See(k)ing Beauty in Islam: Politics and Processes of Re-Enchantment in the Lowlands

In this interdisciplinary dissertation project, I take the Islamic idea of beauty (jamal) as starting point to reconceptualize Muslim subjectivity, studyng how Muslims in the Benelux are see(k)ing, aspiring to and actively pursuing beauty in their divine engagement and spiritual development. Writing an autoethnography in which I have been participating in covert prayer circles in the Netherlands and Belgium and conducting in-depth interviews with other fellow see(k)ers, I anchor the connection between the imaginative, the beautiful, and the ethical in this process. Accordingly, it is also through the vector of beauty that I attempt to situate and unpack the lived tradition that is Islam. Taking al Ghazali's virtue ethics and the work of his contemporary “successor” Abdurrahman Taha as starting point for this reconceptualization of Muslim subjectivity, I aim to ultimately contribute usefully to discussions pertaining to the epistemic diversity in the study of Islam and Muslims in Europe.