Religious Authority, Digitality, and Islam: The Stakes and Background

Abstract

Abstract: The study of religious authority and its vacillating ideations is hardly a recent trend. The field has been well established by works of scholars of religious studies, history, and literature, among others. One reason for this sustained interest is that religious power structures that influence individuals, societies, and politics are formidable and, at times, indivisible. However, there has been new interest in religious authority in recent years because of its close and symbiotic relationship with digital media and their unprecedented affordances in knowledge production, distribution, and access. The disruptions of digitality have had profound effects on religion, religious authority, in particular, such as the decentralization of religious messaging, the emergence of unchurched and unmosqued discourses, the acceleration of the formation of new religions, private forums outside the reach of traditional authorities, identity construction, sectarian movements, ideological scriptural interpretation, religious contestations, and more. This essay discusses the background of religious authority, digital media, and Islam, and seeks to unpack the destabilization of traditional authority in our media-saturated age. It also speaks to disciplinary concerns and the need for multidisciplinary competencies to understand more fully religious texts in digital spaces, guided by conversations and considerations that connect online content with historical Muslim intellectual traditions, contemporary pressures and movements, and intra-Islamic ideological contestations.