DISCUSSION: ‘DIGITAL ISLAM IN BRITAIN’ RESEARCH PROJECT FINDINGS

Organised by the Manchester Muslim Forum[MMF] and hosted by Khizra Masjid in partnership:

'DIGITAL ISLAM IN BRITAIN’ RESEARCH PROJECT FINDINGS

with Principal Investigator *Professor Gary Bunt [Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Wales, Trinity St David, Wales]

*Host and chair: Dr Sadek Hamid [Senior Research Fellow, University of Edinburgh]

Date and time: Saturday 28th June 2025, 4pm - 6pm [Prompt start]

Venue: The Khizra Mosque and Community Centre, Main Lecture Theatre , 425 Cheetham Hill Rd, Cheetham Hill, Manchester M8 0PF

A presentation on the findings from the ‘Digital Islam in Britain' project which examined the social impacts of digital activities and focussed on lived experiences of British Muslims. The first national study of its kind, it mapped how online platforms developed and evolved in relation to intergenerational changes within diverse UK Muslim communities and changing narratives and experiences of religious authority, gender, political agency and interactions between the ‘digital’ and the ‘real’. The research findings will be of benefit to Muslim organisations, policy makers, public and third sector organisations and academia.

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Main speaker and Principal Investigator: *Professor Gary R. Bunt is Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, and the Principal Investigator for the Digital British Islam project. Gary’s primary research area focuses on Islam, Muslims and the Internet. He started working in this in the 1990s and has explored the various technological developments and their implications for Muslims of digital media across diverse issues and zones, monitoring, in particular, the impact on religious authority and identities. He has developed specific methodological approaches in this developing field of studies. The results of this work include the books Virtually Islamic, Islam in the Digital Age, iMuslims, Hashtag Islam, and (most recently) Islamic Algorithms: Online Influence in the Muslim Metaverse. He was previously a Subject Coordinator responsible for Islamic Studies for the Higher Education Academy. Gary launched the Virtually Islamic website in 2000, including news and research resources. He is also a Co-Investigator for the CHANSE project. Some of his publications include: • Islamic Algorithms: Online Influence in the Muslim Metaverse (London: Bloomsbury, 2024); ‘Islamic Spirituality and the Internet’, chapter in Bruce Lawrence and Vincent Cornell (editors), Wiley-Blackwell Companion of Islamic Spirituality, (Wiley-Blackwell, 2022); ‘The Net Imam Effect: Digital Contestations of #Islam and Religious Authority.’ Chapter in) Cyber Muslims: Islamic Digital Media in the Internet Age. Robert Rozehnal (editor) (New York & London: Bloomsbury Press, 2022); ‘The Qur’an and the Internet’, chapter in The Routledge Companion to the Qur’an. Daniel A. Madigan and Maria M. Dakake (editors) (New York, Routledge, 2022); Hashtag Islam: How Cyber-Islamic Environments are Transforming Religious Authority (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press/New Delhi: Pentagon Press, 2018). Turkish translation: Heştek İslam: Si̇ber-İslami̇ Ortamlar Di̇ni̇ Otori̇teyi̇ Nasil Dönüştürür? (trans. Mehmet Ali Başak & Aziz Akkaya) (Van: Adab Yayınları, 2023) ; ‘Is it possible to have a ‘religious experience’ in cyberspace?’, chapter in Bettina E. Schmidt (editor), The Study of Religious Experience (Sheffield: Equinox Publishing, 2016); ‘Social Media and the Internet’, in Macmillan Encyclopaedia of Islam and the Muslim World, Richard C. Martin (editor), (New York: Macmillan Reference, 2016); ‘Decoding the Hajj in Cyberspace’ chapter in The Hajj: Pilgrimage in Islam. Eric Taglicozzo and Shawkat M. Toorawa (editors) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).

Host and chair : *Dr Sadek Hamid is a Senior Research Fellow, at the University of Edinburgh] and prior he was Head of Research at UKIM and Research Fellow at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. He has previously held teaching and research positions at the universities of Chester, Liverpool Hope, Cambridge Muslim College and Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. He has been actively engaged in Muslim communities for more than 30 years and prior to transitioning to academia was a Youth & Community Development professional. He has written extensively on Muslim young people, Islamic activism, religion, politics, and public policy. He is author of Sufis, Salafis and Islamists: The Contested Ground of British Islamic Activism (I. B. Tauris, 2016), co-author of British Muslims: New Directions in Islamic Thought, Creativity and Activism, (Edinburgh University Press, 2018), editor of Young British Muslims: Between Rhetoric and Realities (Routledge, 2016), co-editor of Political Muslims: Understanding Youth Resistance in a Global Context (Syracuse University Press, 2018), Youth Work and Islam: A Leap of Faith for Young People (Sense, 2011) and most recently; Contemporary British Muslim Arts an Cultural Production: Identity, Belonging and Social Change (Routledge, 2023).

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