Indeed, as Turkmen youth are learning to use mobile phones, computers, and other technologies, they are beginning to express themselves more ‘freely’ in this (deceivingly) ‘wire-cloaked’ haven. I am reminded of my time on the ground in T-stan, where boys would meet up and do nothing else but swap media (Lady Gaga music videos, azans, pictures, bloopers, etc.) via bluetooth on their mobiles. Overtime, as I got more used to this bizarre, seemingly out of place social activity, I could almost tell someone’s personality just by the material that they had on their phone.

I think, like most people in any given country, most ‘professing’ folks are only as religious as their fathers or mothers – that is to say, without any drastic shift in power structures to enforce a differing ideology, the progeny will most likely accept what’s given them.

Things are changing, however. Mounting onto the free platform of the internet, people are allowed to consume or produce anything about everything with nearly zero accountability. This site included. I wonder how it will be used in Central Asia, and what sort of forces will win out to win over the ‘hearts and minds’ (thanks Obama) of the people. Probably those who have the best marketing teams.

I was only in T-stan for a measly two years, living and working in a very specific, exclusive area, so I wouldn’t dare make a comment on the ‘overall’ progress of Islam’s popularity among the youth. I wouldn’t know based on my own subjective experience.

It seems that, like most any place, there will always be those who want to drink and smoke, and those who don’t, and that all religiosity or nonreligiosity seems to be just a rationalization for one’s own predilections. I hope that made sense.

My focus has been mainly on the topic of the Turkmen youth, Islam and the Internet but thank you for drawing my attention to this issue.

If I may make my point more clear, Turkmenistan was Islamicized to the point that Islamic customs were observed but Islamic learning and teaching based on the Koran has not progressed there as much as in neighboring Uzbekistan or Tajikistan, while at the same time local customs have survived. Fundamentalism has been mostly unkown. Along with the Islamic faith, a wisdom of their own has existed. The local elders(aksakgal)were just as influental as the imam, if not more. Turkmens have been nomadic peoople along the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz.

Secondy, I am not only referring to Shamanism, but Turkmen traditions such as observance days for the deceased relatives (3rd, 7th, 40th days and year anniversaries),among many others.

To my knowledge some of the Muslim traditions had existed even before Islam’s arrival. For example, circumcision is believed to be practiced
previously due to the climate and concern for hygiene.

@Michael Hancock, it’s also not just Sunnism. Shi’ism has also really taken to the online world with a vengeance. We need look no further than the recent “Twitter-revolution”, over-hyped though it may be, as evidence.

And generally speaking, consider the price, packages, and plurality of mobile and internet services in Islamic regions, especially Southeast Asia and Africa. Perhaps my argument here is ad populum (i.e., even if the majority of Muslims here are nominal at best, it still counts), but I’m also now going beyond my initially narrow discussion of dawaists vs. evangelists.

To answer your questions, yes, I am talking specifically of dawa sites for both pietists and radicals (note: that was the original context by the above post’s editorial remark about the “mechanisms of Islam’s resurgence”, ahem). I am also including non-English sites in local languages, but I don’t have any hard numbers to provide you at the moment.

Also, of course, as I said above, in some quarters of the world Christianity’s competition with Islam, however we may understand these categories, is fierce, the Philippines being one good example, not to mention Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, etc.

Moreover, note that “re-conversion” or revivalism is probably a far greater phenomenon within both religious communities than conversion of outsiders. Indeed, re-conversion of already, if nominally, Christian or Islamic individuals and polities, is the explicit aim of most evangelists and dawaists, be they pietist, radical, or otherwise.

This brings us back to the question of evangelism and dawa in the non-English internet. In this part of the online world, because the evangelists and dawaists’ concerns tend to be, shall we say, parochial or domestic, they tend to not venture into each other’s linguistic domain, so to speak.

You can correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m confident you won’t find many dawaists preaching to Christian populations in Urdu or Arabic, for instance, or evangelists preaching to Islamic populations in Spanish and Tagalog (note: this is not to say that they *never* do, because there are incidents in which they have). When they engage each other or each others’ populations for the purpose of polemic and conversion, they will typically do so in English.

Nevertheless, I maintain that Sunni Islam, particular its Muwahiddun pietest and local traditional variants (not to be confused with the Salafis or Sufis, obviously, although there is overlap), is beating Christianity at the digital game. It might take some hefty research to proffer you some hard numbers; perhaps this could make a good dissertation. ;)

However, the points you make yourself are good ones. But again, numbers? Have you wondered the Catholic megalopolis online? Or are we only counting evangelizing websites now? And are you only counting material in English [translation]? Catholicism in the Philippines rivals any Islamic faction in ferocity of belief, I would say.

With regards to demography, Sunni Islam is actually the world’s fastest growing religion, cf. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3835 and http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Claims_to_be_the_fastest_growing_religion&oldid=313814448. Indeed, its primary competition is coming from non-Western religions, the Bahai Faith in particular; Christianity is lagging behind, and what competition does exist — which is undeniably fierce in some quarters of the globe — is emerging from non-traditional varieties like Mormonism, the Unification Church, and most of all, Pentecostalism.

With regards to ideology, Sunni Islam doesn’t suffer from the ambivalence toward technology that has marked so much of the Christian tradition, Protestantism’s brief embrace of modernity in the 19th Century notwithstanding (which, at any rate, resulted in the fundamentalist backlash). The fact that most online evangelical ministries feel it necessary to include a section on their websites explaining why Christians should embrace the Internet, while on Islamic dawa sites it’s rare to see such apologetics, is telling.

Finally, with regards to access, it’s true that in most areas of the “Dar al-Islam” the internet has, at best, a meager reach. But the entire Islamic world need not be wired in order for it compete effectively in the online world. In fact, online dawa activity primarily arises from six geographic areas: California, Texas, Saudi Arabia, France, Britain, and India, typically from mosques or Islamic centers in cities with large universities and high rates of municipal connectivity. The sheer volume from these locales outperforms the Bible Belt, which is largely “unwired” and has fewer major academic centers; indeed, most online evangelical ministries come from either California or Britain, and typically from exurban communities far removed, both mentally and physically, from major intellectual centers.

Putting the above comments together, we can make a simple formula: demography provides the basis for Islam’s digital mastery, ideology its facilitation, and well-placed access its effusion.

Hope this helps!