"Choosing Islam: Identity, Pluralism, & Commitment for Second Generation Muslim Americans," March 2011, by Daniel A. Pschaida.
Research on personal identity development posits that to achieve a healthy sense of self, young people must explore a number of alternatives from that which they are raised in, coming to appreciate a certain commitment for itself and vis-à-vis other options. In this study I interviewed six young 2nd generation Muslims – three of Pakistani and three of Palestinian heritage – who are involved in the Muslim Student Association at a Southern California university. I asked about their life journey, what factors attracted them to Islam, whether/how they had considered other values and peer networks to be a part of, and how they conceived Islam to be the better choice for them than other religious options. Confirming the research of Lori Peek, I find each informant explained that their involvement with the Muslim Student Association on their college campus has been crucial to their development of a Muslim identity. This draw's thrust is in the friendships of individuals (of similar backgrounds/values) they find in the student association as well as the support outlet for social activism through this group. Additionally, the experience of hajj, devotional acts of prayer, Ramadan fasting, and reading the Qur’an have attracted them to actively subscribe to the faith they were raised within. The teaching of preparing for the Afterlife makes for a more purposeful existence here than an alternative they conceive where it ends with nothing and all turns out to be in vain. They expressed that they find compelling that Islam provides specific guidelines for many particular aspects of their lives. They assert that the purity of the concept of the oneness of God, compared to other religions, as well as the preservation of the integrity of the scriptures as word of God, distinguishes Islam from the Judaism and Christianity, as well as Buddhism & Hinduism. An important finding is that this group of Muslims in my study – ten years younger than the ones Peek talked to – still find the events of September 11th as a driving force in the construction of their religious identity. All of a sudden identified by others as Muslims during their pre/beginning-adolescence period, and finding the faith they were born with assaulted with ridicule, they are forced to make a choice about whether to try to fit in with the values, habits, behaviors, language, and mode of dress of their peers or turn to their religious upbringing. Thus, in all, we might characterize these six college students as achieved in their religious identity. Despite never showing to have really given other traditional religious options a chance, they have largely weighed and considered a number of options in the fundamental values they want to live their lives and found for themselves Islam to have the most traction and to be authoritative and complete.
Keywords: Second Generation Immigrants; Muslim American youth; religious identity development; Erik Erikson; James Marcia; Lori Peek; Selcuk R. Sirin & Michelle Fine; religious commitment; religious pluralism; Muslim Student Association
"Bahá’í Pilgrimage: History and Spirit Materially Grounded," Fall 2010, by Daniel A. Pschaida.
Few scholarly studies are extant on the sacred journey of Bahá’ís to their spiritual and administrative center of their Faith. The Bahá’í Faith may offer unique perspective among pilgrimage studies by its status as a new religious movement within the Abrahamic tradition, by being one of the most ethnically diverse and widespread memberships among the traditions, and with its theology of Manifestation. Although my focus in this paper is to provide "thick description" of the raw data on the nature, teachings, and experience of pilgrimage, I develop the argument that pilgrimage further grounds the extraordinary history and teachings of their religion (that they have read and/or heard) in the space and time that person actually experiences, and at the same time this space, place, objects, and time of their existing in this world are lifted closer to the ideals of their Faith. Following the example of Belden C. Lane in his article "Giving Voice to Place," I do not present the pilgrimage experiences merely as the cultural construction of the participating individuals themselves, nor purely as sacred places acting on pilgrims, but as an engagement or “dance” between the two. The expectations, hopes, and understandings of the religious visitor interconnect with the unique characteristics of shrines, gardens, and geographies around them. This study includes numerous quotes from original ethnographic interviews of returned pilgrims.
"Revelation, Inspiration, and Guidance: The Qur'an on how God communicates with humanity," December 2010, by Daniel A. Pschaida
For Muslims the Qur’an is not just a revelation of God’s message, but it is a description and key that discloses the diverse ways that God communicates His most excellent names and teachings and invites humankind to live in His way. In this study, we explore what the Qur’an says on how God discloses precious truths, guidance, and encouragement to the world. We examine the words and contexts used for revelation, inspiration, and guidance; the diverse ways the Qur’an says that God communicates to His messengers, prophets, and other favored ones; how it speaks of divine disclosures in nature, the processes around us, and historical events & stories – past, present, and future; and the grand range and depth of this salvific, enlightening guidance. What we find is that just as much as a revelation itself, the Qur’an offers itself as a key for human beings to unlock and thus perceive the Divine’s diverse manifestations and guidance in and through all things.
