Edinburgh University, Experts assess digital impact on Muslim lives

Here's a press release from Edinburgh University on the CHANSE-funded Digital Islam across Europe project. I'm a Co-Investigator on this one. Edinburgh is the lead insitution, working ...

I'm participating in the 'Sharia in Transition' workshop at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, 29-30 ...

Congratulations to my student Shahajada Musa on his M.Res. Islamic Studies award. His thesis is entitled 'Scholar from a Garrison Land (A critical analysis of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhāb's Doctrine in light of the Qur’ān and Hadīth)' and ...

Meili Criezis, GNET, Al Qa’ida and Islamic State Supporter Reactions to Zawahiri’s Death, 8 Aug 2022 "This Insight provides a quick overview of al-Qa’ida supporter reactions to Zawahiri’s death followed by a closer focus on pro-IS ...

Two separate pieces of the Taliban:

Amy Chew, SCMP, Taliban talks to Malaysia, Indonesia, other far-off Muslim-majority nations, ‘to create engagement perception’, say analysts

ALCIS, ...

New and noted: Alessandra Palange, Islamic education and activism in theory and practice: the case of two online e-learning institutes, PhD thesis, University College London, ...

I was pleased to see this comprehensive review, which also has some striking graphics (see the Twitter thread below):

Izmy Khumairoh, The Suryakanta, ...

The 'Cyber Muslims' book is out now. My chapter is entitled 'The Net Imam Effect'.
Robert Rozehnal (editor), Cyber Muslims: Mapping Islamic Digital Media in the Internet ...

ABNA, Seminar on “How to deal with fake news in cyberspace” held in Tehran University, 18 May 2022 "The 11th session of the series of Scientific Seminars of “Religion and cyberspace” entitled ...

BBC Monitoring, Jihadist Media Watch Newsletter

• Analysis ...

The Digital British Islam project now has three social media accounts, all in their early stages(!), but we'll be using them extensively as the project progresses:

Twitter @digibritislam

Facebook: Digital British Islam

The New Arab, Twitter, Facebook and other platforms fail to remove 9 out of 10 anti-Muslim posts: report,

"The Centre for Countering Digital Hate reported a total of 530 posts between February and March this year.

"They were ...

Martin Chulov, The Guardian, Massacre in Tadamon: how two academics hunted ...

I participated in the first session of this Lehigh conference organised by Rob Rozehnal (via Zoom), alongside Sana Patel and Ismail Fajrie Alatas, in a panel on Authority and Authenticity. It was interesting to hear their papers, and to to receive comments from respondent Dheepa Sundaram. I also caught Madelina Nuñez and Harold Morales presenting ...

Sayeh Isfahani, Atlantic Council, The Internet ‘Protection Bill’ will hurt all Iranians, but the queer community will have the most to lose "Data reviewed by ARTICLE19 from 2018 ...

Jonathan Haidt, The Atlantic, Why the Past 10 Years Of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid "Babel is a metaphor for what some forms of social media have done to nearly all of the groups and institutions most important to the country’s ...

Here's a significant thread instigated by Marc Owen Jones on the trolling of Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe. Not surprising, but the data presentation on the toxic responses is sobering nevertheless. And it was highlighted by Carole Cadwalladr.

Look at this. It's official: Nazanin is the ...

Hot off the press, Robert Rozehnal's edited volume 'Cyber Muslims' has arrived in my letter box. He has done a great job pulling together the 15 chapters into this volume, which I am sure will be of interest to anyone working on different aspects of Islam and the digital sphere.

I have a chapter in the book (The Net Imam Effect'). I'm looking ...

Religion, State and Society, Volume 49, Issue 4-5 (2021)

Open-access edition on ethical self-making. Several articles available free to download.

I was pleased to see this review, published in 'American Religion' and written by Sahar Khamis (University of Maryland), describing 'Hashtag Islam' as: " ... a rich and comprehensive picture of the evolving Islamic discourses in cyberspace..."

Khamis, Sahar. American Religion, ...

Digital Religion Yearbook 2021 (Network for New Media, Religion and Digital Culture Studies)

"The Digital Religion Yearbook is a new publication compiled and published by the Network for New Media, Religion and Digital Culture Studies. It aims is to spotlight important ...

Aliff Nawi, Mohd Faiz Mohd Yaakob, Chua Chy Ren, Nor Yazi Khamis, Ab Halim Tamuri A Preliminary survey of Muslim Experts’ Views on Artificial Intelligence, Islāmiyyāt: The International Journal of Islamic Studies, 43, No. 2 (2021)

I'm pleased to have been appointed to the editorial ...

Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), Gen-Z & The Digital Salafi Ecosystem "Over the past year ISD has worked to develop a first-of-its-kind digital snapshot of the rapidly shifting online Salafi ecosystem and its intersection with Gen-Z identities. ...

Mohammed Sinan Siyech, European Eye on Radicalization, Salafism and Violence in India, 8 Nov 2021 One for my reading list: "Since the twin tower bombings of 2001, media narratives on terrorism often portrayed Islam as the chief propagator of violence across the world. ...

AhlulBayt News Agency (Iran), Interview with Dr. Sahar Khamis about Cyberspace and Cyber Islamic Environments Long read/interview. "This is very important and we should use the internet also as Muslims to try ...

ABC (Australia), Misinformation about COVID vaccines and women's health is impacting girls, new report finds, 5 Oct 2021

"Some people have been posting "vaxxies" — post-vaccination selfies — to social media to encourage others ...

