Digital Islam Across Europe: Conference Programme With Abstracts

Featuring contributions from the five project research teams based in the UK, Spain, Poland, Sweden and Lithuania, alongside additional papers from scholars working across Europe. 

You can learn more about the Digital Islam Across Europe project here:  https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/digitalislameurope/ 

Limited places are available for colleagues with interests in the subject, whether academic, practitioner or policy-focused. The conference is free to attend, but registration is essential. Attendance is possible for the whole conference, or just one day - depending on your availability.

If you have any questions about the conference, or the research which underpins it, please contact us by email: digital.islam@ed.ac.uk

Conference Programme With Paper Abstracts and Speaker Biographies

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Day 1: Tuesday 27 May

Venue: Room 1.06 (Project Room), 50 George Square, University of Edinburgh, EH8 9JU.

13:30: Registration and Refreshments

14.00: Digital Islam across Europe: Understanding Muslims’ Participation in Online Islamic Environments (CHANSE project)

Introduction

Frederic Volpi (University of Edinburgh, UK)

Approach & Methods

Gary Bunt (University of Wales Trinity Saint David, UK), Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor (Coventry University, UK), Göran Larsson (University of Gothenburg, Sweden)

The research develops its analysis from a data -rich empirical investigation led by an experienced international team in five country cases. The interdisciplinary approach provides different types of data that are combined to construct a multilayer description and explanation of the processes investigated while accounting for the positionality of the research team. The study includes data from web archiving, online surveys, in-depth interviews, digital ethnography, and participant observations to maximise the coverage of the different forms of engagement that are involved in online Islamic environments.

Country Cases

United Kingdom – Anna Grasso (University of Edinburgh, UK) 

Sweden – Erika Willander (Umea University, Sweden) 

Poland – Katarzyna Górak-Sosnowska (Warsaw School of Economics, Poland) 

Lithuania – Egdunas Racius, (Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania)

Spain – Avi Astor (Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain) 

The research develops its analysis from a data -rich empirical investigation led by an experienced international team in five country cases. The interdisciplinary approach provides different types of data that are combined to construct a multilayer description and explanation of the processes investigated while accounting for the positionality of the research team. The study includes data from web archiving, online surveys, in-depth interviews, digital ethnography, and participant observations to maximise the coverage of the different forms of engagement that are involved in online Islamic environments.

15.45: Coffee break

16.00: Critical perspectives on online interactions

'Allah is Sufficient for us, and He is the Best Disposer [of affairs for us]', Surveillance, Mobilisation, and the Paradoxes of Rupture

Martijn De Koning (Radboud University, The Netherlands)

In 2023, my interlocutor Ibrahim was arrested in Spain after appearing on a digital terrorism watchlist. While in detention, he reached out to friends and acquaintances for support, expressing via social media and WhatsApp not only his profound sense of alienation and despair but also his reliance on and faith in God. This paper takes Ibrahim’s online messages as a point of departure and a lens through which to examine experiences of rupture, and the relationship between the divine and the human, within the context of a racialised security regime that surveils Muslims in opaque and unaccountable ways. I argue that the paradoxes of rupture simultaneously enable mobilisation—of both divine presence and communal support—and facilitate (digital) surveillance. This paper contributes to scholarship on rupture in relation to Islam by moving beyond the notion of a singular, productive event, instead conceptualising rupture as a series of both circular and linear occurrences.

Speaker Biography:

Martijn de Koning is an anthropologist and teaches at the Department of Islam, Politics and Society at Radboud University, Nijmegen. He has been working on themes related to identity construction of Moroccan-Dutch youth, salafism, counter-radicalization policies and surveillance, Islamophobia and racialization and activism among Muslims in the Netherlands. Together with Nadia Fadil and Francesco Ragazzi he edited the volume Radicalization in Belgium and the Netherlands – Critical Perspectives on Violence and Security (IB Tauris 2019). With Carmen Becker and Ineke Roex he wrote Islamic Militant Activism in Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany - “Islands in a Sea of Disbelief” (Palgrave, 2020). He maintains his own weblog CLOSER: https://religionresearch.org/closer

Veils, Crosses, and the Sin of Patriarchy: Digital Mediations of Islamic and Catholic Feminism 

Giulia Evolvi (Bologna University, Italy)

Catholic and Muslim feminists’ digital narratives are gaining attention in contemporary academia. Through an analysis of literature and empirical examples, this presentation argues that online Catholic and Islamic feminisms are similar on different levels: first, both challenge patriarchal values within religious institutions and society alike; second, they focus on issues around women’s bodies, like reproductive rights and the hijab; third, the Internet allows them creating public narratives against traditional religious authorities. However, the two groups differ greatly, notably because Muslim women are considered “other” to secularism and European culture, also within feminist circles. Therefore, attention to post-secular, de-colonial, and intersectional approaches would help understand Muslim feminists’ experiences.

