Ethnopoetics

Howdy there everyone! It's been a bit since I last posted, but take that as a sign that I've been hard at work preparing all my information to begin to write my fieldstudy! Recently I completed a Verbal Portrait of my interview with the Imam, typed up the transcripts of our interview, and even had a second interview with a student at Rhode Island College doing an independent project on morality and religion! While busy at work with all of this, I took the time to write down a small poem portion I pulled out of my interview with the Imam, organizing it in the forms of stanzas can help to preserve the actual oral flow that exact transcripts can sometimes miss, so without further ado!

This came as a response to my question about the Imam's personal spiritual experiences, and it sums it up beautifully. I used the technique of Ethnopoetics to boil down the Imam's feelings on his own experiences.

Every day I feel
That Allah is there
Allah is protecting me
Allah is providing for me
It's not something that I just believe in
It's something I live in

I might end up using this piece in my actual fieldstudy, along with a couple other quotes that I found to be extremely enlightening! As always thanks for reading!

My Organizer

You'll be seeing some odd pictures up here that require some explanation. These two photos are both sides of the organizer my professor and I worked on in order to wrap my mind around how exactly my fieldstudy paper will progress. The general idea illustrated here is that I lead in with my first visit upon which no one was there to demonstrate just how foreign the whole experience was to me, from there I'll gradually write in my experiences culminating in the interview with the Imam. From this point I'll be moving on and discussing my three large topics at length (American Culture and Islam, The Power of Faith, and Role of Women). They're represented by balloons being held onto by stick-figure me! This organizer will serve to be the basic structure of my paper, and I was surprised to find that I had already written a good portion of it through my earlier writings on each experience!

Review of the First Interview!

Wahoo! Finally was able to get around to the first interview and really sit down and talk with an insider of the culture for some great one on one. The person I was interviewing is a Mufti, as well as an Imam of the Masjid-Al Islam, Mufti Ikram ul Haq. This particular visit to the mosque was interesting even before the interview for a number of reasons. I found myself arriving once more to a mostly empty mosque, but this time there were a couple of boys playing around in one of the main halls with a Frisbee while an older man who appeared to be in his 40's was vacuuming the carpet. I introduced myself to him and the boys smiled and asked me if I was here to observe, I told them that I had done that last time and this time I was here to talk to the Imam. As if on cue the Imam emerged from his study and greeted me. He wore an almost golden robe of sorts and stood about my height with a large beard. He seemed like an extremely friendly person upon first meeting, and it makes sense as he's a religious leader for the Muslim community and would have to be a very personable man. I waited and watched the boys play for a couple of minutes while the Imam was speaking to a couple of young girls who then emerged and talked with the boys briefly before disappearing to leave. At this point the Imam invited me in and we began. Establishing a working rapport with the Imam was not difficult at all, we were both very friendly people and we exchanged pleasantries before getting right down to business. Taking my professor's advice, I had come up with only a few questions beforehand, and mostly let the interview steer in the direction that it so desired, as if the conversation between the two of us was a living being all of its own. I decided it'd be smart to start off broad, and began by asking the Imam about what exactly it's like to be an Imam. From this point I segued into asking about his childhood before moving onto the various topics that I hoped to cover. The first thing I noticed about our interview is that we were both very engaged, we finished each others sentences at some points when a similar idea came to both of our minds, and I also find that my favorite word is apparently "Right" and all variations of it. Upon listening to the recording of the interview, I notice that I use the word as an answer of sorts once the Imam had finished a question. The Imam and I were both very different people, while we were both males and lived in Rhode Island, he was old enough to have a family with a child who appeared to be in late Elementary School, while I was only 19. He was born in Pakistan and later moved to the United States while I had lived here all my life. Of course there was also the difference of him being Muslim, while I have never been a part of any religion and was an atheist of sorts. Despite these differences, the themes of the interview could be used to explain why there wasn't too much tension between the two of us. According to the Imam, Islam has a conception of certain universal values that apply to all people, so despite our vast differences, we both lined up on the matter of trusting each other and being honest with our intentions which allowed the interview to go very smoothly. There were a couple times when I accidentally began to speak while the Imam was taking a pause in speaking, but the majority of those times ended up meshing together well regardless. Our rapport grew from one of the first questions of the interview. I had a lot of tough questions for the Imam about the role of women, the American culture and the Muslim community's unity and tensions with it, and even the purpose of the world, but the question on American culture provoked a response on which we could both agree. I had asked him his opinion on the American media and how it treated Muslims, and I was surprised to find that he answered by saying that the public was smart, and the media were not able to feed them the distortions that they wished to. This is something I was very glad to hear as I'm always rooting for the intelligence and prowess of people over the cynical ideas that people are stupid and don't know what's good for them. From that point things became very relaxed from my perspective as we talked deeply about topics back and forth. The interview ended up going for around 29 minutes, and in the end we both shook hands, spoke briefly off the record, and held the various doors out of the mosque for each other before he and his family went out to dinner, and I headed back towards my own home. All in all it was a great experience, and one which I re-learned an old lesson from.

