Muslim Instagram: Eternal Youthfulness and Cultivating Deen

Abstract

This article argues that Muslims have created a specific Muslim Instagram that sustains youthfulness and cultivates their deen (religion). Instagram as a social has become a space for Muslim youth all over the world to share images. These images, being circulated over Instagram across localities, create visual representations for other users. For this research, over 500 images with the hashtags #muslim and #islam were analysed to understand how Muslims represent themselves and their religion online. A two-step methodological procedure involved the adaption of iconographical and iconological techniques of visual art interpretation to the images collected. The concept of youthfulness and the Islamic concept of deen will be discussed in relation to the analysed images to demonstrate the emergence of a Muslim Instagram. Muslim Instagram is a translocal space that enables Muslims to simultaneously act eternally youthful and cultivate their deen. By playing with notions of youthfulness, Muslims recontextualise their faith and practice online to cultivate their deen. They thereby embed Islam and subsume Islamic concepts and practices into modern global lifestyle patterns of consumption.