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The Indonesian textile industry grew by 15.35 per cent in 2019, whereas previously, it had only seen a growth of around 8.73 per cent. As a result, it occurred to the textile and apparel manufacturers that they needed to enlarge their business lines swiftly. Naisha Hijrah, a designer, producer and textile retailer, sells clothes based on Islamic styles with a post-modernist concept. This study elaborates on how Naisha Hijrah has met its customers' needs. It also analyses why Naisha Hijrah could become the leading producer and retailer. Naisha Hijrah initially captured the Arabian clothes. This research shows that Naisha's products have attributes that include crease-free fabric, strong seams, unnoticed fabric fibres, cut patterns, delicate stitching and a design that permits the wearer to perform their ablutions without removing the garment. On the other hand, the technical qualities include many of Naisha's prioritized fabrics, such as Balotelli and Toyobo, accompanied by zippers designs. Therefore, Naisha develops its product that focuses on technical attributes that Indonesian women prioritize to fulfil their future desires. Finally, this study suggests that Naisha's robes should combine several kinds of materials in each garment, improve the tailors' skills, ensure no defects in its production and continuously push the workers to make firmer and smoother stitches. Therefore, Naisha Hijrah should increase sales because it sells what Indonesian women need and love. All this implies that it could be the leading retailer of Islamic fashion items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yann Martel's novel, "Life of Pi," intricately weaves the spiritual journey of its protagonist, Pi Patel. This narrative unfolds against the backdrop of Pi's exploration and growth in religious understanding, marking a compelling odyssey through Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. This essay examines Pi's encounters with these faiths, the conflicts arising from his multifaceted beliefs, and the overarching theme of spirituality that binds his remarkable tale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unplanned purchasing involves buying goods or services influenced by the external environment, which creates low-quality purchasing. This research was conducted towards consumers of the Muslim clothing store in Jember East Java, Indonesia. Accidentally, sampling was used to draw 125 respondents to address the questionnaire. The result shows that hedonic shopping, fashion involvement, and store environment influence low purchasing quality in Muslim fashion stores. Most consumers were mature female consumers and government officials with bachelor's degrees. Moreover, hedonic shopping, fashion involvement and store environment significantly influence low-quality purchase decisions. The research implied that consumers' shopping behavior would underline the quality of buying decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of digital marketing involves leveraging fashion influencers, like bloggers and celebrities, to expand brand reach and drive sales, more notably in the post-pandemic era. In the realm of modest fashion, young female Muslim influencers have played a significant role, tapping into a vast market and positively impacting the global economy. Therefore, this study attempts to explore the impact of these influencers on female modest fashion consumers' decisions associated with their visible Muslim identity and to understand the fashion-faith landscape through the challenges for the influencers. Driven by the theory of two-step communication flow among fashion opinion leaders and fashion consumers, this study adopted a qualitative approach and a research design underlying hermeneutic phenomenology by using semi-structured interviews with modest fashion consumers and secondary source information about influencers. The findings offer valuable insights for consumers, industry stakeholders, and policymakers to support the modest fashion trend and promote a dignified Muslim identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although numerous studies have been conducted on the impact of influencers on purchase intention. Researchers are divided into two factions, each yielding distinct outcomes. The initial group of researchers discovered that influencers exert a substantial impact on the desire to make a purchase. Conversely, the second group of researchers discovered that influencers do not have a substantial impact on purchase intention. According to the idea of planned behavior, a person's subjective opinions about their preferences or aversions have an impact on their decision to take action. This study focuses on Instagram users that follow Muslim fashion accounts such as Heaven Lights, Vanilla Hijab, Wearing Klambi, and Heylocal. These accounts identify the research objects as the products they offer. The sample technique employed is non-probability, specifically utilizing a purposive sampling approach. A total of 170 respondents were surveyed. The employed methodology for data collection involves the dissemination of questionnaires. The data analysis technique employed was Structural Equation Modeling-Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS) utilizing smartPLS 3.0 software. The findings indicated that influencers did not have a substantial impact on the intention to make a purchase. The factors of attitude towards advertising and brand attitude completely mediate the influence of influencers on purchase intention. These findings corroborate the findings of the research team that concluded that influencers do not have a substantial impact on purchase intention. The findings of this study also demonstrate the crucial significance of the mediating factors' attitude towards advertising and brand attitude in the impact of influencers on purchase intention.