Journal Articles by Paola Abenante
Edited by Ines Weinrich BEIRUT 2016 ERGON VERLAG WÜRZBURG IN KOMMISSION Umschlaggestaltung: Talin... more Edited by Ines Weinrich BEIRUT 2016 ERGON VERLAG WÜRZBURG IN KOMMISSION Umschlaggestaltung: Taline Yozgatian Cover illustrations: see "List of Plates"
This article describes the convergence of Sufi and modern traditions of thought within ritual... more This article describes the convergence of Sufi and modern traditions of thought within ritual practices in an Egyptian brotherhood and its Europeans branches. I disentangle the different threads behind one of my interlocutor’s words and experience of dhawq (taste), a spiritual sense that in Sufi tradition reconnects the disciple to the divine. I argue that the way my interlocutors experience dhawq builds up into a form of religious aesthetics and architecture of the self that draw on the encounter with European psychological traditions. Distinctive in this encounter is that the self emerges as the location of an experience that is always, and already, an experience of transcendence, of an outside that is constitutive of selfhood. By putting into dialogue two traditions of knowledge that stand at the margins of the modern world, namely the esoteric trend of Sufi tradition and the Gestalt tradition, my interlocutors’ religious aesthetics promotes an architecture of the self that is alternative to hegemonic understandings of modern Islam structuring the contemporary Egyptian public sphere, as it foregrounds divine intervention and backgrounds individual responsibility and action.
This issue investigates the ways in which the Sufi repertoire of heuristic categories of intellec... more This issue investigates the ways in which the Sufi repertoire of heuristic categories of intellectual and spiritual maturation (e.g. batin, spiritual growth, intuitional knowledge and inner awareness) may converge, intersect, and also diverge from modern epistemologies of the inner self. In doing so, the contributions touch upon two questions in particular. On the one hand, they discuss the relation between selfhood and the transcendent, describing not only how the self is built but also how it is somehow unbuilt in the relationship with the divine: rather than defined through its ‘inner’ boundaries, the self is seen as emerging continuously on the background of a wider horizon of existence, that is, the transcendent dimension of life. On the other hand, the authors highlight the overlaps between notions belonging to the Islamic tradition and modern discourses on interiority, tracing out the specific social and micro-political issues that lie behind this entanglement through key experiential notions such as dhawq, love, imagination, dreams and visions. In such a way, the papers tell about the strive of translating transcendence into new forms of sociality which may subvert, substitute or be alternative to institutionalised, established mundane and also religious forms of interaction and inter-subjectivity.
This paper unravels the tormented self-narrative of Nidal, an Egyptian young woman, about her tro... more This paper unravels the tormented self-narrative of Nidal, an Egyptian young woman, about her troubled commitment to Salafism. Every day, Nidal
faces the unruliness of her body and affects towards the requirements of Salafi discourse, and perceives herself as walking constantly on the
edge of transgression. At the same time, she also engages with consumerist discourses of the healthy body and techniques of self-fashioning that are offered by the market. Placing responsibility on the self, these discourses increase her sense of inadequacy.
They also resonate with the Salafi ethical self-mastery, which intensifies her conflictual relationship with her embodied affects and being in the world.
"This article describes how an Egyptian Sufi leader makes sense of his experiences of displacemen... more "This article describes how an Egyptian Sufi leader makes sense of his experiences of displacement in migration through Sufi vocabularies and disciplines, hence exploring the ways in which religious beliefs and ritual practices coalesce with the existential quest. In the first part of the text, I concentrate on how, through notions such as bâṭin and ẓâhir, as well as through his experience of the haḍra ritual, he responds to the subjective needs and material contingencies he is confronted with during his travels. In the second part of the paper, I trace the genealogy of my interlocutor´s understandings of Sufi praxis, highlighting his capacity of blending together different cosmologies and traditions in the wake of our dialogue. Combining questions of narration and individual biography with questions of religious subjectivity and subjectivation, the text engages with some of the most central concerns of recent ethnographic and theoretical inquiries into Islamic religious practice.
