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Gaining Knowledge. Salafi Activism in German and Dutch Online Forums
Abstract
Recent years have witnessed an expansion of Salafi activism into computer-medi- ated environments like online discussion forums. Forum activities are part of the activists' endeavour to access the religious sources (Quran and Sunnah) and, through these sources, the lives of the prophet Muhammad and the first generations of Muslims. The prophet and the first generations embody the perfect model of a (Muslim) life which Salafi Muslims strive to emulate. This article analyses the knowledge practices of Salafi Muslims in Dutch and German discussion forums re- volving around the religious sources. Knowledge practices are understood as mean- ing-making activities that tell people how to behave and how to "be in the world". Four aspects are central to Salafi knowledge practices in Dutch and German for- ums: (1) Fragmentation and re-alignment form the basic ways of dealing with di- gitized corpus of Islamic knowledge and (2) open the way for Salafi Muslims to en- gage in "Islamic argumentation" in the course of which they "excavate" behaviour- al rules in form of a "script" from Quran and Sunnah. (3) These practices are set within the cognitive collaboration of forum members and part of a broader decent- ralizing tendency within Islam. (4) And finally, narratives and sensual environ- ments circulating in forums help activists to overcome contradictions and ambigu- ities while trying to put the script, which tells them what to do in which situation, into practice.
... Das Phänomen Salafismus wird also häufig als politischer Extremismus, als Sicherheitsoder Integrationsproblem und als zu verhinderndes Phänomen behandelt, während sozialwissenschaftliche und ethnografische empirische Forschungen die Ausnahme bilden (Wiedl/Becker 2014;Damir-Geilsdorf 2014;El-Mafaalani 2014). Nur wenige Publikationen wie die der Politologin Carmen Becker (2009Becker ( , 2011, die Medienpraktiken von sich selbst der salafiyya zuschreibenden Muslimen untersucht, entziehen sich explizit der Sicherheitsperspektive. ...
... Hierzu bedarf es anderer Forschungsmethoden wie beispielsweise der Ethnografie oder der qualitativen Sozialforschung, die aber in Bezug auf salafistische Milieus in Deutschland bislang kaum zum Einsatz gekommen sind. Ausnahmen bilden hier die Arbeiten von Becker (2009Becker ( , 2011, Wiedl und Becker (2014), Damir-Geilsdorf (2014) ...
... undEl-Mafaalani (2014), dessen qualitative Studie über junge salafistisch orientierte Muslime oben bereits ausführlich zitiert wurde. Jenseits der unterschiedlichen inhaltlichen Schwerpunkte, die die Autorinnen und Autoren verfolgen, verdeutlichen ihre Beiträge, die Heterogenität des Milieus.So untersucht CarmenBecker (2009Becker ( , 2011 deutsche und niederländische salafistische Internetforen und Chatrooms. In ihrer mehrjährigen Feldforschung hat sie sowohl online als auch offline geforscht und neben teilnehmender Beobachtung auch Interviews mit Männern und Frauen geführt, die sich selbst der Salafiyya zuschreiben. ...
... In addition, this condition also shows that in the long term the internet has also strengthened the growth of online social networking culture and at the same time encouraged the individualization and privatization of faith. Thus, the Internet simultaneously also encourages the adjustment of the acquisition of Islamic knowledge and compliance with established religious authorities in the online realm (Becker, 2009;Eickelman & Anderson, 2003;Larsson, 2006;Sisler, 2011;Wheeler, 2006). Now the internet has become a reference for life, various human activities can no longer be separated from the fruit of this modern human mind. ...
... The opinions of several experts also indicate that a new belief has grown among the Muslim millennial generation that online knowledge sources can be a substitute for conventional knowledge sources such as madrasas, Islamic boarding schools, and scholars as indicated by Sisler(2007) and Becker (2009). If an online site is created by the Muslim community and nurtured by trusted and verified young Kiai, then this source of knowledge can be as valid and strong as the sources of knowledge taught by Kiai in a conventional context or face-to-face in a pesantren. ...
