Article | CyberOrient

Middle Eastern Women’s ‘Glocal’: Journeying between the Online and Public Spheres
Dina Hosni Article Despite the fact that the Arab Spring did not necessarily materialize with the political effects anticipated by some of its activists, it has brought into the spotlight the significance of the role of women in direct connection to the online space. In this respect, the article addresses the online world as Middle Eastern women subcultural capital in their traversal to the public sphere, which is…

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Saudi Women and Socio-Digital Technologies: Reconfiguring Identities

Saudi Women and Socio-Digital Technologies: Reconfiguring Identities
Hélène Bourdeloie, Sara Houmair, Caterina Gentiloni Silveri Article Drawing on research conducted in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, this paper explores the specific uses of digital technologies by Saudi women. It shows how these women – whose gender identity is strongly constrained by a host of social and religious norms characterizing Saudi society – make use of digital technologies, and particularly mobile telephones. The various applications available for mobile telephony open up to them a…

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Science and Islam Videos: Creating a Methodology to Find “All” Unique Internet Videos

Science and Islam Videos: Creating a Methodology to Find “All” Unique Internet Videos
Vika Gardner, Salman Hameed Article This methodology article explores the process through which we sought to catalogue videos addressing natural science and Islam on the Internet comprehensively. This data was then used to select videos for inclusion in the Center for the Study of Science in Muslim Societies’ Science and Islam Video Portal (www.scienceandislamvideos.com), which evaluates the videos based on their representations of science, Islam and history. As a growing…

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Youth Activism and Social Networks in Egypt

Youth Activism and Social Networks in Egypt
Ahmed Tohamy Article The arrival of the Internet-based technologies has made the work of professional activists much more effective and has attracted the attention of society and observers, if only because their internal and external communications became much cheaper and harder to be monitored. The new social networking technologies have provided the youth with new channels for participation and empowerment. This became true in a part of the…

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Performing Piety and Perfection: The Affective Labor of Hijabi Fashion Videos

Performing Piety and Perfection: The Affective Labor of Hijabi Fashion Videos
Kristin Peterson Article This article examines the work of a popular Muslim woman on YouTube, Amena Khan, who has attracted over 310 thousand subscribers to her channel and runs a successful online boutique. While Amena’s hijab tutorials and lifestyle videos might appear to be just about superficial topics like fashion or makeup, this article argues that she does actual labor to not only produce an aesthetic style but…

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Let’s Talk About Sex: Counselling Muslim Selves Online

Let’s Talk About Sex: Counselling Muslim Selves Online
Mona Abdel-Fadil Article Islam Online Arabic, and particularly the counselling service Problems and Solutions, received harsh critique for being too ‘open’ or even ‘un–Islamic’ in their views and dealings with sensitive topics, not least with regards to sexuality. The counselling service Problems and Solutions can be considered the emblem of Islam Online’s efforts to unite secular and Islamic perspectives and relate to contemporary Muslims’ real lives and problems.…

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When Shaming Backfires: The Doublespeak of Digitally-Manipulated Misogynistic Photographs

When Shaming Backfires: The Doublespeak of Digitally-Manipulated Misogynistic Photographs
Olesya Venger Article This study examines the case of an iconic digitally-manipulated news photograph, a controversial product of political propaganda featuring Majid Tavakoli, a student leader of the Iranian opposition in 2009, human rights activist, and political prisoner. The photograph depicts Mr. Tavakoli wearing a chador, traditional women's clothing in Iran, and appears to be digitally manipulated with the help of image-editing software. Published during the "Green Movement"…

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Satellitization of Arab Media: Perceptions of Changes in Gender Relations

Satellitization of Arab Media: Perceptions of Changes in Gender Relations
Anne Sofie Roald Article This article explores how students living in East Amman in Jordan perceive a link between global television entertainment and social changes, particularly changes in gender relations. The study relies on a questionnaire distributed among university students in Amman in 2009 and 2010 with 946 Muslim respondents, and focus group discussions and individual interviews with 44 Muslim students living in East Amman in 2013. The theoretical…

