Introduction

‘Although, or maybe even because the duality of Shi‘ism and Sunnism dominates both academic and political discourse on Islam, inner-Islamic movements may counter such polarized narratives’ (Heine and Spielhaus 2008: 25). This finding refers to the results of a survey conducted in 2008 by the German Bertelsmann Foundation called Religionsmonitor. In the survey 19 per cent of the Muslim respondents refused to identify with one of the questionnaire's three possible items of inner Islamic belonging, that is, Sunnism, Shi‘ism and Alevism.

This indifferent share hints at three interrelated aspects that are to be recognised in coming to terms with contemporary Shi‘a identity formations in Germany and beyond. First and foremost, there is the issue of seemingly divergent self-descriptions of actors, called ‘inner-Islamic movements’ here, on the one hand, and academic or political conceptions and categories, on the other. Secondly, there is the reasoning for such an ‘incongruence’ or incommensurability, posing the question of the relation of academic and political speaking/writing and its reception among those who are the subject of such discourses. And thirdly, these two aspects urge the interrogation of the contexts in which such sectarian fault lines are used in making and representing their collective religious identity. Granted that sectarian borders do yield the potential for political mobilisation and are frequently referred to in contexts of conflict (for example, in cases such as Iraq or Yemen) they are apparently less visible or highlighted in contexts where such political mobilisation is not required or otherwise hindered. As such, Heine and Spielhaus also emphasise that the identification as either Sunni, Shi‘ite or Alevi is more important in national contexts where these identities are politically charged and thus amenable for mobilisation (2008: 25). In this context, with regard to the Germanlanguage Shi‘a magazine Al-Fadschr published by the Iranian-funded Islamic Centre in Hamburg, Liselotte Abid has observed that this magazine ‘avoids a characteristic Shii appearance’ (2013: 17) and instead seeks to reach out to all German-speaking Muslims. During my fieldwork among Shi‘a communities in Germany between 2015 and 2017, the question emerged to what degree these communities and individuals articulate their religiosity and practices as specifically ‘Shi‘ite’.