Speaker Biography:

Giulia Evolvi is a Marie Skłodowska Curie fellow at the University of Bologna, Italy, where she conducts the project MERGE on the topic of digital media, Catholic social movements, and gender. During the project, Giulia is also a visiting scholar at the Center for Media, Religion and Culture (CMRC) at the University of Colorado Boulder, U.S., where she obtained her PhD. Previously, Giulia worked as lecturer in Media and Communication at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and as postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Religious Studies (CERES) at Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany. She published her book "Blogging my religion: Secular, Muslim, and Catholic media spaces in Europe" with Routledge in 2018, and she worked on Islam and Islamophobia in Europe, anti-gender Catholic movements, and discussions of gendered religious practices in digital spaces. 

A Critique of the Postfeminist Rebranding of Muslim Femininity on Instagram

Laura Mora (Queen's University Belfast, UK)

When hijab fashion gained widespread visibility across platforms, journalists and scholars celebrated hijabi influencers as empowering role models whose stylish self-representations challenged Islamophobic stereotypes. However, drawing on a feminist critique of postfeminism and microcelebrity, I subject these influencers’ self-branding techniques on Instagram to an intersectional, visual media analysis. I found that hijab fashion content functions as a postfeminist project that rebrands Muslim femininity as empowered, entrepreneurial and beautiful, in order to appeal to mainstream discourses and hyper-counter Islamophobic stereotypes. This online trend is an understandable yet problematic response to inequality that (partly) benefits those women that conform while potentially excluding others.

Speaker Biography:

Laura Mora is an early career scholar in feminist media studies and the sociology of Islam. She has taught on media and gender modules at Queen’s University Belfast, Cardiff University and Keele University, and will commence a fellowship at Queen’s University Belfast. Previously, Laura has conducted a postdoctoral research (AHRC/Loughborough University) on Paralympians' social media representations of gender and disability, and a PhD research (Keele University) on Muslim women’s self-representation in hijab fashion, which was awarded by MeCCSA with the prize for Doctoral Research of the Year 2022. She is an editorial board member for Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies and a committee member of Muslims in Britain Research Network.

17.45: End of Day 1

Day 2: Wednesday 28 May

Venue: Room G.05, 50 George Square, University of Edinburgh, EH8 9JU.

9.15: Morning Coffee

9.30: Digital Islam across Europe: Understanding Muslims’ Participation in Online Islamic Environments (CHANSE project)

Virtual proximity and exposure to threats online: Findings from Sweden

Göran Larsson (University of Gothenburg, Sweden), Erika Willander (Umea University, Sweden)

In this presentation, we explore whether frequent media use, posting of personal content on different platforms and general trust levels are related to the experience of online threats and harassment.  The exploration of these relationships is justified by the routine active theory (RAT) proposed by Cohen and Felson (1979) and the adaptation of this theory by Hawdon, Oksanen and Räsänen's (2017) to the study of social media. Here, the original constellation of proximity between perpetrators, victims and absence of guardianship is specified to perpetrators ('haters'), victims ('self-identified Muslims') and absence of guardianship (i.e. individuals or social structures that protect individuals from being exposed to offences). The analysis is based on the DIGITISLAM web-based survey for Sweden (n = 176). The results show that posting content on media platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, X (Twitter), Instagram or Facebook is associated with threats, but not frequent media use or general levels of trust. Of the socio-economic factors, only household income is statistically significant. Gender, age, education and experience of migration have no significant effect. We therefore conclude that further research is needed on the online and offline factors that explain threats and harassment, as well as follow-up studies on the factors that prevent them.

