Ethnography and Determines How They Term Paper

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Lukens drives home the idea that the problem of non-Islamic anthropologists trying to define and place boundaries on the faith to be able to compartmentalize it will always view it from a non-Islamic mindset, therefore will be unable to fully grasp or understand its origin or its current evolutionary processes.

Part of the answer to the anthropologist's question "What is Islam?" is conditioned by what she may or may not include in her definition of Islam. For instance, are local spirit beliefs, saint's shrines, and festivals Islamic? To deal with these issues more effectively it is necessary to take a step back from Islam. The problems encountered by anthropologists studying Islamic societies are also faced by anthropologists studying other monotheistic societies. John Bowen argues that the main impediment to the anthropological study of monotheisms is that these religions do not fit well in the normal ethnographic model. The texts and rituals common to a monotheism transcend any particular locale. These texts and rituals take the believer, and should take the ethnographer, outside the village to a "worldwide confessional community" (1993a:185) (Lukens, 1999). "

This is exactly what is seen in Eikelman's ethnography as he illuminates the differences between the Islamic culture and the rest of the world when it comes to elements such as higher education and the number of new book titles printed each year.

Luken suggests that Islamic traditions are often derived from public interest and utility, which dovetails with Eikelman's ethnographic discussion about how religion changes through higher education as those who become educated have changes in their mindsets.

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To fully understand the significance of Islam are a discursive tradition we must understand the nature of social discourse. Discourse can be defined as the social process of constructing shared meaning. This process is necessarily social, although it may not require actors to interact on a face-to-face basis; discourse can be conducted through texts (Lukens, 1999)."

This too agrees with the generally perceived idea of Eikelman's ethnography with regard to the changes in mindset with regard to Islam as created by higher educational ideas.

Both authors allude to the fact that it is difficult to define Islam because it is hard to separate the social desires, created by higher education from the actual intended beliefs and ideas of the faith itself.

Conclusion

The two works of literature suggest similar anthropological events with regard to the evolution of the body and nature of Islam but use different approaches to explain the meaning of their texts. While Eikelman portrays the evolutionary changes in the understanding and meaning of Islam through the increased rate of higher education among Muslims, Lukens points to social desire to explain the changes, however, when one takes social desire into consideration the fact that many more Muslims than ever before are receiving higher educations it will likely have a significant impact on what the social desires amount to and those are the driving forces behind changes in the faith of Islam.

Each of the authors are basically saying the same thing......

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