Second, its contributors prioritize in-depth fieldwork research, offering fine-grained, original insights into the manifold mobilization of Islamist-inspired social movements in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Mali, Senegal, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, and Western Europe. First, it highlights how geographically dispersed religious groups define themselves as members of a larger, universal Umma, while evolving in deeply embedded local contexts. The book innovates by transcending regional boundaries, bringing together specialists of the three aforementioned regions. This book explores how Islamist social movements, Sufi brotherhoods, and Jihadi armed groups, in their great diversity, elaborate their social networks, and recruit sympathizers and militants in complicated times. Written in an accessible format, and providing fresh analytical perspectives on Islamism in the Maghreb, this book will be a valuable tool for students and scholars of Political Islam and North African Politics.Īs North African, Middle Eastern, and Sahelian societies adapt to the post-Arab Spring era and the rise of violence across the area, various groups find in Islam an answer to the challenges of the era. Ultimately, however, it is argued that this affirmation is a temporary phenomenon that will give way in time to the fundamental need for good governance, accountability, and a stable growing economy in these countries. Rather, the electoral success of Islamists in the Maghreb, like Tunisia's Ennahdha party, is rooted in a reaffirmation of the Arab-Islamic identities of the Maghreb states, long delayed by dictatorships that mimicked Western models and ideologies (e.g., Socialism). This view contrasts with the popular belief that support for Islamists in North Africa reflects a dangerous "fundamentalist" view of the world that seeks to simply impose archaic religious laws on modern societies. Exploring Islamism as an identity movement rooted in the colonial experience, this book argues that votes for Islamist parties after the Arab Spring reflected a universal human need for an authentic sense of self. In doing so, it provides readers with a concise history of Sunni Islam in North Africa, the violent struggles against European colonial occupation, and the subsequent quest for an affirmation of Muslim identities in its wake. This book explores the origins, development and rise of these Islamist parties by focusing on the people behind them. The ensuing democratic reforms resulted in elections and the victory of several Islamist political parties in the Arab world. Longstanding dictatorships fell in their wake. Events in Tunisia sparked huge and sometimes violent uprisings. In 2011, the Maghreb occupied a prominent place in world headlines when Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, became the birthplace of the so-called Arab Spring. Offering new insight into the influence of media exposure on national, political, and cultural boundaries of the Islamic identity, this book is a valuable resource for students and scholars of Middle Eastern politics, specifically political Islam and political communication. This volume brings together chapters from a range of specialists working in the field, presenting a variety of case studies on new media, identity formation and political Islam in Muslim communities both within and beyond the MENA region. Across the world, Arab Muslims have embraced new media not only as a source of information but also as a source of guidance and fatwas, thereby transforming Muslim practices and rituals. Undoubtedly, the process of globalization, especially in the field of media and ICTs, challenges the cultural and religious systems, particularly in terms of identity formation. This book examines the implications of new media on the rise of political Islam and on Islamic religious identity in the Arab Middle East and North Africa, as well as among Muslim Arab Diasporas. The development of new and social networking sites, as well as the growth of transnational Arab television, has triggered a debate about the rise in transnational political and religious identification, as individuals and groups negotiate this new triad of media, religion and culture.
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