Keywords:
Sufism, Islam, Subjectivity, Egypt, Migration, Phenomenology
"
Book Chapters by Paola Abenante
Partant d'une confrontation entre les récits d'un immigré Egyptien en Italie et ses notes de terr... more Partant d'une confrontation entre les récits d'un immigré Egyptien en Italie et ses notes de terrain, cet article propose une lecture de la migration postcoloniale à travers les outils fournis par le genre littéraire du rihla, c’est-à-dire les récits des voyageurs musulmans concernant leurs pèlerinages physiques et spirituels à la recherche du savoir. L'ethnographie décrit d'une part la souffrance de Nasser en tant qu'immigré, provoquée par les difficultés matérielles du déplacement et les incompréhensions de la société italienne qui l'accueille, et d'autre part elle retrace, à travers les récits de Nasser, la vision du monde du maître soufi. Tout en s’ intéressant au quotidien d’un maître spirituel dans ce qu’il y a de plus ordinaire, elle aborde la migration comme un rapport tenu entre l’extérieur et l’intérieur, le physique et le spirituel. En s’intéressant à l’histoire de Nasser elle illustre ici la thématique d’Abdel Malek Sayad sur l’immigration comme expérience corporelle. Pour Nasser la migration s’ancre dans le corps , siège et réceptacle , de l’expérience. Ce cas d’étude s’ inscrit dans une triple mobilité. Il est question d’une mobilité postcoloniale ordinaire d'un migrant égyptien, mais également de son voyage intérieur et finalement de la mobilité spirituelle des Italiens face aux enseignements d'un maître soufi.
Dans cette contribution, je me propose de décrire une confrérie soufie dans son contexte migratoi... more Dans cette contribution, je me propose de décrire une confrérie soufie dans son contexte migratoire et, spécifiquement, la branche italienne d’une confrérie soudano-égyptienne, à travers le voyage d’un texte, celui des awrad [pluriel de wird] qui sont considérés comme le support scriptural et moral de la confrérie. En fait, c’est grâce à la circulation de ces textes que la confrérie arrive à combler la distance entre les deux contextes d’émigration et d’immigration. Le wird [pluriel awrad] est un ensemble des litanies uniformisées, composées de vers remaniés du Coran (significatifs selon l’ ‘ilm al-huruf, la science mystique des lettres) et destinées à tous les disciples et affiliés de la tariqa. Le parcours initiatique des disciples se base sur la récitation quotidienne de ces rites « surérogatoires » et la tariqa Burhaniyya insiste beaucoup sur l’importance de la récitation des awrad dans la diffusion et l’enracinement de la confrérie. En effet, les textes du wird, - souvent translittérées de l’Arabe à l’alphabet local pour en faciliter la récitation aux non-arabophones - transportent avec eux, dans leur esprit et dans leurs lettres, tout un système de relations sociales, une façon de se porter et de se comporter, une représentation du temps, une vision de l’espace et des rapports de genre et une façon de voir et de croire différentes par rapport à la société d’accueil.
Un tempo un uomo cantava al Profeta, la pace sia con Lui, e la voce dell'uomo era piena di grazia... more Un tempo un uomo cantava al Profeta, la pace sia con Lui, e la voce dell'uomo era piena di grazia, e il Profeta, la pace sia con Lui, disse: abbassa la voce cantante, non rompere il cristallo. 1
Peer-reviewed Journal Articles by Paola Abenante
Culture and Religion, 2017
This issue investigates the ways in which the Sufi repertoire of heuristic categories of intellec... more This issue investigates the ways in which the Sufi repertoire of heuristic categories of intellectual and spiritual maturation (e.g. batin, spiritual growth, intuitional knowledge and inner awareness) may converge, intersect, and also diverge from modern epistemologies of the inner self. In doing so, the contributions touch upon two questions in particular. On the one hand, they discuss the relation between selfhood and the transcendent, describing not only how the self is built but also how it is somehow unbuilt in the relationship with the divine: rather than defined through its 'inner' boundaries, the self is seen as emerging continuously on the background of a wider horizon of existence, that is, the transcendent dimension of life. On the other hand, the authors highlight the overlaps between notions belonging to the Islamic tradition and modern discourses on interiority, tracing out the specific social and micro-political issues that lie behind this entanglement through key experiential notions such as dhawq, love, imagination, dreams and visions. In such a way, the papers tell about the strive of translating transcendence into new forms of sociality which may subvert, substitute or be alternative to institutionalised, established mundane and also religious forms of interaction and inter-subjectivity.
