Guardianship in Transition: Contextual Embodiment of Islamic Tenets Among Iranians in Kentucky

This article engages with current discussions on Islamic authority, proposing an approach that regards the bottom-up experiences, agency, and exegetical intervention of ordinary practitioners as equivalent to those of experts. Focusing on guardianship, this article examines how Iranians understand and transform this Quranic concept within the specific context of Kentucky, and how these understandings are shaped by observing local Christian practices that exclusively emphasize biblical authority. Through ethnographic analysis, this article explores how these Iranians have challenged the prevailing exegesis that restricts guardianship solely to the Islamic jurist (faqīh). This specific setting, removed from any institutionalized religious authority, has empowered them to collectively articulate their exegetical tensions, contradictions, and paradoxes over the pertinent verses as Islamic—concerning guardianship in this study—and also to strategically harmonize their interpretations and practices with the Christian context to gain recognition, acceptance, and cultural integration.