As a child I was unafraid to speak to anybody, and to say anything to them, as it didn't matter to me whether they were an adult or someone my age, this was seen as an undesirable trait when I was young, but very useful as I grew older and still kept the ability to speak to anyone despite their status. I utilized this ability of mine during the interview, but it sheds light on something I feel about the fieldstudy process in general. if there is one thing I dislike about this research process, it's the overwhelming focus on differences between you and the person you're interviewing. To me it as though always taking class, race, gender, and the like as the paramount consideration actually serves to dehumanize the other person rather than make yourself more respectful. In better words, it serves to make a more jittery and stiff interview rather than one in which two people can speak freely. As the Imam had said, people aren't stupid, and if I'm spending all my time thinking about stepping over eggshells and distancing myself, my interviewee will pick up on this and likely be a bit reserved themselves. For this reason I find it much easier to get a smooth and deep interview when it's framed in my mind in terms of two equal humans discussing topics.

Just a little Update

Hi there once again everyone! I haven't posted in a short while and I just wanted to update everyone on my current research and process that I've been going through. The Imam of the mosque has come back from his pilgrimage, and that means it's time for my to schedule my first interview! Shabaz had referred me to him previously, and suffice to say I'm pretty excited to get to sit down and talk about my topic with an Imam. It took me a bit of searching to find a place to E-mail the Imam at, but once I was able to find it I just sent a request and he responded within a day or so! We're all set up for an interview tomorrow that I'm sure I'll be posting a review of in the future. For our project we're expected to do two interviews, and lucky enough for me, my professor put me in contact with a man who happened to go to the same college I went to previously, and just happens to be doing his master's project on the power of faith, my exact topic. It's almost a situation too good to be true, as not only is he working on a similar topic, but he's researching it currently with all he's learned still fresh in his mind. I'm definitely going to be connecting with him in the future and likely will interview him so I can have sizable material for the "Power of Faith" branch of research that I was interested in writing about in my fieldstudy.

Recently I also took a look through some of the research that has come before me on topics of Islam and American culture, I found four or so great sources for my project, even something as detailed as economic workforce data from over 40 predominately Muslim countries! That particular study is going to be very useful towards my writings about gender equality in Islam, as I'm continuing to notice something that I first observed when I spoke to Shabaz, and I'm starting to think that the the idea of women being submissive to men in Islam is not exactly as true or as widespread as we're led to believe. I'll be sure to ask a few questions to the Imam on that topic to see what he knows as a Mufti, and will update soon with a review of the interview.

Mind Map

To help organize my thoughts, I created a small map using Coggle to help follow the threads I want to explore further in my fieldstudy. I had some connection problems and ended up having to use a screenshot, so my apologies for the size, but clicking on the picture should yield the original. It should also be noted that I'm very interested in the "Power of Faith" thread, but found it a bit difficult to flesh what I mean out correctly. When I say power of faith, I'm interested in the power of belief to influence the self and outcomes, much like what doctors would call the placebo effect. I'm not making any sort of declaration of what I consider it to be. I'm just interesting in seeing the concept in Islam and hearing stories about those who have had extremely spiritual experiences.