"The Purpose of Life and the Development of the Human Personaity: The Process- and Growth-Orientation of the Qu'ran," Fall 2010, by Daniel A. Pschaida
When thinking of a person’s religious state of being we tend to understand the main issue as a dichotomous one: saved or damned, believer or disbeliever, sanctified or sinner, enlightened or caught in a cycle of suffering and rebirth. However, a more nuanced understanding of many religions’ teachings is that states of human beings are often not either/or but rather a ‘work in progress,’ regressing, or constantly changing. Examining Arabic roots pertaining to organic processes of vegetation, I show that although the teachings of Islam--as contained within the Qur’an--are clear on the goal of one’s state of being: a person who believes in God and is righteous; yet the words used to describe the human condition reflect what is used to describe the natural world in general--one of growth, deterioration, and change. (48:29, 71:17, 16:11, 6:99)This Quranic emphasis on a daily consciousness of one’s purpose, and a moment by moment effort and struggle to move closer thereto and actualize this purpose, offers a dynamism to religious teachings that challenges dichotomous thinking and infuses the now, past, and future with gravitas.
"The Asbāb al-Nuzūl stories – reliability, uses, and application," Fall 2010, by Daniel A. Pschaida.
Determining the authenticity and usefulness of determining the "occasions" or situation in which a set of verses of the Qur'an were revealed has long been a controversial sub-field of Qur'anic interpretation (tafsir) and legal fiqh. Determining the situation in which the Prophet Muhammad articulated certain Qur'anic teachings could help illumine the meaning and implications of that utterance. Yet, regarding the status of the Qur'an as God's perfect and last 'tablet descended from heaven' made many other legal scholars suspicious of this practice as it seemed to imply that parts of God's final teaching might have limited application and the science of Asbab al-Nuzul did not coalesce until the eleventh century CE; this despite it was an implied practice in legal interpretation from centuries before. When a verse for which the sabab/occasion is known, or believed to be known, three approaches came to be practiced: 1) the verse just applied to that very time, place, situation, and/or person it was addressed; 2) the verse also applies to closely analogous situations or possibilities in persons; 3) the verse embodies a religious truth that may be applicable in many or most situations a Muslim. I discuss these matters application with various verses, including that of “whichsoever way you turn, there is the face of God,“ as to how knowing the sabab assisted interpreters to argue that it did not mitigate the importance of turning to the qiblah of the Kaaba in daily salaah prayer.
Key words: Baha'i Faith; pilgrimage; Religious Tourism; Material Culture & Religion; new religious movements; Manifestation or Hierophany; ethnography & ethnographic interviews.
"The Significances in Narratives of Conversion to Islam in the West," March 2010,
by Daniel A. Pschaida
In this study I review thirty-eight narratives of conversion to Islam, found on the web and in two book publications. I look for a common structure across the testimonial narratives as well as to better understand how the converts themselves conceive of the significance of their conversion to Islam. One common characteristic is the convert's negotiating of their Christian socialization. I suggest that they see their cultural roots in Christianities as serving as springboards of ‘proximal alienation.’ While I will insist in this study that there are no simplistic terms with which we can understand the whole of these conversion narratives, I offer the idea of ‘the journey to one’s transcendent roots’ as one conceptual framework that is helpful to grasp how the converts themselves understand/present their process of embracing Islam.
