“Siri Is Alligator Halal?”: Mobile Apps, Food Practices, and Religious Authority Among American Muslims

Abstract

In this study of the impact of mobile app technologies on the ways in which American Muslims practice their religion, Fewkes focuses on intersections between mobile apps and Muslim food practices. Through an examination of food-related religious apps, she considers both issues of sites of community—in the form of restaurants and shops—and fundamental aspects of Muslim praxis in relation to new technologies. Fewkes argues that while specific design features and use patterns of mobile technology allow mobile apps to disseminate religious information in new ways, seemingly circumventing historical routes of knowledge dissemination in American Muslim communities, the use of religious mobile apps does not represent a complete break with orthodox notions of authority and practice in Islam but rather a new form of religious narratives.