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Crime, Deviance and Popular Culture pp 315–334Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Modern Sports as a Deviant Practice? How Not to Play Sports According to the Islamic Online Fatâwâ

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Abstract

Sport is the subject of numerous research inquiries in relation to Muslim youth and can be a tool to promote their social integration within Western societies (Testa & Amara, Sport in Islam and in Muslim Communities. Routledge, 2015). However, when the ‘deviant’ side of sport is investigated, it is often in relation to rule-breaking, violence or social control (Atkinson & Young, Deviance and Social Control in Sport. Human Kinetics, 2008). Very few studies have focused on modern sport as a form of deviant practice in relation to religion. This chapter aims to investigate how modern sport can be framed as a deviant practice and which, if any, principle in Islam can be used to define modern sport as a deviant activity for its believers.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/05/christians-remain-worlds-largest-religious-group-but-they-are-declining-in-europe/.

  2. 2.

    Albeit the positions taken by Islamic scholars in this chapter do not completely reflect the views of all Muslims (but may be reflected in what we might call the Islamic orthodox community), they are useful for understanding a significant part of the Muslim population that wishes to practice sport but at the same time are divided between its quasi-religious nature, Western value-oriented traits and their Muslim identity.

  3. 3.

    See Quran; 3:103 in http://quran.com/3/103.

  4. 4.

    ‘In the legal field, the Sunnah complements and stands alongside the Quran, giving precision to its precepts. The Sunnah encompasses knowledge believed to have been passed down from previous generations and representing an authoritative, valued, and continuing corpus of beliefs and customs’ (Cf. http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e2279). The Hadith includes ‘a report of the words and deeds of Muhammad and other early Muslims…. They serve as a source of biographical material for Muhammad, contextualization of Quranic revelations, and Islamic law’. (Cf. http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e758).

  5. 5.

    See http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t236/e0243.

    Fatwâ is derived from the root fata, which includes the meanings ‘youth, newness, clarification, explanation’ in the semantic field. In the Quran, the term is used in two verbal forms meaning ‘asking for a definitive answer’ and ‘giving a definitive answer’ (4:127, 176), although neither passage has a binding clause.

  6. 6.

    It is important to clarify that the author of the chapter does not claim that the Fatwâs collected represent the entirety of the Islamic world, which is geopolitically and socio-culturally fragmented.

  7. 7.

    The analysis of this chapter was also supported by 15 semi-structured interviews with Italian Muslim youth who were members of the Giovani Musulmani d’ Italia (the only major multi-ethnic Italian Muslim youth organisation). The research started in 2012 and focused on Italian Muslim youth, their marginalisation and their experiences in relation to Islamophobia and discrimination. The author also interviewed two imams (spiritual leaders) in two major Italian cities (Turin and Rome).

  8. 8.

    MAXQDA is a programme designed to facilitate and support qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods research projects. It allows you to import, organise, analyse, visualise and publish all forms of data that can be collected electronically, including interviews, surveys, (PDF) documents, tables (Excel/SPSS), bibliographic data, pictures, videos, web pages and even tweets. With its comprehensive range of functions, from transcription to inferential statistical analysis, MAXQDA is an ‘all in one’ software for research and teaching purposes in numerous disciplines. Cf. https://www.maxqda.com/what-is-maxqda.

  9. 9.

    Bourdieu’s focus on the unconscious to understand human practices is supported by recent neuroscience studies; unconscious system processes seem to be the silent engine of human psychological functions (Bargh, 2014; Damasio, 2010; Ginot, 2015; Koziol & Budding, 2010). Ginot (2015) argues that the ‘unconscious is, in essence, an instrumental system that actively relates to the external world and learns through perceptions, priming, and actions’ (Ginot, 2015, p. 34).

  10. 10.

    A field is ‘a network or configuration of objective relations between positions occupied by social actors’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 2007, p. 97); in fields, actors manifest and reproduce dispositions (Habitus).

  11. 11.

    ‘Sharia is an all-encompassing term that includes not only laws in the western sense of the word but [also] religious observances such as fasting and prayer, ritual practices such as halal slaughter, and worship in general’ (UK Secretary of State for the Home Department, Independent Review, 2018, p. 4). A field is ‘a network or configuration of objective relations between positions occupied by social actors’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 97); in fields, actors manifest and reproduce dispositions (Habitus).

  12. 12.

    See http://quran.com/2/19.

  13. 13.

    See Islamqa.info 10238.

  14. 14.

    See Testa and Amara (2015).

  15. 15.

    See http://albawaba.com/sports/dubai-grand-mufti-exempts-uae-olympic-team-fasting-426747.

  16. 16.

    See http://bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16962799.

  17. 17.

    See http://quran.com/3/103.

  18. 18.

    See http://quran.com/6/160.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of West London, London, UK

    Alberto Testa

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  1. Alberto Testa
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  1. School of Law, Criminal Justice & Computing, Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, UK

    Dimitris Akrivos

  2. School of Law, University of Essex, Colchester, UK

    Alexandros K. Antoniou

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Testa, A. (2019). Modern Sports as a Deviant Practice? How Not to Play Sports According to the Islamic Online Fatâwâ. In: Akrivos, D., Antoniou, A.K. (eds) Crime, Deviance and Popular Culture. Palgrave Studies in Crime, Media and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04912-6_13

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