PROGRAMME AND ABSTRACTS - Università degli Studi di Messina

Susanne Olsson, Södertörn University, Sweden
European Fatawa
117
The European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR), founded in 1997, consists of Muslim
clerics of various nationalities and backgrounds, among others the well known Yusuf al-
Qaradawi. The ECFR publishes fatawa, ‘juridical rulings’, that normatively answers questions
that often relates to a Muslim minority situation in the ‘Western world’. A foundational aim of
the Council is to be an organ of Islamic knowledge to the Muslim community in general
(ummah) and Muslims living in the ‘Western world’ specifically. My paper will investigate
how ECFR views the Islamic law (shariah) as compared to civil laws and national
constitutions. The paper will outline the basic strategies of the ECFR in juridical issues and
how it views the minority situation of Muslims, i.e. how they should relate to integration,
“democracy” and secular laws, for example. The paper will look into what the sources are that
the ECFR relies on in its fatawa. This is related and compared to the Discussion concerning
“Euroislam”, represented mainly by Tariq Ramadan.
Michaela Ondrašinová, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Wed 16 th , 15.40, Classroom 4
To Share, or not to Share? Detraditionalized Spirituality and the Christian Tradition
This conference paper is concerned with relations between detraditionalized spirituality and the
Christian tradition. The project is focused on participants of detraditionalized spirituality
activities and on the question what role does their relation to Christianity play in
conceptualization of their identities, while Christianity is conceived as a European cultural
heritage, cultural memory or tradition as well as a system linked closely to a particular
institution and organization (within this project, the Catholic Church). The paper considers not
only negative self-differentiation of the spiritual milieu participants from Christianity or the
Catholic Church (the opposition between spiritual and religious/Christian identity), but also
ways of using Christianity as a resource for one's spiritual identity. Special attention is paid to
persons who simultaneously participate in the spiritual milieu activities and belong to the
Catholic Church and thus somehow blur the borderlines between religion and detraditionalized
spirituality. It explores their strategies of coping with such position in the religious field and
ways of re-conceptualization of their identity in the context of mixed reactions from the
spiritual milieu side as well as in the context of the Catholic strategies of exclusion and
normalization. Discussion of these issues is part of ongoing research of detraditionalized
spirituality in the Czech Republic, and is based on discourse analysis of interviews, speeches
and documents related to the topic.
Yoshimi Orii, Nihon University, Japan
Tue 15 th , 17.40, Classroom 13
Theological conflict on the concept of Acasus (Coincidence): The Catholic Mission in Japan
during the 16th and 17th centuries
Through the experience of European missionaries who came to Japan from the second half of
sixteenth century, they got the insight that Japanese indigenous thought lacked the concept of
God as providence. When European printing press was introduced after thirty years’ endeavor,
they put emphasis on this Christian discourse -God as providence and creator of every being-
in their catechisms or apologetic works so local people could assimilate the teleological view
of the world. But this Christian discourse was explained in a very complicated and distorted