“The Influencer-Preacher”: Digital Salafism and the Transformation of Networked Religiosity
Islamic circles – or what may be described as the “committed public sphere”[1] – have undergone significant transformations in recent years, particularly amid growing discussions surrounding the “decline” or “waning” of political Islam and the retreat of Salafi movements after the Arab Spring. Yet, despite widespread discourse about the crisis of these currents, this has not necessarily meant the disappearance of their moral imagination or a decline in their social presence. Rather, it has pushed them toward reconfiguration within the digital sphere through more individualised, network-based, and less formally organised forms.
At the forefront of these transformations stands a new model of the religious actor: what may be termed the “influencer-preacher.” This figure no longer derives legitimacy primarily from formal religious scholarship or traditional clerical authority. Instead, legitimacy is increasingly produced through the networks surrounding him: from endorsements by affiliated sheikhs and preachers, to the nature of the platforms amplifying his presence, and ultimately to the “followers” – digital circles and online publics – who continuously reproduce his discourse and grant it recognition within the networked religious sphere.
Even at the level of discourse itself, the preacher’s ability to position himself regarding major contemporary issues shaping the broader Islamic public mood has become central, particularly after October 7. Today, one’s stance toward Gaza, resistance movements in particular, and regional affairs more broadly constitutes a decisive factor in determining the rise or decline of any preacher’s influence.
Although this model began to emerge prior to the Arab Spring through trends once labelled “Lifestyle Islam,” “Liberal Islam,” and “Market Islam,” the phenomenon today differs fundamentally in terms of discourse, visibility, and audience relations. “Digital Salafism,” as one manifestation of new Salafism and the movement of Salafism from the mosque into digital spaces, does not simply reproduce classical Salafism with its traditional jurisprudential and organisational structures. Rather, it is formed through hybrid intersections combining activist Islam, traditional Salafism, self-development discourse, and networked religiosity.
What unites these strands is a discourse centred on the individual as a comprehensive ethical and psychological project aimed at producing pious selves and “digital disciples” capable of consuming and inhabiting a specific mode of religiosity. This persists despite the considerable differences in visions, priorities, tools, and rhetorical styles between these phenomena.
Consequently, we are confronted with a complex socio-cultural phenomenon that transcends the generational mood of any single cohort. Instead, it reflects broader transformations – and perhaps even structural crises – in patterns of religiosity, authority, identity, official religious policies and their social reception, as well as the setbacks experienced by Islamic movements within the contemporary Islamic landscape, all of which have accumulated through the years of the Arab Spring and its aftermath.
Mapping Digital Salafism: Structure and Transformations
The contemporary phenomenon of “digital” Salafism assumes multiple and overlapping forms. Despite its internal fragmentations, three principal trajectories can still be identified within it, although the boundaries separating them remain fluid and highly mobile – at times to the point of dissolving distinctions altogether. These are therefore better understood as shifting and dynamic divisions rather than rigid categories or finalised formations. Nevertheless, invoking the conventional classification remains analytically useful in distinguishing the general characteristics and discursive orientations of each current.
The first trajectory is represented by what is commonly known as Madkhali-Jami Salafism, or what is increasingly referred to today as the “New Madkhalis” or the “Haddadis,” reflecting the evolution and intensification of their discourse. Their rhetoric centres on obedience to the ruler, strict adherence to doctrinal orthodoxy, and sustained criticism of other Islamic movements and trends. This includes reviving theological disputes surrounding Ash‘arism, Sufism, questions of creed and divine attributes, as well as themes of innovation (bid‘a), deviation, and doctrinal error.
Digital spaces have reproduced this current in a more open and expansive manner through networks of clerics, preachers, visual debates, short-form videos, and livestreams, which have increasingly replaced the formal debates once associated with this trend. Among the most prominent figures linked to this orientation are Mohammed bin Shams al-Din, Rabee al-Madkhali, and Sulayman al-Ruhayli, alongside numerous personalities and media productions circulating within or intersecting with the same sphere. In Jordan specifically, this current adopts a dual form: external support from beyond these circles on the one hand, and the increasingly direct digital manifestation of this Salafi orientation on the other.
In contrast, activist Salafism has emerged as a more politically open trend, characterised by engagement with public affairs and broader societal concerns. Its preachers and symbolic figures combine Salafi references with elements drawn from classical political Islam, including direct and indirect intersections with Islamist discourse at the level of vocabulary, collective imagination, and the recycling and reproduction of symbolic figures.
Among the most prominent representatives of this trend are Sheikh Ahmad al-Sayyid and his various educational initiatives, most notably the “Methodological Foundation” (al-Binā’ al-Manhajī) programme, in addition to Iyad Qunaibi and many other clerics and preachers. This current is distinguished by a stronger intellectual dimension and greater openness toward the social sciences. Here, religious discourse is framed as a synthesis of identity formation, consciousness-building, ethical mobilisation, and concern with public issues.
