Shaykh Google as Ḥāfiẓ al-Aṣr: The Internet, Traditional ʿUlamā’, and Self Learning (2020)*

Abstract

More than any other period, the last hundred years have witnesseda rise in the accessibility of information through books, media,and the internet. This introduced new ways of learning and sharingIslamic knowledge. In this article, I consider how traditionalIslamic knowledge and pedagogical techniques are challenged bythe growing number of lay Muslims participating in religious discussionsthrough print and the internet. I explain why the ʿulamā’perceive self-learning as a threat not only to the ostensibly properunderstanding of religion but also to the redefinition and reinventionof their authority. I observe how print and digital mediacaused a shift away from the necessity of the teacher and facilitatedautodidactic learning and claims to authority. Despite their criticismof self-learning, Traditionalists have embraced the internet inorder to remain relevant and to compete with non-experts. Writing is inferior to speech. For it is like a picture, which can giveno answer to a question, and has only a deceitful likeness of a livingcreature. It has no power of adaptation, but uses the same words forall. It is not a legitimate son of knowledge, but a bastard, and whenan attack is made upon this bastard neither parent nor anyone elseis there to defend it. —Plato *This article was first published in the American Journal of Islam and Society 37, no. 1-2 (2020):67-101