The Beautiful Game on a Muslim Pitch: How Football and Religion are Shaping Identity and Society

Examines how football and religion act together to shape both identity and society in Muslim contexts. This book showcases how football and religion are becoming increasingly interlinked in Muslim contexts in order to interact with and influence both identity and society. The first part of the volume is devoted to issues of identity, showing how football aids in its construction, maintenance and subversion. The second part reveals the deep-rooted connections between football and political and religious establishments by demonstrating how these organisations frequently use the game to disseminate or propagate their larger messages. Altogether, the contributors reveal how football has increasingly become a site for confrontations and negotiations over different understandings of religion – as a racial category, as gendered power and as it is invested in issues of state politics.