The Muslim Chronopolis and Diasporic Temporality

Abstract

Two observations can be made concerning the social integration of the Muslim week into mainstream civil time by the Muslims in New York City, irrespective of these diasporic citizens’ country of birth.¹ On the one hand, Muslim immigrants engage in social practices that are regulated by civil society and that follow the rhythms of the civil week. They thus inhabit a diasporized Muslim temporality that has been Americanized. At the same time, however, they also inhabit a temporal enclave or chronopolis that links them to worldwide Islam via an Islamic calendar that gives direction to their daily, weekly, and annual activities. These two sets of social temporalities often intersect and crisscross each other, which makes it important to analyze the Muslim week in American society if we are to understand the mechanisms of the constitution and transglobalization of the American Muslim chronopolis.²