‘Keeping the lamp burning’: a study of a mosque congregation in London
Date Added
17/07/2019
Content Type
Dissertation
Category
Ph.D.
Link to Content
Author
Judy Shuttleworth
Year of Publication
2016
Description
This research explores the different forms of religious practice within a mosque in
north London. It was built by one migrant group, the Guyanese, but the
congregation includes those from different Muslim communities now living in the
vicinity. These different communities have brought with them their own religious
traditions.
The ritual of Friday prayer brings this diverse group together as a
congregation but the mosque is also a space for the communal life of the
Guyanese and those who share their way of being Muslim, while globalized
currents of thinking are apparent in the work of a Guyanese preacher who teaches
an explicitly text based Islam in classes and lectures. My research examines the
different ways in which Islam is present within these three domains and the
relationship between them within the context of the mosque.
The research contributes to the idea of ‘mundane Islam’ and ‘everyday
religion’ through an exploration of the implicit, unsystematic way of being Muslim
lived by the Guyanese and the everyday relational concerns and ethical
commitments it carries. Though the classes offered the very different view of Islam
to which the teacher was committed, one purified of cultural traditions, the
women who attended them brought the complexity and ambiguity of the
mundane back into the process of religious transmission.
Files
Judy Shuttleworth
London School of Economics
2016