Islam is a religion but there are also popular cultures of Islam that are mass mediated, commercialized, pleasure-filled, humorous, and representative of large segments of society. This book illuminates how Muslims (and non-Muslims) in Indonesia and Malaysia make sense of their lives within an increasingly pervasive, popular culture of Islamic images, texts, film, songs, and narratives.

1. Introduction Part I: Commercial, educational, government, and religious institutions 2. Negotiating Mass Media Interests and Heterogeneous Muslim Audiences in the Contemporary Social-Political Environment of Indonesia 3. Multiple Islams, Multiple Modernities: Art Cinema in between Nationhood and Everyday Islam in Bangladesh and Malaysia 4. Upgraded Piety and Pleasure: The New Middle Class and Islam in Indonesian Popular Culture Part II: Social processes of media production, circulation, and reception 5. Music, Islam, and the Commercial Media in Contemporary Indonesia 6. The Internet, Cyber-Religion, and Authority: The Case of the Indonesian Liberal Islam Network 7. "Sex Sells, or Does It?" Discourses of Sex and Sexuality in Popular Women’s Magazines in Contemporary Indonesia Part III: Islamic perspectives on film, music, and literature 8. (Un)framing Muslim Sexuality in Dina Zaman’s I Am Muslim 9. Sexing Islam: Religion and Contemporary Malaysian Cinema 10. Musical Modernity, Islamic Identity, and Arab Aesthetics in Arab-Indonesian Orkes Gambus 11. Music as a Medium for Communication, Unity, Education, and Dakwah Part IV: Representations, values, and meanings 12. Taking Liberties: Independent Filmmakers Representing the Tudung in Malaysia 13. Holy Matrimony? The Print Politics of Polygamy in Indonesia 14. Pop, Politics, and Piety: Nasyid Boy Band Music in Muslim Southeast Asia