Search Results (10)

This open-source-based article presents an automated method for identifying and tracing popular Salafi discussions online. The novelty of this method lies in its inter-disciplinary approach developed through collaboration among experts in the fields of the Middle East, Islamic studies, and computer science. The computerized model presented here harnesses machine learning techniques to accurately identify popular Salafi writings on social media and to distinguish them from the writings of Muslims from other denominations. Creating an AI-supported model to distinguish between writings on social media that pertain to two different Islamic denominations is a highly difficult task. Based on this machine learning model and the methodology that it implements, the study presented here identifies United Kingdom-based Twitter accounts that embody Salafi thinking (even if they do not utilize terminology that is manifestly Salafi) and, based on that identification, analyzes and characterizes the United Kingdom-based Salafi community on Twitter. Unlike other machine learning ideology-related studies that are focused on Salafi-jihadism, the present research is focused on quietist Salafism (Salafi-taqlidis) in the United Kingdom. The purpose of this study is to examine the virtual Salafi community in the United Kingdom, with a focus on identifying the key issues of concern to its members and assessing the influence of global Salafi trends within this UK-based community. Full article

This essay examines the theology and politics of queer Muslims in South Africa. Through a queering of the analytical lens of “struggle and praxis” or jihad, this essay traces the deployment of the term jihad by a collective of queer Muslims in Cape Town. In this articulation, queer Muslims play with their inherited traditions of liberation, challenging its presuppositions, and expanding its contours. This essay argues that these queer Muslims read liberation traditions through their experience and praxis which guide their orientations toward theological meaning-making and community practice. By doing so, they challenge the regulatory nature of hegemonic forms of queerness, which emerged in the Global North, resonating in the local posturing of South Africa as a safe space for queer people, ignoring the disparity between the law and public practice, and erasing the experiences of the margins of the queer community. By embracing this marginality, queer Muslims “reimagine” tradition by presenting an inclusive alternative theology and praxis, suggesting a queer possibility within Islam. Full article

After a difficult conquest under the Umayyads, the eastern Maghreb or Ifrîqiya region was turned into the western borderland of the Abbasid Empire in the second half of the 8th century, and its governance was soon delegated to the Aghlabid Emirate (800–909). In this context, the Sahel (or Ifriqîyan coastline) quickly became a major centre of asceticism and pious collective retreat in places dedicated to ribât activities. This practice provided a framework for the life of devout people who kept a watchful eye on the Byzantine enemy while zealously performing their devotions. A genuine frontier society of religious men and devotees, ascetics and traditionalists arose in this burgeoning coastal fringe. Over the last two decades, this topic has given rise to a very rich historiography, notably produced by Tunisian researchers who have profoundly renewed our understanding. Based on these considerable achievements, the present contribution proposes to broaden the analysis in order to show how the rise of this movement of warrior piety, advocating an ideal of jihâd, must be related to a more global phenomenon, considered at the scale of the Abbasid Empire. Remaining in a comparative dimension, this article also proposes several approaches to the specific architecture of ribât sites, especially the place devoted to the community mosque. Full article

The Introduction to this Special Issue on ‘“Love Jihad”: Sexuality, Reproduction and the Construction of the Predatory Muslim Male’ provides a theoretical overview and suggests an analytical lens for how to understand “Love Jihad” and related notions of Islamization through marriage, sexuality, and reproduction. We define “Love Jihad” as the notion that Muslim men intentionally and strategically allure and entrap non-Muslim women with the intent to marry and convert them to Islam as part of an Islamization project. We suggest a two-fold understanding of the concept of “Love Jihad”. First, the concept needs to be understood as a globalizing trope, originating from India and spreading to a wide range of cultural and national contexts across the world. Second, we propose to understand the specific term “love jihad” beyond its referential specificity, and thereby broadening it into an analytical concept for exploring related concepts (such as “sexual jihad” and “demographic jihad”), as well as related notions of Muslim men as sexual predators (in certain geographical settings known as “rapefugees”). We therefore include in our analysis related notions such as Islamic womb fare, “grooming”, “The Great Replacement”, and “unethical conversion” in marriage where they relate to flows of gendered nationalist imaginaries of the Muslim “Other”. The aim of this Introduction—as well as the Special Issue—is to contribute to the study of Islamophobia as a global phenomenon and to deepen our understanding of the gendered imaginaries of anti-Muslim nationalist formations across the world. Full article

This article traces the transnational flows of constructions of the hypersexualized Muslim male through a comparative analysis of love jihad in India and the specter of grooming gangs in the UK. While the former is conceived as an act of seduction and conversion, and the latter through violent rape imaginaries, foregrounding both of these narratives are sexual, gender, and family dynamics that are integral to the fear of demographic change. Building upon these narratives, this study analyzes how influential women in Hindu nationalist and European/North American far-right milieus circulate images, videos, and discourses on social media that depict Muslim men as predatory and violent, targeting Hindu and white girls, respectively. By positioning themselves as the daughters, wives, and mothers of the nation, these far-right female influencers invoke a sense of reproductive urgency, as well as advance claims of the perceived threat of, and safety from, hypersexualized Muslim men. This article illustrates how local ideological narratives of Muslim sexuality are embedded into global Islamophobic tropes of gendered nationalist imaginaries. Full article

