A “Virtual Club” of Lithuanian Converts to Islam

Račius, Egdūnas

doi:10.1007/978-94-007-7247-2_3

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Embracing Islam as an alternative basis for one's identity following the collapse of the geopolitical order and the overwhelmingly secular post-Soviet region is a common theme in the studies of conversion by Račius (2013) in Lithuania, Stoica (2011; in Romania, Pirický (2018) in the Czech Republic, and Shestopalets (2019; in Ukraine and Russia, respectively. However, Poland does not easily fit into this theme; it is a comparatively devout country (Topidi 2019), and Catholicism provides a meaningful social and religious context for Muslim conversion.…”

Section: Learning About Islam In Polandmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The internet has been at the centre of attention of researchers interested in converts' religious socialization for the last two decades (Račius 2013, Górak-Sosnowska 2015, van Nieuwkerk 2006, Piela 2015, Sakellariou 2015. The multiplicity of Muslim perspectives available online led many scholars to conclude that authority in Islam had become atomized or pluralized (Anderson 2003).…”

Section: Learning About Islam On the Internetmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Górak-Sosnowska (2015) noted that Polish Muslim online spaces were ideologically polarized between Salafi-oriented versus non-Salafi-oriented groups. Račius (2013) observed that the preoccupation with "halal" (permitted) and "haram" (forbidden) actions was the focal point of a prominent Lithuanian online forum for converts, illustrating the limited capacity of converts in earlier stages to accept the ambiguity of knowledge and truth. Abdallah-Krzepkowska (forthcoming), based on her ethnography of Polish online convert spaces, argues that for most converts, the "Salafi phase" is often superseded by a "mature Islam" phase that accommodates the complexities of Muslim life better.…”

Section: Learning About Islam On the Internetmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Role of the Internet in the Formation of Muslim Subjectivity Among Polish Female Converts to Islam

Piela¹,

Krotofil²,

Górak-Sosnowska³

et al. 2022

CyberOrient

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In this article, we discuss the main arguments related to female Muslim converts' formation of a religious subjectivity in the context of studying Islam in online spaces. In distinguishing between Western and Eastern Europe, it is our purpose to highlight the significance of online sources for converts who inhabit geographic “peripheries” of Islam. After giving an overview of the literature that discusses Muslim subject formation among converts, we analyse 35 in‐depth, qualitative interviews with Polish female converts to Islam in reference to a theoretical framework that integrates Belenky et al.'s model of epistemological categories of knowledge and the concept of Muslim subjectivity formation. We argue that for the Polish female converts we interviewed, the process of acquiring and revising their knowledge about Islam, through online engagement with individuals, groups, texts, and multimedia content, is vital for developing an ontologically secure Muslim subjectivity.

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