Suhaib Webb – Virtual Pulpit: Net Mosques, Congregations & Imams

About this lecture

In this wide-ranging lecture delivered at UC Berkeley's Graduate Theological Union, Imam Suhaib Webb draws on his journey from Oklahoma hip-hop DJ to Al-Azhar-trained scholar to explore how the internet — and his blog suhaibwebb.com — has become a "virtual masjid" for American Muslims seeking community, authority, and authentic religious identity. He identifies key challenges facing Muslims in the West, including the collapse of trusted religious authority, the alienation of converts, the pressures on children of immigrants, and the dangers of online militancy, while making a passionate case for a synthesized American Muslim identity that neither imports foreign cultures wholesale nor abandons Islamic tradition. The Q&A extends these themes into the ethics of digital discourse, the role of gender in Islamic scholarship, and the tension between claiming Americanness and representing global Islam.