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: As Indonesia is inhabited by a lot of Muslim population, this demographic characteristic benefits the expansion of the halal industry internationally. The reputation of halal products relies on the rising production quality. This study aims to better understand how fashion preferences, halal certification, and the quality of business actors influence the potential of the Indonesian Islamic fashion industry to become an international halal industry. Methods: This study was carried out using quantitative analyses including multiple linear regression, validity, and reliability analyses. Results: The quality of business actors, halal certification, and fashion taste all had a positive and significant effect on expanding the potential of the Islamic halal fashion trade. Conclusion and suggestion: The Indonesian Ulema Council and the government should coordinate in ascending the halal certification. In addition, business actors are required to seek information related to halal certificates and acquire them before running their business. Given the importance of halal certification, the public is encouraged to purchase halal fashion items as this lifestyle expresses their identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The establishment of this fashion business was motivated by the personal anxiety of the writer and people around him who were quite large in looking for Muslim clothing that kept up with the times but did not lose its Islamic values. The business development of this business will include marketing, operational, financial, and human resource management plans. The purpose of this study is to find out the design of the fashion business at large sizes. This research uses a descriptive method with a qualitative approach. This approach is used to understand deeply about the design and development of the fashion business and the problems faced. The marketing plan includes promotion using social media. The operational plan includes making product design ideas, selecting raw materials, and distributing to consumers. The financial plan that will be carried out is the management of funds. Some of the problems faced in the implementation of this business include business implementation that is not in accordance with the estimated time scheduled, the most suitable marketing strategy has not been found, and limited existing capital. The conclusion of the study is the marketing strategy that we assess will be quite effective in the industrial era 4.0 for the fashion business is the use of social media and online retailing apps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter analyses a set of Paris police documents from 1727–1738 that record infractions of the protectionist ban on wearing indiennes. These were popular colourful fabrics imported from the East, which were also imitated by European manufacturers. Enforcement of the multiple legislations passed in France during the long period of prohibition (1686–1759) was draconian and inequitable. Women, predominantly from lower and middle classes, were spied upon, named, shamed and fined. As with present day controversies over the hijab, women's dress was a flashpoint for wider societal debates. The series of ordonnances issued by René Hérault, Lieutenant Général de Police, exhibit a dual performance of upholding and breaking the law, enacted through textual, visual and spatial strategies. As the scopic legal gaze is lured by the exotic and feminine, the subversive properties of indiennes present an opportunity for wider social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aim to analyze the influence of halal lifestyle, Islamic branding, social media marketing on Muslim fashion purchasing decisions in East Java. The current halal lifestyle trend also affects the consumption pattern of society, including Muslim fashion trends that are always developed. The development of information technology affects the economic activities carried out by community, as well as halal lifestyle indicates the increasing awareness of Muslims in making purchase decisions should be based on religiosity. This research uses a quantitative approach within multiple linear regression methods using Eviews 9 statistical tool. Data obtained by consumer surveys, the research was conducted online in August 2023 with 101 respondents in East Java. The result showed halal lifestyle variable does not have a significant effect on the purchase decision variable. Furthermore, Islamic branding and social media marketing variable are a significant effect on the purchase decision variable. In purchasing Muslim fashion products, not all consumers pay attention to halal lifestyle because sometimes in determining the purchase of a Muslim fashion product consumer think more about brands and products that are trending on social media. Thus, this research bring any practical implication for Muslim fashion business to strengthen promotion and communication through social media that