Key words: Conversion to Islam; Conversion Narratives; Conversion Testimonies; Islam in the West; Larry Poston; Lewis Rambo; Viktor Frankl; Psychology of Religion; Self-Transcendence
"Wrestling with Truth-Claims: A Critical Approach to Religious Studies Education," March 2011, by Daniel A. Pschaida
This paper is a continuation of the religious studies pedagogy project described below. I describe in more practical debt how such a course curriculum and approach could work. This type of course would marry pursuits of philosophy courses, where inquiries do not shy away from questions of the way things actually are and how we can know that to be true, with those of world religion courses that introduce students to a variety of answers those deepest existential issues. In it, I suggest a twin process and content approach to epistemological frameworks. Students can reference a grammar of intellectual virtues (such as open-mindedness, honesty, integrity, impartiality, fair-mindedness, intellectual sobriety, attentiveness, creativity, intellectual courage, carefulness, and thoroughness) in their process of getting to know and evaluating the substantive truth of a religious tradition. Meanwhile, on judging content we might let students critically engage with Andrew Wright's "five general criteria for adjudicating between worldviews": “congruence, coherence, fertility, simplicity and depth” (Critical Religious Education, Multiculturalism and the Pursuit of Truth, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2007, p. 220-4), judging for themselves if such ideals are valid for the task. I suggest that Wright's criteria would be more complete if we added the sixth criterion of Fruitfulness, which represents what diverse religions speak of as a main purpose of a living faith; it also takes into account ideals of the American pragmatism expressed by William James, John Dewey, and Richard Rorty. What I mean by Fruitfulness I divide into five sub-headings upon which I elaborate: Problem-Solving, Virtuous & Ethical Life, Emotional Well-Being, Positive Social Relationships, and Social Progress.
"Wrestling with Truth-Claims: A Critical Approach to Religious Studies Education," March 2011, by Daniel A. Pschaida
This paper is a continuation of the religious studies pedagogy project described below. I describe in more practical debt how such a course curriculum and approach could work. This type of course would marry pursuits of philosophy courses, where inquiries do not shy away from questions of the way things actually are and how we can know that to be true, with those of world religion courses that introduce students to a variety of answers those deepest existential issues. In it, I suggest a twin process and content approach to epistemological frameworks. Students can reference a grammar of intellectual virtues (such as open-mindedness, honesty, integrity, impartiality, fair-mindedness, intellectual sobriety, attentiveness, creativity, intellectual courage, carefulness, and thoroughness) in their process of getting to know and evaluating the substantive truth of a religious tradition. Meanwhile, on judging content we might let students critically engage with Andrew Wright's "five general criteria for adjudicating between worldviews": “congruence, coherence, fertility, simplicity and depth” (Critical Religious Education, Multiculturalism and the Pursuit of Truth, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2007, p. 220-4), judging for themselves if such ideals are valid for the task. I suggest that Wright's criteria would be more complete if we added the sixth criterion of Fruitfulness, which represents what diverse religions speak of as a main purpose of a living faith; it also takes into account ideals of the American pragmatism expressed by William James, John Dewey, and Richard Rorty. What I mean by Fruitfulness I divide into five sub-headings upon which I elaborate: Problem-Solving, Virtuous & Ethical Life, Emotional Well-Being, Positive Social Relationships, and Social Progress.
by Daniel A. Pschaida
This paper was first presented in the education and religious studies workshop session at the Western Regional AAR conference - held in Tempe, AZ - in 2010. In it I argue that because 1) a large percentage of our students enter our classes not just to understand the diverse religions better but search to answer the meta-question of ultimate meaning, 2) it is the mandate of a liberal arts education not just to critically put religions within the lens of social science approaches but facilitate processes where students may more profoundly encounter the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, 3) the totalizing world-views and truth claims lie at the heart of a religious traditions, and 4) individuals who effectively create social change and improvement require the moral courage derived from certitude in their metaphysical values/commitments, we should offer a model of the World Religions course where students are assisted to 'pass over' into other religious worlds and directly wrestle with those truth claims.
Key words: Religious Studies Education; Philosophy of Religion; Religious Epistemology; Philosophy of Education; Truth-Claims; Existential Crises; Youth Identity Issues; Pluralism and Problems of Religious Commitment
“Scripture as axiomatically word of God in the Christian, Islamic, and Bahá’í Traditions,” March 2010, by Daniel Azim Pschaida
Must the religious believer regard scripture as ‘sacred writings’ based merely on tradition? Are scriptures purely classical texts that have garnered an aura of sacrality? This paper first reviews common arguments found in the Christian, Islamic, and Bahá’í traditions as to how and why their own religious texts can and must be regarded as Scripture. These traditions – in short – claim that any seeker can find that their sacred texts are really divine words because of an encounter with transcendence, divinity, and holiness via their reading, chanting, and/or hearing. While, we in the academy can describe these religious beliefs on scriptures, we do arguments found in the Christian, Islamic, and Bahá’í traditions as to how and why their own religious textnot have the tools to either support or negate the working of the Holy Spirit or a status of divinity. However, we can make sense of these claims if we suggest that a ‘virtues-recognition-device’ forms a domain of the human mind.# Developmental theorists have shown that children grow in their abilities from applying straightforward rules to a situation to later making a judgment for an issue based on such ideals as justice or care. Scriptures are texts that are often linguistically articulated concentrations of the highest ideals in human history. As such, they transcend the person’s current understanding of virtues while inviting them towards comprehension. This consciousness of transcendence may be translated as a feeling of the Holy Spirit as one reads the Bible, an awareness of the supreme eloquence of the Qur’an, or the expression of divine perfections when the person reads the Bahá’í scripture. In short, because scriptures often represent an articulation to superlative degrees of the virtue-ideals for which the human psyche has cognitive-aesthetic templates, they are experienced as transcendent and divine. Thisperspective also might lend depth to Wilfred Cantwell Smith’s idea of the ‘transcendent’ in his explanations that scripture is the trilateral relationship between humans, the text, and the transcendent.
