Can Islam be Cool? Emerging Islamic Consumer Culture

Abstract

In the paper the author challenges the stereotypical image of Islamic culture as being repressive and hostile to consumerism. Using variety of examples, the author describes the multifold process of consumer culture formation in the Islamic world. Modern Islamic consumer culture is not homogenous. On the one hand, it is shaped by pressures of aggressively marketed global popular culture of Western provenance and reactions (o! en escalating into resistance) to that in" uence by the recipients, but on the other, it is deeply embedded in the traditional values of the local communities.