has a greater likelihood of marketing than through traditional advertising channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Jurnal Ekonomi Syariah Teori dan Terapan is the property of Universitas Airlangga and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article first deploys a historical account of the French model of secularization, before and beyond mere laïcité. Drawing on an analysis of the imperial and colonial genealogies of secularization, it then moves on to examine some structural polemics in contemporary France: polemics about the veil since 1989 and the more recent debate on Wokism and Islamo-leftism among intellectuals. The last part of the essay is a theoretical intervention in some of the current debates about race, gender and secularism in recent scholarship on France and Algeria done by feminist Scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The level of competition in the business world requires every seller to be able to carry out his marketing activities more effectively and efficiently. This study aims to determine the marketing strategy for Muslim fashion products at the Petisah Market in Medan City in increasing sales, and to find out the obstacles encountered in marketing Muslim fashion products at the Petisah Market in Medan City. This research is a field research (field research) which is descriptive qualitative in nature. The results of the study show that the marketing strategy carried out by Muslim clothing traders at the Petisah Market in Medan City is to do good segmentation, targeting and positioning, by carrying out a marketing mix related to product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence. The obstacles faced in marketing Muslim fashion products at the Medan City Petisah Market, including the lack of capital, delays in the arrival of goods ordered from suppliers, lack of employees and minimal promotion, namely only relying on social media which also has various limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the open-door refugee policy initiated by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in August 2015, approximately 550,000 refugee women, mainly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan arrived in Germany. Studies that address the realities of immigrant Muslim women, primarily through the perspective of intersectionality, do not pay enough attention to the millions of immigrants whose legal status is as yet undefined. This article explores the experiences of hijab-wearing refugee women in Berlin and how they are viewed as the 'other' in a multicultural country like Germany. Focusing on refugees who arrived in Germany in the last five years, we conducted interviews with 25 refugee Muslim women. Thematic analysis of the data revealed three central themes: (1) racism, violence and exclusion; (2) empowerment and liberation; and (3) preserving identity and belonging to a community. The women's narratives demonstrate how this added dimension of subordination – refugeeness – transforms their lived experiences, highlighting the lingering centrality of citizenship in an age many identify as post- or transnational. Intersectional analysis of the interviews suggests that gender, racism and Islamophobia, and legal status cannot be entirely disentangled and that Muslim refugee women who wear the hijab, often experience very different forms of discrimination than their non-hijab wearing counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article has presented research-based evidence here about the state's representation on women's dress codes in the Islamic context in order to contribute filling the research gap in the existing knowledge: While a large body of the literature confirms the substantial diversity of the Islamic dress codes overwhelmingly explained as a consequence of the state's socialization mechanisms across the Muslim world, it still lacks more fresh research findings to support the explanation. The field of this study is the Islamic Republic of Iran whose state holds an absolute power on educational system. The socialization theory recognizes educational system and its resources as the first official agent and one of the most powerful engines of socialization process. According to the research findings of this analysis, the most visible observation is the ubiquitous presence of dress codes, suggesting that women are unexceptionally represented by some kind of dress code throughout the educational resources. Moreover, women's body appearance has been more restrictively covered in the religious textbooks and in the higher grades, where women's images are also more significantly colored in dark and black. In conclusion, these research findings echo a revolutionary bombardment of the state's gender ideology whose social perceptions are distinctively and comprehensively discussed in the author's other article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The visibility of women and their freedoms in the French public sphere is envisaged in this article on the basis of laïcité and gender equality. Within the debate about the rights and limitations of Muslim women, French feminist ideology seems to be torn between two totally contradictory positions. Anti-veil and anti-burqa laws are on the one hand defended in the name of laïcité and the emancipation of women. On the other hand, the laws are severely criticized because they marginalize Muslim women from the majority of French society. The