ABSTRACT
A new sense of public is emerging throughout Muslim-majority states and Muslim communities elsewhere. Joined with this new sense of public are new intellectual styles and messages, disseminated in increasingly diverse yet overlapping fields of communication and understanding. The influence of state authorities and intellectuals trained in the formal religious sciences remain strong, but their authority is increasingly displaced by intellectuals with increasingly disparate backgrounds. The idea of “intellectual” implies an individual claiming or imputed to possess an especially intense awareness of the sacred center of social and spiritual values and the ability to reflect and explain valued categories of knowledge.1
