A Phenomenological Approach to the Study of Lived Islam and Muslimness

Research output

Complete citation

Poljarević, Emin. “A Phenomenological Approach to the Study of Lived Islam and Muslimness.” In New Methodological Perspectives in Islamic Studies, edited by Abbas Aghdassi and Aaron W. Hughes, 264–290. Leiden: Brill, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004536630_014.

Overview

This chapter addresses a methodological problem in Islamic Studies: the difficulty of studying Islam, Islamic traditions, and Muslim lives without reducing them either to abstract doctrine or to disconnected social practices. It revisits concepts such as Islamdom, the Islamicate, lived Islam, and Muslimness, and proposes a phenomenological approach attentive to embodiment, subjectivity, theological understanding, and meaning-making. Rather than treating everyday practice as detached from tradition, the chapter situates diverse Muslim experiences within broader civilisational and normative horizons. It also requires researchers to reflect systematically on their own intentions and interpretive positions. Its contribution is a multilayered method for studying lived Islam that joins empirical attentiveness to theological and civilisational context while preserving the diversity of Muslim experience.

Research question or central concern

How can Islamic Studies analyse lived Islam and Muslimness without separating everyday experience from theology, tradition, and the researcher’s interpretive position?

Main argument, approach, and contribution

The chapter develops a phenomenological and interpretive method. It argues that lived Islam should be studied as embodied meaning-making situated within wider Islamic traditions and Islamdom.

Keywords

Lived Islam; Muslimness; phenomenology; Islamic Studies; embodiment; subjectivity; Islamdom

Links

• DOI / publisher page
• Open-access or repository record

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