The East London Mosque hosted a presentation from members of the Digital British Islam project team on 8 May 2025. The event marked the launch of a summary report How do Cyber Islamic Environments impact everyday life? Members of the team present responding to this question included Professor Gary R Bunt, Professor Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor and Dr Sadek Hamid. The project began its investigation in 2022, with data collection through traditional methods of focus groups and surveys, but also the innovative analysis of website content . The latter has included archival of the main Islamic portals (on https://archive-it.org/) and content analysis to create word clouds. It is leading edge academic research in the new field of ‘digital humanities’. Other members of this ESR -funded project are Professor Frederic Volpi, Dr Khadijah Elshayyal, Dr Laura Jones,, Dr Alamgir Ahmed and Dr Dan Range.
The project’s findings and observations include,
– the analysis of queries points to the phenomena of ‘shopping for fatwas’, “where users search around for opinions that best match their circumstances and perspectives” (Professor Bunt).
– the impact of ‘influencers’ -for the younger generation, these are often self-styled ‘authorities’ lacking formal religious training. “Legitimation is from followers not in the holding of ijazas to teach” (Dr Sadek).
– In the 18-34 age band, Muslim survey respondents (compared to non-Muslim respondents) indicate a higher tendency to obsess about the Internet when not online (Dr Sariya).
– the reluctance of traditional scholars to actively engage in cyberspace, “leaving Muslim surfers vulnerable to dubious sources of religious knowledge” (Dr Sadek).
– How is Islamic cyberspace to be governed? – “it is like when printing of books became commonplace” (Dr Sariya)
– The Gaza genocide has provided Muslim activists a platform, but “many feel a desire to speak out, but some hold back due to fear of backlash, surveillance, or misinterpretation” (Dr Sariya).
– the likely and inevitable use of AI to obtain religious advice – “younger people, especially those within the Muslim community, are more likely to engage with AI sources like Chat-GPT2 (Professor Bunt).
– the positive impact in removing gender biases in the traditional male-dominated, patriarchal scholarly circles, so giving female scholars opportunities (Zainab bint Younus was cited as an influencer).
For further information on the Digital British Islam Project click here.