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Online Social Research in Iran: A Need to Offer a Bigger Picture

Online Social Research in Iran: A Need to Offer a Bigger Picture
Ali Honari Article Given the limits of in-country and survey research in closed societies, the World Wide Web – in particular online forums - offers an alternative field for observing and understanding these societies and their development. However, the praise given to the Internet’s role in bringing about political change in Arab uprisings and the 2009 elections post protests has resulted in a tendency in the existing literature…

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Arab Iranians and Their Social Media Use

Arab Iranians and Their Social Media Use
Ahmed Al-Rawi, Jacob Groshek Article Arab Iranians have a special status in Iran and the Middle East. Due to their Arab origins, they are sometimes viewed as the “other” for being different from ethnic Persians, while many Arab countries regard them as the “other” as well perceiving them as being Iranians more than Arabs. This study investigates the media landscape and conflict that is linked to the Ahwazi Arabs with…

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A Page and Its Politics: Situating Kullinā Khālid Saʿīd in Egypt’s Ideological Landscape at the Time of Revolution

A Page and Its Politics: Situating Kullinā Khālid Saʿīd in Egypt’s Ideological Landscape at the Time of Revolution
Rasha Abdulla, Thomas Poell, Bernhard Rieder, Robbert Woltering, Liesbeth Zack Article In discussions concerning the importance of social media in the 25January revolution, a central role is given to the “Kullinā Khālid Saʿīd“ [We’re all Khaled Said] Facebook page. Using an advanced data collection and extraction application called Netvizz, a research team consisting of Arabists and Media studies specialists has collected and analysed all of the posts and comments exchanged through the page. This data set…

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2011 Tahrir Square Demonstrations in Egypt: Semantic Structures That Unify And Divide

2011 Tahrir Square Demonstrations in Egypt: Semantic Structures That Unify And Divide
Hakim Khatib Article While literature has focused on political, economic and social indicators to understand the shifts, or rather the fragmentationsof the political scene in Egypt, the role of semiotic constructions was significantly if not totally neglected. This article investigates whether the demands and messages produced by protesters of Tahrir Square in January 2011 have played a role in processes of unification and fragmentation of Egyptians. Following Roland…

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Violence and Visibility in Contemporary Syria: An Ethnography of the “Expanded Places”

Violence and Visibility in Contemporary Syria: An Ethnography of the “Expanded Places”
Donatella Della Ratta Article This article reflects on the relationship between visibility and violence as redefined by the combined action of warfare and networked communication technologies. Drawing on the author's own ethnography conducted in Syria in 2010, and on anonymous YouTube videos, it introduces the concept of “expanded places” to look at sites that have been physically annihilated; yet, at the same time, they have been re-animated through multiple…

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The Shifting Nature of Cyberwarfare in Middle Eastern States

The Shifting Nature of Cyberwarfare in Middle Eastern States
Emily Fekete Article While some theorists make the claim that “kinetic and traditional military power are losing importance to symbolic and media power,” in reality the present military situation is complicated by the variety of tactics used by both governments and civilians in multiple and overlapping war zones. The Middle East has recently been the center of enormous military and media attention regarding the use of many forms…

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Islamophobia in Online Arab Media

Islamophobia in Online Arab Media
Ruth Tsuria Article What is Islamophobia? A popular term among many newspapers articles, politicians’ speeches and scholarly texts, it is rarely clearly defined. Although the concept of ‘Islamophobia’ is difficult to define it has been a source of heated discussion in academic work, public diplomacy, government policy and news media. Governments, social think tanks and various scholars have attempted to define Islamophobia in order to counter incidents of…

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Visual Representation, Propaganda and Cyberspace: The Case of the Palestinian Islamist Movements

Visual Representation, Propaganda and Cyberspace: The Case of the Palestinian Islamist Movements
Attila Kovacs Article The article analyzes the changing position of the visual representation in the context of Islam from the starting point set up in the Qur’an and more specifically in the prophetic tradition to the theoretical positions of Islamic reformism and radicalism and the practice of Islamism movements. To understand this changing relationship is crucial for the research of ideology and propaganda of the contemporary Islamist movement.…

