Snapshots
Muslim counter-elites in Central Asia and the Middle East
  • Interview with Stéphane Dudoignon — Chargé de recherche — CNRS (CETOBaC)
Who knows that Muslim counter-elites have constituted opposition forces to Russian Empires as well as to present Iranian State? How to rethink the concept of civil society through the analysis of Muslim minorities in the Russian worlds? What insights does a vision of a “wider Middle East” – enlarged to Central Asia – bring? As an historian, Stéphane Dudoignon first studied Muslim counter-elites in the last decades of the tsarist Empire, as well as in the last decades of the soviet Empire: in both cases, he observed how political life became confessional and how this process went in hand with the maintaining of imperial power. Then, he broadened the comparison to the Middle East, showing how Sunni schools of Iran's Balochistan promote a minority identity against Shiite post-revolution Iranian State. These different forms of confessional political activity demonstrate the diversity of political forms of Islam. Avoiding any romantic vision of these movements, often seen in a simplistic way as a barrier against salafism, Stéphane Dudoignon also recalls the importance of analyzing political relations below State level.
Details
Islam
Central Asia
Religion
Civil society
Iran
Middle East
Summary
A comparative analysis of different Muslim minorities and their political role in Central Asia and the Middle East.
Interview published on 03-05-2018
Last modified on 04-11-2018
Original language: English Lire la version French
  • Biography
  • Bibliography of Stéphane Dudoignon
  • Thematic bibliography

The Baluch, Sunnism and the State in Iran: from tribal to global, New York, Oxford University Press, 2017.

“Électorat spolié, lobby prospère? Les Sunnites d’Iran et les présidentielles de 2013”, Les dossiers du CERI, may 2013.

(with Christian Noack, ed.), The Kolkhozes of Allah: Migration, De-Stalinisation, Privatisation and New Muslim Congregations in the USSR, and After (1950s-2000s), Berlin, Klaus Schwarz, 2013.

(with Saidahmad Qalandar), “‘They Were All from the Country’: The Revival and politicisation of Islam in the Lower Wakhsh River Valley of the Tajik SSR (1947-1997)”, in S.A. Dudoignon, C. Noack (ed.), The Kolkhozes of Allah: Migration, De-Stalinisation, Privatisation and New Muslim Congregations in the USSR and After (1950s-2000s), Berlin, Klaus Schwartz, 2013.

“Inter-Confessional Relations in Iran: Conflicts and Transfers in the Aftermath of 9/11”, in H. E. Chehabi, F. Khosrokhavar, C. Therme (ed.), Iran and the Challenges of the Twenty-First Century, Londres, New York, Routledge, 2013.

“Sunnis & Shiites in Iran since 1979: Confrontations, Exchanges, Convergences”, in B. Maréchal, S. Zemni (ed.), Sunni & Shiite Islam: Their Relations in Modern Times, Londres, Hurst, 2013.

(with Komatsu Hisao, ed.), Islam in politics in Russia and Central Asia: early eighteenth to late twentieth centuries, Londres, Routledge, 2009.

Tchulpân (Add al-Hamid Sulaymân), Nuit, Saint-Pourçain-sur-Sioule, Éditions Bleu autour, 2009.