ABSTRACT
Returning home to Northeast Bangladesh after an absence of ten years, Abdul Rouf is a picture of Islamic piety. Although he has lived and worked in Britain for most of his adult life, he appears untouched by Western secularity; more than anyone in his homestead, he prays regularly, and spends long hours reading the Qur͗ān Sharīf. He also has the shaved head and white robes of a ḥājjī, for like many return migrants he visited Mecca on his way back from London. Abdul Rouf seems to represent a new form of Islam in Bangladesh: one that focuses upon (in Geertz’s phraseology) ‘core symbols’ such as pilgrimage to Mecca, and Arab text, which are both ideologically and physically distant to Bangladesh. The dominance of these symbols is combined with puritanical definitions of ‘correct’ Islam – always presented as fixed and immutable. These changes are increasingly taking the place of belief and practice focused upon local religious sites and figures.
