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Contemporary Islam

10-02-2024

Islam nuanced: transcending Shi’a clerical authority among Iranian Americans in rural Kentucky

Author: Erfan Saidi Moqadam

Published in: Contemporary Islam

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Abstract

In this article, I show how a group of Iranian Muslims in Trump-era rural Kentucky conceptualize their Islamic practices in relation to the dominant American social, political, racial, and economic norms to compromise Americanness with Muslimness in order to claim cultural citizenship. Drawing on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork involving participant observation and in-depth interviews conducted with Iranian-American Muslims in rural Kentucky, I develop an argument regarding how these individuals conceive of Islam differently from the monolithic Islam promoted by both Islamic clerics and the post-9/11 dominant discourse that has racialized Muslims. By examining a theoretical and analytical category that can conceptualize the unauthorized practices of Islam, I explore how Iranian Americans in rural Kentucky negotiate some of the most established Shi’i practices independent from clerics and reconcile their Islamic practices with the sociocultural and religious norms and values of the South rather than pursuing orthodox or heterodox Islam. Iranian Muslims in Kentucky are surrounded by multiple transnational Muslim communities that have created a diasporic condition, empowering them to foster a collective identity not by conforming to homogeneity, but rather by developing a nuanced web of intersecting bonds that unifies them through differentiation while confronting Islamophobia and the Muslim experiences of racialization.

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Footnotes
1
All names of the local individuals and places are fictitious and anonymized. The name of the Center is one of the titles of the first Shi’i Imam.
 
2
In this article, I draw on ethnographic research, which was conducted in the anonymized cities of Simonstown, Winstonburg, Footland, and Greavesville in Kentucky, from June 2019 to August 2020. Compared with Simonstown and Winstonburg, which are larger cities among the tenth to fifteenth largest cities in the U.S. South, Footland and Greavesville are smaller towns in Appalachian region and are considered rural settings.
 
3
Shi’i is the adjective form, while Shi’a is the noun.
 
4
One of the main Islamic holidays (also known as Eid al- ‘Adhā), in which Muslims celebrate by donating lamb meat to poor people to symbolize Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son and obey the command of God.
 
5
All direct quotations that I use in this article translated from Farsi to English.
 
6
The delineation between Shi’as and Sunnis is rooted in the clear-cut dispute over the righteous successor of the Prophet of Islam. Shi’as believe that the Twelve descendants of the Prophet were his righteous successors, whereas Sunnis believe the successors were companions of the Prophet, elected by the community of believers, known as Caliphs.
 
7
For Asad, “A tradition consists essentially of discourses that seek to instruct practitioners regarding the correct form and purpose of a given practice that, precisely because it is established, has a history” (Asad, 2009a, 2009b: 20).
 
8
This research was conducted based on the University of Kentucky’s Nonmedical Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved protocol: #49,000. The data was obtained through informed consent, which was stamped and approved under the same IRB approval.
 
9
For Lamphere these institutions paly a mediating role between immigrants and local residents: “workplaces within industrial firms, school systems, rental housing complexes owned by individuals or corporations, community organizations, and local governments” (Lamphere 1992: 3–4).
 
10
“Rural” is defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as areas with fewer than 50,000 people. Under this definition, Greavesville and Footland are categorized as “rural,” while Simonstown and Winstonburg are classified as “metro” areas. However, the Census Bureau classifies “rural” and “urban” areas based on population density. Under this definition, Simonstown and Winstonburg, excluding their urban cores, are considered “rural” due to their population density of fewer than 500 people per square mile (Cromartie 2019; Cromartie and Bucholtz 2008).
 
11
It is also called turbah among Muslim groups.
 
12
Ghadīr Khumm is one of the most important Shi’i holidays, in which they celebrate Ali’s succession. According to Shi’i narratives, in the Ghadīr event the Prophet delivered a sermon including a famous declaration; “whoever I am his mowlā (Guardian), from now on Ali will be his mowlā.”.
 
13
Someone with comprehensive knowledge of Islamic Jurisprudence.
 
14
A ten-day long commemoration of the third Shi’i Imam’s martyrdom in the month of Muharram, the first of the Islamic calendar.
 
15
In Islamic tradition, mahram are individuals related to one through marriage or blood relations; therefore, shaking hands with the opposite sex is not permissible.
 
16
The Arabic word mowlā and its family words (walī, wilayat, owliā) pronounce differently when Persian speakers use them. I transliterate the way Iranian pronounce it as valī, vīlayat. They pronounce mowlā and owliā closer to the original Arabic pronunciations. Therefore, I keep them as they are in Arabic.
 
17
Humbleness in front of God.
 
18
Ahmed describes Con-Text as “the whole field or complex or vocabulary of meanings of Revelation that have been produced in the course of the human and historical hermeneutical engagement with Revelation, and which are thus already present as Islam” (Ahmed 2016: 356).
 
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Metadata
Title
Islam nuanced: transcending Shi’a clerical authority among Iranian Americans in rural Kentucky
Author
Erfan Saidi Moqadam
Publication date
10-02-2024
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
Contemporary Islam
Print ISSN: 1872-0218
Electronic ISSN: 1872-0226
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11562-024-00552-1

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