from Part II - The Grassroots Mobilization
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2025
In Chapter 6, I analyze a set of in-between and underground sites. I show that these places have worked in tandem with Imam-Hatips but also in competition with them. Like Imam-Hatips, these sites eschewed conventional politics, focused on early and prolonged habituation to alternative lifestyles, and advocated for a totalistic vision of Islam. But unlike Imam-Hatips, parallel education sites pursued dispositional training in its most rigorous form (mainly because they were unchecked by authorities) while also connecting individuals within them to a countercultural milieu so as to facilitate the prefiguring of an Islamic society. Specifically for this reason, I argue, underground sites constituted the main foundation of Islamist politics. The chapter draws from a series of vignettes to delineate the process of creating the pious subject through politicizing personal habits and convincing individuals that making their lives congruent with religion is an indispensable aspect of solving society’s problems.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.