Pew Research Center, Globally, Social Hostilities Related to Religion Decline in 2019, While Government Restrictions Remain at Highest Levels "Social hostilities involving ...

Mansour Piroti, Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University, The Ever-Growing Iranian Cyber Threat

"The Iranian regime has been a considerable threat to global cybersecurity ever since 2012, when it committed cyberattacks on US financial institutions in retaliation ...

ODI, 'Taliban narratives on Al Qaeda in Afghanistan'

"Much has been written about the Taliban’s links to Al Qaeda since 2001, but there is little consensus. Based on more than 100 interviews with insurgent commanders and others, this report examines ...

Cyber Muslims: Mapping Islamic Digital Media in the Internet Age, Robert Rozehnal (Anthology Editor), Bloomsbury, 2022

'Cyber Muslims' (edited by Robert Rozehnal) will be out in April next year. I'm looking forward to reading it (I also have contributed to this).

New and noted:

Zachary Sheldon and Heidi A. Campbell, Divine Revelation and Digital Religion, chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Divine Revelation Edited by Balázs M. Mezei, Francesca Aran Murphy, and Kenneth Oakes, 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198795353.013.40

"This ...

I'm going back to individual posts on the Taliban situation in Afghanistan, as the evacuation phase is reaching its initial conclusion. You can track back on earlier posts by clicking the 'Taliban' category (above). The inordinate file sizes for the pages meant that they were becoming difficult to access. I am prepping a chapter on this for my next ...

New and noted: the new issue of the Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture has several chapters relating to Islam and the internet. I don't have full access, but there are some free to download sections.

Introduction: ...

I've already recommended this podcast. This latest episode (Episode 3, Part 1) maintains the series' high standards.

Amy Chew, SCMP, Afghanistan: Taliban’s return ‘boosts morale’ of militant groups in Southeast Asia

"“Indonesia, Malaysia and the southern ...

I supervise students on environmental issues and Islam, and will be delivering module content on related issues, so this will be essential reading (albeit potentially depressing):

IPCC, AR6 Climate Change 2021

Great profile in the Guardian of Paul Gilroy, very influential in many academic zones.

Yohann Koshy, The Guardian, The last humanist: how Paul Gilroy ...

I'm pleased to say that Owen Watkin's PhD on A.J. Arberry is now available via the UWTSD Repository. I was Director of Studies, with Prof. Catrin Williams as co-supervisor. Do check it out:

Watkin, ...

Arab American Newspaper Archive NC State University's Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies has established a database of its Arab American newspaper archive (from 1880s to mid 1900s). This is an open source research resource. Looks intriguing.

BBC News, Actor Riz Ahmed wants to stop Hollywood's 'toxic portrayals' of Muslims

"The study by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, titled Missing and Maligned, found that fewer than 10% of top-grossing films released between 2017-2019 from the UK, US and Australia featured ...

Here's an interview I had recently with Mahmoud Rafian from the Office of Islamic Studies on Cyberspace in Iran: ABNA, Interview with Dr. Gary R. Bunt about Cyberspace and Cyber Islamic Environments

Melisa Vazquez, How Communication Technologies Remold the Religion/Human Rights Divide Online Synergies for a Global Democratic Space, CALUMET – intercultural law and humanities review ISSN 2465-0145 (on-line) ISSUE 12(2021)

(links to PDF)

Abstract extract: "Understanding ...

Aaron Zelin. Tunisia Kills the Emir of Katibat ‘Uqbah Bin Nafi, 17 May 2021

"On May 17, 2021, Tunisian military and security units announced they had killed five individuals from Katibat ‘Uqbah Bin Nafi (KUBN) in Jebel Chambi. Among them ...

Many congratulations to Dr Owen Watkin for obtaining his PhD for his thesis entitled “Arthur John Arberry (1905-1969): A Critical Evaluation of an Orientalist”.

A.J. Arberry is a significant but under-researched academic figure, famous in particular for his Qur’an translations, but also for many other works. Owen’s work goes a long way to ...

Khaleej Times, UAE centre warns against random Islamic fatwa searches online

"Random online searches for religious fatwas might make people vulnerable to false and distorted information, warned the Sawab Centre."

'Rewiring the House of God: Religious Self-World Relations in the Digital Environment'. Online workshop organized by Fouad Gehad Marei (University of Birmingham) and Gabriel ...

Saeid Golkar & Kasra Aarabi, Times, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Is Radicalizing Young Men Across the Middle East. The U.S. Needs a Counterinsurgency Strategy

"Like his six predecessors as president, Joe Biden enters office with the challenge posed by Iran’s regime ...

DW.com, Middle East: Are people losing their religion? (analysis/research)

"Recent surveys indicate strongly that across the Middle East and Iran, almost half the population is loosening their ties to Islam. Governments have ...

CFP, Rewiring the House of God: Religious Self-World Relations in the Digital Environment

Online Workshop, 15th – 17th September 2021, organized by Fouad Gehad Marei (University of Birmingham) and Gabriel Malli (University of Graz / University of Erfurt)

I will be one of the discussants at ...

Sparsh Ahuja, Wired, Muslim scholars are working to reconcile Islam and AI

This represents some interesting challenges in relation to technology and religious authority. I'd be interested in supervising a PhD on this. There's lots of potential ...

""This yardstick in Islam is ...

Abusharif, Ibrahim N. (2019) Cyber-Islamic Environments and Salafī-Ṣūfī Contestations Appropriating Digital Media and Challenges to Religious Authority. Doctoral thesis, University of Wales Trinity Saint David.

I supervised this thesis at UWTSD. Do check it out if you are interested ...