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Peoples' practising of religious ritual is never isolated from the social and political setting in which it takes place. It is therefore inevitable that ritual practice somehow contends with the current social context. Examining Muslim ritual practices across the Middle East, the authors of the articles in this special issue discuss religious ritual as a tool for accomplishing something in the real world. They provide examples of which social concerns are addressed in ritual practice, who is involved and how the ritual practice is affected. The studies show that current ritual practices are embedded in multi-actor social spaces, and they also reflect on the ritual as a multi-actor space where the power to define ritual form, meaning and importance shifts between different categories of actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What do we understand by the study of Islamic theology within the European academic framework? In this issue of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, scholars of Christian and Islamic theology and of religious studies debate how to construct theoretical and empirical contexts around 'Islamic theology' as an academic discipline that is profoundly etic, and for doing theology as an emic praxis. The question concerns how we design course programmes, curricula and research projects. What are the implications of historical-critical or critical-hermeneutic approaches for the academic study of Islamic theology? What may be the consequences of integrating a critical gender perspective into inter-religious studies? If introducing Islamic theology at European universities turns Christian faculties into multi-religious institutions, will they make space for inter-religious ways of doing theology? May social contexts impact on how Islamic theology is taught and discussed in a Northern European university setting? Will Islamic theology be formatted as 'university theology' in interaction with the lived Islamic religion in the European context? These articles present an invitation to researchers, students and policy-makers, to continue responding to local needs in religiously plural societies and to further stimulate discussions about the study and practice of Islamic theology as a Western academic discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the production of Islamic theology in its European contextual and vernacular articulations. The focus is on how young Muslims in Norway contribute to the ongoing reflection on and formation of Islamic theology. To that end, it examines texts produced and disseminated by a group called 'Stand4Hussain', which, between 2012 and 2014, organized street events in Oslo. The article argues that the content of their textual production, their mode of communication and the intentions behind their social practice can be analysed as a form of vernacular, contextual, theological reflection and production. The term 'street theology' is coined here for this non-scholastic, vernacular and contextual theology. A characteristic of 'street theology' is that it is mediated in the streets and shaped by the external audience, mainly non-Muslims. The article argues that the study of vernacular productions and disseminations of theology should be included in programmes on the study of Islamic theology at Western universities since the production of theological reflections may take place outside scholarly settings and be motivated by external debates and perceptions. The study of vernacular theology can expand our understanding of the production of theology in given social contexts and refine our conceptualization of 'Islamic theology'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The practice of placing martyrs’ photographs on tombstones has become particularly widespread in Iran since the late 1970s: a practice which is directly linked to sociopolitical realities, characterized by revolutionary protest and war. The self-sacrifice of modern martyrs of revolution and war is ideologically related to the martyrdom of the Shiite saints, whose example they have emulated. In this article, I situate contemporary martyrs’ grave images culturally and historically in the Shia visual culture of Iran, and discuss two other genres of commemorative images, the saintly martyrs’ portraiture and portraits of diseased and sick members of the local community. The presence of the three genres of portraiture in contemporary Iranian public life invites questions such as, how is portraiture used in the memorial culture other than in the politicized martyrdom culture, what are viewers of saintly martyrs’ portraiture invited to remember, why is it important to remember the saints’ sacrifice, and how does the politicized martyrdom culture relate to non-politicized aspects of memorial culture? I suggest the iconographic rendering of saintly martyrdom is able to convey what are held to be meta-historical truths about the battle at Karbala. Contemporary martyrs’ portraiture represents a historical interpretation of those truths in which martyrdom is emulated. The portraiture of diseased and sick members of the local community relates to the meta-historical truth regarding saintly intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]