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" Digital Rhetoric and Gatekeepers of Knowledge: Islamic Authority in America "
Rahman, Ali M.
Reynolds, Dwight
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Latin Dissertation
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English
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| Record Number
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1054297
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| Doc. No
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TL53414
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| Main Entry
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Rahman, Ali M.
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| Title & Author
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Digital Rhetoric and Gatekeepers of Knowledge: Islamic Authority in America\ Rahman, Ali M.Reynolds, Dwight
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| College
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University of California, Santa Barbara
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| Date
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2020
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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2020
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| Note
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211 p.
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| Abstract
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In this project I explore modern American Islamic discourse occurring between institution, scholar, and audience, paying particular attention to how digital writing affects notions of religious authority in our neoliberal reality. I incorporate several different approaches including close reading analysis of the religious online literature circulating among Muslim Americans, a rhetorical and discursive analysis of online interactions between scholars and laypersons, and the collection and analysis of qualitative data by surveying and interviewing Muslim Americans. For the purposes of this dissertation, I propose to examine three levels of authority (institutional, local, and individual): (1) Islamic educational institutions that have significant online presence, (2) interviews and case studies of local imams and celebrity scholars in the digital Islamic world, (3) interviews of Muslim Americans to ascertain how they search for Islamic knowledge online. (1) American Islamic educational institutions have accumulated large followings due to their multimodal and flexible approaches. Two of the most well known of these institutions, Zaytuna College and the AlMaghrib Institute, represent very different and sometimes competing approaches to Islamic education. (2) By surveying the social media landscape, relying on responses from interviews and my own accumulated knowledge, I will highlight the various Muslim American digital profiles that take part in Islamic knowledge exchange. Using the data mining software Crimson Hexagon I have collected thousands of tweets and Facebook posts based on users, keywords, and hashtags. Sorting through content with Crimson Hexagon’s categories offers a look at the types of subjects covered in this often times informal realm of knowledge transfer. Visualizing the data with graphing software (like RAW) will allow for easy readability. (3) Throughout the dissertation I incorporate transcribed excerpts of interviews with Muslim Americans across different levels of authority about their use (to whatever extent) of digital media, and their reflections on Islamic knowledge transfer in America. It has become a necessity in order to reach a rapidly growing and digitally native Muslim American audience for scholars to utilize multiple media platforms. The goal of this dissertation is to shine light on our neoliberal reality and relationship with knowledge in the digital age, while encouraging greater metacognitive practices on the level of the institution, local, and individual authorities.
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| Descriptor
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Rhetoric
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Reynolds, Dwight
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University of California, Santa Barbara
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