main aim of this research is to analyze anti-veil and anti-burqa laws in France by focusing on their historical and social foundations from a feminist perspective. Next, this study argues that the visibility of Muslim women in the French public space, which is banned in the name of republican and laic values, is actually valued by some feminist groups who cast an exclusionary and othering glance at the clothing of Muslim women, such as the headscarf or the burqa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grasping the various aspects of Islamophobia in Muslim societies requires much finer methods in order to decipher the intentions of the actors in distinctive life situations varying from the media to education. This article engages in a debate as to whether Islamophobia is a new type of racism, i.e., cultural, geographical, phenotypical, or Xeno-racism, and the relatively recent type that has emerged in neo-liberal states: anti-Muslim racism. In a Muslim-majority society, the 'culture' of members is fairly homogenous, so Islamophobia takes another cue, focusing on external markers, like the headscarf or beard. While anti-Muslim racism is sometimes exercised along more subtle lines of cultural difference in Muslim societies, it prevails through old-fashioned, phenotypical racism. The representation or rather misrepresentation of Islam and/or Muslims in the media can be understood as the prevailing source of antagonism between the secular and the traditionalist segments of Turkish society; indeed, Turkish media representation produces and reproduces a racialization of the majority, predominately by rendering Islam invisible, or by depicting Muslims in ways that denigrate their clothing, manners, style, and way of living across various mass media forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 23 June 2019, seven Muslim women staged a protest at a swimming pool in Grenoble, France in defiance of rules prohibiting burkinis in swimming pools. French law 2010–1192 criminalizes the bodies of visibly Muslim women by prohibiting full-face coverings in French public space. This creates precarious bodies through law and facilitates an institutional Islamophobia, which I argue circulates in French society through a logic of hygiene. This logic of hygiene refers not merely to cleanliness but to the racial purity of the French republic. Law performs a dual cleansing role: it cleanses public space(s) of the presence of colonial markers and acts to displace colonial memory in France. This article traces the emergence of pro-ban feminist arguments supporting the criminalization of Islamic dress in France to a historical foundation of humiliation and cleanliness in post-WWII shavings of the hair of dissident French women. The article draws parallels with the forced uncovering of the hair of Muslim women in historical colonialism and in contemporary France to conceptualize hair as the patriarchal symbol of the French republic. Muslim women are made precarious through law's complicity with the hygiene and sterilization agendas of French coloniality and post-war capitalist modernization. The conclusion is that Muslim women are the site of the racial and gender differentiation necessary for the maintenance of the French republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than ever, 'the headscarf' is a dominant trope in contemporary 'Western' discourses on migration. Within controversies on Muslim 'others', ethnicity and gender frequently interweave. In discussions about the Muslim woman, a problematic dichotomy frequently emerges: namely the representation of a Muslim woman who wears the headscarf and is seen as 'oppressed' or 'traditional'. This is opposed to the position of a Muslim woman who does not wear the headscarf and is simultaneously considered a 'self-determined' or 'modern' Muslim woman. Against this backdrop, this contribution adopts a critical perspective on dichotomising discourses on Muslim women's practices in relation to wearing the headscarf. In this article the authors examine narrative interviews with four Muslim women, focusing on their subjective experiences and psychological coping strategies with dichotomous and dichotomising stereotypes. An in-depth qualitative analysis shows that these women display a need to constantly justify and negotiate their own positions in relation to wearing the headscarf, regardless of whether the interviewed women actually wear a headscarf or not. Based on this, the authors identify different psychological coping strategies and discuss them critically in a wider framework that draws attention to existing social hierarchies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to a recent report by the Open Society Foundation (2018), one third of EU countries have national or local "bans" on Islamic garb. The report identified five common justifications for these restrictions: the imperative to provide security and counter terrorism, the drive for equality between men and women, the desire for homogeneity, the need for integration and assimilation, as well as the pursuit of neutrality and secularity. I argue that it is upon notions of integration and neutrality that we see important differences in the approach towards Islamic garb in public employment between Europe and the US: How can we explain these differences? I attend to this question by focusing on the American public employment sector as my case study. I analyze institutional action on