scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question
Journal ArticleDOI

Contesting the Boundaries between Civil and Religious Marriage: State and Mosque Discourse in Pluralistic Norway

25 Sep 2018-Sociology of Islam (Brill)-Vol. 6, Iss: 3, pp 297-315
TL;DR: In this paper, the relation between civil and religious marriage, at the interface between the state's legal discourse and the discourses and practices of Norwegian mosques, is discussed, and the authors suggest that there has been a secularizing effect.
Abstract: This article discusses the relation between civil and religious marriage, at the interface between the state’s legal discourse and the discourses and practices of Norwegian mosques. A central question is what kinds of effects the governance of Islam in Norway has had in the field of marriage. Against the background of political debates on the system of marriage authorization of faith communities, the analysis draws on interviews with public officials and administrative leaders of mosques, the majority of whom are authorized to perform legal marriage. While the Norwegian state concept of marriage authorization is based on a separation of the civil act and the religious act, mosque administrators rather highlight the similarity and continuity between the two. Contrary to state concerns, though, the analysis suggests that the civil marriages have affected the religious, rather than vice versa. What is interesting is that this reasoning actually results in Norwegian marriage certificates replacing or suppressing the Islamic marriage contract, although agreements on mahr (dower) are still made more informally. Thus, our findings suggest that there has been a secularizing effect.
Citations
More filters
BookDOI
01 Jan 2020
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that a successful governance of religious diversity necessitates the development of religious literacy, which can be understood in a variety of ways depending on the particular context, and they draw on different empirical case studies concerning Finland, covering traditional Finnish religious movements and issues pertaining to immigration and the growing ethnic and religious diversity of Finnish society.
Abstract: Religion has become a pressing matter in different fields of multicultural European society, which raises the question as to how best to govern religious diversity. What we argue in this book is that a successful governance of religious diversity necessitates the development of religious literacy. As such, religious literacy can be understood in a variety of ways depending on the particular context. This book draws on different empirical case studies concerning Finland, covering traditional Finnish religious movements and issues pertaining to immigration and the growing ethnic and religious diversity of Finnish society. In doing so, it delves, among other matters, into the field of school education and state policies against radicalization and violence.

12 citations


Cites background from "Contesting the Boundaries between C..."

  • ...In European debates, religious—especially Islamic—family laws or norms are often depicted as problem or exception to the norm of “secular” or “neutral” law (Bano 2017; Grillo 2015; Bredal 2018; Shah et al. 2014)....

    [...]

  • ...In the Nordic context too, Islamic family law is increasingly represented as an “anomaly of secular society” (Bredal 2018;Mustasaari 2019;Mustasaari andAl-Sharmani 2018;Moors andVroon-Najem 2019)....

    [...]

  • ...…despite the research-based evidence, which clearly points towards multidimensional and oftenmutually constitutive interrelationships of secular and religious law instead of an oppositional relationship of law and parallel legal systems (Bano 2017; Bredal 2018; Mustasaari and Al-Sharmani 2018)....

    [...]

Book ChapterDOI
27 Jul 2020
TL;DR: In this article, the authors employ the concept of religious literacy to examine the divorce practices of Finnish Muslims of Somali background and the roles mosques play in issuing religious divorces, and examine how women's unequal access to divorce (compared to men) in Islamic law works in the Finnish context.
Abstract: This chapter employs the concept of religious literacy to examine the divorce practices of Finnish Muslims of Somali background and the roles mosques play in issuing religious divorces. Drawing on field-based research, we argue that Finnish Somalis, in their divorce practices, make use of both Islamic and civil state laws, adopting non-binary approach towards both systems. We problematize the essentialist notion of Islamic family law that is posited in opposition to secular state codes, which one often finds in public debates on Islam and family law. We examine, furthermore, how women’s unequal access to divorce (compared to men) in Islamic law works in the Finnish context. In relation to this, we shed light on the complexities of the role and authority of mosques in issuing religious divorces to women when their husbands do not consent. We note that women’s agency and access to divorce are not merely determined by the legal systems but also by the intersecting structures of power relations and resources in their lives. We conclude with some final reflections on the relevance of the concept of religious literacy with regards to our findings.

2 citations


Cites background from "Contesting the Boundaries between C..."

  • ...In European debates, religious—especially Islamic—family laws or norms are often depicted as problem or exception to the norm of “secular” or “neutral” law (Bano 2017; Grillo 2015; Bredal 2018; Shah et al. 2014)....

    [...]

  • ...In the Nordic context too, Islamic family law is increasingly represented as an “anomaly of secular society” (Bredal 2018;Mustasaari 2019;Mustasaari andAl-Sharmani 2018;Moors andVroon-Najem 2019)....

    [...]

  • ...…despite the research-based evidence, which clearly points towards multidimensional and oftenmutually constitutive interrelationships of secular and religious law instead of an oppositional relationship of law and parallel legal systems (Bano 2017; Bredal 2018; Mustasaari and Al-Sharmani 2018)....

    [...]

