Event Information

Within the ‘spiritual marketplace’ of American religious life, Cyberspace offers tech-savvy Muslims an alternative platform for narratives, networking and ritual experience.  Since the adoption of the printing press, Sufis have demonstrated a remarkable ability to adopt and adapt to emerging media technologies.  Even so, the use of the Internet by global Sufi communities remains largely unexplored by academic scholarship.  Drawing on new research, this presentation examines how several distinct American Sufi orders utilize Cyberspace as a unique mediascape for the refashioning of authority, identity and ritual performance.