Islamic garb in employment from the 1990s onward through an examination of laws, policies, guidelines/regulations, court decisions, and settlement agreements. In my discussion, I contrast the European need for integration and the pursuit of neutrality to that of religious accommodation in the US. Drawing from this discussion, I make several recommendations for the implementation of an accommodation approach in Europe that is based on principles of anti-discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Hajj is the world’s largest gathering to Makkah, Saudi Arabia. Wearing cotton made Ihram is a basic and an essential component of Hajj. The aim of this study was to investigate the lung functions among Hajj pilgrims who were wearing cotton towel ihram (ihram with fibers) compared to those who were wearing plain cotton ihram (ihram without fibers). Methods: Ninety male, non-smoker, Hajj pilgrim volunteers with age ranged 20-60 years were selected. Forty five of them wore cotton towel ihram and 45 wore plain ihram. A day before leaving for Hajj and wearing ihram (6th Dhu-al-Hijjah) lung function base line parameters of Hajj pilgrims were determined. Hajj Pilgrims continuously wear ihram from 7-10th Dhu-al-Hijjah. In the afternoon of 10th Dhu-al-Hijjah, after removal of ihram, all parameters were repeated and at the completion of Hajj when all pilgrims return to their homes at Riyadh, all parameters were recorded again. Results: Before wearing Ihram, anthropometric and lung function baseline parameters were recorded, no significant difference was found between the study population. After wearing Ihram on the 7th Dhu-al- Hijjah and its removal on the 10th Dhu-al-Hijjah significant decline in the lung function test parameters was observed among Hajj pilgrims who were wearing cotton towel ihram. Forced Vital Capacity (FVC) 4.30±1.18 vs. 5.03±1.41 (p=0.01); Forced Expiratory Flow 25% (FEF-25%) 4.39±1.94 vs. 5.69±2.84 (p=0.03); Forced Expiratory Flow-50% (FEF-50%) 2.93±1.65 vs. 4.07±2.08 (p=0.01); Forced Expiratory Flow-75% (FEF- 75%) 1.02±0.70 vs. 1.66±0.94 (p=0.002) compared to those who were wearing plain ihram. Conclusions: Lung function test parameters were decreased among the Hajj pilgrims who were wearing cotton towel ihram compared to those who were wearing plain cotton ihram. The pattern of impairment of lung function shows an obstructive peripheral airway lung involvement. It is suggested to conduct further large sample size studies to confirm the present study observations and reach at better conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the individual and societal explanations for the persistence of the hijab as a conservative cultural norm in persistently religious and culturally conservative communities. Analyzing data from 300 hijab-wearing women in Egypt and 198 hijab-wearing women in Kuwait, our findings confirm the importance of considering societal as well as individual-level factors in the persistence of conservative cultural norms. We find that low salience of the hijab is associated with beliefs that others misuse the hijab. High salience of the hijab is correlated with beliefs that the hijab brings its wearer greater social mobility. Exposure to non-hijab-wearers was associated with both high and low salience of the hijab, and demonstrates the influence that exposure to norm breakers has on reinforcing the salience of conservative social norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By investigating the human life and its evolutions, it can be conceived that human, from the beginning of creature, has attempted to prepare a suitable clothes for himself. The history shows that all divine religions, particularly Islam, have paid a special attention to the human covering as a natural need and value. Accordingly, covering issue and Islamic clothing is the core problem of this research. The current study aims to investigate the factors affecting the purchase decision of Islamic clothing by the mediating role of word of mouth. This is a survey research using 5-points Likert scale to collect research data. The reliability of the research tool was acknowledged by Cronbach alpha and its validity was confirmed using face and content validity. The population of the research is the female residents of Mashhad, Iran. The sample size is 384, calculated by the Cochran's formula, which was surveyed by the convenience non-probability sampling method. Structural Equation Modeling was used for the data analysis and testing the research hypotheses by applying SMART-PLs and SPSS software. Research findings showed that customer trust and satisfaction have positive and significant effects on customer purchase decision. In addition, customer satisfaction and trust influence the customer purchase decision indirectly by the mediating role of word of mouth. It was also found that the word of mouth has a positive and significant effect on purchase decision. It should be noted that customer satisfaction is more influential than customer trust in affecting the word of mouth leading to customer purchase decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the clothing practices of Black Muslim women in Great Britain. It mentions the use of the clothing practices of the Muslim women to illustrate how identity performances are constructed. Also noted is the significance in focusing the issue of clothing practices to exemplify the development of critical knowledge about the Black Muslim women.

