Selected Articles


Coercion into Marriage and Sex: How Islam is Instrumentalised

My chapter is part of a collection of scholarly, activist, and personal essays, Sexual Violence in Muslim Communities: Towards Awareness and Accountability which lays bare the often invisible and nefarious ways that sexual violence permeates the societies and communities that Muslims inhabit as minority populations. Each contribution illuminates a different dimension of these violences which are often otherwise cast off as individual, private, or even exaggerated.

My essay draws on the experiences of young women from differing ethnic Muslim communities located in transnational contexts. I demonstrate the systemic and gradually increasing degree of coercion into marriage which is exercised by parents and community members. Here is my chapter for download.


Combatting Inequality, Transforming Academic Structures and Implementing Global Sociology – Towards a Rehbeinian Pedagogy

Last year, my friend and teacher, Boike Rehbein, suddenly passed away. He had shaped a generation of scholars across the globe, including myself. In the essay, I look at his characteristics: His conceptual principle of Verstehen, his scholarly contribution through habitus hermeneutics and his structural contribution through the specific design of the Global Studies Programme (GSP). Assessing these three elements and seeing how they are linked, I propose moving towards a Rehbeinian pedagogy, which is instrumental in levelling the academic playing field and allows critical sociology to gain a global orientation.

in: Gedenkschrift Rehbein „Für eine menschliche Welt – Zum Werk von Boike Rehbein“ (For a human work – Work of Boike Rehbein), 2024 Beltz Juventa, p. 188 et seqq. My essay can be download from the publishing company directly.


Muslim Instagram: Eternal Youthfulness and Cultivating Deen

Special Issue „Digital Youth and Religion“ in Religions 2022, 13(7), 658

This article argues that Muslims have created a specific Muslim Instagram that sustains youthfulness and cultivates their deen (religion). I have analysed over 500 images with the hashtags #muslim and #islam … By playing with notions of youthfulness, Muslims recontextualise their faith and practice online to cultivate their deen. They thereby …

Read more @ MPDI (open access)


Encountering Hidden Transcripts: Behind the Antagonism of the India-Pakistan Narrative

This article reflects on Pakistan’s imaginary within contemporary Indian society. It is based factually on a personal experience of events and encounters during my study visit at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in
New Delhi 2018.

Südasien-Chronik/South Asia Chronicle 2022 (12)

Read more @ HU-Server (open access)


Keep It Halal! A Smartphone Ethnography of Muslim Dating

How is Muslim religious identity impacted by Muslim dating apps? The development of Muslim dating apps within the last decade has led to Muslims seeking partners beyond their physical and social locality. The following research takes inner-Muslim discursive traditions into account to examine how Muslim males …

Award-winning article for the DAAD–Prize 2021.

Go to the Brill-Journal