tionality. This Enlightenment-inspired critique of
“irrationality,” the Salafi goal of stripping Islam
of what the reformers considered non-Islamic
accretions (a goal much in the spirit of the Prot-
estant Reformation), and the puritanical model of
the Wahhabis have combined in a very powerful
way. At present, many Muslims regard nonpro-
phetic miracles, saint veneration, and almost all
practices associated with saints and their shrines
to be both “un-Islamic” superstition and anti-
modern. Thus, the more educated members of
society reject a great deal of the old belief system,
of which saints and miracles were integral parts,
and consider their more sober and less exuberant
form of religiosity to be more “Islamic” and more
“rational.” The world of miracles has thus been
relegated, to a large extent, to that of “popular
religion,” or the religion of the lower classes.
Nonetheless, in countries such as egypt,
morocco, and indonesia, the belief in miracles,
and in the saints who perform them, remains
strong. Saints are expected to provide assistance,
and stories confirming their miraculous activities
abound. In many cases, even among the popular
classes, the miracles of saints are combined with
a great respect for modern science; a patient may
see a doctor and also pray to the saint. Stories of
saints performing miraculous surgeries of which
doctors are at present incapable are not uncom-
mon. Thus, for many, a world exists in which
the miracle and the modern do not conflict but
complement each other.
See also baraka; reneWal and reForm move-
ments; saint; salaFism; tariqa; Wahhabism; wali;
ziyara.
John IskanderFurther reading: Carl W. Ernst, The Shambhala Guide
to Sufism (Boston and London: Shambhala, 1997);
Michael Gilsenan, Recognizing Islam: Religion and Soci-
ety in the Modern Arab World (New York: Pantheon,
1982); Valerie Hoffman, Sufism, Mystics, and Saints in
Modern Egypt (Columbia: University of South Carolina
Press, 1995); Gregory Starrett, Putting Islam to Work:
Education, Politics, and Religious Transformation in Egypt
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).miraj See night journey and ascent.
Mohammedanism (Muhammedanism)
Mohammedanism is a term used by some schol-
ars and religious officials, particularly those in
eUrope in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries,
to identify Islam. There were previously many
variants of the word, including Mahometanism,
Mahometism, and Mahometry. Early in its usage,
Mohammedanism (and other similar terms) often
conveyed an explicitly hostile description of and
attitude toward islam. At other times, it was used
because of an unwitting overemphasis on the role
of the prophet mUhammad or out of a desire to
present information in a way that would make
sense to Christian Europe.
Mohammedanism misrepresents Islam by imply-
ing that Muhammad is at the center of Islam, the
object of worship guiding the community. Muham-
mad is indeed a central figure in the tradition,
though only insofar as he served as a fully human
conduit for God’s word (qUran) and as a model
for pious and righteous behavior for the commu-
nity. By focusing heavily on Muhammad, the idea
of Mohammedanism as a conceptual category and
descriptive term gave license to some 19th-century
European scholars to claim Islam’s inferiority to
Christianity via criticism of Muhammad’s behavior
and its effect on Islam as a whole. This criticism, in
contrast to the Christian idea of Christ’s perfection,
left Islam as merely a derivative form of Christianity
and not, as Islam itself claims, its successor in the
Abrahamic monotheisms.
Today, use of the term is limited almost wholly
to new editions of older European and North
American texts on Islam.
See also christianity and islam; orientarism.
Caleb ElfenbeinMohammedanism 477 J