Unconquered Space: The Impact of Polish and Lithuanian Islamic Organizations on Shaping Online Religious Authority

Mateusz Chudziak and Katarzyna Górak-Sosnowska (Warsaw School of Economics, Poland), Arvydas Kumpis and Egdūnas Račius (Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania) 

This paper investigates the limited online presence of Lithuanian and Polish Islamic organizations and their leaders, analyzing the phenomenon through the lens of non-participation theory. While digital Islamic environments have flourished globally, Polish and Lithuanian Muslim authorities remain largely absent from public digital spaces. Drawing on unstructured interviews with imams and systematic monitoring of official online channels, the study employs the conceptual framework of non-participation, as articulated by Casemajor et al. (2015) and Jacquet (2017), to interpret this conscious invisibility. The analysis identifies key explanatory logics – political alienation, focus on intra-community needs, and internal inefficacy – as central to understanding the reluctance of Polish and Lithuanian Muslim leaders to engage in broader online religious discourse. Rather than viewing non-participation as mere passivity, the paper theorizes it as a strategic, contextually informed stance shaped by minority status, concerns over misrepresentation, and the prioritization of community cohesion. The findings contribute to the literature on digital religion by reframing the absence of institutional Islamic authority online in Poland as a form of agency, rooted in both structural constraints and deliberate choice.

Contemporary religiosity and the online-offline nexus: Distinguishing relationships of inception, complementarity, and substitution in digital religious engagement

Avi Astor, Berta Güell, Zouhair El-Hairan (Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain)

The relationship between online and offline religiosity has increasingly come to be understood as fluid and integrated in practice. Nevertheless, elucidating the interaction between online and offline religious engagements remains essential for disentangling the diverse experiences, connections, and technologies that inform contemporary religious identifications, networks, and practices. In this article, we distinguish between relationships of inception, complementarity, and substitution in characterizing digital religious engagements. Our empirical analysis focuses mainly on relationships of substitution. Specifically, we analyze how individuals dissatisfied or otherwise distanced from traditional offline religious institutions seek opportunities for religious engagement online that cohere with their theological viewpoints or ethical orientations, and that foster involvement in alternative forms of community.

Gendered Interactions Online

Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor (Coventry University, UK), Anna Grasso (University of Edinburgh, UK), Joanna Krotofil (Jagiellonian University, Poland)

This presentation investigates how religious authority is constructed, negotiated, and contested online, with particular attention to gender dynamics within Muslim communities in the UK and Poland. Drawing on qualitative case studies of both content “producers” and “users”, we explore how digital platforms reshape the contours of religious engagement, especially for women and marginalised groups. Building on Lövheim and Lundmark’s (2019) conception of authority as rooted in “authentic self-expression” and shaped through continuous audience interaction, we examine how charismatic figures gain influence through their distinct personal attributes and capacity to embody and perform shared values. Additionally, we analyse the reception of specific online authority figures among female audiences. Our findings reveal how “feminine” expressions of male online authority figures are gaining traction among women users, even as these same spaces expose generational and gendered tensions around trust and spiritual abuse. By comparing cases across national contexts, we highlight both common patterns and local particularities.

11.15: Coffee break

11.30: Critical perspectives on online interactions

Gendered Models of Islamic Authority: Social Media and the (Un)Popularity of Hadhrami Preachers in Indonesia 

Martin Slama (Institute for Social Anthropology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria)

Preachers of Hadhrami-Arab descent are important actors in Indonesia’s Islamic landscape that has become highly informed by the utilization of social media. The paper explores how Hadhrami models of Islamic authority have become adapted to popular forms of preaching and representations of Islamic piety online. The paper is particularly interested in Hadhrami preachers who are regular users of social media, thus following in this regard the model of the media-savvy Indonesian celebrity preacher, but who have not (yet) gained a similar status of popularity. It examines their relative unpopularity by looking at their actual preaching and social media uses and by comparing them with the outreach strategies of some of Indonesia’s most well-known preachers, for which representations of gender and husband-wife relationships are central. Seeking for a better understanding of the position of Hadhrami preachers in Indonesia’s Islamic landscape, the paper points out how gendered models of Islamic authority and their mediations meet different levels of popularity and attract different audiences. The paper closes with a reflection on what we can learn from this Indonesian case of gendered construction of Islamic authority for approaching other Islamic online contexts. 

Speaker Biography:

Martin Slama is a senior researcher at the Institute for Social Anthropology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, where his work focuses on contemporary socio-religious dynamics in Southeast Asia. He has conducted extensive fieldwork in Indonesia on Muslims’ uses of social media, Hadhrami-Arab communities, and young people’s engagement with the internet. His latest publications include “Conspicuous Pilgrimages and the Politics of Public/Private: Social Media Representations of Indonesia’s Muslim Middle Class”, In Millie, Julian. Ed. The ‘Crossed-Out God’ in the Asia-Pacific: Religious Efficacy of Public Spheres (2023), and (co-authored with Moch Nur Ichwan) “Reinterpreting the First Pillar of the Nation: (Dis)Continuities of Islamic Discourses about the State Ideology in Indonesia”, Politics, Religion & Ideology (2022).

