Perfection Makes Practice

Abstract

Studies of Islam in Southeast Asia have sought to better understand its multifaceted and complex dimensions, although one may make a generalized categorization of Muslim beliefs and practices based on a fundamental difference in ideologies and strategies, such as cultural and political Islam. Anna M. Gade’s Perfection Makes Practice stresses the cultural aspect of Indonesian Muslim practices by analyzing the practices of reciting and memorizing the Qur’an, as well as the annual competition. Muslim engagement with the Qur’an has tended to emphasize the cognitive over the psychological dimension. Perfection Makes Practice analyzes the role of emotion in these undertakings through a combination of approaches, particularly the history of religions, ethnography, psychology, and anthropology. By investigating Qur’anic practitioners in Makassar, South Sulawesi, during the 1990s, Gade argues that the perfection of the Qur’an as a perceived, learned, and performed text has made and remade the practitioners, as well as other members of the Muslim community, to renew or increase their engagement with the holy text. In this process, she suggests, moods and motivation are crucial to preserving the recited Qur’an and revitalizing the Muslim community. In chapter 1, Gade begins with a theoretical consideration for her case study. Drawing from concepts that emphasize the importance of feeling and emotion in ritual and religious experience, she develops a conceptualization of this engagement. In chapter 2, Gade explains memorization within the context of the self and social relations. She argues that Qur’anic memorizers have a special relationship with its style and structure, as well as with the social milieu. Although Qur’anic memorization is a normal practice for most Muslims, its practitioners have learned how to memorize and recite beautifully some or all of the Qur’an’s verses, a process that requires emotion ...