Creating a Diasporic Public Sphere in Britain: Twelver Shia Networks in London

ABSTRACT

Since the 1980s, the Borough of Brent, in north-west London, has been a major global hub of transnational Twelver Shiism. With the influx of Iraqi refugees, many clerical leaders of Twelver Shia Islam established their European headquarters in Brent, and, in addition to Damascus and Tehran, London became a major centre of Iraqi diaspora politics during Saddam Hussein’s regime. The transnational networks and organizations based in Brent engage in an Islamic ‘transnational public space’, which Bowen defines as a globally operating discursive ‘field of Islamic reference and debate’. Based on ethnographic research in London, the article provides novel insights into the Twelver Shia Muslim organizational field in Britain and its engagement in ‘an alternative diasporic public sphere’ that articulates issues and contestations specific to Shia Muslims living in Britain: what does displacement and migration mean for Shia Muslims who have often escaped oppression, war and civil conflict; how do Shia Muslims in Britain define their relationship to Sunnis in the context of rising sectarianism in the post-Arab Spring Middle East; how do Shia Muslims position themselves towards Iran and its aspiration to be the political leader of global Shiism?

KEYWORDS:

• Twelver Shiism
• diaspora
• transnationalism
• British Islam
• sectarianism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Funding for this project was provided by the Gerda Henkel Foundation as part of the project ‘“Karbala in London”: Transnational Shia Networks between Britain and the Middle East’ (2014–2016).

2 On Mahmud Ghazan’s conversion to Islam, see Melville (1990). It is not entirely clear from where the notion comes that he and his brother converted to Shia Islam.

3 Email Interview, 1 March 2016. London: Office of Sheikh al-Habib.

4 Ibid.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Gerda Henkel Foundation [AZ 01/IS/13].