Introduction: Islam, Space, and the Internet

This special issue comes from a panel we organized at the conference of the European Association for the Study of Religion (easr) held in Bern in June 2018.1 The panel, titled “Space, Religion, and the Internet,” aimed at exploring the relationship between religion and new media by considering the spatial turn in Religious Studies. We launched an open call for the panel and, while it was not restricted to a specific religion, it mostly attracted papers on Islam. This resulted in a panel exploring digital Islam in countries that are not predominantly Muslim, analyzing topics that included Salafi and fundamentalist practices, gender performances within Islam, online Islamophobia, and the use of the Internet to counteract stereotypes. Following the panel, we decided to publish this special issue with a focus in Islam in Europe and North America. The growing academic interest on Islam and the Internet, shown by the significant number of submissions on the topic we had for the easr conference panel, has different causes. First, Muslims living in non-Muslim countries often employ digital media to gain knowledge about Islam, negotiate religious practices, explore ways to be part of a community, consume Muslim-inspired pop culture, and find like-minded people to discuss religious and cultural backgrounds (Echchaibi, 2011; Bahfen, 2018). Second, the growth of digital practices also sheds light on the intersection between offline and online Islamophobia, which is a pressing social issue. Together with street-level Islamophobia, the Internet may offer venues for stereotypes, abuses, discriminations and threats