Edited special issues by Paola Abenante
Culture and Religion, 2017
This issue investigates the ways in which the Sufi repertoire of heuristic categories
of intelle... more This issue investigates the ways in which the Sufi repertoire of heuristic categories
of intellectual and spiritual maturation (e.g. batin, spiritual growth, intuitional
knowledge and inner awareness) may converge, intersect, and also diverge from
modern epistemologies of the inner self. In doing so, the contributions touch upon
two questions in particular. On the one hand, they discuss the relation between
selfhood and the transcendent, describing not only how the self is built but also
how it is somehow unbuilt in the relationship with the divine: rather than defined
through its ‘inner’ boundaries, the self is seen as emerging continuously on the
background of a wider horizon of existence, that is, the transcendent dimension
of life. On the other hand, the authors highlight the overlaps between notions
belonging to the Islamic tradition and modern discourses on interiority, tracing
out the specific social and micro-political issues that lie behind this entanglement
through key experiential notions such as dhawq, love, imagination, dreams and
visions. In such a way, the papers tell about the strive of translating transcendence
into new forms of sociality which may subvert, substitute or be alternative to
institutionalised, established mundane and also religious forms of interaction and
inter-subjectivity.
Contributed Books & Special Issues by Paola Abenante
La Ricerca Folklorica, 2014
The introduction describes some of the recent developments in the anthropological study of Islam,... more The introduction describes some of the recent developments in the anthropological study of Islam, and locates the purpose of the present collection in the broader literature, engaging in particular with the research programme on Islamic piety that has taken " discursive tradition " as its principal keyword. We highlight its positive contributions, such as the notion of cultivation of an ethical self, so crucial to transcending the stubborn opposition between religion and modernity, as well as some of its theoretically problematic aspects. At the same time, our contention is that the effort to bring back legitimacy to the Islamist commitment, characteristic of the research programme above mentioned, may come at the expense of a description of the complexity and singularity of people's subjectivities and life-worlds. In this issue, we propose an understanding of the term 'subjectivity' that privileges lived experience, in an existential and phenomenological sense, and that foregrounds the everyday. We assume the everyday as an analytical framework that allows to take into account the diachronic and relational dimensions of people's religious commitment and subjectivities, thus enhancing the researchers' sensitivity to their lifeworlds. By the same token we call for an awareness of the researchers' positioning within the field and field relationships, which are part and parcel of our interlocutors' everyday and on which the ethnography of subjectivity is built.
Papers by Paola Abenante
Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée, Jun 29, 2012
The volume is a collection of essays on the history of Sufism in Egypt, and more generally in the... more The volume is a collection of essays on the history of Sufism in Egypt, and more generally in the Arab world, during three centuries of Ottoman rule. In line with recent trends within historiography on the Ottoman period, all the authors share the aim of challenging a paradigm that formerly shaped research on Sufism, i.e. the decline paradigm, which assumed a progressive loss and corruption of true mystical quest due to the institutionalisation and popularisation of ṭariqa Sufism under Ottom...
Berghahn Books, Dec 31, 2022
Journal of Islamic Studies, 2016
Plus d'une décennie de réformes universitaires dans le monde arabe, menées au nom de la « cri... more Plus d'une décennie de réformes universitaires dans le monde arabe, menées au nom de la « crise de l'enseignement supérieur » et de la « mondialisation », permet de premiers bilans. Comme dans d'autres régions du monde, les systèmes universitaires connaissent des mutations de grande ampleur, résultant tant des réformes mises en œuvre par les États que de l’arrivée de nouveaux acteurs transnationaux. De nouvelles missions leur sont attribuées. Transmission de savoirs efficaces, production de diplômés employables, préparation de l'ère post-rentière, arrimage aux normes internationales, préservation de l'ordre social, préférence nationale à l'emploi, objectif d’excellence et d’acquisition de références internationales : ces injonctions sont ambivalentes. Si la marchandisation de l'enseignement supérieur tend à uniformiser les modes de « gouvernance », l’adaptation de ces derniers aux contextes nationaux et politiques singuliers est souvent problématique. Le ...
