Engaged Subjects

Danish Muslim Women’s Islamic Educational Activities

Public Defence of PhD Thesis by Maria Lindebæk Lyngsøe.

Assessment Committee

  • Professor Catharina Raudvere, chair (University of Copenhagen)
  • Senior Researcher David Kloos (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, Leiden)
  • Professor Christian Suhr (University of Aarhus)

Moderator of the defence

  • Head of Department Annika Hvithamar (University of Copenhagen)

Copies of the thesis will be available for consultation at the following three places:

  • At the Information Desk of the Library of the Faculty of Humanities, Karen Blixens Plads 7
  • In Reading Room East of the Royal Library (the Black Diamond), Søren Kierkegaards Plads 1
  • At the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, Karen Blixens Plads 8, DK-2300 Copenhagen S.

 

This thesis examines the engagement of pious Danish Muslim women in Islamic educational activities, exploring both the local field of Islamic education in Denmark and the broader question of what it means to be and become a (Muslim) subject. Drawing on empirical materials collected primarily through participant observations of educational activities in the Greater Copenhagen area, and interviews with women engaging in such activities, I ask how and why Danish Muslim women engage in Islamic education as students and/or teachers, and what this engagement means for their formation as pious subjects. I show that women’s engagement in Islamic education through both learning and sharing knowledge is a crucial aspect of their commitment to Islam, which they continuously seek to develop using a variety of local and international resources. Problematizing the idea that knowledge engagement among contemporary Muslims is an individualized project, I emphasize its relational dimensions, showing that educational activities are spaces of pious sociality where women’s connection to each other and to God are cultivated. Through their participation as teachers and students in both formal and informal educational activities, such as mosque classes or study groups, women also establish ideas about Islam and reach an understanding of the world. It is in such local contexts that Islamic knowledge is shaped and made meaningful.

This thesis takes women’s engagement in Islamic education to have productive potential. One of its main arguments is that this engagement is a way for Danish Muslim women to become pious subjects. This becoming, I argue, is motivated by and reliant on the women’s entanglement with the particular world they inhabit and their embeddedness in a web of relations. This includes a relation to God or ‘the otherworldly’, which shapes women as individuals and influences their engagement in Islamic education. At the same time, everyday commitments, social relations, and temporal realities also influence the unfolding of women’s engagement and how they make sense of it.
Through in-depth empirical descriptions of the daily educational activities of pious Danish Muslim women, this thesis contributes important insights to research on Islam in Denmark and to Muslim women’s religious practice internationally. Its development of an understanding of the subject as embedded in a web of relations, including to the otherworldly, is of relevance to the broader field of religious studies but also points more specifically to potentially fruitful new directions in scholarship on Islam in European contexts, which has often focused on Muslims’ minority positionality.

 

 

I denne afhandling undersøger jeg danske, fromme muslimske kvinders engagement i islamisk undervisning. Afhandlingen handler både om islamisk uddannelse i Danmark og om, hvad det vil sige at være og blive et (muslimsk) subjekt. Den baserer sig på empirisk materiale primært indsamlet gennem deltagerobservationer af undervisningsaktiviteter samt interviews med kvinder, der engagerer sig i sådanne. Med afsæt heri søger jeg at svare på, hvordan og hvorfor danske, fromme muslimske kvinder engagerer sig i islamisk undervisning som lærere og/eller elever, og hvilken betydning dette engagement har for deres tilblivelse som fromme subjekter. Gennem afhandlingen viser jeg, at kvindernes engagement i islamisk undervisning er et helt centralt aspekt af deres religiøse praksis, som de fortløbende søger at udvikle ved at trække på viden fra en række forskellige både lokale og internationale ressourcer. Jeg problematiserer ideen om, at nutidige muslimers søgen efter islamisk viden foregår som en individuel eller individualiseret proces og fremhæver relationelle aspekter af kvindernes engagement, idet jeg viser, at undervisningsaktiviteter også må beskrives som fromheds-fællesskaber i hvilke, relationer både mellem kvinderne og til Gud kultiveres. Videre viser jeg, at kvinderne som lærere og elever i formelle og uformelle aktiviteter skaber fælles forståelser af, hvad islam og verden er. Det er en central pointe, at det er i lokale kontekster som de, denne afhandling beskriver, at islamisk viden etableres og får mening.

Det er afhandlingens grundlæggende antagelse, at engagementet i islamiske undervisningsaktiviteter har et produktivt potentiale og fungerer skabende for kvinderne som fromme subjekter. Denne skabelse er motiveret af og baserer sig på deres indlejring i et net af relationer til verden omkring dem, inklusive Gud eller ’det hinsides’, der påvirker deres tilblivelse som individer og deres engagement i islamisk undervisning. Samtidig fremhæves også hverdagslige forpligtelser, sociale relationer og temporale virkeligheder som betydningsfulde for, hvordan engagementet udfolder sig og for deres forståelse af dette.

Med grundige empiriske beskrivelser af danske, fromme muslimske kvinders hverdagslige islamiske undervisningsaktiviteter bidrager afhandlingen med ny viden til international forskning i muslimske kvinders religiøse praksis og til forskning i islam i Danmark. Med den foreslåede forståelse af subjekter som indlejret i et net af relationer, inkluderende Gud eller det hinsidige, er afhandlingen af relevans for den bredere religionsvidenskab og udpeger mere specifikt nye retninger for forskning i europæiske muslimer, som ofte har betonet disses minoritetsposition frem for deres gudsrelation.