Buddhist protectionism in contemporary Myanmar revolves around fears of the decline of Buddhism and deracination of the amyo (group/“race”). Buddhist protectionists and Burmese nationalists have declared Islam and Muslims the greatest threat to race and religion, and Myanmar has witnessed widespread distribution of anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim content, as well as massive violence against Muslim minority communities, the Rohingya in particular. The Indian neologism “Love Jihad” has scarce reference in contemporary Burmese Buddhist discourses, but, importantly, the tropes of aggressive male Muslim sexuality and (forced) conversion through marriage (“love jihad”) have been one of the core issues in Buddhist protectionism in Myanmar. The article shows that such tropes of the threatening foreign male have strong historical legacies in Myanmar, going back to colonial Burma when Burmese concerns over Indian male immigrant workers resulted in both anti-Indian violence and anti-miscegenation laws. Importantly, however, compared to colonial Indophobia and military era xenophobic nationalism, contemporary constructions are informed by new political realities and global forces, which have changed Buddhist protectionist imaginaries of gender and sexuality in important ways. Building on Sara R. Farris’ concept of “femonationalism”, and Rogers Brubaker’s concept of civilizationism, the article shows how Global Islamophobia, as well as global discourses on women’s rights and religious freedom, have informed Buddhist protectionism beyond ethnonationalism in the traditional sense. Full article

Violent radicalisation is currently one of the most pressing global problems. Accordingly, the intention of this paper is to discover the views on terrorism in the name of Islam held by Islamic religion teachers in Spain and to analyse the preventive socio-educational measures that they propose, employing a mixed methods approach with a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. Most of the teachers point to a poor knowledge of Islam among the young, especially as regards to the concept of jihad, as the main reason behind this phenomenon. The second-generation immigrants among the teachers attach great importance to possible identity crises as a factor that makes the young more vulnerable to violent radicalisation. The most frequently mentioned social measure is fostering the integration of Muslims, thus creating a sense of belonging to their country of residence. They recommend preventive educational strategies that, far from focusing on detecting possible violent extremists, place the accent on teaching the fundamentals of the Islamic religion in order to provide young people with the tools that they need to challenge violent ideologies. Full article

The global population growth has led to a considerable rise in demand for wheat. Today, the amount of energy consumption in agriculture has also increased due to the need for sufficient food for the growing population. Thus, agricultural policymakers in most countries rely on prediction models to influence food security policies. This research aims to predict and reduce the amount of energy consumption in wheat production. Data were collected from the farms of Estahban city in Fars province of Iran by the Jihad Agricultural Department’s experts for 20 years from 1994 to 2013. In this study, a novel prediction method based on consumed energy in the production period is proposed. The model is developed based on artificial intelligence to forecast the output energy in wheat production and uses extreme learning machine (ELM) and support vector regression (SVR). In the experimental stage, the value of elevation metrics for the EVM and ELM was reported to be equal to 0.000000409 and 0.9531, respectively. Total input energy (consumed) is found to be 1,460,503.1 Mega Joules (MJ), and output energy (produced wheat) is 1,401,011.945 MJ for the Estahban. The result indicates the superiority of the ELM model to enhance the decisions of the agricultural policymakers. Full article

The article mounts an argument for public theology as an appropriate if not vital adjunct to contemporary education’s addressing of security issues in light of current world events with indisputable religious and arguably quasi-theological foundations. It will briefly expound on the history of thought that has marginalized theology as a public discipline and then move to justify the counter view that the discipline, at least in the form of public theology, has potential to address matters of such public concern in a unique and helpful way. The article will culminate with an exploration of Global Jihadism as a case study that illustrates the usefulness of public theology in understanding it better and so allowing for a response with potential to be more informed and security-assured than is commonly effected. Full article

The global threat of Al Qaeda post 9/11 and ISIL, increased Sunni-Shia conflicts, and violence in the Middle East and Pakistan dominate headlines and challenge governments in the region and globally. Both Muslim extremists and some Western experts and observers speak of a clash of civilizations or a culture war in Muslim-West relations. Both the discourse and violence yet again raise questions about the relationship of Islam to violence and terrorism: is Islam a particularly violent religion? Critics cite Quranic passages, doctrines like jihad and events in Muslim history as strong indicators and proof that Islam is the primary driver of Muslim extremism and terrorism. What do the Quran and Islamic law have to say about violence, jihad and warfare? What are the primary drivers of terrorism in the name of Islam today? This article will address these questions in the context of development of global jihadist movements, in particular Al Qaeda and ISIL, their roots, causes, ideology and agenda. Full article