Exercising Religious Authority

Chapter 6 explores the platforms imams, educators and academics use to convey their religious knowledge and teachings. It demonstrates that religious authority can be cultivated in numerous ways from leading prayers, preaching, teaching, interpreting scripture, spiritual embodiment, issuing fatwas and producing Islamic scholarship. The chapter examines new social spaces imams, academics and educators are entering to increase their reach and visibility. In the process, the chapter identifies the advantages and disadvantages of using certain platforms in the way religious knowledge is consumed and learned. Intriguingly, the chapter finds, while some imams may not classify themselves as “religious authorities” or “ulama,” their social activity, non-discursive cues and distribution of Islamic knowledge suggests otherwise. The chapter finally examines the phenomenon of “fake” and “self-styled” imams and their pseudo-construction of traditional “authority.”