Traditional Salafism, by comparison, appears less influential than the previous two currents and their ongoing polemics. Its decline in momentum relative to activist Salafism is partly attributable to its stronger association with formal scholarly transmission, structured learning, and established educational and religious traditions. Among its contemporary examples are Ghiras al-‘Ilm and the Imam al-Albani Centre, both of which originally operated as physical institutions whose lectures and educational sessions were later uploaded digitally before eventually being shut down through official state decisions[2].
This current has also expanded to include a growing female presence represented by figures such as Tasneem Rajeh, Layla Hamdan, and others. Naturally, each of these three currents possesses extensions and clerical networks within Jordan, even though their contemporary formation and expansion increasingly occur through digital environments.
Yet the more significant transformation transcends this conventional classification altogether and lies in the phenomenon of “digital Salafism” itself. Digital spaces continuously recycle and recombine all these currents within the broader networked religious sphere. Digital Salafism today constitutes a flexible “networked identity” that transcends rigid organisational forms and formal structures of affiliation or participation.[3] It is also a visual identity – one that is constantly displayed, curated, and modified.
Within this environment, discourse shifts from the collective to the personal, and from rigid political projects toward identity and its everyday representations. Consequently, themes such as masculinity, femininity, marriage, fitra (natural disposition), women’s work, self-development, education, and jurisprudential questions – including music, women’s dress, perceptions of the “other,” commanding right and forbidding wrong, Islamic psychology, ritual practice, and individual piety – have become central to this discourse.
One notable feature of this phenomenon is the growing reluctance among many “new Salafis” to explicitly identify themselves as “Salafi,” despite their continued reliance on Salafi references and vocabulary associated with the “pious predecessors” (al-salaf al-salih). This reflects a broader transformation from Salafism as an organisational affiliation or clearly bounded ideological current into Salafism as a diffuse cultural mood and moral imagination that transcends rigid forms and adapts more effectively to the digital sphere.
Moreover, despite its highly individualised nature and its relative or partial distance from overt political discourse and formal political engagement, this phenomenon remains deeply connected to the activist imaginary of political Islam. It reproduces that imaginary through new and more fluid forms, particularly after October 7, when segments of religious discourse revived themes of heroism, Islamic identity, and resistance. This was encapsulated in slogans such as: “Heroes are made only in our spacious mosques, in the gardens of the Qur’an, beneath authentic traditions… People without creed are but leaves scattered by the wind. Whoever betrays ‘Come to prayer’ betrays ‘Come to success.”[4] This slogan, closely associated with the rise and popularity of Sheikh Ahmad al- Arabi within the digital religious sphere, reflects a form of intensely personal and emotional engagement that nourishes the feeling of cumulative long-term action more than it does formal organisation, movement-building, or direct political participation.
“The Influencer-Preacher”: From the Sheikh to the Networked Model
A significant number of contemporary digital religious actors can be understood through the example of the Qur’an reciter and preacher Ahmad al- ‘Arabi. His rise initially became associated with Qur’anic recitations and his proximity to a circle of clerics and preachers, before his presence gradually expanded into podcasts and identity-oriented devotional content. This trajectory eventually culminated in broad popular appeal following his series “Tadhawwuq al- ‘Ibadat” (“Experiencing Worship”)[5], some episodes of which surpassed 35 million views, alongside the remarkable levels of attendance and engagement accompanying his lectures and public appearances among “digital disciples” across several Arab countries, including Jordan most recently[6].
The significance of this model lies not merely in Ahmad al-‘Arabi himself – despite his importance – but rather in the type of transformation he embodies within the digital religious sphere. As a representative model of digital Salafism, he does not offer a conventional sermon or a classical religious lesson. Instead, he presents what may be described as a “networked persona” that combines outward religiosity, performative presence, storytelling, “Islamic” self-development discourse, Islamic identity narratives, and the ability to cultivate an emotionally intimate and continuous relationship with audiences. The result is a form of collective spiritual experience produced through simultaneously digital and highly individualized means.
This also helps explain the spread of what may be termed “narrative religiosity” within these circles: a discourse that approaches Islamic heritage primarily as an emotionally charged and spiritually edifying reservoir of quotations and excerpts suitable for circulation and consumption, rather than as a coherent epistemological tradition. Consequently, figures such as Ibn Taymiyyah are often invoked selectively – through isolated statements rather than through engagement with the broader complexity of their intellectual legacy.
This transformation is no longer confined to individuals alone; it increasingly characterises platforms themselves. A number of contemporary media platforms – particularly intellectual podcasts and programmes such as “Wa‘i” (“Awareness”), “Fahem” (“Understanding”), and many others – now function as spaces for producing networked religiosity. These platforms merge religious discourse, self-development rhetoric, youth-oriented language, and identity-based narratives within visual and media formats carefully adapted to algorithmic logics of circulation. Their content is specifically designed for fragmentation, redistribution, and virality through short YouTube clips, condensed lectures, and reels circulated across social media platforms.