Pink and Cute Islam: Islamic ballet on social media

Jonas Otterbeck (Aga Khan University, UK)

Grace & Poise Academy is an Islamic ballet school based in London with a unique syllabus where students dance to poetry, not music, where expectations of female modesty among parents, teachers and students are met and attention is paid to Islamic theology and morals. While cultivating Islamic adab (etiquette), akhlaq (ethics) and Islamic pedagogies, the academy is also inspired by classical ballet training and alternative, holistic educational traditions. In this presentation, I will concentrate on the Instagram and Facebook accounts of Grace & Poise. I elaborate on questions on ethics and aesthetics as they are transmitted when Grace & Poise try to position themselves as a school. I argue that the accounts are both traditionalist and progressive, and that they point to a possible future for Islamic creativity, signalling openings rather than closures.

Speaker Biography:

Jonas Otterbeck is professor of Islamic studies and Rasul-Walker Chair of Popular Culture in Islam at Aga Khan University, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations, London. Professor Otterbeck engages in research about Muslims and contemporary Islam in Europe, often with political relevance. His most recent research is on Muslim creatives in arts and popular culture, in both analogue and digital spaces. Recent publications include The Awakening of Islamic Pop Music (2021), “The Celebration of Islamic Consumer Goods in London: Design, Production, and Consumption”, in The Routledge Handbook of Global Islam and Consumer Culture (2025).

In the Event: Eventification and the Transformation of Religious Institutions

Henrik Christensen (Aarhus University, Denmark)

This presentation explores how digital media transforms religious engagement by promoting event-based participation in various religious communities in Denmark. Activity coordinators use social media and online platforms to advertise initiatives like baby hymn singing, cafés, youth clubs, and meditation groups. Their digital outreach reframes religion as experiential, informal, and relational, challenging traditional clergy authority. Drawing on lived religion theory, the sociology of professions, and the experience economy, this study investigates how eventification through digital marketing reshapes congregants’ religious practices and beliefs, decentralizes institutional control, and creates new understandings of religious community.

Speaker Biography:

Henrik Reintoft Christensen is an associate professor of sociology of religion and director of the Center for Contemporary Religion at Aarhus University, Denmark. His research focuses on religion in non-religious contexts, especially in media and secular institutions. He has contributed to the Routledge Handbook of Religion and Journalism (2021) and the Oxford Handbook of Digital Religion (2023). His work also explores chaplaincy in settings like universities (Sociology of Religion, 2019) and prisons (Boundaries of Religious Freedoms, vol. 7, 2020). He is currently finishing a CHANSE-funded project examining how religious communities use media (RECOVIRA).

Digital Transformation Meets Islam: Education in Time of the WWW

Riem Spielhaus (University of Göttingen, Germany)

With the emergence of the internet, it was used for religious communication - also by Muslims. It enabled communication that expanded previous possibilities: beyond the boundaries of time, space and language. information became accessible and overcame religious boundaries. Finally, digital media made it possible to overcome gender boundaries - at least to a certain extent. Free access to religious writings, which have been digitized in recent decades, has led to new practices of obtaining, passing on and interpreting information. This has led to new discussions about and the questioning of authority - which, however, are not totally new to digital communication. The world wide web and social media have given space to discourses at the margins. This contribution addresses individual educational initiatives that attempt to meet these challenges.

Speaker Biography:

Since 2016 Riem Spielhaus heads the Department of Knowledge in Transition at the Leibniz-Institut for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute and is Professor of Islamic Studies specialised in education and knowledge cultures at the Georg August University of Göttingen. She studied Islamic Studies and African Studies worked on Islamic debates and the self-positioning of Muslims in Germany. As postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for European Islamic Thought at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, she investigated knowledge production on Muslims in Europe. Legal questions of Islamic religious practices where at the focus of her work at the Erlangen Centre for Islam and Law in Europe at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg. More recently, Riem Spielhaus has studied how German school textbooks present Muslims and Islam as well as different aspects of religious education in different Arab countries.

13.15: Networking Lunch

14.30: End of Conference