The advanced development of the Internet has caused substantial changes in Muslim
interaction with Islam. More and more Islamic activities have been practiced in online
spaces because many online platforms support them. This paper discussed some
aspects of Islamic activities that have been moved to online space as the number of
Muslims who have gone digital increased substantially. The ways of Muslim
communities interact with Islam reflect the need for a new mechanism for practicing
Islam. Such interactions include practicing online Islamic knowledge acquisition and
dissemination, the change of dakwah from bricks to clicks dakwah, the change of
making silaturrahim among Muslims, and the emergence of faith memes. Those new
practices of Islam have supported the dissemination of Islamic teaching and values to
the wider Muslim community and reduced the complexity of Islamic learning and
practices. However, at the same time, such practices might reduce the spirituality of
Islamic teaching and values. In the future, empirical studies may be required to
support this opinion which was written based on secondary data.
... Work has focused on Arab political blogging (Etling et al. 2010), online discourses of gender relations (Piela 2010), Muslim extremists (Weimann 2008;Reid and Chen 2007), and the dissemination of Islamic knowledge (Sisler 2007), among other things. Importantly for the present study, work has also documented Internet usage patterns of mainstream Islamists, with much of that work focusing on the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis, two of the world's most influential mainstream Islamist movements (see Becker 2009;El-Nawawy and Khamis 2009;Faris 2010). ...
... The organization's members also contribute actively to blogs and social networking sites. Becker's (2009) analysis focuses on how Salafi activists use discussion forums in Germany and the Netherlands to further their basic objectives of pure Islamic education and propagation. Becker posits that the forums aid Salafis, who have been particularly active in establishing an online presence, to 'engage in Islamic argumentation ' (2009: 79). ...
This study sought to identify prominent discourses on four Islamic websites produced in the United States and Britain. The analysis looked specifically for discourses about identity, the religious ‘other’ and terrorism. The four Muslim organizations examined here –
the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and the UK Islamic Mission (UKIM) – used the Web to construct discourses that describe them as authentically Islamic, in service to Muslims, in cooperation
with non-Muslims and enemies of terrorism. The Muslim-produced web content studied here offers up a set of discourses that can be considered counter-hegemonic insofar as they challenge discursive formations that are dominant in both entertainment and news media. For instance, rather than associate
Islam with terrorism, the sites denounce it in strong terms and distance the religion from the crime.
... Namun, keberadaan media sosial yang berkembang secara berkelanjutan dewasa ini faktanya telah menjadi bagian dari dakwah Islam Salafi, yang mana fasilitas ini justru mampu menjangkau banyak tempat dan manusia (Nurdin, 2016). Perkembangan industri 4.0 (Kagermann H.;Kagermann, Wahlster and Helbig, 2013) pada abad ke 20 mempermudah gerakan dakwah Salafi untuk menjangkau individuindividu yang pada awalnya tidak memiliki relasi dan jaringan dengan mereka melalui dialog-dialog online yang memperkaya pemahaman tentang kemurnian ajaran Islam yang ditawarkan komunitas Salafi (Becker, 2009). Keberadaan teknologi membuat dakwah menjadi lebih bervariasi, seperti dakwah melalui konten grafis: penyebaran dakwah Salafi melalui gambar, tulisan, dan juga video. ...
