Abstract
This article sheds light on a set of religious literacy practices which have so far received very little scientific attention, namely ‘quranic app practices’. Quranic app practices are conceptualized as ways of engaging with the Quran through religious apps on smartphones or tablets. The article is based primarily on an explorative group interview with four young people from a Year 8 class in a multilingual lower secondary school in Denmark. The youth have Somali and Afghan background, consider themselves practicing Muslims and can be described as ‘religious heritage learners of Arabic’ (Temples 2013). The article explores the quranic app practices of the young people as reported in the interview and shows how the young people use the quranic apps to engage with the sacred text of the Quran in different ways, with different objectives and drawing on different languages. Building on Rosowsky’s (2008, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015) research on faith literacies, the analysis reveals that the young people have radically different understandings of that it entails to ‘read the Quran’ and that their quranic app practices vary greatly, but also that their choice of app is consistent with their stated objectives, priorities, preferences and practices. The different quranic app practices thus all appear meaningful, consistent and legitimate. Based on the analysis, the article calls for further investigation of young people’s quranic app practices.
Highlights
To many children and young people with a Muslim background in the Scandinavian countries today, language and literacy practices originating in quranic schools or in other kinds of engagement with the Quran constitute an integrated – but to outsiders often largely unnoticed – part of everyday life and of the children and young people’s linguistic repertoires
Khan and Alginahi compare practicing Muslims’ understandings of reading the Quran using the traditional printed book version and the digital version available through quranic apps (Khan & Alginahi, 2013). The respondents to their questionnaire – most of them Saudi Arabian adults – mention convenience, portability and extended possibilities for privacy as key advantages of the digital version available through apps, and raise important concerns. They worry about the authenticity and correctness of the digital version, and they regret that the feeling of reverence and spirituality arising from engagement with the printed version of the sacred text is lost when using a quranic app
In the context of quranic app practices in focus in this article, it is important to note that when Roshina, Zohal, Homa and Guled talk about ‘Arabic’, they do not refer to any variety of Arabic, but typically to the highly specialized, strictly codified and emotionally laden variety of Classical Arabic
Summary
To many children and young people with a Muslim background in the Scandinavian countries today, language and literacy practices originating in quranic schools or in other kinds of engagement with the Quran constitute an integrated – but to outsiders often largely unnoticed – part of everyday life and of the children and young people’s linguistic repertoires. Some go to more or less formalized quranic schools; others receive Arabic or quranic lessons at home, either face-to-face or through internet-based communication platforms; others again regularly interact with the Quran through religious apps on their smartphones or tablets. This article focuses on the latter, namely quranic app practices, among multilingual Muslim youth in Denmark
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