It’s incredible how Islam is being wielded as a marketing strategy, as well as a consumer product. Conceptually, and I risk being misinterpreted here, it is quite similar to how “diets” were used as not just a marketing strategy to push consumer products but products that contributed to diets were themselves highly sought after.

I’ve just returned home from the KL International Book Fair and every other exhibitor was selling either Islamic products (books, recordings, Qurans/Korans) or products with a slant on Islam (books on terror and Islam, or the Islamic culture, or idiot’s guides to Islam) etc. And no matter where you walk you could hear recitations of verses from the Korans broadcast by those vendors who were selling Islamic recordings.

I suppose an Islamic renaissance of sorts is occurring in Malaysia. And I suppose, if one were to conduct proper historical research, Christians were probably guilty of the same acts sometime in their glorious past. Nevertheless, in an age when globalisation has all but wiped out identity that does not go beyond superficial consumerism, it stirs the imagination to see that companies would use the very personal appeal of religion for profit-making.

Posted on May 25th, 2003 by jl
Filed under: Other Notable Stuff