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Islam Dot Com: Contemporary Islamic Discourse in Cyberspace. By Mohammed el-Nawawy and Sahar Khamis. 2009. New York: Palgrave. 269 pages. Reviewed by Muhamad Faisal Ashaari.
This book is a good contribution to the growing number of scholarly literature on the discourse of Islam in cyberspace. It addresses the issue of increasing Islamic discourse after the advent of the Internet that raises the question "Who speaks for Islam?" (pg. 116). On that perspective, the book examines the potential impact of the computer mediated communication (CMC) on the fragmentation of Islamic authority, the reconfiguration of the "virtual ummah" and on the creation of multiple identities and resistances. The significance of this book is the combination of theoretical and practical analyses of the problem. The theoretical part of this book has been developed based on the concept of authority in Islam that is seen from the perspective of the Habermas' public sphere while the practical part has been surveyed through analyzing the content of most visited Islamic websites: www.Islamonline.net, www.amrkhaled.com and www.Islamway.com. Textual analysis has been used in the analyses that require studying the actual text and interpreting meanings constructed through that text. Data were analyzed from the discussion forums in these websites stretched over a period of six months: from February to July 2008.
The book consists of an introduction and six chapters where the last is the conclusion of the study. The first chapter presents the analyses on the dynamics of the complex relationship between contemporary political and religious authorities in the Muslim world in addition to the exploration of the traditional structure of Islamic authority. The authors argue that the traditional structure of authority of the Ulama' has slowly fragmented; firstly, due to splitting of Ulama' to Sunni and Shiite, secondly, due to the broken relationship between Ulama' and their followers after the former have been used to endorse and legitimize certain rules satisfying the political leaders...