Market Islam
I was asked a while back to contribute a guest post to Washington Post reporter Jack Fairweather's blog "Islam's Advance" (about "Islam influencing and adapting to the modern world").
I ended up writing on a phenomenon that has interested me for a while, every since I read Patrick Haenni's great book "L'Islam de Marché" ("Market Islam"), which I think unfortunately has never been translated into English: Islamic "branding" and Islamic consumer lifestyles. I also got to use one of my own all-time favourite interview anecdotes: the time a young Islamic TV preacher quoted Brian Adams to be to explain the concept of submission to Allah.
The post just skims the surface of what is a complex and interesting subject. (And this should go without saying, but my discussion of the intersection of capitalism and Islam is not meant as a critique of the Muslim faith).
I ended up writing on a phenomenon that has interested me for a while, every since I read Patrick Haenni's great book "L'Islam de Marché" ("Market Islam"), which I think unfortunately has never been translated into English: Islamic "branding" and Islamic consumer lifestyles. I also got to use one of my own all-time favourite interview anecdotes: the time a young Islamic TV preacher quoted Brian Adams to be to explain the concept of submission to Allah.
The post just skims the surface of what is a complex and interesting subject. (And this should go without saying, but my discussion of the intersection of capitalism and Islam is not meant as a critique of the Muslim faith).