Paper short abstract:

Before the pandemic, Polish Muslim Tatars were not very active on the Internet. The pandemic forced Tatars to increase their religious online activity. They set up a YouTube channel with sermons by imams of foreign background. The paper will analyse whether these sermons are of interest to Muslims.

Paper long abstract:

Polish Muslim Tatars are a traditional religious minority in Poland. They have lived on the territory of present-day Poland since the 17th century and function within the officially recognised religious organisation, the Muslim Religious Union in the Republic of Poland (est. 1925; Muzułmański Związek Religijny w RP - MZR).

Before the pandemic, this organisation was not very active on the Internet. Mainly their online religious activity was manifested on the World Wide Web - e.g. publishing magazines, news and announcements of events.

Immigrant and convert Muslims had then already YouTube channels or Facebook profiles. They were publishing blogs, sermons and prayers.

The pandemic forced Tatars to increase their religious online activity. Most noticeably, they set up a YouTube channel where they publish sermons by imams from mosques in Podlachia, their traditional areas of settlement.

However, these imams are not Polish Tatars; their knowledge of the Polish language is rather poor. Nor have they been democratically elected as imams by the local communities, as is the case in the statute of the MZR and the Act of parliament of 1936 that regulates the functioning of this organisation - they were appointed by the Mufti.

The paper will analyse the thematic content of the sermons of these imams on YouTube, describe the level of the Polish language in which they are presented and show whether these sermons are of interest to Tatar Muslims and whether these imams are treated as religious authorities.