ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the ways in which British Shi’i Muslims, across national-origin backgrounds, create new meanings and strategies to practice Shi’i traditions in the United Kingdom. It argues that belonging to a Twelver or Ithna Asheri Shi’i Muslim community, in addition to the wider British Muslim minority and ethno-national diasporic groupings, has become a more salient identity for young Twelver Shi’is in recent years. Drawing from ethnographic research, the chapter shows how British Shi’is are reworking ethnic/religious boundaries and ritual performances in relation to the institutionalization of a wider British Shiism and the social realities and daily experience of life in the UK. Simultaneously, it demonstrates how religious boundary formation and practices are informed and configured by sources of authority across a number of social and mediated transnational spaces, as well as sectarian ideologies and wider geopolitical situations. The chapter demonstrates how second-generation British Shi’is are negotiating authority structures, creatively aligning or realigning themselves to Shi’is from different national-origin backgrounds and striving to establish themselves as social/political actors in British society.