In this paper, I examine the spatial and emotional poetics of dress practices deployed by Sierra Leonean Muslim women living in the Washington, DC metropolitan area as they navigate the complexity of life lived in the diaspora. Focusing on the way women utilize sartorial expression to reject or accept imposed moral regimes, I show how dress practices are part of a repertoire of tactics used to challenge displacement, express belonging, and enact pious presence in public venues. In so doing, I illustrate the way differing opinions about stylistic choices reassemble and rearticulate the strategic ways that Sierra Leonean women distinguish themselves, create personal and public subjectivities, and embrace or challenge dominant, and at times imposed, rules of propriety and morality in their everyday lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses social positions of Swedish female converts to Islam who have previously passed as white majority Swedes, but whose experiences have changed, sometimes radically, since donning the hijab. It addresses their accounts of being treated and evaluated differently by teachers, co-workers, family, and friends, and having their choices questioned by strangers. It also examines the double standards that white converts to Islam must negotiate when dealing with daily life in Sweden, and how becoming a Muslim leads to frequent exclusion from constructed whiteness and Swedishness and the privileges attached to those positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the exhibition "Faith Fashion Fusion: Muslim Women's Style in Australia" at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, New South Wales from May 2012 until September 2016.

This article takes a multimodal discourse approach to women’s fashion in the Middle East. It places the Islamic abaya in the UAE in the context of the wider literature on fashion and identity, exploring the way in which clothing features and forms can prescribe ideas, values and attitudes, and framing this discussion within newer ideas on globalization. As Roland Barthes argued, it is not so much personal choice or diversity in fashion that is of interest, but the kinds of values and expected behaviours that they imply. The abaya, on the one hand, represents a more newly arrived idea of traditional, local and religious identity, linking to some extent to an imagined sense of a monolithic notion of Islamic clothing. But, on the other hand, this is itself reformulated locally through international representations, ideas and values, and integrated with newer ideas of taste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates about Islamic veiling practices often focus on legal aspects of wearing the hijab and niqab and the recent banning, actual and proposed, of the veil in several countries has received substantial media coverage. This ethnographic research paper adds to the discussion by providing insight into the views of women from the Sultanate of Oman, using questionnaire and interview data to examine their understanding of and beliefs about laws relating to veiling practices in Oman and in other countries. The research also explores Omani women’s views on the niqab, which has dominated much of the global media debate. The results indicate that Omani women typically believe that veiling practices should not be mandated by a legal framework but reflect personal choice rooted in Islamic notions of piety and respect and that non-Muslim countries should respect women’s freedom to dress according to their religious beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Earlier work on hijab has targeted either Muslim minority women or those who have been bound by the law with respect to their attire (Clark, 2007; Droogsma, 2007; Murshid, 2005). The present study addresses women in Pakistan, which is predominantly a Muslim society and the state neither bans nor recommends any particular dress. This research was geared to identify a theoretical framework under grounded theory approach. The analysis involved open, axial, and selective coding. Five focus groups were conducted with women practicing five types of dress (niqab-wearing, headscarfing, headcovering, dupatta-carrying, and the modern-dressed). One discussion was conducted with a group of male university students. The analysis involved open, axial, and selective coding, accompanied by constant comparisons between coding and data. The analysis has revealed three core categories, namely, religious commitment, environmental adjustment and psychological satisfaction. These three factors appeared as the causal conditions which lead to wearing hijab. However, the same factors also work as context, and functions under different situations for different wearers. Propositions and hypotheses relating to phenomenon of hijab have been extended for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the experience of Muslim female students in high schools in Bali. Since the religion of the majority of the population of Bali is Balinese Hinduism, these young women are part of a Muslim minority – unusual in Indonesia. Data were obtained through interviews and ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2010. Interviewees were mainly Muslim students, but teachers and Muslim parents were also consulted. Some of the students are a minority within a state senior high school, and some attend a private Islamic