<Special Feature 1 "Islam as a Source of Contemporary Thought: New Advances and Outlooks">Embodying Islamic Thought through Karate: A Reconsideration of Modern Sports and Indigenization in Iran

Abstract

This paper has explored a contemporary development of Islamic thought embodied in everyday Muslim behavior by focusing on a karate school in Iranian society. Although sports in the Middle East and Muslim societies came to be a hot topic among the academia in recent years, the relationship between sports and Islam in the region has not usually been discussed in terms of the secular aspect of modern sport that enables participation in sports whatever a player's beliefs. Karate is a good example of a modern sport with a special interpretation as a sport influenced by budō philosophy, which insists on spiritual and physical cultivation as a search for spirituality over obtaining technique. According to my field research in a unique karate school in Iran, their karate practice embodied the Shiite Islamic world view, often influenced by the Iranian state on the one hand, while on the other hand, their practice still remained as a form of modern sport, which was compatible with their ideology. In addition they interpreted the meaning of the practice by themselves and their spiritual cultivation leads to a different way of Muslim life.