MUSLIMS ON THE PATH OF THE SALAF AL-SALIH

Abstract

The transfer of religious rituals into computer-mediated environments (CMEs) has attracted the attention of scholars in recent years. This article aims to contribute to this field by analysing the ritual dynamics in Dutch and German chat rooms as well as Internet discussion forums popular among Muslims following the Salafiyya. Two questions stand in the centre of the analysis: How are rituals transferred to new CMEs? And what accounts for the varying success of transfer processes? Religious rituals are understood to be successful when they (a) reproduce the core values and norms of a community; (b) involve a significant number of believers; and (c) protect the sacred from the profane. The ritual landscape of a religion undergoes a transformation in the course of the transfer process with mixed results: some rituals like the Muslim conversion ritual migrate successfully while other transfer processes yield ambiguous results, as the discussion of the ritual acts of gender segregation shows. Furthermore, in the case of some rituals like the Muslim prayer, a migration is not even attempted, while, on the other hand, some religious practices can become increasingly ritualized in the new environment and enter the ritual repertoire of a community. This contribution argues that the diverse outcomes of ritual transfer processes are partly the result of the interplay between affordances of CMEs and the exigencies of ritual segments.

Keywords:

• rituals
• computer-mediated environments
• Muslims
• Salafiyya
• Germany
• Netherlands

Notes

Translations from Dutch, Arabic and German have been made by the author. In order to facilitate the reading of Arabic terms, I have dispensed with diacritical marks with the exception of the ‘to indicate the Arabic letter ‘ayn (as in shari‘a) and’ to indicate the Arabic letter hamza (as in Qur'an).

The German Muslim population is estimated at 5 per cent (4,026,000) of the total population. About 5.7 per cent (946,000) of the Dutch population is Muslim (Pew Research Center 2009). There are no reliable figures on Salafi Muslims in Germany and the Netherlands. The Salafiyya lacks any notion of membership. In their circles, one will find violent and non-violent activists, devout believers rejecting political or social activism, irregular participants or simply Muslims and non-Muslims who want to learn more about Islam.

Ansar is a term used for the people of Medina who welcomed and helped the Prophet Muhammad after his migration from Mecca to Medina and converted to Islam. The term ghuraba' is derived from several reports ascribed to the Prophet in which he advises believers to live in the world as a traveller or a stranger. Nasiha is roughly understood as informative advice to fellow Muslims with the aim to correct possibly heretical or aberrant practices or beliefs.

He used the following phrase: ‘ashhadu an la ilaha illa Allah wa ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasul Allah’ (‘I testify that there is no God but God and I testify that Muhammad is his messenger’).

To a woman's maharim (plural of mahram) belong her father, grandfather, brothers, nephews, uncles (of her own family), father-in-law, brother-in-law, stepfather and stepson.