The Public Sphere in an Islamic Context

The Habermasian public sphere provides the theoretical foundation for our exploration of Islamic online discourse. Since its development in the 1960s, the “public sphere” has elicited several controversial discussions and lively debates, especially among academics, intellectuals, and historians. Despite the fact that it has been criticized for its rather idealistic approach, 1 it continues to be useful—at least in its normative form—in “thinking about how wider social and cultural issues are addressed; and for trying to make sense of how agreement about what is acceptable in a culture is reached.” 2 In this chapter, we will provide a brief background of the public sphere concept, which was developed by the contemporary German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, and we will touch on the arguments of its main critics. Theoretical implications of Habermas’ work and its evolution inform and enrich our understanding of the functioning of public sphere in multiple contexts, including the Islamic community. We apply the public sphere concept to the Islamic context by investigating how it shapes community acceptance of political and religious authority, with particular attention to the role of the ‘ulama (religious scholars) within and in response to the “new Islamic public sphere” emanating from a variety of factors, such as greater access to education and information and communication technologies. 3 These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.