Answering for Islam: Journalistic and Islamic Conceptions of Authority

Abstract

Media representations of Muslims in Britain have often disappointed both faith practitioners and scholars. Imputed failings include distorting beliefs or practices, essentialising the faith, and amplifying voices that are not representative of Islam. This last factor hinges on questions of authority: what journalists and Muslims recognise as authority can differ in important ways. Drawing on studies of journalism practice, prior professional experience, and ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative interviews in Scotland, I discuss the conventional preference among journalists for "official sources" and the problems this can present in terms of hierarchy in Islam. I contrast this with a less-studied imperative, also present in newsrooms, for "real people". This category matches well with Islam's decentralised tradition and presents an opportunity to understand how different kinds of sources are presented in media coverage. It is possible for journalists to ensure that these differing claims to authority are represented properly, though this requires knowledge and responsibility.

Towards Contextualized Islamic Leadership: Paraguiding and the Universities and Muslim Seminaries Project (UMSEP)

“…When asked what qualities, skills and qualifications graduates should have when looking into chaplaincy, a workplace chaplain described the exact combination that we envisage for the jurisprudence of reality: We propose that this set of skills requires three crucial moral zones: traditional theology, moral authority and reasonable pluralism. These moral zones reflect the three sides of modern Islamic authority that Masooda Bano captured in her recent project (Munnik 2019). As well as working with traditional institutions that train ulama such as Cairo's al-Azhar and the Darul Uloom in Deoband (Bano 2018a), Bano has also worked with newer institutions and scholars in Muslim-minority countries such as Zaytuna College (USA) and Ebrahim College (England) (Bano 2018b).…”