Digital Islamic Authority and the Restructuring of Religious Knowledge in Contemporary Nigerian Muslim Society

This dissertation analyses the emergence of digital Islamic authority as a transformative force reshaping the structures of religious knowledge production, dissemination, and legitimation in contemporary Nigerian Muslim society. The digitalisation of Islamic public discourse through platforms such as YouTube, podcasts, and social media has created new categories of religious authorities who operate outside traditional institutional gatekeeping, challenging the Ulama establishment and generating new forms of religious consumer agency among Nigerian Muslims. The study employs a multi-sited digital ethnography and critical sociology of religion methodology, combining systematic analysis of 200 Nigerian Muslim digital content producers across platforms, netnographic observation of 15 Islamic online communities, and interviews with 40 traditional Ulama, 20 digital Islamic content creators, and 50 Muslim social media consumers in Lagos, Abuja, Kano, and Port Harcourt. Original contributions include a Typology of Nigerian Digital Islamic Authority, a model of Religious Knowledge Restructuring under platform capitalism, and an analysis of the ideological diversity of Nigerian Muslim digital discourse. Findings reveal a significant displacement of traditional Ulama authority among youth, the emergence of hybrid digital-traditional authorities, and the intensification of intra-Muslim doctrinal competition through digital channels. The dissertation recommends institutional strategies for mainstream Islamic organisations to engage constructively with the digital authority shift. Keywords: digital Islamic authority, religious knowledge, social media, Nigerian Muslims, Ulama.