Salafi Islamic community has been negatively constructed as puritan, extreme, and exclusive group separated itself from the social space. This justification precludes possibility that Salafi groups can synergize with surrounding socio-religious conditions. This article reveals the socio-religious life among Salafi community of Ma’had Ittiba’us Salaf in Purwoasri Village, Metro City to maintain the Islamic Salafi concept and expanding network of its followers. The research methodology is qualitative using observation, interviews, and documentation studies to expose the Salafi movement. This study shows that the presence of Salafi in Purwosari can build good relations with other religious communities, both Muslims and non-Muslims (Chrisrtian). The synergy between Salafi Muslims and Christians in building a strong social construction in maintaining the peace values is facilitated by the FPKM organization. This study concludes that Salafi da’wah is not entirely around the radical activities and leads to violence. Salafis in Metro City use a lot of social networks, technology facilities, and local organizations to preach, be economically, and socially. Keywords: salafi, socio-religious construction, religious relation, tolerance Pandangan masyarakat tentang komunitas Islam Salafi telah terkonstruksi negatif sebagai kelompok puritan, ekstrim, dan ekslusif yang memisahkan dari lingkungan sosial. Justifikasi tersebut menutup kemungkinan Salafi dapat bersinergi dengan keberagaman sosial-keagamaan sekitarnya. Artikel ini bertujuan untuk mengungkap realitas kehidupan sosial-keagamaan komunitas Salafi Ma’had Ittiba’us Salaf di Kelurahan Purwoasri Kota Metro dalam mempertahankan konsep Islam Salafi dan memperluas jaringan pengikutnya. Metodologi penelitian ini adalah kualitatif dengan menggunakan data observasi, interview, dan studi dokumentasi untuk menjelaskan gerakan Salafi. Penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa keberadaan Salafi di Purwoasri mampu membangun hubungan baik dengan komunitas kegamaan lainnya, baik Muslim maupun non-Muslim (Kristen). Sinergisitas antara Salafi dan Kristen dalam membangun konstruksi sosial yang kuat dalam menjaga nilai-nilai perdamaian difasilitasi dengan adanya Paguyuban FPKM. Penelitian ini menyimpulkan bahwa ternyata dakwah Salafi tidak secara keseluruhan terkonsentrasi dengan aktivitas radikal dan mengarah kepada kekerasan. Salafi di Kota Metro banyak menggunakan jaringan sosial, fasilitas teknologi, dan bergabung dalam Paguyuban untuk berdakwah, berekonomi, dan bersosial. Artikel ini masih terbatas pada skala penelitian di kota Metro, sehingga masih sangat mungkin untuk dilengkapi oleh kajian pada tempat lain dengan skala dan pendekatan yang berbeda. Kata Kunci: salafi, konstruksi sosial-kegamaan, relasi keagamaan, toleransi
... So far, previous studies tend to highlight four aspects; first, a study that generally highlights several Islamic issues in social media (Irwandani 2016;Nasrullah 2016;Wibowo 2019), there is also one focusing on the effectiveness of Islamic knowledge transformation in social media (Becker 2009;Gräf 2007Gräf , 2009Mariani 2013). Second, studies focusing on da'wah and social media themes (Aminuddin 2017;Avifah 2017;Dewi 2019;Ismail, Abidin, and Fatoni 2017;Romario and Aisyah 2019;Zahra, Sarbini, Rizal Faturohman Purnama and Shodiqin 2016). ...
This research discusses the aesthetic reception of the Quran in Instagram including various forms, appearance factors and commodification. This research is included in the qualitative study using Ahmad Rafiq’s reception theory. Using descriptive-analytical method, the study found variations of the Quran’s aesthetic reception in Instagram which are in the form of verse continuation and the Quran recitation. The background factors of the Quran’s aesthetic reception in Instagram include normative factors the Quran’s verses showing kindness to those who teach and practice it; historical factor i.e. the past reality related to the Quran’s aesthetic reception done by the Arab community; and social factors showing high passion of self-expression in preaching. Instagram as a social media has modified the Quran’s aesthetic reception with several available facilities and featuresthat enables its users to express themselves concerning the identity of religious piety and economic commodities through several contents related to the Quran.
... The movement's courses, lectures, and conferences have become the primary loci of a moral rehabilitation of Muslim youth in a "morally corrupt" Dutch society. In particular, the Internet has been of great use to Salafi Muslims to disseminate their message and to attract a wide range of Muslims (Becker 2009 Write whatever you want about our religion, but I will not defect from my methodology. ...
In Dutch counterradicalization policies and the debates on Islam today, the focus is almost entirely on the phenomenon of foreign fighters who left the country to go to Syria to join the Islamic State or Jabhat al-Nusra. In these debates, the young men and women who traveled to Syria are often linked to Salafism: an Islamic trend. Salafism, however, is much more than the foreign-fighter phenomenon, and most Dutch Salafi preachers, in fact, denounced both the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra (de Koning et al. 2014). This chapter examines the dominant factions within Dutch Salafism before 2013.
