For more than 1,400 years, Muslims have held multiple and diverging views about their religious tradition. Yet especially since Sept. 11, 2001, Muslims are commonly portrayed as homogeneous and dogmatic.
In his new book, , 91亚色 anthropologist challenges that view. The 253-page volume published by I.B. Tauris and launched at Harvard University this fall features essays by world-class scholars that explore Islam and Muslim societies聽and cultures from a range of perspectives.
The book arose from a seminar series on Muslim pluralism hosted at the London-based Institute of Ismaili Studies in 2002 and 2003 in response to the events of Sept. 11, 2001, explains Hirji in his editor鈥檚 note. 鈥淪ince that moment, words and images concerning Islam and the histories, beliefs and practices of Muslims have proliferated globally.鈥
This complex portrait of Islam 鈥渃hallenges the notions that Muslims everywhere are the same or should be the same,鈥 wrote Hirji. Like the seminar series, the book aims not to present the social fact that Muslims are diverse, he added, but to examine how Muslims frame their own diversity over time and in different contexts.
As a social historian as well as an聽anthropologist in 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, Hirji is interested in how Muslim聽societies express their sense of community. He has contributed the first of eight essays in Diversity and Pluralism in Islam, 鈥淒ebating Islam from Within: Muslim Constructions of the Internal Other鈥.
Hirji co-authored and co-edited , a comprehensive account of Ismaili history and intellectual achievements, set in the wider contexts of Islamic and world history. He has co-edited Places of Worship and Devotion in Muslim Societies, expected out soon.聽He has also recently completed a 25-minute film on Tehreema Mitha (see YFile May 7, 2009), a classical and contemporary dancer from Pakistan, and is working with the Textile Museum of Canada on an exhibition of聽Muslim material culture and heritage in Africa to open in May.
Right: Zulfikar Hirji
At 91亚色, he teaches senior undergraduate and graduate courses on Islam and Muslim societies,聽visual anthropology and the anthropology of the senses.