Kaliszewska, Schmidt and Kaleta (2022)

Kaliszewska, Iwona, Jagoda Schmidt and Marek Kaleta

2022

The Islamic Framing of the Economic Activities of Salafi-oriented Muslims in Dagestan, North Caucasus: An Anthropological Approach

Slavic Review

81

2

442-461

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/slavic-review/article/islamic-framing-of-the-economic-activities-of-salafioriented-muslims-in-dagestan-north-caucasus-an-anthropological-approach/36A79A3CA1BF97C64AB85C4E4FA2FABF

In this paper, we explore the entanglement of spiritual and economic life through the example of Dagestani, Salafi-oriented entrepreneurs who try to live out their religious ideals in moral economic practices. We ask how living a religious life shapes economic behavior and its moral dimensions, and how the gradual acquisition of the norms of an Islamic economy influences the everyday economic practices of Salafi-oriented Muslims in Dagestan. Drawing on Stephen Gudeman's market-community framework, and offering our research as a corrective, we show how an Islamic framing of everyday economic activities and the gradual acquisition of the norms of the Islamic economy allows Salafi-oriented Muslims to escape traditional obligations, and to some extent, “the state,” while at the same time bestowing meaning on “cold” market relations. As a result, instead of escaping the market-society script (that they criticize), they reinforce it. Our analysis is based on the results of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Dagestan between 2014 and 2018.

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