... In comparison to the numerous studies on Internet usage that focus on its effectiveness in the transformation and production of Islamic knowledge (Becker 2009;Gräf 2007Gräf , 2009Mariani 2011), the views of conservative and reformist ulama on the latest information and communication technologies in general (Larsson 2011), and the role of the Internet in democratising religious knowledge (Anderson 1999;Bunt 2003;Piela 2012), this study focuses on the role of social media in forming a new socio-religious movementwhat I call a semi-virtual Qur'anic movement. This article introduces those who are interested in a broader understanding of Islam in contemporary Indonesia to a socio-religious movement which emerges through the assistance of social media and Internet-based connections. ...
The Indonesian democratic transition, which occurred after the collapse of the New Order, was a significant moment that enabled diverse Islamic groups to use media for their own interests. However, little has been discussed regarding the use of media in dakwah (Islamic proselytising) performed by Muslim activists who are not inclined to participate in radical activities. This article focuses on the use of social media in dakwah by One Day One Juz (ODOJ), which endeavours to encourage Muslims to revive the spirit of reading the Qur’an through the mobile application WhatsApp. Given that ODOJ has successfully recruited more than 140,000 followers in Indonesia and abroad, this article investigates the key actors of ODOJ and the extent to which it has mobilised religious sentiments among Muslims from diverse affiliations. It argues that WhatsApp has enabled the birth of a semi-virtual Qur’anic movement, which is rooted in the Tarbiyah movement. Unlike well established Islamic movements in Indonesia that harness global computer networks to strengthen their influence, ODOJ has been dependant on technology since its inception. It demonstrates the capacity of technology in generating and crafting this new semi-virtual socio-religious movement. ODOJ has painted new colour onto the contemporary Islamic public and its presence is imperative to understanding the transformation of the religious media-scape in Indonesia.
... Een ander punt dat in dit kader van belang is, is dat verschillende religieuze bewegingen ook op internet actief zijn (Becker 2009). Er zijn predikers die vooral een virtueel leven lijken te leiden op discussiefora en chatrooms, salafistische moskeen met hun eigen websites die vaak als bronnen worden gebruikt in discussies en vraag-en antwoordsessies en vooral ook veel onderlinge strijd over wie nu de vertegenwoordiger is van de 'ware' islam. ...
... Carmen Becker, who has studied Salafi online forums extensively, notes that much of the communication aims at improving the forum members' command of the relevant sources. However, rather than formulating their own opinion on a specific issue they commonly adopt the ruling of an established scholarbut they consider it their duty to make sure this ruling is based on valid dalil (Becker 2009). ...
This research proposal is entitled "Strategies for Acquiring Islamic Religious Knowledge for Islamic and General University Students in the Industry Era of 4.0". This research aims to determine the Strategy for Acquiring Islamic Religious Knowledge for Islamic Higher Education Students in Industrial Era 4.0 in Palu City. This research aims to assess the emergence of new strategies for students to acquire their knowledge. This research uses a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods where data is collected using survey techniques, direct observation, in-depth interviews, and written document analysis. This research was conducted at Datokarama State Islamic University, Palu. This research shows that students in this information technology era have changed their paradigm in accessing knowledge. They have used online learning sources more intensively to gain understanding. If teachers and classrooms were the only sources of learning in the past, online learning resources have become a new source of knowledge. In other words, the function of educators and other conventional learning sources has been eroded. Thus, online media and online facilities have become a new source of learning today. Because this research shows that online learning resources have become new learning sources, it is recommended that educational institutions develop online learning facilities and resources as a new alternative for students to study. Lecturers should no longer be used as the primary source of knowledge, but other alternative learning sources are needed.
The article examines the media practices of a German Salafi missionary through the perspective of theories on Islamic authority and digital online marketing. Following an understanding of online Salafism as a cross-platform phenomenon, the paper draws on an ethnographic case study of Salafi Influencer Abdurrashid, examining the specific strategies he develops for his channels on YouTube and TikTok, the synergies he generates between them, and the active outreach measures through which he creates a gateway for his YouTube profile via TikTok in order to gain authority.
