Sazetak

Abstract:

In recent years there has been increasing interest in something called the anthropology of Islam. Publications by Western anthropologists containing the word "Islam" or "Muslim" in the title multiply at a remarkable rate. The political reasons for this great industry are perhaps too evident to deserve much comment. However that may be, here I want to focus on the conceptual basis of this literature. Let us begin with a very general question. What, exactly, is the anthropology of Islam? What is its object of investigation? The answer may seem obvious: what the anthropology of Islam investigates is, surely, Islam. But to conceptualize Islam as the object of an anthropological study is not as simple a matter as some writers would have one suppose.