Islamic Revival and Europe's Secular 'Sacred Canopy'

FOURTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR ISLAMIC STUDIES Tuesday 11 – Thursday 13 April 2017, University of Chester PAPER SUBMISSION FORM YOUR DETAILS Title: Mr First Name: Riyaz Family Name: Timol Institution: Cardiff University Department: Position Within Institution: Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK Email Address: timolr@cardiff.ac.uk Jameel Scholar YOUR PAPER Paper Title: Islamic Revival and Europe’s Secular ‘Sacred Canopy’ Keywords (max 5): Islamic Revival, Peter L. Berger, Sociology of Islam, Tablighi Jama’at, Secularisation Paper abstract (200 words): Peter L. Berger famously anatomised the social mechanics through which religion is projected from human consciousness into the cosmos as a sacred canopy that functions as a shield against terror and anomie. More recently, he coined the term Eurosecularity to highlight how the continent of Europe appears an anomaly when juxtaposed to the enduring verve of a global religious landscape. It might therefore be asserted that the sacred canopy of contemporary Europe is today comprised predominantly of a secular fabric. Building on these concepts, this paper argues that the social mechanics through which a secular sacred canopy is externalised as taken-for-granted facticity then internalised into consciousness remain essentially the same as their religious forbears. Further, the author draws upon his recent fieldwork with British-born members of the transnational Islamic missionary movement the Tablighi Jama'at to argue that the willed and conscious exercise of agency in ways which publicly affirm faith breaches the cognitive and normative presuppositions of the European collective conscience. In classical Bergerian terms, such expressions of the sacred are intrinsically imbued with debunking potential by exposing the precariousness of the social fictions that together conspire to construct the takenfor-granted realities of contemporary secular actors.