Appropriations of Din, Dunya and Akhira in various Muslim Context

In various sociohistorical contexts, Muslims resort to conceptualizations of life that center on their being in and part of the world. Din (religion), dunya (the temporal world) and akhira (afterlife) are three concepts that have become central to Muslim life and its conceptualizations. Communal belonging, sociopolitical programs and agendas, individual aspirations, but also ideas of self and interactions with others are shaped by these concepts. Muslim self-making (cultivation of knowledge, moral discipline, social engineering, etc.) and commerce (trade, politics, interactions, etc.) are shaped by this tripartite conceptual frame that brings to the fore concerns about here and now, the quotidian and the temporal, but also the tomorrow and afterlife. Setting up and offering normative frames, din, dunya and akhira help make life – individual and collective - materially possible and provide it with value. They help ground moral injunctions and conduct, inspire political orders and organizations and produce visions of the future. Thus, both the experience of life and its projecting rely and build on these concepts, their translations, and appropriations. Taken in concrete historical and geographical contexts, the construction as well as the experience of the world, one may say, have depended and continue to relate to these concepts whose dialectical relationship introduces us to metaphysical claims and moral principles intended to evaluate, make and guide life (intellectual, social, political, etc.).

How are these concepts used in various contexts to characterize, guide and shape particular politics, relationships and perspectives on life? What are the moral regimes that emerge out of the dialectical relationship between these concepts? How does their examination help us understand not only how people coproduce their contexts, relate to and become embedded in their lifeworlds, but also experience humanness? How do they pave the way for political and normative orders, inform subjectivities, produce social institutions and set life in motion? Beyond Islam, and since making sense of these concepts goes beyond simply explaining and historicizing them, what do they add to attempts (religious or not) at speaking of and having a take on life and the world?

Concepts – and in particular in this case - are not mere linguistic devices and abstract architecture used to speak and say the world. They are deeply rooted in aspirations and visions of how one ought to live, actually experiences being in the world, interacts with others and projects the future. Indicators of theological, philosophical, anthropological and political manifestations of how human beings position, relate and exist in the world, the contributions to this special issue contend that the concepts of din, dunya and akhira should be viewed and investigated as pretexts for, manifestations and triggers of social pragmatics and politics. Pragmatics in this case refer to the ways in which being and living within a social context necessitates and demands ethical evaluation (Fassin 2018), actions, calculation, navigation (Christiansen, Utas, and Vigh 2006) and therefore agency through individual or collective projecting.