school in Denpasar. Interviewees identified choice of school and the wearing of the jilbab (Islamic head-scarf) as issues for them in their everyday lives. The Islamic school is (mis-)perceived as a morally safe environment by parents. The state school does not allow the wearing of the jilbab, showing the limits of multiculturalism in Bali. While the jilbab should express piety and morality, there is some hypocrisy among some young jilbab-wearing women. Some young women have internalised the Balinese objection to poor Muslim immigrants, and feel inferior when they wear the jilbab. The data suggest that their female sex/gender flags their unequal Muslim-minority status in ways that Muslim-minority men do not experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions of 'coveredness' in Islamic codes of dress, particularly as they apply to women, are often framed through the symbolic statements that they enable or disable, or through discourses on public versus private spaces. Rather than focus on these disciplining dimensions, this article explores observations about embodied practices for clothing oneself 'modestly', and some of the paradoxes thereof, which emerged in the context of research about diasporic mobilities of European-Moroccans in Morocco. Drawing heavily on Karen Barad and a materialist phenomenological approach to corporeality, this approach produces an understanding of how moral bodies materialize with and through clothing. By observing and following the mobilities of participants across spaces dominated by 'Muslim' and 'Western' regimes of modesty, certain dissonances of their practices in these differentiated spaces indicate ways bodies, clothing and moralities are intra-actively entangled. Proposing ethnography as a diffractive apparatus, the analysis incorporates participant reports, as well as embodied learning through ethnographic time. By approaching this 'disciplining' diffractively, all agents-knowledgeable bodies, malleable clothes and spatially moral gazes-are considered as intra-actively influencing each other, mattering into 'modesty' where 'subjected' bodies, as well as clothing and regimes of modesty are adapting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows how contemporary believers are negotiating a new identity of Islamic piety in Bulgarian Muslim communities. Driven by communal memory of repression and contemporary Islamophobia, Bulgarian Muslims have created communities of practice (Wenger 1998), participatory groups that share a common interest in learning more about their faith. Communities function on multiple levels: there are small pockets of Islamic activity at the local level, and at a broader level, an imagined community of Bulgarian-speaking Muslims connected to an imagined global Islamic community, the ummah. The practices examined here include face-to-face activities, such as learning to read the Qur’an and prayers in Arabic, learning Islamic principles and practice, and talking about faith in mosques and homes in Bulgaria. This paper also examines virtual practices, such as discussing faith on social media. The article focuses on women’s and girls’ Qur’an reading groups and discussions about wearing hijab, and it examines an online mixed-gender discussion of daily prayers. Such grassroots practice of Islam fosters a newly articulate and participatory version of religion, embracing and encouraging believers’ literacy and knowledge, activism, and agency. The mutual goals, repertoires, and activities of this community of practice create a sense of commonality and cohesiveness, while leaving room for some diversity of focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study creates an index that reveals the extent to which Western European countries accommodate Islamic traditions and practices. The index covers six realms in which Muslim communities seek accommodation: (1) education, (2) chaplaincy services, (3) mosques, (4) cemeteries, (5) Islamic attire, and (6) halal food. The study examines and quantifies the state policies in twenty Western European countries on both national and municipal levels with a particular focus on actual implementation. Results indicate that Western European countries vary widely in terms of their accommodation of Islam. There are also notable within-country differences, due in part to regional governments, as they also make and/or implement policy decisions. Both between- and within-country variations in the accommodation of Islam reveal a variety of nuances, and blur dual categories, such as ethnic-civic and assimilationist-integrationist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Anthropology Magazine is the property of University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

