The quiet power of presence: Habitus and the ethics of insider madrasa ethnography

Sidat, Haroon Ebrahim 2026. The quiet power of presence: Habitus and the ethics of insider madrasa ethnography. Sociology of Islam 10.1163/22131418-bja10002

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Abstract

This article examines how an alumnus-researcher achieves and ethically sustains ethnographic access to a Deobandī dār al-ʿulūm in contemporary Britain. Challenging models that frame access primarily as a matter of verbal negotiation or formal gatekeeping, it argues that access is often conferred through embodied ethics—moral alignment, vocational congruence, and relational presence. Drawing on fourteen months of insider ethnography, the article introduces the concept of the Quiet Power of Presence to describe how companionship (ṣuḥba), imitation (tashabbuh), and immersion within the maslak generate trust and legitimacy before methodological performance. Situating this dynamic within theories of habitus, insider ethnography, and Islamic pedagogical traditions, the study shows that knowledge, authority, and ethical formation are transmitted relationally rather than solely textually. It further challenges reductive portrayals of British madrasas as insular or epistemically rigid by documenting the practical integration of dīn and dunyā knowledge. The article contributes empirically by foregrounding the lived lifeworlds of British ʿulamāʾ and methodologically by theorising embodied presence as a critical but underexamined condition of access in religious ethnography.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > History, Archaeology and Religion Research Institutes & Centres > Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK (CSIUK)
ISSN:	2213-140X
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	16 February 2026
Date of Acceptance:	10 January 2026
Last Modified:	16 Feb 2026 10:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/184870

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