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Citation |
Maarouf M. J. Relig. Popular Cult. 2013; 25(1): 1-33. |
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Copyright |
(Copyright © 2013, University of Toronto Press) |
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DOI |
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PMID |
unavailable |
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Abstract |
This article argues that the radical Islamist conception of martyrdom in the Moroccan case, through a pre-existing fundamental receptive cultural framework, implies an articulation with maraboutic Islam. Moroccos local cultural embedding of martyrdom involves the still-working heritage of maraboutic institutions, beliefs, and practices, as well as the sway of mainstream Islam that conditions and informs the Islamist lived experience of self-sacrifice. A survey of young Moroccans' interpretations of martyrdom demonstrates how the cultural bed already incorporates the rising Islamist cultural model of altruistic suicide. What is customarily referred to as an Islamist conception of jihad and self-sacrifice, or as a form of group indoctrination, is discovered to derive its cultural schemata from maraboutic and orthodox cultural models of martyrdom that are already culturally embedded. Martyrdom is a cluster of cultural representations that most Moroccan Muslims, akin to their co-religionists in the Islamic world, adhere to, though with some particularities firmly tied to the local cultural bed of Islam where they socialize. There is a cultural worldview at work, over and above all other factors and considerations of radicalization, that empowers the self-sacrificers and enables them to delve into Islamist suiciding projects. The survey conducted in Morocco shows that jihad, rather than being a matter of indoctrination, is part of a Moroccan popular culture of Islam; jihad and martyrdom are existing cultural schemata built into the popular imagination about how an Islamic combatant should be engaged in a fight against encroachers, intruders, and enemies of the faith. Language: en |
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Keywords |
jihad; Morocco; terrorism; Islamism; fundamentalism; martyr; suicide bomber; 'asabiyya; cultural resistance; cultural schemata; maraboutism; popular culture; popular Islam; vendetta; worldview |