ABSTRACT
The consequences of what we are used to call “modernity” are nowadays being more and more felt all over our world: nation-states, industrialized modes of production, modern technologies, global systems of communication, international finances and markets, to name some of the features commonly associated with the concept, increasingly influence even the remotest corners of our globe, and serve to describe contemporary conditions in general. This essay questions the adequacy of this approach by looking at some features of a limited area in Pakistan, mostly the Potwar, concentrating on the micro-level of social interaction, looking at questions like marriage, status, or personal attachments, secular and religious. The perspective of an anthropologist, confined to a local dimension of daily interactions, may have the advantage of taking account of the identities of persons and their immediate social contexts. Is it hoped that this perspective will serve to indicate a particular social context in which Islamic features are expressed, and will hint at some problems of broader relevance concerning Muslim societies, although a thorough comparison with the Muslim world in general is beyond the scope of this essay. Nevertheless, the Muslim population addressed here does not submit to the parameters of modernity, and is not likely to do so in the foreseeable future. The institutions and technical features of modernity which have long found their way into Pakistan may more profitably be linked with a process of “modernization”, to be distinguished from “modernity” as a cultural dominant. This distinction may enable us to question the sweeping adoption of Western cultural concepts for the description of contemporary situations in any given niche. The dominant lines along which the perception of reality in Pakistan is organized, and which formulate directions for the dreams, the ideals, and the lines of development of the society, follow patterns which have to be inspected in their own right. Simply to apply categories taken from a 144particular context to people elsewhere, without scrutinizing at least the context in which they are used, may cause these people to feel alienated from a discourse which leaves them no chance to formulate their identities in proper categories.
