The conference Trans-L-Encounters aims to take a closer look at the transregional and translocal – abbreviated here as ‘trans-l’ – deve- lopments in Asia and the MENA region, specifically focusing on the interrelated phenomena of religious education and Islamic popular culture. Interaction in both sectors is growing due to technological progress, which facilitates mobility and communication. Partly reflecting the appeal of the epistemological project of an Islamiza- tion of knowledge, attendance of institutions of religious education (including higher education) in Asia has greatly increased in recent years. Traditional and reformist concepts of Islamic education co-exist, intermingle and from time to time clash on the local level. Local pious traditions are challenged by transregional modern religious movements. These various trends have also triggered civil society activism. The relationship between (religious) education
and (popular) culture is an immediate one, translating religious knowledge into an Islamicized lifestyle, including the production and usage of faith-based clothing, attire, music, online activism and consumer practices. While some of these phenomena have been exa- mined in single case studies and intra-regional comparative works, our approach extends the view and takes the transnational flow of religiously-inspired identity formations into closer consideration.