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    ‘Western Seminary’: on transnational Shiite higher education in Britain

    Van Den Bos, Matthijs (2015) ‘Western Seminary’: on transnational Shiite higher education in Britain. Social Compass 62 (2), pp. 238-254. ISSN 0037-7686.

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    Abstract

    In this article the author delves beneath the surface of Shiite higher education in Britain to discover whether it constitutes a case for ‘European Islam’. Juxtaposing the theorisation of Islam in Europe with a commonly unrelated body of scholarship on education and citizenship, it examines a paradox of integrative blending and foreign frames. Understanding Western Shiite education requires recognition of both local identity and transnational ties, as well as the relationships between them. The author focuses on the Shiite Al-Mahdi Institute and the Islamic College in Britain, analysing on the one hand their local profiles, defined by efforts to engage with their Western environment, and on the other hand their organic foreign embedding, whether through state ties or links to educational and religious establishments. Dumont’s concept of hierarchy as ‘encompassment of the contrary’ is invoked to account for this paradoxical relationship, from which emerges a scale of differences between the two institutions.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): European Islam, hierarchical encompassment, modern hawzas, transnational education, Twelver Shiism
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences
    Depositing User: Matthijs Van Den bos
    Date Deposited: 10 Jul 2015 09:00
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:17
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/12516

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    • ‘Western Seminary’: on transnational Shiite higher education in Britain. (deposited 10 Jul 2015 09:00) [Currently Displayed]

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