New Religious Leadership among Muslims in Europe

Abstract

This article addresses the recent emergence of new forms of religious leadership among Muslims in Europe, by elaborating the nexus between mass-mediated forms of religion, the contemporary ‘unsettling of religious authority’ among Muslims in Europe, and the shifts in the position of Islam in European societies. The changes in forms of religious leadership, and the rise of new religious constituencies facilitated and conditioned by the spread of modern mass media have been addressed extensively. However, with respect to Islam in Europe there is a remarkable lack of insight into shifts that have taken place in the last decade. Until roughly the first half of the 1990s ‘traditional’ religious leaders and spokespersons were firmly embedded in the organizational landscape set up by Muslim immigrants in Europe. New types of Islamic leadership that have emerged since are hardly tied anymore to these ‘traditional’ constituencies and structures. A shift has taken place from representative religious leadership to a more performative style of leadership. An increasing number of leaders operate at the inter-section of mediatized stardom, public opinion, (political) leadership, and religious innovator. They address a public rather than a ‘natural’ rank-and-file. Following insights from studies on media and religion, I argue that new media technologies and mass-mediated consumerism are not only instrumental in the emergence of these new religious expressions; these new leaders are themselves part of a process of religious renewal. At the same time I argue against the idea that mass media, globalization and in general modernity have caused an irreversible process of religious individualization (so-called ‘copy-paste’ religion). A thorough analysis of shifts in styles and sources of religious leadership among Muslims shows that there is a process of the ‘redressing’ of religious authority taking place. This is especially relevant in an era where there is an increasing obsession with radicalism.