Afterlives of Urban Muslim Asia: Muslim Perspectives on Non-Muslim Minorities in Aleppo, and Life Histories of Aleppine Armenians in Kuwait, 2022-2024

Predominantly Muslim urban centres in Asia – such as Aleppo, Herat, Kabul and Bukhara – have historically been home to sizeable communities of ethno-religious minorities, including Jews, Christians, Sikhs and Hindus. Yet it is widely accepted that conflict and large-scale migrations over the past century, of minorities and Muslims, has led to 'decosmopolitisation'. Scholarship on the migrant communities that identify with these cities tends to reinforce this perception of decosmopolitisation. The hypothesis of this research project is that interreligious relations actually persist, but often unrecognised, in older and newer diasporic contexts, and in appeals to a shared urban heritage. This comparative research programme analyses the ways in which both everyday living and projects of the imagination invoke urban imaginaries, and the extent to which these transcend (or reinforce) religious, sectarian, national and ethnic boundaries. Its empirical focus is on the experiences of ethno-religious minorities and the extent to which legacies of cosmopolitan urban life remain a vital aspect of the cities' Muslim populations. This data collection relates to the Aleppo strand of the project. Questionnaires in Arabic were distributed electronically to Muslim residents and former residents of popular / working-class (sha‘bi) quarters of Aleppo through an Arab Muslim former resident of the Hilluk district of Aleppo who had migrated to Gaziantep during the Syrian civil war (2012-). Life history interviews were also conducted with prominent Aleppine Armenian members of the Armenian community in Kuwait: the priest of the Armenian church in Aleppo, and two leading Syrian Armenian merchants who run successful businesses in Kuwait and play a prominent role in the Armenian community there.<p>Afterlives will research the persistence or avoidance of interreligious relations between Muslims and non-Muslims and the modes by which these elicit or invoke shared urban sensibilities. We will conduct ethnographic fieldwork amongst migrant minority and Muslim communities in London, New York, Vienna, Jerusalem, Istanbul and Vienna and in 3 of the 4 selected cities. The project will document the vitality of legacies of cosmopolitan urban living and the role in these of diasporic communities, and analyse in Muslim Asia how projects of heritage reproduce social boundaries (e.g. between diasporic and settled communities, and urban and non-urban/ not fully urban citizens). Doing so will develop a new and different approach to interreligious relationships that illuminates the importance of shared attachment to urban centres, and enables greater sensitivity in future interventions in the field of tangible and intangible heritage preservation and restoration. First, the project will generate empirical data on the temporal and geographic dispersal of the cities under-study. We will map flows of people through space and time by conducting textual, archival and visual research in countries of origin and sites of migration. Second, Afterlives will investigate how projects of imagination relating to historic centres are produced and sustained, and explore how they point to diversity in Muslim Asia's cultural imaginaries. To do so we will investigate emergent configurations of culture, history, identity and geography in Muslim Asia by exploring the significance of relationships and exchanges between Muslim and ethno-religious minorities to imagination in the region today. We will: interview key actors in the production of imaginaries, focusing especially on cultural elites (intellectuals, musicians, artists, poets, politicians and activists); record the genres (visual, literary, musical, culinary) where such imaginations are generated and sustained and explore ethnographically the sites (digital, political, scholarly, and social) in which they are performed and consumed; explore the implications of architectural reconstruction on such imaginaries by visiting key sites, and interview relevant heritage specialists, local and national policy-makers, pilgrims/tourists, and custodians; trace the use in projects of imagination of knowledge about tangible and intangible heritage preservation. Third, given declining levels of religious diversity in urban centres, it is oft assumed that Silk Road-era commercial relationships between Muslim and non-Muslim merchants are no longer of relevance. Yet our recent fieldwork suggests otherwise: Muslim and Sikh traders from Afghanistan interacted from the 1980s onwards in London and Moscow, for example. To explore such interreligious commercial relationships we will carry out in-depth ethnographic work with diasporic merchants in key trading sites - markets, shops and warehouses - and explore documentary and archival material in the form of autobiographies of merchants and company records. Fourth, to research the 'doing' of connectivity, and the role played by tacit modes of acting across lines of difference in sustaining cultural and religious sensibilities of urban living, we will focus on specific practices, rituals, and expressions of sociality in diaspora communities. We will ask if gender, migration histories, generation, and class position influence the distribution of this skill, exploring the role it has played in facilitating and constraining legacies of collective urban living in diasporas. Beyond our partners, we will share findings with organisations that implement heritage projects (e.g. Aga Khan Foundation, UNESCO, UN Habitat, and Ministry of Culture, Afghanistan), that manage diaspora-homeland relations (e.g. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Afghanistan;) that work on regional conflicts (e.g. Foreign and Commonwealth Office); also with the communities under study and broader publics.</p>亚洲以穆斯林人口为主的城市中心——如阿勒颇、赫拉特、喀布尔与布哈拉——历史上曾孕育过规模可观的民族宗教少数群体（ethno-religious minorities），涵盖犹太教徒、基督徒、锡克教徒与印度教徒。然而学界普遍认为，过去一个世纪以来的冲突与大规模移民（包括少数族裔与穆斯林群体的迁徙）已导致这些城市的“去世界主义化（decosmopolitisation）”。针对依附这些城市的移民社群的相关研究，往往强化了这种去世界主义化的认知。 本研究项目的核心假设为：宗教间关系实则依然存续，但在新旧侨民语境以及对共享城市遗产的诉求中，这种关系往往未被察觉。本比较研究计划旨在分析日常生活与想象力建构如何塑造城市想象图景，以及这些图景在多大程度上跨越（或强化）了宗教、教派、国家与民族边界。本研究的经验性聚焦点为民族宗教少数群体的生活体验，以及世界主义城市生活的遗产在多大程度上仍是这些城市穆斯林群体的重要生活面向。 本次数据采集对应本项目的阿勒颇分支。研究人员通过一位在叙利亚内战（2012年至今）期间迁居至加济安泰普的阿勒颇希卢克区前阿拉伯穆斯林居民，以电子方式向阿勒颇平民/工人阶级（sha‘bi）街区的穆斯林居民与前居民发放了阿拉伯语问卷。研究人员还对科威特亚美尼亚社群中杰出的阿勒颇裔亚美尼亚成员进行了生活史访谈，包括阿勒颇亚美尼亚教会的神职人员，以及两位在科威特经营成功企业并在当地亚美尼亚社群中发挥重要作用的叙利亚亚美尼亚商界领袖。 “后世”（Afterlives）项目将探究穆斯林与非穆斯林之间宗教间关系的存续或规避情形，以及此类关系催生或唤起共享城市感知的具体路径。研究团队将在伦敦、纽约、维也纳、耶路撒冷、伊斯坦布尔及维也纳（原文重复维也纳，疑为输入笔误）的移民少数族裔与穆斯林社群中开展民族志田野调查，覆盖选定4座城市中的3座。本项目将记录世界主义城市生活遗产的活力，以及侨民社群在其中发挥的作用，并分析在穆斯林亚洲地区，遗产建构项目如何再生产社会边界（例如侨民与定居社群之间、城市居民与非城市/未完全城市化公民之间的边界）。通过上述研究，本项目将为宗教间关系研究提供一种全新的研究路径，阐明对城市中心的共同依恋的重要性，并为未来在有形与非物质文化遗产保护与修复领域的干预工作提供更强的敏感度。 其一，本项目将生成关于研究城市的时空分布特征的经验数据。研究团队将通过在起源国与移民目的地开展文本、档案与视觉研究，绘制人口在时空维度上的流动图谱。 其二，“后世”（Afterlives）项目将探究与历史城区相关的想象力建构如何产生并延续，并探讨此类建构如何彰显穆斯林亚洲地区文化想象的多样性。为此，研究团队将通过考察穆斯林与民族宗教少数群体之间的关系与互动对当今该地区想象力建构的意义，探究穆斯林亚洲地区文化、历史、身份与地理的新兴构型。研究团队将开展以下工作：访谈想象力建构过程中的关键行动者，重点关注文化精英群体（包括知识分子、音乐家、艺术家、诗人、政客与活动家）；记录孕育并维系此类想象的媒介类型（视觉、文学、音乐、烹饪），并以民族志方法探究此类想象被展演与接收的场域（数字、政治、学术与社会场域）；通过走访关键遗址，访谈相关遗产专家、地方与国家政策制定者、朝圣者/游客及遗产守护者，探究建筑重建对这类想象的影响；追踪有形与非物质文化遗产保护知识在想象力建构项目中的应用情况。 其三，鉴于城市中心的宗教多样性持续下降，学界通常认为丝绸之路时代穆斯林与非穆斯林商人之间的商业关系已无现实意义。但我们近期的田野调查结果却表明并非如此：例如，自20世纪80年代起，来自阿富汗的穆斯林与锡克教商人便在伦敦与莫斯科开展互动。为探究此类宗教间商业关系，研究团队将在核心交易场所——市场、商铺与仓库——中与侨民商人开展深度民族志研究，并梳理商人自传与企业档案等文献与档案资料。 其四，为探究“联结的实践”，以及跨越差异边界的默会行动模式在维系城市生活的文化与宗教感知中所发挥的作用，研究团队将聚焦侨民社群中的特定实践、仪式与社会交往形式。研究团队将探究性别、移民经历、代际与阶级地位是否会影响此类能力的分布，并分析其在促进或制约侨民社群中集体城市生活遗产存续方面所扮演的角色。 除合作方之外，本项目还将与以下机构及群体分享研究成果：开展遗产项目的组织（如阿迦汗发展基金会（Aga Khan Foundation）、联合国教育、科学及文化组织（UNESCO）、联合国人类住区规划署（UN Habitat）、阿富汗文化部）；负责侨民与母国关系管理的机构（如阿富汗外交部）；参与地区冲突调解的机构（如英国外交、联邦及发展办公室（Foreign and Commonwealth Office））；同时还将向本研究覆盖的社群及更广泛的公众公开研究成果。