Scandinavian Journal of Islamic Studies

Anmeldelse af Mette W. Tops Den forkerte muhammedtegner – og andre nuancer af karikaturkrisen, Forlaget Vandkunsten, 2023

Vebjørn Leonard Horsfjord — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Book review

Sharing and Caring

Maria Lindebæk Lyngsøe — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Muslim women dedicate themselves to Islamic educational activities as an important aspect of their religious engagement, and pious Muslim Danish women are no exception. One important element of this engagement appears to be the sharing of the knowledge gained with younger generations. In this paper, I scrutinize this aspect of contemporary Danish Muslim piety, asking how and why Danish Muslim women ‘pass on’ knowledge to children. I show that this transmission should be seen as a way of caring for the children as part of the Muslim community, and that this way of caring appears especially important in a setting where Islam is practiced as a minority religion. At the same time, the sharing of knowledge should be perceived as a virtuous practice, given that it is an aspect of the women’s own efforts to live virtuous lives.

Teaching about the Qur’ān in public schools in Norway

Synnøve Markeng — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

This article discusses what teachers in Norwegian public schools have to say about teaching their pupils about the Qur’ān. Exploring what teachers find important or challenging is relevant to what both Muslim and non-Muslim pupils learn about the Qur’ān, since religious education (RE) in Norway is non-confessional and compulsory. The empirical material consists of four semi-structured interviews with RE teachers. Following James Watts’ model (2013, 2019), which suggests that religious scripture is ritualized along three dimensions, this study finds that the interviewed teachers emphasize working with content and meaning (the semantic dimension) rather than recitation (the expressive dimension) or any special treatment (the iconic dimension) of the Qur’ān. Another finding is that the teachers are reluctant to address Qur’ān recitations in their classes. The article examines this uncertainty in relation to the teachers’ perceptions of what pupils should learn about religious scriptures in general, pedagogical considerations about how to teach RE, and overarching RE-specific aims and concerns in relation to debates about Muslims and Islam in Norwegian society.

Between Term and Trope

Nora Sunniva Eggen — Sat, 23 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

The term koranskole has a prominent place in the public discourse on Islam and Muslim life in Norway. Despite being empirically imprecise, it is by far the most frequently used term in reference to non-formal Islamic religious education (IRE), but it is also used in other contexts with explicit or implicit referents, creating a polyvalent and at times contested concept. First coined by ethnographers studying Muslim societies, the term koranskole does not originate in Islamic educational traditions; however, it has been used both by researchers and practitioners, although today it occurs to a lesser extent among organizers of such educational enterprises than in public discourse. This article maps the use of the term koranskole in Norwegian public and scholarly discourses throughout the past century, preparing the ground for discussing the analytical vocabulary for research in this area.

Islamic supplementary education as an extra-curricular activity

Jenny Berglund — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Sociological studies have shown that teenagers in larger Swedish cities from ‘poor result schools’ participate in extra-curricular activities connected to religion more frequently than others, and that involvement in such religious activities is positive in terms of educational outcomes for pupils from the lower strata of the social hierarchy. These findings raise new questions about supplementary Islamic education, as this is one type of religious extra-curricular activity found in many such areas. The article is based on interviews with students as well as observations from four Swedish mosques. The purpose is to discuss how we can understand the potentially compensatory effect of supplementary Islamic education. Thus, the emphasis is not on the traditional core of Islamic education, but on what we can call co-curricular Islamic educational activities, such as football, homework help, and mathematics.

Tabligh, Tarbiyyat and the Religious Education of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat in Scandinavia

Amna Mahmood — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

The article is based on a study of the Jamia Ahmadiyya UK and its Scandinavian-born Muslim students and alumni for an MA thesis. Drawing on fieldwork and interview material collected between September 2019 and January 2020, it identifies tabligh (propagation) and tarbiyyat (upbringing) as central aspects of Ahmadiyya religious learning. It explores how tabligh and tarbiyyat are instrumental in the preservation and transmission of Ahmadiyya teachings and faith within the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat (AMJ). While the starting point is the Jamia Ahmadiyya, a Muslim seminary, also highlighted is the upbringing program, waqf-e-nau, and various auxiliary groups formed of Ahmadi men and women that are sites of religious education and learning and illustrate the multifaceted nature of the organization and its learning practice.