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The Introduction of Telephone into Turkish Houses: Private Space, Borders of the Neighborhoods and Solidarity

10 Nov 2014

The Introduction of Telephone into Turkish Houses: Private Space, Borders of the Neighborhoods and Solidarity
Gülengül Altıntaş Article This essay is based on the data collected in a two-year research project (between 2010–2012), under the title Telephony And Turkish Modernization: Social History of Telephone Since The Ottoman Era (1881–2010), which was primarily concerned with the social history of telephone in Turkey during is peculiarly long history of implementation and dispersal. The project was conducted as oral history and archive research, and a comparative…

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The Telephone and the Social Struggles in Turkey: An Overview of a Social History of a Communication Technology

10 Nov 2014

The Telephone and the Social Struggles in Turkey: An Overview of a Social History of a Communication Technology
Burçe Çelik Article This essay presents an overview of social history of telephone technology in Turkey, by taking the user-perspective to its center. As part of the set of essays in this special issue dealing with the history of telephony in the non-west, this essay seeks to explore how the telephone has become part of social practices of people, how it has integrated into the social struggles of…

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Mobile Revolution: Toward a History of Technology, Telephony and Political Activism in Egypt

10 Nov 2014

Mobile Revolution: Toward a History of Technology, Telephony and Political Activism in Egypt
Kira C. Allmann Article This article examines the use of everyday mobile technologies, and mobile telephony in particular, in political activism and protest during the 2011 Egyptian uprisings and throughout its continuing aftermath. The Arab revolutions have their own, now familiar, nomenclature, derived from the semantics of revolution and the digital age. Much of the language used to describe and analyze events in the Middle East has emphasized the…

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Gendering the February 20th Movement: Moroccan Women Redefining: Boundaries, Identities and Resistances

Gendering the February 20th Movement: Moroccan Women Redefining: Boundaries, Identities and Resistances
Houda Abadi Article The Arab Spring opened up social and political spaces for women to make demands for gender quality, political and social reform, human rights, and equality. It has produced, changed and reinvigorated contestations around space, citizenship, femininity, religion, and sense of belonging, as women played an increasingly significant role in the revolutionary processes and developments in the region. This article will analyze the online and offline…

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Sowing the Seeds of The Message: Islamist Women Activists Before, During, and After the Egyptian Revolution

Sowing the Seeds of The Message: Islamist Women Activists Before, During, and After the Egyptian Revolution
Mona Abdel-Fadil Article This article focuses on the activities and experiences of a group of Islamist women activists, socialized within the ranks of Islam Online Arabic (IOL). These activists engaged in a range of significant social, political, and media practices, before, during and after the ousting of Mubarak; as individuals, as journalists, as counsellors, as agenda setters and creators of media campaigns. Drawing on longitudinal and ethnographic research,…

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The Saudi Blogosphere: Implications of New Media Technology and the Emergence of Saudi-Islamic Feminism

The Saudi Blogosphere: Implications of New Media Technology and the Emergence of Saudi-Islamic Feminism
Philip Tschirhart Article The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia serves as a protector of the social, cultural, and religious epicenters of the Islamic faith; Mecca and Medina. While other Islamic autocracies have fallen in the wake of the Arab Spring, Saudi Arabia and its religious and political elite remain. However, threats to their legitimacy are growing. Especially relevant are increasing calls for women’s rights. The Saudi Arabian public sphere…

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Women and Media: Libyan Female Journalists from Gaddafi Media to Post- revolution: Case Study

Women and Media: Libyan Female Journalists from Gaddafi Media to Post- revolution: Case Study
Fatima El Issawi Article This article examines the representation of women in Libyan national traditional media before, during and after the February 2011 revolution that led to the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime. What roles did female journalists assume within national traditional newsrooms and how did these roles evolve from activism in the defense of women’s causes and the official revolutionary ideals of the former regime to spreading the…

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“My Life is More Important Than Family Honor:” Offline Protests, Counter-Cyberactivism, and Article 308

