Deen and Dunya: Islam, street spirituality, crime and redemption in English road culture
| Published date | 01 May 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13624806231184172 |
| Author | Ebony Reid,Jonathan Ilan |
| Date | 01 May 2024 |
Deen and Dunya: Islam,
street spirituality, crime
and redemption in English
road culture
Ebony Reid
Brunel University, UK
Jonathan Ilan
City University of London, UK
Abstract
This article presents ethnographic and media analysis that explores how Islam has come
to shape conceptions of the material, sacred, crime and redemption in contemporary
English street culture. Islam’s clear dichotomy between the mundane ‘Dunya’and sacred
‘Deen’shape how socio-economically marginalised, ethnic minority men make sense of
the world around them. Stark inequalities have tainted the material world for the UK’s
most disadvantaged, prompting them to seek redemption entirely outside it –in the
world of the sacred where they can experience warmth. In analysing their experiences
we highlight how paths to desistance have arguably been overlooked where analyses of
Islam in street culture have focused on questions of radicalisation.
Keywords
desistance, ethnic minorities, ethnography, marginalisation, redemption, religion, street culture
Corresponding author:
Jonathan Ilan, UCD Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
Email: jonathan.ilan1@ucd.ie
Article
Theoretical Criminology
2024, Vol. 28(2) 232–249
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/13624806231184172
journals.sagepub.com/home/tcr
Introduction
Existing studies of the relationship between crime, redemption, and the religion of Islam
have arguably owed more to the security concerns of western states than to the everyday
struggles of those who live at the socio-economic margins. For these reasons, questions of
radicalisation and imprisonment have been at the forefront of scholarship, while signifi-
cantly less attention has been paid to the discursive significance of Islam within the life-
worlds of the disadvantaged. This article takes a fundamentally different approach from
its antecedents, highlighting the theoretical consequences of our empirical exploration of
the way in which young disadvantaged, ethnic minority men in English urban centres
have been utilising concepts of the ‘Dunya’and ‘Deen’to explain their lives and experi-
ences, and to overcome feelings of crisis and malaise. Developing the concept of ‘street
spirituality’, we go beyond the argument that contemplating the sacred can provide a
salve against material deprivation. Instead, we argue that the pressures and ambivalence
of late-capitalism inject a toxicity into the ways in which the marginalised experiencethe
material world, to the extent that they can only conceive of peace and redemption outside
it. Exploring the complex entanglements of the sacred and profane, crime and redemp-
tion, this article indicts the failure of contemporary socio-economic structures to
provide a sufficiently meaningful and inclusive secular–material existence for those on
the margins. Street subjects deeply engage in processes of moral reasoning and develop-
ment, the implications of which raise grave doubts about the capacities of current models
of secular rehabilitation to facilitate behaviour and identity change in starkly unequal
societies.
Far removed from geopolitics and formal theology, the analysis here rests on everyday
discourse in spaces of deprivation. As non-Muslims, we recognise the importance of
scholarship contributed by those who follow Islam and write with the utmost respect
for the faith and its adherents. We present two forms of data in combination: the first
author’s insider ethnography of men ‘trapped’in London’s violent drug economy, and
the second author’s immersive analysis of British rap music and video-based street
culture. The empirical picture painted balances depth and breadth: lived experience
and cultural patterns. We first consider a range of literatures: on street culture and mar-
ginality; crime, imprisonment, redemption and Islam; and the sociology of the sacred.
We next discuss methodological concerns before moving on to the substantive sections
of the article examining: Islam as street spirituality; the Dunya and toxic materiality;
Deen and redemption.
From the streets to the sacred by way of the prison
In the early 21st century West, understandings of the relationship between the Islamic
faith and criminality have arguably become dominated by fears about, and to a far
lesser extent the experience of, jihadi terrorism (Jackson, 2007; Quraishi, 2017). This
approach has had significant consequences for Muslim communities in terms of experi-
enced Islamophobia (Mason and Poynting, 2007) and securitisation (Awan, 2012). While
studies of religion, criminality and desistance have tended to find that spiritual develop-
ment reduces reoffending (Adamcyk et al., 2017; Maruna et al., 2006) this has not
Reid and Ilan233
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