Megan B Rice loves studying. She began a romance novel membership on the moment messaging platform Discord and posts ebook critiques on TikTok. Final month Rice, who’s 34 and lives in Chicago, used her social media accounts to talk out concerning the humanitarian disaster in Gaza.

“I wished to speak concerning the religion of Palestinian folks, the way it’s so sturdy, they usually nonetheless discover room to make it a precedence to thank God, even after they have every little thing taken away from them,” she stated in an interview.

Some Muslim followers advised she is perhaps thinking about studying the Qur’an, Islam’s central spiritual textual content, for extra context on the religion. So Rice, who didn’t develop up spiritual, organized a “World Faith E-book Membership” on Discord, the place folks of all backgrounds might examine the Qur’an alongside her.

The extra Rice learn, the extra the textual content’s contents aligned together with her personal core perception system. She discovered the Qur’an to be anti-consumerist, anti-oppressive and feminist. Inside a month, Rice took the shahada, Islam’s official occupation of religion, purchased hijabs to put on, and have become a Muslim.

Rice just isn’t alone in eager to expertise the Qur’an. On TikTok, younger persons are studying the textual content to raised perceive a faith that’s lengthy been vilified by western media, and to point out solidarity with the numerous Muslims in Gaza. Movies below the hashtag “quranbookclub” – which has a modest 1.9 million views on the app – present customers holding up their newly bought texts and studying verses for the primary time. Others are discovering free variations on-line, or listening to somebody sing the verses whereas they drive to work. Not all of the folks studying the Qur’an on TikTok are girls, however curiosity overlaps with the #BookTok area, a subcommunity the place largely feminine customers collect to debate books.

Zareena Grewal is an affiliate professor at Yale who’s engaged on a ebook about Islamic scripture and spiritual tolerance in American tradition. She stated that this TikTok curiosity wasn’t totally unprecedented.

After 9/11, the Qur’an turned an prompt bestseller, although on the time many Individuals bought it to verify biases they held about Islam being an inherently violent faith. “The distinction is that on this second, persons are not turning to the Qur’an to grasp the October 7 assault by Hamas,” Grewal stated. “They’re turning to the Qur’an to grasp the unbelievable resilience, religion, ethical power and character they see in Muslim Palestinians.”

That’s what made Nefertari Moonn, a 35-year-old from Tampa, Florida, choose up her husband’s Qur’an. Moonn thought-about herself religious, not spiritual, and described her husband as a non-practicing Muslim. “I wished to see what it was that made folks name out to Allah after they stared loss of life within the face,” she stated. “Seeing passage after passage resonated with me. I started to have such an emotional attachment to it.”

Due to this, Moonn additionally determined to take the shahada, changing into a Muslim revert (a time period some Muslims desire for becoming a member of the faith).

“I can’t clarify it, however there’s a peace that comes with studying the Qur’an,” she stated. “I really feel mild, like I got here again to one thing that was all the time there and ready for me to return.”

Misha Euceph, a Pakistani American author and podcast host who research progressive interpretations of the Qur’an, has held her personal Qur’an E-book Membership Instagram sequence since 2020. She says sure themes within the textual content align with the values of younger, left-leaning Individuals.

“The Qur’an is filled with nature metaphors and encourages you to be an environmentalist,” Euceph stated. “The Qur’an additionally has this anti-consumerist perspective, the sense that we’re all stewards of the earth who shouldn’t set up an exploitative relationship with the world or fellow human beings.”

Within the Qur’an, women and men are equals within the eyes of God, and Rice and different TikTok converts say their interpretations of the textual content again up their feminist rules. It additionally engages with scientific explanations for creation, with verses within the Qur’an protecting the large bang and different theories.

“Normally, we’re so used to the spiritual group combating science,” Rice stated. “Now I’m seeing a faith embrace science and use its holy texts to again it up.”

Sylvia Chan-Malik was in graduate faculty after 9/11 amid a surge in hate crimes towards Muslims and xenophobic language used within the media. “I used to be very thinking about what was happening, evaluating it to the historical past of Japanese Individuals after Pearl Harbor,” she stated. “I began to look into it alone, assembly precise Muslims, and I used to be floored once I did my homework on Islam.”

Alongside the best way, Chan-Malik transformed to Islam. She’s now an affiliate professor at Rutgers College whose analysis focuses on the historical past of Islam and Islamophobia within the US. “I had a really related expertise to what’s occurring on TikTok now,” she stated. “On the time, I questioned why the folks I met who have been Muslim have been so totally different than what I heard within the information. I’d by no means skilled such an enormous disconnect between well-liked notion and the reality.”

Grewal, the Yale professor, believes that folks usually start studying texts hoping to again up the worldview they have already got. “Simply as racist persons are in search of verses to verify their racial biases, folks on the left want to this ebook to verify progressive messages,” she stated. “Each scripture is complicated and invitations a number of readings,” and TikTokers “are coming to the textual content in search of what they hope to search out”.

Rising up within the shadow of 9/11, Rice stated, she rejected Islamophobia and discrimination that made targets out of Muslim Individuals. “As a Black lady, I’m used to the American authorities spreading dangerous stereotypes that result in misconceptions that folks outdoors of my group have on me,” she stated. “I by no means believed the stereotypes that have been unfold concerning the Muslim group post-9/11, however it wasn’t till I began studying the Qur’an that I noticed I type of internalized these misconceptions, as a result of I believed that Islam was a really extreme or strict faith.”

Studying the Qur’an started as a method for Rice to point out empathy for Palestinians trapped in Gaza. Now, it’s change into a significant factor of her life. It doesn’t need to be that revelatory for everybody. “I might say that it doesn’t matter what your spiritual background is,” she stated. “You’ll be able to develop empathy for somebody by studying probably the most intimate components of them, which incorporates their religion.”