Second Set of Fieldnotes!

I had gone out on the 22nd of October around noontime in hopes of finally catching one of the main prayer times and finally being able to meet with members of the culture. I was lucky enough to arrive around a 1pm prayer time, and meet with the Assistant Imam at that! Below is my analysis of my second set of fieldnotes. Much like the last set I'll be answering a few questions about what I saw and the notes I took!

What surprised me?
This in general was an extremely surprising journey. My last set of fieldnotes had me thinking that the culture of the mosque was going to be very toned down and much like something I was used to, boy was I wrong! Upon actually meeting with members of the culture I was given a crash course as to the realities of these extremely dedicated few that I was lucky enough to observe and talk to. One of the most interesting surprises were a few of the ideas that the assistant Imam, Shabaz, had put forth to me. I had spoken to him briefly about having never been initiated into a religion myself, in and response he went off to detail how children are considered Muslim before entering puberty, regardless of what religion they followed in their brief lifetime. This came to be very interesting as apparently it meant that if children died before growing up (something which happens much too often in some war torn countries), they were considered to be Muslim. I had also been surprised when I asked about the role of the Imam in Islam. I was under the initial impression that the Imam acted much like a priest, as an intermediary between the individual and the creator. This turned out to not be the case according to Shabaz. It seems that Islam is a much more personal affair, he told me that there is only the creator and the individual, a much more individualistic view than the one shared by many Christian denominations which suggest the priest, or the pope, is a closer link to God and an adviser to the public of sorts. Shabaz told me that Muslims were actually not allowed to confess their sins in the way that one would to a priest.

What intrigued me?
 Both of the things that intrigued me especially came not from any cold facts, but from the perspectives which ended up being revealed through them. The first of the intriguing matters was the notion Shabaz put forth on children having a close relationship to the creator from nature of birth, which was the given explanation for why all children were considered Muslim. This greatly interested me as it seemed to corroborate a theory that I had found parallel in many other systems of belief, this idea that children have a much more powerful connection to a "source" of sorts. We see this represented in western popular culture in horror movies, where children are the ones to see spirits or have odd spiritual phenomena surrounding them. This can be seen in many esoteric and spiritual circles as well, it can be broadly defined as the idea that children have a special quality about them, or lack of quality, which allows them greater connection to the mysteries of the universe. We can see evidence of such a thing even without taking a more metaphysical view; we have common ideas and phrases involving seeing the world through a "child's eyes" or the "heart of a child". The fact that I found this view in Islam as well gave me a great swell of interest as it demonstrates that it is not only a western creation, and children are considered to have special qualities worldwide. The second bit of intrigue came from the separation of men and women in the mosque. It was a strict separation and it was expressly forbidden for men and women to see each other during prayer. Shabaz had told me that the only time it was acceptable was when both parties were first learning about how to pray and about Islam, but once they knew what they were doing they must be separated. Shabaz seemed to see it as more a matter of separate but equal than subordination to men. At first I didn't believe it to be equal, as the Imam was a male and the women were not allowed to see him or speak to him during prayer, but once I saw a bit more I began to change my mind. Shabaz had put forth the idea to me that the Imam held no special power or connection to the creator, so was it really a privilege to be able to pray alongside him? When I saw it in this perspective, it seemed much more equal. This idea seemed to hold even more ground as time progressed. During their prayer I noticed that regardless of age and demographic, the men lined up and prayed together, all performing the same ritual, and without lineup in regards to status. The children were in no special positions relating to the others, and the Imam was only in front in order to speak briefly into the microphone, but prayed in the same manner as all others. With this new take on the duty of the Imam, the separation of women and men seemed much more separate but equal to me, and this way of thought was extremely intriguing.

