Browsing by Author "Ashraf Khan Kayani"

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    God, culture, and old age: social constructions of gerontological experience in a muslim society
    (Casa Verde Publishing, 2008) Ahmad Raza; Ashraf Khan Kayani; Hasan Sohaib Murad
    The paper explores the social constructions of “gerontological experience” in the context of Muslim society, particularly Pakistan. Old-age occupies a socially significant mode of collective experience through which social continuity of tradition as well as practice is communicated to the posterity. It is predominantly associated with wisdom, self-poise and benevolence in the general social experience of the society. The “old” is looked upon as the cultural repositories of knowledge, experience and historical connectivity. The “gerontological experience” is deeply embedded in the social structure of the family, wherein the process of “aging” is taken as natural and social given to be revered by the young ones and joyfully lived by the “old.” The social perception of being an “oldman” as a meaningful construct in the society is derived from the unique spiritual, ontological and historical symbolism of the society and its continued traditions of such forms of social legitimization. Finally the paper concludes with a contemporary redefinition of the “gerontological experience” amidst the emerging “technological” transformation currently experienced by the society and future shape of social recontextualization of the “old-age” facing new social scenarios.