The article investigates the transformation within a specific branch of German Salafism from a publicly-assertive da'wa (proselytizing) to a politically accommodating and legal advocacy movement. In doing so, a process analysis that focuses on internal and reflexive narrations among Salafi leaders and lay members, through a three year-long mosque-based ethnography (2018–2021) and textual analysis (2008–2022), is employed. Previous studies focused predominately on the “Salafi growth phase” (2005–2015) in Germany that is associated with the attraction of exclusive group boundaries, flat hierarchies and informal networks. Less research exists on the current “decline phase”, which has commenced a re-orientation and critical reflection on past strategies and new ways of civic engagement and legal pragmatism. By exploring this new phase, the article integrates a longitudinal dimension into conventional research protocols on contemporary Salafism. The paper concludes with a discussion on the converging struggles for recognition among Muslim and other religious minorities in Europe, while linking these transformations to domestic opportunity structures rather than transnational reconfigurations of so-called “global Salafism”.
Teknologi kerap dipandang negatif oleh kelompok agama karena dianggap bagian dari modernitas yang identik dengan sekularisme. Kehadiran praktik dakwah online di internet mematahkan anggapan ini. Dakwah online tidak sekedar sebagai ruang keberagamaan baru, namun juga mampu menunjukkan ekssitensinya sebagai gerakan sosial spiritual di ruang virtual. Salah satu praktik dakwah online yang memperoleh perhatian adalah akun dakwah kelompok Salafi @khalidbasalamahofficial. Studi ini ingin menjawab bagaimana praktik dakwah online pemuka agama dari kelompok Salafi di media sosial. Riset ini menggunakan perspektif religion online yang melihat bagaimana praktik agama di ruang nyata (offline) masuk kedalam ruang online. Menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif, metode etnografi virtual, dan model level analisis media siber. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa dalam praktik dakwah online terjadi proses modifikasi atas praktik dakwah konvensional di ruang nyata. Pelaku dakwah tidak hanya sekadar memindahkan kajian konvensionalnya ke ruang virtual, namun juga mengubah cara mereka dalam mengemas pesan dan meraih jamaah. Dalam praktik online ada proses yang terorganisir dan terstruktur baik dalam penentuan konten, penyajian, maupun dalam merespons jamaah yang lebih interaktif dibanding pada praktik dakwah konvensional yang terbatas. Meski demikian, keberadaan teknologi sebatas sebagai saluran baru, tanpa mengubah substansi nilai yang melekat pada ajaran Salafi. Selain itu, riset ini menunjukkan bahwa ruang online telah membuka sekat dan kebebasan jamaah untuk merespons isi dakwah secara terbuka dan langsung. Kata Kunci: praktik dakwah online, new media, salafi, instagram, akun @khalidbasalamahofficial
The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted society in myriad ways, but how the pandemic has changed traditional forms of religion has been relatively understudied. Addressing this caveat, in this paper, I try to understand how adherents of an Islamic revivalist movement, the Tablighi Jamaat, turn to WhatsApp for meaning-making at the onset of the pandemic in Pakistan. The adherents are unable to sustain the use of the digital space due to incompatibility between the logic of the movement and the online platform. Without structural authority and organization, communication is chaotic and, at times, combative. The mixing of pure and impure ideas is also detrimental to communal cohesiveness. This study provides a counterexample to previous claims of symbiosis between online and offline religion and their inevitable merger.
Social media have influenced millennials of ulama or Muslim scholars in fatwa production. They access and use online knowledge to make daily fatwa according to community requests. However, limited is known about how the millennial ulama acquire and use the knowledge. We carried out an interpretive case study using a theoretical lens from knowledge creation and use in an information technology context and Islamic sociology. Data were gathered through in-depth interviews involving 36 millennial ulama as informants. The interviews were used to understand the respondents’ perspectives on knowledge acquisition and use in their daily fatwa making within a provincial level of Indonesia Ulama Council (MUI). The findings show that Indonesia’s millennial ulama have intensively acquired and trusted online Islamic knowledge. Also, they construct and use knowledge from online social network interaction in daily fatwa making. This study has implications for the simplicity of Islamic knowledge acquisition and fatwa making. Online knowledge acquisition might have reduced the roles of traditional Islamic education institutions and muftis. Therefore, further research should examine how new knowledge sources have caused this reduction.
