Abstract
This article, based on twenty in-depth interviews, examines the experiences of Muslim interfaith spiritual care providers in US healthcare institutions. These Muslim chaplains represent a public face of a minority religious community; provide a ministry of presence or accompaniment for those in the healthcare institution; and exercise a new form of professionalized religious leadership in the Islamic tradition. The border between religious leader and spiritual caregiver, between imam and chaplain, is blurry, gendered, and contested. We outline how Muslim healthcare chaplains interpret their authority, function, and identity within a professional space defined by dominant American religious norms as well as by shifting standards for leadership within American Muslim communities. We argue that the Christian hegemony often masked by “spiritual care” discourse and educational practice impels Muslim chaplains to critically evaluate, recover, and adapt traditional sources integral to the professional development of contemporary American Muslim religious leaders.
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Notes
Mattingly here borrows Gloria Anzaldua’s powerful metaphor of la frontera (literally, the US-Mexico border region) as the space of mixing where hybrid identities, languages, cultures, and sexualities emerge (Anzaldua, 1987).
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This study was funded by an Association of Professional Chaplains-Transforming Chaplaincy Pilot Project Grant.
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Both authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Lance D. Laird, Samsiah Abdul-Majid, Magda Mohamed, and Shareda Hosein. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Laird, and Abdul-Majid revised several versions of the manuscript. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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The authors state that they have no conflicts of interest. The first author has no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose. The second author is research committee chair for the Association of Muslim Chaplains.
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The “Mapping Muslim Chaplaincy” project was approved as an exempt study by the Boston University Medical Campus Institutional Review Board.
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This study was granted exempt status by the Boston University Medical Campus Institutional Review Board. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
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Laird, L.D., Abdul-Majid, S. Muslim Chaplains in the Clinical Borderlands: Authority, Function, and Identity. J Relig Health 62, 147–171 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-022-01644-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-022-01644-z