01 Jan 2012
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors presenterer flere sjia-muslimer like fullt svaert ambivalente holdninger til denne praksisen og tolker den pa forskjellige mater.
Abstract: Midlertidig ekteskap er en ekteskapsordning som er inngatt for en begrenset tidsperiode og som er tillatt innenfor sjia-islam, men forbudt i sunni-islam. Ordningen betegnes gjerne som en av hovedforskjellene mellom de to retningene av islam. Til tross for at midlertidig ekteskap anses for a vaere rettmessig innenfor sjia-islamsk rettstradisjon, presenterer flere sjia-muslimer like fullt svaert ambivalente holdninger til denne praksisen og tolker den pa forskjellige mater. Bade oppfatninger av midlertidig ekteskap og den sosialpolitiske iverksettingen av ordningen avhenger blant annet av hvorvidt sjia-islam utgjor en majoritets- eller minoritetsreligion i samfunnet. Denne artikkelen ser naerA‚­mere pa ulike oppfatninger av midlertidig ekteskap. Variasjoner i bade bruk og tolkninger av midlertidig ekteskap illustrerer pa hvilke mater en religios forordning kan vaere gjenstand for omfattende diskusjon, og pa hvilke mater denne religiose praksisen bade viderefores og fornyes av bade sunni- og sjia-muslimer i minoritets- og majoritetsposisjoner i dag.

1 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article , the authors present the results of a qualitative thematic analysis of 57 judicial opinions issued by the common courts in Poland and published online, in which Islam or being Muslim was mentioned.
Abstract: Abstract Muslims are a marginal minority in Poland, but research shows that they are often subject to negative perceptions and hostility from the majority. Orientalist stereotypes about Islam and the people associated with it are widespread and often reproduced in the media. Research from North America and the European Court of Human Rights suggests that such prejudices can affect the adjudication of cases involving Muslims. It may be presumed that Poland is no exception to that, and this assumption was the starting point for our empirical study. To date, there have been no studies on the perception of Muslims and Islam in the Polish legal system. This article presents the results of a qualitative thematic analysis of 57 judicial opinions issued by the common courts in Poland and published online, in which Islam or being Muslim was mentioned. The cases were categorised and texts of the judicial opinions closely analysed (with computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software) to identify recurring themes. The findings of this first exploratory study show that stereotypical representations and the “‘Othering” of Muslims do indeed occur in Polish courts, with some judges repeating Orientalist tropes that have become normalised in Polish society.
References
More filters
BookDOI
31 Dec 2020
TL;DR: Asad as discussed by the authors explores the concepts, practices, and political formations of the secularism, with emphasis on the major historical shifts that have shaped secular sensibilities and attitudes in the modern West and the Middle East, and concludes that the secular cannot be viewed as a successor to religion, or be seen as on the side of the rational.
Abstract: Opening with the provocative query "what might an anthropology of the secular look like?" this book explores the concepts, practices, and political formations of secularism, with emphasis on the major historical shifts that have shaped secular sensibilities and attitudes in the modern West and the Middle East. Talal Asad proceeds to dismantle commonly held assumptions about the secular and the terrain it allegedly covers. He argues that while anthropologists have oriented themselves to the study of the "strangeness of the non-European world" and to what are seen as non-rational dimensions of social life (things like myth, taboo, and religion),the modern and the secular have not been adequately examined. The conclusion is that the secular cannot be viewed as a successor to religion, or be seen as on the side of the rational. It is a category with a multi-layered history, related to major premises of modernity, democracy, and the concept of human rights. This book will appeal to anthropologists, historians, religious studies scholars, as well as scholars working on modernity.

2,816 citations


"Contesting the Boundaries between C..." refers methods in this paper

  • ...In our analysis we build on Talal Asad’s notion that secular rule is about how the state defines and regulates religion, rather than simply entailing a separation of state and religion (Asad 2003)....

    [...]

Book ChapterDOI
31 Dec 2017
TL;DR: The public role of religion has been a recurrent topic of debate in the sociology of religion in Nordic countries as mentioned in this paper, where new interfaith infrastructures have emerged in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland that enable a great variety of faith communities to participate as civil society actors in the public sphere.
Abstract: The public role of religion has been a recurrent topic of debate in the sociology of religion. This debate gained momentum with José Casanova’s book Public Religions in the Modern World (1994) in which he claimed that a worldwide deprivatization of religion was taking place. Only a few years later, Peter L. Berger (1999) argued that large parts of the world were characterized by desecularization, even if Europe continued to be secular. In 2006, Jürgen Habermas labelled modern, Western societies as postsecular (Habermas, 2006). The question that forms the title of Titus Hjelm’s (2015) book Is God back? is indeed pertinent in debates on the public sphere in Nordic countries. During the past decades, new interfaith infrastructures have emerged in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland that enable a great variety of faith communities to participate as civil society actors in the public sphere. Whereas the Nordic Lutheran majority churches previously had hegemonic positions in the public sphere as it related to religious issues, new channels of communication have developed that change the ways in which faith and worldview communities act in the public sphere. The emergence of the new religious infrastructure also seems to have implications for the type of religion that is present in the public sphere. This chapter will map these developments and attempt to explain them. In the following, we outline the Nordic religious landscapes and the theoretical perspectives that are used. The development of the Nordic interfaith infrastructure is then described, including some critical issues that this development has raised. We then conclude with a discussion of various explanations for the institutional changes that are outlined.

12 citations