This study aims to discover Indonesia's young Muslim scholars online acquisition of knowledge and use in fatwa making habits. Using a theoretical lens from knowledge acquisition theory and Islamic sociology, we conducted our study using an interpretive case study. We used the in-depth interview to understand different perspectives of 36 young Muslim scholars on knowledge acquisition and use in their daily fatwa making within a provincial level of Indonesia Ulama Council in Central Sulawesi. The findings show that Indonesia's young Muslim scholars have referred to online knowledge sources in their fatwa making quite frequently. In addition, the young Muslim scholars also construct knowledge from online social network interaction and then use the knowledge for fatwa production. Our study has implications on the simplicity of Islamic knowledge acquisition and fatwa making. Traditional Islamic education institutions and muftis might have been reduced their roles. Further study should focus on how those traditional Islamic education sources have been reduced from young Muslim scholars perspectives.
This study explores whether social roles mentioned in jihadist literature can be used linguistically to profile the behavior of its consumers. It seeks to empirically understand extremist forums, where such ideological communication is widely disseminated, and to identify different types of user behavior through their discussions in these communities. An Arabic-language corpus was constructed with 1050 users categorized into seven behavioral profiles derived from distinct patterns of communication observed among users in forum networks. Statistical key term extraction was used to find significant social roles referenced in users’ posts as these were proposed to differentiate their behavioral profiles. Multinomial logistic regression and post hoc tests were used to find the frequency of identified roles as the highest-ranking terms capable of prediction. Role terms produced high accuracy scores across classification experiments in identifying behavioral profiles (95% CI, 0.92–0.98), with varying intra- and inter-behavioral differentiation abilities emerging from the authority, religion, closeness, and conflict themes of social roles. This suggests simple and complex predictive potential exist in these constructs for separating profiles based on nuanced expressions of social roles by different types of users in extremist contexts, as was the case for distinguishing extremist organizations through their ideological communication in earlier work.
The Internet can be a place for exchange, but also foster echo chambers of closed world views. This poses interesting questions for the possibility of interreligious dialogue online. The article examines the cases of German Evangelical and Salafist Internet forums which mainly target a specific religious denomination, but nevertheless provide spaces for contact between different religions and denominations. For the study, a combination of quantitative and qualitative text analysis is applied. Quantitative analysis makes it possible to gain an overview of the discussed themes from a large body of text and serves as a basis for sampling smaller textual units for close examination using qualitative content analysis. The analysis yields two primary results: First, intrareligious dialogue plays a particular role for the negotiation of religious identity. Second, interreligious relations reflect the societal positions of both religious groups.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze textual practices in contemporary neo-Salafi online groups. The neo-Salafis’ approach to religious text sources is particular, in that it tends to privilege literalistic interpretations of the Quran and the Hadith. Particularly, what is known as ‘the authentic Hadith sources’ plays a special role in questions regarding ways to conduct one’s own life. This article regards the neo-Salafi understanding of the Quran and the Hadiths as textual charismatic authorities that enable a direct and ‘authentic’ access to ‘pure’ religion. The present article will connect the question of the mediated immediacy of religion to a Salafi concept of textual charismatic authority articulated by its own notion of ‘authenticity.’
This article provides an overview of contemporary research within the interdisciplinary arc of scholarship known as digital religion studies, in which scholars explore the intersection between emerging digital technologies, lived and material religious practices in contemporary culture, and the impact the structures of the network society have on understandings of spirituality and religiosity. Digital religion studies specifically investigates how online and offline religious spaces and practices have become bridged, blended, and blurred as religious groups and practitioners seek to integrate their religious lives with technology use within different aspects of digital culture.
In “The Many Altars of Modernity” Peter L. Berger refines his theory
of plurality. He argues that modern plurality does not necessarily lead to secularization.
One reasons for this is, that modern individuals can opt for religious
fundamentalism if plurality becomes threatening and painful for them. The article
extends Berger’s view of fundamentalism by empirical findings about Salafism. The
purpose is to reach a deeper understanding of the connection between pluralism and
fundamentalism in modern societies. It becomes apparent that Salafism not only repels pluralism, but at the same time responds to it in a modern way. Moreover, the
empirical findings indicate an important role of status inequality, uncertainty, and
discrimination for turning to Salafism.
