Secularism and Identity

Non-Islamiosity in the Iranian Diaspora

Reza Gholami

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317058267
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Islamic Theology

Within western political, media and academic discourses, Muslim communities are predominantly seen through the prism of their Islamic religiosities, yet there exist within diasporic communities unique and complex secularisms. Drawing on detailed interview and ethnographic material gathered in the UK, this book examines the ways in which a form of secularism - 'non-Islamiosity' - amongst members of the Iranian diaspora shapes ideas and practices of diasporic community and identity, as well as wider social relations. In addition to developing a novel theoretical paradigm to make sense of the manner in which diasporic communities construct and live diasporic identity and consciousness in a way that marginalises, stigmatises or eradicates only 'Islam', Secularism and Identity shows how this approach is used to overcome religiously inculcated ideas and fashion a desirable self, thus creating a new space in which to live and thereby attaining 'freedom'. Calling into question notions of anti-Islamism and Islamophobia, whilst examining secularism as a means or mechanism rather than an end, this volume offers a new understanding of religion as a marker of migrant identity. As such it will appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology and political science with interests in migration and ethnicity, diasporic communities, the sociology of religion and emerging forms of secularism.

Chapter 1 Postmodern Fixations: Muslims, Migration and the Secular

DOI: 10.4324/9781315608020-2

As long as your name is Mohammad, no wonder such things happen to you …

(A non-Islamious woman at a private function addressing a young man who had bumped his head against the door, April 2010, London)

Introduction

This chapter will ‘set the scene’ in more detail, both ethnographically and theoretically. It begins by providing an ethnographic glimpse into the social lives of diasporic Iranians, acquainting the reader with the people who ‘live non-Islamiosity’ in diverse fashions. What I wish to begin to demonstrate is how non-Islamiosity is chiefly about creating, living and celebrating a ‘free’ (diasporic) self – and as such it thoroughly mediates ‘diaspora’. This inevitably leads us to a discussion of diasporic consciousness and conceiving of this as ‘non-Islamious’. For we must move away from common but simplistic thinking about secular Muslim practices – ‘some Muslims drink beer; they are secular!’ – and think much more deeply about how and why such practices happen in certain contexts, what purposes they serve in those contexts, and what implications they have for wider social relations.

I thus also examine the literature on ‘migrant Muslims’ and attempt to show that approaches to ‘the Muslim question’ suffer from a somewhat fixated postmodern view: as I have mentioned, in the West today there is an overwhelming fixation on ‘the Muslim religion’, which is reflected in scholarship. My aim is not to fundamentally challenge this scholarship. However, I do find it puzzling that despite acknowledgements that up to 60 per cent of Europe's Muslims can be described as only nominally or culturally Muslim (Mandaville 2001: 172), and indeed many as ‘secular’ (Spellman 2004; McAuliffe 2007), we do not know more about the secularities of migrants from Muslim backgrounds. I attempt to show how and why taking a more serious interest in these secularities is theoretically and politically significant.

Finally, the chapter addresses ‘the secular’. My aim here is to make a case for how non-Islamiosity can help us to move beyond an exhausted religious-secular paradigm whilst retaining useful aspects of the concept of the secular.

A Night at Shalizar

Saturday 26 December 2009. With Christmas over, most of London was preparing for New Year's Eve. As it happens, the whole Christmas period had coincided with the month of Moharram, the first month of the lunar Islamic calendar.¹ The tenth day of this month is called Ashura – literally ‘tenth’ – and is the day on which the third imam of the Shi’a, Hussein ibn Ali, was martyred during the battle of Karbala in 680 AD. In 2009, Ashura fell on 27 December.

¹ Islamic dates shift back 11 days every year in relation to solar calendars.

The whole month, but Ashura especially, is one of the most important events in the Iranian Shi’a calendar, if not the most important since it is so paramount in defining Shi`ism. In Iran, Moharram is officially recognised as a month of mourning and commemorated by the state and the public through a number of special activities and rituals such as processions and ta`azieh (dramatic re-enactment of the battle). People also congregate in places known as Hosseiniyeh where they listen to sermons, sing along to laments and elegies, share food and so on. It is also quite common for people to abstain from celebratory practices such as getting married during this month. It is safe to say that Iranian towns and cities take on a radically different atmosphere especially on Ashura.

In the weeks leading up to Ashura I had been searching through London's Iranian newspapers and magazines, by means of which Iranians advertise their services and events, as well as consulting other sources looking for an Ashura event or gathering in London. I knew that the usual ‘Islamic’ places, such as the mosque in Holland Park, would be commemorating Ashura. However, these places are often directly or indirectly affiliated with Iran's government. The Holland Park mosque, for example, regularly receives clerics from Iran. Since, as we will see in subsequent chapters, most diasporic Iranians are in one way or another opposed to the regime, I was looking for a place which was publically ‘Iranian’ without having any sort of connection to the Islamic Republic.

