Journal Title
Title of Journal: Cont Islam
|
Abbravation: Contemporary Islam
|
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
|
|
|
|
|
|
Authors: Emilio Spadola
Publish Date: 2008/07/05
Volume: 2, Issue: 2, Pages: 119-
Abstract
Modern Islamic reformists in Morocco condemned ecstatic Sufi trance rites as heterodox spectacles But if the heterodoxy of these rites remains selfevident the still common reformist critique of spectacle begs historical explanation This article proposes that a main theme of post1930 nationalist reformism in Morocco was communication and its containment In this period new reformists – “Young Moroccans” and “New Salafis” – fixated upon the power of ecstatic rites to connect and coalesce the urban underclasses and to elicit recognition from the colonial state and an emergent global audience Just as new reformists sought to use technologies of mass communication including the newspaper and camera to speak to and for “the People” they chafed at the global renown these same media lent to public Sufi spectacles Examining Moroccan print media in 1930s Fez I show that antiSufi critiques were primarily neither doctrinal nor anticolonial new reformists aimed rather to domesticate the popular connective force of ritual as well as the enhanced power of these picturesque rites to speak for the nationFunds for the research and writing of this article were generously provided by a FulbrightHays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship and a Charlotte W Newcombe Foundation Fellowship for the Study of Religion and Ethics For reading and commenting on earlier versions of this article I thank Brinkley Messick Rosalind Morris Katherine Ewing Vincent Crapanzano M Elaine CombsSchilling Abdelhay Moudden Susan Slyomovics Hisham Aidi and the two anonymous reviewers for Contemporary Islam
Keywords:
.
|
Other Papers In This Journal:
|