Being Muslim at the Intersection of Islam and Popular Cultures in Nigeria

ABSTRACT “Being Muslim” is a complex identity formation process that involves negotiating what is considered “Islamic” or “non-Islamic” selves in various localized and globalized contexts. At the crossroad of Islam and popular culture, divergent Muslim cultural producers influence how contemporary Muslim cultures and identities are produced and negotiated in both normative and disruptive ways. Using “celebrity” as a cultural formation with a social function, this article examines shifting dynamics, contradictions, tensions, and negotiation processes within the Muslim cultural production fields (both physical and virtual) that involve “dominant” popular Islamic preachers in northern Nigeria and “emerging” Muslim superstars in the Kannywood entertainment industry. By examining how some popular Islamic preachers (who are opposed to Kannywood celebrity culture) have transformed into religious celebrities themselves, and how Kannywood superstars crafted their identities as Muslim celebrities, the article shows that an assertion of one’s Muslim identity in a cultural setting dominated by Islamist movements does not necessarily indicate an endorsement of those movements’ reform agendas. Instead, it can challenge those movements’ interpretations of Islam through alternative ways of being Muslim in subtle ways – a dynamic that reveals processes at work in the reconstruction of “being Muslim” in the contemporary world.