Muslim Identities in Brazil : between Arabism and Islamization (Identidades muçulmanas no Brasil : entre o arabismo e a islamização)

Muslim Identities in Brazil : between Arabism and Islamisation
This article takes a look at the subject of the Muslim. communities in contemporary Brazil, addressing the dilemmas that emerge from the identity-based strategies chosen by these communities. Based on empirical research, this work attempts to show that in Brazil, Islam is diverse and complex. We attempt to analyse this diversity by considering the opposition formed by the terms Arabism/Islamisation as options that differentiate the communities and at the same time place them in the arena of discussions of the Ummah, the worldwide Islam community. Some of the communities analysed here (such as the Muslim Charity Society of Rio de Janeiro) choose to reject the juxtaposition of Arabism and Islamism, and pronounce themselves in favour of a universalism inspired (albeit not yet explicitly) by the international movement of the «Islamic Rebirth». Paradoxically, the dissociation of Islam from any ethnic, national or «racial» particularism leaves the door open for Brazil to become a Dar al Islam (land of Islam).