Collective Identity in the Virtual Islamic Public Sphere

/ This study utilizes a textual analysis of selected threads from the Arabic discussion forums of two of the most popular Islamic websites — Islamonline.net and Islamway.com — to explore the potential impact of the new Islamic virtual public sphere, and the reconfiguration of the ‘virtual umma’ (Islamic community) online, on the creation of collective identities. The study also assesses whether the discourses and deliberations taking place in these two sites’ discussion forums exemplify an ideal Habermasian public sphere, through shura (consultation), ijtihad (interpretation) and ijma (consensus), as defined within the Islamic context. Findings indicate that there is an uncritical, unquestioning type of emotional consensus among posters who did not exemplify a truly rational-critical debate, particularly when it came to issues of political salience. Discussions among the posters show that they consider being a ‘Muslim’ as the most important ‘identity signifier’ in their lives. However, in some cases, especially while discussing political issues of a ‘pan-Arab’ nature, a parallel ‘Arab’ identity also emerged, confirming the parallelism and interrelatedness of ‘Arab’ and ‘Muslim’ identities, and the overlap between mediated ‘Arab’ and ‘Islamic’ public spheres.