Religion and the marketplace: constructing the ‘new’ Muslim consumer

Despite the prediction that modernization would lead to secularization, the past 30 years brought a global resurgence of religion. As many scholars note, religion has gained a new visibility in the contemporary political economy and become firmly embedded within the identity politics. The changing role of religion is linked to the growing influence of neoliberalism and the expansion of the market logic. In this study, I look at the intersections between Islam, consumption, and market and trace the shifts in the conceptualizations of Muslims in relation to the changing market dynamics and the broader socio-political and economic structures. I discuss three phases through which the view of Muslims as modern consumers in search of distinction and propriety comes to dominate the view of Muslims as non- or anti-consumers: exclusion, identification, and stylization. I conclude by discussing the implications of the study for the current understandings of the marketization of religion