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
3 - Emotions upside down: affection and Islam in present day Rowshan
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
Having put on a pair of glasses, it turns out that she has a good look beneath her veil (aynak tchackei chardaro muzhen jam lolak birai).
(Modern Khowar love song)INTRODUCTION
This chapter explores the complexities of village life (deho zindagi) in Rowshan. What is a village (deh) in this region of northern Pakistan, and what constitutes village life? It addresses these questions by exploring the moral complexity of village life. In particular it discusses the ways in which Rowshan people make moral and social judgements about the state of village life, and it examines the ways in which the making of moral valuations is concerned especially with maintaining proper levels of emotion and affection. Ethnographically this chapter deals with ‘devilish’ children, parental affection, illicit cross-gender friendships, human–animal relations, cleanliness, education and migration. In all these areas of village life a discourse of moral valuation is continually constructed by Rowshan people (Rowshanech) in debate, and a recurrent focus of this debate is the current state of the villager's emotions. This discourse is itself structured by broader concerns about secrecy (khoashteik) and revelation (khulao korik), the inside (andreni) and the outside (berie), as well as the interaction between the village (deh) and the state (sarkar).
I am here concerned with village life because it is so often just assumed to be stagnant, backward and static: intellectually just waiting to be enlightened or Islamised.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Living IslamMuslim Religious Experience in Pakistan's North-West Frontier, pp. 51 - 84Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005