Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Acknowledgements
- Note on transliteration
- Glossary of Khowar words used in text
- Map 1 Pakistan and neighbouring countries; shaded area corresponds to Chitral district
- Map 2 Chitral district
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Rowshan: Chitral village life
- 3 Emotions upside down: affection and Islam in present day Rowshan
- 4 The play of the mind: debating village Muslims
- 5 Mahfils and musicians: new Muslims in Markaz
- 6 Scholars and scoundrels: Rowshan's amulet-making ulama
- 7 To eat or not to eat? Ismaiʾlis and Sunnis in Rowshan
- 8 Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - The play of the mind: debating village Muslims
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Acknowledgements
- Note on transliteration
- Glossary of Khowar words used in text
- Map 1 Pakistan and neighbouring countries; shaded area corresponds to Chitral district
- Map 2 Chitral district
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Rowshan: Chitral village life
- 3 Emotions upside down: affection and Islam in present day Rowshan
- 4 The play of the mind: debating village Muslims
- 5 Mahfils and musicians: new Muslims in Markaz
- 6 Scholars and scoundrels: Rowshan's amulet-making ulama
- 7 To eat or not to eat? Ismaiʾlis and Sunnis in Rowshan
- 8 Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Love: higher even than thoughts, lower only than the sky (ishq khialar zhrang asmanar past).
(Modern Khowar love song)INTRODUCTION
This chapter explores the place that thought and discussion play in the living of a Muslim life in Rowshan. It seeks to refine anthropological analyses of the shape of intellectual activity and critical thought in the lives of village Muslims, and to examine what thought and the living of a ‘mindful’ (zahin) life entails for Rowshan people. ‘Village’ Muslims are often wrongly thought to be either unreflective, or to think solely in ‘religious’ terms. Rowshan people, on the contrary, value the intellect and the play of the mind, and base their claims and arguments on a strikingly wide range of different sources, both ‘secular’ and ‘religious’, and not just unthinking references to the Qurʾan or to addresses made by the village's religious authorities. Far from being confined to the discussion of Islamic doctrine and practice, the intellectual life of Rowshan's village Muslims broaches sensitive issues that are important in the present day, and Rowshan people see the village as both having and needing to sustain an intellectual life. Making contentious remarks, debating (bahus korik), and saying surprising things, are all ways in which Rowshan people enjoy the play of the mind and experience thought in their daily lives.
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- Living IslamMuslim Religious Experience in Pakistan's North-West Frontier, pp. 85 - 121Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005