DIGITISLAM: Digital Islam across Europe: Understanding Muslims’ Participation in Online Islamic Environments

European Muslim communities (and indeed all communities) have been transformed by the digital revolution and new processes of knowledge creation, acquisition and dissemination that erode traditional structures of authority. While many Muslims remain marginalised from European hierarchies of knowledge, digital platforms provide novel ways to create and share information about themselves and their roles in plural European society. These platforms have intensified diasporic ties, as well as connections among diverse European Muslim communities. This, in turn, has widened inter-generational differences within Muslim populations throughout Europe. For example, ‘digital native’ European Muslims are more likely than older generations to value YouTube as a source of Islamic knowledge over the local mosque or other traditional sites of religious learning.

Yet, our understanding of the creation, use and influence of Online Islamic Environments (OIEs) in European Contexts is limited. This project investigates the characteristics of contemporary OIEs, and their consequences for the social and religious practices of different Muslim populations within and across distinct European contexts. Focusing on the interactions between producers and users of OIEs, it examines how, when and why individuals and groups seek advice on the internet about a range of social and religious issues, as well as how online and offline experiences and practices shape one another across diverse platforms and contexts.

The project entails in-depth research in five European countries: Lithuania, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. At its core, the project will examine how diverse Muslim populations engage with the online ecosystem, seeking and providing formal or informal advice on issues related to Islam. It will show how these interactions shape, and are shaped by, the success of specific online producers. It will also analyse how OIE usage influences individual behaviours and beliefs in different national settings. The project combines qualitative and quantitative methods including: semi-structured interviews of producers and users of OIEs, a ‘netnographic’ tracing of online habits, and a transnational survey of producers of online Islamic guidance and their followers. The research will provide concise explanations of the dynamics and social implications of OIEs to specific stakeholders, including Muslim organisations and networks, policy makers and third sector organisations.

KEYWORDS:

producers, users, practices, information, interactions, transnational, dynamics, real-life

CONSORTIUM

  • Project Leader: Frederic Volpi, University of Edinburgh, Alwaleed Centre for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary World, United Kingdom, project e-mail
  • Katarzyna Górak-Sosnowska, SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Institute of International Studies, Poland, e-mail
  • Göran Larsson, University of Gothenburg, Department of Literature, History of Ideas, and Religion, Sweden
  • Avraham Astor, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Sociology, Spain, e-mail
  • Egdunas Racius, Vytautas Magnus University, Cultural Studies, Lithuania, e-mail

COOPERATION PARTERS

  • Albert King,Digital Directorate of the Scottish Government
  • Safia Shahid,Women’s Muslim College
  • Isak Reichel, Swedish Agency for Support to Faith Communities
  • Zouhair El Hairan, Euro-Arab Youth Organization
  • Montserrat Suárez Romero, Barcelona City Department of Inter-culturalism and Religious Pluralism

EFFECTS & ACHIEVEMENTS

Project website

Project achievements:

Digital Islam Across Europe: Understanding Muslims’ Participation in Online Islamic Environments

The digital revolution has transformed European Muslim communities through creation, acquisition and dissemination of religious knowledge centred on the internet. This phenomenon can erode traditional authority structures and transcend national and language boundaries. It is therefore crucial to understand how digital platforms provide new ways to create and share information in increasingly diverse and digitally savvy European societies. This research enables us to seriously improve our understanding of online Islamic environments in Europe.

This research project investigates the characteristics of online Islamic environments and their consequences for the social and religious practices, identities and activities of different Muslim populations in five European countries. More specifically, it documents and analyses the transformation of Islamic religious authority, online-offline dynamics, and gender interactions to demonstrate how online and offline experiences and practices shape one another, locally, nationally and transnationally.

Through a combination of different methods of data collection, including large-scale survey, web archiving, and in-depth interviews with users and producers of online Islamic material, the research illustrates how the everyday agency of European Muslims in online Islamic environments complexifies their interactions within wider European society. In particular, we showed how online producers occupied different roles in the religious marketplace according to their position as influencers, scholars, the intermediaries. We revealed how the relations between online and offline practices were divided into four types of religious interactions: (re)discovery, complementarity, verification, and substitution. We also analysed and illustrated how the digital amplification of gendered agency could bring about a democratisation of Islamic knowledge. Finally, we documented the transient nature of both online interconnections and resources over time to highlight the difficulty of tracking the evolution of online Islamic environments.

The research was conducted in 5 European countries – United Kingdom, Spain, Sweden, Poland and Lithuania – and provided specific insights into the dynamics of online Islamic environments in each national context. These ranged from the invisibilization of the activities of the small Muslim community of Poland, and the internal doubts about the level of religious knowledge of the main Muslim organisations in the similarly small community of Lithuania. They also included the turn towards lifestyle Muslim websites in the larger Swedish community, and the increased use of online sources of information while increasingly questioning the trustworthiness of these very sources in the Muslim community in Spain. The activities of the Muslim community in the UK illustrated best the transnational dimension of online Islamic environments, not least because of the predominance of English language sources across Europe, associated to a complex interaction with a very active, and large, domestic community.

