Everyday Lived Islam of Young People from Muslim Migrant Families in Germany

Abstract

In this chapter we examine the appropriation of religion in everyday life among young people in the religiously diverse context of West Germany. We adopt the concept of ‘everyday lived religion’ to analyse the cases of two young Muslims who find their own ways of including Islam into their identity work and their everyday lives. The two cases are not considered as just exemplifying individual religiosity, but as typical solutions to a general problem: how to adapt, transform, and thus appropriate religious traditions in a migratory context? Referring to methodology which is oriented to Grounded Theory and to biographical narrative interviews, we identify contrasting patterns of how traditional religious restrictions concerning family hierarchy, alcohol, sexuality, and the relations between men and women are dealt with by young Muslims. Their modes of adapting and appropriating religious heritage can be condensed to concise types of selective and creative ways of maintaining religious traditions in German society. The construction of a Muslim identity refers to the family background, to an unquestioned faith in God, and to an understanding of religious belonging as primarily expressed in everyday life practices.