Muslim Diaspora In The West

In view of the growing influence of religion in public life on the national and international scenes, Muslim Diaspora in the West constitutes a timely contribution to scholarly debates and a response to concerns raised in the West about Islam and Muslims within diaspora. It begins with the premise that diasporic communities of Islamic cultures, while originating in countries dominated by Islamic laws and religious practices, far from being uniform, are in fact shaped in their existence and experiences by a complex web of class, ethnic, gender, religious and regional factors, as well as the cultural and social influences of their adopted homes. Within this context, this volume brings together work from experts within Europe and North America to explore the processes that shape the experiences and challenges faced by migrants and refugees who originate in countries of Islamic cultures. Presenting the latest research from a variety of locations on both sides of The Atlantic, Muslim Diaspora in the West addresses the realities of diasporic life for self-identified Muslims, addressing questions of integration, rights and equality before the law, and challenging stereotypical views of Muslims. As such, it will appeal to scholars with interests in race and ethnicity, cultural, media and gender studies, and migration.

Today, Muslims are the second largest religious group in much of Europe and North America. The essays in this collection look both at the impact of the growing Muslim population on Western societies, and how Muslims are adapting to life in the West. Part I looks at the Muslim diaspora in Europe, comprising essays on Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, and the Netherlands. Part II turns to the Western Hemisphere and Muslims in the U.S. , Canada, and Mexico. Throughout, the authors contend with such questions as: Can Muslims retain their faith and identity and at the same time accept and function within the secular and pluralistic traditions of Europe and America? What are the limits of Western pluralism? Will Muslims come to be fully accepted as fellow citizens with equal rights? An excellent guide to the changing landscape of Islam, this volume is an indispensable introduction to the experiences of Muslims in the West, and the diverse responses of their adopted countries.

Muslim Diaspora identifies those aspects of migratory experience that shatter or reinforce a group’s attachment to its homeland and affect its readiness to adapt to a new country. The contributors to this collection examine many dimensions of life in the Diaspora and demonstrate that identity is always constructed in relation to others. They show how religious identity in diaspora is mediated by many other factors such as: Gender Class Ethnic origin National status A central aim is to understand Diaspora as an agent of social and cultural change, particularly in its transformative impact on women. Throughout, the book advances a more nuanced understanding of the notions of ethnicity, difference and rights. It makes an important contribution to understanding the complex processes of formation and adoption of transnational identities and the challenging contradictions of a world that is being rapidly globalized in economic and political terms, and yet is increasingly localized and differentiated, ethically and culturally. Muslim Diaspora includes contributions from outstanding scholars and is an invaluable text for students in sociology, anthropology, geography, cultural studies, Islamic studies, women’s studies as well as the general reader.

The book focusses on the historical emergence and contemporary challenges of Muslim community organizations and their struggle for recognition as ordinary voices in multiethnic and multi-religious civil societies of Western democracies. It offers a range of different perspectives on how Muslim communities position themselves and navigate the social and political landscape shaped by, on the one hand, normalization of ethno-religious diversity and, on the other, ongoing misrecognition and essentialisation of Muslims in the West. The contributions from internationally acclaimed scholars as well as emerging researchers from Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Switzerland and Australia shine new light on both country-specific similarities and divergences.

While the subject of Christian-Muslim or Muslim-Christian interaction is still not a traditional or systematic discipline, interest in the encounter of these two religions has grown considerably over the last decade. Historians, including historians of Islam and Christianity have always been interested in the civilizational meeting of the two religions, in conflict or in times of peace. This includes aspects of post-colonial studies, which incorporate cultural, literary and political writings which consider the intellectual and social ruptures in so much of the Islamic world in the 19th and 20th centuries. Theologians however have only recently begin to appreciate the amount of material which illustrates the extent to which Christians and Muslims wrote about one another's faith and spoke of each other in a variety of contexts in both polemical and eirenic terms. These resources serve to enrich the understanding of one's own faith and the changing historical relationship with the other. Today, Muslim-Christian is often understood as Islam/West where the Christianity and secularism are either conflated or Christianity subsumed within the larger cultural framework of the west. 0Either way, Islam is a foreign presence and its points of reference not easily assimilated in the narrative of a Judaeo-Christian West. Nevertheless this has created an interesting intellectual and scholarly dynamic in a wide range of disciplines. This includes ethics, politics, gender studies and the emergence of an 'interfaith' literature which is increasingly used in scholarly as well as grass roots settings. The collection will comprise around sixty pre-published journal articles and some book chapters. Each volume will contain around 15 articles/chapters. The articles will be secondary sources analysing the works of individual Christian and Muslim scholars, so will not be extracts of primary material thought it is hoped that the majority will contain some primary material.

This first volume covers the development of Islam in the period from the birth of Muhammad in C.E. 570 through 1500, during which Islam grew to dominate the area which has come to be known as the Middle East. Along with their religion, Muslims carried their culture, their goods, and their innovations to the far corners of the globe. Their contributions to Western civilization-such as new kinds of agriculture (irrigation, oranges, sugarcane, cotton), manufactured goods (satin, rugs, paper, perfumes), and technology (astrolabe, compass, lateen sail)--are set out in detail.

This second volume details the continued spread of Muslim culture and peoples during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a period that saw the height of the powerful Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires, followed by their precipitous decline. The contributions of Muslims to the development of Western civilization continue to be highlighted in this chronology, most notably the impact of the Ottoman Empire on Western art and literature and its role in creating an environment in which the Protestant Reformation could take root. This volume reveals the interconnectedness of the Muslim, Jewish, African and European diasporas during this period.

How do we engage with the pressing challenges of xenophobia, radicalism and security in the age of the 'war on terror'? The widely felt sense of insecurity in the West is shared by Muslims both within and outside Western societies. Growing Islamic militancy and resulting increased security measures by Western powers have contributed to a pervasive sense among Muslims of being under attack (both physically and culturally). "Islam and Political Violence" brings together the current debate on the uneasy and potentially mutually destructive relationship between the Muslim world and the West and argues we are on a dangerous trajectory, strengthening dichotomous notions of the divide between the West and the Muslim world.