Digital Responses to Qur’an Burning

Muslim Discourses and Collective Solidarity in English- and Indonesian-Language YouTube Publics

Abstract

This research examines digital responses to contemporary Qur’an-burning controversies and how the perceived sacredness of the Qur’an shapes collective identity and solidarity in digital spaces. It combines digital ethnography with distant and close reading of approximately 17,376 YouTube comments from five videos posted between 2022 and 2025. Three videos form the English-language corpus, while two BBC News Indonesia videos provide an Indonesian-language comparison. Distant reading identifies recurring lexical patterns across both corpora, while close reading examines selected responses from Muslim scholars, political leaders, state representatives, and Islamic organisations to contextualise these patterns. Findings show that responses frequently position the Qur’an as a sacred symbol, expressed through shared theological and moral terms such as Qur’an, Allah, Islam, agama, and umat. Close reading reveals varied Muslim responses concerning religious dignity, provocation, freedom of expression, diplomacy, and proper reaction. Indonesian institutional responses particularly condemn the act while promoting moderate diplomacy. Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities provides a framework for understanding how digital space becomes an arena where geographically separated communities articulate shared moral interpretations of Qur’anic desecration. The study shows how digital publics express religious identity and collective solidarity, contributing a combined distant–close reading framework for digital religion research.