Social Online Networks such as the German StudiVZ.de form a public sphere which allows Muslim university students to dispute their understanding of being Muslim in secular Germany. These inner-Muslim dialogues develop along the lines of religious and national identity which is due to the fact that the German public tends to question the Muslims’ loyalty to the state. By thrashing the differing ideas of Islam, nation and secular state the Muslim students on StudiVZ.de give insight into the ways in which knowledge about Islam is produced and authority is being reoriented.
The Qurʾān prominently proclaims its status as a “book”, kitāb, throughout the text and the Muslim definition of the scriptural codex, muṣḥaf, as that which is “between two covers” is a firm legal and theological doctrine. Of course, that textual sense of the Qurʾān is always balanced by a strong sense of the orality of the scripture and its ultimate definition as the “speech” of God. That is so not only in discussions of the transmission of the text but also in daily piety. Still, it remains the case that the Qurʾān’s textuality stands as a prominent trait. Thus, the transition of the text to a digital format and the increasing reliance on electronic distribution that we are witnessing in the current generation are significant events for Muslims in many ways.
Reflektiert man die Entwicklung des Rentierstaats-Ansatzes innerhalb der letzten 10 Jahre, dann könnte man den Eindruck gewinnen, dass es sich dabei ausschließlich um einen, wenn auch den wichtigsten, polit-ökonomischen Beitrag zu einem Lehrbuch für Autokraten (guidelines for autocrats) (H. Albrecht et al. 2004) handelt. Hat sich doch die empirische Forschung des Ansatzes in den letzten Jahren fast ausschließlich mit Fragen der Qualität und Stabilität politischer Herrschaft (Demokratisierung und autoritäre Persistenz) beschäftigt. Dabei sind, im Gegensatz zur analytischen Vielfalt der 1980er Jahre, Aspekte, wie das Entstehen (neuer) politischer Institutionen oder sozialer Strukturen, das strategische Handeln von Akteuren, aber auch die Anpassung nationalstaatlicher Regelsetzung an globale Herausforderungen in einzelnen Politikfeldern, fast gänzlich aus dem Blickfeld geraten. Mit anderen Worten, indem sich der Rentierstaats- Ansatz in den letzten Jahren auf einige wenige Kernaussagen zurückgezogen hat, ist er als eine allgemeine Sozialtheorie empirisch in den Kinderschuhen stecken geblieben.
This article focuses on digital practices of Moroccan-Dutch adolescents in the Netherlands. The digital sphere is still rather understudied in the Netherlands. However, it offers a unique, entry to intersecting issues of religiosity, ethnicity and gender as well as to their implications for thinking about multiculturalism from new vantage points. What do digital practices such as online discussion board participation tell us about identity and multiculturalism? The three forms of position acquisition under discussion (gender, religion and ethnic positioning) show that neither religion, ethnicity, nor gender cease to exist in the digital realm but are constantly negotiated, reimagined and relocated. Drawing from the work of Modood, Gilroy and other critics of gender, media, multiculturalism and postcoloniality, we argue that online activities of the Moroccan-Dutch youth not only offer an important critique of mainstream media debates on multiculturalism, but also create space for alternative bottom-up interpretations of everyday practices of multiculturalism in the Netherlands.
In all parts of the globe where it has taken root, Islam has
developed its local forms. This is not only due to the retention
of pre-Islamic local practices, which may gradually be purged
by reform movements. Different regions may have their
distinctive practices, e.g. Sufi ways, the various Islamic
institutions may play different roles, education and adjudication
may be organised differently, interaction between the ulama and
the state proceeds according to different patterns. Even within
“scripturalist” Islam, there is an undeniable regional variation
— notwithstanding the claims of certain Western scholars as
well as Muslim fundamentalists.
The Muslim communities of Western Europe constitute — with
the exception of a relatively small number of European converts
— diasporic communities, maintaining various types of links
with their countries of origin and with similar communities in
other countries.
Internet Society investigates Internet use and its implications for society through insights into the daily experiences of ordinary users. Drawing on an original study of non-professional, 'ordinary' users at home, this book examines how people interpret, domesticate, and creatively appropriate the Internet by integrating it into the projects and activities of their everyday lives.
Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Saba Mahmood. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. 233 pages.