What disturbed me?
Last time I found myself not disturbed by much, but this time I was able to identify at least one thing that I found disturbing, and that was my own initial assumptions. I'm a stickler for outliers. I'm usually the kind of guy to point out that there's no point in generalizing people as you could meet the one outlier out of millions that follow the trend on the street someday and make the incorrect judgement. Regardless of how I usually thought, I found myself expecting exactly what the Assistant Imam ended up looking like. Before he came to greet me, I expected a man of Middle-Eastern descent with an accent and a long beard, and that's exactly what I got. It seems like there was no harm done since I was correct in the matter, but the way I see it, it's more of a shocker to remind myself that I really don't like thinking that way personally.

Too bad I had to end on the note of disturbing things, not a great way to end the analysis of fieldnotes for one of the most interesting things I've done in a long while. For that reason I decided to write this little conclusion saying how great of an experience it was. The opportunity to travel to another world of sorts that I would have never imagined resided within Rhode Island was definitely worth all the writing and research I had to do to get there. My journey is nowhere near finished though, so stay tuned!

The Digital Landscape!

Due to the incredible technological of humanity, culture is no longer only a physical place, it can also be a place made up of code, images, and bits of data. I'm talking of course about the digital landscape! My fieldworking is about Islam in Rhode Island, but more specifically the Masjid Al-Islam in North Smithfield, Rhode Island, as such I checked around online to find out a bit more about the digital footprint of the community I hope to learn more about. I chose a couple sites to look at, but mainly the wordpress website of the mosque itself. Taking a look at the graphics and photographs on the page can tell a lot right from the start. In the upper area of the site we can see a picture that I believe was taken looking at the dome and minaret of the mosque. In addition to this, important dates are laid out in an almost similar style to my own blog, albeit with more flare and pictures. Posts are assigned in order by the day they were made, with the most recent ones being at the top. At this time one of the first main posts is an advertisement for a "Hajj Workshop" with a picture of what I believe to be the grand mosque in mecca front and center. This post in particular draws my attention as it's obvious care was taken to make a custom graphic to advertise the event. On top of that, invoking the grand mosque front and center makes me think that this is likely an extremely important workshop. Taking a look at the text on the page it's extremely clear that this is a site for a local mosque. While the font seems to be a basic font such as Times New Roman or Comic Sans, there are many words taken from Islam, anglicized words, and graphics containing what I can assume to be Arabic font. The author of the website is the Imam of the mosque, who appears to run it himself. The site is a wordpress site, a free blog much like my own. It's a very basic site spruced up with a bit of Islam-related graphics, but the audience is obviously those who attend the mosque or who are looking to learn a bit more about it. At the top we have links to prayer schedules for each month, as well as links for newsletters, and a biography of the Imam of the mosque. The blog gives off a bit of a mystical feeling, or at least attempts to. The background is white but all the graphics lend towards the idea that this is religious or esoteric in nature. In the main graphic of the grand mosque we see what appear to be wisps of air and something which sparkles flaring out around the mosque itself. We also have a heavy use of symbolism with graphics to convey that each promoted event is one that is religious is nature. Despite all of this it is still very obvious that it's a project with limited resources, as it's a simple wordpress site in the end, and it appears the general settings weren't tampered with too much. After searching around a bit more, I found a little bit more about the culture, but not in a way I would have hoped. An quick search yielded that the community had asked for greater protection from police after their mosque was vandalized in the same weekend as an infamous attack on a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin. Both of these incidents occurred in August of 2012 and while time has passed, I will have to tread a bit more carefully as the community might still be on guard against suspicious outsiders such as myself. A lot about the culture can be learned right from the Imam's bio on the wordpress site. We can see where he received his training, as well as his personal history and what sort of initiatives he works on outside being an Imam and a Mufti. One thing that struck me in particular about the site, is that every mention of "Allah" is followed by the abbreviation (S.W.T) I wondered a bit about this and had to look elsewhere for explanation, but found quickly on wikipedia that it stands for "Subhanahu wa ta'ala" which can be translated roughly to "Glorified and Exalted be He". It seems that it's a form of respect and reverence for their god Allah to give praise to him whenever his name is spoken or even typed. It's pretty amazing how much I was able to discover from just taking a close look at the website of the mosque. With digital culture and the "space" of the mosque now covered, it'll be time for me to finally make contact with the community!