Through the multiple and varied activities that we organised during our project – website, workshops, policy meetings, conferences, publications – the results of the research were effectively  communicated to civil society actors, the policy community, academics and the general public. The research findings helped these stakeholders to position themselves better and adapt their activities in view of the online dynamics this project elucidated.

Publications:

  • Larsson, G., Willander, E., Muslims and Social Medias: A systematic literature review of studies of Online Islamic Environments, Information, Communication & Society, 2024, DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2024.2379835, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2024.2379835
  • Górak-Sosnowska, K., Chudziak, M., Krotofil, J., Rola edukacyjna chutb w polskich meczetach: między polskością a muzułmańskością, Przegląd Religioznawczy, 2(292), 2024, s. 103-114, https://journal.ptr.edu.pl/index.php/ptr/article/view/567, DOI: 10.34813/ptr2.2024.8
  • Astor, A., Khir-Allah, G., & Martínez-Cuadros, R., Anonymity and Digital Islamic Authority, Religions, 2024, DOI.10.3390/rel15121507, https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/15/12/1507
  • Volpi, F., Górak-Sosnowska, K., Larsson, G., Astor, A., Racius, E., Bunt, G., Cheruvallil-Contractor, S., Willander, E., Krotofil, J., Smołucha, K., Troubled Belonging in Online and Offline Spaces: The Case of Polish Muslims, Kultura i Społeczeństwo, vol. 69(3), 2025, https://doi.org/10.35757/KiS.2025.69.3.10
  • Astor, A., Martínez Cuadros, R., Khir Allah, G., Anonymity and Digital Islamic Authority, Religions, MDPI, vol. 15(12), 2025, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15121507
  • Racius, E., Kumpis, A., The Reluctant Custodians of Religion: Online (Non)Presence of Lithuania’s Muslim Religious Organizations, Journal of Muslims in Europe, Brill, vol. 15(1), 2025, https://doi.org/10.1163/22117954-bja10137
  • Górak-Sosnowska, K., Krotofil, J., Chudziak, M., Werminska-Wisnicka, I., Cyfrowy islam. Polscy muzulmanie w przestrzeni internetowej (Digital Islam: Polish Muslims in the Online Space), SGH, Warsaw, 2025, https://www.sgh.waw.pl/kes/sites/kes/files/2025-10/152_Cyfrowy%20islam_Gorak_%28ONLINE%29.pdf
  • Doganay, D., Online Religious Resources in Sustaining Islamic Practices Among Turkish Immigrants in Poland, Studia Religiologica, vol. 58(2), 2025, https://doi.org/10.4467/20844077SR.25.005.22457
  • Smolucha, K., Troubled Belonging in Online and Offline Spaces: The Case of Polish Muslims, Kultura i Spoleczenstwo, vol. 69(3), 2025, https://doi.org/10.35757/KiS.2025.69.3.10
  • Górak-Sosnowska, K., Krotofil, J., Chudziak, M., Rola edukacyjna chutb w polskich meczetach: między polskością a muzułmańskością, Przegląd Religioznawczy, Polish Society for the Study of Religions, vol. 292(2), 2024, https://doi.org/10.34813/ptr2.2024.8
  • Górak-Sosnowska, K., Krotofil, J., Locality, Universalism, and Modernity in the Khutbahs for the Polish Muslims, in: Journal of Muslims in Europe, Brill, 2026, https://doi.org/10.1163/22117954-bja10136
  • Górak-Sosnowska, K., Chudziak, M., The Impact of Polish Islamic Organizations in Shaping Online Religious Authority, Social Compass, 2026
  • Wójciak, D., Krotofil, J., The Polish Woman–Muslim Man as a “Low-Culture” Cliché: Familiarization and Hate in Digital Folklore through Popek’s Media Output and its Online Reception, LUD, 2026
  • Wójciak, D., Krotofil, J., Gendered Islamophobia in Social Media: On the Intersection of Misogynistic and Islamophobic Sentiments on Polish X/Twitter, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 2026
  • Ryba, F., Muslims, the Internet, and Fabulating about Futures: About Muslim Migrants in Poland and How They Imagine the Futures of Islam in the Era of the Internet, in: Central and Eastern European Migration Review, 2026
  • Larsson, G., Willander, E., Experiences of Online Threats, Harassment and Violence among Muslims in Sweden: The Effect of Virtual Proximity, Nordic Journal of Criminology, Taylor & Francis, 2026
  • Grasso, A., Bunt, G., Social media and Website use by Muslim Organisations and Actors Across Diverse European contexts, Digital Muslim Review, Universitas Islam Negeri Sultan Maulana Hasanuddin Banten, 2026

 Start date

31 October 2022

Project duration

30 months

 Project budget

€ 1 357 551

Funding organisations