Texting Islam: Text messages and religiosity among young Pakistanis

Abstract

Among the urban Pakistani youth, SMS texts have become of critical importance in mediating religious and aesthetic sensations in unexpected domains of everyday life. Although grounded in a distinct valuation of the moral bearing of language upon individuals, texting religious messages is not simply a new way of pursuing a ‘traditional’ form of sociality. Texting reactivates religious texts with an unprecedented immediacy, and facilitates the expression of playfulness and visceral matters, empathy, humour and admonitions to embrace religious righteousness. This entanglement of discordant aspirations leads to a greater visibility of Islam, but does not suggest the emergence of a deliberative space. For this mediation is also about instigating affective responses that can unsettle the moral consistency advocated in religious SMSs. I argue that this ludic gesture orientated towards the restoration of Islamic morality introduces immediacy and circulation as critical parameters in the appreciation of authentic and effectual Islamic knowledge.