In this context, digital religiosity is transformed from merely being “religion on the internet” into a form of religiosity fundamentally rooted in performance, display, interaction, and the continuous reshaping of the self. The “influencer-preacher” does not primarily provide coherent religious knowledge, a structured reformist project, or even systematic critiques of grand ideological frameworks – although themes such as liberalism, capitalism, modernity, colonialism, the West, and feminism frequently appear within their rhetoric. Rather, what is produced is a complete and consumable “lifestyle”: one that can be watched, imitated, embodied, and endlessly recirculated.
This dynamic explains the adoption of increasingly rigid rhetoric regarding daily religious practices, individual commitment, identity, masculinity and femininity, relationships, self-development, and Islamic psychology. More importantly, it reflects a broader relocation of the centre of gravity from the “collective project” toward the cultivation and management of the self.
Conclusion
Contemporary transformations within the digital religious sphere cannot be adequately understood through a single isolated concept. Rather, they require a layered analytical approach connecting three interrelated levels: “networked religiosity” as the broader environment and prevailing mode of contemporary religiosity; “digital Salafism” as the most visible and influential formation within this environment; and the “influencer-preacher” as the new type of religious actor who embodies and reproduces this discourse.
These transformations compel a reconsideration of the very nature of religiosity within digital spaces, particularly given the prominence of Salafi references and their associated discourse. Religion and forms of religiosity have increasingly moved beyond functioning merely as normative systems for regulating behaviour or producing obedience. Instead, they now operate as spaces for the production, performance, and projection of the self. Despite its many intersections with what has previously been described as “Market Islam,” this phenomenon cannot be reduced to that framework alone – even if market-oriented dynamics constitute a substantial part of it. Digital religiosity, and digital Salafism in particular, remains capable of generating new moral narratives and collective identities, even when articulated through highly individualised and visual forms.
The transformations unfolding within the contemporary religious sphere do not represent a complete rupture with previous legacies so much as a reconfiguration of them under new historical conditions. The central narratives of classical political Islam – particularly the symbolic repertoire associated with the Muslim Brotherhood – continue to persist symbolically despite the apparent organisational decline or weakening of their direct political presence.
In this sense, “digital Salafism” increasingly resembles a form of “individualised political Islam”: a networked version of the activist Islamic imaginary accumulated through decades of political Islamist experience. It continues to preserve much of its moral and symbolic structure, approaching what may be described, in a Gramscian sense, as a form of cultural hegemony in which core narratives continue shaping consciousness and moral imagination even outside rigid organisational frameworks.
At the same time, however, this discourse continuously reproduces itself through the instruments of late modernity: individualism, personal branding, digital space, performance, the attention economy, and marketing. In doing so, it simultaneously passes through these structures and utilises their mechanisms, even while theoretically maintaining a discourse of hostility toward them or critique of them. Consequently, what appears on the institutional level as “decline” may in fact represent a more complex process of “repositioning” within expanding and increasingly influential digital spaces.
This reality necessitates broadening discussions surrounding youth transformations in patterns of religiosity to include deeper social and psychological dimensions in order to better understand and critically unpack these evolving dynamics and their far-reaching implications.
[1] Mohammad Al-Amin Assaf, “The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan: Internal Turmoil amid the Generational Gap and the Bypassing of Organisational Structures,” Politics and Society Institute, 2022.
[2] RT Arabic, “Jordan: Closure of Imam al-Albani Center After a Quarter Century of Salafi Activity Sparks Controversy,” October 17, 2025. https://bitly.cx/UU4l
Alarodian Net, “Authorities Suspend Teaching Activities at ‘Ghiras’ Center — A Center for Islamic Sciences — Citing Failure to Complete Licensing Requirements”, January 9, 2026. https://bitly.cx/Wt9K
[3] This conceptualisation and framing were developed on the basis of personal observations and further informed by the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm’s reflections on digital spirituality. He argues that virtuality may come to serve religiosity by functioning as a substitute for lived reality, where the “networked self” is shaped according to audience expectations rather than reflecting the individual’s actual personality in real life. This helps explain why this form of Salafism may often operate less as a clearly defined or rigid identity and more as a “cultural mood” and a “networked identity.”
[4] This slogan, which has today evolved into a chant, became closely associated with the rise and popularity of Sheikh Ahmed Al-Arabi within the digital religious sphere.
[5] Fahem Podcast, “Tadhawwuq al-‘Ibadat Series with Sheikh Ahmed Al-Arabi,” accessed May 19, 2026. https://bitly.cx/lMlAG
[6] Al Jazeera Jordan, “Scenes from the Reception of Islamic Preacher Ahmed Al-Arabi in Amman Two Days Ago Amid a Massive Attendance,” Facebook video, May 11, 2026. https://bitly.cx/W4Z5