The Many Spirits of the Islamic Past

This chapter assesses the presence of spirituality in the way Muslims have narrated the pasts of their communities. It suggests that we can divide Islamic narratives in this arena into four categories: i) narratives that privilege biography and genealogy; ii) narratives that trace the flow of universal time; iii) narratives that map the contours of space as the stage for human action; and iv) narratives that relate an archetypal story which makes all human realities understandable. This typology reveals the past as a contested terrain that is both intensely complex and changeable from context to context. Exploring spirituality and the past together illuminates the relationship between Islamic religious and literary history, and provides tools for contextually sensitive readings of Islamic sources that discuss politics and other worldly matters.