Must the religious believer regard scripture as ‘sacred writings’ based merely on tradition? Are scriptures purely classical texts that have garnered an aura of sacrality? This paper first reviews common arguments found in the Christian, Islamic, and Bahá’í traditions as to how and why their own religious texts can and must be regarded as Scripture. These traditions – in short – claim that any seeker can find that their sacred texts are really divine words because of an encounter with transcendence, divinity, and holiness via their reading, chanting, and/or hearing. While, we in the academy can describe these religious beliefs on scriptures, we do arguments found in the Christian, Islamic, and Bahá’í traditions as to how and why their own religious textnot have the tools to either support or negate the working of the Holy Spirit or a status of divinity. However, we can make sense of these claims if we suggest that a ‘virtues-recognition-device’ forms a domain of the human mind.# Developmental theorists have shown that children grow in their abilities from applying straightforward rules to a situation to later making a judgment for an issue based on such ideals as justice or care. Scriptures are texts that are often linguistically articulated concentrations of the highest ideals in human history. As such, they transcend the person’s current understanding of virtues while inviting them towards comprehension. This consciousness of transcendence may be translated as a feeling of the Holy Spirit as one reads the Bible, an awareness of the supreme eloquence of the Qur’an, or the expression of divine perfections when the person reads the Bahá’í scripture. In short, because scriptures often represent an articulation to superlative degrees of the virtue-ideals for which the human psyche has cognitive-aesthetic templates, they are experienced as transcendent and divine. This
Key words: Comparative Scriptures; Psychology of Religion; Wilfred Cantwell Smith; Naom Chomsky; Lawrence Kohlberg; Carol Gilligan; Steven R. Fink; 'Proof' Texts & Religious Arguments
An Excellent Pattern have Ye: Moses and the Jews as the Qur'an's models of Prophethood and Community, December 2009, by Daniel A. Pschaida
While research on Moses and the Israelites representations in the Qur’an largely focuses on the beginnings and precedence of fourteen hundred years of contentious history, largely ignored is the fact that twenty-eight of the thirty surahs that speak of Moses and his followers are actually understood to have been revealed in Mecca and/or before religious and political tensions with contemporary Jewish tribes of Muhammad’s time began. Meanwhile, we find that Moses is by far the most spoken of prophetic figure in the Qur’anic revelations. From name searches in an online Qur’an database, I counted that “Moses” is explicitly named in over 165 verses, and 30 of the 114 chapters of the Qur’an: that is over a fourth of the surahs. For comparison, we find that even if we combine how many times 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th most mentioned prophets are mentioned (Abraham, Noah, Jesus, and Adam), Moses is still named more often than these other four combined! The major focus of nine of those thirty chapters of the Qur’an is a telling of the Exodus narrative in its own unique way. Drawing upon Earle H. Waugh’s theory of Muhammad as a “model” of the highest values of his people, I am arguing that for most of his mission Muhammad’s concern with Moses and the Exodus was not to rebuke the local Jewish tribes for not following much of Mosaic Law nor for not recognizing the Prophet-hood of Muhammad. Rather, Moses and the Exodus served as “models” in which Muhammad weaved a web of inter-related significances that he decided could best highlight the nature of his own mission, the message that he wanted to communicate, his relationship with those who choose to follow him, their relationship with God, and the basis of his followers relationship with each other. Muhammad decided that Moses and the Jewish community he founded, better than any other symbols in the historical memory of the people around him, could represent an “archetypal frame of reference” that exemplified his own prophetic mission.
