Sufi Islam and Anti-Colonial Politics
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Keywords
Identity, Ethnicity, Performativity, Sufism, Africanism
Abstract
This article will tackle how African Muslim Women represented by Sudanese women, are undergoing specific transformations of identity, religion and gender roles in the diaspora space. Identities are said to be in constant processes of negotiation between the traditions of the homeland and that of the host society, thus to investigate the relationship between ideologies of new spaces and Sudanese women’s identity, as Muslims and African immigrants affected by the host society’s race and gender roles and discourses, this article will provide an analysis of the multi-faceted nature of Islam represented by the popular, Sufi Islam attached to the tradition of the home land, and the dominant Islamic religious discourse in West Yorkshire. The article will examine issues of rights, representations and history, and shed light on these African Muslim women’s ideas, perspectives and struggles in the diasporic space, and also unpack the interplay of Africanism, Arabism Muslimness/Sufism in the lives of Sudanese women, as related to wider African Islamic Sufi culture as an integral part of the composition of identity.
The article seeks to discuss, debate, provoke and rethink Blackness, Muslimness and religious performativities in a nuanced way that capture the complexities regarding African Muslim communities, diasporic experiences, and the multifaceted nature of Islam. Highlighting Africa Muslim experiences that have long been devalued, side lined and excluded, this article interrogates and adds to the field of ethnicity and race as it negotiates African Muslim identities in diverse ways. The article will represent work done on Black Muslim subjects in diverse and unique contexts, challenging the discourses that have produced homogenous identities and homogenous performativities of Islam. It is a call to decolonize the discourses dominant in the West in general and in the UK in particular, and to resist hegemonic Muslim experience formed by mainstream Islam in West Yorkshire, UK.
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