Out of the Miqlaatun Into the Fire: The Shariazation of Ireland’s Direct Provision Institution and its Impact on Transgender Asylum Seekers

Abstract

This article explores the asylum world of trans and transfeminine international protection applicants and their flight from heated religiosity. It uses a triangular approach to illustrate how one attempts to conform under Sharīaʿ law and delivers a textual analysis of the counterstrokes that emigrate from Islam. A part of the article gives an autoethnographical account of the ingroup advantages in this fieldwork relationship, and the parlous state of encountering a post-Wahhabistic form of social control by so-called asylum morality police in Direct Provision. In view of the fact that Sharīaʿ law and its ramifications are a source of persecution, this article seeks to understand how its enforcement affects trans and transfeminine international protection applicants in Ireland. The composition of this article further assays the religious enclave’s characterological attitudes through the abstract ideas of hisba and cultural opprobrium. It informs on the evaluative research used to understand the autoethnography of complaining while trans, and how institutions in Ireland respond to such complaints. The strategy of ‘complete participation’ was not restrictive, due to being a bona fide member of the environment studied. However, complete participation resulted in emotional and mental distress. This fieldwork also places one in the line of fire, such as having one’s integrity questioned. In essence, this article seeks to understand why practices are absent that would mitigate a culture of social control dominated by asylum seekers.

Keywords: asylum morality police, Direct Provision, LGBT, Ireland, Isabella Effect, Islam, ostracism, hisba, asylum seeker, transgender, morality