Governing Muslims And Islam In Contemporary Germany

In Governing Muslims and Islam in Contemporary Germany Luis Manuel Hernández Aguilar critically analyzes the institutionalization of the German Islam Conference and the different projects this institution has set in motion to govern Islam and Muslims against the looming presence of racial representations of Muslims.

In Governing Muslims and Islam in Contemporary Germany Luis Manuel Hernández Aguilar critically analyzes the institutionalization of the German Islam Conference and the different projects this institution has set in motion to govern Islam and Muslims against the looming presence of racial representations of Muslims.

In the European discourse of post 9/11 reality, concepts such as a oeMulticulturalisma, a oeIntegrationa and a oeEuropean Islama are becoming more and more topical. The empirically- based contributions in this volume aim to reflect the variety of current Muslim social practices and life-worlds in Germany. The volume goes beyond the fragmented methods of minority case studies and the monolithic view of Muslims as portrayed by mass media to present fresh theoretical approaches and in-depth analyses of a rich mosaic of communities, cultures and social practices. Issues of politics, religion, society, economics, media, art, literature, law and gender are addressed. The result is a vibrant state-of-the-art publication of studies of real-life communities and individuals.

In Organizing Muslims and Integrating Islam in Germany, Kerstin Rosenow-Williams analyzes the challenges faced by Islamic organizations in Germany since the beginning of the 21st century. Outlining the expectations German political actors have of Islamic organizations and the internal interests of these organizations, the author illustrates that organizational response strategies involve patterns not only of adaptation, but also of decoupling and protest. The study introduces an innovative research framework based on organizational sociology and provides empirical insights into three major Islamic umbrella organizations (DITIB, IGMG, ZMD) and their relationships with other actors. The comprehensive analysis of the German institutional environment and related developments in Islamic organizations makes this study highly relevant to scholars and politicians, as well as the general public.

Stephens argues that encounters between Islam and British colonial rule in South Asia were fundamental to the evolution of modern secularism.

German–Turkish relations, which have a long history and generally unrecognized depth, have rarely been examined as mutually formative processes. Isolated instances of influence have been examined in detail, but the historical and still ongoing processes of mutual interaction have rarely been seriously considered. The ruling assumption has been that Germany may have an impact on Turkey, but not the other way around. Religion, Identity and Politics examines this mutual interaction, specifically with regard to religious identities and institutions. It opposes the commonly held assumption that Europe is the abode of secularism and enlightenment, while the lands of Islam are the realm of backwardness and fundamentalism. Both historically and contemporarily, Germany has treated religion as a core aspect of communal and civilizational identity and framed its institutions accordingly; the book explores how there has been, and continues to be, a mutual exchange in this regard between Germany and both the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey. The authors show that the definition of identity and regulation of communities have been explicitly based on religion until the early and since the late twentieth century; the period in between– the age of secular nationalism– which has always been treated as the norm, now appears more clearly as an exception. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, politics, history and religion.

From sending imams abroad to financing mosques and Islamic associations, home states play a key role in governing Islam in Western Europe. Drawing on over one hundred interviews and years of fieldwork, this book employs a comparative perspective that analyzes the foreign religious activities of the two home states with the largest diaspora populations in Europe: Turkey and Morocco. The research shows how these states use religion to promote ties with their citizens and their descendants abroad while also seeking to maintain control over the forms of Islam that develop within the diaspora. The author identifies and explains the internal and foreign political interests that have motivated state actors on both sides of the Mediterranean, ultimately arguing that interstate cooperation in religious affairs has and will continue to have a structural influence on the evolution of Islam in Western Europe.

Every year more and more Europeans, including Germans, are embracing Islam. It is estimated that there are now up to one hundred thousand German converts—a number similar to that in France and the United Kingdom. What stands out about recent conversions is that they take place at a time when Islam is increasingly seen as contrary to European values. Being German, Becoming Muslim explores how Germans come to Islam within this antagonistic climate, how they manage to balance their love for Islam with their society's fear of it, how they relate to immigrant Muslims, and how they shape debates about race, religion, and belonging in today’s Europe. Esra Özyürek looks at how mainstream society marginalizes converts and questions their national loyalties. In turn, converts try to disassociate themselves from migrants of Muslim-majority countries and promote a denationalized Islam untainted by Turkish or Arab traditions. Some German Muslims believe that once cleansed of these accretions, the Islam that surfaces fits in well with German values and lifestyle. Others even argue that being a German Muslim is wholly compatible with the older values of the German Enlightenment. Being German, Becoming Muslim provides a fresh window into the connections and tensions stemming from a growing religious phenomenon in Germany and beyond.