Mass Religious Ritual and Intergroup Tolerance: The Muslim Pilgrims' Paradox

Mikhail A. Alexseev · Sufian N. Zhemukhov

jul 2017 · Cambridge University Press

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Under what conditions does in-group pride facilitate out-group tolerance? What are the causal linkages between intergroup tolerance and socialization in religious rituals? This book examines how Muslims from Russia's North Caucuses returned from the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca both more devout as Muslims and more tolerant of out-groups. Drawing on prominent theories of identity and social capital, the authors resolve seeming contradictions between the two literatures by showing the effects of religious rituals that highlight within-group diversity at the same time that they affirm the group's common identity. This theory is then applied to explain why social integration of Muslim immigrants has been more successful in the USA than in Europe and how the largest Hispanic association in the US defied the clash of civilizations theory by promoting immigrants' integration into America's social mainstream. The book offers insights into Islam's role in society and politics and the interrelationships between religious faith, immigration and ethnic identity, and tolerance that will be relevant to both scholars and practitioners.

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Mikhail Alexseev is Professor of Political Science at San Diego State University. He is the author of Immigration Phobia and the Security Dilemma (Cambridge, 2006), Center-Periphery Conflict in Post-Soviet Russia (1999), and Threat Assessment, Intelligence, and Global Struggle (1997).

Sufian N. Zhemukhov is Senior Research Associate at George Washington University, Washington DC and Lecturer of History of Islam at University of Maryland, Baltimore. He is co-author of Putin's Olympics: The Sochi Games and the Evolution of Twenty-First Century Russia (2017, with Robert Orttung).