“My Life is More Important Than Family Honor:” Offline Protests, Counter-Cyberactivism, and Article 308
Sarah A. Tobin Article In summer 2012, protests erupted in Jordan in light of several high-profile enactments of Article 308 of the Penal Code, or “Rape Law,” that allows rape charges to be dropped if the perpetrator agrees to marry the victim, which were organized offline and aimed to create a groundswell of public support for changing gender inequities in society rather than political and legal structures. Users of…

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Muslimhiphop.com: Constructing Muslim Hip Hop Identities on the Internet

Muslimhiphop.com: Constructing Muslim Hip Hop Identities on the Internet
Inka Rantakallio Article Although music is not clearly permissible (halal) nor prohibited (haram) in Islam, many young Muslims today make hip hop music and also portray Muslim identities in their lyrics. The article discusses a case study of how Muslim identity and Muslim hip hop are constructed discursively on an American web site entitled Muslimhiphop.com. The site features Muslim artists from multicultural backgrounds from several different countries. The…

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Hanouneh style resistance. Becoming hip-hop authentic by balancing skills and painful lived experiences

Hanouneh style resistance. Becoming hip-hop authentic by balancing skills and painful lived experiences
Andrea Dankic Article The aim of this article is to examine the dialogically constructed authenticity between an independent hip-hop and reggae artist and her audience and how this construction in turn influences the music-making process, art production and artist identity. It is argued that authenticity is constructed by the artist deconstructing the expected connections between on the one hand particular cultural belongings, lived experiences and ethnic origins, and…

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“I Am Malcolm X” – Islamic Themes in Hip-hop Video Clips Online

“I Am Malcolm X” – Islamic Themes in Hip-hop Video Clips Online
Anders Ackfeldt Article The Internet provides a space for new interpretations and conversations concerning religious practices to take place without the direct interference of religious authorities. The intention of this article is to highlight one vivid aspect of this development, Islamic themed hip-hop video clips distributed online. The visual aesthetics, the selection of pictures (or no pictures), themes and storylines supplementing the musical message can be used to…

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”I Wanna Be a Dark-Skinned Pork Roast” – and other stories about how ‘dark’ Danish rappers negotiate otherness in their marketing and music productions

”I Wanna Be a Dark-Skinned Pork Roast” – and other stories about how ‘dark’ Danish rappers negotiate otherness in their marketing and music productions
Kristine Ringsager Article This article explores processes of experienced otherness as it is represented in stories told by Danish rappers with Middle Eastern background. Referring to stories about ‘being stopped’ the article illustrates how these rap artists, because of their visible otherness, are forced to navigate in a discursive landscape that affects their becoming of subjects as well as rap artists. The article discusses how otherness experienced in…

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Online and Offline Continuities, Community and Agency on the Internet

10 May 2013

Online and Offline Continuities, Community and Agency on the Internet
Jon W. Anderson Article How the Internet spawns community and gets its features into offline life is a recurring problem met in searches for “impacts” of its successive iterations in the Middle East and arises particularly in assessing equivocal findings most recently about social media in the Arab Spring uprisings. But the problem is more methodological than ontological: it lies in viewing the Internet through a media lens on…

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The Earth Is Your Mosque (and Everyone Else’s Too): Online Muslim Environmentalism and Interfaith Collaboration in UK and Singapore

10 May 2013

The Earth Is Your Mosque (and Everyone Else’s Too): Online Muslim Environmentalism and Interfaith Collaboration in UK and Singapore
Lisa Siobhan Irving Article The environmentalist group Wisdom in Nature (WIN) and the online network Project ME: Muslims and the Environment have been chosen for analysis, from the UK and Singapore respectively, to illustrate examples of Muslim environmentalists who use the Internet, as a complement to community-based activism, to raise awareness of environmental concerns among both Muslims and non-Muslims. I will explore how WIN and Project ME seek to…

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Telling the Truth about Islam? Apostasy Narratives and Representations of Islam on WikiIslam.net

