Conclusions

“Conclusions” focuses on the past and future of global Islam, beginning with the move away from Sufi leadership and ending with today’s diverse and fragmentary representations of Islam. The spread of global Islam was underpinned by a variety of technological structures often created by non-Muslim societies, finding expression in genres with little or no precedent in Islamic tradition. Islam has changed during these globalizing transfers, and what we see and hear in today’s global Islam is by no means representative of the entire faith. In some ways, the story of global Islam is the story of how some of its versions have crossed borders more effectively than others.

4. From Islamic revolutions to the Internet

“From Islamic Revolutions to the Internet” traces the development of global Islam from the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the war in Afghanistan to today, via the post-Soviet opening of multiple borders and the growth of Islam in China, Central Asia, and rural Africa. This period was characterized by competition between rival organizations, some violent such as ISIS. What happened when the states were no longer able to control the beliefs they sponsored? Today’s nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have returned to a message of Muslim unity. Smartphone technology has enabled individual religious activists to communicate their beliefs in a more vibrant and arresting way than state-sponsored televised debates.

2. Islam in the age of empire, steam, and print

Where did global Islam come from? “Islam in the Age of Empire, Steam, and Print” looks at the period between 1870 and 1920, when the infrastructure of empire combined with technology to create the conditions needed for global Islam. Starting with the Ottoman Empire’s call for worldwide Muslim unity against European colonizers, journals and magazines with worldwide subscriptions spread messages of Islam. Salafism, developed by Rashid Rida (d. 1935), rejected ritual and miracles, combining modern science with the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. Global Islam lost some of its focus when the Ottoman Empire collapsed shortly after the First World War.

1. What is “global Islam”?

“What is global Islam?” is a question of definition that, like global Islam itself, can be answered by first looking at what it is not. How does global Islam differ from world Islam? Global Islam is driven by methods used by transnational actors to spread messages worldwide, while world Islam flourishes away from communication networks. Before the “first globalization” with the rise of steam travel and the printing press, religious power and knowledge were largely concentrated in a group of Sunni leaders. Technology enabled new voices to challenge the established order. This challenge continues today via satellite channels, international societies and organizations, and online communities.

3. Defending Islam from the secular world order

Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, new hubs emerged in Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. “Defending Islam from the Secular World Order” compares the different approaches of these regions to protecting Islam during a period of worldwide secularism. Movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Tablighi Jamaat (Preaching Society) propagated activism and evangelism and, in some cases, the political idea of an Islamic state. Sufis had no equivalent organizations. International congresses and organizations promoted a combination of Salafi principles with the Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia. This variation of Islam was spread further by cheap air travel, with vastly increased numbers going on pilgrimages and promoting Salafi-Wahhabist attitudes on their return.

Introduction

What is global Islam, and where did it come from? The Introduction defines “global Islam” as the doctrines and practices promoted by transnational religious activists, organizations, and states during the era of modern globalization. These processes involve Africa and Asia as much as the Middle East and the West. Globalization has enabled the emergence and proliferation of many different versions of Islam, both political and expressly nonpolitical. Communications of these beliefs and ideologies have been shaped by new forms of mobility, communication, organization, and finance. Global Islam is the result of a historical process: the interplay between religion and globalization.