An offer of pleasure: Islam, poetry, and the ethics of religious difference in a Kurdish home

ABSTRACT Recent conflicts between Islamist and secularist parties in Iraqi Kurdistan have politicized pious and nonpious orientations to Islamic traditions. In public debate and domestic relations, tensions pervade relations between Muslims who pursue piety and those who do not. Yet affects of pleas...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAmerican ethnologist Vol. 44; no. 3; pp. 516 - 527
Main Author BUSH, J. ANDREW
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Arlington Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.08.2017
Subjects
Ethics
Happiness
Imagination
Islam
Kinship
Kurdish people
Middle Eastern cultural groups
Muslims
Mysticism
Pleasure
Poetry
Religiosity
Sufism
Traditions
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Summary:ABSTRACT Recent conflicts between Islamist and secularist parties in Iraqi Kurdistan have politicized pious and nonpious orientations to Islamic traditions. In public debate and domestic relations, tensions pervade relations between Muslims who pursue piety and those who do not. Yet affects of pleasure and joy also play a key role in the ethics of domestic relations. Evidence from the life of a Kurdish man and his family demonstrates that their orientation to Islam is inseparable from their orientation to one another. It also shows that affective pleasures linking the poetic imagination to household life are central to the ethical task of sustaining intimate relations. Within the household, Muslims with different orientations to Islam accept and accommodate one another through an “ethos of reception.” [poetry, pluralism, ethics, kinship, Sufism, Islam, Iraqi Kurdistan]
ISSN:0094-0496
1548-1425
DOI:10.1111/amet.12526