Explaining Arab atheism in the digital age
Principal Investigator
Professor Stephen Bullivant
Director of the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society
Professor of Theology and the Sociology of Religion
St Mary’s University, Twickenham
Co-Investigator
Dr. Yosr Ben SlIma
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
St Mary’s University, Twickenham
Muslim-majority countries have often been perceived as being particularly resilient to atheism and secularity. However, there is evidence that this is changing. Describing oneself as “not religious” is demonstrably on the rise in several Middle East and North African countries, especially among young adults, and both activists and scholars have spoken of an “atheist spring.”
Until now, there have been few studies of atheisation in these countries. While there are undoubtedly many reasons for this phenomenon, the internet is widely and plausibly cited as a central factor, not least by new “Arab atheists” themselves.
This project sought to significantly expand our knowledge and understanding of these important shifts in popular attitudes within the Islamic world, exploring in real time the role that internet use and society-wide technological change is playing in the spread of atheism and of disengagement from Islam, with particular attention to six countries: Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
We sought to go beyond an investigation of the content of websites and platforms that are disseminating atheist ideas to address questions about how users are engaging with this content and the effect the internet is having on creating and sustaining their atheism. We also conducted detailed ethnographic fieldwork and interviews in Tunisia which allowed us to explore how the thriving world of online atheism intersects and interacts with participants’ offline selves.
Rather than the more formal centres of enquiry and debate and consciously intellectual atheist circles, we focused on less visible atheists living ordinary lives. We were interested in how atheist internet users are participating in the creation and promotion of material; how informal conversations, debates, arguments, and reactions to content may be strengthening atheism; and how acts such as commenting, sharing, and liking posts on social media may serve to reinforce a sense of belonging to a common community and to normalise atheism.
Publications
Publications from this project are forthcoming, check our Publications page for updates
