Sacred Money. Faith and Finance in a Global Sufi Order

Nils Bubandt, Aarhus University, will present a paper on "Sacred Money. Faith and Finance in a Global Sufi Order".

Abstract

This presentation analyses the role of money in the Murabitun order, an Islamic missionary movement that has established communities in twenty-one countries throughout the world, and has attracted converts from variety of backgrounds: Caribbean migrants in the UK, indigenous people in Mexico, black town-dwellers in South Africa, and middle-class European. Although small in numbers, the Murabitun order has become influential on the Internet and has had considerable success in disseminating its grand, if also idiosyncratic, design to topple the current economic world system by the introduction of the Islamic gold dinar to a number of political leaders in the Muslim world. The paper will look at some of the surprising global links and secular-religious entanglements of this movement that allow it to combine practices of Sufi mysticism with a project of economic world renewal. By mixing economic revolution and religious vision, the case provides an ethnographic platform from which to rethink both conventional ideas about the future of social movements and established social theories about the relationship between faith and finance. 

Cross-Cultural Seminars at ToRS

Every semester, six invited speakers will present a scholarly paper for academic staff and graduate students at ToRS (and other invited guests). The papers will be based on material from one of the regions covered by ToRS, but will - thematically or theoretically - also have a strong cross-cultural appeal. The aim is to encourage interest across disciplines at ToRS - and thereby strengthen scholarly discussion and cooperation - and to give us all a chance to get acquainted with scholars from outside the department.

Each presentation will last 45 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of discussion chaired by a person from ToRS. The seminars will take place every second Thursday from 15.15pm to 16.30pm in room U6. After each seminar, we will go for drinks and possibly dinner with the speaker. All participants are invited for this, but expenses will have to be covered by participants themselves.

Organizers: Andreas Bandak, Mikkel Bille and Lars Højer

September 15

Oscar Salemink (University of Copenhagen)
Sex and the Temple: Interlocking categorizations of sexuality, gender and the sacred in post-secular Vietnam

September 29

Brian Moeran (Copenhagen Business School)
Japanese Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in Japan

October 13

Ayo Wahlberg (University of Copenhagen)
Banking viability - reproduction and the sperm crisis in China

November 10

Nils Bubandt (Aarhus University)
Sacred Money. Faith and Finance in a Global Sufi Order

November 24

Dietrich Jung (University of Southern Denmark)
Max Weber and Sheikh Ahmad ibn Zayni al-Dahlan: Shaping modern knowledge on Islam

December 8

Michel Hockx (School of Oriental and African Studies, London)
Postsocialist Publishing: Internet Literature in China