Islam And Public Controversy In Europe

The public visibility of Islam is becoming increasingly controversial throughout European countries. With case studies drawn from France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, this book examines a range of public issues, including mosque construction, ritual slaughter, Sharia councils and burqa bans, addressing the question of ’Islamic difference’ in public life outside the confines of established normative discourses that privilege freedom of religion, minority rights or multiculturalism. Acknowledging the creative role of dissent, it explores the manner in which public controversies unsettle the religious-secular divide and reshape European norms in the domains of aesthetics, individual freedom, animal rights and law. Developing an innovative conceptual framework and elaborating the notion of controversy as a methodological tool, Islam and Public Controversy in Europe draws our attention to the processes of interaction, confrontation and mutual transformation, thereby opening up a new horizon for rethinking difference and pluralism in Europe. As such, it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in religion, integration, cultural difference and the public sphere.

For many in the West, Islam has become a byword for terrorism. From 9/11 to the Paris attacks, our headlines are dominated by images of violence and extremism. Now, as the Western world struggles to cope with the refugee crisis, there is a growing obsession with the issue of Muslim integration. Those Muslims who fail to assimilate are branded the ‘enemy within’, with their communities said to provide a fertile breeding ground for jihadists. Such narratives, though, fail to take into account the actual lives of most Muslims living in the West, fixating instead on a minority of violent extremists. In The Daily Lives of Muslims, Nilüfer Göle provides an urgently needed corrective to this distorted image of Islam. Engaging with Muslim communities in twenty-one cities across Europe where controversies over integration have arisen – from the banning of the veil in France to debates surrounding sharia law in the UK – the book brings the voices of this neglected majority into the debate. In doing so, Göle uncovers a sincere desire among many Muslims to participate in the public sphere, a desire which is too often stifled by Western insecurity and attempts to suppress the outward signs of religious difference.

This book analyzes the place of the new Muslim minorities in society within the European Union. The authors explore the root causes of rising tensions and conflict between the new immigrant population and native Europeans over issues of Muslim identity, Islamist doctrines, and Islamophobia. They also provide integration models for the various EU countries and discuss the short- and long-range problems caused by socioeconomic discrimination against Muslims. Contributors include Imane Karich (International Crisis Group, Brussels), Isabelle Rigoni (Paris VIII University), Sara Silvestri (Cambridge University and City University, London), Valeria Amiraux (European University Institute, Florence), Chris Allen (University of Birmingham, UK), Tufyal Choudhury (Durham University, UK), and Bernard Godard (Ministry of Interior, Paris).

In Islam and Secularity Nilüfer Göle takes on two pressing issues: the transforming relationship between Islam and Western secular modernity and the impact of the Muslim presence in Europe. Göle shows how the visibility of Islamic practice in the European public sphere unsettles narratives of Western secularism. As mutually constitutive, Islam and secularism permeate each other, the effects of which play out in embodied and aesthetic practices and are accompanied by fear, anxiety, and violence. In this timely book, Göle illuminates the recent rethinking of secularism and religion, of modernity and resistance to it, of the public significance of sexuality, and of the shifting terrain of identity in contemporary Europe.

Drawing upon extensive fieldwork and suggesting novel ways of approaching the phenomenon of European Islam and the continent's Muslim communities, Islam in Europe examines how European Muslims construct notions or identity, agency and belonging, how they negotiate and redefine the notions of religion, tradition, authority and cultural authenticity.

The voices in this book belong to parliamentarians, city councillors, doctors and engineers, a few professors, lawyers and social workers, owners of small businesses, translators, and community activists. They are also all Muslims, who have decided to become engaged in political and civic organizations. And for that reason, they constantly have to explain themselves, mostly in order to say who they are not. They are not fundamentalists, not terrorists, and most do not support the introduction of Islamic religious law in Europe - especially not its application to Christians. This book is about who these people are, and what they want. This book is based on three hundred interviews with European Muslim leaders from six European countries: Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Great Britain, France, and Germany. The question of Islam in Europe is not a matter of global war and peace but raises difficult questions about the positions of Christianity and Islam in public life, and about European identities. Europe's Muslim political leaders are not aiming to overthrow liberal democracy and to replace secular law with Islamic religious law. Those are the positions of a minority. There is not one Muslim position on how Islam should develop in Europe but many views, and most Muslims are rather looking for ways to build institutions that will allow European Muslims to practice their religion in a way that is compatible with social integration.

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In this book, the author argues that the vehement controversies surrounding European Muslims are better understood as persistent, unresolved intra-European political tensions rather than as a clash between "Islam and the West." This title was made Open Access by libraries from around the world through Knowledge Unlatched.