Explaining Arab atheism in the digital age
Principal Investigator
Professor Stephen Bullivant
Director of the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society
Professor of Theology and the Sociology of Religion
St Mary’s University, Twickenham
Co-Investigator
Dr. Yosr Ben SlIma
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
St Mary’s University, Twickenham
Co-Investigator
Co-Investigator
Dr. Shoaib Ahmed Malik
Zayed University, UAE; Cambridge Muslim College
Dr. Usaama al-Azami
Faculty of Oriental Studies
University of Oxford
Start and end dates: 1 October 2022 – 31 December 2023
Award: £93,812
Muslim-majority countries have often been perceived as being particularly resilient to atheism and secularity. However, there is evidence that this is changing. Describing oneself as “not religious” is demonstrably on the rise in several Middle East and North African countries, especially among young adults, and both activists and scholars have spoken of an “atheist spring.”
Until now, there have been few studies of atheisation in these countries. While there are undoubtedly many reasons for this phenomenon, the internet is widely and plausibly cited as a central factor, not least by new “Arab atheists” themselves.
This project, based at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, will significantly expand our knowledge and understanding of these important shifts in popular attitudes within the Islamic world. It will explore in real time the role that internet use and society-wide technological change is playing in the spread of atheism and of disengagement from Islam, with particular attention to six countries: Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The project will go beyond simply examining the content of websites and platforms that are disseminating atheist ideas to address the more neglected questions of how users are engaging with this content and the effect the internet is having on creating and sustaining their atheism. Critically, detailed ethnographic fieldwork and interviews in Tunisia will also allow us to explore how the thriving world of online atheism intersects and interacts with participants’ offline selves too.
The project will look at how atheist internet users are participating in the creation and promotion of material; how informal conversations, debates, arguments, and reactions to content may be strengthening atheism; and how acts such as commenting, sharing, and liking posts on social media may serve to reinforce a sense of belonging to a common community and to normalise atheism. By studying atheism in relation to internet use, we hope that the project will help to uncover what is going on beyond consciously intellectual circles and to include less visible atheists living ordinary lives away from more formal centres of enquiry and debate.
Importantly, the project will also support other emerging scholarship on atheism within Islamic contexts. We will co-sponsor the upcoming two-day “Islam, Secularism, and Atheism” online conference. We will also plan to apply for further grants to support work in this nascent area of nonreligion scholarship.
Project outputs include: an ethnographic monograph on contemporary Tunisian atheism; 2 journal articles; an edited volume; 4 book chapters; and at least one grant application.
