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Billaud2018_Article_MarriageSHariaStyleEverydayPra.pdf (370.68 kB)

Marriage “sharia style”: everyday practices of Islamic morality in England

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 15:51 authored by Julie Billaud
The growing visibility of Islam in the public spaces of Western societies is often interpreted in the media as a sign of Muslim radicalisation. This article questions this postulate by examining the flourishing Muslim marriage industry in the UK. It argues that these ‘halal’ services, increasingly popular among the young generation of British Muslims, reflect the semantic shifting of categories away from the repertoire of Islamic jurisprudence to cultural and identity labels visible in public space. Informed by long-term ethnographic fieldwork in the British field of Islamic law, this article examines a Muslim speed-dating event, which took place in central London in 2013. It investigates how Islamic morality is maintained and negotiated in everyday social interactions rather than cultivated via discipline and the pursuit of virtuous dispositions. Using Goffman’s “frame analysis” and his interpretation of the social as a space of “performances” as well as recent anthropological reflections on “ordinary ethics” (Lambek) and “everyday Islam” (Schielke, Osella and Soares), it examines the potential for such practices to define the contours of a new public culture where difference is celebrated as a form of distinction.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Contemporary Islam

ISSN

1872-0218

Publisher

Springer

Department affiliated with

  • Anthropology Publications

Research groups affiliated with

  • Sussex Rights and Justice Research Centre Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2018-11-15

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2018-11-15

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2018-11-15

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