MOI_IslPopCul2022 - Islamic Popular Culture and Public Performance Practices: The Production, Transmission of Religious Knowledge and Creation of Cultural Identity in Africa

Though in Africa, Islamic knowledge production and transmission is traditionally associated with male ulama in textual format (Ndzovu 2019), poetry, music and film-video have demonstrated that it could also be transmitted in an uncomplicated form, where female actors participate as well. This simplicity is evident through the production of ‘Islamic-poetry’, ‘Islamic-music’, and ‘Islamic-film video’, where the three public performance practices have established to be practical sources for relaying religious knowledge. Though, the category of Islamic public performance is complex, incorporating aesthetic and ritual practices (Frishkopf 2008), it also reveals diverse attitudes to poetry, music and film video in diverse Muslim societies. Among African Muslims, poetry, music and film-video are important (Kirkegaard 2012), but also disputed part of Islamic discourse (Ibrahim 2017; Adamu 2010). The three purveyors of popular culture not only support religious meanings (McLaughlin 1997), but also give variation in the transmission of religious knowledge, a process that has demystified the traditional textual and religious space of the mosque by embracing social halls, homes and entertainment places. More so, performative arts also remind African Muslims of their identity thereby supporting the socializing processes intended in creating the feeling of cultural belonging (Larkin 2004). Therefore, this research project seeks to examine the role of gender, local languages and performative aesthetics in the production and transmission of religious knowledge and how subsequently the resultant popular culture creates cultural identity and sense of belonging among Muslims in Kenya, Zanzibar, Nigeria and Morocco. The incorporation of multiple disciplines to problematize and interrogate the theme of Islamic popular culture has the potential to generate in a reflexive and relational ways new knowledge on the understanding and usage of the three public performances identified.