Nella letteratura antropologica sul medioriente, prevale spesso la tendenza a vedere l'islam ... more Nella letteratura antropologica sul medioriente, prevale spesso la tendenza a vedere l'islam come una risorsa culturale "autentica", utilizzata dagli attori locali in risposta all'egemonia esercitata dallo stato attraverso la promozione del suo progetto di "modernit\ue0". Inoltre, in questo genere di letteratura si tende a ridurre l'agency di coloro che si prestano a vivere secondo una condotta etica islamica, al loro carattere "oppositivo" rispetto al potere dominante esercitato dallo stato secolare. In questo breve scritto, si cercher\ue0 invece di descrivere il progetto di riforma morale portato avanti dalla comunit\ue0 di Fethullah G\ufclen come un particolare tipo di proposta circa cosa debba essere la "modernit\ue0", non necessariamente in contraddizione con il dominio esercitato dal progetto "secolare"
Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée, 2012
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Journal Articles by Paola Abenante
faces the unruliness of her body and affects towards the requirements of Salafi discourse, and perceives herself as walking constantly on the
edge of transgression. At the same time, she also engages with consumerist discourses of the healthy body and techniques of self-fashioning that are offered by the market. Placing responsibility on the self, these discourses increase her sense of inadequacy.
They also resonate with the Salafi ethical self-mastery, which intensifies her conflictual relationship with her embodied affects and being in the world.
Keywords:
Sufism, Islam, Subjectivity, Egypt, Migration, Phenomenology
"
Book Chapters by Paola Abenante
Peer-reviewed Journal Articles by Paola Abenante
Edited special issues by Paola Abenante
of intellectual and spiritual maturation (e.g. batin, spiritual growth, intuitional
knowledge and inner awareness) may converge, intersect, and also diverge from
modern epistemologies of the inner self. In doing so, the contributions touch upon
two questions in particular. On the one hand, they discuss the relation between
selfhood and the transcendent, describing not only how the self is built but also
how it is somehow unbuilt in the relationship with the divine: rather than defined
through its ‘inner’ boundaries, the self is seen as emerging continuously on the
background of a wider horizon of existence, that is, the transcendent dimension
of life. On the other hand, the authors highlight the overlaps between notions
belonging to the Islamic tradition and modern discourses on interiority, tracing
out the specific social and micro-political issues that lie behind this entanglement
through key experiential notions such as dhawq, love, imagination, dreams and
visions. In such a way, the papers tell about the strive of translating transcendence
into new forms of sociality which may subvert, substitute or be alternative to
institutionalised, established mundane and also religious forms of interaction and
inter-subjectivity.
Contributed Books & Special Issues by Paola Abenante
Papers by Paola Abenante
faces the unruliness of her body and affects towards the requirements of Salafi discourse, and perceives herself as walking constantly on the
edge of transgression. At the same time, she also engages with consumerist discourses of the healthy body and techniques of self-fashioning that are offered by the market. Placing responsibility on the self, these discourses increase her sense of inadequacy.
They also resonate with the Salafi ethical self-mastery, which intensifies her conflictual relationship with her embodied affects and being in the world.
Keywords:
Sufism, Islam, Subjectivity, Egypt, Migration, Phenomenology
"
of intellectual and spiritual maturation (e.g. batin, spiritual growth, intuitional
knowledge and inner awareness) may converge, intersect, and also diverge from
modern epistemologies of the inner self. In doing so, the contributions touch upon
two questions in particular. On the one hand, they discuss the relation between
selfhood and the transcendent, describing not only how the self is built but also
how it is somehow unbuilt in the relationship with the divine: rather than defined
through its ‘inner’ boundaries, the self is seen as emerging continuously on the
background of a wider horizon of existence, that is, the transcendent dimension
of life. On the other hand, the authors highlight the overlaps between notions
belonging to the Islamic tradition and modern discourses on interiority, tracing
out the specific social and micro-political issues that lie behind this entanglement
through key experiential notions such as dhawq, love, imagination, dreams and
visions. In such a way, the papers tell about the strive of translating transcendence
into new forms of sociality which may subvert, substitute or be alternative to
institutionalised, established mundane and also religious forms of interaction and
inter-subjectivity.