West and adopted by some Muslims primarily as a politically unifying force, are very different from the fluidity and flexibility that has been a historic part of lived Islam. Many Muslims may well aspire to belong to the umma: people of Islam conceptualized as crossing ethnic, racial, geographical and political boundaries. But Muslims in general and Muslim women in particular do not wish to do so at the expense of being otherized and conforming to the negative stereotypes ascribed to them that mask their fluid identities and, in the case of ‘white’ women, their close ties with their kinship networks. The multiplicity of Muslim's identities sits more easily within the permeable unbounded umma applicable to the global as well as the local without necessarily always privileging one or other identity.     

Balancing agency,gender and race: how do Muslim female teenagers in Quebec negotiate the social meanings embedded in the hijab?

In the past decade, the hijab has increasingly come to be regarded in the West as an unambiguous symbol of female oppression. Such an orientalist framework rests upon a feminist rhetoric using gender equality as a vehicle for the racialization of Muslims. Correlatively, from the 1970s onwards, conservative Islamist movements have converted the hijab into a natural(ized) symbol of cultural resistance to Western imperialism. In this context, what room is left to Muslim women's agency in the production of the social meanings embedded in veil wearing? I explore this issue by presenting the findings of an interview-based research with veiled and non-veiled high school Muslim female teens in Montreal (Quebec). I show that, although these teenagers have much leeway to bypass and subvert the dominant framings of veil wearing, one should not overestimate their capacity to disrupt the dominant gendered religious framework through which this practice is socially construed.     

Global Violence and Indonesian Muslim Politics

The attacks of September 11, 2001, in the United States and the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan provoked fierce threats of violence in Indonesia, the world's largest majority-Muslim country. Western journalists portrayed these reactions as among the most destabilizing in the Muslim world. Less widely reported, however, was the intensification of a struggle between Muslim proponents of democracy and neof undamentalist conservatives, sparked by the same incidents. This article explores the varied reactions of Muslims to the violence of September 11 and its aftermath in light of this contest between rival Muslim groupings. It examines their competing visions of Islam and nation, as well as their supporting alliances in state and society. The example highlights the pluralism of Muslim politics and the special challenges of democratic transitions. Emphasizing the plurality and permeability of civilizations, the example also suggests that there is no "clash of civilizations" between Islam and the West but, rather, a more open process of globalization, localization, and exchange. [Keywords: Islam, Indonesia, violence, democratization, civilization]