10 May 2013

Telling the Truth about Islam? Apostasy Narratives and Representations of Islam on WikiIslam.net
Daniel Enstedt, Göran Larsson Article This article analyses six apostasy narratives published on WikiIslam.net and examines how Islam is represented and understood in them. The narratives contain self-referential and autobiographical components, and the truth-claims made in them are often based on the narrator’s own experiences as a former Muslim. From the six testimonies it is clear that Islam is presented in a negative and biased way, as summed up in…

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Cyberactivists Paving the Way for the Arab Spring: Voices from Egypt, Tunisia and Libya

10 Nov 2012

Cyberactivists Paving the Way for the Arab Spring: Voices from Egypt, Tunisia and Libya
Sahar Khamis, Mohammed El-Nawawy Article The wave of Arab revolutions and uprisings that has been shaking all corners of the Arab Middle East since 2011 and that has come to be known as the Arab Spring owed a major portion of its success to online activism. The spark that ignited these revolutions in the offline world was ignited by the Arab cyberactivists’ well-coordinated campaigns, calling for the toppling of corrupt…

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Mythical Roots, Phantasmic Realities and Transnational Migrants: Yemenis Across the Gulf of Aden

10 Nov 2012

Mythical Roots, Phantasmic Realities and Transnational Migrants: Yemenis Across the Gulf of Aden
Samson A. Bezabeh Article This article analyzes the relationship between transnational migration, state-based religious cosmologies and new electronic media. It illustrates the way mythical realities and a Christian cosmology have structured the existence of the Yemeni diaspora. In analyzing the way mythical realities have been deployed, I seek to understand how old ways of creating boundaries have been redeployed in electronic landscapes. Much has been written regarding the interface…

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The Time of Concluding the Contract in E-Commerce from Islamic Legal Perspective

10 Nov 2012

The Time of Concluding the Contract in E-Commerce from Islamic Legal Perspective
Abdulrahman Alzaagy Article The issue of when a contract between face-to-face parties is deemed to be concluded presents no legal difficulty to deal with in conventional dealings. However, the borderless nature of the Internet presents questions as to when a contract is deemed to be irrevocably formed and therefore raises questions regarding contract validity. As a general rule, a contract is formed when there is an exchange of…

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Political Activism 2.0: Comparing the Role of Social Media in Egypt’s “Facebook Revolution” and Iran’s “Twitter Uprising”

Political Activism 2.0: Comparing the Role of Social Media in Egypt’s “Facebook Revolution” and Iran’s “Twitter Uprising”
Sahar Khamis, Mohammed El-Nawawy Article Social media, particularly blogging, Facebook and Twitter, have played a key role in instigating, accelerating and even organizing some of the uprisings and revolutions that have been taking place all over the Middle East. This role has been effective in galvanizing the youth and empowering them in their fights against repressive regimes and their plight for more freedom and independence. This study looks into the…

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Al Jazeera’s Framing of Social Media During the Arab Spring

Al Jazeera’s Framing of Social Media During the Arab Spring
Heidi A. Campbell, Diana Hawk Article This study investigates how Al Jazeera framed social media in relation to the revolutions and protests of the “Arab Spring” within its broadcast media coverage. A content analysis of Arabic language broadcasts appearing from January 25th through February 18th 2011, covering the protests in Tahrir Square, was conducted using the Broadcast Monitoring System (BMS) and Arab Spring Archive. Through this analysis we see a number…

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Remixing the Spring!: Connective leadership and read-write practices in the 2011 Arab uprisings

Remixing the Spring!: Connective leadership and read-write practices in the 2011 Arab uprisings
Donatella Della Ratta, Augusto Valeriani Article This article discusses the connections between the unfolding of the 2011 Arab uprisings and the “culture of the net”. Being far from overestimating the role that Internet has played in the uprisings, we propose to look at it not as an ensemble of tools, applications and technologies; but as a specific set of values, behaviors, skills and strategies that define the cultural dimension of the…

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Beyond the Soapbox: Facebook and the Public Sphere in Egypt

