IslamCultural Muslims, like cultural Christians, are a silent majority
Not all Muslims are religious. An increasingly recognized body of non-practicing Muslims living in the West are identified (or openly self-identify) as cultural. The “cultural Muslim” refers to members of the Muslim community who are non-practicing but retain an attachment to elements of Islamic culture. The history of the Muslim world entails the story of numerous civilizations spanning from Spain in the West to Pakistan in the East. And not much has changed today. The vast cultural diversity means distinctness and variety in practice and customs. Communities of faithful across the globe express a multiplicity of interpretations across the globe. More intriguingly, the category of the “cultural Muslim” is not only a testament to the cultural diversity associated with the faith, but further defined by a process of disenchantment with its religious institution. The cultural Muslim appears to be the case of an unaccounted majority.
The “cultural Muslim” refers to members of the Muslim community who are non-practicing but retain an attachment to elements of Islamic culture. The history of the Muslim world entails the story of numerous civilizations spanning from Spain in the West to Pakistan in the East. And not much has changed today.
The vast cultural diversity means distinctness and variety in practice and customs. Communities of faithful across the globe express a multiplicity of interpretations across the globe.
More intriguingly, the category of the “cultural Muslim” is not only a testament to the cultural diversity associated with the faith, but further defined by a process of disenchantment with its religious institution.
This goes beyond the fact that there are extremist Muslims and peaceful Muslims and mystic Muslims; it points to the ordinary everyday secularized Muslim who might even be engaged in a private and personal (that is to say apolitical) manner with their religion.
The center and the periphery
“The Story of Islam has always privileged the view from the center.”
Thus stated Richard Bulliet in his publication Islam: The View from the Edge. The view from the center holds Islamic history to be an outgrowth from a single point, expanding under the label “the caliphate.”
But was there anything other than a political label that held Islam together? Why did its social cohesion evaporate after just two centuries, never to re-occur?
The attempt to “understand” Muslims is ongoing. Islamic history is as complex as it is contested. Muslim societies are multifarious, and the lives of individual adherents even more intriguing and little understood.
But what is gradually receiving more attention is the view that an adequate understanding of the Muslim world depends on having a better grasp of what has happened — and what is happening — on the periphery.
Bulliet, Professor of History at Columbia University, New York, had already conducted important research on this in the 1990s. The “view from the edge” he called it; this was to complement, and not contradict or refute, the view from the center. More importantly, it filled in the blanks in what is usually quite an impaired historical vision as most surface historical studies depend on the “usual” materials.
