Date of Award

5-2023

Document Type

Thesis open access

Department

Anthropology

First Advisor

Tahir Naqvi

Second Advisor

Sajida Jalalzai

Abstract

The scholarly literature shows that jinn are important in the analysis of the formation of Islam in Muslim diasporas in the West. Jinn discourses in America reveal how American Muslims negotiate their religious beliefs in relation to American conceptions of modernity and secularism, as well as highlights competing Islamic epistemologies that result from these negotiations. Imams emphasize the Qur’an and the Sunnah as the only sources of legitimate knowledge, while lay American Muslims and scholars of Islam see personal experience as a way to approach Islam.

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