Islam, SMOs, and the Arab Spring: A New Perspective on Social Movements in the Middle East

Abstract

Scholars misinterpret the role of Islam in contemporary social movement organizations (SMOs). I develop a new qualitative database on four Middle Eastern SMOs, and find them tied to Islam in complex and sometimes contradictory ways. SMOs from the 2011 Arab Spring have proven to be ideologically and structurally flexible regardless of their formal relationship to Islam.