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Khaled Abou El Fadl and Amina Wadud’s (re)politicisation of the mosque and employment of social media as a means of shaping religious identity based on values of progressive Islam

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Abstract

This paper explores the employment of social media and Islamic religious sermons, as a means of dissemination of progressive Islam, in the process of shaping the religious identities of Muslims in the twenty-first century. This research is a case study that focusses on Khaled Abou El Fadl, a prominent progressive Muslim scholar, and his political activism in the mosque in the form of khutbahs (sermons). The presentation of the importance and development of the mosque from solely a place of worship to a place of political mobilisation creates a historical framework necessary for the understanding and evaluation of the case study. Amina Wadud’s activism in the mosque, and the way this activism is presented on the social media, is used as a means of comparison of the effectiveness of both scholars’ efforts. Given that the main channels of communication for both these scholars are social media, the paper presents the main points of the way the internet has affected notions of authority and knowledge in Islam in the twenty-first century C.E. The existing literature regarding Islam and social media focuses heavily on radicalisation and promotion of conservative Islam. There is an absence of scholarly work regarding social media and progressive Islam, and this article attempts to fill this gap in academia. The research included in this article was carried out in London, between June and September 2019, and is based on heterogeneous sources available online, such as newspaper and journal articles, audio-visual material, social media content and academic publications. It presents and analyses the media content and evolution of the said khutbahs as recorded and published on YouTube. It also evaluates their impact on the target audience through observation of the comments available on YouTube and Abou El Fadl’s relevant references in the videos.

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Notes

  1. Khutbah: Public preaching observed in the mosque during the Friday prayer (jum’a), in celebration of the two festivals (Eid) and on other special occasions

  2. The title of Imam in Shia Islam has the connotation of the highest religious authority, associated to the twelve imams, male descendants of Ali and Prophet’s daughter Fatima.

  3. The word ‘Islamists’ describe both El Gama’a El Islamiyya and the Muslim Brotherhood.

  4. A mujaddid, according to the hadith, is a great reformer that God sends once every century, to reclaim or reinvigorate the faith.

  5. All data regarding Amina Wadud’s social media are as of 7 August 2019.

  6. Only sixty-five subscribers as of 7 August 2019

  7. ‘Search for Beauty’ is part of the title of one of Abou El Fadl’s books, published in 2005. The full title of the book is The search for beauty in Islam: a conference of the books.

  8. The statistics on Abou El Fadl’s social media are as of 8 August 2019.

  9. There are twelve videos available for these khutbahs covering a total of five and a half hours.

  10. The first of these khutbahs was recorded in April 2016, whereas the Usuli Institute was established in December 2017.

  11. Mohamed Morsi was the elected president of Egypt from June 2012 to July 2013 when he was removed from the presidency by a coup d’etat and since then remained imprisoned until his death in June 2019.

  12. In a few cases, Abou El Fadl literally screams.

  13. CRLO is the Council for Scientific Research and Legal Opinions, the official institution of Saudi Arabia entrusted with issuing Islamic legal opinions (Abou El Fadl 2009, p. 133).

  14. The topic of religious authority as expressed in a mosque is wide and complex enough to cover a dissertation on its own, so no further analysis will be given in this paper.

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    Sofia Tsourlaki

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Tsourlaki, S. Khaled Abou El Fadl and Amina Wadud’s (re)politicisation of the mosque and employment of social media as a means of shaping religious identity based on values of progressive Islam. Cont Islam 14, 309–329 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11562-020-00453-z

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