The fatwā in the digital age. A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of the question

Muslim laypeople are the first ‘space’ in which the attempt to harmonize modernity and Islamic tradition takes place. Once elusive, they are now within reach of scientific research, thanks to modern communication technologies. Their questions about how to reconcile faith and daily life in the societies in which they live are publicly available on many online websites that issue fatwās online. Using modern Natural Language Processing and corpus linguistics techniques it is possible to analyze large databases of these questions, gaining a deeper understanding of the Muslim experience of modernity. This essay presents the results of the study of two corpora, one consisting of questions posed to internet muftīs by Muslims living in Europe and another consisting of questions posed by Muslim Millennials and Generation Z.