Finding such a place, however, proved to be difficult. A few months earlier, I had noticed how diasporic media totally ignored Ramadan whist acknowledging and celebrating the holidays of other religions coinciding with it (see Chapter 5). I was therefore curious to find out more about the extent to which this neglect extended to real-life social situations. London Iranian media were certainly neglectful of Ashura. But more interesting was the fact that throughout December they had been tirelessly advertising innumerable night-clubs, concerts, restaurants and other events celebrating Christmas and New Year. Equally, Ashura gatherings were nowhere to be found; nor was the holiday ever mentioned. This, of course, was a good indication that the commemoration of Ashura was not of major concern to the diasporic Iranian mainstream. Also fascinating was the fact that the festive Christmas promotions showed absolutely no (explicit) affiliation with any political, ethnic or religious group; they were simply (and proudly) advertised as ‘Iranian’ or ‘Persian’ events.

Iranian Christmas and New Year's Eve celebrations were scheduled to take place across London. Throughout my fieldwork, I had attended quite a few ‘secular’ gatherings; but I became interested in attending a Christmas/New Year event at that particular time because of their concurrence with Moharram and Ashura. I decided to book a table at one of many ‘Persian’ restaurants/cabarets for the evening of the twenty-seventh – i.e. Ashura. With magazines providing me with the contact details of a plethora of Iranian establishments, I picked up the phone and started calling. To my surprise, while most places had special New-Year's Eve functions every night up to and including the thirty-first, they were all fully booked. In fact, so popular had the demand been for these functions that some restaurants had scheduled extra evenings up to the third of January. The most popular places tended to be those situated in and around Central London in trendy areas such as Mayfair and Kensington. Eventually, and just before giving up, I phoned Shalizar, a recently-opened restaurant/cabaret in west Ealing. Luckily, they still had a few tables available, but not for the twenty-seventh – I had to settle for the second of January. I had beforehand invited three friends to join me, so I booked a table for four and was informed that we would be served food from a limited set menu at a fixed price. We could, however, order any drinks we wanted from the bar. I was told that we should arrive no later than 9pm.

Shalizar, being a cabaret, boasted a live band, dancing and a full bar more or less every night of the year. The New Year's Eve celebrations, however, were different in that the band would be joined by a fairly famous female singer, Fattaneh, from Los Angeles, and that the cabaret would remain open at least until 2am. We arrived a little after half past eight and found the place packed.² In fact, the only unoccupied table I could see was ours, which was squeezed in between the window and another table (it was clear that extra tables had been set up for the occasion). Although the same three or four waiters rushed to and fro between all the tables serving food and drinks and responding to guests’ requests, the general ambiance of the cabaret was very festive and relaxed. The room itself was a huge L-shape elegantly decorated and with suitably dim lighting. A stage had been set up in the centre of the room facing a dance floor. Both were surrounded by a semi-circle of tables. At the other end, directly opposite the stage was the bar – again, elegantly lit and decorated. The bar stretched for half the length of the entire room, its size reflected in Shalizar's extensive wine and cocktail menu.

² I estimate the number of guests to be around 150. The vast majority looked to be Iranian, though I did see a handful of white/European guests who I assumed were not Iranian.

We sat down and the waiter explained the conditions surrounding food service again: we would each be served with a plate of rice and would have to share a selection of Iranian Kebabs. We also ordered some side dishes. Finally, the waiter asked for our drinks order. For a variety of reasons none of us ordered anything alcoholic. The waiter seemed somewhat surprised. He raised his eyebrows, smiled, said ‘OK!’ and left. Looking around the room, I could see why he might have been baffled by our decision: virtually everyone else was drinking alcohol. In these Iranian gatherings and events, and in the broader context of non-Islamiosity, the refusal to drink alcohol is often automatically equated with ‘being Islamic’, regardless of the actual reason.³ As I show in Chapter 4, ‘being Islamic’ is seen as the opposite of ‘being free’, and ‘freedom’ is at the very heart of non-Islamiosity.

³ Whilst some people choose not to consume alcohol for religious reasons, I have met Iranians who do not drink for many other reasons including being allergic/intolerant to alcohol, being former alcoholics, never drinking on weekdays, or simply disliking the taste and effects of alcohol.

At our neighbouring table there sat five women. They were eagerly awaiting the arrival of Fattaneh the singer. In the meantime, they were trying out different cocktails, giving each other tastes so as to determine which one was the best. (Our tables being as close as they were, it was literally impossible not to hear their voices.) They were cheerfully enjoying themselves. A similar mirthfulness filled the entire cabaret, with people engaging in jovial conversations and loud laughter. The guests were of a wide age range, from people who looked to be well in their sixties down to children as young as five or six. There was also a wide variety of dressing styles on display. Some women, like the five next to us, were dressed in a smart-casual manner – expensive but comfortable jeans, tops and shoes. Others were dressed more formally in evening dresses, including some quite ‘revealing’ ones. Similarly, most men were dressed in a smart-casual style, while some (myself included) wore suits. These varied dressing preferences corresponded to an equally assorted array of hair styles. I saw, for instance, young men with ‘spiky’ hair or with patterns shaved into their hair. Women, on the other hand, mainly had long hair, though many had either dyed it completely blond or had blond highlights. There were also a few men with highlights. Throughout the evening, I observed only one woman wearing a head scarf (roo-sari or hejaab). She was very old and, judging by the way she interacted with others at her table, seemed to be visiting from Iran. It is quite common for elderly parents to visit their children in the diaspora. In some such cases, the mothers tend not to remove their head scarves for reasons of cultural or indeed religious propriety. These descriptions of dress style serve as an interesting indication of the relative indifference with which non-Islamious Iranians approach the question of hijab. In fact, Iranian gatherings – unless they are overtly Islamic in nature – are characterised by a conscious absence of Islamic dress. We will see further examples of this throughout the book, as well as the implications it has for the lives of some devout Shi`a (see Chapter 7).