"Providing Convincing Arguments for a Faith Commitment: Understanding the Logic of ‘Proofs’ given by Christians and Muslims," December 2009, by Daniel A. Pschaida
This is an inquiry into to the nature of 'proof'-arguments often given by Christians and Muslims to justify the superior truth and authority of their religious traditions. Thus, I examine two very commonly given 'proof''-arguments: the Christian belief in the Resurrection of Christ and the Muslim belief in the Inimitability (or Miraculousness) of the Qur'an. Taken on their own, I cite how these arguments are easily discounted by outsiders. However, when embedded in a web of significances of each respective religious system, Christ's Resurrection and the uniqueness of the Qur'an is not at all wishful thinking but foregone conclusions. Indeed, each of these proof-concepts are powerful symbols that absorb in itself much of the cultural system itself. Two of the implications are: 1) proof-arguments hold a contextual/semiotic rationality; 2) an outsider who wants to judge the veracity and value of these religions traditions must immerse themselves in the web of significances - experiences, feelings, concepts, relationships, wisdom/insights - of the religious traditional itself, striving for a kind of 'fusion' of horizons.
Key words: Warrants of Religious Commitment; Rationality of Religious Belief; Abdul Hamid M. El-Zein; Clifford Geertz; web of significances; religion as cultural system; religious semiotics; Wittgenstein; Resurrection of Christ; Inimitability of the Qur'an; fusion of horizons
“Teresa of Avila’s Meditations on the Song of Songs (Meditaciones sobre los Cantares) as poetic phenomenology” February 2009, By Daniel Azim Pschaida,
In religious traditions around the world the intimacy of two human lovers has been the epitomized metaphor for the mystic’s yearning for the uttermost point of union with the Ultimate. In the early Middle Ages the Biblical book the Song of Songs was appropriated as an allegorical work that gave vision to these mystical yearnings and thousands of pages of commentaries ensued in the coming centuries. Of the immense amount of recent studies done on either the exegesis of the Song of Songs or the works of Saint Teresa of Avila, comparatively very little scholarship is in extant on Teresa’s Meditations on Song of Songs. I argue that in this work she aspires to bring together the diverse, salient aspects of her self-interpretive work. Teresa of Avila’s Meditations on the Song of Songs may be conceived as an example of poetic phenomenology – where she aspires, by way of language, not just to describe, but to re-create and evoke in the reader her own experience of mystical union with the One. She enacts this poetic phenomenology by way of her epistemological assertions, engaging conceptual explanations, the declarative modality’s ontological force, prayerful addresses to the Thou, informal-conversational prose, and the aesthetics of her writing. While this 40-page paper is written in English, I highlight many of these communicative devices in the form of Teresa’s original 16th century Spanish prose.
Keywords: Teresa de Avila; Teresa de Jesus, Mysticism; Song of Songs; Devotional Manual; autobiographical “self-interpretation"; Catholicism 16th Century Spain; Techniques of Feminine Empowerment in Pre-Modern Church Period; psychological states described by mystics; Philosophy of Language; Literary Devices
“Islam and Jihad: Standards of Justified Warfare in Islamic Theory and Practice” December 2007, By Daniel Azim Pschaida,
In defending Islam, Muslim scholars and apologists frequently just interpret “jihad” to mean an inner struggle for good and righteousness without also complicating its connections to just-war theory within their religious tradition. This is an opportunity lost to clarify to the public--fellow Muslims and non-Muslims alike--the highly developed commentary on the subject within authoritative writings; otherwise the media-fed visceral images of the wanton destruction of suicide bombers, public beheadings, religious intolerance, and victimization of civilians becomes ingrained as representative of Muslim warfare. I argue that Islam offers its followers and non-believers alike an ethical center for the causes for going to war and justified conduct within war-time. I further assert that these standards are similar enough to Christian and secular European and American ethics of war that if combined and universally articulated would fashion a robust challenge to governments and stateless political leaders that would like to start a non-defensive war or conduct war in a way that targets civilians and natural resources. Keywords: jus ad bellum, jus in bello, just war, al-Shaybani, jihad, Islam, suicide bombers, stateless fighters, martyrdom operations, dar al-harb, dar al-Islam, Qur'an, Hadith, Mahmud Shaltut, Usama bin Ladin
