“Assalamu ʿAlaykum, Can We Add This Sister?”

Abstract

This article examines the use of a WhatsApp chat group by Dutch and Belgian Muslim women (born or converted), who are considering or made hijra (religiously inspired migration to a Muslim country) to Morocco. I argue that WhatsApp plays a crucial role in facilitating and narrating these women’s migration by providing a support network and shaping a gendered sense of community and religious belonging. Drawing on theories of religion and gender, migration, and digital media, I conceptualize WhatsApp in the context of hijra to Morocco as a social practice of homemaking that helps alleviate the precarious conditions these women find themselves in. This article also illustrates the complex entanglement of offline and online realities by highlighting how my interlocutors’ interactions in this WhatsApp group foster a trans-local Muslim ‘sisterhood,’ that informs their offline practices and experiences of hijra to Morocco.