Druze Reincarnation Narratives : : Previous Life Memories, Discourses, and the Construction of Identities.

• Author: Fartacek, Gebhard.
• Place / Publishing House: Frankfurt a.M. : : Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften,, 2021.; ©2021.
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (222 pages)

This book is concerned with conceptions of rebirth among the Druze in the Middle East. Based on ethnographic field research and interviews with interlocutors, the book explores constructions of personal and collective identities from the perspectives of social anthropology, Middle Eastern studies, cultural geography, and political science.

Table of Contents

Cover -- Copyright Information -- Table of Contents -- Introductory Remarks -- Ethnographic Insights: Narratives Dealing with Previous Life Memories Among the Druze (Gebhard Fartacek) -- Preliminary epistemological and methodological remarks -- Cases of "speaking" children: Descriptions given by those affected -- CASE A: │"And I suddenly recognised the tomb keeper as my cousin from my previous life" - A nāṭiq describes his life between two generations -- CASE B: │ "My father liked his ex-parents and his ex-family more than our family here" - The son of a nāṭiq describes a kinship relationship established across generations -- CASE C: │ "You are my friend, not my father" - A nāṭiq speaks about his advantageous life in an extended family -- │ CASE D: -- CASE E: │ "Mahmud Abu Amjad*, who I was in my last life, died poor. He lived poor and he died poor" - A nāṭiq as a connection between two feuding clans -- CASE F: │ "It turned out to be a lovely photograph, but it feels strange" - A nāṭiq affected by the transience of time and clashing expectations -- CASE G: │ "At the beginning, the boy always said that his mother in this life was not his mother, but that subsided over time" - A Syrian doctor speaks about his nephew -- CASE H: │ "These feelings are very difficult... one wants to live between two generations, the previous generation and the current generation!" - A nāṭiqa from Syria shares her biography as a voice message -- CASE I: │ "Nice and not nice" - A nāṭiqa from the Shūf mountains in Lebanon reports on a difficult childhood -- CASE J: │ "I remember my previous life to learn from it but not to step into it (again)" - A nāṭiq who is aware of his previous family but reluctant to initiate contact -- A tentative ethnographic analysis of the narrated nuṭq cases -- Comparing nuṭq narratives: Similarities in their structure and content.

Ugly causes of death -- The nature and content of previous-life memories -- The moment of discovering or recognising people one was close to in a previous life -- Forms of proof: Characteristics, physical features, knowledge of facts or familiarity with secrets -- Reactions and the social embedding of cases in the here and now -- Establishment of new kinship ties versus rejection: On the ethnosociological realisation of nuṭq cases -- Preliminary ethnosociological considerations -- Integration versus distancing: Two opposed modes of constructing kinship constituted by nuṭq -- Conceptualised versus lived kinship: "Speakers" in double roles -- "Typical" problems with relatives as a hallmark of "authentic" kinship ties -- Conflicts of interest versus value conflicts: The potential of nuṭq to bridge rifts between rival factions -- Ambivalent, idealised and subversive discourses -- Critical voices motivated by concern for children -- Euphoric statements on the significance of nuṭq for society as a whole: "Nuṭq brings people together!" -- Dynamite for families and retributive justice: The truth is uncovered by nuṭq! -- Literature -- The Different Appearance of the Identical: Some Thoughts About How the Druze Discourse on Transmigration Connects Lives (Lorenz Nigst) -- Introduction -- Taqammuṣ as a set of abstract assertions -- Why do souls migrate? The discourse of divine justice -- Where do souls migrate to and from? Bringing human beings in relation in society -- Transmigration "from within": Unknown connections between a person and a place in society -- From where to where? Predictions about a person's connections with a place in society -- From where to where? Connections becoming known through "speaking" -- Connections coming to light: Annoying and odd dimensions of the "return".