What is the point of revisiting Muslim women's head wear when such a topic has already been extensively discussed in recent years? What can we do with the specters of class and labor that often appear, however fleetingly, in discussions that take secularism and the public sphere as their organizing concepts? Based on fourteen months of fieldwork in northwest China, this article examines the intricate connection between rural Hui Muslim women's "hats" (maozi) and the history of female labor in its multiple shifts from the socialist to the neoliberal period. In making this connection, it attempts to return the headscarf debate to its transnational politico-economic origins and to explore the hidden links between the transnational articulation of difference and the global organization of ethical practices, on the one hand, and the transnational distribution of materialities and politico-economic values, on the other. This link alters the specific terms and discourses that frame the narration of maozi among rural Muslim women: rather than expressing an attitude or opinion on veiling, their narratives focus heavily on the concrete stylistic shifts of maozi , which closely trace women's transformed relationship to labor. By considering the global differential distribution of ethical practices in tandem with the global (unequal) distribution of materialities, this article hopes to reorient our contemporary discussion about the Muslim veil in light of an analysis of transnational political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last three decades, the influence of orthodox Islam in contemporary Indonesian society has become increasingly visible. The use of Muslim clothing, Islamic expressions and commodities has become prevalent in the everyday life of Muslims in Indonesia. Along with this change, some prominent localised forms of Islam are being gradually replaced by standard orthodox Islam. However, syncretic Islamic practices continue strongly in some regions in Indonesia. In this article I explore factors enabling syncretic forms of Islamic practice through a case study of the Gumay of South Sumatra. Drawing on a longitudinal ethnographic study of the Gumay people, I argue that the sustained importance of local Islamic authorities and the transmission of Islamic knowledge that are embedded in everyday kinship relations is the key, although school education and other external Islamic authorities are shaping the way Muslim Gumay see what orthodox Islam should be. Also important are the Indonesian government’s cultural policies, the political importance of ethnicity, and the popular use of new media as these have played a significant role in keeping such syncretic Islamic practices alive among the younger generations of the Gumay. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers church and state news briefs as of February 1, 2017. Topics include the conviction of Christian Slimane Bouhafs of insulting Islam in Algeria, the Victorian government's proposed law that affects employment in religious schools and organizations, and prohibition on full body covering or burqas in Bulgaria.

There is anecdotal evidence that since the late 20th century young, educated, and urban Muslim women veil more frequently and strictly. Does this imply that the classical sociological theories of religion, which predict that modernization should cause a decrease in religious behaviours, do not apply to Islam? We investigate this question using structural equation modelling to analyse three datasets, one from Turkey, one covering 25 Muslim countries, and one from Belgium where Muslims are a minority. We find that averagely religious women conform to the classical theories' predictions. But among highly religious women the modernizing forces--education, occupation and higher income, urban living, and contacts with non-Muslims--increase veiling. We conjecture that for highly religious women modernizing factors raise the risk and temptation in women's environments that imperil their reputation for modesty: veiling would then be a strategic response, a form either of commitment to prevent the breach of religious norms or of signalling women's piety to their communities. Our findings have implications for cultural policy and Muslim integration in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In December 2012, the Canadian Supreme Court issued a ruling in R v. NS, in which a Muslim woman had demanded - citing her right to freedom of religion, as protected in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - the right to cover her face, while giving testimony in a court of law. The defendants, also Muslim, demanded the right to see her face, in particular during cross-examination, as part of their right to the demeanor evidence that is necessary to provide 'full answer and defense' and more generally as part of their right to a fair trial. The Supreme Court's ruling stated that trial judges are entitled to make determinations about whether facial coverings must be removed, by weighing the rights of the accused to a fair trial against the rights of the accuser to freedom of religious practice, via what the court termed a 'sincerity test.' This article considers the impact of the ruling and ultimately suggests that the decision will harm trust relations in Canada. In particular, the justifications offered in the judgment fail to respect the central objective of Canadian multiculturalism, i. e., to build trust among citizens of diverse backgrounds as a foundation for integrating minority communities into the public sphere on fair terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Muslim women in Helsinki, Finland use dress as a tool to cultivate and express forms of cultural capital, that fashion, anti-fashion and non-fashion are strategies in such practices, and that fashionability, stylishness, piety, modesty, disinterest in fashion, and spirituality are forms of symbolic capital that are used in order to gain status within various reference groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]