Article: “Nearness to God: Danish Muslims and Taqwa-Infused Faith Frames”

Authors: Maria Lindebæk Lyngsoe and Simon Stjernholm

Published in: Contemporary Islam, Vol. 16, pp. 173–191

Publication Date: October 27, 2022

Publisher: Springer

This article advocates for an increased attention to how piously striving Muslims learn about, cultivate, and experience nearness to God. The empirical material is taken from authors’ current research on Danish Muslims’ engagement with Islamic teaching and learning. The Authors examine examples of oral teachings that instruct the audience to be constantly aware of God and address him directly in prayer, examples of how an awareness of God is cultivated and practiced in everyday life, and individual narratives of experiences of being close to or helped by God. With inspiration from the anthropology of Christianity as well as Islam, they propose an analytical model for understanding the process whereby Muslim efforts to draw near to God can ‘work’. Three interrelated dynamics are crucial to this process, and Authors identify each through Their reading of existing scholarship. The dynamics at play are, respectively, a taqwa-infused faith frame, its related semiotic ideology, and a relationship of experienced reciprocal agency with God.

Read the full article HERE.

Source: Springer