Finding out about the previous personal identity: The "return" of someone lost to death -- "Speaking": Referring to an additional frame of reference -- Returning to a unique place: Making the relation of identity "real" -- Proving the connections: "Returning" to the proof -- Living the connections: Living the "return" -- Suppressing connections: "Silencing" the "speaking" child and stalling the "return" -- Acquiescing to the connections: Accepting "return" as a need of the "speaking" child -- Meaningful "returns": Retributive and reparative justice -- Conclusion -- Literature -- "For us, death does not exist and the taqammuṣ keeps us close": Reincarnation and Subjectivities in the World of the Druze (Eléonore Armanet) -- Introduction -- A brief presentation of the Druze community -- Methodological and epistemological considerations -- Transmigration, unitarian rhetoric and community affects -- The breath (ar-rūḥ) and the body (al-jism) -- "Us Druze, we're all relatives" (iḥna drūz, kullna qarāʼib) -- Taqammuṣ and the social fabric of the individual: caring for infants -- Ethics, agency and Druze subjectivities -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgements -- Literature -- Leaving Things in Abeyance: Druze Shaykhs Speaking About Transmigration on TV (Lorenz Nigst) -- Introduction -- How do members of the Druze religious establishment speak about transmigration in such contexts? -- Leaving things in abeyance: Is the notion that souls migrate an adequate description of what really happens? -- Leaving things in abeyance: Does the fact that someone has memories of a previous life indicate that those things really happened to him or her? -- Conclusion -- Literature -- Devotions to a Druze Saint: From Philosopher to Founder Saint of the Community (Nour Farra Haddad) -- The Druze community and its sanctuaries in Lebanon: an introduction.

Maqām Nabī Bahāʼad-Dīn in Shārūn-Shamlīkh, Mount Lebanon -- Nabī Bahāʼad-Dīn: A pillar and founder of the Druze religion -- Visits and rituals at maqām Nabī Bahāʼad-Dīn: A Druze saint full of baraka -- Universal wisdom, timeless holiness, shared devotions and rituals in search of baraka -- Literature -- Landscape Imprint of Mortuary Dwellings in Different Sociocultural Context: A Comparison of Christian and Druze Funerary Practices in Lebanon and Syria (Salma Samaha) -- Conceptions of death imprint distinctively on landscape: Some preliminary remarks -- Case studies: A comparison of the mortuary dwellings in Shūf mountain (Lebanon) and Suwaydāʼ (Syria) -- Profiling the sites -- The landscape distinction of burial elements: Identical representation of death for different conceptions of belief -- Religiously specific versus mixed mortuary dwellings -- Annexes to houses of the dead used as landscape markers -- Conclusion -- Literature -- The Druze as a Political Entity in the Modern State: An Overview of the Contemporary Situation in Syria, Lebanon and Israel (Tobias Lang) -- Introduction -- The Druze in the modern state -- A formula for Druze political behaviour? -- Areas of Druze settlement -- Syria -- Lebanon -- Israel -- "A minority with no minority feelings" -- The Syrian Druze as a political entity -- From the periphery to the centre of Syrian politics (and back again) -- The question of communal leadership -- 2011 onwards: How to respond to the crisis -- Lingering conflict with the regime -- The Idlib Druze and the Islamist challenge -- Lebanon: From domination to marginalisation -- Kamāl Junblāṭ and the revolutionary legacy -- The pragmatic leadership of Walīd Junblāṭ -- Walīd Junblāṭ and the Druze in post-war Lebanon -- Present and future of Druze leadership in Lebanon -- Israel: Forming a leadership -- Contemporary Israeli Druze leadership.

The policy of de-Arabisation, the narrative of blood bond and its limits -- Concluding remarks -- Literature -- Final Comment: Reincarnation and Viability in a Fractured World (Gebhard Fartacek) -- The principle of the transmigration of souls as a cosmological bridge between Druze localities and regions and the rest of the world -- "Speaking" children as living bridges between localities, regions and the rest of the world -- The interdependence between taqammuṣ as part of a worldview and empirically existent nuṭq cases -- taqammuṣ │ nuṭq as a form of coping with life -- Appendix 1: Short Biographies of the Authors -- Appendix 2: Table of Figures.