At 10pm the band took to the stage – it actually turned out to be a duo with a very expensive keyboard that could imitate a whole band! With most guests having finished their food, the duo was supposed to play some songs to warm them up in anticipation of Fattaneh's appearance. After the first song, a version of Un Amor by Gypsy Kings sung in Spanish, the front-man greeted the audience by wishing his ‘Esteemed compatriots (hamvatanaan-e geraami)’ a happy New Year: ‘A year abundant in health and prosperity (saali sarshaar az salaamati va movaffaqiat)’. These sorts of New Year wishes are traditionally part of the discourse of Norooz, the pre-Islamic Iranian New Year, which more or less all Iranians regardless of ethnic or religious background recognise and celebrate as New Year proper. In the diasporic context of non-Islamiosity Norooz is vigorously celebrated – it is easily the most important of all Iranian celebrations. But its celebratory discourse has also increasingly been extended to the Western New Year. At one level, Iranians talk about this in somewhat utilitarian terms – i.e. that they live and work in Britain; their children are growing up here; it therefore makes sense for them to join in their host's celebrations. Besides, they say, it is a jubilant time of year; why not enjoy it? Interestingly, though, as we will also see in the chapters that follow, celebrations such as the one described here are not necessarily about ‘joining the host’. They are Iranian celebrations and have in many ways become part of the diasporic cultural vocabulary of many Iranians.

At another level, therefore, I believe they also say something about diasporic Iranians’ sense of time and temporality, which has important implications for how Iranians make, experience and practise their diasporic selves (cf. Eisenlohr 2006). The Iranians of this study live in three yearly cycles and calendars simultaneously. They experience themselves positively in two of these temporalities, the pre-Islamic ‘Persian’ one and the contemporary Western one. Both temporalities mark a problematic relationship with Islam and its temporality. Pre-Islamic Iran represents a time of blissful purity forcefully interrupted by Islam; Western time represents the idealised ‘actual’ time of the contemporary world, a time of freedom which Iranians are prevented from fully living in – i.e. they are ‘held back’ – by Islam. Thus, this is a time towards which they constantly strive, despite already living in it. That is to say, although one of these temporalities is a past and the other a future, in the context of non-Islamiosity they are woven together to constitute the experiential and ontological present. But this is a present characterised by a perennial ‘slippage’, an ongoing process of non-Islamious self-making (cf. Husserl 1964; see also Chapters 5 and 6). Thus, ‘living non-Islamiosity’ means living in an ontological space informed, even if vaguely, by the (imagined and reified) ideals of these two temporalities, which, when all is said and done, are about problematising Islam and eradicating its ‘grip’ on the subjects’ experiential fields so as to achieve ‘freedom’. I take this up in depth later.

After the New Year wishes, the duo continued playing. They played mainly famous Iranian pop songs, old and new. This type of music is usually upbeat and favours dancing. Its rhythm differs from the common 4/4 rhythm of Western pop songs in which every bar of music contains (the equivalent of) four quarter notes. Iranian songs are generally set in a 6/8 rhythm in which every bar contains six eighth notes – musicians sometimes refer to the whole musical style as shish-o hasht (six and eight). The 6/8 rhythm is more suited to the natural flow and rhythm of Iranian Farsi and is thus more agreeable with the lyrics. In no time at all, the dance floor filled up with men and women, young and old. Often, as is quite common in Iranian parties, a dancing person or persons would invite a non-dancing friend or relative to join them on the floor. If, however, the invitee declined, the dancing persons would try their level best to persuade him or her to join them. Sometimes, amusingly, the dancing persons completely forgot their own dancing and entered into a discussion of persuasion with the non-dancing person. Very often, as I observed several times at Shalizar, the discussion ‘ended’ with the dancing person – all in good fun, of course – taking whatever the non-dancing person was holding in ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table Of Contents
• List of Figures
• Series Editor’s Preface
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: The State of Play
• 1 Postmodern Fixations: Muslims, Migration and the Secular
• 2 Across Times and Spaces: Historical Trajectories of Non-Islamiosity
• 3 From Islamic Revolution to Non-Islamious Migration: Iranians in Diaspora
• 4 Non-Islamiosity Observed: Diasporic Living and the Means to Freedom
• 5 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (‘the Persian’, ‘the Islamic’ and ‘the Muslim’): Media, Art and Community Production
• 6 The ‘Persia’ Factor: Consumption and the Experience of Community
• 7 Is This Islamic Enough?’ Secular Power and Shi`a Religiosity
• Moratorium
• Bibliography
• Index