Praise and Thanks be to God: Public and Religious Descriptions of Disability in Kuwait
"Praise and thanks be to God" is a common phrase uttered when disabled people are seen in public places in the Arab and Islamic world. This phrase is ingrained in people's minds as a result of the influence of cultural and religious discourses. This author explores the influence of su...
| Published in: | Journal of disability & religion |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Taylor & Francis
[2019]
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| In: |
Journal of disability & religion
Year: 2019, Volume: 23, Issue: 1, Pages: 59-89 |
| Further subjects: | B
Disability
B Islam B Poststructuralism B Kuwait B Foucault B Religions |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) |
| Summary: | "Praise and thanks be to God" is a common phrase uttered when disabled people are seen in public places in the Arab and Islamic world. This phrase is ingrained in people's minds as a result of the influence of cultural and religious discourses. This author explores the influence of such discourses on perceiving disability and disabled people in an Islamic country, Kuwait. The author initially explores the power of Islam through the past to the modern age. The author then discusses how disability is perceived through different cultures before focusing on an exploration of the nature of Kuwaiti culture and how the cultural and religious discourses around disability have been shaped. The author draws on poststructuralist and Foucauldian analyses to explore the views of six young disabled people in Kuwait on the cultural and religious discourses regarding disability. The author also explores the views of a Kuwaiti Salafi Imam on how the Islamic religion perceives disability and disabled people. The participants, in opposition to the Imam's views, believe that people's attitudes and some religious interpretations regarding disability provide a distorted picture of disabled people. The findings also reveal how the participants locate the "problem" of disability in their bodies by accepting words such as healthy or normal when referring to nondisabled people, thereby reinforcing the notion of "normality." |
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| ISSN: | 2331-253X |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of disability & religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/23312521.2019.1567297 |