Beyond the Soapbox: Facebook and the Public Sphere in Egypt
Anton Root Article The question of the internet as a forum for political debate is continuously contested. My research grows out of such scholarship but focuses specifically on Facebook as a virtual public sphere in Egypt. Based on an analysis of a note posted by Wael Ghonim during the January 25 uprising on the Facebook group ‘We are all Khaled Said,’ I discuss the structural and technological benefits…

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Affinities of Dissent: Cyberspace, Performative Networks and the Iranian Green Movement

10 Nov 2011

Affinities of Dissent: Cyberspace, Performative Networks and the Iranian Green Movement
Babak Rahimi Article This paper argues that the role of Internet activism in the Green Movement, a social protest movement that emerged after the contested 2009 presidential elections in Iran, lies in the creative configuration of complex networks that primarily interact through meaning-laden performances that carve out spaces of dissent. For social movements, especially under authoritarian rule like the Green Movement, cyberspace presents a kind of social space…

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Speaking of Invasion: Narratives over Arabs in Eksi Sozluk, a Virtual Community in Turkey

10 Nov 2011

Speaking of Invasion: Narratives over Arabs in Eksi Sozluk, a Virtual Community in Turkey
Zeynep Oguz Article Since the day it was founded, Eksi Sozluk (sour dictionary) has been one of the most popular virtual communities in Turkey, fostering cultural and political discussions and acting as a public sphere. This paper examines contested narratives of hostility and hospitality over Arabs in Eksi Sozluk in order to trace the making of subjectivities in Turkey. I illustrate the ways Arab tourists are orientalized through…

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Islamic Shura, Democracy, and Online Fatwas

10 Nov 2011

Islamic Shura, Democracy, and Online Fatwas
Jens Kutscher Article Publications on the Islamic shura concept – Arabic and English – usually include a comparison with present-day liberal democracy. This paper addresses the issue of shura and democracy from the perspective of Muslim communities residing in non-Islamic countries. How do muftis in their online fatwas respond to questions whether Islam and democracy can be reconciled? How do they address the issue of shura? This paper…

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The Islam-Online Crisis: A Battle of Wasatiyya vs. Salafi Ideologies?

The Islam-Online Crisis: A Battle of Wasatiyya vs. Salafi Ideologies?
Mona Abdel-Fadil Article Islam Online has been one of the most prominent and stable Islamic websites since it was founded in 1997. However, in March 2010 Islam Online suffered a major crisis, which has come to be known as 'the IOL-Crisis'. This is a suitable case for exploring whether multiple layers of authority are at play in online religious communities(Campbell 2007). At the time of the crisis, I…

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Overcoming the Digital Divide: The Internet and Political Mobilization in Egypt and Tunisia

Overcoming the Digital Divide: The Internet and Political Mobilization in Egypt and Tunisia
Johanne Kuebler Article The potential of the Internet as a political tool intrigues scientists and politicians alike. Particularly in the Middle East, the most frequent narrative is that the mere availability of alternative sources of information will empower political actors that are marginalized by the traditional media controlled by authoritarian regimes. Indeed, the protest movements in authoritarian countries interact creatively with this new medium to get their message…

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Beyond the Traditional-Modern Binary: Faith and Identity in Muslim Women’s Online Matchmaking Profiles

Beyond the Traditional-Modern Binary: Faith and Identity in Muslim Women’s Online Matchmaking Profiles
Anna Piela Article Finding a suitable partner in both diasporic and non-diasporic settings proves increasingly challenging for young Muslims, especially those unable or not wanting to search within their kinship networks. At the same time, religious matchmaking websites are becoming increasingly common especially among Muslim women. As studies of Muslim matchmaking sites tend to focus on the ever-popular topic of the headscarf and its associations in the matchmaking…

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New Media and Social-political Change in Iran

New Media and Social-political Change in Iran
Mohammad Hadi Sohrabi-Haghighat Article The increasing penetration of new communication technologies into everyday life has attracted a growing interest in the social, economic and political implications of these technologies. Most studies have looked at Western democratic societies and the literature on the developing countries is unfortunately small in comparison. In 2009 Iran witnessed a political upheaval in the aftermath of the presidential election in which the Internet was utilized…

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e-Islam: the Spanish Public Virtual Sphere