Islamic spiritual care and negative religious coping

Naveed Baig — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

This article discusses religious coping behaviors in relation to Islamic spiritual care practices. Islamic spiritual care is an established practice, integrated in many European countries’ health and welfare services, and an emerging field of research. I have 17 years of experience as a Muslim chaplain in Danish hospitals and a prison, working with counseling, educating staff, and policymaking in the field of Muslim chaplaincy. In this article, I use psychological theory to analyze positive and negative religious coping, first demonstrating that spiritual care is a practice in Islam that is embedded in its theological and psychological (re)sources. Then, based on two case examples, I analyze negative religious coping among Muslims, which is a topic that has received little scholarly attention. The article contributes to the emerging field of Islamic practical theology and the interdisciplinary relationship between practical theology and psychology of religion.

Ibrahim på ramadan-tv

Andreas Dohn — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Profeten Ibrahim er en central figur i islam, som i disse år bliver påberåbt både som fælles stamfader til muslimer, kristne og jøder og som symbol for jihadister. Mens Ibrahims plads i Koranen og de klassiske islamiske tekster er velbeskrevet, synes nyere fortolkninger af profeternes far i mindre grad at være studeret. Denne artikel bidrager til forståelsen af nutidige forestillinger om Ibrahim i arabisk massekultur ved at undersøge, hvordan han bliver fremstillet i to dokumentariske tv-serier om islams profeter. Artiklen forklarer forskellen mellem de to tv-seriers skildring af Ibrahim ud fra tv-producenternes forskellige interesser og de medvirkende prædikanters religiøse orientering. Endeligt diskuteres, hvordan tv-serierne er positioneret i forhold til samtidens militante og økumeniske Ibrahim-fortolkninger ved at inddrage aktuelle eksempler på disse modpoler.

Islamisk vinpoesi från Ibn al-Farid till Ian Dallas

Tobias Andersson — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Genom islams historia har sufiska poeter ofta beskrivit den överväldigande kärleken till Gud som en berusning på vin – den gudomliga kärlekens eviga vin som genomsyrar allt som existerar. Föreliggande artikel utforskar tre uttryck för sufisk vinpoesi från olika historiska sammanhang: först den egyptiske poeten ʻUmar b. al-Farids (1181–1235) omtalade vinsång, khamriyya, därefter den marockanske sufishejken Ahmad b. ʻAjibas (1747–1809) kommentar till Ibn al-Farids vinsång och slutligen den skotske sufishejken Ian Dallas (1930–2021, även kallad Abdalqadir as-Sufi) kommentar till Ibn ʻAjibas tidigare nämnda kommentar. Syftet är att lyfta fram vinpoesins betydelse i sufiska sammanhang som ett sätt att inte bara beskriva Guds kärlek och uttrycka erfarenheten av denna kärlek utan även vägleda andra människor till liknande andliga tillstånd. Artikeln belyser därmed vinpoesins didaktiska användning som utgångspunkt för sufisk undervisning och som uttryck för de andliga insikter och tillstånd som denna undervisning avser att förverkliga. Det framträder särskilt tydligt i Ibn ʻAjibas och Ian Dallas kommentarer. Artikeln belyser även vinpoesins fortsatta betydelse i sufiska sammanhang, långt efter genrens stora genomslag på 1200-talet, numera även i engelskspråkiga sammanhang. Medan Ibn al-Farids poesi är förhållandevis väl utforskad har varken Ibn ʻAjibas kommentar eller Ian Dallas superkommentar inkluderats i tidigare studier av islamisk vinpoesi

Preface

Johanne Louise Christiansen — Fri, 22 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Preface

The teaching of Islam in Scandinavia

Jenny Berglund, Laura Gilliam, Amina Siječić Selimović — Fri, 22 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Introduction