Popular Religion in Southeast Asia Nearly all Muslims in Southeast Asia form part of the Malay cultural region. This Muslim community is the largest in the world. It includes about 85 percent of Indonesia’s 195 million people, about 1 i million people in Malaysia, and several million in the southern Philippines. Underlying the many local
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Popular Religion in South Asia A system of beliefs, rituals, practices, and attitudes among Muslims that deviates to some extent from the dictates of the shari`ah has been a dominant element in South Asian Islam for centuries. Although Islam demands absolute conformity with the shari`ah in all matters, public or personal, religious or mundane, and
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Popular Religion in Sub-Saharan Africa During the nineteenth century, and to an even greater extent under colonial domination in the twentieth century, rapid and widespread islamization touched hundreds of African ethnic groups in West Africa, extending well into the forest zone, and in the interior of East Africa as far as Zaire and Malawi and
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Popular Religion in the Middle East and North Africa “Popular” Islam is the term used to describe the variations in belief and practice in Islam as they are understood and observed throughout the Muslim world. Religious leaders and spokespersons talk of the unity of Islamic belief and practice, but, as in other religions, there is
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POPULAR RELIGION. [To consider local beliefs and practices as they differ from mainstream Islamic traditions, this entry comprises six articles: 1-An Overview 2-Popular Religion in the Middle East and North Africa 3-Popular Religion in Sub-Saharan Africa 4-Popular Religion in South Asia 5-Popular Religion in Southeast Asia 6-Popular Religion in Europe and the Americas The first
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POLYGYNY. The practice of one man simultaneously having several wives is a controversial issue in modern Islamic societies. Before the advent of Islam polygyny was practiced in many societies of Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean; some observers have attributed this pattern to the predominance of patriarchal systems in the region, but it should be noted that
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PIR. A word of Persian origin meaning “old man,” the term pir (Ar., pir) has been taken up into Sufi discourse as a common title commonly for a Sufi teacher, particularly in South Asia and neighboring areas. The pir is the revered elder who initiates disciples (murids) into a Sufi order. In popular practice, however,
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