“I Will Make You a Successful Muslim”: The Role of Online Coaching in Shaping Neoliberal Subjects in Russia


Sofya Ragozina

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Abstract


In this paper, I consider Muslim online coaching in Russia, trying to determine how new neoliberal subjects are constructed. Considering the case of “Trillionaire” project by the imam of Moscow's Memorial Mosque Shamil Alyautdinov, I identify specific linguistic strategies used to construct an image of a “successful/harmonic” Muslim. This image serves as a central motif in the discourse of Muslim coaching. While the project primarily focuses on financial well-being, it is a comprehensive ethical program, where financial stability is viewed as a natural consequence of pious behavior. Online coaching based on Protestant activist ethos turns out to be a new way to entrain the Muslim subject—the “new” modernized Muslims as well as imam-coach as a new type of religious authority – that combines neoliberal values of entrepreneurship and self-help with Islamic virtue. I discuss several factors that make this project highly in demand among contemporary Muslims based on cultural consumption argument and the convenience of secular translation of Islam within the global neoliberal agenda.

Keywords


sociology of Islam; digital anthropology; Islam in Russia; living religion; digital Islam; life-coaching

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