International Journal of Society and Culture in the Muslim World
Volume:1 Issue: 1, Summer and Autumn 2019

As a cultural phenomenon, consumption is one of the key concepts forunderstanding modern societies, because modern man’s lifestyle, aesthetic tasteand desires are strongly dependent on his/her cultural consumption. A literaturereview in the tradition of consumption studies demonstrates that at least threeparadigm shifts in consumption theories have taken place: Consumption as apassive act, consumption as a communicative act, and consumption as an act ofresistance. As a consequence of these paradigm shifts, the practice of consumingcultural commodities has become the focus of attention in Cultural Studies withan emphasis on the discussion of this practice. With this epistemology at hand, thepresent paper situated itself within the context of consumption studies paradigmsto explain contemporary Iranians’ consumption behavior within the cyberspaceknown as “virtual consumption”, which is of cultural and ideological significancefor cultural analysts. Accordingly, the three waves of virtual consumption theorizedby Lehdonvirta (2009) were reframed into the Iranian context to see if and to whatextent there exists a correspondence between them.

The concepts of social policies and welfare states have been limited to the contemporary westerncivilization. Muslim nations have not been great examples of investing in the human resource.The effects of social policies like free healthcare and competitive education system are directlyproportional to the level of extremism a country’s youth reaches upon. States concerned on thiscorrelation understand the psychological and physiological needs of their citizens. Problem understudy is a lack of investment in human development in Muslim countries with Pakistan in focus,and a psycho-religious affiliation of youth with ultra-orthodox extremism. To examine the issuetheoretically, we have used two theories: Religious pluralism to comprehend its various conceptsof harmony among world religions and subsequently their sects; and social constructivism toconnect its discursive formations with the secluded terminologies of pluralism. The purposewas to produce a discourse analysis of societal harmony vis-à-vis religion and society. To makethe research methodology more reliable and authentic, data and incidents have been takenfrom renowned published sources, e.g. journal articles mentioning the belief structures in theUlema (theology men) of Pakistan. It is a case study modeled on Pakistan’s youth radicalization;explanatory mode of research approach has been used. Pakistani forces have consistently foughtthe Taliban and other extremist groups in a series of operations after 9’11, Zarb e Azb being themost famous and successful one. A sizable chunk of the country’s youth has been affected byforeign funding of Madrassas; the level of radicalization varies. Government must fight at twofronts: Provide basic needs to every citizen; and deradicalize the youth by investing more in theongoing rehabilitation centers or make new programs.

With the rise of terrorist attacks in European countries, the topic of secondgenerationMuslims living in the West becomes heated more than ever. SecondgenerationMuslims are born and raised in Canada and usually have multipleethnic backgrounds. They need to deal with multiple identities as well as beingyoung, which comes with its own challenges. For the purpose of this paper,seven in-depth interviews were conducted on young Muslim men and women.This paper seeks to illuminate issues of Muslim youth rebellion by asking whomthey rebel against. The paper examines how and why in rare instances a formof rebellion by Muslim youth has led to terrorism. This study shows that not allthe religious and cultural identity crises of Muslim youth leads to violence andterrorism. The majority of Muslim youth rebellion is directed against their parents’cultures, rather than against Western liberal values or Islam.

As the world’s largest annual human gathering, Arbaeen pilgrimage is fast becoming aninternational event in which, according to several pieces of published news in some of theworld’s top news agencies such as Independent, a number of people apart from Muslimcountries, from several non-Muslim Asian, American, African and European countriesparticipate. This remarkable event has adequate news values including impact, magnitudeand bizarreness, but it is underrepresented and/or misrepresented by the western media. Itdeserves to be systematically discussed in academic discourse. This study made an attemptto situate Western media’s representation of Arbaeen within the reframing theory by Baker(2006)and the theory of cultural translation as introduced by Homi Bhabha (1994). Themain research question to be pursued by this study was how Arbaeen pilgrimage has beenreframed through a cultural translation by Western media in the last 10 years (from 2007to 2017). To this end, news stories of the world’s top 10 news agencies covering Arbaeenpilgrimage were chosen as the corpus of this study. The corpus then was analyzed accordingto Baker’s (2006) narrative theory of translation that views translation as a reframingpractice. Unlike the mainstream idea that Arbaeen pilgrimage is underrepresented by theWestern media, the central argument here was that it is reconstructed and reframed withinnegative news stories and introduced to unknown audiences as a dangerous event, whilethis is a narrative with multiple positive implications including peace and solidarity amongthe nations with volunteers distributing free food and drinks to pilgrims, as well as offeringplaces to relax, wash, and sleep only for Imam Hussein.

This article deals with Iranian student political associations at universities. Iranianuniversities, throughout their history, have played an important role in politicalmovements, and their most effective function is related to the triumph of the IslamicRevolution in 1979. But after the Islamic Revolution, the university had to witnessa shift from its revolutionary role to a political one. In this functional shift, studentpolitical associations were organized by a supervisory committee as the representationof Islamic political discourse. Thus, inspired by the Agamben’s lexicon of camp,student political associations can be regarded as a refugee camp (Ramadan, 2013, p.146) in which political students are held and seen as emigrants who have immigratedto the pole of politics. To study this, we explored three important universities inTehran with a significant political background. We interviewed political and nonpoliticalstudents, and conducted field observations as well. Consequently, studentpolitical associations are monitored as a camp in which political students release theirenergy. Also, political students use some parallel spaces, such as social networks orspots close to universities, like parks, to come together and develop political plans.Finally, pursuing ideal objectives, trying to affect others, and feeling a responsibilityare the motivations that make political associations acceptable for political students.

The 2017 unprecedented pouring of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugeesinto neighboring Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh, fleeing violence related to a retaliatorymilitary crackdown in western Myanmar (Burma), created a major humanitarian crisis.Sympathy and solidarity were expressed worldwide, alongside a flood of humanitarianaid. However, their decades-old plight as socially excluded poor and marginalizedoutside Myanmar, particularly in host countries of Southeast Asia, has remained eclipsed.Youngsters, preferred targets for drug traffickers, participate as mules in smuggling aheavily consumed methamphetamine (yaba pills) proceeding from Myanmar. Suchdeviance (being part of the supply chain), which not only is a criminal offence, but alsoblamed on the entire community, is likely to exacerbate its marginalization. A collectivepunishment of these forcibly displaced would make them shift to becoming forciblyrelocated and confined to Thengar Char, a remote and underdeveloped island in theBay of Bengal known for being prone to flooding. Although important, criticism andcondemnations may be insufficient. This article addresses recreational sports as a tool ofsocial inclusion among other already known benefits, and is based on secondary data.In so doing, it seeks to link it with the key role of social policy in providing responsesto the needs of a vulnerable population in a protracted situation. Plentiful leisure timeavailable looks undervalued. There is a predominant monovalent activity with a genderdiscrepancy in participation. The article offers a perspective on mitigating their exclusion,drawing on a hierarchy of prepotency, and minding that social inclusion is neither thefocus of social policy nor recreational sports a panacea.