Confessional Islamic Teaching in Sweden
The project concerns a study of confessional Muslim urban environments in contemporary Sweden, which is a neglected area of research. Such environments are beyond governmental control and do not need to follow governmental guidelines pertaining to education, like communal schools must. The focus is on confessional Islamic education that will be studied through participant observation and interviews, as well as through an analysis of the material that is used and produced in the studied environments. Interviews with participants and representatives, such as teachers and preachers, will be conducted.
Some foundational questions will be asked, such as what interpretation of Islam is advocated and how its legitimacy and authenticity are negotiated. This is related to how people within the environments view for example integration and gender roles. These themes are to be discussed related to topics such as freedom of religion, democracy, secularisation and issues of integration. Pedagogical issues are addressed as well. A stereotypical view of Islamic education as authoritarian and rigid has prevailed and this project will study how the pedagogic is formed in the environments. Another issue regards loyalty and belonging and concerns whether the environments have transnational contacts and how they view the “Muslim community” (ummah) as well as citizenship in Sweden. A basic question is what kind of identities are being constructed and sought for in the environments
Susanne Olsson, Stockholm University
2009-2014
This project has been conducted in a contemporary fundamentalist suburbian environment, where the focus has been on a specific Salafi-oriented (puritan) group, which conducts regular teaching in various suburbs (and cities) in Sweden. The focus has been mainly on how tradition and authority is promoted and put into practice, illustrating how the "local group" "negotiates" the situation of being minority Muslims in the Swedish secular surrounding. The analysis addresses issues of how authority is created/upheld through the view on revelation and earlier as well as contemporary jurists. This reveals a reorientation towards, or rather against, the jurisprudential schools, following the call to read revelation without interpreting, and to imitate the example of the prophet Muhammad and the first generations of Muslims. An interpretative hierarchy is at hand, which also opens up for individuals to reach higher in this hierarchy depending on their level of ("authentic") knowledge. The method to spread the message advocated by the leaders is conducted through teaching, considered a "missionary" activity (da'wah). One underlying aspect relates to issues of integration, where the group, through its (re)interpretation of Islam advocates segregation or even emigration (hijrah). The findings are published in articles and more extensively in a forthcoming monograph.
I have presented papers at international conferences, and arranged panels on the topic contemporary Salafism. A workshop financed by RJ was arranged at Södertörn University, 24-25 May 2013. "Contemporary Salafi Islam -between ideas and practices", resulting in a guest edited volume of Contemporary Islamic Studies on contemporary Salafism. One planned conference that is emanating from this project is "Domains of Interpretation of Islamic Texts", 24-25 April, 2015, at the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, if funding is granted.The workshop intends to broaden the scope of study to include scholars working on interpretations of the Qur'an and Sunnah to increase networking internationally.
Individual papers:
Conference: WOCMES. III. World Congress for Middle East Studies. Barcelona, 19-25 Juli, 2010. The European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed). Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB).
Paper: Where is "the abode of Islam"? - Reinterpretations of "classical" Islamic concepts.
Conference: EASR: New Movements in Religion. September 18-22, 2011. Budapest, Hungary.
Paper: The Qur'an and Sunnah as works in movement.
Conference: Mediterranean Programme, 13th Research Meeting. Montecatini Terme, 21 - 24 March, 2012. Workshop 9. Europe With or Without Muslims: Narratives of Europe. Organized by Göran Larsson and Bogdana Todorova
Paper: Contested Islamic Authority - Europe as an "abode of Islam"?
Conference: Mediterranean Programme, 14th Mediterranean Research Meeting. European University Institute. Mersin, Turkey, 20-23 March, 2013. Workshop 12: Secularism and the Minority Question across the Mediterranean. Organizers: Alexandre Caeiro, Qatar Foundation, Qatar and Frank Peter, University of Bern, Switzerland
Paper: "Postsecular Sweden" - Salafi Islam
Conference: Chaos Symposium 2013, "Religion og tid". Trondheim, Norway. 3-4 May 2013.
Paper: En svensk salafitisk förståelse av nutiden i ljuset av historien och evigheten
Conference: Workshop Södertörn University, 24-25 May 2013. "Contemporary Salafi Islam -between ideas and practices".
Paper: A Swedish puritan Salafi group - self-chosen marginalization as an official strategy.
Conference: EASR: Religion, migration, mutation. Liverpool Hope University, 3-6 September 2013.
Paper: Swedish puritan Salafism: a hijrah within
Conference: The Ninth Nordic Conference on Middle Eastern Studies, CMES, Lund University, September 19-21, 2013. "Everyday Life in the Middle East". Organised by The Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies (NSM).
Paper: A Swedish puritan Salafi view of segregation and emigration
EASR 2014. University of Groningen, 11-15 May 2014, "Religion and Pluralities of Knowledge". Panel: Articulating Complexity between the Islamic Creed and Muslim Actions. Paper: Combating innovation and infidels - Changing views on 'loyalty and disavowal' in creed and action
WOCMES 2014. IV. World Congress for Middle East Studies. METU, Ankara, Turkey. 18-22 August, 2014.
Paper: Changing notions of the phrase al-wala' wa al-bara' ('allegiance and disavowal')
Main publications:
Olsson, Susanne 2011. Var får muslimer bo? – nutida tolkningar av islamisk juridik. Susanne Olsson, Susanne and Simon Sorgenfrei. (eds). Perspektiv på islam: En vänbok till Christer Hedin, pp. 212–217. Stockholm: Dialogos.
Olsson, Susanne and Carool Kersten (eds). (2013). Introduction: Alternative Islamic Discourse and religious Authority. Alternative Islamic Discourses and Religious Authority, pp. 1–15. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate.
Olsson, Susanne. Editors preface. Comparative Islamic Studies, 8:1-2, 2012/2014
Olsson, Susanne. Swedish Puritan Salafism - a hijra within. Comparative Islamic Studies, 8:1-2. 2012/2014
Olsson, Susanne. 2014. Proselytizing Islam – problematizing “Salafism”. The Muslim World, 104: 1-2, 171-197
Unpublished monograph: Sunnisized Self-Minoritization – Contemporary Puritan Salafism. (I.B. Tauris or Equinox)